ブックタイトルRILAS 早稲田大学総合人文科学研究センター研究誌

概要

RILAS 早稲田大学総合人文科学研究センター研究誌

WASEDA RILAS JOURNALboundary of ethics? Traditionally, ethics has regardedconscious beings as its objects, but if it is possible tothink that there are“consciences”wherever there isthe flow, exchange, and circulation of information, wehave to treat them as participants in an ethical relationship.Needless to say, we have to recognize the risk ofgoing too far in extending the ethical concept: everythingwould be an ethical object. We cannot, however,avoid a constant redefinition of being, life, conscience,etc., and without such a difficult problem, which inprinciple has no definitive answer, there would not beany fundamental ethics nor any sustainable society.For the incalculable and the becomingof the worldThe third and last feature of a new ethics is“Whyshould we expand the concept of ethical actor from theindividual to the collective?”Because the technologyin question is beyond the reach of our individuality.This is a matter of system. Any technology implies, inits essence, some impersonal elements. As individuals,we cannot control today’s advanced technology, whichbecomes more and more expansive and complicated.It no longer consists simply of an individual, or onesimple company, or one state, either in technologicalterms or in the mode of its production, diffusion, anduse. That is why advanced technology cannot be placedunder the control of a single agent. Because the modeof technology has been networked, so also must control,intervention, restructuring, and actors be networked.The heterogeneous, multiple actors must participate in acollective orientation of the technological ecosystem welive in. This collective multidimensional interventionwill create our mode of being (presence) and our possibility(future). Although perfect self-determination isnothing but an illusion, it would be suicidal to abandonourselves to a perfect heteronomy or to simply be conformist.Neither option would constitute an ethics forthe future, which seeks the best direction.The collectivity that we call for will not berestricted to the human collectivity. It not only containsthings, animals, computers, and robots, but alsobeings to come, who (which) do not yet exist. Moreprimordially, beings to come who (which) never exist;that is, the future itself, possibility itself. The ultimateactor in an ethics for the future is this power of beingalways open to the future.Is such an ethics too heavy a task? An excessivetask? Faced with rapid changes in our society, it isvery hard or even impossible to foresee even just afew years ahead, to say nothing of the future in onehundred years’time. Is it necessary to take responsibilityfor what is not foreseeable? For what is notcountable? For what is impossible? It is an abuse ofethics, isn’t it? This is not only the objection from utilitarianism,rationalism, or conservatism, but also fromthe traditional ethics that condemned them. This isprecisely the bind of Presentism. If we recognize theimportance or necessity of ethics, we need to create anethics that counts what is not countable. Because whatan econocentric and technocentric type of globalizationtends to destroy is the being itself of the worldand?what is more?the possibility itself of the being(or becoming) of the world. The existence of the worldand its possibility are not things that are countable intheir essence or in their“fact.”It is the“basis”of thisuncountable existence of the world that lends possibilityto all the countables?politics, economy, law,society, culture, etc. From this point of view, an ethicsthat calculates the incalculable consists in an endeavorto make another calculation that makes possible allother calculations, beyond calculations. Without sucha heterogeneous calculation, every technology ormeans, however sophisticated or advanced it may be,would be nothing but a makeshift.We must not take the problem of globalization foronly an economic or geopolitical one but extend it toanother globalization; that of the ethics of being. Thatwill be a true globalization. A globalization to come. Aglobalization of hope, hope for the future.NOTE? Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In search ofan Ethics for the Technological Age, Translated by HansJonas in collaboration with David Herr, The University ofChicago Press, Chicago, 1984, p. 1.? Ibid., p. 5.? Ibid.? Ibid., p. 12.? Ibid., p. 1.? Ibid., p. 5.? Ibid., p. 10.? Ibid., p. 8.? Ibid., p. 136.170