Chris Zimmerman
ENGL 484 Paper #1
10/11/07
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kant
-or“The Needs of the Many…”
In this paper, I will discuss Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan with philosophy by
committee of Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. I will look closely at the ethics of
the characters of Kirk, Khan, and Spock. Through them, we can see the message and the ethics
of the text of the film itself.
A main theme of the movie is the ongoing dual between Kirk and Khan. The characters
are contrasted against and oppose each other. Kirk, the good captain (admiral, actually) cares
about his crew as any duty-bound, good captain should. But, does Khan not do the same for his
crew? However, neither character is truly good (or right, or virtuous) nor completely evil or
vicious.
With Aristotle, the emphasis falls on the actor his or herself to determine if someone is
ethical (as opposed to the actions themselves or the consequences of the actions). Therefore, I
think it helps to analyze each character in depth to determine if they have virtues or vices.
Kirk frequently disobeys orders and bends or breaks the rules in the name of expediency.
One example of this is the Kobayashi Maru simulation. The Kobayashi Maru test is a no-win
situation invented by Starfleet (the military of the future) to test the character of the student
taking the test, as a lot can be said about how a person reacts when faced with situation that he or
she must face defeat. Kirk, as Bones puts it, is “…the only Starfleet cadet who ever beat the no1
win scenario.” (Star Trek II). And how exactly did he win an impossible situation? “I
reprogrammed the simulation…” said Kirk (Star Trek II). He cheated – he used dishonest
methods in the name of expediency. Lying is not ethical to Aristotle, Kant, or Mill.
Truthfulness is a virtue to Aristotle. Kant universalizes it into a categorical imperative that one
should always tell the truth. Mill says that the truth is the support for “human assertion” and that
truth supports society, whereas lies cause harm and evil (Mill 23). In contrast, Khan is honest
and at no point in the movie does he tell a lie, ironically. In that respect, Khan is virtuous and
acts ethically, and Kirk has a vice. Kirk later tells a lie when he instead of giving Khan data
about Genesis, he sends override codes that disable the shields on Khan’s ship. Kant would
frown upon this due to it flying in the face of the categorical imperative to tell the truth. Mill
would allow the lie here for two reasons. The first is that the happiness (and lives) of Kirk’s
entire crew are at stake and that outweighs Khan’s happiness at having a potential doomsday
device. The second reason is that Mill allows withholding of information (or lying) to a
malefactor and Khan is certainly considered a malefactor Kirk (Mill 23).
Kirk’s disregard for the rules rears its ugly head towards the middle of the movie when he
ignores Starfleet regulations concerning approaching ships that have not established
communications (i.e. – the exercise of caution when approaching a ship that even appears
friendly). Lt. Saavik quotes the regulation to Kirk, but he ignores her advice (Star Trek II).
Saavik’s advice (Starfleet’s regulations) would be considered a Kantian council of prudence,
since it is sound advice and a good rule to follow. And what happens as a result of Kirk ignoring
the council of prudence – the approaching ship is captained by Khan, who promptly opens fire
on the Enterprise, killing many crewmen. To a consequentialist like Mill, Kirk acted unethically
when he made the wrong choice that caused the deaths of his crewmen. At first it may seem that
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he’s incontinent (not intemperate) about this. He admits he made the wrong choice after the fact
when he told Saavik to continue quoting regulations to him, which would point to him being
incontinent since he feels regret (Star Trek II). However, at the time when he was making the
choice to ignore the regulation, it didn’t even seem to cross his mind that he was making the
wrong choice at all, which points towards intemperance. If he knew he was making the wrong
choice at the time but did it anyways, then he would be considered incontinent, but as things
played out, Kirk was actually intemperate at that point in time.
Kirk’s character would have trouble being virtuous in Aristotle’s eyes. Kirk has many
vices which are excesses: recklessness (an excess of courage), excessive ambition (which causes
him to ignore orders, bend/break rules to get what he wants and advance in rank), smugness
(overconfidence), egotism, conceit, and he is shameless around women (possibly even bestial
with his excessively high sex drive and love of bodily pleasures). It is interesting to note that
Kirk is the main character of the movie (and hero of most of the movies/television episodes), yet
he has all of these flaws.
Khan doesn’t pass Aristotle’s virtue tests either. Strangely enough, Kirk and Khan share
the same excesses of recklessness, egotism, ambition, conceit, and smugness; Khan just goes
further in straying from the mean. Khan certainly reaches the utmost extreme of excess with his
temper, which ultimately leads his quest of revenge to his own demise and consequent death.
Where Kirk’s actions sometimes may be intemperate (at other times incontinent in the movie and
series), Khan’s actions mark him as intemperate – he does not know he is making the wrong
choices when he makes them. According to Aristotle, intemperance is worse than incontinence
because the intemperate person “…is not prone to regret, since he abides by his decision when he
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acts.” (110). There is hope for the incontinent person because they feel regret, they may not only
make the right decisions, but act on them as well.
For a brief moment, I considered the possibility that Khan may be above all of this; that
perhaps he is considered a magnanimous person for he is clearly stronger and genetically
enhanced (even intellectually), so perhaps he is so smart that he comprehends what is virtuous
and important while we (the ignorant masses) couldn’t hope to grasp what his supergenius mind
could. In fact, Khan believed his superhuman abilities gave him the right to lead others.
However, looking at Khan’s track record and the fact that his actions are nearly all self-serving
only and since he did not care for the common good, I quickly deduced that he is not
magnanimous.
If we look at the consequences of Khan’s actions, specifically the saving of his fellow
humans from the hellish planet Ceti Alpha V, it may seem he has acted ethically. However,
Khan’s intentions are not pure, as he merely meant to get off the planet to kill Kirk and his crew.
To quote Mill, “the morality of the action depends entirely on the intention” sheds light on
Khan’s actions (19). His intentions were a hell-bent quest for revenge, not saving the lives of his
fellow humans out of any sense of duty (that we can ascertain from watching the film). Khan did
not act out of duty nor did he treat his crew as an end in themselves; they were a means to the
end of crewing the ship and to seek revenge on Kirk. Kant disapproves of using people as a
means to an end. Since Mill makes a distinction between intention and motive, I believe it is
helpful to look closer at Khan’s actions. I have established Khan’s intentions for escaping the
planet, but what are his motives? Revenge is the simple answer. But, in Khan’s eyes, he is
seeking justice, for Kirk left Khan and his crew to fend for themselves on Ceti Alpha V and
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never came back to check on the well-being of Khan and his people. Kirk’s decision to leave
Khan and party stranded on a planet may have not been an entirely bad one at the time, but later
Ceti Alpha VI blew up and turned Ceti Alpha V into a wasteland. Kirk’s decision to leave
Khan’s people there and not check in on them seems to be swinging back the other way to a bad
decision now. What were the results of Kirk’s fateful decision? Most of Khan’s crew, including
Khan’s wife Marla, all died. Khan wants an eye for an eye to fill his loss. I think that we can see
where Khan is coming from, even if we cannot condone what he did. Mill says that it is natural
feeling to desire retaliation or vengeance for injuries we sustain (52). According to Mill, part of
justice is ignoring our baser instincts and allowing society to decide what punishments and/or
rewards are deemed appropriate (52).
The character of Spock contrasts sharply with Khan and Kirk. Looking at Spock through
Aristotle’s virtue ethics proves his qualities. His virtues are: courage (just the right amount that
he is not reckless, nor is he cowardly), honesty (Spock is a Vulcan, and Vulcans don’t lie. This
absolute honesty likewise gets a big nod of approval from Kant. Interestingly, Mill believes in
the truth, but he says that there are times when one should lie to prevent causing unhappiness or
while under duress from a malefactor, so he would not approve of a Vulcan’s absolute honesty),
acting justly, confidence (not in an excess or deficiency), punctuality (for his duty shifts),
promptness in action (saving the ship in a timely manner), neatness, helpfulness (because of his
sacrifice for others, otherwise he seems unconcerned about others), self-discipline, and the list
goes on and on. Suffice to say, Spock is quite virtuous. However, he does have some vices: he
may be considered intemperate in that he does not allow himself any bodily pleasures (i.e. –
ascetism or a deficiency in temperance, but we might be able to give him the benefit of the doubt
since he’s not human) and he lacks a sense of humor. One might wonder if Spock is apathetic,
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but this is not so since he is austere and quiet, not uncaring. One might also wonder if Spock has
a lack of ambition (because he could probably work his way up through the ranks), but if he did
not have ambition, he would still hold an ensign’s rank. Also, Kant would point out that Spock
has an extraordinary sense of duty – duty to others, and duty above all.
Spock is the poster boy for utilitarianism if there ever was one. In the hour of greatest
need, when the Enterprise was facing a nearly hopeless situation, Spock sacrificed his life for the
lives of all of the lives of the rest of the crew by repairing the ship in a radiation-filled area.
Spock tells Kirk that “...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” (Star Trek II). If
there is a more fitting slogan for utilitarianism, I don’t know what it could be. If I may briefly
look ahead at Star Trek III, strangely enough, Kirk uses the inverse of this in when he says that
“The needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many” when he and his crew go on a mission
to save Spock. At first, this may send up a red flag to a utilitarian, but if we look deeper at this,
we can determine that Kirk’s actions also satisfy a utilitarian’s possible objections. Kirk and the
crew’s lives were only slightly at risk by trying to rescue Spock in Star Trek III. Spock’s
happiness and life was at stake with a slight risk to the crew (and their time) was on one side; the
alternative was to not try to rescue Spock or, in other words, certain death for him. In Star Trek
II, Spock knowingly and voluntarily laid down his life for the rest of the crew. He weighed the
options: wait and hope that the Enterprise will be able to get away in time before the Genesis
Device blows up or give his life to save everyone else on the ship. He made a good choice to
Mill since it provided the most utility (and least amount of pain or unhappiness) to the most
amount of people. Aristotle would say it was virtuous (and voluntary – a requirement for an act
to be virtuous). Kant would say that Spock did his duty, and I believe he would even say Spock
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has a pure heart, which is quite ironic since Spock is actually half-human/half-Vulcan and he’s
not very friendly or warm.
The film itself may be sending a few minor mixed signals, but only because of the depth
of the characters. If the characters were mere cardboard cutouts of good vs. evil, they wouldn’t
be believable characters (nor would we quite entirely trust the writer.) For the most part I think
The Wrath of Khan is an ethical text. In the end, the hate-filled, murdering villain is thwarted by
(but not killed by, it is worth pointing out) the good guys. Kirk may have his flaws, but the
villain Khan has just as many and more extreme flaws. The heroic sacrifice of Spock to save the
lives of his fellow crewmen speaks volumes for the film. Indeed, it is the most poignant scene of
the movie and sums up the film in one moment. Spock, in the eyes of Mill, Kant, and Aristotle
passes their tests for the good, right, and virtuous person, respectively.
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Works Cited
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics. Trans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, Inc. 1999.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. and Ed. Mary Gregor.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2001.
Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan. Dir. Nicholas Meyer. DVD. Paramount: 1982.
Star Trek III, the Search for Spock. Dir. Leonard Nimoy. VHS. Paramount: 1984.
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