Is Chaotic evil more evil than Lawful evil?

[Shemeska]

Serial killing is CE.

Well.... that depends. A psychopath would be considered CE. I don't think that's up for much debate. A sociopath on the other hand would be, by definition, NE.

CE, LE, or NE are all evil. Only the extent to which they are taken to an extreme makes any one of them in a given instance 'more' or 'less' evil than another. On an even stage they're all evil, just with chaos or law tossed in as flavor, or with NE an absence or balance of law and chaos tossed in as seasoning. The law or chaos is incidental to any argument of whether it's more or less evil.

NE is more 'pure' evil, but it's difficult to judge except on a case by case basis if something is more or less evil. Stalinist purges = LE. Rwandan genocide = CE. Large scale NE is difficult to find in a human society, and it's more likely to be found in fiends, etc.

 

[Psion]

On the other hand:

Ted Bundy = Chaotic Evil. Adolf Hitler = Lawful Evil.

When I first read that, for some reason I read "Al Bundy"

 

[Steel_Wind]

Vandalism is CE. That's "less evil" than slavery. Serial killing is CE. That's "more evil" than embezzling, which is LE.

I simply do not agree with these views.

Vandalism is NOT CE. It might be to you, but to liken a misdemeanor property crime with CHAOTIC EVIL is applying an analytical framework we simply do not agree with.

Simlarly, embezzling isn't evil. It's selfish. Its wrongful and clearly unlawful. But EVIL?

I think when you present a continuum of "evil" that ranges from spray painting graffitti to theft, ritualistic serial murder and the holocaust, your aperture needs significantly more focus.

Evil is evil; the form it assumes is relevant to evil's specific methods, but it is not relevant to the evil's severity.

This is clearly a point of departure. You and I do not agree on this matter and what appears self-evident to you seems clearly wrong-headed to me.

 

[Umbran]

I'll chime in on the side of "neither is more or less evil". The chaos-law axis can be viewed as being largely a matter of methodology, where the good-evil axis is mostly about results. If the end result is beneficial, merciful, etc, then it is Good. And the Detect Good spell doesn't care about how you went about being a nice guy.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Vandalism destroys someone else's property, costing them money, possibly substantial emotional injury. How can that not be evil? Is it as evil as murder? Of course not. But evil exists on a continuum, and "less evil" does not equal "not evil." (For the record, though, perhaps I should have said "destruction of property," since I was thinking of actual damage, not spray-painting.)

Same with embezzlement. Where do you think that money's coming from? It's not created out of whole cloth. Every cent that's going to an embezzler is coming out of someone else's pocket. Again, far less evil than murder, but still evil.

You think it unfocused to include all of these? Why? It's all part of the same continuum, even if it's very far apart on that continuum. Bottom line is, anything that causes direct harm to someone else, without substantial mitigating circumstances (and sometimes even with mitigating circumstances) is evil; all that remains is a matter of degree. I don't believe it's possible to discuss the nature of evil without examining the "little evils" as well as the big ones.

Someone else had a good example. The Rwandan genocide vs. Stalin's purges. One's chaotic, ones lawful. But I hardly think one is "less" evil than the other. They're both utterly horrific.

Again, law vs. chaos is simply a discussion of what form the evil takes. It doesn't measure degree.

 

[Xath]

When I first read that, for some reason I read "Al Bundy"

Sadly, I did as well. I found myself thinking, I know he's a jerk and all, but CE?....oh wait...

But to put in my two cents, I'll side with the "neither is more evil" group. But it all depends on how you look at evil in your campaign. Is it a general factor that encompasses 1/3 of the population, or something more specific.

 

[Mouseferatu]

It occurs to me that we may be using two different definitions of "evil." I'm using the word to mean simply the opposite of good, or anything harmful. It's a synonym for "bad."

I'm wondering if you're not using "evil" to mean something worse than bad. In other words, by your definition--if I understand you properly--something can be "bad" without being "evil." As I use the term when discussing alignments, there are degrees of "evil," but there's no fundamental difference between "evil" and "bad" or "wrong."

Is that a fair assessment? Are we basically arguing semantics?

 

[DM_Matt]

I think that the CE is worse crowd might be thinking that CE = Evil Stupid, and thus unlimitedly violent and unable to be kept in check, whereas LE can be convinced to lay off if they determine their course of action to be impractical, and can be expected to cut a deal and occasionally stick to it.

I think people are saying that LE--->CE beucase LE to them just means Rational Evil while CE means Irrational Evil

 

[Sejs]

Same evil, different packaging.

Chaotic Evil is Me Evil, Lawful Evil is We Evil. One is more concerned with the short term, the other with the long term. Both are just as evil in the end.

 

[iblis]

Actually, I was always under the impression that NE was absolute devotion to the cause of evil. Neutral Evil completely negates the Law/Chaos axis, creating a character that is based solely on the Good/Evil axis, and of course entirely evil. Whereas a Lawful/Chaotic Evil character would have a second focal principle on the Law/Chaos axis, diluting the character's focus on evil above all else.

I view Good the same way. Neutral Good being the "goodest" of the three. With Lawful/Chaotic Good being also swayed by the second axis.

Imagine a cross, with Neutrality at the center, and each point representing an alignment factor. The x-axis represents Evil <------> Good, and the y-axis represents Lawful <--------> Chaotic. A force pushes outward from the center toward each terminal axis point. Any given character is affected by those forces which match his alignment (pushing him towards that point on the cross.)

So the Neutral Good character, only affected by the force of Good, winds up directly on the terminal Good point. Whereas a Lawful Good character winds up in the upper right corner. Still as far to the right (Good) as he can be, but seperated from pure Good by the entire length of Lawfulness.

Precisely. Beat me (and probably others) to it there.

I think of it sometimes in terms of commitment. A Lawful character must be committed to Law. Correspondingly for each of the other 3 (Chaotic, Evil and Good).

Any who aren't truly committed on either axis (or who are committed to the balance between the two, in certain cases) must be considered Neutral.

And as multiple commitments can sometimes conflict with one another and/or confuse the issues (just look at RL for a bit), then the fewer extreme ideological commitments a character has, the more devotedly they should be able to hold to those they do have at any given time.