Françoise d ́Eaubonne coined the term “ecofeminism” in 1974, thus ecofeminism is contemporary with environmental ethics. Ecofeminism takes the “twin domination thesis” as vantage point and suggests connections (e.g. historical and causal, conceptual, empirical and experiential, epistemological, symbolic, ethical, theoretical, and political) between domination of women and exploitation of nonhuman nature. (e.g. Merchant 1990; Shiva 1988; Ruether 1993; Shiva 1988; 1990; Plumwood 1993/1997; Daly 1978; Spretnak 1982; Warren 2000; Adams 1990; Curtin 1996). Ecofeminist research, in various fields including environmental education, presupposes that a highlighting of these connections contributes to a reasonable and morally acceptable management of sustainable development problems. Based on this assumption it is argued that sustainable development research that do not explicitly take domination of women into account are flawed and unethical (Warren 2000). This critique has also been used with regard to other forms of domination in relation to the Anthropocene (Kronlid & Öhman 2012, Kopnina 2012, 2015). Kopnina adds to the twin domination thesis the component of animals making the twin into a triple domination thesis. This gesture is commendable, partly for reintroducing environmental ethics to the field and for reminding us of that “nature” is not a homogeneous whole but composed of different potentially morally considerable beings. Thus, we applaud this endeavour. However, once the ethical demand to include that which is excluded is adhered to, we have to ask us: Can this demand be satisfied? We argue that we should consider the consequences of how we conceive that which infers a moral obligation. That is to say, are we to conceive of this moral demand as finite or infinite? Can we conceive of that which is to be included and acknowledged in environmental education definable once and for all? Or is it not a possibility of at any point in time that we might become aware of the need to politically and morally acknowledge that which has been ignored? We argue for the latter and that the contingency and infinity of potentiality of the encountering a moral imperative to include and acknowledge that which is excluded, as it is encapsulated in the ethical demand, renders a fulfilment of that ethical demand impossible. Based on this proposition, the paper and the presentation are to explore the consequences of this impossibility for environmental education and social progress.

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