Let’s try a hypothetical: 500 years in the future, humanity discovers a life-bearing planet (but with no intelligent life) in a nearby star system. It is Earthlike in surface gravity but the atmosphere is poisonous to Earth organisms. After extensive investigation, it appears the native lifeforms are completely useless to us – the biochemistry is too different for them to be a source of food or medicine. We have the technology to terraform the planet, wiping out all native organisms in the process, and we really need the living space. Is there any ethical reason not to do it?
Well, it depends on some of the specifics: Is there not any potential of finding other habitable planets? How desperately do we need this space? Will we have any time to study some animals first? etc etc
But yeah, with many scenarios of humanity screwed vs terraform, I’d vote terraform.
This is not mutually exclusive with the view that our natural environment has value in and of itself, however. Just that other things can potentially be higher value.
Of course. Why do people talk as if “ethical” is a universally objective term? Society can define its ethics as it defines them.
In this case, it depends on whether a society’s ethic is more about preservation of life, even alien life, for its own sake; or more about expansion of its own familiar kind of life. I suspect that the more spacefaring a society does, the further out it gets, the more it may tend toward the former. If our descendants find a planet full of carbon-based lifeforms with other-handed biopolymers they can’t use (which is more likely than finding alien biomass they can metabolize, as both sugars & proteins have handedness separate from each other & this appears arbitrary in each case), how they respond will vary with time & perspective. A newly spacefaring society will be looking for opportunity; a comfortable old one with many worlds may take a more indulgent view. This is ethical evolution.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t an objective value beyond the subjective value to humans.
I’d actually go further on the hypothetical. Let’s suppose that the smartest lifeform on the planet is roughly equivalent to a chimpanzee in its intelligence. Let’s further suppose that we don’t really need the living space, but that a corporation could make a pretty penny by turning the planet into a mining operation, or a resort, or something like that.
Am I correct in thinking that some folks in this thread–e.g., Kobal2–would be perfectly okay with terraforming the planet, wiping out all native lifeforms in the process? If not, I misunderstand your viewpoint, and could use some clarification.
I’d say go even further, and forget about terraforming to make space for living, and forget about bright monkey-like beings. Let’s just say shrubs and grubs, that will die if we take away the resources that are valuable to us.
Do we have any obligation to preserve that life?
And if you toss back in cute alien monkies, how does that actually chnage things unless they are so smart they can actually beg us to stop?
That’s a less extreme hypothetical, and rather takes away from the point Left Hand of Dorkness was making.
I think, what Left Hand of Dorkness was trying to establish is whether this hypothetical ecosystem has any value whatsoever to certain posters on this thread. Therefore the example of a rich ecosystem with intelligent (but not sentient) animals, that humans could only profit mildly from destroying.
I note that you haven’t answered Left Hand of Dorkness’ question, but sure I can answer those questions:
a) I don’t think “obligation” is the right way of looking at it. I wouldn’t try to convince someone to save an ecosystem just out of a sense of duty.
Nonetheless I feel it would be wrong to destroy even this dull ecosystem that you describe.
I’m finding it hard to put my finger on exactly why though. One thing for me is my “construction bias” – I prefer to create than destroy, and the idea of destroying something that we may never be able to replicate, replacing a complex ecosystem with a sterile environment, is unpalatable.
b) Of course tossing in cute monkeys makes a difference.
The point I’ve made many times in this thread: we all consider a human life to be more important than a bacterium’s right? Why?
Given that there’s this gulf of importance between the lowest lifeforms and us, surely there is some value we attach to chimps which are far more like us than like the simplest life.
I like your term, “construction bias.” I also believe in this.
Ha, no, I wouldn’t be OK with terraforming the planet, no :). I merely said I didn’t see any moral imperative *not *to. But I don’t see humanity’s profits or even humanity’s continued survival as a significant reason to, either. If we fuck up our own planet so much that we can’t live there anymore, fuck us. I’m not a big fan of mankind, to tell you the truth.
To take your “theme park on the Serengeti” example, my opinion is that is would not be absolutely wrong or inherently evil to build it - sucks for the lion and gazelle short term, sure, but your buddy the bot fly (and its dung-eating cousins) would be bloody delighted at the prospect of so many port-a-pottys to colonize. There’s a weird balance in there, so I wouldn’t consider the lion genocide inherently wrong, from a purely rational point of view.
However, as an emotional being, I would very much like to keep the Serengeti as it is right now, thankyouverymuch. Even though the concept of a wildlife-themed resort being the cause of a massive wildlife eradication might amuse me very much, in a ha-ha-we’re-all-gonna-die sort of way.
But you cannot build without destroying something else (why, that’s very koan of you to say, Kobal2…). You cannot grow a crop without clearing away the forest, and replanting the forest destroys the crop (and every organism relying on it - humans, birds, earthworms, etc…).
You very life destroys something - first the things you have to consume to stay alive, but also every single organism that might have survived by consuming the resources you just did. Life is a zero sum game.
raises hand I don’t. Of course, on a certain level I consider my own life as more important than anything else, up to and including yours, but mankind in general ? Nah. We’re just a virus with shoes 
I’m not sure that I agree with that philosophy, so let me just keep it simple:
Certain processes have an inherent directionality. It’s much easier to break an egg than it is to completely reform a shattered egg.
And likewise it’s much easier to wipe out a species than synthesize life.
All I was saying with my “construction bias” is I am reluctant to destroy what we can’t replicate. If, at some future time, we could be sure we could replicate an entire ecosystem 100% accurately then one of my objections for destroying same ecosystem would be removed.
I didn’t say mankind.
I asked whether we (people) consider a human life to be more important than a bacterium’s. I thought the question was straightforward enough to be obviously rhetorical.
I mean, when you see a guy eat a tub of live yoghurt, you don’t think he’s committing a crime as serious as the Holocaust right?
To the first, I’ll say : do you agonize over your breakfast, because you won’t be able to completely reform your egg-in-a-basket into a whole egg and a handful of corn seeds ?
To the second : If we could clone somebody 100% accurately, and imprint the clone with every single memory the original has, would it be OK to kill the original ? Torture him ? We do have a spare, after all
Besides, on a certain level, isn’t that “don’t do things you can’t undo” philosophy akin to not asking the pretty girl to dance because she might say no ? As long as you don’t ask, the possibility exists that she’ll say yes - but if she doesn’t, you can’t go back to the time when she was Schrödinger’s Date. Then again, if she does say yes, then who’d mind the permanent loss of the previous state of affairs ?
Let me put it this way : if Caesar were to be brought back from Elysium, he would certainly lament the current state of Rome. All the little streets he knew gone, his favorite bar torn down, the stench of cars… and what’s with those big churches everywhere ? Where are all the drilling camps gone ?
I ask you, however : should 1200 AD Romans have kept Rome exactly the way it was in 30 BC, because no-one could have rebuilt it the way it was afterwards ?
Again, on an emotional level ? Of course not. Can’t even see the little bastards, how could they be of any importance ?
But on another hand, what is the big crime in the Holocaust ? Is it destroying lives ? Destroying complex organisms ? Destroying human lives ? Destroying *future *human lives ? Is it the long suffering before death ? Is it the needlessness of it, the fact that it’s killing for killing’s sake ? Or is it just horrifying because it’s humans doing it on humans ? I really don’t know.
I mean, I very much know the Holocaust was horrendous, and that watching videos of it made me physically ill. I’m not sure I could really elaborate on why that is so. Nor why it’s not OK for humans, but not a biggie for a tubful of Listeria.
No, but then we can replicate eggs.
I did say that the “construction bias” I’ve described is only one reason why I would not want to destroy an ecosystem. It does not follow from this that I think the only thing stopping us from destroying anything is whether we can replicate it.
For me, creating suffering is morally wrong. That’s why destroying an ecosystem containing “cute monkeys” is almost-certainly wrong (because they are almost-certainly capable of suffering).
If there’s any philosophy I’m expousing here it’s not “don’t do things you can’t undo” it’s “don’t destroy what you can’t synthesize”. There’s a difference.
The Rome question is an interesting one, but no, I wouldn’t consider anyone to have done anything wrong. After all, there wasn’t a sudden transformation between 30BC and 1200AD. Instead there were lots of smaller steps and at every step, each step was indeed reversible.
:eek:
It’s up to us as humans to say what matters. The Universe doesn’t seem to care. Most people can think of many reasons why something like the Holocaust matters. Innocent people had their lives cut short, and suffered terribly, and also their relatives who survived them would have suffered awfully too. Most people find this tragic and would wish for nothing like that to happen again.
And, from your comments, it seems that you also think that it was wrong “emotionally”. Well, I don’t know what it is you think I’m asking for, but it’s not an airtight “equation” to prove humans matter more than bacteria.
I merely made that point that we consider human life to be more important. We consider people with dreams and opinions who are capable of suffering and joy to matter more than the simplistic life of a bacterium.
It was a premise in my argument explaining why I consider a chimp’s life to be more important than a bacterium’s too.
If push comes to shove, there’s always a way to keep an itsy little bit of the ecosystem in pristine state, as a kind of “backup” if you will. But I don’t think being able to put things back just the way they were before changes the moral equation - nor do I believe we, as a species, ever would do such a thing as give back some ground.
Ah, yes and no. I’m sure tons of statues got destroyed which couldn’t be replicated afterwards and similar.
But here’s the interesting thing : you don’t consider it wrong for a city to evolve overtime, turning into something entirely different, yet you deem it wrong to interfere with an eco-systeme, because there, for some reason, status quo is God. Why the dichotomy ?
Would it be OK if we interefered with one bit by bit by bit, until eventually it doesn’t have any semblance of its old self, but each transition is 99% seamless and can be undone for a limited period of time ?
I know, but it no reason not to try and pinpoint one. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it ? No one goes out of his or her way to torch a forest for shits and giggles. OK, maybe some do, but we call those people “pyro nutcases” :D. And yet sometimes we do think it’s justifiable to tweak the environment to our fancy, and to destroy or alter the ecological status quo. I think the point of this discussion is to determine if there’s a definite line to be drawn, where, and why.
Yup, but that’s my point : the idea strikes me as an eminently anthropocentric one. We do have dreams, opinions, ethical dilemmas… so we inherently think these are good things to have, improvements over the basic schematic. Are they, really ? Objectively ? You ask me, there’s something to envy in the simplistic life of a bacterium. At least its not banging its head…err, flagellum I suppose… against the side of the Petri dish because yet another asshole tries to argue that torture’s just groovy.
To the OP: placing a value upon something implies that there is a consciousness that’s assigning the value. Now, we might think that humanity is the only species with this ability, and therefore, if humans don’t place value on the earth’s “natural environment” (whatever that means), then no value can be assigned.
Some speculation, then:
- A thought experiment. We know that earth-like conditions must be quite rare in the universe. They must develop within a narrow range of orbital distance from a star, within a fairly narrow tolerance of elemental makeup, restricted by size so that a gaseous atmosphere doesn’t escape into space, but also is allowed to envelope the planet. Liquid water, and lots of it, must be present. The advent of life itself also contributed to the development of conditions on the earth’s surface, so there should also be that random event, based on the peculiarities of protein, water, and lipid chemistry (or some analog thereof) that leads to life.
There might be an infinite number of earth-like planets in the universe, but we’re pretty sure they’re few and far between.
So, imagine you’re an extraterrestrial with interstellar flight capabilities. Assuming similarities in organic structure, which seems reasonable, based on the chemical properties of carbon and its abundance in the universe, do you think that stumbling across the earth, with its incredibly rich biosphere and natural environment, would have any value for you? Keep in mind that the alien would have a different view of humanity. We would be PART of the natural environment of the earth to it, whereas we tend to think of ourselves, rather arrogantly, as separate from it.
- Optimal Foraging Theory: another way to get an “outside perspective”. Since all sorts of animals routinely make value judgments, it’s rather insane to think that humans are the only species capable of doing so. According to Optimal Foraging Theory, which is one of the best-tested ecological theories we have, animals make judgments of differential value all the time, as a matter of survival. They behave in such a way as to obtain the highest amount of energy with the least overall expenditure of energy. This is simple common sense, but it leads to value judgments. Animals will select places to forage based on a whole suite of value assignments. Potential predation, camouflage of food resources, inter- and intra-specific competition for resources, overall exposure, richness and types of food. All these are values explicitly placed on various portions of the earth’s natural environment by non-human species.
I would argue that, yes, the natural environment has inherent value, even completely apart from human perspective, based on the constant, roiling mass of value judgments that are constantly made on this planet, just not by humans.
Typical. I actually manage to post something substantive in GD, and it drops off the face of the planet.
I think there are some underlying false equivalences that have led Kobal2 to this point.
How do you feel about the first two points on this list?
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specimen != genus
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While the giant may be indifferent to the fleas on his back, that doesn’t mean the fleas are indifferent to themselves.
And now for some abstraction:
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Intrinsic moral value, if it exists, is not the same as value in an outside ethical system, but…
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One’s ethical system may recognize the subjective values of an alien presence, and…
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(most counter-intuitively) absolute moral value, if it exists, may refer to a data set including but not limited to the subjective values objects hold for themselves or other objects.
So: The fleas may see themselves as valuable, & that may be important in an ethical (or even absolute) sense; the value of the giant to the fleas may also be valuable in this way–regardless of whether the fleas are valuable to the giant.
None of this tells me what is morally true; it simply hints at alternative constructions in which a transcendent moral truth might exist.
So, because you personally can’t manage to analyze your aesthetic distaste for something, you assume no one can?
Do you see why this sounds arrogant?
Well, that’s what happens on a scale of aeons, but not what humanity is doing today. In a policy sense, present human intervention isn’t just tweaking the status quo; it’s wiping out entire local systems to graze more bovines (in Kenya & Madagascar this is exactly the act being taken).
ETA: I just read your post, Ogre, & I think you & I are in substantial agreement. Value judgment is not solely the province of the hominidae.