TL;DR Both Eddington and Sisko make sacrifices to their duty of their duty. Are they really that different? No, I do not believe that they are…

Spoilers for Deep Space Nine (A show that ended almost 30 years ago.)

Can he live with it?

I have been doing a rewatch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine lately, and Eddington died recently. (Again… I have watched this show so many times…) In his death, he is such a relatable character. “Does anyone know a good song?! Something rousing!? ah… Too bad!” Those are his last words. After a story arc driven by despair and conflict. Eddington was, as we have every reason to believe when he says and through his actions, a loyal Starfleet officer who chose his own virtuous morals over the deontological morals of Starfleet.¹ Starfleet is there to protect the Federation citizens living outside of the DMZ, on worlds that were not forsaken by a peace treaty with the Cardassian Empire.

Eddington is, for all intents and purposes, a virtuous person who chose to fight for these people left behind. In doing so, he sacrifices his duty to Starfleet for his duty to his fellow people. Vulcans, Humans, and others live in the so called Maquis colonies. They need protecting, just like the memebers of the Federation do, from an onslaught from alien forces. He joins this force for the same reason he joined Starfleet: To make sure that the net outcome of benefit and good continues to outweigh the suffering of his chosen society and set of socilogical institutions. If we take a Durkheimian view of religion, the Sacred for the Maquis is the right to have a peacful life where they made their home. The Profane must, then, include the sacrifice of those homes in a peace treaty that they find to be unjust.

Sisko hunts him down relentlessly. Ultimately, to capture Eddington, Sisko performs an act that even he realizes is morally reprehensible. He unleashes a bio-weapon on a Maquis planet, and threatens to do so to another. He takes an act that has the intentional outcome of endangering the lives of everyone on those planets. Sisko does all of this to capture one man. Eddington is not the leader of the Maquis, but he is important. Capturing Eddington will not stop what Starfleet considers acts of terrorism, but it is a vendetta. Ultimately, Eddington virtuously sacrifices himself to save the lives of the rest of the Maquis.²

This trend in Sisko’s behavior continues. He regularly acts in an oscillation between a deontological moralist operating entirely within the realm of Starfleet’s views, and a moral consequentialist to justify his decisions that he believes, and ultimately do, bring the best outcome for the Federation as a whole. Even when his actions would go against the rules he swore to uphold by becoming a Starfleet officer. For instance, “In the Pale Moonlight” is probably the most well known instance. He is willing to commit atrocities to force the hands of the Romulans to join the Dominion War on the side of Starfleet that ultimately leads to the Alpha Quadrant succeeding in pushing the Dominion back to the Gamma Quadrant. His view expands, in this instance, to more than just the Federation, but to all of the societies in the Alpha Quadrant.

Or does it?

The Tholians, Orion Syndicate, Breen Confederation, Cardassians, Kzinti, and more races of the Alpha Quadrant have already joined forces with the Dominion at this point. He is, in essence, violating the rights of these societies to associate with the Dominion. Although, he does so in a way that reduces the loss of life. None of the races allied with the Dominion will die by pushing the Dominion back to the Gamma Quadrant, the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant will largely go back to what it was before the fall of the Alpha Quadrant dominion alliance. In this way we can see that Sisko’s ultimate motivation is preventing the further loss of life by sacrificing a smaller number of individuals. It is an application of “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”³, whether perverse or not I am not here to say. Ultimately though he very much takes that logic. (Notably, he does this immediately after an episode where Section 31 flat out says that the ends do, in fact, sometimes justify the means).

Ultimately, Sisko does the very same thing Eddington does. He sacrifices his duty to upholding the rules of Starfleet for his duty to his fellow people. He believes that by keeping to the deontology of Starfleet he would have to watch the continued sacrifice and ultimate loss of everything Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, and the entire Federation stand for and the races they consist of.

I think that Sisko is so intent on finding and capturing Eddington because, as Eddington points out many times, Sisko and Eddington are mirrors for each other. Sisko has to confront that he is willing to sacrifice his core deontology for what is, arguably, a higher morality. Ultimately, Eddington and Sisko are not that different after all. Both of them are willing to make sacrifices for their core beliefs, their virtues, and behave in a way they find to be virtuous to create the most good and benefit with minimal suffering.

The difference is entirely in their chosen virtues, their chosen deontologies, and their choice of societies to benefit. These are not absolutes, they are choices made by men who have their own consciences and their own selves to face in the mirror at the end of the day. These are two men who have to sleep at night, and justify their actions to themselves.

Sometimes, ethics isn’t about being right and wrong; it is often far more complicated than that.

Footnotes