The Calling from the Distance. An Ethico-Philosophical and Ethico-Theological Contribution within the Debate on the Responsibility Towards Future Generations from the Perspective of a Phenomenology of Otherness.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2015 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 269749623

Concepts like justice and responsibility towards future generations have become central notions - leifmotifs - not only within the more restricted realm of the contemporary ethico- and political-philosophical debate, but also in the way farther-reaching domain of public discourse. This is testified by the growing concern at all levels (national institutions, transnational governance, media, public opinion) regarding issues related to global warming and climate change, sustainable economical growth, as well as protection of genetic and cultural inheritances. In all these debates a central question is constantly at stake: how can we provide a life worth being lived not only to our immediate successors but also to individuals who will inhabit our planet in a remote future? Philosophically speaking, however, paradoxical as it may seem, the mere fact that an undeniable sensibility and concern for future generations exist says nothing about the therewith related call for a necessary responsibility towards them. In other words, the perception of being responsible for future beings represents by no means a sufficient philosophical grounding thereof. On the contrary, if one looks attentively, there are several very well designed counter-arguments claiming for a non-responsibility. Furthermore, in the theoretical debate a common view seems to make the problem even stronger, as soon as the role of theology is considered: in fact, for several authors it is exactly the Christian-theological doctrine/tradition the one to be made accountable for a reduced consideration of the ethical importance of a responsibility towards future beings. Given such a philosophical and theological predicament, the main aim of our project is then to offer a theoretical trajectory such that an intergenerational responsibility not only appears as inevitable, but also in connection with the necessary contribution of a theological inspiration. In order to display such a systematic framework we will recur, in our project, to a certain reshaping of the question from the perspective of a phenomenology of alterity, in which the motive of the calling to responsibility for the future will imply not only an ethical but also an irreducibly theological sort of transcendence.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants