The Future of Human Nature. By Jürgen  Habermas. Published by Polity Press, Cambridge, in association with Blackwell Publishing, Oxford; distributed by Blackwell Publishing, Malden (Massachusetts). $17.95. viii + 127 p; no index. ISBN: 0–7456–2986–5 (hc); 0–7456–2987–3 (pb, UK only). 2003.

2004 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 460-461
Author(s):  
Chris Kaposy
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Future

Habermas and the Question of Bioethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Hille Haker
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Genetic Diagnosis ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Germline Gene ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Future

In The Future of Human Nature, Jürgen Habermas raises the question of whether the embryonic genetic diagnosis and genetic modification threatens the foundations of the species ethics that underlies current understandings of morality. While morality, in the normative sense, is based on moral interactions enabling communicative action, justification, and reciprocal respect, the reification involved in the new technologies may preclude individuals to uphold a sense of the undisposability (Unverfügbarkeit) of human life and the inviolability (Unantastbarkeit) of human beings that is necessary for their own identity as well as for reciprocal relations. Engaging with liberal bioethics and Catholic approaches to bioethics, the article clarifies how Habermas’ position offers a radical critique of liberal autonomy while maintaining its postmetaphysical stance. The essay argues that Habermas’ approach may guide the question of rights of future generations regarding germline gene editing. But it calls for a different turn in the conversation between philosophy and theology, namely one that emphasizes the necessary attention to rights violations and injustices as a common, postmetaphysical starting point for critical theory and critical theology alike. In 2001, Jürgen Habermas published a short book on questions of biomedicine that took many by surprise.[1] To some of his students, the turn to a substantive position invoking the need to comment on a species ethics rather than outlining a public moral framework was seen as the departure from the “path of deontological virtue,”[2] and at the same time a departure from postmetaphysical reason. Habermas’ motivation to address the developments in biomedicine had certainly been sparked by the intense debate in Germany, the European Union, and internationally on human cloning, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, embryonic stem cell research, and human enhancement. He turned to a strand of critical theory that had been pushed to the background by the younger Frankfurt School in favor of cultural theory and social critique, even though it had been an important element of its initial working programs. The relationship of instrumental reason and critical theory, examined, among others, by Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse and taken up in Habermas’ own Knowledge and Interest and Theory of Communicative Action became ever-more actual with the development of the life sciences, human genome analysis, and genetic engineering of human offspring. Today, some of the fictional scenarios discussed at the end of the last century as “science fiction” have become reality: in 2018, the first “germline gene-edited” children were born in China.[3] Furthermore, the UK’s permission to create so-called “three-parent” children may create a legal and political pathway to hereditary germline interventions summarized under the name of “gene editing.”In this article, I want to explore Habermas’ “substantial” argument in the hope that (moral) philosophy and (moral) theology become allies in their struggle against an ever-more reifying lifeworld, which may create a “moral void” that would, at least from today’s perspective, be “unbearable” (73), and for upholding the conditions of human dignity, freedom, and justice. I will contextualize Habermas’ concerns in the broader discourse of bioethics, because only by doing this, his concerns are rescued from some misinterpretations.[1] Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003).[2] Ibid., 125, fn. 58. 8[3] Up to the present, no scientific publication of the exact procedure exists, but it is known that the scientist, Jiankui He, circumvented the existing national regulatory framework and may have misled the prospective parents about existing alternatives and the unprecedented nature of his conduct. Yuanwu Ma, Lianfeng Zhang, and Chuan Qin, "The First Genetically Gene‐Edited Babies: It's “Irresponsible and Too Early”," Animal Models and Experimental Medicine  (2019); Matthias Braun, Meacham, Darian, "The Trust Game: Crispr for Human Germline Editing Unsettles Scientists and Society," EMBO reports 20, no. 2 (2019).

scholarly journals Etica do discurso e eugenia liberal: Jürgen Habermas e o futuro da natureza humana | The ethics of discourse and liberal eugenics: Jürgen Habermas and the future of human nature

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aécio Amaral
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Genetic Diagnosis ◽  
Discourse Ethics ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Liberal Eugenics ◽  
The Future ◽  
Communicative Reason

Resumo Em O Futuro da Natureza Humana, Jürgen Habermas afirma que os avanços recentes no campo das biotecnologias constituem um desafio para a ética do discurso nas Ciências Sociais. Por trás de sua crítica aos defensores da eugenia liberal reside o reconhecimento de que o Diagnóstico Genético Pré-Implantação potencialmente põe em cheque o papel exercido pela razão comunicativa na constituição de uma ética individual de auto-compreensão. A ‘ética da espécie’ proposta por Habermas como contraposição a esse fenômeno se nos apresenta como moralmente reativa, na medida em que sua crítica não alcança abarcar os aspectos metafísicos que estão no núcleo do discurso da eugenia liberal. O artigo é dividido em dois momentos: perceber como a recente intervenção de Habermas ecoa o motivo da alegada colonização do mundo-da-vida pela razão tecnológica, e demonstrar como a concepção de técnica que embasa seu relato o impede de divisar a crítica dos aspectos metafísicos da cultura genética contemporânea.Palavras-chave Jürgen Habermas; cultura genética; sociedade da informação; ciência e mundo-da-vida; ética do discurso Abstract In The Future of Human Nature, Jürgen Habermas recognizes that current advances in biotechnology are challenging discourse ethics in Social Sciences. Behind his fear of the possibility of liberal eugenics, lies the recognition that pre-implanted genetic diagnosis potentially puts into question the role played by communicative reason in the constitution of the individual’s ethics of self-understanding. The ethics of species proposed by Habermas sounds morally reactive, insofar as his critique does not manage to encompass the metaphysical features which are at the core of liberal eugenics discourse. This paper is divided into two moments: the current echoing in Habermas’ work of the motif of the alleged colonization of the lifeworld by technological reason, and a demonstration of how his conception of technique which underlies such a perspective prevents him of envisaging the critique of the metaphysical aspects of contemporary genetic culture. Keywords Jürgen Habermas, genetic culture, paradigm information, science and lifeworld, discourse ethics 

Recovering Ethical Life: Jurgen Habermas and the Future of Critical Theory

1996 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
William Outhwaite ◽  
J. M. Bernstein ◽  
Lorenzo C. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Future

Sovereignty in Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Grimm
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Member States ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the question of who is sovereign in the relationship between the European Union and its Member States. It first considers the relevance of the debate over sovereignty in the EU and the development of the concept of sovereignty, paying attention to public powers form the substance of sovereignty, Jürgen Habermas’ theory of dual sovereignty, and the relevant provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. It then explores the problem of whether one should maintain the concept of sovereignty or recognize that the era of post-sovereignty has begun. It argues that it makes sense to address the question of who is sovereign in the EU, suggesting that the answer will determine the future course of European integration. It also analyses which concept of sovereignty is best suited to understand and explain the EU.

scholarly journals Habermas and Ratzinger on the Future of Religion

2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-473
Author(s):  
Michael Welker
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Legal Power ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Future

AbstractThe article investigates the encounter between Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas in Munich 2004. The event was widely regarded as a conversation about the topic ‘The Pre-Political Moral Foundations of a Liberal State’. It was praised as a dialogue between the ‘personification of the Catholic faith’ and ‘the personification of liberal, individual and secular thought’ with far-reaching consequences. A close analysis of the texts, however, shows that Ratzinger and Habermas think in quite incompatible frameworks with very different concerns. They both share a sceptical attitude towards scientific ideology and they both show a remarkable lack of cultural and political realism. Habermas assumes that civil-societal elites will transform moral concerns into political and legal power. Ratzinger hopes for a revival of natural law tradition which would overcome the ‘pathologies of reason’ and political and religious fanaticism.

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