Responsibility with the other: plant ethics and education at the end of the world

This paper proposes an ethics that destabilizes the axis of anthropocentrism around which climate change education revolves. Education is future-oriented, narrated as aiming at ‘solving’ the climate crisis, or ‘saving’ the planet. I unsettle established notions of humans’ ethical responsibility for the world, considering instead our capacity to be responsible with non-human others, and in this case, plants. Plants are seen as being beyond ethical considerations; reduced to the level of resources, food sources, or ornaments, we do not feel the need to question or consider our ethical responsibilities to them. The paper proposes how we might begin this ethics, centred on the notion of being responsible as remaining open and attentive to the other, and answering – through meaningful action – in reply. The conversational responsiveness of this ethics does not assume mastery over plants, instead suggesting a new understanding of responsibility that presupposes the agency and awareness of plants.This paper proposes an ethics that destabilizes the axis of anthropocentrism around which climate change education revolves. Education is future-oriented, narrated as aiming at ‘solving’ the climate crisis, or ‘saving’ the planet. I unsettle established notions of humans’ ethical responsibility for the world, considering instead our capacity to be responsible with non-human others, and in this case, plants. Plants are seen as being beyond ethical considerations; reduced to the level of resources, food sources, or ornaments, we do not feel the need to question or consider our ethical responsibilities to them. The paper proposes how we might begin this ethics, centred on the notion of being responsible as remaining open and attentive to the other, and answering – through meaningful action – in reply. The conversational responsiveness of this ethics does not assume mastery over plants, instead suggesting a new understanding of responsibility that presupposes the agency and awareness of plants.