Encountering Life in the Universe: Ethical Foundations and Social Implications of Astrobiology

3. Astrobiology and Beyond: From Science to Philosophy and Ethics - William R. Stoeger

56 Astrobiology studies the characteristics and development of cosmic, galactic, stellar, and planetary environments, including those of Earth, insofar as they provide the conditions for the emergence and evolution of life. It also addresses questions about the constitution and possible varieties of life in those environments: What is the range and frequency of life—conscious life, rational, and societal life—in our Universe? These strictly scientific investigations naturally lead us to issues that take us beyond astrobiology and beyond the foundational sciences upon which it relies. What is life? How would the existence and character of extraterrestrial life—and extraterrestrial intelligent life—affect us? What should be our attitude toward it? How should we relate to it, treat it, care for it and for the environments in which it emerges and flourishes? What principles should guide our attitudes toward it and our engagement with it? What ethical demands does it make on us? Astrobiology presents us not only with scientific, philosophical, and ethical challenges, but also with opportunities in all these spheres. In the practical philosophical and ethical sphere it stimulates us to become more aware of how our relationships, responsibilities, and actual and potential resources extend beyond the local and the present to the global, the cosmic , and the past and future—beyond Earth-bound life and societies to life and societies elsewhere in the cosmos. Thus, astrobiology encourages us to expand and deepen our views of society and self. Here I shall outline the context and a framework for linking these larger philosophical and ethical reflections with our growing scientific chapter three Astrobiology and Beyond From Science to Philosophy and Ethics William R. Stoeger Vatican Observatory Astrobiology and Beyond · 57 knowledge in astrobiology and in closely related fields. In doing so I shall provide a basis for understanding how important philosophical, social, and ethical concepts like the good, meaning, value, and responsibility are connected with our scientific knowledge—even though they themselves are not scientific concepts. This will help us understand why and how astrobiology , as well as the scientific disciplines on which it depends, can have far-reaching influence on our attitudes, behavior, policies, and projects , both here on Earth and in our cosmic neighborhood. In the best case it can stimulate enhanced social openness, awareness, and responsibility. This influence does not depend on actually confirming or encountering life and intelligence elsewhere. Our growing, strongly supported realization that extraterrestrial life and intelligence are possible, and even likely, broadens and deepens our perspectives, our appreciation, and our sense of connectedness and balanced responsibility for ourselves, for one another, and for our terrestrial and cosmic environments. It can also contribute a new awareness of who we are as knowers and agents in the world and in the Universe. What is the relevance of astrobiology for ethics, and what is the importance of ethical considerations for astrobiology? Those are the key questions this chapter addresses. Now I shall summarize the conclusions for which I shall argue. Astrobiology reveals the network of astronomical, chemical, and ecological conditions, relationships, and developments upon which the origin , sustenance, and evolution of life depend, not only elsewhere in the cosmos but also right here on Earth. In doing so it encourages us to understand and appreciate that our highly successful and relatively advanced existence here is connected, and shares basic features, with the physics, chemistry, and almost certainly the biology elsewhere in our Galaxy and in our Universe. Ethics for its part is about recognizing and respecting relationships . It is about how intelligent, freely choosing agents and societies can live and act in harmony with the lower- and higher-level networks, ecosystems, organisms, and communities upon which they depend and in which they exist and function. This sensitivity is deeply consonant with the fundamental ethical insight of one of the most influential early proponents of conservation and ecological policy in the United States, Aldo Leopold (1887–1948). His Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (Leopold 1989) is considered a “charter text” for the movement (Ashley 2010). There Leopold sets forth the basic principle for his “land ethic”: “All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts . . . The land 58 · Encountering Life in the Universe ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively: the land” (Leopold 1989, Ashley 2010). Astrobiology...