Description: Challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants.
Brief description: Matthew Hall is Associate Director of Research Services at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand. He is the author of Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany, also published by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"All those who depend on plants should critically read Plants as Persons ... I highly recommend Plants as Persons as a challenging read for any carnivores, PETA advocates, or emerging academics; the book is thought-provoking for omnivores, medical practitioners, life science enthusiasts, and philosophers ... If you are fascinated by plants, you will want this for your personal collection." -- Katie Kamelamela, Economic Botany
"Overall, this book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the state of the environment today, whether professionally or as a concerned citizen. It does not simplify the issues but has managed to attain that elusive balance between remaining accessible and readable without sacrificing intellectual range, subtlety and complexity of thought." -- Australian Humanities Review
"Dr. Hall does a wonderful job of presenting many layers of research and insight in a very organized way. His introduction outlines the content of his book clearly and each chapter ends with a helpful summary and a smooth transition into the next topic of discussion. There is a lot of information to think about in Plants as Persons. All of it enlightening. Now here is a book that is hard to put down." -- ArtPlantae Today
"If you are someone who thought philosophy began and ended with Aristotle and Socrates, then this book will be an eye opener ... [it] explains that plants are active, self-directed, and even intelligent. Hall puts forward the view that nature is a communion of subjective, collaborative beings, organizing and experiencing their environment." -- Chicago Botanic Garden
"The extension of ethics to the nonhuman, nonanimal is important, and ahead of its time. What a pleasure to experience this well-written, well-researched, interesting approach to applied comparative philosophy. Matthew Hall makes an outstanding contribution to a new and important field of study." -- Christopher Key Chapple, author of Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali's Spiritual Path to Freedom
"Ever since the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, many readers have been waiting for the other shoe to fall: plant liberation. This book gives it to us. It will be the poster child for the plant liberation movement, if ever there is such a thing." -- Loyal Rue, author of Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution
"This wide-ranging analysis is exactly what is needed to understand the complex character of contemporary human-Earth interactions. It is a significant contribution to our understanding of plants in the discourse on environmental concerns." -- John Grim, cofounder of the Forum for Religion and Ecology, Yale University