Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy

Kevin S. Decker is Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University, where he teaches ethics, American and Continental philosophy, and philosophy of popular culture. He is co-editor of Philosophy and Breaking Bad (2016) and Who is Who? The Philosophy of Doctor Who (2013). He is co-editor, with Jason T. Eberl, of The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), Star Trek and Philosophy (2008), and Star Wars and Philosophy (2005).Jason T. Eberlis the Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at Marian University in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he teaches bioethics, ethics, and medieval philosophy. He has edited or contributed to books on Battlestar Galactica, Sons of Anarchy, Metallica, Terminator, The Hunger Games, The Big Lebowski, Stanley Kubrick, J.J. Abrams, and Avatar. His most recent books are The Routledge Guidebook to Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (2015) and The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan (2016). He is co-editor, with Kevin S. Decker, of The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), Star Trek and Philosophy (2008), and Star Wars and Philosophy (2005).

• Acknowledgments: The Command Staff of Utopia Planitia ixIntroduction: A Guide to Living Long and Prospering 1I Alpha Quadrant: Home Systems 51 “The More Complex the Mind, the Greater the Need for the Simplicity of Play” 7Jason T. Eberl2 Aristotle and James T. Kirk: The Problem of Greatness 18Jerold J. Abrams3 The Moral Psychology of a Starship Captain 26Tim Challans4 “Make It So”: Kant, Confucius, and the Prime Directive 36Alejandro B´arcenas and Steve Bein5 Destroying Utopias: Why Kirk Is a Jerk 47David Kyle Johnson6 “We Are Not Going to Kill Today”: Star Trek and the Philosophy of Peace 59David BoersemaII Beta Quadrant: Dangerous Rivalries 697 Klingons: A Cultural Pastiche 71Victor Grech8 The Borg as Contagious Collectivist Techno-Totalitarian Transhumanists 83Dan Dinello9 Assimilation and Autonomy 95Barbara Stock10 Q: A Rude, Interfering, Inconsiderate, Sadistic Pest—on a Quest for Justice? 105Kyle Alkema and Adam Barkman11 Federation Trekonomics: Marx, the Federation, and the Shift from Necessity to Freedom 115Jeff Ewing12 “The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few”: Utilitarianism and Star Trek 127Greg Littmann13 Casuistry in the Final Frontier 138Courtland LewisIII Delta Quadrant: Questing for Home 14914 “Today Is a Good Day to Die!” Transporters and Human Extinction 151William Jaworski15 Two Kirks, Two Rikers 162Trip McCrossin16 Data, Kant, and Personhood; or,Why Data Is Not a Toaster 172Nina Rosenstand17 Humans, Androids, Cyborgs, and Virtual Beings: All aboard the Enterprise 180Dennis M.Weiss18 Photons (and Drones) Be Free: Phenomenology and the Life-Worlds of Voyager’s Doctor and Seven of Nine 190Nicole R. Pramik19 Vision Quest into Indigenous Space 199Walter RobinsonIV Gamma Quadrant: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations 21120 Rethinking the Matter: Organians Are Still Organisms 213Melanie Johnson-Moxley21 “In Search of . . . ” Friendship: What We Can Learn from Androids and Vulcans 223James M. Okapal22 Resistance Is Negligible: In Praise of Cyborgs 232Lisa Cassidy23 “Who I Really Am”: Odo, Mead, and the Self 243Pamela JG Boyer24 Is Liberation Ever a Bad Thing? Enterprise’s “Cogenitor” and Moral Relativism 253William A. Lindenmuth25 Resistance Really Is Futile: On Being Assimilated by Our Own Technology 264Dena HurstV Beyond the Galactic Barrier: The Future as the Final Frontier 27326 Life on a Holodeck: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about the True Nature of Reality 275Dara Fogel27 Which Spock Is the Real One? Alternate Universes and Identity 288Andrew Zimmerman Jones28 “Strangely Compelling”: Romanticism in “The City on the Edge of Forever” 299Sarah O’Hare29 It Is a Q of Life: Q as a Nietzschean Figure 308Charles Taliaferro and Bailey Wheelock30 A God Needs Compassion, but Not a Starship: Star Trek’s Humanist Theology 315James F. McGrath31 “The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning”: Star Trek’s Secular Society 326Kevin S. DeckerContributors: Federation Ambassadors to Babel 340Index 349