The Gender of Generations
Future Generations and the Social Maternal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ecot.2006.11.3.311Keywords:
future generations, ethical decisions, social maternalAbstract
This paper explores the usefulness of various aspects of recent feminist thought on the ‘maternal subject’ for thinking about the ethical relation to future generations. Much ethical literature on future generations is characterized by an assumption that future generations are separate and distant from the ‘present’ generation who make ethical decisions. I put forward the idea of the ‘social maternal’ to challenge this assumption, and suggest that this idea also has significant theological implications.
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