Bioethics and livable lives for the future

A political articulation between Hans Jonas' Ethics of Responsibility and Judith Butler's idea of support

Abstract

This paper is born out of the interpellation originated in the vulnerability of the planet – in its diversity and forms of life – due to human action. A possible answer – within the framework of the debates that open up from bioethics – can be elaborated from a dialogue between the Ethics of Responsibility of the German philosopher Hans Jonas and the notion of support in the ontology of the social according to the American thinker Judith Butler. Opposing individualistic positions, being the discussion of these two authors will provide us with a perspective where the human – always in dispute – is defined by its constitutive vulnerability, by being sustained and by its interdependence, concepts which are strongly connected to the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights. The struggle against the real threat that weighs upon the environment must be incorporated into the other conditions for the possibility to make all lives livable.