Životinjska duša i životinjska prava. Pitanja i odgovori (o) filozofiji Hansa Jonasa
Animal Soul and Animal Rights Questions and Answers (on) of Hans Jonas’ Philosophy

Summary/Abstract: In every philosophy and each science dealing with living beings and nature, the question of survival is inevitable. This question represents also a trial for every theory of life and nature. However, not all answers to that question are direct and extensive, especially when the ethical implications of those theories are concerned. This is also basically valid for the Hans Jonas’ case, regardless of the fact that his philosophy, brought about on the crossroads of metaphysics, ontology, biology, ethics and politics, is significant for contemporary discussions on moral status of animals and animal rights. Nevertheless, there are only few explicit reports on this 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 first part of this lecture will be dealing with setting up a draft of Jonas’ philosophy of biology, with his notion of “animal soul” especially scrutinized. The second part of the lecture will inspect those elements of Jonas’ ethics which justify the interpretation of his work in a zoo-ethical and bioethical key.

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