Slytherin Morality was Re: Reintroducing myself and a

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 91968

Pippin previously
>  I agree with you that Hermione is in some moral peril, but I 
don't  relate that to Slytherin potential. The Slytherin creed  "any 
means  to achieve their ends" is a de facto recognition that some 
means  *are* more ethical than others. They recognize that 
ethical  standards are external to themselves.<<

Nora:
>>Could you expand on that?  I really don't see how you can get 
that out of '*any* means to achieve their ends'.  That seems, at 
least to my reading, to emphasis the instrumentality and disrupt 
any conception of a discernible hierarchy--anything that one can 
do is okay, so long as the end is achieved.  Which goes directly 
contrary to such fundamental moral conceptions as the 
Categorical Imperative, which in its expanded versions argues 
that one must treat all people as *ends in and of themselves*, 
and not as means to an end--as subjects, not as objects.  In 
other words, that motto lends itself very easily to amorality (of 
which Voldemort is the living embodiment, of course...)<<

Pippin replies:
Presumably the Hat describes the Houses as they would 
describe themselves. So the Slytherins are  consciously amoral 
and they regard this as a distinguishing characteristic. To me 
this implies moral awareness of a sort--even though it's 
negative.  

 It's like Hermione and the crumple-horned snorkack (or an 
atheist and God) --it takes a certain awareness of the  concept in 
order to reject it. Hermione has no place in her belief system  for 
the snorkack, but she'd recognize it if she saw one.  On the other 
hand, she's unable to recognize that she's being unfair to the 
Elves. In this, she's very different from the Slytherins, who 
generally know exactly what they're getting away with.


Pippin