Ethical Dilemmas: Make up for quiz #5

There are quite a few ethical dilemmas to be faced in The Half-Blood Prince, many of which stem directly from the Half-Blood Prince himself. Is Harry’s use of the borrowed book cheating? As a student I would disagree. If I rented a text book from the school and it had writing in it that helped me get through the class I would without a doubt use it and not think a thing of it. I don’t think that if a teacher caught me with it that I would even be in trouble. For Harry it is slightly different because of the unknown consequences of the curses jotted in it. There were serious repercussions for his use of the Prince’s hex, using it outside of academics is where I believe the book became unethical. The more important question of ethics is in the Half-Blood Prince himself. How is it possible that Snape can look Dumbledore in his eyes and kill him? This is a man that gave him everything. The fact that Snape has been siding with Voldemort this whole time is a haunting revelation. It really makes you wonder what goes on inside of Snapes’ mind to make him think and do the things that he does. I don’t have any ethical answers to what Snape has done, it purely repulses me. On a lighter end, Slughorn has quite a few ethical issues himself. Should it really be permitted that he holds private parties for his favorite students? I can’t imagine anything like the ‘Slug Club’ being accepted at my high school. I suppose wizarding laws may be different but I don’t see how a teacher can openly be so biased to some students. His objective for the Slug Club is obviously only to get in good with these students to later benefit himself. He is only interested in those who can better him at no charge and has no interest in the good of the students. I understand that teachers do tend to favor certain students at times, but Slughorn is out of control. I am so glad I never had to deal with any teachers like him in high school. The last ethical dilemma I noticed in The Half-Blood Prince was between Dumbledore and Harry. I think after Dumbledore informed Harry about the prophecy the worst was over. Yet, I still think Dumbledore left out monumental amounts of important information for Harry. He never went into detail about how to destroy Horcuxes or even how to go about finding them. He never explained how he burned his hand and also never gave any advice on what to do when facing Voldemort or when that time will come. He never taught him more advanced defense against the dark arts or really anything that would help him in battle. Yes, he gave him useful information about Voldemort’s past but that information can only help him so much. I don’t think that Dumbledore meant to keep out such useful information but he definitely had ethical reasons as to why he didn’t share them. But, he also probably thought there would be more time for that.