There's an argument that these trees get better care which I don't doubt but I look at the folded over fins of whales in captivity who are also getting the same "better care" and just wonder if humans should let nature do it's thing without getting in the way.
We have to eat. You can argue that it’s better and more efficient to let other animals be, but you can’t really do the same with plants. What’s left then?
I eat meat, and plants (and fungi and algae) but I also grow plants and I try to treat them as well as I can. That means giving them what they need to live, and also pruning them when that's more convenient for me or better for them. I don't think bonsai making is actually torture to plants, but I wouldn't inflict them treatments that I feel are detrimental to them (let's say, leaving them to freeze outside when it's too cold, subjecting them to thirst beyond what is healthy for them, depriving them of light).
I think "having a right to exert our will over other beings" doesn't mean you actually should feel free to do whatever you want to them. They are living beings. And if you live with them long enough and have the patience to observe them, some plants are clearly individuals with their own habits and preferences. It's just less immediately obvious because they are slower and more alien than animals.
Also, in the same way you don't treat horses and fish the same way, you could very well consider tomatoes to be dumb plants only good for food and lemon trees or bonsai oaks as "pets".
Every monstera and fiddle leaf that is kept indoors is a juvenile plant that will not get the chance to reach sexual maturity.
Under your framework, That’s the equivalent of starving an animal so much that it stunts it’s growth.
I can cut leaves off of a kale plant to eat without killing it. Under your framework, surgically amputating an animals leg and eating that meat would be equivalent.
Plants don’t have consciousness in the way animals do (in fact they are much closer in sensory responsiveness to the bacteria you kill every time you move).
I would seriously ask yourself why you are anthropomorphizing plants if you are making your arguments in good faith. Being able to understand what warrants empathy and what doesn’t is an important life skill.
The comparisons you are making make no sense because plants live in a totally different way from animals: cutting plant leaves is obviously nothing like cutting animal limbs, and plants routinely stay juvenile their whole life, and generally stay partly juvenile in any case. You just can't compare growth between animals and plants.
My examples, freezing outside, depriving them of light or being subject to thirst are actual plant mistreatment IMO because they will die from it. Avoidable death is generally considered a bad thing for living beings.
I don't think one can have empathy with plants at all because they don't have feelings comparable to animals, but suggesting like you do that they simply cannot be mistreated does not look like a good faith argument to me.
Note that the only comparison I made between animals and plants is that we don't have to value all animals the same, and we don't have to value all plants the same either. You didn't refute this, so I don't understand why you're going on about anthropomorphizing plants (especially when I didn't talk about humans at all).
1) To the point of bad faith
a) Why is "cutting plant leaves is obviously nothing like cutting animal limbs"? Is it because animals can't regrow limbs and plants can? Doesn't that lead you down the road of 'torture is an animal-based concept and you can't torture plants'?
b)'Plants routinely stay juvenile their whole life' precisely because they are deprived light, frozen outside, or lack access to water. Sometimes humans do that, WAY more often it just happens because of where a plant is rooted. And to be clear, bonsai does NONE of those things, the point of bonsai is to keep the plant alive as long as possible!
c) Do you suggest that bacteria can be mistreated? Why is bonsai torture and hand sanitizer is not? Pivoting to fungus, do you realize what we do to yeast in order to make bread/beer? Is that torture? And before you make an exception for food, we do not need beer to survive.
2) >some plants are clearly individuals with their own habits and preferences. >why you're going on about anthropomorphizing plants (especially when I didn't talk about humans at all).
Maybe you have a very loose definition of 'individual,' but I think you forgot what you wrote.
For the rest, I think you're just ignoring what I said about different species being treated differently and I don't see any reason why caring about some plants means I should also care about all of them and even about bacteria.
I think just spending time with a plant might make it more healthy, even doing the bonsai thing which always kinda bothered me too.
Yea--there are no citations. Just a wacky thought I have had for awhile.