Abstract
The existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) contemporaneous with the existence of the human species remains an unproven hypothesis. It is likely that until we achieve contact with ETI, we will know with certainty little or nothing about the ethics, morals, philosophy or laws and legal systems of advanced ETI civilizations. This lack of knowledge extends to fundamental questions regarding ETI behavior, such as whether an ETI civilization that is likely to be vastly older and more advanced will adopt an altruistic and benevolent disposition toward the human race or an egoistic, selfish and possibly destructive one. Efforts to speculate about the ethics, morals and legal precepts of ETI civilizations predate the theoretical foundations of the scientific effort now known as SETI. Celegistics is proposed as a reference term for explicating theories of ETI legal systems. Over 50 years ago, Andrew Haley first suggested the concept of Metalaw to refer to fundamental legal precepts of universal application to all intelligences, including ETI. In the decades since, several other writers have pursued this celegistic exercise and further developed Haley’s ideas regarding Metalaw. All of these efforts have incorporated various assumptions about the altruism of ETI civilizations; the reliability of these assumptions is unknown because of the dearth of empirical evidence regarding the existence and nature of ETI. Various avenues (including celegistics), while limited due to their anthropocentric bias, may exist to allow us to further empirically explore the validity of our ideas regarding ETI’s ethics, morals, and legal precepts, including Metalaw and its celegistic assumptions regarding extraterrestrial altruism.
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Notes
- 1.
For differing definitions of this term as used by Stine/Correy in 1980 and 1986, see (Stine 1980, 44–45; Correy 1986, 7). Stine’s concept (although not its precise definition) of a Zone of Sensitivity expressed in both 1980 and modified in 1986 actually originated in Haley’s work. Haley (1963, 418) intended the term to refer to “the closest distance of approach outside of which no possible effect can be exerted upon a hypothetical being.” Haley considered areas outside such zones to be free space open to all, subject to an interstellar “freedom of the seas.”
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Korbitz, A. (2014). Altruism, Metalaw, and Celegistics: An Extraterrestrial Perspective on Universal Law-Making. In: Vakoch, D. (eds) Extraterrestrial Altruism. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37750-1_15
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