Please explain.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 144281

susanbones2003:
> No one, even someone without "good
> moral qualities" deserves to be
> treated badly.

eggplant:
I disagree, I think some people very much deserve to be treated 
badly,but Harry is not one of it.

Magpie:

But Snape thinks Harry is one of them.  And so is Neville.  So he 
treats them badly.  I personally don't see why you or Snape or I 
would get the special right to just treat people badly because I 
think they deserve it.  I might do so occasionally, but I wouldn't 
be doing anything moral, I'd just be indulging my own pleasure.

> "susanbones2003:

> > Murder is not worse if the 
> > person was greatly beloved. 
> 
> That is of course the conventional politically correct opinion to
> hold, but I don't believe it for one second. And if push ever came 
to
> shove I don't believe ANYONE would feel that way. If someone you 
loved
> was murdered I believe you would feel worse than if somebody you 
hated
> was murdered. It's even true of fiction, I felt bad when Dumbledore
> was murdered, if Snape had been murdered I would have felt much 
less
> badly. 

Magpie:

Of course you would feel worse, but that's got nothing to do with 
the law or ethics.  The point of these things is to get beyond this 
kind of short-sighted and self-centered view of the world.  Unloved 
people are of course the same as loved people under the law, ideally-
-and someone you don't love might be greatly loved by someone else.  
If Filch was murdered I'd expect the same respect paid to that loss 
of life as a life as Dumbledore's murder, despite a different sense 
of personal loss.  I don't think this is at all "politically 
correct," which suggests a sort of over-sensitive overthought 
fussiness that goes against common sense--it's the basis of a 
working system of ethics and law.  The kind of thing many kids work 
out on their own at an early age.

Eggplant:
 
> > This is not a comic book where the villains
> > and good guys are all easily recognizable
> 
> My general rule of thumb in both fiction and real life is that 
murders
> tend to be villains. 

Magpie:

But what if they murder an unloved person?  Your whole argument 
seems to be based on the idea that you have decided who is good and 
who is bad and everything should naturally follow from that.  
Compassion is not something that someone earns.

-m