Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil (Nel Question -...

[dicentra63]

No: HPFGUIDX 38450

Eloise points out Dicentra's misattribution:

I'd just like to point out that these are Pippin's words, quoted by 
me, not my own.

Dicentra humbly replies:

A thousand apologies.  I was indeed careless.

Pippin's original words:

I think the theme is a struggle between those who live by a code that 
recognizes the rights of others, and those who do not. I think 
Dumbledore's code includes the right to determine good and evil 
according to one's own conscience. Thus Dumbledore's goodness is 
limited: though we may regard Dumbledore as morally superior, he does 
not claim to be so himself. This is what distinguishes him from icons 
of goodness like Aslan and Gandalf. This is a very humanist point of 
view, so those who despise humanism are probably not going to be 
happy ...

Dicentra, after disagreeing with the above:

I'd like to propose the following: good and evil are based on the 
relationship between weak and strong. If, like Voldemort, you believe 
that the strong should overpower the weak when it suits them, that's 
evil. If you believe that the strong should assist the weak, that's 
good. In other words, predation is evil, nurturing is good.

Eloise responds:

And this is where Pippin, you and I agree, I think. Moral virtue can 
be measured by whether we recognize the rights of others. You simply 
take it a step further: recognition of rights is futile if it doesn't 
lead to action.

Dicentra reiterates:

I'm afraid that I'm not in agreement. First, talking in terms of 
"rights" is misleading, inaccurate, and inadequate. "Rights," 
properly used, is a term used to describe the relationship between 
governments and the governed. A government grants rights to 
individuals; these rights draw a line between the government and the 
individual that government is not allowed to cross. When speaking of 
interpersonal relationships, rights are never the issue.  As a 
private citizen, I cannot violate anyone's rights because I'm not the 
government.  I can harm, irritate, kill, coerce, belittle, and 
otherwise interfere with your life, but I cannot violate your 
rights.  I know we use "rights" to talk about interpersonal 
relationships; I believe this is an unfortunate practice for all 
kinds of reasons, all of them too off-topic to go into here. If you 
want a story about rights being the Ultimate Good, see Norma Rae or 
an account of the American Revolution.

What Pippin proposes, if I'm not mistaken, is more of a "live and let 
live" view of morality. It means that the Ultimate Good is to uphold 
others' right to decide what Good and Evil are. But that's too weak 
for me. I can accept it as a subset of Good, but not the apex--not 
the embodiment.  (I do recognize that Pippin said "I think 
Dumbledore's code includes the right to determine good and evil 
according to one's own conscience," thereby indicating that 
recognizing others' rights is a subset of That Which Is Good, so I 
won't assume that she is making it the sum and substance of her 
definition.) 

The second reason I can't go along with "rights"-based morality is 
that the Potterverse doesn't address the issue, either directly or 
tangentially.  (The Elf-Liberation issue is an example of 
government/governed rights, which is not the same as "live and let 
live.") As I said in an earlier post, when Sirius and Remus told 
Harry he had the right to decide Peter's fate, they weren't talking 
about Harry's civil rights or his personal space: they were talking 
about his relationship to James. No one in the Potterverse upholds 
someone's right to have unpopular or evil ideas and counts it as 
courage or morality. (This theme does, however, show up frequently in 
American television.) I don't see it as the issue JKR is addressing.

I need to backtrack a bit.  In a previous post, I said that the line 
demarcating Good and Evil was Predation vs. Nurturing.  I'm going to 
retract the term "nurturing" and replace it with another, because I 
believe that contrary to popular opinion, the Potterverse does indeed 
declare what the Ultimate Good is: self-sacrifice.

The examples abound:

Lily sacrifices her life to save Harry's, James sacrifices his life 
to save his family, Sirius risks his life to protect the Potters, Ron 
sacrifices himself in the chess game, Harry risks his life to prevent 
Voldemort from getting the stone, Harry and Ron risk their lives to 
save Ginny; Fawkes risks his life to help Harry, Sirius risks his 
life to save Harry from Peter, Harry and Hermione risk their lives to 
save Sirius, (Dumbledore could have gotten himself in trouble, too.), 
Harry risks his life and the championship to save Hermione and 
Fleur's sister, Sirius risks his life to return to Hogwarts when 
Harry's scar burns, Harry risks his life to take Cedric's body back, 
etc.

I think it's safe to say that these incidents are presented as good 
acts: no ambiguity and no gray areas. Interestingly, canon provides 
us with numerous examples of self-sacrifice that aren't necessarily 
good: Peter sacrifices his friends to please Voldemort, sacrifices 
his finger to frame Sirius, and sacrifices his hand to bring 
Voldemort back.  Voldemort, however, is not grateful for his 
sacrifices, and gives him his bionic hand because it suits him to do 
so (and he makes sure everyone knows he could just as easily have 
left Peter cringing in the graveyard).  Likewise, Mrs. Crouch 
sacrifices herself to free her son from Azkaban, and he repays her by 
murdering Crouch Sr.  

Aw @#$%^!!!  Now we have to define when self-sacrifice is Good and 
when it's Evil.  Ok.  Let's try this: Self-sacrifice is good unless 
you're a SYCOPHANT.  Does that work?

::crickets chirping::

No?  How about this: Self-sacrifice is good only when you are not the 
ultimate beneficiary. Peter severs his body parts to help no one but 
himself.  He doesn't revive Voldemort because he feels sorry for him. 
No, he wants Voldemort back so he can be a stronger wizard.  There.  
That's better.  And Lily's sacrifice benefited Harry, not herself.

So that puts the axis along the selfish/selfless continuum.  I think 
I can live with that.

Yet I still prefer the term Predation as a superset of ingratitude, 
selfishness, disrespect, or any other type of term you choose, 
because it clearly illustrates the practice of taking what you want 
irrespective of how it affects others. 

The trouble with "respecting others' rights" as Ultimate Good  is 
that it's passive.  To frame Lily's sacrifice in terms of "rights" 
damns with faint praise. I can't bring myself to say she died because 
she respected Harry's rights, or that Voldemort kills people because 
he doesn't respect theirs.  It doesn't cut it. It's too weak, too 
simplistic, and too shallow for me.

So I will have to respectfully disagree with Pippin and Eloise--not 
on mere semantic grounds but on conceptual grounds as well.

--Dicentra