Star trek bridge commander kobayashi maru

Of his reprogramming of the Kobayashi Maru, Kirk said, вЂњI donвЂ™t like to lose.вЂќ Hardly anyone likes to lose.

This means that sometimes even the most creative and optimistic ethical decision-maker has to face a situation where none of the available choices or outcomes are very good. Ethics cannot require us to be omniscient or omnipotent. You try to make choices that bring lots of good consequences and minimal bad ones, that fulfill your obligations to everyone to whom you have obligations (including yourself) -В but youвЂ™re doing it in a complicated world where you must make your choices on the basis of imperfect information, and where other people are doing things that may impose constraints on your options. (CBS via Getty Images)ДЄ crucial feature of good ethical decision-making in the real world is understanding the limits of your powers. KirkвЂ™s impulse was to look for conditions where it was possible for those on the starship and on the disabled civilian ship to survive.Д®thical leadership was a big part of Capt. He didnвЂ™t accept the premise of the test that, outside the artificial conditions of the simulation, there would be no way to save the people on the freighter without also drawing the attention of the Klingons, losing your starship to them, and quite possibly provoking a war. Kirk famously said that he didnвЂ™t believe in no-win scenarios. Kirk seems also to have rejected the premise that leadership involves grappling with dilemmas. But such big-picture thinking about the effects of oneвЂ™s decisions downstream is a habit essential to good ethical decision-making.ДЄs a cadet taking the Kobayashi Maru, James T. Of course, constructing a training scenario where youвЂ™re thinking that far downstream might not translate well to an hour-long captainвЂ™s chair simulation for a cadet (or for a gripping opening to the best major motion picture in the Star Trek franchise).

Indeed, most of the time good ethical decision-making before thereвЂ™s a crisis can bring good consequences all around, heading off a moment downstream where you have to choose which stakeholder gets stuck with a dramatically bad outcome. Not every ethical decision requires grappling with a dilemma. This framing is what spawns trolley problems, which seem not to do much to help develop the ethical toolbox that gets us through the routine ethical decision-making essential to captaining a starship or living a good humanoid life.

ThereвЂ™s a way in which the Kobayashi Maru echoes the framing of ethical training as a matter of grappling with ethical dilemmas - with situations where your task is to choose the least bad of two bad options.

Star trek bridge commander kobayashi maru