Plant Ethics : Concepts and Applications

Large parts of our world are filled with plants, and human life depends on, interacts with, affects and is affected by plant life in various ways. Yet plants have not received nearly as much attention from philosophers and ethicists as they deserve. In environmental philosophy, plants are often swiftly subsumed under the categories of "all living things" and rarely considered thematically. There is a need for developing a more sophisticated theoretical understanding of plants and their practical role in human experience.

Plant Ethics: Concepts and Applications aims at opening a philosophical discussion that may begin to fill that gap. The book investigates issues in plants ontology, ethics and the role of plants and their cultivation in various fields of application. It explores and develops important concepts to shape and frame plants-related philosophical questions accurately, including new ideas of how to address moral questions when confronted with plants in concrete scenarios.

This edited volume brings together for the first time, and in an interdisciplinary spirit, contemporary approaches to plant ethics by international scholars of established reputation. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of Philosophy and Ethics.

Angela Kallhoff is a Professor of Ethics with special emphasis on Applied Ethics at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Marcello Di Paola is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria, and Research and Teaching Fellow, Department of Political Science, LUISS University, Rome, Italy.

Maria Schörgenhumer is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna, Austria.