Abstract

The oeuvre of Hans Blumenberg, while wide-ranging, devotes scant attention to the subject of ethics. An exception comes in the form of several shorter pieces written in the early 1950s as part of an unfinished work on the intellectual history of technology. The essays emerged during the nihilism debate, in which not only Martin Heidegger and Ernst Jünger but also many less wellknown philosophers such as Walter Bröcker and Ludwig Landgrebe drew on the concept of nihilism in an attempt to explain the civilizational rupture of National Socialism. In the essays, which remain mostly unpublished, Blumenberg sketches a philosophy of freedom that borrows heavily from Kant and stands opposed to the existentialism of Sartre popular at the time. Some of his explorations of ethical questions are in part based on everyday problems and as such address the general public as well as philosophical audiences.