Ethics in extraterrestrial humanity

Kojima, Nina (2025) Ethics in extraterrestrial humanity. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

With the launch of the first satellite into Earth’s orbit, we turned the Archimedean point from our home planet towards the heart of the Universe. By the end of this decade, humans will live and work permanently on the Moon and, at the beginning of the next one, on Mars. Life outside our home planet, in lethal and challenging environments, will propel our civilisation into the extraterrestrial, to embark on an even greater – interstellar – civilisation.

Some predict that there will be new generations of humans born and evolved into extraterrestrial gravities that will eventually lead to a ‘new’ human race. Extraterrestrial humans will no longer consider the Earth to be their home, but rather Mars. For creatures and humans who evolved on Earth to live on objects of our solar system and beyond it will only be possible with the support of technology and nanotechnology. This life will no longer be comparable with life as we know it now, and one of the major challenges we will face will be the ethical implications of that.

There are many questions to be answered. The core one for this research is: are we going to conquer solar system objects as good citizens or as cosmic vandals? What kind of relationship will we establish with these planets we are not made of, in the case that these planets contain life? Are we allowed to contaminate planets we are not made of, even if they do not present any indication of possible life forms? Also – an important question – life as we know it on Earth is based on carbon, but could other objects in the universe evolve life forms based on silicon? Knowing our practices on Earth, how we assess all situations from an anthropocentric point of view, is it at all possible to acknowledge and even give priority to living creatures – if there are any – outside our home planet?

This thesis will lead to more questions than answers, and the conclusions will be suggestions based on assumptions of how we could reach the best outcome when we start living our extraterrestrial life. The thesis has two parts. The first part introduces ethical questions and concerns related to the argument that we ought to leave our home planet; the second part will try to predict the possibility of ethics in our extraterrestrial human life, based on the heavy support of technology and nanotechnology and implementation of that on other objects, planets and moons in our solar system. This is a huge scale, so I will concentrate on human extraterrestrial life on Mars for two main reasons: Mars will be the first example of a planet where humans will live and work; and this will happen in the next 10 to 15 years.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General); B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Philosophy
• Supervisor's Name: Simion, Professor Mona
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85430
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 03 Sep 2025 12:22
• Last Modified: 03 Sep 2025 12:25
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85430
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85430