Can plants feel pain?

[HannahBanner]

Since becoming vegan, one of my friends said to me, "what about plants? don't they have feelings/can feel pain when you pluck/cut/chop them? they are living too!" I have to say I agree with her but my argument is that eating plants is the lesser evil than eating meat, but then I feel a bit stupid, because we can't prove that plants don't feel the same level of pain as animals, and even if they don't we still can't prove that they feel any pain at all. What are your thoughts on this? I want to remain vegan but if plants also feel pain then I am still going to feel bad .

[Korn]

Hi,
this topic comes up circa once a year.
Here's a thread with a few comments on the 'plants have feelings too'-thing...

[Kat_90]

Plants do not have a central nervous system/brain/heart, therefore cannot feel pain/emotion!

[HannahBanner]

Hi, thanks for that link to the thread above. It makes sense. I agree that plants do not have a brain/heart etc. When I said we couldn't prove them not feeling any pain, I meant spiritually. It's believed by some that forest life 'communicate' with one another, so to speak.

[Korn]

we couldn't prove them not feeling any pain

We can't prove them feeling pain either....

[harpy]

I gather some philosophers think the whole universe is conscious - so perhaps we shouldn't walk on the ground just in case we hurt it ? I'll stick to trying to avoid hurting animals, as I'm fairly sure they do feel pain.

[AaronM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Always seems appropriate at this sort of thing. We act on what we have reason to believe, not cover every possible base. Should we stop drinking water in case that can feel pain?

[Cacique]

Hi, thanks for that link to the thread above. It makes sense. I agree that plants do not have a brain/heart etc. When I said we couldn't prove them not feeling any pain, I meant spiritually. It's believed by some that forest life 'communicate' with one another, so to speak.

Do you have any links or any info on this plant spiritual communication? Never heard of it.

Even if plants felt pain spiritually, if there even is some type of pain that could be felt that way, I would imagine it would still be the better choice to eat the plants, than the animals that can feel the whole spectrum of pain and fear. As we cannot spiritually communicate with plants, we will not know, but we know a lot of the pain and fear animals experience by their communication; the noises they make and their body language.