Common Future – Shared Responsibility
The Timeliness of Hans Jonas
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In his work, Hans Jonas, an engaged thinker sensitive to the times, reconstructed the self-affirmation and intrinsic value of organic life. Jonas sensed with “fear and trem-bling” the environmentally destructive consequences not only of high technology but of the mechanized way of life. Jonas pit The Imperative of Responsibility against both the claim to absolute truth and the underlying displacement of a practical, morally binding reason by mere technical rationality. Our everyday behaviour in the risk society can and should be oriented along these lines.
(Osteuropa 4-5/2008, pp. 20–36)