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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6197616" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know of any theory of self-cultivation that would count that as an instance - eating ice cream seems to have no connection to any mainstream account of the good life.Perfecting techniques for stealing could count as self-cultivation depending on what's involved - are we talking about a self-developing cat burglar (who, like the ninja, should come out lawful) or the wild Conan-esque thief/thuge (who is a slave to nature and passions, and hence chaotic).If you're sceptical about the notion of self-cultivation (for instance, if you disagree with JS Mill that it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied) then you won't find this notion of self-cultivation very useful. I'm not advocating it (nor dismissing it) - that would be contrary to board rules! I was just suggesting it as a more-or-less accepted category of value that is (i) distinct from the moral, (ii) fits under the label of the ethical, and (iii) roughly corresponds to something that the L/C axis has traditionally been used for in D&D (ie to distinguish the self-cultivating dwarf, monk or samurai from the wild and undisciplined barbarian, bard or elf).Yes. And it doesn't help to add in Aristotelean notions of good, which are deontological but (unlike Kant) grounded in theories of human nature rather than pure reason.Gygax's description of alignment founders on this very point: he describes "good" as belief in human rights; describes "lawful good" by referenece to the Benthamite slogan "greatest happiness of the greatest number"; and says nothing about how to reconcile "good as rights" with the Benthamite dismissal of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". [Cue years of alignment debate about the constraints of duty to which paladins are subject.]A further challenge for alignment in D&D is that many of us have clear notions of how classes like the paladin, samurai and the like should come out - based on the literary antecedents - but no longer have any living cultural access to the relevant value systems. Compared to the moral outlook of the authors of Arthurian romances, for instance, almost all people in liberal industrialised countries (who are the bulk of fantasy roleplayers) regard the protection of life (and the associated duty of not killing) as far more stringent, and have a radically attentuated if not completely extinct notion of honour.Economists, of course, have the most attenuated notion of honour of all! - which is part of what Weber was getting at when he dismissed the English utilitarians as promulgating a morality for shopkeepers. An alignment system that is trying to put Benjamin Franklin and Lancelot into the same moral basket is pretty much doomed to incoherence regardless of the details of its axes.</blockquote>

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