Intrinsically Good magic, and motives over ends (Fwd from OTC)

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 59207

This OTChatter thread got into some very interesting on-topic 
philosophical musing, so I'm forwarding it here.  The question was 
whether magic in JKR's universe is morally neutral (i.e., can be good 
or evil, depending on how it's applied) or there are some spells that 
are intrinsically good or intrinsically evil.

David wrote:

> >We haven't had much 
> > evidence of magic that's intrinsically 'good', either.
> > 
> > Thoughts?

Amanda wrote:

> One. We have seen one very powerful example, referenced a couple of 
> times. Sacrifice. 

Sacrifice is intrinsically good?  What about people who sacrificed 
themselves in order to steer a jet plane into a building?  We may 
balk at calling their act self-sacrifice, because we have such 
positive associations with that term (Memorial Day speeches hailing 
those who made "the supreme sacrifice," e.g.), but self-sacrifice it 
was, and to my mind, it proves that sacrifice can be as powerfully 
evil as it is powerfully good.

I think one can imagine an act that is purely good, but one would 
have to know the motives to judge.

And if it's not motives but consequences that matter, I don't see how 
any act can be judged purely good or purely evil.  Let's say Lily's 
sacrifice was pure love, unmarred by any other motives.  Just the 
same, fourteen years later, Cedric Diggory died because her son 
lived.  No Harry, no Harry in the TWT, no reason for Cedric to stray 
across the path of Voldemort.  Yeah, Voldemort would probably have 
been in power for those fourteen years and heaven knows what would 
have happened to the Diggorys; maybe Cedric would've died anyway, 
when the DEs blew up his house when he was 5, say.  But what we *do* 
know is that in *this* timeline, Cedric died because he had the bad 
luck to be in the same place as Harry Potter.

So we may be able to say that on balance Lily's sacrifice 
accomplished more good than evil (though only the gods can know), but 
we can't say it accomplished only good.

I wanted to write a whole Kantian counter-argument to this 
utilitarian approach, but my brain got tired.  Anyone?

Amy Z