Good vs Evil: a matter of aims or a matter of means?

[Aesmael]

Interesting. I'd like to see an example or two.

Ok. Here's one I prepared earlier, let's see how it holds up.

Take the stereotypical "I want to bring forth an Evil god or other supremely powerful being into the world" situation. Generally a number of items must be acquired by your cultist before a big ceremony takes place. If we allow that none of the ingredients require harm to come to anyone (excluding, to be safe, kidnapping people for later sacrifice) it should be possible for them to get what they want without hurting anyone. Perhaps a little break and enter on the chaotic side, but nothing worse than that.

That was Evil ends by Neutral means. Now I'm going to try harder: Let's have our lone cultist who wants to bring forth a great evil into the world for whatever reason, as long as there is not enough evil in the background to give them the matching alignment. This time everything she needs is acquired through entirely legal means - large sacks of gold for the owners of whatever is needed. Perhaps she even gives to charity for an ironic chuckle.

Ok, looks like I can't do better than evil by good means. Is it to late to go with Gez's example? Or would someone else like to have a go?

 

[Darkness]

Ok, looks like I can't do better than evil by good means. Is it to late to go with Gez's example? Or would someone else like to have a go?

Well, evil by neutral or good means isn't a bad start. Hm. Somehow all this cultist of peace and love stuff reminds me. A friend of mine once had a very helpful character in his campaign, an archeologist or something. With sinister ulterior motives. Pretty sure she was evil, though.

Now what about the alignment? I don't think you're good when you're doing what you're doing for a nefarious purpose, even when you're all world peace and puppies about it.
If you do decide to become good over all this, you'll certainly stop trying to summon your evil deity. If you don't become good, well - then you're not good.
As for neutral... Why not, it if you're really exceptionally nice for its own sake (rather than just faking it), though only until you actually summon your deity and blow up the world. (And if you require human sacrifices or something, you'll become evil before this point.)

Regarding Gez's example... Right, I'm currently too lazy to search for my 2e Planescape stuff.

 

[Samhaine]

As I noted on the Law/Chaos thread, I suspect that motivation/ends/goals is a good way to judge good and evil.

A good character tries to do what is best for "society" or "the people" and sacrifices his personal safety and desires in the pursuit of doing so. An evil character tries to do what is best for himself, and sacrifices the safety and desires of others whenever they conflict with his own interests.

Under this interpretation, Evil is way easier to maintain than good. The evil character just has to make sure that he's not allowing himself to help others when it's not in his own interests. The good character has to find out whether helping one part of society will negatively impact another part of society, and has to question his own motives for selfishness. The character who is neutral by default rather than principle generally does what is best for himself so long as it doesn't do much harm to anyone else.

Ends Justifies the Means, in this situation, is a slippery slope rather than an instant evil act. A character that is Good can use pragmatic means in the pursuit of what is best for others. Many who didn't like the means chosen will refer to the character as "wrong" or even "evil", but, as far as objective alignment is concerned, the character is trying his best to do Good. Where this becomes a slipperly slope is the size of these means. One death to save 1000 is ethically questionable, but not necessarily evil outright. However, killing 1000 to save 1000 is harder to justify: at some point the character is no longer working to protect "society" or "the greater good" but is actually just championing his own agenda to the detriment of the people.

With this setup, you can have some very interesting situations:

The ruler of a peaceful, prosperous country can be deeply Evil; he's always found that it's easier to get what he wants with honey than vinegar, and has found that a happy nation increases his powerbase far more than a terrorized one. He still doesn't really care about crushing and killing to get what he wants, and would gleefully murder every one of his citizens if he could get more power out of it, but for now the ethics of his means have been unquestionable.

Meanwhile, the leader of a degenerate, ravening warband bent on genocide can be entirely Good; he's had a verified vision of the future sent by his god. In a few years all members of a certain race will be posessed by demons and turn the world into a hell. He feels deeply sorry for wiping them out, but cannot think of any other way to save the world within the time frame. He'd sacrifice himself if he could, and he'll have to take a long, hard look at himself when he finishes, but he never wavers in his pursuit of protecting the many.

These both set up situations for the PCs to question their own values and ends, rather than just following a Detect Evil with a massive combat. Can they figure out a way to dispatch or reform the evil leader without undoing the good he's inadvertantly wrought? Do they stop the good leader from his crusade in hopes that a more pure method of saving the world might present itself? Do they kill him if he doesn't believe they can succeed and just keeps going?


And this can explain why evil continues to exist in the world: the majority prefers goodness and loathes evil, but good characters can rarely agree on their methods, while a small handful of evil can happily use a vast range of means without any qualms to get what it wants.

Thoughts?

 

[Aesmael]

Well, the difference here is (again refering to Gez as example) he (apologies for the pronoun) has already stated that it is his policy to rule the pursuit of evil ends through good deeds as evil. I am working from the stance that it is the action which determines the alignment, hence summoning an evil deity is an evil act (although I can conceive of situations where intent informs this act to the point where it becomes, perhaps, neutral - if you were to summon it now to destroy it as opposed to certain defeat when it is summoned later), but the acts leading up to it must be judged seperately.

Thus, the cultist might be good in my game because she does good deeds (the charity work is of benefit to others), but in Gez's (and yours) she would be evil because although she has not committed an evil act yet, that is her goal.

Heh, the line you quoted was meant to be 'Evil by neutral means,' I did not mean to say that purchasing things with large sacks of gold is a good act. Unless it is a generous and excessively large sack...

 

[Darkness]

I am working from the stance that it is the action which determines the alignment, hence summoning an evil deity is an evil act (although I can conceive of situations where intent informs this act to the point where it becomes, perhaps, neutral - if you were to summon it now to destroy it as opposed to certain defeat when it is summoned later), but the acts leading up to it must be judged seperately.

Thus, the cultist might be good in my game because she does good deeds (the charity work is of benefit to others), but in Gez's (and yours) she would be evil because although she has not committed an evil act yet, that is her goal.

Yeah, well. She's going to summon an evil deity because she's an evil cultist. That is, she starts out as an evil cultist - the good deeds come afterwards. And considering what end these deeds serve, her alignment can hardly be called good. It's not really useful to judge the means without considering the end. It's similar to the difference between self-defense and murder: Killing in itself is not necessarily evil, but killing for personal gain (or whatever) is. What she does is invariably tainted by the end it serves - it cannot be judged in isolation, unless you're going to (for example) let every murderer off the hook too, morally speaking (because "killing is in itself neutral"). At no point is she really good.

Heh, the line you quoted was meant to be 'Evil by neutral means,' I did not mean to say that purchasing things with large sacks of gold is a good act. Unless it is a generous and excessively large sack...

Ah, I figured that'd be somehow explained by the charity part. I was kind of giving you the benefit of the doubt there.

 

[Aesmael]

Looks like I have to give this one to you unless I come up with something brilliant overnight. Probably just as well. The idea of someone working to summon up an evil god and not detecting as evil doesn't sit well with me anyway.

Wait, what if she doesn't know the creature is evil? That's a common enough trope to work with. More straws! I need more straws!

 

[Kemrain]

Alright, let's give the man a few examples to work with...

I'm going about this looking at it from the point of view of Good and Evil in the game I'm currently playing in. It's a bit extreme, but I think it's worht bringing up to show a contrast between points of view.

A band of Good adventurers trespass on NE goblins' territory on the way to their destination on a quest to save a kind-of-Good city, and kill all goblin combatants they encounter on sight unless they are in the process of moving away from them. Goblins who survive the initial attack and surrender are spared, as are noncombatants. (Noncombatants are spared in this example because debates with a premise like "is killing goblin children wrong?" are tiresome and fruitless.)

Tresspassing is Chaotic, as it's a disregard for Law and local authority. Killing on sight is Evil, because it's murder. However, if you mean 'on sight and confirmed threat,' than it's Neutral, as self preservation is not truely good or evil. Letting non-coms and those who surrender go is a Good act, as it shows respect for life. To remain Good here, the adventurers need to avoid contact, have peaceful contact with the goblins, or fight as little as possible, trying to avoid killing at all costs.

As above, but they don't accept any combatants' surrender, slaughtering them where they stand so they can't be a threat later. They also pursue and slaughter goblins they could have avoided to make sure they don't summon reinforcements. Goblin noncombatants are still spared.

Non-coms are spared, but anyone able to wield a weapon dies? Not Good. I'd say Evil, given that you're murdering non-hostiles by killing those who surrender.

A red dragon obtains money through trading and uses it to spread the religion of a CE deity of slaughter. (Yes, this one is as simple as it seems.)

Evil. a Deity of Slaughter isn't about happy puppies. the God's tennants involve the painful death of those who wish not to die, thus it's Evil. The means the Dragon uses to support the religion are irrelevant in this reguard.

A Lawful noble murders a N foreign adventurer to obtain his magic items because he needs more power to fight for his LN king in a war against CE orcs.

Murder is Evil, plain and simple. The ends do not justify those means, as peaceful solutions could have been had, and those magic items were not so absolutely necessary that murder was warranted. there was no crime committed, so the death is not punnishment, either. Chaotic and Evil.

A paladin patrols through a LG city, constantly detecting evil, and kills every adult who detects as evil, no matter their combat prowess, who they are or what they are doing at the moment.

You mean an Ex-Paladin. Murder is Evil, this is Murder, this is Evil. If the Evil people were tried for crimes and convicted, killing them could be Lawful, and maybe even Neutral, but that's iffy. Chaotic Evil.

A LG ruler of a generally G realm orders the imprisonment and execution of those 5% of his adult population who want his N cousin, who has an almost equally legitimate claim to throne, to become the ruler, no matter their alignment, combat prowess or previous acts (or lack thereof) to weaken his rule.

Evil means to an Evil end. To punnish people for holding a different opinion is Evil, especially to punnish them with Death. Controling other's opinions, through whatever means, is wrong. Evil, but I think more Lawful than Chaotic., because it uses authority, and not simply power, to carry it's weight.

To prevent the spread of a magical plague that might cause great destruction, a paladin prince orders the slaughter of an entire city of his generally non-Evil people. Not wanting to lose valuable time, he doesn't even consider other options. (Yes, this is a Warcraft example.)

Never played Warcraft 3... This is evil means to a good end. Evil. Not examining other tactics is rather blatantly Evil.

A mostly NG human town and a NE goblin tribe have both grown in numbers over the years and are now regularly clashing over contested territory they both need to survive, leading to a war.

As above. Hard-pressed by the humans, the goblins send a NE goblin assassin of high level to assassinate the human leadership to prevent their tribe's destruction.

As above, but the other way around: The humans are hard-pressed and send a NG ranger to assassinate the goblin leadership.

Murder is Murder, whether it's Men or Goblins. Both Evil. I would also contend that warring openly is Evil as well. A Good solution would be to gather together and agree to share resources. I doubt a Good solution would ever come to pass in this situation.

After a widespread famine, a Neutral-to-Good realm ruled by a Good queen is in great peril. One day, a powerful Evil outsider appears before the queen and offers her a deal: It will use its magical powers to continually provide food for the people but in exchange is given two citizens per week that it will eat. The queen, not wanting to see her people starve, reluctantly agrees.

This, as written, is Evil. If you were to make being eaten by the Demon punnishment for a crime, that warrented a death penalty, it could be Neutral. If you put ittothe people, and asked for vlunteers to come forth and sacrifice themselves for the good of all, it could be a Good act, as long as the day you no longer got enough volunteers you broke the contract and didn't resourt to unwilling sacrifices. Suicide is not Evil, it's merely unfortunate, and suicide for noble reasons, for the good of others, can be a Good act, as any Paladin would know. (It's called being a Martyr.)

Due to the results of a large war in ages past, a tribe of CG elves are living as a minority under the rule of their human allies in the war, who are now ruled by a LN dictator. Neither the elves nor the humans have very much personal freedom but they are very safe and there is little crime. The Chaotic elves chafe very much under the dictator's rule and one day start to rebel against the dictator's forces to attain their freedom because they can't take it any longer, even though their actions will cause widespread chaos and destruction in the realm.

Causing chaos is Chaotic, rather obviously, and causing destruction can be Chaotic, Neutral or Evil, depending on what is destroyed. If it is nothing but property, and no one is harmed, it is merely Chaotic. If people are harmed, but by their own actions, and the Elves took steps to prevent the harm, it would be more Chaotic Neutral. If people were harmed or killed, and nothing was done to prevent it, it would be Evil.

I'll try to give an example of Evil intent put to Good ends...

The King hires an executioner who, while a Law abiding citizen who would never lift a hand against another and has never harmed another being unlawfully (outside of an execution that is), relishes in his duties and feels a rush of pleasure each time his axe bites into flesh. Clearly enjoying the death and dismemberment of another so much is Evil, but this man is put to good and Lawful use in society, and has never done anything 'wrong' other than enjoying his job far too much to be healthy. Is this man Good or Evil? Would it matter if he had a family of 5 and raised his children to be good upstanding citizens? (One of them is a Paladin!) He gives to charities, helps his neighbors and strangers alike in times of hardship, and, get this, voted against the death penalty in the last trial he sat in as juror. Is this man, who does something so terrible, daily, Evil?

Just an example off the top of my head. It may not be a good one at all. I feel I should point outthat, though I speak in absolute terms, everything I've said in this post is my opinion, and should be treated as such.

- Kemrain the [Evil].

 

[Darkness]

Wait, what if she doesn't know the creature is evil? That's a common enough trope to work with. More straws! I need more straws!

Well, if she doesn't know that the creature is evil, it won't affect her alignment. Assuming she doesn't need human sacrifices or something to pull it off, of course.

 

[Darkness]

Interesting analysis, Kemrain. Thank you. I'll comment later on it, though. First, I want to think about this:

I'll try to give an example of Evil intent put to Good ends...

The King hires an executioner who, while a Law abiding citizen who would never lift a hand against another and has never harmed another being unlawfully (outside of an execution that is), relishes in his duties and feels a rush of pleasure each time his axe bites into flesh. Clearly enjoying the death and dismemberment of another so much is Evil, but this man is put to good and Lawful use in society, and has never done anything 'wrong' other than enjoying his job far too much to be healthy. Is this man Good or Evil? Would it matter if he had a family of 5 and raised his children to be good upstanding citizens? (One of them is a Paladin!) He gives to charities, helps his neighbors and strangers alike in times of hardship, and, get this, voted against the death penalty in the last trial he sat in as juror. Is this man, who does something so terrible, daily, Evil?

Just an example off the top of my head. It may not be a good one at all. I feel I should point outthat, though I speak in absolute terms, everything I've said in this post is my opinion, and should be treated as such.

Well, the man apparently has murderous urges. Assuming he doesn't act on them outside of his work (and doesn't start inflicting unnecessary pain when working), that's primarily a tragic character flaw. Otherwise, he's an upstanding citizen.

 

[painandgreed]

First, my stock answer:

Ask your DM. The DM of that particular game is the only one who can tell you what is good and what is evil (or lawful or chaotic) because definitions can vary too greatly, even if all are trying to follow the RAW, for a standard answer to just about any situation.

Now, for if I was the DM:

In general, I consider good the desire to help and aid others and evil the desire to harm and kill others. Neutral is generally selfish and the reason for their actions will be determined on the exected or desired outcome rather than the actual deed itself. In general, good peopel enjoy preforming good deeds such as helping and healing others and evil people enjoy evil deeds such as stealing or harming others. Furthermore, they will dislike and not trust preforming deeds opposite from their alignment. in general, an evil person will be revolted at preforming a good deed and not be one to tend tp think that it could benifit him more than an evil one (within reason anyway). Soembody who preforms deeds not in accordence with their alignment will be forced to preform deeds inaccordence with their alignment or suffer an alignment change.

Let's take an example of an evil character that hides in a small village posing as a good farmer who settles down, marries, and has children in an effort to hide from the forces of good searchign for him. Obvisouly, pretending to be good will benifit him but he does not like doing so, perhaps even requireing Will saves to preform good deeds (however, don't really want to involve a mechanic for such except in extreme situations). His good deeds build up inside him and his evil conscience bothers him more and more. Eentually, he'll be forced to either commit evil deeds to equal things out even if it endangers his disguise (perhaps, secretly becoming a serial killer), or suffer an alignment shift to neutral or even good in exterme cases.

In your parties case, they are roaming around killing everything in sight before it has a chance to speak. Offhand, I'd say this is probably neutral. A good person would not do such or would try to avoid doing it. Thus a good party would at least try to avoid all encounters, or make some attempt to verify the designs of those they meet. A neutral party might just decide that's the way things are and may not like it but "better them than us". An evil party would enjoy doing it and even seek out more people to ambush, kill and take their stuff. It is made more complicated in that they are in an extreme environment where it can be taken for granted that everything they meet is evil. Still, good people would be constantly trying to find good ways to resolve their differences and could not constantly resort to neutral means without actually becomign neutral in the end.