Copyright © this translation Polity Press 2003

Chapter 1 was first published as “Begründete Enthaltsamkeit. Gibt es postmetaphysische Antworten auf die Frage nach dem ‘richtigen Leben’?” in Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?, © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001. Chapter 2 was first published as “Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik? Der Streit um das ethische Selbstverständnis der Gattung” in Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?, © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001. Chapter 3 was first published as “Glauben und Wissen” in Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels 2001, © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001.

First published in 2003 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Editorial office:

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Marketing and production:

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

108 Cowley Road

Oxford OX4 1JF, UK

Distributed in the USA by

Blackwell Publishing Inc.

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN 0-7456-2986-5

ISBN 0-7456-2987-3 (pb) only available in the UK

ISBN 978-0-7456-9411-5 (epub)

ISBN 978-0-7456-9318-7 (mobi)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and has been applied for from the Library of Congress.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

Chapter 1 was translated by William Rehg. The foreword and the postscript to chapter 2 were translated by Max Pensky. The main body of chapters 2 and 3 was translated by Hella Beister and Max Pensky. For the German origins of these chapters, please see details on the copyright page.

On the occasion of receiving the Dr Margrit Egnér Prize for the year 2000, I delivered a lecture on September 9 of that year at the University of Zurich that served as the basis for the first of the texts reproduced here. I proceed on the basis of a distinction between a Kantian theory of justice and a Kierkegaardian ethics of subjectivity, and defend the restraint that postmetaphysical thinking exercises regarding binding positions on substantive questions of the good or the un-misspent life. This is the contrasting background for an opposing question that arises in light of the debates touched off by genetic technology: Can philosophy tolerate this same restraint in questions of a species ethics as well?

The main text, an expanded version of the Christian Wolf Lecture given at Marburg University on June 28, 2001, is an entrance into this debate that does not relinquish the premises of postmetaphysical thinking. So far, this debate over genetic research and technology has circled around the question of the moral status of prepersonal human life without results. I therefore adopt the perspective of a future present, from which we might someday perhaps look back on currently controversial practices as the first steps toward a liberal eugenics regulated by supply and demand. Embryonic research and preimplantation genetic diagnosis excite strong emo-tions above all because they exemplify a danger that is bound to the metaphor of “human breeding.” Not without reason, we worry over the possible emergence of a thick intergenerational web of actions for which no one can be called to account, because it one-sidedly cuts vertically through the contemporary network of interactions. Therapeutic goals, by contrast, on which all genetic technological procedures ought to be based, draw narrow boundaries for each and every intervention. From the therapeutic perspective, one must assume an attitude toward a second person whose consent has to be taken into account.

The postscript to the main text, written at year's end, responds to objections less as a revision than as a clarification of my original intentions.

The third text is based on a speech I delivered on October 14, 2001, on the occasion of my reception of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. It takes up a question that has gained new relevance in the wake of September 11: What does an ongoing “secularization” within already secularized societies demand of the citizens of a democratic constitutional state, that is, from the faithful and the unfaithful alike?