D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[squibbles]

No, not remotely. I think people who choose to stand by while others are harmed are at best fools, and often quietly malicious themselves. Typically it's out of ignorance or laziness, but for muscular neutrals it's an active -choice-. A considered moral position to allow evil to exist is unreasonable.

As far as the plausible reason, I answered it: Force external to the conflict, or a redefinition of "Good" which includes evil.

Obviously redefining good is "Cheating". So the external force is the only reasonable conclusion, for me.

Good cannot win because once good wins, some separate apocalyptic event destroys everything so there is no good, no neutral, no evil. It's the only logical way to resolve muscular neutrals supporting or defending evil from defeat by the forces of good.

Well... fair enough! That's a reasonable take on the premise.

What are some interesting external forces that might fit the bill, and were there any cool ideas you have seen so far?

I started writing a long argument in response to your #251 post, but thought better of it; I want to yes, and more here, and hope you and other posters will too (not meaning to pick on you, specifically, it was just the place where the NOs boiled over for me).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

To recap, my current understaning of the thought experiment is this:

Premise 1: Evil is harming, killing, or oppressing others.
Premise 2: Good is selflessly helping others.
Premise 3: It's possible for Good to win with no harmful consequences.
Premise 4: If Good wins, Evil acts are prohibited, but everyone is otherwise free to pursue their personal goals in a manner of their own choosing.

Question: What reasonable motivation would Neutral have to prevent Good from winning?

Going by these, I can see many Neutrals opposing Good. Say the Neutral lord owns a well. The neighbouring Good lord says "hey, I am altruist, so when I see my peasants dying from starvation because of a draught, I look at my neighbours for help, because I would help them if the reverse was true". So he goes to the Neutral Lord and says "my people are dying". The neutral lord says "Tough luck for your peasants. It must really suck to be them. I am not evil, but i have absolutely no interest in sharing my harvest, you should have build a well to irrigate beforehand, like I did by forcing my peasants to work on the construction of this public buillding. I will do no evil, and I will eat my food with a profound empathy for your dying peasants, yet don't bother to do anything, even if it allows Lord Evil to invade your land while your starving peasants can't defend themselves from his well-fed armies next year". And this same Neutral Lord would side with his Good neighbour if the advance of the army of the Evil Lord into the Good land would become a threat to the Neutral Lord. So he can be helping both sides depending on the situation.

Though it's less Muscular Neutral than Uncaring Neutral in this particular example, contrary to the one where Muscular Neutural actively battle the force of Good because they simply don't believe them when they say "don't worry, we're nice people, you'll be allowed to pursue your personal goals unimpeded when we will have triumphed over Evil". After all, the Evil side is certainly making the exact same promise to the Neutrals if they side with Evil to wipe out Good.

A more muscular approach could be Lord Neutral attacking whichever of Lord Good and Lord Evil to ensure they live on to reignite the fight at some point later, so they ensure that their two powerful neighbours keep neutralizing themselves over ethical concerns while they can merrily mind their own business. You might want to know why Lord Neutral wouldn't be happy with a twice-as-large-land-of-Lord-Good? Who would he be selling weapons and healing potions to?

And it would be very dangerous if he were to take an action that would be considered Evil by his neighbour, even if, being Neutral, he can estimate that a little oppressing is good (for example, confiscating wealth to build a school). Who knows if the Good neighbour will focus on seeing oppression (something that they feel justified to act against) in this course of action instead of seeing the benefit of creating an educated elite? It's better if they are busy fighting a children-eating devil worshipping Lord Evil, so, to ensure a wide range of possibilities in the future, it's better to have both side fight each other forever, so not to close the possibility of being slightly evil at some point in the future if it suits Lord Neutral's policies. Being neutral, they can be good one day and evil the next day, according to circumstances, so they shouldn't be placated by an outcome where there is no harmful outcome to non-evil people...

 

[squibbles]

To recap, my current understaning of the thought experiment is this:

Premise 1: Evil is harming, killing, or oppressing others.
Premise 2: Good is selflessly helping others.
Premise 3: It's possible for Good to win with no harmful consequences.
Premise 4: If Good wins, Evil acts are prohibited, but everyone is otherwise free to pursue their personal goals in a manner of their own choosing.

Question: What reasonable motivation would Neutral have to prevent Good from winning?

Premise 4 essentially means a win for Good has no negative impact on Neutral. (Being non-Evil, Neutrals would have no interest in perpetrating Evil acts.) So we’re essentially being asked, “If a win for Good has no negative impact on Neutral, why would Neutral oppose total victory for Good?”

I suppose Neutral might oppose Good if Neutral wants Evil to destroy itself, or if Neutral wants to be the one to land the killing blow. If there’s some benefit to one of those circumstances, Neutral would need to prevent Good from defeating Evil in order to let some other faction land the killing blow.

I generally agree with your restatement of the premises.

I was particular in phrasing Good as "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings", and I think that implies premise 4 (make of that what you will), but I think "Good is selflessly helping others" is pretty consistent with the initial phrasing.

It's a bit harder to work out a solution after adding premises 3 and 4, isn't it?

 

[Steampunkette]

Well... fair enough! That's a reasonable take on the premise.

What are some interesting external forces that might fit the bill, and were there any cool ideas you have seen so far?

I started writing a long argument in response to your #251 post, but thought better of it; I want to yes, and more here, and hope you and other posters will too (not meaning to pick on you, specifically, it was just the place where the NOs boiled over for me).

The outcome of good winning has to outweigh the harm of innocent people from now until eternity's end. Because every ounce of suffering, every inch of torment, every second of pain adds up across all of time.

What can be -so bad- that it's worse than people perpetually suffering for all time? The list is breathtakingly short.

1) The destruction of everyone, suffering and otherwise. This one requires a bit of utilitarian moral calculus, but a smaller quantity of people suffering forever with a larger quantity of people -not- suffering forever is probably "Worth It" from the perspective of most people, even among the suffering. Though, of course, there's an argument that no one should be forced to suffer for other people to live and an end to pain may be preferable to.

2) Increased total quantity of eternal suffering. Again, utilitarian moral calculus, if the end state is "Good wins, everyone goes to hell" or something similar. Again it requires an external force to enact through an end-state manipulation, but this one is essentially entirely evil. Not sure it can exist if evil has been truly "Defeated". So the list might be even shorter.

To be clear, I'm not saying for either of these things to work that Tiny Tim becomes an immortal suffering child. I'm saying there will be an effectively infinite number of Tiny Tims each suffering in sequence into eternity.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Again, I'm not really on board with this definition of a 'good' victory because it really does pain 'good' as a force very alien to humanity and most sapient life. I'm going to choke on my words a little big here and say it's... it was actually a good thing that alignment never once mentions suffering.

As certain real-world belief systems put it: life is suffering. And scientifically... they're right. Pain and discomfort aren't something you just get rid of. They're our bodies' responses to external stimuli so complex we don't really understand the full breadth of pain. We know it's a warning of damage, or disfunction in the body, and of the brain just getting plain confused.

A 'good' victory will not end all suffering without running into the complete destruction of sentient (not just sapient) life, or the removal of a fundamental and frankly necessary survival mechanism.

I guess we could try to say 'needless' suffering, but then you have to consider what's even needless and how it would become immoral to let a cat scratch someone when they're holding it wrong. Or we could say 'suffering inflicted by others' and that's a whole other debate about achievements in ignorance or how this would morally ban calling me on the phone instead of just texting.

I would argue that 'good' would balm suffering, not eradicate it.

Just enough strike against D&D good focus on slaying evil and putting the thumbscrews to liars instead of spreading kindness and joy.

Also, I bought this up at lunch today and someone pointed out that the Abyss is infinite in D&D. Good literally cannot win, so the muscular neutral position should be entirely theoretical in-universe because those scales will never actually tip. The universe is actually protected by the fact that demons can't math and neither can spec-fic writers.

 

[Hriston]

Taking it as given that

1. Muscular neutrality between good and evil is a metaphysically valid position,
2. "Good" is "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings",
3. and "Evil" is "harming, oppressing, and killing others",

what justifies a position of muscular neutrality?

I'm not sure what you mean by "metaphysically valid", so I'm not sure if my response would count as refusing the premise, but I think it would be valid or reasonable, even justified, for the muscular neutrals to not believe/trust/have faith that "good" will result from the triumph of good and therefore oppose its ultimate victory. They share this attitude with evil but are not themselves evil because they also oppose evil's disregard for the rights and happiness of others. Everyone, after all, is "good" in their own opinion.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I did not intend it as a personal attack. I find the philosophy the poster appears to promote, where you wish to live life entirely without obligations and consider any and all limits on your actions to be tantamount to slavery as pretty darn close to Chaotic Neutral.

I get that. You're one of the good posters on this board. I wasn't trying to disparage you.

I'm not sure what this person is promoting. I think they might have a problem communicating their message, such as it is. I was initially put off by their initial posts, as were you, but I'm willing to at least let what this person says be heard. Sometimes a person is wound up, says a thing in an off the cuff manner, and then it's misinterpreted. I can give that a pass and allow a second chance. Happens to all of us.

Having said that... @lall might have to describe their definition of altruism for example.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I'm not sure what you mean by "metaphysically valid", so I'm not sure if my response would count as refusing the premise, but I think it would be valid or reasonable, even justified, for the muscular neutrals to not believe/trust/have faith that "good" will result from the triumph of good and therefore oppose its ultimate victory. They share this attitude with evil but are not themselves evil because they also oppose evil's disregard for the rights and happiness of others. Everyone, after all, is "good" in their own opinion.

Yup, that's why I meant when I say that Evil makes the same promises of "we'll let you pursue your own end if you help us and we achieve complete victory". The Evil kingdoms are as justified in their behaviour, even if it's by thinking that "Might makeks Right" and will offer to reward their ally with peace and being allowed to keep doing their Neutral things without problem, while Good will say "We are fighting Evil, but don't worry, since you are not Evil, you have no harmful consequence to fear from our victory" and will offer to reward their ally with peace and being allowed to keep doing their Neutral things without problem. Why should Neutrals trust either of them? Caution is the mother of safety.

On the other hand, this can explain more easily an attitude of not caring about the fight between Evil and Good, but muscular neutral needs by definition to get a reason to be actively involved, which means siding with the loser (either Good or Evil) as needed.
So we need to add to this entirely valid justification of "do not trust anyone currently waging a war, they might have an agenda while claiming to be the right side" with an interest into not having one side winning:

• fear of the consequences of one side being wiped (they don't trust Good to stay Good even if they promise to stay Good, or they just can't be sure Good isn't just Evil masquerading as Good for the purpose of enlisting their help, or even if they trust Good to stay Good, they notice that the Good victory, as defined for the purpose of this thread, can't prevent an individual to be individually evil as long as he doesn't break the rules, so an evil leader could theoretically be elected leader by masquerading as Good until he has the power to subvert the system into attacking the neutral country by falsely pretending it is an evil country, so they don't want to take the risk)...
• interest into keeping both sides busy and at war (more security, less need to actually spend resources into protecting from their neighbours if they are both in no capacity to open another front...)
• simply wanting to have the opportunity to choose to do some evil-as-defined-by-the-OP actions while not being actually 100% evil, like:
  • oppressing others for a good cause like forcing rich people to share their wealth so poor people don't starve even if the rich don't happen to be altruistic enough to do it by themselves,
  • killing criminals if they either believe in the death penalty or don't have the means to contain, say, a planeshifting lich in prison for a "life" that would last eternally and see killing people as necessary evil in this case].

Those are to me entirely valid reason to support the losing side, even if it is Evil. Especially if Evil isn't ridiculously Evil-for-the-sake-of-Evil "I'll torture my allies' babies for fun" but just a side that ascribe little value to life and individual freedom and think that strength, tradition or religion is a valid basis for forming a government imposing its will on its subjects (so they are fully checking the "oppressing other", "killing" and "harming" Evil-defining list).

 

[Epic Meepo]

I generally agree with your restatement of the premises.

I was particular in phrasing Good as "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings", and I think that implies premise 4 (make of that what you will), but I think "Good is selflessly helping others" is pretty consistent with the initial phrasing.

It's a bit harder to work out a solution after adding premises 3 and 4, isn't it?

It's challenging if we assume the thought experiment is talking about True Neutral, specifically. If we're asking why Lawful Neutral would oppose certain Good factions and why Chaotic Neutral would oppose certain other Good factions, it's fairly easy.

Actually, if we assume True Neutral doesn't even care if Good and Evil are balanced, I believe I can make a purely statistical argument for why Muscular Neutrals would end up backing Good and Evil in equal measures over time.

If Muscular Neutrals actively strive to maintain a Balance between Law and Chaos, without regard for Good and Evil, they have to side with Lawful Neutral whenever things become too Chaotic and they have to side with Chaotic Neutral whenever things become too Lawful.

Lawful Neutral factions oppose Chaotic factions and support Lawful factions. At any given time, assuming all alignments are equally represented in the world, the Lawful faction that needs the most support has an equal chance of being either Good or Evil. Over time, this means Lawful Neutral factions end up supporting Lawful Evil factions just an often as they supports Lawful Good factions.

A parallel argument can be made for Chaotic Neutral factions. Over time, all things being equal, Chaotic Neutral factions end up supporting Chaotic Evil factions as often as they support Chaotic Good factions. So both Lawful Neutral factions and Chaotic Neutral factions end up supporting Evil factions as often as they support Good factions.

Thus, no matter which alignment True Neutrals are siding with at the moment (Lawful Neutral if there's too much Chaos, Chaotic Neutral if there's too much Law), the True Neutrals' allies support Evil factions just as often as they support Good factions. The balance between Good and Evil is a byproduct of the Balance between Law and Chaos.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

It's challenging if we assume the thought experiment is talking about True Neutral, specifically. If we're asking why Lawful Neutral would oppose certain Good factions and why Chaotic Neutral would oppose certain other Good factions, it's fairly easy.

Actually, if we assume True Neutral doesn't even care if Good and Evil are balanced, I believe I can make a purely statistical argument for why Muscular Neutrals would end up backing Good and Evil in equal measures over time.

If Muscular Neutrals actively strive to maintain a Balance between Law and Chaos, without regard for Good and Evil, they have to side with Lawful Neutral whenever things become too Chaotic and they have to side with Chaotic Neutral whenever things become too Lawful.

Lawful Neutral factions oppose Chaotic factions and support Lawful factions. At any given time, assuming all alignments are equally represented in the world, the Lawful faction that needs the most support has an equal chance of being either Good or Evil. Over time, this means Lawful Neutral factions end up supporting Lawful Evil factions just an often as they supports Lawful Good factions.

A parallel argument can be made for Chaotic Neutral factions. Over time, all things being equal, Chaotic Neutral factions end up supporting Chaotic Evil factions as often as they support Chaotic Good factions. So both Lawful Neutral factions and Chaotic Neutral factions end up supporting Evil factions as often as they support Good factions.

Thus, no matter which alignment True Neutrals are siding with at the moment (Lawful Neutral if there's too much Chaos, Chaotic Neutral if there's too much Law), the True Neutrals' allies support Evil factions just as often as they support Good factions. The balance between Good and Evil is a byproduct of the Balance between Law and Chaos.

I like this a lot.

But it does leave open the role of the True Neutral with regard to NG and NE. Where Law and Chaos are removed as driving forces, what is the motivating ideology which sees a balance between Good and Evil as desirable?

Are NG and NE equally expedient perspectives in preserving the Law-Chaos balance? Is one state inherently preferable to the the other? Or is a muscular Neutral in fact N with NG tendencies?