Is Hans Jonas an Ecological Thnker?

Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal

It is generally acknowledged that Hans Jonas’ ethical reflection exhibits the philosopher’s advocacy of conservation, especially of the natural and living environment. It is indeed undeniable that the author of The Imperative of Responsibility recalls the centrality of the “core phenomenon of our humanity, which is to be preserved in its integrity at all costs” and that – he adds – the care for the future of humankind “must obviously include care for the future of all nature on this planet as a necessary condition of man’s own.” (IR 136) The first aim of this article is to underline that, according to Jonas, the accomplishment of these tasks entails preserving and keeping a particular ‘quality’ of terrestrial life related to its teleological dynamism and the possibility of its future development. Indeed, what Jonas does refuse is life’s undergoing the deterioration or loss of its higher potential

2004

Hans Jonas is considered one of the principal leaders of the ecological doctrine that fights against the hegemony of technical power upon society. We will study the conception of man in Jonas' ideology through the lens of nature and of responsibility. He brandishes the specter of disaster ("heuristics of fear") as a guard against technological excesses. He appeals to a prospective, universal and categorical responsibility to protect nature and to save future generations. Jonas considers responsibility as a method of anticipating the threat to that which is vulnerable, ephemeral, and perishable. Thus, the responsibility that Jonas decrees implies an ethics of conservation. Jonas' writings aim to procure a new dimension of acting, which necessitates an ethics of foresight and responsibility.

The aim of my work is to show up Jonas' ethics of responsibility as an ecological paradigm, thanks to his philosophy of biology. Seen in this new light, it is possible to revaluate the concept of anthropocentrism in Jonas' view.

Value and emotion, which have been part and parcel of phenomenological thought, are now beginning to make headway in cognitive science. Their roots in organismic activity are in need of clarification, as is the connection between what an organism does and what it is. All of this makes it the right time to publish a new edition of Hans Jonas's 1966 book The Phenomenon of Life and let the clarity of his single-stroke treatment of these questions illuminate current debates.

Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, 2016

According to Hans Jonas (1903–1993), the modern technological progress endowed humanity with wondrous power, which in the long run risks altering the nature of human action. This is especially true for the realm of collective action, the effects of which evidence an unpredicted issue: the ecological crisis, which is the “critical vulnerability” of nature to technological intervention. This discovery brings to light that the whole biosphere of the planet has been added to that which human beings must be responsible for because of their power over it. There is, however, a further dimension of vulnerability (and responsibility) to be considered, namely the one which characterizes organic life as such. Indeed, the essence of all living organisms–human beings included–is characterized by vulnerability, given their precarious and unstable condition of “needful freedom” towards the environment. Nevertheless, terrestrial life flourished through a multifaceted and unplanned (thus, again, vulnerable) evolution of living forms, ranging from bacteria to human beings – these evidencing a unique degree of freedom, which Jonas refers to as a “metaphysical gap” towards other living beings. The problem is that the present-day technology provides the possibility to manipulate the very essence of life and human nature. Is this process to be accepted and accomplished? And what about the related risks? Indeed, according to Jonas, issues such as genetic manipulation, euthanasia, organ transplantation, assisted reproduction, exploitation of other living beings etc., raise ethical dilemmas which can be addressed thanks to the idea of vulnerability. This notion has, according to Jonas, a metaphysical background, which he describes as follows: in the beginning, the Divine chose to give itself over to the chance, risk and endless variety of becoming. In order that the world (and life, and human freedom) might be, God renounced his own being, divesting himself of his deity. Thanks to this mythical account, the previous levels of vulnerability (concerning nature, life, and human nature) gain further clarification as signs of something sacrosanct.

Studies in Romanticism, 2011

Natural Born Monads On the Metaphysics of Organisms and Human Individuals, 2020

This chapter takes up Jonas' philosophical legacy as a site for developing a scientifically viable theory of the organism as a 'natural purpose.' It follows a suggestion by the late Francisco Varela that we need to move beyond the unstable position set out by Kant in the Critique of Judgement in order to provide a novel understanding of biological individuality. The chapter explores the theoretical potential of this claim by investigating the role the philosophy of Hans Jonas could play in helping us develop a naturalistic philosophy of biology that rejects both reductive physicalism and the metaphysical idea of teleology as intelligent design but still takes teleology seriously as a natural phenomenon. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you and I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water […] Standing at the stove, it is hard to deny in any meaningful way that this is a living creature experiencing pain and wishing to avoid the painful experience. To my mind, the lobster's behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of a preference; and it may be well be that an ability to form preferences is the decisive criterion for real suffering. David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster 1 Consider the bacterium This chapter takes up Jonas' philosophical legacy as grounds for developing a scientifically viable theory of the organism as a 'natural purpose,' following a suggestion of the late Francisco Varela. In his very last paper, published posthumously in collaboration with Andreas Weber, Varela argued for the "great need to bring to the fore the remarkable and recent convergence between the re-awakening of the philosophical discussion concerning natural purposes (with Jonas as the central figure), and an independent but convergent stream of thought concerning biological individuality and the organism (with the autopoiesis school as the central figure)." The conceptual proximity of these developments led Weber and Varela to conclude that, "after two centuries, we can move beyond the unstable position set out by Kant in the Critique of Judgement, and therefore provide a fresh re-understanding of natural purpose and living individuality" (Weber and Varela 2002, pp. 97-98).

My aim in this presentation is to analyze Hans Jonas's "post-dualistic" philosophy of life articulated in his work, The Phenomenon of Life, against the backdrop of Max Scheler’s philosophical anthropology. I will argue that Scheler's analysis of life frames the problem for which Jonas's monism is response. Scheler is well known for asserting a dualism of life and spirit in his anthropology. I will show that Jonas's conception of life bears a fundamental affinity to the principle of life advanced by Scheler, and that both men agree on the ontological identity of physiological and psychic processes. (Revised: updated cited material)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1975