Fantasy morality...

[SHARK]

Greetings!

I wrote:
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"So, there! One can deluge the little screaming beasts with a terrible fire, and have one's conscience untroubled!"
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End Quote.



Harlock wrote:
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"I find these remarks inflammatory."
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End Quote.

Harlock, my remarks were in jest! Ah, well, it's just my sarcastic sense of humour. I also was poking fun at the absurd philosophy that was discussed at some length in my philososphy class, so I thought it was funny on that level as well, that there is real-world philosophies that don't even believe that anything you say is right or wrong, is in fact, meaningless, because their philosophy--that of Non-Cognitivism--doesn't believe in any moral distinctions. There is no right or wrong, there is only what is true or false, by that which you can prove. All such moral expressions are merely emotional ejaculations that are essentially meaningless. I wondered what alignment such a philososphy would be? I imagined someone who held to the philosophy of Non-Cognitivism would feel about such a situation, as discussed about wiping out a nest of young Hobgoblins.

Well, as for the rest of your post--I agree with you. I like to make my players think, and, as you might imagine, they don't just automatically kill everything in sight.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Harlock]

SHARK,

I know you were joking. Look at my subject line. I was joking as well. Double entendre. inFLAMmatory? Get it? I'm really not THAT sensitive... =)

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, Good! I'm glad you have a sense of humour.

Sometimes, things just fly by my radar, and I gaze unblinking...LOL!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[The Sigil]

Please...

Please, everyone, stop trying to interpret D&D from a moral relativist perspective. It will never work, because D&D itself, like it or not, is based on the assumption of moral absolutism. I may be beating a dead horse here, but it seems to me that we're back to the old alignment question...

"What is good or evil? Who gets to define it? In a fantasy world, wouldn't it be different?"

Then we get into discussion of alignment and how it's such a chore and so tough to adjudicate. Ugh.

Again, what this boils down to is moral relativism vs. moral absolutism. The moral relativists want to remove the label of "good" and "evil" from behaviors... because, from a certain point of view, anything is "good."

The problem is that, whether moral relativists like it or not, D&D is a system built on moral absolutes. Harlock's summary of p. 88 of the PH is not only relevant here, but as far as D&D is concerned, is "gospel truth" whether the moral relativists like it or not...

Good protects innocent life. Evil does whatever it wants, Neutral "has compunctions against killing the innocent..."

That pretty much sums it up. A good character will protect INNOCENT life (note the choice of words... there is a big difference between good and innocent... a 3-month old human - or hobgoblin - is neither good nor evil, but innocent).

Moral relativists like to disagree with this, but that's the definition D&D uses and you have to accept it when you accept a game that features spells and such with Evil or Good descriptors. Let me re-iterate that - whether you like it or not, it is inherent in the system. You can change the system if you like, but then it becomes a House Rule discussion.

Now, I have one more point to make.

I would suggest this: Intent doesn't make an action good or evil The action is either good or evil (neutral in some cases.)

Absolutely true. However, I would suggest that MOST actions are neutral. Only a few actions are intrinsically good or evil. Slaying of innocents, for example, is by definition evil. Casting a spell with the Good descriptor is by definition good. You will note that a spell like Cure Light Wounds does not have a descriptor... we tend to think of healing as a good act, but it is not necessarily so... it depends very much on who you are healing and why. The act of healing itself is neutral.

A relevant question, however, is "what makes a character evil/good?" I believe it has everything to do with intentions... as I have stated before, consider the example of a rich man and a poor man seeing a hungry man on the street (assume for a moment that giving a hungry man something to eat is "good"). The poor man passes the hungry man by, and gives him nothing because he has nothing, all the while thinking to himself, "if I had anything to give him, I would, but I have nothing to give so I cannot." The rich man passes the hungry man by and gives him a loaf of bread, because he has the means to do so. Both the rich man and the poor man wanted to do the same things and had the same motivation. The only difference was that the rich man had the capacity to. Does that make him more "good" than the poor man? I don't think so.

A character may intend to do good (not well in this case although it could be well and good...) by killing humanoids. Many people have performed unspeakable acts in the name of good.

In my mind, anyway, intent is what makes a character good or evil. The actions he takes will usually bear this out... though sometimes a "good" person will commit an "evil" act (and vice versa). That's one reason that the D&D game has the "atonement" spell. A paladin may kill the wolf that is eating the town's chickens, only to find that the wolf polymorphs back into the form of an innocent child when killed - the child had lycanthropy. Does that act (killing an innocent) immediately change the paladin's alignment to evil? I think not. Will he lose his powers until he atones? I think so.

That good people commit evil acts does not change the validity of their intentions or change their alignment... provided they try to change when they realize what they did that was "out of character" for them (the reverse is also true). An evil villain does not become good simply because he takes pity on one small child and spares the child... and then continues his killing spree.

I think I'm starting to ramble, so I'll stop. Anyway, my point is twofold: (1) D&D is a game of moral absolutism, so any attempt to interpret it from a moral relativist standpoint is pointless and (2) what makes a character good/evil are his intentions; what makes an act good/evil is its intrinsic nature - and good people sometimes commit evil acts... when this happens, it is time for atonement or, if the character does not desire to atone, THEN comes the alignment change. IOW, an evil act from good intentions requires an atonement (and vice versa). As soon as the alignment of the intentions matches the act, the alignment has changed.

Back to the first point - taking an *innocent* life, of whatever stripe, is an evil act. If a "good" character does this and then tries to atone, his alignment does not change. If he does not try to atone, his alignment changes to evil.

--The Sigil

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Re: Please...

(1) D&D is a game of moral absolutism, so any attempt to interpret it from a moral relativist standpoint is pointless

--The Sigil

I disagree with this statement. DnD is not an ideal absolute system where something like "Thou shall not kill" is absolutely defined.

DnD is a combination of both absolute and relative ideas. "Good" and other descriptor words are not absolutely defined. They have room for wishy-washiness that is not allowed in an absolute system. The use of such words and phrases as "in general" and "implies" are examples of this.

This is exactly why it can be debated. The absolutists and relativists both find solace within the boundries and gaps of DnD.

The modrons of Mechanus would falter with the alignment rules as stated in the PHB and they are the best example of absolutists I can think of.

Let the relativists duke it out with the absolutists, they've been doing it for centuries. Hey, maybe both are correct...

 

[The Sigil]

Re: Re: Please...

Let the relativists duke it out with the absolutists, they've been doing it for centuries. Hey, maybe both are correct...

Even relativists are absolutists... they hold to one belief as absolute...

"All truth is relative."

Don't get me started on the paradoxes inherent if this statement is true.

It's one reason I happen to be an absolutist. *chuckles*

--The Sigil

 

[Zerovoid]

Just to make a point....

The human species has NEVER had a non-human source of competition for resources. We have no absolute manifestations of gods, of good or evil. Even given this we have frequntly found it absolutely fine to kill others. If we did have a competing species which was not human... I'd guess we eliminated them aeons ago.

Its most reasonable for Player's to kill the vermin species with impunity. It's not evil... knits make lice.

I know its hard to do but the morality of OUR century and religions... is NOT a guideline fo the morality of lets say... Greyhawk. Good and Evil as concepts have different meanings in other times in history, and we should all keep this in mind.

But for those who have a problem player.... this little commentary will have little use.

First of all, I agree that humanity would probably destroy any alien species that we came accross. Conversely, they would probably destroy us. The universe is a cold place, and those who compete the hardest will rise to the top.

None the less, I still believe in right and wrong, and just because something like that would be likely happen doesn't mean I can't judge the morality of that action. Certainly people have been doing terrible things for a very long time, wars, holocaust, etc... but that doesn't make them right.

How this works in the game is up to each individual group to decide. Certainly you can have goblinoid creatures be like vermin, an irredemable evil that must be destroyed. Or else they could be just like any other race, and simply have a bad reputation. Most games actually fall into the middle, and the rules seem to support this also.

I actually don't like this, because it means I'm always doing things I'm uncomfortable with in DnD. An unwritten assumption in DnD, combat oriented as it is, is that players will kill quite a few evil humanoids in their adventuring careers. However, the rules also allow good aligned orcs, and make them available for players.

I don't think this is a gray area as much as a contradiction. If these monsters really aren't all that bad, then they shouldn't be used as stock monsters in every dungeon. Personally, I would rather that the rules spelled out the ultimate nature of these races more clearly. If it actually said they were all evil, and it couldn't be helped, then we could all get back to playing the game and having fun killing them.

Basically, the reason this gray area is so huge, is because there is a fundamental rift between traditional adventure design, and the way these races are currently described.

 

[Jurkunaite]

Rape, pillage and black magic

D&D is a game of heroic fantasy, based on more absolute moral values that held sway before moral relativism was even a twinkle in someone's eye. The only thing that approaches an absolute battle between good and evil is the Second World War. D&D campaigns - particularly something like Dragonlance - regularly stage such great fights.

How's this for a solution?

An argument for the evil tendencies of humanoids is to see them as corrupted by evil deities (Gruumsh, Maglubiyet, Yeenoghu) who moulded races in their corrupted image just like Corellon, Moradin and the various human pantheons created their good races on each world. Thus there are evil humans and evil dwarves and good orcs and good goblins, but growing up in a society dominated by war, strife and an evil, interventionist god generally produces tribes who know nothing but conflict and therefore rarely produce good individuals. Drizzt is an example of how modern relativism has produced more believable characters without having to bow to the "drow are merely culturally disposed to a bit of rape, pillage and black magic in the name of Lolth so they are not technically evil" thesis put forward by people who live too much in the real world.

The distinction between "always" and "often" in the alignment sections in Monster Manual entries is crucial. "Always" is reserved for the big hitters like demons, celestials, dragons etc which represent mythical symbols of good or evil and have semi-divine or magical origins. "Often" means that there is possibility for individual thought and individuals like Drizzt emerge to provide interesting NPCs to challenge the PCs into taking care before flame-striking hobgob kids. Perhaps the challenge is to show mercy like any good character should and raising the children as examples of how even hobgobs are redeemable. Powerful hobgoblins should be encouraged to take note that their society is being threatened by these images, which merely creates a new challenge.

Fantasy and any fiction revolves around conflict. Taking the moral conflict out of it usually makes for a pretty boring game.

 

[mtbdm]

thoughts on good & evil

Intent does not matter. Action matters. Mistakes should be atoned for if possible. But overall, the wholesale slaughter of anything (including animals) is not a good act. Genocide is not a good act. Period.
Now if you're playing in a world where ALL the forces of evil are without a doubt wholly evil and un-redeemable (like demons), that is one thing, but there are actually very few such worlds in fantasy.
Tolkien had Gollum as well as Saruman and Grima Wormtongue--all spared.
Star Wars had Vader--spared by Luke.
Those were evil characters whom the good characters spared because they knew they were not wholly evil.
Pragmatism is not equivalent to good. Did we execute every single Nazi? No, we took out the leaders. Did the conquistadors slaughter the Meszoamerican tribes for good? No, they did it for greed.
Taking out evil leaders and warriors of tribes of humanoids in a roleplaying game should make survival difficult enough for the rest. It should also make things quite difficult when 40 male members of a goblin tribe all died fighting a 6 member party of PCs--what if the surviving males are the ones that are too old or past breeding years? In any case, if they could recover, it would take generations. Meanwhile they still have to find food and shelter every single day, stave off disease, etc... Another alternative for good characters would be to exile evil critters or round them up and put them on reservations.
If the evil creatures are attacking, it's justifiable to kill them, but if they are not and are not proven to be conspiring to, it's not "good" to kill them--maybe neutral, depending on the situation.
Sometimes in life, people are forced to choose between two options: bad and worse. It should take several evil acts to change character alignment fully.

 

[Kichwas]

The people of my setting have found a simple solution to the moral dilema of genocide and warring against 'humanoids':

Killing and genocide are evil no matter who the victim; that much is clear.

So instead of wiping them out enslave them. Put them to good productive use towards the advancement of soceity. Give them civilization.