[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry and Morality

[Troels Forchhammer]

No: HPFGUIDX 57355

At 15:18 08-05-03 +0000, psychic_serpent wrote:
>--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Troels Forchhammer
><t.forch at m...> wrote:
> > At 13:53 08-05-03 +0000, psychic_serpent wrote:
> >>It IS moral to BREAK immoral rules and laws, IMO.
> >
> > Who gets to decide?
> > When pedophiles find the prohibition against sex with children
> > immoral, should we just accept that they break the 'rule'?
>
>That is a specious argument and you know it.

Of course it is and of course I know. It is, however,
no more specious than the opposite argument - and that
is what I tried to make obvious.

I am sure that we will agree almost completely on what
constitutes just or morally right laws and what constitutes
bad or immoral laws.

I also agree that this conflect seems to be coming
up in the books - and I am sure that Harry will do
what is morally right which will include fighting the
authorities of the magical community.

My aim is to issue a warning not to automatically accept
breaking unjust laws, because of the danger involved
when you allow people to define for themselves what
constitutes just and unjust laws.

The laws of any society must be considered just when
they reflect the moral viewpoint of the majority of
the society, and not when a small group of individuals
are unhappy with them - otherwise we end up justifying
acts that we find reprehensible - like the specious
argument I used before. Therefore we shouldn't, IMO,
/normally/ accept it when people break laws.

The border-line case is the open breaking of the law as
a political statement - like the sit-ins you mention.
These people don't 'just' break the law - they do so
openly and accept the punishment. By accepting the
punishment, they also accept that the rules society as
a whole are above themselves as individuals - had they
attempted to hide their lawbreaking, they would, IMO,
have put themselves above society - something I can't
condone of.

The point I wish to drive home is that it is /not/ up
to the individual itself to decide which laws should
be broken because they are unjust. Allowing that leads
to a justification of all sorts of reprehensible acts.
One simply cannot, IMO, build a moral system on the
idea that it is OK to do A if the person agrees with
oneself, but it is punishable if the person doesn't
agree with oneself.

Troels