Chaotic Good Is The Most Popular Alignment!

Charlaquin · Jun 21, 2019

Maxperson said:
Because it falls apart when you apply it to groups smaller than a country. The Mafia is a classic lawful evil group that does not benefit society as a whole. They only work to benefit their smaller society.

You’re trying to build definitions for the alignments to accommodate characters and groups being the alignments you’ve already decided they should be, which is going about it backwards in my opinion. The alignments should be defined with a consistent set of standards, and characters and groups’ alignments should be determined based on those standards.

That said, I still think the mafia is an ideologically Lawful Evil organization. Its members are expected to behave according to its rules, for the betterment of the organization as a whole. Individual members’ behavior may or may not be consistent with those ideals, but the fundamental principles of organized crime fall on the authoritarian side of the political spectrum, and the egoistic side of the ethical spectrum.

Charlaquin · Jun 21, 2019

Maxperson said:
Nope. Not what I said. I only pointed out that the existence of the Mafia and other LE small groups disproves the claim that LE "sacrifices itself for the benefit of society as a whole."

And that’s not what I said. I said that the ideology represented by lawful alignment is a willingness to sacrifice individual liberty for the benefit of society as a whole. It’s not about sacrificing your safety for others, that’s what Good is about. It’s about accepting certain restrictions placed on you (for example, having to pay taxes) for the betterment of society (for example, having paved roads).

Maxperson said:
That's an untrue statement. Hell, when push comes to shove, a LE individual will often fail to sacrifice himself for the Mafia. A belief in law does not mean that a LE individual gives up on his survival.

Yeah, because the Lawful isn’t about giving up on safety, it’s about giving up a certain degree of freedom.

Jay Verkuilen · Jun 21, 2019

Maxperson said:
Because it falls apart when you apply it to groups smaller than a country. The Mafia is a classic lawful evil group that does not benefit society as a whole. They only work to benefit their smaller society.

It really depends on what "group as a whole" means and there's no reason to suppose it would represent the nation as a whole. IRL nationalism is actually a pretty new concept, only really dating to after the Napoleonic era. The Mafia and other similar ethnic criminal organizations are actually not all that uncommon in terms of being hierarchically structured groups that think of themselves as being part of the only "tribe" that matters. The societies they live in are viewed as outsiders or prey, primarily. Revolutionaries often engage in organized crime, first to fund their activities and then over time they become criminals. The fact that they are an in group makes them function well. I think many of these organizations end up as essentially being Lawful Evil groups within the overall society.

Jay Verkuilen · Jun 21, 2019

Oofta said:
Thanks, I didn't understand what you were trying to say. As far as sacrificing themselves for the cause, that's going to depend on a lot of factors. During WW II kamikaze pilots willingly sacrificed themselves for Imperial Japan on a regular basis. There are many stories of soldiers (and civilians) sacrificing themselves for their country.

My understanding of what military psychology has found is that for the most part soldiers don't really sacrifice themselves "for their country" but do for their buddies or small units, although larger concerns often are what get the soldiers into the smaller units in the first place. I'm sure there are counterexamples, but that's what the research suggests. In the case of the kamikaze, I also believe there was a substantial degree of "grooming" and deception going on, along with use of shame (a powerful motivator in Japanese society especially). The same things happen with other cases of essentially suicidal violence.

Certainly the calculus of what a life is worth in an environment of total war really changes one's views. If you think you're going to die anyway, you might decide to take as many with you as possible. However, even as late as World War II there are many, many examples of soldiers refusing to fight, often passively by not shooting.

Humanity is complicated. Fortunately, most of the faceless minions found in an RPG don't require such nuance.

Maxperson · Jun 21, 2019

Celebrim said:
I think we said mostly the same thing, and agree on the basic point that people are complex. I don't want to get too far into a discussion of real world cosmology, theology, or normative ethics that would have to be a part of talking about applying the idea of alignment to the real world, because invariably that would get religious or political or otherwise get people triggered.

Well, those actions are far more detailed and spectacular than your original statement, which was only: "an upstanding citizen who would sacrifice himself to save the community, helps little old ladies across the road, donates money to help orphaned children". To be honest, you complain about how someone who is perfect being a caricature, but I'm not sure that Dudley Doright is less of a caricature than your upstanding heroic person who is also and at the same time a depraved serial child abuser, and who is quintessentially lawful good but also and at the same time engaged in repeated acts of depravity. I'm not convinced such a person is more realistic than someone whose worst faults are so minor, most people wouldn't even consider them flaws in their own character.

I can imagine a hero like you suggest with dark secrets, but not to the degree of depravity you suggest. Your upstanding citizen who is quintessentially lawful good cannot be quintessentially lawful good unless he knows both what honor and depravity are, and therefore cannot both be who you say he is and not know who he is. The mental stress he would be in trying to live his life when the poles of his life are so far apart would be lethal. I don't think there is any real world person who can endure the degree of division you are talking about.

I know you want to avoid a real world discussion, and this is not to start one, but... All the time we hear stories of a pastor or other upstanding citizen who gets arrested for something like this. And many times those interviewed talk about how kind and upstanding the person was, and how he was constantly doing good deeds. The good person with a dark secret is a pretty common happening.

I think we both agree that people are nuanced and complicated. If you'd introduced that quintessentially lawful good hero, and then suggested his dark secret was something like he had engaged in affairs in betrayal of the vows he made to his wife three times in the last five years, I'd have believed this was a realistic character with a realistic flaw. But nuanced and complicated doesn't even necessarily mean flaws as obvious as that, and indeed the very word nuanced suggests something radically different than your caricature of actually a saint but who is actually also a monster.

I agree that the flaws typically won't be as severe as the one I described in this thread. I went with the more severe one to illustrate the point and because it was a realistic one, having heard similar stories many times in my life.

Maxperson · Jun 21, 2019

Charlaquin said:
You’re trying to build definitions for the alignments to accommodate characters and groups being the alignments you’ve already decided they should be, which is going about it backwards in my opinion.

Um, no. I'm not. The Mafia is the classic example of a LE group. One used in many, if not most alignment threads that I've seen, yet rarely brought up by me.

That said, I still think the mafia is an ideologically Lawful Evil organization. Its members are expected to behave according to its rules, for the betterment of the organization as a whole. Individual members’ behavior may or may not be consistent with those ideals, but the fundamental principles of organized crime fall on the authoritarian side of the political spectrum, and the egoistic side of the ethical spectrum.

And yet they will not sacrifice for society as a whole. They don't give a rats fig about society as a whole, except for how it can benefit them. The biggest thing that most people can sacrifice for society is money, and the Mafia routinely avoided paying taxes. Tax evasion was the one thing that they could usually pin on a mob boss.

And that’s not what I said. I said that the ideology represented by lawful alignment is a willingness to sacrifice individual liberty for the benefit of society as a whole. It’s not about sacrificing your safety for others, that’s what Good is about. It’s about accepting certain restrictions placed on you (for example, having to pay taxes) for the betterment of society (for example, having paved roads).

Except it's not. Virtually none of the LE mafia would sacrifice individual liberty for the benefit or society as a whole. If they believed in doing that, they would have all turned themselves in to the authorities and confessed their crimes, giving up their liberty for the benefit of society as a whole. Clearly they didn't do that.

Charlaquin · Jun 21, 2019

Jay Verkuilen said:
It really depends on what "group as a whole" means and there's no reason to suppose it would represent the nation as a whole. IRL nationalism is actually a pretty new concept, only really dating to after the Napoleonic era. The Mafia and other similar ethnic criminal organizations are actually not all that uncommon in terms of being hierarchically structured groups that think of themselves as being part of the only "tribe" that matters. The societies they live in are viewed as outsiders or prey, primarily. Revolutionaries often engage in organized crime, first to fund their activities and then over time they become criminals. The fact that they are an in group makes them function well. I think many of these organizations end up as essentially being Lawful Evil groups within the overall society.

This person gets it.

Maxperson said:
Um, no. I'm not. The Mafia is the classic example of a LE group. One used in many, if not most alignment threads that I've seen, yet rarely brought up by me.

That is exactly what you’re doing. You’ve decided that the mafia is a LE group because it is classically used as an example of one. But your interpretation of the standards that define Lawful don’t allow for them to be. Rather than revising your interpretation of what alignment best describes the mafia, you propose a revision of the standard that defines Lawful. Personally, I don’t see a conflict between Lawful defined as “sacrifices individual liberty for the benefit of society” and the mafia being LE, but if I did, I would change the alignment I attribute to the mafia, not the standards by which I assess whether or not something is Lawful.

Maxperson said:
And yet they will not sacrifice for society as a whole. They don't give a rats fig about society as a whole, except for how it can benefit them. The biggest thing that most people can sacrifice for society is money, and the Mafia routinely avoided paying taxes. Tax evasion was the one thing that they could usually pin on a mob boss.

Tax evasion is an unlawful act, certainly, but the ideology of organized crime is still one of individual members of the organization willingly submitting to the authority of the organization for the good of the organization as a whole. That’s political authoritarianism. That’s Lawful. That they don’t care about those outside the group except in how they can be taken advantage of is ethically egoistic. That’s Evil. Tax evasion is certainly an unlawful act, and certainly many mob bosses’ actions would probably be more consistent with Neutral in regards to law vs. chaos. But that doesn’t stop the mafia as an organization from being Lawful Evil.

Maxperson said:
Except it's not. Virtually none of the LE mafia would sacrifice individual liberty for the benefit or society as a whole. If they believed in doing that, they would have all turned themselves in to the authorities and confessed their crimes, giving up their liberty for the benefit of society as a whole. Clearly they didn't do that.

By willingly participating in a hierarchically structured group, every single member of the mafia is inherently sacrificing individual liberty for the benefit of that group. The mafia, or any other organization, is a society. That the interests of the mafia are in conflict with the interests of a broader society in which they exist does not change this fact. That the mafia puts its interests above the interests of the society in which it exists makes it Evil, not Chaotic.

Maxperson · Jun 22, 2019

Charlaquin said:
That is exactly what you’re doing. You’ve decided that the mafia is a LE group because it is classically used as an example of one.

No. I've decided they are LE, because they fit the descriptions of LE to a T.

Charlaquin · Jun 22, 2019

Maxperson said:
No. I've decided they are LE, because they fit the descriptions of LE to a T.

So, where’s the disagreement?

BlivetWidget · Jun 22, 2019

I feel like some of us have taken a suggested definition of Lawful and are arguing really hard for or against it as if it's the given definition. From PHB122, while they do say the first attribute refers to:

attitudes toward society and order

Let us approach this with 5e eyes and take specific over general. The general description mentions both society and order, but for the specific description, let us consider the Lawful Neutral writeup (being Neutral on the morality side means we should just get a definition of Lawful):

Lawful neutral (LN) individuals act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes.

"Or" means only one of law, tradition, or personal codes has to be true to be Lawful. I agree the general description muddies the waters, but the specific definition seems pretty clear and it doesn't have to be tied to society.