When Did The Prime Directive Change And Why?

[DevilEyes]

^ You're the one who used the comparison with kids who need to "grow and develop" on their own, I was just developing it further. If you prefer, you may see the "son" in the above example as a simple catchphrase that older people tend to use when addressing young men. Instead of a parent in the above example, imagine a random adult who thinks the fact that someone has been hurt and is dying is just not their business, even though they could help if they wanted to. That works better for you?

 

[Anwar]

Then that man would in violation of his own laws set up to protect his fellow man and to aid them in times of need. Different scenario. You really can't use human-to-human stuff in a case like this.

But if you must, should a random guy who sees someone about to get slugged by a guy do everything in his power to intervene, then send the guy back out into the world without teaching him anything except that someone else will be there to make sure you never suffer consequences, or should he just let the guy get slugged and let him learn from his own actions so it won't happen again?

 

[YARN]

If some aliens had done that for the Dinosaurs, we wouldn't be here. See how "Helping" like that can have unforeseen negative effects?

Suppose you go to a party. You see a girl's drink get spiked with a drug and five guys drag the girl to a back bedroom without being observed by the other guests. You check things out. The girl is semi-coherent and weeping and the guys who took her back there are undressing and discussing how they are going to abuse her in the worst ways imaginable. It is in your power to stop this or to allow it to happen.

But, you aren't God and you cannot predict the future.

There is a possibility (for all you know) that the girl will (1) get pregnant with the next Einstein as a result of the impending rape. Or maybe (2) one of these guys is the next John F. Kennedy and turning him in would ruin his political career in which he would have averted a 3rd world war. Or maybe, (3) as a result of the gang-assault this girl will write the most beautiful poetry the world has ever seen.

EDIT: Post Script: Please bring on the Edith Keeler example. I am waitin' for it if you haven't thought of it yet.


Or maybe you act on what you actually know - that a young girl is about to be raped and you have to power to prevent it.

Now, your intervention may have an unforeseen (and unforeseeable) negative consequence. If possibility 2 is correct, for example, then you have doomed the world to nuclear destruction! If you knew this, you might not intervene. But you can't know this, so it cannot reasonably inform your decision any more than any other bare possibility.

The problem of not knowing, cuts both ways. After all, if you intervene, you might unwittingly prevent Dr. Evil from destroying the world too!

The only thing you can do is make a responsible decision given the information you do have. What you have is a pretty obvious violation of this person's rights and a pretty obvious
negative consequence that follows from that violation. That is all you know, that is all you can know, and it is all that you are responsible for.

Again, we cannot assume that the universe within your evolutionary worldview has some hidden purpose and that our intervention will screw up some grand design. There is no design, so at most, our actions may or may not have serious consequences for a happenstance stream of causal effects.

Then again, our inactions may also have dire consequences, so it makes no sense to fret about bare possibilities.

With regard to the dinosaur example, there is no way our alien interventionists could know that millions of years after this impending cataclysmic event humans would evolve. But even if they did, why should they prefer our possible future to the possible future of other species? Suppose the aliens stop the big rock, and the dinosaurs go on their merry way. Maybe some of them even get smart and create a society and culture better than our own. Where is the negative effect now?

The prime directive, in it's weaker form, certainly makes sense. A lot of damage has been done by one culture attempting to help another.

Elevated to the level of an unquestionable dogma, however, it becomes crippling policy of inaction. If it was my daughter at that party, I would hope it was Captain Kirk who saw her get abducted and not Captain Picard who was on that away mission.

EDIT - Post Script: Please feel free to bring on the Edith Keeler example if you haven't thought of it yet.

 

[sojourner]

You can make good examples for both sides of the natural disaster argument. Would you let a random baby be hit by a car? Would you stop the dinosaur killer preventing man and the federation from ever existing? In the end it all comes down to choice. It's the inherent "moral dilemma"

 

[Destructor]

Or maybe you act on what you actually know - that a young girl is about to be raped and you have to power to prevent it.

Groan. Isn't there some corollary to Godwin's Law that the moment someone mentions rape in their argument, their argument is invalid? Prime Directive has NOTHING to do with the case study mentioned above. Ugh.

 

[YARN]

Or maybe you act on what you actually know - that a young girl is about to be raped and you have to power to prevent it.

Groan. Isn't there some corollary to Godwin's Law that the moment someone mentions rape in their argument, their argument is invalid? Prime Directive has NOTHING to do with the case study mentioned above. Ugh.

No, but there is a collary about people who simply groan without considering the merits of an argument: as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of someone groaning because they can't interpret, evaluate, or make arguments is more likely to occur.

When the prime directive prevents the Enterprise from saving an entire race of people, that is a really bad consequence which is allowed because of the observance of a moral rule. In my example another really bad consequence follows from inaction.

 

[Anwar]

If they had saved the Boraalans, it would have taken thousands of Starships working around the clock to do that, then they'd have to take them all to another world, transplant them all safely to said world (without somehow tampering with any indigenous life there already?), and then remain for years to make sure that they survived the transition.

Also, doing so would have set a precedent of what to do whenever any world is threatened by anything. Now, Starfleet would have to set up some Task Force to seek out threatened worlds and save them in a similar way. Where are the ships, personnel and resources for this "Galactic Salvation" supposed to come from? The Federation would end up becoming a Galactic Nanny State that spends so much time saving primitive worlds from destruction or any threat at all that they wouldn't have anything left for their own emergencies or even defense.

Congratulations, you saved the Boraalans and set in motion the destruction of the Federation at the hands of their many enemies, who will likely just conquer the Boraalans anyways.

 

[Sector 7]

I am having difficulty with some of the arguments presented. According to those arguments, do we:
- Let the Gulf oil spill continue to wreak havoc to beaches, water and sea life... or interfere with what would naturally occur?
- Help rebuild Haiti... or let 'natural selection' take its course while millions suffer and die?
- Send food and aid to victims of Pakistani flooding... or let them die because they must be inferior if they cannot fix their own problem?

Suddenly, the Prime Directive does not seem like an exercise in theory, but a moral challenge.

 

[Anwar]

The Gulf Oil Spill was not a natural act, it was due to human interference to begin with.

Haiti, it's fellow humans who are aware of us and asking us for help, so we do so.

Pakistan, again they asked for our help.

In Trek, the PD doesn't count if the others already know about you and asked you for help. The "Dear Doctor" case wasn't a PD thing anyways, so it shouldn't be brought up in PD situations.

 

[DevilEyes]

Or maybe you act on what you actually know - that a young girl is about to be raped and you have to power to prevent it.

Groan. Isn't there some corollary to Godwin's Law that the moment someone mentions rape in their argument, their argument is invalid? Prime Directive has NOTHING to do with the case study mentioned above. Ugh.

Lemme get this straight... We're talking about leaving billions of people to die even though you could help them, and you're arguing that comparing that to letting someone get raped is too extreme?

 

[sonak]

"In Trek, the PD doesn't count if the others already know about you and asked you for help."



But see Anwar, that was one of the issues I was bringing up. That was NOT the way the PD was interpreted by the time of Voyager. Spacefaring races with knowledge of the Federation were denied technology because this would be "interference," even though this would mean the Federation would have to be almost isolationist to avoid "interference" of this kind.


The PD just got more and more rigid until it became absurd and indefensible.


Also, your post about the "nanny state" Federation is an example of the "slippery slope" fallacy Anwar. Just because the UFP intervenes in certain situations they fell that they could help, doesn't mean that they couldn't define pragmatic, common-sense criteria for when to intervene in other cases.

 

[sojourner]

Oh God, not the Galactic nanny State argument again!

 

[SiddFinch1]

Correct me if I am wrong (and I know you will), but didnt starfleet initially use the prime directive as a reason not to help Gowron in the klingon civil war- ie it was an internal matter. IIRC they only helped once it was thought the Romulans were involved?

How does the Prime Directive involve another warp capable empire who has been dealing with the Feds for 200 years?

 

[T'Girl]

^^^ Picard spoke of non-interference with the Klingon civil war, which doesn't automatically translate as the prime directive. Once Data proved (not supposed) a Romulan involvement, then a pre-existing treaty came into play.

 

[The Badger]

Quite apart from anything else, the modern interpretation of the PD seems quite undramatic. Characters who stand back and let innocents die to avoid breaking a morally questionable rule are not particularly heroic.

 

[Rulius]

Picard had no problem violating the PD to save Wesley's arse when the Edo were gonna whack him.

 

[Anwar]

But see Anwar, that was one of the issues I was bringing up. That was NOT the way the PD was interpreted by the time of Voyager. Spacefaring races with knowledge of the Federation were denied technology because this would be "interference," even though this would mean the Federation would have to be almost isolationist to avoid "interference" of this kind.

They refused to trade technology with the Kazon for a very simple reason in Voyager: The Kazon were raging thugs who'd use said technology to become masters of the area and build an Empire based on slavery and death. They said it was the PD, but it was also clearly because the Kazon weren't trustworthy.

And no, they can't just pick and choose who to help. Save one, save em all. The Pro-interventionalists wouldn't settle for anything less.

 

[YARN]

Picard had no problem violating the PD to save Wesley's arse when the Edo were gonna whack him.

Just imagine if they had killed him off.

Now that would have been drama!

You'd be free of Wesley and you could play up the tension between Beverly and Jean Luc. Indeed, you could have a season-ending arc where she betrays Picard, and her motivation would be perfectly obvious.

 

[sojourner]

And no, they can't just pick and choose who to help. Save one, save em all. The Pro-interventionalists wouldn't settle for anything less.

You may not be able to pick and choose who to save, but no one said you are required to go looking for people that need saving, especially outside your own borders. And the Pro-interventionalists don't exist.

 

[Anwar]

If they saved the Boraalans, it WOULD have set the precedent for such actions. Thus, from then on they'd have to go around doing the same for any threatened world no matter how devastating this would be for the Fed's resources and economy.