You can't take the ability to decide away from someone who has no ability to decide. (See: "social imperius")

 

Lets say that the house elves of Hogwarts wanted to be free and so Hermione went to Dumbledore, he would be the one to decide. He hired Dobby and Winky so it seems only logical that he can release house elves. If Dumbledore told the house elves they could all be let go, it would then be their choice.

But that didn't happen, so we'll never know, will we?

 

No one was talking about freeing house elves. Not immediately anyway. What I was stressing on was the fact that wizards can get away with abusing the house-elves they own. This is so commonplace that most don't even register it as something wrong.

 

Freeing house elves and making it illegal to mistreat house elves are two separate things altogether.

 

You're not quite understanding, I think: I'm saying that the House Elves' purported wish to remain slaves is no more genuine than a 10-year-old girl's consent to sex.

They say they don't want to be free, but that statement is being made with factors preventing their ability to make a free, informed and independent decision.

To hold that the House Elves are unable to consent to slavery under their current circumstances is not going against their will, because they have no free will. They can't have a free will in those circumstances.

If, however, you raise an elf such that it can make a free, informed and independent decision, and then it chooses to serve someone for free, then fine. This is analagous to the 10-year-old girl becoming an adult.

 

Yet Dobby wanted to be free and he was raised in the same environment that pretty much all other house elves were, if not a more cruel one.

In fact you could compare Dobby with Kreacher. The same environment - I can imagine the Black family being just as cruel as the Malfoy family - yet one wanted to be free and the other wished to remain in service to his family.

 

So either Dobby is an outlier or he is the future. However, the mere fact that Dobby does want freedom makes it clear that not all house elves are naturally ingrained to servitude without recompense or servitude with physical and emotional abuse.

The fact that Kreacher has to obey, against his will and emotions, Sirius who he obviously hates speaks for itself. Due to the fact that he is bound to the Black House he is forced to obey a "Master" he despises and would rather kill.

 

The problem Taure and the Other Sode, is that you refuse to get off your high horse. Everyone is arguing, but refuses to see the other side. Taure keeps clingimg both to this quite ridiculous social imperius theory, where even bi centenary intelligent beings are no more capable than a uneducated child, and the other side assumes that enlightment isn't necessary to the point of denying it.

This won't get anything moving forward. I think custom made wands are damn annoying, I have no problem with custom made staffs on DF because that's what they are, but canon wands are not that.

 

I thought it fairly clear that Dobby was raised in an unusually abusive home. I imagine that most House Elves, like the Hogwarts Elves, are relatively well-treated.

 

Exactly. But stopping mistreatment of house elves can go some way in their emancipation. They prefer slavery because they don't know any better.

 

At least my high horse obeys me and doesn't ask for wages.


Seriously though, I think we both see each other's sides, we just happen to disagree. No need to add to that

 

Okay we agree to disagree.

Taure, why can't Harry be noble and a gentleman? It seems like you equate being noble\gentlemen aka not a whore with being a insecure eunuch.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure you will.

 

Take the comparison with the underage child and consent. Why is it, exactly, that we hold that children can't consent?

It's not simply a matter of "they're a child".

Children can't consent because:

- They don't understand the nature of sex.

- They don't understand the consequences of sex.

- There is a difference in power between the child and the adult which means that the child's decision is strongly influenced by the adult, whom the child trusts as a source of knowledge and authority.

- Further, the power imbalance allows the adult to engineer situations in which the child's ability to refuse is diminished by duress (e.g. the shame of disappointing an adult).

All of these things are true for House Elves:

- They don't understand the nature of freedom, they've never known it.

- They don't understand the consequences of slavery, they've never experienced anything else.

- There is a difference in power between slave and master such that the slave's decision is strongly influenced by the master, whose values they have been taught to hold as their own.

- The master is able to influence the Elf's environment such that they acquire (from other elves, from the master himself) a feeling of shame associated with deviating from the master's desires.

Do you still think it so absurd?

You have to read that in its context. Harry can't be noble and a gentlemen in the context of what the kind of story considers gentleman-like behaviour (insecure eunuch). For full details, see all of Kinsfire's published works.

 

To be fair I don't think house elves are educated do you? House elves are born and raised with the sole purpose of serving the families they are born into, having little choice in the matter.

 

I have an issue with the statement that house elves do not have free will.

Dobby certainly had free will. He chose to warn Harry of the danger that was to come if he returned to Hogwarts, I can’t imagine that the Malfoys ordered him to warn Harry. Don’t forget about the bludger incident during the Quidditch match versus Slytherin as well, Dobby had to have known that Draco Malfoy (one of his Masters) was on the team and could have been hurt, yet he still did it.

 

You seem to have completely overlooked all the tortures he put himself through to soothe his guilty conscience including but not limited to ironing his hands. Also they can't go against a direct order no matter how much they want to.

 

Well, I don't really read fan fic anymore unless its like amazing so pass but Harry is noble and a gentleman. That's like canon. It makes him him.

 

I do not mean they lack a will in the metaphysical sense, but rather in the moral sense. Obviously Elves are able to determine their own actions. But those determinations are subject to the factors mentioned in my post above comparing children and Elves.

Dobby is free(er) from those factors; he has learnt via the Malfoy's cruelty that his master can be wrong and that slavery is not associated with "the good life".

To be clear, "noble and gentleman" in these fics means crying if you touch a girl because, simply by touching her -- hell, simply by considering her beautiful -- you've violated her, because all women hate men and sex.

 

I've not overlooked that at all. In fact that furthers my point, that he still chose to warn Harry regardless of the consequences.

 

Dobby had to go against some sort of magical binding to warn Harry and even then he had to go back and serve Malfoy until Harry's trick with the sock. How is that free will?

---------- Post automerged at 12:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 PM ----------

If he truly had free will he would have turned Malfoy into a toad and left the Manor but he couldn't. Not until an outside agent assisted him through a strange magic ritual.