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<blockquote data-quote="Tom Cashel" data-source="post: 46564" data-attributes="member: 321">These alignment discussions always turn into ethical discussions about REAL LIFE, is what I think.&nbsp; I don't think you're evil if you kill someone in defense of your family.&nbsp; I think that the &quot;conscious choice&quot; you're talking about in that hypothetical situation is not really conscious at all.&nbsp; It's instinct, self-preservation, whatever you want to call it.&nbsp; Now if you subdue the intruder, tie him up, and then when the police are on their way you DECIDE that you'd be &quot;doing society a favor&quot; by slitting his throat...well, that's kinda &quot;evil,&quot; isn't it?But to answer the question I quoted: in the rules of the fantasy game called D&amp;D, where there can be moral absolutes (to some extent), it says that Detect Evil detects the presence of an &quot;evil aura.&quot;&nbsp; It doesn't just detect evil intent, like in 2E.&nbsp; I guess what we should be debating is whether someone who had never committed evil acts would have an evil aura, or if its enough to be Neutral Evil to have an evil aura.In my opinion...IN D&amp;D good is good and evil is evil.&nbsp; Real-life examples don't work because real life is usually a little tiny bit more complex than the d20 system. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tom Cashel, post: 46564, member: 321"] These alignment discussions always turn into ethical discussions about REAL LIFE, is what I think. I don't think you're evil if you kill someone in defense of your family. I think that the "conscious choice" you're talking about in that hypothetical situation is not really conscious at all. It's instinct, self-preservation, whatever you want to call it. Now if you subdue the intruder, tie him up, and then when the police are on their way you DECIDE that you'd be "doing society a favor" by slitting his throat...well, that's kinda "evil," isn't it? But to answer the question I quoted: in the rules of the fantasy game called D&D, where there can be moral absolutes (to some extent), it says that [i]Detect Evil[/i] detects the presence of an "evil aura." It doesn't just detect evil intent, like in 2E. I guess what we should be debating is whether someone who had never committed evil acts would have an evil aura, or if its enough to be Neutral Evil to have an evil aura. In my opinion...IN D&D good is good and evil is evil. Real-life examples don't work because real life is usually a [i]little[/i] tiny bit more complex than the d20 system. :) [/QUOTE]

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