But no one in the real world condemns compassion. Nor does anyone in the real world embrace hurting or oppressing others.the label "good" means compassionate/selfless/altruistic in D&D, and those are qualities that many players and GMs would endorse. And yes, the label "evil" means hurting/oppressing others in D&D, and those are qualities that many players and GMs would condemn. But there is nothing inherent in the alignment rules that says good is to be praised and evil condemned -- that value judgment would come from the players/DMs themselves.
For instance, to use an example which hopefully won't get me in too much trouble, the Soviet government didn't frame its policies by reference to "hurting" or "oppressing". They framed them by reference to compassion and other-regard: communism was intended as, or at least characterised by its proponents as, a mode of human liberation and a cause of human welfare.
Likewise when it comes to killing the dangerous prisoner. It's not that the executioners don't have compassion. They claim that they feel compassion towards future victims; and that the "do gooders" who can't take the hard decision and who let the villain go are naïve and self-indulgent, even precious about their so-called "compassion" that is actually a cloak for a type of moral vanity. (And in case you think such arguments aren't run in the real world - the newspapers and radio commentary in my country, Australia, are full of them, although not in relation to the death penalty.)
Are the authors of the US Constitution, who took the view that the best way to preserve individual liberty was by way of a robust rule-of-law framework, lawful or chaotic? Did they value order over freedom or vice versa?the D&D alignment system has never set out to describe morality in a comprehensive way. All it has done is provide shorthand descriptors for two attributes: the degree to which one is compassionate and the degree to which they value order. Those who find those attributes useful will find D&D's alignment rules similarly useful, and those who don't, won't.
Even within the limits that you set, I don't find alignment a very helpful tool.
Thank you. That is a clear statement of how you see alignment improving the gaming experience. (It looks to me like "descriptive" rather than mechanical alignment, at least when put to this particular use.)I find alignment provides a convenient shorthand, and an indication of a heroic motivation, or a villainous outlook, quiet consistent with fantasy source material. I do not need to agonize over real world ethical philosophy to play the game.
Needless to say that I don't find the shorthand at all convenient. Nor does this have anything to do with having a PhD in moral philosophy. My dim view of alignment dates back to when I was a high school student and read "For King and Country" in Dragon 101. It accurately diagnosed a range of problems I had been experiencing in my game, and I have never had reason to doubt the proffered solution - namely, abandoning alignment and going for ordinary conceptions of motivations, value and the like in describing characters (both PCs and NPCs).