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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tylermalan" data-source="post: 5587177" data-attributes="member: 30929">Ok, [MENTION=95493]Tovec[/MENTION] and the rest, I suppose I should clarify.In the real world, I do not believe in an objective moral standard.  I believe in various incarnations of subjective moral standards, instead.That being said, my opinion about the real world falls mostly in line with what Marius just said.  Almost every person that you will ever encounter is merely a different shade of grey as opposed to purely entrenched in one alignment.  Because there is no objective moral standard, I don't even think that one could say that a person actually is LG or CE or whatever.My original comment about most people being LG was an attempt to use a real world example as it might apply to the D&D world.  As Marius pointed out, chaotic people can abide by their community's laws (etc, etc), but the main point that I've been trying to make (by using real world examples) is that a person's actions and behavior are what determine their alignment.  The topic has been muddled since my initial post, but the question is: how much can a person obey the laws of their community before they are considered lawful instead of chaotic?  And for me, that comes down to percentages.  80% chaotic tendencies and behavior with only 20% lawful tendencies?  Then you're chaotic because you behave that way.  Actions determine alignment; not thoughts.My mistake is in not being clear that the "real world" examples are, in my mind throughout this debate, taking place in a D&D world.  This is exemplified in my most recent post to Patryn, where I said:"essentially, doing lawful good things 99% of the time determines your alignment as lawful good because there is an objective moral standard."As I don't believe there is an objective moral standard in the real world, obviously this would not apply there.Now, in direct response to your final question, Tovec...  my rationale is this: If we apply the objective moral standard of the D&D world (and my qualification of percentage of behavior) to the real world, what we see is the vast majority of people behaving lawfully and goodly more than 50% of the time.  This makes them, in my opinion, LG.Remember, I don't think that people actually are LG once we apply real-world subjectivity.  It is only in the context of the D&D moral standard that I believe most people would be considered LG.  Most people that I personally know, anyway.As a final point, I do not agree that "people in power, with money, etc..." proves anything about the average person, as the average person does not have vast amounts of money or power.  These are extraordinary circumstances, and I don't think it is debatable that extraordinary circumstances will make people do extraordinary things - but as these circumstances are not common, neither are the people who act out in response to them.  Again - it is the actions that matter, and it doesn't matter if people merely DON'T act in these ways because they can't (because they don't have money, or power, or etc.).  All that matters is that they aren't acting this way, so it would be odd to call them by a name befitting a behavior which they do not exhibit.</blockquote>

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