On the other hand, the massive rise of enframing and standing reserve is hardly being directed by Yoda and Mace Windu, or even through the Light Side of the Force. Rather the Dark Side has stealthily gained control of the process of enframing without the Jedi knowing it. As Count Dooku confidently informs Obi-Wan, “The Dark Side of the Force has clouded their [the Jedis’] vision, my friend.” The void of darkness is slowly but surely spreading, and extinguishing the Jedis’ power to use the Force. And this applies equally to young Anakin Skywalker, the soon-to-be Darth Vader. With not a little concern about Anakin’s fear of losing his mother, Yoda warns, “Clouded this boy’s future is.” In Heidegger’s terms, this clouding of the Force by the Dark Side is precisely the covering up of being by enframing. Heidegger says, “[Being] can be covered up to such a degree that it is forgotten and the question about it and its meaning altogether omitted.”84 In Anakin’s case, at the very height of his own enframing, this clouding will indeed become “forgetting,” as Luke rightly points out.
The Enframing of Anakin Skywalker
Anakin and his mother Shmi are slaves, both owned by Watto, a Toydarian junk dealer. And Anakin knows it’s wrong. Even as a little boy, he’s well aware that Watto subordinates his personhood—evident in his first meeting with Padmé. “You’re a slave?” she asks him. “I’m a person, and my name is Anakin!” he responds. As a slave, Anakin works on all manner of machines and is actually quite gifted in his work. He even brags to Qui-Gon that he can help fix their ship’s hyperdrive, and also takes considerable pride in showing Padmé his newest creation, a protocol droid for his mother—C-3PO. But despite all his talents, Anakin’s powers have already been wrongly honed in the service of control. He lives in a world of high-tech tools and so many enframed things which themselves require tools. Indeed, at a very basic level, Anakin himself is Watto’s own living tool, which is precisely how Aristotle defines a “slave” in the Politics.85
These distortions of slavery and the immersion in technology are the initial steps of a descent that will later spiral downward and out of control with the death of Anakin’s mother at the hands of the vulgar and nomadic Sand People. Infuriated at his powerlessness to keep Shmi alive, as her poor tortured body goes limp in his arms, Anakin, aflame with rage, proceeds to slaughter the entire community of Sand People (including the women and children). Trying to console him, Padmé clumsily explains that Shmi’s death was not his fault: “You’re not all-powerful.” But furious, Anakin insists, “Well I should be. Someday I will be. I will be the most powerful Jedi ever.” At this point, Anakin’s early technological skills and interests become obsessions for control and manipulation. Perhaps once he wanted to free the slaves (as he told Qui-Gon he had dreamed) and be the “shepherd of being”—as Heidegger means “shepherd” in the sense not only of “caring for,” but also “setting free.” But now he is on the path to becoming the “lord of beings” in the form of Lord Vader.
His rage has permanently unbalanced him, and this is nowhere more evident than in his futile charging attack on Count Dooku against Obi-Wan’s desperate warning. Ultimately, Yoda rescues Anakin and Obi-Wan from the powerful Sith Lord, but Anakin has lost his arm to Dooku’s lightsaber. Severed from his natural ready-to-hand relation, his natural being-in-the-world is now robotically mediated through an artificial hand attached to a cyborg arm. As a result of his thoughtless fury, Anakin has now shifted from the ready-to-hand (a natural hand-link to the Force and humanity) to the present-at-hand (the artificial hand-link to the Dark Side).
And this is only the beginning. His next step toward becoming fully enframed is brought about by Obi-Wan himself, Anakin’s teacher. Following a violent battle of lightsabers between the two, Anakin is left severely maimed and his biological body is no longer capable of sustaining itself on its own. After an extensive robotic rebuilding of his body, Anakin now wears a full suit of black armor and a helmet with a mask covering his entire face. His senses are now all artificially mediated through technology, while he is fed through an internal tube in his helmet. Virtually everything vital has been replaced: his spine, his internal organs—his entire experience of the world is completely mediated by artifice. Even his voice is translated through a computer; while his breathing is controlled by an internal ventilator: “He’s more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.” And this new machine of a man is a terribly imposing figure, to say the least. Only later are we given a rare voyeuristic look into the layers of Vader’s enframing. In The Empire Strikes Back an Imperial officer accidentally witnesses Vader privately “dressing.” We even see his pale human skin (kept private from the light) and his awful mutilated skull—but only for a second as a quick robotic arm plunges down his helmet. Freshly closed to the world, Vader now commands the officer, only to turn away as the top of his demonic black nest closes down all around him.
Ultimately, this same process of descent into enframing happens to Luke as well, whose hand is severed by Vader and replaced with a robotic hand. And even later, Vader loses his hand again to Luke’s lightsaber. But upon cutting off Vader’s robotic hand, Luke notices his own robotic hand (covered by a black glove similar to Vader’s). Luke now understands Yoda’s earlier concern—he may yet follow the same path:YODA: A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the Dark Side. Anger . . . fear . . . aggression. The Dark Side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.
LUKE: Vader. Is the Dark Side stronger?
YODA: No . . . no . . . no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
We hear the same worry from Obi-Wan: “Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.” Indeed, the Dark Side’s powers are incredibly intense, as Vader tries to explain to Luke: “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side.” In the end, however, Luke does not succumb. And his own artificial enframing remains relatively minimal compared to Vader’s.
Only a Jedi Can Save Us: Forgetting and Recollecting
Vader’s enframing is, to be sure, all but complete. His being-in-the-world is so artificially mediated, so incredibly distorted, that he no longer fully understands what it is he’s doing—or why. No longer human, he has entirely lost touch with himself. It’s true that Vader may not have forgotten the question of being in general, as Heidegger conceives it. But clearly he has forgotten something. He has, at the very least, forgotten the man he used to be. And beyond that, in a very Heideggerian sense, he has equally forgotten his own original being-in-the-world—indeed he has even forgotten his own name. Luke makes exactly this point to Vader, when he calls him by his original name, “Anakin Skywalker.” Vader (irritated) scolds Luke: “That name no longer has any meaning for me.” But Luke persists: “It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten.” And he has forgotten precisely because of his detachment from the being of the Force and his horrible descent into the darkness of enframing.
And now, at the end of the saga, it would indeed appear, with Vader’s almost complete forgetfulness, that only a god can save him.86 Only there is conspicuous absence of God or gods in the Star Wars galaxy—although “angels” apparently reside in deep space and the Ewoks mistake Threepio for a god. Nevertheless, Vader is ultimately saved by the semi-divine power of the Force and through the actions of Luke. Inspired by Luke’s dedication to him, Vader begins to remember. He returns to himself and becomes Anakin Skywalker once again. Now with his “own eyes” he vanquishes the Emperor and turns his back on the Dark Side of the Force. But while his soul is saved, his body/machine is badly broken and he succumbs to death—although not before asking Luke to take off his horrible mask and “uncover” his true being from the shroud of artifice. The layers of enframing are at last peeled back to reveal the man. His spirits recharged, Luke has not come this far to watch his father die in the Death Star (only moments from destruction). “I’ve got to save you,” he declares. But Anaki
n knows all too well, “You already have, Luke.”87
10
“If Droids Could Think . . .”: Droids as Slaves and Persons
ROBERT ARP
Years ago, I watched A New Hope with a blind person named Mary. She asked if I could describe to her what was going on throughout the movie. After the Twentieth Century Fox fanfare ended and the wonderful John Williams soundtrack began, I read the opening paragraphs to her. What happened after the next few scenes was fascinating. She listened to C-3PO’s opening dialogue where he says somewhat frantically, “Did you hear that? They shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure! This is madness! We’re doomed …” However, before I could describe the scene to her, Mary asked me, “What does that man look like?” I told her it was not a man, but a droid—a gold-plated robot who looks like a man. She paused a moment and continued, “Oh . . . It sounded just like a man.” Being naturally inquisitive, I asked Mary what made her think that C-3PO was a man. Her response was that C-3PO used language, and had expressed the emotions of fear and concern.
My exchange with Mary was fascinating for two reasons. First, if I were blind, and a robot approached me on the street and started talking to me the way C-3PO does—with all of his over-dramatizing of events, expressions of reluctance, and name-calling—most likely I would think a human being was talking to me. Second, my exchange with Mary made me rethink Threepio’s role as a protocol droid built to serve other human beings in a slavish capacity. If C-3PO looks and acts like a person—if he uses language, has certain advanced cognitive skills, is aware of his surroundings, and can feel emotions and express concerns—then what really separates him from actually being a person, other than his silicon and metallic innards and appearance? Furthermore, if he could qualify as a person, then shouldn’t such a robot be granted the same kinds of rights and privileges as any other human being who qualifies as a person? If droids meet the conditions for personhood, I question whether they should be granted at least limited rights and privileges, including the ability to choose to work in the Star Wars galaxy, as opposed to being slavishly “made to suffer, it’s our lot in life” (to use Threepio’s words) at the hands of biological persons.
“He’s Quite Clever, You Know . . . For a Human Being”
The first thing we need to do is get at the fundamental nature or essence of what it means to be a person. So, what is the definition of a person? A person is a being who has the capacity for (1) reason or rationality; (2) mental states like beliefs, intentions, desires, and emotions; (3) language; (4) entering into social relationships with other persons; and (5) being considered a responsible moral agent.88
Before asking whether droids meet these criteria—and if so, which droids—we should consider the matter of whether a body is absolutely necessary in order to be considered a person. Among the criteria for personhood just given, there is no mention of a physical body. Important implications can be drawn from this omission. First, what it means to be a person is not tied directly to having an intact bodily existence. Take someone like the famous physicist Stephen Hawking. Here is a man whose body is ravaged by disease, is confined to a wheelchair, and needs machines in order to communicate. Yet, we would still consider him a person because, despite his bodily limitations, he fulfills criteria (1)-(5). He does this because his brain is still functioning properly and his cognitive capacities remain intact. He reasons, feels, communicates (albeit, with the help of machines), and has been able to form strong social bonds in the scientific community, as well as in his personal life. So, on the face of it, it appears that cognitive capacities are what to look for when trying to discern whether a being qualifies as a person, and the brain, or something that functions like the brain, is the seat of this cognitive capacity.89
If bodily existence is downplayed and cognitive capacities are what really count when defining a person, then droids like C-3PO and R2-D2 could be considered persons, provided their cognitive capacities are the same as other persons. We naturally think that persons will be biological entities with brains who breathe air, metabolize carbohydrates, and take in water for nourishment. Right now, however, it’s possible to simulate various biological parts of bodies artificially; there are artificial hearts, artificial kidneys, and even artificial eyes.
Suppose that a scientist develops an artificial occipital lobe (the back part of the brain) out of silicon and metal, and implants it into the brain of an adult female human being. The artificial lobe performs the same functions that a natural occipital lobe performs: it processes visual information from the environment. So, with her artificial lobe she can do the same thing that she could do with her natural lobe—she can see the world around her. Say that the scientist develops artificial silicon and metallic parts of the brain responsible for memory, and implants these into our subject’s brain. She now can store and recall memories with the artificial parts of the brain in the same way she could with her natural parts. Now, say the scientist develops an artificial silicon and metal brain in its entirety, and implants it into our subject. With this artificial brain, she can do all of the same things she did before her transplant; she lives, loves, lies, and meets all of the criteria for personhood. Would she actually be a person, however, given that her brain is robotic? Say the scientist can simulate all parts of her body with silicon and metal, and thus replaces her biological body with a robotic body. She now is fully a robotic being with all of the same hopes, fears, responsibilities, loyalties, and so on, as any other human being. Would she (or should we say it?) actually be a person?
It seems possible to simulate the mental capacities necessary for personhood through physical things other than the brain. Why would one need to have a brain in order to think, believe, feel, experience, and the like, if such cognitive capacities can be simulated by other means? Think of an android like Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation, or the replicants in the movie Blade Runner, or the synthetics like Bishop (as Bishop says they prefer to be called) in the Alien movies. These are examples of beings that act like persons, yet the internal workings of their “brains” consist of a series of silicon and metallic connections, or other artificial systems, that are very different from the gray matter of the brain. So it seems that a functioning brain, or something that functions like a brain, with all of the cognitive capacities associated with such functioning, is the most important thing to consider when determining whether something qualifies as a person.90
“If Droids Could Think, There’d Be None of Us Here, Would There?”
Now we can address the question as to whether droids qualify as persons. The first qualification has to do with the capacity for reason or rationality. In one sense, reasoning is the same thing as intelligence, and involves a variety of capacities, including (a) calculating; (b) making associations between present stimuli and stored memories; (c) problem solving; and (d) drawing new conclusions or inferences from old information.91 Do droids qualify as rational or intelligent in these senses?
Droids obviously make calculations. In The Empire Strikes Back, C-3PO lets Han Solo know that the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are approximately 3,720 to one against. Also, in The Phantom Menace Droidekas judge distances while rolling up to, and firing their lasers at, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan aboard the Trade Federation ship. Droids also have memory storage capabilities, and can recall memories based upon present stimuli. When Jabba’s droid manager, EV- 9D9, notes that R2-D2 will make a fine addition to Jabba’s sail barge crew, he can do so only because he has a memory of the barge, the crew, the work detail, as well as a capacity to associate Artoo’s actions with the barge, crew, and work detail. C- 3PO knows “six million forms of communication,” has been on many adventures with Artoo, and is able to recount his past experiences to Luke—he even recounts the story of the previous Star Wars films to the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Furthermore, droids can solve problems. In Return of the Jedi, Artoo takes the initiative to open the door to the command center on Endor while he, Lei
a, and Han are under attack by stormtroopers. Artoo performs similar mechanical problem-solving when he gets the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive to work in The Empire Strikes Back and the Naboo Royal Starship’s shields up to escape the Trade Federation blockade in The Phantom Menace.
Finally, droids seem to be able to reason by deductively drawing conclusions and making inferences. Think of the holographic chess game played between Artoo and Chewbacca on board the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope, and Han’s comment that “droids don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that.” C-3PO comes to the conclusion that Artoo should choose “a new strategy. Let the Wookiee win.” This conclusion is arrived at by a process of reasoning that goes something like this: 1. Premise 1: If Artoo wins, my arms will be pulled out of their sockets.
2. Premise 2: I don’t want my arms pulled out of their sockets.
3. Conclusion: Thus, Artoo should let the Wookiee win.
Artoo also displays some clever deductive reasoning in his first conversation with Luke. He deceives Luke into removing his restraining bolt by falsely claiming that its removal will enable the image of Princess Leia to return, knowing how much Luke would want to see the entire message. The little manipulator appears to have reasoned his actions through quite well.
Star Wars and Philosophy Page 14