Philosophy Now Forum

Ok well I recently watched Star Trek: Into Darkness and at least two problems sprang to mind, in the first few scenes Kirk saves Spock from an erupting volcano, violating the prime directive in the process, the aliens see The Enterprise, and hence Kirks command is removed when Spok who of course cannot lie relays the truth of the actions of Captain Kirk to his superiors.

Next we see Khan Nunian Sung promising he can save some persons daughter, and then as a result but later on, we see the same destroy lives and retreat to Khronos the Klingon home world.

My problems or objections are thusly:

1) why is the prime directive non interventionist when such a code when misused clearly leads to worse morally egregious acts than it seeks to defend? Not that I support imperialism or interventionism, but they seem to be two sides of a morally egregious coin.

2) Why does Kahn Nunian Sung, think that promising to save lives whilst simultaneously condemning them to death is moral, or even right? Why does he implement a means to do so whilst under a guise of defending his own genetic superiority. As a supra genius clearly his actions are intelligent but are they rational or even ethical?

3) Why when they find out the terrorist is indeed not a Starfleet Captain but a genetically engineered superhuman is their first idea to kill him, surely terrorism is wrong, but isn't state sponsored murder just terrorism under a hypocritical guise. Rather like if I might Israel's terrorism against Palestine and vise a versa.

So it raises some very good moral ideas, the needs of the one outweighing the needs of the few or the many being the least of them.

I would propose that not only is the prime directive of Starfleet misguided but it is based on faulty logic in the first place and hence is hardly applied ethics more wanton stupidity.

Let's discuss the Nerd universal moral system...

I think the directive can be seen as a combersome administrative burden at times, because it hasn't any dynamic and situational factors to apply in various situations, thus we end up with a 1 size fits all directive, why human interpetations has to help the law.

I think the directive is written to fit the story for drama purpose, as it will often conflict with human moral and ethics, and time and time again we see in various Star Trek series how a small civ are about to go extinct because some natural disaster are about to annihalate them all, thus a moral crew member will save them.

The directive might have had noble intend, as preventing the "white man" behaviour as exploiting the ignorent native "we have glass beads!", polluting their lands, rob their natural resources, spread sickness and war, etc.

Havn't seen the movie so I can't discuss the other points.

Ah no problem I think you pretty much covered it Hex. Although if someone has seen the movie I would appreciate some input. It's basically the precursor to the Star Trek original series in which Khan Nunian Sung reveals himself as an oft helpful and beneficial person but later we find out his inherent evil, but meh that's all a little too long winded to explain in a thread. Suffice to say Cumberbatch does a remarkable job of conveying the conflicting nature of what later would become The Wrath of Khan. In which we know of course Kirk says "Khaaaaaaannnnnnnn!" and now rightly is a meme that all know. But I'll leave such things to those who have seen it. It's a good movie none the less I would recommend it. I think they reinvigorated the series quite well given the original series and of course subsequent movies...