OFH (Was: Re: Which characters are dynamic?)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 141864

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:

<snip>

> What I really can't understand about OFH!Snape is that it seems to 
> presume that Snape is somehow less culpable for killing Dumbledore if 
> he did it in pursuit of his own ends than if he did it at Voldemort's 
> orders. And I don't understand that at all. 

As a leading proponent of OFH, let me say: buh?  I don't think I've 
ever suggested such, and I don't recall any argument therefore.

What I would say is that it's a different kind of evil for Snape to 
have killed Dumbledore in pursuit of his own ends than if he did it at 
Voldemort's orders and with the explicity intention of furthering that 
cause, rather than his personal benefit.  Those two things are also not 
necessarily mutually exclusive.  The end result is the same--dead 
Dumbledore.  But the reasons for doing it are quite different, they 
speak to different motivations, and I consider both motivation and 
intention essential to determining the moral tenor of a situation, as 
do most all modern legal systems.

Now, it's actually an interesting question whether (the hypothetical) 
Voldemort devotee Snape is more or less culpable than self-interested 
Snape.  The latter seems to approach radical evil, while the former has 
an allegiance to something...except it's a little unclear whether that 
something is a cause with ideals/principles, or the ideal of radical 
evil itself (which Voldemort seems to be a good representative of).  
Different outcome depending on which ethical system we plug our data 
into.  Alas.

-Nora notes that, of course, there are moral systems which don't 
consider intention a component of ethics...