If a moral code means more or less surrendering or at the very least effectively aiding and abetting an enemy hellbent on genocide, than this moral code is severely deficient and complete suicide.

 

Actually, I've just realised that this is hilarious.

It seems that some people believe that it is entirely reasonable to subvert basic human rights to save innocent lives (subverting the rights of murderers and a few innocents caught in the crossfire is preferable to genocide, right?).

It seems those same people believe that what Dumbledore did to Harry (paraphrased from their own words, subverted his human rights, freedom, cruel and unusual and so on and so forth) is totally and abominably wrong, even though he did it to avert a possible genocide.

Your statement above is the ultimate expression of Grindelwald's Greater Good. If a few eggs need to be broken to make an omelette, well, it's a tragedy, but a necessary one.

I just thought that was amusing. It all comes around in a nice neat circle.

 

Yes, I imagine the Order as more an association of like-minded individuals rather than a hierarchical military organisation. I doubt they have a common policy on correct combat (or anything). We know that Remus Lupin, at least, is totally okay with killing in duels, but that James Potter would likely have disagreed with him on the matter.

 

Sesc

Somebody argued that the wizarding war was not a war in the conventional sense or a civil war, but more of a police action against terrorists. So the aurors tried to capture DEs and bring them to prison.
But in DH (and maybe during the first war), Voldemort took over and any resistance essentially fought a guerilla war against an immoral regime.

Which changes the dynamics.

 

On the matter of Dumbledore. Here is a man magically - and intellectually - capable of wielding supreme power within the wizarding community, greater power than even what he is afforded as a Headmaster and the Supreme Mugwump. He is a man who people would listen to and obey almost without question. He is revered.

But this is also a man who is scared. Scared of that very same power. He almost went down that path with Grindelwald and it cost him his sister's life, it cost him his relationship with his brother, and in his heart it cost him Grindelwald himself. He had to watch as Grindelwald followed through on his and Dumbledore's own plans. And then he had to fight against Grindelwald, the person he was once in love with, and sentence him to a life in prison, powerless.

I believe that Dumbledore, at his base, is a man consumed by regret. We see this in his role as Headmaster: he wishes to stop the rise of another Tom Riddle. We see this in the fact that he has turned down - several times, in fact - the position of Minister of Magic. This is also why he trusts Snape so much, he sees himself in Snape, which also accounts for his propensity to gift people with second chances. He himself had a second chance upon his sister's death, Snape had a second chance after Lily's death.

After all he has been through, the only way that Dumbledore can cope with his regret is to to believe that people can change, like he and Snape did.

 

As to whether Dumbledore condoned killing - in the vast majority of cases, it would be plausible to suggest that he did not, if there was any other way.

But this is also a man who knew and accepted that one day, Voldemort would have to die, and not of natural causes. He knew Riddle would have to be killed. And he never seemed to have any qualms or regrets about the role he played in achieving that end.

So, in that sense, one might say that he almost certainly 'condoned' killing if he considered it to be a necessity, if unethical.

Did he try to avoid it if at all possible? Yes. Did he understand that it had to be done in certain situations? Yes.

As Sesc suggested, this would be, perhaps, the healthiest and most realistic way to look at it.

 

So basically Dumbledore would go with the position that killing is always wrong, but sometimes it might be the best option out of a lot of bad ones?

 

More or less. Voldemort, after all, was not exactly the type of wizard who could ever have been successfully imprisoned. Something tells me even the confiscation of his wand would not have been sufficient . . . which would lend itself well to the notion that he was one of the most terrifying wizards ever to have walked the earth.

EDIT: Though I hesitate to think he ever would have considered killing to be the 'best' option. If he ever considered it, it had to be something more like the 'only' option.

 

I heartily agree with that, but that is not even necessary. If someone come at you with a deadly weapon (gun, wand, not important), you have the right to kill him.

You talking about Privet Drive? That was to keep him save (from Death Eaters and his fame) and many of the people, who defend Dumbledore, point out, that Dumbledore himself never really believed in the prophecy himself.

Actually, I don't think, it is a good thing for people with superpowers (wizards) to conquer the world, so, I'm not like Grindelwald.

You braking up the wrong tree, because I never wrote it like that. Straw man argument, much?

---------- Post automerged at 10:09 ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 ----------

Semantics.

 

It's immoral (and usually illegal) to let someone murder an innocent if one can prevent it. It's moral (and usually legal) to kill someone if that's the only means to achieve that.

Unike the rare examples in real life, Dumbledore expected Voldemort to break out his followers from prison. That means he would have to pick other options than capture to deal with Death Eaters.

Not that he would have had to kill anyone though - he could have oblivated them down to a Baby, for a fresh start, as Long as that was irreversible, he could have imprisoned them somehwere safer, maybe a secret prison he constructed, could have turned them to Stone and hif them somewhere... put them into a coma...

A wizard of Dumbledore's power would have had lots of ways to protect people from Death Eaters without either killing them or putting them into Azkaban.

 

It would be wrong to say that Dumbledore didn't believe in prophecies. It would be more accurate to say that he believed that prophecies were the result of your actions and aren't meant to be taken as guidelines as how one should act.

---------- Post automerged at 04:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 AM ----------

Are you suggesting Dumbledore should've done all that? You really need to brush up on your ethics because I'm pretty sure obliviating someone to leave them no better than a baby, putting them in a coma etc might be considered worse offences than killing.
As for imprisoning them..... well he is not the king of Magical Britain. He is a citizen. A powerful one yes but a mere citizen at the end of the day. Doing what you're saying he should do he'd become exactly what he was trying to avoid becoming in the first place.

 

If Dumbledore didn't want to kill he still should have made sure that the Death Eaters he defeated wouldn't pose a threat to anyone else. Not doing so even if he could, and even without killing, would be unethical.

He already started an illegal vigilante organisation. The "mere citizen" excuse as rendered invalid right then, when he decided that he had to take the law into his own hands to defeat Voldemort.

 

Yes stop them killing by, say, locking them up into a high-security prison that nobody has ever broken out of? Yes, if only there'd been one of those.

/s.

 

Not Azkaban (two break-outs). Nurmengard would be the way to go (Magi-Adolf Nr. 1 was there, until he was iced by Magi-Adolf Nr. 2).

 

Morality is a difference between Dumbledore and Voldemort. If Dumbledore killed mercilessly anyone who crossed or attacked him, he would inevitably turned into Voldemort, in the end.

"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Killing people is a bad thing. Anyone who believes otherwise is morally inept. Anyone who acts otherwise is a bad guy.

edit: I won't argue with idiots (meant golan). I think that what has been said (mostly by Corvus Black) is sufficient to describe Dumbledore's character, his morality included.

 

Killing someone who crossed him and killing someone who attacked him are totally different things.

Nope. Some people just deserve to get a bullet through the head.

 

Dumbledore doesn't need to kill people. He's such an exceptional wizard that he is perfectly capable of disabling them without killing them. The only wizards he's ever really had trouble with are Grindelwald and Voldemort, one of which he locked up in Nurmengard and the other he never captured.

So in the instance of Dumbledore, is it really moral for him to kill people when he is just as capable of capturing them?

golan: Morality is not as clear cut as you're suggesting it is. Absolute statements on it endear you to no one.

 

Would've been a good idea, since the Ministry doesn't do their job locking them up (first, because they weren't corrupt, later, because Voldemort himself attacked the slammer).

 

Dumbledore isn't a god. He is not even Minister of Magic. He doesn't even have the authority to throw people in prison let alone the power to make sure they remain there and short of guarding the gates of the prison I doubt he could've done much to prevent another breakout.

The Order was never said to be an illegal Organization. I doubt they ever took the law in their hands so your accusations of vigilantism are mere speculations here.

---------- Post automerged at 06:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:58 AM ----------

Dumbledore isn't a god. He is not even Minister of Magic. He doesn't even have the authority to throw people in prison let alone the power to make sure they remain there and short of guarding the gates of the prison I doubt he could've done much to prevent another breakout.

The Order was never said to be an illegal Organization. I doubt they ever took the law in their hands so your accusations of vigilantism are mere speculations here.

That kind of thinking is exactly what makes you morally bankrupt.