Exigências filosóficas e éticas para a técnica moderna em “O Princípio Responsabilidade” de Hans Jonas

Abstract

This work reflects the ethical proposal of Hans Jonas, based on his work O princípio responsabilidade, which presents as a requirement the appropriation of a new ethics by contemporary technological society. The jonasian position in defense of the value and dignity of life is a central issue that articulates this study and integrates the different moments of the author's philosophical itinerary. The starting point is the critique of modernity built around the Baconian ideal, which elevates scientific knowledge to the form of a power of domination of man over nature. Jonas's understanding of modern technique leads him to take it as an element responsible for the change in the nature of human action and, consequently, for the implementation of an ethics based on a new principle. The contemporary techno scientific society would have strengthened the capacity for human action that threatens, as never before, the continuity of conditions that enable the authenticity of life. The philosophy of jonasian life comprises a theoretical effort that seeks to integrate the dimensions of life by understanding it as a psychophysical unit. Possessing self-worth, her dignity becomes a right and a duty. Because of this, Jonas erects responsibility as an ethical principle that reinforces the duty of life to care for life, especially a specific way of life: the human. It constitutes the concept of responsibility in terms of the totality, continuity and future of man so that man can fully recognize himself as a rational being, a condition of freedom that makes him a being of responsibility. The method used to achieve what his ethics proposes is fear, the heuristic of fear. Referring to the figures of the father and the public ruler, Jonas points out the paradigmatic models of his theory, which has in the child - newborn - the original and archetypal object of responsibility that proposes.