The “Will to Unlimited Power” of Technology:

an analysis through the lens of Hans Jonas

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze Jonas’s concept of the “will to unlimited power” as the driving force of modern technology and, at the same time, to demonstrate how such a diagnosis grounds the need for a new ethics. We begin by showing how this diagnosis is intertwined with the nihilistic perspective inherent to technology which, by claiming absolute freedom for its power-to-do, obliterates the ethical horizon. As modern technology ceased to be a mere means and became an end in itself, driven by the desire for boundless power, it turned into a “Prometheus unchained,” whose advance is propelled by science, which provides the theoretical basis, and by the economy, which commodifies everything. Next, we show how Jonas criticizes two central convictions of modern science: its alleged neutrality with regard to values and the claim to an unconditional right to freedom of research. For him, both lose validity in light of the fusion between theory and practice, since every scientific discovery generates practical effects of great magnitude and demands responsibility in its use. Scientific freedom, therefore, can no longer be absolute but must be tied to the public good. Finally, we indicate how Jonas underscores the structural ambivalence of technology, such that every innovation entails both benefits and risks, requiring the establishment of ethical and political limits. It is precisely here that we find the foundations of his proposal for an ethics of responsibility, guided by the anticipation of consequences, by “comparative futurology” and by the “heuristics of fear,” capable of fostering prudence and safeguarding the continuity of authentic human life on Earth. Far from making Jonas a technophobe, this positions him as a thinker of technology deeply concerned with its urgent and indispensable ethical orientation.