That nature does not care, one way or the other, is the true abyss. That only man cares, in his finitude facing nothing but death, alone with his contingency and the objective meaninglessness of his projecting meanings, is a truly unprecedented situation.. Will replaces vision; temporality of the act outsts the eternity of the "good-in-itself"As the product of the indifferent, his being, too, must be indifferent. Then the facing of his morality would simply warrant the reaction "let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." There is no point in caring for what has no sanction behind it in any creative intention. . Hans Jonas
About This Quote

The great philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, was probing the idea of man's free will. He believed that man is free to choose his thoughts and feelings, but that choice is limited by his existence. Man is faced with an existence that is pre-determined by his own past. If he seeks to create meaning for himself, then he must be willing to accept the reality of his existence. If he refuses to accept this reality, then he will always face a world in which there is no point in his actions.

Source: The Phenomenon Of Life: Toward A Philosophical Biology

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More Quotes By Hans Jonas
  1. That nature does not care, one way or the other, is the true abyss. That only man cares, in his finitude facing nothing but death, alone with his contingency and the objective meaninglessness of his projecting meanings, is a truly unprecedented situation.. Will replaces vision;...
  2. Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.
  3. It is a changing world because of the newcomers who keep arriving and who leave us behind. Trying to keep pace with them is doomed to inglorious failure, especially as the pace has quickened so much.
  4. It was once religion which threatened us with a last judgment at the end of days. It is now our tortured planet which predicts the arrival of such a day without any heavenly intervention.
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