Alignment myths?

[Dragonbait]

I know that this post will be lost in the debate that is going on, but from my experience of alignment myths:

1. Lawful good characters can not show cowardice.
2. Lawful characters can not lie, or even omit the truth. The MUST tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them Pelor.
3. Lying under ANY circumstance is an Evil act. "I liked the cake you made.. Oh crap! I now can't wield my holy avenger!"
4. Swearing is an Evil act (Oooo, he sad "sh**", he must be chaotic evil.)
5. Neutral characters can do anything without justification.
6. Evil characters are easier to play.
7. Evil characters are more entertaining to play.
8. You can kill as many Evil characters as you want, and still be pure good "Look, that hill giant is tilling the field! Kill it!" <- true story, although it makes games easier when you don't go into a huge morality debate.
9. Using poison is evil (I can't use this poison that paralyzes him, I'm Chaotic Good. I guess I'll just have to kill him then use speak with dead to get the info I need).
10. If poison IS evil, then the holy poison from teh Exhalted handbook is good.
11. Alignment has nothing to do with intent.
12. A good-aligned deity would wipe out an entire civilization to make a point.
13. Druids can not cut down trees or hunt animals. Oh, wait, wrong myth thread.

 

[Celebrim]

Do all actions that cause an evil intent to occur, no matter how remote, amount to an evil act? I don't think so. In law, we use a standard called 'foreseeability' that seperates acts for which one is responsible from those for which one is not. I think, for an act to be evil, there must either be an intent to do evil, or that it must be reasonably foreseeable that the act would cause an evil outcome. I just don't see either in the woodcutter hypothetical.

Before I get into a lengthy answer of that, I should point out that what happens in a mortal court of law doesn't serve as an adequate standard for what is a good or evil act. There are several problems. One, the law doesn't prosecute people for whether their intention was good or evil, but whether or not they did, and whether or not it was thier intention to obey the law. And act is unlawful under the law, even if you did not intend to break the law. Try arguing with the court over the fact that you did not intend to speed and therefore are not guilty, and see how far that gets you? But how the law operates isn't a good analogy there either, because the morality of an act is not what the law determines but rather the legality (which might be the same thing if you are LN). Secondly, the law is written by mortal and flawed agents of limited wisdom and power, and as such it is implicit in the law that the agents of the law will restrain thier judgement as is appropriate for thier limited wisdom. So for example, there may be all sorts of actions which are evil which a law refrains from prosecuting, because in the limited wisdom and power of the court to use the blunt instument of the law might cause more evil than it prevents. It may well be that any action which leads to evil is evil regardless of intent or distance removed from the first cause, but the fact that the court refrains from seeking out distant causes and cases where a mortal could reasonably say he didn't know that his action would cause evil does not in itself prove that the act is not evil. It simply suggests that the court is aware that mortal wisdom is limited and that the judge himself, being less than perfectly righteous, has no standing to pass judgement in such cases.

Does that make sense, even if you don't necessarily agree?

 

[Celebrim]

I believe that the consequence of killing the child does not necessarily make the woodsman's act Evil...

Felix, I agree with your entire post, but I wanted to clarify this first sentence because it seems to be a sticking point with alot of the debate.

Whether or not the consequence of killing the child makes the woodsman's act evil, it doesn't necessarily follow that the woodsman is evil because the act was (if it was)*. Alot of people seem to be hearing one when the other is said, as if one was the inescapable conclusion of the other.

*And for that matter it doesn't necessarily follow if the act was not evil, that the woodsman isn't.

 

[Celebrim]

Evil is Evil because of choice, not because of results; disabuse yourself of the idea that including intent into morality necessitates that the moral system is slack.

Felix, it is just as easy to come up with contridictions if we assume morality to be based solely on intention as it is to assume that intention plays no role. My point all along has been, and I can't speak for him but I think Hussar's as I understand it as well, is that morality involves a tight interplay of both intention and consequence and neither can be wholly dismissed. Intention and voilition is very important, true, but it is not the whole of the debate. Bad intentions definately render worse an evil act, but good intentions do not erase the evilness of the act.

 

[Storm Raven]

Before I get into a lengthy answer of that, I should point out that what happens in a mortal court of law doesn't serve as an adequate standard for what is a good or evil act.

No, it doesn't. But it is a good starting point, especially in matters like this since law is tied up with morality standards - upon whom is it appropriate to place blame. Foreseeability is a good place to start figuring out how to draw that line, since if you don't, then every act is likely to be an evil act, because some consequence down the road will turn out to be evil.

There are several problems. One, the law doesn't prosecute people for whether their intention was good or evil, but whether or not they did, and whether or not it was thier intention to obey the law.

This is incorrect. For example, the law does not prosecute those who are unable (for whatever reason) to follow the law. It excuses many actions because their intent was good, even though the same action taken under different cirucmstances would make the act unlawful and thus prosecutable. For example, if I accidentally shoot an innocent bystander in the course of attempting to defend someone from death (say, by missing while trying to shoot the attacker), the law in most jurisdictions excuses my action and I am not culpable.

And act is unlawful under the law, even if you did not intend to break the law. Try arguing with the court over the fact that you did not intend to speed and therefore are not guilty, and see how far that gets you?

Negligence of the law is often not an excuse. But that is not always true. And, of course, we are not talking about law per se. We are talking about morality - and in virtually every code of morality, consequences are important, but so are intentions.

But how the law operates isn't a good analogy there either, because the morality of an act is not what the law determines but rather the legality (which might be the same thing if you are LN). Secondly, the law is written by mortal and flawed agents of limited wisdom and power, and as such it is implicit in the law that the agents of the law will restrain thier judgement as is appropriate for thier limited wisdom. So for example, there may be all sorts of actions which are evil which a law refrains from prosecuting, because in the limited wisdom and power of the court to use the blunt instument of the law might cause more evil than it prevents. It may well be that any action which leads to evil is evil regardless of intent or distance removed from the first cause, but the fact that the court refrains from seeking out distant causes and cases where a mortal could reasonably say he didn't know that his action would cause evil does not in itself prove that the act is not evil. It simply suggests that the court is aware that mortal wisdom is limited and that the judge himself, being less than perfectly righteous, has no standing to pass judgement in such cases.

All of this is interesting, and generally ture. Yet it has no bearing on whether or not determinations of good and evil are bounded by a foreseeability standard.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I cast fireball and wipe out a small platoon of humans, 1st-level warriors

Have I committed an evil act because some of those humans had kids at home who will now be orphaned? Because I made someone's wife cry? Because they were of varying alignments (some Neutral, some even Good), and not just Evil? Heck, even if they were all Evil, because I killed them instead of giving them a chance to repent?

And is my magical tutor culpable for evil because he taught me fireball? Or the ancient sage who penned the scroll (though he certainly didn't intend for me to find it and use it in the way I did)? Or the bats who made the guano (without evil intention, but it was used in an evil way!)?

Note I'm not saying "does this make their alignment evil." I'm saying "did they commit an evil act?"

I don't think the bowel movements of bats are commiting evil acts just because my fireball made some orphans.

 

[Psion]

My apologies, I certainly did not intend to 'escalate the rhetoric'. I tend to have rough skin and little tact, and I've no idea why people understand a proclamation of wrongness of one sort to 'escalate the rhetoric' and on of another sort, saying proclaiming that a posters argument is a non sequitur, doesn't.

The difference here is the I was saying was in direct response to a particular assertion of the form A therefore B. Whereas you apparently decided to tell me I "didn't have any reasons" as a means of pantomiming a real refutation without citing any particular conclusion I jumped to without reason as a way of trying to give your position apparent objective weight.

Remorse does not necessarily imply the act was evil.

Oh?

That was exactly my point. But that was Hussar's position. Hussar posited that remorse came about only because the act was evil. That is what I called non sequitir. You called me wrong. Now you are agreeing with me?

People can be wrong and have remorse for acts which are not in fact evil. But in this case, the death of an innocent was an evil act and the remorse is present in a person of good alignment (and sufficient wisdom) because they recognize that - however unwittingly - they've just done a terrible thing.

And my point here is that "terrible" isn't, necessarily or AFAIAC, a synonym for "evil". Evil is a moral judgment.

Circular logic. You are taking your statement as proof of itself. That is your assertion, but you are expected to prove it.

Incorrect. I was stating my position was to demonstrate to you that it was something other than what you supposed it was. Since I wasn't implying that it was a proof of anything, it once again seems to me that you wish to allege illogic at the drop of a hat, again apparently in the hopes of scoring rhetorical points with the crowd.

Again, Hussar said the same thing. So by stating this, you aren't differentiating your stance from his. All I'm seeing, and granted I could be blind, but all I'm seeing is your repeated assumption that separate from intent, the act cannot judged to be evil.

And? This argument has existed in the realms of philosophy for some years. I don't think either of us are going to end the old argument of act vs. agent evaluation here today, so if you have taken it that it my intended proof was that agent evaluation is the only way you can veiw morality, you are incorrect. However, what you did assert is that Hussar and I were saying the same thing, which is also incorrect.

My stance is that acts cannot be meaningfully evaluated separate from evaluating the agent.
Hussar's stance is that act and agent evaluation are separate.

By me restating my stance, which I hope you should see is not the same as Hussars, should be sufficient to refute your claim that Hussar and I are saying the same thing.

That Hussar and I agree that a paladin should not be judged for such an act is a separate issue from whether an act can be meaningfully called "evil" without considering the agent.

Ok, so you are agreeing that Hussar's stance may be valid, but that its not valid in game even though we both seem to (I could be wrong here) agree that the Paladin should atone for the unwitting death of an innocent that he caused because a Paladin is required to maintain a very high degree of purity? But if the death is not evil at all, surely he doesn't need to atone?

By my stance, he does not need to atone.
By Hussar's stance, he does not need to atone.
By the rules, he does not need to atone.

Whatever you believe in the realms of ethical philosophy, I simply do not think that evaluating act separate from the intent of the agent is sensible for game management purposes because:

1. Making that assessment could be very uncertain, if not impossible. Any given act can have dozens if not hundreds of consequences, which could take years or even millennia to play out. If an act is only to be judged by its consequence, it's supposed "alignment" may drift over time, as the events play out. And then, as time goes on, it interacts with the consequences of other events, so it's hard to say which act was ultimately responsible for the "evil" consequence.
2. If it doesn't bear on the alignment of the actor, then it serves little point in judging the morality of the act.
3. Despite the unfortunate verbiage of the paladin class, it's inconsistent with the common vernacular used by players of the game. When a DM describes an act as evil, it is typically taken to mean that there are consequences to the potential alignment of the character in question.

Given this, I feel that it doesn't make too much sense to come at the topic of act evaluation in the game in any way that doesn't reflect on the actor.

 

[Psion]

I don't think the bowel movements of bats are commiting evil acts just because my fireball made some orphans.

This is a perfect illustration of my point #1 in my previous post. Thank you.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Ahah.

I forgot my biggest pet peeve alignment myth, which is strange, because it's always at the forefront of my mind whenever an alignment debate crops up. It can be summed up as: "Hello to everyone in this alignment thread. Here's a hypothetical and very complicated ethical situation, and darn it all if I can't get it to fit nicely into an alignment, because I disagree that [Outcome Y] is Good. Therefore, the entire alignment system is borked and should be thrown away."

First off, the hypothetical situation and its solution. In case anyone has missed it, there's this branch of thinking called "philosophy" that's been wrestling with exactly these questions for a couple years. Last I checked, they hadn't solved this one yet. I think it's a little ... presumptive ... to hold a game mechanic to higher standards than those yet achieved by the entire human race.

Secondly, there's the difference between "right" and "Good" - or, as I like to sometimes put it, "little 'g' good" and "Big 'G' Good." The first really just means "preferable." It'd be good if I won the lottery; it's good that I have clothes on my back; it's good to not cause car accidents. None of these, however, are necessarily Good.

In this, we're all a little guilty of being self-centered. We all, somewhere, believe that our own beliefs about what's Right align (at least a little bit) with what's Good. Otherwise, we're either psychotic or ...

So, when attempting to "debunk" alignment, we propose a hypothetical situation in which our own beliefs about what the right thing to do conflicts with what the Good alignment description says is the right thing to do. Such a case, we say, proves that Good isn't. Instead, what we should realize that, even in D&D with absolute alignments, Good isn't always the right answer.

There is a solid philosophical underpinning for each alignment to use, which demonstrates, to them, why the Chaotic Evil answer is the right one.

It is, in reality, not very much different to posing a hypothetical situation to a devout Sade-ist, a devout Kantian, a follow of St. Augustine, etc., and ask them what the "right" answer is. You might get wildly different answers, all consistent with the underpinning philosophy - and they'll all be "good" according to the person you asked.

 

[Psion]

I forgot my biggest pet peeve alignment myth, which is strange, because it's always at the forefront of my mind whenever an alignment debate crops up. It can be summed up as: "Hello to everyone in this alignment thread. Here's a hypothetical and very complicated ethical situation, and darn it all if I can't get it to fit nicely into an alignment, because I disagree that [Outcome Y] is Good. Therefore, the entire alignment system is borked and should be thrown away."

Hopefully, the gentle viewer understands that my take on alignment is selected to make alignment functional and get around the icky non-conclusive arguments.