ABSTRACT
This chapter turns to the subject of ethics, and in particular it traces the interconnections between ethics, agency and place as found in the nature of trees. It regards the development of an ethical dimension to arbori-culture to be important in many respects. The chapter argues that the legacies of this 'ethical exclusion' can be seen in the global environmental difficulties faced in the world today, difficulties which are both practical and moral in nature. It poses some formidable questions. How can shifting ideas of agency change ideas of ethical relations? How can this apply when considering the agency of trees, and trees in place? The chapter considers how the exclusion of nature from ethical systems is closely bound up with the exclusion of nature from ideas of agency, and discusses the ethical implications of considering non-humans as being capable of at least certain and significant forms of agency.
