Many activities towards plants are directly related to environmental crisis issues. However, our actions towards plants are little theorized in philosophy and ethics. After a brief presentation of the history, state of the art, and current issues of plant ethics, I critically illustrate how the theoretical threads of current ethics should be clarified, and, more importantly, contextualised, to promote the application of concrete measures. Particular attention is paid to the ethics of plant flourishing as applied to different fields and types (...) of plants. The treatment of wild and ornamental plants is, thus, explicitly distinguished from that of improved agricultural varieties, themselves distinguishable according to modes of cultivation. I thus propose and discuss several recommendations and concrete courses of action to promote an ethics of plants, while pointing out its limitations. (shrink)

Plant ethics is a field of philosophy that discusses the moral value of plants, and individual responsibilities toward them. As anthropogenic climate change is likely to have devastating effects on plants, a plant ethics analysis of climate change is crucial to fully understand the extent of people’s responsibilities toward plants. However, surprisingly little has been written on this topic. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the main positions in plant ethics as well as an initial exploration of the (...) following three salient questions concerning plant ethics and climate change. First, how stringent are people’s responsibilities to preserve plants? Second, do people have responsibilities to plant trees? Third, do people have responsibilities to help plant migration? Plant ethics theories struggle to different extent with each of these questions. On all theories, people have great responsibilities to preserve, if not individual plants, at least large forests, and on most theories people have some responsibility to help plant migration. On whether there are responsibilities to plant trees, different plant ethics theories deliver widely different results, from there being no responsibility to plant any tree to there being responsibility to plant as many trees as possible. All three questions are venues for future research in plant ethics. (shrink)

Der Beitrag untersucht, ob das Konzept der Integrität auf pflanzliches Leben angewendet werden kann. Zunächst wird die Debatte um die „Würde der Pflanze“ rekapituliert, um daraus problematische Aspekte der Zuschreibung von „Integrität“ abzuleiten. Es wird argumentiert, dass das Konzept der Integrität durchaus geeignet ist, die Schwierigkeiten eines Konzepts des guten Pflanzenlebens zu überwinden, das die Eigenschaften der pflanzlichen Leben zu wenig respektiert. Abschließend wird verdeutlicht, dass für die sinnvolle Verwendung des Konzepts die Frage der Hintergrundannahmen entscheidend ist.

The claim that environmental virtue ethics (EVE) is anthropocentric appears inherently aporetic since it implies that either anthropocentrism is virtuous or the whole environmental issue is anthropocentric, thus translating vices into virtues or vice versa. Another interpretation is that _both_ the environment and humanity are thought with a vicious conception of centeredness. Conversely, if centeredness is rightly addressed and humanity and its environment are considered as one and the same issue, the focus on anthropocentrism should also be different. By drawing (...) on Felix Guatttari’s ecosophy, this paper proposes that EVE needs to be based on a philosophical understanding of agriculture. Thus, agriculture is the organic and epistemic matrix of our relation to the environment and not merely a section of an abstract environment nor one economic area among others. The environmental crisis is primarily a crisis of humanity _within_ its agricultural matrix. To be an environmentally virtuous human being, a requirement is to face again the burden of our absolute need for food and for fruitful cooperation between farmers and plants, not only animals. This paper discusses the importance of plant ethics and plant topology to understand the specificities of the agricultural matrix. The emphasis will be placed on plant-centered virtue ethics and reframing anthropocentrism by drawing on transdisciplinary conversation with plant practitioners in the context of a research action project. (shrink)