Ethical dilemma: What makes life worth living? - Douglas MacLean

On your planet, life depends entirely on Nuronium.

Your species is almost otherwise identical to humans,

except you require Nuronium in the atmosphere for normal cognition.

Without it, people lose their capacity to imagine and think reflectively.

Over time, they even lose their ability to make and retain long-term memories.

While this is certainly a delicate situation,

this essential element also provides an infinite source of clean energy,

which has allowed your people to thrive for millennia.

But leading scientists have discovered terrible news.

Somehow the entire source of Nuronium has been irreversibly compromised.

It now emits a pollutant that lowers fertility in your species,

and if your planet continues relying on this resource,

your people will go extinct within 100 years.

However, in an incredible stroke of luck,

your scientists have identified a passing comet from which they can mine

an alternate energy source called Polixate.

Polixate won’t cause infertility

and would provide the same renewable energy as Nuronium.

But it won’t sustain cognition in quite the same way.

With Polixate in the atmosphere instead of Nuronium,

people would lose their creativity, their long-term memories,

and eventually, your entire culture would disappear.

The Polixate comet will only remain in orbit for a few days,

and after that it won't return for centuries.

So your society's administrative council must decide immediately

whether to keep using Nuronium or mount an expedition to harvest the Polixate.

Right now, the board is split— waiting for your tiebreaking vote.

Dr. Taylof’s contingent argues that your people must continue using Nuronium.

They believe that your species’ culture— centuries of literature, music, and art,

as well as your achievements in agriculture, medicine, and technology—

is what makes life worth living.

Without the memories of your people’s history

or the ability to dream up new inventions,

the people on your planet would essentially be reduced to mindless drones.

Their basic needs for survival and reproduction would be met,

but Dr. Taylof believes the lives of those future generations

would be meaningless without memories, imagination, and culture.

And since Dr. Taylof’s group doesn’t believe that future generations

have any inherent right to be brought into existence,

if it’s not possible for them to add to the civilization they’ve inherited,

there's no point in trying to preserve them.

Besides, no living beings are harmed by continuing to rely on Nuronium—

your species should simply accept their fate and go extinct with dignity.

Dr. Kahan and their colleagues strongly disagree.

They admit that switching to Polixate would decrease

your people’s quality of life.

But with their basic needs met,

they could still experience a kind of happiness observed

in other, arguably less complex lifeforms.

And even if there's no chance of your people redeveloping creativity,

what's most important for Dr. Kahan is that we would be preserving life.

Dr. Kahan’s faction believes the continuation of life alone

is incomparably valuable.

They also believe that, on average, every member of your species contributes,

in small but constant ways, to the betterment of your people.

So by choosing to ensure your people’s existence,

you would ultimately be improving the total happiness of your species.

But Dr. Taylof rejects the idea that maximizing happiness

is the ultimate goal of living.

They believe that a valuable life consists not only of happiness

but also meaningfulness.

And that acting as links in the chain of tradition

and preserving cultural artifacts

are some of the most fundamental sources of meaning a species can have.

Merely continuing to exist, in lives like those of contented pets,

would not be valuable.

Meanwhile, the advocates for Polixate believe there’s something

fundamentally unethical about choosing extinction.

Dr. Kahan argues there’s no moral difference between what we do

and what we allow to happen when we could have acted differently.

So while it would be tragic if your people ceased to exist due to chance,

to knowingly make a decision that results in extinction

is tantamount to mass murder.

Both sides have much more to say, but the council needs your vote now.

So what shall it be: Nuronium for a while, or Polixate forever?