Hans Jonas

All previous ethics-whether in the form of issuing direct enjoinders to do and not to do certain things, or in the form of defining principles for such enjoinders, or in the form of establishing the ground of obligation for obeying such principles-had these interconnected tacit premises in common: that the human condition, determined by the nature of man and the nature of things was given once for all; that the human good on that basis was readily determinable; and that the range of human action and therefore responsibility was narrowly circumscribed.

— from Prinzip Verantwortung, 1984