Osama & Obi-wan

Star Wars sketch from the BBC's Happy Mondays: The Odd Half Hour

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9fPpya1iDQ)

Previously unnoticed parallels are often funny. Not only is this a funny clip (in my view). It raises some interesting questions.

When we watch Star Wars, we side with Luke - he’s the hero. His actions are ‘good’, the empire is ‘evil’ (Darth Vader wears black and has a suitably ominous theme tune). We feel glad as the Death Star is destroyed and Luke and Han fly away into the starry blackness. Yet despite some similarities in the fact pattern (brought out by this joke), no one I know would dream of giving moral equivalence to the perpetrators of 9-11. There is no question either that intellectually or by “listen[ing] to our feelings” we can conclude anything other than that those actions were despicable.

It's popular to claim that our moral ‘take’ on events or actions is purely subjective - it's up to the individual to decide. That no one person has authority or justification for applying their subjective moral framework to others. But when it comes to it, I don’t know anyone who would accept it is legitimate to say that Darth Vader is the good guy. Or that those who flew the planes were Luke Skywalkers. There are areas where subjectivity is unacceptable.

It seems we implicitly assert universal “goodness” and morality more strongly than we would care to admit. A few questions follow I think :

- What entitles us to make these universal assertions?

- Where does this moral authority come from?

- Is Western culture arrogant in seeking to impose this view on others?

Some have suggested you cannot have a moral law without a moral law giver. You cannot have a universal moral law without a universal moral law giver. Who would have the authority to do that? What's the corollary if there isn't one?...