Talk:Plant rights

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Critics of animal rights

I tried to remove Category:Critics of animal rights from this page, but was reverted. I don't know why Plant rights, which is an article about a social position/movement/philosophy, is considered as a critic of animal rights (all the other members of that category are people, whereas this is a philosophy. It's like a book in a basket of apples. It doesn't fit.--KarlB (talk) 20:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

As I said in my edit summary, the page includes discussion about critics of animal rights. This kind of question comes up rather often in discussions about categories: does the category apply to the title of the page, or to the subject matter included in the page? I would agree that the title, "plants rights", is not itself a critic of animal rights, but the text of the page includes subject matter about satirizing the animal rights movement. I'm not aware of any Wiki-wide consensus on how to resolve these kinds of questions, but my personal preference is to do whatever is most useful for readers, and generally inclusiveness for categories accomplishes that. In this case, someone looking for everything on Wikipedia that might have to do with criticism of animal rights might, perhaps, want to know about this page. At least, that's what I think. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Then the category should be renamed, as Critiques of animal rights or something. As it is, it says critics. Also I didn't see much critique of animal rights; some of it could be read as satire, but satire is not the same thing as people writing books denouncing animal rights.--KarlB (talk) 01:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I guess it depends on how literal one wants to be, and how important one thinks the issue is. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Is this page for real?

I actually went in to look at the sources. They are generally people who are discussing "slippery slope" arguments generating from animal rights groups, and presenting "Plants' Rights" as a ridiculously extreme position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bartl (talk • contribs) 00:09, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

McVeigh

The reference to McVeight is not a legal argument for plant rights, and its relevance to the subject of plant rights is, at best, a mildly interesting piece of trivia. For that reason, I deleted it. AlexanderGerten (talk) 07:57, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Also, while it may be legitimate to include the "plants tho" reductio ad absurdum argument against animal rights, it would probably be better to include a quote from a legitimate thinker instead of bringing triviality and non-neutrality into the article by citing a terrorist.AlexanderGerten (talk) 08:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I restored it in a separate section. You are absolutely right that it was incorrect to have presented that as a "legal" argument, which it clearly was not. But given that the entire page subject resides on the edge of fringe thinking and silliness, I think that some triviality is unavoidable, and the fact that he said it in response to an overture from an animal rights group makes it relevant. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

If it is a popular argument, the segment about it should be about the popularity of the argument and not about a specific instance of its use. Removing it again for this reason. 184.153.133.97 (talk) 10:35, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

And I've reverted it again. It would need more consensus than one individual coming here after three years and acting unilaterally. The whole page is about silliness, so there is nothing wrong with including this, particularly in the context of what I said previously: that it is in the context of something said by an animal rights group. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Tom Regan

The sentence "On the question of whether animal rights can be extended to plants, philosopher Tom Regan argues that animals acquire rights due to being aware, what he calls "subjects-of-a-life" is misleading. Tom Regan is a person who, according to his wiki, has spent the bulk of his career focusing on animal rights, was the chair of a non-profit dedicated to animal rights, was described by The Vegan Society as "a stalwart vegan and activist", and is categorized by wikipedia as a vegan activist and an american activist. Referring to him as "the philosopher Tom Regan" in the context of defining animal and plant rights is biased information in the sense that it presents this person with an objectivity as regards this topic that according to his career he could not have. I have therefore changed his description in the article to "animal rights activist and philosopher Tom Regan". According to wikipedia's definition of activism, "Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society," at the very east his work in the non profit sector qualifies him as an activist. Please do not revert my edit unless you can provide a credible argument for why he is not an activist.Fabian mcbean (talk) 20:17, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this discussion in talk. I realize that you are a bit new to active editing, although you have had an account for a while, so please let me begin with a few general points before I get to the details of what you said. First of all, please understand that I am no defender of animal rights activists. There has been a lot of editing history over how we talk about "animal rights" in our articles, and I have mostly been on the side of not glorifying it. Also, on Wikipedia it's important to understand the WP:BLP policy; although Regan is recently dead, it still is important to be very precise in any characterizations that we make of him. And also, please be aware of WP:EW, and particularly WP:3RR (also Help:Minor edit). Per WP:BRD, the new version you have put on the page should probably not be the one that stays there during discussion, but I'll let that go. And also please be aware of WP:CIRC, which says that one Wikipedia article is not a reliable source for another.

There is no question that Regan is someone who based his academic career and personal interests on animal rights. No argument from me there. But when we talk about "animal rights activists", that is generally understood to be people like Ingrid Newkirk, Alex Pacheco (activist), and Rod Coronado. There is a huge difference between writing books and running a foundation, and arson or other violent actions. Please take a look at Animal Liberation Front, or the section of Animal rights movement that is Animal rights movement#Strategy and tactical repertoires. Then, compare that with the descriptions of Regan in Animal rights movement#History and Animal rights#Subjects-of-a-life. There's a big difference. A lot of discussion went into separating Category:Animal rights activists and Category:Animal rights scholars, and we put Regan in the latter. Please look at how different the page subjects are in those two categories.

So that's the background. Now I'll address the specific sourcing points that you made. It's true that the Vegan Society described him that way, but that was largely in terms of activism for veganism and is not a definitive characterization for our purposes here. And per WP:CIRC, Wikipedia's definition of activism does not really settle the issue here. I hear you on the issue of not lending him unearned credibility, but there's a good reason to blue-link to his bio page, and calling him an activist instead of a scholar doesn't really accomplish that. I don't think that you will find reliable sourcing for him taking part in direct action except as a philosopher who devised some of the underlying concepts.

I'd be fine with calling him an "animal rights philosopher", as a way of making his relationship with the movement clearer. If however you insist on calling him an "animal rights activist", it may be best if we have a WP:RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:21, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I can agree with describing him as an "animal rights philosopher". I don't know if I agree with your assessment of the general idea of what an activist or an animal rights activist is; it seems to me the definition can be broadened or narrowed to fit the point a person is trying to make. If a person is called an activist by groups with whom they have a common social cause it seems to me to be an uncontroversial description. But my point is ultimately only that, for example, in an article on criticism of the catholic church, you wouldn't mention Martin Luther as a "translator." I will change the entry to "animal rights philosopher." Thank you for the compromise.Fabian mcbean (talk) 16:41, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad that we found an acceptable resolution. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:35, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Is this scientific?

Should the analysis by the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology be considered a "scientific argument" (as it is currently described in the article)? It reads as though they evaluated some scientific information and then made a value judgement. That's not really an argument (muchtheless a scientific argument) as written. ParticipantObserver (talk) 20:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)