Alignment myths?

[Celebrim]

But according to Hussar, it doesn't matter what his motivations or intents are, if the consequences of his character's actions arn't good, then his actions are Evil or Neutral. Hussar rejected motivations and intentions upthread and unless he's modified that claim he is still operating under a morality that the individual has no control over.

I can't speak for Hussar, but in my reading of his posts, he went a bit farther in the direction of 'intentions don't matter' than I'm comfortable with, but then thought about the consequences of that for a while and back peddled a little bit. But that's just my reading, and unfortunately he's not here to answer for himself.

Even so, even if I accepted that intentions don't matter at all - which I don't - it wouldn't follow that individuals would have no control over the morality of thier actions. To give just one example, for lawful characters in particular that makes no kind of sense. For a true lawful minded philosophy, simply follow the instructions you've been provided to do good. That's how you control your morality. What you intend by that or what motivates you to do it is irrelevant (fear, apathy, devotion are all the same - what matters is obedience). That you understand why you are doing it is irrelevant. You did your assigned part, hense you acted 'rightly'. Full stop. If you aren't following the instructions, you are doing wrong. Full stop. If you screwed up and did something wrong, follow the instructions for repairing a screw up. Repeat until you are a paragon of Lawful X or die trying.

 

[Raloc]

Celebrim, I guess we agree then, because all of my analyzation of your posts was under the assumption that you were following the "intentions don't matter" (at all) line of reasoning.

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim, I guess we agree then, because all of my analyzation of your posts was under the assumption that you were following the "intentions don't matter" (at all) line of reasoning.

To be as blunt as always, statements like this tempt me to carry around 'ego signatures' just so I won't have to deal with people taunting me without having read a dang word I said. But I resist that temptation because no matter how impressive of an ego signature I could end my posts with, there'd always be someone that was proof against actually stopping to think that maybe I'm not a complete idiot.

And besides, I don't need a fatter head on my shoulders. I'm arrogant enough of an SOB as it is.

Seriously.

Ok, anti-taunting vent over. Consider it the last stop in acrimony on the road to mutual understanding.

 

[Felix]

I thought I just offered one. If you missed it, it went, "Because it is interesting."

If you don't mind me saying so, I think that's about the strongest argument for how things should work that can be made.

My pardon; I meant arguments concerned with the mechanics of the game, not the flavor, which yours is.

But as an argument it doesn't do much of a job to convince me because I think it's less interesting; I would rather someone know that the spell is Evil and try to turn it to good ends (and then see where that got them), than see someone ignorant of what they are doing afterwards say, "oops".

I would say that there is every reason why a player should be able, upon reading a new spell to know the spells descriptors through a successful spellcraft check.

Reasonable.

But I think it likely that such subtleties of the spell might well be beyond the caster when he first gained sufficient prowess to cast the spell. Classically, in the stories, ability always proceeds wisdom. Why? Because it is interesting.

The interest involved in fiction might be similar to watching a foal take its first steps. Endearing, potentially hearbreaking, inspiring, but ultimately you want to foal to walk: if the foal never learned you'd quickly realize that there is a serious problem. Once, maybe twice, it's ok. After that it starts to get tedious. In gaming those circumstances should be organic and come from role-playing, not enforced by an arbitrary mechanic.

So instead of knowledge I think young wizards would tend to rely on what guidelines they have been given by thier mentors if any, and if they are the sort to listen.

In the case of young wizards, I'd say there are very few who will encounter [Evil] spells until they are older wizards. And those that do will either learn like the cat who sits on a hot stove, die from the spell or the townspeople who don't like Necromancy, or enjoy the feeling of Evil and take the quick and easy path.

Necromancy = Bad is probably 'common sense' in worlds with animate dead spells, and might even result in a little bit of over zealous fear of anything that remotely smacks of necromancy out of ignorance.

I agree with you on what the population will think of Necromancy spells, but I don't see how this changes much since we are talking about people who know that Animate Dead is an [Evil] spell.

For that matter, we're talking about people who know that spells themselves can be [Evil].

I'd definately want to add some exotic little known (or DM created) spells with the [Evil] descriptor into my game without necessarily making it obvious what they were. Put that in my queue of ideas.

If the spellcasters who understand and can cast these spells don't know they're [Evil], then you'll be playing alignment whack-a-mole.

 

[Felix]

I can't speak for Hussar, but in my reading of his posts, he went a bit farther in the direction of 'intentions don't matter' than I'm comfortable with, but then thought about the consequences of that for a while and back peddled a little bit. But that's just my reading, and unfortunately he's not here to answer for himself.

It's possible I missed his backpedaling, and if I'm misrepresenting you Hussar, please let me know.

For a true lawful minded philosophy, simply follow the instructions you've been provided to do good. That's how you control your morality.

Except that he postulated that it is the consequences of your actions which determine the morality of the act: the woodsman's act of cutting down the tree was evil because the child died. So if you follow your orders, regardless of the orders (they could be, "stand over there"), and the orders lead you to commit an action which causes the death of an innocent, you are responsible and you just committed an evil act. Which doesn't make sense to me.

You did your assigned part, hence you acted 'rightly'. Full stop. If you aren't following the instructions, you are doing wrong. Full stop. If you screwed up and did something wrong, follow the instructions for repairing a screw up. Repeat until you are a paragon of Lawful X or die trying.

And if in the execution of your lawful orders, Chaotic consequences result, were your actions Lawful or Chaotic?

 

[Hussar]

*snip*

Hussar may have made an unfortunate turn of phrase, but mostly I think he was just being pithy. I feel that understanding of his question depends on seeing the implied condition, 'Assuming all the actors are wise and understand what they believe and what it implies, why would anyone care...'. The reason I feel this is implied is that the actions of fools and of people who don't know what they believe or what thier beliefs implies don't tell us alot about the nature of a particular system of morality (be it NG, LE, or CN or whatever). Before the action meaningfully relates to the morality system, we must make assumptions about it. Certainly there are, as I said, people who will feel remorse without cause (by which I mean, without cause under thier own system of beliefs) or who will act remorseful because they think its the right thing to do and who don't want to be blamed, and so forth. But this doesn't tell us alot about moral system except where those actions are the appropriate to the moral system.

So, returning to Hussar's rhetorical question, he ask 'Why would anyone care if the action was morally neutral?'. And the answer is I think, if the act was morally nuetral then no one who was wise would care. The good aligned person won't feel remorse because he hasn't done anything wrong. If the act is as morally neutral as flipping a coin for sport, if it is indeed mere random results, then why should a good person care whether the result was heads or tails. The neutral aligned person won't feel remorse because the act was of neutral value, and the evil person won't feel any especial glee because well there is nothing especially satisfying to an evil person about morally neutral acts.

But on the other hand, if we assume that the act is morally evil (to at least some extent) even in the absence of evil voilition (which would make the act both evil and abominable), then we see instead the expected range of emotion. The good person feels remorse. He makes restitution and is contrite. The neutral person blames the child, or the universe, and takes the steps he thinks necessary to see that the child or the universe is blamed rather than himself. The evil person finds this an unexpected delight, having not intended to do evil but managing to achieve such a spectacularly satisfying result (assuming the child isn't a friend), he delights in having killed the stupid little thing in a way that he probably won't get blamed for, he exalts in having removed the weak minded idiot from the gene pool, and otherwise secretly (or not) takes pleasure in the act. In most societies, where murder is frowned on, he publicly acts like the nuetral, but amongst truly vile companions he may lie and brag that he meant to do so to glorify his own role in the tragedy. And so forth.

All of this follows because the act is not morally neutral.



I don't have a book handy, but as I recall the RAW if the act had been intentional, the Paladin would have been stripped of status and could not have atoned for it sufficiently to restore himself to his former pure state. It's only because the evil act was unintentional that the Paladin is allowed to atone for it.

Yup, he's got the right of it.

Personally, I think you made up your mind and refused to see the illogic of your own argument. You're claiming that every actor should bear moral culpability for the consequences of every other action in existence (either that, or you're putting some arbitary cap on the measurement of consequences after the act, which is also absurd) It's not a long shot to call that "absurd" since it makes no sense whatever(not to mention it would render alignment 100% unplayable, as the DM would be calculating the consequences of every PC action indefinitely).

By your own stated reasoning though, every action should bear the moral weight of every consequence it causes. The reason this is absurd is that if this were the case, you would spend infinity calculating the weight of the action(since it can have innumerable unforseen consequences, and realistically, you could not even sum them all, since you *can't* know them all(unless, of course, you happen to be some sort of omniscient deity and can know the exact cause of every motion in reality for all eternity? If not, your argument makes no sense.)). Consequences are inextricably linked together. Either you're arbitrarily limiting what you claim is the right way to judge an action (by summing the consequences of it, and applying the weight to anyone involved in the action(s) which caused them) or you're confused and really don't understand what you're claiming. Which is it?

Nope. All actors are responsible for only the results of their actions. That myth was brought up earlier talking about the BBEG threatening the puppy with extermination if the paladin didn't back down. The BBEG is acting, not the paladin in killing the puppy. The assassin kills the innocent, not the woodcutter. The woodcutter's only action is in cutting down the tree. What happens after that tree has left his possession (assuming some sort of mill) is not his responsibility.

But according to Hussar, it doesn't matter what his motivations or intents are, if the consequences of his character's actions arn't good, then his actions are Evil or Neutral. Hussar rejected motivations and intentions upthread and unless he's modified that claim he is still operating under a morality that the individual has no control over.

Exactly. The motives and intents of the actor are secondary at best. The DMG even calls this out specifically in the section on changing alignment. You can think fluffy good thoughts all day long, but, if you are still eating puppies, you're evil.

The direct result (note the direct part there) of the woodcutter cutting down the tree was the death of the child. Killing is generally considered an evil act. Granted, there are mitigating circumstances here, but, it's still an evil act. I never stated that this guy is evilly aligned, nor would this act generally affect his alignment at all. On the evil scale, it's tragic, but, not especially evil.

The direct result of killing that dragon, OTOH, is the peace and prosperity of the land and those that live in it. The specific act of killing isn't necessarily good, but, the direct results of that are. Now, if, decades later, the kingdom is then overrun because the dragon is dead, it doesn't matter. That's another actor taking actions and doesn't somehow retcon the original action of killing the dragon into an evil act any more than the assassin using the bow made from the tree the woodcutter cut retcons his action into evil.

In other words, alignment doesn't time travel. Actions have a particular alignment at the time they occur. That doesn't get changed later because of the actions of other actors.

It's possible I missed his backpedaling, and if I'm misrepresenting you Hussar, please let me know.


Except that he postulated that it is the consequences of your actions which determine the morality of the act: the woodsman's act of cutting down the tree was evil because the child died. So if you follow your orders, regardless of the orders (they could be, "stand over there"), and the orders lead you to commit an action which causes the death of an innocent, you are responsible and you just committed an evil act. Which doesn't make sense to me.


And if in the execution of your lawful orders, Chaotic consequences result, were your actions Lawful or Chaotic?

I did backpedal somewhat. Obviously some intent has to come into play. I believe Psion said it best with his 1:3 ratio back a few pages.

OTOH, let's look at your "following orders" example. A superior tells you to stand over there and not move. A child walks by and a tree falls on him. You have not actually acted, therefore, your (in)action carries no alignment. No thing that you did actually led causally to the death of that child. Granted, you might have been able to prevent it, but, that doesn't matter. Alignment is not determined by "what if" statements. Alignment is only determined by what actually happened. Alignment of an action is also only determined by those who take an action.

Inaction, in other words, is irrelavent to alignment. Watching someone drown is not an evil act even if you can prevent it. Pushing someone into a raging river is.

Going back to the woodcutter for a moment. If someone saw the child wandering around the trees and said nothing, is he guilty of an evil act? How can he be when he actually did not take any actions? If he had warned the child but the child still died, would he be guilty? No, since it is not his actions which lead to the death of the child. If he pushed the child under the falling tree, THEN he'd be guilty of an evil act.

 

[Raloc]

Killing is ... considered an evil act.

This is where you're 100% wrong, and where the absurdity creeps into your reasoning. Murder is an evil act. Killing is a neutral act. It is only the intent of the killer that makes it evil or not. A wolf that kills for food is not evil, no more than the snow drift that breaks the tree that kills the fox is evil. The woodsman in the example has not committed any other than a neutral act, because the baby was under it due to *entropy*, which is beyond his control, and because he lacks the intent to murder. Death is natural and neutral, as it is in this case.

Not to mention that you seem to be applying arbitrary criteria to the measurement of consequences of the actor, which violates your claimed definition of what makes an evil act.

 

[Hussar]

Death is natural and neutral,

Agree 100%. However, killing is not the same as death. If my actions directly lead to the death of an innocent, I am guilty of an evil act under D&D alignments. Now, how evil is the question, and I've already stated that this is pretty vanilla of evil.

Not to mention that you seem to be applying arbitrary criteria to the measurement of consequences of the actor, which violates your claimed definition of what makes an evil act.

How is limiting the consequences to the actual actor arbitrary? Alignment is not a quantum particle capable of affecting the past. What happens in the future doesn't impact the event in question. If the woodcutter saves the baby which grows up to be an evil monster, it doesn't make killing the baby good. The woodcutter cannot be held responsible for actions he didn't take.

I said this upthread. Alignment is the universe' way of keeping score of your actions. If a character does bad things most of the time, then he's evil. The universe doesn't care particularly why he does them, just that they are bad. That Sawyer from Lost is a tormented soul who wants self destruction doesn't change the fact that his actions hurt and destroy the lives of those around him. The only thing that his alignment reflects is his actions for the most part.

I fail to see how this violates my definitions. The direct results of an act are the primary determiner of the alignment of that act. The motives behind that act might account for some of it and certainly can make an act more good or more evil and coversely less good and less evil. However, I don't believe that the intentions of the actor are enough to actually change the alignment of the act.

As far as animals and the like are concerned, the RAW excuses them from moral actions, so bringing them up doesn't really matter. It is irrelavent that a wolf eating the child is not guilty of an evil act since we are not discussing a wolf. The wolf has no concept of good or evil, it is amoral same as a snowstorm or a lightning bolt or a sword. The RAW specifically states that it is an amoral actor.

The woodsman OTOH, is not. He knows whether his actions are moral or not. The good woodsman feels remorse and should pay restitution for his actions. If his actions were morally neutral, why should he feel any remorse? I posited this question a while ago and never received any answer. His actions directly lead to the death of an innocent. (Note the innocent part there. Killing the guilty is a whole 'nother ball of wax) If his actions were neutral, then he should not have to pay any restitution and should be absolved of any wrong doing the same as if the child was never there in the first place.

 

[Felix]

A superior tells you to stand over there and not move. A child walks by and a tree falls on him. You have not actually acted, therefore, your (in)action carries no alignment. No thing that you did actually led causally to the death of that child. Granted, you might have been able to prevent it, but, that doesn't matter.

Wow. So cutting down a tree is evil, but doing nothing at all to save a child whom you could have easily saved has no alignment? By this definition I could stand by impassively, watching some poor child get crushed slowly and that act of non-action won't have any alignment consequences.

That moral framework is so repulsive I have no desire to continue with this thread.

 

[Hussar]

Well, no, cutting down the tree wasn't evil. Killing the child was. A nit pick.

Let me try another tact then.

Suppose this situation. A nasty, bad evil dragon snatches the princess and takes her back to his lair for a leisurely snack. Just before chowing down, a knight complete with white horse rushes in, slays the dragon and saves the princess.

A good act right?

Now, what if the knight only saved the princess so that he could sell her into slavery? His motives are pretty vile. Does that make the act evil? At what point? When he saves her? But, at that point, he actually hasn't done anything evil. How about when he sells her into slavery? But, that would mean going back in time and changing the event of killing the dragon.

What if, on the other hand, he intends to sell her into slavery when he rescues her, but, changes his mind and takes her home again? Does that make the act of slaying the dragon go from good to evil and then back to good?

In my mind, intention is not terribly relevant. What is relevant are the actions that occur. The knight saved the princess. That is a good act regardless of the reason why. It doesn't matter that the knight is a blackguard sworn to sacrifice the princess to Orcus. Alignment is determined by actual events as they occur, not hypothetical events that have not. Nor do future events have any bearing upon the alignment of an act. Saving the princess is a good act. Later selling her into slavery or sacrificing her to Orcus is an evil one. None of the acts, however, actually impinge on each other.

Inaction is completely amoral. You cannot show any reality in which my inaction has directly caused harm to that child. Yes, I could have easily saved the child, and, if the character was good, he bloody well should, because good implies altruism and all that. But that speaks to the alignment of the character, not the alignment of the action.

But, that's not what I'm talking about. The act of inaction, if you can call it that, is inherently amoral. It is neither good nor evil. There is simply nothing there to be good or evil. There is no action. In the same way that the paladin should not be punished by a loss of status for the BBEG killing the hostages. You cannot show that the BBEG would not have killed the hostages anyway. It isn't the paladin killing the hostages, it is the BBEG.