In Defence of Plant Personhood
Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn Parade, Wellington 6023, New Zealand
Religions 2019, 10(5), 317; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050317
Received: 21 March 2019 / Revised: 2 May 2019 / Accepted: 3 May 2019 / Published: 10 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Verdant: Knowing Plants, Planted Relations, Religion in Place)
The philosopher Michael Marder has asserted that animist engagement with plants involves a projection of human purposes and goals leading to veneration. He has also argued that an extension of a categorical concept of personhood underpins my previous work on plant personhood. This paper draws on the growing scholarship of animist traditions following the work of Hallowell to reject Marder’s characterization of a naïve animist approach to plants. It draws on these insights from animist traditions to outline a relational plant personhood, which is fully realized only in grounded, situated relationships of care that seek to enable the flourishing of plants.
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Keywords:
plants; personhood; animism; kinship; relational autonomy; ethics; care; subjectivity
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Hall, M. In Defence of Plant Personhood. Religions 2019, 10, 317.
AMA Style
Hall M. In Defence of Plant Personhood. Religions. 2019; 10(5):317.
Chicago/Turabian StyleHall, Matthew. 2019. "In Defence of Plant Personhood" Religions 10, no. 5: 317.
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