Nicholas Campion

The Moral Philosophy of Space Travel

Abstract

The space programme is driven by many imperatives, of which the most overt are economic and geopolitical. However, psychological factors are also present, in particular an underlying narrative within many cultures, including western, in which space is represented as a source of wisdom and morality. This is evident in traditional views of heaven as existing beyond the stars) and more recently in the ‘Overview Effect’, the name given to the experience of many astronauts which has been described as a ‘state of grace’. This chapter will consider the philosophical background to concepts of space as related to wisdom and morality with reference to debates in western culture and theories and practices from other China, India, Africa and the Americas. It will touch on the attribution of moral qualities to the stars and planets in India and the ancient Near East, and debates within Christian theology on the soul’s journey to the stars. Within the context of western culture it will reference the soul’s journey to the stars in Egypt, classical traditions in Plato’s Republic and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, Christian debates on the soul’s relationship with the stars in St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and Jewish Kabbalistic concepts of an ascent to the divine via the stars. In so doing the chapter will provide a valuable historical background for current debates on ethics and space.

Biography

Nicholas Campion is the Director of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.