Dirty Harry / 'Good' Harry (WAS: The intended murder of Pettigrew and

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 116847


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant9998" 
<eggplant9998 at y...> wrote:
> 
> Del:
> >I know they had good intentions, but 
> >this in itself does not excuse the theft 

Eggplant responded:
 
> Committing a very small crime in order to stop a vastly greater 
evil 
> is not only justified it is smart.

Finwitch:

This is a standard question of ethical development. Make stealing as 
the only way one can save a life/lives (in real world, the 
hypotethical item of theft is usually medicine to otherwise lethal 
disease and cannot be purchased legally...). Of course, in fantasy, 
this sort of dilemmas can be addressed differently.

It IS an ethical dilemma. Harry&co. do it in order to find 
information so they may help to stop it.
Interestingly, they *don't* get what they were after, but instead, 
something else: Draco Malfoy knew nothing. They were wrong in 
assuming he knew something...

So we get several ethical matters in this:
1) stealing (though we *Can't* say whether it was all that stolen or 
merely a forced purchase, since Harry wasn't THERE.)
2) Prevent killings.
3) Innocent until proven guilty. (as the *Belief* turned out to be 
false one, Draco could not help them further) This theme comes out 
often, and it's in PoA that it's highlighted, though it's there in 
ALL the books.

Finwitch