Does Mars Have Rights?

November 15, 2011|Josh Rothman, Globe Staff

Here's a question you probably haven't thought about this week: Do other planets have rights? Writing in the magazine Reason, Ronald Bailey investigates the ethics of extraterrestrial exploration. What obligations do we have to other, uninhabited planets? Do we have a duty to leave them alone -- or, perhaps, to terraform them?

It's obvious, Bailey writes, that we have a duty to our fellow earthlings: We must avoid bringing dangerous (and potentially zombiefying!) alien lifeforms back to Earth. There are thornier questions, though: "Do we have an ethical obligation to prevent harm that might be caused by Terran life to extraterrestrial life? Even more broadly, do we have the right to change the environments of other worlds even if they do not contain any living organisms?"

About these questions, moral philosophers disagree. There's a long pro- terraforming tradition (especially among philosophically inclined science-fiction readers): Turning a lifeless place into an inhabitable one seems like a noble goal. Meanwhile, others argue that we have a moral, and possibly even an aesthetic, obligation to leave extraterrestrial life untouched. Others feel, as Bailey does, that "as fascinating as they might be, Martian microbes are no more moral agents than are terrestrial microbes." Meanwhile, there's a powerful argument from utility: It would be an enormous waste to contaminate Mars with our own earthly lifeforms and, in the process, destroy a treasure trove of scientific information. It's a surprisingly involved and fascinating debate, and not as science-fictional as you might imagine: We are, after all, driving rovers around Mars.

More at Reason: " Does Mars Have Rights?"