Do no harm to life on Mars? Ethical limits of the 'Prime Directive'
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 - 07:30
in Psychology & Sociology
NASA's chief scientist recently announced that "…we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years." Such a discovery would clearly rank as one of the most important in human history and immediately open up a series of complex social and moral questions. One of the most profound concerns is about the moral status of extraterrestrial life forms. Since humanities scholars are only just now beginning to think critically about these kinds of post-contact questions, naïve positions are common.