Star Trek Ethics

I thought about Captain Kirk this morning, while reading an article about torture.

An argument I’d read a few days pitted two people, one of whom said that of course you could torture if the moment warranted it, and if it was reviewed and approved by someone above you in your structure, and the other of whom said that of course you could torture if the moment warranted it, so long as you understood that what you were doing was morally wrong, and you were willing to be punished for doing it. Therefore, torture was okay so long as you could find someone to take the blame for doing it. Other articles say no, that’s completely wrong – that there are no conditions under which torture is acceptable. Even if you knew that doing so would prevent a massive loss of life, you could not do so and still call your society civilized. Which led me to wonder how the people whose lives were being saved would feel about it. Would they, en masse, be willing to die so that their society could continue to call itself civilized?

I found myself remembering a moment in one of the early Star Treks wherein Captain Kirk sternly says that he is willing to die in order to prevent information from being given out which could imperil the planet in question; further, so are all of the members of his crew. I remember thinking even then that this was remarkable. Did they really did feel this way? Every one of them? Most of them? The bridge crew? Spock? I think that, perhaps, they were willing to die so long as they didn’t have time to think about it - so long as it was an abstract danger. But if they had to contemplate it – then, perhaps no-so-fast, Jim, lets see what the alternatives might be.

I think most of us are opposed to torture, regarding it and its practicioners as barbaric. Thats part of the reason that we regard terrorists as barbaric. When its our life on the line,though, that assessment might change, and what in moments of quiet contemplation would be found unacceptable would likely become rapidly less so (particularly if the torture subjects are people we don’t particularly care about, or even actively dislike).

But we'd look the other way. We wouldn't do it ourselves, and we'd just as soon not be asked for permission, either. We'd rather someone else took care of it and didn't tell us until it was done -- if then.

I don't want to have to make this choice, but I know which way I'm leaning.