Deontological!Snape (Was: OPEN: Ultimate and Last Bragging Rights)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 171270

mz_annethrope wrote:
> 
> I think of a patronus as an animal that protects the witch or 
wizard. It might be a representation of what actually protects the 
wizard: DD's phoenix or Harry's stag. It might be a personal 
attribute; this is what I take Cho's swan to be. Cho is graceful and 
elegant when she isn't crying. I think of Snape's protective 
attributes are thick skin (elephant? dragon?) and his inscrutability.
But sometimes the patronus is the virtue opposite of the person
casting the spell. I don't think Hermione resembles an otter, but she
has occasional bouts of playfulness (and viciousness) that save her
from her seriousness. Why did I choose stag for Snape's patronus? It
was purely facetious. 
> 
> I think the boggart could be what Snape fears will happen, but I
think it also could be what he fears about himself--say guilt or 
shame. I chose guilt.

Carol responds:
Oi! How is a naive and gullible person like me supposed to know that
you're being facetious without a <beg>? :-0

Seriously, although JKR herself has muddied the waters, I think that a
Patronus, which she describes as a spirit guardian, differs from an
Animagus form, which clearly represents personal characteristics.
(MWPP should have been able to predict Sirius Black's form as a black
dog from his name alone, coupled with his barklike laugh and his
doglike loyalty to James, and Peter Pettigrew's from his pointy nose
and squeaky voice, if not from ratlike traits in his personality (no
offense to rat lovers. I like pet rats, myself.) But Harry's Patronus,
as DD points out, clearly represents James ("You found your father in
yourself" or some such quote). I'm not certain that a Patronus has to
be an animal, whereas an Animagus form is that of an animal by
definition. (Animagus = ani(mal) magician or sorceror). Not that you
need to agree with me; that's just a distinction that seems important
to me and that JKR herself may have forgotten in assigning Cho a swan
Patronus (unless it's a male swan representing poor dead Cedric!) As I
said in another thread, I think that Hermione's otter Patronus
represents Ron Weasel, erm, Weasley. What's your nonfacetious idea of
Snape's Patronus (as opposed to his Animagus form, if any)?

As for a Boggart, I *suppose* it could represent guilt, but I think
guilt is unlikely to be a person's greatest fear (Lupin's definition
of what a Boggart represents), which is why I believe that it's
Voldemort killing Harry and consequently destroying all hope of a
victory against the Dark Lord.

ms_annethrope:
> Let's see if I can be brief. I think there is a strong ethical 
dimension to the HP books and the key is DD's remark: "It is our 
choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our 
abilities." (CoS p.333, American edition)This seems to be an argument
for virtue ethics or character ethics. <snip>
> 
> I do think that she [JKR], or at least DD, advocates some sort of
virtue ethics. It's not about one's choices per se, but that one's
choices reveal who one truly is. I think DD advocates (represents?)
some sort of virtue ethics because out of his sheer goodness--or 
foolhardiness--he is always giving people, and creatures, second 
chances. This is not ends based action because he does not expect 
people to be good in return for his kindness. Of course, there are 
times when DD acts in a different way. He had a plan for keeping 
Harry alive. And he chose not to divulge critical information to 
Harry, much to his later regret. But I think virtues are for the most
part emblematic of DD.
> 
> On to Snape. Some people think he is Machiavellian. That's Peter and
Lucius. I think if Snape were Machiavellian he would not have worked 
nearly so hard to keep Harry alive in the first book. But I am 
troubled by the idea of DD cutting a deal with Snape to kill him so 
that some good may result. This I called Utilitarian for lack of a 
better word. By Utilitarian I mean the theory that action should be 
directed at the greatest possible happiness for the greatest number of
people. I find this problematic, not just because it sacrifices the
happiness of some for the happiness of others, but because I think any
single perspective is limited and we cannot know if our chosen action
will have the effects we anticipated. I find it difficult to think DD
would cause Snape to kill for some good that might not happen. Of
course, JKR might have set it up that way because SHE knows the
answers. But DD doesn't.
> 
> But deontological (ethics of moral obligation) Snape is a 
possibility. Snape has various obligations: to Draco, to Harry, to DD,
etc., and he holds to them as tenaciously as a Saxon warrior to his
oaths. Deonotological Snape allows Snape to be a moral, if flawed,
person--perhaps a tragic figure <snip> And I suspect DD acted
deontologically when he sent Harry to live with the Dursleys. He had 
to do what he could to keep Harry alive. Ok, I wasn't brief.
<snip>

Carol responds:

Brevity isn't always a virtue (or the soul of wit). I prefer clarity,
myself, and I appreciate your explanation. (being philosophically
challenged myself, and unable to deal in abstractions without
suffering a severe headache, I had to look up "deontological." I've
never quite grasped ontology, and am glad to find that deontology is
another beast altogether, "the theory or study of moral obligation,"
according to my trusty Merriam-Webster's Online.

I see a clash within Dumbledore between utilitarianism (the greatest
good for the greatest number, meaning in his case the survival of the
WW at whatever cost to the individual) and his personal love for
Harry, which may or may not be represented by deontology. (I'd love to
hear what you think.) He even states as much himself: "What did I care
if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were
slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were
alive, and well, and happy?" (OoP Am. ed. 839). An yet, surely,
privileging Harry's happiness and temporary safety over the lives and
deaths of others can't be JKR's--or DD's--idea of right? He's caught
between placing his beloved Prophecy at a terrible risk and keeping
him safe at the expense of numerous other people, the whole WW, in
fact. Harry must be kept safe until he's ready, but he *must* be made
ready, for his own sake and everyone else's, "nameless and faceless"
or not. Harry is the WW's only hope, and DD knows it.

In HBP, both DD and Snape are preoccupied with Draco's personal (and
moral) safety as well as with Harry (over whom Snape has apparently
been watching since SS/PS as part of his obligation either to DD or to
his own set of ethics--certainly, you're right that he's not
Machiavellian). Keeping Draco safe could jeopardize the school, but
keeping the school safe by, say, expelling Draco, would guarantee
Draco's death. Again, it seems to me, DD tries to strike a balance
between the good of the individual (Draco and perhaps UV-bound Snape)
and the good of the "greatest number" (the students and staff of
Hogwarts). Expelling Draco would certainly be easy, but I'm pretty
sure that DD doesn't consider it right. Instead, he has Snape watch
over Draco (which he's doing anyway because of the UV) and try to
question him; meanwhile, he puts as many protections on the school as
possible. In the end, he talks Draco out of killing him, not for his
own sake but for Draco's, and he seems to me to ask Snape to kill him
as the only way to save Draco's, Harry's, and Snape's lives (good of
the individual), save the school from the DEs (utilitarianism), place
Snape in his role as saboteur to fight LV (utilitarianism), and save
Harry, not as an individual but as the Chosen One for the sake of the
WW (utilitarianism). So, in the end, his conflicting values come
together. By allowing Snape rather than a DE or the poison to kill
him, in which case he would *not* have gone over the wall and Snape,
dead from breaking the UV, could not have gotten the DEs and Draco off
the tower before Harry came rushing out, DD accomplishes a number of
objectives. He can't save his own life, but he can choose how he dies
and make sure he doesn't take anyone with him (assuming that his
complete trust in Snape is justified and Snape does what's required to
save those other lives). that, at any rate, is how I interpret
"Severus, please!" DD is begging, not for his own life or for Snape's
soul but for the safety of a valued ally and friend, two students, the
school itself, and, ultimately, the whole WW.

As for Snape himself, I think his immediate action is motivated by the
need to get the job done at whatever cost to himself. He hesitates,
his expression changing as he looks into DD's eyes and (IMO) learns
what he wants, but he doesn't raise his wand even though he surely
knows that the UV has been triggered. DD's pleading seems to include a
note of urgency--*Please,* Severus! Do it now or it will be too late!
But part of Snape, I think, would rather die than kill his mentor (the
very opposite of Peter Pettigrew, who would have saved his own skin in
a second). So I see him at this point as what you're calling
Utilitarian Snape. He does what's best for the WW and Hogwarts at
terrible expense to himself (far worse than death, he's making himself
an outcast and a fugitive hated by the whole WW). But there's also an
element of what you call Deontological Snape because he's saving Draco
(for whose sake he put his own life on the line with the UV in the
first place, and perhaps his soul as well) and, as always, protecting
the "arrogant," rule-breaking Potter boy, without whom the WW is toast.

I do think that Snape operates according to his own moral code, a set
of strict, old-fashioned virtues of the sort rejected by Shelleyan
Romantics in the early eighteenth century and more recently by the
Beat generation of the 1950s and its postmodern offspring from the
1990s onward: Duty, Obedience, Respect for Authority, Loyalty
(Loyaultie me Lie!), perhaps others that I can't think of right now.
Courage is also important to him; Truth, on the other hand, is in DD's
words, "a beautiful and terrible thing," to be handed out in small
doses and, if the occasion requires, somewhat distorted.

Carol, not sure where she's going with this but intrigued by the
concept of Deontological!Snape