The Life of Plants and the Limits of Empathy

Bibliographic Data

ID3890488
AuthorsMichael Marder (0000-0002-2511-3402, Ikerbasque, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume51
Issue2
Pages259-273
Publication date2012-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDialogue (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-2173 • E-ISSN: 1759-0949
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0012217312000431
OpenAlexW2026489239
LanguageEN
Citations received15

This article examines the possibility of an ethical treatment of plants grounded in empathy. Upon considering whether an empathetic approach to vegetal life is compatible with the crucial features of plant ontology, it is concluded that the feeling of empathy with plants disregards their mode of being and projects the constructs and expectations of the human empathizer onto the object of empathy. Vegetal life, thus, reveals the limits of empathy, as well as its anthropocentric and potentially unethical underpinnings

Anthropocentrism · Empathy · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Feeling · Object (grammar) · Ontology · Animal and Plant Science Education · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics · Social Psychology

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