Being a Jedi certainly involves a lot of hard work. Fortunately, the various Star Wars movies have showed you how to awaken your “inner” Jedi. Just as fortunately, a couple of ancient Greek philosophers shed even more light on the process. Developing the kind of character a Jedi possesses may be far more rewarding to you in the long run than learning how to wield a lightsaber. So if you’re still serious and have the commitment to be a Jedi, it would be wise to follow the examples of virtuous character illustrated in Star Wars and explicated by Plato and Aristotle.
6
“A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy”: Star Wars and the Problem of Evil
CHRISTOPHER M. BROWN
Why do bad things happen to good people? This perennial question has been especially troubling for philosophically inclined men and women who believe that some all-powerful, perfectly good being rules the universe. Why? Because a perfectly good being that has control of all things would presumably have created a world where good people are rewarded for their virtue and evil people are punished for their crimes. Yet good people often go unrewarded for their good deeds, and some even suffer terribly in this life. Meanwhile, bad people prosper. They even manage to attain the most prominent places of power. If goodness is more powerful than evil, why is there so much evil in the world? Could it be that evil is actually stronger?
In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker raises this very question while listening to one of Master Yoda’s early lessons on the Force. Yoda warns Luke about the Dark Side, the path that Darth Vader has followed. Luke asks Yoda, “Is the Dark Side stronger?” Yoda responds: “No . . . No [softer] . . . No [even softer yet]. Quicker, easier, more seductive.” Although Yoda answers Luke’s question in the negative, his delivery suggests that Yoda is not certain, but at most only wistfully hopeful, that good will overcome evil in the end.
Intelligent attempts to make sense of the apparent power that evil has over goodness in this life are bound to lead to more basic questions about evil. Why do bad things happen at all? What is the ultimate origin of evil? And what is evil, anyway?
Something Wicked This Way Comes. But From Whence Does It Come?
There is genuine evil in the universe. This is obvious to most of us. Philosophers of religion—those who try to make sense of, support, or refute the claims of world religions—traditionally have distinguished two varieties of evil: natural evil and moral evil. A natural evil is an event that occurs in the universe that is painful, unpleasant, or destructive and does not occur as a direct result of someone’s choosing to do what is harmful. Examples of natural evils are Luke’s being attacked by a wampa on Hoth and bigger fish eating smaller fish on Naboo. Although it is good for a wampa to eat, Luke isn’t too happy about the prospect of being on the menu that particular day! And though it isn’t morally wrong for one fish to eat another fish, because the destruction of a living organism is something bad—at least for the fish that’s eaten—philosophers call it a “natural” evil. In contrast to natural evil, moral evil results from someone’s choosing to do what’s harmful to either one’s self or another. Grand Moff Tarkin’s ordering the destruction of Alderaan and Darth Maul’s murdering Qui-Gon Jinn are prime examples of moral evils.
But why do we live in a universe full of natural and moral evils? Maybe any serious talk of goodness in the world implies that there is evil in the world too. Perhaps the relation between good and evil is analogous to the relation between light and darkness. Darkness is the absence of light and light is the absence of darkness. In a world of perpetual light—where one would have no conception at all of darkness—the word ‘light’ would have a meaning totally different from what it has for us who dwell in alternating periods of light and darkness. Indeed, we might think that the words ‘light’ and ‘dark’ would have no meaning for us at all in such a context. If good and evil are opposites in the same way as light and darkness, then in order for us to have any real experience that we might label ‘good,’ we must also have genuine experience of evil.
As Qui-Gon Jinn reminds Masters Yoda and Windu, the ancient Jedi prophecies speak of “one who will bring balance to the Force.” Harmony in the universe will not be brought about by destroying evil. Indeed, if good and evil are opposites, it may be impossible to destroy evil in the universe without also destroying the possibility of real goodness. The best state of affairs for the universe would then involve keeping the Dark Side in check, or “balanced” against the Light Side of the Force. There would be no need for Luke’s courageous and selfless actions to save his friend Han Solo if it weren’t for Jabba the Hutt’s greed and inordinate desire for revenge. Nor would Luke have displayed the kind of compassion implicit in his refusal to kill his own father if Darth Vader hadn’t been seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. There would be no cause for the kind of heroism displayed by the likes of Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian if there were no evil Empires to rebel against. It may be that the Dark Side serves a good and necessary purpose: there would be no genuine goodness in the universe without the Dark Side as an impetus for noble action. A universe without villainy—and therefore without heroism—would be morally lifeless, inert.
We know evil existed a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. But has evil always existed? If evil came into existence at some point in history, what was its cause? It couldn’t come from what’s truly good, for if goodness gives rise to evil then it wouldn’t really be good in the first place. It makes more sense to say that, like goodness, evil is simply a basic feature of the universe and has no cause—it has always existed along with goodness. Western philosophy offers this kind of dualistic account of good and evil in both non-religious and religious forms.
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato articulates perhaps the most influential non-religious expression of a dualism of good and evil. He argues that the existence of a world such as ours—a world that on the whole is quite harmonious and orderly—must have a maker, a divine craftsman, and a plan that’s followed in constructing the universe.51 However, any construction project requires more than simply a design and a builder. It also requires raw materials. For Plato, matter is the ultimate raw material of the divine craftsman’s building project that is our universe, much as life forms the basis for the existence of the Force in the Star Wars galaxy.
Yoda didn’t create the raw materials from which his hut on Dagobah was constructed; the tree, sticks, and mud that he used to build his home pre-existed the finished product. Plato thinks the divine craftsman, as powerful and perfect as he is, works under the same basic restrictions. Although there hasn’t always been a visible universe with planets, living things, and machines in existence, matter, the “stuff” out of which all of these particular things are made, has always been around.
The fact that matter is uncreated also explains why the world can’t be perfectly harmonious and orderly according to Plato. Even if the divine craftsman necessarily creates the best world he can, this doesn’t mean that such a world is an absolutely perfect world, since the divine craftsman must create the visible world out of matter, and the matter out of which the world is fashioned isn’t perfect but is by its nature impure, disordered, and discordant. Let’s assume that when Yoda did anything—even something as mundane as building a home out of sticks and mud—he did a great job. But even a home built by a Jedi Master is not completely impervious to decay at the hands of the forces of nature over time. Similarly, the visible world as a whole—with all of its evils—is the best that the divine craftsman could manage, given the limitations inherent in the raw material he’s got to work with.
The Platonic tradition in Western philosophy has often considered matter to be not just limiting, but positively evil. Since matter is inherently evil, so are the individual bodies composed of it. Platonists look with suspicion on activities associated with the body, such as eating and drinking for pleasure, as well as sexual activity. Our bodies distract us from the more worthy pursuits of thinking and doing morally virtuous dee
ds. As Plato, in the voice of Socrates, remarks, “So long as we have the body accompanying our reason in its inquiries, so long as our souls are befouled by this evil admixture, we shall assuredly never fully possess that which we desire, to wit truth.”52 In addition, we often identify ourselves with our bodies, when in fact, we’re really spirits trapped in bodies. As Yoda teaches Luke: “Luminous beings are we . . . [Yoda pinches Luke’s shoulder] . . . not this crude matter.”
In the Platonic tradition evil has its ultimate source in matter, and this goes for moral evil as well as natural evil, since all moral evil originates in excessive attachment to the body. The good person isn’t a slave to the body and its passions, and so she isn’t excessively afraid of death. Obi-Wan’s last lesson for Luke comes when he allows himself to be killed by Darth Vader—thereby freeing himself from the confines of the body—rather than have Luke watch him attack in order to kill. Obi-Wan warns Vader, “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Obi-Wan’s death allows him to be released from the limitations of bodily existence. In addition, Obi-Wan will have a power that Vader can’t imagine—since Vader thinks, like his master the Emperor, that real power comes with the ability to manipulate one’s physical surroundings, particularly through the threat of death. For Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Plato, true power is spiritual power—having control of one’s own self. The Emperor, by contrast, teaches his disciples to use the Force and channel bodily passions such as fear, anger, and hate in order to acquire power over nature and bodily death. As Anakin confesses to Padmé after taking his first steps toward the Dark Side, “I should be [all-powerful]. Someday I will be . . . I will even learn to stop people from dying.” By contrast, Yoda teaches that “a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack” and he accepts the reality of bodily death: “Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall. That is the way of things . . . the way of the Force.”
“One All-Powerful Force Controlling Everything”
Many people don’t accept the Platonic view that God couldn’t have made a physical universe without evil because it conflicts with their belief that God is the omnipotent (all-powerful) creator of the universe. On the other hand, the presence of evil in the world is often cited as evidence that there is no God, at least not a perfectly good and all-powerful one. As Han Solo says to Luke in A New Hope, “Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything.”
One of the most important religious philosophers to have grappled with the question of the origin of evil is the fourth-century Christian philosopher, St. Augustine. Although Augustine was raised as a “traditional” Christian, he did not fully accept the traditional form of the Christian faith until around thirty years of age. In fact, Augustine spent much of his earlier life as a member of a gnostic Christian sect known as the Manichees.
The Manichees accept two Platonic ideas about evil: evil finds its primary locus in bodily existence and evil is a necessary feature of the universe. Thus, like Plato, the Manichees are dualists about the existence of good and evil: both good and evil have always existed in the universe—goodness doesn’t come from evil and evil doesn’t originate from something good. However, whereas Plato traces the origin of evil to the universe’s being material, the Manichees locate it in the will of a single person.
The Manichees see the whole history of the universe as one long, cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil. Each of these forces has a kind of divinity associated with it: a good God of light and spirit, and an evil God of darkness and flesh. Personifying evil is one way of explaining why there is moral evil in the universe. Star Wars is replete with examples of such personifications: Darth Vader, the Emperor, Darth Maul, the Emperor’s Royal Guards, and so on. The Manichees think “the evil that men do” can ultimately be traced back to the evil God, a mastermind of all evil who is evil by his very nature; we might say that such a person is “evil incarnate.”
One of the skeptical questions that the Manichees raise against traditional Christianity is this: If God is all-powerful and perfectly good, then why or how is there any evil in the world? A perfectly good God would not want to create evil in the first place and an all-powerful God could prevent evil from coming into existence. But there is evil in the universe. So God is not both perfectly good and all-powerful as traditional Christians suppose. This argument against the existence of God—at least the existence of a perfectly good and all-powerful divinity—is known as “the problem of evil.” Since the Manichees, like Plato, deny that the good God of the universe is all-powerful, they don’t have to worry about the problem of evil.
The Manichees, however, are left with a problem (or two) of their own. If one lets go of the idea that God is all-powerful, what reason is there to believe that God is more powerful than the forces of darkness? Might it not be that evil is stronger than goodness, as often appears to be the case in our universe and to the characters in Star Wars? Recall Luke’s question to Yoda, “Is the Dark Side stronger?” and Yoda’s negative (yet tentative) reply: “No . . . No [softer] . . . No [even softer yet]. Quicker, easier, more seductive.” There’s also Vader’s constant assertion of “the power of the Dark Side.” Even if the Dark Side of the Force isn’t stronger than the Light Side as Yoda supposes, it might be that the Light Side has no real advantage over the Dark Side either. Bad things happen to good people and many of these bad things will never eventually lead to anything good. One reason that religious believers defend God’s omnipotence is that an all-powerful God can redeem the evil that occurs in this life by drawing from it more valuable goods. For example, a good person becomes even better as a result of suffering pain, whether psychological or physical. Why? She learns to better empathize with others who suffer. She more clearly realizes what’s really important in life: not the pursuit of pleasure, but serving others.
But this brings us back to the problem of evil. Why is there evil in the first place if God is omnipotent? Augustine argues that evil’s presence in the universe is directly caused by the free choices of God’s creatures and not by God’s direct choice. Human beings are created with free will, and (unfortunately) many of us have willingly chosen to do evil instead of remaining steadfast in choosing to do good. Although God could have prevented evil’s actual presence in the universe by choosing not to create a universe at all (or by choosing to create a universe without creatures who have the ability to choose between good and evil), a universe with free creatures (even free creatures that do evil) is better than a universe that contains only mindless automatons programmed to always do good.53 This is why God created the universe, even a universe that carries with it the real possibility of becoming tainted with evil. But Augustine recognizes that simply saying that creatures have free choice doesn’t fully solve the problem of evil:Where then does evil come from since the good God made everything good? Certainly the greatest and supreme Good made lesser goods; yet the Creator and all he created are good. What then is the origin of evil? Is it that the matter from which he made things was somehow evil? He gave it form and order, but did he leave in it an element which he could not transform into good? If so, why? Was he powerless to turn and transform all matter so that no evil remained, even though God is omnipotent? 54
Augustine believes the answer to the last question is “no.” Unlike Plato’s divine craftsman, Augustine’s God created the whole universe out of nothing. This means for him there was no pre-existing stuff out of which the physical universe was formed. Evil in this world can’t be traced back to defective matter for Augustine, for matter isn’t inherently evil but good, since it too has its source in the perfectly good Creator of the universe.
“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 tran
sformation. 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.
Star Wars and Philosophy Page 9