It certainly didn’t live up to Federation ideals.
But then again Sisko should be a war criminal for using Biogenic weapons.
If you want to see someone do the ethically correct thing 10/10, even in the face of Starfleet failing to, Jean Luc is your captain.
I’ll bet Janeway and Sisko’s music playlists are a lot more fun though.
I mean, that logic was only ever applied by the Vulcans as a personal choice/sacrifice, not something to be enforced by the barrel of a… er… phaser.
Spock sacrificed himself, it wasn’t done forcibly against his will. Kirk didn’t order the execution of one man so that others could live.
I don’t think we should take a slogan as an absolute moral lesson, you can justify all kinds of evil with it.
E.g. your organs could save dozens of lives. Would it be right to pin you down, kill you, and remove them, so that others can live? Surely one life lost is a worthy price to pay? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, after all.
Ethics are a lot more complex than a catchy slogan.
The whole theme of the show is the battle of the ideals which work great in the alpha quadrant vs the reality of their situation
If you abandon your principles when things get hard then they’re not principles; they’re hobbies.
True. Then you are removed and replaced by someone who does what you won’t.
It’s tricky. I think its also important to weigh in that a lot of these captains and folks in executive position spent their entire working life to get to X position. It must be hard to walk away from a life goal, which I assume is what pushes them to, “do what needs to be done.” The lingering question remaining, “Did it really need to he done?”
Yeah, he was largely operating in safe space and still made some unethical decisions.
Janeway was willing to make the hard calls that would best serve her ship and it’s future, having your cook and your third in command get fused isn’t exactly going to result in a functioning chain of command.
Plus since the operation could be reversed, you could argue that Tuvok and Neelix aren’t actually dead, merely suspended animation like storing people in a transporter buffer. You’re still killing Tuvix, but sacrificing one to save two is “the needs of the many” in it’s most simplistic form even without the added weight of hundreds of lives depending on Tuvok’s leadership and tactical skills.
I never once considered Janeway to be out of line given her circumstances. The crew always comes first even at the cost of her own humanity and ethics. She’s a good captain, willing to make the call that ends lives and live with it so that others may not have to endure those decisions and consequences. She didn’t ask anyone else to do that for her.
I believe the only reason nothing happened to him was because of Bajor, with him being seen as an Emissary to the Bajoran people, punishing Sisko would Punishing the Prophets chosen one, they wanted Bajor in the federation no matter what, that was the end goal, so leaving Sisko essentially unpunished was right for the greater goal of bringing in Bajor.
Even Picard broke the PD multiple times. If we are basing ethics on that then he’s no better.
Every captain in starfleet seems to treat it more like the Prime Suggestion.
In fairness, Picard is extremely upfront and honest that he has broken the Prime Directive in situations where he’s felt it would be callous not to.
Separately, he also said that while rules are a good thing, rules cannot be universally absolute.
Another thing he’s said is that Starfleet doesn’t want officers that will blindly follow orders, but rather to think about them seriously and weigh them in their minds.
Janeway straight up said to another captain that she’s never broken the Prime Directive in her life, despite clearly doing it a bunch of times. She’s in denial.
In fairness, Picard is extremely upfront and honest that he has broken the Prime Directive in situations where he’s felt it would be callous not to.
And he’s generally careful about trying to make sure that there is justification for breaking the Prime Directive before doing so.
He was particularly put out about being involved in Klingon political successsion because it would be a violation of the Prime Directive, and he’d be wading into Klingon business, with no justification for his being so, other than that he was appointed.
That’s my only real issue with her is her comment to the Nova class captain about it.
However, I give her the benefit of the doubt here because she’s clearly trying to encourage him that they don’t need to abandon their morality. If she tells him that she’s done it half a dozen times or so then he might be more likely to assume that’s the standard.
Now we all know in hindsight that he’d already committed an atrocity and wanted assurance from Janeway that he wasn’t alone in his decisions to prioritize crew over other sapient beings, but she was simply seeing the younger version of herself in him and attempting to assure him that he doesn’t have to give up hope and sink to those depths.
Voyager has more of a problem with character writing consistency than it does an issue with Janeway specifically, IMO.
There are a lot of instances where the Enterprise crew wanted to do the ethical thing, and Picard stops it or tries to. For example, when Dr. Crusher wanted to help when that planet population was addicted to drugs, and Picard wouldn’t let her do that or communicate anything to them.
Also, Data once found humans frozen in space, and when he helped them, Picard was annoyed; it wasn’t even a Prime Directive issue!
