In one of his most famous arguments, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed that to ensure the ultimate harmony of virtue and happiness, we have to assume the existence of an afterlife. Before him, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was astonished at how many people draw up their ethics and carry on their lives indifferent to the question of whether there’s an afterlife:The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us, affecting us so deeply, that one must have lost all feeling not to care about knowing the facts of the matter. All our actions and thoughts must follow such different paths, according to whether there is hope of eternal blessing or not, that the only possible way of acting with sense and judgment is to decide our course in the light of this point, which ought to be our ultimate objective.12
Heidegger rightly saw that if death is the end of us forever, this has implications for meaning and morality. The flip side of the same coin is that if death is not the end but just the beginning, even bigger implications follow.
In the early volumes of her series, Rowling left it ambiguous whether death is the end or merely the beginning in her fictional world. In Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore, in a trademark showcase of wisdom and foreknowledge, tells Harry that “to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”13 Yet it remained unclear just what the great adventure consisted of and whether it included life beyond the grave. Now, however, the scope of the adventure has been brought more fully to light.
One of the most gripping aspects of Rowling’s magical fiction is its compelling character development. Imperfect and morally flawed characters tangling with profound choices between what’s good and what’s easy provide insight into the “moral fiber” of characters we’ve come to care about. Adding to the drama and lending more potency to watching these characters progress or digress into what they will ultimately be is Rowling’s sober recognition of human mortality. Even beyond that Heidegerrian focus, though, is this: if Rowling’s fictional portrayal of the afterlife captures an aspect of reality, the choices we make in this life may be vastly more consequential than we could imagine if death, the last enemy, were never destroyed.
NOTES
1 Plato, Phaedo, 67e.
2 Deathly Hallows, p. 693.
3 Ibid., p. 328.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 698.
6 Ibid., pp. 712-713.
7 Ibid., p. 708.
8 Ibid., p. 722.
9 The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), p. 262. Perhaps the clearest example of the quest for immortality in Tolkien’s writings is the invasion of Aman, the Blessed Realm, by Ar-Pharazôn and the men of Númenor in The Silmarillion (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977), p. 279. The Númenoreans sought to wrest immortality from the gods (the Valar) and were destroyed for their impiety. For an insightful discussion of this theme in Tolkien’s writings, see Bill Davis, “Choosing to Die: The Gift of Immortality in Middle-earth,” in The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), pp. 123-136.
10 Deathly Hallows, p. 741 (emphasis added).
11 This is a quote from James’s last lecture at Harvard, given on December 6, 1906. Quoted in Robert D. Richardson, William James in the Maelstrom of American Modernism (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007), p. 287.
12 Blaise Pascal, Pensées, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer (London: Penguin, 1966), p. 427.
13 Sorcerer’s Stone, p. 297.
18
WHY HARRY AND SOCRATES DECIDE TO DIE
Virtue and the Common Good
Michael W. Austin
What do Harry Potter and Socrates (470-399 B.C.E.) have in common? At least one important thing, as it turns out. Harry and Socrates both decide to die for very important reasons.
Fulfillment for Muggles and Wizards
Before we consider the momentous decisions of Harry and Socrates, we need to think a little bit about human fulfillment. Important aspects of human fulfillment fall under ethics, which is the branch of philosophy that focuses on how we ought to live and what kind of people we ought to be. Many philosophers believe that the questions of ethics are intrinsically connected to human nature and that to be truly happy and fulfilled as a human being, one must live a moral life.
Why does Socrates give his life for his convictions, and why is Harry willing to do so in Deathly Hallows? More generally, why be moral at all? In the Republic, Socrates’ student Plato offers an answer to this question. Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) argues that to be fulfilled as human beings, we must be moral. For Plato, being a moral individual is necessary and sufficient for true happiness. This means that in order to be truly happy, we must be moral. It also means that if we are moral, then we will be truly happy. In this, Plato is expressing the same views as his mentor, Socrates. Yet just as Harry has an enemy in Lord Voldemort, Socrates has enemies of his own, philosophical and otherwise.
Voldemort and the Sophists
A crucial part of the drama of the Harry Potter books is the conflict that happens not only between the wands of the wizards—although this is very cool—but between the worldviews of Harry and Voldemort. In this conflict, they respectively represent the views of Socrates and his opponents, the Sophists.1
The Sophists were a group of teachers-for-hire who were highly skilled in the art of rhetoric and had very little regard for the truth. If they have contemporary counterparts, the best candidates would be unscrupulous advertisers and political spin doctors. According to the Sophists, the just or moral person always gets less than the unjust person does. Immorality pays, because by being immoral one is better able to secure power, wealth, and pleasure. As the Sophist Thrasymachus puts it in his debate with Socrates in Book I of the Republic,You must look at it as follows, my most simple Socrates: A just man always gets less than an unjust one. First, in their contracts with one another, you’ll never find, when the partnership ends, that a just partner has got more than an unjust one, but less. Second, in matters relating to the city, when taxes are to be paid, a just man pays more on the same property, an unjust one less.... When each of them holds a ruling position in some public office, a just person, even if he isn’t penalized in other ways, finds that his private affairs deteriorate because he has to neglect them, that he gains no advantage from the public purse because of his justice, and that he’s hated by his relatives and acquaintances when he’s unwilling to do them an unjust favor. The opposite is true of an unjust man in every respect.2
The unjust man is able to gain more wealth because he takes advantage of others in order to do so. He is not held back from doing this by his moral commitments, as the just person is. This reasoning applies not only to the pursuit of wealth, but also to the pursuit of power and pleasure. If the unjust person can get others to trust him, then they become vulnerable to him. We see Voldemort do this time and again, not only with his enemies, but even with his followers. They trust him enough to put themselves at his mercy, and he generally makes them pay for that trust once he no longer needs them. When trust and vulnerability are present, the unjust person can then manipulate and exploit others for his or her own personal gain of power, pleasure, or wealth.
Plato, through the character of Socrates in this dialogue, mounts a counterargument to the views of the Sophists and those who agree with them. The first prong of the argument explains why living a moral life benefits the morally good person. The second prong has to do with the intrinsic goodness of being an ethical person.
First, Plato argues that there will be justice in the afterlife, because the just and the unjust will receive what they deserve.3 Socrates, during his trial and prior to his death, warns those who are accusing him that he and they will receive what they deserve in the next life. Socrates holds the view that those who pursue virtue will be rewarded in the afterlife, while those who are concerned only with themselves will not.
This sort of
cosmic justice comes into play near the end of Deathly Hallows, when Harry is attacked by Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. After being struck down by the killing curse, Harry regains consciousness in a strange bright mist unlike anything he’s ever experienced. He hears a pitiful noise and spots its source. “It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.” After Harry considers offering it some comfort but not being able to do so, he hears the words “You cannot help.”4 It is the voice of Harry’s dead friend and mentor, Albus Dumbledore. As we now know, Harry was the seventh Horcrux. And Voldemort’s weakness, which he believed to be his strength, was that he neither valued nor sought to understand friendship, loyalty, innocence, children’s tales, or, most important, love. Dumbledore tells Harry that these things have a power greater than Voldemort ever had and constitute a truth he can never grasp.
There is justice in the afterlife. The trembling, moaning, pitiful creature in the mist appears to be Voldemort or at least a picture of Voldemort’s fate in the afterlife, unless, in Harry’s later words, he “tries for some remorse.” But the Dark Lord is only further enraged and tries to kill Harry. Tom Riddle ends up dying, sealing his fate in the next life by his choices in this one. The picture is not one of punishment, as the fire-and-brimstone preacher might proclaim, but rather one in which Voldemort is justly allowed to experience the result of his choices in this life.5
People who live justly do not need to wait until the afterlife to receive their reward. According to Plato, justice is intrinsically good because the moral life is also the happy life. Plato, however, doesn’t mean happy in the sense that we often use the term, such as “I’m happy the Chiefs won,” or “I’m happy today is Friday.” The type of happiness Plato is referring to is a deep and sustainable inner contentment, moral and intellectual virtue, and well-being. Such a state requires that we be moral, that reason rule the soul. For Plato, reason is the aspect of the human soul that desires knowledge, including knowledge of moral reality. Spirit is the aspect of the soul that desires honor and gets angry, and appetite is the aspect of the soul that desires food, drink, sex, and other bodily pleasures. When reason rules over spirit and appetite, there is an inner harmony that constitutes true happiness. A person with the four “cardinal virtues” of wisdom, moderation, courage, and justice is the truly happy person. The virtuous person is in a state of harmony and spiritual health.
Harry’s story illustrates Plato’s views. He is by no means perfect, but Harry displays many of Plato’s virtues. Harry seeks wisdom through the counsel of Dumbledore, and he often displays extraordinary courage, especially in his willingness to face death in order to save his friends. Harry is devoted to justice for wizards and Muggles and is willing to give his life for the common good if necessary.
For Plato, the immoral soul is the sick, disordered soul. When one’s desire for honor, pleasure, or wealth takes over, the ultimate result is inner turmoil. We know from experience that a life of cowardice, intemperance, foolishness, and injustice can also lead to external turmoil. Such vices are very damaging to one’s personal relationships, for example. We see an excellent illustration of all of this in the character of Voldemort. His lust for power leads to inner misery, and it isolates him from others. The imagery of the Harry Potter books and movies brings this out. The physical appearance of Voldemort reflects his wretched inner life. Contrast that with the physical appearance of Dumbledore, which reflects the inner peace and harmony that constitute his good (though imperfect) moral character.
For Plato, the choice of the moral life is the rational choice.6 Imagine that you are given a choice, perhaps with the aid of some magic from a wizard, between two lives. In the first life, you will have numerous sicknesses, suffer from chronic pain, and end up dying after a long and drawn-out struggle with some terminal disease. In the second option, you will live a life that is free of any serious illness or injury, and you will die of old age in your sleep. If you choose the first option, it would be fair to assume that you are being irrational. No one in his right mind would choose a life of physical illness over one of physical health. The rational choice is physical health.
Similarly, we are given a real choice, Plato believed, between a life of moral and spiritual health and a life of moral and spiritual sickness. The moral life is the best life, and those who choose the immoral life are making an irrational choice. The rational choice is the just and moral life. We see the reality of these truths of ethics and human nature exemplified in the inspiring story of Harry Potter and his long fight against Voldemort. The rational choice and the right choice are the same choice, as Harry illustrates.
The Common Good versus the Greater Good
In the conversation between Dumbledore and Harry near the close of Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore is very honest with Harry about his own mistakes. One of those occurred when he was a young wizard and has to do with his relationship with Gellert Grindelwald. The two young wizards dreamed of a revolution and personal glory. As Dumbledore puts it in recounting these events to Harry,“Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution. Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards.”7
J. K. Rowling is not alone in being skeptical of high-minded—but, in reality, ethically bankrupt—appeals to “the greater good.” Many philosophers are also suspicious of the notion of the greater good and instead endorse an ethic that includes the idea of the common good.
What’s the difference between the greater good and the common good? This is a difficult question, as sometimes the phrases are used interchangeably. Dumbledore’s “justification” for the harm done by the benefits for wizards exemplifies the notion of the greater good. The harm that is inflicted on innocent people is supposed to be justified because of the good of the many that will result. When the greater good is given as a justification, the rights, dignity, and integrity of individuals are up for grabs. That is, these things may be sacrificed for the good of the majority. Some can be made to unjustly suffer in order to benefit others. According to Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s plan, Muggles would suffer and be forced into subservience, but this would be outweighed by the benefits to wizards.
This is very different from the common good, in which sacrifices are made for the good of all. An example from U.S. history illustrates this idea. Part of the appeal of the civil rights movement was that it was not merely the good of African Americans that was at stake in the struggle, but the good of all members of the American community. The claim that the good of all Americans suffers when the rights of some are violated is an appeal to the common good. Harry’s decision to return from the mist to fight Voldemort is a decision based on the common good of Muggles and wizards. Dumbledore tells Harry that there is a chance the Dark Lord may be finished, that Harry may defeat him. Voldemort wants to build a new world, but Harry fights and wins on behalf of those who will suffer under the new order. With Voldemort’s defeat, the revolution in the name of the greater good is defeated, but the common good is realized, in which the rights, interests, and dignity of all are respected.
Two Keys to the Good Life
Harry was willing to give his life in Deathly Hallows in the struggle against the Dark Lord and his allies. Socrates, Plato’s teacher, died for what he believed to be true. Socrates was accused of leading the youths of Athens astray with his philosophy, but he refused to give in, choosing death rather than exile. Dumbledore chose to die for something that Socrates, his student Plato, and Plato’s student Aristotle all valued—the common good. Harry, too, is willing to die for the common good, if that’s what is necessary to defeat Voldemort.
Some might ques
tion whether Socrates really did die for the common good. A case can be made, however, that while neither Harry nor Socrates chose to die solely for the common good, the common good was a significant factor in both of their decisions to die. Socrates died for the sake of virtue and the examined life and was unafraid of death, in part because of his views about the afterlife. A case can also be made that Socrates’ martyrlike death could have contributed to the common good via his example of virtue, and that this was in part intentional.8
The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles Page 27