What if Augmentation was accepted in the Federation?

[Tenacity]

Perhaps they feel that they are above our "primitive" notions of morality.

They had evolved.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Perhaps they feel that they are above our "primitive" notions of morality.

I'm sure they do feel that, but they don't get to use that as an excuse.

The simple fact is, our "primitive" notions of morality and ethics are absolute. Everyone must abide by them. There may very well be sociopathic criminals like Khan and his ilk, who wish to use the excuse that they're "above" such notions as an excuse to commit whatever atrocities they desire. But they are wrong. They don't get to rise themselves above the rest of us just because they feel like it. They are required to operate within the system, whether they like it or not.

If they fail to do so, then they will be judged. Khan's actions will condemn him, and indeed HAVE condemned him (remember what I said about Regula 1?).

 

[Christian Weston Chandler]

The simple fact is, our "primitive" notions of morality and ethics are absolute.

Could you define "absolute" in terms of morality?

 

[Tenacity]

our "primitive" notions of morality and ethics are absolute

Which (of thousands) group's morality and ethics is the absolute one?

 

[Spot261]

I'm sure they do feel that, but they don't get to use that as an excuse.

The simple fact is, our "primitive" notions of morality and ethics are absolute. Everyone must abide by them. There may very well be sociopathic criminals like Khan and his ilk, who wish to use the excuse that they're "above" such notions as an excuse to commit whatever atrocities they desire. But they are wrong. They don't get to rise themselves above the rest of us just because they feel like it. They are required to operate within the system, whether they like it or not.

If they fail to do so, then they will be judged. Khan's actions will condemn him, and indeed HAVE condemned him (remember what I said about Regula 1?).

Except much of history would tend to disagree with you, people have countless times rose to positions of absolute power in virtually every society and abused those positions before dying peacefully in their beds. They may have been judged later by some higher power, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

I'm theorising you have some sort of religious background given your disdain for moral relativism. Fair enough but the federation and trek as a franchise holds no such viewpoint. Where bad guys are humiliatingly defeated it is for dramatic purposes, not to emphasise some absolute morality built into the fabric of reality.

Khan is portrayed as being sociopathic yes, but sociopathy is a broad church, statistically a surprising number of people you know in real life would doubtless also qualify for the diagnosis without being bent on destroying the human race.There is a link to criminality, but ironically psychiatrists, surgeons, nurses and police officers are also disproportionately likely to show traits.

Khan may not be a nice man by any stretch of the imagination but he's a far cry from being one dimensional, nor would he be anywhere near as interesting if he were. STID may have revised his history somewhat but its hard to disregard two of the most celebrated pieces of trek canon which are its source material.