Abstract

Is Plant Ethics really necessary? This article aims at analysing the possibility and the need for a plant ethics within the field of applied ethics. Starting with an analysis of the symbolic and cultural representations of “nature” and with the connection with the material dimension of human relationality, it will move on to a speculative and synthetic analysis of the fundamental categories of environmental ethics (serving as a model for animal ethics and plant ethics), and then to renewed ontological representations that vegetal life can “show”, concluding with some propositions from which it is possible to answer positively to the question: is plant ethics really necessary?