Trickstergod
First Post
It's about now that I almost wish I was a bit more familiar with City of the Spider Queen, as I find the random "Seek treasure in evil lands and kill anything evil that gets in the way" is pretty much evil in and of itself...oh well.
Anyway, I'm with Geron in saying that both counts. However, I do believe that the means count more. Presuming, of course, that you're working towards a good end, anyway; whether you achieve it or not is another matter altogether. But it's the means and motivation that count for quite a bit.
Often enough, it seems that the means is all that separates one group from being called good and another one evil. Without trying to delve too much into forbidden, thread-closing or post erasing areas, let's take religion, for example. There's a number of wars that were fought, at least in part, to convert the opposing side over or to wipe their religion away. Conversely, there's a number of missionary's who went ostensibly alone into hostile societies with that same thought of conversion in mind, where the only life likely to be lost was the missionary's. Essentially the same ends, drastically different means and ones that I think illustrate my point decently enough.
For that matter, I fully believe evil people can have good ends in mind. Road to hell, good intentions, all that. Take The Watchmen, for example, specifically Ozymandias and Rorschach. In my mind, Ozymandias is clearly evil. He has essentially a good end in mind, but the means he takes is as reprehensible as it gets. Meanwhile Rorscach, though he has other problems that definitely conflict with his alignment if you want to boil it down to that, stands out as the more moral of the two. Sure, if he was allowed to relate what he knew about what happened to the world it would probably be catastrophic, but he's not willing to sully his hands in the way that Ozymandias is to achieve his ends. Idealistic, a bit stupid perhaps, but that's what I feel good is (again, like I said, Rorschach definitely has other problems going on, but those aren't what I'm getting into right now).
As I see it, good is the ideal, whereas neutral and evil are essentially practical and pragmatic with varying degrees of selfishness and extremes they're willing to go to thrown in there. So yes, the means edge out the ends. I think you can find any number of individuals who had ends that could be argued as essentially good, yet aren't people you'd exactly describe as good by any means.
Anyway, I'm with Geron in saying that both counts. However, I do believe that the means count more. Presuming, of course, that you're working towards a good end, anyway; whether you achieve it or not is another matter altogether. But it's the means and motivation that count for quite a bit.
Often enough, it seems that the means is all that separates one group from being called good and another one evil. Without trying to delve too much into forbidden, thread-closing or post erasing areas, let's take religion, for example. There's a number of wars that were fought, at least in part, to convert the opposing side over or to wipe their religion away. Conversely, there's a number of missionary's who went ostensibly alone into hostile societies with that same thought of conversion in mind, where the only life likely to be lost was the missionary's. Essentially the same ends, drastically different means and ones that I think illustrate my point decently enough.
For that matter, I fully believe evil people can have good ends in mind. Road to hell, good intentions, all that. Take The Watchmen, for example, specifically Ozymandias and Rorschach. In my mind, Ozymandias is clearly evil. He has essentially a good end in mind, but the means he takes is as reprehensible as it gets. Meanwhile Rorscach, though he has other problems that definitely conflict with his alignment if you want to boil it down to that, stands out as the more moral of the two. Sure, if he was allowed to relate what he knew about what happened to the world it would probably be catastrophic, but he's not willing to sully his hands in the way that Ozymandias is to achieve his ends. Idealistic, a bit stupid perhaps, but that's what I feel good is (again, like I said, Rorschach definitely has other problems going on, but those aren't what I'm getting into right now).
As I see it, good is the ideal, whereas neutral and evil are essentially practical and pragmatic with varying degrees of selfishness and extremes they're willing to go to thrown in there. So yes, the means edge out the ends. I think you can find any number of individuals who had ends that could be argued as essentially good, yet aren't people you'd exactly describe as good by any means.