So far I have not said much about ethics. Ethics is part of philosophy not only for obvious historical reasons (because Plato, Aristotle, et al., wrote about it) but also because it gives rise to many conceptual problems. Suffice to say that I have been interested to defend act utilitarianism, which has the sort of universality and generality which can appeal to one who is concerned with the world sub specie aeternitatis. Its supreme principle would be as applicable if we had to deal with beings from Alpha Centauri as it is in dealing with members of Homo sapiens, as well as horses, dogs, etc. Act utilitarianism appeals as a possible “cosmic ethics.” (It is, of course, not necessarily the only system of ethics that does so.)

(J. J. C. Smart, “My Semantic Ascents and Descents,” chap. 2 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell [New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975], 57-72, at 69-70)