I think the reactions to @elonmusk's flying car reveal something about people’s internal picture of the moral universe. “Men will literally build flying cars instead of going to therapy.” “Nobody asked for this.” “Why don’t we solve homelessness and hunger first?” What interests me is the instinct underneath: someone builds something strange and ambitious, and their ambition immediately has to defend itself against a more socially useful alternative. There is a deep tension in our moral inheritance here. One instinct begins with our obligations to one another: relieve suffering, provide security, distribute resources fairly, serve the common good. The other begins with the individual as an author of possibilities: where the freedom to choose, create, and explore has value independent of its relation to everyone else. These don't sort into tidy philosophical camps. Utilitarianism, socialism, egalitarian liberalism, Christian charity, and conservative ideas of obligation disagree about fundamental things, but they can all carry a sensibility in which individual ambition must answer to a larger conception of what society needs. Parts of the liberal and libertarian traditions carry a different sensibility. That a person has a claim to their own life, and that their chosen purposes have moral standing before anyone establishes their contribution to aggregate welfare. “Nobody asked for this” is an especially revealing objection. Why should somebody have had to ask? Kennedy’s moon speech captures this sentiment: "But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" “Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it? He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.” A similar sentiment can be found from the opposite side of the the aisle when Regan asked: "If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin - just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world?" There is a whole conception of human life in those words. We are creatures who can look at the world and decide that there are objectives of worthy purpose, at times with value greater than our own lives. I increasingly think this is one of humanity’s greatest moral discoveries. Over time, I have become less convinced by demands that every ambition justify itself through general utility, whether those demands arrive in effective-altruist, socialist, or liberal language. Even the defense that “this seemingly useless thing might eventually help everyone” leaves something essential out. A person’s life is their own. Their curiosity and their capacity to act on it have value. Human dignity includes the freedom to pursue purposes beyond those that somebody else would assign you. “Fix homelessness and hunger first” sounds compassionate. But as a universal principle, it makes exploration permanently conditional on finishing a task humanity has never finished. There will always be an unmet need against which a painting, an expedition, a strange invention, or a beautiful experiment can be made to look frivolous. We may well have obligations to one another, but we also need a conception of the good expansive enough to include adventure, wonder, excellence, and the pleasure of making something exist. Increasingly, I find myself drawn toward a morality of empowerment focused on increasing people’s agency, expanding their capabilities, and giving them more room to build and discover and choose. I want that freedom widely shared. I want more people to have the means to attempt something extraordinary, including people currently struggling simply to survive. You can dislike Elon. You can think this particular car is ridiculous. But the instinct to treat its creation as evidence of moral deficiency feels profoundly impoverished to me. Sometimes “because I wanted to see whether it was possible” is a worthy answer. I think that is the spirit which will one day take us to the stars.