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

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 117201


> 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. 

Neri:
Oh dear, I didn't mean to get into this philosophical and moral
ground. Now lets see if I can talk my way out of it. 

Free will is not just a philosophical concept, it is a practical and
legal one, and it is the basis of modern society. Suppose we were to
put a 16 yrs old boy (Tom Riddle, for the purpose of the discussion)
on trial for the murder of a girl (Myrtle). Would you acquit him
because he never knew his parents, or because he claims he has a
condition called sociopathy, or because he felt that only power is
important to him, or because it was just the combination of nature and
nurture that made him do it? I think not. You would say that, even at
this young age, he is responsible for his own actions, and if he
doesn't understand that murder is bad, at least he must be able to
perceive that society does not allow murder. So unless you think that
all criminals actually suffer from mental illness and should be
hospitalized rather than jailed, you must allow that people are
responsible for their actions. In other words, they have free will. 

Regarding Alla's question when does free will appear, I think that the
law reasonably recognizes that this does not happen over night. It is
a gradual process. Most of us won't hold a 3 yrs old responsible for
his actions. We would hold a 11 yrs old somewhat responsible for some
actions. I think most of us would agree that a 16 yrs old can stand
trial for murder, but we would probably let him get away with a less
severe sentence. So acquiring free will takes time. I think this is
also some answer to Del saying that free will can be restricted by
experience, conventions of culture and so on. When a person grows up,
he/she has the option to ask questions, to learn more and transcend
the conventions of his/her culture. Even if  racism against
muggleborns is common in Slytherin House, Tom Riddle still met
muggleborns from other houses, and he had the opportunity to discover
that they aren't worse or better than purebloods. But he apparently
chose not to use this opportunity.

Regarding mental illness, again I would go by the law here (not
because I consider the law to be above everything, but simply because
lawmakers and judges have a long practical experience of tackling
these dilemmas, so it saves me the effort of going through all of them
myself). There are indeed certain very severe mental conditions which
legally make a person irresponsible for his actions, but to my
knowledge "sociopathy" is not one of them. 

I don't consider physical illness as restricting free will. Or rather,
the restriction is only technical. If Tom Riddle was completely
paralyzed except for one finger, then technically he would have found
it difficult to murder Myrtle. But if somebody put a gun in his hand
so he could use his single functioning finger to pull the trigger and
murder Myrtle, then he would have been fully responsible for this murder.

Where does free will come from and how can it be reconciled with the
mechanistic view of nature and nurture is certainly a very deep
question in philosophy, science and theology, and I'm not sure I want
to go there. But practically, most of us accept that free will exists
despite nature and despite nurture. If you think that people are
responsible for their own actions then you accept free will.

So if someone suggests that Harry is "good" because he had loving
parents during the first year of his life, and Tom was "evil" because
he didn't have even that much, I ask myself if I would acquit Tom
Riddle in a trial because he never knew his parents. And I answer
myself that I wouldn't. I don't know if JKR would, but somehow I don't
think so. If she would, it means that Riddle didn't have free will
when he killed Myrtle, and was a mindless monster rather than a
person. A monster cannot be held responsible for its actions, it just
has to be exterminated, and no qualms about it. Actually, Tom did use
a monster (the basilisk) to murder Myrtle, and it is obvious to all of
us that it is Tom and not the basilisk who is responsible for the
crime of murdering Myrtle. JKR had the option to make the dark side in
her story represented by some kind of monster, but she chose to make
him a person. Moreover, it is a person who is very similar to Harry,
and JKR tells us through DD that the only difference between Tom and
Harry is the different choices they made. This implies to me that she
is tackling the question of free will.

> Del wrote:
>
> 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 ?   

Neri:

But this is exactly what happened in GoF with Cedric, and in OotP with
Sirius. It actually started in PoA when Wormtail escaped to help
Voldemort come back to power because of the moral decision of Harry to
spare his life. I guess JKR thought that at age 12 Harry was not yet
ready to understand that sometimes choices taken with good intensions
might result in bad consequences, but now he is ready for that. So it
is not canon that Harry has some "instinct" for doing the right thing.
Harry is not a saint and he doesn't have any monopoly on goodness. But
he does at least try to do the good thing most of the time, and I
think this is where his power comes from.


> Del:
> 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.

Neri:
I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. You could of course say
that free will is affected by knowledge. It is technically true, but
it demotes free will to the mechanistic level of cause and effect, and
free will doesn't make much sense in this level. I would make more
sense to say that when a person exerts his free will to make choices,
he can use his knowledge in order to arrive at better decisions. When
Harry didn't know about the prophecy, it seemed to him that he had a
lot of freedom, but this freedom was an illusion, because the prophecy
still existed even when Harry didn't know about it. It was this lack
of knowledge that cost him Sirius' life. Now that he knows about the
prophecy his options seem much more limited, but since he knows about
them, he can make wiser decisions.

Neri