ABSTRACT
A more inclusive ethics asks about appropriate respect toward all living things, not only the wildlife and farm animals, but now the butterfl ies and the sequoia trees. Otherwise, most of the biological world has yet to be taken into account: lower animals, insects, microbes, plants. If one really seeks a biologically based ethic, a sentient animal welfare ethic still leaves most of the world valueless. We already started to worry about this in the last chapter. The sentient animals form only a minuscule fraction of the living organisms on Earth. Over 96% of species are invertebrates or plants. A deeper respect for life must value more directly all living things and the generative processes that sustain life at all its levels, from the genetic to the global.
