[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Sophia the Thunder Mistress

But Celebrimbor's rings weren't much different, except in scope. Celebrimbor was not evil, nor was he a Maia; but he was definately ambitious and there was certainly an element of desire for power and governance in his crafting of them. That's really the point of Ring-making in the first place. They all were intended to be objects of power, hence the term "Rings of Power".

From reading Unfinished Tales, it becomes apparent that Celebrimbor may have created the Elven rings, certainly Nenya, out of love for Galadriel. I mentioned this in this post here, in the Osanwe-kenta/Rings of Power thread. Celebrimbor actually says:

"But you know that I love you (though you turn to Celeborn of the trees), and for that love I will do what I can, if happily by my art your grief can be lessened."

He makes the Elessar for her, and later, replaces this with the no doubt more 'advanced' Nenya. The question here is whether making a ring of power is wrong it itself, and how different is being driven by love from being driven by hate? That would depend, I suppose, on what sort of love Celebrimbor has for Galadriel, which to me appears almost devotional. He is not driven by lust, which would be wrong in Tolkien's world; there is a definite distinction between lust and love in his tales. The One Ring and the Orcs, meanwhile, were certainly not made out of love, but of hate, and perhaps also pride, anger and greed. Therefore to use such 'things' would be to use something created for all the wrong reasons.

EDIT: And an afterthought which I forgot to add:

Originally Posted by The Phantom

There would be those who would say it was wrong to call Sauron or anything else "evil". They would ask "Who made you the judge of good and evil?"

Middle Earth is a lot clearer, morally speaking, than our own world. We live in a world filled with grey areas, and it is exceedingly rare (thankfully) to come across a figure as patently evil as Sauron. But even in Middle Earth not everything is black and white, Gollum being one example. As Gandalf says:

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.