Many people are concerned about our treatment of animals. And many people are concerned, too, about our treatment of other living things, most notably and most often plants, and particularly trees, but also embryos, cells, bacteria and viruses. Perhaps this second concern is less widespread. And, more important, perhaps it has, for most people, a different character. Other living things matter, but perhaps they matter in a different way.

Plants

A large part of our concern for animals is a concern for creatures very many of which, like us, can enjoy pleasures and suffer pain. Because of this, what happens to them, and what we do to them, is of direct moral concern. Other living things cannot feel pain. Even so, it seems that much of what we do to them is wrong. Objections are often raised to felling trees, either on the purely local or on the massive scale; there are widespread concerns about genetic modification of foods and crops; and, although less widespread, there are concerns, too, about the dwindling numbers of rare orchids, snake fritillaries in an Oxford meadow, or the handfuls of alpines living within delicate microclimates in northern Canada. The bog plants and grasses in the Scottish Highlands hold subtler charms, but even here considerable numbers agitate on their behalf.

In certain respects this concern for plants is unproblematic. Most of the reservations about GM foods centre on their effects on us.