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

[rounser]

"Good characters and creatures protect innocent life."

"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."

Innocent is the keyword in both cases here - unfortunately, they don't get specific on what is meant by this. Can an evil creature which is minding it's own business be considered an innocent, or is it culpable by virtue of it's alignment? The rules don't say.

“Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient.

No mention of the innocent here - perhaps it could be better reworded as ""Evil" implies hurting, oppressing and killing innocents" in order to match the other alignment descriptions, and "the spirit of the game", where murder is sometimes necessary to protect innocents when characters are living in a world of monsters...because I don't think it matches it when taken literally.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

John Morrow explains this really well in the thread on human sacrifice and cannibalism. i'm having an interesting time watching all the threads on evil come to simlar conclusions.

 

[rounser]

"Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior."

Although this suits the needs of the game, I think that the real answer is that our morality is not a universal axiom at all (as is sometimes implied), but merely a human social construct, complete with a huge species bias, and is therefore only meaningful or useful if you're a human dealing with a world that involves other humans.

Therefore, I think that one of the tripwires in applying real world morality to D&D is that the categories of "person" and "animal" need lots and lots of extension because of the existence of hundreds of kinds of monsters - into grey areas like "person-like monster" and "animal-like monster" and "unredeemably savage monster" and "always evil monster" and so forth, and our morality system struggles to support such ideas because they don't have to be dealt with in the real world.

Our morality is really that fragile and impotent when it comes to species discrimination...where does one draw the line between "person" and "monster"? A lot of morality rides on that - it's the difference between being able to put something down like a farmer might a rabid dog or not. We can agree that demihumans are peoples...but the line needs to be drawn somewhere (some monsters are far worse than savage animals)...perhaps amongst the humanoids (probably at troll, but that may be just racism on my part).

 

[Darkness]

I think that one of the tripwires in applying it to D&D is that the categories of "person" and "animal" need extension into grey areas like "person-like monster" and "animal-like monster" and "unredeemably savage monster" and so forth, and our morality system struggles to support such ideas because they don't have to be dealt with in the real world.

It's that fragile and impotent...where does one draw the line between "person" and "monster"? We can agree that demihumans are peoples...but some line might be drawn amongst the humanoids (probably at troll, but that may be just racism on my part).

A human in D&D might view a troll kinda like civilized peoples in our world might have viewed (for example) Mongol raiders: As a savage bent on destruction that can't really be reasoned with. Of course, a troll is large, even more alien than a foreign raider of a radically different culture, and has a -4 Cha penalty, all of which makes him even less appealing.

 

[spigadang]

I think to many people have lost sight of evil and good.Take everyones fav mage from Dl. ( well not mine, i like fizban) He does good actions he help save the world. But he is evil. He does evil things. Evil actions falll under a one or more headings.

1. They force someones will on some one else.

2. They are active not reactive. ( yet reactive can be evil).

3. They make victims.

so what does this mean?

1. If in an election, Iwant group a to vote one way, and i take there childern from them or anything else until the vote one way. That is evil. If you use anything to force ,key word, it is evil. If you take to them and not do an underhanded thing to change their minds, It is evil. falls under this also. You want NPC bob you kill him. He does not want to die but he does. Well you may say what if he attacks me. He is the one trying to force his will on you. He attacks, you kill him you did not want to kill him but he wanted to kill you . So he force his will poorly but he did force his will one you.

2.You can not be active. It is like what my mama used to say lets sleeping Orcs lie. Keys word in here lie it is not die. If they attack you first then you are reacting.

3. If you say that is sad what about the victims, it is evil. If you make vitums it is evil but if the one you do the action against has kids he made the victims. not you. You kill an ne rogue who is tring to kill you. If he has kids he made the kids victims. If you kill 1 person to keep 100 living you made a victim. See.

I hope this helps the G vs. E

 

[Li Shenron]

I see your points spigadang, despite that I now feel a little... sea-sickened Take your time when typing posts!

1. Forcing your will on someone's else can easily be oppressive, but there are also cases when it is not. For example, the parents "forcing their will" on the children (when they put a little "energy" in telling the children what to do) do that without intent to harm or exercise their supremacy over the children etc., but only because they are looking forward to help the children do the right thing. Of course, sometimes parents don't understand when they are going to far.
The difference can be indeed in what's the point in doing this, but also the degree of strength used in this "forcing" and the exact actions taken can be evil.

2. Ok usually a reaction in self-defense makes you less guilty. I think that any self-defense cannot be evil in aim, it's a very neutral thing. But again there may be a problem in HOW do you exercise your right to self-defense.
For example, one may find a thief in the house, and after taking a look it seem the thief is unarmed and won't be able to serious threaten your life. You take your gun and easily shot him, and you know your country's law allows you that. That's clearly a matter of means: you have chosen the easiest mean, which may make you smart, but also it was the most harmful mean, and since you had other choices it probably makes you evil as well.

3. I think this reasoning goes too far... ok for saying that it's irresponsible to jeopardize the safety and life of people which depend on you to survive (the thief's children) with a criminal conduct. Still quite ok that you don't become evil because of transitive consequences of your actions, if you couldn't know or figure out those consequences. But that shouldn't be an excuse if you instead knew and had other choices, or if you refused to know in order to keep your conscience clear.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Say, Li...how has your Underdark group resolved it's moral dilemma? I mean, that's the reason you started this whole thread, right? Me just being curious

 

[Li Shenron]

Say, Li...how has your Underdark group resolved it's moral dilemma? I mean, that's the reason you started this whole thread, right? Me just being curious

I'll let you know next week, we'll play sunday after the christmas vacations