Janeway's Decision to Kill Tuvix

[Vandervecken]

So - a doctor commits murder by NOT hitting a passer-by with a crow bar, taking him to the hospital and cutting him up in spare parts - because these spare organs could save the lives of 2 (or more) terminally ill patients.
And, as such, the actions of the doctor that killed a person for spare organs are not creepily evil, but in a moral 'gray' area'.

Really?
Let's euphemistically call the moral values wanna-be you expoused here, 'interesting', Vandervecken.
You're not even the first one to come up with such concepts; J Mengele - and others - thought along the same lines.

Ok, so you're comparing not actively murdering someone to walking by mortally injured crewmates and granting no succor? And you ARE saying Tuvok and Neelix are less important than Tuvix in this scenario, right? Because leaving them without necessary medical/technological attention in this case works out to that, and I think you don't much like the corner you've painted yourself into. Bear in mind I was writing that both acts are murder.

I'm comparing - legitimately - your absurd qualification as murder of the act of refusing to kill a person to save 2* with the qualification as murder of the act made by a doctor of refusing to kill a person to save 2.

As for where you advocated just this qualification - apparently, you think posters here can't read your previous posts. lol.

*how did you put it?: "leaving Tuvok and Neelix forever in an oblivion of nonselfhood [by not killing Tuvix] --are murder"

...and we have a winner of the Godwin's law-first contest!

LMAO! Look bra, I can't help it if you miss something right under your nose--ie, a post 2 posts above the one in which you completely misstate what I wrote. I know you feel a need now to try to attack what I've written from some other angle--that of non-originality now--because it seems you've invested a great deal of your self-esteem in a posting board, but at least try to keep it on an adult track, ok?

Nope, didn't think I was the first to come up with this conclusion. Somehow I don't think Mengele did either.

Oh, MAN, this is too rich!

Originality? You actually post this to be the substance of my last post? Talk about grasping at straws.
The substance of my post was your lack of coherent moral thinking as evidenced by your advocacy of obscene "morals".

About the posting of 'Godwin's law': You actually think the naming of the troupe obfuscates the fact that you are the "moral" succesor of Mengele and its ilk? Good luck with this one.

MWAH!

Gosh you're cute when you try righteous indignation on for size. Looks like it's a bit large for you, though.

I think naming a trope wins you the cupie doll, that's what I think. And here you go, trying for another prize. Do you have ANY idea of how batshit crazy you sound, comparing me to a Nazi war criminal? Because I think Tuvok and Neelix are just as important as Tuvix? Let's be clear here: I wrote--and affirm--that BOTH acts are murder. Taking apart Tuvix is murder, and leaving Tuvok and Neelix in a state of non-being is, effectively, murder. Pity you are unable to see that.

And I didn't make the comparison to the Doctor and the hammer. That was you, and I thought it was silly as hell. Trying for three prizes?

The absurdity is all yours chum. Comparisons to Mengele? Weird--and completely illegitimate--comparisons to withholding medical care from mortally injured people?

In this case, and not in many others, refusing to kill a person (Tuvix) IS killing other people (Tuvok and Neelix), which is what I wrote. The truth is they do NOT continue in Tuvix. Subsumption into some conglomerate being is not true life. If you insist that I'm "the spiritual successor to Mengle" (oh boy), then you are just as much so, because YOU are killing Tuvok and Neelix in this scenario by refusing to undo the making of Tuvix.

I wasn't making an argument in favor of one or the other--but you'd know that, if you'd actually read what I'd written.

What's strange to me is how hard you're working to avoid the truth of this. Why is it SO important to you to establish that Tuvok and Neelix are less important than the life of Tuvix. Why is that, I wonder? Oh well, like the number of licks and the tootsie roll pop, the world may never know. Not if you keep babbling on like this.

Now you just keep having that argument in your head with a Vandervecken who doesn't exist--you scarcely need to read anything I've actually written, you're doing just fine quoting the other guy in your head. it'll be safer for you that way, anyway, you won't hurt yourself.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Vandervecken

Dude, in my comparison, the doctor, when refusing to kill a person in order to cut him/her up for spare organs, knows that the persons needing spare organs will die without them.
As such, as per your dictum - which you joyfully repeated and advocated* throughout your last post, ("and leaving Tuvok and Neelix in a state of non-being is, effectively, murder", "YOU are killing Tuvok and Neelix in this scenario by refusing to undo the making of Tuvix.") - the doctor refusing to kill a person for spare organs commits murder against the persons needing the spare organs.
As opposed to the doctor acting entirely morally - as any person with a functioning moral sense can tell you.

Meaning, my comparison of your obscene dictum with the doctor's actions is entirely legitimate.

And - since Mengele&co justified their slaughter with your terms (~'what about the persons that will be saved/not die by what we find out if we cut open a few jews and see how they work on the inside?; why, not cutting open these jews would be de facto committing murder against the millions of people our research will help.') - you're the one that sounds 'batshit crazy' in parotting their meme.
And, of course, my 'Godwin's law' posting is entirely legitimate.

*about your advocacy:
"Why is it SO important to you to establish that the persons that will be saved by the spare organs are less important than the life of the person the doctor will cut up for said spare parts. Why is that, I wonder?"

 

[zarkon]

Failure to act isn't murder, and ethicically...the act required to bring back Tuvok & Neelix is murder.

After this episode aired I had absolutely no respect for Janeway, Kes or any of the bridge crew who turned their backs on murder. The Doctor is the only one who emerged from this with any credit at all

 

[DonIago]

^Well-said.

I can't believe I'm re-entering this particular pool, but to reiterate points I likely brought up before:

1) There was no guarantee the restoration process would have worked. Janeway could have killed Tuvix for no reason at all. People should not treat this as though it was certain to work, and it is disingenuous to claim that.

2) How long did Tuvix exist? How long does he have to exist before he has the right to not be terminated? Can Janeway arrest Tuvix a decade hence because she finally found a way to bring back Tuvok and Neelix? If Janeway has the right to order Tuvix's death, does she have the right to order anyone els...actually, I guess TNG established per "Thine Own Self" that she does. "Ensign Kim, please step into that disintegration chamber!"

3) Allowing someone to die via inaction might be Negligent Homicide, but it's not Murder. At least that's my understanding of the legalities of it.

 

[zarkon]

"Thine Own Self" isn't even that indicative, I'm sure in a real life scenario La Forge could have refused. He may well have been court martialed, but I don't see anyone forcing him into that Jeffries Tube.

 

[MacLeod]

I don't think we'll ever agree on whether or not Janeway was right. Each side is more or less entrenched in their position. No matter what arguments are used.

It comes down to basically one question do you believe Tuvix has the right to live.

 

[Vandervecken]

Vandervecken

Dude, in my comparison, the doctor, when refusing to kill a person in order to cut him/her up for spare organs, knows that the persons needing spare organs will die without them.
As such, as per your dictum - which you joyfully repeated and advocated* throughout your last post, ("and leaving Tuvok and Neelix in a state of non-being is, effectively, murder", "YOU are killing Tuvok and Neelix in this scenario by refusing to undo the making of Tuvix.") - the doctor refusing to kill a person for spare organs commits murder against the persons needing the spare organs.
As opposed to the doctor acting entirely morally - as any person with a functioning moral sense can tell you.

Meaning, my comparison of your obscene dictum with the doctor's actions is entirely legitimate.

And - since Mengele&co justified their slaughter with your terms (~'what about the persons that will be saved/not die by what we find out if we cut open a few jews and see how they work on the inside?; why, not cutting open these jews would be de facto committing murder against the millions of people our research will help.') - you're the one that sounds 'batshit crazy' in parotting their meme.
And, of course, my 'Godwin's law' posting is entirely legitimate.

*about your advocacy:
"Why is it SO important to you to establish that the persons that will be saved by the spare organs are less important than the life of the person the doctor will cut up for said spare parts. Why is that, I wonder?"

Failure to act so in THIS case is exactly the same as withholding medical attention. That's why there's no way out of this. I DO recognize that I'd be killing Tuvix to return Tuvok and Neelix to true life, but you are unable to face that you are killing Tuvok and Neelix by leaving Tuvix untouched. You are, and there is absolutely no way around that. You are withholding the only medical attention that will save them. If you want to live in a fantasy realm where I'm Mengele killing Jews, then live there.

YOU are the barbarian here--YOU are the one who would leave two people to die of phaser wounds in a corridor (were Trek real life).

The extent to which you're arguing with some other Vandervecken is borne out again by your repetition of this nonsense about the doctor. The dictum was YOURS, not mine. Shall we revisit who made this comparison?:

So - a doctor commits murder by NOT hitting a passer-by with a crow bar, taking him to the hospital and cutting him up in spare parts - because these spare organs could save the lives of 2 (or more) terminally ill patients.
And, as such, the actions of the doctor that killed a person for spare organs are not creepily evil, but in a moral 'gray' area'.

That's all you kiddo, not me.

I will address your ridiculous extension of the argument into the most removed-from-this-argument-hypothetical possible. The Doctor is not just taking any organs in the case of restoring Tuvok and Neelix; he is not attacking people with zero connection to them; he is taking back THEIR organs. They are just as much Tuvok's and Neelix's organs as Tuvix's. A transporter accident, for all intents and purposes, eviscerated them, and the Doctor here would be doing the equivalent of trauma surgery. With, unfortunately, the added requirement of killing another person to get at those organs. A more apt comparison would be: if two people need organ transplants, and to obtain them a doctor must kill a person who is guarding those organs with deadly force, is that permitted?

But I was advocating NOTHING. Get this through your self-congratulatory head (or don't, in the end who really gives a shit if you want to delude yourself, both about what I've written and about what your own, obvious advocacy would result in). Your repetitions to the contrary will not change the facts that exist. I did NOT advocate killing Tuvix---but you DO advocate killing Tuvok and Neelix, by withholding medical care. My comparison to injured individuals left to die in a corridor is apt and on target. Your comparison to a doctor murdering complete strangers for those organs is so beyond silly that words finally fail me. Tuvix is NOT a complete stranger to Tuvok and Neelix; he is, in fact, the person guarding THEIR organs with all his might and main.

 

[Vandervecken]

I don't think we'll ever agree on whether or not Janeway was right. Each side is more or less entrenched in their position. No matter what arguments are used.

It comes down to basically one question do you believe Tuvix has the right to live.

I'm NOT entrenched in my position, in the sense that I have a position about who should have been sacrificed based on some ethical equation. MY position was that, yes, restoring Tuvok and Neelix by killing Tuvix is murder, and yes, NOT restoring Tuvok and Neelix by killing Tuvix is murder, just as much murder as withholding critical medical care in any other situation. I advocated neither as the ethically sound option.

It comes down to TWO equally important questions:

Do you believe Tuvix has the right to live?
Do you believe Tuvok and Neelix have the right to live?

I answer yes to both. Which, as I pointed out, means that my first post was just an equivocation, NOT an advocacy of one side or the other. Some folks just don't want to see what's literally right in front of their eyes, though.

 

[Vandervecken]

Failure to act isn't murder, and ethicically...the act required to bring back Tuvok & Neelix is murder.

After this episode aired I had absolutely no respect for Janeway, Kes or any of the bridge crew who turned their backs on murder. The Doctor is the only one who emerged from this with any credit at all

Yes, failure to act in this case IS murder. Just as much murder as if the crew just kept on walking by Tuvok and Neelix, lying in pools of blood in a corridor.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Vandervecken

I DO recognize that I'd be killing Tuvix to return Tuvok and Neelix to true life

So - I see you're dr. Mengele wanna-be to the end - what with me being 'the barbarian' for choosing the moral option; you're not even pretending nowadays.

YOU are the barbarian here

Sure - and you and your hero Mengele&co are the civilized people. The Nuremberg trials - and the rest of humanity - disagrees.

The Doctor is not just taking any organs in the case of restoring Tuvok and Neelix; he is not attacking people with zero connection to them; he is taking back THEIR organs.

Janeway - not the Doctor - is part of the 'dr. Mengele wanna-be' club, as per VOY:Tuvix.

And Tuvix is Tuvok/Neelix's child. His 'organs' came from them but are nonetheless different, as the organs of a child come from his parents but are nonetheless different.
Guess what?
The doctor has no right to cut up a child for spare organs in order to save the comatose parents. That's what a child is yo you? A replacement heart? A new lung?
But wait - you used the straw-man de rigueur so it's all right, yes?

You seem determined to redundantly demonstrate that you have no functioning moral sense.

But I was advocating NOTHING.

Lol.
You kept advocating that, essentially, a doctor commits murder if he refuses to kill a person and cut him/her up for spare organs in order to save comatose people in need of transplants.
And in your last post, you went all the way to advocating murder followed by organ harvesting as the 'moral' course of action - as long as the one murdered is the child, and the comatose are the parents.

 

[zarkon]

Yes, failure to act in this case IS murder. Just as much murder as if the crew just kept on walking by Tuvok and Neelix, lying in pools of blood in a corridor.

No it is not. Lawfully speaking, even in societies that have laws with a duty to act, that duty would not extend to committing the wilful murder of an innocent person as part of that action. Ethically speaking, how can it be just to murder someone to save someone else?

 

[Vandervecken]

Yes, failure to act in this case IS murder. Just as much murder as if the crew just kept on walking by Tuvok and Neelix, lying in pools of blood in a corridor.

No it is not. Lawfully speaking, even in societies that have laws with a duty to act, that duty would not extend to committing the wilful murder of an innocent person as part of that action. Ethically speaking, how can it be just to murder someone to save someone else?

Yes, it is, and I don't accept your restatement as valid.

We're not talking about what's legal or not, we're discussing ethics. If you want to go by the letter of the law, then under English common law (the basis for most American law), I might suggest that Tuvok and Neelix have the prior claim here. But that would be foolish--the law is not the issue here. The reason the law is as it is in most societies is simply because there has to be a limit to what we hold people legally responsible. That doesn't address ethics.

I will throw the question back to you: how can you just let two innocent people die to allow another person to continue living, when you could save them? (In fact, that is the organ harvesting going on here. Or even an argument defending the actions of vampires, were there vampires. Your position is that it would be just fine to leave two people hooked up to an automatic blood-draining machine so that the vampire can survive. What right would we have to cause his death to save the two hooked up to the machine? And, after all, we're under no legal onus to help those people.) Fine, you have the law on your side. Are you right to leave those two people to die, though? I say you're killing them.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Vandervecken

Are you right to leave those two people to die, though? I say you're killing them.

And humanity disagrees. Since you seem unable to figure this out yourself, see the Nuremberg trials (as in, inform yourself about them, the arguments there presented, the decisions made, etc).

 

[MacLeod]

But how do we define murder, what definition does the UFP use?

 

[zarkon]

I will throw the question back to you: how can you just let two innocent people die to allow another person to continue living, when you could save them? (In fact, that is the organ harvesting going on here. Or even an argument defending the actions of vampires, were there vampires. Your position is that it would be just fine to leave two people hooked up to an automatic blood-draining machine so that the vampire can survive. What right would we have to cause his death to save the two hooked up to the machine? And, after all, we're under no legal onus to help those people.) Fine, you have the law on your side. Are you right to leave those two people to die, though? I say you're killing them.

Uh what is all this stuff

I'm not even getting into all this blood transfusion stuff, it doesn't equate at all and raises all kinds of other issues that aren't in play in the Voyager scenario

-two people have muxed to create new life
-new life is sentient
-two people can be brought back by killing the new life

- you have to act to murder the new life to bring back the two people. That the new life came from the two is immaterial; the new life did not make that decision itself and thus cannot be held accountable for it. So the new life should stay.

I mean there's heavy play here from an emotional standpoint, but from an ethical standpoint it's always been pretty cut and dry for me

 

[MacLeod]

I will throw the question back to you: how can you just let two innocent people die to allow another person to continue living, when you could save them? (In fact, that is the organ harvesting going on here. Or even an argument defending the actions of vampires, were there vampires. Your position is that it would be just fine to leave two people hooked up to an automatic blood-draining machine so that the vampire can survive. What right would we have to cause his death to save the two hooked up to the machine? And, after all, we're under no legal onus to help those people.) Fine, you have the law on your side. Are you right to leave those two people to die, though? I say you're killing them.

Uh what is all this stuff

I'm not even getting into all this blood transfusion stuff, it doesn't equate at all and raises all kinds of other issues that aren't in play in the Voyager scenario

-two people have muxed to create new life
-new life is sentient
-two people can be brought back by killing the new life

- you have to act to murder the new life to bring back the two people. That the new life came from the two is immaterial; the new life did not make that decision itself and thus cannot be held accountable for it. So the new life should stay.

I mean there's heavy play here from an emotional standpoint, but from an ethical standpoint it's always been pretty cut and dry for me

I've made more or less the same point.

But one part of a crime is Actus reus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actus_reus

This is part of what it says about omission

Omission involves a failure to engage in a necessary bodily movement resulting in injury. As with commission acts, omission acts can be reasoned causally using the but for approach. But for not having acted, the injury would not have occurred.

You could argue that the injury had already occured so the omission criteria could not be met and therefore could not be used in mitigation.

 

[Vandervecken]

Vandervecken

I DO recognize that I'd be killing Tuvix to return Tuvok and Neelix to true life

So - I see you're dr. Mengele wanna-be to the end - what with me being 'the barbarian' for choosing the moral option; you're not even pretending nowadays.

YOU are the barbarian here

Sure - and you and your hero Mengele&co are the civilized people. The Nuremberg trials - and the rest of humanity - disagrees.

The Doctor is not just taking any organs in the case of restoring Tuvok and Neelix; he is not attacking people with zero connection to them; he is taking back THEIR organs.

Janeway - not the Doctor - is part of the 'dr. Mengele wanna-be' club, as per VOY:Tuvix.

And Tuvix is Tuvok/Neelix's child. His 'organs' came from them but are nonetheless different, as the organs of a child come from his parents but are nonetheless different.
Guess what?
The doctor has no right to cut up a child for spare organs in order to save the comatose parents. That's what a child is yo you? A replacement heart? A new lung?
But wait - you used the straw-man de rigueur so it's all right, yes?

You seem determined to redundantly demonstrate that you have no functioning moral sense.

But I was advocating NOTHING.

Lol.
You kept advocating that, essentially, a doctor commits murder if he refuses to kill a person and cut him/her up for spare organs in order to save comatose people in need of transplants.
And in your last post, you went all the way to advocating murder followed by organ harvesting as the 'moral' course of action - as long as the one murdered is the child, and the comatose are the parents.

Once again your comparison is ludicrously inapt. Tuvix is NOT Tuvok and Neelix's child. A child's organs are brand new and all his or her own. They are derived from the parents' DNA--blueprints, which are endlessly reproducible--not from the parents' actual organs, as in Tuvix's case.

Yes, in this case, in this one, really odd case, a doctor IS committing murder if he refuses to "cut up" someone--Tuvix---to restore Neelix and Tuvok. Just as he's committing murder by doing that cutting up. Both directions lead to murder, in any ethical sense. if you want to delude yourself that somehow it's fine, by some legalistic pettifogging in which you stand on the letter of the law but ignore morality entirely, to leave Tuvok and Neelix essentially "dead" (but not dead to 24th century technology), but completely wrong to take apart Tuvix, then going ahead, kid yourself, but thank the gods you're not in any position of governmental authority or policymaking (I hope).

My posts say what they say. I advocated nothing. Do you even know what "advocacy" means? It means, in this instance, that I'd have to favor one position or the other in some ethical sense. I DO NOT.

You do provide some amusement, because you're unable to see how your own indictment applies to you. YOU are just fine with organ harvesting from living people; the evisceration of Tuvok and Neelix means nothing to you.

You seem to be committed to endlessly demonstrating that you're a bit short in the organ department yourself. Mainly brains.

 

[Vandervecken]

I will throw the question back to you: how can you just let two innocent people die to allow another person to continue living, when you could save them? (In fact, that is the organ harvesting going on here. Or even an argument defending the actions of vampires, were there vampires. Your position is that it would be just fine to leave two people hooked up to an automatic blood-draining machine so that the vampire can survive. What right would we have to cause his death to save the two hooked up to the machine? And, after all, we're under no legal onus to help those people.) Fine, you have the law on your side. Are you right to leave those two people to die, though? I say you're killing them.

Uh what is all this stuff

I'm not even getting into all this blood transfusion stuff, it doesn't equate at all and raises all kinds of other issues that aren't in play in the Voyager scenario

-two people have muxed to create new life
-new life is sentient
-two people can be brought back by killing the new life

- you have to act to murder the new life to bring back the two people. That the new life came from the two is immaterial; the new life did not make that decision itself and thus cannot be held accountable for it. So the new life should stay.

I mean there's heavy play here from an emotional standpoint, but from an ethical standpoint it's always been pretty cut and dry for me

it isn't cut and dried.

NOT acting to save to mortally injured people would be morally and ethically reprehensible, whatever the law might have to say on the subject.

"This stuff" is applicable, but I'll subtract the vampire business. We'll make it a normal human who needs continuous transfusions of blood from two people who have been handcuffed to gurneys to create that supply. Eventually they'll die and be replaced by two others. It's done, a fait accomplit as far as you're concerned. That's what you're looking at with your eyes. The normal human is alive and fine, but WILL die without that blood supply. You need do nothing; you can just let those people die way ahead of their time, because you have no legal onus to do something, or you can disconnect them and save the one person draining them.

Cut and dried, huh?

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Vandervecken

'Legalistic'?
Medical ethics are about morals.
As said, read up on the Nuremberg trials.

About you denying Tuvix, as a sapient being, has the right to own his own body and to live - ridiculous.
Much like your semantic hair-splitting meant to deny that Tuvix is Tuvok/Neelix's child - a result of their DNA mixing.
All these meant to dehumanize Tuvix, to make it OK for Janeway to murder him; I wonder if you actually are under the delusion that your rhetorics are not easy to see through.

PS - As for your 'advocacy' - apparently, you are also/again under the persistent delusion that other people can't actually read your last post.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes but one requires an act, the other a lack of an act. As has been noted generally failure to act unless you had a duty of care to act does not legally constitute murder.