Mar 2015

Klingons on The Bridge

Is there a duty to apply minimal force against greater aggression?

AESTHETICS VERSUS OBLIGATIONS

An ethical question I had on my mind recently:

Suppose that you are Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Klingons are about to beam on to the bridge. Klingons have disruptors, which are designed purely to maim and kill.

You rush to the armory box and collect hand phasers. Starfleet phasers have (variations of) two settings, stun and kill.

Since the Klingons will be attacking you with deadly force in an unprovoked attack, does one have a moral duty to set the phasers to heavy stun, instead of kill? Or, is it perfectly moral to kill them (matching aggression with equal force), but merely aesthetically pleasing to stun them instead?

One reason why this question is of interest to me is that it highlights how muddy the difference between morality and aesthetics can appear.

  1. Morality is whether something is permissible or not. It should be primarily based on logical reasoning, backed up by ethical intuition.

  2. Aesthetics is whether something is of good taste or not.

Most people get the two mixed up rather often. They have a disgust reaction to something, to homosexuality for example, and then base their moral declarations on a personal sense of taste, rather than computed morality. Thus, most people’s morality is strongly bounded by their cultural origins.

This is also the reason why things like vice squads exist. There is no justifiable moral claim against prostitution, gambling, or drug-taking, and yet it is considered so distasteful that it receives moral condemnation.

Certain cultures, such as the Muslim and Jewish worlds, have gradations of obligation, e.g. specifications for ‘forbidden’ (haraam), versus ‘frowned upon’ (makruh). This adds significant nuance to how various situations can be interpreted, beyond mere sinful/not sinful.

As we move towards a more moral society, we must unlearn the behaviour of basing our declarative moral beliefs upon taste. There must be a firewall between morals and aesthetics, as there is between church and state. To be truly good actors we must make moral rules purely upon universal first principles and applied logic.

Permissibility and taste are two axes, not one A two by two chart. The vertical axis is permissibility, decided by logic and ethical intuition; the horizontal axis is taste. Stunning the Klingons and killing them in defence both sit in the permissible half, differing only in taste, which makes the choice between them an aesthetic one. Prostitution, gambling and drug-taking also sit in permissible but distasteful; an arrow shows them being dragged down across the firewall into impermissible, which is the misfiling the essay names. The Klingons’ own unprovoked attack is impermissible, and the essay assigns it no taste. PERMISSIBILITY: LOGIC + ETHICAL INTUITION PERMISSIBLE IMPERMISSIBLE DISTASTEFUL TASTEFUL TASTE: AESTHETICS Stun the Klingons permissible, and the tasteful one Kill the Klingons also permissible: defence of others Prostitution, gambling, drug-taking no justifiable moral claim against them the misfiling: a disgust reaction read out as a moral verdict where vice squads file them The Klingons’ unprovoked attack: impermissible all along this axis. No taste stated. THE FIREWALL: taste may not carry a case across this line Two independent axes. Height on this chart must be earned by logic, never by taste.
Kill and stun sit in the same half of the chart, so the choice between them is aesthetic rather than moral. The essay’s own definition puts them there: evil is interrupting an agent’s agency for avoidable reasons, with the exception of protecting other agents, and a defensive shot falls under that exception. The Klingons’ unprovoked attack does not, which is why it sits below the line whatever one’s taste. The vice squad cell is the plain case: no justifiable moral claim stands against prostitution, gambling or drug-taking, and yet distaste drags them down across the firewall anyway. Only the essay’s own cases are plotted here; a taste axis is the wrong instrument for the other reactions it discusses.

One take on morality could therefore be the following:

  • Good is simply the absence of evil

  • Evil is defined as wilfully or carelessly interrupting the agency of an agent against their will, for avoidable reasons, with the exception of protecting other agents.

  • Pro-Social behaviour is not good, it is merely nice (possibly very nice). It is therefore possible to do Nice, but not possible to do Good, since good is merely an absence of evil action.

  • One has a strict obligation not to do evil actions, but no strict obligation to be pro-social (however recommended and life-affirming doing so may be).

Correspondence

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