Character (was: Re: Lupin is Ever So Evil, Part One )

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 130318

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at y...> wrote:
>big snip

> Because he [Dumbledore giving second chances] believes in the
> possibility of things which are there but 
> hidden becoming manifest.  But if it was never, ever there to begin 
> with, then it cannot become so.  
> 


lealess:

I am trying to understand this.  Is essentialism then a black or white
thing, a born bad or born good, in the blood thing -- a Griffindor or
Slytherin thing -- determined at birth?  Leaving second chances aside,
although I think that is a good point (who gets second chances -- only
the ones Dumbledore knows to be good? what about the string of
disastrous DADA teachers?), what is the role of choice here?  Are you
saying that character determines choices, and not moral soul-searching
or reflection, or a momentary lapse of awareness?  Leaving out a
sociopath like Tom Riddle, who probably doesn't have a choice based on
whatever causes sociopathology, what about someone who makes a wrong
choice and then works to correct it, who reforms (Snape, hopefully). 
What about someone who fails to make a right choice once (Lupin not
taking wolfsbane before a full-moon evening) -- were all their choices
predetermined by character?  If that is true, then what does
essentialism say about their characters?

Just trying to understand this point of view.

lealess