Alignment on three axes.

[Matthias]

I don't understand your two axes there.

In ordinary philsophical terminology, "morality" means something like "those things we ought to do on account of our obligations to others" and "ethical" means something like "those things we ought to do to live a good life". Most, though not all, contemporary moral philosophers would regard the moral as a (very important) component of the ethical.

Also, nearly every theory of individual rights that I'm familiar with grounds them in a theory of the value of the individual.

Finally, most contemporary moral philosophers are either consequentialists, who ground their theory of the greater good in a theory of aggregate indvidual welfare (the whole of mainstream economics works in these terms); or deontologists who nevertheless think that sometimes the greater good permits overriding concerns of individual entitlements (and some deontologists furthermore have "dirty hands" accounts of this). On your picture do they all come out as evil (because of the role of individual value in their theories) or as "balanced"? That would be extremely weird.

So before we talk about a third axis I think it would help to have greater clarity in respect of the first two.

I thought I had explained the moral and ethical axes in my original post, but as it seems unclear I will try again.


Good and Evil as I understand its use in a d20 context refers to how much the welfare of the group matters over the welfare of the individual. A paladin seeks the greatest amount of benefit for the greatest number of people, while the antipaladin is out for himself first, everyone else second. A morally balanced person tries to acknowledge both as important, believing in enlightened self-interest, while the morally apathetic person considers their ethical position (law/chaos axis) as more relevant and will do whatever is more expedient (whether good or evil) to further the cause of their ethical belief.

Law and Chaos (again, my personal understanding) is concerned about social order and following the rules vs. anarchy and everyone doing their own thing their way. In most cases, ethics is subordinate to morals; one's ethical belief is deemed the most effective means to promote one's moral worldview (Good, Evil, etc.). A Lawful (Good/Evil/Balanced person believes following the rules is the best method of achieving their moral cause (though an Lawful Apathetic will consider Law as an end unto itself rather than a means to an end). A Chaotic (G/E/B) person believes that whatever one's moral cause is, a whole bunch of rules and regulations is going to interfere with individual improvement and enlightenment--you do your thing your way, and I'll do my thing, my way.

Does that help any?

if the third axis represented the degree to which you wish to impose your alignment upon the world, it would be more clear and understandable across the nine alignments.

That is a better way of putting it, I think. It will also make a distinction between an (Active)LG Paladin ["let's rescue the world from evil!"] and a (Passive)LG Cleric ["my children, let's be excellent to each other."]. An (Active)True Neutral Druid may champion "moderation in all things" (what I described as True Balance) while a (Passive)True Neutral Commoner just doesn't care enough about anything to try to make a difference beyond his very small monkey sphere, perhaps because he is a serf living hand-to-mouth. (True Apathetic)

Animals would still be classified as True Apathetic, as they are also motivated by self-preservation and little else.

 

[pemerton]

Just out of curiousity, pemerton, did you ever read Alex Macris's article on alignment in the Escapist? He maps Lawful alignment to deontological ethics, and Chaotic to consequentialist ethics. He also applies some of Peter Singer's work to the Good-Evil axis. I'm not a philosopher by any means, but I found the article interesting.

Thanks for the link.

It's an interesting attempt to make the system coherent. I think there is a tension between the start and the end, though - at the start he tells us that the point of alignment is to dramatise good vs evil conflics, but then at the end we learn that that will only work from a LG point of view - yet we expect players to be able to embrace and play from the point of view of CG, LN and even CN!

(There is also an oddity the he identifies Bentham's outook as CG, whereas Gygax uses Bentham's slogan "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" to characterise LG.)

Good and Evil as I understand its use in a d20 context refers to how much the welfare of the group matters over the welfare of the individual.

Isn't group welfare normally some sort of function of the welfare of the individuals who constitute it? I am interpreting you here as therefore meaning good=other-regard and evil=self-regard. (I'm not sure what room that leaves for neutral.)

the morally apathetic person considers their ethical position (law/chaos axis) as more relevant and will do whatever is more expedient (whether good or evil) to further the cause of their ethical belief.

Law and Chaos (again, my personal understanding) is concerned about social order and following the rules vs. anarchy and everyone doing their own thing their way.

What is the difference between evil - pursuing one's own self-interest - and chaos - doing things one's own way. And if the idea is that the chaotic person thinks it's good for everyone to do things their own way, isn't that a form of other-regard ie good?

 

[Andor]

That is an interesting article but both it and the original post miss a fundamental point.

In D&D there are a plethora of spells and other magical effects that interact with what can only be an objective alignment system. Which make sense along only one axis.

The Law/Chaos axis has nothing to to with society vs the individual, it decends to us directly from Morcocks Eternal Champion books where the primary axis of conflict was law vs chaos as cosmological forces. One seeking to crystalize reality into eternal unmoving perfection, the other to reduce it to eternal formlessness. While there are gods and heros that are incarnations or avatars of these forces they seem to be impersonal and thus objective cosmic forces.

With AD&D the Good/Evil axis was added in with Good typified by the usual Knightly Romance concepts like Paladins, Saints and Angels and evil as the foe of such, Demons and Devils.

Of course the Elephant in the room is that Objective good can only be defined as "accordance with the will of God" and Objective evil as defiance of such.

Which makes bugger-all sense in a polytheistic cosmology. Which is why in D&D it usually boils down to team white hat and team black hat. Why is a goblin killing a human to protect his young evil but a human killing goblins to protect his young good? Because goblins wear black hats, duh. And periodically people actually start to think about this and then the eye-tics starts and then you try to define these in more relativistic real-world philisophical terms but those ignore the objective nature of D&D Good/Evil and Law/Chaos and the whole thing falls apart.

Personally I like the D20 Modern allegience system a lot better.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

For a three-axis model, I'd further decompose what we primarily see as the Law-Chaos axis. I'd propose the following axes:

1. Altruism axis. Essentially the Good-Evil axis; this describes the extent to which the individual or group will sacrifice beyond their immediate needs to assist others (from high willingness = Good, to active antipathy = Evil).
2. Moral axis. This axis describes the extent to which an individual or group abide by common, established moral rules, living by a "code". This is synonymous with *some* definitions of the Law-Chaos axis in some editions of D&D, with high adherence to established moral rules = Law and rejection of said rules = Chaos.
3. Collective freedom axis. The third axis describes the collectivist world view of the individual or group. At one extreme, the world view is entirely collective and group needs always trump those of the individual when they conflict, while at the other extreme individual needs and freedom are always seen as superior to those of the collective. One might label the extremes as Individual vs. Collective (or potentially using political labels as Communal vs. Libertarian).

Note that in all cases there is a "neutral" case along the axis itself, with "True Neutral" or "unaligned" at the intersection of all three axes. Neglecting neutrals, there are eight resulting world views:

1. Lawful Good Collective: Pure order (e.g. Dwarven Society). Rules are followed, the individual is subordinate to the group, and self is sacrificed for others.
2. Lawful Good Individual: Ordered Individualism (Human Republic). Rules are followed, self is sacrificed for others, but individuality is esteemed.
3. Chaotic Good Collective: Altruistic Commune (Gnomish society). Rules are rejected, but the individual is subordinate to the group and sacrifice for others is expected.
4. Chaotic Good Individual: Altruistic Individualism (Elven Society). The individual is supreme and rules are unnecessary, but sacrifice for others is encouraged and expected.
5. Lawful Evil Collective: State of Tyranny (Human Dictatorship). Rules are followed to enhance the group, but sacrifice and altruism are discouraged.
6. Lawful Evil Individual: Might is Right (Devils). Rules are followed to provide a means to establish the superiority of the individual.
7. Chaotic Evil Collective: Mass Chaos (Demons). There are no rules but the whim of the group which crushes the individual and does not sacrifice.
8. Chaotic Evil Individual: Pure Destruction (Tharizdun). Nothing but individual power, bent on destruction, exists.

 

[pemerton]

Of course the Elephant in the room is that Objective good can only be defined as "accordance with the will of God" and Objective evil as defiance of such.

Why is this the elephant in the room? I haven't done a comprehensive survey of more obscure thinkers, but of the major moral philosophers since Plato I think that Hobbes is the only one to take this view. All the rest accept that Plato refuted your contention in the Euthyphro.

 

[Balesir]

The Law/Chaos axis has nothing to to with society vs the individual, it decends to us directly from Morcocks Eternal Champion books where the primary axis of conflict was law vs chaos as cosmological forces. One seeking to crystalize reality into eternal unmoving perfection, the other to reduce it to eternal formlessness. While there are gods and heros that are incarnations or avatars of these forces they seem to be impersonal and thus objective cosmic forces.

Moorcock used this physical schema and tied together the scientific concepts of entropy and order with personal conduct and "belief in society" in a metaphorical way for dramatic effect. The tie doesn't really hang together all that well, though, absent some sort of external dictat, which might be why the "ethical" slant has been used in UA and thereafter.

Of course the Elephant in the room is that Objective good can only be defined as "accordance with the will of God" and Objective evil as defiance of such.

Why is this the elephant in the room? I haven't done a comprehensive survey of more obscure thinkers, but of the major moral philosophers since Plato I think that Hobbes is the only one to take this view. All the rest accept that Plato refuted your contention in the Euthyphro.

Oh, is that where the argument was originally formulated? I must get and read a translation. I was about to point out why the assertion was dubious (at best), but only have the argument(s) second-hand.

 

[ppaladin123]

I suggest we replace the d&d alignment system with another equally arbitrary typology: the Meyers-Briggs temperament sorter. I will give this personalty test to all my players to find out where they stand. "This sword can only be used by an INTP and you are ENFP. Sorry."

 

[Starfox]

I don't at all get the "Self Cultivation" angle early in this thread. How is a monk cultivating the self more than rogue, and how could cultivating the self (as opposed to the group) be lawful? Does "Self Cultivation" have some idiomatic meaning I am not aware of?

Just out of curiousity, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], did you ever read Alex Macris's article on alignment in the Escapist? He maps Lawful alignment to deontological ethics, and Chaotic to consequentialist ethics. He also applies some of Peter Singer's work to the Good-Evil axis. I'm not a philosopher by any means, but I found the article interesting.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/checkfortraps/8386-All-About-Alignment

Interesting, but can't say I agree. I'd make both those things a law/chaos thing in DnD. Actually, Singer (as described in the article) seems to me a more important qualifier for being lawful than deontological ethics do. Characters with allegiance to small organizations, like tribal elves and barbarians, are chaotic in DnD, not evil.

That paladins cannot commit evil act or suffer consequences is indeed a deontological ethic, but this does not define what an evil act is. If the paladin comes from a church that allows justified torture, that doesn't make torture non-evil, it merely says that the cult is in some aspects non-good. An example would be the church of Abadar in Golarion - the cult has paladins but it lawful neutral. There are things a LN cleric of Abadar could do (such as "justified" torture) that a paladin of Abadar could not.

Not having read Singer, I suppose he is talking about much less blatant evil than is typically found in DnD, such as in the "evil of society" and structural problems.

Good and evil is much more complex, even in DnD, and yet at the same time easier for most of us to identify. And yes, it also has aspects of "black hats, white hats" arbitrarity. Being good is about how you treat others, regardless of if they are close to you or not. Yes, an evil person can have a group (or even a majority) that he treats well, reserving his evil only for certain targets. But if I love all living creatures except the Anderson family, who I keep imprisoned in my basement and torture each day, I am still evil.

 

[Starfox]

On the subject of the OP, I feel that the extra axis you are trying to introduce could be termed proactivity. A proactive Neutral is one who wishes to push neutrality on the world, and the same goes for all other alignments. The opposite can be called apathy, but that has quite a negative sound to it. Reactive is usually the opposite of proactive, and that fits rather well. A proactive evil nation is expansionists and wishes to spread it's dogma. A reactive evil nation is content to oppress it's own people and will leave others in peace as long as they do the same. An evil reactive individual can be content with its situation and seem passive or even neutral when not challenged, while a proactive evil person seeks new victims. A proactive good is a crusader, while a good reactive is content to treat those he meets well, without seeking out evil to confront. Just as above, a very reactive good person might not seem to be good at all. The case can be made that a person that takes no action cannot be ethical, so I guess there is a point way beyond what we normally call reactive that implies complete neutrality. After all, a rock is neutral.

In game-ethical discussions for the cyberpunk setting, we have come to use the term "good neighbor" for someone who's degree of proactivity is low enough not to be a bother. In such a setting, whether someone is good or not is less interesting than whether he is likely to cause us trouble by pushing his agenda on us. Of course, we tolerate more proactivity from those who's ideals we share, and there is a point where their other goals are similar enough to ours that proactivty is seen as a boon. But in these circumstances, a wife-beater is less trouble than a "good" neighborhood watch - the former keeps what he does private, the former doesn't. Of course, this is all centered on a group that is itself rather reactive - a proactive good group would not tolerate a wife-beater.

In relation to my post right above, the etical rules for the paladin class forbids evil actions, but it leaves the degree of proactivity open - a paladin need not be a crusader per standard 3E. In fact, a paladin that is too proactive risks committing evil deeds by being too zealous as in the torture example. But a paladin needs not only refrain from evil, he needs to be both good and lawful as well. And to be that, he needs to act, so he cannot be completely passive.

Hm, perhaps zeal is a better word than proactivity... what is an opposite of zeal that doesn't have a bad ring to it? Then, in my ears, zeal itself has a bad ring. I guess proactive vs. reactive is better after all.

 

[Starfox]

I suggest we replace the d&d alignment system with another equally arbitrary typology: the Meyers-Briggs temperament sorter. I will give this personalty test to all my players to find out where they stand. "This sword can only be used by an INTP and you are ENFP. Sorry."

Link?

Found it myself: http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/register.aspx