D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Alzrius]

But there is a "no politics" and "no religion" rule, and meta-ethical discussion can easily cross into those fieds.

That's not necessarily the case; just because it could doesn't mean that it will.

Disagreement is your prerogative. And if you don't believe me, pick up a recent volume of Ethics, or Philosophy and Pubic Affairs.

I don't need to pick one of those up to disagree with you - citing outside works without quoting how they supposedly support your argument is just an appeal to authority.

The main reason that most serious philosophers in the analytic tradition are moral objectivists is because it is hard to give a technical account of non-objective morality that accomodates our experience of using moral language and engaging in value-driven practices.

Here is a trivial example: A does X. B asks A "Why did you do X?". If A answers "Because I wanted to!" A has given B a mechanical explanation for his/her action, but has not justified it. In general, that I want to do something isn't a good reason for doing it. If A answers "Because it was the right thing to do" it seems that A has offered a justificaiton for his/her action.

This example is based on the presumption that saying "because I wanted to" is not justification unto itself, which clearly isn't the case. You can examine an action insofar as judging the morality (or lack thereof) of the action itself, but that's a separate question. Saying that the action requires justification for why it was undertaken at all is a faulty premise, since it sets up a "burden of necessity" for doing anything. That's leaving aside the practical consideration of the futility of asking these questions (of others) at all, since you can't examine the veracity of their responses with any objective criteria; people can and do lie about their motivations.

This seems to imply, then that "I want to do X" and "X is the right thing to do" are different propositions. But on a non-objectivist account of morality they are likely to end up being synonyms, at least in some fashion. So how, then, would justification by reference to moral value be meant to work?

By recognizing that each person's moral framework is different, and that any examination of the morality of an action - which is not the same thing as an examination of justification - will be specific to each person, and each person alone.

This is why many sceptics about moral objectivity tend to be revisionists about our moral practices: eg Nietzsche, John Mackie, the existentialists. But revisionism can itself be quite hard to take seriously. For instance, it seems a big cost to say that social changes which seem to be responses to the demands of justice (eg various forms of emancipation) are really just changes in social practices comparable to conventions about dress codes or what to do and say when you greet someone.

That only seems like a big cost because some people find the implications of moral relativism therein to be offensive; I find it far worse to say that any changes to cultural moral values are somehow more worthwhile than values that were previously held because the new values are somehow objectively more true.

I am not, in this thread, arguing one way or the other on the issue of objectivity. What I am arguing is that treating moral claims as lacking objective truth-value is not an easy, low-cost move within a broader theory of moral argument and political reform.

I disagree, insofar as I'm saying that the implication of "it is not easy" is actually a cover for the sentiment of "this is uncomfortable," since it implies a moral relativism that most people don't care for.

This last sentence is bare assertion. Obviously, those who believe in objective moral truth deny it.

It's actually a rejection of the assertion that was being stated previously. Those who hold that an objective moral truth exist are the ones who need to support that stance, since they're making a positive affirmation. The default presumption is that something isn't true until you prove that it is, rather than being that something is true until you prove that is not.

What sort of evidence can they point to? Evidence about human nature and hence human flourishing (eg Aristotle). The evidence of reason (eg Kant, or in a very different way Michael Smith). Ideas in human history that have led from war to peace (eg Rawls' deduction of the fact of reasonable pluralism from the resolution of the wars of religion). Non-empirical intuition (GE Moore points to this; so might many religious thinkers).

Again, I'm not saying that any of the arguments based on this sort of argument is sound. (No that they're not.) But it's not as if no moral philosopher has ever grappled with the question of how human beings might gain epistemic access to moral truths!

None of that is evidence of the objectivity of moral truth, per se. Simply put, these are a combination of the popularity of certain ideas and the personal exultation which some people hold them in. Saying that X idea will reliably (though not perfectly) lead from war to peace does not state anything about that idea being a reflection of an objective moral truth. It's just that that idea is a popular one, and so it's presumed to be profound, and that therefore it must be something greater. The conclusion does not follow the assertions.

I think you're misunderstanding Parmandur's point.

I disagree (see below).

Parmandur, at least as I read the post, is not saying that those who are addicted to narcotics have less moral value. The claim is that the lives they are living is not a fully flourishing one.

To which I hold that there is no metric by which that can be measured, and that attempting to do so is simply passing personal judgment over another person's life, rather than holding them up against any objective moral value.

Equally low-hanging fruit for this style of (Aristotelean-inspired) theorising about human wellbeing is a child working as a bonded labourer in a carpet factory in Bangladesh. I suspect that Parmandur would regard it as an empirical truth that such a child would be living a better life if s/he was taken out of that situation and put into a school where s/he was supported to develop his/her intellectual and other human capacities.

That would be better as we would understand it, but there's no criteria for saying that that's empirically the case. Just because you can procure a consensus about something doesn't unto itself suggest anything about its objective nature. (That's leaving aside the idea that some philosophies hold that suffering in this life means greater things in the next one, and so such bonded labor is therefore more fulfilling on an objectively moral scale, at least under that belief. The idea of "finding greater meaning in a life that's normally regarded as 'less worthy'" is one that's been the subject of many stories, plays, and other tales.)

The "good" and "better" here aren't judgements about the morality of the drug addict's behaviour, or that of the child labourer. They're judgements about the quality of the life they are living. (More generally, Aristotelean moral philosophy doesn't begin from a concept of duty but rather from a concept of wellbeing.)

This is largely splitting hairs, since it's still your own values being projected onto a state of objectivity. Again, popularity and personal exultation are not enough to say that a given morality is therefore empirical.

Now, it is obviously open to someone to try and deny the claim about the drug addict - to argue that a life of narcotics addiction is just as flourishing and valuable as any other form of life. Likewise for the child labourer, although as a practical matter I think that one will have fewer takers!

See above. It's not that they're denying that claim per se, but rather than they're pointing out that the point your making does not meet the criteria for being called objective.

But from Parmandur's point of view, the fact that someone might deny these claims is no different from someone denying (say) that the earth is 4 billion years old. The existence of denial doesn't, in and of itself, entail that truth is subjective.

Except that view presumes that the moral nature is already an established fact that's being challenged, which is the case for the age of the Earth but is not the case for the moral nature of the life that someone lives. The two, in other words, do not occupy the same state in terms of how they're being debated, because the objective nature of morality has not yet been established in the first place.

 

[Parmandur]

Certain axiomatic judgments cannot be proven or disproven, merely shown and judged. Such as the law of causality, or the reality of the senses. You cite this as an example that is fringe, bit denying the empirical nature of physical reality is something people do. Ever discussed how "obvious" cause and effect are with someone who rejects that particular axiom?



To be more on topic: alignment, again, does work well enough for describing personality differences between PCs and NPCs, but once the system gets raified into dimensional planes it starts to get loony. That being said, I love Modrons, and flavor, so more power to WOTC current model.

 

[Sadras]

What I want is a "setting light" core where flavor is not set in stone. I want qualifiers like "sages believe" or "tavern tales say". That sort of thing.

What I don't want is a complete setting in core that every supplement must adhere to.

(snip)

See, if you go back to the 2e books, there's a metric butt load of flavour in those books. Mechanics designed by concussed gerbils, but there was just so much flavour material.

But, if you look at the original Monstrous Compendiums (the loose leaf ones) you'll see exactly what I'm talking about above - "Sages think" and whatnot. While there are tons of flavour, all of it is very setting light. It's meant to be dragged and dropped into your setting, because the presumption was that you would be creating your own setting, not using what they necessarily provided. Endless Dungeon articles on the Art of Dungeon Mastering and Campaign Design bears that out.

And if you look at the Complete Class books, again, you'll see tons and tons of flavour, but very, very little setting. I adore those old class splats. The kits were fantastic for evoking all sorts of flavour and they were presented as a sort of menu of options that you picked and chose to your hearts content and built into a campaign of your own. There was little or no sense that there was one single, overarching "story" of D&D. Rather there were tons of short stories, scattered all through the material, with the detailed, meaty stuff loaded into the specific settings.

This is really what I would like to see the game return to. I talked about it earlier as being a resource, rather than a setting.

I'm with Hussar on this, I agree with the above. When 3e came out I remember how annoyed I was that the PHB was full of Greyhawk Deities. They could have just referred to general domain deities rather than naming specific deities of a particular setting. As Hussar says the MM was full of assumptions/theories/speculation - loved that.

 

[Alzrius]

Certain axiomatic judgments cannot be proven or disproven, merely shown and judged. Such as the law of causality, or the reality of the senses. You cite this as an example that is fringe, bit denying the empirical nature of physical reality is something people do. Ever discussed how "obvious" cause and effect are with someone who rejects that particular axiom?

Hence why I referred to these as "circumstantial evidence" rather than "evidence." That is, insofar as our limited senses can tell us (as observers), there are certain physical things that seem consistent enough to be posited as "truths" about a supposed objectively physical world (to use the example again: you'll fall if you jump off a cliff, assisted-flying devices notwithstanding). This can still be critiqued via asking how empirical our senses really are, but we still have some evidence to go on, albeit circumstantial - the same cannot be said for an examination of a supposed objective moral truth.

 

[Imaro]

To be more on topic: alignment, again, does work well enough for describing personality differences between PCs and NPCs, but once the system gets raified into dimensional planes it starts to get loony. That being said, I love Modrons, and flavor, so more power to WOTC current model.

You and (I believe) [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] keep making this statement... but your explanations of why don't seem to hold up. It really seems to boil down to it's "loony" because it doesn't coincide with my own philosophical leanings... Which if that is the case cool, but don't try and present a personal preference as objective fact... just say you don't like the aesthetics and leave it at that.

 

[Parmandur]

You and (I believe) [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] keep making this statement... but your explanations of why don't seem to hold up. It really seems to boil down to it's "loony" because it doesn't coincide with my own philosophical leanings... Which if that is the case cool, but don't try and present a personal preference as objective fact... just say you don't like the aesthetics and leave it at that.

Less because it disagrees with my personal philosophical commitments, but because it doesn't fit with *any* system of rational metaphysical and moral analysis ever held by actual human beings.





Take as another example Runequest. The worldview of the bronze age tribes doesn't jive with my personal philosophy; but it is realistic and consistant. Well formed metaphysical approach, with a consistant moral framework flowing from it.





D&D, however, is better for killing things and taking their stuff. And I do like the 5e approach. I actually *like* the aesthetics, bit I won't pretend it makes sense.

 

[Imaro]

I'm with Hussar on this, I agree with the above. When 3e came out I remember how annoyed I was that the PHB was full of Greyhawk Deities. They could have just referred to general domain deities rather than naming specific deities of a particular setting. As Hussar says the MM was full of assumptions/theories/speculation - loved that.

I'm curious, what would have been the practical difference between including Greyhawk deities and making general domain deities? Or are you suggesting presenting the deities as just a name and the domain associated with them and no other description?

Personally I think 5e did a good job by offering a multitude of deities and pantheons, though they still retained descriptive text and their associations...

 

[Imaro]

Less because it disagrees with my personal philosophical commitments, but because it doesn't fit with *any* system of rational metaphysical and moral analysis ever held by actual human beings.

The fact that the D&D cosmology is not a system of "rational" metaphysical and moral analysis ever held by human beings (and I'm still wondering if "rational" isn't just another form of personal judgement on your part) doesn't mean it doesn't make sense in D&D. Again as I said earlier, tons of things in D&D haven't been experienced, done, seen, etc. by actual human beings... I'm not seeing how this standard alone determines whether, within default D&D world the default cosmology does or does not make sense (and by sense I mean is coherent within the framework of the tropes of D&D)?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Another reason, at least as the Great Wheel is presented in MotP, is the preponderance of gates to neighbouring planes found on the upper levels of each plane.

There's no real enforcement of that principle in play (portals are rather explicitly there or not there as the DM decides), nor mechanics for implementing it (it's not like "Portal to Bytopia" occurs more often on a Celestia encounter table than "Portal to the Quasiplane of Vacuum"), but I certainly wouldn't object to either eliminating that sentence or doing the PS-y thing of couching it in rumor and hearsay.

"Planewalkers seem to think that it's easier to get to 'adjacent' planes on the Great Wheel, as we know of more portals between them, but whether it is REALLY easier, or whether people just find the portals more often because they look for them, isn't really clear. At any rate, you'd be a fool for thinking you could just find a portal out of Acheron to Mechanus or Baator on the next cube over -- the next portal you stumble on might lead to anywhere in the multiverse! Portals don't always seem to take what you expect them to do into account."

Sure. But this doesn't tell us that beief entails moral truth. It just tells us that some people's judgements of right and wrong are flawed.

At least in the Real World, it's functionally impossible to tell objectively if they are flawed or not. There's no definition of "right" and "wrong" that isn't culturally, personally, and temporally bound, making those principles open to interpretation and open to debate (because one person's position to determine right and wrong isn't in any way privileged over another person's) and open to change (what is wrong in 1345 AD is different than what is wrong in 2014 AD). One has no real authority to condemn another's judgement as flawed, since there is no "neutral position" that one can occupy.

The monkey wrench in that is, of course, if there's some omniscient being who has revealed objective moral truth to people, and then we have clarity that the omnscient being has declared some things right or wrong and we can accept that as authoritative because by definition, that entity knows. I think there's plenty of debate on whether or not there is such a being who has done such a thing and if so what that revelation says among actual people, too, though, making that position one of faith.

There's also the much-discussed possibility of "rational morality" floated by certain prominent atheists as both objective and not relying on divine revelation, but it seems to really hinge on how specifically and narrowly one defines what is a "moral good" (and said definition is pretty culturally bound) and at any rate seems to be more about functional behavior than internal belief.

In PS, there clearly isn't any such omniscient being, meaning that there is no position from which to judge one's interpretation of right and wrong as flawed. A belief that doesn't conform to the general consensus is just a different way of looking at things.

although the D&D system of alignment categorisation seems largely redundant at this point (why would anyone use D&D's alignment system to try and think hard about real moral questions, unless they had already inherited as a legacy component of their game?).

That's pretty much the place I end up in, too. It's not really necessary to abandon alignment, and without alignment, the setting doesn't need to lose anything critical, so alignment just serves as a tool to get people used to D&D's black-and-white morality to start thinking in more subjective terms. If the audience is already used to more subjective terms, it's largely redundant.

Which means in my hypothetical masterminding of a PS relaunch, I'd probably keep the alignments, presuming an audience familiar with D&D, but I'd present them in similar terms to easydamus. In the 5e PHB, Chaotic Evil creaturs act with arbitrary violence, spurred on by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust. In PS, Chaotic Evil creatures do that because they are hedonists first, believing that their own pleasure and delight trumps all other concerns. They do what they want, when they want, without concern for others' lives or society's codes. Many Chaotic Evil characters follow the laws out of a simple fear of punishment, and make friends simply because of the utility of those friends. A heroic PS character who is Chaotic Evil might be a member of the Doomguard who believes that the world must fall apart faster, and so acts to destroy what she can. She doesn't want to attract punishment, so she isn't a wanton murderer, and she believes her fellow party-members are useful tools in a campaign of destruction, so she will ally with them, but she is always looking to cause collateral damage, and isn't concerned with the safety of bystanders. She imagines that someday she will die and become a demon, helping to spread entropy that way, but she feels like she is offered more freedom as a mortal, and is able to access places demons cannot go.

What I want is a "setting light" core where flavor is not set in stone. I want qualifiers like "sages believe" or "tavern tales say". That sort of thing.

Perhaps ironically, Planescape actually used this device pretty much everywhere, as part of its presentation of a very subjective world.

The 5e MM doesn't...but it presents the stories not as world elements, but more as framing devices the DM can use. In the 5e MM, this is the origin of the Twig Blight, and you can change it, but it's not like it's rumor or hearsay, it's a fact (unless the DM changes those facts).

 

[Lord Blackstone]

Time out from the metaphysical conversation... Tiamat = Takhisis... Multiverse indeed!!!!! WOOT!!!!!!!