Space philosophy!

Here are some pieces of public philosophy I’ve written on the topic of space (scroll to the bottom for recent updates)

February 2023:

I love space and find it endlessly interesting. There are so many great philosophical questions arising from human beings’ increasing interaction with space, and so many classic questions that thinking about space can helpfully bear upon. I’m going to be writing more regularly about this stuff, through my involvement with the exciting new strategic space advisory firm AstroAnalytica, as its Consulting Space Philosopher. So I thought I’d create a page here to collate some of my previous writing on the topic.

First, here’s a paper that I wrote for the Adam Smith Institute, in early 2022, on the topic of property rights in space. Whilst I discuss relevant space law, the paper’s real focus is moral property rights (which is the topic I wrote my PhD thesis on, albeit without any reference there to space). Basically, in my ASI paper, I set out an argument in response to the question of what a liberal, rights-based approach to economic justice might demand in terms of adjudicating problems of the individual ownership of land in space.

This paper generated a surprising amount of press coverage and social media activity, largely owing to the exaggerated assumption that it called for ‘privatising the moon’. Even Bernie Sanders tweeted about it (though I’m pretty sure, from what he said, that he hadn’t actually read it). The paper featured on the front page of the Daily Star, and articles about it were published in the FT, the Independent, the Guardian, on the Hill website, and many other places.

If you read my paper, you’ll see that (rather than proposing that the moon should be sold to Elon Musk, ha) at the end of what is a 20,000-word, politico-philosophical and economic-theory-heavy discussion, the practical proposal I set out takes the form of a Georgist-type framework to enable the temporary and highly-conditional quasi-rental of plots of moonland. On my system (which is influenced by engagement with the strengths and flaws of the Lockean ‘provisos’), people would only be able to access and profit from the use of plots of moonland if their doing so, minimally: 1) helped to alleviate urgent human need; 2) helped to conserve land (on the moon and on Earth); and 3) effectively ensured that other people would gain the opportunity to compete against them for the morally-justified use of such plots.

Anyway, I found the surprisingly extensive response to the paper (even from those people who’d misunderstood or misrepresented it) pretty cheering, as a nice reflection of the intuitive human interest in all things space..

Next, here’s an article I wrote for IAI, discussing my space-property-rights paper and offering some thoughts on its reception, followed by a response to my paper by philosopher Tony Milligan. And here’s an op-ed I wrote about this stuff for CapX. (I also gave a related talk to the Henry George Foundation last year, which I might get round to uploading here sometime.)

Next, here’s a piece I wrote for the American magazine Reason, also on the topic of property and space — focused on the moral deficiency of any ‘first come, first served’ approach to justifying acquisition.

Finally, here’s something I wrote for ConHome, back in 2019, on space exploration and intrinsic value — which is a topic I’m keen to write more about..

UPDATE!

September 2024:

.. I’ve been making good on that claim! Do watch out for my upcoming article, ‘The Value of Space Activity’, which will be published in Economic Affairs in October 2024. In this article, I take a broad conception of value, discussing not only the financial value of space activity in the context of calculations about the size of the space econony (and reference to the good things space-economy money can be spent on), but also ways in which space activity can further the human good and the good of other living things and natural resources.

Also, here’s the text of an after-dinner talk I recently gave at the Canterbury Institute, using a shipwreck thought-experiment to advance three arguments for thinking hard about property rights in space.

More updates soon..