Comment author: simplicio 13 September 2012 12:54:23AM 7 points [-]

Stealing food is clearly evil if you have no need but the victim has need for the food. If the needs are opposite, then it is not clearly evil. So there is no clear boundary, but what would a vague boundary require?

You are pointing to different actions labeled stealing and saying "one is good and the other is evil." Yeah, obviously, but that is no contradiction - they are different actions! One is the action of stealing in dire need, the other is the action of stealing without need.

This is a very common confusion. Good and evil (and ethics) are situation-dependent, even according to the sternest, most thundering of moralists. That does not tell us anything one way or the other about objectivity. The same action in the same situation with the same motives is ethically the same.

Comment author: disinter 13 September 2012 11:21:40PM *  6 points [-]

Thank you for pointing out my confusion. I've lost confidence that I have any idea what I'm talking about on this issue.

Comment author: simplicio 08 September 2012 12:05:22AM 4 points [-]

Or even a vague boundary between clearly defined good and clearly defined evil.

You don't think even a vague boundary can be found? To me it seems pretty self-evident by looking at extremes; e.g., torturing puppies all day is obviously worse than playing with puppies all day.

By no means am I secure in my metaethics (i.e., I may not be able to tell you in exquisite detail WHY the former is wrong). But even if you reduced my metaethics down to "whatever simplicio likes or doesn't like," I'd still be happy to persecute the puppy-torturers and happy to call them evil.

Comment author: disinter 10 September 2012 03:02:19AM 0 points [-]

You point out that there are acts easily agreed to be evil and acts easily agreed to be good, but that doesn't imply a definable boundary between good and evil. First postulate a boundary between good and evil. Now, what is necessary to refute that boundary? A clearly defined boundary would require actions that fall near the boundary to always fall to on side or the other without fail. Easily, that is not the case. Stealing food is clearly evil if you have no need but the victim has need for the food. If the needs are opposite, then it is not clearly evil. So there is no clear boundary, but what would a vague boundary require? A think a vague boundary requires that actions can be ranked in a vague progression from "certainly good" through "overall good, slightly evil" and descend through progressively less good zones as they approach from one side, then crossing a "evil=~good" area, into a progressively more evil side. I do not see that is necessarily the case.

Comment author: aladner 05 April 2012 05:55:39PM 2 points [-]

"It comes due when you graduate Hogwarts," the old wizard said from high above.

It looks to me like they don't have quite enough time for Hermione to get a job as an investment banker. Of course, he still has plenty of options if the arbitrage trick doesn't work.

Comment author: disinter 06 April 2012 01:48:06AM 4 points [-]

The present debate is not how he can fulfill his obligation. They are arguing specifically if Harry made a justified investment by paying such a high price to save Hermione's life. It seems conclusive that the pure monetary investment is actually sound, he can directly gain the money he invested back at a decent rate even besides the additional benefits of rescuing her.

Comment author: RobertLumley 05 April 2012 10:24:37PM 11 points [-]

Having just started following these threads, I've decided to reread the entire fic from the beginning. I'm only in chapter two, but has anyone considered why Harry has a 26 hour sleep cycle? This always seemed like a bad excuse to get Harry a time turner to me, and when I was reading it the first two (I think?) times, I excused it as bad writing. Now I'm thinking it may be deliberate, and my model of EY was wrong. Perhaps Horcrux!Harry has control (strongly put) over Harry for two hours every day, and this is the rise of his odd sleep cycle.

Comment author: disinter 06 April 2012 01:37:13AM 4 points [-]

It's a real disorder If that's what concerns you. But if you're asking "why use that excuse to exclude Harry from public school and give him a time-turner at Hogwarts? Is there a logical progression that definitively gives Harry a reason to have such a disorder?" I had never considered that.

Comment author: Alsadius 30 March 2012 04:47:39AM *  2 points [-]

Yes, but it would be sufficient evidence to strongly imply that drugs exist, and that people regard them as bad.

Comment author: disinter 31 March 2012 03:24:22AM *  0 points [-]

Sure "National D. A. R. E. Day" means that the politicians who created the day believe that drugs exist and likely they regard them as bad. That D. A. R. E. actually exists means there is a wide community of people that believe or act like they believe likewise. If this was the ONLY evidence of drugs existing I would have reason to be skeptical of the existence of drugs.

Really most any single artifact of a wide phenomenon, taken completely in isolation, would be only weak evidence of the phenomenon's existence. Drugs, Jesus, Dark Wizards, Ghosts or Gravity, I think if we only saw one of the many effects that each predicts then we would have a good reason to doubt the reality of the phenomenon. Therefore I now believe it was unwise of me to take your comment that singled out one artifact of the Voldemort phenomenon (the holiday) and point out that taken by itself it was not strong evidence of his existence. Looking at it now, my comment appears to have the structure Daniel Dennett calls "a deepity": in so far as what I said was true, it was trivial and in so far as what I said was profound it was false.

Comment author: Alsadius 29 March 2012 06:10:07PM 0 points [-]

If Christmas had been celebrated when Jesus was still a child, instead of being invented to undercut a pagan holiday three centuries later, I would actually regard that as pretty strong evidence.

Comment author: disinter 30 March 2012 04:19:42AM 0 points [-]

A national holiday merely indicates that whatever system institutes holidays (in this case the government of magical Britain) has been convinced there is cause for a holiday. I consider this to be rather weak evidence.

For example in the United States the 2nd Thursday in April is "National D.A.R.E. Day" but this doesn't convince me that the D.A.R.E. program does more good than harm. (though it may)

If there were a national holiday celebrating his death and no other evidence I would not have enough information to judge Voldemort's life.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 March 2012 06:23:33AM 7 points [-]

The word for that is justice. A harsher justice than I'd want to seen meted out, but justice nevertheless.

Is probably precisely the rational people used when demanding the prisons be built.

Comment author: disinter 28 March 2012 07:36:20AM 1 point [-]

Thank you, that makes it very clear.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 27 March 2012 03:37:38AM 9 points [-]

I suppose I have a bit of Quirrell in me. He takes a grim satisfaction in the poetry of citizens being destroyed in the same prisons they demanded be built. The word for that is justice. A harsher justice than I'd want to seen meted out, but justice nevertheless. I wouldn't have squashed Skeeter, but I can't condemn Quirrell for it either.

I would just like to point out the unintentional irony in that paragraph.

Comment author: disinter 28 March 2012 05:49:16AM 1 point [-]

I'm afraid I can't spot it. Could you point it out for me?

Comment author: Alsadius 28 March 2012 01:42:52AM 5 points [-]

The fact that his death is remembered as a national holiday seems pretty convincing evidence that he at least did something naughty.

Comment author: disinter 28 March 2012 05:47:33AM 1 point [-]

That evidence is about as convincing as Christmas convinces me Jesus did something good.

However, because the figure Voldemort is not historical but a very recent event practically everyone in the wizarding world affirms to have existed and have been responsible for murders, then we have to choose between the alternative theories that practically the entire wizarding world has been deluding into believing the false story of the Dark Wizard Voldemort or else there was some Dark Wizard Voldemort.

My assessment is that it is more probably Voldemort existed, and was responsible for evil deeds.