D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Parmandur]

I don't think I've presumed. If I were to presume, based on what you've written in the thread, I'd presume that you're a Christian (probably Roman Catholic) traditional realist of the sort I studied with at St. Thomas, and that you're deploying (via shout-out, if not actual argument) Anglo-American analytic philosophy to attack a certain kind of vulgar subjectivism and relativism that no one (outside of dorm-room philosophy debates) really subscribes to anymore. I'd presume that if you put your cards on the table, your commitments would lead you to much stronger claims about objectivity than most analytic philosophers would accept. I'd put a little money on this presumption, but not a lot because I don't know you. You just sound really familiar.

Can't speak to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] but I'll cop to being a Thomistically trained Phenomenologist-Scotist mutant hybrid, nowhere near mainstream philosophical academia.

Still, mainstream is what it is in the Anglosphere: don't matter much what either of us cotton to, the facts is facts.

 

[Parmandur]

And, loosely on topic, it's still odd to argue for relativism in a multiverse with folks running around with magical morality Geiger counters.

 

[Umbran]

I'd presume that you're a Christian (probably Roman Catholic)

His personal religious beliefs are unimportant, and not a fitting subject for these boards (see our "no-religion" close in The Rules).

Please address the words his commits to the post, not the person of the poster - what he says will be correct or incorrect on its own merits, without concern for what he may or may not personally believe.

More broadly - folks, have you forgotten that this thread is about gaming? It is, honest. Look at the forum you are in. At this point, someone looking for stuff about abotu D&D cosmology has to wade through several tons of irrelevant academic discussion. Please bring it back around to stuff that is directly relevant to gaming, or take it to a thread in the Off Topic forum, please.

Thanks, all!

 

[Greg Benage]

You snipped the rest of my sentence, where I made clear that I was taking a guess as to his philosophical commitments, in answer to his own suggestion. It wasn't an attack, nor was it an attempt to scrutinize his religious beliefs. Nevertheless, I apologize for violating The Rules and I agree that the whole discussion is off-topic. I shouldn't have stuck my nose in.

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton - your prose is brilliant! Such a knack for clarity. You teach at a university somewhere?

Thanks! I'm an academic lawyer and philosopher in an Australian university law school.

I think you see that this discussion is pointless, but you seem to be enjoying yourself.

Is the K for "Kenobi"? Your feelings are guiding you well!

From my point of view, the discussion began when [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] and some others asked me to elaborate on why I find PS's relativism problematic. My answer was, and remains, that Planescape doesn't offer the sorts of resources that seem necessary to make relativism (or some other sort of anti-objectivism) viable, and so gets stuck in what I have been calling the "hypocrisy problem": that even so-called "good" PCs are no different from anyone else, because so-called "morally-motivated" action is in fact just another power play.

The sorts of resources I have in mind are both technical resources and (speaking loosely) evaluative/political resources.

The technical resources that I think are needed are ones that can account for practices of truth-and-falsehood predication, for practices of reason-giving, etc. The only theory I know of that gets within cooee of this is Barker's (Analysis (2000), fuller citation upthread).

The evaluative/political resources that I'm thinking of can be found in different places, depending on the direction one wants to go in: the theory of compossible desires found in Bertrand Russell's political essays; the theory of sincere self-cultivation found in Nietzsche and his followers; somewhat similar ideas found in the existentialists; etc.

I think Planesacpe's lack in these respects rests on its ongoing reliance on the alignment framework. This leads to outcomes that, from a technical point of view, make little or no sense: eg you ask a demon why it did something, and instead of saying "Because I wanted to" and denying the need for any more elaborate reason, it says "Because I'm committed to evil!" (and twirls its moustache?). The treatment of evil as a substantive value on a par with good leads to all sorts of technical weirdness. In some posts between 50 and 100 upthread I set out my take on Gygax's alignment scheme, and I think he (mostly) avoided this issue, because while not entirely consistent/coherent in his presentation, there is a reading of his PHB and DMG in which evil really is simply an indifference to good. It's the reification of an affective state (indiffrence to the good) into an object of commitment (evil as a value) that causes technical weirdness.

The lack of evaluative/political resources I feel comes from a failure to recognise that saying "You have to rely on your own sense of good and bad" isn't synonymous with "Good and bad are whatever you think they are". The latter, which Planescapes seems to embrace, leads to the hypocrisy problem. The former, in various forms, can lead to approaches like those of Russell or the existentialists or others. (I also see Hobbes as as a theorist of compromise within a framework the presupposes the absence of objective answers to questions of moral justification.)

The above has probably spoiled your opinion of my prose!, but is how I see the discussion from my point of view.

So, Rawls in Sigil. Rawls sits down a bunch of Angels and Devils and so forth and explains to them that to act ethically, they must act according to rules which they all would consent to, if they did not know which member of the planar multiverse they were going to be

<snip>

I agree that Rawls could make a good case that he has a truly objective standard against which to judge their code of rules, although it may not be strictly knowable:

<snip>

So we have an objective standard for establish rules all the planars would agree on. We can imagine the Angels and Demons even agreeing on the rule set as they don't know what perspective will be theirs once the rules are in place.

However, can he give the Demons any reason why, having agreed to the rules, they should follow them?

Do you know the debate on internal vs external reasons? Bernard Williams and others take the view that for R to be a reason for person X, R has to somehow hook onto X's actual motivational states. That is to say, they hold that all genuine reasons are internal. Those who believe in external reasons take the opposite view, that R can be a reason for X even if, from X's internal point of view, R does not have any purchase. These externalists about reason are happy to say "So much the worse for X, that s/he is failing to grasp those reasons that are good reasons for him/her".

As I read the later Rawls, he tries to show that anyone committed to genuine social life in conditions of pluralism has an internal reason to uphold the rules. Those who lack that commitment he calls the unreasonable, and he thinks they pose a problem for social order but not really a problem for justice, because the have dealt themselves out of the game through their unwillingness to take the requirements of social life seriously (eg they don't distinguish between justification and mere power play).

I think demons in Sigil would be among the unreasonable. They don't care about social life, many of them don't even care if they themselves die as a result of conflict and strife, and so they have no internal reason to follow the rules.

I think this is consistent with what Gygax says about "evil" in his PBH and DMG. "Purpose is the determinant" ie the evil are characterised by a lack of any commitment to values as a constraint on action. They simply act on their desires without regard for the effect on others, and in the case of the CE often without regard even to the effect on themselves.

What I can't really see is how this fits into the Planescape "belief makes truth" framework. The unreasonableness of the demons - ie their lack of interest in engaging with the necessary conditions of meaningful social life - looks like an objective matter of fact. Hence, on this picture, their evilness seems to be a matter of fact too.

To introduce the relativism you seem to have to take a meta-step: that the belief that the difference between the reasonable and the unreasonable is itself a mere belief, and that there is no objective significance to the distinction between those prepared to take the demands of genuine sociality seriously, and those who are not.

Now such a claim may be true (if rather radical!), but within the classic D&D framework I think it is most naturally labelled chaotic neutral or chaotic evil. Which means it fails as a meta-principle after all - it is a substantive outlook within the alignment system. Which is why I find the Planescape relativist cosmology not very coherent, any more than the more traditional D&D cosmology that treats evil as a value. (I think that [MENTION=6780330]Parmandur[/MENTION] is thinking along similar lines.)

I don't think I've presumed. If I were to presume, based on what you've written in the thread <snip conjecture>

Are you happy for me to send you a PM?
[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], I've cross-posted again. I think my post is about trying to make sense of Planescape and alignment, but accept that that is subject to moderation.

 

[Greg Benage]

Are you happy for me to send you a PM?

Certainly.

 

[BenK]

Thanks! I'm an academic lawyer and philosopher in an Australian university law school.

Well, there's a coincidence. I'm enrolled to study at an Australian university law school next year.

'Good and Evil' don't make sense as equal but conflicting forces, agreed - they're not simply opposed, they're fundamentally asymetrical. My take Table of Alignments-wise is that Good (tm) means commitment to a universal vision, whereas Evil is pure egotism.

Here's a question for both planescape and Rawls, though - is the Good united? That is, is my good and your good and everyone else's good the same good? For Rawls in Sigil, he might say of the Demons 'So much the worse for the Irrational,' but if the Demons are actually enjoying their irrationality more than Rawls is enjoying his rationality, aren't they more right in saying 'so much the worse for Rawls?'

(As an aside, the Baatezu put me in mind of Plato's Republic. Which of Socrates' interlocutours argues that it is best to be thought just, but to be unjust? I can imagine the devils publicly advocating Rawls' laws but breaking them in any situation they're certain they won't be found out. )

I haven't formally come accross the distinction between internal and external motivations as you've desribed them before, but I've thought of them many times. I don't understand what Rawls thinks he's doing with the statement 'so much the worse for the irrational' when he can't give them an internally compelling reason to be rational.

 

[pemerton]

Well, there's a coincidence. I'm enrolled to study at an Australian university law school next year.

Perhaps our paths will cross!

'Good and Evil' don't make sense as equal but conflicting forces, agreed - they're not simply opposed, they're fundamentally asymetrical. My take Table of Alignments-wise is that Good (tm) means commitment to a universal vision, whereas Evil is pure egotism.

I think this is right. I think Gygax has a particular idea about what that universal vision is ("creature rights" to life, relative freedom and the prospect of happiness) and that d20 restates it in a way that is a bit different, but probably not in a way that matters for most RPGing purposes (rather than rights, 3E/d20 talks about "respecting the life and dignity" of sentient beings).

Here's a question for both planescape and Rawls, though - is the Good united? That is, is my good and your good and everyone else's good the same good?

Rawls thinks that the good is plural, but that the structures that make individual pursuit of the good feasible in a social context are common. The technical slogan for this is "the priority of the right to the good": ie "the right" - social structures that give everyone an equal prospect of pursuing their conception of the good - come first, and then people are free to pursue whatever vision of the good they want to provided it will fit within those fair structures.

For alignment, I think this means that (i) it is hard to classify as lawful or chaotic (I think this is a general problem for any idea that puts forward something like the rule of law as a constitutional foundation for individual liberty and self-directed wellbeing), and (ii) that while the good is divided, there should be no deep conflict between the different adherents of the good. So, for instance, people who like orderly fruit trees in Arcadia are free to try and get recruits from the crazy battlefield brawlers of Asgard, and vice versa, but if they come to blows over it then they've ceased to be genuinely good, because they're no longer respecting the universally acceptable structures that make social life feasible (because they're resorting to mere power).

(As an aside, the Baatezu put me in mind of Plato's Republic. Which of Socrates' interlocutours argues that it is best to be thought just, but to be unjust? I can imagine the devils publicly advocating Rawls' laws but breaking them in any situation they're certain they won't be found out. )

I don't know the Republic as well as I should. It would be either Glaucon or, more likely, Thrasymachus.

For Rawls in Sigil, he might say of the Demons 'So much the worse for the Irrational,' but if the Demons are actually enjoying their irrationality more than Rawls is enjoying his rationality, aren't they more right in saying 'so much the worse for Rawls?'

<snip>

I don't understand what Rawls thinks he's doing with the statement 'so much the worse for the irrational' when he can't give them an internally compelling reason to be rational.

What he thinks he's doing is giving reasonable people licence to beat up, or imprison, or otherwise deal with the unreasonable, without being worried about the fact that from the internal point of view of the unreasonable they have no reason to acquiesce in what's being done to them. Rawls actually uses quite strong language (he says that the unreasonable need to be contained, in order to protect "the justice and unity of society" from their disruptive influence - Political Liberalism p xix).

This certainly makes sense from a conventional D&D alignment perspective - demons, gnolls, orcs etc are a threat that needs to be contained, rather than accommodated - but it can have sinister connotations! Opening up the conception of who is entitled to accommodation, though, becomes tricky - if you say (i) that literally everyone counts, yet (ii) it's the case that some people want conflicting things (eg demons want to smash everyone else, but not everyone wants to be smashed), then how are the claims to be prioritised?

In this thread I've heard a lot of different and interesting opinions about what Planescape is doing, but I haven't really heard an answer to this question that I could embrace for my own purposes. [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION], in particular, seemed to say that from the point of view of the universe it's arbitrary, and from the point of view of the individual any claim to prioritisation is simply an assertion of power. If that is true within the setting, I think that's a big deal that I personally don't feel the setting comes to grips with (in depth or seriousness).

 

[BenK]

I think the devils pose a bigger problem for Rawls than the demons. It sounds like Rawls' view is a sort of social contract theory? The demons openly reject the contract, and all the parties to the contract can agree that they should be 'contained.' But the devils don't openly reject the contract. In fact, they're the contracts' most enthusiastic supporters. They recognize instantly that it's in their interest for everybody else to obey the terms of the contract! It's just that they see no reason to obey the terms of the contract themselves (providing, of course, they can get away with breaking it), and I can see no reason Rawls can give them either.

 

[I'm A Banana]

From my point of view, the discussion began when @Kamikaze Midget and some others asked me to elaborate on why I find PS's relativism problematic. My answer was, and remains, that Planescape doesn't offer the sorts of resources that seem necessary to make relativism (or some other sort of anti-objectivism) viable, and so gets stuck in what I have been calling the "hypocrisy problem": that even so-called "good" PCs are no different from anyone else, because so-called "morally-motivated" action is in fact just another power play.

I don't think that's inaccurate, but I think we differ on whether or not this is actually a problem. "Good" just describes one kind of belief. "Evil" describes another. PS presents a universe where neither can be said to be more true or worthy than the other.

I think Planesacpe's lack in these respects rests on its ongoing reliance on the alignment framework. This leads to outcomes that, from a technical point of view, make little or no sense: eg you ask a demon why it did something, and instead of saying "Because I wanted to" and denying the need for any more elaborate reason, it says "Because I'm committed to evil!" (and twirls its moustache?). The treatment of evil as a substantive value on a par with good leads to all sorts of technical weirdness.

I think the more natural response, in PS, if the demon sees fit to give an honest reply, is "Because it is what we all ought to be doing." In fact, that's probably what a lot of PS characters of any stripe reply when asked why they did something. That's part of living according to your beliefs -- you behave as you think people ought to behave. CE, as a foundation for a coherent belief system, might indicate that a pursuit of personal pleasure, even at the expense of others, is how to live one's life truthfully and honestly. To do otherwise would be to deny that hedonic pleasure, and for no worthy purpose. The demon has a telos, it knows exactly what its life is for, its own pleasure, and its purpose is greater than any other purpose, at least in its mind. The fact that this is called "Chaotic Evil" is only labeling (which is part of why PS isn't inextricable from the concept of alignment). The archon has its own telos, it knows exactly what its life is for, to preserve the contented and free lives of as many beings as it is able to. This is the greatest purpose, according to that archon. The fact that this is called "Lawful Good" doesn't make the archon's belief any more true than the demon. The archon's purpose has virtues, but is flawed. The demon's purpose is ruthless, but not without its appeals. A PC could reasonably hold and fight for either of those beliefs.

The unreasonableness of the demons - ie their lack of interest in engaging with the necessary conditions of meaningful social life - looks like an objective matter of fact. Hence, on this picture, their evilness seems to be a matter of fact too.

Sure. What's in question in PS is whether or not "engaging with the necessary conditions of meaningful social life" is actually any sort of worthy goal for existence. A demon might argue that, of course, it's not -- if the purpose of existence is to cultivate and engage in hedonic pleasure, spending time refraining from doing whatever you feel like at the moment is standing in the way of that goal, and so social life is basically a waste of time unless one is getting personal delight from it.

Opening up the conception of who is entitled to accommodation, though, becomes tricky - if you say (i) that literally everyone counts, yet (ii) it's the case that some people want conflicting things (eg demons want to smash everyone else, but not everyone wants to be smashed), then how are the claims to be prioritised?

Player Characters. By facing game challenges, living according to their belief and transforming the multiverse, they prioritize their own "wants" over that of competing systems. In fact, this describes PS quite well: a state of conflict that can be resolved in play if the players succeed. By extension, their antagonists as well.

This is also the purpose behind the factions: competing systems of belief that set up inherent conflicts in the setting that the PC's can resolve to the favor of whatever they throw their lot in with.

If the PC's throw their lot in with the demons (or a faction that espouses a similar philosophy -- perhaps certain stripes of Sensate, for instance!), you can be quite assured that, if they are successful, NPC's that they've influenced across the multiverse will be acting according to their personal wants now, and, indeed, the very heavens may be torn asunder, or the destruction of the multiverse well and truly started. This goal may even be desirable: this was what the PC's always believed was going to happen anyway.