I don't really want to go down this argument because I know that plants and animals are not comparable.
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).
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.
Maybe the word "individual" doesn't mean in English "a living being that has an individual identity and behaviour that differ from that of its peers". In that case, now you know what I meant. I didn't think it was linked to humans in English.
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.
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).