Is transplanetary sustainability a good idea? An answer from the perspective of conceptual engineering

Beisbart, Claus

doi:10.1017/s1473550418000472

Cited by 5 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…I assume that the term ‘planetary sustainability’ is supposed to designate a concept that is different from the well-known notion of sustainability, even if it only extends the latter in some way (cf. Beisbart, 2019, for an extended version of my argument).…”

Section: Social Media Summarymentioning

confidence: 93%

Do we need an ethics of planetary sustainability?

Beisbart

2019

Glob. Sustain.

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The politics of the United Nations aims at sustainable development (i.e., development that can continue with future generations). Andreas Losch has recently proposed to expand our current notion of sustainability to what he calls ‘planetary sustainability’, and he has urged an ethics of planetary sustainability. This comment article discusses these proposals. The proposed conceptual change is assessed, drawing on desiderata suggested by Carnap. To the extent to which the current notion of sustainability has excluded consideration of outer space, we gain in simplicity. To the extent to which it has been unclear about this issue, we gain in exactness. The proposed concept is fruitful because it points to important considerations, in particular if there are extra-terrestrial beings that share moral status with human beings. But to some extent this fruitfulness requires a clear deviation from the anthropocentric outlook of our current notion of sustainability, and costs regarding similarity arise. As far as an ethics of sustainability is concerned, we certainly need to address ethical issues that arise in relation to outer space. However, the notion of planetary sustainability is not likely to figure prominently in related thoughts because the notion of sustainability is not a key concept in known ethical theories.

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Section: Social Media Summarymentioning

confidence: 93%

Do we need an ethics of planetary sustainability?

Beisbart

2019

Glob. Sustain.

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“…At the same time, the need for planetary protection was to be retained; the inclusion of a discussion of potential extraterrestrial life (ETL) or extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETIL) was always on the horizon of the concept, as my previous project had dealt with the anthropological, philosophical and theological implications of the potential existence of life beyond our planet (Losch, 2016 c , 2017). Contrary to the focus of the previous project, the ‘extraterrestrial beings’ (Beisbart, 2019, 1) currently being discussed, however, are more likely to be microbes than intelligent entities.…”

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confidence: 85%

“…The effort to analyse the concept and idea of planetary sustainability (Losch, 2018; Beisbart, 2019) from the perspective of conceptual engineering is very worthwhile. In the following response to this discussion and to Beisbart’s proposal to rename the concept ‘transplanetary sustainability’, the questions he raised will be answered by first recalling the roots of the concept of planetary sustainability.…”

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confidence: 99%

Planetary sustainability: transitions of an idea

Losch

2019

International Journal of Astrobiology

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Response to 'Is Transplanetary Sustainability a Good Idea?-An Answer from the Perspective of Conceptual Engineering' The effort to analyse the concept and idea of planetary sustainability (Losch, 2018; Beisbart, 2019) from the perspective of conceptual engineering is very worthwhile. In the following response to this discussion and to Beisbart's proposal to rename the concept 'transplanetary sustainability', the questions he raised will be answered by first recalling the roots of the concept of planetary sustainability. The idea of coining the expression 'planetary sustainability' was born through working on, and drawing on, the concept of planetary protection (Losch, 2016a). In accordance with the Outer Space Treaty (Article IX), planetary protection demands measures to sterilize spacecrafts passing through the vacuum of space, to avoid contamination of other celestial bodies with Earth life or vice versa. As Meltzer (2010, 1) puts it: '[i]f we irrevocably alter the nature of other celestial bodies, we compromise all future scientific experiments on these bodies and may also damage any extant life here. By inadvertently carrying exotic organisms back to Earth on our spaceships, we risk the release of biohazardous materials into our own ecology.' Planetary protection thus has a two-way orientation: it cares about forward contamination by spacecraft (such as Mars robots) touching other planets' 'bio'spheres, and about the potential backward contamination by those spacecraft returning to Earth (like the Apollo mission, Japan's Hayabusa probe, etc.). In this context, the original idea was to aim 'at extending the concept of sustainability into our solar system and safeguarding a sustainable development of life on earth and beyond, be it of human or of other origin' (Losch, 2016b, 1). The sustainable development of humankind should be reconsidered in the context of the Solar System (Losch, 2016b, 7). Given this orientation, it made sense to connect the project to the existing NASA initiative, also called 'planetary sustainability' (Losch, 2016a, 2018), which aims at including in our planet's sustainable development the 'resources of the Solar System' (NASA, 2014). At the same time, the need for planetary protection was to be retained; the inclusion of a discussion of potential extraterrestrial life (ETL) or extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETIL) was always on the horizon of the concept, as my previous project had dealt with the anthropological, philosophical and theological implications of the potential existence of life beyond our planet (Losch, 2016c, 2017). Contrary to the focus of the previous project, the 'extraterrestrial beings' (Beisbart, 2019, 1) currently being discussed, however, are more likely to be microbes than intelligent entities. Unfortunately, I do not agree with Beisbart that it is a 'new concept of sustainability' which I would want to introduce. It is not meant to replace the current earthbound notion of sustainability, as is stated by Beisbart in his article (Beisbart, 2019, 1). Rather, the i...

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“…'Planetary sustainability' as a term aims to keep this in mind. (For a critical review and discussion of the idea, see Beisbart, 2019aBeisbart, , 2019bBeisbart, , 2019cLosch, 2019b. )…”

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confidence: 99%