Dumbledore's Philosophy

The Utilitarian

Some authors assume that Dumbledore is completely evil, and is in fact the Dark Lord of the prophecy.¹ The problem with this is the “neither shall live” part, but then that is nearly as much of a problem if you look too closely at the canon events. For myself, I do not think Dumbledore intentionally shaped Riddle into Voldemort,² nor that he is secretly the most dastardly person imaginable. Dumbledore is not a saintly figure either mind you, but rather a complex one who requires more careful analysis to understand his flaws in the right context.

Musings of Apathy, in writing the original version of Family Inseparable, envisions Dumbledore as (my words) misguided, and perhaps ruthless, but not evil.³ There is some truth to this. Personally, I am convinced that Dumbledore believes some form of Utilitarianism. Whether he absorbed this from Gellert Grindelwald,⁴ or learned it from his own parents is more than I am prepared to say. It even is possible that Grindelwald got the idea from Dumbledore. Moreover, for all that “the Greater Good” would become Grindelwald’s slogan,⁵ I do not believe that Dumbledore ever, if at all, fully abandoned his internal commitment to Utilitarian philosophy. Dumbledore may have had to learn to live with the “price of [his] shame,”⁶ but I cannot find anywhere that says he actually came to believe his moral reasoning had been flawed.

Dumbledore’s father went to prison for unilaterally using magic to punish some non-magical boys who so traumatized Ariana Dumbledore that she lost control of her mental faculties, and with that, her control over her magic.⁷ This belief that he had the right to vengeance speaks to a belief in superiority that seems common to the wizarding world, we see it in the Weasleys as well for example.⁸ Dumbledore no doubt grew up seeing the world this way, instinctively believing those without magic to be lesser than him. I believe he took it a step further. I believe he saw those with lesser magical ability as lesser than him as well. He is a kind of ivory tower intellectual who views those who lack his achievements as perpetual children, regardless of their actual age relative to himself. As he grows older, this is exacerbated. Many of the adult decision makers he now works with were once his students, not his peers, far less ever adults over him.

Ms. Venkatraman wrote a defence of Dumbledore on MuggleNet⁹ in which she seems to express well the view that Harry himself has in the book, that Dumbledore is ultimately a good, if flawed, person. I suspect that Ms. Venkatraman is right, that Dumbledore suffers in his conscience from the pain he causes, and he does intend good. I differ from her in that I do not think that his intent sufficient such that he is in fact good (or at least, not wholly so). Dumbledore’s unstated philosophy seems way too close to “the ends justify the means,” and I am far from convinced that it differs in any important detail. Keep Holding On summarized this well:

The man sitting across from him, looking old and weary, had been involved in so many battles, so many wars, and had seen an infinite amount of casualties. He had defeated Grindelwald and had led the fight against Voldemort during the First War, and was gearing up for a second one. And it was because of all of this, Sirius realized, it was because of all the bloodshed, carnage, and violence he’d witnessed, that he was now numb to it. He could deliver platitudes, speak words of supposed wisdom to those who were grieving, but could not truly feel the losses any more. His thoughts were always about the bigger picture, about who could be sacrificed to achieve the goal of defeating Voldemort. At that instant Sirius knew Albus still had a heart, still had a conscience, but it had been ravaged and spoiled by all it had seen.¹⁰

Dumbledore might (almost certainly is) wrong about what the Greater Good looks like. He is certainly wrong about what he can and cannot do to achieve it. I do, however, think that it is actually some version of good for the greatest number of people, and not merely for himself, that guides his actions. The reader can decide if this is damning him with faint praise, or giving him what little credit is due.

The “Wrong Answers” Objection

The ends (the greater good) do not justify the means (cooperating with (in a moral sense) the abuse Harry suffers). Similarly, Dumbledore is right, children do need to learn to deal with all sorts of people, even difficult authority figures.¹¹ However, his responsibility, as headmaster, is to foster a healthy, safe, and effective learning environment. Students might learn a valuable lesson about dealing with difficult people from their interactions with Snape, but only at great cost to their education. Potions class is not a safe, healthy or effective learning environment.

Dumbledore’s “greater good” philosophy thus falls on the wrong side of the “Wrong Answers” objection to utilitarianism.¹² While I did not discuss that objection in my own attack, I did link to one. Dumbledore would, I believe, deny that he is guilty of this because he himself does not directly act to cause harm. For me, as a Catholic, this is an insufficient defence. Dumbledore is, effectively, relying on either the double effect defence (which can be valid), or on the fact that he did not commit evil, others did that. He would be wise enough to use the two defences in different circumstances across the books.

The Double Effect

The principle of the double effect can be a valid defence.¹³ It only actually applies to morally good and morally neutral acts done for good ends that have incidental evil by-products. Thus Dumbledore might justify placing Harry with the Dursleys if he truly only intended to save his life, and did not also intend the “dark” and “difficult years”¹⁴ to temper a perceived Potter tendency towards over-egoism. If Harry’s suffering was an aim of the placement, then the act was not morally good nor even morally neutral, and thus not protected by this principle even if saving his life was also intended. We naturally cannot definitively know which of these alternatives is the case. For a fuller discussion of what Dumbledore did to Harry and why, see Treatment of Harry.

Cooperation with Evil

Dumbledore directed Snape to teach Occlumency, and claims he trusted that it would be done professionally.¹⁵ He would say he is morally blameless for the lack of oversight not only for these lessons, but for all of Snape’s behaviour across the series. Again, this argument falls short. Dumbledore has assigned Snape this role, and has ignored complaints about the way the role has been executed, not just once, but repeatedly. Thus Dumbledore is, in Catholic terms, guilty of (in this case) Immediate Material Cooperation with evil¹⁶ (Dumbledore’s protection of Snape is necessary for the act). Once Snape is accused, Dumbledore’s failure to investigate forces this determination (or at least Proximate Mediate Material Cooperation, which is still a guilt condition). This is just one example, others are possible.

Notice that even with Remote Mediate Material Cooperation, Catholic theology would require that Dumbledore exercise caution. Should he truly be unknowing, then he is naturally blameless, but I suspect he’s more often being wilfully ignorant if not aware and actually negligent. He is, to the extent that he does know of the evil results, or could and should know if he exercised a normal level of prudence, required to assess if his actions have a proportionately serious reason. I suspect that Dumbledore always does this, so he is not guilty where his cooperation is Remote Mediate Material Cooperation.

There comes a point at which the way he (Dumbledore) has been blind to the situation with Snape ceases to be an act of omission, of merely neglecting to do (or even notice) something, and makes one an active accomplice. Dumbledore allowed both the marauders and the Weasley twins what appears to have been fairly free rein. The marauders certainly and the Weasleys likely crossed the line between humour and cruelty in their so called pranks. Given that Snape and Filch are our primary source for this opinion and that neither is reliable, take any impression of the two sets of pranksters with a grain of salt. For a discussion on Dumbledore it does not really matter. As Headmaster, he was responsible to keep all students safe. If the marauder’s pranks were justified by the injustice they fought, so much the worse for Dumbledore. If the pranks were truly unjustified, the difference hardly helps his (Dumbledore’s) case. Either way the students had to defend themselves with no intervention from authority.

Culpability

Now sure, it isn’t entirely fair to hold Dumbledore fully accountable to Catholic theology when he isn’t Catholic. That isn’t to say that Catholic teachings aren’t universally true and applicable, they are. Rather, I am allowing that Dumbledore may be granted some leniency because he may honestly think that his judgements are both cogent and true. To the extent that he is wrong about either the cogency or the ultimate validity of his values and judgements, he can be judged to be sinful, but not mortally sinful, and thus not evil. It is only where he is self deceptive, that is he knows his arguments are either not cogent or not based on true value propositions, that he can be held mortally accountable, and thus potentially evil. In this Dumbledore contrasts positively with Riddle, who quite frankly doesn’t care about either the cogency or the validity of his decisions. Dumbledore is certainly less evil though possibly more morally dangerous (in that he is more insidious) than Riddle.

The Fawkes Question

Against this collection of problems is Dumbledore’s friendship with Fawkes. How intelligent are phoenixes? Does the phoenix bond with its partner (popular in fan fiction), or is it more of a friendship thing? A phoenix in the HP world is a highly loyal creature.¹⁷ Would this loyalty persist if Dumbledore started to believe his own legend and allow power to corrupt him? We do not, to my knowledge, have good answers to any of these questions.

Fawkes slept soundly on his perch. Being willing to sacrifice one boy’s life and happiness was a horrible decision to make, but not an outright evil one. Plus, the stories everyone believed about phoenixes had been started by Dumbledore anyway. At the end of the day, though highly magical, unicorns were just horses and phoenixes were just birds.¹⁸

For my purposes, Fawkes recognises this good intent, but is not intelligent enough (a phoenix is an animal, not a being) to understand the flaws in Dumbledore’s execution. In any case, I am not about to allow an animal, particularly not a fictional representation of an even more fictional animal, to decide for me whether or not someone is acting morally or not. If you do convince me that the phoenix should be a moral indicator, then I would be forced to conclude that either Fawkes is held in bondage in some way¹⁹, or that Mrs. Rowling has misrepresented phoenix-kind.