ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the moral status of animals and plants in the ancient, and highly influential Indian Law Book the Manusmri also know as Laws of Manu. It argues that the Manusmrti attributes direct moral standing to animals and plants at least in part because they are sentient. The Manusmrti claims that animals and plants are sentient. Medhatithi explains that the sentience of plants is entailed by the fact that plant life is a station in the cycle of samsara. Since pleasure and pain have intrinsic value and disvalue, the fact that an action of mine might cause an entity pleasure or pain constitutes a direct prima facie reason for or against performing the action, respectively, regardless of the further effects that this pain or pleasure might have on other entities. This implies that all sentient entities have direct moral standing.
