Space Policy

Volume 30, Issue 4, November 2014, Pages 197–201

Space exploration and human survival ☆

 Gonzalo Munévar

Show more
doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2014.10.002
Get rights and content

Abstract
I am sympathetic to the view that, given the likelihood of massive natural disasters, such as
collisions between the Earth and large asteroids, we should engage in large-scale space
exploration and colonization so as to hedge our bets against extinction. I will consider several
criticisms of this view. For example, some philosophers may raise objections against the notion
of long-term human survival as a value. How can we have obligations towards beings who have
not even been conceived yet and thus cannot be properly said to have rights? On a different note,
Wendell Berry argues that the abundance of resources in space will produce bad character, for
good character requires the discipline of finitude. Others challenge the connection between space
exploration and survival, for they fear that by entertaining the promise of new Earths in the
heavens we are more likely to neglect our planet, thus leading to our downfall. Presumably, we
should instead increase our efforts to restore and preserve the balance of nature. I will advance a
variety of replies. For example, we do decide for posterity to a great extent. We may plant the
trees from which “our” descendants will receive nourishment and shade, or we may destroy what
could have given them a fighting chance against drought and famine. We have an obligation not
to plant a bomb that will go off two years from now in a hospital nursery, and another to ensure
that the buildup of chemicals in the hospital water tank will not reach critical mass and kill most
of the newborns in ten years. The “balance of nature” involved in another objection is a myth
that cannot be justified by natural history, whether astronomical or biological. Moreover, the
inevitable changes in the environment, independent of asteroid impacts, will make the Earth
uninhabitable in a few hundreds of millions and years. In addition, in order to act wisely we need
an understanding of the Earth as a planet, and this requires the exploration of space.

Keywords
 Ethics;
 Space exploration;
 Survival;
 Balance of nature

H.G. Wells said once that our choice is the universe or nothing [1]. He meant that failure to
move into the cosmos would condemn us to oblivion. As I have argued elsewhere, the way
humans view the world, the way we interact with the world, gives us a panorama of problems
and opportunities that will change as we strive to satisfy our curiosity, for a dynamic science
leads to a constantly evolving panorama. This allows us to adapt to a changing environment or to
a variety of environments [2]. If we choose the universe, we hedge our bets against extinction.

If this reasoning is correct, one would expect that most reasonable people would then find it as a
strong justification for the exploration and colonization of outer space. As it turns out, however,
objections to such a justification may still be presented by philosophers who question why
survival should be a value, and, in particular, why human survival should be a value. There are
also objections from some who oppose big science on ideological grounds. Thus Wendell Berry
argues that the abundance of resources in space will produce bad character, for good character
requires the discipline of finitude [3]. My purpose in this paper is to reply to several objections
along these two lines.

That the survival of the human species is a value may seem beyond question to most of us,
although there might be some who prefer extinction to bad character (not that I wish to suggest
here that Berry would go that far) or to decreased chances of spiritual salvation. But even
overwhelming agreement on the value of survival might not satisfy some thinkers in their more
philosophical moments. It seems that we value survival very highly, they might say, but why
should we so keen on leaving behind imperfect creatures much like ourselves?

In such philosophical moments, questioning a value is normally taken as a demand to identify

some other, more basic value from which the first one is derived. This is similar to how we
presumably justify actions: “This is the right action because it will bring about X and X is a good
thing.” But the more basic value (or good thing) that does the justifying can itself be questioned,
so we then look for an even more basic value (or good thing) until eventually we arrive at a good
thing that is not merely good but good in itself, that is, whose goodness does not depend on
anything but its own nature. We work because we get paid. Money is good because it allows us
to buy food and clothes, pay the rent, etc. We want to do those things because they contribute to
our happiness. And in happiness, Aristotle thought, we find an end that is complete and self-
sufficient [4]. The question “why do we want to be happy” makes no sense. Aristotle had in
mind not transient happiness, but a happy life as a whole. He also thought it was obvious that the
happiness of a society was of greater value than the happiness of a single individual. Of course,
there seems to be a clear connection between human happiness and human survival.
Since this approach grounds ethical justification on a human value, human happiness, some may
object that it is therefore relative to our own species. This objection seems to underpin the notion
that we should not prefer the good of our own species to that of other living things in our planet,
or even to the rocks of another planet. Oftentimes the objection is expressed as the view that
ethics and other disciplines of value are “objective” only insofar as their laws are eternal and
universal. As characterized by Peter Singer, who criticizes it, the view claims that “The laws of
Ethics … existed before there was life on our planet and will continue to exist when the sun has
ceased to warm the earth” [5]. Moreover, eternal (absolute) laws of ethics seem to demand
eternal (absolute) values. Thus, according to this peculiar view, a relative value such as human
happiness (or human survival) cannot provide an adequate justification for our actions.

Absolute values, however, are not all they are cracked up to be. Conflict may arise between two
or more absolute values. Or an absolute value may be of small significance in a particular
context and thus should yield to relative values. Besides, absolute laws could in principle be
derived from values that always depend on context or on subjective preference, i.e. relative. For
example, consider utilitarianism (i.e., roughly, the view that the balance of good vs. bad
consequences of an action--its utility--determine its rightness, given the utilities of the alternative
actions). At least one version of utilitarianism would calculate utility in accordance with the
values assigned by the individuals who would enjoy or suffer the consequences of the action
being contemplated [6].

I thus need not show that human survival is an absolute value, or that there must be an absolute
law of ethics that gives survival a very high priority. I appeal to it in order to show that space
exploration is in the interest of the species. When I point out that space exploration can save us
from the dangers posed by asteroids and the sun's becoming a red giant, I give a strong reason to
pursue it.

A reason in matters of prudence, or of ethics, need not be one that appeals to an absolute ground
of any kind. A reason must be a reason for action, and so it must be aimed to convince the
intended audience. This is not to say that efficacy alone is sufficient to commend reasons. The
fallacious reasoning of much advertisement may well appeal to the masses of the unwary but
would be exposed to ridicule in less superficial disputes. In some polemics the stakes and the
standards may be very high. This need not mean that some ideal is approached but that greater
care must be exercised to take into account the sorts of considerations that may be brought up by
all the parties concerned. And greater care must be exercised not because some of those parties
are in possession of truly higher standards of reason or a more direct line to the truth – they
might or might not – but precisely because we have more perspectives in play, because their
diversity demands a sharper, more comprehensive case if their potential objections are to be met.

To give ethical reasons to others is then to give them reasons that take their concerns and
interests into account [7]. In discussion with members of another society, we can hardly make
way with claims to the effect that our customs are better than theirs because ours are ours, or
because our customs appeal to us. A convincing argument would have to show them that, in
some respect that they may come to see as important, our customs work better for us than theirs
do for them. Or if what we really want is for them to adopt ours, we must show them that our
customs will work better for them, too. If action is the intended goal of reason in matters of
prudence and ethics, how can reason succeed if it cannot appeal to the audience? And what
appeal can there be where the aims, desires, and interests of the audience are ignored?

In an important respect this view preserves an element of universality, although not the peculiar
ground of objectivity of so many views in ethics. As J.L. Mackie put it: “If there were objective
values, then they would be entities of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in
the universe. Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special
faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing
everything else” [8]. No. The element of universality depends rather on the realization that, as
Singer says, “… one's own interests are one among many sets of interests, no more important
than the similar interests of others” [9]. In this respect, many neo-Kantian views are similar. For
example, John Rawl's famous “Veil of Ignorance” requires us to put ourselves in the shoes of all
those who will be affected by a decision, and to avoid results that would be completely
unacceptable to us, were we in the position of those most affected (e.g. being a slave) [10].

Where the only relevant difference between my wish and yours is that it is mine, I am generally
not in a position to give you reasons why you should behave as I want you to. Intelligent beings
should presumably be able to detect what the relevant factors in a dispute are, and discard those
that are revealed as arbitrary. Or else they would go ahead with the full knowledge that their case
is also arbitrary and that they have no rational claim upon the behavior of those they were trying
to persuade. Practical reasoning that will not treat impartially the interests of all parties will not
succeed: It cannot motivate action.

These considerations lead Singer to conclude that all rational beings should come to this process
of reasoning. If so, this reasoning would have an eternal and universal aspect. For according to
Singer, “Wherever there are rational, social beings, whether on earth on in some remote galaxy,
we could expect their standards of conduct to tend toward impartiality, as ours have” [11]. This
is not to say that all rational beings would adhere to the same specific norms of conduct, for
those specific norms may have developed to meet entirely divergent constraints on behavior [12].
Nor is it to say that ethical behavior between all intelligent species is possible, since such
behavior requires a possible commonality of interests that may not always be there (such
commonality need not be of prior interests, since in new circumstances complex intelligent
beings are capable of developing new interests, surely no less than chimps and dogs can;
although there is no guarantee that new, appropriate interests will in fact be developed).

In this manner we can explain why the appeal to values is thought to provide reasons, for values
themselves, as Singer points out, are inherently practical. “To value something,” he says, “is to
regard oneself as having a reason for promoting it. How can there be something in the universe,
existing entirely independently of us and our aims, desires, and interests, which provides us with
reasons for acting in certain ways?” [13]. Accordingly, I point out the connections between space
science and survival intending to appeal to the interests of most normal human beings.
Nevertheless, is the long-term survival of the human species really in our interest?

There are cases where survival clearly does not override other reasons (or motives) for action,
and where we may agree that it should not. Cases, for example, in which someone risks her life
to save her child's, or a stranger's for that matter. But all these are cases worthy of admiration
precisely because we recognize that her survival was in her best interest, but that she disregarded
it for the benefit of a higher purpose.

Moreover, I would venture to guess that the reason we are willing to let personal survival be
overridden is that this higher purpose is somehow involved with making life better for those that
remain, or even to make sure that others do remain. As this purpose expands in scope, it will
ultimately cover the well-being of all humankind. And here we should not speak merely of
humankind as we may find it in a slice of history, but humankind as it extends through history
into the future.

Religion sometimes demands the sacrifice of lives for rather obscure goals, or for goals that only
the faithful find less than revolting. And political passion is often guilty of similar motivations.
But it is difficult to see how a religion or a political ideology that demanded, or permitted, the
destruction of the entire human species, that would deny the future a chance, could justify itself
to the most general of audiences. This is not to say that no conceivable set of circumstances
could provide a reason more pertinent than the survival of humankind. Still, in the absence of a
convincing account of such hypothetical circumstances, the appeal to human survival provides a
compelling moral reason for choosing space.

Nevertheless, other critics may wonder about the appeal to the interests of humanity, not because
appealing to interests is not enough but because they may think that “humanity” is too elusive a
subject to have interests. This objection is less powerful than one may imagine. Of course, our
species is not some kind of super-organism of which individual human beings are the cells.
Humanity in a clear sense does not think what is best for it, nor does it recognize its interests,
simply because there is no conscious subject there to think or recognize. Individual human
beings do the thinking and recognizing. That is fair enough. Moreover, the interests of human
beings are individual interests, what do they have to do with the interests of humans who may
live several million years hence?

Within a discussion about policy, a response should address the views of those who oppose space
exploration either on social grounds (e.g. that our resources should be better used for social
programs) or ideological (e.g. Berry's). It is fair to assume that those opponents will recognize
that it is not only possible but also our duty to do what is best for humanity. The audience, in a
figurative but still important respect, are the people of the Earth. If that were not so, what would
be the point of arguing that combating poverty is more important than observing the X-ray
emissions from the vicinity of possible black holes? Or of suggesting that science is not wise
because in the long run it will bring us to grief? The “us” here are surely not just those of us who
may hear the warning when first issued, but also those in posterity whose world we may swindle
by our present recklessness.

Moreover, as the social and ideological critics would likely agree, we decide for posterity to a
great extent. We may plant the trees from which “our” descendents will receive nourishment and
shade, or we may destroy what could have given them a fighting chance against drought and
famine. It is up to them to make their own decisions, but at least the initial situation in which
they will find themselves is more of our making than of theirs. Nor should we think that a society
is merely an aggregate of individuals, and the species an aggregate of societies. Even if there is
no super-organism, the whole does amount to more than the sum of its parts. Society is not a
mere statistical distribution of individual properties. An individual that belongs to a society has
characteristics that he could not have by himself. An advanced scientific and literary society, for
example, builds libraries, universities, and laboratories, which enable an individual to educate
himself for a style of life that would not exist without those institutions. The choices and
opportunities open to him are not those that he could have without the benefit of the past efforts
of generations that brought about the world into which he was born. No one could choose to be a
modern farmer without the technology this century has provided, simply because the things a
modern farmer does would not be possible otherwise. Nor could one choose to be a goalkeeper
in a football team if the game did not exist. In a primitive society it is very difficult to become a
scientist, or a movie actor, or for that matter an effective critic of technology, since one will have
little acquaintance with it. And in some societies dominated by religion, women do not have the
right to drive a car, receive an education, or even show their faces.

What we are, what we may become obviously depends on our own efforts and talents. But it also
depends on the range of choices, on the freedoms, and on the starting points that our society and
culture make available to us. We do not become ourselves in a vacuum. But we also change the
society by our choices, and thus we change the face of posterity, and sometimes its very
substance. It is thus difficult to deny that our dialectical relationship with society imposes on us
obligations of gratitude that extend to future generations. With a bit of attention, even skeptics
should realize that the present generation does decide for humankind, whether unwittingly or not.
And they should realize also that the choices we face today are particularly important, more so
perhaps than the choices most other generations of humans had to make. And the consequences
of those important choices do not affect the present generation alone. Now that space exploration
has become a feasible alternative, these controversies have only been born.

Survival of the species is not a value just because it accords with evolution. In the first place
such survival is not “the goal” of evolution. Evolution has no goals. And most species that ever
lived are now extinct. Survival is a value to us because without it all the other interests of the
species may become moot. And even though the interests of many individuals do not depend on
the long-term survival of the species, the realization that certain collective actions may affect the
well-being of the species as a whole makes them care how it all comes out in the wash.

According to some important contemporary views influenced by biology, it is in the nature of

human beings to care about the fate of their descendants [14]. This tendency can be explained by
the comparative study of life forms and their drive to insure that their genes remain in the world
even after they themselves are gone, and especially by the mechanism of kin selection and its
concomitant kin altruism. Indeed, it seems that the care of the next generation has played a
crucial role in the evolution of homo sapiens and their morality [15]. But even if some are
suspicious of such sociobiological studies and would rather speak in terms of culture, it would be
difficult to deny that survival is in the interest of the species, or that our actions today may affect
that interest tomorrow.

It is thus surprising that some philosophers argue that since future generations are not yet born,
they do not have rights (for they are not “real”), and therefore we cannot be said to have
obligations towards them [16]. Were they correct, I could not be accused of mass murder if I
were to leave a large bomb hidden under the floor of the newborn wing of a hospital, timed to go
off in two years, since none of my future victims would have been born at the time I hid the
bomb [17]. Surely, if I know about the bomb, I have an obligation not to leave it there, even if I
did not plant it myself. Likewise, we have an obligation to ensure that the buildup of chemicals
in the hospital water tank will not reach critical mass and kill most of the newborns in ten, or in
twenty years. Similarly, we do have obligations to ensure that CFCs no longer destroy the ozone
layer so that our grandchildren will not suffer in large numbers from skin cancer. And we also
have a positive obligation to put in place space systems to warn us of asteroid impacts and to
deflect them, lest our descendants go the way of the dinosaurs.

This is not to say that we are always looking out for the interests of the species, few of us are.
But then we are practically never looking out for the interests of a stranger, although if we see
him collapse on the street many of us would feel a strong impulse to come to his assistance.
Similarly, the appropriate time to recognize the interests of the species is when we become aware
that they are threatened. And in any event, insofar as we accept the responsibility of deciding for
the species, the argument that ought to work is that which takes the interests of the species into
account.

I think that the social critics should be, on the whole, very well satisfied by now. But the
ideological critics may doubt the connection between space exploration and survival. I would
like to consider two possible ways in which such doubts may be defended. What both
alternatives have in common is the notion that the scientific approaches that would presumably
save us from cosmic catastrophes in the long run will instead degrade the one habitat we know
for certain is ours to the point that extinction will become far more probable.

Their first alternative approach is to face squarely the root cause of the environmental
catastrophes that threaten our planet. If not prevented, those catastrophes may devastate Earth in
hundreds, at most thousands of years. Neither collisions with giant asteroids nor the sun's
becoming a red giant will matter much then. And the root cause is the enormous pressure that the
incredibly large human population puts on the environment, particularly when that population
demands increasingly larger per capita shares of energy and other resources. Is it not obvious that
if our numbers were significantly reduced, and our demands for consumption lowered, then the
pressure on the environment would be relieved?

Suppose that we institute programs that would lower the total population of the planet. First we
cut it in half in fifty years. With other measures that would involve a simpler standard of living
and reduced energy consumption per capita, this would certainly accomplish much to make our
problems manageable. Suppose then that we continue to cut in half the population of the Earth
every fifty years, until after a few centuries the impact of humans on the environment is no
longer a threat to the entire planet. China has already taken stern measures to reduce its
population drastically. It seems, then, that there are alternatives to the exploration of space.

Now, how could such a momentous decision to reduce population be implemented on a global
scale? The amount of coercion in China is considerable, in spite of the fact that China is a
relatively homogenous society in which a dominant political ideology facilitates near unanimity
of opinion. But I am not sure it is reasonable to suppose that anything short of widespread and
unmitigated disaster could bring together the different hostile factions in the world to put such a
global program into effect. The disaster may come. Although by then it might be too late. And
even if the struggle could still succeed, the misery visited upon humanity may be too high a price
to pay, particularly if space exploration could have kept disaster at bay. It does not seem like
much of an alternative after all.

The second alternative is that we better protect the Earth by nurturing respect toward it than by
letting people think that we can always move onto another nest. For otherwise we imagine that
spoiling our present nest is regrettable but not an insurmountable loss. Learning to live within the
confines acceptable to our mother planet is a wiser policy because we would then know that we
can lead dignified and fruitful lives here. By contrast, learning to live in space is only a promise.
Can we bet the future of humankind on it? The greatest gift we can make to posterity is a
beautiful Earth and the strength of character to live in harmony with it. In other words, we
accomplish more by preserving the natural balances that have been so accommodating to human
beings in the past, and by restoring such balances where modern life has already disrupted them.
The result of exercising greater moral responsibility toward the world is a better world.

Space exploration, on the other hand, presumably would continue the disruption of the natural
balance. If technology has already caused a mess, why should we expect better? Moreover, space
exploration would be worse than a necessary evil, for it is not an enterprise that we can engage in
just once before returning to a more pastoral existence. As Berry says, in condemning the
scientific mind, “(1) It would commit us to a policy of technological 'progress' as a perpetual
bargaining against 'adverse effects.' (2) It would make us perpetually dependent on the 'scientific'
foretelling and control of such effects -- something that never has worked adequately, and that
there is no good reason to believe ever will work adequately.” Why could it not work? Because
“when you overthrow the healthful balance of the relationships within a system --biological,
political, or otherwise -- you start a ramifying sequence of problems...that is not subject to
prediction, and that can be controlled only by the restoration of balance.” Berry's warning is that
“if we elect to live by such disruptions then we must resign ourselves to a life of desperate (and
risky) solutions: the alternation of crisis and 'breakthrough' described by E.F. Schumacher” [18].

How reasonable an alternative is this to the course of action I have recommended? The first thing
that deserves comment is this matter of disruption and restoration of balance. A very early and
rather important disruption of natural balance took place when life was born and changed the
chemistry of the planet. Another crucial and massive disruption of balance came when the
oxygen liberated by life “poisoned” the atmosphere and the oceans. And this was followed by the
adaptation of life to oxygen, with the subsequent destruction of the cozy arrangements between
early life and the environment. Disruptions of similar magnitude were brought about by the
appearance of complex organisms, by the formation of an ozone layer, which made the land
available to life --would it have been better for life to stay in the oceans? -- and then by the return
of vertebrates to the water, which led to whales and dolphins. Ever since, the evolution of life has
created new forms that have remade the environment anew, destroying the very memory of
whatever balance had been struck previously, and leaving at best a few scattered fossils of what
the Berrys of the time would have insisted on preserving.
The fact of the matter is that life has often created new opportunities for itself, unwittingly no
doubt, and has always changed the balance between its different forms -- most of which are now
extinct. The biota of the planet has remade itself many times over. The natural balance of the
ideological critics is merely a fiction, a temporary arrangement that would change even if there
were no human beings around to mess things up. And surely life does not exhaust the range of
natural causes that have brought about massive disruptions of balance. Do volcanic eruptions,
droughts, and asteroids always make for small reversible changes? What may we say,
incidentally, of the galactic disruption that forced the collapse of the pre-solar cloud into a
planetary system? Of the earlier obliteration of what may have looked like states of cosmic
equilibrium, and thus of natural balance? Which balance is it that we are morally obliged to
restore?

Clearly humans are not the only creatures that transform their environment and interfere with it.
As R.C. Lewontin, S. Rose, and L.J. Kamin point out:

… all living beings both destroy and create the resources of their own continued life. As plants
grow, their roots alter the soil chemically and physically. The growth of white pines creates an
environment that makes it impossible for a new generation of pine seedlings to grow up, so
hardwoods replace them. Animals consume the available food and foul the land and water with
their excreta. But some plants fix nitrogen, providing their own resources; people farm; and
beavers build dams to create their own habitat. [19].

The issue is not, then, one of disrupting balance and interfering with the environment. Perfect
balance can be found only right before the birth of the universe and perhaps right after its death.
Even then we do not really know. And to avoid interfering with nature would be out of character
for living things, while impossible to achieve anyway. The issue is rather one of interfering
wisely, and of preserving (approximately) certain temporary balances that offer the best
compromises for a worthwhile existence on this planet. But how are we going to achieve these
goals without the kind of global and long-term knowledge that, as I have argued elsewhere,
requires the scientific exploration of space?[20].

I do not mean to argue that all of the environmentalists' worries are unjustified. The present rate
of population growth may well be unsustainable, and the problem will have to be addressed by
means I have not considered, since space exploration will not be in a position to play a
significant role in the reduction of the Earth's population for a long time. If we could take a
million people a year into space, which we cannot at the present, it would take thousands of
years before we began to make a dent in the amount of population we have now, let alone on a
population that is growing at today's dangerous rate. We have centuries, at the most. In the
meantime, however, space science may help us monitor the pressure on the environment and
avail our planet of the resources of the solar system. Thus, my point is not that environmental
concerns are unimportant. Just the opposite. They are very important and we should take the
steps necessary to make decisions based on the most comprehensive picture of the Earth's
environment we can obtain. And to do so we need to understand what a planet is by engaging in
comparative planetology, and then to observe the Earth from space in the context of that
understanding [21]. Only then we can pay proper and fruitful attention to the interests of our
species. What I argue against is the rigid demand to act on myths about nature that have little
more than environmentalist mysticism in their favor.

Moreover, let us remember that in the long run the workings of nature, if we do nothing about
them, are bound to create first a most unpleasant world for our descendants and then bring
extinction upon them. Having science is no guarantee that those disasters will not happen. We
cannot be assured that the desired level of knowledge is possible within whatever time limits
infringe on our future. Nor can we be certain that just because we have that knowledge we will
choose according to the best interests of the species. But we can be sure that without the global
knowledge that requires space science we will simply have no choice to make. Our descendants
will suffer for it; and eventually our species will disappear at the earliest cosmic inconvenience.

A species full of self-hatred may well choose such a path. But is the appeal of presumed
atonement the most fitting choice for us to make? That ascetic choice may buy us a bit of time,
but for what? In the long run it leads us straight into a mass grave. The other choice, the one that
really lets nature run its course offers the opportunities for expansion and diversification that so
far life has been fortunate to procure for itself. It is the choice that really lets nature run its course
because it recognizes that we, too, are part of nature. There is no question in my mind that in this
case the way of nature has the potential for greater wisdom.

Sometimes it is said that a little bit of knowledge is dangerous, and that since we are not likely to
have complete knowledge through space, or any other kind of exploration, we are better off not
embarking on this scientific enterprise in the first place. But we have seen, clearly I hope, that
even though a bit of knowledge can be dangerous, there is no long future in ignorance.

The decision is, of course, not mine to make. My intent has been to bring before the reader
considerations relevant to these large issues. I do hope that, as H. G. Wells said, “Life, for ever
dying to be born afresh, for ever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a
footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars” [22].

References
1.
o [1]
o Taken from Carl Sagan in
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081846/quotes?qt=qt0317500.
o
2.
o [2]
o Gonzalo Munévar, “Philosophy, space science and the justification of space
exploration,” Essays on creativity and science, Diana M. DeLuca, ed. HCTE,
Hawaii, 1986, p. 89-96; “Space Colonies and the Philosophy of Space
Exploration,” Space Colonization: Technology and the Liberal Arts, C.H.
Holbrow, A.M. Russell & G.F. Sutton, eds., American Institute of Physics,
Conference Proceedings 148, 1986, p. 2–12; “A Philosopher Looks at Space
Exploration,” as Chapter 13, Munevar G., Evolution and the Naked Truth,
 Ashgate, 1998, pp 169–179; “Humankind in Outer Space,” The International
Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Vol. 4, No. 5, 2008, p. 17–25.
o
3.
o [3]
o 36–37 and 82–85 Stewart Brand (Ed.), See Berry's contributions to Space
Colonies, Penguin Books, New York (1977)
o
4.
o [4]
o Aristotle
o Nicomachean ethics
o Bk. 1, Ch. 7 (2nd ed.)Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis (2000)
translated by Terence Irwin
o
5.
o [5]
o Peter Singer
o The expanding circle: ethics and sociobiology
o Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York (1981), p. 105
o
6.
o [6]
o Many utilitarians, however, assign to pain and pleasure absolute values, positive
or negative respectively.
o
7.
o [7]
o In this I follow singer in his the expanding circle, op. cit.
o
8.
o [8]
o Quoted in singer, In this I follow singer in his the expanding circle, op. cit, p. 107.
o
9.
o [9]
o In this I follow singer in his the expanding circle, op. cit, p. 106.
o
10.
o [10]
o John Rawls
o A theory of justice
o Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1971)
o
11.
o [11]
o Ibid.
o
12.
o [12]
o This point would apply also to the development of science: We and aliens, if they
exist, are likely to have different sciences. See my “Human and Extraterrestrial
Science,” Explorations in Knowledge, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1989, p. 1–9, reprinted as
Ch. 2 of Evolution and the Naked Truth, op. cit.
o
13.
o [13]
o Singer, op. cit, 107.
o
14.
o [14]
o Gonzalo Munévar
o “The morality of rational ants,” Ch. 11, Evolution and the naked truth
o Ashgate (1998), pp. 131–147
o
15.
o [15]
o Julia Sandra Bernal
o “The role of sex and reproduction in the evolution of morality and law,”
o F. de Sousa, G. Munévar (Eds.), Sex, reproduction and darwinism, Pickering and
Chatto (2012), pp. 141–152
o
16.
o [16]
o Robert M. Adams, “Existence, Self-Interest, and the Problem of Evil,” Nous I3
(1979): 57. Derek Parfit, “On Doing the Best for Our Children,” in Ethics and
Population, ed. Michael Bayles (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, I976), p. IOO-I02.
Thomas Schwartz, “Obligations to Posterity,” in Obligations to Future
Generations, ed. Richard Sikora and Brian Barry (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, I978). For a discussion see Robert Elliot, “The Rights of Future
People,” J of Applied Philosophy 6, no. 2(1989): 159–69.
o
17.
o [17]
o Presuming that I time it so precisely that no nurses or visitors will be killed.
o
18.
o [18]
o Op. cit., p. 83.
o
19.
o [19]
 o R.C. Lewontin, S. Rose, L.J. Kamin
o Not in our genes: biology, ideology, and human nature
o Pantheon Books, New York (1984)
o
20.
o [20]
o “Humankind in outer space,” op. cit.
o

1.
o [21]
o Gonzalo Munévar
o Why should philosophy influence science policy: the case of space exploration
o Explor Knowl, 13 (No. 1) (1996), pp. 9–17
o
2.
o [22]
o H.G. Wells
o The outline of history
o (1920) www.spacequotes.com/
o

This paper is largely extracted from Ch. 10 of my The Dimming of Starlight (manuscript
in preparation).

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

 About ScienceDirect

 Contact and support

 Information for advertisers

 Terms and conditions

 Privacy policy

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. except certain content provided by third parties. ScienceDirect®
is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V.
Cookies are used by this site. To decline or learn more, visit our Cookies page
Switch to Mobile Site