and then it becomes galactic ethics [2.59].
In what follows we will lay the foundation and begin the superstructure for a refined astroethics to aid in formulating public policy. In laying the foundation we will pose three quandary questions: Who are we? What do we value? What should we do? The cumulative answers to these three questions will lead to a foundation we will label “Astroethics of Responsibility” [2.63].
Atop this foundation we will frame a superstructure of quandaries regarding specific astroethical issues. The load-bearing vertical supports will include: (1) the moral agent: Earth; (2) the moral norm: the galactic common good; (3) the moral spheres: the solar neighborhood and the Milky Way metropolis; (4) the moral justification: a theological apprehension of the common good combined with a naturalistic apprehension of the Golden Rule.
The floor plan will designate a conference room for each of thirteen previously formulated ethical quandaries. Ten of these quandaries lie within the sphere of the solar neighborhood: (1) planetary protection; (2) intrinsic value of off-Earth biospheres; (3) application of the Precautionary Principle; (4) space debris; (5) satellite surveillance; (6) weaponization of space; (7) scientific versus commercial space exploration; (8) terraforming Mars; (9) establishing human settlements on Mars; and (10) anticipating natural space threats [2.63]. Three quandaries lie within the sphere of the Milky Way metropolis: engagement with intelligent extraterrestrials who are (1) less intelligent than Earth’s Homo sapiens; (2) ETI equal in intelligence; and (3) ETI superior in intelligence in both biological and postbiological forms [2.58].
2.2 Laying the Foundation for an Astroethics of Responsibility
When NASA launched the New Horizons probe to Pluto in 2006, the Earth-relative launch speed was 36,000 miles per hour. After its sling from Earth’s orbital motion, it sailed toward the edge of our Solar System at 100,000 miles per hour. By 2018 the NASA launch of the Parker Solar Probe included an orbital velocity of 430,000 miles per hour. Science moves fast. Can ethics keep up?
“Space ethics appear today as a new terra incognita, an unknown country,” writes Jacques Arnould, astroethicist at France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). For this reason Arnould likens space ethicists to pioneers. As pioneers, space ethicists should begin their journey with humility, seeking first to learn the new territory. “That is the reason too why the first challenge is not to organize, to legalize and to reduce ethics to its repressive aspect. At the present time, we need to explore the field of space ethics. We need to determine the responsibilities; and to debate them. Major decisions about space cannot remain in the hands of individual leaders or the property of politic, scientific or financial lobbies” [2.2]. Here I intend to “determine the responsibilities” by constructing an Astroethics of Responsibility.
Astroethicists are pioneers. While astrobiologists are exploring the heavens, the ethicists are exploring the astrobiologists. Astrobiology needs more than science to explore astroethics. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson puts a fence around science. “The methods of science have little or nothing to contribute to ethics, inspiration, morals, beauty, love, hate, or aesthetics. These are vital elements of civilized life, and are central to the concerns of every religion. What it all means is that for many scientists there is no conflict of interest” [2.84]. For ethical inspiration, the astroethicist must draw upon extrascientific sources. In this case, we will draw on the religious notion of the common good and the naturalistic notion of responsibility.
The core maxim derived from a naturalistic contribution to responsibility ethics is this: respond with care. I rely for this core maxim on the late Hans Jonas, a Jewish philosopher who parses the role of the “ought” when envisioning what “ought” to be done. Responsibility responds to the “forward determination of what is to be done,” he observes. “First comes the ought-to-be of the object, second the ought-to-do of the subject who, in virtue of his power, is called to care” [2.36]. As living creatures, we are called by the natural domain to care. We are to care for all that lives. “Only what is alive, in its constitutive indigence and fragility, can be an object of responsibility” [2.36].3 In this treatment I explore the question: can Jonas’ notion of responsibility help us lay the foundation for an Astroethics of Responsibility [2.63]? My answer is affirmative.
2.2.1 First Foundational Question: Who Are We?
How do we ground our ethics when we earthlings are looking at the sky? By grounding I mean justifying. Ethics, as the theory underlying moral action, cannot simply ride the winds of whim or personal preference. Its foundation needs to be cemented down. How are we going to do this?
We can begin the planting process by asking three fundamental questions: Who are we? What do we value? What should we do? Let us address each of these in turn; and then we will address the issues already on our list.
Who are we? Evolution has made us into responders. According to theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, responsibility ethics is grounded in human nature. “What is implicit in the idea of responsibility is the image of man-the-answerer, man engaged in dialogue, man acting in response to action upon him” [2.54]. An astroethics of responsibility could be grounded in the responsive trait belonging to our human nature.
Who are we? By we here I mean the entire human race on planet Earth. Inherent in asking about astroethics for earthlings is the question: Who speaks for Earth? [2.83]. How could we justify a moral agent that does not build on responsibility to humanity and of humanity in the form of a single planetary society?
A single planetary society becomes a community of moral deliberation when addressing the relationship between Earth and what is off-Earth. Our solar neighborhood or the Milky Way metropolis is not the private property of one nation; nor is an off-Earth site the claim of whichever team of astronauts arrives first. The competition and rivalry that plague our everyday territorial claims on Earth must be superseded by a global community about to enter the space environment which surrounds all of us.
This single Earth community does not exist yet, even though the United Nations has been working with this concept of the we at least since 1967. The 1967 UN Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, stipulated: “§ 1. The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind. § 2. Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies” [2.85]. After looking toward the heavens, we earthlings look back at each other and recognize a newly founded unity. Octavio Chon-Torres notes: “The treaty of outer space is a good example of how our expansion in the Universe should help us to conceive [of] ourselves as a united humankind” [2.13].
Our first moral responsibility is to work toward the establishment of a single planetary society, which may in time become expanded into a galactic moral community. Here is the warrant: virtually every decision regarding what earthlings do in space will have repercussions for every resident of Earth. Therefore, the concept of planetary ethics includes, among other things, representative participation. We can envision a future replete with a single universal humanity; and we can incarnate that vision proleptically by acting now out of that vision. Our first obligation is to become who we are: the one people of Earth, diverse in the past but united in the future.
2.2.2 Second Foundational Question: What Do We Value?
Life.
