Humanity, Kant, Caricatures, and Draco (was Re: Real child abuse)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 146218

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at y...> wrote:

> > >>Nora:
> > Interpersonal comparison of emotion and utility is a no-no, or so 
> > I always get told by my social science type friends.  But again,  
> > I think the specifics around each situation make the world of 
> > difference.
>  
> Betsy Hp:
> I'm not actually sure what your first sentence above means, Nora.  

Umm, sorry.  The classic problem of Utilitarianism (and the social 
sciences in general).  In short and reduction, it's really hard to 
say "Person X is more sad about events than Person Y," because those 
are things that resist quantification.  It's hard to compare some 
ideas of things like benefit, harm, and utility because of how 
personal they are.  Happiness and sadness are incommensurable things 
(in one major objection).

So there are problems inherent in saying "This student was totally 
more hurt by this than another student".  Not saying that it's 
*impossible* or there aren't factors that we can give more importance 
to, but saying that it can be deeply problematic.

> So we move on to the next criteria: Draco is so inhuman he deserves 
> to be brutalized.

I don't think that's the conclusion, but neither do I think it's gone 
as far back the other way as you want it to.  Draco instigates with 
malice, and while he does not deserve to have a teacher abuse 
authority upon him, neither does he inspire as much pity as an 
innocent victim would.  

> Betsy Hp:
> And yet, Draco doesn't attack in a vacuum.  He *doesn't*  
> instigate.  

He does escalate, and I suspect that it's deliberately made not quite 
commensurate with situations such as the train at the end of book.  I 
think Rowling writes it in ways that she wants us to see how it is 
alike, but she's emphasizing the differences just as much.  What are 
the differences?  Well, there's context--insulting someone's mother 
versus threats after the death of a student, which means I don't 
quite understand:

> Interestingly enough, the twins have less of an excuse for their 
> attack from behind.  It's not like Cedric was their friend, and 
> it's not like Draco was interacting with them.

Of course, Draco does indicate that Ron and Hermione are next, which 
I do suspect the Twins might have some interest in.

I guess I just don't see the grand equivalency argument being made 
here, because the actions are motivated differently and come from 
people in very different ethical positions.  In a fictional universe 
where an author can control events, that makes for different 
results.  It's so nice when you can make things follow a system.

> So again, it comes down to the argument that Draco is somehow less 
> human than our heroes.  He's not allowed to love his mother as much 
> as they love theirs; he's not supposed to feel pain like they feel 
> pain.

Not that he's somehow less human, but he *is* consistently the 
wrongly motivated and openly malicious party.  Does that mean JKR 
gives him more lumps and lets him get away with less, and she slants 
his actions differently, that something may be okay when someone else 
does it but not when he does 'the same thing'?

Yes.

That's one of the functions of considering aspects of character and 
context overruling the Kantian position.  You disawoved the hard 
position, but your arguments keep wanting to lean in that direction 
for its universality. :)

-Nora says: the only perfectly good thing is the perfectly good will, 
if we go down that route