Ethics and politics in Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt

Abstract

Beyond the legitimate suspicion against the recent developments of modern techniques and the risks that consequently threaten the human world, Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt differ about the way to preserve such a world. The first one invites us to an ethics of responsibility for life whereas the other one draws the outlines of a politics made of human actions breaking with the vital cycle. The acknowledgement of this discrepancy gives us nevertheless the opportunity to think a complementarity between them. As the Arendtian natality can be justified from a bio-ontological point of view, Hannah Arendt's philosophy is able to provide the Jonassian ethics with a political incarnation embodiment.