Star Wars and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) - Kevin Decker [29]
If Anakin as a young man is not morally ambiguous, we could argue, with some justice, that once he becomes Darth Vader he’s more ambiguous than we might think. First, Vader’s motivations are not entirely bad. He asks Luke to join him so that they can destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy together as father and son: “With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.” Vader seeks peace and order for the galaxy, ruled by the wise leadership of a single man or perhaps a single family. Here Vader expresses Anakin’s earlier sentiment that “we need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what’s in the best interest of all the people, and then do it.” And if people don’t agree, he continues, “then they should be made to.” Even then, it doesn’t bother Anakin that such a system sounds like a dictatorship: “Well, if it works . . .” Anakin can be seduced by the Dark Side because although he wants the world to be a better place, he refuses to absorb the lessons of his wiser, if less talented, teacher. As a result, he doesn’t appreciate how naïve his view of the world is, and he can’t control himself when he confronts the traps—like the one on Tatooine—that Darth Sidious sets for him. His good motives are thus put to evil use.
Second, we could argue that Vader is morally ambiguous, because Luke does, after all, feel the good in him. Faced with the torture and the destruction of his own son, he destroys the Emperor instead. What goodness remains allows him to resist the absolute evil of the Emperor, but only when his own son is involved. His motivations in killing the Emperor are not that different from his earlier motivations in killing the Sand People: he acts out of love for a member of his family. But, as we have already seen, killing others for the sake of a family member is not always—or even usually—morally praiseworthy. So his motivations don’t make his action here better. What does make it better is that this time at least, he kills only the guilty, and he does so when it’s the only way to save the innocent person who happens to be his son. The fact that in saving his son, he also kills the Emperor and helps to destroy the Empire that has tyrannized the galaxy is an important added bonus. It is, then, a morally good act—even if the motivations behind it are not entirely praiseworthy. So oddly, at the end of Return of the Jedi, Anakin finally does become a morally ambiguous figure. He does great good, even if the motivations are not entirely good, and even if they do not begin to atone for the great evils he has done in his life.
“You Know . . . What They’re Up Against”
Moral ambiguity can appear in a number of surprising places. It emerges when characters are basically good, but have to learn to get outside their egoistic tendencies, like Han. It can be found where evil characters pretend to be good to use the goodness of others against them, like Dooku. It appears not when people with whom we empathize, like Anakin, do horrific evil, but when good manages to eke its way out of an evil character, like Vader. Most importantly, it can appear when seemingly easy decisions, like Lando’s, are given their full due.
Most moral decisions we make in our lives are relatively easy. We help a friend with a project; we give up a concert to see our daughter’s recital; we give directions to a stranger. Few decisions require us to consider anyone outside a small circle of acquaintances or the strangers who present themselves to us. These decisions are so ordinary that we hardly think of them as moral decisions at all. But the ease with which we handle most moral situations can leave us ill-prepared to think about the difficult moral decisions which