The Imperative of Responsibility

The Imperative of Responsibility In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age

by Hans Jonas

University of Chicago Press, 1984
Cloth: 978-0-226-40596-4 | Paper: 978-0-226-40597-1 | Electronic: 978-0-226-85033-7
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226850337.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

A classic work of ethical philosophy that explores our options in an age of devatasting technological change

Hans Jonas here rethinks the foundations of ethics in light of the awesome transformations wrought by modern technology: the threat of nuclear war, ecological ravage, genetic engineering, and the like. Though informed by a deep reverence for human life, Jonas's ethics is grounded not in religion but in metaphysics, in a secular doctrine that makes explicit man's duties toward himself, his posterity, and the environment. Jonas offers an assessment of practical goals under present circumstances, ending with a critique of modern utopianism.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Hans Jonas was the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the New School for Social Research. Among his many books are The Phenomenon of Life and Philosophical Essays, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

REVIEWS

“At a time when the ethical problems connected with technological advance in so many separate fields are forcing themselves to the forefront of attention, it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of Hans Jonas’s closely argued and eloquent book. . . . The Imperative of Responsibility is a brilliant, clearly argued book which penetrates to the heart of the most intractable problems of the modern world. if ethical debate is to contribute anything to man’s struggle for survival beyond the present century this is the sort of work we need in order to lay out its necessary agenda. Without illusion or despair, Hans Jonas brings us face to face with the issues on which any possible future depends.”

— David J. Levy, Times Higher Education Supplement

“Hans Jonas believes that technological developments are in fact so hostile to our deepest needs, indeed to our future, that we must completely rethink our ethics and ethical responsibilities. this book is not simply a call to heighten our moral sensibilities; it is a plea to change them.”

— Robert Grafstein, Christian Century

“A learned and wise philosopher’s prophetic spirit joined with sophisticated rationality—a rare combination in American intellectual life. Where one is not persuaded by him, one is forced to adduce evidences and develop arguments to support a different view.”

— James M. Gustafson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Preface

1. The Altered Nature of Human Action

I. The Example of Antiquity

II. Characteristics of Previous Ethics

III. New Dimensions of Responsibility

IV. Technology as the “Calling” of Mankind

V. Old and New Imperatives

VI. Earlier Forms of “Future-oriented” Ethics

VII. Man as an Object of Technology

VIII. The “Utopian” Dynamics of Technical Progress and the Excessive Magnitude of Responsibility

IX. The Ethical Vacuum

I. Ideal and Real Knowledge in the “Ethic of the Future”

II. Prevalence of the Bad over the Good Prognosis

III. The Element of Wager in Human Action

IV. The Duty to Ensure a Future

V. Being and Ought-to-Be

3. Concerning Ends and Their Status in Reality

I. The Hammer

II. The Court of Law

III. Walking

IV. The Digestive Organ

V. From Reality to Validity: From the Problem of Purpose to the Problem of Value

I. Being and Ought-to-Be

II. Theory of Responsibility: First Distinctions

III. Theory of Responsibility: Parent and Statesman as Eminent Paradigms

IV. Theory of Responsibility: The Horizon of the Future

V. How Far Does Political Responsibility Extend into the Future?

VI. Why “Responsibility” Was Not Central in Former Ethical Theory

VII. Parent-Child Relation: The Archetype of Responsibility

I. The Future of Mankind and the Future of Nature

II. The Ominous Side of the Baconian Ideal

III. Is Marxism or Capitalism Better Fitted to Counter the Danger?

IV. Examining the Abstract Chances in the Concrete

V. The Utopia of the Coming “True Man”

VI. Utopia and the Idea of Progress

6. A Critique of Utopia and the Ethic of Responsibility

I. The Wretched of the Earth and World Revolution

II. Critique of Marxist Utopianism

III. From the Critique of Utopia to the Ethics of Responsibility

Appendix: Impotence or Power of Subjectivity

I. The Incompatibility Argument

II. The Epiphenomenalist Argument

III. “Epiphenomenalism” Voided by the Voiding of “Incompatibility”

IV. Quantum-Mechanical Review of the Proposed Solution

Notes

Index