Dumbledore's internal conflict and Deontological!Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 171362

Carol earlier:
<snip>
> > 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. <snip>
> > 
> > In HBP, both DD and Snape are preoccupied with Draco's personal 
(and moral) safety as well as with Harry <snip>. 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. <snip> 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, <snip> DD <snip> 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 <snip>. 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 <snip>. But there's also an element of
what you call Deontological Snape because he's saving Draco <snip>
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 [oops! Make that
"nineteenth," of course!] 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 <snip>,
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. <snip>

mz_annethrope responded:

<snip>
> 
> My concern with utilitarianism or utilitarian!DD is not about 
sacrificing the one for the sake of the many. <snip> My concern rather
is that utilitarianism aims for maximal happiness, which is an 
epistemological problem. How can any one of us know what will make 
the most people happy? That doesn't seem to me to be the choice that 
DD or Snape makes. As a matter of fact, I think the most truly 
utilitarian characters we have met so far are Fudge and Umbridge. 
They actually try to make decisions for the happiness of all. 
> 
> Of course, JKR as author determines all the happy ends and we get to
argue about whether or not her choices work. I am not so convinced 
that her more interesting characters do the same. I take Dumbledore 
at his word when he tells Harry that he was trying to keep him alive 
when he placed him with the Dursleys. It is a terrible choice to have
to make. But I think his motive was love undiluted by the belief that
Harry would be the one to save the Wizarding World.
> 
> You see it as both/and. I see it as both/and in a somewhat different
way. DD is training Harry for the fight with Voldemort. He doesn't 
know how it will end. He doesn't teach Harry how to fight. Instead he
gives Harry lessons in what every great warrior must do: know your
enemy. But I still think his motive is love.
<snip>

Carol responds:

I was thinking of "happiness" as being something different from
Umbridge's view of it (essentially, ignorance is bliss--I've compared
her elsewhere with Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor), more like the
ultimate Utilitarian Jeremy Bentham's idea that happiness is pleasure,
or at least the absence of pain, with the ideal being "the greatest
good for the greatest number."

http://www.probe.org/theology-and-philosophy/worldview--philosophy/utilitarianism-the-greatest-good-for-the-greatest-number.html

That is, for Bentham if he were a wizard in Harry's time (rather than
an eighteenth-century Muggle who had himself stuffed and placed in the
British Museum after his death), the safety of all those "nameless and
faceless people" would unquestionably take precedence over Harry's
suffering and the deaths of the Potters if that suffering and those
deaths are necessary to bring about Voldemort's fall. Dumbledore, IMO,
is well aware that, thanks to Voldemort's interpretation of the
Prophecy rather than the Prophecy itself, which would not have come
true had it not been acted upon, Harry is now the Chosen One, the only
one who can save the WW. So which is more important, keeping him alive
or letting him be briefly happy? Obviously, keeping him alive, whether
or not he's the Prophecy Boy (but he wouldn't be in danger if he
weren't). But I don't think DD's motive is love at this point. It's
more a concern for a particular child's safety combined with the
"greater good" (he knows or at least suspects that LV has created his
own nemesis by unwittingly making Harry his "equal"). He doesn't even
know Harry, who is fifteen months old. And later, when Harry comes to
Hogwarts, he again has to choose. Which is more important, Harry
living a long life or Harry defeating Voldemort? Obviously, DD wants
both, but in the long run, I think he'd choose the WW--the "greater
good" over the life of one boy, no matter how courageous and talented.
Until the confrontation, Harry must be kept alive. If he dies before
he confronts Voldemort, they will all fall victim to Voldemort. But
Harry has to be willing to sacrifice himself, as Lily was and as DD is
and as Sirius Black says the Order members must be. And DD, had he
survived Harry, would have had to be willing to allow that
self-sacrifice. (Note, too, that Harry's blood, and by implication his
life, has by the end of HBP become more important than DD's--not
because Harry is more powerful, which he isn't, but because he's the
Chosen One.) But throughout the books, DD is troubled by this
conflict--which is more important, Harry's happiness in the usual
sense, or the "happiness" of the WW, the greater good? And ultimately,
he gives in to the need to tell Harry almost everything, to destroy
his hopes for normal relationships and an ordinary wizarding life, by
telling him about the Prophecy and LV and the Horcruxes. Harry is the
Chosen One, and by the end of HBP, that destiny is more important than
anything else to DD (who nevertheless still values the life of the
unworthy Draco enough to persuade him that he's not a killer. He's not
Puppet!master Dumbledore, in my view, but a wise and good man trying
to do balance the good of the individual against the greater good and
finding his choices difficult.)

Certainly, DDM!Snape, untroubled by any love for Harry, would choose
the WW's "happiness" (safety) over Harry's "happiness" (pleasure),
which IMO makes him a Utilitarian. He doesn't care if Harry is *happy*
in the usual sense, but he goes out of his way to protect him in every
book. He'd rather needle Harry than coddle him, punishing him for his
"arrogance" and mediocrity while trying to get him to follow rules and
directions, but, as Quirrell tells Harry early on, he doesn't want
Harry dead or even physically harmed. In fact, it's of the utmost
importance to DDM!Snape to keep Harry alive, not for his own sake but
for the WW's. And, IMO, he really wants Harry to recognize his own
failings and remedy them before it's too late (which is why, for
example, he gets Harry to curse him in DADA class when Ron can't
manage a nonverbal hex--only he wanted Harry to use a *nonverbal*
Protego instead of a verbal one). Unfortunately, their mutual
antipathy makes it impossible for him to get this point across to
Harry, who knows perfectly well that Snape isn't concerned about his
happiness in the usual sense. But Snape, IMO, *is* concerned about
"happiness" in the Utilitarian sense of the greatest good for the
greatest number. He wants Voldemort defeated, and the only way to do
that is to protect Harry until the job is done, after which Harry can
take care of himself, assuming that he survives.

Snape's attitude toward Draco is another matter. Here we see personal
feelings apparently take precedence over the common good. He wants to
protect Draco, and he places his own life (and DD's) on the line to do
it. But he (apparently) reports this mistake to DD and DD, too, seems
to place Draco's "happiness" (his life and well-being, not to mention
his soul) above that of the school (which DD nevertheless strives to
protect with such unprecedented measures as the anti-flying charm). At
the same time, they both strive to keep Harry out of Draco's struggle
(Snape by putting him in detention after the Sectumsempra incident, DD
by telling him not to worry about what Draco is up to).

In the end, as I said, I think DD's concerns and philosophies come
together. By having Snape rather than the DEs or the poison kill him,
he enables Snape to save himself and both boys (the good or
"happiness" of the individual, though certainly none of them will be
happy in the usual sense) and at the same time, get the DEs out of the
school and, if not insure, at least make possible, the "good" or
"happiness" of the "greatest number," the WW in general by allowing
Snape to undermine Voldemort and Harry ultimately to vanquish him. Had
DD died in some other way and Harry rushed out to fight the DEs, not
only his life but the "happiness" of the WW would have been destroyed.

mz_annethrope:
> 
> And then on the next page DD tells Harry he has to kill Voldemort, 
but not because of the prophecy, but because Voldemort's choices have
given Harry a thirst for revenge.

Carol responds:

Are you sure? IIRC, he tells Harry that he tells Harry that he has to
kill Voldemort because Voldemort will continue to hunt him down. So
it's not Harry's thirst for revenge (What *is* DD thinking by bringing
that up, anyway, if Harry's weapon is Love?) but Voldemort's
interpretation of the Prophecy (his choices, as you say) that makes
the confrontation (and the fulfillment of the Prophecy in some form)
inevitable. DD (or JKR) is again trying to have it both ways, freedom
of choice and inevitability.
> 
mz_annethrope:
> So I don't see Dumbledore as acting the way he does because Harry is
the only one who can save the wizarding world. What I do think is 
that he knows Voldemort and that because of that he tries to use the 
prophecy against him. Voldemort is the one who puts stock on 
prophecies and he goes after it. Of course, DD doesn't tell Harry 
what he is doing. There could be so so many problems if he told him.
And Harry, being a free person freely misreads the situation. This is
the closest thing I can come to utilitarian!Dumbledore. And 
Dumbledore admits he made a mistake. 

Carol responds:

You don't think that DD allows Harry special privileges (and allows
him to expose himself to particular dangers) because he's the Prophecy
Boy? Would he have given him the Invisibility Cloak at age eleven,
watched over him, allowed him to enter the third-floor corridor,
provided Harry!suited protections should he enter the Chamber of
Secrets, allowed him and Hermione to use a Time Turner to rescue
Sirius Black, allowed a fourteen-year-old to enter the TWT, had Snape
give him Occlumency lessons, given him special tutoring sessions on
LV, if he hadn't been the Chosen One, the only one who could save the
WW? Yes, Voldemort is going after Harry personally to kill him, but
surely Voldie's ultimate defeat is as important to Dumbledore as Harry
himself, which is why his love for Harry is a problem in the first
place? Snape, of course, doesn't have that problem. For him, it's the
"nameless and faceless people" who matter, and Potter is just a nasty,
rule-breaking little boy who, unfortunately, has to be protected (and
taught a few lessons) so that he can ultimately defeat the Dark Lord.
(With Mrs. Weasley, we see the opposite view. Harry is a child to be
protected and loved. Of course, she doesn't know about the Prophecy,
but she probably wouldn't change he views if she did.)

mz_annethrope:
Now it just occurred to me that in the consequentialist (utilitarian)
world Snape might have been the one to suffer if Voldemort had gotten
the prophecy. Go figure.

Carol:
I'm not sure what you mean her. Can you clarify?

mz_annethrope: 
> Hmmm. Shelley as anti-Snape. This is causing me to like Snape much 
more than I ought to.

Carol:

Erm, wouldn't Snape be the anti-Shelley rather than the other way
around? (You don't like Shelley and his anti-establishment values, I
take it? Not to go OT but just for clarification?)

Carol, who can almost envision our poetic Snape composing an "Ode to
Duty" which would cause Shelley to rise in horror from his watery grave