[HPforGrownups] Morality and Efficiency (Was killerbeasts, etc)

[wynnde1 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 46914

Regarding morality and efficiency:

> Grey Wolf wrote:
> 
> >> Dumbledore needs Voldemort to be mortal so it can be 
> destroyed (or redeemed, or whatever), and has guided 
> Voldemort into using a potion that is flawed. This method has 
> caused accidental deaths, and this is what the attack used to 
> say that Dumbledore is respoinsible for Voldemort's actions. 
> The fact that, left to his own devices, Voldemort would've killed 
> many more people has been ignored by the oposition (IIRC, the 
> last time that point was debated, I proposed a simple moral 
> problem: if you are faced with a building in flames, and you can 
> only save a room with eight people, or one with two, what would 
> you do?<<
> 

And Pippin countered:

> Eh? That is not a moral problem, Grey Wolf, it is a logistical one.
> If I were Dumbledore, I would use a simple flame-freezing charm  
> and save them all. Since I'm not, I would of course save the eight 
> people, but that is not the most virtuous solution, it is only the 
> most efficient one.
> 
Now me:
Ah, but things are hardly ever this simple, are they? Eight vs. Two seems 
fairly straightforward . . . *but* . . . if my son is one of the people in 
the room of two, one guess which set of folks I'm going to try and save. ;-) 
So maybe it's a bit of a moral question after all? Am I just selfish for 
valuing the life of my own son over the lives of whomever might have been in 
that other room. Which does make me wonder if there are some lives which 
Dumbledore considers *more* expendable than others. Well, most probably there 
are. But I wonder just what his criteria for that would be.

Then Pippin added:

> One might consider efficiency a virtue in itself. Vernon Dursley 
> surely does, but Dumbledore? I can't think of any time when 
> Dumbledore did something or recommended a course of action 
> because it would be efficient. Can you?
> 

Me again:

I certainly agree with Pippin here. In fact, we've seen Dumbledore do things 
which were seemingly the OPPOSITE of efficient - all the shenanigans 
regarding the protection on the Philospher's Stone, for example. Oh, perhaps 
this was the most efficient way to make sure Harry wandered around the castle 
enough to find all the clues to get down there and face Quirrelmort, thereby 
learning and growing in the process. <G> But on the surface, as far as the 
stone goes, highly inefficient. And, while I must admit to being mostly 
ignorant about MAGIC DISHWASHER (not have yet had a chance to read the new 
megapost), from what I know of it, it doesn't seem particularly efficient, 
either.

:-)
Wendy
(Who is nearly certain she saw JKR shopping a couple of weeks ago in a 
department store in Edinburgh. I didn't actually go up to her and ASK her if 
it was her, which is why I'm only *nearly* certain. And fortunately (for JKR) 
I was able to resist my impulse to berate her for buying blouses when she 
should have been at home WRITING! Still, I think it's pretty cool to think 
that she and I shop at the same store! <G>)


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