Thank you, Alex Impey, for such an alien question!
There are of course no straight philosophical answers to big questions. Everything is a matter of first uncovering the unconscious or implicit premises of the question, and then making further qualifications about what is being asked in order to sketch out the possibilities. This interesting question is no different, and so here is my philosophical two-pence worth…
One major hidden premise lurking in the question is whether life itself matters; that is, whether life has any inherent value. If the answer to this is ‘no!’ then we need not push things any further: it matters not a single iota if aliens exist, because life itself does not matter, and their extra-planetary existence is just as meaningless and futile as our own. They would just be counting down the years to extinction on a different number of fingers than us (if indeed they have fingers). If, however, we want to accept that life does have inherent value, then the opposite it true: alien life forms would also matter simply in virtue of being alive. But I think you wanted more than this as an answer. What you are perhaps really pointing to is whether or not alien life is a case of practical concern for human beings?
The answer to this question depends entirely on the kind of alien life that is discovered. If we detect, say, signs of alien bacteria on some distant and unreachable planet, then for pretty much all practical purposes it would not be of great immediate concern; it doesn’t help you pay the bills or deal with the death of a loved one, nor does it present any kind of existential threat to you. But the question becomes more pressing if the aliens in question are sentient. Two immediate possibilities crop up here. If the aliens are clearly more advanced than homo sapiens, we may well have a very real issue on our hands: Are we just food or slave-labour to this superior life-form? Or are they, in relation to us, some kind of benevolent gods who will descend from the clouds, repairing our planet’s ecosystems, halting climate change through advanced geo-engineering, and healing human social and political discord through their perfected moral conduct? If, however, the aliens are sentient but less advanced than our species, then the question is flipped and becomes more of an important moral one for our own conduct: How should we treat said aliens when interacting with them? Do they become another resource to be exploited? Or do they present a chance for us to deploy our own skills in order to help them solve whatever issues and problems they face? Given our record in dealing with other members of our own race and other species on our own planet, the likely outcome here does not seem too promising…
What do you think? Does it matter if aliens exist? Let us know in the comments.
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I studied at the University of Lancaster (1999-2003) where I gained a BA Hons in Religious Studies & Philosophy, and a MA in Religious Studies. I gained my PhD in Religions & Theology at the University of Manchester (2004-2010) and the thesis was published by Gorgias Press as Antitheodicy, Atheodicy and Jewish Mysticism in Holocaust Theology (2012). I lectured for four years at the University of Manchester in the Department of Religions & Theology (2013-17) where I taught the History of Western Philosophy among other courses. I particularly revere the thought of Parmenides, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Peter Kingsley.