Is it ethical to colonize Mars?

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

But the real question is how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

[Avatar]

Apparently the only problem is all those gaps between the molecules.

--A

[Zarathustra]

Would it not be sad if Martian life, not being based on DNA like we know it, hasn't evolved on a compete-to-thrive paradigm, but instead has self-uplifted by some mechanism based on symbiosis and cooperation ... only to be wiped out by Darwinian wolves.

The mechanisms of evolution via natural selection would apply to life anywhere. There will be competition and symbiosis in any ecosystem. Earth life isn't "Darwinian wolves." There is plenty of symbiosis here. You've already mentioned how life makes planets habitable through plant respiration, etc. I don't understand this constant tendency of people on the Left side of the political spectrum to always paint mankind as some kind of negative force in the universe--this self-hate, self-judgment, this cosmic guilt complex. You see it in environmentalism, in s.f. movies, and now in speculation of what might be our greatest achievement ever: the colonization of another world. Will we carry our self-hate to the stars? I hope not. I have a feeling we'll be the best thing that ever happened to Mars.

[Avatar]

Really? It's not all about politics y'know.

Anyway, it's immaterial. We're not a negative force. We're not a positive force either. We're just a force. What's positive for you is negative for me and vice versa. The universe doesn't give a good god damn.

All value judgements are just that.

--A

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

How can you be sure.

[Fist and Faith]

Because we disagree. If we couldn't, it wouldn't be a value judgement. The speed of light? Strength of gravity? Not value judgements.

Is it morally acceptable to wipe out microscopic life on Mars in order to colonize the planet?

[Zarathustra]

Really? It's not all about politics y'know.

Anyway, it's immaterial. We're not a negative force. We're not a positive force either. We're just a force. What's positive for you is negative for me and vice versa. The universe doesn't give a good god damn.

All value judgements are just that.

--A

I agree that it's not about politics, which is why I'm genuinely curious why it's always people of a certain political persuasion who tend to see mankind as negative force in nature (even in areas so divorced from politics, they're literally otherworldly), whereas people of other political persuasions tend to see mankind as something positive, celebrating our progress and victories. Somewhere deep down in what makes us who we are, the same foundational judgments of mankind keep getting expressed in different contexts. It's fairly predictable how people are going to view this scientific/ethic quandary, simply by knowing their views on politics. I find that fascinating. (It might explain a lot beyond this discussion.)

I also think it's fascinating that people can find it morally questionable or abhorrent to kill off microbes, but fetuses are basically disposable collections of cells ... and we KNOW that a fetus will develop into an intelligent creature, but not so much with the microbes. I'm not seeing a consistency in the ethical systems being presented here.

In a sense, you could say it's all about politics. Clearly, there parallels with colonialism and environmentalism here. This question is virtually those two issues applied to Mars.

[This issue isn't about religion, either, but that doesn't stop people from bringing that into the discussion.]

[peter]

Is it morally acceptable to wipe out microscopic life on Mars in order to colonize the planet?

Thats a really interesting question Fist? If the life we first discover on a planet other than Earth is not sentient, harmfull to us, and stands in the way of our continued advancement [possibly even survival], can we ethically place it in the same catagory as we do home-grown pathogens - and seek it's erradication? That needs some thought!

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Because we disagree. If we couldn't, it wouldn't be a value judgement. The speed of light? Strength of gravity? Not value judgements.

Is it morally acceptable to wipe out microscopic life on Mars in order to colonize the planet?

And yet many value judgments appear to be instinctual and ubiquitous. So how can you characterize the universe as neutral on all matters of value? Perhaps there is a hidden message within the chaos, a hidden message that will only gradually emerge if we uncover it.

By the way, I don't think any sentient race can deliberately wipe out a planet's worth of microbes, for all in all they are much stronger than we where survival is concerned. Only the universe can sterilize a planet.

[Fist and Faith]

Because we disagree. If we couldn't, it wouldn't be a value judgement. The speed of light? Strength of gravity? Not value judgements.

Is it morally acceptable to wipe out microscopic life on Mars in order to colonize the planet?

And yet many value judgments appear to be instinctual and ubiquitous. So how can you characterize the universe as neutral on all matters of value?

I can do the latter because I disagree with the former. There have been several discussions/debates about this here, and I've always held the position that there are no universal morals.

By the way, I don't think any sentient race can deliberately wipe out a planet's worth of microbes, for all in all they are much stronger than we where survival is concerned.

You may be right. I'm just saying, if it's possible, if it was necessary for us to wipe out all life on another planet (the current discussion being that all the life is microbial) in order for us to colonize it, would it be morally acceptable to do so? Heck, even if it wasn't necessary, but we knew it would happen, would it be morally acceptable?

Only the universe can sterilize a planet.

We are as much a part of the universe as anything else is. If we do something, the universe did it. Again, we probably can't sterilize a planet. I'm just saying...

[Vraith]

Again, we probably can't sterilize a planet. I'm just saying...

Yet.

But, again, I don't have much of an ethical [or any other] problem except to
the extent that we destroy a chance for knowledge, and if/when the critters are intelligent/near intelligent.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

In a universe wherein societies of mutually cooperating and protecting individuals have emerged as a result of natural selection, I'm not quite willing to throw in the towel on the potentially transcendent importance of value judgments.

[Zarathustra]

In a universe wherein societies of mutually cooperating and protecting individuals have emerged as a result of natural selection, I'm not quite willing to throw in the towel on the potentially transcendent importance of value judgments.

Very interesting. I'm starting to consider this seriously myself.

However, the universe also produced through natural selection humans who engage in genocide, slavery, etc. I want to say that the universe favors creation over destruction, beauty over chaos, but I don't think it's justified.

But on the other hand, there is a bias built into natural selection, a nonrandom reality within all the mutation, in the sense that survival and death are binary options. If something doesn't work or can't compete, it moves from Being to Nonbeing. And I think that destructive life forms "self-select" for oblivion. So the fact that we've reached such a pinnacle of intelligence must say something positive about us, despite the "Darwinian Wolves" judgmental caricatures. In the end, the universe sorts these things out itself, even when consciously take part in that process.

I don't see why it would be difficult to preserve some samples of Martian life for study, even if we transform the planet in such a way that they can't survive in their own natural habitat. It's pointless, however, to mourn potential evolutionary paths that nature might never take on its own. We could leave Mars alone for billions of years, and perhaps nothing more sophisticated than single-celled organisms would ever develop. The environment on Mars is simply not conducive to more complex life. Judging our interference on the basis of extremely unlikely events that would take billions of years to develop is not only bizarrely self-limiting, it's downright irrational.

[Avatar]

Yes, in the end it will probably balance out. Simply as a function of physical laws. The universe per se thinks, feels or does nothing. It just is.

--A

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

The universe thinks and feels. Last I checked humans are a part of the universe.

[wayfriend]

Humans indeed are a part of nature, but that's not an excuse for amorality. When something happens "naturally", it's accepted precisely because there is no conscious, intelligent hand behind it. When a rock falls on you and kills you, there is no one to blame. People die from natural causes - but that doesn't excuse murder. If life is wiped out by a meteor, there is no one to blame. If resources disappear and species go extinct, it's just the way nature works. But that should not excuse intentional man-made extinctions.

But the earlier point I was making (before the too-personal sadistic criticism) is that life on another planet may work by completely different rules. So therefore, you have to ask yourself, does an opinion about morality based on biology here (like "the fittest should survive") necessarily apply elsewhere, in a place where the justification which supports the ethics isn't extant? The nature of existence on this planet is "baked into" the way we consider morality - it's taken as a given. And, as in all such cases, it's going to fail when the givens disappear beneath them.

Is it possible to consider moral implications without such a bias?

[Zarathustra]

"Darwinian wolves" is a sadistic criticism. Noting that certain people repeatedly make sadistic criticisms of humanity is not. One is a value judgment, while the other is simply noting a fact.

No one here is talking about amorality. We're presenting an alternate morality, namely, that valuing and preserving existing intelligent life is infinitely more moral than valuing/preserving the lowest forms of life in the unrealistic hope that in billions of years they might produce sentient life. Having a different value system is not the same as having no value system. (That sounds like another sadistic criticism ... you disguise your personal attacks better than I do, but it doesn't mean you don't make them. No one is here fooled by such passive aggressive tactics.)

Are "intentional man made extinctions" of lower life forms really amoral? What about the AIDS virus? If we could wipe that out, wouldn't we try? Yes, of course, and we'd do so without any regard for the organism itself, solely for our own benefit. But who's to say that the AIDS virus wouldn't evolve into psionic, symbiotic creatures of Peace and Love in a billion years? On that basis, aren't the scientists who are looking for a cure--for the purely "selfish" reason of the preservation of humans--just more "Darwinian wolves?"

No one here is espousing the view that the "fittest should survive," much less a morality based on earth biology. You invented that. Which is called a strawman (identical to the strawmen invented to attack Darwin in his day ... evolution isn't a value system, and "fit" is entirely contextual, not absolute). I don't think mankind is the fittest, nor that it is because of his fitness that he should survive. My value system is based on the fact that intelligent life in the universe is the rarest, most precious thing we've discovered in this universe, and that the rarest/most precious things in the universe should be preserved at all costs.

I also happen to think that if nature gives you an ability, you have every right to use it. Those species who overcome the limits of their own environment to such a point that they can leave their own planets have every right to do so, a right conferred upon them by the sheer fact that they can do it. We're the only species on this planet who has earned this right, and it would be immoral to limit us to the standards of lower life forms and thus deny us our full potential, our destiny. (Not to mention our continued existence.)

It's not like we're suggesting the termination of life forms that we KNOW will end up as sentient creatures in a few short weeks (i.e. human fetuses) or chopping them up and selling their body parts. We're talking about microbes. And yet we're the amoral Wolves?

You crack me up, man. Preach it, brother!

[Fist and Faith]

wf, if we cannot agree on a moral opinion here, where we know a good deal about the rules by which life works, I do not expect us to agree on whether or not we should apply those opinions to life whose rules we do not know anything about. And I would be very surprised if, if we do learn about life elsewhere, and its rules are very different from the rules of life here, we shared moral opinions about it. I mean, we can't get universal agreement on whether or not it's okay to own, brutalize, and murder other humans.

[wayfriend]

wf, if we cannot agree on a moral opinion here ...

True enough. I thought it might be interesting to explore the new dimensions of what any ethical issues might be. Anything that's new and important brings new ethical questions.

One day there may be two intelligent space-faring species who need to work out how to treat each other fairly. At such a time, some of our moral assumptions might be invalid, and we'll have to invent something new. However, the only thing close to this I have ever seen explored is the Totally Inimical Scenario. (And I'm referring to sci-fi I have read, not anything in this thread, I feel compelled to add before someone claims otherwise.) Someone has postulated that beings totally alien to each other cannot choose any response except kill-or-be-killed, as there is no basis for any other kind of response or relationship. I'd like to think we can do better when the time comes.

And of there is such a thing as a 'universal morality' that makes sense regardless of which planet you live on, then Mars would be the first place to apply it, I would think.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Highly refined ethics presuppose proportional power. Which means, really, that it is never ethical to will or allow the destruction of your own civilization.