Principles of Life-Centered Astroethics:

"It is the human purpose to propagate life

Life-centered ethics are based on the unique value of life in Nature; our unity with all fellow biological life; and our power to expand life in space. These ethics value biological life itself, and its core gene/protein processes that propagate life. These principles are extended to space as panbiotic ethics, that can secure an immense future for life in the universe.

Why Life?

Principles of Life-Centered (Biotic) Ethics

Life is unique in Nature, and for us, it is precious. Life is unique in its complex patterns, and in its purposeful self-continuation. We belong to life and share its drive for self-propagation. Belonging to life then implies a human purpose to secure, expand and propagate our family of gene/protein life.

Advancing Life in Space: Panbiotic Ethics

Our purpose is best achieved in space, where life has an immense future. We can start now to secure this future, by seeding with life new solar systems. New species can develop there into intelligent beings who will expand life futher. Filling the universe with life will give our human existence a cosmic purpose.

Life-Centered Panbiotic Ethics: Principles and Implications

Human survival, and expanding life in space, are cosmic human endeavors. They will require human cooperation on cosmic scales of space and time, based on compassion, truth, justice, peace, and a firm respect for life. They can be secured by these priciples: "Love Life; Respect Reality; and Honor Human Dignity".

Life-centered biotic ethics define the human purpose: to forever safeguard and propagate life, and to elevate life into a major force in Nature.

Can we in fact implement these principles? How can we assure that our family of gene/protein life survives and expands in the galaxy? What are the prospects for life in the Solar System and far beyond? What cosmological future will this new panbiotic astro-ethics secure?

These questions are addressed below, and further in the e-book
"Seeding the Universe with Life: Securing Our Cosmological Future"
(free download)

The basic principles are summarized also in Bioethics 2009, 23, 433-440:
"Life Centered Ethics and the Human Future in Space"
(free download).

 

The following sections describe the principles and

implications of a system of life-centered biotic ethics.

 

 

Life is a self-perpetuating process wrought in patterns of organic matter, Intrinsic to Life therefore is a purpose, self-propagation. Where there is Life, there is purpose.

We owe our existence to a propagating chain of life spanning eons. We belong to life and share its purpose. It is therefore the human purpose to propagate life and to assure that life will pervade the universe.

This panbiotic purpose implies the principles of ethics. Acts that promote life are good, and acts that threaten and destroy life are evil. These biotic ethics encompass all life, present and future.

Pursuing the human purpose requires a coherent society, based on these principles: love life; respect reality; and honor human dignity.

In a self-designed future, our perceived purpose can become our destiny. Our ethics can then shape our future, and with it the future of all life, and even the future of the physical universe.

Ultimately, life can create the highest level of structure, a harmonious society, guided by life-centered ethics. We can assure then that life will achieve its full potential in the universe.


Principles of Life-Centered Astroethics

 

I. Nature

The logic of Nature is immutable and permanent.

In the primordial universe, there existed the Laws of Nature. By these laws the universe emerged from a point in space and time, filled with hot matter and energy. 

The universe exists in space-time and contains mass-energy and particles and fields.

The basic particles are quarks and leptons. Gravity, electromagnetism, and weak and strong nuclear forces act amongst the particles.

All of the accessible universe is composed of these particles and fields, of the patterns that they form, and of the laws of Nature that reside within them.

II. Life and Purpose

Life is a process of organic matter that self-propagates through gene/protein cycles.

The processes of Life lead to survival and propagation. But action that leads to a selected outcome is equivalent to the pursuit of a purpose.

Intrinsic to Life there is therefore purpose. The purpose of Life is to continue to live.

A universe that contains Life, contains purpose.

III. The Human Purpose

Humankind belongs to the family of Life. The human purpose is therefore one with Life's purpose.

Therefore the human purpose is to forever propagate Life, and to elevate Life into a dominant force in Nature.

IV. The Logic of Life

Those living patterns who propagate successfully survive; those who do not, vanish. This is the logic of Life.

The logic of Life is self-evident, immutable and permanent.

Self-reproduction creates new life-forms through random mutations. Those new life-forms who propagate best multiply, and survive longest. Thus evolution leads to progress.

Therefore the logic of Life defines progress as the increasing capacity for survival and propagation.

All life-forms are tested by survival, whatever means they arise by. The same logic that controlled natural evolution will control engineered evolution.

The patterns of Life forever change, but the logic of Life is forever permanent.

V. The Family of Life

Who belongs to the family of Life? Only sentient humans can ask and answer this question. Human judgement defines fellow life.

The processes of organic Life are enacted by proteins, whose structures are encoded by genetic sequences. The core of the living process is the creation, through DNA codes, of proteins that act to reproduce the DNA codes.

Our family of organic Life contains all the organisms who reproduce through gene/protein cycles.

Humans possess an innate empathy to other living beings. Human emotions, ethics, rational judgement and religion all value Life.

All the human faculties: rational judgement, emotions, moral codes and the religions that rest upon them, support ethics that promote our family of organic Life.

VI. The Value of Life

Value judgements are formed by intelligent beings. The value of Life must be self-defined by living beings.

To living beings, Life itself is the highest value. From the human perspective, Life has the highest value amongst all the contents of the universe.

Living systems are uniquely complex, and precisely tuned for their function. The harmony of this complex system endows Life with a unique value amongst all the creations of Nature.

Biological structure would be unstable if the constants and laws of Nature were even slightly different. Life can exist only by a precise coincidence of the basic laws of matter.

In this sense, the physical universe itself comes to a unique point in Life.

Life has a unique value both from its own vantage-point and in the constitution of the universe.

VII. Biotic Ethics, and Good and Evil

From the human purpose derive the axioms of ethics: That which promotes life is good. That which destroys life is evil.

These values derive from a biotic ethics that encompasses life, present and future. They commend the course of ethical behavior.

Nurture the young, since they are the seed of the future.

Assist Life where it falters: Help the needy, feed the hungry, cure the ill.

Advance the richness of living patterns. Conserve and enhance the diversity of living species and develop ever more advanced life forms.

Plant Life where it is absent.

Seed with life all space and time, and encompass in Life all the resources of the universe.

VIII. The Future of Life

The life that we plant in new worlds will fill the universe.

The paths of life will diverge in multiple worlds, to explore the limitless scope of structures that Nature permits.

The family of organic life will grow in quantity, complexity and diversity.

Our family of organic life will be secure when our seed fills the galaxy.

Life, born of the laws of Nature, will permeate the universe.

Our descendants will fill all habitable space and time and seek to extend life to eternity.

When life permeates the universe, our human existence will have fulfilled a cosmic purpose.

Link to: Further social and moral values of

life-centered biotic ethics

The science and ethics of expanding life in space are discussed in the e-book
(free download):

"Seeding the Universe with Life:

Securing Our Cosmological Future"

 

 

 For hard-copy, click on the image below to go to the book at Amazon

                                         

 

 

 The basic principles are summarized also in Bioethics 2009, 23, 433-440:
(free download)

"Life Centered Ethics and the Human Future in Space"

Useful links:

How could we expand life in the Universe?  

See www.panspermia-society

How much life can the galaxy support?

See www.astro-ecology.com

Comments and questions please email to:
ethics@solis1.com

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Copyright Legacy Books 2004