Karl Jaspers on the Atomic Bomb and Responsibility

• In his treatment of the atomic bomb, Karl Jaspers identified new dimensions for the concept of responsibility by relating it to the destructive potency of this new weaponry. The essay examines the concept of responsibility and its meanings in Jaspers' work by examining various contexts of intellectual history; furthermore, it addresses the discourses on the nuclear technology of the 1950s, the etymology of responsibility, as well as the concept of responsibility within politics and international relations. Jaspers ingeniously anticipated the increasing awareness of world responsibility of the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, philosophers pointed out the long-term global dimensions of responsibility, including nuclear proliferation and environmental threats. Today one can recognize in much nationalist and populist rhetoric an insurgency against world responsibility, which makes it timely to return to its origins.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Idé- och lärdomshistoria (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- History of Ideas (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Jaspers

Karl; atomic bomb; nuclear proliferation; responsibility; world responsibility; peace; conceptual history; contexts.

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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