Metaethical Justification

Paper: Proposal for the Ethics of Musk’s Mars Colony.  (2-4 pages, single space, 11 font)   1: Imagine that the following is true. Elon Musk has decided that his future colony on Mars needs to be guided by an excellent ethics. So, since he is aware that our course has specialized in considering not only the ethics of key thinkers but the four metaethical families, he has decided to award a million dollars to the student who submits the most persuasive proposal for that ethics. 2: Whose ethics do you think that he should adopt? What would be the basic moral values, norms, and virtues of that ethics? Why would those basic values, norms, and virtues be able to act as moral principles for all the complexities of human action on Mars? What metaethical justification can you offer that your proposed ethics would indeed work for the colony? How would your ethics handle the strongest objections from the three alternative metaethical families?  3: Your proposal for the Ethics of Musk’s Mars Colony should identify in its title the ethics being proposed, e.g., “Proposed: Adopt X’s Ethics for Mars.” The proposal should be divided into these 6 sections:  I: Introduction (to indicate the key reason why X’s ethics is being recommended and to identify how the paper’s arguments will proceed) II: Normative Justifications (to establish that the proposed ethics would be able to offer colonists the basic values, norms, and virtues necessary for life on Mars (include pertinent examples));  III: Metaethical Justifications (to establish that humans on Mars would benefit from your ethics and that your ethics can counter the strongest objections from the three alternative metaethical families);  IV: Conclusion (to summarize the lines of argument and indicate the relevance of the proposal not only for Musk’s colony but also for Earth). V: The Appendix of Key Arguments consisting of tables for key arguments. Each table should be divided into two columns (the first with the crucial syllogism written in words and with the word being symbolized bolded; and the second column should have that syllogism symbolized).  VI: List of Works Cited.  N.B. The proposal should support key points with footnotes quotes from the texts read for homework. (Footnotes can use the informal method of the midterm paper.)   4: Full disclosure: in this imaginary scenario, Musk is offering me a half a million dollars to identify the proposals that make inaccurate claims, that present invalid arguments, that unsatisfactorily counter significant objections from the rejected metaethical families, that misunderstand the nature of philosophical ethics, that fail to appreciate the role that ethics is to play in his Mars colony or that are written so poorly as to be confusing or incoherent. Musk and I agreed that I will not be evaluating whether the ethics proposed is worthy of Musk’s selection because I do not grade opinion.