Star Wars and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) - Kevin Decker [41]
“If Once You Start Down the Dark Path . . .”
Why did Anakin turn to the Dark Side? It’s not as easy as it first appears to make sense of such a transformation. Did Anakin choose to turn to the Dark Side, so that he is ultimately responsible for his “fall from grace”? Or did the devil (the Emperor) make him do it? If the Emperor is ultimately responsible for Anakin’s turning to the Dark Side, then we may have found answers to such questions. But we’re still left with the question of the Emperor’s own allegiance to the Dark Side. Does the Emperor represent an incarnation of evil? Is he really just a personification of the Dark Side of the Force itself? Maybe the Emperor never turned to the Dark Side but rather is inherently evil. The Emperor would then be “evil incarnate”: he isn’t only evil himself but provides the ultimate explanation for why there are other (less-powerful) evil persons in that galaxy far, far away. This would be evil in true Manichean fashion.
On the other hand, if the Emperor was himself once turned by another—imagine that he too was once some venerable Sith Lord’s apprentice—we might want to know who turned the Emperor’s master. Surely not every evil person could have been turned by another. There must be an end to the chain of evil persons that culminates in at least one first seducer, some servant of the Dark Side who either is evil by his very nature (as the Manichees think of the evil God) or else was once good but turned himself to evil.
Augustine rejects the Manichean explanation of evil because he believes that the supremely good God creates all beings in the universe and so no creature is inherently evil. Instead, since rational creatures such as the Emperor, Darth Maul, and Darth Vader have free will, each one of them is ultimately responsible for their own turn to the Dark Side. Obi-Wan hints at this when he says: “Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.” For we typically think that every seduction requires two willing participants: the seducer and the one seduced.
Let’s assume that Anakin Skywalker is responsible in this way for his turn to the Dark Side. Factors external to Anakin may still have an influence on his choice: the Emperor’s temptations, Anakin’s desires for Padmé, his mother’s death at the hands of the Sand People, and his conflicted relationship with Obi-Wan certainly all go some distance towards making sense of his fall. But Anakin did not have to turn to the Dark Side as a result of these events. Anakin made choices in all of these contexts that he knew were evil; he didn’t have to make such choices. As Anakin confesses to Padmé after slaughtering a tribe of Sand People, “I’m a Jedi. I know I’m better than this.”
But why do otherwise good people do bad things in the first place? Augustine is particularly perplexed by this question. If God is the perfectly good and all-powerful creator of the universe, how could one of God’s good creatures turn to evil? According to Christian tradition, the original sin is pride: wanting to find oneself in a place of honor higher than one deserves. Indeed, pride appears to be Anakin’s original sin too. He thinks he doesn’t need Obi-Wan as a master, when it’s obvious that Obi-Wan has much to teach the young padawan. Anakin chooses to begin thinking of himself as better than Obi-Wan, even though in some way he knows he isn’t. In a moment of unguarded anger, Anakin says to Padmé: “It’s all Obi-Wan’s fault. He’s jealous. He’s holding me back!”
The question of the origin of evil is no problem for the Manichees since for them evil has always existed in the form of the evil God. But this Manichean view—as Augustine began to see as a young man—has the problematic consequence that people aren’t really responsible for their actions. Why does Anakin turn to the Dark Side? The Manichean answer: “The Emperor made him do it!” But Augustine wants to maintain that we’re free and morally responsible for our actions. Anakin is ultimately responsible for his turn to the Dark Side. The origin of moral evil in Anakin is Anakin himself and his own