IGNAZ BREGENZER (1844-1906) A BRIEF HOMMAGE TO THE MOST IMPORTANT SOURCE OF FRITZ JAHR’S IDEAS ON ANIMAL ETHICS

Abstract

The work of Fritz Jahr (1895-1953), the theologian and teacher from Halle
(Germany), was discovered relatively lately, suggesting that it had been Jahr to
author the term and the concept of bioethics (in 1926) as a discipline advocating the
broadening of Kant’s categorical imperative onto animals and plants (the so-called
„bioethical imperative“). The sources used by Jahr were numerous and
heterogeneous, but some of them seem to have been more important and, obviously,
influenced Jahr’s ideas much more. To that particular group, certainly Ignaz
Bregenzer (1844-1906) has to be ascribed, a personality to which no sufficient
attention has been devoted as yet. He authored the comprehensive book thier-Ethik:
Darstellung der sittlichen und rechtlichen beziehungen zwischen mensch und thier
[Animal ethics: a presentation of moral and legal relations between the man and the
animal; 1894], quoted also by Fritz Jahr, as well as the study „Thierisches
Sittlichkeits- und Rechtsgefühl“ [Animal sense of morality and justice], published in
the journal Deutscher thierfreund in 1901. In the present paper, commented are
major ideas – crucial to Bregenzer’s opus – advocated in the later work.