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By Root 387 0

barred from economic transactions (“We don’t serve their kind here,” declares the bar-tender at the Mos Eisley cantina), they aren’t a part of any “droid” interest groups, and they definitely aren’t citizens who bear any rights in either the Republic or the Rebel Alliance. However, two scenes in The Empire Strikes Back make it possible to believe that a kind of familial relationship can be fostered between a droid and a non-droid. First, we note the care and concern Chewie takes when he tries to put C-3PO back together in the cell on Cloud City, and later when he straps C-3PO to his back so as not to abandon him while he and Leia try to free Han and flee from Vader. There is also Luke’s reaction to Artoo’s falling into the swamp after they land on Dagobah. Luke expresses shock, concern, and is even willing to fight to save Artoo from being eaten by whatever monster sucked him up (and subsequently spit him out). The care expressed in both of these cases is analogous to the care a father might have for his son, or an older brother might have for a younger brother. These characters form a kind of family.

Droids also seem to care for their “masters,” as in The Empire Strikes Back when Artoo sits at the foot of the door probing for Luke who is lost out in the cold on Hoth, or in Attack of the Clones when C-3PO’s head realizes (to his shock!) that his battle droid body is shooting at friendly Jedi in the arena on Geonosis: “I’m terribly sorry about all of this!” This indicates, at the very least, a rudimentary reciprocal social relationship.

Yet, droids are exploited. They are treated as little more than pieces of machinery—slaves whose purpose is to serve non-droids. Threepio and Artoo are hunted down, fitted with restraining bolts, and sold by Jawas into slavery. And Threepio refers to his previous “master” when giving his work history to Luke in their initial conversation. Droids lack the rights and responsibilities afforded to other beings such as humans and Wookiees, as well as fish-headed and hammerheaded creatures in the Star Wars galaxy.

Given what we know about droids such as Artoo and Threepio, it is unfortunate that they are treated as slaves. Droids communicate, have the capacity for reason, and can be involved in complex social relationships. More importantly, they express feelings of disillusion, contempt, pain, and suffering, as well as joy, satisfaction, and contentment. A being that has these traits appears to have mental states, and such a being is arguably a person, regardless of having been created by persons.

Maybe it’s time for droid liberation in the Star Wars galaxy, in much the same way that other groups of people who have been unjustly enslaved throughout human history have been liberated. Of course, if droids were liberated, then they would need to establish their own social relationships, ways to propagate, moral laws, and the like, for themselves. At the same time, there would need to be adjustments made in the existing social spheres of the Star Wars galaxy to accommodate droid needs and wants, and to mainstream them into existing social spheres, in much the same way Wookiees, Gungans, and other creatures have been incorporated.

It’s Not Our Lot in Life!

I have a proposal to make. Droids appear to meet the qualifications for personhood, so droids should be granted limited rights and privileges. The practical specifics of what that means would need to be worked out by the Galactic Senate. However, such limited rights and privileges minimally would include the choice to work for human beings, as opposed to being slavishly “made to suffer, it’s our lot in life” (to use Threepio’s words in A New Hope) at the hands of humans. I realize, however, that giving them the choice to work for humans probably means that we would be granting them a person-like status, in which case we are well on our way to recognizing droids as deserving of the same kinds of rights and privileges afforded to any other person.

The case can be made that droids are an oppressed group in the Star Wars galaxy. Perhaps we