Pushing the Limit: Theology and Responsibility to Future Generations
The question of responsibility to future generations is a distinctively modern ethical problem, which exposes the limits of many modern ethical frameworks. I argue for the theological importance of this ‘limit’, and of the question of responsibility to future generations, drawing on the ultimate/pen...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Published: |
2003
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In: |
Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2003, Volume: 16, Issue: 2, Pages: 36-51 |
Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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Summary: | The question of responsibility to future generations is a distinctively modern ethical problem, which exposes the limits of many modern ethical frameworks. I argue for the theological importance of this ‘limit’, and of the question of responsibility to future generations, drawing on the ultimate/penultimate conceptuality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics. Responsibility to future generations calls for detailed attention to a given situation, in the light of its openness to a future not within our control; and action for the sake of future generations requires a suspension of one’s own judgement on that action. Christian ethics can take responsibility to future generations seriously while (and indeed through) maintaining a critique of attempts to orient action towards an innerworldly future utopia. |
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ISSN: | 0953-9468 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/095394680301600203 |