How could Janeway not punish the EMH for disobeying a direct order, transporting off voyager, & giving shield frequencies to an enemy vessel?

Question

ST Voyager "Flesh and Blood":

EMH: You've given me extraordinary freedom over the years. I've obviously abused it.

JANEWAY: Maybe. Or maybe you've simply become as fallible as those of us who are made of flesh and blood. I'm just as responsible for allowing you to expand your programming as I am for giving technology to the Hirogen. How can I punish you for being who you are?

EMH: I don't know what to say.

JANEWAY: I'd like a complete report on your away mission.

EMH: You'll have it.

So the doctor disobeys a direct order by not reporting to the mess hall and goes to sickbay instead. He then commits subterfuge by downloading the strategy that's going to be used by Voyager and coming up with a defense against it. He then gives Voyagers shield frequencies to an enemy ship in the middle of a battle. He transports to that other ship and gives them the info needed to create an overload in Voyagers deflector dish, which completely disables Voyager and leaves it adrift in space. As a result Torres is kidnapped.

Tom Paris is put in the brig for 30 days without visitation, and is demoted to ensign for doing what he thought was right by trying to save an entire ocean. In the process he tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to destroy a mining operation.

I can give many examples when the captain was disappointed or gave marks on peoples records. For example Ensign Kim got a mark on his record by falling in love and disobeying an order to see the alien girl he fell in love with. He took her out one time in a shuttlecraft and made some phone calls. This hardly rises to the level of what the doctor did here.

Janeway says, "How can I punish you for being who you are?" We do this all the time in societies, if who you are is violating the rules/laws and putting people in danger.

Janeway decides instead to change the status of the doctors actions to an "away mission?!?"

Can somebody explain to me why the doctor wasn't punished here and Janeway would give this comment about "who you are?"

In universe canon, or writers notes/out of universe answers are welcome.

Answer 1

It's an interesting question, and certainly wouldn't be the first questionable decision made by Captain Janeway. In fact, I like to think that when they returned to the Alpha Quadrant, Janeway spent the next week having to justify all the weird decisions in her logs.

At any rate, the "who you are" comment by Janeway indicates that the Doctor has taken another step towards true sentience. Unlike a computer program, which would simply do as it's told, the Doctor made a decision based solely on ethics & principles - something a program could not have done. He then followed that decision with action, knowing full well that he was disobeying orders and that the actions would have consequences.

Essentially, in Janeway's eyes, this revelation appears to cancel out the negative aspects of what The Doctor did, thus resulting in no punishment.

Answer 2

Warning answer contains supposition supported by observations of the universe

technically there really isnt much Janeway can do to the doctor aside from lobotomizing him or an equivalent of the death penalty and he is to valuable to the crew for either of these options (IMO)

she can restrict his privileges which could have happened behind the scenes but the doctor has no rank and cannot be demoted

the doctor has no personal file as far as starfleet is concerned the doctor is a tool not a crewmember

the doctor is highly knowledgeable but in essence is like a young child when it comes to social interactions one theory of child rearing is at some point actual punishment for an infraction is counter productive while letting the child know why what he did was wrong and that you are dissapointed that he or she chose to make the decisions that they made

there are similar incidents throughout the series involving both the doctor and seven of nine where Janeway could have or should have severely chastised either of them but instead delivered a slap on the wrist

Answer 3

I can see several reasons here.

First, yes the doctor violated orders. But as far as we know, there's no Starfleet regulation that requires that the captain punish him. This is ultimately at her discretion. In modern times, many crimes happen, where the prosecuting attorney chooses not to prosecute the case for some reason. Furthermore, legally speaking, the doctor is not a person, so even if such a regulation exists, there's definitely a loophole that can be exploited here.

Second, he had many points throughout the episode where he tried to balance out his actions:

• He was the one who killed Iden.
• He told Iden not to fire on the Hirogen or Voyager several times in that episode.
• He tried to rescue Torres, and was pissed about her abduction.

Maybe Janeway considered his time served.

Also, the Doctor compares his defection to Torres working for the Maquis at one point, and his logic behind it is sound. Maybe Janeway decided to overlook these infractions, because if she punished a crewmember for defecting to a terrorist organization out of conscious, with a crew that's at least a third Maquis, that might be a mutiny waiting to happen. She wouldn't be the first leader to ignore crimes for political reasons.

Also, we the viewers actually saw all things that happened in the episode, whereas Janeway only got secondhand information from Kejel, Torres, and the Doctor. We don't know if Janeway even knows about all of the things he did or didn't do. Perhaps their story was altered in a way to cover for the doctor, out of sympathy; and Janeway bought their doctored story. (I swear that pun was unintentional, please don't execute me.)

In summary, there were many possibilities. Ultimately though, it's an unanswered mystery.