The Moral Status of Extraterrestrial Life

Persson, Erik

doi:10.1089/ast.2011.0787

Cited by 34 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…If there is already life on a world set out to be exploited, it will have far reaching consequences for the exploitation plans due to the strong ethical implications of exploiting an inhabited world [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. What kind of moral obligations life on another world gives rise to, depends on what kind of life we are talking about.…”

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sentient life forms can experience what happens to them, which means that they have their own perspective from which what we do to them matters to them. They are in other words moral objects in their own right [29,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. As long as we talk about exploitation of our own solar system, the most probable life forms to encounter will be non-sentient microbial life, however.…”

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In that case our obligations will be more comprehensive. This is a controversial statement though and it is difficult to maintain that what we do to a non-sentient organism can matter to that organism (see [29] for an overview and discussion of some theories regarding the moral status of different types of extraterrestrial life). Even if we do not agree that non-sentient life forms have moral status interactions with non-sentient life will still not be ethically unproblematic, however.…”

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They will still have value for members of our species. Extraterrestrial life forms might be valued by many humans as ends in themselves [29]. They will probably also be considered very valuable as objects for scientific studies [29].…”

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Does It Take to Establish that a World Is Uninhabited Prior to Exploitation? A Question of Ethics as well as Science

Persson

2014

Challenges

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Abstract:If we find life on another world, it will be an extremely important discovery and we will have to take great care not to do anything that might endanger that life. If the life we find is sentient we will have moral obligations to that life. Whether it is sentient or not, we have a duty to ourselves to preserve it as a study object, and also because it would be commonly seen as valuable in its own right. In addition to this we would also have a duty to our fellow humans and other earthly life forms not to expose them to danger by advertently or inadvertently exposing them to potentially harmful space organisms. When space exploration turns into exploitation it will therefore be important to be able to show that a world that is up for exploitation is uninhabited before the exploitation starts. Showing that a world is uninhabited is, however, a different kind of task than showing that it is inhabited. The latter task can be accomplished through one positive finding but it is not clear how to go about the former task. In this paper I suggest that it is a gradual process asymptotically approaching certainty rather than a discovery in the traditional sense of the word. It has to be handled in two steps. The first is to connect degree of certainty with research setup. The second is to decide how certain we need to be. The first step is about the number, diversity and quality of observations. The second step is a decision we have to make based on the purpose of the investigation. The purpose and therefore the degree of certainty needed to establish that a world is uninhabited will be different for a world that is up for exploitation than for a world that is not. In the latter case it is only a matter of epistemic values. In the former case also ethical values have to be considered.

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Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Establishing Whether a World Is Inhabited mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

What Does It Take to Establish that a World Is Uninhabited Prior to Exploitation? A Question of Ethics as well as Science

Persson

2014

Challenges

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“…In 2012, I published an article on the moral status of different types of extraterrestrial life [1]. This paper was followed by a book chapter [2] in which I identified some philosophical questions in relation to astrobiology.…”

Section: Project Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethics and the Potential Conflicts between Astrobiology, Planetary Protection, and Commercial Use of Space

Persson

2017

Challenges

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A high standard of planetary protection is important for astrobiology, though the risk for contamination can never be zero. It is therefore important to find a balance. If extraterrestrial life has a moral standing in its own right, it will also affect what we have to do to protect it. The questions of how far we need to go to protect extraterrestrial life will be even more acute and complicated when the time comes to use habitable worlds for commercial purposes. There will also be conflicts between those who want to set a world aside for more research and those who want to give the green light for development. I believe it is important to be proactive in relation to these issues. The aim of my project is therefore to identify, elucidate, and if possible, suggest solutions to potential conflicts between astrobiology, planetary protection, and commercial use of space. Project DescriptionThe project is a continuation of some of my previous work on ethical issues in connection with astrobiology, planetary protection, and commercial use of space.Planetary protection is a technical and legal term with a very specific content. It deals with how to avoid biological contamination of other worlds (forward contamination) and of Earth (back contamination), in connection with space exploration. In order to make the project manageable and in order to focus on problems that specifically occur in space (rather than on Earth), the project will focus exclusively on forward contamination. I will also limit my investigation to deal with planetary protection as a decision under uncertainty, that is, as long as we do not know whether a world is inhabited or not. This is a limitation that seems to be implied in discussions and decisions about planetary protection in the space community, even though it is not explicitly stated. Once we know that a world is or is not inhabited, the situation and the considerations that need to be made will be very different and it will make sense to start talking about "extraterrestrial environmental protection" rather than "planetary protection".Planetary protection in the form of avoiding forward contamination is very important for astrobiology. When sending unmanned as well as manned missions to other worlds, it is vital to avoid contamination of that world. It is therefore easy to believe that there are no conflicts between astrobiology and planetary protection. This is not necessarily true, however. We know that total sterilization of humans and machines is impossible. We can obviously never completely sterilize humans. If we did, the humans would die too. We can go a bit further with machines but, essentially, the same is true for them. The electronics in a rover is usually more sensitive than at least some Earth microbes. We also know now that what kills some bacteria will cause others to flourish. This means that we need to find a balance between our efforts to find life and our efforts to protect it.Another potential source of conflict between astrobiology and planetary protection ha...

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The Extended Continuity Thesis, Chronocentrism, and Directed Panspermia

Ćirković

2021

Planet Formation and Panspermia

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The Moral Status of Extraterrestrial Life

Cited by 34 publications

References 20 publications

What Does It Take to Establish that a World Is Uninhabited Prior to Exploitation? A Question of Ethics as well as Science

What Does It Take to Establish that a World Is Uninhabited Prior to Exploitation? A Question of Ethics as well as Science

Ethics and the Potential Conflicts between Astrobiology, Planetary Protection, and Commercial Use of Space

The Extended Continuity Thesis, Chronocentrism, and Directed Panspermia

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