Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

[Cain]

While Harry may have lost all the money in his vault, I went back to an earlier chapter, and it was never made clear that all the bounties on Voldemort were collected and put in the Potter vault.  That's a big maybe, but there is potential there for Harry to not have lost access to cash entirely.

I assume if that was followed up on, though, the process of getting the bounties would not be as easy as just going "I'm Harry Potter and I'm here to collect my money".  Of course.  Because the entire Wizarding World is insane.

[Reginald Ret]

It reminds me of one of machiavelli's points, that you can't both be a good leader and a good person.
Similarily, it seems that you can't both be a good person and a good utilitarian ethicist.
I think this mostly says something about (my) morals, i.e. that they have a (seemingly) irrational basis.
I can't really wrap my head around it but there's something there.

Those first two statements don't make any sense to me. What do you mean by good?

Not sure if i remember correctly:
Machiavelli said in The Prince that is is better to completely eradicate a village and replace the populace by you own people than it is to conquer it and keep the original population alive. This was mainly because the tension and rebellions caused by keeping the original populace alive caused more deaths in the long term and more importantly they would be the deaths of your own people.
I think we can all agree that a good person wouldn't commit genocide, but a good leader would.
I think there are more examples, but it has been a while since i read any Machiavelli.

[Kai]

It reminds me of one of machiavelli's points, that you can't both be a good leader and a good person.
Similarily, it seems that you can't both be a good person and a good utilitarian ethicist.
I think this mostly says something about (my) morals, i.e. that they have a (seemingly) irrational basis.
I can't really wrap my head around it but there's something there.

Those first two statements don't make any sense to me. What do you mean by good?

Not sure if i remember correctly:
Machiavelli said in The Prince that is is better to completely eradicate a village and replace the populace by you own people than it is to conquer it and keep the original population alive. This was mainly because the tension and rebellions caused by keeping the original populace alive caused more deaths in the long term and more importantly they would be the deaths of your own people.
I think we can all agree that a good person wouldn't commit genocide, but a good leader would.
I think there are more examples, but it has been a while since i read any Machiavelli.

I disagree. A good leader would charm the hell out of the population so that they would later wonder how it was that they had ever lived without him.

[Cain]

Might not work.  Historically, it could, but nationalism in particular makes that difficult in the modern world.  Then again, Regret doesn't exactly quote Machiavelli accurately, either (he actually says, a republic, which is brought under the rule of a prince and deprived of its liberties, must either have the Prince reside there or be destroyed).

There could be other methods, but it'd take a long time to describe them, and this isn't Harry Potter and the Methods By Which A Prince May Come to Good Fortune or Ruin Depending on Stratagem and Fortuna.

Anyway, upon re-reading it a couple of times, Harry's main objection at the end of Chapter 82 seems to be that acting as a bean-counting utilitarian in the long run seems a way to put strategy over morality, which rather defeats the point if you're fighting someone because of their wicked and evil nature.  Yes, one will have to undertake methods they disagree with, sometimes sacrifice friends and family for the greater good, but expecting people to act that way in the long run is wrong.  And his mother stands out in stark contrast to this advice, because she did not assess her options cooly, and decide to sacrifice herself because it would work to a strategic advantage, she did it because she loved Harry and would rather go down fighting than let a monster like Voldemort take him.

(Assuming the series of events that have been sold to Harry are true.  We've had hints they are not, after all).

I think Harry is thinking himself around to the point that if you assess everything as a utilitarian, eventually you're sacrificing really existing good things/people/situations for an abstract "higher good" which may not exist - especially because, if you're acting as a utilitarian in a war, you could end up doing some especially nasty and wicked things in order to win.  Harry wouldn't sacrifice his friends, nor would he kill an innocent to make a point, as Dumbledore seemingly did (though again, I have my doubts that went down as presented). 

At least, that's what I took away from it, though I may be confusing Harry's stance with my own, given I've done a lot of reading on utilitarian philosophy, and in particular how it could inform the ethics of conflict (badly, was my conclusion).  A particular essay I wrote on those topics is still used to teach students how to approach that module of philosophy, so it must be pretty decent, but it was written 8 years ago, and I've not continued my studies into utilitarianism since then, so I may not be remembering well, or have missed some large philosophical breakthrough in ethics.

[Cain]

Also this:

They both laughed, then Harry turned serious again. "The Sorting Hat did seem to think I was going to end up as a Dark Lord unless I went to Hufflepuff," Harry said. "But I don't want to be one."

"Mr. Potter..." said Professor Quirrell. "Don't take this the wrong way. I promise you will not be graded on the answer. I only want to know your own, honest reply. Why not?"

Harry had that helpless feeling again. Thou shalt not become a Dark Lord was such an obvious theorem in his moral system that it was hard to describe the actual proof steps. "Um, people would get hurt?"

"Surely you've wanted to hurt people," said Professor Quirrell. "You wanted to hurt those bullies today. Being a Dark Lord means that people you want to hurt get hurt."

Harry floundered for words and then decided to simply go with the obvious. "First of all, just because I want to hurt someone doesn't mean it's right -"

"What makes something right, if not your wanting it?"

"Ah," Harry said, "preference utilitarianism."

"Pardon me?" said Professor Quirrell.

"It's the ethical theory that the good is what satisfies the preferences of the most people -"

"No," Professor Quirrell said. His fingers rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't think that's quite what I was trying to say. Mr. Potter, in the end people all do what they want to do. Sometimes people give names like 'right' to things they want to do, but how could we possibly act on anything but our own desires?"

"Well, obviously," Harry said. "I couldn't act on moral considerations if they lacked the power to move me. But that doesn't mean my wanting to hurt those Slytherins has the power to move me more than moral considerations!"

[Cain]

Also, interestingly, this (emphasis mine)

Professor Quirrell gave a mirthless laugh. "Perhaps the Headmaster thought the rivalry was good for his pet hero and wished to see it continue. For the greater good, you understand. Or perhaps he was simply mad. You see, Mr. Potter, everyone knows that Dumbledore's madness is a mask, that he is sane pretending to be insane. They pride themselves on that clever insight, and knowing the secret explanation, they stop looking. It does not occur to them that it is also possible to have a mask behind the mask, to be insane pretending to be sane pretending to be insane. And I am afraid, Mr. Potter, that I have urgent business elsewhere, and must depart; but I should strongly advise you not to take your cues from Albus Dumbledore when fighting a war. Until later, Mr. Potter."

[Kai]

Yes, it does seem that utilitarianism fails for the very reason it is supposed to be superior: It misses our cherished trees for the forest. Yes, a mother dying to save her child, in the sense of an evolutionary stable strategy where mothers who's children die can have more children, is illogical. But she wouldn't be human if she didn't.

What is that phrase? "If it makes you laugh, it's true; if it makes you cry, it's real." Human ethics are tied to emotional attachments. Attempting to remove one from the other, well, the person might as well be an alien.

[Cain]

Also digging through earlier chapters, it turns out Harry has a hundred galleons buried in his backyard.  Not that 100 galleons is a huge amount, but it's certainly better than nothing, should he need to buy, say, huge quantities of sodium at some point.  And cannot Transfigure it.

[Cain]

I have a theory of who Bones thinks Quirrell is...but I'm not sure if it fits.

My thinking is that she thinks he is Tom Riddle...but Tom Riddle is not known as Voldemort, except possibly by members of the Order of the Phoenix.  Riddle is, after all, the last scion of a Most Ancient and Noble House, whose members were killed by Voldemort - he is the last surviving member of the Gaunt house, descended directly from Salazar Slytherin.  Voldemort killed his own relatives, "satisfying his own parental issues to his satisfaction" as Quirrell put it.

The problem with this is obvious, that it's not certain that only the Order of the Phoenix knows Voldemort's true identity.  The other problem is Yudowsky did describe Voldemort has having the look he had in the movies - pale, snake-like, red eyes.  It's not clear how he could manage to continue on as Tom Riddle unless that appearance was a disguise of some sort.

OR

(note: this is getting into highly speculative territory)

We have some entirely wrong assumptions about the relationship between Tom Riddle, Quirrell and Voldemort.

What do we know, absolutely and for sure?  That Quirrell is Voldemort.  We have Word of God on that, unless Yudowsky is lying, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing he would do.

But do we know who Voldemort is?  Or Tom Riddle?  Do we know for sure that Tom Riddle was Voldemort, that Riddlemort was killed assaulting Godric's Hollow?

Consider the inconsistencies in how Voldemort is reputed to have acted, and how Quirrell acts.  Voldemort was a terrorist, and a particularly sadistic and chaotic one at that.  Dumbledore contrasted him entirely with Grindlewald, who thought he doing the right thing, who wanted to be a hero, who was, in his own eyes, "serving the Greater Good".  How can Voldemort be seen as anything except a brutal killer, based on what we know?  It doesn't seem he can.  His tactics and his overall strategy put him far beyond any point where he could seriously consider himself heroic, especially with the kind of intelligence Quirrell displays.

So there are two options.  Most fans have gone for the obvious option - the link between Quirrell and Harry means that the former is somehow able to call upon the latter's latent intelligence.  But that's far too obvious, and boring.

Here's the other one: Tom Riddle was never Voldemort.  He was the man behind Voldemort.  Voldemort, whoever he really was, was a patsy, a front man.  Just as Bellatrix was a tool of the Dark Lord's will, the Dark Lord was a tool of Tom Riddle/Quirrell's will.  The plan was similar to Quirrell's plan now - use Voldemort as the threat, leverage his position among the Noble Houses, control the Wizengamot, use the Mark of Light to rule Britain as a dictator.  Why it failed is unclear, but somehow, Voldemort's death prevented the plan from going forward.  Now he's using the threat of a resurgent Voldemort to keep the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters at each others throats, while he manouvers Harry into the position to be the Minister for Magic and implement the Mark of Light - with Quirrell as the man behind the throne.

Problems with this theory:

- assumes the Light Mark plan was Quirrell's real aim.  This not readily apparent.
- does not explain the resonance Harry has with Quirrell.
- does not explain how Tom Riddle died, or came to possess Quirrell.
- does not explain Harry's Mysterious Dark Side

I may have Quirrell's new or indeed original plan as wrong.  Riddle may not be possessing his body, it may be his own, altered, aging processes slowed.  It might be that the one people thought was Voldemort was Tom Riddle, and someone else, the real Voldemort, was the one behind this fake Voldemort, meaning whoever is possessing Quirrell is Voldemort, but not Tom Riddle.  However, the idea that people are making some very questionable assumptions about the identities behind these three names is, I find, a strangely compelling one.

[Cain]

Chapter 86 is finally up.

I have not yet read it.

[Pope Lecherous]

Chapter 86 is finally up.

I have not yet read it.

Be sure to re-read 85, as it has been rewritten.

[LMNO]

Yes.  85 is now more powerful.

half way through 86, and it's back to the good old days.  high form.

[trix]

I've suspected that the Defense Professor is exactly who that head Auror woman thought he was since that interview... who we now know the name of.  I suspect that Voldemort was the evil persona he took on to play the Tyrant, while Monroe played the Hero.  I think the idea was for the people to follow him either as the Hero or the Tyrant.  As for what went wrong and his plans for Harry, I have some suspicions as well.

[Cain]

I wondered something very similar, Trix.

Though this was before we knew of Monroe, so I had suspected that it had been Tom Riddle who had played his role.  The aim being a Monroe ruling Britain through the Mark of Light, as mentioned in the plot.

Also, the terrorist Voldemort seems too stupid for Quirrell.  He used force and brutality which made people fear him, but not the hallmark cunning or skill that Quirrell is noted for.

The new information about the Dark Mark is very interesting, also.

[Juana]

I am so way behind on this series. Good lord. Need to catch up.