>  that
plants are the most ethical life forms on the planet!But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and
“strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to
being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in
my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled
aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way.Surely as a science writer, Angier must know that plants don’t “aspire” to
anything. For example, they may appear to “reach out” to the sun, but it is
all chemical. But that doesn’t stop Angier from larding on the
anthropomorphism:Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some
of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication –
their feedback, you might say – are volatile chemicals that serve as cries
for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large
predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and
tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from
within.Please. It’s merely natural selection in action, not a cry for help. And get
this ending:

It’s a small daily tragedy that we animals must kill to stay alive. Plants
are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the
sun. Don’t expect them to boast: they’re too busy fighting to survive.

No, plants are not ethical. That requires thought and free will. Besides,
Venus fly traps digest insects alive.

Yes, I know it is very easy to dismiss these pieces as mere op-ed fodder.
But plant dignity is now the law in Switzerland. A few years ago, the Swiss
Parliament added a new clause to the Federal Constitution requiring that
“account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals,
plants and other organisms.”

No one knew exactly what “plant dignity” meant, so the government asked the
Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out.
The resulting report, “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants
<http://www.ekah.admin.ch/fileadmin/ekah-dateien/dokumentation/publikationen
/e-Broschure-Wurde-Pflanze-2008.pdf> ,” is enough to short circuit the
brain:

A “clear majority” of the panel adopted what it called a “biocentric” moral
view, meaning that “living organisms should be considered morally for their
own sake because they are alive.” Thus, the panel determined that we cannot
claim “absolute ownership” over plants and, moreover, that “individual
plants have an inherent worth.” This means that “we may not use them just as
we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions
do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily.”

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field –
apparently an acceptable action, the report doesn’t say why. But then, while
walking home, he casually “decapitates” some wildflowers with his scythe; a
callous act the bioethicists “condemned” as “immoral.” What should happen to
the heinous plant decapitator, the report does not say.

The Times’ columns (and other advocacy pieces I could quote), along with
Switzerland’s actually enshrining “plant dignity” into law, and other
similar radical proposals such as “nature rights
<http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/30/beware-the-rights-of-nature/> ,” are
symptoms of a societally enervating relativism that is causing us to lose
the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous
ethical concerns. They also reflect the advance of a radical misanthropy
that elevates elements of the natural world to the moral status of humans,
or perhaps better stated, devalues us
<http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/29/latest-infanticide-push-about-more-than-k
illing-babies/>  to the level of flora and fauna.

Here’s the bottom line: When you eschew human exceptionalism, you go flat
out nuts. (Oops. I just insulted a whole family of plants. But it’s okay.
Peanut bushes and almond trees are perennials, so they probably have good
senses of humor.)