Star Wars and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) - Kevin Decker [55]
Take the case of Anakin Skywalker. His Jedi training came relatively late. We see other Jedi being inducted into Jedi ways as small children by Yoda, away from the influence of their families and others, rather like being raised in a monastery. The clear implication is that part of Anakin’s problem is that he was not sufficiently inculcated—not brainwashed enough—to cope fully with his ability to use the Force, and the responsibility that goes with it. Presumably, it would have been better either that he had undergone the full training, or else not have been trained at all.
Typical military training can be morally problematic. The more autonomy soldiers have to begin with, the more problematic it is to employ brainwashing techniques to get them to do what we want—to fight, kill and die for the rest of us.
With humans, it doesn’t seem as problematic to provide positive inducements to fight, at least for mercenaries. But inducements such as a free college education are directed more towards the young, who may not be properly assessing the very real risk that they will actually be called on to fight. Even where autonomy is diminished, the justification of brainwashing is usually that it is for the individual’s own good: to protect them from themselves until they are better able to choose. This argument cannot be generally deployed in the case of military training. Granted, if a man is going to fight anyway, he might be better off with full military training. But other things being equal, he is surely better off not to be in the military at all, or if he is in the military, not in a fighting capacity.
That military training is morally problematic does not altogether prohibit it. But it does seem that, if it were to be justified, it would have to promise and deliver much good. When we add these considerations to the already strong presumption against warfare, it may be that very few actual campaigns have sufficient merit.
Send in the Clones!
Clones with relatively diminished autonomy may provide the most morally satisfying solution. They are not offered inducements to fight, removing one area of concern about those with diminished autonomy. Moreover, since they will never acquire full autonomy, the argument that they need protection from themselves until they know better is undercut.
There are still moral problems with an army of diminished clones. We tend to find the training and deployment of fighting dogs to be more distasteful than the training and deployment of human soldiers, in part because the dogs are relatively lacking in autonomy. So we should likewise be concerned about raising fighting men and women who really don’t know any better. But given the alternatives, all in all it may be best to send in the clones.
Part III
“Don’t Call Me a Mindless Philosopher!”
Alien Technologies and the Metaphysics of The Force
9
A Technological Galaxy: Heidegger and the Philosophy of Technology in Star Wars
JEROLD J. ABRAMS
In the Dark Age of the Empire the light of the Force has all but gone out of the world, and the few remaining Jedi look to misty ages of an ancient past for guidance in their struggle against the forces of evil. Obi-Wan refers to the lightsaber as “an elegant weapon for a more civilized age” and describes the Jedi Knights as “guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire.”
The same view of history is echoed in the writings of the twentieth-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): rather than making progress, our greatest days are, in fact, behind us; and history is actually getting worse.73 A corruption has set in, like the Fall in the Garden of Eden; only here, in Heidegger and Star Wars, our sin is technology, or, more specifically, what Heidegger calls “enframing.”74