Is any one alignment intellectually superior?

[palleomortis]

I'll bet you'd say somthin' differant bout the classes thou. speakin o wich, someone should set up a poll for the classes.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Are you serious?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'll bet you'd say somthin' differant bout the classes thou. speakin o wich, someone should set up a poll for the classes.

Unnecessary. We all know that Barbarians are intellectually far superior.

 

[Lasher Dragon]

Unnecessary. We all know that Barbarians are intellectually far superior.

DAMN!!! I was waiting for someone to set up the poll so I could spam the intellectual superiority of barbarians

 

[Celebrim]

You could ask a sports fan which team makes the most intellectually sense to follow.

In which case, you've changed the question enough that is now something which might reflect something about the values that the person held, and hense might be used to classify people according to the group that they chose. What's different, besides the fact that this is an issue more people consdier trivial, is that the group's simply aren't as explicitly labeled.

For example, one person might argue that it makes the most intellectual sense to follow the team that wins the most. We could label those the 'pragmatists'. Another might argue that it makes the most intellectual sense to follow the 'home team', and we could label those the 'loyalists'. Another might argue that it makes the most intellectual sense to follow the team that is the most popular where they are at, and we could label those the 'followers'. Some might argue that it makes no sense to follow any one sports team at all, and we could label those the 'oppurtunists'. And so forth. In each case, the answer tells us something about the person. Maybe it doesn't tell us much, because I still argue that most people aren't such fanatical sports fans that thier positions on sports are the most controlling factor in thier lives.

"In many contexts, the "best" team to follow is the one that does the most winning."

Yes, and that is a 'sports' position which tells us something about the character of the sports fan.

"Yet sports fans frequently follow and cheer for teams that do not win the most games."

So clearly those people don't equate 'best' with 'winniest'.

"In fact, I know of plenty of sports fans that will bet on teams that the odds are against simply because they are fans of that team. Why? Because the heart is not always where the mind is. That's my point."

I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.

"And I think morality is an issue of the heart, not the mind."

Sometimes the heart governs then mind, and sometimes it is the other way around. But it would be extremely surprising if they had absolutely no influence over the other. For my theory to be incorrect, it would have to be the case that the answer people gave to the above question was not at all influenced by thier own preferences - intellectual or emotional - for a particularly philosophical outlook. If it doesn't have perfect correllation, well, so what? I only argued that it had better correllation than asking people to self identify thier alignment.

"And if you ask a die-hard Eagle's fan, "Which is the best team in the NFL?", plenty will answer, "The Eagles", despite the fact that they didn't win the Superbowl, which is analogous to what you are expecting -- that people will vote for the home team."

I think I've answered this already.

"But it doesn't follow that all fans will vote for the home team and one can't assume that anyone who says "The Eagles" rather than "The Patiorts" is a die-hard Eagles fan nor can anyone assume that anyone who says "The Patriots" is a Patriots fan."

It doesn't have to follow. This is your analogy. I'm the one pointing out that things that are true for sports teams don't necessarily hold true for moralities.

"But what you seem to be doing is akin to assuming that everyone who says that The Patriots is the best team in the NFL must be a Patriots fan and so on. It doesn't follow."

And again, 'best' here is very different than 'correct' or 'intellectually superior'. If you asked people what the best team in the NFL was, you'd get several answers. But if you asked people what team it made the most intellectual sense to support, you'd get a very different answer and often from the very same people. For most people, these answers would be different. I would argue that the Patriots were the best team, but that you should (if you are a football fan) support the team who had the player's you found most admirable as individuals. I for instance support Tampa Bay, because I find Derrick Brooks to be an admirable man.

But because morals and ethics aren't the same thing as sports teams, if you ask people what the best, correct, and most intellectually superior moral or ethical system was, you'd typically get the same answer for each question from most people. That's why I say you are making a false analogy. There are things that the two things have in common, but for the assertion you are trying to make, the two things do not have in common the critical attribute.

"And part of the reason why it doesn't follow is that you are assuming that everyone has strong beliefs about their own morality."

No, I'm assuming that not having a strong set of beliefs about morality is itself a moral position.

"That's no more true than assuming that everyone (or nobody) has strong beliefs about professional football."

No, I'm assuming that not having a strong set of beliefs about professional football is a sports position which probably has nothing to do with the core tenants by which you define yourself (although it could).

In fact, I know plenty of people who admire the morality of others more than their own. That's often why people admire heroes and religions, even when they don't live up to their standards.

We are moving here into an area that I freely admit that D&D doesn't model well and that's the degree of scruples with which a person holds to his own preferred alignment position. I would simply agree that no one with a non-nuetral alignment position is able to live up to thier standards of thier beliefs perfectly, and that some live up to those standards better than others, but surely sympathy and preference for a particular alignment system - even one you can't manage to live up to yourself - surely says something about how a person defines themselves.

Ever talk to a fan that cheers for a team that never wins and (unlike Boston) never gets close to winning?

Sure. Woo Pig Sooooey! Go hogs! The question then becomes, why does that person continue to support the team? But a better question would be why should we obscure the question by discussing the issue at hand primarily through the means of an imperfect and obscuring metaphor?

 

[Gansk]

I don't know which alignment is intellectually superior, but if you want to know which one has the best monsters, click the link on my sig and help us find out!

 

[Aethelstan]

All alignments are equally stupid. In fact, whole alignment system is the most persistantly useless of D&D's sacred cows.

 

[Celebrim]

All alignments are equally stupid. In fact, whole alignment system is the most persistantly useless of D&D's sacred cows.

I'd agree with you except for one thing. In my experience, the more fanaticly opposed to the alignment system the person is, the more it turns out that they want to 'roll play' rather than 'role play'.

I've never had anyone present a character for use as a PC, that I couldn't assign an alignment to. I've had arguments over people with the fact that in my assessment, their character's alignment wasn't what they believed it to be, but in general as long as we get those out of the way before the start the game instead of me surprising them with it some time down the line, alignment pretty much always goes smoothly for me.

Invariably, the argument for having no alignments turns out to mean, "I want to do whatever I want with my character without regard for the character as a person." If you want to argue for a different, more complex, more realistic, alignment system that wouldn't be a chore and get in the way of roleplay, I'd be glad to hear it (some expansion on Blue Rose's Calling/Nature system perhaps), but arguing to me that you are just such a complex role player that any system is going to restrict your deep characterization too much is likely to fall on deaf ears because I've found by experience just how much BS that actually is.

 

[John Morrow]

For example, one person might argue that it makes the most intellectual sense to follow the team that wins the most. We could label those the 'pragmatists'. Another might argue that it makes the most intellectual sense to follow the 'home team', and we could label those the 'loyalists'. Another might argue that it makes the most intellectual sense to follow the team that is the most popular where they are at, and we could label those the 'followers'. Some might argue that it makes no sense to follow any one sports team at all, and we could label those the 'oppurtunists'. And so forth. In each case, the answer tells us something about the person.

If you asked me which moral system or alignment was the most "intellectually superior", I'd answer "None". If you asked me about sports teams, I'd probably give the same answer. The reason would be the same. I don't think intellect has anything to do with making either choice and an intellectual answer will depend on other unspecified criteria. In the case of football teams, I'm personally pretty disinterested in football (which you might not have guessed by my analogy). In the case of morality, I'm quite interested in it (hence my involvement in a lot of threads about alignment here). In both cases, my answer are similar, but my perspective of each is very different.

Picking a favorite sports team is not simply a matter of intellect. As a result, the sports team that a person identifies as best on intellectual grounds is not necessarily the sports team that they personally like the most. Similarly, picking moral systems is not simply a matter of intellect. As a result, the moral system that a person identifies as best on intellectual grounds is not necessarily the moral system that that person follows or admires the most.

As I've said in another reply, in some ways I consider Law to be "reason" and Chaos to be "intuition". On those grounds, one could argue (and I might) that the Lawful alignments are the most intellectual. But to assume that I'm Lawful or that I think the Lawful alignments are superior, you'd also have to assume that I think the speriority of a moral system is related to how intellectual I think it is. Not so at all. I also don't assume that a person of great intellect would never use their intuition or that a person with great intuition has no use for intellect.

Yes, and that is a 'sports' position which tells us something about the character of the sports fan.

It can. But you can't know for sure unless you really understand why they are giving the answer they are giving. Their answer, alone, doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the fan.

So clearly those people don't equate 'best' with 'winniest'.

And some people don't necessarily equiate "intellectual" with "best" when it comes to morality or alignment. That's my point. The answer, alone, only tells you something about the person if they are answering to their own preference. Since the question set the preference in this case (i.e., intellectual considerations), that may not be so here.

Sometimes the heart governs then mind, and sometimes it is the other way around. But it would be extremely surprising if they had absolutely no influence over the other.

They actually compete with one another. Read the article that I posted a link to earlier. It deals with moral decision making and the conflict between the cold rationality of the prefrontal cortex and the intuition of the anterior insula. The researches claim that by looking at which one has the strongest activity, they can tell how people are going to decide certain moral problems that they are given. But that still doesn't really answer the question-title of this thread is, "Is any one alignment intellectually superior?"

For my theory to be incorrect, it would have to be the case that the answer people gave to the above question was not at all influenced by thier own preferences - intellectual or emotional - for a particularly philosophical outlook.

The question was, "Is any one alignment intellectually superior?" and the original explicitly excluded moral superiority as a consideration. Plenty of people answered in favor of Evil alignments, including Chaotic Evil. What does that tell you about their philosophical preferences?

If it doesn't have perfect correllation, well, so what? I only argued that it had better correllation than asking people to self identify thier alignment.

And I don't think it does. In fact, I think many people are favoring alignments that they don't morally like simply because they think they are ruthlessly efficient. I might pick a Nazi over Mother Theresa if you ask me to pick who would best make the trains run on time but that doesn't mean I'm a Nazi or would want to have dinner with one over Mother Theresa. Similarly, I doubt that the people who are picking Evil allignment themselves favor Evil. I think they are simply picking the alignment that they think is the most ruthlessly efficient.

And again, 'best' here is very different than 'correct' or 'intellectually superior'.

Similarly, "intellectual superior" does not equal either "best" or "correct". So it all really depends on the criteria a person is using to determine "intellectual superiority", doesn't it? And I don't think they are all, "What I like best."

If you asked people what the best team in the NFL was, you'd get several answers. But if you asked people what team it made the most intellectual sense to support, you'd get a very different answer and often from the very same people.

Evidence?

For most people, these answers would be different. I would argue that the Patriots were the best team, but that you should (if you are a football fan) support the team who had the player's you found most admirable as individuals. I for instance support Tampa Bay, because I find Derrick Brooks to be an admirable man.

But the question isn't "the best team" or "which team do you like". The question is, "Which team is the most intellectually superior pick." And the answer to that question will still fall back to the subjective question of which criteria is being used to define "superior". For the die-hard fans, I doubt you'd get a different answer. For others, you might even get answers based on which team has the most creative plays or the most intelligent players. But it still might have nothing to do with which team that person likes the most.

But because morals and ethics aren't the same thing as sports teams, if you ask people what the best, correct, and most intellectually superior moral or ethical system was, you'd typically get the same answer for each question from most people.

Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? Or is this simply how you would respond?

That's why I say you are making a false analogy. There are things that the two things have in common, but for the assertion you are trying to make, the two things do not have in common the critical attribute.

I disagree with your assertion. In fact, I think there is strong evidence in this thread that many people are reading "intellectually superior" as "coldly ruthless and efficient" and I doubt that everyone who is respondind in favor of CE or NE is really a serial killer in training.

No, I'm assuming that not having a strong set of beliefs about morality is itself a moral position.

I have a very strong set of moral beliefs. I also believe that no moral position is intellectually superior. That's because I believe intellect is simply a tool that can be used to support any moral position. So my answer looks very much like the answer someone who has no strong set of beliefs might give, yet it doesn't indicate my own personal beliefs. And I see similar lines of reasoning in other long replies. So this supports your theory how, exactly?

No, I'm assuming that not having a strong set of beliefs about professional football is a sports position which probably has nothing to do with the core tenants by which you define yourself (although it could).

Yes, but you aren't asking people if they have a strong set of beliefs or not. You are looking at their answer to a question about the intellectual superiority of alignments. You are claiming that the answer to the latter will indicate the former. So what do all the people who answered with Evil alignments indicate to you?

We are moving here into an area that I freely admit that D&D doesn't model well and that's the degree of scruples with which a person holds to his own preferred alignment position. I would simply agree that no one with a non-nuetral alignment position is able to live up to thier standards of thier beliefs perfectly, and that some live up to those standards better than others, but surely sympathy and preference for a particular alignment system - even one you can't manage to live up to yourself - surely says something about how a person defines themselves.

Whenever someone starts tossing around the word "surely", I'm reminded of the serpent in the Garden of Eden talking Eve into eating the fruit...

Yes, people have sympathies toward certain parts of the alignment system. But the question wasn't "Which alignment do you like best?" or "Which alignment do you think best matches your own?" The question was, "Is any one alignment intellectually superior?" My answer is, "No." What does that really tell you? What does it really tell you when someone answers NE or CE or LN? I don't see any evidence that it means that I don't feel strongly about alignments or morality or that those people who answered NE, CE, or LN are NE, CE, or LN or favor those alignments.

Sure. Woo Pig Sooooey! Go hogs! The question then becomes, why does that person continue to support the team? But a better question would be why should we obscure the question by discussing the issue at hand primarily through the means of an imperfect and obscuring metaphor?

Because it's been my experience that one someone states their position as an assertion rather than by providing evidence, examples, or logical train of thought to support it that they often find it difficult to see the issue in any other way and their arguments simply beg the question over and over again or they simply restate their position as a truism. In such cases, a metaphor can often help. Of course they don't always work, either, because it becomes far to easy to get hung up on showing why the metaphor doesn't fit rather than trying to understand why it was being made.

(Edit: Tag Typo)

 

[Fieari]

First define Intellectually Best, and then I'll give you an answer.