In the Pale Moonlight
Originally posted to Thinkspot on August 22nd, 2021.
Sam Harris is a noted atheist who is considered something of an intellectual by people in the Secular community. Most of my familiarity with Harris comes from debates with Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. Whatever you think of his intellect, its difficult to believe in his integrity.
Harris recently lit his reputation on fire while being interviewed on an episode of the Triggernometry podcast. During the discussion, Harris stated that he didn't care about President Biden's corruption and that it wouldn't matter to him if Hunter Biden (the President's son) had the corpses of children in his basement, as long as Trump was taken out of office. All of this is of course in refence to the media refusing to cover then-Candidate Joe Biden's scandals. In Sam Harris' view, the ends justify the means.
I'm not here to dunk on Sam Harris. Frankly, he's done it to himself. What I want to discuss is a growing sentiment in American society today that the ends justify the means.
It's a tricky statement. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrific acts. Mostly, history judges the dropping of atomic bombs to have been righteous. Many historians say that more lives were saved than were lost. But innocent people still died. Morality is rarely as simple as just "right" and "wrong", even when your cause truly is righteous. And even then, it can be a slippery slope.
To illustrate this, I would like to discuss one of my favorite things: Star Trek.
Star Trek has always been at its best when it examined moral and philosophical quandaries. For our purposes, I would like to examine the Deep Space 9 episode, In the Pale Moonlight.
In the story, the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire are losing a war against The Dominion, a hostile empire from the other side of the galaxy. If the Federation loses, the Dominion will have subjugated nearly the entire galaxy. Deep Space 9 is at the center of the Dominion War and it's Captain, Ben Sisko is losing hope. Each week he sees casualty lists mount on his side. He comes to the realization that the Federation will lose the war unless he can convince the Romulan Star Empire to join them in fighting the Dominion. Unfortunately the Romulans have signed a non-aggression treaty with the Dominion and have no reason to fight. How many tens of thousands of soldiers would it cost them?
Captain Sisko goes to an exiled spy, Garak for help. Garak comes up with a plan to forge evidence that the Dominion is planning to attack the Romulans. All Ben Sisko has to do is assist Garak in facilitating the forgery of the evidence and then convince a Romulan Senator to stop at Deep Space 9 to present the evidence. Captain Sisko tells him that he would do anything to end the war and tells Garak to move forward. As he does so, a nagging part of his conscience speaks up and he quiets it. As the days go on, the Captain is forced to make compromise after compromise. Months earlier he wouldn't have even considered the things he was agreeing to. At each step, a piece of his soul is lost and each time he must remind himself that the ends justify the means. At one point he nearly ends it all... but then he sees another casualty list.
In the end, it turns out that Sisko's role wasn't to trick the Senator. Instead, Garak planned to assassinate the Senator and make it look like the Dominion had committed the act. The ruse works. The Romulans declare war on the Dominion. Captain Sisko is furious and attacks Garak. This isn't what he wanted! Ben Sisko is a good man and a good soldier. He would never assassinate an innocent man or order a subordinate to do so!
Garak reminds him that Siske knew what he was doing when he went to him. He knew what kind of man Garak is. And in the end, he reminds Sisko that the ends justify the means. All that was sacrificed was a few innocent lives and the soul of one Starfleet officer.
The episode ends with Captain Benjamin Sisko stating that no matter how evil their actions were, he would do it again. He tells himself that he can live with it, but it isn't the audience he's trying to convince. It's himself.
That's how the episode ends, but as a lesson, it isn't over.
In Star Trek, the Vulcans have a saying; "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one". It's a pretty logical statement. There's no flaws in it. But morality doesn't work that way. You can use that statement to justify any number of horrific acts. Let's say there are two cities. One has a small population and plenty of food. The other is overpopulated and underfed. Does the overpopulated city have the right to attack the smaller community and take their food and their land? If the answer is yes, then morality means nothing. Decency and humanity mean nothing and we're just animals looking out for ourselves. If the answer is no, then why?
Was it wrong for Ben Sisko to sacrifice everything he ever believed in? Was his cause righteous? Do the thousands upon thousands of dead Romulan soldiers matter in comparison to all the free planets they helped save? Does it matter that it was all built on a lie?
Now let's consider Sam Harris' position. President Biden freely admitted to using his influence as Vice President in a quid pro quo with the Ukraine Government. He told them they wouldn't receive US funds unless they fired a prosecutor who was investigating his son. This is literally a public admittance of extortion. The media covered up a host of corruption that was discovered on Hunter Biden's laptop which included wrong doing by his father.
Sam Harris says that it doesn't matter, because whatever corruption was there is nothing compared to how corrupt Donald Trump is and what he's done.
Granted, Sam Harris has absolutely no evidence of Trump's corruption. But in his eyes, it doesn't matter how evil the substitute. The ends justify the means.
Sometimes the ends do justify the means.
Sometimes an evil thing must be done in the name of good. But you should never trust a zealot to make that decision. And you must accept that no matter how righteous your cause is, you're still the villain of the story.
So what kind of society do we want? And do we want to be the villains?
In the Pale Moonlight is a sixth season episode of Deep Space 9.
#startrek #ds9 #warfare #morality
