Do Plants Feel Pain?
Written by Dr. Jeffery Herman // July 11, 2011 // Kid's Corner, Nutrition // No comments
Do plants feel pain?
A question I’ve been asked more times than I can remember, mostly by children and vegetarians (largely in their attempts to explain to me why eating meat is immoral). My answer is usually not the same. For children, I tell them “no, plant’s don’t feel pain” but for vegetarians, I tell them “just because you can’t hear a carrot scream doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings.”
Which of these answers are correct? Well technically both.
The problem is that this question, “Do plants feel pain?” is anything but simple. It instills more questions. What is pain? Is our concept of pain the only type of pain that exists in the world?
At the most basic level “pain” is a way for our bodies to avoid something that is unpleasant and potentially fatal. For humans, pain occurs when our bodies through our nervous system react to an “unpleasant” physical effect, such as putting a hand on a hot stove, or accidentally cutting our finger with a knife. In humans, the act of pain is also an emotional response; it is about how we react to this unpleasant stimuli and this reaction can differ greatly from person to person. This emotional response to pain is likely part of the reason why medical pain management is very difficult. We are not simply dealing with physical injury, but we are also dealing with a person’s individual, diverse emotional response as well.
So it is unlikely that plants feel pain like we do.
They do not have nervous systems, and have yet to show that they experience emotions similar to humans. It is doubtful that they suffer, at least not in regards to how we understand the concept. But plants do react to unpleasant stimuli. At the most basic level, the biological mechanisms to avoid something that is unpleasant actually aren’t extremely different than our own avoidance mechanisms.
So the final answer to the question, “Do plants feel pain?” really depends on what your concept of pain is. It is doubtful that plants feel in a similar way to us humans; however, they may still experience something akin to their own version of pain.
