Nothing Human...

[Octavia]

If everyone would indulge me here I would like to make a more "contemporary" application here.

Many people have the opinion and belief that life begins at conception. Therefore to kill the unborn child, in their minds, constitutes murder of a defenseless human being. However, from the fetus tissue stem cell research has the potential to maybe save lives.

If someone who held such a belief about abortion found themselves in a life or death situation that required them to allow a treatment that used stem cells would it be morally wrong for that person to do so? The killing of an unborn child was required to save their own life. It's an interesting dilemma and one I thought about when I saw this episode.

Kevin

Not an apt comparison, if I recall the episode correctly. They were using knowledge, not biological material gained from killing another (capable of developing sentience) individual.

I think it's a no-brainer to say that researchers shouldn't use unethical means to gain scientific knowledge.

But once that knowledge is there, no-one else is being hurt by utilising it. In fact, it's plausible that not using it results in a net gain in suffering - as it would have in this case.

B'Elanna refusing to benefit from that knowledge wouldn't have helped those experimented on, and wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the unethical researcher. All that would have resulted is her death, other people's grief, and a ship in dangerous straits needing a (necessarily less competent) chief engineer. I had no sympathy for her - she was being utterly selfish.

 

[exodus]

I never understood this either. If B'elanna were Bajoran and had lived on Bajor during the occupation or even had lived in the de-militerized zone then I could understand. But B'elanna only fought against the Cardies during her time in the Marquee and I dont even consider it to be her fight really. I think she only joined because she felt like a miss-fit.

Look at it as the irony of prejudice/bigotry.

Be'Lanna grew up the her entire life with people picking on her, making her ashamed to be part Klingon. Isn't it ironic that she would grow up and be prejudice against Cardassians?

However, do any of the former Starfleet officers who are now Maquis not from the Demiliterized zone have any justification from hating the Cardassians?

 

[Ktrek]

Not an apt comparison, if I recall the episode correctly. They were using knowledge, not biological material gained from killing another (capable of developing sentience) individual.

I think it's a no-brainer to say that researchers shouldn't use unethical means to gain scientific knowledge.

But once that knowledge is there, no-one else is being hurt by utilising it. In fact, it's plausible that not using it results in a net gain in suffering - as it would have in this case.

B'Elanna refusing to benefit from that knowledge wouldn't have helped those experimented on, and wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the unethical researcher. All that would have resulted is her death, other people's grief, and a ship in dangerous straits needing a (necessarily less competent) chief engineer. I had no sympathy for her - she was being utterly selfish.

But you're wrong. It was knowledge obtained by unethical means, which resulted in the death of individuals. You cannot say that babies in the womb are not sentient. You have no proof for that and the fact that babies seem to respond to certain stimulus proves otherwise. Even the proven fact that fetuses do feel pain.

My argument is that is it unethical for someone who believes life begins at conception to use knowledge obtained by baby harvesting to save their own life? That to me is the comparison I see in the episode and why B'Elanna would want to refuse treatment. Janeway did what she had to but I'm not quite sure you could say B'Elanna was being selfish in standing by her moral principles.

Kevin

 

[Octavia]

But you're wrong. It was knowledge obtained by unethical means, which resulted in the death of individuals.

The knowledge didn't result in the death of individuals. The death of the individuals resulted in the knowledge. The knowledge itself isn't to blame - the unethical researcher is.

You cannot say that babies in the womb are not sentient. You have no proof for that and the fact that babies seem to respond to certain stimulus proves otherwise. Even the proven fact that fetuses do feel pain.

At a certain point in development, yes. But I refuse to get into the Schrodinger's baby argument. Whether or not they feel pain is irrelevant to the knowledge gathered. It is not, please note, irrelevant to the ethical pursuit of that knowledge.

My argument is that is it unethical for someone who believes life begins at conception to use knowledge obtained by baby harvesting to save their own life? That to me is the comparison I see in the episode and why B'Elanna would want to refuse treatment. Janeway did what she had to but I'm not quite sure you could say B'Elanna was being selfish in standing by her moral principles.

Moral principles are selfish, if they result in a net gain in danger and misery to those about you. That might be excusable in certain circumstances - if that danger and misery will be outweighed by resulting positive effects - but that's not the case here.

Once the knowledge exists, that knowledge is neither good nor bad in itself. It just is. Gaining knowledge is subject to ethical restrictions, yes, because you can breach ethical norms in the gaining thereof (vivisection, for instance). Using knowledge should also be subject to ethical restrictions, for the damage it can do to others (nuclear bombs, for instance). But arguing that a specific piece of knowledge cannot or should not be used because of the methods used to gain it - methods that no-one can help, unless you have a time machine - is misplaced sentiment.

The history of vaccines involved human testing - including testing on slaves, prisoners of war and children, all of whom are unable of giving free consent. Edward Jenner tested smallpox vaccines on the children in his neighbourhood. Louis Pasteur used a kid as his first test subject - his reasoning was that the child was dying anyway. Both men advanced vaccination science to where it is today. Now: if one believes that Jenner and Pasteur and others acted wrongly, is it reasonable to refuse vaccines yourself, and refuse to vaccinate your children? Or is it more reasonable to say: "I don't agree with what they did, but my disagreement doesn't change what happened, so let me take advantage of the knowledge while ensuring laws exist to ensure ethical research occurs here and now?"

B'Elanna didn't use people as test subjects. She didn't support it in any way; in fact she would have stopped it if she could. But assuming moral martyrdom - and post facto responsibility for that unethical research - at other people's expense doesn't make her a hero. It makes her illogical, melodramatic, and selfish.

 

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This is why I love the Trek BBS, we all have different opinions on these subjects, and by the posts many are well thought out and all have their own merits and valid points of view...