Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 174663

Alla:

But see that goes towards my point and I believe Mike's. You think
that there are situations when AK and Imperius can be used for good
purposes, do you not?

I mean, correct me if I am wrong at any time if I am misinterpreting
your words.

But it seems to me that you believe that there are situations when AK
and Imperious use will still be illegal, but not Immoral.

WHERE in the books before book 7 you see Ministry making that
distinction between those three curses?

Ceridwen:

I'm not interested in the Ministry making moral distinctions, 
actually.  The Ministry is presented in the books as either weak or 
corrupt on some level.  They still have the duty to enact laws and 
see to the execution of those laws, but to me, government is not 
there to make a moral distinction, even if it was a wonderful 
government.

All over-the-top speculation aside, there must have been some reason, 
at some point in time, for the Ministry to declare those curses 
illegal.  I agree with (I think it was) Mike saying that it's odd the 
curses are made illegal separately from their effects.  Murder, is 
wrong, so I would expect the AK to fall under a law against murder, 
for instance.  This is not how these laws are presented.  They are 
presented as illegal, and Unforgivable, in and of themselves.

Where I expect to see moral guidance on this issue is with the Order 
and other decent people in the WW.  Sirius was against their use, 
even in circumstances where I might have argued with him; McGonagall 
seems to imply, in PS/SS, that they are spells that Good people don't 
use.  The effect of seeing the Cruciatus leaves Neville shaken and a 
pawn for a DE masquerading as Moody.  The tone of the books 
themselves informs me that I should be appalled at the use of these 
curses.  Voldemort uses them.  Bellatrix revels in them.  Crouch Jr. 
uses them to psychologically torture his students.  These are 
shocking things, by the tone of the narration, until DH.

Another moral issue, which is tied up with the law, is that these are 
illegal curses with a mandatory sentence to Azkaban for using them.  
Given that, and the horror which these curses have struck throughout 
the books, I think it was out of character for Harry (or any Good 
Guys) to use them and not at least reflect on them later.

Alla:
ALL three of them are called Unforgivables, no? The fact that you 
cannot find a good use for Crucio curse does not mean that it does 
not exist, no?

I almost never bring fanfic into canon arguments, but I think this is 
a perfect place. The one good use of Crucio I read was to stimulate 
paralysed patient or something like that. I mean, the healer does not 
have intent to torture his patients, right?

Ceridwen:
A lot of things we would not do to most people can be used for 
therapy.  Taking naked pictures has been used in the past to help 
patients break down inhibitions.  Yet, the same thing during a war, 
at a POW camp in real life, Guantanamo, was considered to be illegal, 
immoral, and just plain bad.  While the detainees weren't thrown in 
the air and slammed into a glass-fronted book case, forcing them to 
take part in something against their religion and against their will 
was immoral, and could be considered psychological torture.  Torture 
is not considered valid in war, while battle killing and forcing 
someone to comply with one's directions in order to complete the 
mission, are.

The fan-fic example sounds like some sort of extreme therapy, a 
desperate, last-ditch attempt to bring the patient around.  Like 
shock therapy, maybe, which would be unconscionable to use on someone 
who wasn't in dire straits.

Alla:
So ALL that I am saying that in light of clear benign use of one 
Unforgivable the door is opened for the possible benign use of others 
depending on intent.

Was Harry's intent benign? Totally not and as I said even if his 
intent was to torture, I would not approve, but I forgive him.

But I think it is a totally sound argument that his intent was to 
cause short term pain and immobilisation.

Ceridwen:
But that isn't my problem with the use of the Unforgivables in DH.  
It's interesting to talk about, but not an issue for me, as I said.  
My issue is that these curses have been presented as bad, as 
something the Good Guys are too moral to use.  There was never a 
qualifier in place, such as, Oh, Dumbledore would never use an AK, 
unless he thought there was no other way; Dumbledore would never cast 
the Cruciatus unless he was really pissed off.

"You flatter me,"  said Dumbledore calmly.  "Voldemort had powers I 
will never have."

"Only because you're too -- well -- *noble* to use them."
~SS, Scholastic paperback, pg. 11

It was always that he was too honorable to use them, too moral, too 
much above them to stoop to their use.  Sirius (yes, again) fought 
against Voldemort in VoldWarI, and has no patience with the Aurors of 
those times being allowed to use them.  Since no one contradicts 
these moral judgements in canon, they are the ones I have to listen 
to when considering the use of Unforgivables.

To have this turned on its head, with the after-canon mention that 
Harry isn't a saint, doesn't do anything for me.  There was no 
reflection, no fear of legal reprisal, nothing to show that this was 
extreme measures in wartime.  Whether Harry meant to inflict lasting 
torture to the point of insanity, or to just give Amycus a heads-up, 
the Unforgivables have been presented as beneath the Good Guys, 
period, full stop.

Ceridwen.