ABSTRACT
This chapter questions the very question of moral standing, which leads to a too distant mode of thinking and relating to non-human entities like plants, or robots. Three steps towards an alternative – a relational – approach are proposed. First, the subject is included in the question, leading to a first-person perspective and attention to my relation to the entity. Second, if we start from the needs of the other (second-person perspective), the question is not about moral status but: “What do you need and what can I do for you?” Third, the model of the viewer-observer needs to be replaced with the model of the active and practical relation to the entity. What matters, then, is not only a particular encounter or situation as such (as if viewing the entity from a distance), but what we do to, for, and with the entity, how we actively and practically (already) relate to it. This leads to further questions about how to treat a particular plant, robot, etc., and about skills and know-how that are required for that.
