CoGE Ethics
- An it harm none, do what ye will.
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics
The idealistic purpose of the Church of Gaia/Earthseed's system of ethics is to bring humans into harmony, both with each other and with all other species, so that we can rejoin the cooperative entity of Gaia as true members rather than false rulers.
The first part of CoGE's general ethical stance is a hybrid of the ideas in the quotes above, applying them both to the problem of how to behave toward other people, and how to act with respect to members of other species: You are free to act as long as you do your best to minimize harm to other beings. This means both that you should never directly cause harm when you can avoid it, and that you should take any opportunity you see to prevent harm from occurring.
The second, more positive component is more of a strong suggestion than an admonition: Look for opportunities to help maximize other beings' happiness and fulfillment, as you will most often feel happier and more fulfilled yourself. The purpose of this statement is, first, to remind us that we are social creatures who gain mutual benefit from helping each other, and second, to note that helping to maintain and renew the bounty of nature for the benefit of all species feels right, because it is right.
The devil is in the details, of course. What if two available courses of action will both cause harm to some creatures, and it's not clear which one is least harmful overall? How do we weigh harm to humans versus harm to, say, bacteria? How can you be sure that another being actually wants your help? Given that a predator existing in harmony with the overall ecosystem has no compunction about causing harm to individual prey, what natural basis is there for a human-made system of ethics that minimizes harm to individuals? And so on.
I will only cover that last one here. It can be argued that if we are only cells in the great organism that is Gaia, then all individual rights, including the right to life, must be subsumed by a holistic concern for the overall well-being of the planetary organism--as if Gaia were some kind of totalitarian state, and we were to be Her selflessly obedient subjects. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement uses this type of radical ecocentrism as an argument for letting the whole human race die out, so the rest of the world can thrive. But this is taking the analogy too far. After all, from a pragmatic perspective, we must accept that most humans, like any other organism, will always put their own survival first, their direct genetic relations second, and only then consider the rights of anyone or anything else. Very few people would be willing to risk their lives for Gaia unless, as with soldiers defending their country, they could see a benefit to themselves or their families from doing so.
If properly defined, of course, the greatest good for the greatest number of individual organisms will usually also be good for the whole. But ultimately, I think, we have to see ourselves as a yin-yang-type unity of opposites: unique, free, valuable individuals who also belong to larger, valuable wholes. We have ethical responsibilities on both levels, and we will simply have to find a good dynamic balance between the two.
Now, I'm not a philosopher, so I won't go into the detailed practice of these ethical guidelines, though I may post some useful links to existing philosophical works in the future. For a broad overview of the process of ethical extension beyond human-to-human relations to date, see The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics by Roderick Frazier Nash.
--Scifiben 18:07, 9 August 2008 (PDT)
