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It's an interesting discussion. Not really what I expect from a meme sub but something out of r/daystrominstitute .
I think Kirk's argument (essentially that there's no ethical or moral justification for not even attempting to save them) is predicated on the fact that no-win situations of that specific type don't exist in reality.
He is of course right in that if you attempt rescue, the Kobayashi Maru sim will literally keep spawning enemy ships until you're dead. So it was designed to be unwinnable in logical sense that goes beyond the practicalities of tactics and crew competence.
Kirk's argument is that making the pragmatic choice of just leaving the ship to it's fate is not justifiable because such scenarios (infinitely spawning enemies) don't exist, and even making cadets take this course and conditioning them to make the pragmatic choice is therefore immoral.
I think there's more detail that can be added to this though - in the Kobayashi Maru sim every cadet knows what the sim is before they go in there. It's not some secret - they all know it's unwinnable. If you somehow knew that it was unwinnable then the ethics of leaving them are tenable depending on your beliefs. But in reality you can't know. You shouldn't pretend to know.
I think a key part of what Kirk is trying argue here is that in reality, you cannot ever truly know that the situation is completely hopeless, and your duty as a Starfleet officer should be to try. Try your hardest. Do what you can. Save who you can. Fight. Try.
The thing that offends Kirk so much about this scenario is that it gives officers a ethical license to not even try, something that is completely antithetical to his conception of being a Starfleet officer.
On that count, I think he's right.
I mean, the thing is literally a test. Isn't that just how a cadet fails it?
Don't cadets "fail" either way?
The scenario always ends with their simulated destruction, but that's not what I mean.
If every outcome is considered equal, then how would it be useful to Starfleet? Or said another way, if Starfleet doesn't care how cadets react to a no-win scenario, why does it need to know?
I always figured the failure conditions were things like cowardice or paralyzing indecision -- character flaws unwanted in a leader.
Does leaving the ship to it's fate count as cowardice?
That decision technically saves the most lives.
Yes, because you can't know that a priori.