The Story
"Okay, so according to what we know, only someone pure of heart can get the horcruxes and defeat Voldemort."
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all sitting about Ron's bedroom in the Weasley home, discussing how they were going to vanquish the evil Voldemort once and for all.
"But I don't understand," said Harry. "Didn't I already gather the horcruxes and defeat Voldemort?"
"Harry..." Hermione gives an exasperated sigh. "We've been over this. That happened in the books -"
"- and the movies" Ron chimed in helpfully
"Yes, yes, and the movies. But that was different. This isn't a book -"
"- or a movie"
Hermione glared at Ron before continuing. "Or a movie. This is a hackneyed attempted to use a pop culture phenomenon to explain principles of philosophy."
"Oh, I see," said Harry, who didn't. "Anyway, it says I've got to be pure of heart. How can anyone know if they're pure of heart?"
"Oh, well that's easy," Hermione said. "You see, being pure of heart means that you've stuck to a certain set of principles. We've all got a duty to improve our lives and the lives of the people around us, so all we need to do is see if you've actually stuck with that duty or not. If you have, then you're pure of heart, simple as that."
"That's stupid!" burst out Ginny
"Fine then," Hermione said crossly, "If you're so smart, let's hear you tell us what it means to be pure of heart."
"Well," said Ginny, "Obviously it's not about just sticking to a set of rules, or something" (at this Hermione glared, but said nothing). "Anyone can do that. Just doing what is considered good doesn't make you a good person. You have to be a good person! I mean, if someone were to live according to that duty, but the whole time they were just doing that so people would think they're good, when they're really plotting on enslaving everyone, would that make them pure of heart?"
"Well, no, but -"
"Exactly! Why you do things is just as important as what you do!"
"Oh, you're both mental!" says Ron, shaking his head. "All you're doing is talking about what you do or why you do it. Who cares about any of those things? You can try to help someone out of duty, or because you want to be a good person, or whatever, but unless what you do actually helps that person, what difference does it make? Being pure of heart isn't about principles and character and all that sort of rubbish, it's about doing things that actually make the world a better place. If we listened to Hermione, we'd spend all our time trying to make sure we're helping people in a way that lines up with our duty, and if we listened to Ginny, we'd never help people at all! We'd just sit around all day hoping to become a better person!"
"What! That's not - MUM!" Ginny hollered, "RON'S STRAWMANNING MY POSITION AGAIN!"
"RONALD ARTHUR WEASLEY!" came a shrill voice from downstairs, "WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT MISREPRESENTING SOMEONE ELSE'S ARGUMENTS?"
"That it's intellectually dishonest and is nothing more than manipulating people into thinking I'm right," parroted Ron while rolling his eyes. "But you see my point, don't you? Good actions and good character are all fine and dandy, but unless they actually produce good results, who cares?"
"I care," said Ginny sharply. "I mean, really, Ron, where would you draw the line? If I were to become a murderer and go around killing people for fun, but only killed criminals, would you say that I'm pure of heart because the consequences of my actions are that there's less crime? What if I became a murderer to rid the world of tacky decorators? Would that make me pure of heart?"
"What! No! Ginny, you know that the consequences have to be weighed against the actions! MUUUUM! NOW GINNY'S STRAW-"
"Alright, alright" Ginny cut in. "I get it. But don't you see? There's no way of actually calculating whether the actions outweigh the consequences. It's all down to someone's opinion. Suppose there's a mouse in my room, and it's bothering me, and I don't really like chocolate frogs, so I use them to lure the mouse away and into a trap. But then you come up, and you didn't really care about the mouse but you loved chocolate frogs. I think it's a good consequence, because getting rid of a pest outweighs losing a bit of candy, but you're all upset, because to you there's no way giving up your favourite treat is worth being rid of a mouse that really wasn't bothering you anyway. Was that a good action or a bad action?"
"I know you both think you're arguing against me," Hermione said smugly, "but really you're only proving me right. See, how do you develop a good character? And how do you bring about good consequences? Why, by doing good actions, of course. If you get into the habit of living according to the duty to do good, then over time that's going to make you into a person of good character. And if you base your actions on the duty to do good, then those actions are probably going to bring about good consequences. We have a duty to be honest with one another. Our entire society depends on it. If we hold to that duty, then we will become an honest person, and we'll never have to deal with the consequences of being dishonest. See? Like I said, it's easy."
"No, it's not easy, Hermione," Ginny retorted. "Lying isn't always wrong. Not if you're doing it for a good reason. Like sparing someone's feelings! Or covering up for a friend. Lying's only wrong if you're doing it to hurt the people around you. Like I said, it's about intentions. Whether something's good or not is about why you're doing it."
"Oh, so someone can do whatever they want so long as they're doing it for the right reasons! Yes, who cares about lying, lying's fine so long as it's a "Good Person" who's doing the lying. Well, Ginny, if someone doesn't live up to their moral duty to be honest, how could you call them a good person? How could you say 'Oh, that person lies all the time, but they mean well, so they're pure of heart!'"
"I agree with Hermione. Being lied to is never a good consequence. No one enjoys it."
"Thank you, Ron."
"But I do think that sometimes there are consequences that are worse than being lied to, and that if the only way you can avoid this sort of consequence is through lying, then lying is the most ethical thing to do."
"Ron, that's no different from what I'm saying!" argued Ginny
"It's completely different from what you're saying! I'm saying that doing something that brings about a bad consequence is only okay if you can tangibly show that the bad consequence is still the best possible consequence! You can't - you can't just go around bringing about whatever bad consequences you'd like because you've got the best intentions at heart!"
"Ron! Please. I'm not saying you can just do whatever you like. I'm saying that if you work on developing your character, and becoming a moral person, then your actions and the consequences of those actions will become moral as well."
"Ginny, an action can't just become moral because of the person doing it. Either it's moral or it isn't. And Ron - I'm surprised at you! You know full well that there will always be a way out of a situation that doesn't involve shirking your moral duty! Doing something bad, even to bring about something good, is immoral."
"No, Hermione, I don't 'know that full well.' Please explain to me how every situation ever will have a potential good consequence. Oh! That's right! Because you don't care about consequences! To you, holding to your moral duty, even if the consequences are awful, is good! And straying from that duty to bring about fantastic results is the pinnacle of evil, isn't it?"
"Ron, you can't bring about good by doing evil!"
"According to who?"
"According to me, who says that actions and consequences are irrelevant! It's about who you are!"
"Alright Ginny, how do you define who someone is without looking at their actions?"
"Gee, I don't know, Hermione, how do you define their actions without looking at the consequences?"
"Look, Ron, we've been over -"
"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!" Harry shouted. The room went silent. "Look, okay, thank you for your input, alright? I appreciate it. No, I do, really. Maybe we should just get going."
The Explanation
The positions held by Hermione, Ginny, and Ron are the three major positions that comprise what is called normative ethics, which is the study of how people ought to act in order to be ethical. Now, the three positions presented here have been simplified, and are a little extreme - in real life, people tend to be more nuanced in their views, and might hold to a more complex system than what we've seen today. They also may draw from multiple or even all three positions. Nonetheless, people generally tend to gravitate towards one position in particular, which comes to be their main way of filtering life and understanding how they should act.Hermione was arguing something that amounts to what we call deontological ethics. This is essentially the idea that there is a certain standard of ethical behaviour, or perhaps a set of ethical rules, and to be ethical is to live your life according to those standards or rules. Perhaps the most well-known proponent of deontological ethics is the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who developed the notion of categorical imperatives, which can be understood as standards for our actions to be compared to,
Ginny, on the other hand, was contending for something that's closer to what is called virtue ethics. Roughly speaking, virtue ethics is the concept that morality is about how you approach a situation, rather than about what you actually do. A major advocate of virtue ethics was the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who outlined this notion in the Nicomachean Ethics. The fundamental concept here is that there are a series of virtues which a person ought to cultivate. Actions alone are insufficient to determine morality, because they deal with only a small part of a greater whole. Rather, to the virtue ethicist, to possess these virtues is to be moral; to lack them is to be immoral. One way of looking at it is a reversal of the famous line from the film Batman Begins: "It's not what you do, but who you are underneath that defines you."
Finally, Ron is advocating something that's called consequentialism. This is the idea that at the end of the day, being ethical is less about principles and more about results. The most popular position within consequentialism is something called utilitarianism, which is a view popularized by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham developed something called the Greatest Happiness Principle - the idea that the most ethical thing we can do is whatever brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people. Of course, later philosophers (most notably John Stuart Mill) would go on to give more nuance to this idea, helping to define exactly what we mean by happiness. So, to the utilitarian, the action itself isn't all that important, nor is the person doing the action - if that action brings more happiness to more people than other possible actions, it is therefore the most ethical action.
So, to take the lying example used above, as a deontologist, Hermione sees lying as against the standard of ethical behaviour, and as a result, to her lying is categorically immoral - even if something good comes out of it. Ginny feels that the fact that someone has lied simply isn't enough information to determine whether a person is ethical or not. The entirety of the person must be understood in order to make an assessment there - we need to know their motives and intentions. Ron feels that as lying is not an action that will, in the long term, bring about happiness, lying is immoral - but also that there could be extenuating circumstances where lying could bring about more happiness than any other possible action, and that in such a case, lying would be moral. This differs from Ginny in the sense that to Ron, if lying brings the most happiness, then the person lying is moral even if they are doing it for malicious reasons; similarly, if lying does not bring about the most happiness, then the person lying is immoral even if they are doing it for selfless reasons.
Hopefully this whole thing might prompt you to think and read a bit more about this whole ethics thing, and what it means.
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