Abstract

OVIEDO SOTELO, D. Hans Jonas' works: the imperative of responsibility, for future generations and non-technocentrics. Rev. ciente. UCSA [online]. 2018, vol.5, n.3, pp.69-79. ISSN 2409-8752.  https://doi.org/10.18004/ucsa/2409-8752/2018.005(03)069-079.

This paper made a brief review of Jonasian environmental thought (that was inspired by Aristotle and Kant but with novel contributions). The aim was to demonstrate the usefulness (and actuality) of Hans Jonas's teleology in the development of environmental ethics; an important purpose for the Ibero-American world due to the still little diffusion of its work and to that it did not lose validity. For this purpose, in an analytical and critical manner, we presented the main themes of its environmental ethics, through a logical and speculative reading of its main texts and some current interpretations of recognized authors. We start from the topic of the "irruption" of future generations in the theoretical field, previous to the author, but with low development in the science; the need for a new ethic, of an environmental nature, to which he developed "updating" the Kantian proposal; the role of modern techniques and the great power that derives from it, despite its link to short-termism; and, finally, teleologism, an original way of approaching the environmental issue, that placed the author on the border between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. As a result, his philosophy chooses to recognize intrinsic values to Nature and established an “imperative of responsibility”, which will result in an important theoretical source for the “precautionary principle”, today so current in European legislation and other countries, with its applications environmental and for human health.

Keywords : environmental ethics; precautionary principle; weak anthropocentrism; intrinsic values; ethics of responsibility.

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