Ethics of Responsibility of Hans Jonas and Sustainable Development (Imperatives and Dilemmas)

Ethics of responsibility of Hans Jonas belongs to the most popular trends of global ethics. The most often it is treated as coherent with ethics of a sustainable development. Such relation is not clear. Ethics of Jonas refers to a process of evolution and- while stressing exceptionality of its effects – concentrates on their protection. Such axiological assumptions lead to a conception of heuristics of fear constituting, according to Jonas, a requirement of activity towards global problems in a contemporary world. Such approach is questioning however the idea of a sustainable development as a basic imperative of activity of the mankind. Hence, the problem of heuristics of fear requires a deep analysis from a perspective of a sustainable development.