Jean-Luc Picard, Kant, and Morality: an Ethical Examination of the Deontological Element of the Prime Directive

Jean-Luc Picard, Kant, and Morality: An Ethical Examination of the Deontological Element of the Prime Directive

BY ANDREW T. VINK

This paper explores the ethical implications of the aspect of the Star Trek universe known as the Prime Directive. The first section outlines the particulars of the directive and how they act as a guiding principle for Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the central protagonist of Star Trek:

The Next Generation. The second section describes the underlying moral assumptions of the

Prime Directive, showing them to be an example of a Kantian maxim. Finally, the conclusion illustrates how the Kantian deontological system fails to stand up to scrutiny on the basis of the

Prime Directive.

Part I: Explaining the Prime Directive

Space . . . the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.1 These words began the renewal of a journey into the 24th century when

Captain Jean-Luc Picard took control of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) in 1987. In keeping with the traditions of the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk, Commander

Spock, and Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy of The Original Series, throughout his tenure as captain of the Enterprise, Picard is faced with ethical challenges that require great moral reasoning and the developed virtue of prudence.

One challenge that is quite consistent throughout Picard’s mission is the moral conflict with Starfleet General Order One, more commonly known as the Prime Directive. The Prime directive, at its core, is a rule of non-interference. According to Memory Alpha, an online Star

Trek encyclopedia, the Prime Directive has a more specific agenda than simply non-interference:

The Directive states that members of Starfleet are not to interfere in the internal affairs of another species, especially the natural development of pre-warp civilizations, either by

1 “Encounter at Farpoint,” Star Trek: The Next Generation, directed by Corey Allen, First-run Syndication, September 28, 1987.

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direct intervention, or technological revelation. . . . Originally, the Directive was a shield for primitive worlds. If such a world was in danger, Starfleet had been known to order ships to save that world. . . . The Directive was later amended, prohibiting Starfleet officers from intervening even if non-intervention would result in the extinction of an entire species or the end of all life on a planet or star system. By the 24th century, the Federation had begun applying the Prime Directive to warp-capable species. . .2

While such a definition makes perfect sense to Trekkies around the world, it requires some translation and context for those not familiar with the world created by Gene Roddenberry. The

United Federation of Planets, or Federation for short, is an advanced society on a technological and, supposedly, moral level. While the Federation sends its space exploration and military force, called Starfleet, to explore galaxies unknown, it does not wish to interfere with the development of “inferior cultures,” and avoids the mistakes made in human history during the

Western Imperialism of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. To prevent this, the order was given to not interfere with the development of primitive cultures normally determined by the benchmark of warp technology, which allows a spacecraft to travel faster than the speed of light. By the 24th century, the era of Captain Picard, the Prime Directive was revised to prevent interference in any species’ internal affairs, even if they are capable of space travel at warp speed.

An example of this strict non-interference policy is demonstrated in TNG 123:

“Symbiosis.”3 The primary conflict in the episode is when the Enterprise picks up humanoids from the planets Brekka and Ornara who are arguing over a remedy to the plague from which the Ornarians are suffering. Over the course of the episode, it is revealed that this plague is nothing more than a physical and psychological addiction to the remedy, which is discovered by Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher to be little more than a narcotic. The Ornarians are being exploited by the Brekkians and forced to trade their goods for a narcotic presented to them as a treatment for a non-existent plague. Picard is unable, however, to inform the

Ornarians of this discovery due to the Prime Directive. Unable to rectify the situation in that

2 Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, s.v. “Prime Directive,” http://memory- alpha.org/en/wiki/Prime_Directive. 3 The episodes are numbered in the production format. The first digit indicates the season, in this case, Season 1. The second and third digits indicate the episode number. Therefore, the notation should read: “The Next Generation, Season 1, Episode 23: “Symbiosis.”

way, he also cites the Prime Directive as the reason for not being able to give the Ornarians parts to repair their space freighters, therefore preventing them from continuing the trade that abets their addiction. Captain Picard justifies this decision to Dr. Crusher, who is still uncertain that this was the right choice:

PICARD: Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again when humanity interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous. CRUSHER: It’s hard to be philosophical when faced with suffering. PICARD: Believe me, Beverly, there was only one decision. CRUSHER: I just hope it was the right one. PICARD: And we may never know. 4

This conclusion reached by Picard is the essence of the Prime Directive: an order of non- interference so that cultures in their infancy may flourish without the intrusion of foreign races and technologies which they would not be able to handle in the early stages of their development. This duty is the core of a lot of hard decisions made in the Star Trek universe, making it a worthy object of contemplation and critique.

Part II: The Deontological Background of the Prime Directive (or the Wrath of Kant)

In order to engage in a proper analysis, one must first delve into the ethical assumptions of the Prime Directive. One of the suppositions inferred from the Directive is that, according to

Starfleet, there is no universal truth that spans cultures. If this were the case, it would be acceptable to interfere in a genocide, which could be easily stopped with the superior technology of a Galaxy-class starship such as the Enterprise, or to help relieve a famine that threatened the extinction of a planet’s population, which could also be easily solved with the

Federation’s capability of changing energy into matter. Therefore, one aspect of the Prime

Directive is that it supports cultural relativism.

Another assumption that can be drawn from the Prime Directive is that it claims interference of any kind with another culture will always result in disaster. The dialogue between Picard and Crusher above emphasizes this concept particularly well. This leads to two

4 “Symbiosis,” Star Trek: The Next Generation, Directed by Win Phelps, First-run Syndication, April 18, 1988.

possible interpretations. One is that no good can ever come of any intervention, which is untrue.

If Picard were to end a famine, the good of preserving life would come of it, no matter what else followed. The second interpretation is that both good and evil can result from interfering in another culture. It then becomes a matter of how one interprets this action. It could be a matter of either doing evil so that good may come of it, or accepting the evil as a consequence of an otherwise upright action. The Directive is vague on this issue, but it appears that the spirit of the Directive follows a line of thought that any action that could possibly yield evil should not be taken.

With the two previously mentioned assumptions in mind, along with the universal nature of the order itself, the Prime Directive is an example of Kantian, or deontological, ethics at work. According to Immanuel Kant, an ethical system which is based on reason alone must be one that has duty at its center. To discern a duty, Kant uses the method of universalizing maxims. He explains:

Since I have deprived the will of every impulse that might arise for it from obeying any particular law, there is nothing left to serve the will as principle except the universal conformity of its actions to the law as such, i.e., I should never act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.5

This method, known as the Categorical Imperative, attempts to make moral actions universally acceptable, without concern for the particulars of a situation. This concept mirrors the reasoning behind the Prime Directive in the notion that if one cannot interfere with a culture without disastrous side effects, then it is not morally acceptable to interfere at all.

The Prime Directive works as the centerpiece of a deontological system that Starfleet has designed and by which its officers must abide. Since it is the primary maxim that must be obeyed above all others, it sets the tone and creates the lens through which all judgments are made. Therefore, the Directive must be examined as a normative claim about this version of deontological ethics.

Part III: The Critique of the Directive

5 Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis, Hackett, 1993), 14.

The Prime Directive, as described above, is not a suitable foundation for a deontological moral code because of its support of cultural relativism, a reductionistic morality, bringing all choices down to a matter of the Fifth Mode of Responsibility in the ethical system of Germain

Grisez, and the ability to account for the particulars of a situation.

The first major problem of the Prime Directive is its support for cultural relativism. The

Directive initially takes a stance of non-interference out of respect for other cultures. A problem occurs, however, when one makes the active choice to ignore a rectifiable injustice in the name of respect. An examination of the following hypothetical situation illustrates this point: Picard and his crew come upon a planet with a pre-warp culture that is killing off a small racial minority of the population for political gain. According to the Prime Directive, followed strictly as Picard had done before, Picard could not intervene, and would, therefore, be forced to allow the immoral actions to continue. Where is the respect for the lives of the people who are being slaughtered in the name of politics? In this system, there appears to be none.

The idea of cultural relativism, even though it seems to be a part of Vulcan culture6 and therefore logical, is actually an illogical claim. To paraphrase the argument presented by Judith

Barad and Ed Robertson, different societies have different moral codes. Therefore, there is no absolute moral truth and conflicting moral codes are both equally correct and noble.7 An example of this can be found through an analysis of honor killings. Some cultures find the action of murdering a family member, such as a promiscuous daughter or niece, to restore honor to the family and remove any shame or damage done by the murdered individual to be an acceptable action. Other cultures, on the other hand, find this to be an infringement of basic human freedoms, and therefore consider it to be an immoral action. Since these cultures are in disagreement over the normative status of honor killings, causing their moral codes to conflict, there is no absolute moral truth and each code is equally correct. The problem with this

6 According to Vulcan philosophy, rooted in the purest logic unhindered by emotions, one is to accept other cultures and learn to see how they come to illuminate truth. This notion of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC) does make a distinction, however, that if beliefs lead one away from the truth, they should be discarded. Judith Barad and Ed Robertson, The Ethics of Star Trek (Harper Collins Publishing, New York, 2000), 21. 7 Ibid., 11.

argument is that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. The fact that two cultures disagree does not mean that there is no absolute moral truth. It is more likely that one group of cultures is wrong than for this disagreement to be a proof that absolute moral truth does not exist. Due to this weakness, the argument becomes invalid.

A third and final aspect of the cultural relativism is the inherent contradiction of a relativistic universal maxim. While the Directive attempts to maintain a universal principle that no culture should interfere with the development of another culture, it is problematic to enforce a particular principle of how to respect other cultures, especially if a culture does not see this principle as good for its own development. It is a contradiction to make the universal claim in the name of relativism. Therefore, the Prime Directive, as a maxim based on relativistic principles, is a contradiction and is impotent. This causes the “cultural respect” defense of the

Prime Directive to fall short.

A second flaw in the Prime Directive is its reductionist approach to responsibility.

According to their work Beyond the New Morality: the Responsibilities of Freedom, Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw present nine important ideas: the First Principle of Morality and the Modes of

Responsibility. These notions compliment Aristotelian Virtue Theory and show a great weakness in this deontological moral ethical system. The Directive reduces all moral responsibility, in conjunction with its notion of cultural relativism, to the Fifth Mode: the

“Golden Rule,” or to treat all equally and without preference, unless it is required by an intelligible good. While this is a good notion, it cannot function properly as the only mode of responsibility. This would cause injustice to go unpunished since there are no guidelines to explain to which intelligible good the preference is referring. Without the First Principle, or the notion of always acting towards a state of eudaimonia, the moral inertia and quietude which stand as centerpieces of the Prime Directive’s philosophy are considered acceptable.

This First Principle also challenges the previously mentioned vague ban on action if there is the possibility of an evil outcome. To flesh out this problem, let us take the Enterprise to a war-torn planet in the grips of a famine. If Picard were to order food to be sent to them, the

warring clans may continue to kill, rape, and pillage each other’s villages until only one was left. The Prime Directive implies that one technically should not feed the starving people, which would result in the extinction of the planet’s population, because of this possible outcome.

According to Grisez and Shaw’s theory, however, one should still feed these people because they need food to survive. The possibility of the war continuing is a side effect of an otherwise upright action, and therefore should be accepted as such. It is feasible that the warring culture may sue for peace after such a disaster, making the suspicion of war an unacceptable reason to remain inert.

A third flaw in the Prime Directive is its exclusion of particulars in the process of making moral judgments. As a form of deontological ethics, the Prime Directive makes itself a universal maxim, as confirmed by the Categorical Imperative, which states that a Starfleet officer should never interfere with another culture, regardless of circumstances. This notion creates problems in the practice of this theory since the particulars are, in part, what determine which actions are appropriate and moral. According to Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, all general rules made about morality must be flexible and take into account the particulars of each situation since these particulars have an impact on which action would be the most prudent.8

While the Prime Directive’s stance of non-interference can be a good rule, a situation such as when Picard is facing a culture partaking in genocide mitigates the moral goodness of non- interference. It is clear that a common-sense, or prudential, judgment would be in favor of saving innocent people from being murdered due to their race rather than standing by and watching. The Prime Directive would not allow such a moral action, showing a weakness in its stability.

When we take this deontological system to a political level, this weakness grows into a question of the self-sufficiency of nation states. The heart of Kant’s deontological ethics is in the ability for one to come to understanding of moral principles through reason alone; a fully independent moral agent stands as Kant’s example of the modern man. When this theory is

8 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J.A.K. Thomson (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 93-94.

then moved into a political framework, the questions of the autonomous man become those of autonomous nation states. It is with this notion of self-sufficient nation states that the topic of non-interference comes into play. Thomas Mertens describes Kant’s theory:

The concept of political community entails the right of people to give itself the civil constitution it sees fit. Outsiders cannot and should not decide whether a particular foreign constitutional design is fit or unfit. Imposing on foreign communities a republican “form of government” would not only be self-contradictory, but also impossible. People cannot be forced to be free, but should establish a free constitution by their own means.9

Here, Mertens shows the deontological politic of the independent city-state. It puts a great value on self-determination and how people should only be free if they choose to be. It follows that if a nation state is to be self-sufficient, humanitarian intervention is not only unnecessary, but morally unacceptable. This line of thinking is, however, fallacious. There are situations in which the people of a nation state are oppressed and unable to change a pre-established set of rules that are unjust. An example of this would be the genocide dilemma mentioned above. The notion of there being no valid reason to intervene in a nation that is repressing the individual’s right to self-determine does not make any sense. No group of people would will themselves to be persecuted on the basis of their race, and a minority does not always have the power required to change the situation. Therefore, Kant’s theory is not without exception on a political level, showing humanitarian intervention to be morally acceptable.

The deontological system based on the Prime Directive does not support itself and should not be followed. Its support of cultural relativism creates the problem of self-refutation.

The reduction of responsibility which leads to the Directive’s notion of non-interference ignores more pressing needs for the sake of an incomplete sense of justice. Finally, its lack of caring for the particulars of a situation can cause errors in moral judgment. From these points, it is clear that such a deontological system does not work in the 21st century as well as it appears to work in the 24th.

9 Thomas Mertens, “Kant’s Cosmopolitan Values and Supreme Emergencies,” Journal of Social Philosophy 38 (2007): 225.

After this analysis, a couple questions that may come to mind are “Why bother with Star

Trek? It’s just a TV show. How does this affect any serious conversation in ethics?” The main justification behind this paper is that Star Trek offers a fair example of Kantian ethics at work within the context of a culture. The moral theory developed by Kant was one of the great milestones of ethical thought, therefore making it an important topic for analysis. Its sincere attempt at creating a morality based solely on the power of reason is seriously flawed in that it does not provide guidance on how to create a clear line of demarcation between what is to be considered moral and what is not. The point of using the example of Star Trek is to show how this flaw is recognizable when a system is appropriated for a work of low fantasy and then critiqued. If this imperfection can be exposed in such a form, it only makes a stronger case against its debilitating nature.

The Prime Directive is a strong example of Kantian deontological ethics in a cultural context. This example shows the weakness in the system such as its emphasis on cultural relativism, a reduction of all moral responsibility to the fifth mode of responsibility, and its inability to account for the particulars of a situation. After an analysis of these weaknesses, the deontological system, that the Prime Directive represents, falls apart—showing Kantian deontology to be an impotent moral system.