Harry and Morality

[persephone_kore]

No: HPFGUIDX 57952

Troels wrote:
> > 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.

Barb wrote:  
> I reckon we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.  IMO, it is 
> indeed up to the individual to determine when he/she has had it
with 
> being complicit in injustice and to take action. 

I can't help but get the feeling that the problem here is a confusion
not so much between morality and legality but between what an
individual believes to be morally right and what actually may be.
(Also, it seems to me that the two above are looking rather
determinedly at different sides of a matter -- Barb is looking at the
idea that laws may need to be changed, whereas Troels is pointing out
the possibility that some people may believe laws need to be changed
when perhaps they should not. But that isn't, at least to me, the main
point.)

It makes me somewhat uneasy to say that it isn't up to the individual
to decide when a law or an authority is unjust or wrong (or, possibly,
inapplicable) and should be flouted. I believe that individuals are
personally responsible for their own behavior, including moral choices
and including decisions on whether to flout the rules. If the
individual isn't deciding, then who can? Another individual? What
gives the other individual this right? A group? Well, that goes back
to the idea that the first individual in question presumably believes
that some group is in the wrong, or wouldn't be considering the
matter. 

However.

I may be misunderstanding, but I'm not sure that Troels is in fact
trying to say that individuals can't make their own choices. The
sentence about moral systems is what suggests to me that confusion has
entered the discussion. I think that the individual can and must
decide -- though the decision may indeed be to abide by the choices of
people who may have greater knowledge of the situation, reasoning, or
practicality involved for a time -- but as I don't think people are
infallible, neither do I think that just because someone can justify
an action or sincerely believes it to be right necessarily means that
it IS right. If the person believes that it is right, then granted,
this may mean they're doing the best they can -- and it's good to have
tried -- but it won't negate the consequences. 

Nor, and this is important, will it eliminate the possibility or
justification for other people to consider the action wrong. And I
think that might be the sticking point here. 


"persephone_kore"