Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts

by David Baggett

  He shut his eyes, so he wouldn’t be able to see the view of endless space below him, and pulled his right foot as hard as he could away from the grassy ceiling.

  Immediately, the world righted itself. Harry fell forward onto his knees onto the wonderfully solid ground. He felt temporarily limp with shock. He took a deep, steadying breath, then got up again and hurried forward, looking back over his shoulder as he ran away from the golden mist, which twinkled innocently at him in the moonlight. (GF, pp. 624-25)

  Sometimes, when great values are at stake, you just have to take action, regardless of how you feel. That is the way of courage. That is a version of the famous “leap of faith” described by the great nineteenth century philosopher and father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard. It was Kierkegaard’s insight that, when momentous values are at stake, thinking and reasoning about what we should do can take us only so far. The evidence available will never be fully sufficient for any truly important personal decision. As he says in his famous and seminal book, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “reflection can be halted only by a leap.” 2 It is this inner leap—in the present case involving only a small step—that Harry, in the company of every real hero, is willing to take.

  Harry Potter shows how a young man vulnerable to all the fears that any of us ever experience can overcome those emotions and nobly press on to do what needs to be done. No one can guarantee that they will act with courage in any particular situation of danger. But we can position ourselves for such a response. We can do five things that will make it more likely. And that just means that we all have within our power to act in such a way as to cultivate the virtue of courage—a lesson we get from the remarkable and courageous Harry Potter.

  2

  Dursley Duplicity: The Morality and Psychology of Self-Deception

  DIANA MERTZ HSIEH

  Honesty and persistence in the pursuit of knowledge has long been a central moral ideal of Western philosophy. The study of philosophy itself was born in ancient Greece as the love (philo) of wisdom (sophia). Socrates fittingly spoke of the need to “know thyself” and to understand the nature of virtue in pursuing a moral life. Aristotle famously began his Metaphysics with the claim that “All men by nature desire to know.” Modern philosophers have explored the many ways in which people sabotage this natural thirst for knowledge through rationalization and self-deception. Sartre argued that we conceal our fundamental responsibility and freedom from ourselves through “bad faith.” Ayn Rand explained human evil as the natural consequence of the mental fog and chaos created by evasion of the facts and refusal to think. Similarly, psychology has generally viewed accurate understanding of the self and the world as a hallmark of mental health.

  In recent years, however, philosophers and psychologists have increasingly challenged this longstanding vision of the role of knowledge in human life. Some have merely claimed that self-deception is necessary or unavoidable, while others have further argued that it can be a moral strategy for preserving a positive outlook given the inevitable setbacks of daily life. Oddly enough, the magical world of Harry Potter points to fundamental weaknesses in these arguments in favor of self-deception. In particular, the trials and tribulations of the Dursleys— Harry Potter’s abusive, negligent, and normalcy-obsessed aunt and uncle—highlight basic dangers of self-deception often overlooked by its defenders.

  The Arguments for Self-Deception

  In Western culture, the basic reason that self-deception is widely seen as a serious and debilitating character flaw is simple: A person cannot judge, choose, or act rightly if willfully blind to relevant facts. By denying what he knows or suspects to be true, the self-deceiver distorts his thinking processes and thereby renders himself oblivious to ever-growing threats, unable to acknowledge problems and failures, and prone to put others in harm’s way. Hence facing reality—whether pleasant or not—is seen as essential to good moral character, a healthy mind, and a happy life.

  Some philosophers have challenged this common-sense view in recent years by arguing that self-deception is a necessary part of human existence—and that we’re better off as a result. In The Varnished Truth, for example, David Nyberg claims that our “strong need” to remain unaware of unpleasant facts drives us to “avoid, distort, conceal, reverse, deny, and fancy up the truth” whenever possible.3 Such self-deception allows us to maintain “coherence and stability” in our personal identity and protects us from the painful gap between “what we are and what we wish we were.”4 Along similar lines, Robert Solomon argues that our “flaws and failings” make honest self-assessment “intolerable” and that genuine self-understanding can be “devastating to [our] self-image and sense of self.”5 The common refrain of these arguments is that self-deception is often necessary and moral because our basic human need to think well of ourselves cannot be satisfied honestly.

  Despite the temptation, we cannot casually dismiss these claims as the personal confessions of the authors, for they seem to be supported by the psychological literature on “positive illusions.”6 Positive illusions are supposed to be mild but enduring forms of self-deception that bias the judgments of psychologically healthy people towards themselves in various ways. So, for example, when asked about themselves, most people focus on their strengths and omit or downplay their weaknesses. This positive slant is particularly strong in comparisons with others, as people tend to regard themselves not just as good, but also better than others—so much so that ninety percent of drivers consider themselves above average! In addition to forming such generous self-evaluations, people also seem to overestimate the extent of their personal control over life events and adopt overly optimistic views of their future. Many psychologists claim that the “creative self-deception” of such positive illusions is not psychologically damaging, but instead so integral to mental health that its loss or absence is associated with mild depression. As a result of this research, many psychologists have abandoned accurate self-assessment as a criterion of mental health and rejected honesty with oneself as a virtue.

  Given the gulf between the traditional, common sense view of self-deception and these new academic arguments, we can now ask: What can the Dursleys teach us about the process of deceiving oneself?

  The Self-Deceptions of the Dursleys

  Vernon and Petunia Dursley are Harry Potter’s only living adult relatives—and his caretakers (to stretch the meaning of the term) since the death of his parents. Every encounter with the Dursleys in the novels emphasizes their obsession with appearing—both to themselves and others—wholly “normal,” in other words completely untainted by magic. The obvious problem for the Dursleys on this score is that Petunia is connected to the magical world through her sister Lily Potter. This unwanted bond arouses an overpowering fear and hatred of magic in both the Dursleys and motivates their self-deceptions about any and all magic-related facts.

  When we are introduced to the Dursleys in the first chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone, we quickly learn of their penchant for and skill in the art of self-deception. Upon learning of young Harry’s defeat of Voldemort, the magical world celebrates with little regard for detection by Muggles—but Vernon is bound and determined not to notice anything odd whatsoever. Upon leaving the house, he sees a cat (actually Professor McGonagall) reading a map, but dismisses it as “a trick of the light” (SS, p. 3). When he notices the many “strangely dressed people … in cloaks” milling about, he first rages about this “stupid new fashion” of young people, but upon seeing an older man in a cloak, his cover story changes: the people must be part of a “silly stunt … collecting [money] for something” (SS, p. 3). Later in the day, this second story fails when Vernon cannot spot “a single collecting tin” among the strangers, so he simply “eye[s] them angrily,” unable to identify why they make him “uneasy” (SS, p. 4). Vernon finally resorts to the unprecedented act of “hoping he was imagining things” when a man wearing a violet cloak bumps into him, mentions “You-Know-Who” and calls him a “Muggle”
(SS, p. 5).

  This basic pattern of denial and rationalization of obvious facts continues when Vernon overhears mentions of “the Potters” and “their son, Harry” from some of the strange people (SS, p. 4). He suppresses his initial flood of fear by convincing himself that “Potter” is a common name and that “Harry” might not be the name of his nephew anyway (SS, p. 4). That evening, when he inquires to Petunia about the name of the Potters’ son, she looks “shocked and angry” because “they normally pretended she didn’t have a sister” (SS, p. 7). Only when she tells him that the boy’s name is “Harry” does an inescapable feeling of dread overcome him (SS, p. 7). Yet Vernon still manages to comfort himself to sleep that night with the thought that the doings of the Potters couldn’t possibly affect his family (SS, p. 8).

  As Vernon and Petunia’s behavior on this fateful day indicates, self-deception is integral to their response to magic, helping them close their minds to both its existence and their connection to it. As we shall see, this pattern continues even after their magical nephew arrives on their doorstep.

  The Lessons of Dursley Deceit

  Although the physical, moral, and psychological defects of the Dursleys are obviously exaggerated for comic effect, the troubles created by their self-deceptions accurately reflect fundamental facts about the process of lying to oneself. The negative example of the Dursleys thus highlights three critical lessons about self-deception often overlooked by its defenders:

  1. Self-deception cannot insulate a person from disturbing reminders of the truth.

  2. Self-deception often will spread beyond the original denial to related issues.

  3. Self-deception easily becomes a habitual method of avoiding painful truths.

  Let’s examine each of these lessons in turn.

  1. Self-deception cannot insulate a person from disturbing reminders of the truth.

  The arguments for self-deception all implicitly presume that self-deception is a highly effective process, one that renders a person blissfully ignorant of painful truths for the foreseeable future. David Nyberg, for example, describes self-deception as a “gradual process” in which a belief is fully replaced by its contrary. 7 However, if self-deception is not so effective, if the self-deceiver is faced with nagging doubts, unexplained facts, or confounding reminders, then the short-term emotional relief provided by self-deception may come at the price of more troubles and pains in the long run.

  With the Dursleys, their self-deceptions about Harry’s magical powers are easily and often shattered—and thus are almost continuously in need of renewal. Even before Harry learns that he is a wizard, his unintentional acts of magic—such as his eternally unkempt hair (SS, p. 24), his shrinking of Dudley’s ugly old sweater (CS, p. 2), and his removal of the glass on the snake cage at the zoo (SS, p. 28)—are clear evidence not only of his magical powers, but also of the ineffectiveness of the Dursleys’ attempts to “stamp [the magic] out of him” (SS, p. 53). Once Harry begins his studies at Hogwarts, the Dursleys try to banish magic from their sight by locking away Harry’s owl (CS, p. 1), confiscating his school supplies (CS, p. 3; PA, p. 3), and referring to magic euphemistically as “the ‘m’ word,” “you-know-what,” Harry’s “abnormality,” and “funny stuff” (CS, p. 2; OP, p. 26; PA, p. 19). These superficial strategies cannot hope to shield the Dursleys from reminders of magic like Hagrid’s giving Dudley a pig’s tail (SS, p. 59), Dobby’s destruction of Petunia’s pudding during a dinner party (CS, pp. 19-20), Harry’s accidental engorgement of Aunt Marge (PA, p. 29), the Weasleys’ demolition of the living room (GF, p. 44), and the attack upon Dudley by the dementors (OP, pp. 15-18). Because such magical events contradict Vernon and Petunia’s deceptions, they consistently generate explosions of fear and rage. Only the last is traumatic enough finally to melt away Petunia’s longstanding “furious pretense” about magic (OP, pp. 31-32). The Dursleys are thus unable to make their self-deceptions about magic stick, but not for lack of trying.

  The basic problem for the Dursleys—and for all selfdeceivers—is that denying the facts does not thereby alter them. As his admission to Hogwarts proves, Harry’s magical powers are impervious to the Dursleys’ denials and rationalizations—and even to their punishments. Nor do the Dursleys’ pretenses prevent others from recognizing and acting upon the facts, as illustrated by Hagrid’s persistence in delivering the acceptance letter from Hogwarts (SS, pp. 34-45) and Dumbledore’s Howler warning Petunia against ejecting Harry from the house (PA, pp. 40-41). The Dursleys’ attempts to deny their familial connection to magic are doomed to frequent failure, as reminders of the facts are inevitable with a young wizard living in the house.

  Moreover, even when acting in a thoroughly “normal” fashion, Harry is still a living symbol of all the Dursleys’ hate and fear. To minimize these symbolic reminders, Vernon and Petunia often resort to the absurdity of pretending that Harry doesn’t exist at all. So their living room is filled with pictures of Dudley, but contains “no sign” of Harry (SS, p. 18); when company comes for dinner, Harry is supposed to “be in [his] room, making no noise, and pretending [he’s] not there” (CS, pp. 6-7); and when Ron Weasley calls and shouts into the telephone for Harry, Vernon roars “THERE IS NO HARRY POTTER HERE!” (PA, p. 4). However, even if Harry had never come to live with them, the Dursleys’ self-deceptions about magic would not serve as an impenetrable shield against the facts. Everyday events would naturally evoke Petunia’s childhood memories of Lily, Hogwarts, and all the rest, and Vernon would occasionally experience the same paralyzing fear of being “outed” as he did on the day after Voldemort’s apparent death (SS, pp. 1-8).

  Notably, the fact that self-deception cannot change or fully conceal the unpleasant facts means that the process is likely to compound the problems faced by the self-deceiver. As we find with the Dursleys, failed self-deceptions are likely to leave a person in a far worse psychological state—more confused, fearful, angry, vulnerable, depressed, and so on—than if the hard facts had been accepted at the outset. Moreover, a person’s troubles are likely to grow and fester in the blind neglect of self-deception, such that they will be more difficult (if not impossible) to resolve in the future. In short, the world is often quite hostile to the illusions of the self-deceiver—and consequently, they can be difficult to sustain in the long term.

  2. Self-deception often will spread beyond the original denial to related issues.

  Arguments in favor of self-deception presume that the process can be sufficiently contained and controlled to a single desired area of thought. Yet self-deception, as a process aiming at “voluntary blindness, numbness, dull-mindedness, and ignorance,” cannot be carefully monitored and regulated by consciousness. To do so would bring the unpleasant facts too much and too often into the spotlight of full, explicit awareness.8 The defenders of self-deception, surprisingly, often recognize this fundamental difficulty. In Vital Lies, Simple Truths, Daniel Goleman writes that self-deception can lead us to “fall prey to blind spots, remaining ignorant of zones of information we might be better off knowing, even if that knowledge brings us some pain.”9 He recommends that we find “a skillful mean” between truth and falsehood, but does not even hint at how we might do so.10 To follow such advice is impossible, for applying it would require awareness of both the self-deception and what it conceals. The negative example of the Dursleys colorfully illustrates the problem of blindly spreading self-deceptions in practice.

  Vernon and Petunia’s fear and hatred of all things magical cannot, by its very nature, be limited only to things magical. Such careful discernment would require too much honest investigation into strange events for people unable to withstand even casual references to Hogwarts, brooms, and wizards (GF, pp. 32-33). Thus the Dursleys’ self-deceptions about magic must cast a wide net, encompassing “anything even slightly out of the ordinary” and “anything acting in a way it shouldn’t” whether in dreams, imagination, or fiction (GF, p. 31; SS, pp. 5, 26). So when Harry mentions a dream about a flyin
g motorcycle on the drive to the zoo, Vernon nearly crashes the car and then “turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a moustache: ‘MOTORCYCLES DON’T FLY!’” (SS, p. 25). Similarly, Harry is forbidden to ask questions about his parents because the answers would hint at his magical roots (SS, p. 30). So the Dursleys’ self-deceptions are not limited to just those pesky facts about magic; in order to preserve the core deceit, they must also embrace a dreary conventionality and a wholly uninquisitive attitude towards anything strange in the world.

  In general, any attempt to isolate and limit self-deception to only a certain set of unpleasant facts creates a tension between the facts denied by the self-deception and those still accepted as true. No fact of reality can be isolated from all others, so any conflict between knowledge and pretense pressures the self-deceiver either to admit the self-deception or to deceive himself further to preserve it. As a result, a single self-deception is likely to ripple outward into related areas of life and thought, slowly corrupting as it does.

  The disastrous effects of expanding self-deception are particularly clear in the case of the year-long denial of Voldemort’s return by the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Given Harry’s eyewitness account of Voldemort’s rebirth and the gathering of Death Eaters (GF, pp. 695-98), the confirming confession of Barty Crouch (GF, pp. 683-691), the reappearance of the Dark Mark on Snape’s arm (GF, pp. 709-710), and the weight of Dumbledore’s opinion (GF, pp. 703-710), Fudge cannot merely assert to himself or others that Voldemort is dead and gone. So in the course of a single conversation at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, Fudge says that Harry is unreliable due to his ability to speak ParselTongue and the burning of his scar (GF, pp. 705-06), that Barty Crouch was a lunatic who merely believed himself to be acting on behalf of Voldemort (GF, p. 704), that Lucius Malfoy donates to too many worthy causes to be a Death Eater (GF, p. 706), and that Dumbledore and his supporters are “determined to start a panic” (GF, p. 707). Fudge’s absurd pretense continues over the next year, enabling Voldemort and his Death Eaters to pursue their deadly plans relatively unimpeded. Only when Fudge sees Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic with his own eyes does his elaborate edifice of self-deceptions disintegrate—and even then only grudgingly (OP, 816-19).