D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[TwoSix]

Okay. I'm not interested in a Good that becomes a monster in the name of utopia. That's not what I call Good. That is exactly the sort of monster that the things I would call Good prepare to fight.

Yes, but what we would call it personally is irrelevant. It makes sense to allow it to be defined that way within a fictional setting for the purposes of setting up multiversal conflict.

But it isn't compelling. That's the point. You've just made yet another "but what if the people who THINK they are Good are actually just Nazis with better publicity?"

I would call that a "recognizable trope", which is generally a good thing in an RPG setting.

Which is exactly what the thread told us to presume. It's literally there, explicitly:

It literally is the case that, per the thread, Good is to be defined as altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.

And nothing in those statements requires the supposition that agency is the most important factor in terms of defining "Good".

It is a perfectly feasible, logical endpoint. It is not a Good endpoint. It is merely something masquerading as Good. It may bear the label "Good", but it simply, flatly isn't actually Good. Just as an author can just fiat declare whatever they like, regardless of whether it makes sense or is even logically sound, they may give something the label "Good", but that does not make whatever got that label actually Good. It may be any number of other things, but it is not Good, neither by my own definition of the term, nor by the definition given to us in the OP.

It's fairly simple to come to a logical conclusion that the universe would be better off destroyed. A person may not agree with some of the assertions required to get there, but the logic is sound.

And yes, whatever the author/setting developer labels as "Good" for their setting is what's "Good" for that setting. If you think what the author says is "Good" is actually "Evil", even better! You'll be more engaged with proving the faction wrong in the game.

Maximal benevolence can still be quite dangerous. (I would use a Biblical analogy here, specifically to angels rather than the Big Man Himself, but you asked me to not make such references.) Per the parameters of the OP, it has to be maximally benevolent: it must be genuinely altruistic, genuinely respecting life, and genuinely concerned for the dignity of sentient beings. The thing you have described is almost certainly not altruistic except under tortured or insane "logic", it does not respect life in the least (since its goal is, by definition, to end every life, everywhere, forever), and it does not respect the dignity of sentient beings because it doesn't want there to be sentient beings, plural, it wants there to be one and only one being.

I would have real trouble arguing that a path towards eternal life of the soul is evil.

Being actually capable of doing it vs always wishing to do it are two different things. Further, choosing not to act when all of the active choices are bad options may be the best choice. This is why I used the "local maximum of a mathematical function" thing earlier. It may be that some maneuvers are simply unacceptable, no matter what downstream consequences they might have: sure, if you move in the [2,4] direction you might get to a higher maximum than what you're currently at, but it would require moving toward something Evil first, and that is simply unacceptable.

Defining a set of actions as "always wrong", regardless of the downstream benefits, seems like a natural division between LG and CG factions.

That doesn't mean that Good--fully sincere, maximal-benevolence Good--cannot still be dangerous. It absolutely can! It can be supremely dangerous! But it will never be dangerous by way of choosing to do something that is short-term horrendous with the justification that it will be long-term utopian. Superman stories, such as some of the better comics (e.g. Red Son, Kingdom Come, and What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?) and animated media (specifically the DCAU Superman) are quite good at demonstrating what a dangerous maximal-benevolence Good can look like. E.g. just because Supes is maximally benevolent doesn't mean he's omniscient; he gets played by Lex Luthor more than once in JL/JLU because Lex is subtle and crafty and knows how to push Superman's buttons. He may be maximally benevolent, but he still gets angry, he still feels jealousy, keeps secrets, doesn't fully trust others to get tasks done, etc. There are times where he simply can't save everyone, and he mourns the loss. Everything he does comes from a place of wanting to do the truly most benevolent thing each time, every time, but he still makes mistakes and misjudges situations. The DCAU Superman is an excellent display of a truly, completely unvarnished Always Good character who is still dangerous, even shocking at times when he's backed into a corner and has to come up with a third option.

And that's exactly the attitude I would expect a heroic PC to have. That's a recognizable trope. I just don't think it makes for a compelling cosmological faction.

 

[Steampunkette]

Assuming that Muscular Neutrality is -right- in a setting...
That Good and Evil are the forces being balanced and Neutrality is a valid choice between the two...

Oof. Yeah. This is difficult. 'Cause allowing evil to persist when you have the power to fight against it is, itself, evil. And pushing back against altruism and kindness, is, itself, evil... I don't really see a way to make it "Valid" in terms of mortals.

So we'll have to go to the cosmic realm for an answer. And the only answer I can think of is a Wager.

The Gods of Good and the Gods of Evil are acting out a morality play through the mortal races to prove, once and for all, that Good or Evil will triumph in the end. And once good or evil triumphs, that -is- the end. The gods just stop everything and delete the universe.

In this instance, Neutral people fight to maintain the balance because the threat of extinction is the result if Good wins.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i could perhaps see value in 'muscular neutrality' if 'pure good' ultimately becomes dangerously self-sacrificing and places so little value on their own individual lives, they respect the sanctity of life to the point where they wouldn't cut down a tree to build shelter or hunt a pig to feed themselves.

excess evil causes the suffering of others for the benefit of themselves but excess good would put themselves through suffering for the benefit of others.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

I prefer it when the cosmic forces and entities are more "blue and orange" morality, with black, white and grey just being the extent mortal minds can comprehend them.

 

[Bagpuss]

I think muscular neutrality made sense in the era when alignment was only Law vs Chaos, not Good vs Evil.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Let's say that cosmological Good has an end-goal of wiping out all of the evil planes, which will cause the destruction of the multiverse but all souls will be brought together into a singular, joyful communion.

Then it is not Good. It is something monstrous to be opposed.

One of the things that doesn't seem to be stated clearly here is that Good (in a multiverse where Muscular Neutrality is Actually True) needn't be invested in the continuation of life in order to respect and value it.

It's Nirvana. It's the Rapture. It's the end of the world as we know it, and everyone is fine. Every story comes to an end, and the story of life can come to a good ending.

This isn't secretly evil or monstrous or anything. If the premise is that Muscular Neutrality is Actually True, and people are aware that this is how the cosmos works, it's just what you want as someone who values and respects life. For it to end happily. Heck, Good is altruistic and self-sacrificing - Good is OK with the idea of ending life in service to something greater. And, in that multiverse, if everyone was Good, they'd all be OK with the idea of their lives ending to prevent any suffering from happening again.

Life itself is monstrous. Living beings are worthy of respect, but as a consequence of " Muscular Neutrality is Actually True," life mandates that disrespect exist if it is to exist. It's a blessing to feel the soft spring rain on your face, but if that blessing means a trade-off with a drought-stricken nation devolving into murder and exploitation, then it's not really much of a blessing after all. To honor the living can mean to usher them softly into being non-living.

This kind of Good can be antagonistic, still. If the premise is that Muscular Neutrality is Actually True, we'd expect some "heroes of neutrality" who fight to keep the multiverse alive (and screaming). It's an understandable position from sort of a base animal perspective. The survival instinct is strong. And like, reality is where you keep all your stuff, so if it ended, what, you'd have nor more stuff?! So of course these Champions of the Status Quo, these Radical Centrists, would fight off the thing that could solve everyone's problems. They would not be Good for it, but that's kind of the point. And, of course, this kind of premise makes excellent use of tropes like overly-zealous angels and well-meaning idiots. Ascetic codes like chastity and dietary restrictions can make more sense in this world (don't make more people - they'll just suffer; don't kill animals to eat, that's unnecessary suffering). But antagonism doesn't mean evil in this case. Wanting to bring everyone eternal peace isn't evil, even if it would mean the end of life.

Every story comes to an end. The story of life is no different. It is not monstrous to accept that one day we all must die, and one day, the dead spheres of frozen rock that used to be our planets and our suns will be the last blind witnesses to a dead universe, cold and dark, without any living creature in it, incapable of having life once again. It isn't wicked to believe that nothing is permanent, including the chain of life itself. Indeed, sustaining life beyond its bounds can be wicked, can make more suffering.

I mean, this is also essentially the big decision in Dark Souls. Probably not coincidentally, from a place where Buddhism is a lot more popular, since some of these ideas are VERY Buddhist-coded. "Life requires suffering" is basically the first of the Four Noble Truths, and is also what a universe operating on Muscular Neutrality adheres to.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I see the circle of eight as liking the free city and so they don’t want evil to overrun them but they also don’t want a powerful non-evil neighbor to take over either, even if the neighbor kingdom or theocracy or caliphate is overall good. So the circle takes steps to muscularly make sure their neighbors do not sweep over them.

The issue is when the Circle go and helps demons destroy a village so that devils can't win the Blood War, or the forces of Good can't cripple the Blood War in any significant way (as is implied that they do, according to 5e lore).

 

[Zeromaru X]

It's Nirvana

But Nirvana is not about to destroy the World. Is about leaving it behind, and you don't need to destroy it to leave to a better place.

Again, that's just twisting how things actually are into things that they aren't, just to make the gym bro neutrals a valid point.

 

[Zeromaru X]

A double post brought to you by the Gym Bro Neutrals Gym.

 

[TwoSix]

But Nirvana is not about to destroy the World. Is about leaving it behind, and you don't need to destroy it to leave to a better place.

Unless it actually is going to destroy the world, because that's the story in the fiction.

Again, that's just twisting how things actually are into things that they aren't, just to make the gym bro neutrals a valid point.

"How things actually are" is doing a lot of work here, since we're in a thought experiment with hardly any established priors.

Doubly so since "gym bro neutrals are valid" is one of the actually established priors.