Is there any moral difference between A and B?

Example 1:

A. Using transfiguration on yourself to make yourself more physically attractive to a prospective partner, and taking advantage of the fact that they are now attracted to you to seduce them.

B. Casting a charm on a prospective partner to make them think you are attractive as you are, and taking advantage of the fact that they are now attracted to you to seduce them.

(I think this more or less explores consequentialist vs. deontological ethics. The difference is in changing yourself vs. changing others, but if the end result is the same, does that difference have moral implications?).

Example 2:

A. Using legilimency on a prospective partner to anticipate their desires and fulfil them.

B. Using (accurate) divination to anticipate a prospective partner's desires and fulfil them.

(Again this is a scenario with two different means of ending up at the same end result. This time, however, the difference in method is not changing yourself vs. changing others, but rather source of knowledge).

 

In the first example, the intentions are the same, but the second approach lacks some care for the prospective partner's feelings and image. Part of the reason people want an attractive partner is not just so that they will have something nice to see every morning, but so that other people will think highly of them. It seems hard to argue that the caster in this circumstance loves the prospective partner if he or she intends to remain unattractive to the rest of the world.
Regarding the second example, I don't know what the source of knowledge is for divination. Is every future action written into the fabric of the universe somewhere? Does some totally-not-Jesus know your heart and predict your actions, then inform the soothsayers? It hardly seems any different if the concern is violating someone else's autonomy.

 

I think there are important differences outside of the “internal vs external change” offered in the first example. For one, the human transfiguration example makes you objectively beautiful, or at least normatively beautiful according to the society held norm. Thus, it may seem worse to be charmed precisely because it feels like you are being fooled on account of falling for someone who does not pass the objective/normative standard to the same degree.

In the second case, it’s important to account for the differences in the contents of the knowledge. Does the divination example simply mean reading some tea leaves, which tells you the desires or feelings of another based on their spatial orientation? If that’s the case, then it seems like the contents of legilimency are more personal. Because in the latter instance, you might actually feel what the other person is feeling etc…

However, if the divination is so precise that it can accurately capture the same experience as legilimency, then this difference is elided. Say a potion which, when drunk, makes you go into a trance wherein you feel the real desire/potential future state of the person in question. In that case, it would seem like just as much a violation as the legilimency example.

This seems to show that any significant moral differences between A and B in the two cases might just be due to the separate consequences between the two. So it’s still the knowledge & consequences of acquiring it that arguably matter, and not the method of acquisition itself (irrespective of consequential outcome).

 

This all hinges on the myopic thought that the end result is only attractiveness/knowledge. Other results include altered mental state without consent/mental rape. There can be no single defined end point in actions like these.

Your examples are bad and you should feel bad.

 

Example 1:

B is far more immoral than A. In A, all you are doing is magical cosmetic surgery, where as B is the invasion and violation of someone's mind. Getting a nose job or a boob job or a face lift or a pec implant and not telling a partner is nothing compared to what amounts to brainwashing.

Example 2:

A is more immoral than B. In A you are basically reading their thoughts, face to face with eye contact. The opportunity to dig deeper and use it to solve every problem you have with your partner has the possibility to become your automatic go to. On the other hand, B is essentially the same as reading a self-help book entitled 'Things (opposite sex) like in a relationship' or 'Things (opposite sex) like in bed', but 100% accurate.

The real moral dilemma with magic is that magic, as described in HP, essentially makes every man, woman, and child a God. The definition of an Übermensch. Much like how the One Ring offers powers that are inherently corrupting by their very nature, or that Superman would be Stalin's personal hitman if he landed in Siberia instead of Kansas, what is human morality to what amounts to a God on Earth?

 

There’s no need to get aggressive, friend.

I tend to agree with your point of view(That altered mental state/consent is the primary moral consideration here), but this is A. a moral discussion, where points of view like yours are welcomed as valuable discourse - and B. Particularly hypothetical, given that it’s about fictional magic.

 

You are correct. I'm sorry if I came across as aggressive. The "your examples are bad" sentence is a futurama reference. I'm just a bit put off by topics like this one, as I think they're either low-effort posts or an attempt to appear intellectual. Maybe it's my fault I expect more. I do stand by what I said, the examples are not actually good.

This is really the source of all moral dilemmas one could explore in the hp universe.

 

I don't see any problem with examples, and they actually provide an interesting contrast between two listed ethical theories.

Now, I'm not ashamed to admit I had to google them, and then google the difference between ethics and moral, but now I'm pretty decent I can give enough relevant answer. In the first example, after half a beer of thinking, I think there's no moral difference. I came to it because after a couple of careful reads, it seems to me that implied immoral actions of both A and B options is deception rather than casting magic in question. I can see why would someone consider option B to be more immoral, but the way I see it, it just adds another immoral action to already immoral plan.

In short, I don't think moral stacks. It either is or it isn't. (I don't think seduction is immoral but the way I've read the provided sentences [taking advantage], it leaned on the immoral side of the things.) In case I've read it wrong, and if casting charm on your prospective partner is the only dubious thing that happened, well, then the answer is clear enough. There's also question of morality the way the wizards see it. Do they consider casting magic on someone without their permission as wrong in any scenario? But that might be a different question altogether so I'll skip it.

Example B, on the other hand, doesn't have the already morally compromised plan in mind, and because of it, I had to look to the means to distinguish between the two. Finishing the other half, I think here the method matters. So called source of knowledge in the second example doesn't have any moral implications as far as I can see, and the first one does if only in breaching of the privacy. The second one could be considered so too, but then again I see it as no more that googling someone's name. The information is already out there, it just needs a bit of tinkering to get to it. Once again, the first one is casting the magic on someone and we don't know how they percieve that. (If you want to argue that divination is too casting magic on someone, well, I don't think so.) Anyway, anticipating partners' desires out of want to fullfil them is something I consider normal (wihtout knowing more) so the immoral difference comes directly from the means of getting the information.

In short, I guess I'm the person that considers the end result as a primary mean to determine the morality of the action which I didn't know. It was a fun way to figure that out. Only when I found the consequence morally neutral did I search for the difference elsewhere. Huh.

PS

The God comparison is rather silly.

We saw through various characters in canon that no matter the power wizard wields, he still can be influenced, fought, defeated, killed, outskilled... Extraordinary people make extraordinary wizards, and there's no two alike, neither in character nor in power. God(s), little that I know about them, can rarely be any of the things I've listed above. I agree that with magic in question, their philosophers had much harder time to distinguish right and wrong, but I don't see how magic itself is a dilemma. Is my right leg a moral dilemma?

Using it as an argument is ridiculous.

 

In the first case, both scenarios necessarily involve the changing of someone’s mental state (also known as falling in love). The only difference is how this change in mental state was implemented. Naturally there are legitimate question regarding whether one method of inducing a mental state (e.g. modifying yourself) is less of a violation of consent. However, I don’t read Taure as ignoring this aspect; indeed he specifically mentions the distinction between utilitarian and deontological approaches.

In the second case, I imagined Taure to be conceiving of the act of legilimency as something akin to Queenie’s ability in fantastic beasts. Basically something that is completely unobtrusive and would not be felt by the person whose thoughts are being perceived. So there would be no altered mental states.

That strikes me as a far more charitable interpretation.

 

TIL putting on makeup is immoral.

Ok, I'll spell it out for you, the way the first example is phrased, means that free will is eliminated by casting a spell which makes the other person think of you as attractive. In the legilimency/divination example, legilimency is obviously morally bad as it negates your SO's privacy. Worse than opening someone's diary without asking/them knowing about it. And divination is not defined. We cannot have a conversation if each one of us has a different interpretation on how divination works.

You have not understood what MuggsieToll means and your own notions of an all-knowing all-powerful God get in the way of that. Even JKR understood one of the significant problems with the world she was creating and she addressed it in the beginning:

Of course this is a children's fantasy book so the myriad of issues that arise with having power like this (like ending world hunger, disease) aren't a concern and can be sort of sidestepped by the resident simpleton for us.

Check my first paragraph. I'm much more into kantian/deontological approaches despite the utilitarian climate of our times. Perhaps because "the end justifies the means" can so easily lead to atrocities (I feel like we are quickly forgetting what Nazi Germany did). So ill-defined examples or examples with an obviously bad moral choice don't impress me.

 

There's no need to put words in my mouth. All I said is that putting on make up on can be immoral, depending on the reason to use it. I say if it's used as mean of deception it is immoral, not that it is so in itself.

It being accurate is all the defining it needs for this example.

And you have once more not understood what I've meant, and are putting words in my mouth once again. Even if it was moral dilemma at one point, wizards have obviously solved it without thinking themselves as morally compromised, as your own quote say it. Muggles, just like wizards, already have all the means to figure the worlds' problem and yet they persist. Adding magic wouldn't solve them. If you want to play big-world game then just try to imagine all other sorts of problems that unlimited food would make. It would solve a single problem and have it replaced with dozen of others.

Your own quote literally says it. Everyone would want magic solutions. They are temporary ones at best, anf major fuckups at worst.

I really wanted to engage this petinness for a moment since I got up on my left leg, but I'll refrain this time.

 

Come on dude. That's not what I meant and you know it. Of course wizards aren't the omnipotent Almighty. That's why I said 'essentially' and 'what amounts to a God on Earth'.

In comparison to, and in the eyes of muggles? Wizards would be the living embodiment of the closest thing to a God a muggle would have ever encountered. The practical examinations at the end of first year would be a feat worthy of Nobel Prizes. Hell, by the age of 16 most wizards can do every miracle Christ performed in the Bible, and make Jesus look like a half trained ape by comparison.

My point was that magic could and absolutely would create moral and ethical blackholes within people, especially if they interact with people who have no magic themselves or lack the awareness or even basic understanding of magic. Take Seamus' mother. She didn't tell his father that she was a witch until after they were married. Imagine if he found an old copy of the Daily Prophet lying around and found out that Magical Hitler had the ability to read minds, raise zombies, and control people without them ever knowing? I have a feeling that a lot of Muggle/Wizard relationships struggle with that at the start.

There are lots of religions where the Gods can be influences, fought, defeated, killed, and outskilled.

 

It would, but as they have it and we don't, they would have their own philosophies concerning moral. We're applying our logic to, whereas they as far as I see it don't think themself wrong in lying to their muggle counterparts. It is a good point, just not the argument I fing viable in this discussion.

 

Ok, I'm sorry but you don't have a clue what philosophy and morality are about. And you're arguing that JKR in a children's fantasy book not dealing with philosophical & moral issues is evidence that there could be no such issues. In a thread talking about morality issues in the hp world. Where you have previously commented in length. ((Exploding Head Emoji))


Friend, what such cognitive dissonance even feels like?

Hagrid is hp's resident simpleton. He is often portrayed as a bit silly and gullible. That's on JKR not on me.

 

A bit off-topic (though this thread has gone off the rails already) but I’m actually quite surprised that body modification by magic is not depicted more commonly—humans love to change our appearances to look more like we want to, whether that be working out, getting tattoos, wearing makeup, etc. Magic seems to offer a plethora of new and interesting ways to do that. As to the morality of it, I feel like if you’re getting tattoos or something permanent (or relatively permanent) to try to appeal to a specific person, that’s probably inadvisable, but not morally/ethically wrong.

I suppose the primary difference between 1A and 1B, for me, is how the other person’s perception is being affected. In 1A, the person’s perception is unaltered; they are seeing you as you are, but how you are is now different. But in 1B, you have altered their perception, causing them to see something which is not reality, which strikes me as unethical.

 

I feel a lot of this comes down to hogwarts being a school. A somewhat old fashioned school in some ways, e.g. with uniforms.

The appearance of students is so homogenous, all in black robes, to go for this specific vibe. Even though we see some of the wizarding world outside hogwarts, the world was built primarily from the school outwards, and I feel like that's had an influence on the appearance of people even outside the school - plus there's often a need to blend into muggle society, which precludes the wilder potential changes.

We see a fair few mentions of muggle-equivalent cosmetics, or spells and potions to do things muggles wish their cosmetics did. But the goal always seems to be reach a better standard of baseline human, rather than deviate from it. I'd want to see how far the envelope can be pushed with the aid of magic.

I mean we know JKR's thoughts on some of the more dramatic body modifications which magic could address in a very significant way. Let's not discuss the morality of that here, though. Really I'm thinking about the absence of transhumanism via magic, not transgenderism. We see temporary human transfiguration, with some semi-permanent accidents like Hermione's polyjuice potion. What if somebody tried to turn themsves into a shark boy and lava girl permanently and deliberately?

 

In your first example, it doesn't seem like they are using legilimancy or divination to figure out what the other person considers attractive, so they aren't being invasive in that way. Because of that, it really does feel very similar to using heavy make up or something.

The second scenario is far more invasive that the first, so it feels more obviously wrong. Unlike the first, you are not restricted in the sense that you don't know what they find attractive; you don't need to for this scenario.

There's also the issue of the direct magical manipulation vs allowing their minds to work according to their own being.

Finally, there are the social concerns that others have mentioned.

One thing I will say about the transfiguration thing is that if it's not permanent and you are hiding this fact, then it's a bit different from make up because people are generally aware that make up is often in use and what it's used for. The person will have no real reason to suspect that your transformation is temporary.

 

In (1) there are many differences between A and B.

Even from a consequentialist perspective,

the most obvious being the chance of magic failing, or having unintended effects.

If you screw up a self transfiguration- you are only harming yourself.

But if you charm someone else, and you mess up, who knows what will happen? Will they be attracted to only you for all time? Will they become attracted to anything in Your likeness?

How does the charm change ones natural attraction? Is magical attraction really the same as regular attraction?

What if two people cast an attraction charm on one person? Is it as simple as they are attached to two different people? Or is it like a computer getting conflicted orders and cause insanity?

Now, if we take a broader stance than pure consequentialism.

there are still clear differences.

A society that allows charming others, for the charmers benefit- is probably a trust adverse society. How can anyone trust ones own thoughts, if they can be charmed?

I’d imagine such a society leads to lots of isolation, and distrust. And so, it shouldn’t be moral. Because it lead to the destruction of a functional society.

If it’s allowed, wizards and witches will be incentivized not to cooperate, not to interact.

furthermore, and I think one of the most damming consequences. Is the potential for abuse of power. If such charms are allowed, it’s easy to imagine how someone could abuse it to influence and control someone else.

Cast two spells- Make them not attracted to everyone else, and make them attracted to yourself. A brutal, insidious combination, making yourself the only potential suitor.

Self transfiguration, in the context of being more attractive- wouldn’t have the same impact in trust, and it’s abuse potential isn’t as high.

of course, in general self transfiguration has enormous abuse potential- when it comes to identify theft. I bet there’s been serial killers captured wizards, and then impersonate them, taking over their lives.

In scenario (2), for me it’s all about the degree of information.

a mind reading spell that tells you, ( happy, sad, angry) is very different then knowing every internal thought.

As far as morals go, it’s obvious to me this should be immoral in most contexts. As thoughts can be very harmful without intent, and aren’t even in the control of the thinker. It leads to a weakening of the ability to have relationships, between people.

now, if used properly- to communicate effectively, Settle disputes about misremembered memories, etc... it could be great. But, it should only be between two people that trust and love each other unconditionally. Certainly not without consent.


The seer type abilities , in story, seems vague. And so would be much less intrusive, ( and so less immoral, in regards to privacy) than reading someone’s exact thoughts.

now, hypothetically if the seer type ability is more or equally detailed than the mind reading, I’d say it’s more/equally immoral. As its at least as invasive and the abuse potential is even higher.

Basically, I don’t think the source matters- what matters is how severe the breach of privacy is.

In essence, reading someone’s mind ( assuming they can’t tell/it’s 100% benign) and learning a deep secret.

is just as immoral as reading that persons diary, and learning the same secret.

 

Self-transformation in the context of greater attractiveness will not have the same impact on trust, and its potential for abuse is not as high.

This is very well said