I disagree. Harry watches Quirrel stun the professor and 3 Aurors, let them tumble off their brooms and false memory charm them, but Quirrel hasn’t done anything wrong? That’s, what, 8 felony equivalents at least? (Assault x4, and presuming False Memory Charm would be at least equivalent to assault, probably more like rape).
Filch’s crime, for which Harry wants him to serve jail time, is that he sent Draco & co to the Forbidden Forest, potentially exposing them to assault. Quirrel actually assaulted them.
To grossly simplify, there’s a consistent set of ethics that says that Filch and Quirrel both need to be punished. (action → consequences) There’s another, which says both ought to be forgiven. (no harm, no foul) Forgiving those who are cool and punishing those who are lame is unethical, particularly given the disparity between their offenses.
On another tack, how on earth can Harry know anything about the Centaur? It attacked a child after rambling on for a while. Jumping to the conclusion that its fixated on him and won’t just attack some other child is really arbitrary. I mean, plenty of serial bad guys fixated on their victims, it doesn’t make them safe for other folks. Today ‘the stars’ told Centaur to kill Harry. Tomorrow they tell him to kill Ron, or Hagrid, or set himself on fire. I wonder what they told him to do yesterday?
Filch’s crime, for which Harry wants him to serve jail time, is that he sent Draco & co to the Forbidden Forest, potentially exposing them to assault.
Filch testified that he intentionally wanted to expose them to assault and a chance of dying.
Quirrel didn’t do anything that gave Draco a chance of dying.
Quirrel on the other hand drinks the unicorn blood to safe it’s own life. As far as Harry thinks Qurirrel also only stunned the centaur and wanted to safe Harry’s life.
For Harry morality being alive and saving lifes is very important. Short term pain and being stunned doesn’t factor much into Harry’s utility calculations.
Jumping to the conclusion that its fixated on him and won’t just attack some other child is really arbitrary.
Maybe this is just my narrative epistemic advantage talking, but: the centaur mentioned stuff relevant to the prophecy, knew specifically who Harry was, and probably was trying to kill him for a very specific reason.
Even if Harry doesn’t realize what the centaur is talking about, it seems to me that of the people who try to attack and kill Harry Potter, probably most of them are actually trying to kill him specifically and are not just random psychopaths.
The net result of Quirrell’s actions were to prevent some people from knowing that he was feeding on unicorns. Consequentially, that’s keeping Quirrell’s secret, which McGonagall (and Dumbledore?) seems to want in the first place to keep him as Defense Professor.
I disagree. Harry watches Quirrel stun the professor and 3 Aurors, let them tumble off their brooms and false memory charm them, but Quirrel hasn’t done anything wrong? That’s, what, 8 felony equivalents at least? (Assault x4, and presuming False Memory Charm would be at least equivalent to assault, probably more like rape).
Filch’s crime, for which Harry wants him to serve jail time, is that he sent Draco & co to the Forbidden Forest, potentially exposing them to assault. Quirrel actually assaulted them.
To grossly simplify, there’s a consistent set of ethics that says that Filch and Quirrel both need to be punished. (action → consequences) There’s another, which says both ought to be forgiven. (no harm, no foul) Forgiving those who are cool and punishing those who are lame is unethical, particularly given the disparity between their offenses.
On another tack, how on earth can Harry know anything about the Centaur? It attacked a child after rambling on for a while. Jumping to the conclusion that its fixated on him and won’t just attack some other child is really arbitrary. I mean, plenty of serial bad guys fixated on their victims, it doesn’t make them safe for other folks. Today ‘the stars’ told Centaur to kill Harry. Tomorrow they tell him to kill Ron, or Hagrid, or set himself on fire. I wonder what they told him to do yesterday?
Filch testified that he intentionally wanted to expose them to assault and a chance of dying. Quirrel didn’t do anything that gave Draco a chance of dying.
Quirrel on the other hand drinks the unicorn blood to safe it’s own life. As far as Harry thinks Qurirrel also only stunned the centaur and wanted to safe Harry’s life.
For Harry morality being alive and saving lifes is very important. Short term pain and being stunned doesn’t factor much into Harry’s utility calculations.
Maybe this is just my narrative epistemic advantage talking, but: the centaur mentioned stuff relevant to the prophecy, knew specifically who Harry was, and probably was trying to kill him for a very specific reason.
Even if Harry doesn’t realize what the centaur is talking about, it seems to me that of the people who try to attack and kill Harry Potter, probably most of them are actually trying to kill him specifically and are not just random psychopaths.
The net result of Quirrell’s actions were to prevent some people from knowing that he was feeding on unicorns. Consequentially, that’s keeping Quirrell’s secret, which McGonagall (and Dumbledore?) seems to want in the first place to keep him as Defense Professor.