Matthew Shea, Joel Archer, and Daniel Banning
According to George Lucas, Star Wars is a morality play, a mythological tale of good and evil that's meant to teach timeless lessons about the moral life. The ethical galaxy of Star Wars is marked by a conflict between the light side and the dark side of the Force, with the saga's heroes and villains identified by which side they serve. Although the moral messages of Star Wars are in some ways simple and commonsensical, the moral system behind the Force is complex and mysterious, lending itself to different interpretations. This chapter shows how the moral framework of natural law ethics provides a philosophical foundation for the morality of the Force and helps illuminate Star Wars' moral themes.
Natural law ethics has ancient roots, encompassing philosophers such as Plato (ca. 427–347 BCE), Aristotle (ca. 384–322 BCE), Cicero (ca. 106–43 BCE), Augustine (354–430 CE), and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The version we'll explore is inspired mainly by Aristotle and Aquinas, the two most influential thinkers in the natural law tradition. According to them, morality is based on human nature and human flourishing, and can be known by natural reason – our built‐in intellectual capacity for practical reasoning. In short: we don't need a divine lawgiver or a Jedi Council to tell us right from wrong. The purpose of morality is to promote and protect what's good for us: the fulfillment of our nature as human beings. For Aristotle and Aquinas, to be human is to be a rational animal with the capacities of intellect (knowing) and will (choosing).1 According to this view of human nature, creatures who aren't biologically human but have these capacities will count as “human beings” in the sense relevant to natural law ethics because they act as moral agents. So maybe Han Solo wasn't simply being sarcastic when he referred to Jabba the Hutt as “a wonderful human being.” Characters like Jabba, Chewbacca, and Ahsoka Tano are rational animals and moral agents even though they belong to nonhuman species.
Unpacked a bit more, human beings are essentially intellectual, volitional, social, emotional, and physical organisms. Human flourishing consists in the development and exercise of these natural capacities and the attainment of their corresponding ends. For example, we have intellectual capacities that are aimed at truth, so knowledge is a human good. We have the capacity to make free choices, which is why autonomous agency (especially morally significant choice like that between the light side and dark side) is a human good. We have social powers, and thus personal relationships are good for us, whether they take the form of familial love like that between Anakin and his mother, romantic love like Anakin's and Padmé's, or friendship like that of Anakin and Obi‐Wan.2 We have emotional capacities that enable us to appreciate beauty, which is why aesthetic experiences (like watching a binary sunset) are good for us. We have physical powers aimed at survival and proper physiological functioning, so life and health are human goods.
The natural law, Aquinas says, is “the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil.”3 It's natural because it's based on human nature and knowable by natural reason. It's a law because the natural law is equivalent to the moral law, which prescribes how we ought to live. The natural law consists of basic moral truths that are objectively and universally true independent of personal opinion, cultural convention, time, and place. So what's right or wrong is the same for bounty hunters in the Outer Rim and senators on Coruscant. Every human being whose rational powers are functioning properly can know basic human goods and basic moral principles, beginning with the supreme first principle of morality: “Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.”4 When Luke Skywalker asks Yoda, “How am I to know the good side from the bad?” Yoda endorses the idea of natural moral knowledge by replying, “You will know.” Using reason, we can know that things like knowledge, freedom, friendship, life, and health are good for us, while ignorance, enslavement, loneliness, death, and disease are bad for us. We can also know more specific moral principles that govern how we ought to act, such as: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Help friends in need,” “Keep your promises,” and “Do or do not; there is no try.”
On top of human goods and moral principles, Aristotle and Aquinas stress the importance of moral virtues: habits of acting, thinking, feeling, and desiring in morally appropriate ways. Virtues such as practical wisdom, courage, justice, honesty, and benevolence make us good humans beings and are necessary for our flourishing.5 For instance, an excellent human being (say, Padmé Amidala) is wise and brave. In order to flourish, she must be able to discern which ends are really worth pursuing (for example, defending the sovereignty of Naboo against the Trade Federation invaders) and what the best means are for achieving them (leading an armed resistance rather than waiting for the Senate to “discuss this invasion in a committee”). She must also have the fortitude to overcome obstacles to flourishing (challenging the Republic's corrupt bureaucracy and risking her life in battle against the droid army). Justice, honesty, and benevolence perfect our nature as social beings and are needed for the sake of social harmony and positive relationships with family, friends, and fellow citizens. By contrast, moral vices are obstacles to human fulfillment. An unwise person will be unlikely to pursue what's truly good or to pursue it in an effective way, as when Anakin turns to the dark side in a vain attempt to save Padmé.6 A coward will be too afraid to pursue or protect what's good when doing so requires risk or sacrifice, like Lando when he initially betrays Han and his friends to the Empire. And someone who's unjust, dishonest, and malevolent will be unlikely to have friends and belong to a peaceful and supportive community. Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett points out, ruled Tatooine by fear, not respect.
On the natural law approach, what's “natural” in the morally relevant sense is what's good for us given our nature. Moral goodness is natural and beneficial because respecting moral principles and cultivating virtues fulfills human nature and contributes to human flourishing by perfecting our human capacities and enabling us to attain human goods. Moral evil, and having vicious dispositions toward doing evil, is unnatural and harmful because it's contrary to our nature and thwarts our flourishing. In a literal sense, the moral life makes us more fully human, whereas an immoral life is dehumanizing.
One of the overarching moral messages of Star Wars is that the light side fosters human flourishing and the dark side undermines it. Being on the light side is natural and moral because it promotes goods such as life, health, knowledge, friendship, beauty, peace, and inner harmony. Being on the dark side is unnatural and immoral because it undermines those goods and brings evils like death, disease, ignorance, loneliness, ugliness, discord, and internal division.
This message is communicated through the plot, as we see the consequences of characters' good and evil choices. It's also expressed visually. A recurring visual motif is that the light side is humanizing whereas the dark side is dehumanizing. All the major Sith villains experience death, disfigurement, dismemberment, or mechanization as a result of their evil choices. Darth Maul, Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, and Sheev Palpatine are abandoned, betrayed, or killed by their fellow Sith. Maul's eyes exhibit the yellow color characteristic of the dark side, and Anakin's eyes become yellow after he turns to the dark side and commits mass murder in Revenge of the Sith (ROTS). Palpatine is physically deformed by the use of his own Sith lightning in the same film. Anakin and Dooku both lose hands. Maul is cut in half in The Phantom Menace and ends up with mechanical legs in The Clone Wars. Most dramatically of all, shortly after Anakin becomes Darth Vader, he's dismembered, physically scarred, critically injured, permanently dependent on technology, and completely hidden within an armored suit, to the point where he is, as Obi‐Wan Kenobi puts it, “more machine now than man.” These are all examples of characters losing their humanity and undermining their own flourishing by their immoral choices.7
The light side, by comparison, is humanizing and beneficial. Virtuous characters use the Force to attain goods in extraordinary ways, and the Force enhances their human capacities so they can perform their natural functions even better. For example, in the Mortis story arc from The Clone Wars (“Altar of Mortis”), the mysterious character known as The Daughter uses the Force to transfer her life energy to the deceased Ahsoka, bringing her back to life. In the episode of The Mandalorian titled “The Reckoning,” Grogu uses Force healing to cure Greef Karga's poisonous wound and prevent his death. In ROTS, it's revealed that Qui‐Gon Jinn's spirit was able to survive his physical death, allowing him to experience eternal life; he later teaches other Jedi to do the same. The Jedi abilities of Force meditation and foresight (seeing the future) give them special kinds of knowledge. The Force augments their physical powers, giving them enhanced reflexes, speed, strength, dexterity, and jumping ability. In The Empire Strikes Back (TESB), Luke and Leia are able to communicate telepathically via the Force. The Force also gives Jedi the ability to “see” things non‐visually by “reaching out with their feelings.” Kanan Jarrus from Rebels and Chirrut Îmwe from Rogue One, for instance, have this special kind of perception even when physically blind.
Now, there are apparent counterexamples of Jedi and other virtuous characters who are dismembered or dehumanized, which may seem to count against the natural law interpretation of Star Wars' visual imagery. For instance, Anakin hasn't yet turned to the dark side in Attack of the Clones (AOTC), but he's dismembered by Dooku. Luke's hand is severed by Darth Vader in TESB. Mace Windu is dismembered by Anakin when he attempts to assassinate Palpatine in ROTS. Saw Gerrera, one of the founders of the Rebel Alliance, is shown in Rogue One to have suffered extensive physical damage that's left him partly mechanized and dependent on artificial technology, reminiscent of Vader. These aren't real counterexamples, though, because in each case the character's dehumanization is the result of a morally bad choice. Anakin attacks Dooku in a spirit of pride, recklessness, hate, and aggression. Luke exhibits arrogance, impatience, impetuousness, and foolishness when he rushes to confront Vader against the better judgment of Yoda and Obi‐Wan. Windu is attacked by Anakin because he tries to execute vigilante justice on Palpatine, taking the law into his own hands and usurping the rightful authority of the judicial system (which, as Anakin warns him, is “not the Jedi way”). Gerrera's injuries come after he commits acts of violent terrorism against the Empire that harm innocent people in the spirit of “the end justifies the means.” All of these actions are immoral according to natural law theory and further illustrate the dehumanizing and destructive effects of evil.
Natural law theory can also explain one of the central moral themes in Star Wars: redemption. After Anakin turns to the dark side and becomes Vader, some of his closest friends, including Obi‐Wan and Yoda, believe that he's “gone” and beyond saving. Padmé and Luke, however, maintain that “there's still good in him” and hold out hope that Anakin can come back to the light. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Anakin is redeemed by the love of his son.8 As Luke is about to be killed by the Emperor, the good in Anakin is finally awakened and he sacrifices his life to save his son, thereby returning to the light side and fulfilling his destiny as the Chosen One who brings balance to the Force.
The lesson here is that no person – not even Darth Vader – is beyond saving; everyone always has some goodness in him or her that allows for the possibility of moral and spiritual redemption. Aquinas maintains that the natural law can't be completely “abolished from the heart of man.” He argues that vice and evil can cloud the mind and distort the will so that we fail to know specific moral principles and to make correct moral judgments in particular cases. But the “[most] general principles [of] the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men's hearts.”9 Aquinas is referring to the knowledge of fundamental human goods, the supreme moral principle to “do good and avoid evil,” and some basic moral norms like “Don't murder,” “Tell the truth,” and “Treat others fairly.” All people, no matter how wicked their character or how many horrible things they've done, still have some natural knowledge of good and evil and some natural desire for the good. Some deep recess of the human soul is always aware of and aimed at the good. Aquinas helps us see why Padmé and Luke are right to think there's still good in Anakin, despite how “twisted and evil” he'd become, and why Anakin is redeemable in the end.
Natural law theory also explains the moral perspectives of the Jedi and the Sith. Their rival moral codes display conflicting views of human nature and human flourishing (keeping in mind that “human” means rational animal rather than Homo sapiens ). During his conversation with Anakin at the opera in ROTS, Palpatine says that “The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural,” and that “Good is a point of view.” The implication is that the Jedi and Sith disagree about what's natural to human beings, and consequently what's good and evil.
To start, they have fundamentally different conceptions of human nature. The Jedi see human persons as spiritual beings who are capable of mystical union with the Force and with other living entities. As Yoda tells Luke, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” The Sith see us as nothing but material beings, which is evident in their attempt to create and extend life through midi‐chlorian manipulation, cloning, and technological apparatus, as opposed to the spiritual immortality experienced by some Jedi. For the Jedi, human beings are relational by nature, existing as members of the interconnected and interdependent community of all living things, united through the Force. For the Sith, human beings are atomistic individuals, existing independently and self‐sufficiently. Even the closest relationship in the life of a Sith – between master and apprentice – is marked by ruthless individualism, for a central tenet of the “Rule of Two” is that the apprentice tries to kill the master. The Jedi see human beings as naturally altruistic and motivated to help others. As Anakin puts it to Palpatine, “The Jedi are selfless. They only care about others.” Relatedly, a defining human trait is the will to serve. The Sith see human beings as egoistic and motivated by self‐interest. For them, the defining human trait is the will to power. This is why Palpatine tells Anakin that “The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power.”
A central characteristic of the Jedi is that they respect the natural order and act in accordance with nature. The Sith revolt against nature and violate the natural order. According to George Lucas, to be a Jedi is to “accept the natural course of things. Anakin's inability to follow this basic guideline is at the core of his turn to the dark side.”10 The contrast is most apparent in the ways the Jedi and Sith approach the beginning and end of life. The Jedi respect the natural generation of life, whereas Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious manipulate midi‐chlorians to create life “artificially.”11 The Jedi accept their mortality as part of what it means to be a finite being. As Yoda instructs Anakin, “Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.” Plagueis and Sidious obsessively quest for immortality in an attempt to “cheat death.” Anakin's fall to the dark side is motivated by his refusal to accept the fact that his wife Padmé is a mortal being and that he's not omnipotent, that he lacks power over her life and death – his failure to acknowledge the true nature of things. This tragic vice is foreshadowed in AOTC when, after murdering the Tuskens who abducted his mother, Anakin is despondent at his inability to save her. Padmé tells him, “You're not all‐powerful,” and he replies, “Well, I should be. Some day I will be … I will even learn to stop people from dying.”
The Jedi and the Sith also have diametrically opposed moral codes. The Jedi Code mandates selflessness, compassion, love, benevolence, honesty and truthfulness, humility, peace, justice, respecting the freedom of others (aside from the occasional mind trick), detachment, and the ability to let go.12 As Yoda again instructs Anakin, “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” They strive to conform their individual wills to the will of the Force. For the Jedi, selflessness is the supreme virtue and service is the highest good. Anakin summarizes the Jedi ethos when he tells Padmé that “Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life.” The Sith Code, by contrast, mandates power, passion, hate, anger, aggression, strength, malevolence, dishonesty and deception, conflict, and control of others. Typical Sith character traits are selfishness, pride, fear, jealousy, wrath, greed, and possessiveness. They seek to exert their own will and conform everything else to it. For the Sith, selfishness is the supreme virtue and power is the greatest good. Palpatine's devilish scream – “Power! Unlimited power!” – is a fitting expression of this view.
There are other significant points of contrast. One is that the Jedi strive for rational control over their emotions for the sake of a stable commitment to their duties and responsibilities, but the Sith advocate giving in to their passions for the sake of greater power.13 Another is that the Jedi have symbiotic relationships with all living things based on respect for life and the balance of the natural order, whereas the Sith practice dominance, exploitation, and destruction of living things and the natural world to serve their own interests.14 The Jedi Code also forbids revenge and the use of violence against the innocent, accepting violence only as a last‐resort means of defense. As Yoda tells Luke, “A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” The Sith condone vengeance and indiscriminate violence against the innocent whenever their ends require it. This difference comes out after Anakin kills Dooku and says regretfully, “He was an unarmed prisoner. I shouldn't have done that; it's not the Jedi way.” Palpatine replies, “It is only natural. He cut off your arm. You wanted revenge.” Of course, Palpatine's view of what's “natural” indicates that the conflicting moralities of the Jedi and the Sith stem from opposing views of human nature.
Our sketch of the moral doctrines of the Jedi and the Sith illustrates the stark differences in their beliefs about the natural moral law. Although we haven't examined the complete set of human goods, moral principles, and virtues, we can conclude that the moral framework of Star Wars is aligned with the natural law tradition stemming from Aristotle and Aquinas. On virtually all points, the Jedi understanding of human nature and the human good more closely conforms to the natural law, which explains why they're the moral heroes of Star Wars.15