Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay, I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default non-harm towards potential living beings, default non-harm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default non-harm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative Buddhist scriptural ethics as well as the quantified ethnographic survey voices of contemporary American Buddhists. The resulting tripartite ethic, while developed for Mars, contains ramifications for the study of microbes on Earth and further retains application to other research locations in our Solar system.

中文翻译：

---

寻找微生物火星生命与美国佛教伦理

多次搜索寻找外星生命，但就化石和火星上可能存在的生命而言，此类搜索的伦理尚未得到充分描述。作为回应，在这篇文章中，我提出了寻找火星微生物生命的三方伦理，包括默认不伤害潜在生物、默认不伤害潜在生物的栖息地，但也负责任、有节制地科学收获一些微生物在有限地违反这些默认的非伤害模式。尽管这种多方面的伦理仍然是世俗的，因此适用于空间研究环境，但它既来自对权威佛教经典伦理的定性分析，也来自当代美国佛教徒的量化民族志调查声音。由此产生的三方伦理，虽然是为火星开发的，