Star Trek: Discovery's ethics and morality?

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Has Star Trek: Discovery made the case for the United Federation of Planets being a society to be proud of?

Do you think the show might have been stronger for showing Starfleet's 'normal' behaviour or ethics, before entering controversial moral areas around war? When watching DS9 as a teenager, Sisko's action's in two episodes were shocking, because people had previously spent 10 seasons watching Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Picard, Data, etc, carefully make an ethical case against that sort of behaviour, and how it ultimately comes back to haunt a society. With Discovery, the show is entering the controversial moral area, without having established that Starfleet has a particular code of behaviour first; but can it play with moral controversy, when it has never established a baseline of ethical behaviour in the 23rd century to begin with?

To cite a few of the more controversial things that have happened in the show: enslaving a potentially sentient creature, leaving a prisoner of war behind to potential torture out of vindictiveness, three counts of hiding a medical condition that might endanger your mission from colleagues. I'm not saying don't write these stories, I'm saying, without having established that the Federation isn't some kind of dystopia, the choices of where they show consideration or kindness, almost come off as arbitrary, particularly to a new audience.

Perhaps the issue is this:

In Star Trek (2009), Captain Pike says to Kirk that Starfleet is a "peacekeeping and humanitarian armada". This assumes that the audience will sympathise with that goal or motive. But that cannot be taken for granted any more. Or perhaps the reality is, it could never be taken for granted, even in the 1960s. TOS went to pains to make arguments why humanitarian behaviour is a wise course, agree with it or not. But many people just don't accept that as a standard of behaviour; aid to the poor, being part of a international cooperation, seeking peace as opposed to fighting endless defensive war, are not things universally accepted as good by the people watching the show.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars, I think, derive a lot of their appeal from having an ethical opinion, and not being afraid to say it. Whether you agree with them or not, it is appealing to see a work of fiction that knows what it stands for.

 

[Attentiveluke]

Sterfleet morality died out with Star trek enterprise. The crew of the USS Discovery seem to be able to do as they please without consequence. Admirals sleep with captains instead of enforcing the rules of the federation and keeping ship captains in line. Once they start visiting planets more than one per series we will see the prime directive broken regularly.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Well, I don't have anything against people fraternizing with subordinates (in Star Trek they usually left that up to the individual captain, to decide whether it was okay on their ship or not), as long as they are mature enough to see where their duty comes first, like for example telling a superior officer that their subordinate might not be suitable for a high pressure mission who's outcome effects the lives of billions.

 

[Infern0]

Lorca is the captain and burnham is the unofficial xo who the official xo is scared of.

Both of these individuals are "shady" to say the least.

Its actually fairly believable that there would be people like that in starfleet, as large of an organization as that is. Michelle Yeoh's character was a more trafitional starfleet captain.

Kirk and Picard had their own set of values y'know. Lorca is a high functioning psychopath.

Sisko had values but would bend them for the greater good, janeway did worse things than lorca but that was bad writing more than characterization.

Basically you get all sorts of people and the two people making the decisions on discovery are "dodgy"

 

[Attentiveluke]

Well, I don't have anything against people fraternizing with subordinates (in Star Trek they usually left that up to the individual captain, to decide whether it was okay on their ship or not), as long as they are mature enough to see where their duty comes first, like for example telling a superior officer that their subordinate might not be suitable for a high pressure mission who's outcome effects the lives of billions.

Would it have been acceptable for Cpt Picard to have bedded admiral nechayev or Janeway to have had sex with Admiral Paris?. It goes against everything Star trek stands for but it seems many posters on these forums seem to think the last 50 years of star trek canon and ethics are old fashioned and dont matter.....

 

[cultcross]

enslaving a potentially sentient creature, leaving a prisoner of war behind to potential torture out of vindictiveness, three counts of hiding a medical condition that might endanger your mission from colleagues

All of these in fairness are addressed in some way in the show. The release of the creature is a major plot point. The impact of hiding the medical issues has resulted in disaster, and the people who left Mudd behind are (probably) a mirror universe captain and (probably) a Klingon so perhaps do not represent Starfleet's best - besides, that decision too came back to bite them.

aid to the poor, being part of a international cooperation, seeking peace as opposed to fighting endless defensive war, are not things universally accepted as good by the people watching the show.

True - however, that does not mean the show should conform to that. Those weren't accepted by everyone watching previous Trek either, we still argue over some of them, but the messages were presented nonetheless.

Would it have been acceptable for Cpt Picard to have bedded admiral nechayev or Janeway to have had sex with Admiral Paris?

The captain's old flame admiral was a trope used on both TOS and TNG. DS9 and VOY only escaped it because one was married and one was 70000 light years away from the admirals.

 

[Infern0]

Would it have been acceptable for Cpt Picard to have bedded admiral nechayev or Janeway to have had sex with Admiral Paris?. It goes against everything Star trek stands for but it seems many posters on these forums seem to think the last 50 years of star trek canon and ethics are old fashioned and dont matter.....

I know what you are saying but....

What if in nemesis era, picard had a thing with "admiral janeway"

That'd probably offend less people. I mean Picard did have a relationship with two of his subordinates and janeway said she would have had with chakotay were they not stranded in the delta quadrant.

So yeah thinking about it its not really an issue.

 

[Wadjda]

I know what you are saying but....

What if in nemesis era, picard had a thing with "admiral janeway"

That'd probably offend less people. I mean Picard did have a relationship with two of his subordinates and janeway said she would have had with chakotay were they not stranded in the delta quadrant.

So yeah thinking about it its not really an issue.

Source for the Janeway and Chakotay stuff.

 

[Infern0]

Source for the Janeway and Chakotay stuff.

Memory. Unless I'm remembering wrong. I recall a scene where there was some flirting and Janeway saying that they had to keep professional because of the danger of being in the DQ.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

I believe there was an episode in which Janeway was stranded on a planet with Chakotay and they developed a romantic relationship. I don't personally see a problem where the two officers act in a mature way (not letting it effect their duty), there are far greater ethical issues than a person's romantic life.

The greater issue to me seems to be the general feel of arbitrary behaviour, since no baseline was established previously in the show; they were already doing quite shocking things by TOS or TNG standards a few episodes into a brand new presentation, giving people the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the show is muddled on exactly it wants to stand for.

Spoiler: From the most recent episode Season 1, Episode 10

In the most recent episode:

A member of the crew is suffering a panic attack whilst performing a sensentive engineering iperation with direct consequences to the safety of the ship. On the bridge, an officer aware of what it probably happening hides it when directly questioned. This is not just highly unwise in the 23rd century, but highly unwise in the 21st.

It's almost like we are living in the early 20th century, before therapy and psychology.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

All of these in fairness are addressed in some way in the show. The release of the creature is a major plot point.

They enslaved the creature for as long as they needed it, and then released it when it was no longer of such immediate utility to them. Nobody was prosecuted under Federation law (maybe that is coming later). The incident seems to have been largely forgotten. So, yes, in a sense, it has been addressed, but it hasn't been resolved legally or ethically one way or another. In a future war, would the Federation again unofficially condone this on it's ships? How far would they go? To boil it down to an absurd reduction: It's possible to torture one person to save 10,000,000,000 lives so they build a torture machine and leave him/her in it? Is war, as Abraham Lincoln said, only possessed of one virtue: it's swift ending? Or is the message in the method?

It's not that I feel the show is deliberately asking these questions in it's omission of preaching - after all, quite a lot of the philosophy that advocates different morality is not going to be overturned like that, as it accepts the suffering - I miss the show presenting what it thinks, and why it thinks that.

 

[cultcross]

They enslaved the creature for as long as they needed it, and then released it when it was no longer of such immediate utility to them. Nobody was prosecuted under Federation law (maybe that is coming later). The incident seems to have been largely forgotten. So, yes, in a sense, it has been addressed, but it hasn't been resolved legally or ethically one way or another.

Then it's in the same boat as the exocomps - again used for Starfleet's own purposes until they realised it was sentient and decided to stop, even though a character disagreed, same as Saru did here.

I miss the show presenting what it thinks, and why it thinks that

Given the way the scene of releasing the tardigrade is played with big beams and swelling music, I don't think the show could be any clearer about its thoughts on the matter.

 

[Nyotarules]

When was the UFP ever presented as a perfect society in Star Trek? The whole idea is, in the future humanity is better than their ancestors regarding how humans relate to each other, this does not mean humanity has become some perfect sentient race, free from making mistakes or dodgy decisions. Plus Starfleet is never presented as some lofty moral organisation. It might be better to serve in Starfleet instead of the Klingon or Romulan army, this does not mean Starfleet is perfect. There are enough examples of dodgy Admirals and Captains etc the franchise thrives on it.
Closer to home example- it is considered better to live in the USA, UK, Canada or the 'West' than say North Korea, this does not mean these places are running a perfect society.

 

[Nyotarules]

Would it have been acceptable for Cpt Picard to have bedded admiral nechayev or Janeway to have had sex with Admiral Paris?. It goes against everything Star trek stands for but it seems many posters on these forums seem to think the last 50 years of star trek canon and ethics are old fashioned and dont matter.....

Star Trek never had a 'you cannot sleep with your subordinates' rule....that's all in your head.

 

[Nyotarules]

Has Star Trek: Discovery made the case for the United Federation of Planets being a society to be proud of?

Do you think the show might have been stronger for showing Starfleet's 'normal' behaviour or ethics, before entering controversial moral areas around war? When watching DS9 as a teenager, Sisko's action's in two episodes were shocking, because people had previously spent 10 seasons watching Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Picard, Data, etc, carefully make an ethical case against that sort of behaviour, and how it ultimately comes back to haunt a society.

Kirk was prepared to blow a planet and armed both sides in a war, something Picard would have considered immoral. Sisko was more like Kirk than Picard, and for a generation raised on TNG with its goody two shoes image of Starfleet and the Federation then yes, DISC is very shocking but closer to Star Trek than you realise.
I cringed at the line Pike spoke regarding what Starfleet is, it had Terrancentricity written all over it, I blame the writer for that cock up.

 

[eschaton]

In my mind, the problem isn't so much that the officers aren't behaving ethically, but that Discovery typically lacks any themes beyond the plot of the week and character development. An important part of a good deal of Trek episodes was that they taught a "lesson." Sometimes it was heavy-handed and didactic, and sometimes the lessons taught were horrible (some of the latter interpretations of the Prime Directive), but it was there I would say approximately a third of the time - and more commonly in the best episodes of the show.

Maybe Discovery writers are attempting to be more subtle, but I get the idea they don't want to do anything other than entertain us. They aren't really challenging our moral preconceptions in any way. They aren't seeking to use the Trek world as allegory to talk about some aspect of our own society. It's disappointing to say the least.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

What @eschaton said is how I think too - its not that I feel the show wants to aspire to be anything more than entertaining.

Does the Klingon War address the subtlety of western fears, such as immigration of fertile members of a foreign religion, coupled with plunging western birth rates? No, it's just a standard war narrative of armies clashing, no attempt to explore the nature of existential fears of the replacement of ancient ethnicities in a globalized world. Does the Tardigrade explore the consequences of essentially the imprisonment and rape of a life form, to win a war? No, it's apparently just a voiceless animal, a safe subject for an old ethical dilemma. For the people of the world today who believe that the suffering of others is a small price to pay for the ascendancy of their religion or culture, its unlikely to change any minds.

The show is akin to a soap so far, but I hold out hope it will become something more.

Yes, I know that perhaps TOS didn't address these concerns any better, but the show came out of the decade of LBJ, kill counts, and domino theory, and addressed the existential fears of it's day, like atom bombs, brinkmanship, and proxy war.

 

[Mudd]

Well said.

 

[XCV330]

In my mind, the problem isn't so much that the officers aren't behaving ethically, but that Discovery typically lacks any themes beyond the plot of the week and character development. An important part of a good deal of Trek episodes was that they taught a "lesson." .

Lessons of Star Trek Discovery from the point of view of Sun Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli.

Vulcan Hello:Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them. -Machiavelli

Battle of Binary Stars: To begin by bluster, but afterwards to take fright at the enemy's numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence. -Sun Tzu

Context is for Kings: Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are -Machiavelli

The Butcher's Knife something something Cry: Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move. -Sun Tzu

Choose Your Pain: He who builds on the people, builds on the Mudd. -Machiavelli

Lethe: Politics have no relations to morals. -Machiavelli

Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad: The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. -Sun Tzu

Sic Vis Pacem Para Bellum: Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. -Sun Tzu

Into the Forest I Go: All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.-Sun Tzu

Despite Yourself: it is far safer to be feared than loved. -Machiavelli

 

[Vger23]

I for one am thrilled we finally have a take on Star Trek that is more relatable "human" than anything the post-TOS era allowed for.

For me, since we know this series is about the journey of both the characters and of Starfleet toward more of what we saw in the TOS era, I find that a much more fascinating and dramatic story than being handed a bunch of perfect-to-semiperfect characters on a platter who always make the right choices.

The journey is far more interesting than being handed the destination from the get-go. It's one of the reasons Star Trek became less and less interesting to me as it went on.