Ethics and Extraterrestrials

Abstract

This chapter examines how classical ethical theory might apply to the kind of alien life humans are most likely to encounter: nonrational, nonsentient life. Humans are unlikely to have basic ethical obligations to extraterrestrial life because it is very unlikely that extraterrestrial life could have moral status, by the lights of leading moral theories. Furthermore, even if extraterrestrial life did have moral status, consistency with moral practices on Earth would suggest that humans have very few basic ethical obligations to this life. However, it does not follow that humans could treat extraterrestrial life in any matter human beings see fit, because extraterrestrial life may require protection as humans follow through on basic ethical obligations to themselves. In sum, humans would not have ethical obligations to such life per se but the obligations people clearly do have to their fellow humans entail that people cherish, promote, and protect extraterrestrial life.