Space: the final frontier of ethics
The New York Times has an interesting interview with Paul Root Wolpe, a medical sociologist and bioethicst at Emory University, who also serves as first chief of bioethics for NASA. Dr. Wolpe states that compared to bioethics on earth,
Ethics in space are more of a balancing act. You need to weigh a series of priorities and figure out which is paramount.
As Sam mentioned in a previous post, space exploration opens the door to a vast array of new ethical questions. Here on earth, societal values and past experience often lead us to make moral decisions out of habit. But as Dr. Wolpe alludes to, space travel presents us with unfamiliar situations in which “common sense” is not always applicable.
–Luke
Related posts:
- Space, the expensive frontier
- When ethics attack
- Ethics 101
- Reality Philosophy?
- The lessons of the Stephen Farrell rescue
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