[HPforGrownups] Re: Imperio

[Lee Kaiwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 176976

> I still think this is the key to the morality of
> the Imperius in general; context matters. We seem
> to have people who view everything as morally
> neutral, or who seem to be moral absolutest, 

Reopening an old subject, my problem with the "good guys" using the 
Unforgivables is not that one couldn't find (or imagine) situations in 
which they might be morally justified (though for the Cruciatus I can't 
imagine even hypothetically justifiable use). Rather it was that through 
most of the first six books, JKR's morality was pretty absolutist -- 
these were just not things good guys did: automatic one-way ticket to 
Azkhaban, and all that. Then suddenly in DH we find the good guys 
throwing them around rather trivially without so much as a nod in the 
general direction of the moral conundrum their use raises.  In a word, 
JKR violates her own rules, and hence the readers' expectations.

> Certainly you can tell the evil terrorist from those
> who are opposing them? Yet on an isolated basis it
> might be necessary for the good guy to engage in
> the equivalent of terrorism. Yet the good guy are
> the good guys, and their purpose is to oppose evil
> and tyranny.

Please correct me, but this sounds an awful like the end justifying the 
means. To which I reply: there ARE certain things good guys are not 
permitted to do and still remain good guys. I think Sirius was clear 
about that in his description of Barty Crouch -- that in the end no, you 
could no longer tell the terrorist from those who were opposing them.

> Good Guys may do something bad as a matter of
> momentary need, whereas for the Bad Guys bad things
> are a preferred way of life.

Am I the only one who sees a slippery slope here?

--CJ