The need for a metaphysical foundation for ethics in Hans Jonas

Abstract

The present paper aims at showing how for Hans Jonas the modern technology raises new and defiant problems to ethics and how these properly ethical problems of the present technological age require a metaphysical approach. First, we will elucidate that, in its apocalyptic potential, technology endangers the Being as a whole – nature and humankind –, raising, thus, new dimensions to the human action. Then, we will see how these new dimensions point to a real turn in the domain of ethics, where the fundamental question is not “how men ought to act?”, but rather, “ought there to be man?”. And, finally, we will show how ethics cannot pass anymore without metaphysics, for only from this discipline – metaphysics – can we say “why” man must exist in the future, and how they must be, since the existence of mankind presupposes the determination of its essence: the human eidos – that would become the metaphysical groundwork of ethics.

Key words: Hans Jonas, technology, ethics, metaphysics, human eidos