Introduction

In 2003 the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, invited over twenty scholars from diverse fields, scientists active in astrobiology, as well as philosophers, historians, ethicists, and theologians, to explore together the philosophical, ethical, and theological implications of research and discoveries in astrobiology. A major motivation for this effort was the recognition that the very questions that define astrobiology as a discipline – Where do we come from? Are we alone? Where are we going? – are multidisciplinary in nature and have broad appeal to the public-at-large.

It is unavoidable that the science of astrobiology will intersect with, and inevitably challenge, many deeply held beliefs. Exploration possibilities, particularly those that may include the discovery of extraterrestrial life, will continue to challenge us to reconsider our views of nature and our connection to the rest of the universe. Much work has already been done in this area. What is unique about our present circumstance is that past theoretical musings may soon benefit from a renewed urgency that is awakened both by new discoveries and by technological advances. Many of the astrobiologists assembled for this workshop have in common another interest, working proactively to provide more opportunities for non-scientists to both share in the excitement of this field, and to be informed participants in a public dialogue that considers the opportunities and challenges associated with astrobiology in the near future.

Astrobiology, encompassing the search for life on other planets, laboratory studies of the origin of early life forms from precursor materials, and prospects for the discovery of microbial life on other planets reflects outcomes at the cutting edge of science and technology. Yet the issues that such investigations raise are profound, for not only do they bear on our own sense of self in relation to the cosmos, but they also raise deep philosophical and religious issues concerned with purpose, meaning, and human identity. Given these profound challenges, the ethical and moral frameworks within which such developments take place need to be carefully considered, for outcomes of such deliberations have public and social importance alongside a potential scientific gain. The intention of this chapter is to:

1. analyze those philosophical and theological themes that arise in the context of the origin of life, focusing particularly on the intersection of physical and evolutionary parameters in the interplay of chance and necessity, alongside debates around purpose and design;

2. consider some of the ethical issues associated with both the origin and future of life from a Christian ethical perspective, including responsibility for future generations;

3. argue for the recovery of a sense of wisdom, from both a theological perspective and through phronesis or practical wisdom.

It would be impossible to do justice to the full range of possible positions that a theologian might take in relation to theological and ethical issues raised by astrobiology.

Introduction

The search for ET life is encompassed within a broad spectrum of research efforts in the field of astrobiology. In general, this multidisciplinary field seeks to understand the origin, evolution, and fate of life in the universe. While searches for ET life represent just a subset of the overall astrobiology goals, they command a disproportionate share of the public interest. To scientists it may be obvious that finding an ET microbe on Mars would be quite different than getting a message from an intelligent civilization somewhere in the Milky Way. However, to the public, the nature and implications of different types of discoveries are probably less clear. Without a systematic analysis of the varied research efforts and a consideration of the science and issues associated with them, it is impossible to get an overview of what it would mean to discover ET life. This chapter attempts such an analysis and focuses additionally on the kinds of societal issues and concerns that need to be communicated to public audiences when discussing astrobiological research and exploration efforts, particularly those centered on searching for ET life.

When searching for ET life, astrobiology uses diverse methods to identify and study potentially habitable locations, understand their environmental conditions, analyze processes that may be associated with life, and, finally, seek evidence for ET life (which may or may not be the same as finding life itself).

There is a Family Circle cartoon that shows the father of the family escorting his daughter home from school. The caption is a single question that the little girl asks of her father: “If we send astronauts to Mars, do they hafta drive past Heaven?” While this strikes us as funny, it illustrates the double world in which many of us live. Few educated adults would ask the question in such simplistic terms. Nevertheless, many people live in a bifurcated world in which they have accepted the results of science, and presume the reasonable world of scientific endeavor. However, when it comes to thinking about God, some people still have a somewhat childish, antiquated, or rudimentary worldview. In the scientific world everything is open to question and results are only as valid as the evidence that supports them. With regard to God, however, both believers and non-believers often assume that religious issues can only be settled by reverting to a kind of mythic fideism.

In the contemporary Christian world of North America, the notion that God might have created other worlds with novel emergent life forms can threaten this basic religious intuition. The Genesis accounts of creation presume that the Earth is central to God's purposes, most notably that of establishing a special relationship with mankind. The discovery of extraterrestrial life in any form would seem to contradict this core assumption of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Paradigms of cosmic meaning

The purpose of this chapter is to compare and contrast Western and Asian ways of telling stories about the world rather than the actual stories they tell. The hope of this exercise is that by understanding the logic that drives Asian storytelling, we can see a new way of getting past the inevitable differences between the stories that religion and science tell. This way of approaching conflicting stories, it will be argued, offers significant improvements over two popular strategies for reconciling religion and science: first, the argument that they tell completely different and non-overlapping stories; and second, the attempt to integrate religious and scientific stories into one seamless whole. In contrast to these approaches, the logic of Asian storytelling recognizes the importance of having many different and overlapping stories about the same event without feeling compelled to reconcile them to each other.

The voyages of discovery that spanned the globe and mapped new continents in the early modern era of European history were underwritten by faith in progress and the capacity of human knowledge – which were, in turn, rooted in a Judeo-Christian philosophy of history. In the present age, which has already embarked upon interplanetary exploration, we are situated in a vastly more complex ethical and religious world: the prior age of exploration and intercultural contact has revealed the diversity of religious and philosophical perspectives within Earthbound cultures.

Why should we care about Christian ethical perspectives on astrobiology?

Why should we care about a Christian ethical perspective on astrobiology? After all, the world is becoming an increasingly pluralistic society, with a rich plethora of different religious and philosophical perspectives. Why should we care about what Christians or any other religious group thinks about the ethics of space exploration? For that matter, we may question whether there should be any ethical concerns about astrobiology or the ethics of space exploration at all.

We stand on the brink of an exciting new age in space exploration and science. Already, we have discovered extrasolar planets in our galaxy, launched several very successful robotic missions to Mars, and lifted our gaze above the clouds of Earth through the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. This promises to be just the beginning, a foretaste of what is yet to come! In the next twenty years, we could well discover evidence of simple, microbial extraterrestrial life in our solar system – if it exists. In addition, NASA has enterprising plans for the exploration of space beyond our own solar system. The discovery of advanced, intelligent extraterrestrial life remains an intriguing possibility. At the heart of NASA's research strategy is astrobiology, a newly emerging science that will study the origin, extent, and future of life – both in space and on planet Earth. At last, through astrobiology humans are ready to make that gigantic leap off our small planet and become a genuine space-faring species.

One of the most basic questions that has been pondered by Natural Philosophers for (at least) the past few millennia concerns humanity's place in the universe: are we alone? This question has been approached from a wide variety of viewpoints, and similar reasoning has led to widely diverse answers. Aristotle believed that earth, the densest of the four elements, fell towards the center of the universe, so no other worlds could possibly exist. In contrast, Epicurus and other early atomists surmised that the ubiquity of physical laws implied that innumerable Earth-like planets must exist in the heavens.

Many aspects of the question of human uniqueness remain ill-constrained, but others have yielded to scientific investigation. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton convincingly demonstrated that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that other worlds qualitatively similar to Earth orbit the Sun. Telescopic observations, and more recently interplanetary spacecraft, have told us a great deal about these neighboring worlds.

Introductory comments

A philosopher always needs to know his audience. In this case, I am going to assume that most readers of this piece will be scientists and engineers working in the space sciences – that is, non-philosophers who have relatively little familiarity with ethics as a field of study. Certainly we all know about ethics in the sense that we all know it has to do with rules about our behavior, especially our behavior towards other people. In this sense, ethics is rather similar to evolution – people think they know what it is because they understand the basic idea. However, there is much more to ethics than can be summarized in a few rules of behavior, just as there is much more to evolution than can be captured in a paragraph explaining natural selection.

My goal here is thus not so much to break new ground as to discuss some basic concepts in ethics which are often misunderstood in such a way as to block fruitful ethical discussion. Indeed, it is quite common for people to adhere to views which actually undercut the whole ethical enterprise without even realizing this. So I will begin this article by discussing some extremely common confusions about what ethics is and isn't. Then I will discuss a few basic ways of assigning moral value, trying to show the disadvantages of intrinsic value assignments as they are often used in environmental ethics contexts such as astrobiology.