Are you kidding? Intent and deed. Tuvix didn't kill Neelix and Tuvok. Tuvix didn't cause the accident. He was the result of it. Regardless of how he came into being, once he did, he was an individual with all the rights of one. The only thing he was guilty of is refusing to sacrifice his live to restore Tuvok and Neelix back to life. Which is his right as a sentient being. The Borg intend to assimilate everyone into their Collective. The Borg flat out declared freedom and self-determination are irrelevant. If you resist, they'll force you into their Collective. You're not a person, you're an object to be consumed. All the moral difference in the world.
The Borg are just acting with the will of the collective, so is Tuvix, neither feels the individuals have any say in the matter. Why is taking one apart OK and not the other.
And afterwards, he went through the Federation phone book, then tracked down and terminated everyone with his name.
I should hope they treat those animals like objects. There was some dialogue in Veep Last week... Julia Louis Dreyfus "And then I have to go eat BBQ pig which those Hillbilly hicks probably took turns fucking fucking before they started cooking it." Anna Clumski "Oh, no, there's no proof that they took turns."
Humans have stopped enslaving animals for food by TNG's era. At least according to Riker in "Lonely among us".
Riker thought a ship armed to the teeth and crewed with a hierarchy of officers wasn't a military vessel. His observations really aren't worth much.
That's as believable as a quote I read today from some conservative political group in Colorado, which has offices at their secretary of state's old law firm: At issue was a voting flyer, where a photograph including a black woman photoshopped her out with a copy and paste of the white woman standing next to her. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2...oshopped_out_of_an_anti_voting_reform_ad.html
Janeway killed one person to save two. Trading off life is legally always unjustified, it was simply murder. But as it is a nasty dilemma her decision is also understandable. This shows the problem of no jurisdiction aboard, in the Alpha Quadrant she should have been court-martialed for it.
Another way to examine the ethical problem is to change the circumstances. Tuvok, Neelix, and Tuvix are all unconscious in a rapidly decompressing cargo bay. Transporters are off-line. Tuvix is furthest away from the door. You can only rescue two in time. Who do you save?
What else was in the Cargo bay? Neelix and Tuvok, Tuvix, or a crate of bananas? I'm surprised that Gov Kodos hasn't even brought up Gov Kodos in this conversation.
Tuvix was an imminent threat to the ship. He was two bug bites from taking over. Demote him or kill him, but don't be an asshole and have the bugger believe he's third in line for succession when Tom probably already has orders to mutiny the second it looks like Tuvix is going to sit down in the Captain's chair and call it his. (Did Tuvok have the same orders to stop Chakotay from assuming command?)
As a comparison, let's look at the choice Captain Picard had in The Enemy. The gravely injured Romulan needed to receive what was essentially a blood transfusion from Worf to survive. Although Worf refused he did state that he would comply if ordered so to do by Captain Picard. The stakes in this situation were not only the life of the Romulan, but also the possible outbreak of a war between the UFP and the RSE. The costs in this situation were ordering Worf to undergo a medical procedure (likely minimally invasive and not painful) by denying him his freedom of choice and potentially causing him psychological damage. Picard risked the life of the Romulan, the lives of the Enterprise crew, and a potential war with the RSE all to preserve the rights of an individual. If we look at the characters of Tuvok and Neelix (and generically most characters in Starfleet) they had demonstrated their ability to perform acts of self-sacrifice to benefit their friends and crewmates. It is an odd (inconsistent) choice, I believe, to have written Tuvix (who was the sum of Tuvok and Neelix) as a character who was unwilling to make the supreme sacrifice in order to restore his progenitors. Since UFP society has evolved to the point where being a good person was life's ultimate goal (rather than fame or acquisition of material goods), acting selfish would probably be viewed as one of the more abhorrent of social transgressions. Perhaps it was Tuvix's violation of the fundamental purpose for human existence (self-sacrifice) that Janeway decided he no longer deserved to his rights, including the right to live. What do you think of the following change to the plot? What if the Tuvix character had been written so that this apparent contradiction between his personality to that of Tuvok and Neelix had not existed? What if, instead, the plot's conflict was not that Tuvix wanted to live and everyone else wanted him dead, but was instead Tuvix was a character who desperately wanted to give up his life to restore Tuvok and Neelix, but the rest of the crew argued and did what they could to prevent his "suicide", because they believed so strongly in his right to exist, despite the circumstances of his creation? Then the moral dilemma would have been everybody wanting to do the right thing but having the consequence meaning that someone (the group or the individual) had to suffer, rather than everybody having to do the wrong thing (Janeway by killing Tuvix or Tuvix choosing to live). At least this scenario would have allowed the characters to act in a way which was consistent, rather than having to shoehorn in a dilemma.
That's the story of Quinn from Deathwish almost, At this point, you all remember that there was an unmolested copy of Tuvok's personality resting in Lon Suder's personality? Tuvok inside Lon could have rallied and stamped down the gimp betazoid enough to give his very full, and honestly vocal opinion on Tuvix and what should be done to the OTHER composit man running around with Tuvoks marbles on Voyager.