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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3290810" data-attributes="member: 4937">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?</blockquote>

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