D&D General Deleted

[pemerton]

I'm ok with the idea of absolute morality in D&D. If the LG description says that putting milk in tea in Tuesdays in July is the epitome of Evil, and everybody doing so must be killed on sight, that defines what being LG entails within this narrative. The specific details need not be the same for every game. One campaign could follow Gygax interpretation of LG, another could postulate that LG is forbidden from intentional killing under any circumstances, including self defence. Both are fine

What does it even mean for things like this to be "objectively evil?" Reasonable people in the setting would still oppose killing tea drinkers for their milk use or the Gygaxian warcrime paladin. Would this make them evil too? What's the point?

The issue of what it means for things to be "objectively evil" is a fairly complicated one in metaphysics and philosophy of language. I'm going to try and keep out of it in this thread!

But the idea that putting milk in tea in Tuesday in July might be the epitome of evil seems ridiculous to me. Evil isn't an arbitrary notion, an empty vessel into which anything can be poured. Good is connected to values, to human interests (and rights, if such things exist), to the wellbeing of others. Evil is the opposite of these things - indifference to value and the interests of others, in pursuit of self-interest.

It has nothing to do with putting milk in tea as such. For whatever reason, there might be a taboo against doing such a thing. But if it's evil to do that, that would be because of a promise or an obligation imposed by someone else - maybe a god. The god, in turn, presumably would have a reason for imposing such an obligation. The wrongdoing wouldn't be the putting of the milk in the tea, but the breaking of the promise or the disobedience to authority.

 

[briggart]

What does it even mean for things like this to be "objectively evil?" Reasonable people in the setting would still oppose killing tea drinkers for their milk use or the Gygaxian warcrime paladin. Would this make them evil too? What's the point?

Within the context of the game, it is "objectively evil" because it is defined to be so by the powers that be (the DM and the players). It is not meant to be a representation of our morals, though it could be, rather a prescription of how people should behave if they want to follow a given alignment. Within that world people could object to milk tea drinking, but it would be as much reasonable as flat earthers.

It's no different than HP. If you try to map HP to physical injury in the real world it doesn't make sense, but within the context of the narrative you go along with that.

 

[pemerton]

Within the context of the game, it is "objectively evil" because it is defined to be so by the powers that be (the DM and the players). It is not meant to be a representation of our morals, though it could be, rather a prescription of how people should behave if they want to follow a given alignment. Within that world people could object to milk tea drinking, but it would be as much reasonable as flat earthers.

I agree with @Crimson Longinus on this. It makes no sense. It's like positing that, in my fantasy world, some circles are square.

 

[MoonSong]

In this tangent of objective Evil and Good, I've always held that Good (noun) and Evil (noun) are absolute ideas, even in our world. What we will always disagree with is what is good(adjective) and evil(adjective).

 

[MoonSong]

I agree with @Crimson Longinus on this. It makes no sense. It's like positing that, in my fantasy world, some circles are square.

Have you played Minecraft? n_n

 

[Bedrockgames]

Nope, you are understanding it correctly. I am saying that the notion of objective evil is as incoherent as the notion of 2+2=5. I can imagine gods that I would consider evil, no problem. But evil only exists in relationships between things. It is not definable otherwise.

I am no professor but I seem to recall that things like suffering and pain could be regarded as evils. I suppose there is a degree of relation there, someone has to be suffering. But there are worldviews that regard the material world as evil for this sort of reason. I am not endorsing that view, but my point is one can imagine it in a fantasy setting.

There’s no such thing as objective morality. Philosophers have tried to define such for millennia, and have failed. When we claim that a particular morality is objective, we are ultimately really just arguing for our subjective beliefs.

That’s why no one can ever agree on a perfectly agreeable set of standards for the alignment system in D&D. It’s a logically incoherent task. Every moral system is inherently unprovable.

This doesn't seem accurate to me. Again, not an expert, it is too big a topic for this thread I am sure, but when I was a student and minored in philosophy, I recall objective morality not being dismissed in this way at all. Either way though, all you are being asked to do is imagine a world where a particular moral system is real. You aren't being asked to endorse or agree with it. It is a fantasy world and a thought experiment. Surely, even if you reject morality grounded in some ultimate ought, you can imagine a world where something like a cosmic ought exists?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm pretty sure that a majority of real-world mainstream English-language moral philosophers (the one's you find in philosophy departments) are moral objectivists. This is mostly because defending some sort of subjectivist, relativist or expressivist position requires overcoming some challenging technical objections that come mostly out of philosophy of language.

To be clear I wasn't suggesting that moral objectivism is dead or not mainstream among philosophers. My point was more that the post appeared to be more about the posters real world moral reasoning than reasoning about moralist within a fictional game world (I.E. I don't believe in the Roman pantheon, but I can imagine a world where the Roman pantheon is real and the Roman world view is the reality of things).

 

[Bedrockgames]

JRRT doesn't generate this problem, because he doesn't posit that the ring is made of evil. It is made of metal. But it has a will, which is the imbued will of its master and creator. And a will is the sort of thing that can be evil, in virtue of the things that it aims at. Stormbringer is similar, as best I understand it.
n.

Upthread I presented two possible ways an object could be evil. One is a rather silly way, but something we see in fantasy all the time and something I would argue we can easily imagine: the ring is made of pure evil in some way, perhaps taken from a plane of evil or made from the physical form of an evil being, or just so devoid of goodness and divinity that it radiates a kind of evil (I don't think such a thing exists in life, but I can imagine it). The other is an object possessed or imbued with evil. I would say the ring is more the latter, but it feels like it could also be read as the former (not that it was made from concentrated evil but became a kind of concentrated evil). At the very least, the ring is so powerful, so difficult to destroy, so malicious and harmful, we would all agree it is an evil ring, an evil object. Do I think there is exists evil I can hold in my hands? No. My point is it is something you can visualize and imagine. It is symbol and myth.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In D&D, what makes a demon evil is not its material constitution but its will. Whether that will can be changed, say by a profound example of mercy, is a further question.

I am not sure this true of D&D demons or not. I haven't read entries on them in a while so I could be completely wrong, but my impression is there is almost more of a physical and cosmic force component with these kinds of entities in D&D, where you have planes of existence and things spawned by evil. This is one of the reasons that demons in D&D don't really line up with say demons in Christianity (which all chose to be evil, are beings of pure spirit and where evil itself requires free will of some kind, even if that free will boils down to a choice an entity made at the beginning of time). I don't think we can get too deep into real world religion here. But this is another reason why paladins in D&D slip very far from being modeled after Christian Knights. Yes there is an obvious foundation there, but the particulars take you very far form the actual theology and beliefs (I think D&D cosmology is much more of a blend of many different myths, religions and legends)

 

[Alzrius]

I am not sure this true of D&D demons or not. I haven't read entries on them in a while so I could be completely wrong, but my impression is there is almost more of a physical and cosmic force component with these kinds of entities in D&D, where you have planes of existence and things spawned by evil.

In 3.X, this was represented by demons (and other creatures, mostly various types of Outsiders) having alignment subtypes. For instance, the evil subtype, which says:

A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields were evil-aligned (see Damage Reduction, above).