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

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 59302

Innermurk wrote:

> In light of how intricately every choice we make interacts with 
> everyone else, I don't think you can say that one choice was good 
or  
> bad because down the line it affected so and so this way, or so and 
> so that way. It has to be more of an immediate thing IMO.
> It has to be a *direct* result of *that particular choice* and 
*that 
> choice only* or else there is no way to judge it fairly.

Judge it in what way?  To me it depends whether we are judging the 
morality of the actor's choice, or the relative goodness/badness of 
the action taken.  They are not the same thing.

You are talking about the choice, which I agree can only be judged in 
the way you say.  But I was specifically distinguishing between 
judging the choice and judging the results.

> > Innermurk concluded earlier:
> > > So, I don't believe you can judge that her choice was good or 
bad 
> > on the fact of Cedric's death.
> >  > And it *was not* Harry's fault that Cedric died.

I agree on both counts.
 
> I innermurk conclude now:
> *My* whole point was that Cedric's death was *not* a consequence of 
> Lily's sacrifice. There were too many other choices and people and 
> things involved to trace it back to that.
> The only way you can make it a consequence of Lily's choice is to 
> make it Harry's fault that Cedric died. Since you concede that 
point, 
> it is not a consequence.

There, I can't agree.

"Fault" has a moral valence.  It was not Harry's fault that Cedric 
died, though he feels as if it was--which is understandable; survivor 
guilt is a heavy burden even if one *didn't* do anything instrumental 
to bring the person into danger, the way Harry inadvertently did when 
he insisted they take the Cup together.  It was not Lily's fault that 
Cedric died.  It was only Voldemort's fault, and Wormtail's.  (Some 
would say only Wormtail's, but I blame the person who ordered the hit 
as well as the hit man, especially if the person who ordered it has 
been in the habit of torturing the hit man if he balks.)  What Lily 
did was good because it was done out of noble motives, and because 
all of the results that she could reasonably foresee were good (as 
far as we know).

But "consequence" does not have a moral valence, and IMO, Cedric's 
death *was* a consequence of Lily's having saved Harry, however 
intricate the path leading from one event to the other.
Jo got me right:  my point was not to assign blame, but to point out 
that in judging the morality of an action, looking only at its 
results is unilluminating.  We have to consider motives, and we also 
(as Innermurk points out) have to weigh the more direct results more 
heavily.

This may sound obvious--Innermurk, you and I are obviously on the 
same page, so to us it is--but it isn't obvious to everyone.  I have 
certainly heard people try to separate the world of events into good 
and bad, as if the interweaving of events were not so complex that no 
event can be said to have *only* good, or *only* bad, outcomes.

Now, to turn to the wizarding world.  We don't agonize too much over 
the distant, unforeseeable ends of our actions, because we don't know 
them.  Hitler, I understand, was a sickly child, but the doctors, not 
knowing what he would grow up to do, did not have to face the 
question of whether to save him or let him die.  But in the wizarding 
world, at least according to Trelawney, people *can* know what will 
happen.  This changes moral choices vastly.

Or does it?  Dumbledore says it doesn't.  He stands up for the 
Kantian view, one might say:  save Pettigrew because it's the right 
thing to do, and let the results fall where they may.  One thing's 
sure, and that is that the intertwining is so complex that 

Now, that doesn't mean Dumbledore proclaims that means must always be 
considered over ends.  If the devastating results of Peter's survival 
had been more immediate--if Voldemort had been standing right outside 
the Shrieking Shack, waiting to see if his servant would be spared, 
and Harry knew he would be--or even if Harry had foreseen that Peter 
would escape--then Harry's moral choice would have been very 
different.  And even Dumbledore might have said then that Lupin and 
Black should have killed him, and Harry should have allowed it.

Amy Z

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