Star Wars and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) - Kevin Decker [22]
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Moral Ambiguity in a Black-and-White Universe
RICHARD H. DEES
The moral universe of Star Wars has two colors: black and white. In the opening moments of A New Hope, we find Darth Vader, dressed all in black, confronting Princess Leia, dressed in virginal white. Every identifiable character in the six movies works either for the Light Side of the Force or for the Dark Side. It’s a world with very few shades of gray, much less of brighter, more interesting moral colors. In this galaxy, unlike our own, there seems, at first glance, to be no room for moral tragedy, for choices where no answer is morally correct, or for plain moral ambiguity.
Nevertheless, moral ambiguity can be found lurking in the Star Wars universe, if we look for it. Often, important characters are first presented to us as morally ambiguous. When we meet them, we do not know whose side they are on in the war, but later, their true natures reveal themselves. We can, I think, learn some important moral lessons by looking at the ways characters like Han Solo or Lando Calrissian reason when we first meet them and at the ways in which they turn towards one side or the other. There are also a few cases that are closer to real ambiguity, like Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker. From both kinds of cases, we can learn how to think about moral problems more deeply and more intelligently.
“What Good’s a Reward if You Ain’t Around to Use It?”
When we first meet Han Solo in A New Hope, he’s a smuggler caught in the web of the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. He’s arrogant and cocky, a “scoundrel,” as Leia puts it. His moral philosophy is unmitigated egoism: he only looks after himself. “I take orders from just one person—me,” Han proclaims. He accepts the mission to Alderaan only for the exorbitant fee that Obi-Wan offers him, and he helps to find Princess Leia in the Death Star only because Luke promises him a large reward. Indeed, even after he rescues Leia, Han tells her, “I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money.” As soon as he delivers the Princess to the Rebel Alliance, Han takes his reward and departs, leaving Luke to observe bitterly, “Take care of yourself, Han. I guess that’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?” Han sees no reason to accept any authority, moral or otherwise, outside his own self-interest.
In his egoism in A New Hope, Han is equaled only by Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones, who is, as he puts it, “just a simple man, trying to make my way in the universe.” But Jango is clearly a mercenary for hire, willing to assassinate a senator for a price and even to sell his own genetic code for profit. His one act of apparent altruism is his obvious love for his son, Boba, the clone of himself that he insisted that the Kaminoans create for him. Although many parents love their children because they see themselves perpetuated in them, Jango’s love for Boba carries this sentiment one step further towards mere narcissism.
Han and Jango’s view is a form of ethical egoism, the view that morally what I should do is what is in my interest to do. As the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes argues, “whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire, that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, Evill.” 38 The only standard we can use for what is good, Hobbes says, is what we ourselves want. The world turns only by appealing to people’s self-interest, and we should expect nothing else. Indeed, egoists argue, we are all better off in a world where everyone acts out their own self-interest than in a world where everyone is constantly interfering with others.
While we may be tempted to think otherwise, egoism is not an incoherent view. The interests of the Ewoks may be to enjoy the natural beauty of the