Elder-Basilisk said:
First, the notion that the puritans, muslims, ancient greeks, Hebrews, etc refrained from killing everyone they though evil because they knew that other people disagreed with their standards is absurd. They didn't and don't care whether people disagreed with their standards as they made and make perfectly clear through the various laws that punished public dissent. Under Sharia law, blasphemy against the prophet carries a death sentence. During the Reformation, heresy was sometimes punishable by death (although it was usually first punished by banishment). In some American colonies, heresy was punishable by banishment as well. Heck, even in "enlightened" modern Europe and Canada, challenging their standards for judging evil (by being "intolerant" etc) are punishable crimes.
My intent was not to say that everyone is multicultural and tolerant, but that even the most extremist groups of history, as long as they were even partially sane, did not believe that they were in possession of an infallible method for determining evil. There is
nothing like 'detect evil,' in human history, and so using real human laws as a guide for determining the laws about
being evil is inherently misguided.
No, RL societies that actually believe in good and evil and are confident in their standards don't kill everyone they judge to be evil for other reasons. It would cause more harm to society than it would prevent (as anyone who considers the implications of the notion that we ought to execute every thief, liar, embezzler, adulterer, wife beater, etc instinctively recognizes). And, more importantly, it would be unjust. Punishments must fit and not exceed crimes. (Something which has been recognized since the Code of Hammurabi mandated an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the Law of Moses forbid exceeding that mark). There are many kinds of evil which do not deserve death from human hands on earth.
Note that I did not say they would just kill everyone who turned up evil. A tyrannical state probably would, but a modern, enlightened state would simply take steps to make them
not evil, and so not a danger to others - with the awareness that it is possible for alignment to change.
Not necessarily so. That idea comes from the notion that there's some kind of "team evil" which acknowledges its evil nature without rationalizing it and opposes something they think of as "good." I don't think it's much of a stretch to suppose that followers of Lawful Evil gods might well think of Detect Chaos as "Detect Evil" and Detect Good as "Detect Weak-Minded Bleeding Heart follower of the slave morality". Detect Law for them would be "Detect Good." In any event, much like people IRL are ready to defend their friends and family as "good people" even though their actions their evil clearer than any spell ever could, a D&D world would be full of people who would rationalize and excuse the evil alignments of themselves, their friends, and their allies.
Most rationalization in the real world, however, is not on the order of "He's evil, but that's okay," so much as "He's not evil, he's just pragmatic," or something else of the kind. That's the difference involved in these spells - you can't pretend that detect evil actually detects good, because it specifically detects things that are unquestionably evil, like demons. Law and chaos is a bit stickier, but the same sort of association with the outer planes would allow the spells, again, to give
certain information of a kind that people in reality simply cannot get.
Going from the guidelines in the Book of Hallowed Might, what it takes for a person actually to be detected as evil is that they "Actively [enjoy] lying, stealing, and inflicting pain on others." A stable society, quite frankly, would be foolish to let such elements go about their business like they're anyone else.
In any event, the notion that a D&D world that features neutral and evil gods has any kind of automatic, universal agreement on the nature of evil is naieve. When Olidamara Ralishaz and Zilchus have one code that espouses neutrality and Hextor advocates evil, "What's wrong with [evil]?" and "what's good about [good]?" become rational questions. (Those are questions that people ask all the time IRL; they just don't generally put it in quite such stark terms and usually preface them by denying that notions of good and evil have any normative meaning at all). When evil and neutrality have as much divine sanction as good, it's not clear that [good] would enjoy any special privilege in society.
So long as good and evil are alignments achieved in more or less the same way we would judge people in the real world, given perfect information, it seems fairly evident that people would advocate being [good] or good, and dislike those who were [evil] or evil. As I said before, I think it would actually be more interesting if they were
not obtained the same way - if, for instance, someone that accidentally drove a bus off a cliff and thereby killed a large number of people would suddenly detect as heavily Evil, even though it wasn't their fault. It would give a satisfying moral ambiguity. Most people in this thread, however, seem to think that it should be actively based on whether you like hurting people or not, in which case being good would obviously be better received than being evil.
This, of itself, assumes a small and static proportion of evil in the state in question. If it assumes that those who are evil today will be evil tomorrow--which is not the case IRL or in D&D. It also assumes that only a small population of the state is evil. If even 25% (a very conservative number really) of the population has an evil alignment, such a plan would not be even remotely practical. (Which is one of the many reasons why RL socieities that were confident in their definitions of good and evil have almost universally refrained from annihilating the evil elements in their society).
Of course, I think that's an absolutely ludicrous number - far, far too high. Again, evil is those who
actively enjoy hurting others. I do not think that 25% of the population of the world are sadists, much less the kind of evil you get in the higher judgements, like "Will kill for the sheer pleasure of bringing pain and death to others." That kind of evil is psychosis in the real world. The vast majority of people, in my estimation, are good or neutral. Compare the beginning level of being good - "Willing to help strangers on occasion." Heck, I'd be surprised if
that couldn't be said of the majority of the population.
It also assumes that it is just to jail/fine/execute people for their thoughts. If it isn't, then the mere act of beginning to execute your plan would swing its practitioners towards evil themselves. (And even if it weren't, the structures necessary for such an apparatus would themselves encourage evil in those designated to operate them. The power of such a system would be an invitation to abuse. One must imagine that many of the people who went into the various secret police organizations with good intentions were corrupted. And, of course, the concentration camp/death camp/reeducation camp/gulag guards and commandants would be tempted to evil too--if indeed they didn't have to be on the border of evil to want those positions).
Given that it would be done to protect those who were not evil from the evil people, and given that in a good society, the intention would be to convert evil people
to good,
and further given that killing evil people, by the normal rules of the game, is not evil in itself - I don't think it's very likely that the social apparatus to eliminate evil would be evil in itself.
It also assumes that outlook is static. If outlook is not static, then the above is not an effective way to prevent future suffering either--even granting all of your assumptions. The person who delights in the suffering of others today could be convinced of the wrongness of that outlook tomorrow; the person who today is merely jaded and indifferent to the pain of people he doesn't like could tomorrow come to take pleasure in their suffering. And the person who today thinks she wants to help others could become bitter when people abuse her trust and then become vengeful or vindictive.
The person who was jailed or executed might not have gone on to do anything harmful while the others who were left alone could decide to do something wrong and harmful tomorrow anyway.
The whole point is that people who are evil are
far more likely, almost infinitely more likely, to act to harm others than those who are good. If that isn't the case, if the good person is just as likely to flip out and kill a busload of nuns as the evil person, then alignment is obviously meaningless for such determinations. However, if that is the case, then I don't think you can reasonably claim that alignment represents anything significant within the person's personality.
And, of course, my argument is partially rooted in the notion that alignment can change - the point of the prison system would be finding out who is evil, taking them in, and making them good. Sure, they
might change on their own, but as long as they're wandering around evil, they're a danger to others in society.
And, of course, it's also inaccurate to assume that all evil deeds are done by individuals with an evil outlook. There are lots of crimes of passion and crimes committed by people with impaired faculties (alcohol is a major factor in the commission of a lot of crimes) that are not necessarily done with premeditation or rational forethought and are sometimes regretted after the fact. The notion that you could prevent even the majority of crime through your program is naieve.
This is closer to the approach I am advocating for alignment - that the core of a person
cannot be aligned, as everyone is subject to such 'crimes of passion.' If a person's 'outlook on life' is always overriden in the specific instance by the circumstances, then it's a meaningless way to define alignment. Hence, alignment should be based on action, not thought.
