Walter Schweidler

Zweckfreiheit – Warum die Demokratie ihre ethischen Bedingungen nicht vergessen darf

Von Churchill ist sinngemas das Wort uberliefert, dass die Demokratie zwar eine schlechte Regierungsform, aber doch bisher die beste unter allen je ausprobierten sei. Wie immer man zu dieser Ansicht steht, sie macht zumindest auf einen Umstand aufmerksam, der in Zeiten scheinbar selbstverstandlicher politischer Stabilitat leicht in Vergessenheit gerat.

Das Selbstverhältnis des Menschen und der Grund seiner Würde

Nach dem modernen Grundverstandnis von Staatlichkeit legitimiert sich Herrschaft unter Menschen republikanisch, das heist, durch den Auftrag der Regierten an die Regierenden. Der Staat entsteht demnach nicht von Natur aus, sondern legitimiert sich durch einen Willensakt seiner Burger. Aber: Er legitimiert sich eben dadurch. Er versteht sich also nicht als reines Machtgebilde. Und gerade weil er sich nicht als ursprungliche Herrschaftsinstanz versteht, kann und muss er sich vor dem rechtfertigen, was seine Burger vor ihm sind – und das nennen die grosen Theorien, die das neuzeitliche Legitimationskonzept begrundet haben, den status naturalis. Noch bei John Rawls wird die Entdeckung der „moralischen Natur des Menschen“ beansprucht.

Time and Trace : The Mirror of Time

Diego Velazquez’s Las Meninas is certainly one of the philosophically most interesting, most ambitious and most discussed paintings of all times. It contains a philosophical thesis or insight that can be interpreted in several ways but that also forces the interpreter to come to a precise decision concerning the concrete scenery that is reproduced in this painting. The content of this decision can be characterized quite concretely by the question of the painting’s mirror, which is constitutive for that scenery. The question is if this constitutive mirror is the one that we see in the painting, that is, the visible mirror showing the appearance (or the portrait) of the Spanish royal couple, or if it is an invisible mirror that has disappeared in the painting as we see it now. If the second interpretation is right, then the whole painting is essentially covering the tracks of what is going on in the picture. But what is going on in it? This question has an answer that is widely shared by philosophical interpreters: Las Meninas is a “painting of painting” or a “picture of picture,” that is, a monument of self-referentiality. When we accept this widely shared view and if we apply to it the second interpretation (the hypothesis of the hidden mirror), then the result is that what is at the same time shown and hidden in this picture is the time in which it has been painted. It is—like perhaps every picture or painting—in its essence a transformation of succession into simultaneity; but it is—unlike perhaps any other painting—a presentation not of the result of this transformation but of the process in which it is going on. It presents the time of its creation as a trace covered up by itself.

Heimat im Leib Zur ontologischen Bedeutung des Leibes

Was ist Wirklichkeit? Das ist eine Frage, die prinzipiell nicht durch Entdeckungen beantwortet werden konnte, die uns noch bevorstehen. Denn was immer Inhalt einer solchen Entdeckung sein konnte, mussten wir ja beurteilen auf der Basis von Kriterien, die wir bereits im Umgang mit Wirklichem gewonnen haben. Auch wenn wir noch so wesentliche Weichenstellungen aufdecken wurden, die sich etwa kurz nach dem „Urknall“ oder sogar durch ihn hindurch ergeben haben, hatten wir nur eine, wenn auch vielleicht unubertrefflich umfassende, Beschreibung dessen gegeben, was sich an Wirklichem seit damals und bis heute ereignet und vielleicht auch, warum es sich ereignet hat; aber was „Wirklichkeit“ im Unterschied zu allem nicht Wirklichen ausmacht, hatten wir dadurch nicht erklart und konnten wir auch auf diese Weise niemals erklaren.

On the Social Origin of Time in Language

The relation of a human person towards the whole of his or her life is paradigmatic for the nature of temporal beings in general. In ourselves as living beings we find the only possible answer to the question what is time and what it means to exist in time. There is a paradox in the self-relation of temporal beings which can be rooted in the institutional structures of human societies by which our self-experience is transformed into the symbolic representation of reality in general. There must be an original content of language that cannot be translated but only protected and saved by means of sociocultural procedures. This chapter begins with a quotation from Heidegger characterizing the tricky relation between time and human existence. It ends with a quotation marking the problem on which we will have to work to understand the origin of time in our scientific language. Keywords:human society; language; social origin; sociocultural procedure; temporal being; time

The Time of Freedom

Abstract The question of the beginning and end of time raises philosophical problems which lead into the core of J.T. Fraser’s thinking. In reference to some features of his work one can show the relevance of metaphysical ideas like the concept of an ontological plurality of times and especially the idea of an absolute past. This idea has been developed in systematic form by the German idealist thinker Schelling. Schelling speaks of a reality which is in itself neither temporal nor eternal but has limitations which only in relation to the time of our universe are turned into a temporal structure. In this view, which is also important for the understanding of current phenomenological positions (Levinas, Marion), there is a second time, a “temps perdu,” which is equidistant from any new event in our universe including its possible beginning and end.

Die Kultur des Lebens

Wenn es uberhaupt eine philosophische Rechtfertigung fur die seit Locke mit dem modernen Staatsverstandnis verbundene Trias der originaren Rechte des Menschen geben soll, dann kann sie nur darin liegen, dass Leben, Freiheit und Eigentum sich als die drei Kerndimensionen des Verhaltnisses von Personen zu sich, zu einander und zu allen Sachen begreifen lassen. So gesehen, ist mit der fundamentalen Bedeutung, die diese Trias fur den modernen Rechtsstaat hat, aus christlicher Sicht der Respekt vor dem Ursprung unseres Daseins, der Respekt vor unserer Personalitat, zur eigentlichen Legitimationsquelle dieses Staates geworden. Es ist daher erstaunlich, wie schwer sich insbesondere die katholische Kirche getan hat, bis sie den Menschenrechtsgedanken als Legitimationsbasis des Staates akzeptieren und spatestens mit der Pastoralkonstitution Gaudium et Spes des II. Vatikanum ubernehmen konnte. Vor allem wurde es damit deshalb hochste Zeit, weil die Kirche im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, spatestens seit der geschichtlichen Wende von 1989, zu einer der weltweit wichtigsten Verteidigerinnen des modernen Staates gegen die Gefahren werden musste, die ihm gerade durch den Verlust des Bewusstseins seiner Legitimitatsbasis von innen her drohen.

GIBT ES EINE MORALISCHE PFLICHT ZUR ORGANSPENDE? THESEN ZU EINEM UMSTRITTENEN THEMA

Many people in central Europe look upon bioethics as an import from the UnitedStates. Yet this impression is mistaken in various respects. When Bill Clinton decided to setup a federal-level permanent committee for the fi eld of bioethics, he was actually following atrend already established by Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sloveniaand Belgium. Indeed, France was the fi rst country to take such an initiative. The advantage ofa permanent advisory body over ad hoc committees is that it can deliberate on a wider range ofissues, have greater latitude to pursue specifi c issues independently and be consulted not only byconstitutional bodies but also by private persons and organisations. However, the broader rangeof issues addressed and the greater authority enjoyed by a permanent body makes the task ofsecuring expertise and plurality more demanding. Most European states have therefore endeavouredto lay down solid ground rules, usually through legislation. In the overwhelming majorityof cases, their members must be appointed by different constitutional bodies but also by researchand educational establishments; others, like Norway or Italy, attempt to ensure plurality by defi ningthe disciplines and philosophical positions to be taken into consideration. The paper discusses the role of national ethics bodies between ‘academic’ and ‘bureaucratic’bioethics as well as between philosophical analysis, public debate and participation and politicaldecision-making.The author thematizes the issue of pluri-perspectivistic grounding of integrativebioethics. The analysis begins with the exposition of the integrative program of bioethics, thusovercoming the ethics in politics by taking in consideration the need for legal and political regulationof the bioethical questions in context of minimal consensus. The expose continues in settingup the relation between bioethics and biopolitics, as well as bioethics and technology.The author refers to biomedical and genetic aspects of human cloning, and theirinfl uences on the ethical and legal aspects of human cloning. Human cloning is a part of geneticengineering, however it is still in an experimental phase. It refers to gene cloning, DNA cloning,cell and tissue cloning, and organism cloning. Organism clone is a genetically identical duplicateof the original entity, and it is produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which the nucleusof an egg cell (containing its genetic material) is removed and replaced with the nucleus of asomatic cell taken from the body of an adult. Another method refers to splitting of an embryo inearly stages. As to applying cloning methods, there are two methods, the fi rst implies reproductionof entire organisms, and the second refers to stem cells production, that are used for therapeuticalpurposes. The cloning implies questioning of identity and purpose of the clone itself, anddraws numerous ethical and legal implications. The ethical issue of cloning is still lingering, andremains unsolved and therefore the whole problem is shifted to the legal grounds.The article poses the question of „boundaries“ of life. The term life refers to thatwhich is organic, and to culture (society) which has its own „life expectancy“ aswell. Discourseon life of the cultures is relevant to their own relation to life, and hence for the bioethical question.The author begins with thesis that every culture forms its own relation towards biologicallife and other cultures, setting therefore the different boundaries during the course of history.Boundaries refers to limitations of life conditions of the animal world, but also to limitationsof human’s life – freedom inside the culture and freedom of autonomic progress of the cultures(societies). Limitations of life are not lessening within democratic society. In that context, threetheses are being explored: (1) Thanks to the science and technique, boundary of life becomesmovable, so that man lives longer. At the same time, cultural imperialism shortens or jeopardizeslife of many cultures (societies); (2) The degree of the control over life (by ecological conditions and social conditions) is being increased. The most powerful are those techniques and largeinternational systems which prescribe regimes of life as limitations of life. (3) Global ecosystemis maintained thanks to the numerous ecosystems being intertwined. It tends to preserve itsstructure and stability (laws of ecodynamics opposite to law of thermodynamics – entropy). Theconsequences of boundaries are (1) man’s physical and mental accommodation to systems of lifecontrol in everydays life, in function of accepting the prescribed limits; (2) minimizing of thecultural diversity and global social imbalance; (3) inquiring and critique of the state of the society(system), instead of questioning the society (system) as such.In every philosophy and each science dealing with living beings and nature, thequestion of survival is inevitable. This question represents also a trial for every theory of lifeand nature. However, not all answers to that question are direct and extensive, especially whenthe ethical implications of those theories are concerned. This is also basically valid for the HansJonas’ case, regardless of the fact that his philosophy, brought about on the crossroads of metaphysics,ontology, biology, ethics and politics, is signifi cant for contemporary discussions onmoral status of animals and animal rights. Nevertheless, there are only few explicit reports onthis subject in Jonas’ opus. Therefore, the intent of this paper is to try and reconstruct a jonasian“zoo ethics” based upon Jonas’ texts. Accordingly, the fi rst part of this lecture will be dealingwith setting up a draft of Jonas’ philosophy of biology, with his notion of “animal soul” especiallyscrutinized. The second part of the lecture will inspect those elements of Jonas’ ethics whichjustify the interpretation of his work in a zoo-ethical and bioethical key.Most of the historians of philosophy know about the correspondence betweenElizabeth and Descartes only due to the problem which princess had suggested to philosopher,regarding the relation of body and soul. Not that many people, however, know that their lettersalso concerned manifold of subjects: those of geometry, physics and medicine, as much as ethicaland political questions. Undoubtedly, their correspondence testifi es about orrigination and alterationof some of the Descartes‘ philosophical thoughts, but by far it reveals how educated andtalented his correspondent was, and we can only regret because woman of such profi le, besidesthese letters, did not leave a philosophical work.The medical disciplines haematology and oncology as parts of Internal Medicineinclude the palliative care of critically ill and sometimes moribund patients. This often impliesmaking decisions at the end of life, that open up numerous ethical questions and confl icts, whichhave now increasingly become subject to a public debate. In this regard, palliative care of dyingpatients and the different possible ways of medically aided suicide have gained widespread attention.Thus, the increasing self-government of patients has changed the typical physician-patientrelationships and traditional paternalistic interactions. The justifi cation of actively aided suicidein moribund patients not only raises legal issues, but also various questions around the patients’self-determination on the one hand and responsible medical care on the other hand. The call forlegalizing medically aided suicide for patients, who explicitly opt for a shortening of the intolerableprocess of dying, is opposed by social concerns about the relativization of the culturally inheritedban of wilful homicide. Both opponents and supporters of this concept are arguing abouttheir interpretation of terms like personality, autonomy and pride. In this context, socio-culturalas well as individual perceptions of traded values in the sense of an anthropological interpretationplay an important role. It remains to be demonstrated that patient-oriented medical care isable to maintain the individual patient’s pride and self-determination, even under conditions ofan increasing institutionalization of the dying process as a consequence of demographic changes.On that background, the desire for premature termination of life on a voluntary or non-voluntarybasis through medical intervention appears rather dispensable. Such argumentation should resistthe concerns raised by consequentialistic and utilitarian ethics, provided that the reliance betweenphysician and patient proves as a discourse between morally-driven persons that extends beyondformal contracts. Medical ethics based on normative reasoning and deontological perspectivesare essential premises to achieve these goals.

Normkultur Versus Nutzenkultur: Über Kulturelle Kontexte von Bioethik Und Biorecht

No matter how much the fundamental questions of human co-existence, and with them increasingly questions of bioethics, have taken on global dimensions, the discussion of them - particularly in bioethics - does not take place in a context-free zone, but is firmly embedded in concrete life-worlds. In this, the contrast Normative Culture/Utilitarian Culture denotes a potentially conflictual fundamental polarity of modern life-worlds, which is presented phenomenologically in this volume for the first time, but is also seen in its normative aspect and from the viewpoint of the disciplines involved. The papers in this volume, taken from the fields of philosophy, theology, law, medicine and natural science, show the rich potential of this approach in both an empirical and a systematic respect. Acknowledged authorities give succinct answers to pressing questions which biotechnical advances must pose for the state, society and the individual.