“Look and you will know”. Hans Jonas and the onto-bio-logical solution of the is-ought question. Starting from famous Jonas’s example in The Imperative of Responsibility, I will show that Jewish thinker’s proposal claims that our moral responsibility lies on an original ontology defined by biological elements (not naturalist though), in which the ought to be is based on the being, in a clear contrast with the Hume’s law. This perspective reintroduces the importance of the Aristotelian “final cause”, and emphasizes the concept of being starting from the prime significance of “living organism”. In particular, Jonas’s thought aims to go beyond Hume’s law by limiting its effectiveness to a merely logical linguistic field, and making it inapplicable on ontological level. The transition from being to having to be, in this perspective, is logically fallacious only on the condition that the being referred to in the descriptive premises has previously been emptied of any possible normative meaning. The “great division” between facts and values, according to this interpretative hypothesis, is therefore not an inevitable consequence of Hume’s law, but only the non-obvious semantic presupposition of him.

Luciano Sesta (2024). "Guarda e saprai". Hans Jonas e la soluzione ontobiologica dell'is-ought question. STUDIUM PHILOSOPHICUM(9-10), 103-117.

"Guarda e saprai". Hans Jonas e la soluzione ontobiologica dell'is-ought question

Luciano Sesta
2024-01-01

Abstract

“Look and you will know”. Hans Jonas and the onto-bio-logical solution of the is-ought question. Starting from famous Jonas’s example in The Imperative of Responsibility, I will show that Jewish thinker’s proposal claims that our moral responsibility lies on an original ontology defined by biological elements (not naturalist though), in which the ought to be is based on the being, in a clear contrast with the Hume’s law. This perspective reintroduces the importance of the Aristotelian “final cause”, and emphasizes the concept of being starting from the prime significance of “living organism”. In particular, Jonas’s thought aims to go beyond Hume’s law by limiting its effectiveness to a merely logical linguistic field, and making it inapplicable on ontological level. The transition from being to having to be, in this perspective, is logically fallacious only on the condition that the being referred to in the descriptive premises has previously been emptied of any possible normative meaning. The “great division” between facts and values, according to this interpretative hypothesis, is therefore not an inevitable consequence of Hume’s law, but only the non-obvious semantic presupposition of him.
2024
Settore PHIL-03/A - Filosofia morale
Luciano Sesta (2024). "Guarda e saprai". Hans Jonas e la soluzione ontobiologica dell'is-ought question. STUDIUM PHILOSOPHICUM(9-10), 103-117.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10447/667746
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