Abstract

Daniel Callahan, in his short article “Hans Jonas and Death,” writes that while he appreciates the perspective on death offered by Jonas in his “The Burden and Blessing of Mortality,” he is concerned by certain omissions that suggest Jonas may not have fully appreciated the value of life. Callahan writes that Jonas does not say “a great deal about why life is worth living,” give an account of the “meaning of evolution for human life,” or describe the “experiences and possibilities in the content of the lives of the human species not found in any other one” (2011, p. 27). I argue that Jonas not only explicitly addresses the meaning of evolution for human life but also develops an ethics rooted in the inherent value of all present and future life, with particular emphasis on the value of human life.

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