I do not find referencing older edition's definitions of alignments to be at all relevant to discussion of how things do/don't shake out in the current edition
My intuitive feeling on this is that the edition is meant to deliver a "classic D&D" feel,
and the edition seems to have made very few changes to the traditional alignments of various entities. So I think there is some degree of continuity at least.
Before you try and figure out a person's alignment, you need to determine for yourself what denotes Law / Chaos-- is internal or external? Or is it both in your opinion?
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But the idea of a "personal code" does not automatically mean you are Lawful. Codes are just beliefs.
am a player of a character with a code of behavior he adheres to and a chaotic good alignment (which is, in my opinion, within the definition of chaotic good found in the 5th edition rules because said code was determined by the character's own conscience and with little regard to what others expect)
I feel there are a few things going on here.
First, I agree that law and chaos have both an "internal" and "external" aspect: monks and the like are self-disciplined but often quirky hermits or at least somewhat outside the typical social order; evil tyrants might be decadent but impose their yokes upon the world (this latter phrase being part of the AD&D description of LE); classic paladins are both self-disciplined
and realise the highest ideals to which their societies aspire.
We can easily throw up more examples that don't fit straightforwardly into the law/chaos paradigm: eg many contemporary liberal democracies (the US perhaps first and foremost, at least in its constitutional documents) are founded upon the idea that the best foundation for individual liberty and self-realisation (both chaotic ideal, according to the original PHB) is a society founded on a robust rule of law (which would typically be seen as a lawful ideal). Is this law or chaos? Over the years, when I've raised this in posts, I've found different people have different views.
My own take on this is that alignment is not a "neutral" system for describing personalities, but a distinctive way of framing certain moral questions as a focus of play. Hence it can be expected to generate controversy over labelling, because until the play has actually taken place the answers can't be known! For those who think that alignment
is a labelling device rather than a tool for focusing on certain questions in play, I think examples like the one about rule-of-law liberal ideals tend to show that the alignment system will work better for
labelling pseudo-mediaeval societies conceived in a somewhat idealised way, than for labelling modern constitutional orders.
Finally, is a code just a belief (or set of beliefs)? I don't think so. Nearly everyone has beliefs about what is right or wrong - has a
conscience, to evoke the 5e terminology - but that doesn't mean everyone follows a code. The idea of a code, in the monk or paladin sense (the classic lawful paradigms of D&D), is closer to a monastic rule. Jedi can naturally be read as having a code in this sense, but Han Solo doesn't (even though he obviously has a set of moral beliefs - a moral code - that he more-or-less sticks to).
It's tricky, and I don't except either of you two (or anyone else) to necessarily agree. And there is a complicating factor that, in Gygax's AD&D valuing
truth is part of being good (so both LG and CG are honourable) whereas 3E moves this into lawfulness (as far as I can tell, this is the most important change in alignment definition over the editions), and I don't know where 5e thinks it should be.
Of course, I am also fairly certain that I could explain any particular behavior of Drizzt as being evidence of any particular alignment, given their generally nebulous definitions
I've never read a Drizzt story and have no idea what alignment - if any - would make sense. My post was triggered by the fact that [MENTION=6776548]Corpsetaker[/MENTION] posted a description of Drizzt ("A perfectionist, in combat and in everything he does, striving to attain the highest standards within his code of morality and self-discipline") that describes every stereotypical monk ever. And monks are paradigmatically lawful. Hence, if that description of Drizzt is accurate (I personally have no idea) then I can see why Chris Perkins labelled him lawful.