Is dominate evil?

[steeldragons]

Ah!

But the real question becomes "Is dominating evil evil?"



--SD

 

[Hand of Evil]

Ah!

But the real question becomes "Is dominating evil evil?"



--SD

My evil god HATES his domination over me taken away by some other evil god or a goodie goodie one. I either get punish for not performing the actions in my evil gods name or being weak willed -- being evil is a no win win.

 

[Celebrim]

The usual argument is that dominate takes away free will, and that is evil.

But, in the context of the 3e and prior alignment system, I'm not sure that's the case - is not free will more an issue for the law/chaos axis? Laws restrict free will. By the usual argument, laws are thus evil, and Paladins could not exist!

My personal take on it is, as with most issues of morality and ethics, the question cannot be answered in general. Specific details of the situation, motivations, desired results, and actual all impact whether a thing is, in the end, evil.

Spoken like a true chaotic.

The lawful response, which for the record I don't necessarily endorse, runs something like the following.

This 'free will' you speak of doesn't even really exist anyway. It's something that you imagine in your ignorance because you don't really understand the reasons for your actions. In fact, the governing force of the universe isn't your personal choice, but your unalterable destiny. Either it is the case that the universe is deterministic and your choices are just the inevitable result of the bumping gears in the machinery of your mind over which you have no control, or else there are higher powers which are actively manipulating everything in the universe - including you - to their own ends. You have no real will in the matter to begin with, so it can't really be taken away.

And even to the extent that you might have some powers of choice, they are such flimsy and weak that they are hardly worth speaking of. You can at best change your destiny only when it is delicately balanced on the head of a pin anyway. You violition and self-control are so limited, that some more powerful being has to arrange to do most of the lifting for you just to get your life into a point of balance where you can decide which way to tilt it. In most cases, you haven't the power to alter your destiny any more than you have the power to lift mountains or direct the course of rivers.

From the perspective of law, the debate doesn't revolve around free will at all. The debate revolves around the right of the one dominating the other to do so. To go back to Jedi's as the arbiters and defenders of law and order, "Jedi Mind Tricks" aren't evil precisely because - as the rightful arbiters and defenders of law - they have every right to correct and control the actions of others. Provided that they use the powers only for selfless ends - that is to say, they have no passions and attachments that would cause them to consider their own interests - they can't 'wrongly' use the power (and stray to the chaotic dark side). However, of course if some other group were to have this power, then that would be wrong because it attempts to usurp the right ordering of the universe from its rightful gaurdians. It's a violation not of free will, but of natural order that they are concerned about. It's the violation of the natural order that is always considered wrong, and not the violation of a person's choice. Consider for example the relatively trivial uses that the Jedi make use of the power for, and the relatively lack of interest that the Jedi show in the existance of slavery (or abolishing it). It's not choice but order that Law is interested in.

This is true to a least some extent even if we are speaking of Lawful Good.

So, I do agree that on the two axis spectrum, this is much more a conflict of law vs. chaos than a conflict of good vs. evil, though of course the Chaotic Good person might not see it that way if they consider chaos to be an inherent and inseparable aspect of goodness. (And of course, the LE might see the power to compel obedience to an inherent and essential aspect of a rightly ordered society.)

Your personal take, that questions can't be answered in general but only in the specific, is a very chaotic take on it. The Lawful would answer that there does in fact exist an answer that applies universally, though they would concede that for some questions the answer might be more complicated than any simple axiom thereby rendering simple questions like, "Is dominate evil?" unanswerable by either "yes" or "no". To the lawful, this is a result of not asking the right question, where the right question might be more along the lines of, "Under what circumstances will ones duty compel one to compel someone else to obey?" or, "What procedures must be first undertaken before it becomes lawful to force obedience through compulsion?"

 

[Steel_Wind]

Dominate Person is to the mind what Rape is to the body. There is no real practical difference between the two, other than that fact that Dominate Person is a more complete and personal intrusion into one's person than a sexual assault is.

If your mind and will had been dominated and your control of your person taken away such that another moved your body like some puppet -- I am absolutely certain that anybody here would consider that an absolutley vile and filthy degradation going to the core of their inner being. On an individual scale? That's a wholly unforgiveable act.

Many game systems have classified the effects of dominate person as Black Magic -- and for a very good reason, too.

If you posted a poll and asked "Is Rape Evil?" -- would you get a large number of "it depends" responses? I think not. Would you see some resort to a Lawful or a Chaotic defence of rape? No. Not in a Zillion years. That's because a discussion of Law vs. Chaos is irrelevant to a discussion of the morality of rape -- that's why. It is no different when the discussion concerns Dominate Person -- it is simply less visceral. There is no room to quibble about this, and no, it doesn't depend. It may be the so-called "lesser evil" at the time in all of the circumstances, but that doesn't make it NOT evil, simply a lesser one -- at its highest.

 

[Umbran]

From the perspective of law, the debate doesn't revolve around free will at all. The debate revolves around the right of the one dominating the other to do so.

If there is no free will, then the concept of "rights" has no meaning. Rights are areas in which you are allowed to exercise your will - if you don't have it, you cannot exercise it.

 

[Umbran]

If you posted a poll and asked "Is Rape Evil?" -- would you get a large number of "it depends" responses?

No, because by board rules, we'd shut it down. Please don't go there.

There is no room to quibble about this, and no, it doesn't depend.

That is your opinion, and you are welcome to it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Dominate Person is to the mind what Rape is to the body. There is no real practical difference between the two, other than that fact that Dominate Person is a more complete and personal intrusion into one's person than a sexual assault is.

If your mind and will had been dominated and your control of your person taken away such that another moved your body like some puppet -- I am absolutely certain that anybody here would consider that an absolutley vile and filthy degradation going to the core of their inner being. On an individual scale? That's a wholly unforgiveable act.

Many game systems have classified the effects of dominate person as Black Magic -- and for a very good reason, too.

If you posted a poll and asked "Is Rape Evil?" -- would you get a large number of "it depends" responses? I think not. Would you see some resort to a Lawful or a Chaotic defence of rape? No. Not in a Zillion years. That's because a discussion of Law vs. Chaos is irrelevant to a discussion of the morality of rape -- that's why. It is not different when the discussion conserns Dominate Person.

There is no room to quibble about this, and no, it doesn't depend. It may be the so-called "lesser evil" at the time in all of the circumstances, but that doesn't make it NOT evil, simply a lesser one -- at its highest.

I disagree. (To clarify, I don't agree with your premise that dominate is equivalent to rape.) There are definitely shades of grey that need to be considered.

Since dominate doesn't give one special knowledge of one's inner sanctum (it doesn't allow you to read someone's mind) it isn't all that different from forcing someone to do something physically. If someone grabs another person's arm and starts playfully slapping them with it while chanting, "Stop hitting yourself!" is he not merely being a jerk? If someone holds another person at gunpoint and forces them to do something, that's unquestionably a violation of the person's free will and rights. However, if someone else holds a knife-wielding maniac at gunpoint and forces that person to stand down, I hope you'd agree that that's just a law-enforcement official making a reasonable arrest.

If you use dominate to violate someone's rights, THAT is wrong. If you use dominate to force an ogre to stop attacking a town, you're enforcing the peace and protecting the innocent. They are by no means equivalent. It's all a matter of context. EDIT: In fact, if you find a way to use dominate in such a way that the ogre is able to survive as well, I'd say you've arguably done more good than if you stopped the ogre through violent means. That ogre is still alive and potentially able to change it's ways. Redemption is very much a good thing.

I don't think that dominate is any more evil than killing someone. If you kill someone without good cause (for selfish reasons), that's evil. If you do it because you were defending the innocent, I think that that's a necessary evil (which, despite the name, I would typify as a neutral act in D&D terms). Otherwise, virtually all D&D heroes (as well as heroes of story and legend, such as Gandalf and King Arthur) are vile scumbags. YMMV, but that logic doesn't strike me as very sound.

 

[Janx]

Dominate Person is to the mind what Rape is to the body. There is no real practical difference between the two, other than that fact that Dominate Person is a more complete and personal intrusion into one's person than a sexual assault is.

While you're logic after associating Dominate to Rape is sound, I disagree that Dominate = Rape.

Rape tarnishes the mind and body. If the person was a virgin, and was saving themselves for marriage, they just lost that. And in many cultures, that can be a huge deal. Plus the long lasting mental trauma.

Dominate (assuming it wasn't used to rape you, etc), doesn't have that same effect. I can cast Dominate on you and make you dance like a monkey. Then spell wears off and you're pissed. But you have not been raped.

I can arrest you and chain you up, forcing you to move where I say. The same as dominate. But that's NOT the same as another inmate raping you. Prison rape is still rape. Prisoner domination is not.

While I agree, any spell that manipulates another's free will is on shady ground AND can easily be used for evil, if such spell replicates what I can lawfully do to a person, then it's the situation that matters, not the act.

Whereas, rape is always a bad an unlawful thing (barring some F'd up culture).

 

[was]

depends on what you have the dominated person do

 

[ExploderWizard]

Dominate Person is to the mind what Rape is to the body. There is no real practical difference between the two, other than that fact that Dominate Person is a more complete and personal intrusion into one's person than a sexual assault is.

If your mind and will had been dominated and your control of your person taken away such that another moved your body like some puppet -- I am absolutely certain that anybody here would consider that an absolutley vile and filthy degradation going to the core of their inner being. On an individual scale? That's a wholly unforgiveable act.

Many game systems have classified the effects of dominate person as Black Magic -- and for a very good reason, too.

If you posted a poll and asked "Is Rape Evil?" -- would you get a large number of "it depends" responses? I think not. Would you see some resort to a Lawful or a Chaotic defence of rape? No. Not in a Zillion years. That's because a discussion of Law vs. Chaos is irrelevant to a discussion of the morality of rape -- that's why. It is no different when the discussion concerns Dominate Person -- it is simply less visceral. There is no room to quibble about this, and no, it doesn't depend. It may be the so-called "lesser evil" at the time in all of the circumstances, but that doesn't make it NOT evil, simply a lesser one -- at its highest.

Not really.

Charm and dominate person are magical effects. Like any other magical powers they can be used for good or evil.