value bottle. “I suggest that the long-term goal for astrobiology and society is to enhance the richness and diversity of life in the Universe,” avers NASA’s Christopher McKay [2.47].
No one debates whether or not to value life. Yet, just how we value life has become a quandary. “Whether secular or theological, the most important question about the foundations for ethical value turns on the distinction between intrinsic value—value independent of a valuing agent—and instrumental value—value in relation to something else like the needs of humans” [2.26]. Steven Dick, former holder of the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, turns on this distinction to develop a cosmocentric ethic. The cosmos has intrinsic value, concludes Dick. Or, perhaps more modestly, a cosmocentric ethic will stretch the scope of terrestrial human valuing beyond anthropocentrism or even geocentrism to incorporate extraterrestrial life in both microbial and intelligent forms. Dick’s cosmocentric ethic “establishes the universe and all or part of its life as a priority rather than just humans or even terrestrial life in general” [2.26]. Where Dick puts cosmocentrism, I put the galactic common good.
Is it possible for anthropocentric and geocentric earthlings to transcend their own myopia? Yes, according to astrotheologian Andreas Losch, “We cannot avoid some anthropocentric bias, but we humans are also the ones who can speculate beyond the bounds of our experience” [2.41]. The shift toward a galactic or even cosmocentric perspective will require a realistic respect for the tension existing within our human nature: our proclivity toward self-centered myopia in tension with our capacity to speculate broadly and altruistically.
Dick’s proposal of a cosmocentric ethic—in conjunction with my proposal for a galactic common good—compels us to ask: What do we already value? Do we actually value the safety, welfare, and future health of Planet Earth? Our ecoethicists say, no. They complain bitterly that de facto the human race values its home planet too little. Even with enlightened self-interest as a motive, we planetary citizens have befouled our terrestrial home. One might reasonably ask: If we terrestrials have befouled our own planetary nest, might we do the same for every off-Earth site we visit? [2.9].
Geocentric values are constantly assaulted by rival greeds. Even high-minded Enlightenment values—freedom, equality, justice, dignity, peace—are left orphaned by the vicious competition for economic survival if not domination. Arnould, using the metaphor of evolution, fears that what has happened on Earth may be repeated in space [2.4] [2.5]. The human attitude of domination of the fittest (or, sometimes also, of survival) leads to growing terrestrial pollution, toxic waste, even climate change which will modify, in a few decades, the level of the oceans, the rain pattern, the distribution of the deserts and the cultivatable zones.
To avoid the same polluting of space with earthling myopia, Arnould draws on the equivalent of intrinsic value and proposes that we “santuarize” outer space. By recognizing that space “transcends all our actual economic motivations …. It is probably the role of national and international space agencies to devise and introduce rules of effective control, and create conditions that would govern any form of exploitation still to come from space” [2.2]. In short, Arnould recommends that, by “sanctuarizing” space, our policy-setting transcends the vested interest of nations and businesses.
If “sanctuary” here connotes precedents already set on Earth for wildlife sanctuaries or protected parks, then I concur that setting a policy of sanctuarization of space would be consistent with our fundamental values. Yet, it could mean more. It could imply communion between what is natural and what is distinctively human; and this communion spawns moral power. Ecoethicist Cynthia Moe-Lobeda testifies how “human moral power flows primarily from deep communion between God, human creatures, and the broader community of life” [2.51]. Or, “the sacramental communion—God incarnate in us and among us as human communities and as a planetary or even cosmic community of life—is a locus of moral power” [2.51]. In a moment I will lift up the concept of a “galactic commons,” one way in which such values can empower us and lead to policy formation.
2.2.2.1 Science and Value
The question—What do we value?—takes on complexity and nuance when drawing science into the picture. The place of science raises two challenges. First, if science is value-neutral, then all the ethicist can do is paint values over science, distorting science. Second, whichever moral color the ethicist selects will seem to be arbitrary, merely the color of the moral painter’s subjective choice. Let us look at these two challenges in turn.
First, should we paint science with an ethical brush? If we do, would ethical deliberation distort value-free science? Or, should we ask a bit critically: Can science actually claim to be value-neutral in the first place? Scientists certainly strive for objectivity, employing multiple tests by blind referees to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis. Such honest rigor is to be commended, even applauded. Yet, beneath the value-free patina, scientific research is always guided by either a worldview or by someone’s vested interests. Big science as practiced today requires funding, and funding is supplied only by funders who are expressing their agendas.
Money talks. Power speaks. Space Studies researcher Mark Bullock alerts us to the force of financial influence. “The role science will play in determining the quality of life for every human being on the planet is of course determined by the elite that funds science. In this way all scientific enterprise is embedded in the greater moral problem of how individuals and groups should conduct themselves” [2.10].4 In short, follow the money.
However, following the money is not enough. All moral issues cannot be reduced to money. A more subtle concern must be addressed. We must ask whether values or morals or obligations are inherent to scientific research and technological development, or if the ethicist must add it. Alternatively, we might ask whether values are inherent to the subject matter science studies—namely, nature—so that, even if science is value-neutral, nature is not?5 Might we find value concerns rising up either from nature itself or from the science we employ to explain nature? If the answer is affirmative in either case, then science and value come together in a single package; and to separate science from value would constitute an abstraction.
To say it another way: human life is fundamentally and inextricably embedded in nature; and this embeddedness is already value-laden. Therefore, when the scientific method excises only objective data from our already value-rich experience with nature—drawing a picture of nature as valueless—this amounts to an abstraction. The value-free conclusion of science is actually an assumption; it is a circular argument that does not account for our fundamental relationship of the human within nature.
Despite the abstractive component to this method, we will operate here with the hypothesis that ethics and what science learns about nature are co-original; they belong together in the relationship between nature, science, and the wider culture.
When nature herself emits value, the ethicist does not simply paint values over an otherwise neutral physical world. The ethicist needs to demonstrate that the values already at work in scientific discovery can be subjected to analysis, their presuppositions exposed and made available for ethical critique. With existing value assumptions then out in the light, the ethicist can coax the researcher toward self-conscious realism, authenticity, and care. Research scientists, in large part, concur. UNESCO rejoices in that “the world of scientific and technical research now regards ethical reflection as an integral part of the development of its own domain” [2.30]. An Astroethics of Responsibility will rely on the hypothesis that science and ethics belong intrinsically together; and we will see just how illuminating this exercise might be.
2.2.2.2 Religious Reliance on the Common Good
In addition to hypothesizing that ethics is inherent within the scientific interpretation of nature, should the scientific
