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The fragmentary reflections presented here are extracted from a much larger body of work in progress, viz., an Essay on Ethics in the Age of Technology. Just a few words on this by way of background to what follows. The major premise of the work is: that, with the wielding of contemporary (and foreseeably still rising) technological power, the nature and scope of human action has decisively changed; the minor premise: that a relevant ethics must match the types and powers of action for which it is to provide the norms; the conclusion follows: that we must review, and if necessary revise, ethical theory so as to bring it into line with what it has to deal with now and for some time to come. Thus, one has to look at the actions on the one hand, and at the theory of ethics on the other hand. A first obvious finding then is: that the actions that ethics has to deal with now have an unprecedented causal reach into the future. This, together with the sheer magnitude of the effects, moves "responsibility" into the center of ethics, where it has never stood before. And that, in turn, demands an examination of this new arrival on the stage of ethical theory, i.e., an investigation into the nature of responsibility.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4613-3303-6_4

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