Moral relativism in Star Wars

After seeing the complete Star Wars Saga, I now realise that, while I enjoy all the films to a lesser or greater extent (well, I don't really like Phantom Menace or Clones), I only love the original Star Wars. My reason for this is that Star Wars was truly a morality play--a confrontation between good and evil, with good victorious (not always the case in real life, but why we love fantasy/escapist films). When Lucas decided to make sequals and prequals he had to fudge things to make the new, broader story work, and by and large he did a great job; but in order to do this, he had to justify moral inconsistancies (like Ben Kenobi's speech to Luke in his hut) through introducing moral relativism--i.e. "from a certain point of view" stuff. Moral relativism, in my opinion, is a simplistic, sophomoric and bankrupt philosophy: it knows no limits and can be used to justify Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, etc. With this addition, the Saga loses its mythic, allegorical, moral and ethical power. In fact, with this philosophy there are no more judgements at all, and good, evil, etc. become meaningless words. What a pity. The movies are all entertaining, but Star Wars was more than merely this.

 

I think the only confirmation of moral relativism is in ROTS.

Though I think George Lucas loves the storytelling of good versus evil, ROTS has proven that he is actually liberal minded. When it came time to get serious (the final story, the most important instance of humanity) Lucas made it a more personal story, with his true relativist views.

But come on.... "don't turn to the Dark Side" and "Only a Sith deals in absolutes"? How are these two statements compatable? Obviously A New Hope was morally absolute. I think George was more interested in making a fun movie at that time, than to make a movie which parallels real-life (as he sees it).

Moral relativism leads to bad things? Touchy subject for TF.N, huh? I believe seeing things in terms of good and evil only leads to outcomes of good and evil. Seeing an enemy as evil only creates conflict. Seeing an enemy as different than you is always a more peaceful path..... so I clearly disagree.

In fact, if it weren't for all the Dark/Light side stuff, I would believe that the Jedi are space-Buddhists (who do not believe in dualism- good and evil). Yoda's speech to Anakin about attatchment in ROTS was exactly Buddhist. A lot of people interpreted that as "the Jedi are corrupt", but I think the real answer is "Buddhist ideals are not compatable with the individualistic passsions of Western society, so people rejected it". People want to stay attached to certain things.

 

DeepNote,
I think you may be right, which just shows that Lucas isn't as deep a thinker as we have often given him credit for. Moral relativism is about as unsophisticated a philosphy/world view as you can have--it is, in the end much shallower and lacking in any serious conviction than any truly liberal or conservative view--it is the cowardly, light-beer approach to the world as is extremely dangerous, in my opinion. And it is the only "philosophy" that can be used to justify genocide, hate and all other evils.

 

Sorry, but "hate and all evils" is only a product of moral absolutism. Relativists would call it something else. Mass genocide is irrational, selfish, unbeneficial, a horrible loss of life..... not "evil"

Your kind of thinking is "only in America". To say it leads to dangerous thought would only fly in the land of capitalism, individualism and neo-religosity.

I really worry that this discussion is headed to a place TF.N is not equipped to handle.

 

I strongly disagree with these ideas. Relativism isn't a cowardly, light-beer approach; in fact, if you take it seriously, it is a much more difficult approach than blind absolutism, adhering to rules set in stone without ever considering that there might arise situations in which these rules don't do the situation justice and need to be adapted. As for relativism being the only "philosophy" that can be used to justify genocide, hate and all other evils, what about religious fundamentalists conducting "holy wars" to defend their absolute values? What about Hitler with his "absolute standards" of who is good and who is evil? Surely they aren't/weren't relativists, on the contrary, and they have/had no problem in justifying hate and genocide. It's the nature of the "values" they are holding that are the problem, not the issue of absolute versus relative morality.

 

I did not say that all absolute philosphies are good. I merely stated that relativism is bankrupt. Most absolutism are bankrupt as well. However, any useful, profound philosohpy must be able to condemn acts which cause senseless pain and suffering; only relativistic approaches say nothing can be condemned. Somethings have to be condemned--all ideas do not have equal merit. While killing can be justified, for example, murder cannot. Rape is never justified, nor is child abuse. Yet a true relativist cannot even condemn these actions, which all serious philosphies, religions and law codes agree are never justified and are, yes, evil. Yet in the Lucas "saga" approach to the universe, "evil is a point of view"--so when Palpatine orders Anakin to kill the younglings, this is, from a "certain point of view", ok, as it might help insure no resistance to Palpatine and thus "bring peace to the world"--by this standard when the Hootus tried to kill all the Tutsies in Rawanda, this was ok, because after the extermination of the Tutsies, there would be no more tribal strife in Rawanda. This is genocide, this is wrong, and this is evil, "point of view" doesn't enter into it. A "philosophy" that looks at this as a valid system is certainly bankrupt.

 

NO, you stated that moral relativism is " the only "philosophy" that can be used to justify genocide, hate and all other evils." On this, for the above mentioned counter-examples, I strongly disagree.

This is only true for extreme relativism, which is really amoralism. Moral relativism is something different.

"In philosophy, moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths but instead are relative to social, cultural, historical or personal references, and that there is no single standard by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that it is meaningless for the moral or ethical judgments or acts of one person or group to be judged by another, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

Again, this is about the nature of the values the moral system is built on, not about relativism or absolutism. If there is an absolute moral system that says killing your enemies is good, it justifies murder. If there is an absolute moral system that says my race is the only race worth living, it justifies genocide.

Moral relativism isn't about justifying everything as depending on the POV, but about taking into account culture and society and the concrete situation when applying moral codes. Moral relativism requires people to make judgements on their own instead of simply following finished rules. It is thus more difficult, and therefore more dangerous, I'd agree with that, but for certain it isn't a "light beer approach".

 

That may be wickpedia's take, here is another online take for you (more in accord with my understanding of the problem):
Moral relativism

'''Moral relativism''' is the position that moral propositions do not reflect absolute or universal truths. It not only holds that ethical judgments emerge from social customs and personal preferences, but also that there is no single standard by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Many relativists see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries. Some would even suggest that one person's ethical judgments or acts cannot be judged by another, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory. Some moral relativists ? for example, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) ? hold that a personal and subjective moral core lies at the foundation of our moral acts. They believe that public morality is a reflection of social convention, and that only personal, subjective morality is truly authentic. Moral nihilists propound a view that bears some similarity to relativism. The most famous nihilist, Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900), believed that morality is impossible without God, and as he argued there is no God, there is ipso facto no morality. Moral relativism is not the same as moral pluralism, which acknowledges the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, but does not suggest that they are equally valid. Moral relativism, in contrast, contends that opposing moral positions have no truth value, and that there is no preferred standard of reference by which to judge them.
History
Moral relativism is not new. Protagoras' (circa 481-420 BC) assertion that "man is the measure of all things" is an early philosophical precursor to modern relativism. The Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484-420 BC) observed that each society thinks its own belief system and way of doing things are best. Various ancient philosophers also questioned the idea of an absolute standard of morality. The 18th century Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume (1711-1776), is in several important respects the father of both modern emotivism and moral relativism. He distinguished between matters of fact and matters of value, and suggested that moral judgments consist of the latter, for they do not deal with verifiable facts that obtain in the world, but only with our sentiments and passions. Moreover, he, too, observed that there are differences in moral standards among individuals and societies. He is famous for denying any objective standard for morality, and suggested that the universe is indifferent to our preferences and our troubles. In the modern era, anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), cautioned observers to not use their own cultural standards to evaluate those they were studying, which is known as ethnocentricism. Benedict said there are no morals, only customs, and in comparing customs, the anthropologist, "insofar as he remains an anthropologist, he is bound to avoid any weighting of one in favor of the other." To some extent, the increasing body of knowledge of great differences in belief among societies caused both social scientists and philosophers to question whether there can be any objective, absolute standards pertaining to values. This caused some to posit that differing systems have equal validity, with no standard for adudicating among conflicting beliefs. The Finnish philosopher-anthropologist, Edward Westermarck (1862-1939) was among the first to formulate a detailed theory of moral relativism. He contended that all moral ideas are subjective judgments that reflect one's upbringing. He rejected G.E. Moore's (1873-1958)intuitionism, in vogue during the early part of the 20th century, due to the obvious differences in beliefs among socieities, which he said was evidence that there is no innate, intuitive power.
Some philosophical considerations
So-called descriptive or normative relativists (for example, Ralph Barton Perry), accept the fact that there are fundamental disagreements about the moral course of action even when the same non-m

 

I don't really see the major difference between the part of the wiki entry and the one you posted (the wiki entry really is a lot longer, I just cut the definition part and skipped the rest).

The case against moral relativism seems a clear-cut one as long as you only consider the more extreme cases such as murder, rape, child abuse. It is less clear-cut when it comes to other issues, like: is lying justifyable under any circumstance, including cases such as telling people that they are suffering from a terminal illness? Is killing justifyable under any circumstance, including self-defense? Or to protect your country in a war? Is theft justifyable in cases when the thief is about to die from starvation? Are sexual interactions to be condemmned outside marriage relationships in every society?

These are the kind of questions where moral relativism is a valid POV for me. IMO you just can't force the value standards of our own society onto every other society, or equate an everyday situation with a situation that endangeres the life of people. For me the real question is not about whether moral absolutism or moral relativism is the correct approach. The real question for me is which values are to be treated as absolutes and which values must be considered relative to societal or situational backgrounds. As always, the real issue is about finding a balance between relatives and absolutes.

And btw., I also enjoy this little debate

 

Mandragora,
I think we really fundamentally agree. It is just this "extreme" position, as you phrase it, that gives me problems with the direction George Lucas took the Star Wars Saga. To me the "Empire" was unambigously immoral from the original Star Wars--the blowing up of Alderaan was genocide, Leia was tortured by Vader, etc. This is absolute evil, and for me, there is/was no place for relativism when condemning this, thus my problem with Lucas introducing relativistic themes later on in the sequals and prequals: he had set up an evil beyond such cultural or social differences; he had built up a universal evil-thus when he tries to introduce moral ambiguity in Anakin's choices, he fails; Anakin is not even remotely sympathetic to me and his "redemption" is a farce to me. By the way, I am an agnostic and a liberal "intellectual" (I am a college librarian by professio and a doctor of philosophy in art history by training), hardly someone who thinks I have God on my side! However, I do believe there are some very important absolutes in this universe, such as those I brought up earlier.

 

I see your point when it comes to the question if Vader can be redeemed. Well, the point of some religions is that they aren't like a real life court. There isn't a question of whether insight at the latest moment possible is enough to compensate for terrible deeds. In this case, religions aren't about justice, but about mercy. Vader consciously sacrificed his life to kill the Emperor, and thus he showed insight at last. And by doing that he eliminated the last and possibly most powerful Sith.

I'm not sure if the OT was morally unambiguous. We had Luke killing all of the death star 1 inhabitants, many of which were just ordinary servants and not "evil" by nature. It's just that hardly anyone questioned it. I've said that before in other threads - I think Lucas did an exceptionally good job in illustrating that in a difficult situation discerning "right" from "wrong" isn't that easy. The Jedi had made a lot of mistakes, concerning the teaching of Anakin and concerning the courses of action they took during the prequels. They weren't "the good guys" unambiguously. They broke their own code when taking command over an army of clones, when asking Anakin to commit treason and when trying to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine. It shows that good people can take the wrong path for the right intentions, and this way it's a much more mature story to me.

 

I agree that ANH is different from the other movies because it is a story of good vs evil, its a much more simple stroy than the other movies. After ANH, and into the prequels especially it is not as black and white as ANH, especially ROTS. In ROTS, the only real bad guy is Sidious, its not the separatists since they broke away from the corrupt republic, and its not the republic either, In ROTS Anakin goes from killing jedi who defend the republic, then goes to kill separtists. The story is much more complex than ANH, and theres nobody really to pull for, but that actually makes it overall more intresting. ANH is a great movie i think proably the 2nd best behind ESB, ROTS i think is close. That fact that it is not so black and white makes it much more realistic, and closer to the real world.

 

Regarding the PT Jedi, I would agree. Regarding Anakin betraying everything to save his love, I must differ. If I had to chose between my wife and the future of civilization, I might make the wrong choice and save my wife, but I would know this was wrong and knowingly be committing a bad deem; point of views and relativism wouldn't enter into it. However, I hope I would make the right choice and let my wife die, just like I hope she would make the right choice and let me die. This isn't (to me) even morally ambiguous, it is obvious, and that is why Anakin's story to me is simplistic and really quite silly--puttin you and yours first is never right, though it is always easy. In Star Wars, remember, Ben sacrafices himself to allow the others to escape--he did the right thing. As for the deaths of all on the Death Star, you are right, that is ambiguous, as they are military men, they can be seen as combattants in a war, but killing combattants vs. non-combattants is a societal value with little to suggest universalism, particularly when the combattants are either clones or conscripts, not volunteers.

 

But Anakin does know it is wrong; it's obvious because he's crying on Mustafar, and Lucas stated it explicitly on the DVD commentary.

This is why I always try to bring in Anakin's upbringing as a slave; it doesn't justify anything he did, but it sure explains a lot of things.

This could be justified only if clones were a "lesser" form of humans. This again is a highly controversial issue. Why are the Jedi even willing to accept such an army - it is ethical highly controversial. There are anti-slavery laws in the republic, and yet the clone troopers are about the closest one can imagine to slaves. Still, the Jedi have no qualms about using them as cannon fodder and abandoning them if neccessary. With the exception of Anakin, in ROTS, interestingly - he cares about Oddballs' fate and wants to help him, while Obi tells him to abandon him and his colleagues.

 

I guess you could say that the original Star Wars was about Luke Skywalker's coming of age and fighting oppression. This is to some degree continued through out the OT, though the OT begins to focus equally on Vader and his "redemption". The PT is entirely Anakin/Vader's story and the SEs are modifications of the OT in this light. I love the story of Luke, hence I love Star Wars. I am not convinced by Anakin's story, because he never struck me as tragic, as he is introduced as Vader and already "redeemed" in Return of the Jedi, before the PT ever existed and, contrary to Lucas's supposed desires that we watch the films in order, we can't really unlearn a story we already know, so this is just an out of hand absurd way to look at films. However, even following the 1-6 sequence, Anakin is really never a sympathetic or convincingly morally upstanding figure--his best deeds are either done by accident (blowing up the control ship in TPM) or following his master's orders. He already did things he knew were wrong (killing the Tuscans) before his "turn"--so the "turn" is really not that significant. The tragedy is that he didn't live up to his potential, not that he "fell" from some incredible height. The fact that one needs so much positioning and relativism to even suggest his story is interesting is, to me, a dramatic failure that the Saga cannot get away from. Star Wars, for me, was far better as Luke's story.

 

Well, I can't agree with this one - being 39 years old, I've grown up with the OT. I went into the theatres for the prequels without any spoilers or expectations on how they "should" be, and I've never been disappointed by them. As for me, I wasn't attached to the Jedi being "the good guys" from the origina story and thus I didn't experience any difficulties with the Prequel films.

I agree - but who ever said that he was a hero that fell from incredible heights? Again, I think it's a much more mature story that tells he fell due to his own human weaknesses.

 

I don't how you can see Anakin as anything but tragic. A slave whose mother died in his arms, after being tortured for how long. He goes to the darkside at first, to save Padme, he is then forced to fight the only real friend he has ever had, and loses his legs and is then burned alive, he loses everything. Im not saying he was perfect, but nobody is, he was not inherently evil though.

 

I think you are right. For me, however, he was a good enough story teller to tell the "simpler" story and was in over his head when he tried to tell the more ambiguous or "complicated" one. I am afraid that, for me, with the PT he was too ambituous for his own story telling ability and bit off more than he could chew. A less ambitous tale he told perfectly with Star Wars, but, for me, his more ambituous attempts with the PT failed because he just doesn't have the intellectual horsepower to pull off such a tale convincingly. Sometimes, I think this is largely our (the fans) fault and also that of the critics who told the guy he was a modern day Homer, Dante, Goethe or Shakespeare--and he began to believe it at write stories accordingly; perhaps nobody could succeed with the delusions of grandeur we set up for him!

 

Well, for my records, he did succeed - not in providing finished answers but in encouraging people to ask questions concerning morality. He did an exceptionally good job in that for me. We don't live in an ancient time Homer, Dante and the like lived in, when it was comparatively easy to distinguish good and evil. We live in the 21st century. Maybe it's just me, but I think in the 21st century there just aren't any finished answers and we must find our own answers concerning what's right and wrong, and we must find our own code of morality. Regrettably I won't live long enough to witness it, but I think it's quite possible that in the 22nd or 23rd century will be perceived as a piece of classical mythology.

 

This may be a bit off the wall and not really directed at any post in paricular but more at the theme this thread is following, but I'd like to make a point.

In fantasy, the bad guys are generally painted as villainous and even alien. Villains often come in the form of the possessed or biologically altered or even demonic. This makes it easier for the audience to identify with the moral issues and place the blame of what transpires on the villains. This way we can feel justified in whatever fate they fall to. And this is ok, it's what story telling in fantasy is all about. It's aim in most cases is to promote a sense of joy in fighting the good fight.

With real life though; which is what many tend to try and compare the ideologies of the characters to; it's not so simple. In the real world, we are all human beings, flawed, misinformed and even confused by our own lack of global perspective. It's easy to say it's morrally right to go to war with the current enemy of the established world leaders, but who's to say we ever have the full story? That's something that Star Wars wonderfully points at: that not everything is always as it seems. Who might appear as villains in this generation may be regarded as heroes in a generation that follows.

To get specific about Obi Wan's claim that Vader killed Anakin; which would seem like a shady statement knowing the full truth if it applied to an earthly perspective; consider that in the Star Wars fantasy the Sith are the embodiment of all that is evil and twisted. This isn't a case of the real world where some guy went off his rocker and commited a heinous series of crimes. It's centered on a good man seduced into the service of evil. That evil then took over the conscious thought process and left him utterly lost; not politically different; but foul.

This from Obi Wan's perspective means that he is no longer the same person. Besides, if he reveals to Luke that his father is a murdering villain he only tells part of the truth, because it's the Sith Lord Vader who committed these acts of madness, not Anakin. The yellow eyes he bears are a symbol that something inside has transformed. The term 'dark side' is a symbol of a place where one is lost and blind. In ROTS the echoing eerie voice of Sidious shows how Anakin falls victim to this hypnotic spell of seduction when he chooses to turn.

Anakin's fall is like someone pointing to a pitch black path and saying "Padme's salvation lies in there". When Anakin rebukes wisdom and enters the darkness, he becomes lost and can't find or see his way out. Envelloped in blindness he cannot discern friend from foe. He acts only with aggression and strikes anything that stands in his path.

Maybe i'm in the dark side as well and am blinded by my own smallness: humanity. But this is how I see it and how I feel Obi Wan needed to present it to Luke to encourage him to love his father's memory and choice of serving as a jedi, rather than hate everything about his character and path away from the familiarity of Tatooine.

 

The big time "point of view" moment that people like to debate about are the two lines exchanged between Anakin and Obi Wan on Mustafar.

"If you're not with me, you're against me."

"Only the Sith deal in absolutes."

To which people immediatley exclaim that what Obi Wan said was an absolute, and therefore he has contradicted himself. WRONG. If people are going to be so precise then they need to be precise about the context. If Ghandi said "let there be peace", and Hitler said the same thing, they mean totally different things. Anakin made a statement in which he has divided up the entire Universe into "me or destruction" where all Obi Wan has really done is oppose such a flat statement, Obi Wan did not contradict himself. Anakin has offered up a choice of '1. My way' or '2. or else'. That is really not much of a choice. Only Anakin in the context of the story to that point made a statement of absolution, and it was not from a morally relative point of view. The bad guys agree that it is the Darkside, not the light side. Palpatine says good and evil are a point of view, yet he says Anakin must learn the Darkside. He might as well have said "Good cannot save Padme, only evil can." the latter is what Palpatine is really trying to say, the former is his guise to seduce Anakin so it doesn't sound so bad. And of course Palpatine was lying, Padme died as vader was born.

 

i think for obi-wan it's still the same: be a force user and a jedi and live according to our indoctrination or 'i will do what i must'. he's also using much black and white and no grey.

 

Aha, you do have a point and it is beyond dogmatic assertion Good discussion, then.

This is similar to a discussion I've been having throughout these boards. Darth Vader used to be an unsymapthethic evil lord. Now, with the sequels and prequels to ANH all finished, he appears more as a flawed man fallen to his base temptations. I prefer the former for storyline purpsoes (I love me a good bad guy), but I do believe that the current vision of Star Wars is truer to real-life.

Saddam Hussein was not a tyrant because he was born evil. There's a Star Wars-esque backstory to him that we can't know about. It certainly isn't as dramatic, and probably has to do with ideologoies taking hold rather than victimizing situations, but the point is that he BECAME evil. He didn't just appear out of nowhere as an evil tyrant (as we were first introduced to Vader in 1977). If we were exposed to Gulf War Episode I - The Saddam Menace, would we declare that the Iraq War now looks too morally relativistic?

 

i think this is pretty much it. situations, circumstances, culture, upbringing... it's all there and makes the PT much more rewarding and question-inducing than you regular OT.

 

it knows no limits and can be used to justify Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, etc. With this addition, the Saga loses its mythic, allegorical, moral and ethical power. In fact, with this philosophy there are no more judgements at all, and good, evil, etc. become meaningless words. What a pity. The movies are all entertaining, but Star Wars was more than merely this.

The fatal flaw in that reasoning is the automatic assumption that is WILL BE used to justify evil. Nazi schmazi, the Jedis are not. THe jedis are not to be judged by what Stalin did with it, they are to be judged by what THEY did with it and nothing more.
Jedis make plenty of good-evil judgements throughout the saga, dispensing instant jedi justice, instant black and white morality.

Now is THIS why you never let the final episode of the D&D cartoon be produced? Where Venger was redeemed not by his own choice, but by the kids? (Michael Reeves has had the script posted on his website for years).