Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts

by David Baggett

  This brings us to the last, and perhaps the most persuasive, of the three arguments. This argument is most persuasive because it acknowledges all the important features of the elves’ claim to freedom from slavery. It acknowledges the slavery as an evil, and that there is a duty (ultimately) to end the slavery. What it claims is that the end of house-elf freedom isn’t as important or as pressing as are other claims, such as those arising out of the need to fight the Death Eaters. This stage of our hypothetical argument presents us with a choice: given limited social resources do we strive for social justice or work for the more pressing demands of security? The reply to this argument is that, in the final analysis, social justice is a matter of security. The final section of this chapter will be devoted to explaining why.

  Indifference, Security, and Social Justice

  The third argument for overlooking indifference to the plight of the house-elves is the strongest of the three considered. In essence, this argument confronts us with a dilemma. Are valuable time and resources to be spent fighting prejudice when far greater evils are loose in the world, or should the greater portion of our efforts be focused on the eradication of the worst, most threatening evils? To put it in terms of our running example, should Harry and Ron be spending their time freeing house-elves who resist freedom, or should they be fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters instead? The question is difficult, and an answer can only be outlined here, but what I want to suggest is that the choice between dealing with overt threats and struggling for social justice is, in fact, something of a false dilemma, and that the struggle for social justice is in fact just another front in the struggle against the greater evils in the world.

  We see this in no uncertain terms with respect to the house-elves. In Order of the Phoenix, it is the corrupt house-elf Kreacher who delivers Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, to his ultimate demise. After the battle’s end, when Dumbledore and Harry are discussing this sad turn of affairs, Harry blames Kreacher for his complicity in Sirius’s death. Dumbledore rebuffs him, saying:

  I warned Sirius when we adopted twelve Grimmauld Place as our headquarters that Kreacher must be treated with kindness and respect. I also told him that Kreacher could be dangerous to us. I do not think that Sirius took me very seriously, or that he ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human’s… . Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry… . Yes he is to be pitied. His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby’s. He was forced to do Sirius’s bidding, because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no true loyalty to him. And whatever Kreacher’s faults, it must be admitted that Sirius did nothing to make Kreacher’s lot easier. (OP, p. 832)

  In this passage Dumbledore reveals quite clearly how the prejudice and maltreatment suffered by Kreacher have made him an instrument of the dark powers that ultimately killed Sirius Black. Dumbledore’s speech continues, however, and it is near the end that the passage most relevant to our immediate concerns occurs.

  Sirius did not hate Kreacher. He regarded him as a servant unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike… . We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward. (OP, pp. 833-34)

  One important thing to see in this passage is Dumbledore’s equation of indifference and neglect with mistreatment and abuse themselves. Another is Dumbledore’s recognition that wizard-kind is paying the price of its mistreatment of house-elves and the other magical races in the course of their struggle against Voldemort. So, with respect to the question of whether Ron and Harry are wrong to be indifferent to S.P.E.W., the answer would seem to be, in Dumbledore’s eyes, yes. But what about in our eyes? Is there a lesson for us to draw from Dumbledore’s assessment of Kreacher’s role in Sirius’s death?

  I believe that there is, but that to see the lesson one must first grasp an analogy that stretches back to antiquity.79 Suppose that society is like a human being. It has parts and divisions, systems and subsystems, and various functions that it can perform. It can also deliberate, set goals for itself, and change those goals. Furthermore, it can observe and react to its environment in response to threats. Now suppose that as health is to the human being, so justice is to the society, and that as ill health is to the human, so injustice is to society. The threats to both the body and the society are numerous, are produced by many causes, and come in many forms. Threats posed by evil men, like Death Eaters, bank robbers, and terrorists, are to society what threats like animals, microbes, and human enemies are to the person. All these threats are external, and come more or less unbidden. Prejudice and its effects, like those visited on the house-elves, are not like this. Prejudice in all its forms is to the society something more akin to what total indifference to health is to the person. It is a form of ignorance which can weaken to the point of death. A person who has no regard for his health might eat spoiled foods, ignore illnesses and persistent pains, or neglect to keep himself in the physical condition necessary for maintaining his life. Unlike threats of the first sort, these are within the scope of the person’s control. A person who lets himself slide into ill health in this way pays a price not only in terms of his overall quality of life, but in his ability to handle external threats as well. When confronted with an external threat, such a person will be much less likely to meet that threat successfully than a person who is in good health. Thus the man who neglects his health makes the job of his adversaries easier. Likewise a society that is indifferent to the effects of prejudice on its members, a society that bears the burden of a certain amount of injustice instead of trying to eliminate it, is a society which will find itself weakened in the face of its adversaries.

  The upshot of this analogy is that the person who is indifferent to the injustices resulting from prejudice is a lot like the person who ignores his health. Both jeopardize their integrity unnecessarily. The situation of the person who is indifferent to the injustices of prejudice is a bit worse, though. This is because prejudice is immoral. Someone who is indifferent to prejudice is negligent of the good of their society at best, and at worst, they may be complicit in its downfall—just like Sirius’s treatment of Kreacher makes him partially responsible for his own death.

  So what about Harry and Ron? Are they wrong not to care about S.P.E.W.? Probably they are. Does this make them bad people? It’s hard to say, but the intuitive position seems to be that they are good people with a kind of moral blind spot attributable to youth. Certainly we can see the moral difference between Harry and Ron’s indifference and the outright hostility of Voldemort and the Malfoys. Unlike those clearly evil characters, they don’t actively hate other races. Like most people, they are simply too distracted by what appear to be bigger concerns to see the connection between those concerns and social justice. For it seems to be just as Dumbledore says: “indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.” If Dumbledore is right it is because, for most of us, indifference and neglect often don’t register on our moral radar until it’s too late. Thus injustice is allowed to creep silently along like an undiagnosed cancer. By itself, indifference to injustice may not make one a bad person, but it surely isn’t wise.

  If all of the preceding is right, then the story of S.P.E.W., like so much else in the Potter novels, is worth a second thought. If we are careful, we shall be able to see that it tells us something very valuable about prejudice and injustice. It is commonly held that prejudice is wrong, and we condemn it rightly and readily when we see it overtly exercised. But the more dangerous form of prejudice, the kind that often slips in without our notice, is just as damaging, if not more so. For indifference doesn’t announce itself in the ugly words or deeds of easily spotted and denounceable people. Instead, it stealthily corrodes the bonds that hold us together while hiding in plain sight under the best possible cover—our own ignorance.

  Slytherin

  Knockturn Alley and the Dark
Arts

  9

  Is Ambition a Virtue? Why Slytherin Belongs at Hogwarts

  STEVEN W. PATTERSON

  Suppose that you and three friends got together and decided to form a school of witchcraft and wizardry. You all have certain traits that you think make for good witches and wizards, so to encourage those traits in your trainees, you decide to divide your school up into four houses. All students will train under instructors from all the houses, but only one house shall be the home of each student. This system will ensure that students of like temperament and character have an opportunity to bond, form friendships, and support each other through the rigorous educational program that your school will offer. This is a fine idea, and you and your friends take up the task of drawing up the central traits you wish to encourage. Here’s how the conversation might go.

  You, going first, say that as you are a courageous wizard, you would like to see your house as a place to nurture young wizards and witches who are unafraid to pursue their craft, and to be at the forefront of the wizarding world as leaders and heroes. Your friend says that as she is intelligent, and finds that to be the key to sound wizarding, her house shall be home to students whose intellectual gifts set them apart as a breed unto themselves. After her comes your third friend, a hard worker by nature whose diligence in her work reflects a deeper loyalty to all that she holds dear. She, naturally, says that her house will be a haven for those whose natural gifts of courage and intelligence may be found wanting at times, but whose unswerving fidelity to the principles of good and responsible wizarding—as well as to their fellow classmates—will make them worthy to stand by the bravest and cleverest in any house. Finally, all have gone except your last friend: the brooding, sometimes scary, but undeniably talented fellow with the dark, narrow eyes and well-groomed goatee. “What kind of students will your house foster?” all ask. He smiles thinly and replies in a throaty hiss, “Give me the evil ones from old families.”

  Think about the above conversation for a minute. It shouldn’t take long for you to see that your last friend’s answer is terribly out of sync with the others. If your friend really was sincere about creating a house for evil wizards and witches, why would you and the other two want to start a school with him? Who could possibly want to take students who are already known to be evil and make them more powerful by educating them in the finest wizarding techniques available? The idea seems absurd. Nonetheless, the picture portrayed by the brief sketch given above is precisely the image many have of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts has four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Each house seems to be attached to a character trait that most people would consider desirable. Gryffindor’s hallmark is courage, Ravenclaw’s is intelligence, Hufflepuff has diligence, and Slytherin has … well … not much going for it in the way of desirability, it would seem. All the other schools are populated with characters we either love, as with the Gryffindor of Harry and his friends, or with sympathetic characters, like Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff or Cho Chang of Ravenclaw. Slytherin, by contrast, is full of bad guys like Draco Malfoy and the baddest of them all, the evil Lord Voldemort, as well as those who if not bad, are at least mean, like Potions instructor Severus Snape. Now if we are to understand Hogwarts as basically a good place (and it certainly seems that we are), then the question that naturally arises for us is this: What is Slytherin, with its rogues’ gallery of malicious students, outright villains, and generally unpleasant folk, doing at a place like Hogwarts? The answer to this question will tell us something not only about Slytherin’s place in Hogwarts, but something rather worth considering about ourselves and our own society as well.

  Aristotle and the Sorting Hat

  Our investigation begins with the Sorting Hat scene from Sorcerer’s Stone. This scene is the reader’s first introduction to the four houses of Hogwarts, so it is appropriate for us to begin our investigation here. In this scene the first-year students are led into the Great Hall so that they may be sorted into their houses by the Sorting Hat—a ragged old wizard’s hat that introduces itself in song. Roughly the last half of this song is what interests us. It runs:

  You might belong in Gryffindor,

  Where dwell the brave at heart,

  Their daring, nerve, and chivalry,

  Set Gryffindors apart;

  You might belong in Hufflepuff,

  Where they are just and loyal,

  Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

  And unafraid of toil;

  Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

  If you’ve a ready mind.

  Where those of wit and learning,

  Will always find their kind;

  Or perhaps in Slytherin

  You’ll make your friends,

  Those cunning folk use any means

  To achieve their ends. (SS, p. 118)

  The song plainly shows us that each house is inhabited by students with certain traits of character.

  What are traits of character? Why are they important? One answer to these questions is provided by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle, whose reputation for greatness in the history of philosophy is rivaled only by a handful of others, develops his moral philosophy around just these concepts. According to Aristotle, traits of character are qualities of a person’s soul (we might today prefer ‘personality’) which are revealed in their actions—particularly in the sort of actions they tend towards on the whole. Traits of character are important because they tell us about a person’s moral qualities. Our knowledge of someone’s being good or virtuous depends on our being able to observe him performing good or virtuous actions regularly enough that we could rightly call him virtuous or good. A person is virtuous—and our calling him virtuous or morally good is correct—when he meets the following three criteria:

  1. He knows what is morally good and what it requires of him,

  2. He chooses to do what is morally good because it is morally good, and

  3. His morally good acts are done out of a firm disposition to act in such ways.80

  In order to understand how this model of moral goodness works, let us consider an example from Goblet of Fire. The backdrop for the events of this book is the Triwizard Tournament, a wizarding competition between three great schools of witchcraft and wizardry. Harry, of course, finds himself drawn into this difficult and dangerous competition as a representative of Hogwarts. One of the challenges in the competition involves rescuing a loved one from apparent drowning at the hands of Mer-People who live at the bottom of a lake on the grounds of Hogwarts. Harry must save Ron, and he does, but while doing so he notices that the sister of Fleur Delacour, one of his fellow competitors, seems likely to go unsaved. Harry risks his life to save Fleur’s sister, even though doing so is dangerous, is not required by the rules of the competition, and will likely set him back in the competition. Harry saves her anyway because he believes that if he doesn’t, then no one else will (GF, p. 503). If we look at Harry’s action from Aristotle’s point of view, we can see that his act exhibits the virtue of bravery. Harry knows what must be done and he chooses to do it—not because it will make him a hero or because it will benefit him (at the minimum the action threatens to hurt Harry in the competition)—but because it is the right thing to do. In short, Harry saves Fleur’s sister because it is what is morally required. Readers of the Harry Potter novels will have no trouble at all recognizing that this is the sort of action that Harry does habitually. Thus we can see that, according to Aristotle’s criteria at any rate, Harry is a brave person. He knows what he must do, he chooses it for its own sake, and does so consistently. He has, as a trait of his character, the moral quality of bravery or courage.81

  Harry’s performance in the Triwizard tournament is a good example of the virtue of courage, but this example naturally leads us to the following question: What are virtues? Surely not every habitual action is a virtue. Only the morally good ones are. So what are those? What are the character tra
its that a person must have in order to be considered virtuous? Aristotle’s answer to this question is that virtues are qualities that display wisdom in the conduct of life. Aristotle argued that what sets people apart from other living things is their capacity to think, and to acquire wisdom. This unique ability of ours is what he calls our proper function. By this he means only that thinking is what makes us what we are; it is what we do. We are most human when we think, and we are best when we think well, and attain wisdom. Aristotle noted that we do not consider evil people wise, even when we consider them intelligent. Rather, wisdom and the virtues go hand in hand, and we may see the effects of them in a certain quality they bring to the life of the person who has them. For Aristotle believed that it is only through wisdom, including the “practical” wisdom of the virtues, that a person can achieve that form of happiness called eudaimonia : the sense of harmony with self and with others that arises naturally out of virtuous activity in the soul. Those who are not wise and not virtuous—no matter how intelligent they may be—cannot attain this state.