Notice your use of "I." Your conceptual gap is your fanon. You don't trust the White Council, or its understanding of how black magic works, despite Harry agreeing with them on how it works and "taints" the magic of a wizard or sorcerer.
Harry chose to make a Faustian bargain for selfish reasons- paternal love for a child. While sympathetic, it was in some respects the moral equivalent of having a child needing an organ donor and murdering people until a matching donor was found- that's what the "whatever" in "whatever it takes" means. Harry is going to kill whatever he needs to kill, and allow whatever friends and allies need to die to die, to save Maggie. He might feel bad about it later, but he's quite clear that feeling bad later isn't going to stop him now. That's . .not a good choice, from a strictly moral perspective.
It worked out for him. Intentions do in fact matter, not just actions. If my wife is having a heart attack and I run a red light because she's dying on the way to the hospital, but then run over a pedestrian, it is neither legally nor morally the same as slamming on my gas when I see a pedestrian walking to run them over laughing. One is Murder 1: Deliberate and malicious homicide, one is negligent homicide or reckless endangerment- I knowingly took actions I knew *might* result in the death of someone but neither intended them to result nor planned for them to result. It's why such distinctions exist. In fact, that's the essence of the self-defense defense Harry has vs Justin- Harry did not want to kill Justin, he wanted to not-be-dead from Justin, which required killing same. No malice or enjoyment, the intention was self-preservation.
Harry annihilated the Red Court- and the heroic Fellowship of St. Giles. Good with the bad. He didn't do it for the war, or even to save his own life- in that respect, *not* selfish. He did it for his personal child- not all the children the Red Court regularly killed. It was personal.
"Buts" are justifications, not validations.
Notice your use of "I." Your conceptual gap is your fanon. You don't trust the White Council, or its understanding of how black magic works, despite Harry agreeing with them on how it works and "taints" the magic of a wizard or sorcerer.
Nope. This has been alluded to in WOJ, and in the books directly. The laws do not make moral sense. Luccio even says that they are about power, not morality. And you realize that both the WC and Harry can be wrong right? And even if this was not the case, I am well within my rights to have a "fanon" and argue the point if the "canon" doesn't make any sense.
Harry chose to make a Faustian bargain for selfish reasons- paternal love for a child. While sympathetic, it was in some respects the moral equivalent of having a child needing an organ donor and murdering people until a matching donor was found- that's what the "whatever" in "whatever it takes" means. Harry is going to kill whatever he needs to kill, and allow whatever friends and allies need to die to die, to save Maggie. He might feel bad about it later, but he's quite clear that feeling bad later isn't going to stop him now. That's . .not a good choice, from a strictly moral perspective.
It worked out for him. Intentions do in fact matter, not just actions. If my wife is having a heart attack and I run a red light because she's dying on the way to the hospital, but then run over a pedestrian, it is neither legally nor morally the same as slamming on my gas when I see a pedestrian walking to run them over laughing. One is Murder 1: Deliberate and malicious homicide, one is negligent homicide or reckless endangerment- I knowingly took actions I knew *might* result in the death of someone but neither intended them to result nor planned for them to result. It's why such distinctions exist. In fact, that's the essence of the self-defense defense Harry has vs Justin- Harry did not want to kill Justin, he wanted to not-be-dead from Justin, which required killing same. No malice or enjoyment, the intention was self-preservation.
Harry annihilated the Red Court- and the heroic Fellowship of St. Giles. Good with the bad. He didn't do it for the war, or even to save his own life- in that respect, *not* selfish. He did it for his personal child- not all the children the Red Court regularly killed. It was personal.
"Buts" are justifications, not validations.
- sorry but who did Harry Murder exactly?
-I said motivations, not intentions. There is a difference. Intentions are what you are striving to accomplish. Motivations are why you want to accomplish it. And I did not say motivations are totally irrelevant, I said they only apply in certain cases and in certain ways.
"If my wife is having a heart attack and I run a red light because she's dying on the way to the hospital, but then run over a pedestrian, it is neither legally nor morally the same as slamming on my gas when I see a pedestrian walking to run them over laughing."
Your right, these are entirely different. But its the action that is different. In case one the choice you made was to violate a utilitarian law (traffic laws) in order to save you wife. Given the circumstances, the violation is justified. In the second case you chose to violate the law without a good reason, and in fact you had a abhorrent reason which only increases the terribleness of the crime.
What you accused Harry of is entirely different. It would be like if Harry got in his car and decided to speed because he had to get his wife to the hospital. Then he ran a red light due to the first reason, but when he did so he thought it was funny when there happened to be a person there and he ran them over. The fact that he enjoyed killing the person makes him
guilty of nothing, since the justification for running the red light was already present even if that person had not been there or they had never been run over.
" In fact, that's the essence of the self-defense defense Harry has vs Justin- Harry did not want to kill Justin, he wanted to not-be-dead from Justin, which required killing same. No malice or enjoyment, the intention was self-preservation."
If I enjoy killing someone in self defense it makes me
guilty of nothing.
What matters is why
would not kill someone. In other words, if I enjoyed killing people, would I restrain myself from doing so if I knew there was no justification to do so.
