Dragonlance Dragonlance Philosophy thread

[Scribe]

They'd define good as complete and utter selfishness and a might makes right mindset.

Which unsurprisingly I'm sure, is my "Evil" alignment in a nutshell.

 

[overgeeked]

Which unsurprisingly I'm sure, is my "Evil" alignment in a nutshell.

Mine as well. But here we are.

We have basically two choices with morality, moral absolutism or moral relativism. Our friend is a moral absolutist but falls into the same problem as other moral absolutists, i.e. the need to define their terms, argue their position, and try to show in some way that morality is in fact objective and absolute. This is where things like the Euthyphro dilemma and other various points I've brought up in the thread come into the conversation. Moral philosophers have tried to prove moral absolutism for centuries, and none of them have managed to. As much as I want my morality to be objective, I know there's no solid argument for it. We're left with moral relativism, accepting that morality means different things to different people.

I really think the Pratchett quote from upthread is perfect...

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

 

[Neonchameleon]

I just had a thunk in another thread.

The core problem with Dragonlance's philosophy can be resolved if Paladine is not actually good. By this theory he's (Lawful) neutral - but is the only God really strong enough to oppose Tahksis. He considers it his job to maintain the balance which he does by joining the side of good, and he's the one we get the statements about the Kingpriest being a good person from as well as the importance of balance. As the evil gods are stronger and more numerous than the good ones he sides with good, and the Good gods are more than happy to let him, and gave him the domain of redemption because he's who they are trying to redeem. And the reason we get occurrances like Lord Soth (the Rose being Paladine's order) and the Kingpriest being explicitly a Cleric of Paladine are that, because he's not actually a God of Good Paladine fundamentally doesn't understand good and focuses on the outward form rather than the compassion and kindness.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I just had a thunk in another thread.

The core problem with Dragonlance's philosophy can be resolved if Paladine is not actually good. By this theory he's (Lawful) neutral - but is the only God really strong enough to oppose Tahksis. He considers it his job to maintain the balance which he does by joining the side of good, and he's the one we get the statements about the Kingpriest being a good person from as well as the importance of balance. As the evil gods are stronger and more numerous than the good ones he sides with good, and the Good gods are more than happy to let him, and gave him the domain of redemption because he's who they are trying to redeem. And the reason we get occurrances like Lord Soth (the Rose being Paladine's order) and the Kingpriest being explicitly a Cleric of Paladine are that, because he's not actually a God of Good Paladine fundamentally doesn't understand good and focuses on the outward form rather than the compassion and kindness.

this is also a fixx saying that the head god is LN

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is the coherence with the Natural Law doesn't allow the moral relativism. If ethics was relative then terrorist groups could justify their criminal actions, or empires could use some hyprocite excuse to invade other country.

If the cataclysm happened, one of the main responssible was the kingpriest, but also the evil deities because these sabotaged all the efforst of the good deities to avoid it. One of this is the women sent to lord Soth when this was to face to kingpriest. These were agents of some evil god.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It is a real trip seeing people use moral relativism to defend a campaign setting steeped in the alignment system which for decades has desperately been trying to define itself as objective morality.

If D&D wasn't so obsessed with objective good and evil, we wouldn't even be here discussing this thing where the Objectively Good gods stood by and said being Too Objectively Good justified mass murder.

If the book was just 'one team of gods did a genocide for reasons and now are trying to redeem themselves by stopping the other team of gods from doing next one', this thread and the Ten Thousand Dragonlance Derails wouldn't exist.

 

[Neonchameleon]

My opinion is the coherence with the Natural Law doesn't allow the moral relativism. If ethics was relative then terrorist groups could justify their criminal actions, or empires could use some hyprocite excuse to invade other country.

Mine is that when it comes to moral absolutists it's incredibly easy to not count the cost or the colateral damage or anything else when you're damn sure you're on the side of the angels. And of Natural Law that those who claim it are somewhat selective in which parts of nature they look at and don't update what they say Natural Law says when our understanding of what nature is changes - but if I were to go into more detail the button I'd be finding is the one that says 'no politics or religion'.

If the cataclysm happened, one of the main responssible was the kingpriest, but also the evil deities because these sabotaged all the efforst of the good deities to avoid it. One of this is the women sent to lord Soth when this was to face to kingpriest. These were agents of some evil god.

If the cataclysm happens primary responsibility goes to those who caused it of course. Which is the gods of good. The gods of evil might have been encouraging them to take the evil act, but it was their choice.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mine is that when it comes to moral absolutists it's incredibly easy to not count the cost or the colateral damage or anything else when you're damn sure you're on the side of the angels. And of Natural Law that those who claim it are somewhat selective in which parts of nature they look at and don't update what they say Natural Law says when our understanding of what nature is changes - but if I were to go into more detail the button I'd be finding is the one that says 'no politics or religion'.

If the cataclysm happens primary responsibility goes to those who caused it of course. Which is the gods of good. The gods of evil might have been encouraging them to take the evil act, but it was their choice.

I'm pretty sure all the gods together caused the Cataclysm, not just the Gods of Good.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It is a real trip seeing people use moral relativism to defend a campaign setting steeped in the alignment system which for decades has desperately been trying to define itself as objective morality.

I know I love how people both want it to be black and white AND say "well from a point of view you can maybe see..."

If D&D wasn't so obsessed with objective good and evil, we wouldn't even be here discussing this thing where the Objectively Good gods stood by and said being Too Objectively Good justified mass murder.

that's the thing this isn't real world philosophy arguments... we have defined meanings for the 9 alignments.

If the book was just 'one team of gods did a genocide for reasons and now are trying to redeem themselves by stopping the other team of gods from doing next one', this thread and the Ten Thousand Dragonlance Derails wouldn't exist.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I retcon my own version of how the Cataclysm happened, and the kingpriest was only the beak of the icerberg.

If you don't accept Natural Law as eternal and unalterable then you can't report or judge historical facts from the past in the real life, for example the gladiator games. If you say homophobia is wrong, always and everywhere, then you are accepting the Natural Law doesn't allow the homophobia.

I use a different criteria about the Law-Chaos axis.

 

[Vaalingrade]

My fix?

The Kingpriest decided to kill everyone no on-side with him, begins a ritual to do so. Gods send signs and Soth to warn him that that ritual is not going to do what he thinks it will. The dude in the Graystone whose name I can't remember say 'hold my beer' and screws everyone by making sure it all fails.

Result works like the Sylex from the Brother's War and knocks the gods distant from the world, not helped by the fact that their former worshippers are a bit miffed at them not saving them.

Current day, the gods have been trying to make a come back, blaming each other for the Cataclysm, not realizing this is all set up for where the books ended up going anyway.

Everyone's fallible now, because sending signs was the literal least they could do, but the villany was done by the villains.

 

[Faolyn]

My fix?

The Kingpriest decided to kill everyone no on-side with him, begins a ritual to do so. Gods send signs and Soth to warn him that that ritual is not going to do what he thinks it will. The dude in the Graystone whose name I can't remember say 'hold my beer' and screws everyone by making sure it all fails.

Result works like the Sylex from the Brother's War and knocks the gods distant from the world, not helped by the fact that their former worshippers are a bit miffed at them not saving them.

Current day, the gods have been trying to make a come back, blaming each other for the Cataclysm, not realizing this is all set up for where the books ended up going anyway.

Everyone's fallible now, because sending signs was the literal least they could do, but the villany was done by the villains.

See, this works. The Kingpriest was performing a ritual that would have had evil results. Not just asking for power. The gods literally try to stop him but can't. The signs and relying on Soth may be not great but it may literally have been the best they could have done.

 

[Hussar]

Entirely apropos of nothing, I stopped reading this thread on page 7 several days ago. On page 7 is the quote from Hogfather that, ten pages later, is being requoted here on page 18.

Now that's progress.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Entirely apropos of nothing, I stopped reading this thread on page 7 several days ago. On page 7 is the quote from Hogfather that, ten pages later, is being requoted here on page 18.

Now that's progress.

there are little progress... we do have people on side "don't fix it ain't broken" saying that what the king priest did was Evil with a capitol E. We have several possible fixes from people on side "just make some minor changes" and no one has accused anyone of being a bigot or personally evil in at least 2 pages...

 

[Umbran]

If you say homophobia is wrong, always and everywhere, then you are accepting the Natural Law doesn't allow the homophobia.

"Natural Laws" are things like gravity, the speed of light, and how atoms react to become various chemicals. They have no moral relevance - they are neither right, nor wrong, they just are. A sunny day is pleasant to us, but is not "good". A tornado is destructive, but it is not "wrong" or "evil". These things just are.

As soon as you are talking about right and wrong, you are talking about human concepts of justice, morality, or ethics. You cannot use "Natural Law" to justify behavior as moral or immoral, as natural law has no moral content.