I’ll have to go back and re-read—was it clear that the chicken that burned wasn’t actually Fawkes? I took that scene as Harry’s interpretation of “normal” phoenix renewal.
As to your questions, I believe the standard non-magical answers apply pretty well:
1. Almost nobody opposes the creation of animals (or people) by any possible means (today that’s breeding or cloning), even though they’re expected to fade. Why oppose it here?
2. Why is it wrong to burn a real chicken alive? If I thought there was an important lesson to teach a human, I’d do that in a heartbeat. It’s a chicken, it has very low moral weight to most people. In fact, I burn chicken often, then eat it (granted, I have someone else kill it and dissect it first, but that’s not an important moral distinction IMO).
I’ll have to go back and re-read—was it clear that the chicken that burned wasn’t actually Fawkes? I took that scene as Harry’s interpretation of “normal” phoenix renewal.
Even after encountering Fawkes, Harry keeps insisting that the first encounter was with a chicken. A lot of chapters later, Flitwick suggests that it was probably a transfigured chicken.
In fact, I burn chicken often, then eat it (granted, I have someone else kill it and dissect it first, but that’s not an important moral distinction IMO).
I think most people see an important moral distinction between killing a chicken painlessly and setting fire to it. Although the vast majority of meat isn’t produced painlessly, a lot of people believe that their meat is. This implies that they might not be so casual about setting fire to a chicken, themselves.
I’ll have to go back and re-read—was it clear that the chicken that burned wasn’t actually Fawkes? I took that scene as Harry’s interpretation of “normal” phoenix renewal.
As to your questions, I believe the standard non-magical answers apply pretty well:
1. Almost nobody opposes the creation of animals (or people) by any possible means (today that’s breeding or cloning), even though they’re expected to fade. Why oppose it here?
2. Why is it wrong to burn a real chicken alive? If I thought there was an important lesson to teach a human, I’d do that in a heartbeat. It’s a chicken, it has very low moral weight to most people. In fact, I burn chicken often, then eat it (granted, I have someone else kill it and dissect it first, but that’s not an important moral distinction IMO).
Even after encountering Fawkes, Harry keeps insisting that the first encounter was with a chicken. A lot of chapters later, Flitwick suggests that it was probably a transfigured chicken.
I think most people see an important moral distinction between killing a chicken painlessly and setting fire to it. Although the vast majority of meat isn’t produced painlessly, a lot of people believe that their meat is. This implies that they might not be so casual about setting fire to a chicken, themselves.