I like seeing what this viewpoint illuminates

Me too!

Life is the only thing that uses other matter, which I think is closer to expressing a violation of the Kantian categorical imperative (second formulation), and hence a common formulation of evil.

As long as you're accepting nitpicks, I don't think your Kantian formulation holds much water either. Kant teaches that you can't use people as means to an end, but he would probably encourage you to use things as means to an end; certainly he chides people who want to leave well enough alone (thereby saving resources) for not developing their latent talents.

A hookworm might be evil under a modernish Kantian framework because it is life treating other life as a means to an end; ditto fire, which is matter treating other matter as a means to an end. A lichen, though, is well within its rights (as life) to treat the rock it sits on (matter) as means to an end, and people (as the only known Kantian-rational agents) are well within their rights to treat wheat (mere life) as means to an end.