Welcome to Gaia! ::

I love my freedom, and I believe that free will is exceedingly important. I would rather shut someone in a dungeon and throw away a key than I would chain their mind in any way. For this reason, I find bindings to be highly, highly unethical. I would rather curse someone than chain their mind in any way. So, if a person was going to harm others, and I was faced with the task of defending them, then ethically I would find it less loathsome to attack than to make it so that they were unable to do something. That would mess with their free will. While I'm sure that there might, perhaps, be a circumstance where I would be forced to do that, I would try any and all other options first. I would try defensive magick, offensive magick, hell, I'd stab them in the head before I bound someone.

These are my morals and therefore I don't expect others to share them, but I really do find it astounding how many spellbooks and websites will tout the Rede one minute and then provide a list of binding spells to restrict someone's free will the next minute. If messing about with someone's mind isn't harm, I don't know what is.

I think that "bad" and "good" are always relative and subjective, so not always helpful in ethical situations. For example, if someone was in competition with me for a job, and I cursed them and their car broke down and they couldn't make a meeting, and I got the job by default, then I am profiting and from my perspective, the spell was a good one. (From the other person's perspective, it sucked a**, but there you go.)