Nature...

Nature, too, for it has fallen under mankind’s power and depends to a great extent on our knowledge, on our decisions, and in general on the progress of human society. The ethics of responsibility is an uncertain one, one which has given up certainty in favour of respect for reality, which accepts the inescapable risk of action, so much so that the fear of that risk is in part what serves it as a prudential guide ( heuristic of fear ).

It is indeed this fallibilistic attitude that will lead to a demand for a constant openness to the future. Jonas’ texts in this regard are perfectly clear: ‘The one paradoxical certainty here is that of uncertainty.’[^69] ‘We know, if nothing else, that most of these will be changed. It is the difference between a static and a dynamic situation. Dynamism is the signature of modernity. It is not an accident, but an immanent property of the epoch, and until further notice it is our fate.

It bespeaks the fact that we must always figure on novelty without ever being able to figure it out; that change is certain, but not what the changed condition will be ‘[^70] . Of the politician he says: ‘For no general rule of ethics can make it a duty, on the mere criterion of subjective certainty, to risk committing possibly fatal mistakes at others’ expense. Rather must he who wagers on his own certainty take the never excludable possibility of being in error upon his own conscience.

For this, there exists no general law, only the free deed, which in the unassuredness of its eventual justification (even in the mere presumption of its self-confidence, which surely cannot be part of any moral prescription) is entirely its own venture.’[^71] .

‘ All Statesmanship Is Responsible for the Possibility of Future Statesmanship * * [...] Nonetheless – remembering what we have said before – even the most skeptical estimate of historical prognosis leaves at least one basic certainty, itself a prognosis, that political spontaneity will remain necessary at all times, precisely because the excessively intricate web of events will, in principle, never conform to plan[^72] .

‘We contend that to build upon this certainty [...] is at least as irresponsible as was [...] to rely on the uncertain.