D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[squibbles]

I don't personally see Evil as necessary. Nor do I see Good as any sort of monolithic nor homogenous. In fact, I kind of have a penchant in my games for pitting different Good-aligned forces in violent conflict with each other over (valid) philosophical differences. I don't personally see cosmic good as necessarily leading to stagnation. But that IS a reasonably common fantasy trope. (Compare how Michael Moorcock treated the Lawfully-aligned)

Admittedly, the thought experiment all sort of breaks down under the scrutiny of ethics, since--while I believe there are world views that are clearly better than others--there are also a lot of reasonable conceptions of Good which vehemently disagree with each other.

That conceded, lets overlook it. Answers to the initial thought experiment might be weird, and not quite make sense, the goal is to be novel and interesting.

 

[Clint_L]

I would explore "muscular neutrality" as the rational response of those who believe that good and evil are not, in fact, objective truths but rather subjective descriptions used to justify particular ideologies and disguise them as universal laws.

Basically, as the philosophy of those who reject simplistic, black and white notions of good and evil. So they aren't trying to strike some sort of cosmic balance, but rather reacting to each situation in context.

 

[Retros_x]

I would argue that muscular neutrality only works if good and evil are not actually good and evil, but ideologies. If they are truly good and evil than the neutral forces are evil too. There is nothing bad about good people winning. Maybe some new evil arises from that but it just doesn't make sense to support evil so the forces of good do not win. What is the worst case here? Everybody is free and happy? We cant allow that? We need the forces evil to do what exactly?

It only makes sense if we are having a more realistic setting where there are just different sides with their own pro/contra. Or what about muscular neutrality between lawful and chaotic. That makes MUCH more sense to me.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Admittedly, the thought experiment all sort of breaks down under the scrutiny of ethics, since--while I believe there are world views that are clearly better than others--there are also a lot of reasonable conceptions of Good which vehemently disagree with each other.

That conceded, lets overlook it. Answers to the initial thought experiment might be weird, and not quite make sense, the goal is to be novel and interesting.

I really don't see that as a break down. To function properly, an alignment system needs to be a broad framework that can encompass many possible beliefs. One society might be altruistic because of a deeply engrained sense of duty to their people or some sort of religion; another because they are deeply empathetic and taught to think about the world from diverse perspectives; another because they have come to the coldly intellectual conclusion that their lives will personally be better if they improve the lives of others; or another that just delights in seeing others be happy. The whyfores don't really matter - these are all potential variations of "Good".

Similarly, cosmic conceptions of Evil or Muscular Neutral should be broad and potentially inclusive of many different possible perspectives. It shouldn't matter WHY a muscular neutral person tries to make sure neither Good nor Evil comes out on top; so long as they do. (EDIT: I mean the why shouldn't change whether someone is muscular neutral or not - clearly the why isn't meaningless nor at all an unsuitable topic for discussion)

 

[Staffan]

Good people have to do good things. Evil people often control others by murdering them, enslaving them, etc. In a way, both are pro-slavery. Neither are 100% pro-freedom. If good people were truly anti-slavery, there would be no compulsion to help others.

Folks, I found the Chaotic Neutral!

Not in and of itself, but it would be a consequence of it. In a world where the struggle to live is not necessary anymore, where you don't need to be worried about someone is going to kill you because they want to rob you; or the lion and the deer can coexist together without the lioness never having the impulse of the hunt, and the lion eating those deer that have willingly given themselves so the lion don't starve, etc, you will eventually reach an state of complacency. There is nothing threatening you anymore, there is no need to fight, or to stress over something. Or to worry about something. You are genuinely happy with what you are and with what you have.

And complacency can lead you to stagnation. There is no necessity to evolve, or to strive to be better in a world where everyone accepts you for what you are. People will not deride you for your lack of skills, because they know that you did that mediocre work with your best intentions. And without that will to strive, eventually you get stagnated. And then, stagnation will become eventually in extinction. First of the self. There is no need for struggle when you have all what you ever need. Then, the extinction of life, as the lifeforms will not be able to survive whatever environmental changes occur in the future, as they have no will to adapt.

Except... that's generally not what happens. In societies where people's basic needs are met, people will turn to non-basic needs, such as art. Not necessarily art made out of a commercial need to sell it for bread, but art for its own sake. There's a quote by someone that goes something like "I study tactics and war, so my son can study engineering and science, and his son can study art." – in other words, the goals of society should be to first provide security, then wealth, and finally leisure.

That said, it's certainly a belief some people could have and use to justify keeping people struggling.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You're quite right that my first instinct is to reject the premise, because "muscular" Neutrality reads pretty straightforwardly as schizophrenic. "We want there to be a balance between altruism and sadism!" is...a tough sell, to say the least.

Unfortunately, even if I take as an unpleasant given the idea that this has to be true, and thus must puzzle out why, a lot of the answers are...not great. You've covered several of these, but I'm going to retrace just to make sure I don't miss anything.

1. Good (and possibly Evil too) is either too stupid or too difficult to educate on the necessities of existence, and thus will do Something Bad thinking it's the desirable thing to do, which would doom everyone. This has a double-barrelled problem: it first paints sincerely good people as either morons or so stubborn as to be functionally un-educatable, which is...not a good look; and second, it presents the idea that having too many people who sincerely care about other people is literally dangerous to reality itself, which is a damn hard sell.
2. Good isn't really "Good," but rather more Righteousness, which can be actually good or bad; and likewise Evil isn't really "Evil" but more like...Indulgence, which can be good or bad. This then presents the "muscular" Neutrals as the only ones capable of balancing the two and achieving full self-actualization. This, of course, has the serious problem that it basically dodges the issue, by pretending that "Good" actually means something other than, y'know, Good. It's the weasel's way out, playing word games.
3. There is something Good can do, if it gets powerful enough, which the Neutrals disapprove of. Perhaps people would lose free will (though that kinda turns the conflict into Law vs Chaos, another dodge!), or would cease growing and developing, or...etc. This is like the previous, but it delays one's ability to see the argumentation bait-and-switch by having the label "Good" really mean Good at first, only to mean something else later once "Good" reveals its true nature. Alternatively, it results in the "muscular" Neutrals looking like huge dicks, because they want to reap the benefits of Good succeeding, but don't want to lose the benefits of Evil succeeding in the process.
4. Good and Evil, if not equally thwarted, could escalate their conflict into the total destruction of reality. Under this scenario, the Neutrals prioritize continued existence over any other goals, while Good and Evil prioritize their philosophical commitments over all other goals. This verges into something like the first, where Good is apparently led by beings who think total cessation of existence is a worthy price for achieving...something? Like the previous it's a bit more sophisticated about it, but ultimately still kinda cashes out as both Good and Evil being too stupid to not end existence.
5. There's something the Neutrals want, which would be disrupted if either Good or Evil "won"--so the conflict must endure. This is probably the first one that doesn't paint at least one side in pretty bad terms...but it still leaves the Neutrals looking Very Not Great, since they're actively prolonging and encouraging suffering in order to further their own goals, which looks like a pretty classic Evil motive. However, if their efforts tend to be measured and precise, rather than wanton flip-flopping without explanation, then there could be some goal or goals that aren't horrible. (Consider, for example, Q from Star Trek; he could be a "muscular" Neutral force seeking entertainment, and thus preventing any side from winning because that would bore him, but heroic last stands that succeed or dramatic falls that ruin empires would be popcorn-worthy.)

That's about all I can come up with off the top of my head.

Reflecting back on these, I can actually see one possible explanation for it...but it really does end up painting both Good and Evil as mindless automata incapable of breaking out and seeing the higher, truer, real conflict: "Reality" for these characters actually exists to solve the question of whether Good or Evil is mightier. As soon as the question is answered, reality ends--the program spits out an output and terminates. Not to overly reference Star Trek here, but think of the sorts of things the Excalbians did (the ones from the Original Series who made copies of figures representing "Good" and "Evil" as the Enterprise crew understood those concepts. (Hence why Kahless was "Evil" here, even though later Trek paints him as a pretty much purely heroic figure.)

By these lights, the Powers That Be of both Good and Evil will never be convinced to lay down their arms (as those are the program itself ensuring that the conflict happens), and anyone interested more in self-preservation than in "proving" the rightness of their position necessarily becomes a "muscular" Neutral. The vast majority of people will pretty reasonably treat the "muscular" Neutral position with skepticism or even disdain, because reality feels real; more or less, G.E. Moore's answer to the problem of solipsism, namely that it is genuinely possible to believe that the skeptic's position of skepticism is less believable than the idea that your hand is your hand. Anyone seriously Good would see it as a dodge to get away with doing some Evil things sometimes. Anyone seriously Evil would likely see it as either false pretenses, trying to have your cake and eat it too, or as a convenient excuse for constantly shifting loyalties.

Of course, the price paid for this relatively successful implementation is that you've just openly admitted that your world is virtual, false, hollow--a very dangerous admission for any fictional setting--and pretty much conclusively made the "muscular Neutral" faction the factually correct one, with both of the other two being made of either deluded fools or preprogrammed automatons.

Given the restrictions of the premise--"Good" must really mean Good, "Evil" must really mean Evil, and the Neutrals must have a genuine reason for their seeming waffling--I'm not really sure it's possible to come out the other side. Something has to give. The above weakens the first two premises by ultimately removing the moral agency of the people involved in order to give the Neutrals a good reason for not joining up with one or the other.

The only other option I've ever seen that could potentially do this still breaks the premises, by splitting "Good" into Love and Valor. Love+Valor is more or less Good as we usually think of it, heroism and bravery and altruism and kindness. Valor and Evil is both the tyranny of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, and the hideous thrill-seeking of a serial killer daring the police to try to catch them. Love and Evil is the obsessive-possessive, the gilded cage, the cradle-to-grave nanny state, and the robots who rise up to "protect humanity from itself". (I can't recall what short story I read this idea in originally, but it was a pretty interesting one, about how humanity got conclusive proof that aliens exist...and it was kind of a letdown because all we learned was their three-pole philosophy, because they never advanced beyond developing radio, preferring to do art and philosophy instead.)

By these lights, "muscular" Neutrals are the ones holding Valor. "Good" becomes Love; if Love grows too mighty, it absorbs Evil into itself, and becomes something horrible in the doing. But if Valor sides too much with Evil, it too becomes something horrible--so Valor only sides with Evil just enough to keep Evil alive but never powerful.

 

[abirdcall]

This is a proper answer to the premise but, I feel, it's an unsatisfying one.

Why are things set up in a way that evil outer planes are necessary? We know (because we live in a multiverse without a great wheel) that this isn't literally physically necessary. So, did some callous creator decide it liked things this way (my answer #4), was this a mistake, or is there some in-universe rationale for why D&D existence needs to contain Evil?


This is a bit different from the Good/Evil dichotomy of the thought experiment, I think.

Would you make the case that "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings" leads to complacency and stagnation?


Similar answer to Zeromaru X's above, I think; an argument that a little Evil in the world is "necessary"--which is one of the traditional solutions to the Problem of Evil.

Oh, are we not talking D&D?

Is this like a real world philosophical conjecture?

I find the premise absurd then and I'm out.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Except... that's generally not what happens. In societies where people's basic needs are met, people will turn to non-basic needs, such as art. Not necessarily art made out of a commercial need to sell it for bread, but art for its own sake. There's a quote by someone that goes something like "I study tactics and war, so my son can study engineering and science, and his son can study art." – in other words, the goals of society should be to first provide security, then wealth, and finally leisure.

That said, it's certainly a belief some people could have and use to justify keeping people struggling.

That's why in my games is Light and Darkness rather than Good and Evil. I was trying to adapt that premise to the muscle neutrality, but as you said yourself, is not a perfect fit.

 

[billd91]

I see Greyhawk’s muscular neutrality as less of a philosophical issue than a practical, political one. Muscular neutrals are looking for a stable status quo, because that is something they can plan around. Too much dynamism is messy and gets in the way. They’d rather have Furyondy, the Shield Lands, and Veluna warily watching Iuz and the Horned Society, and vice versa, than see a war break out where one side overthrows the other because who knows what happens next?
It’s less balancing a conflict between altruism and cruelty as much as it’s “stay in your own borders” kind of thing.

 

[TwoSix]

I would probably play "muscular neutrality" as neo-Darwinian, with a goal of allowing for continual struggle in order to strengthen the group (defining group as all living things within the ecosystem, where that ecosystem could be as broad as the entire multiverse) as a whole. It's one of the main reasons that "muscular neutrality" is often associated with druids.

It's anti-Good since it's perfectly happy to let the innocent and weak die to strengthen the group. It's anti-Evil because it has no desire for dominance or destruction. It believes that cultivating strength is ultimately more beneficial for the group, and opposes one particular individual or group becoming strong enough to prevent the rise of others.

It's non-chaotic as it prioritizes the needs of the group over individuals, and it's non-lawful as it sees no need for hierarchy outside of the strong triumphing over the weak.