The Prime Directive

[flazak]

Is the Prime Directive from Star Trek right or wrong?

 

Personally I think its right, am I wrong?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

[Lars]

The Prime Directive assumes that external interference will always involve worse outcomes than allowing nature to take its unaltered course.

Some contentions:
1. Nature is completely amoral, it does not automatically favor positive outcomes.
2. The Prime Directive requires advanced civilizations to recognize their own superiority while respecting the supposed equality of cultures implicitly deemed lesser.
3. Who defines "certain threshold of technological, scientific and cultural development"? Is it relative?
4. Intervention is conflated with destabilization.
5. We cannot honestly look back over our own self-contained history and believe present circumstances reflect the best possible result.

"It is universally preferable for advanced cultures to refrain from interfering with developing cultures (in the pursuit of virtue)" falls flat due to the creation of separate moral categories where any interaction has one side accrue all responsibility while the other is denied personhood. A culture could simultaneously be considered advanced and developing depending on the external parties acted upon or acting upon them.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying it is therefore good to interfere with developing cultures, only that it cannot be construed as universally evil.

[villagewisdom]

Right or wrong compared to what?

 

Is the Prime Directive from Star Trek right or wrong?

 

Personally I think its right, am I wrong?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

[WasatchMan]

It is very wrong.  The "Prime Directive" is a direct result of the PC culture of the time pushing multi-culturalism and the idea that "all cultures are equal" (except white ones). Even Star Trek writers couldn't consistently hold to the Prime Directive and had tons of stories where the Prime Directive was contradictory to saving life - and the heros had to make the decision to disobey it in order to do "the right thing".

[flazak]

The Prime Directive assumes that external interference will always involve worse outcomes than allowing nature to take its unaltered course.

 

Some contentions:

1. Nature is completely amoral, it does not automatically favor positive outcomes.

2. The Prime Directive requires advanced civilizations to recognize their own superiority while respecting the supposed equality of cultures implicitly deemed lesser.

3. Who defines "certain threshold of technological, scientific and cultural development"? Is it relative?

4. Intervention is conflated with destabilization.

5. We cannot honestly look back over our own self-contained history and believe present circumstances reflect the best possible result.

 

"It is universally preferable for advanced cultures to refrain from interfering with developing cultures (in the pursuit of virtue)" falls flat due to the creation of separate moral categories where any interaction has one side accrue all responsibility while the other is denied personhood. A culture could simultaneously be considered advanced and developing depending on the external parties acted upon or acting upon them.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not saying it is therefore good to interfere with developing cultures, only that it cannot be construed as universally evil.

 

Well... this is what trips me up at the moment..

 

If the Prime Directive applied to Western Europe in 1500 then they would have found Sub-Saharan Africa (or the coast of it) and decided that the native peoples were too primitive and should have been left alone. 

 

The result is no slave trade and no slavery?! Isn't that good? Or was it necessary to experience the slave trade and its consequences in order to learn a lesson and not make the same mistake again. Probably the latter imo (we learn from our mistakes) so I guess the Prime Directive is a consequence of that mistake, if we left our planet tomorrow and encountered a primitive society we should leave them be and simply observe them. Only after a LOT of observation can we be in a better position to decide on whether or not we should introduce ourselves and our way of life because perhaps we would then have a better idea of the consequences later on. There are too many variables.

 

Now I realise this is one example, but it is the one foremost in my mind at the moment. I am sure there are other times when it appears making contact and interfering in a civilisation does eventually yield more positive results.

 

So perhaps the Prime Directive is only flawed because sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong, but it means well. Maybe the idea of the Prime Directive is to say 'HOLD ON, Think things through before you interfere!' and that breathing space allows a starship captain or whatever to make the right decision, or, at least, a decision that results in less pain and suffering!

It is very wrong.  The "Prime Directive" is a direct result of the PC culture of the time pushing multi-culturalism and the idea that "all cultures are equal" (except white ones). Even Star Trek writers couldn't consistently hold to the Prime Directive and had tons of stories where the Prime Directive was contradictory to saving life - and the heros had to make the decision to disobey it in order to do "the right thing".

 

Yes I know they broke the prime directive many times but we can never know the consequences of interference can we? Good or bad? At least not without a lot of information first (which is why the Federation tended to observe cultures before making contact) I don't think its wrong but I can see its not right either. Its hard to see into the future but with more data we can take a better guess as to the consequences of interfering rather than observing.

 

Right or wrong compared to what?

 

No idea! It depends on the outcome? If we found an alien planet tomorrow in our new warp ship and shared all our technology and ideas with them and one of the nations on that planet uses our technology to destroy another nation then we were wrong... I think? Surely anything that results in death and suffering is wrong?! Hmmm... all I know is that I would not want to be the one dying thanks to that new fangled tech!

[Libertus]

Good point, WasatchMan. Star Trek is a series designed to show how the Prime Directive is wrong, wrong, wrong and must be broken in every season, by every captain, multiple times.

[shirgall]

The Prime Directive was a thinly veiled analogy to the "nuclear club". Once a culture was able to produce the disruptive technology of their era, it moved from one status to another. It was also a thinly veiled analogy to the conquest of indigenous cultures. Remember that the pitch of Star Trek was "Wagon Trail in Space".

 

The writers were seemingly asserting that the "third world" should be left alone to find their own way (even though the first world of the west and the second world of the communists rampantly interfered with the development of the third world) until they developed the bomb, or warp drive, when they should be free to join the United Nations as an equal.

 

The Prime Directive provided fertile ground for stories about the obvious impulse to interfere with, rescue, and guide lesser nation-states. It made for good TV.

[flazak]

We should just observe and let them come to us if they want to.

 

or

 

We should act or else they will destroy themselves before they come to us, what a shame that would be.

 

----

 

Which one?

 

Its impossible to answer it, but the more data you have the higher the likelihood that the decision to act or not to act will be the correct one, at least for now Theres not enough data to know what things are like in an eon or two!

[Lars]

Well... this is what trips me up at the moment..

 

If the Prime Directive applied to Western Europe in 1500 then they would have found Sub-Saharan Africa (or the coast of it) and decided that the native peoples were too primitive and should have been left alone. 

 

The result is no slave trade and no slavery?! Isn't that good? Or was it necessary to experience the slave trade and its consequences in order to learn a lesson and not make the same mistake again. Probably the latter imo (we learn from our mistakes) so I guess the Prime Directive is a consequence of that mistake, if we left our planet tomorrow and encountered a primitive society we should leave them be and simply observe them. Only after a LOT of observation can we be in a better position to decide on whether or not we should introduce ourselves and our way of life because perhaps we would then have a better idea of the consequences later on. There are too many variables.

 

Now I realise this is one example, but it is the one foremost in my mind at the moment. I am sure there are other times when it appears making contact and interfering in a civilisation does eventually yield more positive results.

 

So perhaps the Prime Directive is only flawed because sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong, but it means well. Maybe the idea of the Prime Directive is to say 'HOLD ON, Think things through before you interfere!' and that breathing space allows a starship captain or whatever to make the right decision, or, at least, a decision that results in less pain and suffering!

Have you seen this video?

 

Ethical principles must be universal to be valid, the consequences of following or disregarding a principle have no bearing on moral legitimacy. "Don't X because bad things might happen" is just an appeal to emotion. Any decision can be interpreted as morally ambiguous if our priority is to address the infinity of hypothetical scenarios.

 

Similarly, one could say it is preferable for all parents to neglect their children in order to avoid abuse. That's not a perfect analogy because parents have implicit responsibility over their offspring, though it represents the same ironic line of reasoning.

 

Here are two opposing conclusions under different scenarios, both adhere to the Prime Directive:

- Independence during our development granted us the power to assert ourselves on an interplanetary level. So the fact that we were left alone led to a potentially negative outcome.

- We were imposed upon by a greater culture which granted us the power to assert ourselves on an interplanetary level. So the fact that we were not left alone led to a potentially negative outcome.

[flazak]

So, I guess in a nutshell;

 

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't

[AncapFTW]

What I've never got about it is why it's ok to try and teach the Ferengi/Romulans/Cardassians/Klingons to follow your cultural beliefs, but if I landed on a Theocratic oppressive dictatorship which was stuck at a early 2000s level of technology I couldn't interfere.

 

Klingon moon explodes, we take advantage of it to form an alliance, eventually causing massive cultural change.  World ending meteor heading towards a Renaissance level society?  Sucks to be them.

 

They try to explain it away in Enterprise in an episode where there are two sentient races of humanoids living on a planet.  One is spacefaring, but doesn't have warp drive and is dying from a genetic disorder, and the other only have a crude language and are servants.  The doctor says "what if an advanced society had given the Neanderthals an advantage?"  as if it that's a reason not to help them.  I would have responded "then we might have two sentient races on Earth, we don't know.  How does that make it wrong to help them?"

[shirgall]

What I've never got about it is why it's ok to try and teach the Ferengi/Romulans/Cardassians/Klingons to follow your cultural beliefs, but if I landed on a Theocratic oppressive dictatorship which was stuck at a early 2000s level of technology I couldn't interfere.

 

Because in the Star Trek universe, your influence on the rest of the galaxy is limited until you can warp. Once you can travel farther, you're everyone's problem.

[Malcolm]

The Prime Directive assumes that external interference will always involve worse outcomes than allowing nature to take its unaltered course.

This would be a great policy if it were applied economically. Just saying.

 

 

 

The Prime Directive is frustrating because it seems to imply all cultures are equal and some moral relativism. Making it seem incredibly leftist. 

 

Having a policy of pause, before jumping into foreign affairs does seem like a good idea though. Maybe it would have been nice it were adopted towards the middle east in the early 2000s. But the fact that it's portrayed as such a ridged and blanketed policy, makes it extremely problematic when it comes to dealing with the moral issues in the show. Which is why they always break it. Like most government policies, it doesn't seem to be well thought out.

[Lars]

This would be a great policy if it were applied economically. Just saying.

 

 

 

The Prime Directive is frustrating because it seems to imply all cultures are equal and some moral relativism. Making it seem incredibly leftist. 

 

Having a policy of pause, before jumping into foreign affairs does seem like a good idea though. Maybe it would have been nice it were adopted towards the middle east in the early 2000s. But the fact that it's portrayed as such a ridged and blanketed policy, makes it extremely problematic when it comes to dealing with the moral issues in the show. Which is why they always break it. Like most government policies, it doesn't seem to be well thought out.

We cannot assume that initiations of force within the economy will always lead to undesirable outcomes, even if is 99.999999999...% likely from our perspective given historical precedents.

 

Undesirable for whom? It's subjective.

 

Consequentialist arguments are never universal, it does not matter how or where they are applied, so instead we use the Non-Aggression Principle to morally justify our position against the State.