Abstract

Plant ethics has its own set of questions, concepts, and philosophical assumptions, of which many are novel and call for original ways of thinking. This chapter focuses on how some common methods in philosophical theorizing, such as analogies and thought experiments, fare in the context of plant ethics. Based on plant ethics literature, we identify and examine two methodological strategies for plant ethics. The first strategy focuses on finding possible morally relevant similarities between plants and animals, including humans. Based on these similarities, familiar arguments from animal and traditional ethics can be extended to plant ethics. This can be called the extensionist strategy. Our focus will be on analogy argumentation and analysis. The second strategy focuses on highlighting an ontological division between plants and animals. According to this strategy, morally relevant properties are different for plants than they are for animals. This will be called the otherness strategy. Here our focus will be on conceptual analysis, and we will discuss a constructive and deconstructive approach.