Respect comes with a certain responsibility of care, of maintaining a good relationship. Plant personhood may be something we have to teach ourselves, and perhaps we initially strain to see it. But once seen, the care part of that new awareness comes quite naturally. You might find you respect the autonomy of plants not because you know you “should,” but because you know you must. Because doing otherwise would violate your own moral personhood. It is a bridge to cross, from plant disregard to plant regard. The distance between the two is the orientation of one’s heart on the subject.
