Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Sadras]

@N'raac asserted, as if no argument were required, that capital punishment is obviously not good because it involves disrespect for life. I denied that. As part of my denial I pointed out that some major theorists of the right to life have regarded capital punishment as permissible and even mandatory. You seem to be agreeing with me that, at least within the context of D&D, it is not the case that capital punishment is obviously non-good.

Thanks for setting me straight.
Typically, IMO, executing a criminal (lets stick to human before getting messy with other species and the like) would require for the "last rites" to be read so it is not done on the fly with no remorse. There is a sense of gravity for the action about to be committed. It is sacred to take a life. I'm also not convinced this is solely a question of good-evil, in that I find this also questions ones own Lawful nature.

If a crime has been committed with a severity that would warrant capital punishment due to the social structure of that particular setting, to follow that sense of order and meet out that justice, one would need to respect and follow the belief in a lawful system. Think of Eddard Stark executing the Night Watchman who fled the Wall. Neither Stark nor the Nightwatchman was evil but justice demanded for the youngster to be executed.

Generally I term the meeting out of justice as a Lawful Neutral act, completely impartial. If Stark had let the boy go, I would have termed that would have been an act of mercy and therefore Good. If he had tortured or taken enjoyment out of the execution that would have been an evil act.
Also, just to mention, mob mentality is not a reflection of true alignment.

 

[pemerton]

If the group doesn't want that debate, then alignment could potentially facilitate that sort of play, too. Just say "it's agreed that in this D&D campaign, good and evil work as Good and Evil are described. If you aren't sure, ask the GM for his call on it." Boom, no more real-world moral debates.

I don't disagree with this, though as I've said multiple times upthread, it's not a playstyle that personally appeals to me.

The argument that I've been running, that (I think) you stepped into, is that it makes no sense both to run the game in the way you have just described - positing objective cosmological forces of good and evil - and to allow that it makes sense for a character in such a gameworld to deny that the demands of objective cosmological good are really good. If you are going to run an "objective cosmological forces" game, then it seems to me that everyone buys into that, and the characters within the gameworld, recognising that there exist these forces of objective cosmological good and evil, accept their judgements.

 

[N'raac]

Bingo. You have decided that execution is not a good act. And, taken a step further a paladin who executes someone is committing an evil act.

Which nicely highlights one of the primary issues with alignment. One of the most common actions of a paladin (and let's not forget it's Smite evil, not Give evil a good talking to) is actually evil by the definitions of evil and good in the rules.

As others have noted “Not Good” is not necessarily “Evil”. Actions cannot be taken out of context. Let’s once again look at the rules:

[h=3]

Good Vs. Evil[/h]Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

Being good or evil can be a conscious choice. For most people, though, being good or evil is an attitude that one recognizes but does not choose. Being neutral on the good-evil axis usually represents a lack of commitment one way or the other, but for some it represents a positive commitment to a balanced view. While acknowledging that good and evil are objective states, not just opinions, these folk maintain that a balance between the two is the proper place for people, or at least for them.

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior.

It seems clear that killing is not a good act. Taken cavalierly, it is an evil act, as evil creatures lack compassion, kill for convenience or sport, etc.

OK, so if we are executing people because they get in the way, and killing them is more convenient than keeping them alive, that seems pretty Evil. A Good person who acknowledges the necessity of taking a life would still, IMO, respect “the dignity of sentient beings” and would wish this unpleasant act, however necessary, to be completed as painlessly as possible. He will not condone torture, for example.

Now, why is the victim to be execute? Because he has killed others? In taking his life (a non-innocent life), we protect other innocents from future danger? Protection of the innocent is consistent with the ideals of Good and taking a life is inconsistent, so there are elements of both good and evil in this action. An action with blended Good and Evil seems to me to fall into Neutral territory.

We also have to assess the rule within the context of the game. The game in general accepts heroes meting out death and violence. The Paladin specifically is a soldier against evil. Given that, it seems that the typical D&D cosmology must accept that violence, even lethal violence, is often not evil. Now, we could pay Saturday Morning Cartoon D&D (He-Man; Thundercats), moving both Killing and Violence much further down the good/evil axis. But that is not, at least IME, a typical D&D setting.

If execution is not a Good act -- and there is certainly strong evidence in that it does not place an emphasis on preserving life -- it doesn't make it Evil. Execution as punishment for crimes heinous to justify societal outrage is probably a Neutral act.

Lethal combat in self-defence probably (as in a lot of GMs will not view it so) is not a Good act either -- it would fall into Neutral. Lethal combat in opposition of Evil or in defence of Good or innocents would be Good.

Note that paladins can commit pretty much as many Neutral acts as they wish so long as their overall alignment remains LG.

Nor do I. According to Gary Gygax they do, however, as Gygax defines "good" in terms of universal human rights.

21^st century morality also addresses human rights. We still have prisons, we still have poverty, we still have war and we still, in some states have capital punishment, while in many others there are supporters of its return.

Perhaps you misunderstood the post to which you replied.

@N'raac asserted, as if no argument were required, that capital punishment is obviously not good because it involves disrespect for life. I denied that. As part of my denial I pointed out that some major theorists of the right to life have regarded capital punishment as permissible and even mandatory. You seem to be agreeing with me that, at least within the context of D&D, it is not the case that capital punishment is obviously non-good.

Perhaps you misunderstand the relevance of ethical philosophy to a role playing game.

To be quite clear, I do not believe that the philosophy of ethics is any more than remotely relevant to the discussion of D&D game rules. The D&D definitions of Good and Evil are contained in the rule books. I am citing 3e as it is the most recent iteration of the 9 alignment grid, and as it is readily available online.

It does not matter whether Descarte, Kant, Locke, Socrates, Plato, etc. would agree or disagree, until and unless they become writers at WoTC and define the alignment rules. I see that as extremely unlikely, even if they were alive, as they would write a boring, disjointed, unwieldy, excessively lengthy discussion. [For similar reasons, the prospects of this thread becoming game rules is similarly remote.] I suspect I would not buy that edition.

In the context of D&D, Good acts are those acts consistent with the tenets of Good. Execution does not demonstrate implies altruism, respect for life, or a concern for the dignity of sentient beings, nor involve personal sacrifices to help others. It does lean towards evil, as evil implies killing others, so it is treading on dangerous ground. How is the victim to be executed? Within the obvious constraint, we should maintain respect for the dignity of all, even the prisoner. Gladitorial bloodsport or deliberate torture move us further from the ideals of good. If it must be done, let it be done quickly, with as little pain as possible, and with the knowledge that we are sacrificing the ideals of Good out of grim necessity.

“Protection of the Innocent” might perhaps hold us from the brink. If the execution serves not even that Good tenet (eg. the victim is no longer any threat to anyone), justifying it as a non-evil act seems even more precarious. Now we have a situation where, perhaps, this is an Evil act within a Good society, but it still carries issues for the Paladin.

Where that protection of the innocent remains, and the execution is lawful, then the Paladin is compromising the ideals of good in the interests of other ideals of good, and living up to the Lawful precepts of his alignment – the greatest good for the greatest number mandates non-good to this smaller few whose actions have caused their sentence of execution.

Would you say that is also possible to interpret it as evil using DnD definitions of alignment?

I believe it incorporates an Evil element, being killing, which requires it be justified as a “necessary evil” which also serves some Good purpose. The Paladin does not get to decide, for example, that spitting on the sidewalk, jaywalking or littering are valid death penalty offenses.

The action must be taken in context.

Typically, IMO, executing a criminal (lets stick to human before getting messy with other species and the like) would require for the "last rites" to be read so it is not done on the fly with no remorse. There is a sense of gravity for the action about to be committed. It is sacred to take a life. I'm also not convinced this is solely a question of good-evil, in that I find this also questions ones own Lawful nature./quote]

As much as possible, within the circumstances, respecting the dignity of even the person to be executed.

If a crime has been committed with a severity that would warrant capital punishment due to the social structure of that particular setting, to follow that sense of order and meet out that justice, one would need to respect and follow the belief in a lawful system. Think of Eddard Stark executing the Night Watchman who fled the Wall. Neither Stark nor the Nightwatchman was evil but justice demanded for the youngster to be executed.

Generally I term the meeting out of justice as a Lawful Neutral act, completely impartial. If Stark had let the boy go, I would have termed that would have been an act of mercy and therefore Good. If he had tortured or taken enjoyment out of the execution that would have been an evil act.

Here we straddle the line. Does the punishment fit the crime? A LN character should have little difficulty with this – it is the law. Taken in context, is this an action taken to protect the innocent? To some extent, I suppose it is – having the guardians of those sleeping citizens fail to carry out their duty places those innocent citizens at risk.

This seems like the toughest dilemma presented in this thread, Sadras. I think it would mandate a careful look at the setting morality. In my Saturday Morning Cartoon Campaign, clearly this would be an evil act. In a gritty game seeking at least some medieval realism, it seems it could be a neutral act. In a Shining Knights D&D morality game, we may be back to an Evil act.

For a case this much on the edge, I would want a discussion of the type of game we want to be playing, and we would hopefully have a group consensus as to the appropriate classification of the act, which could be Evil or Neutral depending on the game.

Now, this brings us back to the disagreement of the Paladin with the Cosmological Forces. Let us assume consensus is that this is an Evil act. The Paladin proceeds anyway, and loses his Paladinhood. How can the character react?

It is perfectly reasonable for him to conclude that the standard set by those Cosmological Forces is simply unrealistic given the realities of life. Respect for life is all fine in theory, but we must live in the real world, and in the real world sacrifices must be made. “While the death of the watchman is regrettable, it was necessary, and I would take the same action again. There is no room for the ideals of the Paladin in this situation.”

What I would find truly problematic would be a GM who considers it appropriate to throw this to the players as a no-win situation (that is, there is no viable option other than the execution, and I will take away your Paladinhood if the execution proceeds). The tone of the campaign is set by the GM - if it's to be a Shining Knights game, then choices consistent with such a morality must not be a sentence of failure or death to the PCs. If it's a Saturday Morning Cartoon game, it must be possible to resolve problems without violence.

I'm always amazed how GM's complain that players fail to play in-genre when their games are structured to punish in-genre play.

 

[pemerton]

Would you say that is also possible to interpret it as evil using DnD definitions of alignment?

Trivially so using Gygax's definition, because the very clear trend of human rights thinking is that capital punishment is impermissible (see eg the 2nd Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, plus the constraints on capital punishment in Art 6 on the right to life), and Gygax defines "good" in terms of human rights.

Using the 3E definitions you would have to argue that capital punishment does not respect life. I gave a brief talk on this issue in late 2010, following a screening of Kieślowski's A Short Film About Killing. I certainly think the argument can be made, yes.

If a GM wants to stipulate, for whatever reason, that the camaign contains "objective cosmological forces" that decide the matter one way or the other, I can imagine some players being happy enough to go along with that, although I can imagine it might be hard for some players to stomach if they had a strong view one way and the GM stipulated matters the other way.

My own preference - which I think is pretty close to yours, maybe identical - is to let the player of the paladin decide what s/he thinks good and justice require, and adjudicate the campaign and frame complications in line with that. (Eg it would seem interesting to confront the player of an anti-capital punishment paladin with an imminent hanging to put on a bit of pressure!)

I'm certainly puzzled by the approach that seems to be emerging as the popular approach on this thread, that the GM stipulates an opinion held by the gods, labels it "good" or "evil" as appropriate, adjudicates paladinhood and alignment by reference to those opinions, yet leaves it an open question within the campaign world whether "cosmological good" is really good. To me that seems the worst of all worlds: GM enforcement without establishing the ingame rationale of genuinely objective good and evil; with the upshot being that, from the point of view of the character, the enforcement of alignment is essentially arbitrary.

 

[Hussar]

Did Galahad or Percival do these kinds of actions often? Do not confuse the Crusaders with Paladins. The PHB Paladin describes a very much romanticised Knight, not your brute Crusader Knight.



Yes to a degree that is certainly true, but the typical D&D settings do reflect a setting populace that does not reflect modern WESTERN morality, at least not in its entirety.

I'd argue that D&D morality is far, far closer to modern morality than any feudal one. I mean, heck, I live in Japan. Under a code of Bushido, it would be perfectly acceptable to kill someone of lesser status for what we would consider to be extremely flimsy reasons by our modern standards. Not only acceptable, but a just killing.

The game gets really, really fuzzy when you start playing mix and match with different period moralities.

N'raac - you have posited that your interpretation is the only valid one. That you have the right of how alignment is interpreted. Now, if you are playing in a game where the DM interprets things differently, would you be perfectly willing to abide by that other DM's interpretations? If your DM tells you that no, you are wrong, would you simply shrug and accept it? I mean, you're pretty vociferous in trying to prove an interpretation when no one is actually disagreeing with you.

The only thing we've said is that alternative interpretations exist. No one's actually claimed to buy into those other interpretations, but, let's be honest here, those alternative interpretations most certainly exist.

After all, you argued that murdering a high priest wasn't an evil act since it would send the high priest to his just reward in the afterlife. Couldn't that exact same argument apply to a paladin killing everything that pings as evil? After all, if someone detects as evil, and my paladin kills him on sight, then he goes to his just reward - endless torment in whatever Hell his alignment would send him to. How is that an evil act? Isn't that a specifically good act? A morally just one? The person is undoubtably guilty of evil acts - he does detect as evil and evil is objective in your game. It is a real force and there can be no mistakes - something will only detect as evil if it is, in fact, evil. By this interpretation, it could be argued that the good character has a moral imperative to kill anything evil since killing evil beings delivers them infallibly to justice.

So how can it be an evil act to destroy evil?

See how easy it is to turn anything into a huge alignment wank? It's trivially easy to reinterpret alignment to fit nearly anything you want. If I'm Dming, would you accept the above without question? After all, you claim that it is my responsibility as the DM to determine setting elements. You, as player, have no say in things. I'm right, in my game, and you are wrong. Just as in your game, you are right and I'm wrong.

What would you do if you actually, honestly, disagreed with the DM?

 

[Imaro]

I don't disagree with this, though as I've said multiple times upthread, it's not a playstyle that personally appeals to me.

The argument that I've been running, that (I think) you stepped into, is that it makes no sense both to run the game in the way you have just described - positing objective cosmological forces of good and evil - and to allow that it makes sense for a character in such a gameworld to deny that the demands of objective cosmological good are really good. If you are going to run an "objective cosmological forces" game, then it seems to me that everyone buys into that, and the characters within the gameworld, recognising that there exist these forces of objective cosmological good and evil, accept their judgements.

1st Emphasis: No one in this thread is arguing this... what we are arguing is that knowing what the good act is, does not necessitate a character choosing that act over others. He may feel another act is his or her correct/right answer to the situation... this does not in turn mean that the powers of good are in error, just that the character has chosen an action he believes is right for him or her in said particular situation. This is one of the reasons I asked you earlier in the thread to stop conflating the words "right" and "good", in this context they are not the same thing and I believe you are the only one using them in a manner where they do equate to synonyms.

2nd Emphasis: I'm still unclear how this stops a character from choosing an action that is not good, feeling it was the right choice for him/her (even if just at that moment)... and suffering the consequences for it?

 

[N'raac]

And? You, @Imaro and @Bedrockgames are all saying that it makes sense, in such circumstances, for the character to assert that the "cosmological forces of good" have made an error. I don't see how that is coherent, given the premise that such a force exists, and that the character has been acted upon it (by losing paladinhood or changing alignment).

How can a fellow living in the SW universe believe that “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.” I’ve repeated the statement that the character may come to believe that Good must be compromised in the face of reality. His beliefs may drift from those of Good, believing that some actions remove any respect for the life of the person committing them.

The error of the Forces of Good is in believing that those ideals can actually work here, in the Real World.

Do you realise that this is hugely contentious?

In our world. Sure. In the game world? It seems quite uncontentious in fantasy fiction and in fantasy RPG’s. To reiterate, I don’t care what real world philosophers say. I’m not playing a game of real world philosophy. We justify the Paladin’s actions as a heroic Soldier against Evil. Toss him into the modern world and he’s a dangerous vigilante. However, the game cannot exist without morally acceptable violence, so we accept in game that there is violence morally acceptable to the Paladin.

If a GM judges every action that every player ever has his/her PC take as "neutral", and therefore irrelevant to the adjudication of mechanical alignment, then s/he may as well not be using mechanical alignment

First, Neutral is part of the alignment spectrum. Second, maintaining a Good (or Evil) alignment still requires Good (or Evil) acts. Where a choice between Good and Neutral exists, what are the choices the character makes? 99% Neutral? Character is unlikely to be Good. 99% Good? That’s probably a more shining example of virtue than any Paladin ever played. The fact that a given act creates extreme difficulty in classifying probably indicates it possesses insufficient elements of Good or Evil to be classified as either one.

Here again, setting matters. [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] suggested a setting where most are Neutral, and only a few of the other alignments. In that game maintaining a non-neutral alignment would seem to require more dedication to its precepts and principals than in a game where we assume people are more or less evenly divided between 9 alignments.

On the other hand, if the reason the GM never makes a call is because the players know what the boundaries are and stick within him, then we have the "confining" effect that @Hussar mentioned upthread, plus the second-guessing of evaluative judgement and of expressive responses that I mentioned upthread.

That sounds very similar to the often touted “my players are all reasonable” statement often used to back up lack of any need for an alignment system. It seems like those players simply don’t push the boundaries, whether their motive is a lack of desire to do so, a mechanical alignment system (not so in your case, clearly) or a social contract.

Is this your attempt to argue that, in fact, people aren't individuals worthy of dignity and respect?

It is my statement that, if all the players are “Special Snowflakes”, then none of them are “Special Snowflakes”. Providing the same treatment to everyone is not “special treatment”. My reference was to that one player whose desires, game preferences, etc. must always override the preferences of everyone else in the group. You co-opted that into “we should pay attention to all the players”. When Players B, C and D want an aspect of the game that Player A does not, Player A has to be the Special Snowflake and get his way. Player B, C and D cannot get what they want, unless their wants match Player A’s, so they are not “special snowflakes”.

 

[pemerton]

It seems clear that killing is not a good act.

This is a non-sequitur. From the fact that evil implies killing it does not follow that killing implies evil.

There is no reason, either in the wording of the definition of good in any version of D&D, nor in the overall presentation of the game, to suppose that defensive violence - even lethal violence used in self-defence or defence of others - is not morally justified.

Perhaps you misunderstand the relevance of ethical philosophy to a role playing game.

To be quite clear, I do not believe that the philosophy of ethics is any more than remotely relevant to the discussion of D&D game rules.

<snip>

As much as possible, within the circumstances, respecting the dignity of even the person to be executed.

<snip>

Does the punishment fit the crime?

Both editions of AD&D, and 3E, all use ordinary moral notions to define mechanical alignment - Gygax uses notions like "human rights", "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and "the common weal".

I notice that you also use ordinary moral notions - "dignity of the person" and "the punishment fitting the crime" - when trying to explicate and think about alignment.

Saying that moral theorising has no relevance to making sense of these concepts is like saying that ordinary concepts of gold have no relevance to thinking about gold pieces, or that ordinary concepts of sharp edges have no relevance to thinking about a fighter's sword.

If you want to house rule that "human rights" or "punishment fitting a crime" in D&D have a different meaning from their ordinary usage that's obviously your prerogative, but in that case I don't know how I'm meant to make sense of your use of those phrases until you tell us your house-ruled meaning.

For a case this much on the edge, I would want a discussion of the type of game we want to be playing, and we would hopefully have a group consensus as to the appropriate classification of the act, which could be Evil or Neutral depending on the game.

Now, this brings us back to the disagreement of the Paladin with the Cosmological Forces. Let us assume consensus is that this is an Evil act. The Paladin proceeds anyway, and loses his Paladinhood. How can the character react?

It is perfectly reasonable for him to conclude that the standard set by those Cosmological Forces is simply unrealistic given the realities of life. Respect for life is all fine in theory, but we must live in the real world, and in the real world sacrifices must be made. “While the death of the watchman is regrettable, it was necessary, and I would take the same action again. There is no room for the ideals of the Paladin in this situation.”

If the player of the paladin has agreed that X is evil within the game, and then has his/her PC do X, I don't see how s/he has any standing to have the paladin conclude that X is not evil.

"Good" in D&D has never been defined in terms of the superogatory, only the required. So if something is unrealistic as a realistic goal, though admirable as an ideal, then it looks superogatory to me, but not a necessary condition of doing good.

There is a seperate issue of "dirty hands", but (i) the whole notion of dirty hands is very controversial, and (ii) the worldview that acknowledges dirty hands (eg Machiavelli, Weber, Walzer) is utterly incompatible with the worldview of the paladin. Because it denies the role of providence. A paladin who has lost faith to such an extent that s/he appeals to a dirty hands justification of action might be an object of pity, but unless s/he was deluded all along, and there really never was a god by whom s/he was properly called, then s/he is iredeemably fallen, and in the cold light of day would have to acknowledge that.

 

[Hussar]

1st Emphasis: No one in this thread is arguing this... what we are arguing is that knowing what the good act is, does not necessitate a character choosing that act over others. He may feel another act is his or her correct/right answer to the situation... this does not in turn mean that the powers of good are in error, just that the character has chosen an action he believes is right for him or her in said particular situation. This is one of the reasons I asked you earlier in the thread to stop conflating the words "right" and "good", in this context they are not the same thing and I believe you are the only one using them in a manner where they do equate to synonyms.

2nd Emphasis: I'm still unclear how this stops a character from choosing an action that is not good, feeling it was the right choice for him/her (even if just at that moment)... and suffering the consequences for it?

But, if I'm playing a LG character, paladin or not, why would I choose an action that is not Lawful or Good? Wouldn't that be out of character? If I know that action X is judged as not LG, then how can it be the right thing to do for a LG character? Wouldn't the most palatable action for my character be the one that is most in line with my alignment?

In my mind, you are arguing that the character is incoherent. The player thinks that a given action is the right one to do. The player believes that it is in keeping with his conception of his character which he has created based on the beliefs that his character is LG.

But, in following his beliefs for his character, which he believes to be LG, he is actually violating his own code of ethics since alignment is supposed to be an outline for a characters code of ethics and morality isn't it?

IOW, if I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt (because the DM has told me before I do it) that my action is out of line with my chosen alignment, why would I continue to pursue that action, knowing that I'm violating the consistency of my own character?

 

[pemerton]

In the game world? It seems quite uncontentious in fantasy fiction and in fantasy RPG’s.

<snip>

We justify the Paladin’s actions as a heroic Soldier against Evil. Toss him into the modern world and he’s a dangerous vigilante. However, the game cannot exist without morally acceptable violence, so we accept in game that there is violence morally acceptable to the Paladin.

Upthread you asserted that capital punishment was evil (or at least non-good) because it involved killing. Now you seem to be asserting the opposite. Which is it? (You seem to be proving [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point for him!)

No one in this thread is arguing this

Actually, [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] argues in the post right below yours.

How can a fellow living in the SW universe believe that “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”

Beause he lacks evidence. Note that, as the available evidence changes, so do the opinions of the character in question. Whereas I am talking about characters who have irrefutable evidence that their choices are not good (via the evidence of lost paladinhood, or the evidence of changed alignment as detected via magic).

knowing what the good act is, does not necessitate a character choosing that act over others. He may feel another act is his or her correct/right answer to the situation... this does not in turn mean that the powers of good are in error, just that the character has chosen an action he believes is right for him or her in said particular situation.

<snip>

I'm still unclear how this stops a character from choosing an action that is not good, feeling it was the right choice for him/her (even if just at that moment)... and suffering the consequences for it?

Of course people can choose actions that they know are not good. But they cannot rationally choose such actions. They are obliged to acknowledge that their choice is flawed. Hence, for instances, people offer excuses for their choices.

For the sake of clarity, people can rationally choose the good without believing it to be the best. For example, someone might recognise that a certain heroic choice would be the best (say, rushing into the burning building to save someone) but might opt for the permissible but not superogatory choice of telephoning the fire brigade. But at this point we are not in the domain of someone knowingly choosing evil and belieiving it to be the best choice.

As I've noted upthread, there are various exceptions to these general principles. "Good" and "evil" can be used ironically, and in that sense someone can rationally repudiate the "good" choice (because the ironic use of "good" signals that they don't really think it's good at all). There are also theorists of dirty hands, according to which sometimes the only feasible choice is an evil one. But none of these are core cases for the typical D&D paladin.

A D&D paladin who chooses evil (eg becaus his/her anger leads him to strike down a helpless victim) is rationally obliged to repudiate that choice. (This is part of the logic of penance.)

I’ve repeated the statement that the character may come to believe that Good must be compromised in the face of reality. His beliefs may drift from those of Good, believing that some actions remove any respect for the life of the person committing them.

The error of the Forces of Good is in believing that those ideals can actually work here, in the Real World.

And I've repeated the statement that this makes little sense. If an ostensible ideal is unrealisable, for instance, then it's not a genuine ideal, it's just fatuous. Or, if an ostensible ideal is realisable only with heroic effort, then it's superogatory - and falling short of it, but doing the right thing, is nevertheless good (though not the best that might be done).

It's not evil, or otherwise non-good, to do a good thing that's not the best thing.