Fritz Jahr’s Bioethical Imperative: Its Origin, Point, and Influence

摘要

In this article I attempt to interpret the particular sense in which Fritz Jahr employs his Bioethical Imperative. I explain not only the particular way in which it is related to Van Rensselaer Potter’s notion of Bioethics but also the sense in which it has been influenced by Kant’s Categorical Imperative. As it turns out, Jahr’s Bioethical Imperative not only is not a reversal or a criticism of Kant’s Categorical Imperative but, on the contrary, is an extension of it, something which brings out the deep similarities which underlie the views of the two thinkers.