Feanor Self-Important?

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by the phantom

Surely we must judge the actions that originally sent things down the wrong course, and not the actions that were an inevitable result.

If this is our metric then Feanor's actions and oath were the catalyst to such events. Morgoth's slaying of Finwe would not be however, because Feanor could have choosen a different course of action to get to Middle-earth then he did. Had he not been so rash and taken council with the Valar there may have been a way for him to arrive at Middle-earth in time to help save Beleriand, though that was not his purpose in setting out; and truthfully it never became his purpose.

I feel Saucepan stated it well in his previous post so I will not repeat that.

But what I don't understand phantom, is by your logic the means to an end is justifiable so long as the end is accomplished. By that logic Saruman was well within his rights to join with Sauron, because his was the responsibility of ordering Middle-earth and this could be accomplished by joining forces. This is not a great example but my point is just because something might need to be accomplished or the individual feels that it needs to be done doesn't give them license to commit any act that will help them accomplish that. Feanor took away the rights of the Teleri and stole their property, that's a crime and not justifiable because his actions we not done in rightousness. Now there might be times when stealing a car is needed but not because one feels he needs to go to London that day. Similar to Feanor it wasn't justifiable because the refusal to let him borrow their ships came about as a result of his unrighteous actions.