Dalle capacità alla vulnerabilità: una riconsiderazione dello “statuto morale” delle piante Chiara Pasqualin

Abstract

In the last few years the cognitive powers of plants have been the object of increasing attention. It has been claimed that, due to their intelligence and capacities, plants should be regarded as objects of moral consideration. Yet, this way of ethical reasoning not only falls back into rationalism (i.e. the Western tendency to prioritise rationality and logos) but it is also permeated by a retributive logic (i.e. the more power the more value). What if plants were objects of moral consideration not by virtue of their power but instead by their powerlessness? The aim of this paper is to suggest a transition, in plant philosophy and ethics, from what we may call the “capacities paradigm” to the vulnerability approach. We will argue that plants are vulnerable beings in the sense that they manifest a constitutive “thrownness”. By reinterpreting Heidegger’s concept of Geworfenheit, the paper explores the many senses of plants’ vulnerability and proposes a new understanding of this notion not simply in terms of fragility, but first and foremost as an ontological strength that is the hidden ground and condition of the possibility of the various powers of vegetal life.