Support There are only two possible reasons that it would be wrong to engage in an activity that causes pollution: because pollution harms ecosystems, which are valuable in themselves; or, ecosystems aside, because pollution harms human populations. ██████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ ████████ █████ ██ █████ ███████ █████ ███ █████ █████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ █████████ █████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █████
The author concludes that it would not be wrong to perform mining operations on Mars. Why? Because of the following:
These are the only 2 reasons it could be wrong to engage in an activity that causes pollution: (1) the pollution harms ecosystems, OR (2) pollution harms human populations.
Mining operations on Mars would pollute, but would not harm human populations.
In order to be wrong, the mining operations must either harm ecosystems or harm human populations. We know that the operations won’t harm humans. But the premises don’t establish that the operations won’t harm ecosystems. So if we want to conclude that the operations would not be wrong, we want to know that they won’t harm ecosystems.
The conclusion drawn above follows █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
Mining creates less █████████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ███████████
There are no ██████████ ██ █████
The economic benefits ██ ██████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ██████
It is technologically ████████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████
The more complex ██ █████████ ███ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ███
