Teaching morality in the Potterverse

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 148674

Pippin:
I think JKR believes that people have both an innate moral sense
and an innate desire to choose good, but these may be damaged,
either genetically as in the vein of instability and arrogance
that runs through the Gaunt line, or through mistreatment.

Moreover,  moral abilities need time and  training to develop, 
just like the abilities to walk and talk, and like these abilities
they seem to develop in stages. The child characters have a primitive
sense of justice -- whoever wrongs me should be punished, whoever
helps me should be rewarded -- but the more mature characters
find it rewarding to submit their individual interests to the greater
good  and also view rewards and punishments as tools to alter behavior 
rather than a means of gratification. However a great many characters 
have not made these transitions very well, and I think JKR uses the baby 
imagery to show us who they are.

Even when these abilities  develop properly, they don't entirely
replace the primitive gratifications of comeuppance and
favoritism, so to compensate for this, and also for 
the very many damaged individuals, there are
secondary systems -- the moral guidance of families,
social pressure, and formal systems of rules and laws,
though these too may revert to childish notions of justice.

 What is special about Harry is that although
he many times imagines that he would enjoy seeing his 
enemies suffer, he never actually does. This
makes him different even from Dumbledore, who seemed
to enjoy watching the wine glasses bounce off
the Dursleys' heads, and very different from Riddle.
I believe Dumbledore attributes this to the extraordinary
power of love he sees in Harry, and believes it will help 
Harry to hold out against the great temptation that
Voldemort can offer even to those who would naturally
oppose him -- the   power to harm their enemies.

Riddle was not born evil, IMO, but in clinging to
his primitive childish conception of justice, and still
more in encouraging others to do so,  he has
become evil. I believe Rowling considers him less
culpable than some of her other villains because
he did not know what love was when he chose to reject it.


Pippin