Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 150274

Pippin: 
> > The humor for me is in imagining Snape as trying to live according 
> > to this extremely lofty and noble but utterly impractical vision of 
> > law and perfect rationality. 

Nora:
> 
> Hey, I'm not the one who brought up Kant as an explanatory model for 
> Snape's actions--I'm the one who thought "That doesn't sound like the 
> Kant I had to read, struggled with, and loved back in college..." :)

Pippin:
Did I not make myself clear? I'm playing with the idea that Snape is
a deliberate parody of Kant's moral model, and finding the parody 
amusing. I'm saying it *is* applicable. And very funny. Though
perhaps a devotee of Kant would disagree <g>


Pippin previously:
> > If you think about it, what could Snape have said to support 
> > Sirius's story? He *didn't* see any sign of Pettigrew in the shack. 
> > (And why would a rational human being take his eyes off a Death 
> > Eater to look at a rat anyway?) 

Nora: 
> For one thing, he could have shut up and stayed disengaged from the 
> situation in the Hospital Wing. 

Pippin:
But a Kantian wouldn't, would he? He would be obliged to tell everything
he knew. What I'm trying to say is, it'd be fortunate for our heroes that
Kantian!Snape *didn't* believe Sirius and Lupin, because if he had, he'd have
had to tell Fudge everything -- all about Sirius being an illegal animagus
and Lupin's unauthorized excursions back in the day. Fudge would then
have believed that while disregarding Sirius's claims to be innocent.


Nora:
 And  then his commentary to Fudge reeks (at least to me) of someone who's 
> trying to go behind Dumbledore's back to get something done.  

Pippin:
But wouldn't a Kantian be obliged to warn Fudge that Dumbledore might
make trouble? Just as he would be obliged to relate the prophecy to Lord
Voldemort  and equally obliged to warn James that Voldemort was
planning to kill him? And obliged to relate his conviction that Harry had
something to do with Sirius's escape?

I should be clear  that I don't see Snape's capslock rages as Kantian.
There are  times when passion breaks through his Kantian emotional
lockdown. On the other hand, if emotions are not real, then they can
never convey any truth, and KantianParody!Snape would have no trouble
arranging his face in an expression of hatred and revulsion while not
feeling them at all.

That doesn't make it easy to reconcile a devotion to perfect honesty with
Snape's career as a spy, but then again, the WW's concept of truth is so
elastic that it just might be possible.


> -Nora remembers those halcyon days when the DISHWASHER made a modicum 
> of sense, because Snape couldn't have possibly just gone crazy with 
> rage or be acting primarily out of self-interest

Pippin:
Hey, I was one of DISHWASHER's more constant and vocal opponents. If
your comment is meant to remind me that elaborate canon-based 
theories can come to naught, I know it only too well. But I might remind
you that Faith-based theories have come acropper too. Remember
Snape manor?

Pippin