Why read Plants as Persons?

Book cover of Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany

Book description

Challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants.

Plants are people too? No, but in this work of philosophical botany Matthew Hall challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants, arguing that they are other-than-human persons. Plants constitute the bulk of our visible biomass, underpin all natural ecosystems,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Plants as Persons as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Michael Marder

Author

Matthew Hall’s book offers a good formulation of the problem—Western philosophy has treated plants as things, not as living beings—and a nice overview of alternative (non-Western and, above all, Indigenous) approaches to plants that do not fall into the same trap. I have on many occasions vehemently disagreed with Hall’s recommendations that we should treat plants as persons, not least because of the problematic (and, ironically, very Western) heritage of personhood. But it is a wonderful entry point into the topic of plants and philosophy.

From Michael's list on The best books on plants and philosophy.