Abstract
The fragmentary reflections presented here are extracted from a much larger body of work in progress, viz., an Essay on Ethics in the Age of Technology. Just a few words on this by way of background to what follows. The major premise of the work is: that, with the wielding of contemporary (and foreseeably still rising) technological power, the nature and scope of human action has decisively changed; the minor premise: that a relevant ethics must match the types and powers of action for which it is to provide the norms; the conclusion follows: that we must review, and if necessary revise, ethical theory so as to bring it into line with what it has to deal with now and for some time to come. Thus, one has to look at the actions on the one hand, and at the theory of ethics on the other hand. A first obvious finding then is: that the actions that ethics has to deal with now have an unprecedented causal reach into the future. This, together with the sheer magnitude of the effects, moves “responsibility” into the center of ethics, where it has never stood before. And that, in turn, demands an examination of this new arrival on the stage of ethical theory, i.e., an investigation into the nature of responsibility.
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Notes
For a most powerful critique, see Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Halle, 1916).
Kant himself, of course, has rescued the mere formality of the categorical imperative by a “material” principle of conduct (ostensibly inferred from it, but, in fact, added to it): respect for the dignity of persons as “ends in themselves.” To this, the charge of vacuity does not apply!
The same word for two so different meanings is no mere equivocation. Their logical connection is that the substantive meaning anticipates the full force of the formal meaning to fall on the agent in the future for what he did or failed to do under the substantive mandate.
Compare what I have said about the “ontological imperative” in “Responsibility Today: The Ethics of an Endangered Future,” Social Research 43.1 (Spring 1976), p. 94.
Strictly speaking, of course, this holds for the education of children too, but there as we indicated—with the perennial “new beginning” afforded by the resources of personal spontaneity—antecedent deed has not the same finality of “results.”
See “Responsibility Today…”, p. 89–93, for a discussion of the discrepancy, in modern technology, between the tremendous time-reach of our actions and the much shorter reach of our foresight concerning their outcome, and how to deal with it morally, i.e., responsibly. See also H. Jonas, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974), p. 10, 18.
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© 1981 The Hastings Center
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Jonas, H. (1981). The Concept of Responsibility: An Inquiry into the Foundations of an Ethics for Our Age. In: Callahan, D., Engelhardt, H.T. (eds) The Roots of Ethics. The Hastings Center Series in Ethics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3303-6_4
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