Modern Technology, Preventive Ethics, and the Human Condition:

ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY

In this section I will focus on the importance of responsibility as a central theme in any moral philosophy that needs to handle modern technology properly. Jonas thinks that our progress in technology, and dealing with nature without the ethics of responsibility is an act against the future of mankind, in this technological progress, Jonas asks: “What kind of obligation is operative in it?” Is it Utilitarian or just a command that we should not “saw off the branch on which we sit?”5 but the “we” here is not necessarily the present condition of man kind, it is most likely the future generations who will pay the price; since the human good known in its generality is the same for all time, its complete locus is always the present. Modern technology brought us not to the end but to the edge of our fate and unless we have a good vision about where we are going, then we will neither be able to save ourselves nor our future generations. This new vision has to be equipped with practical philosophy and wisdom; it has to be different from the previous traditional moral philosophy. Because with modern technology, new issues have appeared such as: global conditions, environmental issues, cloning, and genetic engineering. All these issues were not part of the traditional ethical theories such as those of deontological ethics, utilitarianism, and the ethics of virtue. Jonas rightly commented that “previous ethics and metaphysics provided not even the principles, let alone a ready doctrine”6 for such issues that are essentially related to the future of humanity, most of these moral theories are at their best ethics of the “here and now” let’s take Kant’s categorical imperative, as an example: “Act so that you can will that the maxim of our action be made the principle of a universal law.” If we look at this rule, which is also called the rule of universalization, it justifies an act as morally right if the act can be universalized with no contradiction, take for example theft to the maxim or universalize it that every one is stealing from everyone else, what is wrong with that? Well, it contradicts the concept of personal property; therefore stealing is immoral because it causes contradiction on this maxim level. If we look carefully at this rule of Kant, then we find the following:

Can

Can Not

Contradiction or No contradiction

This is based on a famous law in Aristotelian logic called the law of non-contradiction: A can not be true and false at the same time. You can’t “will” stealing and preserve its opposite (legal property) at the same time, you can not negate property by stealing and preserve it at the same time. This is contradictory, because A can not be true and false at the same time. Thus, as Jonas noted Kant’s ethics is not about moral dimensions, it is about logical compatibility.7

There was always an attempt to build ethics on Logic, such as Kant’s attempt, or build it on geometry such as that of Spinoza, Ethics based geometrical method, or on calculus, such as the attempt of Bentham and Mill to measure pleasure. I think that all these attempts of seeking consistency are of no use in ethics because consistency is a standard of empty systems in pure mathematics where there is no relation to reality.

While in applied physics a theory has to be related to facts. In ethics, values are related to human actions and how to control the desires of the human soul, so we are not talking about consistency rather about commitment, responsibility, sacrifice, and moderation. Also how to act in way that is not harmful to the present and the future condition of humanity. Jonas tried to modify Kant’s principle to be: “Act so that the effect of your actions is compatible with the permanence of genuine human life.” Or “In your present choices, include the future wholeness of Man among the objects of your will.”8 Jonas believes that if you look at his principle from the traditional approach you will immediately see that there is no rational contradiction involved if you violate this kind of imperative; it is possible to “will”the present good while sacrificing the future good of humanity, but most importantly in this imperative is that the new imperative “says precisely that we may risk our own life-but not that of humanity…that we do not have the right to choose, or even risk, nonexistence for future generations on account of a better life for the present one.”9

If you raise the question why we have such an obligation toward generations that do not even yet exist? Jonas has no answer, but he left a good hint in saying: “To underpin this proposition theoretically is by no means easy and without religion perhaps impossible. At present, our imperative simply posits it without proof, as an axiom.”10 The first hint is the need for justification, because in ethics, as a normative field and part of philosophy, a rational justification is always needed to prove validity of ideas. Second, he reflected the need for religion for such justification otherwise it is impossible. To some extent this reflects that Jonas thinks that ethics is based on religion or at least moral values stemmed from religion. To this we might be able to see an answer from an Islamic perspective.