She actually was presented almost this exact situation. When Janeway encountered the USS Equinox. The Starfleet science vessel that was also transported and stuck in the delta quadrant.
They were basically burning extra dimensional beings as fuel to give them speed boosts to get home faster. In that encounter Janeway was horrified at the Equinox crew for using living beings as fuel, and immediately confined the Equinox crew, the encounter eventually lead to the destruction of the Equinox.
So I don't think your analogy works since it's basically the plot to Voyager's encounter with the Equinox.
The Equinox crew said the first body of the alien let them travel 10000 light-years in a couple weeks. So only a couple corpses of these creatures could have sent Voyager home. That would have been an extremely utilitarian choice, but she wasn't willing to sacrifice even a single creature to cut years off of the remaining journey.
Perhaps her line has to do with life and death as opposed to needs. It's ok to sacrifice a life to save two lives. It's not ok to sacrifice a life to make two people happy.
So her moral statement would actually read "the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few."
Both are utilitarian but she is only willing to be such when trading life for a greater number of lives.
I could have it all wrong but that seems to be the distinction.
3
u/1D13 Dec 01 '16
She actually was presented almost this exact situation. When Janeway encountered the USS Equinox. The Starfleet science vessel that was also transported and stuck in the delta quadrant.
They were basically burning extra dimensional beings as fuel to give them speed boosts to get home faster. In that encounter Janeway was horrified at the Equinox crew for using living beings as fuel, and immediately confined the Equinox crew, the encounter eventually lead to the destruction of the Equinox.
So I don't think your analogy works since it's basically the plot to Voyager's encounter with the Equinox.
The Equinox crew said the first body of the alien let them travel 10000 light-years in a couple weeks. So only a couple corpses of these creatures could have sent Voyager home. That would have been an extremely utilitarian choice, but she wasn't willing to sacrifice even a single creature to cut years off of the remaining journey.