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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7783249" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm not going to debate it.  I'm not even going to quibble with what you've revealed about your own view of the real world.However, going back to the fantasy world, one way to define each of the alignments point of view in a rational way is that the adherents to that philosophy do not believe that the other philosophies represent something that is actually real.  And, if they are correct in their assessment, then we would have good reason to believe that they are also correct in their philosophy.For example, good aligned people tend to believe that evil is just the absence of good.   And, if good is correct, that evil is simply just unnecessary destructiveness, then Good really is the correct thing to believe in.  Chaotic people tend to believe that order doesn't really exist and doesn't really reflect the nature of the universe, lawful people tend to believe that chaos is simply a flaw in the natural order, and so forth.Evil for its part naturally believes that Good is not a real thing, that no one is actually good, that all morality is an artificial construct, that people who promote goodness are in some way scamming the credulous, or are in fact not brave enough to face reality, or that they are simply weak people relying on deceitfulness to create a herd mentality to protect from the strong and successful.  This is how you rationally justify evil, because if you are right and there really is no good in the universe, then evil is not only justifiable but inevitable.  This framework is a part of how I've started looking at alignment in my own game universe.  I don't want to have characters in my game universe that are snarling puppy chewing villains simply because the plot and game mechanics require something for the PC's to kill.  I prefer that any reasonably intelligent character have some sort of defensible philosophical viewpoint to say why, of the different tangible forces of the universe why they would choose between them, and that if the PC tries to get in a philosophical debate with them, they'd be able to say why they choose what they choose.   If you really believe that Evil most reflects the overall nature of the universe and that Evil is not only going to win in the end, but perhaps should win in the end, then then it's rational - albeit tragic - to believe in Evil.</blockquote>

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