Good/Evil vs. Law/Chaos

[Celebrim]

There has never been a single clear definition of law or chaos, and as a result there has rarely been a clear definition of good or evil either. For example, in 1st edition, it seemed to be implied that 'lawful good' was more good than 'good', and 'chaotic evil' was more evil than 'evil'. Ironically, 4e seems to have returned to using 'law' and 'chaos' as mere descriptive modifiers describing the degree of goodness or evilness.

The following is therefore my own opinion, and not any official description.

Generally speaking, if the character has a code of ethics which is shared by a large group (which may be said to form a society of some sorts), and if that code is one that is knowable and the actions of the character may be reviewed and judged under that code, then the character is lawful.

Note particularly, that a character may be operating under some sort of code of ethics, but if that code is personal and perhaps even unique to the character, and in particular if that code is unknowable and the actions of the character holding the code can be reviewed and judged only by the character, then the character is chaotic. For example, the fairy of folk lore appears to operate under some sort of code of honor they feel bound to uphold, but the rules of the code appear to be created by and known only to the particular fairy. We can never really know whether the fairy has broken his own rules. Similarly, the psychotic villain of Hollywood films and pulp fiction seems to have some sort of internal logic that only he understands and which he feels bound to, but only he can really judge whether he's acting in the way he deems honorable.

As a corollary to the above, lawful characters tend to think meaning is externally imposed on them and the world. Chaotic characters tend to think all meaning is internally created. Reviewing their own beliefs, a lawful character would tend to say that they believe as they do because it is truth, because it is right, or because one ought to believe this way. Reviewing the same beliefs, a chaotic would tend to say that the lawful group has consensually created a shared meaning, but that that meaning was wholly arbitrary and did not exist outside of the group.

And it follows from all that that lawfuls tend to see sharing the truth as a basic good, whereas chaotics would describe it as imposing their beliefs on others and a basic evil. Indeed, from a pure chaotic perspective, imposing your beliefs on others may be one of the few things that are truly immoral, as they would believe that 'good' and 'evil' are simply other consensual delusions.

Similarly, it should be obvious that lawfuls would tend to have greater respect for the rules of external institions, but that respect for any particular external institution is by no means an essential part of being lawful. Conversely, chaotics would tend to see external laws as being a necessary evil at best, but disrespect for any particular external institution is by no means an essential part of being chaotic. It's not neccessary for a Lawful character to be law abiding, as long as he has some externally imposed code and obligation. It's not necessary for a chaotic character to be actively undermining the law, so long as they do not hold some external code to be of greater authority than their own conscious.

And of course, probably the vast majority of people hold some intermediate position - that we can live morally only by balancing in some fashion the dictates of ones consciousness with some external guidance obligation and that when we follow one to the exclusion of the other we risk folly.

 

[jbear]

@NN

Soldiers follow orders fullstop. They are not trained to question whether it is right or wrong (good/evil), they are trained to obey. Some individual soldiers may have aconflict of morals when following some orders, feeling personally what they do is wrong, but they obey the orders because that is their job and they will be severly punished if they do not.

I'm sure this is why when a war ends so many soldiers are traumatized for life.

Law is completely independant from justice and morality. Some individuals will try and use laws to perpetrate justice but it is not the system itself that is just or good. An equal or perhaps larger quantity of individuals will try and use that exact same system to benefit their own individual gain, or to avoid justice. The vast majority simply follow the rules, whatever they may be, and in this way avoid conflict/problems so they can go about their daily lives in relative peace.

In fact the cleverest criminals realise that the most prosperous position to conduct criminal activities is from a position of authority. That is why inevitably the police become corrupt, above their own laws.

 

[Shades of Green]

The way I see it, Law vs. Chaos is not just about society, but more about personal consistency and honor. A Lawful character is a man of principles and a planner - he or she acts consistently and honorably. A Chaotic character is capricious and flexible, and could at times be quite dishonorable.

So a Lawful character keeps his or her word and his or her promises, rarely lies, plans ahead a lot and tends to have clear principles (whether good or evil) about what's wrong and what's right. Lawful characters also tend to respect laws and traditions and would rarely disobey them without a clear and profound reason (and thus Lawful Good characters would disobey the more evil rules of a Lawful Evil state but not the non-evil ones).

On the other hand, a Chaotic character has more flexible "rules of a thumb" instead of grand principles and could easily change plans at the spur of a moment. Chaotic characters lie when it is convenient, cheat when it is convenient, ignore promises when keeping them is inconvenient and disobey rules when it is convenient to do so at that moment (but might obey them later if at that time it will be convenient to do so at that moment).

A Neutral character is moderate. He or she generally keeps promises and obeys laws and traditions to a point and doesn't lie too frequently, but would disobey rules, break promises and lie if necessary. The different between Lawful and Neutral is that Lawful involves clear, strong and hard principles while Neutral involves more moderate principles. The difference between Chaotic and Neutral is that Chaotic means changing things at a whim or when convenient while Neutral means changing things when necessary.

Good characters care about others. Neutral characters care mostly about themselves (or don't care at all). Evil characters enjoy harming and/or enslaving and/or exploiting others.

 

[roguerouge]

lawful or chaotic is basically how much you really care about order.

Spoken like a lawful person. A chaotic person would describe the difference as how much a person is concerned with individual rights.

 

[Dausuul]

The way I see it, Law vs. Chaos is not just about society, but more about personal consistency and honor. A Lawful character is a man of principles and a planner - he or she acts consistently and honorably. A Chaotic character is capricious and flexible, and could at times be quite dishonorable.

So a Lawful character keeps his or her word and his or her promises, rarely lies, plans ahead a lot and tends to have clear principles (whether good or evil) about what's wrong and what's right. Lawful characters also tend to respect laws and traditions and would rarely disobey them without a clear and profound reason (and thus Lawful Good characters would disobey the more evil rules of a Lawful Evil state but not the non-evil ones).

On the other hand, a Chaotic character has more flexible "rules of a thumb" instead of grand principles and could easily change plans at the spur of a moment. Chaotic characters lie when it is convenient, cheat when it is convenient, ignore promises when keeping them is inconvenient and disobey rules when it is convenient to do so at that moment (but might obey them later if at that time it will be convenient to do so at that moment).

This is a pretty classic case of why the Law/Chaos discussion is so fraught. You're combining two different axes of behavior here. One is that Lawful is about having principles and holding to them, while Chaos is about situational morality. The other is that Lawful is about being organized and planning ahead, while Chaos is about spontaneity and improvisation.

These concepts are certainly related, but they are not the same. It is entirely possible to have a character with firmly defined moral principles, who nevertheless improvises and changes plans on the fly; it is likewise possible to have a character without a clearly defined morality, who plans everything out to the last detail.

"Watchmen" provides excellent examples here. Rorschach is an improviser with a rigid moral code, while Ozymandias is a careful planner with situational morality.

So, is Rorschach a Lawful character because of his unyielding black-and-white ethos, while ends-justifying Ozymandias is Chaotic? Or is Ozymandias - methodical, disciplined, organized - the Lawful one, while the erratic and unpredictable Rorschach is Chaotic?

 

[Celebrim]

Soldiers follow orders fullstop. They are not trained to question whether it is right or wrong (good/evil), they are trained to obey.

Are you speaking from experience, or are you just offering conjecture?

That is why inevitably the police become corrupt, above their own laws.

Inevitably?

 

[Celebrim]

This is a pretty classic case of why the Law/Chaos discussion is so fraught. You're combining two different axes of behavior here. One is that Lawful is about having principles and holding to them, while Chaos is about situational morality. The other is that Lawful is about being organized and planning ahead, while Chaos is about spontaneity and improvisation.

Yes. I think that you are pointing out one of the classic cases of confusing personality with morality.

Which is one of several problems most people have with the D&D alignment system. Because they've confused personality with morality, and because these two things are so commonly confused, you end up with alot of narrow sterotypes and very simplistic personalities with no real depths. Being 'chaotic' or 'lawful' (or even 'good' or 'evil') carries with it in many people's minds a whole laundry list of personality traits that you supposedly have to have to be of that alignment. It shouldn't.

 

[WayneLigon]

And I've re-read the entries over and over before posting. The third edition PHB does the best of differentiating. But to me Chaos (lying, cheating, stealing) sounds alot like Evil. Especially since in the Book of Vile Darkness, Monte defines Evil with those exact phrases. The same goes for Good and Law (referencing the Book of Exalted Deeds).

Interestingly back where there were just three alignments, Chaos was kinda-sorta your default Evil and Law was kinda-sorta Good. Neutral was still Neutral.

I think the 3E PHB describes the alignments best, and the more chaotic elements are still Good, depending on their usage.

Chaotic Good is basically in there to catch all the people in literature who are definately heroes and good people, but use questionable means in a modern sense to accomplish their goals. Robin Hood is the perfect example of this. He robs and steals, but it's because he doesn't recognize the rulers of the land to have any rightful or lawful authority to do what they're doing to the common people. Everyone loves a rogue, the person who circumvents rigid authority to do what it right and good. Traditionally, we equate living within society with goodness, but then you have the Wild West and it's rough-hewn heroes, or the outsider who shows the error of their ways to a people who have stopped living by rules and started living for them. In other words, see virtually every TV show or movie for the last 50 years with the possible exception of Dragnet.

 

[WayneLigon]

Being 'chaotic' or 'lawful' (or even 'good' or 'evil') carries with it in many people's minds a whole laundry list of personality traits that you supposedly have to have to be of that alignment. It shouldn't.

And yet, it does. Evil people have different personalities from Good ones. It kinda comes with the territory. A truly Good person cannot be casually cruel, for example, whereas you'd expect that from from Evil people. I'd even go so far as to say that Evil people cannot truly feel love.

I think Monte Cook came up with a better system in the Book of Hallowed Might series, where he rated people with trait numbers on the two areas. A LG person could be Lawful 1 and Good 6, and still be LG, despite not really being all that Lawful.

Of course after all the years of alignment arguements and definitions, I think the best system is just ditching the concept, or at least replacing it with something like d20 Modern's allegiance system.

 

[Celebrim]

And yet, it does. Evil people have different personalities from Good ones. It kinda comes with the territory.

I tend to see it as good people tend to have different actions than evil people, although even that gives to much primary to the nature of the person compared to the action. I suppose though that certain personality traits can only really manifest themselves after some sort of training period where the personality trait is reinforced.

A truly Good person cannot be casually cruel, for example, whereas you'd expect that from from Evil people. I'd even go so far as to say that Evil people cannot truly feel love.

That's true and I agree, but is cruelty a personality trait or an action? Could we speak of a person being cruel if they never did anything cruel? I don't think so. I think to speak of cruelty divorsed from action, we'd have to look at the motivating emotion that drove the cruelty, and then to the underlying personality trait that gave rise to that emotion. Can a good person be naturally 'mean' or 'short-tempered', even if their moral, ethical, and habitual nature causes them to act out this underlying nature in very different ways?

Can we imagine an mean 'good' person, whose actions might be mistaken by an observer for cruelty? I think that we can. We might imagine a very droll, tactless, blunt and blunt person, who always said what they thought was the unvarnished truth, was cynical, frequently sarcastic, and practiced 'tough love'. This person might at first seem quite cruel and heartless, but as their underlying motives where revealed why might find something entirely different. We might not say that this person had alot of charisma (although they might, as such a person might be very witty, which would make their actions seem all that much more cruel), but we couldn't necessarily claim that they were evil or even worked evil. We could easily imagine some rigid society whose forms and manners prevented the truth from being said, and this person's unconventionality served to get things important things said that might not otherwise be said or done.

Similarly, on first blush, we might suggest that a good person couldn't be stingy or miserly. But, again, I don't think that holds true either. I imagine some miserly shop keeper who was always stingy with his money, weighing every gram, cutting every corner, but who is quitely and with no fanfare supporting some humble but noble cause or who gives away everything he has hoarded after some catastrophe - his every savings having been horded up against just this exact eventuality. Again, we are imagining a person whose natural weaknesses of character aren't overcome in the usual but sense but rather are put to good service, and even made into virtues because of the underlying goodness of his desires.

I think Monte Cook came up with a better system in the Book of Hallowed Might series, where he rated people with trait numbers on the two areas. A LG person could be Lawful 1 and Good 6, and still be LG, despite not really being all that Lawful.

It's always been a continuim. Particularly for the morally complex alignments like 'lawful good' or 'chaotic evil', there is always I think a tension - whether it's Sturm Brightblade trying to reconcile living according to a code of honor with doing the most weal for the most people or Belkar trying to reconcile being continually destructive and treacherous with advancing his own personal interests.