Messaging morality: ethics across the cosmos

Abstract

Rolston lecture at a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) workshop, February 14, 2015, Mountain View, California. When we consider active SETI, or METI, transmitting messages that might be received by extraterrestrial intelligence, what might we say about human morality? We can ask what ethics, if any, is an inclusive global ethics. Consider the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Messages will more likely be understood if kept short and basic. Seek peace! Be fair! Tell the truth! Keep promises! Some, such as the Golden Rule, might be pictured. Dimensions of human ethics are Earthbound: Be sustainable! Do not commit adultery! But, like basic laws of science, deeper principles will be shared with extraterrestrials. Human ethics has been socially constructed across cultural histories, originating with prophets, seers, saviors, but, again like science which has a history, our more fundamental moral insights, if not true in all possible worlds, are true elsewhere in our universe. Taking a longer view, considering transit millennia, we should transmit truths that are both profound and permanently true.