D&D 5E Should the next edition of D&D promote more equality?

[Dragoslav]

3. Watch as people's moral intuition, which is designed to guide them in the real world and not crazy-thought-experiment-land, shorts out.

If it all comes down to trusting people's "moral intuition," then I don't think any argument is ever going to get anywhere. Some--probably some of the same people posting in this thread--would argue that one's "intuition," moral or otherwise, is just the socially inculcated set of prejudices that a person has developed over his or her life. As we've seen, people have a hard enough time agreeing on anything even without bringing in problematic thought experiments.

 

[Dausuul]

If it all comes down to trusting people's "moral intuition," then I don't think any argument is ever going to get anywhere. Some--probably some of the same people posting in this thread--would argue that one's "intuition," moral or otherwise, is just the socially inculcated set of prejudices that a person has developed over his or her life. As we've seen, people have a hard enough time agreeing on anything even without bringing in problematic thought experiments.

I'm not proposing we trust people's moral intuition in all situations. I'm saying that the only thing which makes this thought experiment remotely interesting is the fact that it fakes out the listener with a set of impossible rules. If you eliminate the fake-out, and present the same problem (take action and kill one, do nothing and kill five) in a realistic way, the result of the experiment is boring and predictable.

To put it another way: Let's take the Fat Man variant and think it through as if it applied in the real world. My first question is going to be, "How do I know that the trolley will kill those five people, and that the fat man will stop it, and that neither I nor anyone else can possibly come up with a better solution?" If the answer is "God told you" or "You just know," I respond, "Whoa. Obviously I am dangerously delusional. I'm probably trying to come up with a twisted way to make myself into a hero, and I am clearly the last person who should be making life-or-death decisions. Leave the poor fat man alone and go see a shrink ASAP."

There are plenty of interesting real-world situations where the moral choice is non-obvious, and these are well worth discussing and exploring. But thought experiments like the Fat Man/Trolley Problem have no application to real-world morality.

 

[bogmad]

That said, I think you're asking the same question I am, just with different phrasing] We're agreeing that publishing material that doesn't promote inclusivity is not virtuous.

Sure we agree on that, but you're not addressing the other part of my question, which is what if the current action "publishing the status quo" is harmful?

Is causing harm immoral? I'd say so. But what you're doing is going through all these hoops to say that failure to act doesn't count as an action you merit examining.
I'm trying to find a way to address things on your terms. I'm open to a discussion as to whether the status quo (or past status quo) is harmful or not, and to whom it may be harmful. And whether or not the people it may or not be harmful to are part of the market D&D Next should try to reach out to.

 

[Dragoslav]

If you eliminate the fake-out, and present the same problem (take action and kill one, do nothing and kill five) in a realistic way, the confusion vanishes, and the result of the experiment is boring and predictable.

I don't know about that. I think there are enough people with different moral codes that people can justify different solutions in different ways.

But speaking of black being white and up being down, I'm going to turn my attention toward the Underdark for a minute. I had a thought on an idea someone had suggested a few pages back about whether drow should be presented with different skin colors. I'm against that idea for several reasons.

First and foremost, I don't think the same argument in favor of presenting different human races applies here. To the extent that drow are a monster race, people aren't intended to be able to "relate" to them, so there's no imperative to make the drow a race with a great degree of variety.

Secondly, the drow are already a different "race" of elves. You've got sun elves, wood elves, dark elves, etc., so having different "races" of drow would just be redundant.

 

[Alzrius]

Sure we agree on that, but you're not addressing the other part of my question, which is what if the current action "publishing the status quo" is harmful?

Is causing harm immoral? I'd say so. But what you're doing is going through all these hoops to say that failure to act doesn't count as an action you merit examining.[/quote]

Okay, I think I have a more clear understanding of what you're asking now. First, I agree that causing harm is immoral (though I think that "causing harm" is an oversimplification that could use greater precision). Second, I'm not saying that failure to act isn't worth examining; everything I've posted in this thread has been about examining failure to act in the question of if that's immoral or not!

The issue here is that you're not asking about the morality of an action, which is what I'm speaking to. You're presuming that the action in question (publishing a book with no inclusivity) has already been decided as both lacking virtue (e.g. no inclusivity), and having fault (e.g. harming people for its lack of inclusivity). I disagree with the second point, as I find that's more concerned with the consequences of the action than the action itself.

This is what I've been saying from the beginning - that publishing something that doesn't make a point of inclusivity (or, as you say, is "the status quo") is not inherently harmful, and so not inherently immoral.

I'm trying to find a way to address things on your terms. I'm open to a discussion as to whether the status quo (or past status quo) is harmful or not, and to whom it may be harmful. And whether or not the people it may or not be harmful to are part of the market D&D Next should try to reach out to.

The deontological ethics I'm speaking of are how you measure the morality of an action; the status quo unto itself is not an action, per se.

 

[Umbran]

...I disagree with the idea that there is a "right and a wrong" answer to it.

Interesting. Note that you said, "If your rules tell you that it's morally right to kill someone else to save several other people, then I'm not interested in them."

You've already passed some form of judgement upon the rules. Do you wish to argue that your lack of interest in them is *not* because they are, in some sense, wrong?

If not, then you've already admitted that there's at least answers that are, to you, more right than others.

I don't disagree, which is why I think it's a good test case for a moral framework, since it helps to show what it recommends in a difficult situation.

It is a difficult situation that will never arise in practice, so highly idealized that the recommendation does not clearly transfer or adapt to real-world situations.

There's an old joke about physics - the physicist can *absolutely* predict the winner of the next horse race... if he can assume a spherical, massless horse in a vacuum. The Fat Man (and things like it) are the philosophical equivalent.

The difference is this: in physics, we may use an approximation, but the final judge of correctness is whether the result matches empirical evidence. There being no empirical results in philosophical ethics, the results you get from approximation cannot be tested.

It implies no such thing. It's not a mathematical "solve for X problem" -- the purpose of thought experiments is to make people question their own certainty about morality, which presumably is something that you would approve of. If someone says, "I know exactly what is right and what is wrong," you can say, "Okay, what's the right thing to do in this situation?" and get the likely response of "Well... er... I'm not sure."

Sorry, but no. Alzirus has already said that there's a "most right" answer - the solution is not open for debate. Rules that give a different answer are "not interesting", and thus rejected from the discussion. Ethical systems less dependent upon a hierarchical set of rules have similarly (though less explicitly) been squished out of the conversation.

 

[bogmad]

The deontological ethics I'm speaking of are how you measure the morality of an action; the status quo unto itself is not an action, per se.

Replace the "status quo" with the action of "publishing materials that are harmful [or purported to be]" then.
I never intended yell "status quo" without it being linked to an action.

I'm not really interested in discussing the ins and outs of deontological ethics, so I think I may be done with this particular rabbit-hole.

 

[Umbran]

The deontological ethics I'm speaking of are how you measure the morality of an action; the status quo unto itself is not an action, per se.

The status quo is not an action, no. But choice is action. And you either choose to keep with the status quo, or you choose to act against it.

 

[Alzrius]

Interesting. Note that you said, "If your rules tell you that it's morally right to kill someone else to save several other people, then I'm not interested in them."

You've already passed some form of judgement upon the rules.

Do you wish to argue that your lack of interest in them is *not* because they are, in some sense, wrong?

If not, then you've already admitted that there's at least answers that are, to you, more right than others.

Umbarn, I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to prove here, save that you seem to be trying to say that you think I'm judging "the rules" (what exactly are "the rules" anyway? I'm talking about trying to figure out the morality of actions).

Note that you said, "If the consequences to other people are not themselves part of the basis for your rules, well, then I'm not really interested in them" which sounds to me like the very same judgmental attitude you seem to be insinuating that you think I'm displaying.

Given that I'm not certain what "the rules" are - I'm going to presume that they're the consequentialist ethics you seem to be advocating - it's hard for me to say that they're "right" or "wrong." That said, I suppose if you consider choosing to adopt one particular system of moral philosophy, instead of another, to be a form of judgment, then I'm guilty of that, though I don't see why that's necessarily a bad thing.

Likewise, you seem to have overlooked my previous statement:

To be clear, I'm using "right or wrong" here as shorthand. "Right" is an answer that satisfies all moral issues, whereas "wrong" is an answer that leaves some moral principles abrogated.

Given that, let's move on.

Sorry, but no. Alzirus has already said that there's a "most right" answer - the solution is not open for debate. Rules that give a different answer are "not interesting", and thus rejected from the discussion. Ethical systems less dependent upon a hierarchical set of rules have similarly (though less explicitly) been squished out of the conversation.

You do realize that I was talking specifically from a deontological viewpoint, don't you? If you want to say that the right thing to do is murder the fat man and save the other people as a consequence of that, at least insofar as consequentialism is concerned, then say that.

Likewise, you're misrepresenting me when you say that I said there was a "most right" answer. What I said was (emphasis mine):

That's not what I'd necessarily call the "right" answer, since you still fail to take a moral action in not saving the other people, but it's the least wrong answer (which is where, I suppose, gradations of morality come into play).

That's not even taking into account that my statement is from a purely deontological viewpoint.

If you found my saying that I "wasn't interested" in your "rules" upsetting, please bear in mind that I was saying that as a reaction to your own statement of "not interest," so I find it odd that you seem so upset about that now. Likewise, I don't see how you've been "rejected" or "squished out" of the conversation.

This has been a healthy, respectful exchange of ideas so far, let's try to keep it that way, okay? I'd hate to sick the mods on you.

Replace the "status quo" with the action of "publishing materials that are harmful [or purported to be]" then.
I never intended yell "status quo" without it being linked to an action.

I'm not really interested in discussing the ins and outs of deontological ethics, so I think I may be done with this particular rabbit-hole.

Changing the semantics doesn't speak to the issue I raised, that being that the question already supposes a definitive moral failing to the action which I don't think was the case. Having said that, I wouldn't call this a "rabbit hole" - we're having a good exchange of ideas and opinions, and I'm enjoying it, and I hope you are too.

 

[The Choice]

D&D is more than a pen and paper game. It includes videogames, a high number of novels, boardgames and soon to be more films.

Actually, there was a gay character in at least one D&D video game (the Temple of Elemental Evil one, if I'm not mistaken), and same-sex romances were actually discussed as a possibility for Baldur's Gate 2's plot (again, maybe I'm remembering wrong). So it's not like WotC is afraid of touching on that subject (or letting a developper do so).

The brand name is also iconic which means it has a giant spotlight on it. Also Wizards of the Coast and its parent company Hasbro is an extremely large company. Anything they do in Dungeons and Dragons has far more repercussions than just to the D&D RPG. If they tried to push forward with what you want, it could cause all of their properties to come under a negative light. If they try and it fails hard, they may just decide D&D pen and paper is a liability to the company as a whole. It especially becomes tricky when there are shareholders and their opinions hold a lot of weight.

Oreo is a bigger brand name than D&D, and when they published a picture of a rainbow-coloured cookie for Pride last year (or was it two years ago?), aside from a few jerks who posted homophobic crap on facebook, Nabisco's stock remained as solid as ever. Same thing for the same-sex couples portrayed in JC Penney ads and catalogs; aside from the one-million moms thing getting the vapours over it, nothing ever came of it: no massive boycott, no hemoraging funds, no run on the company in the stock markets. People vastly inflate the general public's homophobic tendencies and apply their own insecurity and fear as a blanket to everyone.