Hans Jonas’ Ethics Of Responsibility And Its Enlightenment

The development of science and technology not only brings convenience to mankind,but also makes the living environment of mankind deteriorate sharply,and the future of mankind and the earth become precarious.This has caused many thinkers to examine and reflect on science and technology,and began to explore new methods to solve the new problems caused by technology.Hans Jonas is one of them.Jonas put forward and systematically demonstrated that responsibility ethics is a new method to solve the problems in the technological age in his book "The imperative of Responsbility:In search of an ethics for the technological Age".He pointed out that the past ethics is not applicable in the technological age.Therefore,for the long-term survival of mankind,the past ethics should be replaced by responsibility ethics.Based on the "The imperative of Responsbility:In search of an ethics for the technological Age",this paper studies Hans Jonas’ s responsibility ethics and Its Enlightenment from the following parts:The first part mainly expounds the theoretical source and proposing process of Jonas’ s responsibility ethics.The emergence of responsibility ethics is closely related to Jonas’ s learning experience and life experience.When he was a student,he was influenced by Kant and his teachers Heidegger and Rudolf Bultermann.During World War II,he was persecuted,went away from home,and joined the anti fascist war.In the war,he saw too many problems such as environmental pollution,resource grabbing,human alienation and the decline of morality.It was such experience that Jonas cherished the belief of saving the future to the traditional outlook on God This paper reflects on the negative impact of modern technology and the theoretical limitations of past ethics,and systematically demonstrates responsibility ethics.The second part combs the main contents of Jonas’ s responsibility ethics.Jonas proved that nature is a "good" thing in itself,and it is natural for human beings to be responsible for nature.His responsibility ethics takes "human existence" as the primary condition,and then expands the vision of traditional ethics.He advocates that human beings should expand the time range of responsibility from the present to the future,the object of responsibility from the living to the future and the whole nature,and the subject of responsibility from the individual to human beings.He points out that it is the responsibility of everyone in the contemporary era to keep human existence and happy existence in the distant future,Contemporary people have no right to gamble on the survival of future people.Different from traditional ethics,Jonas puts responsibility in a higher position.His responsibility is unique.It has different characteristics in the object,subject and time range of responsibility.He also provided several practical ways for the world to predict the possible disasters that technology may bring in the future through the "suffering enlightenment method",arouse human fear,and thus inspire human suffering consciousness.Jonas opposed people’s fanatical pursuit of technology,and uncontrolled development of technology in order to realize the so-called utopian ideal,which eventually put mankind in danger.Therefore,he advocated thrift,moderation and moderate development.The third part is the evaluation and Enlightenment of Jonas’ s responsibility ethics.Jonas’ s responsibility ethics is a forward-looking ethics facing the future.It expands the vision of traditional ethics and places responsibility in the central position of ethics,making the system of applied ethics more perfect.Moreover,Jonas’ s responsibility ethics can be used as a reference for ecological ethics,scientific and technological ethics,medical ethics and even political ethics.Jonas’ s responsibility ethics warned all mankind to be vigilant against the negative effects brought by technological development,increase the sense of hardship,and do not pursue technology recklessly in order to pursue the so-called utopian ideal,which will eventually put mankind in danger or even perish.In order to have the existence of human species in the distant future,he advocated that people should advocate thrift and moderation and shoulder the responsibility of guarding man and nature in the future.Responsibility ethics has profound enlightenment for us,especially for solving some ethical problems arising from contemporary environment,medicine,technology and so on.In terms of environment,he inspired us to follow the principle of weak anthropocentrism and make environmental protection the common responsibility of all mankind;In terms of medical technology development,it enlightens us to abide by the principle of moderate development and firmly hold the bottom line of "ensuring human survival";For other technological developments,he inspired us to conduct risk assessment on Technology in advance and not to rely too much on technology.Jonas’ s ethics of responsibility is of great significance to the development of contemporary technology.