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Ethical Obligations Towards Extraterrestrial Life
Gonzalo Munévar
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2020.03.003
Were we to encounter alien life in Mars or Europa, or thousands of years from now in some exo-planet, we would face the question of what ethical obligations we may have towards such life. Indeed, the question already has urgency, since the search for extant or fossil life in Mars is only months away, and so will be, in a few years, the exploration of Europa for the very purpose of looking for alien life. A proper answer should take into account the different varieties of alien life we might encounter: microbial, complex multicellular, animal, and intelligent life. Any sort of alien life would be of extraordinary scientific importance. Studying alien life can teach us a great deal about terrestrial life, for it would allow us to make important comparisons that would tell us to what extent our chemistry is the result of accidents of organic evolution or based on fundamental biological processes. A very likely consequence would be a revolution in our understanding of our own biology. Even microbial life would thus have at the very least extraordinary instrumental value for humanity, and thus we would have a very strong obligation to preserve it, unless we discover that it poses a great threat to human survival. As the complexity of alien life rises to, say, plant or animal life (or close-enough equivalents), its scientific value becomes far higher, and so does the strength of our obligation to preserve it. The instrumental value of alien life would be so high as to render the question of whether it also has implicit value not very practical. Intelligent alien life would offer special ethical problems, for the morality of species is influenced by their biology, and intelligent aliens would be the result of a likely different basic biology, and of a definitely different evolutionary history. Nevertheless, we can still try to come to an ethical “understanding” with them, insofar as communication does not prove impossible, by following the advice given by Peter Singer in The Expanding Circle: namely that we cannot assume that our interests are more important than theirs just because they are ours, and vice versa, i.e. we have to take each other’s interests with impartiality.
ALH84001, ultra-small bacteria, extraterrestial life, extraterrestial intelligence, moral evolution
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