Immortality comes naturally with time to dwell on things; and dwell on things, Celestia has.
When Twilight asks for her mentor's views on evil, the honest answer reveals how empty an immortal can be.
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Abryssle
Joined 6th Nov, 2011 ·
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deep nuf said
This works should give readers pause. It is very evident that you put some thought into this, and so should anyone who reads it.
Very deep and thought provoking. This has been well thought out and executed.
Eh. Eheh.
So... if I understand this correctly... it's okay for me to use mind control for any purpose as long as I don't cause trouble for you like I did with the want-it-need-it spell? 
Drivel.
1911942
In what sort of way, out of complete curiosity? The, "the base idea is poor and thus the whole thing seems silly and pointless," sort of way, or the, "the execution sucks and it won't shut up," sort of way?
1917121
In the sense it's the same old tired moral relevancy wrapped in a pony package. Everyone hits that age where they discover to their shock that the good guys sometimes have bad points and do bad things, and the bad guys sometimes have good points and do good things-- and come to the conclusion that this means bad and good somehow don't exist. Everyone goes through that stage of disillusionment; normal people GROW OUT OF IT and realize that those childhood lessons about right and wrong really did, after all, still apply, and have far deeper roots than the understanding of them they had on the playground.
The rest prefer to wallow in that cynical state of arrested development, imagining that if they pretend that right and wrong are "just a certain point of view" then noone can judge them when they behave deplorably. Cynicism: the means by which the young try to hide their naiveté and the old try to hide their sins. Let's clarify right up front: Yes, Virginia, there is right and wrong; that didn't change just because people found out in their early teens that some issues were more complex than others or that terrible people loved their mommies too.
1919987
Eh, fair enough. The story is--and was written as--just that. A questioning of moral value presented with a shiny pony exterior. And yes, the story does support an extremely cynical attitude, especially towards morality, and your point that similar viewpoints are commonly found among those who are either immature and trying to appear intelligent by noting that, gasp, morality is not completely black and white, or those trying to justify their own awful acts or characteristics by just saying, "Oh, no, you see, I've intellectually concluded there is no evil, so I can do anything I want," is completely valid. Those are good points.
With that said, stating that there's no intrinsic moral value to anything and acknowledging the motives and/or good aspects of those who are "evil," isn't necessarily the same as a conclusion that bad and good cannot exist in a societal context.
Celestia in the story is still acting on and enforcing the moral guidelines given rise by a society, which do have reason for existing. These rules, however, at least in the perspective taken in Celestia's letter, aren't intrinsic. They are created to defend society as a whole, which is, for that society taken as a whole, a good thing. A nice person (or pony) follows these rules even if they don't feel they're motivated by an external moral truth, because, well, not following them is destructive and harmful. Hence Celestia following them.
...I'm starting to ramble and restate points, but the point is, proclaiming that there's no such thing as evil or good is not the same as saying that there aren't acts and behaviors that can't be accepted in a society focused on the general well-being of all.
I find that if you note that behaviors can still be unacceptable despite there being "no morality," and also that being nice is still nice despite there being "no morality," the viewpoint becomes far more stable and a tad more mature. So. Just to offer a defense.
Between trying to drop them off a cliff and siccing a manticore on them I can't honestly say that Nightmare Moon didn't attempt lethal methods. Whether or not she sucked at it was a different story entirely.
4744193
I will grant that both those things could have been lethal, but really, when you have the ability to fire laser blasts at your enemies and you instead break a cliff they're standing on (when two of them can fly, and two further have telekinesis, which could very well perform a similar function here if either Twilight or Rarity had tried it), and then when that fails put a thorn in the paw of a manticore that is at best just kind of in the path that the group is likely to take, maybe, and hope it just attacks them, you aren't exactly giving murder your A-game. So one interpretation is that she wasn't really trying to kill, or didn't really have that as the main goal so much as dissuasion.
Or she did just really, really suck at being lethal. That is also a very valid possibility.
I'm now glad that I created a "Philosophy" bookshelf – I don't think this story can fit in any other bookshelf that I have.