Rehabilitation Part 10.3: Treating Morality as a Relationship
Over the course of the night, Luna did little dream walking.
Riddle did little reading.
They spoke of his improvement, with a good deal of new information at Luna's disposal, and fewer topics forbidden. Luna finally learning about the phoenix voice within him wasn't as annoying as he had predicted, for instance.
"No?" Riddle echoed her answer.
"No," she repeated firmly. "It is a restriction on your free will. It can hardly be called 'virtue' if you are forced to be good."
He furrowed his brows. "What does virtue matter? My goal is happiness, not virtue."
She regarded him for a moment. "Hm… let me put it this way. If you say 'my goal is to become healthier,' and I say 'you must learn nutrition and exercise', then you say 'but my goal is health, not nutrition or exercise'… you see? If the goal is good health, nutrition and exercise are how you reach it. 'Tis the same with happiness and virtue. The goal is happiness, virtue is how you get there."
Riddle blinked a few times. He'd never heard that cliché before… though if he has not heard it, that would mean it is not cliché. In any case, it seems like an important issue to address if true. 'If true' being the operative phrase.
Does virtue actually beget happiness? Does that claim truly reflect reality?
In reality, happiness can be measured objectively by the brightness of one's Patronus charm (or the existence of it at all), and in true life (beyond this pony realm), The-Boy-Who-Lived and Albus Dumbledore have the brightest Patronuses known to him. They are also obviously above average in what a normal person would call 'virtue'. Moody, Bones, a number of Aurors, and every member of the Order also had corporeal Patronuses, and they were likewise somewhat 'virtuous' when compared to the rest of the population. That is the evidence he has seen.
The primary counter-evidence is the 'virtuous' Ms. Granger's lack of Patronus, though Mr. Potter has already given her a plausible reason not to have one – the same reason Godric Gryffindor didn't, the same reason Mr. Potter himself struggled at first.
So Riddle didn't argue the point. He will assume 'virtue is how you reach happiness' as potentially true for now, meaning his next step should be…
"Define 'virtue'."
Luna smiled. "One way to define something is through antonym. Do you know the opposite of virtue?"
"I don't typically use this vernacular." He doesn't speak 'moralist'.
"I think the field troubles you more than the vocabulary."
"I dislike the language and the field."
"Dislike is not quite the same thing as ineptitude," she remarked. "I apologize if this is annoying. I am just trying to be sure of something. Here, let me put it to the test. What is your field of greatest competence?"
"Power," he said at once.
Her expression dimmed slightly, but she nodded. "One way to define something is through antonym. The opposite of 'virtue' is 'vice', and the opposite of 'goodness' is 'sin'. With me so far?"
"Nothing seems to have been lost in translation," he granted. "So far."
"Ah, yes. Let us hope that continues to be the case. Now, please answer the following question to the best of your ability: If you are trying to reach a state of great power, what is a cardinal sin in that pursuit?"
"Giving up power you have already acquired," he answered at once. It was rule 3.
"See?" she said. "You do speak the language. You understood 'sin' in that context, and you would likely understand 'virtue' as well. You simply have not applied it to morality."
"Even still," he allowed. "I would like your definition of 'virtue'."
"Of course. In the context of morality, 'virtues' are those traits which cannot be consistently upheld by those who are evil – honesty, courage, loyalty, generosity, kindness, consideration, to name a few. As applied to relationships, to be 'virtuous' is to be considerate of others, but also considerate to your own needs. To be 'virtuous' is to not exploit others, and to not allow yourself to be exploited. To be 'virtuous' is to have relationships that are healthy to you and healthy to others… but I see that this is not working."
She's right. It wasn't.
She took a moment to think. "Very well, let us go back to neutral definitions. And with antonym, since I think you will understand that better. When you apply the language to fields other than morality, an act of 'sin' is to mess up so badly that you are going away from where you should be going. To sin is to miss your mark, in other words. 'Vices' are the personality traits that cause you to 'sin' on a regular basis. Thus 'virtues' are the traits that get you closer to your goal, to regularly hit your mark. That is how to think of those terms when divorced from morality."
He slowly nodded. Using that terminology, his list of 37 rules could be called 'virtues' for a Dark Lord to follow in the competent pursuit of power. Virtues for 'evil', he thought with an internal, ironic smile.
"Now that we've established you do know the language," Luna continued, "These are my questions for you: Toward what goal does 'virtue' drive a pony? Alternatively, from what goal does 'vice' spurn? More simply, what is the goal of morality? The answer to all three is the same."
It seemed obvious enough. He just, as Mr. Potter would put it, pattern matched the cliché. "The goal of morality is to be a good pony, yes? To make the world a better place, to save the lives of others, to not be evil…"
"Not quite," said Luna gently. "In a sense, you have just provided synonyms to virtue, and rephrasing a trait is not quite the same thing as stating its goal. On the individual level, the goal of morality, the motivation, the reason for pursuing it, is not to be a good pony. The goal is not to save lives. The goal is not to help others. Those may be goals of morality on a societal level, when morality becomes ethics and law. Those may be manifestations and effects of morality. Those may be indicators of the virtuous. But when it comes to the individual, when it comes to why you should pursue it, the goal of morality is your goal. The goal is happiness. I said it is the path to happiness, did I not? Happiness is the destination at the end of Virtue Lane."
"Hm… I had not been expecting that." And if true, that would make it important to discuss. "In that case, why have you focused so little on 'virtue' thus far?" he asked. "You seem much more interested in my 'bad' habits."
She considered it. "To some extent, that is true. In your case the only virtue I have truly tried to hammer home thus far has been honesty. I may be biased, but even Tia agrees it is the most important virtue. Dishonesty gets in the way of lasting happiness like no other vice can. As for your other habits, evil stunts virtue, it blocks the growth of virtue, thus it must be solved first."
"And the reason you have not focused much on my relationships, despite how important you say they are?"
"I realized I was pushing things along too quickly by encouraging you to form friendships. You still have a ways to go first."
"But relationships are still essential to happiness?" he pressed.
That much, at least, he accepted long ago. Every successful Patronus thought he knows about involves relationships in some way or another.
"Of course," Luna smiled. "The goal is happiness, achieved by good relationships, achieved by virtue. There is no happiness without companionship. There is no joy without friendship, there is no euphoria without love. Or drugs, I suppose, and perhaps schadenfreude, but those don't last, and they cannot fuel a Patronus."
Riddle gave a single chuckle at that remark. If only they could, he might have revised his personal 'no drugs' policy for a time. But drugs are like false memories – an outside influence, disregarded by Patronus attempts, and the pleasure felt at destroying enemies is not the right kind of happiness.
"It is most accurate to say," Luna summarized, "that 'virtue' is the habit that allows you to form positive bonds with others, and those bonds bring happiness. Morality alone is necessary but not sufficient for happiness. Relationships are necessary but not sufficient. You must integrate both to achieve a good friendship, and then you will be happy."
"Good is just a label," he remarked. "Even the worst beings call themselves 'good'."
"Then I shall define it to exclude that," she declared. "A good relationship is mutually beneficial. Physically, materially, and mentally. Neither side regrets the bond and both sides are better off. A bad relationship is everything else. One pony exploiting another, for instance."
"How is that quantified?"
"Not easily," she sighed. "A great deal of subjectivity is often involved, I'm afraid, especially when a competent manipulator is involved. To understand one's own feelings is a skill more akin to art than math, like a litterateur deriving meaning from a deep and resonating story. That's why true virtue is a mindset, a guideline, not a strict set of rules to follow."
"Most moralists I've met have waxed endlessly about standards and rules," he pointed out. "Not that I agree with them, such rules are easily exploited, but-"
"Ah!" she interrupted, raising her hoof. "That right there. We can get into standards another time, but that is precisely why moral ponies should not adhere to rules. Because evil ponies can exploit them. When you view morality as a relationship between ponies, not a strict ruleset that must be followed at all times, you need never regret morality. I view morality as a relationship, so what kind of relationship do you think I have with actively immoral and unregenerate ponies?"
"A bad one?"
"A reflective one, if I must. Or no relationship at all, if I have a choice. If somepony seeks to exploit me, to abuse my morality, and I cannot simply tell them to go away, I treat them with the same consideration they treat me. That is what it means to be both good and strong. The silver rule. You see?"
Both good and strong? No, he did not see how such a contradiction could exist… but Riddle considered the dilemma anyway, using Luna's framing.
The 'moral' people whose strength he actually respected could be counted on a single hand: Bones, Moody, Crouch, Dumbledore. Luna if he was feeling generous, though he'd never seen her in an extended wartime setting so he couldn't really speak of her military strength.
Of the four humans, the most relevant would be Dumbledore. There was a standout moment near the end of the war, a moment exactly epitomal of Luna's morals, when Dumbledore finally became a worthy opponent.
Before that point, Voldemort had targeted and ransomed 'light' families because he knew the great and good Albus Dumbledore would pay the ransoms and wouldn't retaliate. But after Dumbledore's own brother was ransomed for a ridiculous amount, and after Albus refused to pay it, and after Aberforth was tortured into insanity (a scene Riddle had locked away from his own memory, but still knew about), Albus Dumbledore finally relented and burned Narcissa Malfoy alive in her bedroom – not as an act of hot vengeance, but as a cold, calculated message, a promise of future consequences, a commitment to what Luna calls 'the silver rule':
Do unto others as they do to you.
Not as you would have them do unto you, i.e. the golden rule.
AS they do to you.
In a game of snitchless Quidditch, if you followed the golden rule, you would pass the quaffle to the enemy team because that's what you would want the enemy team to do to you. And then the enemy team only passes to each other, they laugh at your stupidity, and you lose the game.
To take a less ridiculous example, in a martial arts competition you treat your opponent with respect and you do not break the rules of engagement because that's how you want to be treated, but if your opponent breaks the rules without getting caught, it would be stupid and wrong to continue respecting the rules yourself, at least when facing that opponent.
When your opponent unsheathes their claws, you unsheathe yours, and it becomes a fight, not a dominance contest. Treat others AS they treat you. That is the silver rule.
Luna claims the golden rule is for situations of good faith and earned trust, while the silver rule is for questionable/bad faith and earned enmity. Mutual benefit vs. zero sum, friends and allies vs. unknowns and enemies, sport vs. war, dominance contest vs. death battle.
Albus Dumbledore once had the strict rules of 'never torture anyone' and 'never target uninvolved innocents' and 'save the lives of friends and family no matter the cost'. Dumbledore no longer has those rules, at least where Voldemort is concerned, because the relationship he had with the Dark Lord didn't allow for restraint or mercy or charity. In other words, he finally stopped passing the quaffle to the enemy team, he moved on from the golden rule to the silver rule, he unsheathed his claws at long last.
Dumbledore began treating his morals 'as a relationship between people', not as a strict set of rules to follow regardless of circumstance. That is the moment Dumbledore's morals ceased to be blatantly exploitable.
Regarding Luna's original question, this enabled Dumbledore to be somewhat strong despite the inherent disadvantages that come with being 'good'.
"I see," Riddle said at last.
And he did.
At the very least, Luna continuously reaffirmed to his satisfaction that her moral stances are not obviously stupid.
"But why do you have a relationship with me then, silver rule or no, when you have the ability to send me away?"
The first part of her stance, avoid 'immoral' ponies entirely if she has the choice and ability to do so, is also not a stupid principle. But she has not avoided him, even after discovering the extent of his 'evil'…
Luna smiled. "Because you are truly improving through careful, deliberate effort. And because you have followed the silver rule with me ever since we met, even more strictly and instinctively than I did. And I cannot articulate how rare and refreshing that is."
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10746106
Based on Admiral Biscuit's stories, you can do it in the Author's Notes but you're not supposed to make it part of the story.
Nice chapter.
Honestly, chapters like these are nice, if for anything else other than to contemplate on for yourself.
Looking forward to the actual story progressing tho but I'll take these as they come.
I'm curious how the "silver rule" will be compared to nonviolent resistance. Appeasement fails, but civil resistance has had a rather impressive success rate.
Wouldnt the rule of three then be.
the golden rule,
the silver rule,
the blood rule?
Find out who is setting the war up, and take Them out as quickly, cleanly and quietly as possible. If noone ever finds out or realises how, all the better?
He probably should understand how's happiness related to high social status.
What's religion doing in Equestira?
So, Luna got bored from everyone trying to butter her up?
11446560
Don't need religion to use moral terminology. Harry uses it in his internal narration in canon HPMoR, ch22:
Although to be fair, he is sort of treating science like a religion in that passage.
Still, you don't need to prescribe to any religion to use that terminology. That's kind-of the whole point of Luna's 'neutral' definitions in this chapter. Nor do you need religion to apply the terminology to the realm of morality. As a secularist, I consider infant rape a sin, I consider pathological lying to be a vice, I consider integrity a virtue, and I consider the act of teaching others to improve themselves to be a good deed.
11446539
I think the third would be the 'black' rule, or maybe the 'default' rule: 'Do whatever I feel benefits me most.'
This would be the rule that, I'd estimate, at least 90% of the population follows at almost all times in their everyday lives. Which is why it's so important for societal incentive structures to not promote destructive behaviors.
11446400
The success rate of nonviolent resistance only seems impressive for a few reasons. First, to take the cynical approach, governments would prefer their citizens to resist them nonviolently as opposed to violently, so they praise successful examples as the highest moral good in public schools. They don't talk about the failures, or the consequences of failure. In short, nonviolent resistance seems good to us because we've been propagandized to believe that - which isn't to say it's wrong, propaganda can be good and accurate, but it's still propaganda.
Second, for the nonviolent resistance movements that HAVE worked, we see them primarily in first world, predominantly Christian countries, or in countries ruled by predominantly Christian countries. It doesn't work against evil. It only works against people who already have a conscience. It didn't work in Tianamen Square, neither in the moment nor afterwards, for it was memory holed by the CCP. Nonviolence wouldn't work in North Korea, and it would not have worked against Hitler, to name a few. That's the point of the scene in HPMoR where Harry talks about losing respect for Gandhi when he said they should nonviolently resist the Nazis as well - because the Nazis specifically trained many of their troops to NOT have a conscience through their extermination campaigns in their own country.
And the reason all of this matters is because it matters to personal life too. The Gandhi example would have a wife allow herself to be beaten by her abusive husband, or a teenager stay in a home with a screaming, clawing, banshee of a mother. The silver rule, on the other hand, would have them (a) get out if they can, or (b) reciprocate treatment, either of which can make a difference where passivity does not.
11446683
Probably you don't.
Of course you do, since without cultural background shaped among other things with literally thousands of years of religious (and earlier --- classical antiquity) philosophy that is compete nonsense.
That HPMoR piece is a joke build on contrast with religious terminology (and Harry actually has right cultural background)
11446800
Fine, you don't need to prescribe to any particular religion to apply that terminoligy to the realm of morality, and in particular, wizards and witches wouldn't be talking about religious beliefs when using that terminology.
The terms 'vice', 'virtue', 'sin', and 'good deeds' are almost inherently moral, and since morality has been the purview of religion in English language and culture until very recently, to divorce the language from religion isn't often done. But it can be done, and based on the evidence, wizarding society would have started doing it long ago in HPMoR canon, given that 'religion' is the most common reason for needing to memory-charm muggle parents, and given that Professor McGonagall, a research-level witch, had trouble inherently understanding the 'muggle' concept of 'God' when Snape brought it up. Albus Dumbledore, when talking about 'virtues', would not be referring to religious virtue, but he would still use the term 'virtue'.
11446710
Treat others as they treat you. That's why I shot my bully while he was asleep when I was ten. Well, not really, but it almost happened. It would have been justified too, since the bullying was so brutal that when I read the webnovel "Worm" I considered the bullying brutality quite realistic, and I won't go into details because I get severe PTSD flashbacks whenever I think about the details. Instead what happened was a redemption arc as stupid as the ones in My Little Pony, and I mean stopping not just moving on to other people.
First of all, I should clarify the difference between nonviolent resistance and appeasement. Appeasement is things like sitting in the "colored" section, buying Britain's overpriced salt, ignoring the bully until they go away. Those never ever work. Civil resistance is actual resistance and causes problems for the aggressor. For example, when civil rights activists did sit-ins, they didn't just not get served, they took up the seats that white people would have sat in to buy things (Except the ones who were willing to sit in the empty seats in the colored section, which were pointed out whenever they were accused of preventing service). Civil resistance forces a public confrontation in a way that makes their enemies look pathetic.
Violent resistance is still much better than appeasement, so I'm not a pacifist, but this kind of resistance is even better when it's possible. In fact, it's effective even when the enemies are evil and without conscious. You mentioned how the west are Christian cultures. Christianity appeared in a civilization whose highest entertainment was stuff like feeding prisoners to animals so they could laugh at their gory death. Do you remember how Christianity got so popular?
Here's a quote from someone who compares niceness to an eldritch abomination that keeps winning by mysterious eldritch means. (The Andrew here is a different Andrew, not me)
There is one big disadvantage that civil resistance has compared to violence, even when it's possible. The people who do this usually get murdered. If someone was truly altruistic though, and only cares about helping people including their enemies, it has a great track record.
11447068
Most of what I'm trying to do here is meant for adults with some measure of freedom over their personal interactions, not helpless children without that privilege. For my opinions on children, look up 'peaceful parenting'.
But to address the bully situation anyway, no where in the silver rule can I see justification for shooting a bully when he sleeps, because he never did that to you, for all the torment he put you through, and he's certainly not currently doing it to you. Unless he did shoot you while you were sleeping, in which case nevermind. The silver rule is meant for early interactions in a relationship, to PREVENT bullying from happening in the first place.
The silver rule is not 'treat others as they HAVE treated you in the past', or even 'treat others as their cumulative past actions deserve'. It is 'treat others AS THEY CURRENTLY treat you in the present'. They use a shitty argument, have a shitty attitude, try to start something physical? The silver rule says to reciprocate in the moment, or as close to the moment as possible. If you don't like the interaction that follows, or past interactions you've had with them, simply dissociate, if possible.
If it's not possible because they have the power and they're insistent on continuing the interaction, that just leaves the rule I haven't gotten to yet, the rule that tempted you to shoot him: "Do whatever you think is in your own best self interest, using any means at your disposal". This is the rule that most people who grow up in extremely shitty situations come to understand and implement, when they're long past the point of preventative measures. I'm thinking of calling it the 'black' rule, but to be honest, it's just the 'default' rule because it's the rule most people follow all the time. Well, that and 'do what you did in the past because habits are habits'.
And the black rule also takes into account things like future legal consequences, which I'm guessing is one of the reasons you didn't shoot him. This is also the rule that nonviolent resisters implement, as well as violent resisters, because it's the only rule that allows you to plot, scheme, manipulate, and attempt to outmaneuver others. The silver and golden rules are almost dogmatic by nature, and aren't meant to solve massive outside evils. They aren't meant for winning, as Harry and Professor Quirrel might put it. They're meant for those rare instances when you have the luxury to explore morality in your personal life. The only 'solution' either offers to evil is the addendum to the silver rule, which says to stop interacting with someone if you don't like silver rule interactions with them.
Here, there is one other CRUCIAL thing missing that would be the quite usual of the defense professor "Is virtue the only way / the fastest one?"
This. If "sin" is missing your mark (historical meaning of the word), and "virtue" is a bulls-eye, then what is your goal.
37 rules for obtaining and holding power. And now he needs a new focus.
Hmm ... am I taking a life lesson from a friendship story about a BBEG converting?
11447994
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The unspoken caveat to that advice is that being virtuous means dissociating from the anti-virtuous. You end up doing a lot of weeding and pruning in your life, even/especially with toxic family members, and people you thought were your friends. To find even one good person capable of truly caring for you on a deep level is extremely rare. To have five such people in your life makes you like a titan among men, or a goddess among women.
Though it's much easier and common to find such people in a fictional universe of ponies and friendship and magic where foal abuse and neglect has been more or less eliminated.
Riddle does know that Harry's Patronus thought is his absolute rejection of death as the natural order, which doesn't involve relationships except in the extremely abstract. I suppose that it does make more sense for Riddle to focus on the thoughts that work for the basic version of the Patronus before trying the advanced version, though.
Also,
"evil pony" should be "evil ponies" or "an evil pony."
11577000
This is where exact phrasing comes into play. "Every thought he knows about..."
In other words, he doesn't know Harry's happiness thought. Harry never explained. Celestia, Twilight, and Luna know v2, but they haven't explained yet either, for the same reason Harry didn't, in that he's not ready. Or at least, I think/hope that's the case. Now I'm afraid I wrote somewhere that he was told.
Anyway, regarding canon HPMoR, from PQ's perspective that exchange on the day of the dementor might have been Harry deliberately misleading/messing with him and Dumbledore when he said "I thought of my absolute rejection of death as the natural order." Which is exactly what a powerful wizard SHOULD do when trying to obsucre their discovery from otherwise powerful and intelligent wizards who are not yet ready to know the truth.
In general though, yeah, he's going off of what he knows from overseeing Lupin tutor his students in the Patronus 1.0; every successful thought involved relationships.
11578018
I was just basing it off of the HPMoR quote, but now that you've pointed it out, it does make sense for Riddle to ignore that evidence. It definitely seems like you've put a lot of thought into this stuff and I'm very much looking forward to how this will be incorporated into future chapters.
A lot of that was really filler for me, until the end really teached me a view point I had not acknowledged to be using already.
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Gold rule, Silver rule. Damn fine thing to learn unexpectedly from a fiction story