The practical reasons alone are justification, even if they would be a betrayal of Buffy's friendship.

I empathize greatly with your position, Hec. I really do. But this still has no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of what our beloved peeps did.

I don't believe Willow did it to help out the world. She did it because she could, and because she wanted her friend back. I do believe she honestly thought Buffy was in hell, but I also think believing that served her own purposes.

This is where I am, too.

Ah lovely, cabana boys and body pillows. After my nap, could Pablo bring me a frothy coconut something to drink?

But this still has no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of what our beloved peeps did.

Au contraire, it is certainly right by Utilitarian ethics. Even the Acceptable Losses standards drummed into the CoW and exhibited by both Giles and Wes. Though I don't think Giles would've had the heart to pull Buffy out of heaven. But I bet Wes would if he thought it would make a difference.

I mean, did they all think Joyce was in Hell? Or Jenny Calendar?

Both of these were non-supernatural deaths. Buffy may have been dead (did they establish it one way or the other?) before she hit the ground and was closing a portal to what was expicitly stated as being a hell-dimension. I'm sure there was rationalizing going on - as I said, it's the Sunnydale way, even for our heroes sometimes (e.g. Giles thinking it had to be Jenny's ghost in IOHEFY) - but I think there was sincere belief mixed in.

Wesley definitely would have pulled Buffy out of heaven. But the Buffyverse doesn't celebrate utilitarianism, generally doesn't tout it as anything virtuous. The highest standing utilitarianism gets is "necessary evil" in Willow's world.

Hec, do you think Willow honestly never thought Buffy might not be in Hell? That's the part of this debate (well that, and the lying) I'm thinking about. Willow certainly thought the world needed Buffy, and she certainly knew she and her friends needed and missed Buffy. I'd never dispute that. Resurrecting Buffy was completely understandable. I'm not even talking about whether this was justifiable (most things are if you ask enough different sorts of people). But there was a good chunk of Willow (the chunk that lied, and didn't allow Willow to engage her usual curiosity) that knew she was doing a bad thing, don't you think?

Hec, do you think Willow honestly never thought Buffy might not be in Hell? That's the part of this debate (well that, and the lying) I'm thinking about.

Willow looked pretty stricken in OMWF when it was revealed. So, I'm thinking she never considered the possibility that Buffy was better off dead.

I don't know - I'm having a hard time following this argument a bit because people keep trying to apply real-life ethics to the narrative, and (as we've seen in the past) I don't think this works very well. People especially get upset when a character violates their particular ethical hot button, but there are times when narrative is in the driver seat. There are also times when The Meta is in the driver's seat (like...Seth wants to leave so Oz fucks around. Now Oz is bad. If Seth didn't leave would Oz have fucked around? No, I don't think. Pretty inconsistent with his previous behavior but they did a fairly good job of justifying it within the context of that episode).

So...I don't really like making the moral judgements on the characters as if they had free will. They're under Joss' control - he makes them do the bad things. Bad Joss! Spank me 'til Tuesday.

Hec, do you think Willow honestly never thought Buffy might not be in Hell?

I actually think the thought never seriously crossed her mind. Her reaction shot on finding out, and the conversation prior to raising her, suggests to me that it was a definite gobsmack moment for her.

Whether she should have given it serious thought is another matter. Personally, while I think the reasoning was a touch sloppy, it's understandable why they'd reach that conclusion. (I'd also argue that even if they decided she was probably in heaven, they could possibly justify the decision to bring her back on the basis of probabilities and expected payoffs.)

This is one of the reasons why I liked so very much the way they wrote Buffy being raised from the dead. Their reasons for doing so, and the consequences, are such a tangle of motivations, moral judgments and expectations.

Which is to say, I believe Willow honestly thought that what she was doing was best for Buffy and best for the world. I also think that she thought it was best for her, and that she was taken with the notion that she was powerful enough to do so. And that she knew there would be older voices raised in opposition, and she didn't want to hear it. Not because she knew it was wrong, but because she thought it was right but feared it was wrong. And so on.

If Seth didn't leave would Oz have fucked around? No, I don't think. Pretty inconsistent with his previous behavior but they did a fairly good job of justifying it within the context of that episode

Well, Joss has said that they always planned on breaking them up at some point - whether that was BS or not, or whether they were going to break them up the way they did, who knows. Which episode was it where Oz and Veruca passed each other on the quad and shared a look? It was well ahead of Wild at Heart, I thought.

ETA - I think you nailed it, billytea.

I agree with Hec. Willow was a girl. A smart, powerful girl drunk with power, but still a pup. Her intellectual understanding exceeds her emotional understanding(Not that I know anyone like that...no, not me!)