Hans Jonas's Ethic of Responsibility: From Ontology to Ecology

Introduction

Introduction A central concern, perhaps the central concern in ethical theory is the question of foundation: Upon what grounds must a theory of ethics rest if it is to persuade us of its rightness, its truth? The questioning of the roots of ethics originates with Socrates and extends throughout the history of moral philosophy, yet today this questioning seems to have lost its compelling force, for we no longer consider it practicable to search for an objective, universal foundation for ethics. Instead, we seek whatever common agreement we can obtain through reason and discourse, and for many thinkers this discursive agreement is the best we can hope for. One twentieth-century philosopher, however, does stake a claim for an objective, universal foundation for ethics—Hans Jonas, who in his definitive work, The Imperative of Responsibility, argues that there is an ontological ground for ethics, and that existence itself presents us with an ethical imperative.1 Once recognized, Jonas says, this imperative lays a claim upon us and our response to it reveals our strengths or failings as ethical persons. Since Nietzsche initiated the deconstruction and critique of moral philosophy and psychology, most philosophers have questioned the validity of asserting any kind of normative ethical claim. To do so is to expose oneself to Nietzsche’s criticisms concerning the projection of subjective truths onto the world as objective claims and the positing of transcendent, metaphysical grounds for judging actions—both attempts significantly overreach the limits of human knowledge. Yet Jonas’s insistent assertion that we face an imperative of responsibility toward life challenges the notion that it is no longer possible to construct a moral philosophy on the basis of any kind of objective ground. He argues that there is an imperative present in being that should elicit a response in human beings of respect for life and responsibility for nature. His work attempts to show how a convincing argument can be made for protecting the future of life and respecting the integrity and value of nature and the human. 1 2 Hans Jonas’s Philosophy of Responsibility The Imperative of Responsibility provides essential arguments that facilitate an ethical response to the environmental threats we face as a result of our prodigious technological development. These problems include climate change, loss of biodiversity, resource depletion, pollution from the manufacture of goods, and the ancillary accumulation of waste products, which threaten the future health and viability of our planet and its living beings. In order to effectively face and surmount the environmental and social crisis facing us, a moral philosophy based on a foundation that resists a critique of subjectivism while providing a strong universal and objective guide for action is necessary. The theory of responsibility offers such a foundation and guide, and Jonas’s work stands at the forefront of environmental and ethical thought, although it has sometimes failed to find its acknowledgment there. In my view, Jonas’s imperative of responsibility is grounded in an investigative ontology that stands up to postmodern critiques of metaphysics . His argument takes into account the fallibility of human reason and the impossibility of knowing absolutely what is true from any position external to the human subject—itself a continually evolving being responding to a world of flux and motion. The need for an ethic that forthrightly incorporates a metaphysical perspective arises precisely from the inadequacy of human knowing, and Jonas argues that all conjectures about reality—whether philosophical, scientific, or critical—contain hidden metaphysical beliefs about the world. Accepting this state of affairs and working with it, he strives to base his imperative on rigorous reasoning in response to observation and analysis of facts about humans and nature that we can perceive and experience. Moreover, Jonas’s theory of responsibility addresses the very same “abyss” that concerned Nietzsche— the void left in ethics with the death of the transcendent god, the devaluation of nature, claims of scientific detachment, and the resulting subjectivism of values. How Jonas addresses these challenges to ethical thought through the development of a philosophical argument that bases an imperative of responsibility in an ontological claim concerning being, including human being, forms the subject of this analysis. From Jonas’s perspective, a threat to ethics exists as a result of the two worlds science has created—one of value-free, objective, and universal truths about objects, and another of values originating with the subject and attached to objects. Value and meaning are subjective, whereas objective truths are limited to facts based on...