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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8837789" data-attributes="member: 42582">That definition of LG does not yield a full-fledged theory of punishment. The DL authors clearly insert a well-known theory of punishment into their fiction. It might be one you disagree with, but when we look at the history of human literature and experience it's not mysterious what the authors were thinking.The definition of NG doesn't tell us what a NG person does when they confront A trying to kill B. Does the NG person help A, who needs to kill B? Or help B, who needs to survive being killed by A? To answer, we would need a theory of justified needs, and when wrongful conduct renders &quot;needs&quot; unjustified. Theories of self-defence and of legitimate punishment are well-known devices for filling this space. The D&amp;D definition of NG does nothing to set out or clarify such theories.CG refers to &quot;conscience&quot;. It clearly can't mean &quot;whatever someone feels like&quot;, so it must mean something like &quot;genuine conscience&quot; or &quot;morally-informed conscience&quot;. It still tells us nothing about the appropriate use of violence and punishment. Also, to my knowledge none of the Krynn gods are labelled CG so I'm not sure it's relevant.The fact is that there are theories of right conduct that have been held, and are held, and don't agree. They produce different conclusions about violence and about punishment. Those differences exist in the contemporary world (compare the US, where you live, to Australia, where I live) and only get larger when we incorporate the sorts of historical and theological tropes and trappings that are found in a fantasy fiction like DL. The D&amp;D definitions of &quot;good&quot; have never resolved, nor even set out to resolve, these difference, except in a few respects (D&amp;D assumes that pacifism and vegetarianism are not obligatory; but it doesn't even tell us whether or not they are supererogatory!).Reiterating that &quot;good is objective&quot; and quoting definitions that don't answer the questions that DL raises won't change any of the above.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8837789, member: 42582"] That definition of LG does not yield a full-fledged theory of punishment. The DL authors clearly insert a well-known theory of punishment into their fiction. It might be one you disagree with, but when we look at the history of human literature and experience it's not mysterious what the authors were thinking. The definition of NG doesn't tell us what a NG person does when they confront A trying to kill B. Does the NG person help A, who needs to kill B? Or help B, who needs to survive being killed by A? To answer, we would need a theory of [i]justified[/i] needs, and when wrongful conduct renders "needs" unjustified. Theories of self-defence and of legitimate punishment are well-known devices for filling this space. The D&D definition of NG does nothing to set out or clarify such theories. CG refers to "conscience". It clearly can't mean "whatever someone feels like", so it must mean something like "genuine conscience" or "morally-informed conscience". It still tells us nothing about the appropriate use of violence and punishment. Also, to my knowledge none of the Krynn gods are labelled CG so I'm not sure it's relevant. The fact is that [i]there are theories[/i] of right conduct that have been held, and are held, and don't agree. They produce different conclusions about violence and about punishment. Those differences exist in the contemporary world (compare the US, where you live, to Australia, where I live) and only get larger when we incorporate the sorts of historical and theological tropes and trappings that are found in a fantasy fiction like DL. The D&D definitions of "good" have never resolved, nor even set out to resolve, these difference, except in a few respects (D&D assumes that pacifism and vegetarianism are not obligatory; but it doesn't even tell us whether or not they are supererogatory!). Reiterating that "good is objective" and quoting definitions that don't answer the questions that DL raises won't change any of the above. [/QUOTE]

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