Funnily enough, in the first book Ron remarks that if muggles knew about magic they would want wizards to solve all their problems.

The Muggle and Wizarding Worlds are separated for many reasons, hell, they didn't make the Statue of Secrecy for shits and giggles. Perhaps one wizard/witch or another might try to help muggles, especially in times like the Second World War as was said above, but you can't forget that the Wizarding World has its own problems.

 

It's not like they do nothing for muggles. They keep dementors in check which is pretty fucking nice considering muggles can't see them, harm them, or stop them from removing their souls. That seems like a pretty swell thing for wizards to do.

Plus, wizards kind of have their own problems to solve. It's not like being a wizard suddenly makes your life ridiculously easy. They have ridiculously powerful magical creatures and dark wizards to deal with. Then there are the magical illnesses, and mundane things like being poor which still effects them. Why should they suddenly take on a whole slew of muggle problems in addition to their own problems?

 

HahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAhaha... Heh...

Just goes to show how good vlad's shit is. Also lol if you think that's a shitpost. Vlad gave what I thought was a very good answer to your question. Your own responses to some other posts suggest that you're the kind of person who asks a question to seek gratification for their viewpoints. You negate answers that don't match up to your own thoughts because of course you're right and oh gosh how can they be so dumb hurrdurr.

 

I actually do think this is an interesting and legitimate question, but I also agree that the ultimate answer is "no".

The question isn't really about magic. It's a moral problem that transcends the particular facts of the HP universe: do people have a moral obligation to help others at their own expense? Magic or money or expertise or time, it makes no difference.

Ultimately I think individual liberty is a principle of higher priority than the obligation to help others. Certainly someone who helps others is morally laudable, but I don't think it's immoral to live your own life.

There's a bit more you can say on the topic to make it more nuanced: a person's lack of obligation to help others may be modified by relative importance or relative cost. So, for example, it takes almost zero effort to rescue a drowning baby from inch-deep water, so the low cost and high level of need probably should amount to a moral obligation to save said baby (though I would stop short of making it a legal obligation). Conversely, if the baby is now in deep water surrounded by sharks, the cost is a lot higher and the existence of a moral obligation much less clear.

In the particular case of wizards and Muggles, it seems to me that wizards trying to fix Muggle problems would be a full time job for the entire population. Saying wizards have no obligation to help Muggles under those circumstances is pretty much the same as saying that you don't have a moral obligation to quit your job and volunteer all your time at a charity.

 

I'm with Taure on this- in fact I was arguing something similar a few months ago regarding the Philosopher's Stone and whether Flamel was considered or should be considered a criminal for keeping its secrets away from others.

My follow-up question in the realm of 'sovereign rights to privacy for wizards' would be this: is there a situation dire enough that the muggle governments should be able to ask for the help of wizards?

I figure the extinction-level-events are an easy pass (big asteroid; alien invasion) but then what's the lower limit?

 

Believe it or not I'm not trying to argue whether they're cruel or not. If you look back at any of my posts you would see that I posted to create discussion. I don't have some agenda or viewpoint to push. I even admit as such to Clerith's 2nd reply when I thought his growth/advancement thing made sense for cancer. vlad wasn't doing anything but calling the discussion shit and whatnot.

Your first point about drowning baby is almost the same scenario as what got me thinking of this idea in the first place, with the whole importance vs. cost paradigm.

It's something like this, if you're wearing an expensive suit (25000+ dollars for example) and you're the only one to see a child drowning in a 3-foot deep fountain pool right next to you, wouldn't it be cruel for you to ignore the child in favor of maintaining your suit's value? You won't suffer harm, but the suit's at risk of losing value/getting ruined.

What makes that any different from saving a starving African kid? A plane ticket wouldn't cost more than 25k. But there are other problems associated with going to Africa and trying to save people, so I can understand the average guy not traveling.

Magic in comparison maybe lessens the cost from traveling to Africa, to the fountain-near-you scenario.

And I don't think preventing starvation would be a full time job for wizards. Couldn't they just set up a long-lasting enchantment or charm like gemino? Only a few of those and millions of muggles could be set. Of course this is assuming that there is an infinite amount of magic.

 

I mostly agree with Taure on this, but there are some issues that are so low-effort fo wizards and so high-effort for muggles that if I was a muggle-born HP wizard I would try to help (hopefully I'd be super mega awesome so that governments wouldn't try to enforce laws on me xD):

1. Reliable water supply. Some variant of aguamenti could probably supply water in large quantites for drought areas.

2. Reliable and clean energy. Gubraithian fire, any kind of machine with an animation spell of some kind, etc.

These could probably be done in a set-and-forget way that wouldn't inconvenience wizards much beyond the setup but benefit people a lot.

 

This question, in modern popular fiction at least, has been asked and debated since Star Trek and its Prime Directive: to help others with (magic/science) or not, when is it aid and when does it becomes interference to the growth of others.

For this question, though, you may also want to consider if the wizarding community of the region (e.g. Africa) can or wants to help, or if perhaps they have already done their best? After all, we have limited scope in HP because we are seeing primarily through Harry's eyes.

 

Good point. Maybe behind the scenes in the books there is a much less significant presence of problems than in the real world.

 

Actually, Vlad originally posted a sarcastic response mocking the TC, but edited his first post and even polished his second to provide a "real" response right afterwards. Just sayin'.

 

I edited the first for grammar - no change to material of post.

I stand by the content of both posts.

Just sayin'.

 

You said screwing with muggles' minds would in essence be taking away their agency. Doesn't the MoM already do that with Obliviators?

 

I think it'd actually be libel. Slander is oral defamation through spoken words, rather than a writing.

 

Indeed.

Also, here's one for OP.

 

Yes, they do. I believe they are wrong to do so and it demonstrates a fundamental ethical dilemma in the SoS.

But limited, specific-circumstance, balancing one's societies survival with possible ethics breach is orders of magnitude less wrong than mindfucking muggles to force them to live amongst themselves in wizard-defined utopia.

 

Either way you're manipulating humans. The difference in the second case is the benefit is more for the muggles.

I never proposed them living together. It would be like SoS is now with a special clause allowing for the ministry to set up some permanent charms.

The mind-altering would strictly be for specific circumstances to dissuade any investigation to how world hunger became a non-issue in a small amount of time. The Ministry had no problem altering minds when hosting a Quidditch game; nothing to do with survival in that case. Hell, that might not even be required. If the Prime Minister and other leaders know about magic, they can probably convince everyone that world hunger was solved naturally.

 

See that's my issue right there.

I don't like but can understand mind wiping muggles of doing so is to benefit your society: keeping it secret. It doesn't deny the innate nastiness of the act.

But history shows few things are as relentlessly evil than a tyrant who insists on doing it for your own good.

And yeah, I found the quidditch world cup to be one of the most twisted parts of the series. Look up my post in the "what do Hermione's parents know" thread: it's shit like this that led me to conclude that the parents of muggleborns are treated as irrelevant, even by "good" wizards.

 

You have a reasonable point about how bad things can be when a tyrant does things with the justification of doing what's best for his people. Maybe that's why the SoS is strict. If you give an inch to wizards, they'll take a mile. Putting the responsibility of the muggles' well being on wizards is a target for corruption and tyrants to do too much.

 

Ched, I think it all comes down to the Statute. It was created for a reason. I think we can assume that before it was put in place, there must have been some gentle souls who did you described, the whole good Samaritan routine.

But something made wizards think: "we gotta hide". Maybe it was muggles expecting wizards to help out. I assume something detrimental was happening to wizards to make them decide to play the biggest game of hide and seek ever. Or it could've just been wizards being selfish dicks, but somehow I think it was more complicated than that.

Vlad, I always thought the issue of Hermione's parents was weird. Did Hermione just not tell them anything, or stomped her foot and insisted on going back to Hogwarts after being attacked by a troll, then a basilisk, then there was the thing with dementors and time travel and then everything that followed. It smells plot-holey, doesn't it?