Good moral core (Re: Dirty Harry/Clean Harry)

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 117159


Neri wrote :
"Sure it comes from somewhere initially. There is nature and there is
 nurture. A child is born with certain genes and interacts with his 
environment. But then at some point free will appears. Once it did,
the chain of cause and effect sort of breaks down. It must be, or the
 choices of the child would be uniquely determined by his nature and 
nurture, and then it's not free will."

Del replies :
But free will is limited by both nature and nurture.

Mental and physical illnesses, for example, can severely restrict the
way someone uses their free will. In fact, they can restrict it so
much that sometimes this will isn't free anymore.

So for example, if Tom was a sociopath right from childhood, then his
free will was severely restricted by his condition.

As for Harry, he seems to repeatedly make instinctive decisions.
Because those choices have good consequences, we don't wonder too much
about them. But let's see things another way : what if Harry's
decision to go after the Philosopher's stone had resulted in
Hermione's or Ron's death ? What if Harry's decision to go after the
spiders in CoS had resulted in Ron's death ? What if Harry's decision
to enter the Chamber of Secrets had resulted in his own death, in
Ginny's death and in Diary!Tom's gaining a real body ? And so on. In
short, what if Harry's apparent good decisions had had bad
consequences ? Wouldn't we then wonder why he took such suicidal
decisions, maybe even what was wrong with him ?

Harry often sees how close things came to go awfully wrong, and yet
when he has to make another decision, he goes down the exact same
route. Is it only because it went well the previous times, so he
somehow expects that it will go well again, or is it because there's
something inside him that's urging him to make those decisions again
and again ? Something that instantaneously *limits* his free will by
making him feel that there's only one right thing to do ?

Someone suggested that maybe it was empathy. Could be.

Neri wrote :
" How do you know, in your life, which decisions are right? OK, you 
might tell me that you frequently don't KNOW for sure which are the 
right decisions, you just do your best to choose right, and sometimes
 you get it wrong."

Del replies :
I am a Christian, so I have the commandments and counsels of God to
tell me how to make my choices. I try to take decisions that agree
with this system that I chose. I try to apply the Scriptures. I pray
too. I don't just take a difficult decision with no basis.

But Harry seems to do that often. Or rather, we are often given
reasons that seem obvious, but that are not really. For example : why
go to the Chamber of Secrets ? To save Ginny. But why risk his life,
Ron's life, even Lockhart's life for what it's worth, to try and save
Ginny ? What makes Ginny's life worth risking those 3 lives ? I'm not
saying it's a bad thing, of course not, but I'm wondering what is
Harry's underlying belief system.

Another example : Harry refused to let Sirius and Remus kill
Pettigrew. Why ? Because he doesn't want them to be murderers, and he
thinks his dad would not have wanted that either. But what's wrong
with being the murderer of someone like Pettigrew ? And what makes
Harry think that he knows what his father would have wanted ? Wouldn't
Sirius and Remus know better ? Also, what makes Harry think he has a
right to stop Sirius from getting his revenge for those 12 years in
Azkaban ? Again, Harry was right by my book, but we aren't told why he
thinks that way. It's just "the right thing to do". But why ? I know
why *I* think it was the right thing to do, but I don't know why Harry
thinks so.

This is also why it is so confusing for me when on the other hand
Harry does things that I disagree with. Sometimes I feel he has the
same beliefs as I do, but sometimes I don't. And the thing is : we do
not know what his beliefs actually are.

Neri wrote :
"So are you asking why is Harry special? Why is it him and not 
somebody else who has the power to vanquish the Dark Lord? Well, my 
thoughts (especially after OotP) are that he is NOT that special. He
just happens to be the one taken to fill the position."

Del replies :
But doesn't that go against his free will ?
Now that he knows about the Prophecy, this knowledge will interfere
with his decision-making. Because he knows he is The One, he might
decide to do things he might not have done otherwise, or the other way
around. Whether this means that he is more free or less free is not
the point : the point is that his free will is now conditioned by his
knowledge IMO.

In other words : IMO, free will is not really free. It is only free
within the limits your nature and your nurture have put on you.

Del