Applying Kant to Space: Part 2.5, The Starship of Musts

This is part 2.5of a series applying Kantian Ethics to manned space exploration and space colonization. All quotes are from The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Please read part two before this part.

Imagine for a moment a starship without warp drive. It would have to be fairly large to support a crew of even 100. Even so, the 100 bedrooms would be small compared the the storage needed for food, water and equipment/materials for constructing homes on whatever different star system their multi-generational journey takes them.  And that’s the problem, 100 people is the carrying capacity of the ship and it is a hard limit. These bedrooms are not luxurious, they are the bare minimum for human comfort and any increase in the ship’s crew will make it unethical to squeeze that many people together. Furthermore, life support systems will become overloaded if the population aboard the ship even reaches 101.

However, morally we are unable to limit the number of children. This is because it falls under the categorical imperative I described in part 2; it is something we can not do simply because we morally can not do it. Declaring something a categorical imperative is easy, explaining how it is a categorical imperative and how it is relevant is the next task.

We see how Kant’s law is relevant by applying the following test: try to make the rules that the starship’s crew has to follow to universal rules for all of humanity. That is to say imagine the whole Earth as a starship with a certain carrying capacity. We are free to educate; to give incentives to lower the number of children people choose to have less, but we can not force this rule upon all of humanity since it is impracticable to do so.

But this is not the end. No, we are in conflict with our space-faring goal of reaching the next star system on a multi-generational ship (the hypothetical imperative) should we conform to the categorical imperative. If our ship has a maximum load of 100 people then we are forced to meet this requirement just like we are forced to do homework if we want a degree. 

To solve this conflict we must combine both the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative. That means our if-then statement become if we want to build a multi-generational starship then we must design it with a caring capacity that can expand. That way we can address both of the musts in the form of the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative.

Photo by Abriael

Applying Kant to Space: Part 2, What We Must and Must Not Do

This is part two of a series applying Kantian Ethics to manned space exploration and space colonization. All quotes are from The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Please read part one before this part.


Kant used the idea of imperatives to express the two different types of "must dos" in life. The first is called a "categorical imperative...which [is] represented [as] an action objectively necessarily of itself, without reference to another [goal]". The second is called the hypothetical imperative which are actions "good merely as a means to something else".

Photo by Tumnaselda

To make this clearer consider a starship on an 100 year mission. Physical requirements (like run x number of laps in y time) are ok to impose on the crew because one does not have to go on this mission to have a happy life; physical requirement belong to the hypothetical imperative. But imposing thought requirements and belief requirements would violate the categorical imperative.

For example, the captain of the starship and the design team must not place any limitation or requirements on the number of children crew members must or can have because that asks the crew to conform with a certain thoughts and that can make them miserable. It is different from physical requirements because it can be designed around.  Furthermore, it is different because if we find ourselves violating anything that must be done to execute something that could be done then we find ourselves in moral fault. This is because it is far more important, because the proof for categorical imperatives does not rely on our wishes, to preserve categorical imperatives and abandon hypothetical ones.

Yes, this means we might not be able to do the 100 year starship mission at all.

Applying Kant to Space: Part 1, An Introduction to Kantian Ethics

Immanuel Kant was born in 1724, long before space dreams entered the mind of the general public. However, his thoughts still resonate today. His ideas resonate because he created an ethics system that was "cleansed of everything that may only be empirical and [based in] anthropology" (Source: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals; all further ) Basically, he found a moral system that all rational beings would have to follow.; a moral system based on pure reason.

Kant's thoughts are important as this blog and the space community exploration the ethics of the field because of the many different cultures involved.  We need some "supreme norm" to evaluate our ethical decisions in space. Otherwise, our discussions get clouded in the wide range of subjective ethics systems around the world.

One example is the need for space. Different cultures have different needs for personal space. Thus, the culture influences the size of hallways and rooms in a space station or settlement. Thus we see why the upcoming discussion is important.

Tomorrow I will explore more of Kant's thoughts.