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

[billd91]

[NITPICK]Gandhi's non-violent opposition to British occupation had absolutely nothing to do with him being killed. He was assassinated in 1948, after the British had left India, for reasons to do with the Partition of the country into India and Pakistan.[/NITPICK]

Note also that Ghandi's party was willing to hinder resistance to the Japanese in WWII in order to try to capitalize on Britain's difficulties (meanwhile, the Japanese were rather calously slaughtering the Chinese and Burmese)...

Which segues into the point I will make. You have to consider both ends and means because most juicy moral decisions aren't very black and white. The nasty little truth in real life is that the ends do, in fact, justify the means. The difference between good and evil people is that good people are a whole lot pickier about what ends are good enough to justify the means necessary to bring them about.
In a game with more absolute definitions of good and evil, I'd still say that the ends do justify the means. One evil act (or means used to attain a good goal) will not shift the alignment of the characters... though it may make things difficult for paladins. The danger lies in continually using evil means for goals that are iffy in relation to the evil of the means.
I think DMs and players should be reasonably flexible on the points of good and evil, especially when the game delves into no-win types of situations. If you have to kill a D&D version of Typhoid Mary to save the lives of hundreds of potential plague victims, you should probably feel justified in doing so (though it's better to convince the carrier to sacrifice themselves of their own free will) without loss of good alignment status.
If you're being invaded by a powerful army of evil humanoids and demons, any paladins in the army shouldn't have to worry about sending conscripted infantrymen to their deaths if the end goal is to protect the farms and families of the peaceful countryside (while working for one's own self-preservation may be neutral, the preservation of one's innocent fellows or good-minded, public-weal-supporting country should certainly count as good ends). In other words, don't punish characters too much for real necessity if they really do have a good will.

 

[Gez]

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

As far as I know, the problem with that example is that A'Kin is a complete mystery. He behaves nicely and friendily. So the good means are there. But to which ends? Nobody knows what A'Kin's goals, outside of being a successful merchant, are. Nor even if he has any, in fact. He could be a well-disguised sinister evil, or a sincerely redeemed fiend. It's left up for DMs to decide -- if they want to decide.

But now that I think about it, here are a couple of examples:

1. Propagating the cult of an evil, oppressive deity through charitable deeds. You give food to the starving, telling them that Hextorites (to take a PHB example) care about the well-being of the people. You create schools where people can put their children for free, so even the poor peasant can have his sons and daughters learn how to write, count, and where they can get moral guidance. You propagate a kinder, gentler approach to Hextor's faith, claiming it is all about a strong, voluntarist leader able to protect his country and his people's interests thanks to the disciplined efforts and trust of the population. The Might Makes Right part of his dogma is presented as being a meritocracy -- anyone, regardless of birth and station, can raise to the top if he's "meritant" enough. You do not do anything evil yourself, to the contrary. But you help an evil religion gains prominance, and slyly propagate evil ideals. Eventually, you'll have devout Hextorites in every position of power, and then you'll be able to gradually turn the country into a ruthless dictature without anyone noticing it. As the saying goes, if you put a frog in near-boiling water, the poor critter will leap out of it as fast as possible. But if you put it in normal water and raise the temperature slowly, it won't discover the danger until it's too late.
2. You generously give wonderful and previously unkknown-to-them goods to people from a faraway place. Good wine and fine spirits, sugars and candies, efficient medical remedies, and all that sort of things. They are very happy with these gifts, but do not know the dangers of abuse. Soon, they've ruined their culture and are totally dependant of you. Now, you can stop acting friendly and enslave them to your heart's content -- you have reached your evil end through good means.

 

[Gez]

After writing #1 above, I remembered the plot of Ultima 7: The Black Gate. If you've lived in a cave and thinks you may play this technically outfashioned game some day, I've spoilered it, but, in this game, you discover a new philosophical religion, called the Fellowship, has spread throughout Britania and is now very influent.
[sblock]The Fellowship was formed by Batlin, and the mysterious twins, Abraham and Elizabeth. Lord British only agreed to allow the Fellowship when Batlin told him its aim would be to serve the people of Britania.

The fellowship has branches in all the main towns of Britania, the main branch and headquaters is in Britain, capital city of Britania. Go to any fellowship branch at the right time of day, normally in the evening, and you can hear the teachings of Batlin and the Fellowship. You may even be invited to join.

With the people beginning to turn away from the virtues, and Lord British becoming increasingly isolated from the people, it is easy for the Fellowship to find a gap in people's lifes that needs filling. Most ordinary members of the Fellowship are perfectly good people who have no idea of the evil being done by some members. In many cases they have been virtually brainwashed by the leaders, and the guardian.

The Fellowship has three principles that all members must adhere to. These principles are called the Triad of Inner Strength. The three principles are,

1. STRIVE FOR UNITY: Unity is essential for survival. If you quarrel among yourselves you will fail. Act with one will, and unity of purpose, and you will suceed.
2. TRUST THY BROTHER: Lack of trust makes you vulnerable. If you don't trust someone you will always be questioning their actions and intentions. If you have trust then you are able to work in harmony with others, secure in the knowledge that they can be trusted.
   
3. WORTHINESS PRECEDES REWARD: Do not expect something for nothing. Prove yourself worthy and you will be rewarded. Accomplish things in your life and you will gain much.

Expressed this way the triad of inner strength actually sounds quite good, but it is easily used by a corrupt or evil leader to enforce his will. For example:

1. STRIVE FOR UNITY: All who are in the fellowship must act in unity, and must not argue or disagree with each other. If you dispute the actions of the fellowship then you are not a worthy member. Thus "strive for unity" becomes "never argue or disagree with what the fellowship does, just accept it and act in unity with your fellow members."
2. TRUST THY BROTHER: All who are in the Fellowship are your brothers, therefore you must trust them. If you query the actions of one of the leaders, he could say "don't you trust me? If you don't trust me you're not a good fellowship member" Thus trust thy brother becomes unquestioning obeidience and blind trust that all the actions of the Fellowship are right.
3. WORTHINESS PRECEDES REWARD: In the Fellowship only those who are worthy are rewarded. Members view it as an honour to be considered worthy. Obey the wishes of the fellowship without question and you will be considered worthy, do things that are unpleasant or seem wrong in the name of the fellowship and you will be rewarded. Thus members are under constant pressure to prove themselves worthy. Furthermore, those who do not merit in the eyes of the Fellowship will receive their just reward also -- punishment.

Combine these three principles with pressure from the branch leaders, and it is easy to see how the Fellowship was able to have such power over the good people of Britania.

Though Batlin, Abraham, and Elizabeth appear to be the leaders of the Fellowship, in reality it is the Guardian that controls the Fellowship. The Guardian uses the Fellowship members to carry out his wishes in Britania, and put his evil plan for domination of Britania in place.

Once a member reaches the higher levels of Fellowship membership, they are sent to the meditation retreat, where they are able to hear the Guardian speak to them. They aren't aware that he is evil, and because of the Triad of Inner Strength, they obey without question. So, although unable to enter Britania, the Guardian is able to use the Fellowship to wreak his will upon the kingdom.[/sblock]

With some typoes corrected and one precision to a point, I've copy/pasted that from one of the Ultima 7 websites.

 

[sword-dancer]

The reasons and circumstances under what means were used for what ends!

the 1 to 1000 dilemma?

It is better to sacrifice 1 Person or 1000 Persons, if this is the choice you`ve to made?


Another point is: Who pays the price of the deciision ?

Sometimes I think hard decisions must be made.

 

[Nebt Bhakau]

I feel sorry for those who think this argument is merely academic. It's important for everyone to know their own morals and have good reasons for them. Roleplaying is a tool that can help us figure this out for ourselves.

Any attempt to gauge actions by 'ends' is folly. Actions have too many ends, for one thing, not all of which are forseeable. If I wage a war,(for example) what is my end? To liberate the enemy's country, of course. Or, to destroy the enemy's troops and have my way with their government. And in many cases, those two ends turn out to be one and the same. But we regard one as good and the other as evil. No, ends cannot be relied upon. One must look to intent (I intend to invade in order to liberate the oppressed populace vs. I intend to invade to expand my own holdings and make my people rich) and means (some might argue that warfare is itself an evil means).

I personally define D&D alignments as valuations of life and liberty. Good and evil reflect different valuations of life, and law and chaos reflect different valuations of liberty. Specifically, good people think life is precious, evil people think life is cheap (or that the value differs from person to person). Moral neutrals only worry about preserving their own life, not preserving or taking anyone else's. And, along the other axis, chaotics believe that individual liberty is more important, lawfuls believe that individual liberty is second to the good of the collective. Ethical neutrals are only concerned with their own liberty.

 

[Li Shenron]

"there are also evil persons IRL, but you don't kill them even if you have the opportunity to 100% escape law punishment."

My question: if you know they are evil, have seen them committing the evil, and you won't be punished for killing them....why *don't* you kill them?

The question here can be: how far with the means can you go, without putting yourself on par with the evil you're trying to stop?

The aim of stopping the evil from keep hurting/murdering/enslaving others is no doubt a good aim. The mean of killing him isn't a good mean; at best it might be neutral, but it had to be because there was no other way to deal with him, after you tried all of them. Sometimes some of us in the group are questioning whether this attitude of "come on, there's nothing we can do about it, let's kill him outright" isn't already shifted to evil.

There are so many examples even in fantasy books and movies about good characters trying every resort before killing the BBEG, and usually doing so (reluctantly) on the very last second, when the BBEG himself betrays the good one's chance he was given.

In the case above, what about imprisoning the evil guy? What about forcing him into a position where he cannot practically harm others? There are different ways to reach the good end (stop him from doing evil), only those ways are more difficult than "kill & forget". But maybe the point is exactly that more evil means are easier and efficient, while good means take more effort and risk.

One could also argue that since you reach the good end either way, there's no real difference. However there is also a higher end exactly behind the use of good means, which is the simple promotion of good in the world through example: using good means displays that good CAN win even if evil is easier.
Not to mention that a good character probably doesn't want to simply see the BBEG dead, he would prefer to see him redeemed, which may be very unlikely to do, but for sure once he's dead you're not going to even try... By that reasoning, one dead unredeemed BBEG is one more spirit to empower the legions of hell, a clear evil effect.

And if Evil is truly objective, and whole races actually are Evil with a big E...how can it be evil to slay them? If warfare is evil by nature, even to survive, then Good dies out in a couple of generations when faced by Evil, which will gladly kill and eat them.

Good characters should "believe in good", that good can win. When they start believing that "good cannot win, evil is stronger, evil is easier, should consider some relaxing of our methods" perhaps it's when they turn to neutral/evil, because they are in fact "believing in evil".

Good and pacifism are not the same thing. Allowing evil to continue because the Evil won't listen to you and be friendly, meaning you can't stop them without violence, and you won't be violent...that's selfish. that's refusing to sully your precious morals even though the fate of the world is at stake. Also, when Evil kicks in the door and tries to eat your babies, it is often too late for effective action.

I'd say refusing to fight Evil is at best a Neutral act.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. "
Edmund Burke

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. "
Martin Luther King, Jr.

(On the other hand, Gandhi opposed evil nonviolently. As I recall, this got him killed.)

Good and nonviolence are not exactly the same thing. Nonviolence is a more radical way of being good, it's about preferring to be hurt/killed rather than having to hurt/killed others. It's an uncommon options in RPG and even less common IRL, even if in theory is't what most religious text teach about.

However note that MLK is saying that one should fight against injustice and evil, but he isn't saying to do so by using the same means. "Action" doesn't imply violence in his view at all...

 

[rounser]

D&D morality is not real world morality, though. By extension of say, Darkness's examples, adventurers couldn't go marauding and slay an evil monster purely for it's treasure, because that would be evil.

But you get that all the time - the catch being that usually the monster attacks first, so the PCs slay it as per the "it's coming right for us!" strategem. But often, the PCs trespassed in those goblin caves or in the vampire's castle first, knowing full well the reception they'd get - which still makes them opportunistic marauders, technically...and therefore, by the the conventions of this thread, evil.

 

[Li Shenron]

D&D morality is not real world morality, though. By extension of say, Darkness's examples, adventurers couldn't go marauding and slay an evil monster purely for it's treasure, because that would be evil.

There is however a good help coming from the game itself and in fact you say "monsters" here. Some are "inherently evil" on a higher basis, and that is devils and demons. They are supposed to be irredeemable (in common D&D at least, but there could be exceptions), and in a way they are evil made flesh.

Other creatures are more like animals, even if the stat may say high Int: they don't have a society, a culture, they don't make relationships, some even respond only to basic needs (feed, sleep, mate). As such, killing them for hunting or for defense of your inhabited area may be very acceptable and neutral. Killing them for sport or in a cruel and painful way may be straight evil instead.

Of course in the case of looting it's double-face: in a way it is killing them for your personal gain; in another way, if they have loot it means they have killed someone and are a threat for the area, so you may be making a service for the community to get rid of a beast. But in this case we're talking about monsters which cannot possibly be tamed or "talked to" in order to have them stop from rampaging around [the scope of the original discussion here was intended to be only vs creatures with a mindset comparable to the characters].

 

[rounser]

Of course in the case of looting it's double-face: in a way it is killing them for your personal gain; in another way, if they have loot it means they have killed someone and are a threat for the area, so you may be making a service for the community to get rid of a beast. But in this case we're talking about monsters which cannot possibly be tamed or "talked to" in order to have them stop from rampaging around [the scope of the original discussion here was intended to be only vs creatures with a mindset comparable to the characters].

Good points. Does this mean that goblins cannot be killed for their loot, then? They certainly are known to rampage, but they can be talked to as well, perhaps even convinced out of it, and they were the subject of Darkness's examples earlier where killing them on sight was deemed evil.

Perhaps the paradox that people are driving at is that it's immoral to kill even an evil character unless that character attacks first, or is caught in the act of doing evil and must be stopped, or someone has complained that they've done harm, and they must be prevented from doing further harm.

They seem to be D&D's conditions for moral murder. But I'll suggest one more factor.

What you seem to be describing, Li, is that the degree of monstrosity that a monster has is also a factor in whether the murder is justified. Killing an evil human on the street, unprovoked, is clearly uncalled for, but killing a troll on sight might not be blinked at by the same folks who would cry foul at the murder of the NPC. You also mention demons and devils as being fair game. Undead which aren't good, also morally neutral to slay, most would say, but what about an evil lich who just wants to study in peace? Unintelligent monsters? Evil dragons - can they be slain in their lairs purely for their hoards if they're not ravaging the countryside?

I think that what you and I might be driving at is that beyond alignment, what creature can be morally slain on sight needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Clearly evil PC races are off-limits, but on the sliding scale of evil humanoids through to unredeemable fiends, perhaps there are no hard and fast rules. One can slay a rabbit on sight, morally, but not a goblin. Why? Because goblins are intelligent and humanlike, even if the rabbit might cause less harm!

 

[Darkness]

I think that what you and I might be driving at is that beyond alignment, what creature can be morally slain on sight needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Clearly evil PC races are off-limits, but on the sliding scale of evil humanoids through to unredeemable fiends, perhaps there are no hard and fast rules. One can slay a rabbit on sight, morally, but not a goblin. Why? Because goblins are intelligent and humanlike, even if the rabbit might cause less harm!

If you're routinely killing rabbits for sport alone (as opposed to needing them for food) you're neutral, or evil if you're into slow torture.

Anyway. Yep, case by case. What's right depends entirely on the circumstances.

Generally speaking, though, if you're good you should try to avoid violence and try other options first. Negotiate if possible, try to avoid the creatures if not.

Of course, if something's trespassing in your territory, you'll probably want to confront it to make sure it isn't out for trouble. If you think it is, insist it leaves. If it attacks, fight.
If it's slaughtered the locals, try to bring it to justice (or get it to leave if it's too powerful) and respond with force if it isn't agreeable.

If you are reasonably certain something will become violent when you try to talk to it and you need it to leave or out to stop it (or it will find you if don't take it out) and it's a dangerous opponent, attack.
Still... If you're 20th level and come upon a lone troll, confront it and demand that it leaves or surrenders (as appropriate) or faces the consequences. 'course, a troll will almost always attack you anyway - but then, there are neutral trolls for whom casual violence isn't the defining characteristic (they're still brutes, though) and since it doesn't put you at great risk, trying to achieve a peaceful resolution is preferable.
(Note: Obviously, if the lone troll has horns, hooves and wings, carries a magic axe with an overpowering evil aura and adorns its belt with multiple solar heads, approaching it is only advisable if you have stellar social skills or a lot of backup. )


In short - strive to avoid violence but also try no to throw your life away for it unless you have a reason.

D&D morality is not real world morality, though. By extension of say, Darkness's examples, adventurers couldn't go marauding and slay an evil monster purely for it's treasure, because that would be evil.

Depends, IMO. Greed can be neutral or evil. Even if it's a monster, try to avoid killing it for greed, though. Stealing and intimidation are less evil than murder in any case. So is subduing them without killing them.

'course, if you're on a quest for some holy sword or other and the biggest owlbear ever, with the sharpest senses ever, blocks your path and there's no other way, slaying it is probably your best option. But if it's sentient and not overpowering (nor in the position to raise an alarm), try to talk first.

BTW, look at my sig for an evil example of how to approach a dragon for its hoard.