The Ethical Imperative in Harry Potter - why Rowling talks about death

[davewitley]

Dan wrote:

> In other posts here and all over my fandom, I have said that Rowling
> writes continuously about a kind of ethical imperative - one that is
> not discrete, nor is it limited by methodological considerations - an
> ethical imperative that operates within a facsimile of the difficult
> and complex situations that obtain in our lives, written up as
> fantasy. Rowling insists that in all things, there is an ethical
> dimension (Dumbledore insisting on consulting with the judges at the
> second task!) that, ultimately, is what matters, regardless of the
> outcome. In fact, outcome-based motivation is practically anathema to
> Rowling...

I'm not sure about this: I think there's more than one way of looking 
at it.

It's clear that in JKR's universe (as in ours) killing is wrong.  I 
agree with your opinion that this is not really because it results in 
people being dead who should have been alive.  There are places where 
it's made clear that death is not the worst thing: that being so, 
you'd expect killing not to be the worst crime (or ethical violation, 
or whatever you want to call it).  To that extent, her ethics seem not 
to be 'outcome-based'.

However, that's not quite tantamount to saying 'killing is wrong 
because it's wrong because it's wrong' (I'm not sure I've understood 
you here, though).  There is, in my view, at least one other 
possibility, which is that killing is wrong because of what it does to 
the killer.  That seems to be at least part of the abhorrence of 
Horcruxes in the WW (it can't *just* be the daft name, can it?).  
Though, even there, it's not really explained *why* killing is so 
supremely bad.  It also gives a rationale for the observation that 
Avada Kedavra is 'unforgivable', whereas killing someone via, say, 
Sectusempra presumably is not.

This *is* a kind of 'outcome-based' ethics: the difference between it 
and, say, the MoM's ethics, is the type of outcome, not whether 
outcomes are involved at all.

There is also the question of how, in JKR's universe, you distinguish 
between competing ethics.  After all, Lucius Malfoy is only a 
hypocrite insofar as he has to be to survive.  I'm sure he'd prefer a 
soociety that is openly oppressive of Muggles and Muggle-borns.  Why 
should we take Dumbledore's ethics, rather than his?  While this is 
ultimately a problem with all ethical schemes, it seems to me that if 
you can focus discussion on the outcomes rather than the imperatives 
it's easier to make progress.  Even SUVs are not *intrinsically* evil.

David