[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card is a fairly interesting time travel story, though I felt it ultimately fell short on addressing the most intriguing questions it posed.

In particular, Card sets up a moral dilemma: is the misery of countless generations justified by the resulting society? If the resulting society develops technology which would change that prior misery, but would result in the extinction of that future society (disregarding the paradox involved), do they have a moral justification to do so?

Spoiler:

However, ultimately Card's future society realizes they are going to starve anyway, so the question of their continued survival is moot and the moral dilemma disappears. I thought this was an extremely weak direction for the story to take. I really can't understand why Card went that way. It didn't fit the rest of the story at all. I'm tempted to suspect editorial interference of some kind, though Card is such a "big name" that it might have been interference from someone other than a professional editor-- a close friend, etc.

Or perhaps Card either didn't realize the real question he was asking, or simply didn't have an answer, or perhaps decided any answer he might propose would ultimately be unsatisfying to too many readers.

That's the problem with those big moral quandaries: how do you resolve them?

In James Blish's _A Case of Conscience_, an interplanetary expedition has discovered an alien race who apparently without original sin. This is a real quandary for the Jesuit priest aboard, for by his theology, if truly without original sin, they must be a creation of Satan, and therefore evil, yet they are outwardly as thoroughly admirable a race as might be imagined.

Spoiler:

Blish sidesteps answering the question by having the alien race destroyed, leaving the question unanswerable.

For another take, we have Ursula K. Leguin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". Leguin postulates a future society which is a utopia, free from want, fear, illness, and war, save for one small, sick, helpless child, whose misery somehow permits all else. Every year, some folks leave Omelas, to exist in what is apparently far less pleasant circumstances, because they can't live pleasant lives based on another's suffering. But Leguin isn't trying to answer the question she seems to be asking. If you think she's coming down on a particular side, read the story again.

Her real question, I think, is "What, exactly, is moral behavior?", and her answer is that each of us must decide for ourselves what the questions are and what our answers must be.
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Dennis