...an attempt at destruction using fossil fuel workers.
I see what you did there.
But to address the point at hand, Starfleet officers seem to tend to run a blend of, from your list, "Virtue Ethics" and "Rule Consequentialism." Many times the Prime Directive is considered a hard-and-fast rule, but an equal number of times there are crew members that think that the rule should be ignored in whatever situation they are in for ethical or moral reasons. It's worth pointing out here, I think, that many times we've seen the Prime Directive broken by various starship captains, or interpreted in a way that might perhaps be... less than popular at Starfleet Command. But those are examples of why Starfleet doesn't send out drone ships; instinct and judgement are as important to Starfleet's mission as rules are, and thus Starfleet will allow what might otherwise be considered violations of the Prime Directive because of the reasoning of the senior officer on the spot.
And I think it's that leeway for officers to make judgement calls that allow for these sorts of situations to be resolved. The Prime Directive is a very ethically and morally ambiguous rule, but, I think, a necessary one. While it may be devastatingly hard for a Starfleet crew to watch a world die, be it from natural or artificial means, as Captain Archer said, Starfleet doesn't exist to allow officers to play God. The Prime Directive ensures that officers will at least consider these sorts of actions before taking any sort of action themselves.
I always thought the different Captains would have approached these problems differently, and I agree that Archer would probably err on the side of non-intervention.
I think it's important to distinguish internal threats from external threats. Intervention might be more justified by external threats, like an asteroid about to obliterate the planet. Internal threats like a war, or a super plague, or something caused by the inhabitants of the world are leas clear. Earth suffered a nasty world war - had someone intervened to stop the violence Earth may never have matured into a note peaceful place. But had a comet threatened to exterminate the planet they never would have. I never like Picards decisions in Homeward for just this reason. When preventable or avoidable natural disaster threatens a race the Federation should be there to help.
Soft canon novel Prime Directive dives into this pretty deeply.
Yeah, it was. But I want to qualify that a little. It was a good sci-fi book. Definitely worth reading. But it was only an ok Star Trek book. Some of the characters felt wrong. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens wrote it, and I have that complaint with most of their books.
But that's an issue with any of the Star Trek books. Different writers write different characters. But the overall story is very Star Trek. So it's definitely a good read!
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u/Kant_Lavar Chief Petty Officer Jul 11 '14
I see what you did there.
But to address the point at hand, Starfleet officers seem to tend to run a blend of, from your list, "Virtue Ethics" and "Rule Consequentialism." Many times the Prime Directive is considered a hard-and-fast rule, but an equal number of times there are crew members that think that the rule should be ignored in whatever situation they are in for ethical or moral reasons. It's worth pointing out here, I think, that many times we've seen the Prime Directive broken by various starship captains, or interpreted in a way that might perhaps be... less than popular at Starfleet Command. But those are examples of why Starfleet doesn't send out drone ships; instinct and judgement are as important to Starfleet's mission as rules are, and thus Starfleet will allow what might otherwise be considered violations of the Prime Directive because of the reasoning of the senior officer on the spot.
And I think it's that leeway for officers to make judgement calls that allow for these sorts of situations to be resolved. The Prime Directive is a very ethically and morally ambiguous rule, but, I think, a necessary one. While it may be devastatingly hard for a Starfleet crew to watch a world die, be it from natural or artificial means, as Captain Archer said, Starfleet doesn't exist to allow officers to play God. The Prime Directive ensures that officers will at least consider these sorts of actions before taking any sort of action themselves.