Plants and Global Health Ethics

The One Health revolution has recentered global health discourse so as to emphasize the impact of the non-human on human health, but has so far largely neglected the vegetal. In this chapter, I address the impact of vegetal turns on global health and the ethical issues which surround it. I review three ways that a vegetal turn might emerge in global health: emphasis on the instrumental value of the vegetal, recognition that interactions with the vegetal may inculcate virtues and vices in humans, and consideration that plants may themselves have intrinsic value. I review broadly, admittedly sacrificing depth, to suggest the scope and scale of the impacts that each of these would have to global health and related ethical considerations—presenting a sketch of the space of problems rather than offering solutions. Nonetheless, I hope that this chapter may serve as an effective call to action in illustrating a range of open and important questions at the intersection of the vegetal and global health.