Title: Moral responsibility and the business and sustainable development assemblage: a Jonasian ethics for the technological age

Authors: Tommy Jensen

Addresses: Umea School of Business, Umea University, Sweden

Abstract: In this paper, it is argued that sustainable development is stuck in the myth of progress, wherein instrumental rationality, trust in good prognoses and the ethics of |here| and |now| are unwarily followed. With this assumption at hand, an alternative view on morality is developed where a morality of fear, a categorical imperative and two axioms, are developed. The conclusion is that if a Jonasian (Jonas, 1984) ethics is approved, then it is possible to pursue real alternatives to the current myth of progress and to judge those decisions that endanger human existence, or the idea of man, as immoral.

Keywords: business; categorical imperative; ethics; Hans Jonas; morality; sustainable development; sustainability; moral responsibility; morality of fear; myth of progress.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2007.016061

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2007 Vol.2 No.1, pp.116 - 129

Published online: 03 Dec 2007 *

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