Family said:
I disagree I think it IS the right one.
Doesn't seem to argue any points.
Celebrim said:
For mortals, there is no real distinction between the two. Since mortals aren't innately aligned, being made of prime material substance which itself isn't aligned, then the alignment of a character is simply the actions that they take. Granted, there personality might give them a propensity to particular actions, but that doesn't mean for example that all miserly characters are evil or innately evil.
The previous intuition of what alignment was was that it was prescriptive, whereas the new one is, in my guesstimation, meant to be seen as descriptive. Evinced by the lack of powers that target specific alignments.
You can't see an action that is both chaotic and good? You can't see an action that is both lawful and evil?
Chaotic/good and lawful/evil, sure. Chaotically good and lawfully evil, no.
Doing something because you personally think it is right is not genericly good, but chaotic goodness. Generic goodness would see that there is a balance between external authority and personal conviction and that right understanding could come from either path, or perhaps should come from a combination of both.
What? We're talking about actions. You don't choose to commit to an action in line with your personal convictions because it's in balance with external authority, if you did you're some sort of all-knowing robot. If ultimately you will choose actions more in line with your personal convictions than external ideals, you'd be "Good."
Well, as Cicero says, rarely does anyone do evil to achieve evil ends. Rather they do evil because they think that there will be some good profit to it.
Granted.
A society can feel that evil actions are justified in order to obtain the security and prosperity of its citizens. That's a lawful evil mindset.
Now we get into the ignorance argument. Your contention is that lawful evil societies are attempting to do good, and using evil methods to enforce the good. If said society has no indication that they aren't right, how are they acting out of evil intent? Much like a baby, pushing another baby down stairs because it doesn't understand that falling down the stairs will hurt the other baby.
Like eating meat, maybe the action turns out to have evil consequences. But it isn't an evil action. It's merely ignorance.
Neither lawful evil nor chaotic evil are actively promoting evil for evil's sake. Rather both believe that the best way to achieve good is through evil. The chaotic evil person believes that evil is the best way to obtain personal security, freedom, and enjoyment. A lawful evil person believes that evil is the best way to obtain a secure, prosperous, and productive society. Only Nuetral Evil, nihilism if you will, is actively promoting evil for evils sake.
I think we have very different ideas of what an evil action is. I believe that doing evil requires being conscious that you're doing evil. Otherwise everything breaks down.
Slavery in the ideal of this society consists of a sort of adoption into the family of the slave master in a state which is honorable and only slightly inferior to being of the master's own blood. Perhaps in the ideal it works.
It doesn't.
But in practice, corruption and cruelty and negligence is common. Now a Chaotic Good member of this society would see slavery as profoundly evil, and would very much disagree with the normative thinking of the land. A lawful good member of society, percieving that some sort of abuse might be occuring in a household would be motivated to deal with it according to the standards of the land. The chaotic good member would be sorely tempted to break the law, steal the slave from its master, and transport it outside of the society where it might find freedom - a course of action that the lawful good person with allegiances to the society would never approve of even if he understood the motivation.
Lawfully good actions don't require allegiance to society, but rather to goodness in general. If this hypothetically hesitating LG person is stupid and thinks that slavery is a law that promotes good, then yeah, they can still be Lawful Good.
But slavery is an evil practice. Smart Lawful Good people would understand this and do everything in their power to change the laws. Meanwhile, every other type of good person who had an interest (under the old system, Neutral or Chaotic Good) would be attempting to free the slaves. That's because they're Good, not because they're Chaotic/Good.
Similarly, a person that kidnaps children from abusive homes or who illegally hacks into systems to expose child pornographers are cases of actions that (assuming a society that is generally good) can best be explained as chaotic good.
Best explained by simply Good. They aren't random actions, they have a reason that has nothing to do with Chaos.
See, the definition of Chaotic as Champions-Freedom doesn't really help because any Good person should be opposed to Evil. A Lawful Good person shouldn't break down a door to stop horrible child abuse they know is happening, because they don't want to break someone else's property? Of course they break down the door, even if it isn't "lawful." So the pre-4E alignment could give no indication of the actions of the person, and is thus kind of worthless.
These are of course extreme cases. Not every chaotic good action involves breaking some law, but it is certainly true that chaotic good actions are marked by thier lack of concern for what anyone else thinks about the action or how the action will be percieved.
Sounds a heck of a lot like old-style Neutral Good to me. What a shocker that they seem to blend together so well.
Imagine extreme law as an attempt to bring the universe into stasis, whereas chaos is the motivation to always oppose things that bring the universe into stasis.
We can agree to disagree that Law and Chaos are intelligent elemental forces. I think it's weird to assume that the randomness as an abstract concept has an agenda, but maybe I'm weird.
Making that statement really makes me think I should finish my essays on the Slaad Lords. The essense of chaos maybe mindless irrational action, but such can only exist in a completely chaotic universe. The minute you introduce some sort of order, chaos itself becomes more structured and more interesting than that. Similarly, the essense of law may be stasis, but the minute things in the universe start changing law itself starts evolving to cope.
The essence of law and chaos don't change based on their "proximity" to each other; you literally cannot change or oppose either, ever, because they aren't things, just inalterable ways the universe operates.
Anyway, its quite easy to imagine situations where Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil team up against the Lawful side of the table. Slavery is going to be the obvious case in point. Lawfulness doesn't see anything particularly wrong with slavery in and of itself. To Chaotic thinking, slavery is one of the worst possible vices. It's quite possible to imagine chaotic good revolutionaires working along side chaotic evil ones to overthrow some slave based society they mutually abhor even if the society itself isn't notably evil except in the question of slavery.
The problem with slavery isn't that it's lawful, but that it's evil.
