This paper attempts to answer the question why things matter to us, i.e. why things are, as things, morally significant. It argues that one possible answer would be that things are morally significant because they embody values and interests which enrol us into particular programmes of action, as argued by Winner and actor network theorists. It suggests that this might be a good and important provisional answer but that we need to move beyond such an anthropocentric view of the ethics of things. We need to ask why things are morally significant as such. It then proceeds to outline a decentred ethics of things using the work of Heidegger to argue that things are significant because they 'world'. From this analysis and the work of Levinas it proceeds to present some suggestive outlines of what a decentred ethics of things might contain