Abanes sets out to construct a cumulative case to show the morally dubious nature of the Potter series. Examples of rule-breaking abound in the books, he reminds us. Harry is said to show an almost Slytherin-like disregard for the rules, and Harry’s behavior confirms it. Harry is not legalistic when it comes to school rules or the guidelines governing the wizarding world. For example, to find out the identity of Nicholas Flamel, he sneaks into the restricted section of the library using his invisibility cloak, and he follows Professor Snape into the Forbidden Forest.
Harry’s lovable friend Hagrid is also notorious for rule violations, performing spells when he isn’t supposed to, and asking Harry and his friends to help smuggle his dragon out of Hogwarts (SS, p. 237). Hagrid had raised the dragon—Norbert—against the 1709 Warlock’s Convention law prohibiting dragon breeding in Britain (SS, pp. 230—33).
Those most concerned about the rules, Abanes points out, are often the mean characters like the Dursleys, Professor Snape, or Hogwarts caretaker Argus Filch. Indeed, Harry and the readers are convinced throughout much of Sorcerer’s Stone that Snape is completely evil. Only at the end do we find that the gentle Professor Quirrell is the real villain in cahoots with Voldemort. This sort of reversal recurs when, for example, Mad-Eye Moody in Goblet of Fire turns out to be impersonating the real Moody or when Voldemort’s minion Pettigrew turns out to have been living for twelve years in rat form as Scabbers (Ron’s family pet). This distinction between appearance and reality is an object lesson in the difficult task of obtaining true knowledge, since we have to rely on appearances that may be misleading. 101 But in a story of this nature, such reversals might be thought to blur the line between good and evil.
Violations include not only minor infractions of school rules, but also significant moral rules, such as prohibitions against lying. Recall, for instance, Hermione’s “downright lie” about the troll in Sorcerer’s Stone to get the boys out of trouble. Hermione, normally the last one to violate any rules, lies and claims she has broken a rule (pp. 177-78). Or consider Dumbledore’s assertion that truth is generally preferable to lies (GF, p. 722), which prompts Abanes to emphasize that this shows inadequate commitment to truth, a point he thinks is generalizable to most of the characters in the novels. Even Dumbledore himself lies to protect Harry in Order of the Phoenix (p. 618).
Harry all too often lies to conceal facts that might otherwise cause him harm. Rowling writes, “Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chased each other around Harry’s brain, each more feeble than the last. He couldn’t see how they were going to get out of trouble this time” (SS, p. 242). In Goblet of Fire, Harry lies to Hermione (p. 443), a house-elf (p. 408), Hagrid (p. 456), Snape (p. 516), Trelawney (p. 577), and Fudge (p. 581), all without negative consequence.
In fact, Harry’s infractions of the rules often go unpunished—for example, when Fudge doesn’t punish Harry for inflating his aunt in Chamber of Secrets, or when Dumbledore doesn’t punish him for finding the Chamber. When Mr. Weasley finds out his sons, to rescue Harry, flew the enchanted car without permission, his first response is, “Did you really? … Did it go all right?” (CS, p. 159). Indeed, sometimes misbehavior is actually rewarded, such as when McGonagall puts Harry on the Quidditch team after he violates Hooch’s directive not to fly while she is away on an errand (SS, pp. 148-152).
On the same day, Harry agrees to fight Draco in a “wizard’s duel” at midnight in the school’s trophy room. Such a fight is against Hogwarts rules and would require Harry to be out of his dorm at night, a second violation of the rules, and hard to justify morally, no matter how much readers might like to see Draco get a sound drubbing.
Since Harry isn’t always punished, critics think the series thereby promotes ethical relativism. Relativism makes morality a matter of preference, either of a group or of an individual. Philosophers usually call morality made subject to individual whim ethical subjectivism, and Abanes seems to focus his accusations on such subjectivism when discussing relativism. Relativism of this kind denies that there are universal moral rules and instead assigns to individuals the capacity to determine the contents of morality. Since we like Harry, the argument goes, whatever Harry does is ultimately okay. No matter how many violations of the rules he might commit, his ends justify his means.
Moreover, what motivates the characters’ moral choices, Abanes wishes to suggest, is crass self-interest. Whether Voldemort or Harry, the underlying motivation is the same: doing what they want to do. “Voldemort wants what he wants, as does Harry. The only difference between them rests in the rules they choose to break, the lies they choose to tell, and the goals they choose to pursue.”102
Here the actual charge isn’t exactly relativism so much as egoism. As a psychological theory, egoism says that all of us are motivated by self-interest all the time. As an ethical theory, it says that self-interest ultimately should function as our only motivation. Presumably, Abanes is suggesting that Rowling depicts the characters in her novels as egoistically motivated, “good” characters and “bad” alike. Since both sides “lie when it is expedient and break rules whenever those rules do not serve their needs … both sides are technically ‘evil’ or sinful, even though their agendas might be vastly different.”103 By endorsing such motivations, Rowling, the argument goes, is embracing and approving such ethical egoism, which contributes to the morally confused message of her books.
“In short,” Abanes concludes, “Rowling’s moral universe is a topsy-turvy world with no firm rules of right and wrong or any godly principles by which to determine the truly good from the truly evil.”104
Answering the Moral Charge
Let’s address this charge. Starting with Harry, it’s important for us to admit that he isn’t perfect. He’s willing to violate school rules and to lie on occasion, liable to be insensitive to the enslavement of the house-elves, and susceptible to fits of moodiness and anger. But a heroic or virtuous character need not be perfect, and occasionally will fail. Harry isn’t always a moral exemplar, but he is learning as he goes, and he clearly exhibits a sort of character and integrity distinctly different from the villains. Harry, for one thing, cares about other people. He often acts to save a friend, and sometimes even an enemy, as when he saved Dudley in the beginning of Order of the Phoenix. Harry is willing to risk his life in order to prevent an innocent person from suffering. And none of this moral motivation is to be found in the villains. Harry is what he consistently does, Aristotle would remind us; his occasional failures don’t define him.
This undermines the charge that Harry is really no better than Voldemort, since Harry breaks rules, occasionally lies, and does what he wants to do. Abanes insists the fact that Harry and Voldemort want different things is incidental; it’s what they hold in common—an essentially egoistic motivational structure—that’s most important here.
Surely, though, the contents of Harry’s and Voldemort’s desires do matter! To imply that what they want is not as important as the simple fact that they happen to pursue what they want is confused. It leaves out of the picture one of the most important morally differentiating factors of all. Consider Harry and Voldemort for a moment. Harry battles evil forces and desires to see justice prevail. Voldemort desires to crush anyone he has to on his way to achieving power. They both pursue what they want, but that hardly entails moral equivalence. The nature of a person’s desires reflects the kind of person one is.
What Abanes calls topsy-turvy morality may simply be a bit of genuine moral complexity. Good and virtuous characters have feet of clay, make mistakes, and may break the rules from time to time. It isn’t moral subjectivism to acknowledge, as Solzhenitsyn105 did, that good and evil cut through each of our hearts. Each of us is capable of being lured to evil, of sacrificing others at the altar of our own selfishness.
Moral complexities don’t entail that everything ethical is colored gray and up for grabs. That a character like Harry may have flaws doesn’t mean he’s not a hero or virtuous. T
hat a rule (such as a prohibition against lying) may admit of exceptions doesn’t mean it ought not be followed. That moral dilemmas may require us to choose the lesser of two evils doesn’t mean that there’s no moral difference between them.
Moreover, Harry shows mercy by sparing Pettigrew’s life, which eventually leads to the reemergence of Voldemort and the murder of Cedric Diggory. And Sirius inadvertently breaks Ron’s leg attempting to get Harry to follow and learn the truth about Pettigrew. Abanes thinks the fact that good deeds are cast as bringing about evil results and harmful deeds as bringing about positive results further confuses the moral message of the books. However, that good consequences might come from bad actions doesn’t mean that bad actions are to be generally encouraged. That bad consequences might result from good actions doesn’t mean that good actions aren’t to be encouraged. That moral appearances can sometimes deceive us doesn’t mean we can never discern the difference between right and wrong.
It irks critics that rules are habitually broken in the Potter books, even by good characters, and that such infractions too often go unpunished. But not all violations of rules merit punishment. Sometimes violations of rules are justified, which is why Dumbledore didn’t make good on his promise in Chamber of Secrets to expel Harry if he broke any more rules (pp. 330-31). Sometimes a higher law beckons. This is why Abanes probably wants to emphasize that some of the violations in the Potter books are more serious in nature than infractions of school rules or Ministry directives that may admit of legitimate exceptions. Some of the infractions violate ethics itself, like the moral rule against lying.
Certainly truth-telling is an important virtue, and kids really do have to learn that it’s not an acceptable practice to try evading responsibility or punishment by lying. Immanuel Kant was a philosopher whose ethical theory dictated that lying on all occasions is wrong. He thought that lying is motivated by a principle that can’t be consistently generalized. A rule like “It’s morally permissible to lie whenever doing so is in your best interest” won’t work. Such a universal rule would undermine the truth-telling and promise-keeping on which we all rely when insisting we’re telling the truth or that we’ll keep a promise. For Kant, reason’s foundation for ethics affords no exceptions to such a prohibition against lying, no matter how advantageous or beneficial a particular lie might appear. It is not the consequences of our actions that count.
Although Kant makes sense, the right moral theory needs to take into account at least some consideration of consequences on occasion, even if we have reservations about reducing morality only to a matter of consequences as the great philosopher John Stuart Mill and other utilitarians do. Although we can never fully anticipate every last consequence of our actions, there are times when we can reasonably foresee what they’re likely to be, such as when protectors of Jews during the Holocaust or of slaves during the days of the underground railroad were asked for their whereabouts. Given the intrinsic value of life and the particular moral goods at stake on such occasions, lying seems justified, and indeed a moral responsibility! This reminds us that ethics is about more than just rigidly obeying inflexible rules; it’s about the kind of person one is and the sorts of moral goods one cherishes, such as human dignity, freedom, and life. Some nonnegotiable moral rules undoubtedly hold, like the inherent wrongness of torturing children (even Draco) for fun, but lying, even if nearly always wrong, does seem to admit of legitimate exceptions.
We can at least well understand Harry’s failure always to be entirely forthright with those less than trustworthy. And Harry’s infractions do sometimes land him in hot water. Ironically, in Order of the Phoenix, Harry’s commitment to telling the truth lands him in detention with Umbridge to endure a particularly unjust and painful punishment, about which, incidentally, he never complains.
It was an eye-opener for Harry to learn in Order of the Phoenix that his Dad had been far from morally perfect while a student at Hogwarts. That Harry’s Dad could grow up and improve reminds us that Harry, too, is on his way to becoming the man he’s capable of being. Harry, as his father did, is morally maturing.
Is Hogwarts a Wiccan Academy?
Critics level the charge that Rowling’s books are based in the occult. They write as though fictionalized accounts of occult practices that bear a similarity to actual practices blur the distinction between real life and fantasy. Moreover, they claim, this will only confuse young people who can’t be expected to maintain careful distinctions between fiction and reality. If Rowling uses examples of divination in her books, and if real-life occultism historically does so too, then occultism lies at the foundation of her books.
This argument rests on a mistake. Arguably it’s the critic, not Rowling, who’s blurring real life and fantasy here. Surely there’s a crucial distinction between reading or writing fiction about a practice on the one hand, and engaging in the practice itself on the other. Communicating with the dead is biblically forbidden, but does that mean those who take such teaching to heart ought to decry Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol because it involves a fictional tale of just such a thing? Or C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia because they include reference to astrology? Unlikely, and for good reason. Writing fiction about a practice is not engaging in the practice itself, and care needs to be taken not to use the term “occult” so freely as to encompass both.
It’s true that Rowling is more susceptible to this charge because she borrows freely from real-life accounts, but she draws from a lot of sources and mythologies, from the Arthurian legends to Homer, not just the occult. What she weaves from these sources is something creative and new, even if it incorporates a range of elements drawn from history and literature. To criticize Rowling’s eclecticism fails to appreciate her books on their own terms, a principle necessary for evaluating any literary work fairly (and thereby a moral requirement). Identifying elements from the stories and then infusing them with significance not attributed to them by the stories themselves results in reckless leaps of logic and, potentially, an unnecessarily harsh and uncharitable spin on her work.
As several chapters in this book make clear, the Potter books do anything but glamorize evil, painting it instead in only the most negative terms. Contending that these books should be suspect on the basis of their using occult symbols is misguided. Those liable to launch such accusations typically make an exception for the sort of magic in works by traditional Christian writers such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Indeed, Abanes questionably distinguishes the subtle differences between the magic in Lewis’s Chronicles, for instance, and Rowling’s Potter novels. But Abanes seems to be fighting a losing battle. On the one hand, he insists that kids who read Potter aren’t sophisticated enough to distinguish real life from fiction. Yet on the other hand, he seems to think that the subtle distinctions between the magic found in Rowling and Lewis won’t be lost on those very same young readers.
Imagination and Morality
Critics strategically accentuate occult connections, possible pitfalls, and macabre wit, while overlooking the potentially positive elements in the Potter books and the possibility of more constructive engagements with this incredible series.
Rowling likes to describe her fictional creation as a world of the imagination—a phenomenon of which Mr. Dursley does not at all approve (SS, p. 5)—and a world essentially moral. At the same time, she makes it clear that it wasn’t her intention to teach ethics, which reminds us of an important qualifier before we talk about her books and morality. The primary purpose of fiction isn’t to make us better people. Even Tolkien rejected the view that literature is mainly about inculcating ethics. Mark Twain did as well, and put readers of Huckleberry Finn on notice that any persons attempting to find a moral in it are to be banished. That Tolkien’s work and Twain’s have been instrumental nonetheless in shaping readers’ moral views doesn’t change the fact that this wasn’t their main intention or primary function.
There is, however, a connection between literature and mora
lity. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has mounted an elaborate argument for the role of literature in our moral development. 106 Good yarns, such as Rowling’s, appeal to both the head and heart, eliciting from us the right sorts of emotions, and providing for us vivid moral paradigms that Aristotle thought were essential to moral education. More suggestive than dogmatic, they teach us to empathize with the sufferings of others, enhancing our capacity for seeing the world through another’s eyes.
As Potter junkie and public philosopher Tom Morris writes:
The Golden Rule, as it is stated properly, appeals to our imaginations. It tells me to treat another person the way I would want to be treated if I were in his position. I can’t be guided by it without imagining what it would feel like to be in that other person’s situation, with all her morally legitimate concerns and desires. The Golden Rule directs me to use my imagination in such a way as to create empathy for others. I believe that the imagination is the single greatest natural power in human life. And so I think it’s no coincidence that the greatest moral rule appeals to exactly that power.107
Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts Page 19