In civil law jurisdictions, plants have traditionally been classified as ‘objects’ (or ‘things’) under private law, reflecting an age-old tendency, certainly in the Western world, to underestimate and undervalue plants. Recent legal debates increasingly acknowledge the special nature of plants. Perhaps the most eye-catching debate in this context is the one on Rights of Nature, which have much potential but pose some practical and conceptual challenges. We propose an additional way of acknowledging the special nature of plants in a legal context: de-objectifying plants in private law and thereby explicating that they are not mere objects. Numerous civil codes already separate animals from objects, often – though not exclusively – based on the sentience of animals. Recent scientific research suggests that plants may be sentient, too. We aim to open the debate on the de-objectification of plants, based on their sentience, in civil codes as a feasible and unobtrusive way to acknowledge in law that plants are living beings, and more than mere things.

在民法管辖区，植物传统上被归类为私法下的“物体”（或“事物”），这反映了一种古老的倾向，尤其是在西方世界，低估和低估植物的价值。最近的法律辩论越来越承认植物的特殊性质。也许在这方面最引人注目的辩论是关于自然权利的辩论，它具有很大的潜力，但提出了一些实际和概念上的挑战。我们提出了另一种在法律背景下承认植物特殊性的方法：在私法中将植物去对象化，从而说明它们不仅仅是物体。许多民法典已经将动物与物体分开，通常（尽管并非完全）基于动物的感知能力。最近的科学研究表明，植物也可能​​有感知能力。我们的目标是在民法典中以植物的感知为基础，开启关于植物去物化的辩论，作为一种可行且不引人注目的方式，在法律上承认植物是生物，而不仅仅是事物。