What has always fascinated me ethically is the need to make a distinction between conflicting versions of "the facts"; and, then, given these conflicting versions, determining how we ought to act in the face of them.

Of all things, this just popped into my head because I was watching my favorite Star Trek movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

One of the sub-plots in the film revolved around the perennial squabble between Kirk and Spock over the role of emotion in human interaction. I say human interaction because, as those who enjoy immersing themselves in the Star Trek universe know, Spock was half human and half Vulcan. The Vulcan half was basically bereft of emotional reactions. A Vulcan's reaction to the world was always logical, supremely rational. Thus the human half of Spock was, apparently, something he kept buried deep down in his psyche.

In the course of the movie, the Kirk [emotional], Spock [rational] conflict ebbed and flowed. But in a climactic scene near the end, the crew of the Enterprise are in a jam. One of their comrades, Pavel Chekhov, is isolated from the rest of them. He is in a hospital sure to die if not rescued. But if the crew goes after him they risk the possibility of not completing their mission. And if they don't complete their mission every man, woman and child on earth will die.

Spock's initial reaction is purely calculated: It is clearly more important [more rational, more ethical] to save the lives of all planet earth's inhabitants than to risk these lives in the effort to save just one man.

But Kirk intervenes emotionally and reminds everyone that Chekhov is one of them. So, naturally, this being a Hollywood movie, Spock ends up agreeing that saving Chekhov is now the #1 priority. And, naturally, this being a Hollywood film, they still have time to rescue planet earth from the whale-probe. Barely.

But think about the ethcial dilemma posed in the film. Is it more rational [ethical] to save Chekhov, if it means possibly the destruction of all human life on earth?

What are the limits of ethical inquiry here in deciding this? Can it even be decided ethically?

Consider it in two ways:

In the first, we can rescue our beloved friend knowing there might still be time to rescue everyone else.

In the second, we can rescue our beloved friend knowing that, if we do, there is no time left to rescue everyone else.

Well, we have to start by asking the question of why the Enterprise crew aspired to save the population of planet earth in the first place?

After all, on a minimalist version of the Golden Rule, they had no ethical obligation to do so. The Golden Rule forbade them from doing anything to the people of Earth that they would not want done to themselves, but it did not require them positively to intervene to assist them when danger threatened from another source.

But Peter Singer highlights the inadequacy of this minimalist Golden Rule by proposing a scenario in which a toddler is drowning in a pond. You could easily and safely wade in and save the toddler, but in doing so you would ruin your nice new shoes. We have no hesitation in saying that preferring the shoes over the child would be profoundly unethical; therefore we acknowledge an ethical obligation which goes beyond merely not causing direct harm to others.

But from where does this obligation come? I think it’s telling that the screenwriters chose the population of Earth for this scenario, rather than the population of a fictional planet. We, of course, identify ourselves with the population of Earth and, since we think of the crew of the Enterprise as (mostly) human, we understand that the crew does too. There would be no dilemma unless the crew felt conflicting obligations towards Chekhov and the population of Earth.

I don’t see that the obligation towards Chekhov was entirely emotional, while the obligation towards the people of Earth was entirely rational. Chekhov had particular ethical claims on them because of his deeper relationship with them; they had more in common with their friend Chekhov – personal knowledge, shared experience, shared loyalties, etc – than they had with the population of Earth, but they had shared experiences, knowledge, etc with the population of Earth as well.

Balancing competing obligations of this kind is extremely difficult, and there is no obvious and simple rule that we can follow which will always produce the “right” answer. Is it ethical for me to buy my child an ice-cream when another child, somewhere else in the world, is starving to death? One one level this seems extremely difficult to justify. On another, what lesson would I be teaching my child about the meaning and significance of close personal relationships if I constantly denied them even simple pleasures and treats for the benefit of people I had never met and never would meet?

Does Peter Singer have anything to say about the ethics of launching a rocket from a Predator drone aircraft operated at a play station in the Pentagon toward a resistance fighter in Pakistan when it will likely kill or injure children or some other peaceful people in the area?

I suspect he would. Peregrinus is pointing out that Peter Singer has illustrated that the Golden Rule (or at least the minimalist version) does not provide a logical foundation for saving people in need. Peter Singer usually bases his assessments of "suffering", rather than the Golden Rule. However, books such as The Life You Can Save show that Peter is not worried about ruining his shoes.

Yup. Singer is not attacking the Golden Rule as such. In fact he doesn’t mention it. Given the centrality of his concern with suffering, I’m pretty sure Singer would have a good deal to say about the morality of the indiscriminate use of overwhelming military power.

I referred to Singer to make the point that a minimalist version of the GR, dealing exclusively with what we should not do but saying nothing about what we should do, does not offer an adequate account of the moral instincts that most of us have. But there are many formulations of the GR which avoid this error (e.g. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) and which would suggest very strongly that we should save the toddler.

My point is that ethical obligations are not purely negative. There are affirmative obligations and these spring at least in part from our relationships. The deeper and more intimate my connection with you, the greater the extent of my obligations to you.

Have you heard any utilitarians, including Singer, speak out against organized statist murder in the Mid-East? I think that they may, indeed, be worried about saving their shoes, or their government research grants.

Peregrinus said: "My point is that ethical obligations are not purely negative. There are affirmative obligations and these spring at least in part from our relationships. The deeper and more intimate my connection with you, the greater the extent of my obligations to you."

These mental construct "obligations" are to be enforced by a state. or by one's individual conscience?

What's wrong with addressing the negative obligation of not murdering innocent people first? Singer seems like the kind of person who loves humaninty but not people, loves the animal kingdom, but not the neighborhood stray dog.

Oh dear.

Look, I picked a particular scenario conceived by Singer to illustrate my point - my point, not Singer's - that an account of ethical obligations which expresses them in purely negative terms is inadequate. Singer did not, so far as I know, use that scenario to comment on the Golden Rule at all, and I used it only to comment about minimalist formulations of the Golden Rule which are expressed in purely negative terms.

It's wholly unfair to accuse Singer of "loving humanity but not people", or of tailoring his ethical views in order to secure his own financial advantage. There are criticisms that could justifiably be made of Singer, but these are not among them. He is in fact noted for giving 25 per cent of his own salary to Oxfam and UNICEF each year.

Oh, dear. I'm not sure just how relevant Singer's charitable contributions are to the questions I asked. Here's something about Dick Cheney's contributions just to add a little more irrelevance. Robert Mugabe has probably donated trillions to charity.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/ ... 2358.shtml

Doin't be silly, Tom. When you accuse Singer of loving humanity but not people, the fact that he takes significant practical action to help people less fortunate than himself is obviously relevant. When you accuse him of tailoring his ethical views to secure his own financial advantage, the fact that he gives away a substantial part of his own income in obedience to his ethical views is obviously relevant.

Okay, Peregrinus. It's true that I don't know enough about Singer to stereotype him

iambiguous: Just watched Cheaters. Enjoyed it, but if there's an ethical lesson there I didn't get it. Maybe sleeping on it will help.

They did so because some of the crew called planet Earth home. Captain Kirk, for example. But, admittedly, to the best of my knowledge, it is never really made clear what these relationships with the folks back home actually consisted of. For all I know none of them had been back there for years.




Yes, but surely the Golden Rule can be construed to mean, "do unto others now as you would want them to do unto you later." If your own life is endangered and others can save it if they will save it you'd want them to. Now, whether there is an ethical duty to save it can only be in the mind of a particular beholder. It depends on the circumstances involved and the manner in which they are interpreted by folks who view them from differing vantage points.



Yes, but, again, in a world sans God, there is no way to demonstrate that any human behavior is necessarily unethical. Even throwing the toddler in the pool and drowning him yourself is not necessarily unethical.

That, in my view, is why, in large part, Gods are invented. Most folks need to believe there is a point of view that unerringly judges human behavior as either good or bad. And, in turn, a Creator that possesses an all powerful capacity to punish bad behavior.



The crew members loved Chekhov in the here and in the now. They lived with him day in and day out and shared many experiences with him. But, again, we are not apprised of any relationships they might have had with the folks back on earth. And, thus, this being a Hollywood script, that sort of complex ambiguity and ambivalence was never going to be explored in depth.

In my view, there is no unequivocally right answer here. But that can never be acknowledged. They must clearly do the right thing. But many no doubt were appalled with the choice they actually made. The friend I watched it with was apoplectic. Not so much with the decision itself but the manner in which it was crammed down the viewers throat. As though no sane and civilized person could have possibly considered abandoning Chekhov.



Yes, that's my point. The fact that this was never raised at all as something they should consider.



Well put.

That's the world we live in. We make choices knowing there might well be a better choice to make. But we would choose nothing at all if we had to certain always of making the right choice. We do the best we can.

I think the idea of “relationship” embraces more than direct personal contact. After all I, and no doubt you, have blood relatives whom I have never met, but I still have a relationship with them in the form of shared acquaintances, common ancestry and family, shared history, etc. Likewise, as an Australian, I have a relationship with other Australians, including those I’ve never met, which I don’t have with, say, the people of Nepal.

Shared humanity is a relationship, which is why the crew of the Enterprise would be more concerned about the destruction of Earth than they would about the destruction of a planet hosting completely different life-forms. And, to continue the point, they would be more concerned about a planet whose inhabitants where human-like in terms of consciousness, intelligence, ability to form relationships, etc than they would about a planet whose life forms did not exhibit these characteristics.


Oh, sure. I’m only arguing here against a reductionist, minimalist version of the Golden Rule which reduces ethics to avoiding certain behaviours. I entirely accept that there is nothing inherent in the Golden Rule which limits it to this and, as I have said above, there are many expressions of the Golden Rule which positively urge us to do good things, and not merely to avoid doing bad things.


Well, it’s a bit of side issue in this discussion. But, since you raise it, I have to say – no offence – that that’s a terribly inadequate account of religion. There are conspicuous examples of major religions systems which were certainly not invented to provide a basis for asserting an objective basis to morality – because, quite simply, they provide no such basis. Hinduism and Buddhism would be obvious examples. Even in the Western World, we know that the ancient Greeks had a religious system which contributed little or nothing to their extensive reflection on ethics. Whatever they invented it for, it certainly wasn’t to provide an objective basis for ethics.

I think you are looking at a use which has commonly been made of some theistic faiths (including Christianity) and assuming (a) that all theistic faiths are put to this use, and (b) they were “in large part” invented so that they could be put to this use. The first assumption is certainly wrong and, as to the second, well, I await argument and evidence.


I think it was implicitly raised, though, by the selection of Earth as the endangered planet. If the danger had threatened a planet hosting only plants, unicellular organisms and animals comparable to, say, earthworms and fruitflies then there would have been no dilemma. Earth had an ethical claim on the Enterprise crew because of the humanity of its population – which is the same reason why Chekhov had a claim on them. If the individual threat were posed not to Chekhov but to, say, the much-loved ship’s mascot, a tortoise, then again there would have been no dilemma.