Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The obvious solution is to recreate the transporter accident that makes evil duplicates, then merge the evil duplicates and keep the good Tuvok and Neelix.
Then we have a Tuvix that's great at parties, a Neelix who has sworn off cooking for the sake of all life, and a Tuvok, well, who is functionally identical to what he was before.
I feel like your whole stance is skipping over a LOT of major nuance to find a pretty absolute stance. First and foremost, death, as we know it today, is essentially irreversible. You can discuss it in terms of necromancy if you like, but this is essentially outside of our experience to have proper terms for it. I mean, if Tuvok/Neelix were so easily restorable (for some definitions of easily), were they dead, or simply in a specialized form of suspended animation? Especially if it's the latter, then wouldn't Tuvok and Neelix have some claim on the matter/etc of their corporeal bodies (which also brings up the question of is that matter "theirs" after going through the transporter, or they even really them after a successful transport even?). Ignoring the moral side for a minute, what about the legal. Does Tuvix inherit all of both Tuvok and Neelix possessions?
Point is, while you are entitled to your opinion, I rightly think the show was correct in NOT deciding it, and I do almost think it would take someone being as ruthless as Janeway to make that decision. To this day I STILL haven't decided which one is right.
The problem with that is if you're going far enough where we're just calling everything magic, no one's really dead, and transporters can do anything....then they really didn't give a shit about Tuvix at all to try and help him and it makes the decision even worse. That doesn't really help the argument, imo, it actually makes it worse / makes Janeway look like even more of a monster.
Possessions don't really matter since I'm fairly certain Tuvix would not claim to own any of the possessions s'long as they let him live.
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Why does the fact that the button brings them back to the life instead of just not letting them die in the first place matter?
It's still either 2 people are dead, or you push the button and those 2 people are not dead and 1 different person is dead in their place.
It's minor, yeah, but it's really about culpability. The trolley is going to kill someone, you're choosing who dies.
With Tuvix, that decision has already been made. Tuvok and Neelix are dead. Janeway is deciding that that decision is unacceptable, for a variety of reasons, and changing the results after the fact. In this scenario, she is actively stepping in after an event and causing a death....if we're going to compare it to the trolley, it's grabbing Tuvix, tying him to the tracks, and causing his death in the hopes it brings back the dead. In the original trolley scenario, you're not doing that, you're trying to mitigate / choose the best possible outcome for an event that's about to happen (you can't untie anyone from the tracks, etc).
But again, both these things are core components of the trolley problem. The balance of "more lives saved vs less lives saved" against "action vs inaction". There's always been a ton of discussion when it comes to the trolley problem over whether you are morally culpable for your inaction.
This is exactly like Tuvok and Neelix on one track and Tuvik on the other, with the train heading for Tuvok and Neelix. Do you push the button and actively save 2 people by letting 1 die? Or do you do nothing, let 2 people die rather then only 1 and feel not morally culpable for those deaths because you didn't act to make their deaths happened, you just let their deaths occur via inaction?
I think more then anything the episode exposes the number of people who really want to believe there's only 1 right answer to the trolley problem.
shryke on
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
Okay, Quark confronting the Klingon High Council with his spreadsheets and Gowron trying to follow along was great.
"YOU ARE CHARGED WITH USING... MONEY... TO OVERTHROW A GREAT HOUSE!"
It's up there with DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION as the best line of DS9
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
There's a lot of insight to be gained from playing the temporal and, for lack of a better term, mechanical factors.
In the Tuvix situation, the fact that the decision is essentially retroactive - Janeway decides to kill someone to "bring back" two people, instead of actively deciding between two simultaneous events - seems to be putting some people in the "this is murder and therefore cannot be justified" camp. Others are more willing to engage with the problem as it purports to be - a Star Trek version of the trolley problem, and are therefore seem more willing to ignore or forego how any contextual changes might impact the moral calculus.
Personally, I would've chosen to respect Tuvix's right to life. As in this scenario to do otherwise skates too close to justifying behavior such as sacrificing one person and harvesting their body parts to save multiple people.
There's a lot of insight to be gained from playing the temporal and, for lack of a better term, mechanical factors.
In the Tuvix situation, the fact that the decision is essentially retroactive - Janeway decides to kill someone to "bring back" two people, instead of actively deciding between two simultaneous events - seems to be putting some people in the "this is murder and therefore cannot be justified" camp. Others are more willing to engage with the problem as it purports to be - a Star Trek version of the trolley problem, and are therefore seem more willing to ignore or forego how any contextual changes might impact the moral calculus.
Personally, I would've chosen to respect Tuvix's right to life. As in this scenario to do otherwise skates too close to justifying behavior such as sacrificing one person and harvesting their body parts to save multiple people.
It doesn't help the two people she saved both kinda sucked
There's a lot of insight to be gained from playing the temporal and, for lack of a better term, mechanical factors.
In the Tuvix situation, the fact that the decision is essentially retroactive - Janeway decides to kill someone to "bring back" two people, instead of actively deciding between two simultaneous events - seems to be putting some people in the "this is murder and therefore cannot be justified" camp. Others are more willing to engage with the problem as it purports to be - a Star Trek version of the trolley problem, and are therefore seem more willing to ignore or forego how any contextual changes might impact the moral calculus.
Personally, I would've chosen to respect Tuvix's right to life. As in this scenario to do otherwise skates too close to justifying behavior such as sacrificing one person and harvesting their body parts to save multiple people.
True, but Tuvix was initially created (albeit inadvertently) by sacrificing Tuvok and Neelix and harvesting their body parts to create Tuvik. Neither of them consented to that. So, Janeway's actions could just as easily be seen as undoing that initial harm.
But again, both these things are core components of the trolley problem. The balance of "more lives saved vs less lives saved" against "action vs inaction". There's always been a ton of discussion when it comes to the trolley problem over whether you are morally culpable for your inaction.
This is exactly like Tuvok and Neelix on one track and Tuvik on the other, with the train heading for Tuvok and Neelix. Do you push the button and actively save 2 people by letting 1 die? Or do you do nothing, let 2 people die rather then only 1 and feel not morally culpable for those deaths because you didn't act to make their deaths happened, you just let their deaths occur via inaction?
I think more then anything the episode exposes the number of people who really want to believe there's only 1 right answer to the trolley problem.
I don't think it does except when one is reductionist to the extreme. It also doesn't indicate that people believe there's only one right answer to the trolley problem because, in Tuvix, people are already dead.
Again, you reference the trolley, but the person didn't tie them to the tracks. They came after the fact and were left to the decision on whether to redirect the trolley to save two or not. With the trolley, redirecting or doing nothing results in death, but is still the result of a choice by the person....but they presumably didn't create the original problem.
In Tuvix, the deaths have already happened, completely separate from Janeway, and Janeway is unrelated to Tuvok and Neelix going poof. Janeway comes in after the fact, backs the trolley up, figuratively then ties Tuvix to the train track, and kills in the hopes it brings two people back to life.
In the trolley scenario, the person (presumably hah) didn't tie any of the people to the track. They came upon a bad situation and they're left with a choice. In the Tuvix scenario, it's a bit more....malicious.
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The messy part of this whole debate, though, is it's a sci-fi, so like Hydropolo said, we have the magic devices that can do anything except save Tuvix. "Oh they're not really dead" etc., stuff like that.
First, that's BS, we all know transporters murder you and clone you every time they transport you (and I know what the inventor said and that it didn't work that way, BUT OF COURSE he'd say that for legal reasons, and look at the transporter buffer / how it works!)….but secondarily, it also prevents any real debate in the end because it's a magic machine that works how the authors want it to.
Of course it can reform Tuvok and Neelix, but not save Tuvix. That's what the authors wanted. It's magic.
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Finally, Voyager was just inconsistent as hell. Here's Janeway talking about how she can't kill someone to get back the lungs stolen from Neelix, despite the fact that Neelix was going to die.
Once found, the aliens, who call themselves Vidiians, surrender. They explain that their civilization has been plagued for centuries by a terrible disease, the phage, and that as a result they often use body parts of other species to replenish and/or replace their own degraded ones. They prefer to use cadavers, but if pressed, will steal from the living if they can't find a body in time, a situation that they are not proud of. Dereth, one of the Vidiians in custody states that he has already transformed Neelix' lungs for transplantation into Motura and thus is unable to retransplant Neelix' lungs back without killing him. Janeway is outraged at what the Vidiians have done, but she is not willing to kill Motura to save her crewmember. Unable to turn the two over for trial, and unwilling to carry them both in the brig for the forseeable future Janeway is left with no choice but to let them both go free. However, she gives both of them a message to take back to their society and makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that even the slightest transgression against Voyager and its crew will be met with the deadliest force.
Naturally, they find a solution, but the point is Voyager is a badly written show from a consistency perspective .
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I find "Tuvix as a trolley problem" a very interesting mental exercise.
When I watched the episode, I was definitely on the side of "Janeway was wrong and a murderer". I dunno, I guess I still am. Killing someone to save two people is still killing someone.
On the other hand, I've always been on the "flip the switch" side of the trolley problem. If people will die regardless of what you do, you have a moral duty to save as many as you can.
So where's the line? What makes Tuvix feel so wrong to me but the Trolley so right?
I don't think it's the "alive vs. dead" argument. Killing someone to harvest their organs to save the lives of multiple living people is wrong.
I don't think it's the fact Tuvix was pleading for his life. Sure that adds an emotional gut punch, but I mean the people tied on the train track will be pleading for their lives as well. A mute person's life isn't easier to sacrifice.
I don't think it's Tuvix's right to life being attacked. The lone guy on the tracks also has the right to life, and I'd sacrifice him.
I don't think it's the technology or the fact there was a technobabble solution. The first one is cosmetics and the second is a cop-out.
Maybe it's the lack of due process? In the trolley problem there is an emergency to act, the trolley is barreling down towards the people and only you can save them only now. There is no due process, no higher power you can consult, no book you can consult for guidance or court for judgement, no one you can get help from. You need to decide to act or not act right now.
In Tuvix there was no such emergency. IIRC they spent months figuring out the way to reverse the transporter accident. They could have spent months more arguing about what to do. And that's part of the point! We live in a society where no one has absolute life-or-death power over someone else, save when given to them by law and due process. The military chain of command can devise a strategy and issue orders that a solider go on a suicide mission, but a lone commander can't just decide by himself to order that same soldier to die no matter how noble he feels the cause is. The legal system can kill a prisoner following an extensive appeal and approval process, but a lone judge can't just decide to kill that same prisoner for that same crime right there in his courtroom because he feels it's right. Tuvix never receives any due process. Janeway never gives him a hearing or council to defend his rights. She just decides by herself that she will kill off one of her officers to save two. And that is not a decision she has the right to make.
Come to think of it, this same dilemma happens two more times in Voyager. In Endgame, Admiral Janeway decides by herself to erase decades of lives of her entire crew - decades of personal growth, relationships, children - and stirs their lives in completely different directions, thus effectively killing all of them, to save Tuvok and Chakotay. Most horribly, this happens only a few episodes after Shattered, where past-Janeway has an opportunity to prevent Voyager from being sent into the Delta Quadrant in the first place and refuses precisely because of the years of personal growth, relationships, and children she would rob from her crew. And doing a complete (yet unsurprising) 180, in Equinox Janeway is confronted by another Starfleet captain who made the same choice, of sacrificing some (alien) lives to save his crew, and she vehemently condemns him and even strikes up a deal with the aliens to hand him over to them for execution for his crimes (refusing Tuvok's advise he be given due process and condemnation, so I guess no a complete 180).
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I don't see how the trolley question is accurate in the case of Tuvix because Tuvok and Neelix don't exist anymore. I don't see how one can sidestep that. They're, for all intents and purposes, gone. The trolley problem is you have to make a choice between living people.
Yes, if we're reductive enough, it can be "either these people exist or this person exists", but that's ignoring the act of necromancy going on and also ignores that in the trolley problem, the person has a choice before something bad happens. Tuvix / Neelix / Tuvok is after something bad happens.
If we're guessing the intentions of the writers, it felt more like a reference to the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. In this case, Tuvix was not only outnumbered by Neelix and Tuvok, but Janeway felt Voyager needed those two far more than Tuvix.
So, Tuvix died.
Why does the fact that the button brings them back to the life instead of just not letting them die in the first place matter?
It's still either 2 people are dead, or you push the button and those 2 people are not dead and 1 different person is dead in their place.
Imagine going to work everyday for a month working to create that button. Everyday for 8 hours you are laboring away to create a murder machine that will resurrect two friends. Everyday you get to hear from the condemned, who committed no crime aside from existing, that it wants to live. You spend a month of your life doing that. I would not do that.
I can't stop thinking about this framing. I honestly don't understand your point in raising it!
To compare it to another thought experiment: if you press a button you get a billion dollars and someone dies. If we just look at the mechanics we can talk all day about the immorality of making a button that does that, but that just completely bypasses the thought experiment.
Because all the billionaires that exist have their billions by exploiting people to their death, so we already have that button, just no individual crafted it. That's why it seems silly to talk about the ethics of creating such a button. No one actually ever does create such buttons. They're brought about by the inherent nature of capitalism, or by the inertia of convenience, or by evolving technologies.
In this case it's a hypothetical technology that could merge and subsequently unmerge two individuals. It still boils down to a choice between two lives or one.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I don't see how the trolley question is accurate in the case of Tuvix because Tuvok and Neelix don't exist anymore. I don't see how one can sidestep that. They're, for all intents and purposes, gone. The trolley problem is you have to make a choice between living people.
Yes, if we're reductive enough, it can be "either these people exist or this person exists", but that's ignoring the act of necromancy going on and also ignores that in the trolley problem, the person has a choice before something bad happens. Tuvix / Neelix / Tuvok is after something bad happens.
If we're guessing the intentions of the writers, it felt more like a reference to the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. In this case, Tuvix was not only outnumbered by Neelix and Tuvok, but Janeway felt Voyager needed those two far more than Tuvix.
So, Tuvix died.
Why does the fact that the button brings them back to the life instead of just not letting them die in the first place matter?
It's still either 2 people are dead, or you push the button and those 2 people are not dead and 1 different person is dead in their place.
Imagine going to work everyday for a month working to create that button. Everyday for 8 hours you are laboring away to create a murder machine that will resurrect two friends. Everyday you get to hear from the condemned, who committed no crime aside from existing, that it wants to live. You spend a month of your life doing that. I would not do that.
I can't stop thinking about this framing. I honestly don't understand your point in raising it!
To compare it to another thought experiment: if you press a button you get a billion dollars and someone dies. If we just look at the mechanics we can talk all day about the immorality of making a button that does that, but that just completely bypasses the thought experiment.
Because all the billionaires that exist have their billions by exploiting people to their death, so we already have that button, just no individual crafted it. That's why it seems silly to talk about the ethics of creating such a button. No one actually ever does create such buttons. They're brought about by the inherent nature of capitalism, or by the inertia of convenience, or by evolving technologies.
In this case it's a hypothetical technology that could merge and subsequently unmerge two individuals. It still boils down to a choice between two lives or one.
I wonder if the differences is agency. The merge is accidental. The unmerge is deliberate. Accidents happen, but the active choice to end Tuvix's life, without their consent, is what the unmerge involves.
The Tuvix problem seems pretty cut and dry to me, I'm not sure why you all are struggling with it
If the ship goes out of power in the middle of the delta quadrant it's better to have two crew members I can cook and eat in order to survive than one
But if Neelix doesnt exist, how would your ship lose power?
Voyager left without an O'Brien on board. Presumably it will break down within the first hundred parsecs
I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the show? Ship left w/o O'Brien, is stranded in the Delta Quadrant on it's very first mission? And... didn't the gel pacs get sick in like, the first half season?
The Tuvix problem seems pretty cut and dry to me, I'm not sure why you all are struggling with it
If the ship goes out of power in the middle of the delta quadrant it's better to have two crew members I can cook and eat in order to survive than one
But if Neelix doesnt exist, how would your ship lose power?
Voyager left without an O'Brien on board. Presumably it will break down within the first hundred parsecs
I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the show? Ship left w/o O'Brien, is stranded in the Delta Quadrant on it's very first mission? And... didn't the gel pacs get sick in like, the first half season?
They got sick a few times, but that first one in the first few episodes was because of Neelix's cooking.
I don't see how the trolley question is accurate in the case of Tuvix because Tuvok and Neelix don't exist anymore. I don't see how one can sidestep that. They're, for all intents and purposes, gone. The trolley problem is you have to make a choice between living people.
Yes, if we're reductive enough, it can be "either these people exist or this person exists", but that's ignoring the act of necromancy going on and also ignores that in the trolley problem, the person has a choice before something bad happens. Tuvix / Neelix / Tuvok is after something bad happens.
If we're guessing the intentions of the writers, it felt more like a reference to the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. In this case, Tuvix was not only outnumbered by Neelix and Tuvok, but Janeway felt Voyager needed those two far more than Tuvix.
So, Tuvix died.
Why does the fact that the button brings them back to the life instead of just not letting them die in the first place matter?
It's still either 2 people are dead, or you push the button and those 2 people are not dead and 1 different person is dead in their place.
Imagine going to work everyday for a month working to create that button. Everyday for 8 hours you are laboring away to create a murder machine that will resurrect two friends. Everyday you get to hear from the condemned, who committed no crime aside from existing, that it wants to live. You spend a month of your life doing that. I would not do that.
I can't stop thinking about this framing. I honestly don't understand your point in raising it!
To compare it to another thought experiment: if you press a button you get a billion dollars and someone dies. If we just look at the mechanics we can talk all day about the immorality of making a button that does that, but that just completely bypasses the thought experiment.
Because all the billionaires that exist have their billions by exploiting people to their death, so we already have that button, just no individual crafted it. That's why it seems silly to talk about the ethics of creating such a button. No one actually ever does create such buttons. They're brought about by the inherent nature of capitalism, or by the inertia of convenience, or by evolving technologies.
In this case it's a hypothetical technology that could merge and subsequently unmerge two individuals. It still boils down to a choice between two lives or one.
There's a great passage in Lucifers Hammer by Larry Niven about killing someone up close and personal. That when you kill someone with a motor or a machine gun you feel detached from it, the machine did the work. But when you have to labor at it and think about it, it's much more personal. If I was the only one who could build a scaffold to hang a person, I couldn't do it unless I agreed they deserved to die. This is obviously a very limited thought experiment, but it's just another way to examine your personal morals for this impossible situation. Since I couldn't bring myself to labor for Tuvix death in this instance, it's wrong and it's not a moral or ethical choice I can embrace.
The Tuvix problem seems pretty cut and dry to me, I'm not sure why you all are struggling with it
If the ship goes out of power in the middle of the delta quadrant it's better to have two crew members I can cook and eat in order to survive than one
But if Neelix doesnt exist, how would your ship lose power?
Voyager left without an O'Brien on board. Presumably it will break down within the first hundred parsecs
I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the show? Ship left w/o O'Brien, is stranded in the Delta Quadrant on it's very first mission? And... didn't the gel pacs get sick in like, the first half season?
They got sick a few times, but that first one in the first few episodes was because of Neelix's cooking.
They had a Chief Engineer, but they got killed in episode 1 like the Doctor IIRC.
How unlucky was this ship? Got their O'brien killed, infested by Neelix, and captained by Janeway...
But again, both these things are core components of the trolley problem. The balance of "more lives saved vs less lives saved" against "action vs inaction". There's always been a ton of discussion when it comes to the trolley problem over whether you are morally culpable for your inaction.
This is exactly like Tuvok and Neelix on one track and Tuvik on the other, with the train heading for Tuvok and Neelix. Do you push the button and actively save 2 people by letting 1 die? Or do you do nothing, let 2 people die rather then only 1 and feel not morally culpable for those deaths because you didn't act to make their deaths happened, you just let their deaths occur via inaction?
I think more then anything the episode exposes the number of people who really want to believe there's only 1 right answer to the trolley problem.
I don't think it does except when one is reductionist to the extreme. It also doesn't indicate that people believe there's only one right answer to the trolley problem because, in Tuvix, people are already dead.
Again, you reference the trolley, but the person didn't tie them to the tracks. They came after the fact and were left to the decision on whether to redirect the trolley to save two or not. With the trolley, redirecting or doing nothing results in death, but is still the result of a choice by the person....but they presumably didn't create the original problem.
In Tuvix, the deaths have already happened, completely separate from Janeway, and Janeway is unrelated to Tuvok and Neelix going poof. Janeway comes in after the fact, backs the trolley up, figuratively then ties Tuvix to the train track, and kills in the hopes it brings two people back to life.
In the trolley scenario, the person (presumably hah) didn't tie any of the people to the track. They came upon a bad situation and they're left with a choice. In the Tuvix scenario, it's a bit more....malicious.
Is it? The Tuvix situation is exactly like this. The transporter accident tied Tuvok and Neelix to the track. It's Janeway's choice to either let them stay dead or to throw the switch, kill someone else, and save them from that death.
And again, this is not weird. A big part of the trolley problem has always been the question of whether there is even culpability for the setup of the entire thing that you, the person who has to make the choice, took no part in. That no one on Voyager created the original problem on purpose is literally part of trolley problem setups from the start. Like, from wikipedia because it's actually useful in this case:
A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to steer to the track with one man on it. According to classical utilitarianism, such a decision would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all). An alternate viewpoint is that since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, moving to another track constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise no one would be responsible. An opponent of action may also point to the incommensurability of human lives. Under some interpretations of moral obligation, simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this is the case, then deciding to do nothing would be considered an immoral act if one values five lives more than one.
Again, the problem is that you are basically arguing like inaction cannot be a moral wrong and there's a lot of people that would disagree with that. Which is part of what this kind of thought exercise is designed to highlight.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
It is also absolutely glorious that the highest sanction the High Council can levy is the silent treatment.
I'm waiting for a Klingon to get that treatment, shrug, and pull a grenade out of their belt before the guards can get into the room.
Just take out the entire Klingon Leadership in one fell swoop. Clearly, if you're in that situation, you don't have to worry about being dishonored, you're already there.
Is it? The Tuvix situation is exactly like this. The transporter accident tied Tuvok and Neelix to the track. It's Janeway's choice to either let them stay dead or to throw the switch, kill someone else, and save them from that death.
And again, this is not weird. A big part of the trolley problem has always been the question of whether there is even culpability for the setup of the entire thing that you, the person who has to make the choice, took no part in. That no one on Voyager created the original problem on purpose is literally part of trolley problem setups from the start. Like, from wikipedia because it's actually useful in this case:
Again, the problem is that you are basically arguing like inaction cannot be a moral wrong and there's a lot of people that would disagree with that. Which is part of what this kind of thought exercise is designed to highlight.
The sci-fi element kind of messes it up, though, because it's saying "Yes, they're dead, but not really." It also skews it a bit because there's way more involvement from Janeway in the situation than in the classic Trolley problem. Lining it up with the classic trolley question essentially relies on you ignoring the fact that Tuvok and Neelix are already gone.
Change the sci fi premise from a transporter accident to a time machine.
You have a time machine. Tuvok and Neelix are hit by a space trolley. Is it okay to use a time machine and go back, put Tuvix in the path of the space trolley, and save Tuvok and Neelix?
Even though it's a meme image....
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I always hated the Tuvix problem because it felt like such a cheap shot by a show with inconsistent writing. They had this terrible character they didn't know what to do with, so uh...lets jam him together with one of the better characters in an intractable way because that's great TV right? It certainly made for some dark TV. I think King of the Hill did it way better when Hank had to decide whether or not to hit the button to release water from the dam that would flood a small part of the town to save the rest of it.
I think in a vaccuum, free from the forces of reality and context, the transporter accident was simply an accident, an act of god, out of anyone's control. Returning Tuvix back to the two original characters IS a choice and ultimately Tuvix should get to decide that choice.
That being said..the only Captain I could see honoring Tuvix's opinion on the matter is Picard, all the other Captains I think would do the same thing as Janeway and if Picard was in the same situation as Janeway was..I think even he might make the same choice.
I always hated the Tuvix problem because it felt like such a cheap shot by a show with inconsistent writing. They had this terrible character they didn't know what to do with, so uh...lets jam him together with one of the better characters in an intractable way because that's great TV right? It certainly made for some dark TV. I think King of the Hill did it way better when Hank had to decide whether or not to hit the button to release water from the dam that would flood a small part of the town to save the rest of it.
I think in a vaccuum, free from the forces of reality and context, the transporter accident was simply an accident, an act of god, out of anyone's control. Returning Tuvix back to the two original characters IS a choice and ultimately Tuvix should get to decide that choice.
That being said..the only Captain I could see honoring Tuvix's opinion on the matter is Picard, all the other Captains I think would do the same thing as Janeway and if Picard was in the same situation as Janeway was..I think even he might make the same choice.
Picard would defend Tuvix's right to life. There is plenty of precedent for Picard to make that decision.
Kirk values individual rights and self-determination. He was never in a situation such as Tuvix or Measure of a Man, but he was in plenty of situations where he stood up against a more powerful being imposing their will on defenseless individuals. He would defend Tuvix.
Sisko is a pragmatic in a war for survival. If killing Tuvix brought the Federation closer to defeating the Dominion, he'd do it. But it won't, so that's moot. Without that constraint, we know from Children of Time that Sisko is willing to sacrifice himself and his crew to protect the lives of innocent colonists. So I think he'd save Tuvix.
Archer had his chief engineer cloned for the purpose of harvesting the clone's organs to save the original's life. No question he would kill Tuvix.
Sisko is a pragmatic in a war for survival. If killing Tuvix brought the Federation closer to defeating the Dominion, he'd do it. But it won't, so that's moot. Without that constraint, we know from Children of Time that Sisko is willing to sacrifice himself and his crew to protect the lives of innocent colonists. So I think he'd save Tuvix.
I'm not so sure Sisko would kill Tuvix in the context of the war, either. In Pale Moonlight, he didn't kill the forger or Vreenak. Garak did, and Sisko beat the shit out of him for it. Sisko let Vreenak go, believing that his lies would at best keep the Romulans from ever helping or at worst bring them into the war on the other side.
Sisko believed he had just *lost* the war, and was still unwilling to stoop to cold blooded murder.
Garak most likely knew Vreenak would never be fooled and planned from the beginning to kill him, but never trusted Sisko to go along with it.
So, yeah, Garak? He would 100% kill Tuvix. But he wouldn't trust anything to others who could back out, one day Tuvix would be on an away mission and he'd beam down and holy shit both Tuvok and Neelix are on the surface, what the fuck? But if Garak were on Voyager, Neelix would have mysteriously died of an incurable and terminal diarrhea a few days after the first time Garak got sick on his cooking, so none of this this would ever have been an issue.
The sci-fi element kind of messes it up, though, because it's saying "Yes, they're dead, but not really." It also skews it a bit because there's way more involvement from Janeway in the situation than in the classic Trolley problem. Lining it up with the classic trolley question essentially relies on you ignoring the fact that Tuvok and Neelix are already gone.
Change the sci fi premise from a transporter accident to a time machine.
You have a time machine. Tuvok and Neelix are hit by a space trolley. Is it okay to use a time machine and go back, put Tuvix in the path of the space trolley, and save Tuvok and Neelix?
I’m glad you brought up how the analogy only works if the trolley is also a time machine.
So let’s talk about Year of Hell for a second.
In that episode, Chakotay is driven to find a way to save everyone (or at least every civilization within the Krenim sphere of influence) by way of eliminating non-sentient life forms from history (as opposed to Kurtwood Smith, who’s happy to eliminate whomever to get his wife back). In the end, Chakotay and Paris conclude that continuing to tamper with these forces simply isn’t worth it, and that Kurtwood Smith must be stopped. The big flying time gun (BFTG) must be destroyed.
The trolley problem—by design—frames inaction as morally equivalent to action. If this is the case—as Shryke insists—does destroying the BFTG make Chakotay, Paris, and of course Janeway, culpable for the trillions of deaths that the machine could have undone? Isn’t spending however many years or decades or lifetimes it takes to maximize and optimize the number of people saved versus the number wiped out the morally utilitarian thing to do? If inaction is morally equivalent to action, don’t our heroes have that obligation?
Kurtwood Smith’s character would say so. I don’t think he’d be right. The problem with utilitarianism is that the “acceptable” amount of evil grows in proportion to the “achievable” amount of good. Ultimately, it can be used to justify any number of bad actions.
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Then we have a Tuvix that's great at parties, a Neelix who has sworn off cooking for the sake of all life, and a Tuvok, well, who is functionally identical to what he was before.
Possessions don't really matter since I'm fairly certain Tuvix would not claim to own any of the possessions s'long as they let him live.
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In celebration, here's Picard's feelings regarding Tuvix.
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But again, both these things are core components of the trolley problem. The balance of "more lives saved vs less lives saved" against "action vs inaction". There's always been a ton of discussion when it comes to the trolley problem over whether you are morally culpable for your inaction.
This is exactly like Tuvok and Neelix on one track and Tuvik on the other, with the train heading for Tuvok and Neelix. Do you push the button and actively save 2 people by letting 1 die? Or do you do nothing, let 2 people die rather then only 1 and feel not morally culpable for those deaths because you didn't act to make their deaths happened, you just let their deaths occur via inaction?
I think more then anything the episode exposes the number of people who really want to believe there's only 1 right answer to the trolley problem.
"YOU ARE CHARGED WITH USING... MONEY... TO OVERTHROW A GREAT HOUSE!"
It's up there with DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION as the best line of DS9
In the Tuvix situation, the fact that the decision is essentially retroactive - Janeway decides to kill someone to "bring back" two people, instead of actively deciding between two simultaneous events - seems to be putting some people in the "this is murder and therefore cannot be justified" camp. Others are more willing to engage with the problem as it purports to be - a Star Trek version of the trolley problem, and are therefore seem more willing to ignore or forego how any contextual changes might impact the moral calculus.
Personally, I would've chosen to respect Tuvix's right to life. As in this scenario to do otherwise skates too close to justifying behavior such as sacrificing one person and harvesting their body parts to save multiple people.
The way he wins the duel is fantastic too.
It doesn't help the two people she saved both kinda sucked
True, but Tuvix was initially created (albeit inadvertently) by sacrificing Tuvok and Neelix and harvesting their body parts to create Tuvik. Neither of them consented to that. So, Janeway's actions could just as easily be seen as undoing that initial harm.
It's simply the best scenes involving Klingons in the entire franchise.
Again, you reference the trolley, but the person didn't tie them to the tracks. They came after the fact and were left to the decision on whether to redirect the trolley to save two or not. With the trolley, redirecting or doing nothing results in death, but is still the result of a choice by the person....but they presumably didn't create the original problem.
In Tuvix, the deaths have already happened, completely separate from Janeway, and Janeway is unrelated to Tuvok and Neelix going poof. Janeway comes in after the fact, backs the trolley up, figuratively then ties Tuvix to the train track, and kills in the hopes it brings two people back to life.
In the trolley scenario, the person (presumably hah) didn't tie any of the people to the track. They came upon a bad situation and they're left with a choice. In the Tuvix scenario, it's a bit more....malicious.
***
The messy part of this whole debate, though, is it's a sci-fi, so like Hydropolo said, we have the magic devices that can do anything except save Tuvix. "Oh they're not really dead" etc., stuff like that.
First, that's BS, we all know transporters murder you and clone you every time they transport you (and I know what the inventor said and that it didn't work that way, BUT OF COURSE he'd say that for legal reasons, and look at the transporter buffer / how it works!)….but secondarily, it also prevents any real debate in the end because it's a magic machine that works how the authors want it to.
Of course it can reform Tuvok and Neelix, but not save Tuvix. That's what the authors wanted. It's magic.
**
Finally, Voyager was just inconsistent as hell. Here's Janeway talking about how she can't kill someone to get back the lungs stolen from Neelix, despite the fact that Neelix was going to die.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Phage_(episode)
Naturally, they find a solution, but the point is Voyager is a badly written show from a consistency perspective
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When I watched the episode, I was definitely on the side of "Janeway was wrong and a murderer". I dunno, I guess I still am. Killing someone to save two people is still killing someone.
On the other hand, I've always been on the "flip the switch" side of the trolley problem. If people will die regardless of what you do, you have a moral duty to save as many as you can.
So where's the line? What makes Tuvix feel so wrong to me but the Trolley so right?
I don't think it's the "alive vs. dead" argument. Killing someone to harvest their organs to save the lives of multiple living people is wrong.
I don't think it's the fact Tuvix was pleading for his life. Sure that adds an emotional gut punch, but I mean the people tied on the train track will be pleading for their lives as well. A mute person's life isn't easier to sacrifice.
I don't think it's Tuvix's right to life being attacked. The lone guy on the tracks also has the right to life, and I'd sacrifice him.
I don't think it's the technology or the fact there was a technobabble solution. The first one is cosmetics and the second is a cop-out.
Maybe it's the lack of due process? In the trolley problem there is an emergency to act, the trolley is barreling down towards the people and only you can save them only now. There is no due process, no higher power you can consult, no book you can consult for guidance or court for judgement, no one you can get help from. You need to decide to act or not act right now.
In Tuvix there was no such emergency. IIRC they spent months figuring out the way to reverse the transporter accident. They could have spent months more arguing about what to do. And that's part of the point! We live in a society where no one has absolute life-or-death power over someone else, save when given to them by law and due process. The military chain of command can devise a strategy and issue orders that a solider go on a suicide mission, but a lone commander can't just decide by himself to order that same soldier to die no matter how noble he feels the cause is. The legal system can kill a prisoner following an extensive appeal and approval process, but a lone judge can't just decide to kill that same prisoner for that same crime right there in his courtroom because he feels it's right. Tuvix never receives any due process. Janeway never gives him a hearing or council to defend his rights. She just decides by herself that she will kill off one of her officers to save two. And that is not a decision she has the right to make.
Come to think of it, this same dilemma happens two more times in Voyager. In Endgame, Admiral Janeway decides by herself to erase decades of lives of her entire crew - decades of personal growth, relationships, children - and stirs their lives in completely different directions, thus effectively killing all of them, to save Tuvok and Chakotay. Most horribly, this happens only a few episodes after Shattered, where past-Janeway has an opportunity to prevent Voyager from being sent into the Delta Quadrant in the first place and refuses precisely because of the years of personal growth, relationships, and children she would rob from her crew. And doing a complete (yet unsurprising) 180, in Equinox Janeway is confronted by another Starfleet captain who made the same choice, of sacrificing some (alien) lives to save his crew, and she vehemently condemns him and even strikes up a deal with the aliens to hand him over to them for execution for his crimes (refusing Tuvok's advise he be given due process and condemnation, so I guess no a complete 180).
I can't stop thinking about this framing. I honestly don't understand your point in raising it!
To compare it to another thought experiment: if you press a button you get a billion dollars and someone dies. If we just look at the mechanics we can talk all day about the immorality of making a button that does that, but that just completely bypasses the thought experiment.
Because all the billionaires that exist have their billions by exploiting people to their death, so we already have that button, just no individual crafted it. That's why it seems silly to talk about the ethics of creating such a button. No one actually ever does create such buttons. They're brought about by the inherent nature of capitalism, or by the inertia of convenience, or by evolving technologies.
In this case it's a hypothetical technology that could merge and subsequently unmerge two individuals. It still boils down to a choice between two lives or one.
I wonder if the differences is agency. The merge is accidental. The unmerge is deliberate. Accidents happen, but the active choice to end Tuvix's life, without their consent, is what the unmerge involves.
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This, but instead of geometry and trig, it's single digit addition and written in crayon.
fuck yes
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If the ship goes out of power in the middle of the delta quadrant it's better to have two crew members I can cook and eat in order to survive than one
But if Neelix doesnt exist, how would your ship lose power?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
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Voyager left without an O'Brien on board. Presumably it will break down within the first hundred parsecs
but neelix will cook one of the crew members and make everyone who eats them sick
Have Tom Paris cook Neelix.
"Don't you know? I've always been something of a traditional Earth sous chef."
I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the show? Ship left w/o O'Brien, is stranded in the Delta Quadrant on it's very first mission? And... didn't the gel pacs get sick in like, the first half season?
They got sick a few times, but that first one in the first few episodes was because of Neelix's cooking.
There's a great passage in Lucifers Hammer by Larry Niven about killing someone up close and personal. That when you kill someone with a motor or a machine gun you feel detached from it, the machine did the work. But when you have to labor at it and think about it, it's much more personal. If I was the only one who could build a scaffold to hang a person, I couldn't do it unless I agreed they deserved to die. This is obviously a very limited thought experiment, but it's just another way to examine your personal morals for this impossible situation. Since I couldn't bring myself to labor for Tuvix death in this instance, it's wrong and it's not a moral or ethical choice I can embrace.
They had a Chief Engineer, but they got killed in episode 1 like the Doctor IIRC.
How unlucky was this ship? Got their O'brien killed, infested by Neelix, and captained by Janeway...
Is it? The Tuvix situation is exactly like this. The transporter accident tied Tuvok and Neelix to the track. It's Janeway's choice to either let them stay dead or to throw the switch, kill someone else, and save them from that death.
And again, this is not weird. A big part of the trolley problem has always been the question of whether there is even culpability for the setup of the entire thing that you, the person who has to make the choice, took no part in. That no one on Voyager created the original problem on purpose is literally part of trolley problem setups from the start. Like, from wikipedia because it's actually useful in this case:
Again, the problem is that you are basically arguing like inaction cannot be a moral wrong and there's a lot of people that would disagree with that. Which is part of what this kind of thought exercise is designed to highlight.
Hoisted by his own bat'leth, a classic move.
I'm waiting for a Klingon to get that treatment, shrug, and pull a grenade out of their belt before the guards can get into the room.
Just take out the entire Klingon Leadership in one fell swoop. Clearly, if you're in that situation, you don't have to worry about being dishonored, you're already there.
The sci-fi element kind of messes it up, though, because it's saying "Yes, they're dead, but not really." It also skews it a bit because there's way more involvement from Janeway in the situation than in the classic Trolley problem. Lining it up with the classic trolley question essentially relies on you ignoring the fact that Tuvok and Neelix are already gone.
Change the sci fi premise from a transporter accident to a time machine.
You have a time machine. Tuvok and Neelix are hit by a space trolley. Is it okay to use a time machine and go back, put Tuvix in the path of the space trolley, and save Tuvok and Neelix?
Even though it's a meme image....
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I think in a vaccuum, free from the forces of reality and context, the transporter accident was simply an accident, an act of god, out of anyone's control. Returning Tuvix back to the two original characters IS a choice and ultimately Tuvix should get to decide that choice.
That being said..the only Captain I could see honoring Tuvix's opinion on the matter is Picard, all the other Captains I think would do the same thing as Janeway and if Picard was in the same situation as Janeway was..I think even he might make the same choice.
Picard would defend Tuvix's right to life. There is plenty of precedent for Picard to make that decision.
Kirk values individual rights and self-determination. He was never in a situation such as Tuvix or Measure of a Man, but he was in plenty of situations where he stood up against a more powerful being imposing their will on defenseless individuals. He would defend Tuvix.
Sisko is a pragmatic in a war for survival. If killing Tuvix brought the Federation closer to defeating the Dominion, he'd do it. But it won't, so that's moot. Without that constraint, we know from Children of Time that Sisko is willing to sacrifice himself and his crew to protect the lives of innocent colonists. So I think he'd save Tuvix.
Archer had his chief engineer cloned for the purpose of harvesting the clone's organs to save the original's life. No question he would kill Tuvix.
I'm not so sure Sisko would kill Tuvix in the context of the war, either. In Pale Moonlight, he didn't kill the forger or Vreenak. Garak did, and Sisko beat the shit out of him for it. Sisko let Vreenak go, believing that his lies would at best keep the Romulans from ever helping or at worst bring them into the war on the other side.
Sisko believed he had just *lost* the war, and was still unwilling to stoop to cold blooded murder.
Garak most likely knew Vreenak would never be fooled and planned from the beginning to kill him, but never trusted Sisko to go along with it.
So, yeah, Garak? He would 100% kill Tuvix. But he wouldn't trust anything to others who could back out, one day Tuvix would be on an away mission and he'd beam down and holy shit both Tuvok and Neelix are on the surface, what the fuck? But if Garak were on Voyager, Neelix would have mysteriously died of an incurable and terminal diarrhea a few days after the first time Garak got sick on his cooking, so none of this this would ever have been an issue.
I’m glad you brought up how the analogy only works if the trolley is also a time machine.
So let’s talk about Year of Hell for a second.
In that episode, Chakotay is driven to find a way to save everyone (or at least every civilization within the Krenim sphere of influence) by way of eliminating non-sentient life forms from history (as opposed to Kurtwood Smith, who’s happy to eliminate whomever to get his wife back). In the end, Chakotay and Paris conclude that continuing to tamper with these forces simply isn’t worth it, and that Kurtwood Smith must be stopped. The big flying time gun (BFTG) must be destroyed.
The trolley problem—by design—frames inaction as morally equivalent to action. If this is the case—as Shryke insists—does destroying the BFTG make Chakotay, Paris, and of course Janeway, culpable for the trillions of deaths that the machine could have undone? Isn’t spending however many years or decades or lifetimes it takes to maximize and optimize the number of people saved versus the number wiped out the morally utilitarian thing to do? If inaction is morally equivalent to action, don’t our heroes have that obligation?
Kurtwood Smith’s character would say so. I don’t think he’d be right. The problem with utilitarianism is that the “acceptable” amount of evil grows in proportion to the “achievable” amount of good. Ultimately, it can be used to justify any number of bad actions.