Parfit + Singer + Aliens = ?

Abstract

This work argues that if you hold future and alien life to be morally valuable, then upon discovery of alien life, humanity’s future becomes a vanishingly small part of the morally valuable universe. In this situation, Longtermism ceases to be action relevant. It might be true that certain paths into the far future contain the vast majority of moral value, but if there are lots of morally valuable aliens out there, the universe is just as likely to end up one of these paths whether humans are around or not, so Longtermism doesn’t help us decide what to do. Using the example proposed by Parfit where Option A is Peace, Option B is a nuclear war that kills 99% of human beings, and Option C is a nuclear war that kills 100% of humanity, the author claims that if we’re confident that future value will be fulfilled by aliens whether we destroy ourselves or not, then there isn’t much of a jump between B and C. Thus, examining the assumptions of Singer and Parfit in the context of alien life, the author concludes that the discovery of alien civilization is sufficient but not entirely necessary for humanity’s importance in the overall moral value of the universe to decrease. – AI-generated abstract.