[Marc]

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A number of Trek episodes -- such as "Damage," "In the Pale Moonlight," "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," "Equinox," and "The Void" -- explore variants of the same tough moral question. Simply stated, that question is: When you face a situation in which the only apparent way to survive is to do something immoral, should you sacrifice your principles for the sake of survival, or should you stay true to your principles even if it means that you might not survive?

Trek has sometimes ducked around this question by offering a "third way out" -- for instance in "The Void," in which the Voyager crew manages to escape the Void *by* observing the principles of the Federation. (This episode reminded me of Kirk's great reply to Mara in "Day of the Dove," in which she argues that the Klingon Empire must expand by conquest in order to survive: "There's another way to survive: mutual trust and cooperation.") It's interesting to note, however, that Janeway's position in that episode is to put principle ahead of survival ("If we're only going to live for a week, let's do so as a Starfleet crew," or words to that effect).

Janeway's position parallels the absolutist ethical statement made in the movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" by the tribunal's presiding judge (played by Spencer Tracy) when he delivers his verdict. In his verdict, he makes reference to the political pressure to acquit the defendants brought onto him by the U.S. authorities, who want the West Germans as allies against the Russians and who feel that you don't get people on your side by sentencing their leaders to prison terms. Tracy's character says that in times of crisis, when a nation is threatened by an enemy, people sometimes feel that adopting the methods of the enemy is the only possible means of survival. He then says sharply, "The question becomes, Survival as *what*?" He argues that a nation "is what it stands for; it's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult, when it's tempting to look the other way, to do what is expedient rather than what is right."

What makes episodes like "Damage" and "In the Pale Moonlight" ethically difficult is that they explore the question of whether there is a point at which a moral wrong *can* justify a larger good. How small does the wrong have to be (say, stealing someone's warp coil?) and how large does the good have to be (say, saving billions of people?) before one is justified in taking that action? (To paraphrase Picard's comment in "Insurrection": How many does it take before it becomes *right*?)

"Damage" and "In the Pale Moonlight" are not episodes about whether such actions are right or wrong, because they clearly acknowledge that they are wrong. Rather, they are about whether these actions are *justifiable*. Both Archer and Sisko conclude that their actions are necessary ("Because I have no choice!"), but it is left up to the viewer to wrestle with the question of whether they made the right choice. What is clear in all these episodes, however, is that such choices should be made in full awareness of the excruciating ethical issues that they involve. It is unquestionably wrong to take unethical actions without remorse or hesitation, and the episodes are all clear on at least this point.

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