I believe you just labeled self determination as intrinsically selfish.
Interesting take, but I don't agree.
No. I've been trying to draw a distinction between "selfish" and "self-centered". I grant that the second term is not the most expressive, but I'm unaware of a better one. I'm very much doing the opposite of what you suggest.
Um, that's not actually a question. Did you want me to guess your specific interests?
No, I was expecting you to provide some of the examples that lead you to this conclusion.
I think we're crossing definitions of selfless here.
I think that's the heart of it, made more difficult by certain negative connotations that self words have in the English language.
I don't mean by selfless the absence of the awareness of self (though the modrons in my game world exhibit this property as an extreme of lawfulness), but rather the property of not putting self in a central place. By selfless I mean the being doesn't value self as an intrinsic good, but only values self according to his relation to the not self. All or at least most of his affirmation is drawn from what is not self, and all or at least most of the meaning he finds in the universe is drawn from the not self. The selfless person defines himself, if he thinks about himself at all, in terms of how others define him and he thinks this is entirely proper. The selfless person may not be selfish (indeed, I think it is obvious that he is not), but very importantly for this discussion he may not be necessarily good either.
I've been using it as actions or thoughts that consider the needs of others above or instead of the needs of yourself.
I know how you have been using it, but your use of selfless to mean that is to me as strained as my usage of the word. I would prefer instead of selfless you used a word like compassionate or kind heartedness to mean that because your usage is implying good intent with regards to the needs of others and particular you are including 'the other' within your definition of 'other'. In this way, I think you are being blind to the possibilities of selfless evil, that is, lawful evil. And being blind to those possibilities, I think you are asserting an overly narrow definition of lawful evil in place of what could be there, and which more logically should be there.
Um, if you reread that, I spoke of "a caste system which exists to harshly stratify society into have and have nots." The bolded part separates out the generic caste system from the one I was discussing -- which has the goal to enforce uneven rights and privileges harshly.
I had read that several times, and I anticipated that this would likely be your objection. But I have two objections to it. First, you haven't shown that the stratification of society into "have and have nots" is inherently evil and particularly incompatible with Lawful Good. Lawful Good I would argue isn't interested particularly in 'fairness' and 'equality' or even 'freedom'. It doesn't concern itself too much that those higher in the stratification have more of something (power, glory, affirmation, resources, ostentation, servants, priviledges, etc.) than those lower. It is only concerned that those in the lower strata are content with their position and enjoy the pleasures and dignity which ought to be inherent to their position. As such, the declaration that this is unfair, strikes me as coming primarily from chaotic values.
Likewise, the word harsh serves no purpose really but to reinforce this bias and isn't really descriptive without clarifying detail. Chaotic Good would chastise their Lawful Good counterparts as being unnecessarily harsh simply because it produced a caste system and enforced the law in an authoritarian manner, so again, I can't tell for what attribute of the society the society is being condemned - law or evil. The mere fact that LG would have some part of its society 'condemned' to servitude sounds incredibly harsh to a person espousing CG, but I don't think that fact alone makes it obvious that the society is evil. What exactly is being done that is harsh?
In any event, my point is that it is not obvious that this society you've described is evil.
the celestial hierarchy isn't for the maintaining of individual power, but for smooth operation and understanding of duty. Every layer of that hierarchy agrees with the goals and means, understands it's place in achieving those, and has no interest in upsetting the apple cart by seeking to gain or maintain power. In some of the literature, there's even mobility between ranks based on egalitarian principles.
Presumably in LE societies, there is some mobility between ranks based on meritocratic principles as well. The vast majority of what you describe doesn't distinguish the society from being good or evil. Presumably LE servitors need not be jealous or envious of their lords, and can be in full agreement with the goals and means. Of course they would be thrilled with recognition and promotion to a superior rank and of course they would contend with their peers to the limits provided by society and their liege, even up to and including formal duels to the death perhaps, but such a society need not be rife with betrayal and indeed in its perfect form betrayal - a chaotic vice - wouldn't exist. Out of fear and respect for authority, each vassal would ideally be completely loyal to his superior.
I agree with Hussar than in the typical portrayal of the Abyss and the Nine Hells, and their denizens, there is no discernible difference in motive or mode of behavior. This is I think rather telling proof that the nature of evil (and also law and chaos) is not being completely understood by those that write on it.
No, I disagree. A CG person may very well think that they will bring a better situation for all by assuming power.
They may well think that, but they still won't assume power until forced to do so by the pleas of those they'll assume power over. The CG person doesn't inherently desire to lead. The idea CG world is a world of equals without divisions or stratification. So assuming leadership first won't necessarily be needed in the ideal CG world, and secondly will be something that is taken up reluctantly because the very fact that you need a leader suggests there is some problem with your theory of being. And having assumed leadership, they'll typically be anxious to relinquish it.
Power and ambition are not limited by alignment, just the targets of ambition and the means to acquire power.
I agree, but rulership is not something that is universally aspired to. The purer sorts of chaotics think that it is something no one should aspire to and ultimately the desire to rule over others is what is wrong with people.
A CG person would want to assume power because they believe they had the ability to improve the lives of others, but not to impose a confining social order.
I would note that Gandalf very explicitly, though he did have the ability to improve the lives of others, nonetheless refrained from assuming power over them precisely because - with or even without The One Ring - doing so would tempt him to evil. Gandalf even refused to yield to the White Council's demand that he should head it. But failure to heed the warning that they should not seek to rule over others, was rather precisely what lead to Saruman's downfall as an Istari.
And I wouldn't even necessarily call Gandalf CG. So I think you are trivializing the response Good generally and CG specifically has to leadership.
Only quibble is that I think that Asmodeus does, indeed, desire personal power. Otherwise, no objections.
Ok. I would argue that it would be impossible to tell whether or not Asmodeus does desire personal power, as there is no conceivable situation that is going to be put forward where Asmodeus will judge that it is in the best interest of Hell for Asmodeus to be sacrificed. However, from the fact that he's presented as LE, we can conjecture that just like any other LE entity, Asmodeus would ultimately put the interests of the collective ahead of his own regardless of his desire for personal power. It's just in this case, the collective he leads has as its mission the subjection, assimilation and torture of all of reality for all eternity so this selflessness on his part could never be called good.
I said so. Right there when I said "LE barrister".
In Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land', he introduces us to a character who is both a follower of Mike and a Moslem. However, based on the testimony of the book about Mike, and on what we know of Moslems theology, this claim appears to be self-contradicting. There appears to be no way to piously follow Mike and to piously follow the teachings of Mohammed. He can't be both a good Michaelist and a good Moslem, and Heinlein never attempts to explain how he could mouth things that violate core Islamic values and still be a good Moslem. Thus it is reasonable for a reader to infer that what Heinlein has declared is either nonsense, or else that the character in the story is self-deceived.
Likewise, when you just declare that this barrister is LE, but provide zero evidence of it, it's reasonable for me to wonder whether alternatively what you've written is just nonsense, or that the character you described is self-deceived regarding his actual beliefs. This is particularly true because the only traits you've give the character are superficially associated with lawfulness ("he's a lawyer") and not lawfulness itself. That's a huge red flag.
And you do nothing to dissuade me that it was wrong for warning bells to go off when you suggest, "using the system for personal benefit". If he's using the system for personal benefit, he's probably CE and your assertion that he's LE is at least superficially wrong. By that definition, again, Belkar Bitterleaf is now lawful evil rather than chaotic evil, now that he's realized that he can trick the system into benefiting himself rather than fight against it. Instead, we have to look now for contraindications that your lawyer is not CE, since the motivation you subscribe to him and even the methodology is quintessentially CE.
I think that this is very true. In fact, most dictatorships would be CE...On the other hand, a benevolent dictatorship could be CG...
I accept both of these things are often true of governance within the mortal realm where perfect expressions of moral principles won't exist. When you get up to the outer planes in the realm of reified forms, you'd expect the governing system to more and more perfectly reflect the principles that the philosophy is grounded in. Thus, you might find a CG society de facto acting like a dictatorship, but only because everyone loved the affable king, the king never dictated anything anyone didn't want to do anyway (and to the extent that his dictates weren't obeyed, this was expected and provoked no wrath by him), and no one else wanted to be the king. You'd more likely find democracies and councils were no one was in charge, and even more likely societies that self-organized without any central governing principles or leaders at all, simply because each individual member behaved as one might wish them to behave were one inclined to give orders already.
For example, it's been shown by military theorists that close to the theoretically optimal muster and response time can be achieved by simply everyone getting a gun and moving toward the sounds of battle, even though and maybe because no one waits on an order to do so.
