The Star Trek problem
16th October 2010
David Edmonds’s discussion of the “fat man” scenario (October) reminded me of a well-known Star Trek episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Captain Kirk and Spock go back to 1930s New York to undo a change in history accidentally caused by McCoy, after using an alien time portal. McCoy saved a woman called Edith Keeler from dying in a traffic accident. But if she lives, she will form an influential pacifist movement that delays America’s entry into the second world war, and means the Nazis develop atomic weapons and win it. Spock concludes that Keeler must die. Kirk is reluctant—she’s well intentioned and he’s falling in love with her—but in the end decides not to save her from the accident and restrains McCoy when he tries to.
Most people accept that Kirk was correct. Yet it would have been very different had the original accident been prevented, and one of them had pushed Keeler under another truck to save history. This is why philosophers debating the fat man scenario are out of touch with reality. The closer we are to the situation, the more we feel; this is necessary to be human. We are also much more inhibited against violence done to women and children than fat men. Whoever designed the scenario let this psychology rule them without being aware of it.
Gwydion M WilliamsPeterborough
David Edmonds’s discussion of the “fat man” scenario (October) reminded me of a well-known Star Trek episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Captain Kirk and Spock go back to 1930s New York to undo a change in history accidentally caused by McCoy, after using an alien time portal. McCoy saved a woman called Edith Keeler from dying in a traffic accident. But if she lives, she will form an influential pacifist movement that delays America’s entry into the second world war, and means the Nazis develop atomic weapons and win it. Spock concludes that Keeler must die. Kirk is reluctant—she’s well intentioned and he’s falling in love with her—but in the end decides not to save her from the accident and restrains McCoy when he tries to.
Most people accept that Kirk was correct. Yet it would have been very different had the original accident been prevented, and one of them had pushed Keeler under another truck to save history. This is why philosophers debating the fat man scenario are out of touch with reality. The closer we are to the situation, the more we feel; this is necessary to be human. We are also much more inhibited against violence done to women and children than fat men. Whoever designed the scenario let this psychology rule them without being aware of it.
Gwydion M WilliamsPeterborough
