kracher meta-humans and metanoia the moral dimension of extraterrestrials

7/29/2019 Kracher Meta-humans and Metanoia the Moral Dimension of Extraterrestrials

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META-HUMANS AND METANOIA: TH E MORALDIMENSION OF EXTRATERRESTRIALShy Alfred Kracher

Abstract. Although we do not know whether intelhgent extrater-restrials exist, they are a permanent fixture of literature and philo-sophical argum ent. Part of their appeal is that they watch us fromabove and thus serve as a metaphor for hum an self-reflexivity. Th ismakesfictionalaliens especially useful when moral issues are at stake.In order to evaluate stories about aliens with respect to moral conclu-sions two conditions m ust be fulfilled. First, the stories have to bedetailed enough that we can understand the circumstances of thealiens' moral choices. Therefore science fiction often is more usefulthan argum ents involving aliens in short technical papers. Second,their fictional lives need to be possible in our own universe, or verynearly so, in order to be relevant for our own moral conduct. Takingas an example the unfallen aliens in C. S. Lewis's novels Out oftheSilent Planet (1938) and Perelandra (1943 ), we can acknowledge thetheological interest and literary subtlety. Nonetheless, the stories failas moral parables in one im portant respect: The aliens depicted couldno t be a product of evolution in our universe, at least as we currentlyunderstand its scientific laws. This realization has important conse-quences for our self-understanding and thus underlines how fictionalaliens can be useful in making sense of the complexities involved inmoral argumentation.Keywords: extraterrestrial aliens; C. S. Lewis; morality; originalsin; science fiction.


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330 ZygonT H E O N T O L O G Y O F A L IE N S

Aliens, extraterrestrial beings with humanlike intelligence, present us witha peculiar problem: They have been, and continue to be, of great help to upedestrian Earthlings, even though we cannot be sure that they even existDebates about the existence of other worlds and of intelligent extraterrestrial beings have throughout the course of history been of significant helpin advancing our knowledge and our understanding of nature, includinghum an nature, and thus understanding of ourselves.No other objects of debate pose quite the same kind of ontological co-nundrum . For example, not everyone agrees on whether elementary particles such as quarks are "real," but this is a matter of one's epistemologicaposition; scientists generally agree about the evidence. Also, some peoplethink fairy stories and myths are important, whereas others dismiss themsimply as lies; there is little doubt, however, about the ontological status ofairies as creations of our imagination. It is only with aliens that we havethe peculiar problem of having a mythology (or perhaps m ultiple m ytholo-gies) about a potentially real object without being able to prove or disprovits existence.One interesting consequence of this strange ontological status is thaaliens, when considered as metaphor, have a peculiar appeal across a rangeof epistemological attitudes. Rationalists, who tend to dismiss the significance of myth, cannot write off aliens altogether; after all, they might re-ally exist. O n the other hand, m any of those disenchanted with scienceput their hope in aliens that are more "spiritual" than those suspect indi-viduals in the white coats who m ight mess up the world. The peculiarstatus of aliens as objects of both science and mythology can to some ex-

tent serve as a poin t of contact between such otherwise incompatible viewsFor Karl Guthke, the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial beings is x!n^Mytof the Modern Age,^ w h\ch connects science, philosophy, and science ficti(Guthke 1990, 22) . Science writer Joel Achenbach has interviewed andeven lived with persons as diverse as top NASA scientists and individualswho thought they were abducted by aliens. The experiences he recountsillustrate the talent of aliens to bring together these disparate groups, whichhe characterizes with the whimsical slogan that all of them have been "cap-tured by aliens," though in very different ways (Achenbach 1999).


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Alfred Kracher 331M OR AL REF LECTI ON AND THE M ETA P HOR OF ALTITUDE

H u m a n m ora l agency is roo ted in h u m an self-reflexivity. W e are able towatch ourselves think and act and assess potential consequences of ouractions. This is an exercise of imagination, and carrying it out requires akin d of con cep tual toolbox . Som e of the truly indispensable tools aremetaphors that illuminate the nature of this peculiar relationship that wehave to ourselves when we are both watcher and watched.

T h e watching self is of course already a m etaph or. W e migh t call thisimaginary observer a meta-human, in the same sense that a meta-theory isa theo ry abou t theories. Closely associated w ith the m eta ph or of w atch ingis the one of lookin g down from above. G ettin g an overview from a higherstand poin t is such a com mo nplac e experience that we hardly notice me ta-pho rs of altitude in this con text. W e talk ab ou t an overseer {supervisor inLatinized form) who directs others, and religious leaders are bishops, fromthe Greek w ord for "looking dow n on." G ut hk e (1990 ) begins his investi-gation into aliens in science, philosophy, and literature with the ultimateicon of this self-reflexivity: the im ages of Ea rth taken from space by astro-nau ts. T his is, in a way, the extraterrestrial's view of th e hu m an situatio n.

The metaphor of looking down from above is l inked with yet anotherone , namely, that we are on a journey, and that morali ty demands that wego in the right direction. We need, as it were, a map, which is itself a devicetha t schematically depic ts a landsc ape as seen from above. If we have lostour way, we have to turn back. Such a change of direction, the metanoia,or reth ink ing of wh ere we are head ed, is possible on ly as a result of watch -ing ourselves on the journey, of pictu ring ou r path o n the mo ral ma p. Eversince the seventeenth century, when John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim'sProgress, the journe y asm etapho r of spiri tual developme nt has been a po pu-lar device of religion-inspired fiction.^ Lewis's consciously BunyanesqueThe Pilgrim's Regress ([1933] 1981) even contains an imaginary map asfrontispiece, just like countless fantasy and science fiction novels that un-fold in imaginary worlds.

Fictional extraterrestrials who come from outer space obviously fit theimage of w atch ing from above m ost closely and therefore are in ma ny waysthe ideal m eta -h um an s. T his is attested by the m any science fiction storiestha t ma ke imp licit or explicit mo ral po ints. M oral philoso phe r Ju dith


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332 Zygonthey allow us to evaluate our own attitudes and actions as well as makereasoned judgments about one another.

For much of the history of Christianity God-images presumably haveplayed this role of watching from above. However, we obviously cannosee ourselves the way God sees us, and trying to imagine God's viewpoinhas its dangers. Whatever its merits as a means of reflecting on our ownconduct, judging others as if we could ourselves assume God's viewpoint isalarmingly prone to abuses. If we persist in trying to put ourselves intoGod's place we should end up not godlike but rather insane with megalomania. For this reason Ghristian storytellers often have employed an intermediarya metaphorical watcher who knows God's viewpoint but isnot identical with God. Such supernatural watchers in older stories cometo resemble the aliens in modern ones. Thus the aliens in some contem porary stories are clearly the angels of old transplanted into a science fictiomilieu.^

Developing adequate metaphors of reflection is very important becauseof the complexity of moral reasoning. Th is complexity constantly drivesus to unwarranted simplifications either in the direction of moral dualismor toward a denial of the pervasive nature of evil. My hypothesis thaaliens capture our imagination primarily through their moral function asmeta-humans (rather than, for example, their scientific interest) suggeststhe necessity for an analysis that links their artistic function with moracomplexity and epistemological sophistication. Inventing a story aboualiens can help to concretize a complex scenario and to some degree resisthe temptation to oversimplify.

The ways in which such metaphors are further developed rely, eitherimplicitly or explicitly, on a particular moral philosophy. Thu s, fictionaaliens carry the features of the philosophy that conceived them. As weshall see, scientism begets godlike aliens, whereas more recent imaginaryspecies frequently are postmodernistically confused. In order to evaluatetheir uses, we need to take a look at the underlying philosophies that broughthem into existence.

THE VARIETY OF PHILOSOPHICAL ALIENSSpeculations about the existence of aliens go back to the very beginning o


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Alfred Kracher 333(Preus 1987). It might be said that with Fontenelle and Vico human self-reflexivity reaches the point where we watch ourselves believe as well asthink and act. It is intriguing that Fontenelle, although perhaps unawareof the connection, also was an emphatic proponent for the existence ofmany worlds peopled by humanoid races.Steven Dick (1982; 1996) and Michael Crowe (1986) have covered thehistory of speculations about aliens from antiquity until the present. Guthke(1990) has a more literary focus, although he overstates his point when hecalls aliens the myth ofthe modern age. There certainly are other contend-ers. The common thread to all of the historical speculations about theplurality of worlds and extraterrestrial intelligence is that they were not theidle thoughts of people who had noth ing better to do but were in fact usedin many ways at the very center of the seminal debates that shaped ourintellectual history.The tradition of using aliens as philosophical meta-humans continuestoday. Michael Ruse (1989) wonders if rape is wrong on A ndrom eda.Mary Midgley deploys an alien from a Centauri to observe human aggres-sive behavior in Beast and Man (Midgley 1978, 59-6 7) . Of course, a muchless esoteric place than philosophical discourse where we encounter aliensen masse are the science fiction narratives that pervade our culture as televi-sion series, movies, mass market novels, and all of the paraphernalia associ-ated with fandom of any of the above. These narratives, too, take aphilosophical stand, sometimes explicitly but often seemingly without be-ing aware of it.

In this context the aliens assume yet another useful role: They oblig-ingly implement the philosophical position of whoever invents them.Midgley's Centaur is a metaphor for the objective observer of traditionalphilosophy. He (it?) observes hum ans without being biased by hum anprejudice. He represents our ability for self-reflection, which includes be-coming aware of one's own bias and making allowance for it.At the same time, this ability to step outside ourselves is limited; it is nota godlike power of assuming any viewpoint at will. Depending on howthis human limitation is conceived within different epistemologies, we canconstruct a taxonomy of aliens spanning the range between two extremepoles that generally reflect modern attitudes about rationality and its rolein moral conduct.


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334 Zygonpluralist. T hi s is no t entirely satisfactory, b ecause these w ords do no t reallydescribe the extremes of the co nt in uu m . How ever, I w an t to avoid pre-judging the issue by using loaded words such as enlightenment and post-modernism for these poles.

To have the different philosophical species of aliens who live along thisscale fleshed ou t for us, we have to tur n to science fiction. T he re is areason why complete stories are more useful to our discussion than theodd imaginary al ien mentioned in a mere paragraph or two in a philo-sophical paper. Table 1 l ists som e of th e prop erties of aliens on each side ofthe philosophical tug-of-war.

Carl Sagan, for example, clearly represents the rationalist view of sci-ence as a "candle in the dark," explicitly so in the subtitle to Sagan 1995.The aliens in Contact (Sagan 1985) embody this ideal of superior and ab-solute rationality and in many ways exemplify the attributes of the godtheir au th or didn 't believe in. Sagan does no t actually use the adjectiveomnipotent for his aliens, but he might as well; their powers may not beunlim ited, bu t they can do anything tha t hum an s can imagine, wh ich is asclose to omnipotence as matters . With that much power one must neces-sarily think of them as benign (otherwise we would not be left alive to talkabo ut th em ), and to a rationalist l ike Sagan being benign also m eans beingtotally rationa l. Sagan's aliens are thu s as god like as they com e, and theirperspective of h um an ity is exactly Trigg's "G od's eye view" of perfect ratio -nality.

But im agination need n ot be com m itted to this kind of aliens. W e maybe able to reflect on ourselvesand let aliens stand for this abilitybutthe reflection can be just as confused as the issue we are reflecting onAliens, at least fictional ones, can be just as clueless as the humans whoinvent them . A nd these quasi-postm odern aliens have their own argu-mentative power, precisely because they are so much like us. The reasonfor their existence (in fiction and philosophy ) is to help us m ud dle thro ug h

Table 1A Taxonom y of Aliens

Rationalist Pluralist


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Alfred Kracher 335our own existence. These aliens are therefore hum anlike, although notnecessarily anthropomorphic in a physical sense.

David Brin's amazing assembly of unlikely life forms is a case in po int .Their bewildering diversity (wheeled creatures,five-sidedcrabs, stacks oftoroids communicating by scent, and many others) conveys most clearlyone message: that for all of their differences these life forms will have tosomehow get along with each other if they want to survive. When I referto Brin's zoo as postmodern, the primary association is with the eclecticarchitectural and artistic style known by this label, although it also reflectsthe general concern of giving all the different life forms equal rights in thegalaxy.I want to emphasize that both kinds of aliens are relevant to our moral-ity, albeit in different ways. The godlike ones can sometimes tell us whatto do or at least instruct us how to become better. The humanlike onesteach us something about ourselves, too, but not by instruction; they teachby examplesometimes a bad example that we ought not to follow. InBrin's world, unlike Sagan's, a higher form of rationality clearly is not anentitlement to moral superiority.

Gomplications arise when an author wants to locate himself in the middlerange, where no direct access to quasi-divine advice is available but super-human guidance is nonetheless a necessary part of the story. Lewis pre-sents us with two kinds of aliens in Out ofthe Silent Planet (1938) andPerelandra (1943), two ofthe books in his space trilogy.' One kind is an-thropom orph ic, the other angelic. This reflects a philosophical heritage ofdualism, which manifests itself not merely in the world of his aliens but inLewis's philosophy in general. Whereas the anthropomorph ic aliens standfor humans, albeit not affected by original sin, the "eldila" (angelic aliens)represent the world of spirits. For all the differences in belief between theGhristian apologist Lewis and the atheist Sagan, eldila and the aliens ofContact are effectively indistinguishable.

Because ofth e importan t implications Lewis's aliens have for religion, Ireturn to them later. Before I do, let us investigate in more detail what it isabout our imagination that has such important consequences for moralreasoning.ALIENS AND H UM AN IMAGINATION


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336 Zygonto change their conceptions of them. But until such time we must look toim ag inatio n in order to see in w ha t way it is useful in gene rating aliens th atare actually helpful to our moral reflection.H um an imagination is l imited in two ways. T he first and m ore obviousis that it is inco m plete; there are things we have not yet ima gined and alsoperhaps things that we can no t ima gine. Th is is expressed by J. B. S. Haldane s([1927] 1928) famous statement that the universe may well be not only"queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." The otherlimitation to our imagination results not from a constraint but from a lackof con straint. Th is limitation was expressed by Au strian architect Ado lfLoos^ in the form of this parable: A university professor comes to aleatherworker who makes harnesses and saddles and shows him a new de-sign for a saddle while boasting about his creative imagination. "My dearprofessor," replies the sadd ler, "if I knew as l i tt le abo ut horses, abo ut riding,and about leather as you do, then I would have your creative imagination,too" (Loos [1929] 2002, 186).

W h a t good is im ag ina tion if it does no t lead to practical results? In away, the source of the problem here is the illusion that imagination is un-con strain ed. Bu t in reality it is precisely by finding useful a nd valid c on -straints that we can put our imagination to work to do something useful.Creativity is m ore than im agin ation . Psychologist RoUo M ay (1975 ) hascalled creativity i^ passion for form. Creative solutions are obtained by giving shape to thin gs ima gine d. Aliens are partic ularly useful here, becausethe aliens we imagine (in fiction, philosophy, or movies) give form to cer-tain ideasthey embody them, in the literal sense of the wordand thiscan let us discover problem atic con sequences ofthe se ideas or at least co m eto see them more clearly.There are, then, two co m plem entary limitations to o ur im agination, w hichmay be summarized thus: We do not and perhaps cannot imagine everythingthat is possible in our world (Haldane's limit), and We can and do imaginethings that are impossible or entirely useless in our real world (Loos's limitBoth limitations affect the use of imaginary aliens in moral argument.

I M A G IN A T I O N E N C O U N T E R S T H E H O R S EAliens allow our imagination to expand, yet used properly they also con-


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Alfred Kracher 337own may make very good stories, but they are mostly useless for moralarguments.

We nonetheless need fic tion, that is, extended stories, if we are to learnthe lessons that fictional aliens can teach us. Midgley writes, "Philoso-phers are rather prone to throw out claims like 'I can imagine a tribewhich . . .' without going to the trouble of actually doing it" (1981, 137).What is true of imaginary tribes of humans applies even more to imagi-nary aliens. Storytellers, including writers of science fiction , cannot getaway with this. The success ofa story depends on our ability to imagine it.No imagined world, no story. W hat makes a story successful is a kind ofinner logic and plausibility. Even though a story does not have to be aboutsomething that is actually possible in real life, it can still be judged on thisbasis. We can tell stories about unicorns, sorcerers, and impossible lifeforms in other quadrants of the universe. But we can also com ment thatunicorns, at least nonmagical ones, might exist if evolution had taken adifferent track, that most fictional acts of sorcery are impossible in the realworld, and that travel at warp speed is highly unlikely on the basis of phys-ics as known today.

O ur ability to make these judgm ents rests on the fact that the imaginaryworld is developed to a sufficient extent that we recognize connections.We can orient ourselves in it, even if we cannot live in it. Midgley's com-plaint comes in part from the fact that a scholarly paper or even a chapterin a book provides insufficient space to make the imaginary world suffi-ciently rich. Tha t is no excuse for not "going to the trouble of actuallydoing it," but it does explain why science fiction is of more use than schol-arly disputation for the purpose of the present discussion.However, evaluating just what kinds of things can exist in our universeis by no means straightforward, even if we assume that our current scien-tific knowledge is entirely correct. If th e constraints on the origins of lifeoutlined by R. F. Fox (1997) are correct, we would expect that any poten-tial aliens are very much like ourselves. On the other hand, if we were tofollow StephenJ. Gould (199 9), planets with anything but bacterialike lifeforms would be exceedingly rare, and how higher life forms looked wouldbe anybody's guess.This ambiguity, however, should not be taken as weakening the case forthe use of aliens in moral argum ents. On the contrary, it is precisely the


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338 Zygonprinciples shape human conduct and attitudes, the use of ahens as argu-mentative device is not surprising.

In the context of evolutionary ethics plausible aliens are constrained bytbeir own evolutionary bistory. Because tbey need to inbabit our universein order to be relevant for human morality, tbey also sbare the constraintsof its physical laws. Tbis is not necessarily tbe only kind of aliens tbat canbe validly deployed by moral argument, but considering the force of scientific reasoning it is probably tbe most important one in the contemporarydebate.ALIENS AND ANTHR OP OM O RP HI S M

At this point we need to ask how like or unlike hum ans hypothetical aliensneed to be in order to be useful for m oral investigations. Tha t is, we needto confront the role of anthropomorphism in our conception of aliens.Anthropomorphism is a complex concept, and different aspects of it playdifferent roles depending on whether they are part of scientific inquiryfiction, or moral argument.A scientific investigation into what kind of intelligent beings could exiselsewhere in space would have to start with what we know about bumanintelligence. This is a form of ^ wrwric anthropomorphism (Kracher 2002)and it is an enterprise constrained by scientific principles and the Haldanelimit of our imagination. By this I mean that there may well be aliens tbareally exist, and tberefore do not violate any scientific principles, but wejust bave not imagined the possibility of tbeir existence.Storytellers are not bound, of course, to invent tbe kind of aliens tbatare allowed by science. In tbis sense tbe literary imagination is a way otranscending antbropom orphism. However, for the sake of plausible story-telling or because of other constraints some quasi-human features usuallyneed to remain. Until recently television and movies were constrained bythe limitations of make-up art to present mostly human-looking aliensbeings tbat are antbropom orphic (human-shaped) in a literal sense. Asidefrom a few ridges on the forehead the Klingons oiStar Trek could pass fohum ans. This limitation is now changing as a result ofthe ability to mergcomputer-generated grapbics with filmed footage. Books never have beenconstrained in this way. Brin's aliens are as different from humans in shape


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340 ZygonUNFALLEN ALIENS

Lewis was concerned with the rationahty of belief and with human freedom and its relationship with obedience to Godand thus with morareason. This brings him up against the problem of evil, as Susan Neimanhas formulated in her dilemma about theodicy: "If [reason was God's greatesgift],. . . He is bound to adhere to it; if not, . . . we are bound by noth ingbut obedience to His will" (Neiman 2002, 318). If being wholly rationameans, as in the aliens of Contact, being wholly benevolent, why is there smuch suffering in the world? Perhaps Sagan's aliens are not powerful enoughto prevent it, but this limitation does not apply to the Christian God.

The answer of traditional theology is the story of the Falloriginal sinand as a result the "fallenness" of the world. In Lewis this theology imanifest in a view that regards evil as in a sense extraneous to our worldEvil is, as it were, imported at the point of the Fall. In The MagiciaNephew (1955), one ofthe books in The Chronicles ofNarnia, this evenpersonified by Jadis the W hite W itch, who is literally dropped into Narniby accident at the point of its creation. Narnia is a world of magic, andtherefore it cannot directly tell us how to relate Lewis's view of evil to ouown world. Anything might happen in a world of magic.However, this view of evil immediately raises the question of whethethere are worlds that have not been so invaded. Are there unfallen aliens?To his credit, Lewis confronted this question and created some of his besfiction in the process. By fulfilling the demand to go to the trouble andimagine what such a world would be like, he gives us the opportunity tocritique his view of evil. Th is is why Out ofthe Silent Planet 2inA Perelanare such useful examples of employing aliens in moral reflection.Lewis was not the first to raise this issue. Speculations about unfallenaliens reach back at least as far as William of Ockham (-12851349)who pursued the claim of St. Augustine eight hundred years earlier thaGod could, if he wanted, create a sinless human. Ockham extended theargument to aliens who might be free from original sin and hence "bettein essential goodness" than hum ans (Dick 1982, 33). This means thathey have a nature different from humans; they are not merely humanswho happen to behave better than Earthlings actually do. That would bea contingent rather than an essential difference between them and us. Bu


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Alfred Kracher 341he considered unfallen aliens a real possibility. W ith regard to tbe thirdbook ofthe trilogy. That Hideous Strength (1945), Lewis w rote in a letter toDorothy Sayers that "We have to put up with [a mixture of the realisticand tbe supernatural] in real life" (Hooper 1996, 231). Tbis suggests tbatbe also considered the mental communication between bis unfallen crea-tures and God ("Maledil") as potentially part of our world, something thatwe lost in the Fall from paradise. Like Augustine and O ckham, Lewisapparently conceived of tbe Fall as an actual historical event.'Lewis takes these fallen Earthly humans to another planet, and there heneeds to create a foil or counterpart for them. For this he has to develop aplausible life in Eden. Its alien inbabitants have to escape Neiman's di-lemma: for them reason and obedience to G od's will must always coincide.In Out ofthe Silent Planet and Perelandra Lewis thus fulfills Midgley's de-mand of going to tbe trouble of actually imagining tbis situation. Does itsucceed? As storytelling it is certainly compelling, as tbe continued popu-larity of tbese novels demonstrates. To pbrase it in terms of Loos's parable,the saddle is elegant, bu t does it fit tbe horse? Tha t is, given known lawsand principles of science, would his quasi-Edenic world be possible witbinthe universe we live in? The question may not be relevant if one treats tbestories as purely works of fiction, but if they are to serve as moral parables,tbe question is all-important.

E VOL UT ION AND T HE " IT C H F OR R E P E T IT ION"A crucial difference between fallen bumans and the unfallen aliens of theplanets Malacandra and Perelandra in Lewis's trilogy is that when we hu-mans get a good thing, we want more of it. There is something in humannature, a fundamental temptation, Lewis thought, that inclines us to in-dulge. Lewis and his biographer Walter Hooper call this the "itch forrepetition," and it is an important theme in Lewis's writing (Hooper 1996,576). In The Pilgrim's Regress it is sensual experience, both sexual andaesthetic. In Perelandra there is a simple and straightforward exposition ofit: Having arrived on Perelandra, Ransom, the story's hero, eats a very good-tasting fruit. He is no longer hungry afirer that, but be is tempted to repeatthe experience simply because of the pleasure of it. His conscience tellshim that that would be wrong. Ransom even toys with the idea that this


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342 Zygonwrong. W hether or not one wants to identify this inclination with original sin, it is pretty clear what is at issue in the story.

However, the aspect of hum an nature represented hy the itch for repetition cannot be something that is grafted onto an innocent human naturby outside forces, as Lewis's parables would have it. We may be able toimagine aliens who are happier than we are to experience a piece of m usior a sweet fruit only once, bu t the desire to have more than necessary is nomerely something that "the devil makes us do" as a result of some peculiarly hum an deficiency. It is in many ways a logical consequence of evolution . If we are talking about real aliens, as Lewis apparently was,'" we musbe talking about beings that have become what they are through an evolutionary process. Life as we know it tends to expand until it comes upagainst a limiting factor, such as a nu trient or available space. Not onldoes this mean competition over access to the limiting factor, but if thelatter is something that can be stored, it will mean the evolution of hoarding behavior (think of squirrels) as insurance against fluctuation in thsupply.

By contrast, the three sentient species of aliens on Malacandra (the fictional "true name" of Mars), who have never fallen away from God's willhave enough of everything, manage their resources wisely, and do not procreate beyond the carrying capacity of their planet. Although Malacandris a dying planet whose resources are dwindling, the M alacandrans do nofeel any pressure to overexploit them. They have no more offspring thanthey can feed and therefore no overpopulation problem.However, Darwinian evolution presupposes that the num ber of offsprinexceeds the replacement level. Otherwise there could be no natural selection. Unless we make the additional assumption that the emergence oreason immediately thwarts these natural tendencies, sentient species evolvin competition for resources and with more offspring than the replacement level for their environment. There is good evidence that reason, toois the result of a slow evolutionary process, so it is wildly implausible thathere are evolutionary jum ps that propel a species straight from being animals to a level of sentience that would let them overcome their inheritedinstincts. And to preserve the Edenic nature of this picture, their rationamotivation would have to be strong enough to no t even let them feel frustration at this suppression.


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Alfred Kracher 343are. It is perhaps significant that Lewis himself had apparent difficulties increating a plausible alter Eve (see Hooper 1996, 224).Lewis's stories work superbly well when taken as parables. W hen ana-lyzed as potentia l reality, however, they demonstrate that his view of evil asexternal to the world is ultimately untenable. By creating fictional aliens,Lewis gave his abstract view of our fallen condition concreteness. In thisway he enriched it and at the same tim e exposed it to potential falsifica-tion. This is a risk, but to a scientist it is also a virtue. Thus we see thealien as a point of contact between scientific methodology (in the form offalsificationism) and metaphysical considerations of hum an nature .Lewis created the aliens even though the science he knew was not ad-vanced enough for him to understand everything they were telling him.The aliens took on a life of their own, and they are still talking to us. Suchare the pleasures and benefits ofa good story."

C O N C L U SIO N SPerhaps in the case of the Fall and original sin we did not need aliens toreach the conclusions that I have drawn from Lewis's stories. A similarpoint has been made w ithout the benefit of aliens by Jerry Korsmeyer (1998)and Patricia Williams (2001), among others. Tha t the aliens agree withthem gives us confidence in their usefulness. There may be other issues,less thoroughly investigated, where an appeal to aliens can advance ourunderstanding ofa problem or give us a fresh viewpoint.Aliens are useful in other ways. The picture they create in our imagina-tion can be evaluated on very different levels, not just as an academic argu-ment. W hen we use aliens to embody certain philosophical positions, webroaden the scope of the discussion by including participants who maynot have a more abstract and academic access to the problems raised.'^ Itis importan t in this effort that we not shortchange the aliens. Once weimagine them , they need to be developed into plausible beings to be of anyuse. To say this another way, they have to become sufficiently real to ourimagination to serve as conversation partners. And the more real theybecome, the more likely it is that they will tell us things that we did notanticipate.Moral issues can be complicated, and the more ways we can bring our


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344 Zygonown conduct and help us change course if necessary. Such is the role oextraterrestrial meta-humans in metanoia.To summarize, then, I believe that (1) aliens are helpful in solving serious philosophical problems (ethical, epistemological, and so forth); (2their peculiar ontological status as something imaginary that might be truis responsible for appealing to people with widely divergent presuppositions; (3) the reason for their utility is at least in part that they are powerfumetaphors of self-reflexivity; (4) the appeal of this metaphor is connectedwith their "watching us from above"; (5) unlike God, they can adapt to thphilosophical position of their author; and (6) in order to take full advantage of this we have to harness our power of imagination by keeping sighof its limitations.

This last point can be metaphorically expressed by saying that we needto listen to the aliens we have created. It may be that aliens do not exisbut they do not have to be real in order for the moral lessons to be realImaginary aliens continue to tell us important things about our characteand morality. They do so because they are part of ourselvesand not jusany ordinary figment ofthe imagination but something that stands for ouuniquely human self-reflexivity.In a sense, encoun tering real aliens would fundamentally change thisituation. But as yet we do not know what real aliens are like, nor evenwhether they exist at all. Until such time as we actually make "contact,we should be conten t to get all the help we can from the aliens tha t live iour imagination.

N O T E S1. The ti t le ofthe German original, published in 1983, is Der Mythos der Neu zeit.2. O ther examples are George McD onald's nineteenth-c entury novels Phantastes and Liliwhich inspired C. S. Lewis. The continued popularity of the genre is exemplified by, amonothers, Anne Perry's Tathea (1999).3 . On a related issue, David Ritchie (1994) thinks that many stories of angelic and demo nic visions have the same (pathological) source as mod ern a ccounts of alien abdu ctions anthe like. Carl Sagan (1995) makes a similar poin t.4. For a taxonomy of relativisms see Ne wton-S mith 198 1.5. T he dualism of aliens was poin ted ou t by Steven D ick. I do no t include the third par t Lewis' trilogy. That Hideous Strength (19 45) , because it takes place on Ea rth, and aliens are no

a major part of the story.6. Adolf Loos (1 87 0- 19 33 ) was not only a pioneer of mo dern arc hitecture but also a


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Alfred Kracher 345I am no t convinced by his argum ent. Considering how different the medieval understand ingof facticity and symbolism was from ours, the issue might be undecidable.9. Some seem to have gone even further. G un the r Schiwy in his biography of Pierre Teil-hard de Chardin reports that Teilhard was embarrassed about theologians who warned that thepilots of flying saucers might be impossible to kill if they came from a planet not affected byoriginal sin (Schiwy 19 81 , II, 270 ). Schiwy charitably does not tell us wh o these theologianswere.

10. "Real" here is not m ean t in th e sense that Lewis considered Mars or Venus to be inha b-ited by the creatures he described in his fictional stories but rather th at he m eant them to havea nature that could actually exist in our universe.11. Th er e is one fmal piece of irony. I have used Loos's parab le abo ut the real horse and theimaginary saddle. Coinciden tally, the first species that Lewis's hero Ransom encou nters onM alacandra is called hross, which is derived from the Nordic word for horse.12. I have used major parts of th e story presented in this essay in talks to ama teur astr ono -mers and othe r audiences represen ting a variety of back groun ds. T he success of these presenta-tions is the basis for my claim that aliens are useful to an audience broader tban just academicspecialists wben it comes to discussing moral issues.

REFERENCESAchenbach, Joel. 1999. Captured by Aliens. New York: Simon and Schuster.Barad, Judith, and Ed Robertson. 200 0. The Ethics of Star Trek. New York: HarperC ollins.Crowe, Michael J. 1986. The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900. Cambridge: Cam-bridge Univ. Press.Dick, Steven J. 1982 . Plurality of Worlds. Cam bridge: C amb ridge U niv. Press.. 1996. The Biological Universe. Cam bridge: C amb ridge Univ. Press.Dick, Steven J., ed. 20 00 . Many Worlds. Philadelphia: Tem pleton Found ation Press.Fox, R. F. 1997 . "T he Origins of Life: W ha t On e Needs to Know ." Zygon: Journa l o f Reli-gion and Science 32 (September): 393-406.Gou ld, Stephen J. 1999. Won derful Life. New York: Norton.G uthk e, Karl S. 1990. The Last Erontier. Tmns. Hden A.iV:ms. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell Univ.Press.Ha ldan e, J. B. S. [1927] 1 928 . Possible Worlds. New York: Norton.Hoope r, Walter. 1996. C.S.Lewis. New York: HarperColhns.Korsmeyer, Jerry D . 1998 . Evolution and Eden. New York: Paulist.Kracher, Alfred. 200 2. "Imposing O rde r Th e Varieties of A nthro pom orph ism." Studies inScience and Theology 8 : 2 3 9 - 6 1 .Lewis, C. S. [1933] 1 98 1. The Pilgrim's Regress. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans.. 1938. Out ofthe Silent Planet. London: John Lane The Bodley Head.. 1943. Perelandra. London: John Lane The Bodley Head.. 1945. That Hideous Strength. London: John Lane The Bodley Head.. 1955. The Magician's Nephew. London: The Bodley Head.. [1963] 1967. "T he Seeing Eye." In C hristian Reflections, ed. "Waiter Hooper. GrandRapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans.Loos, Adolf. [1929] 20 02 . "Josef Veillich." In 0 y^rc-^wcwrf, trans. Michael Mitchell, ed.

Adolf and Daniel Op el, 18 4- 89 . Riverside, Calif: Ariadne.Lorenz, Konrad. 1966. On A ggression. Trans. M . K. W ilson. New York: H arc our t, Brace,


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346 ZygonRuse, M ichael. 1989. "Is Rape W rong on And romed a?" In The Darwinian Paradigm: Essaon Its History, Philosophy , and Religious Implications, 20 9-4 6. London: Routledge.Sagan, Carl. 1985 . Contact. New York: Simon and Schuster.. 1995. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New YorRandom House.Schiwy, Gu nthe r. 19 81 . Teilhard de Chardin. 2 vols. M un ch en , Germ any: Kosel Verlag.Trigg, Roger. 19 93 . Rationality and Science. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell.W illiams, Patricia. 20 01 . Doingwithout Adam and Eve: Sociobiology and Original Sin. Mineapolis: Augsburg Fortress.


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kracher meta-humans and metanoia the moral dimension of extraterrestrials

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