D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I wrestled with making Greyhawk’s “muscular neutrality” work in the weird 9 alignment grid and I kept hitting friction points that took funny unworkable fiat.

I settled on instead an attempt at a Prime Material self-defense balance between forces of cosmological Law and cosmological Chaos.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

That’s not really muscular though, is it? “Don’t rock the boat” strikes me as just regular-old passive neutral rather than muscular “actively strive to maintain the balance” neutral.

 

[TwoSix]

I have Good and Evil, but the Good has really strict rules about what it is and isn't allowed to do. Most of the Evil does too, but those rules are enforced by power, rather than willingly abided by.

(In brief, true celestials are Good, but the being they heed, who claims to have created existence, explicitly says that the freedom of choice that mortals possess is the whole point of Creation, and thus for a celestial to take away the agency of a mortal is to defeat the whole point of having mortals in thr first place. This leaves Good stuck with wooing, rather than commanding. Evil must also woo, entice, beguile, but for different reasons.)

Hmm.

If the whole point of Creation is to allow choice, then what force or concept creates a delineation between a "good" choice and an "evil" choice?

A universe in which the only choices are between preferences like "red or green" obviously wouldn't be true "free will", free will has to exist to allow consequent choices between "good" and "evil".

 

[TwoSix]

If you require a pseudo-empirical explanation: it might be the case that there is a higher, global maximum of the function. But if we are on a local maximum, then in order to reach that higher global maximum, we will need to do harm (perhaps a great deal of it) first.

But isn't that exact perspective we would expect a cosmological force of "Good" to have?

I would expect a "muscular neutrality" to be the forces focused on maximizing "local weal" and minimizing "local woe", and not willing to wrestle with the bigger picture.

"Muscular neutrality" struggles with the trolley problem, "cosmological good" is focused on eliminating trollies and the forces that put people in front of them.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Another option: Good and Evil are objective forces in the universe, but unnamed and unrecognized by the universe's inhabitants. EVERYbody believes that their personal ethos is the most beneficial. Spells and other abilities exist that interact with alignment - but users and subjects can't tell whether they are personally Good or Evil; just whether something has vaguely compatible ethos. An objectively evil priest casting "Detect Evil" might well believe themself to be casting "Detect Good". Muscular Neutral individuals here don't actually realize that they're advocating balance. They just favor philosophies that are either a mix of these unknown extremes; or are just more moderate than what is truly Good or Evil.

 

[Clint_L]

All of us are unified in the Godhead. There is no death. There is no suffering, loss, or pain. All of us live, joyfully, together, in eternal bliss.

Why would you possibly oppose that? How is accepting anything less, accepting suffering and inequality and unfairness, anything but a diminishment of Good?

I would oppose that. That sounds like a rat endlessly pushing on the pleasure button. That sounds like an utterly worthless existence.

I think the fundamental problem with alignment, always, is that it is trying to quantify something that humans have never been able to agree upon in thousands of years of trying.

Actually, that's the primary logic problem, but the practical problem is that it gets caught up in a fundamental aspect of the game, role playing, and creates endless disagreements.

Edit: That's why I see muscular neutrality as active opposition to those who try to impose their morality on others.

 

[Piperken]

Taking it as given that

1. Muscular neutrality between good and evil is a metaphysically valid position

Thanks for reading, what are your ideas?

I've read a majority of the discussion as to how this is presented in the Greyhawk setting canonically in terms of particular individuals or factions who act.

I also read most of this hypothetical thread as well.

Can someone point me to which points were made to support above is a valid position? I may have missed where those were made.

I understand that some openly disagree with 1, and are choosing to participate in the hypothetical anyways; but it seems to me one can't really look to the 2nd and 3rd parts until there's a base for 1. :3

 

[TwoSix]

I would oppose that. That sounds like a rat endlessly pushing on the pleasure button. That sounds like an utterly worthless existence.

I think the fundamental problem with alignment, always, is that it is trying to quantify something that humans have never been able to agree upon in thousands of years of trying.

It's definitely not a solvable problem.

You illustrated the core problem right there. Without struggle or challenge, life lacks meaning. But to maintain struggle, the universe must allow suffering and evil to exist, in order to allow struggle and challenge to occur.

And that means a cosmological Good focused on preserving free will and a meaningful life must continue to allow suffering and Evil.

But it's a fun challenge here to present perspectives so you can see why a rational person might choose one particular faction over another.

 

[Zeromaru X]

All of us are unified in the Godhead. There is no death. There is no suffering, loss, or pain. All of us live, joyfully, together, in eternal bliss.

Why would you possibly oppose that? How is accepting anything less, accepting suffering and inequality and unfairness, anything but a diminishment of Good?

Again, it's not the intention but how it's implemented. I'm willingly joining the Godhead, or are you forcing me to do it? It doesn't matter if you give me the ultimate bliss, if that bliss is forced, because that would be tyranny.

 

[billd91]

That’s not really muscular though, is it? “Don’t rock the boat” strikes me as just regular-old passive neutral rather than muscular “actively strive to maintain the balance” neutral.

It's muscular if the neutral intervenes to help quell the aggressor between countries, whichever that aggressor is. In that sense, it's muscular in a classic realpolitik way (which is how Great Britain's shifting alliances was described by Hans Morgenthau, if I remember my International Relations class correctly). But again, it would be geopolitical, not philosophical.