Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)

mlund said:

Um ... not really. The idea that Suffering == Bad or that causing someone else's suffering is automatically evil is rather unfounded.

Heck, putting someone through the DTs is some of the most painful suffering you can inflict on another human being. Relieving that suffering by feeding their addiction, however, is immoral.

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I'm going to have to disagree with your example. The purpose of detox is to remove the toxins and begin to treat the addiction. Methadone exists expressly to alleviate the suffering of heroin addicts. There is great care taken to alleviate the suffering to get to the goal. The actual suffering is seen as a bad/evil thing that deters people from DTing and getting help for their addiction.

mlund said:

Suffering isn't morally charged. Why suffering is caused gives the act its moral onus. Making someone suffer to make yourself feel better is typically textbook cliched villainy Evil.

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Not seeing too many examples of where suffering is seen as a positive or even neutral. The best case is necessary evil, i.e. evil. The human brain is hard coded to reward aversion to suffering. Suffering is always a negative stimulus.

mlund said:

Um, that's your opinion, I suppose. D&D takes place in a setting where "Just punishment" for thievery and vandalism is typically corporal punishment - inflicted suffering to deter the offender from further transgression. Pain and loss are natural teaching tools that can help positively shape an animal's behavior (humans included) or they can be abused to negatively shape that behavior.

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Sure. I'll buy that. That is why most humans are neutral I guess. The negative (inflicted suffering) is offset by the greater good angle of deterrence and punishment for the wrong.
The populace at large is detached from the event by the laws. The NPC inflicting the punishment can stay at neutral or go for evil by adding personal enjoyment to mix. The enjoyment augments the negative of the suffering overwhelming the greater good. PHB definition of evil is enjoying suffering.

mlund said:

, the philosophy of non-corporal punishments such as imprisonment and fines stems from the idea that hurting a man's livelihood and liberty is more effective way of getting what society wants than simply hurting his body.
- Marty Lund

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RefinedBean said:

This dragon toyed with with me and my family, broke the legs of my children, tied my spouse up to a tree to watch them die.

All because why? It was stupid enough to leave its kid guarding a ton of treasure in a world where it's PATENTLY CLEAR that adventurers will go after said treasure?

Since I cast the disintegrate spell, I am the one that's getting blamed for the entirety of my group's actions? And therefore, my family must be tortured?

C'mon now. The black dragon parent took this to another level, and V is now making sure that no other member of this family will take it upon themselves to exact revenge on V and his/her family.

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Leaving aside the question of whether it was an evil act, this supposed motivation just doesn't add up. Killing an entire familial line of dragons and dragonkind is far likelier to provoke a punitive response than killing any one dragon. V now almost certainly has far more numerous, deadly and implacable enemies than s/he did before becoming Spliced.

Tiew said:

Sure, it was an evil act, but the awesome kind of evil.

A question for the people who don't like killing a bunch of things just because they're evil. What if we rephrase and say we're killing a bunch of dragons because they're dangerous? I can see killing a bunch of retired outlaws or super evil hamsters who can't hurt anyone being a bit questionable. Killing a bunch of dragons who will probably kill many hundreds of people each over the course of their lives seems pragmatic. It almost seems evil not to do it if you have the chance. Think of the lives you'd be saving.

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There are ways to justify evil acts, if only to yourself. Heck, there is a movie out right now that addresses the very issue of whether the ends justify the means.

However, eliminating that many dangerous creatures is likely to have an effect on the ecosystem. It's like removing one of the predators from the top of the food chain ... the ecosystem will react.

In the OOTS cosmology monsters were created, in part, as a means for clerics (and other divine classes) to get experience and thus expand the reach of their respective dieties into lands they don't directly control. V just eliminated a lot of potential XP for future (heck, in one example current) adventurers. V has created a power vaccuum that will need to be filled. Not to mention there are treasure hordes out there without protectors ... that could invite other types of dragons to migrate to new locales. Suddenly the town with the agreement with a black dragon that keeps them safe at the cost of certain ammounts of money has to deal with a red dragon that has claimed the treasure horde and wants a new deal ...

While it's possible to justify something like this in theory, odds are anything with an effect that huge is hard to truly comprehend the long term repercusions. Part of the problem with the ends justifying the means is that there isn't an "end". You can't just tack on "and everyone lived happily ever after ...", the story continues. And, because the story continues, there are going to be repercusions to the action.

And ultimately, justifying an action to yourself or to others doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't evil. In fact, the way that faustian deals like the one that V made work is that people try to justify their actions. "I can use evil to do good ..." is an important pit stop on the road to evil. When you get to the point of thinking that "bad things to bad people isn't bad", that's another one.

Star Wars example (or Dark Knight example, take your pick). The bad guys actively ask to be struck down in anger because they know it will damn the good guy. Heck, that Anakin Skywalker's path towards becoming Vader and you will see some parallels to V's actions. You have the arrogance, you have the turning away from his friends and allies, you have the turning to a dark power in order to save his loved ones, you have the revenge slaying of a large group, you have the killing of an unarmed baddie ... all that's left is the ironic "kill your family because you tried to save them" moment and we'll be a few comics away from V needing a bio suit and screaming "No!" at the top of his lungs.

Ultimately it's for the Gods/DM to decide whether something will cause an allignment change, or will cause a paladin to fall, etc.

Again, what if V had put the "purify spell" metamagic on familicide (totally possible if he trades away his elven weapon proficiencies using embrace the dark chaos)?

Then the final spell would have the [good] descriptor, and only harm nongood targets.

Under that circumstance, is casting the spell still evil?

grimslade said:

I am not sure there is anything else left to do to the dragon at this point other than use the reanimated head as a commode.

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Besides, that's Belkar's shtick.

Kamikaze Midget said:

Actually, no, a Just punishment is specifically designed to make sure the criminal does NOT suffer.

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This concept is not a part of any "justice" that I'm aware of (and FWIW, I'm a criminal lawyer).

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice. (H.L. Mencken)

Wulf Ratbane said:

Or that the end result creates the maximum good for the maximum amount of people...

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I know people that make excellent arguments for why should have no free will, complete mind control, extermination of the human race, etc using that exact line.

Call me a namby-pamby if you desire, but I stand by my morals. Genecide is genecide, regardless of who is being slaughtered.

List me as another who cannot understand any system of morality in which this is not Evil.

Grant that vengeance, even DELIGHT, in suffering isn't evil.

Grant that every single black dragon ever, anywhere, is absolutely evil, irredeemably.

Grant that killing any evil creature, ever, in any method, for any reason, is not evil.

We are SPECIFICALLY shown creatures which are NOT black dragons. You have NO evidence, infomation, or reason, to assume that these creatures MUST be evil. We have been given no information to suggest that V. has done the research to establish that every family relation of the dragon is evil. There is nothing to suggest that in the OOTS world, every familial relation of a evil entity is evil, or that every familial relation of a dragon shares its alignment. There is nothing to suggest that all of these beings are even aware of V., or even aware of the dragon itself.

I can't see any possible, intelligible way for anyone to argue that V. knows that this Familicide spell will only target Evil, or even Neutral, members of the Dragon's family.

Thus, given the information that we have, and not any made up information, V. freely chooses to use a spell which will kill all beings, related by blood to an evil dragon, because one of them might conceivably, possibly do something to hurt his family, IF they even learn about the existence of V.

This rationale would justify killing every single person in the universe, because it is conceivably possible that person might be able, at some point, for some reason, to hurt your family.

How is this not Evil? You are murdering someone you know nothing about, who knows nothing about you, and who may have lived and died never interacting with you, based SOLELY on their family relation to someone else. If this isn't an evil act, then I think your alignment system must be pretty fricking useless.

Skallgrim said:

How is this not Evil? You are murdering someone you know nothing about, who knows nothing about you, and who may have lived and died never interacting with you, based SOLELY on their family relation to someone else. If this isn't an evil act, then I think your alignment system must be pretty fricking useless.

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Do you feel that his action was evil because of its motivation, or do you feel that it would have been evil even if his motivation was otherwise?

Lets say that 500 of the black dragons killed were definitely evil and absolutely going to come after V and his family. 500 weren't, and probably weren't even bad people. What then? Is there a numeric tipping point?

Does the morality of the situation change because V killed "all" of the dragon's family members, thus creating a sort of "genocide?" Would things be morally different if the dragon had three times this many family members, and V only killed a random selection of them calculated to include as many of the most evil ones as possible? Does the "100% of the dragon's family" aspect make it more evil than if he killed an equal number but they weren't 100% of a family group?

What if V were at war with the Nation of Black Dragonia, which consisted of many evil dragon soldiers who were out to get V and his family, but also many non evil dragon civilians who supported the soldiers because that's what civilians do in a country, but who did not directly contribute to the conflict? If V's actions were the most efficient way of ending the battle with minimal casualties on his side, would it have been morally acceptable?

Do the answers to any of these questions say anything about real world morality? Shouldn't real world moral law be even more strict, since no one is born with "always evil" written on the forehead like the Mark of Cain? Does real world morality, particular on a national level, even come close to the standards expressed in this thread? Does it even aspire to be close?

Hey, if you kill good creatures, they go to an eternal afterlife of bliss, but if you kill evil creatures, you condemn them to an eternal afterlife of horrible evil existence. So killing evil creatures is kind of evil always, but killing good ones is sorta good...