James M. Okapal
During the Clone Wars, an uncounted number of planets were invaded, ecosystems ravaged, and humans, nonhumans, and droids killed, destroyed, or deactivated. Some may think that the decisions leading to these results weren't necessarily moral decisions, but merely tactical or strategic decisions, following from an assumption that some of these things aren't worthy of moral consideration. Are entire ecosystems morally considerable? If not, then there'd be nothing morally wrong with Grand Moff Tarkin using an uninhabited planet to demonstrate the Death Star's effectiveness instead of Alderaan. But what about nonhuman creatures that may live on that “uninhabited” planet? Would it be okay for Tarkin to destroy a planet full of banthas and dewbacks? This question can arise because, throughout the Star Wars saga, we see nonhuman species with different levels of status: some have representation in the Galactic Senate, such as Wookiees and Mon Calamari; others aren't active in galactic politics, but nevertheless are accorded a degree of respect, such as Jawas, Tusken Raiders, and Ewoks; and still others are seen as property, pets, or pests, such as droids, aiwha, banthas, and mynocks. We must wonder: how are these distinctions made? And why are they important in determining which actions are morally acceptable?
These distinctions, in part, concern whether the creatures involved have moral status. As ethicist Rosalind Hursthouse notes, the concept of moral status “is supposed to divide everything into two classes: things that have moral status and are within ‘the circle of moral concern’ and things that do not, which are outside the circle.”1 Theories about moral status can help us answer a variety of questions about events that occur throughout the Star Wars saga, like the following: is it morally acceptable for Han Solo to casually kill a mynock chewing on the Millennium Falcon's power cables? Does it make a moral difference whether Han shot first in his final encounter with Greedo the Rodian? Is it morally acceptable for Anakin Skywalker to permanently deactivate battle droids? And what about the Zillo Beast? Is it more like a mynock whose death is barely noticed or more like Greedo whose death is a source of controversy?
So how do we know what counts as merely a “thing” in the Star Wars galaxy? The philosopher Benjamin Hale provides a useful starting point when he distinguishes the terms “moral considerability,” “moral relevance,” and “moral significance.”2 If something is morally considerable, then we should include it in our moral deliberations, since it isn't a mere thing. If something isn't morally considerable, then we shouldn't include it in our moral deliberations. Suppose that what determines moral considerability is having a humanoid appearance and being biological and bipedal. Given this, humans such as Han Solo are morally considerable, as well as Wookiees like Chewbacca. A species can be morally considerable even when its physical features include additions such as headtails. So Twi'leks, or Togrutas like Ahsoka Tano, would be morally considerable. On this definition of moral considerability, however, neither mynocks nor Hutts would be morally considerable since they're not bipedal, nor would destroyer droids, since they aren't even biological organisms. Although humanoid robots like battle droids and C-3PO and cyborgs such as General Grievous or Darth Vader present difficult cases, once those cases are resolved, we should be able to determine whether the creature in question is morally considerable or not, full stop.
Unlike moral considerability, the concept of moral significance comes in degrees and becomes relevant when measuring the amount of importance assigned to an entity's moral rights or preferences if these competing moral claims can't all be fully satisfied. Assume that the Zillo Beast is morally considerable. In the relevant Clone Wars episodes, the main issue is whether to kill it, contain it, or relocate it. If the Zillo Beast is morally considerable, there's a presumption against killing it because one of the two most basic rights of any morally considerable being is not to be killed and not to be enslaved. But these rights are only presumptions. “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back,” a Clone Wars episode that aired in 2010, takes place on the densely populated Coruscant, where the population consists of morally considerable individuals who had no say in the transfer and experimentation being done on the beast. Killing the Zillo Beast is justified by this calculation: the combined lives of the bystanders have more moral significance than the life of a single, rampaging Zillo Beast.
Finally, moral relevance identifies the properties a creature must have in order to be morally considerable; it also determines the creature's degree of moral significance. Consider our previous example of humanoids: the properties that are essential to being “humanoid” suggest whether a creature is morally considerable or not. Suppose we define being “humanoid” as being a biological organism with appendages radiating from a torso. This means that R2-D2 and other droids not shaped like a human can't be morally considerable. Jabba the Hutt, though, will count as morally considerable – his two tiny arms may not do much other than pick up squirming and squealing reptiles to eat, but they do radiate from his torso. Furthermore, the number, length, or degree of function of the appendages could be used to identify an entity's level of moral significance. Jabba, with only two short, almost useless, appendages, might be less morally significant than Han Solo, who has two legs and two arms, all of which are longer and more useful than Jabba's arms. Focusing on these properties will also change the moral significance of Chewbacca. Due to the arboreal nature of Wookiees and their incredible strength, which allows Chewbacca to rip a droid's arm from its socket, Chewbacca has longer, stronger, and more useful arms than Han and so would have comparatively greater moral significance. But it seems strange to say that a creature's moral significance depends on whether he can reach the blasters on the top shelf of the armory or not. So, what creature features might be better indictors of moral relevance?
Theories of moral relevance, understood in terms of the properties a creature must have to be morally valuable, fall into two important categories: those that focus on physical properties and those that focus on psychological properties.3
Two popular views on moral relevance that focus on the physical are the biological and the genetic views. The biological view says that what's alive is what deserves moral considerability and significance. One version of a biological view is Albert Schweitzer's idea that we should have a “reverence for life.” According to Schweitzer, “[A]ll life is valuable and we [humanity] are united to all of this life.”4 Based on the interconnectedness of life, he defines good acts as consisting in “maintaining, assisting and enhancing life,” while evil acts tend to “destroy, to harm or to hinder life.”5 For Schweitzer, if something is alive, then it's morally considerable.
The Jedi would appear to share this view. Obi-Wan Kenobi describes the Force as “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” Mace Windu, in the Clone Wars episode “The Zillo Beast,” notes that it goes against Jedi principles to kill innocent life forms. Schweitzer's “reverence for life” view would also explain why Jedi don't think too much about droids. Droids are not biological entities, so they're not alive and not morally considerable. When all the battle droids are permanently deactivated at the end of the Clone Wars, this action is not similar to genocide or to wiping out an ecosystem. It is neither moral nor immoral.
A problem here is that the focus on life doesn't include a theory of moral significance, which leads to some odd conclusions. If all life is equally valuable, then any act that would harm or destroy an organism would be forbidden to the Jedi. As an organism, though, a Jedi must eat other living things, even if it's only plants. But if all living things are equally valuable, then eating pan-fried zucchini is no better or worse than eating Han-fried Greedo. So, while life might be a basis for moral considerability, it can't be the only property in a theory of moral relevance because it's not clear how it could be a basis for moral significance.
The genetic view of moral relevance focuses on a creature's genome. Suppose that all humans, Wookiees, and other mammalian, humanoid species in the Star Wars galaxy have a similar genetic makeup. Similarity to the human genome could possibly be the physical property that determines moral considerability and significance – although maybe it's the Wookiee genome that's the foundation of moral status. Suppose mammalian species like Twi'leks or Togrutas have only minor differences in their genomes – thus their headtails and skin color. These species would be almost as significant as humans – perhaps to the degree that, for all practical and political purposes, they are treated equally. Rodians, on the other hand, are reptilian in nature, suggesting that their genome differs significantly from that of humans. This would make them less morally significant, and so there'd be no moral qualms about Han shooting first. Zillo Beasts would be even less significant, and battle droids, lacking genetic material altogether, would have no moral significance or considerability.
Of course, genetic views of moral status can lead to a morally suspect xenophobia – (the unreasonable hatred or fear of the strange or foreign) or human chauvinism (the unjustified and zealous favoring of humans over other species). Emperor Palpatine – the representation of pure evil in the Star Wars saga – believed humans were superior to all other species; it was thus a remarkable challenge for the Chiss Mitth'raw'nuruodo to rise through the Imperial ranks to become Grand Admiral Thrawn.6 A related problem is that each species would tend to use its own genome as the baseline for a theory of moral relevance, whether Hutts, Rodians, or humans. In order to avoid relativism, a genetic view needs to show why any one particular species should be favored, while also showing it doesn't just rely on idiosyncratic physical properties of that species. This would show, however, that physical properties aren't really the basis of moral relevance and that we ought to look to psychological properties.
Two psychological theories are based on sentience or agency. A focus on sentience says that the capacity to experience pleasure and pain, and enjoyment and suffering, is the key to moral relevance. If an entity has the capacity for these feelings, then it's morally considerable: as philosopher of animal rights Peter Singer says, “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for not taking that suffering into consideration.”7 But it's a mistake to think that all beings that can experience pleasure or pain are equally morally significant. As John Stuart Mill (1773–1836) pointed out, there are different types of pleasure and enjoyment as well as pain and suffering related to levels of complexity and to the ability to perceive that complexity.8 Humans and their mammalian pets can experience the pleasure of eating popcorn drenched in a hydrogenous solution masquerading as “butter” in a movie theater, but humans can also experience “higher” pleasures. They're able, for example, to enjoy John Williams's epic musical score when an Imperial Star Destroyer first appears overhead on the big screen in the opening of A New Hope – all while enjoying the “butter”-drenched popcorn. Different capacities for enjoyment and suffering can be the basis for different levels of moral significance: if Luke Skywalker is capable of more kinds of complex enjoyments and sufferings than a rancor, then, when conflicts arise between the interests of Luke and those of a rancor, Luke's interests would outweigh the rancor's. To resolve the conflict, it would be okay morally for Luke to drop the door on the rancor's head in Jabba's Palace, although maybe the tears of the rancor's keeper should be taken into account as well.9
Sentience views run into problems, however. One problem is that it seems to cast the net of moral considerability too wide. While the set of morally considerable things is far smaller than a “reverence for life” view would have it, a sentience-based view would question the permissibility of eating meat, experimenting on animals, and using animals for clothing or transportation. If the Republic had really granted moral considerability and significance to all sentient beings, the Star Wars galaxy would have been very different. So, it appears that battle droids suffer. After all, they express desires to avoid jobs that will lead to their destruction. C-3PO whiningly makes statements like “We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.” And R2-D2 lets out an electronic “scream” when spit out by the creature in the Dagobah swamp, and also when shot by a stormtrooper while trying to open the Imperial bunker on Endor. If droids really can suffer, then it seems that arbitrarily shutting them down, selling them to Tatooine moisture farmers, or otherwise using them as tools should cease.
There would be similar implications for many other creatures in the Star Wars galaxy. Given the availability of technological means of transport, a sentience-based view would say that it'd be morally unacceptable to use banthas, dewbacks, or aiwha for transportation. Furthermore, to experiment on the Zillo Beast to learn the secrets of its impenetrable armor would be wrong. In “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back,” Dr. Sionver Boll raises moral concerns about Chancellor Palpatine's command to conduct deadly experiments on the Zillo Beast because it appears to be intelligent. Palpatine isn't moved by this reasoning, insisting that the Zillo Beast is just an animal, a savage beast, and thereby not morally considerable.
In overriding Dr. Boll's challenge, Palpatine might be adopting an agency-based view of moral considerability and significance.10 There are two types of agency: mere agency and moral agency.11 Mere agency is the capacity to act on purposes, to be able to make plans and act on them. In other words, it's the ability to have and successfully achieve goals. In order to have agency, a creature needs to have interests, to be able to conceive of a future in which those interests might be fulfilled or frustrated, and so think of the means to bring about fulfillment. Despite Palpatine's doubts, the Zillo Beast may qualify for moral considerability on the mere agency view. It seems, for example, to understand that Palpatine is a threat to its existence. Once the Zillo Beast escapes, it appears to seek out Palpatine to kill him. First, it attacks a video screen broadcasting a message from Palpatine. Then it goes to the Galactic Senate to find Palpatine, attacking his escape transport in the process. This suggests that the Zillo Beast possesses mere agency: it has goals and makes choices in an attempt to achieve those goals, which would make it morally considerable.
Droids, however, don't seem to have this kind of agency. In Barbara Hambly's novel Children of the Jedi, Nichos Mar is a Jedi initiate who died of a disease and whose lover had his memories and personality downloaded into a droid. Throughout the story, the limitations of now being a droid are explored, and it's concluded that Nichos the droid isn't identical to Nichos the human. As Nichos the droid puts it, “A droid cannot go against his basic programming, or restraints placed on his programming if they do not conflict with the deepest level of motivational limiters.”12 Nichos the droid realizes that he lacks the autonomy of Nichos the human. While his former lover was being tortured, tried, and set for execution, Nichos the droid “would have done anything to help her. Except that, since I was programmed not to interfere with them, it was literally something I could not do.”13 In other words, droids, even droids with a transplanted human consciousness, are not even mere agents, let alone moral agents.14
Palpatine himself appears to be a mere agent when he lies, cheats, kills, and even creates and manages both sides of a galactic civil war in order to achieve his interests. But we often expect more out of political leaders. It isn't enough that they be mere agents and pursue their goals by any means available; they should also be moral agents. The best-known view of moral agency is based on Immanuel Kant's (1724–1804) idea of autonomy (derived from the Greek words auto, “self,” and nomos, or “law”). Being autonomous means being able to control your behavior in accordance with laws or rules. The way Kant sees it, we use our moral autonomy when we discover universally applicable rules and then modify our behavior accordingly. If Palpatine were a moral agent, we would expect him to have some qualms about the immoral choices he makes to bring about his rise to power. As it is, however, he seems not to care one way or another about the death and destruction he causes in becoming emperor. This lack of concern could be seen as his failure to grant moral considerability to anyone in the galaxy. This attitude – that nothing in the galaxy should get moral considerability – suggests a lack of moral agency: if Palpatine sees everything and everyone as a mere tool, then he is a sociopathic agent for whom moral questions never arise. An alternative interpretation would be that Palpatine is just a bad moral agent – he recognizes that other creatures are morally considerable, but chooses not to follow any rules about how to treat them. Which interpretation we choose will affect whether we agree with Mace Windu that “he's too dangerous to be left alive.”
Unlike sentience-based views that may include too many things in our moral deliberations, agency-based views seem to include too few. So, for example, cognitively impaired humans and animals would not be morally considerable on this view because they often lack even mere agency.15 While it would be wrong for Jabba the Hutt to kill, enslave, or torture a normal adult Twi'lek, a moral agency view suggests that it's perfectly okay to do any of these things to Twi'leks who suffer from severe mental disorders: there's no difference between feeding a mentally disabled Twi'lek to a Sarlacc and dropping a bunch of cabbages into the Pit of Carkoon.
We've only begun examining the numerous moral status issues that emerge in the Star Wars galaxy, as they do in our own. In particular, the story of the Zillo Beast confronts us with questions about moral considerability, significance, and relevance. There are many more related questions, however, that we don't have the space and time to consider here and now. What about the moral status of clones? Are they somehow less morally significant than nonclones? After all, they were apparently unable to refuse to obey the orders of the leaders of the Grand Army of the Republic, especially Order 66. Do defective clones like Clone 99 have less moral significance because of their deficiencies? What about Darth Vader, General Grievous, or the resurrected Darth Maul? As “more machine now than man,” are they still morally considerable given that droids appear to be outside the circle of moral concern? All of these questions are interesting, but you, Padawan, will have to explore them yourself.16