Ethics in HP was:"Slytherin" Hermione?

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 112356

Potioncat:

> But so far, she's shown us some good people performing some very 
> questionable actions.  And she's shown us some bad people doing some 
> good things. And sometimes knowing the motivation changes how we see 
> those actions.  
 
Finwitch:

And that's some important lesson to learn. We could make hypothesis of
the poor man stealing expensive medicine in order to heal his lethally
ill wife - the most common example of ethical dilemma.

What comes to 'use any means' to achieve their ends - that's what
strucks me as wrong. While there is that 'ends justify the means', it
does NOT hold right for every case, yet there IS some truth in it.

Oh, and adolescents usually have their own code of ethics that opposes
the adult view. Hermione taking the broomstick to McGonagall presents
adult view, Ron's objection the adolescent code of honour.

I'd say that Hermione was right in this, Ron was right when he
commented that Hermione needs to check her priorities on her 'We could
have been killed - or worse, expelled'...

There's the question of society moral code (rules, laws, requirement
of obedience) and personal moral code (conscience). This is, I
believe, what Dumbledore meant with the choice between what is right
and what is easy. It was easy to go along with the Ministry and all
those 'educational decrees', but was it right? Did they, as Albus
Dumbledore put it, insult the memory of Cedric Diggory by claiming he
died of an accident?

Easy thing is to follow smc - (because you'll avoid bad publicity and
punishments while possibly even getting a reward in form of promotion,
acceptance, praise...) the right thing is to follow pmc. Will you
stand up for what is right when your (official) society is against it?
This is something that has earned fame for some martyrs, like Socrates
or Mahatma Gandhi. (non-religious, just political). Christianity was
*based* by a martyr and helds up lots for such an act.

It takes lots of courage, might require acting against your friends in
case they're against your idea, you certainly must give up any
ambitions you may have, and it requires action rather than staying
inside and reading books. Thus, I dare say that any martyr would be in
Gryffindor, whether their method is to suffer of the cruel arrows of
destiny or to raise arms against the sea of troubles (Shakespeare
wondered which way is more noble - curiously, Neville's mostly doing
the first while admiring the second, and Harry's the other way
round)... But to be effective, you'd need both, and wisdom to know
which act to choose at times.

Finwitch