DarkCrisis
Reeks of Jedi
I think LG and LE can best be used with “the spirit of the law”.
IMO
LG would tell the man not to steal and then pay for the items for him.
LE just turn the poor man in knowing it makes things worse for him
D&D General How do you think each alignment would handle this?
I think LG and LE can best be used with “the spirit of the law”.
IMO
LG would tell the man not to steal and then pay for the items for him.
LE just turn the poor man in knowing it makes things worse for him
Celebrim
Legend
I don't think we can make blanket statements like that, and in any event this seems to have moved from being a discussion about alignment to a discussion of your real world political beliefs. The causes of poverty are complicated. While it is an interesting moral question as to whether poverty excuses theft, all we can address on this board is the extent to which Lawful or Chaotic types are likely to agree that poverty is an excuse for theft. If you want to have an interesting discussion about the politics of Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossed", well that's not really something we're supposed to be doing here.
I think we can say that on the whole Lawful types are less likely to say your circumstances excuses you from breaking moral and civil law, and Chaotic types are more likely to say that your circumstances do excuse you from breaking moral and civil law. And so I think we can safely say that LG types are more likely to still think theft requires a penalty to be paid even if the motives were sympathetic than a CG type. But a discussion of which position is morally correct in the real world is inevitably going to outside the scope of what we can discuss because it will bring up topics of argument outside of permissiable discussion.
Celebrim
Legend
Many things are.
Celebrim
Legend
While not impossible, I think this is more stereotypically a CG act than a LG act. Lawful will attempt to uphold the law and only when doing so is a clear wrong under some recognized higher law will the LG act contrary to law. At the very least, for a LG to act this way would require them first to get consent from the wronged party. If the wronged party doesn't forgive the lawbreaker, then certainly the LG person would see themselves as having no right to do so - even if they think the wronged party is not acting wisely, they would concede they are within their rights.
There are a lot of different ways to differentiate LG from LE, and one of them is on their stand on the old "Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth" position regarding justice. To a LG person, this axiom sets a maximum allowable punishment that can be justly inflicted on a person, and to the extent possible mercy ought to mitigate against the maxim prescribable punishment. That is to say, if in doubt, err on the side of mercy. There may be times when the crime is too vile or the possibility of recidivism so great that mercy represents foolishness and an error against both past and future victims who deserve justice, but those cases are rare. In the case of the theft, the LG person tends to believe that the worst possible punishment to inflict here is the value of the stolen bread, and that the persons poverty mitigates against that crime and demands some mercy. There is a really good scene in "Diamond Age" where a lawful type judge forgives a crime of theft because the injured party doesn't want to prosecute and the thief gave part of what he stole to someone he owed a duty to - a younger sibling in his care. That hits all the right LG notes for me.
By contrast, LE sees "Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth" is the minimum allowable punishment, and that mercy is a weakness greatly to be avoided. The LE individual tends to believe in pre-Hammurabi notions of justice where a crime is punished much more severely than the fault inflicted. Hang someone for stealing a chicken and cut off their hand if they steal bread sort of thing. For an insult to an eye, take both from the offender, and so forth. Kill a man who speaks out of turn. Punishment for crimes should be as gruesome and as public as possible. Likewise they consider mercy a weakness that allows fault to flourish. They would be outraged that someone's sympathy was with a thief and not the one unjustly robbed.
We can imagine CG and CE by taking what the person of the opposite alignment believes or feels and how they act and then reverse it.
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Or you can approach in the much more rational way, which looks at those "to be lawful or to be good" questions as exactly what they are, ridiculous sophistry.
Law is, by definition, teleological. It serves a purpose, achieves some end. Hence, law cannot tell us what that purpose should be. A lawful neutral person does not particularly care what a law is drafted to do, simply that it does in fact do whatever that is; an LN person is perfectly capable of opposing law, not because it is benevolent or malevolent, but because it is malformed.
A Lawful Good person is, thus, someone who says that the one (and only) valid purpose laws may serve is the good. Obviously, that means they need to develop a refined sense of both whether laws are effective, and what "the good" actually is so they can know whether laws pursue it. Given laws are necessarily weakened by being constantly replaced or modified, it is efficacious for the LG person to desire to work within the system, when that is still compatible with doing good. If a law is clearly in violation of the good, then--to the LG person--that is necessarily a bad law, and the only appropriate lawful response to bad law is to attempt to fix it (if it is worthy and simply ineffective/counterproductive), replace it (if its goal is worthy but its design is simply impossible to achieve as-is), or repeal it (if its goal is inherently unworthy.)
There is no conflict here. Law is, by its own definition, a set of tools. Any such tool that fails to do what it was made for is a tool that must be repaired, replaced, or discarded--but one does not repair, replace, or discard tools willy-nilly, because that's foolish.
Baron Opal II
Hero
Or, rather than look at it as Law + Good, look at it as its own entity. My point of view was that there were nine alignments, not a combination of 5 keywords with their own individual meanings. I understand that this is a minority viewpoint.
Celebrim
Legend
@EzekielRaiden I generally agree with your essay, but would like to add that there is an important difference between how Lawful people view "the Law" and how Chaotic people view "the Law", even where both agree that they are tools.
First, let's be clear that "the Law" here does not necessarily mean "the dominate social order" or "the civic laws of the land". You can be lawful, and I think your point makes clear why, without supporting constructions like "the dominate social order" or "the civic laws of the land". Quite obviously, those things themselves do not need to be lawful (or good in the case of lawful good) and as such you wouldn't expect a lawful minded person to support them.
But, whatever the lawful person considers "the Law" he view himself as subordinate to it, whereas the Chaotic person always views the law as subordinate to him or herself. The question is, "What is the ultimate source of moral authority?" and the lawful person always answers that it is some external source. In his own mind, he doesn't act on his own authority, but is subordinate to some external authority. His code is not his own, but one that exists independently of himself. Thus even in circumstances where his own judgement conflicts with the law, he's inclined not to trust in his own judgement but to follow the law, believing that it's more likely his judgement is wrong than the law is.
Of course, by contrast, the chaotic sees all of that as complete horse hockey and indeed the source of most of what is wrong with the world. Blindly following the rules or the law or orders from so called superiors is to a chaotic how wrong happens. Viewing your own private beliefs as some higher truth is to the chaotic likewise the source of wrong in the world - a form of arrogance. The Chaotic always sees the source of all moral authority as his own judgement as an individual, and the law as a tool that if it has any good purpose at all still remains subordinate to that. If the law and his own judgement conflict, well then it's highly likely that the law is what is wrong.
And of course, that presumption is the basis of the lawful seeing the chaotic as arrogant.
The Lawful therefore hears the following statement as a bad thing: "In those days there was no king...every man did that which was right in his own eyes.", where as the Chaotic hears that statement as a good thing.
Note that the difference is not whether you have some moral code or code of honor - both CG and LG will have both. The difference what do you think is the source of that code and whether you think you are subordinate to it or it to you.
First, let's be clear that "the Law" here does not necessarily mean "the dominate social order" or "the civic laws of the land". You can be lawful, and I think your point makes clear why, without supporting constructions like "the dominate social order" or "the civic laws of the land". Quite obviously, those things themselves do not need to be lawful (or good in the case of lawful good) and as such you wouldn't expect a lawful minded person to support them.
But, whatever the lawful person considers "the Law" he view himself as subordinate to it, whereas the Chaotic person always views the law as subordinate to him or herself. The question is, "What is the ultimate source of moral authority?" and the lawful person always answers that it is some external source. In his own mind, he doesn't act on his own authority, but is subordinate to some external authority. His code is not his own, but one that exists independently of himself. Thus even in circumstances where his own judgement conflicts with the law, he's inclined not to trust in his own judgement but to follow the law, believing that it's more likely his judgement is wrong than the law is.
Of course, by contrast, the chaotic sees all of that as complete horse hockey and indeed the source of most of what is wrong with the world. Blindly following the rules or the law or orders from so called superiors is to a chaotic how wrong happens. Viewing your own private beliefs as some higher truth is to the chaotic likewise the source of wrong in the world - a form of arrogance. The Chaotic always sees the source of all moral authority as his own judgement as an individual, and the law as a tool that if it has any good purpose at all still remains subordinate to that. If the law and his own judgement conflict, well then it's highly likely that the law is what is wrong.
And of course, that presumption is the basis of the lawful seeing the chaotic as arrogant.
The Lawful therefore hears the following statement as a bad thing: "In those days there was no king...every man did that which was right in his own eyes.", where as the Chaotic hears that statement as a good thing.
Note that the difference is not whether you have some moral code or code of honor - both CG and LG will have both. The difference what do you think is the source of that code and whether you think you are subordinate to it or it to you.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
is this meant to say lawful?
Celebrim
Legend
No, but I probably could have phrased that better.
What I was trying to express is that the chaotic believes ultimately that his own truth is just one of many different truths, each not necessarily better than any one other. He thinks lawful are self-deluded and arrogant for proclaiming what is just that person's own private truth to have some ultimate higher source - the majority, logic and reason, tradition, an external form, some divinity, etc. Even if the chaotic were to agree that such things exist (and they might not) they wouldn't see those things as having inherent moral authority and would instead just see them as justifications for trampling on the rights of others.
Note this viewpoint is being principally written from the perspective of CG and CN. A CE is a subset of this that believes that since good can only come at the expense of others, everyone is justified for seeking their own good at the expense of others. They don't believe anyone has rights at all and that to claim so is a form of self-delusion. To the CE the only good is what you can get away with and getting away with it makes it good.
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I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
My own perspective on Lawful isn't so much that they "uphold the law" as that they prefer order. In a vacuum, to a Lawful individual, civic laws are generally a desired thing, since civic laws help everyone behave in an expected way, and thus increases order.
An LN person values this order as an end in itself, and so will generally wish to have civic laws, and to have those laws followed. Order is desired, after all. If the civic laws are not followed, there is an expected result, and that result should be enacted. Order is desired. If theft is against the law (which is not always guaranteed!), then it has a punishment outlined by the law, and regardless of need or circumstance, that order is what is desired.
An LG person values this order, but doesn't exclusively value this order. They value the "good" traits as well (altruism, empathy, kindness, respect for life, etc.). A civic law may be orderly, and may be overall the best way to achieve mass respect for life, but if that civic law isn't in keeping with kindness and mortal flourishing, then we have a conflict that can only be answered in the specific, and probably after some soul searching. A poor man stealing something indicates that the "good" side has broken down - there are needs for human flourishing not being met. An LG person knows that the existence of poverty is a choice by the society, and so would not necessarily uphold the civic law just because it's the civic law. While they would desire order, they would not desire order at the expense of people's flourishing, and this society clearly has people who aren't flourishing. An evil society - an order that prefers suffering - can be changed, and should be changed, and its laws aren't necessarily to be followed if they don't lead to human flourishing.
An LE person values this order, but also doesn't exclusively value it. They also value their own self-interest above all, and would prefer to see an order that sets them up to flourish at the top of a hierarchy. To an LE individual, a civic law is only as good as it rewards them, specifically, and they'd happily break laws that don't. A poor man stealing something shows who is lower and higher on the totem pole in this town - and the shopkeep is higher, and so gets to do whatever they want to the poor man.
Good isn't compatible with hierarchical thinking, with viewing yourself as "above" someone else. A good person has a fundamentally humanistic perspective, valuing all life. LG values all life, and feels that order and cooperation is the best way to achieve the flourishing of all life, which will likely require some civic law. CG values all life, and feels like personal choices and individual perspectives are the best way to achieve the flourishing of all life, which means civic law is actively a detriment to it. Evil, meanwhile, sees the world divided into better and lesser beings. LE believes in a continuum, so that everyone should "know their place." CE believes in more of a binary, where there is them, and then there's everyone else, and everyone else can go screw.
An LN person values this order as an end in itself, and so will generally wish to have civic laws, and to have those laws followed. Order is desired, after all. If the civic laws are not followed, there is an expected result, and that result should be enacted. Order is desired. If theft is against the law (which is not always guaranteed!), then it has a punishment outlined by the law, and regardless of need or circumstance, that order is what is desired.
An LG person values this order, but doesn't exclusively value this order. They value the "good" traits as well (altruism, empathy, kindness, respect for life, etc.). A civic law may be orderly, and may be overall the best way to achieve mass respect for life, but if that civic law isn't in keeping with kindness and mortal flourishing, then we have a conflict that can only be answered in the specific, and probably after some soul searching. A poor man stealing something indicates that the "good" side has broken down - there are needs for human flourishing not being met. An LG person knows that the existence of poverty is a choice by the society, and so would not necessarily uphold the civic law just because it's the civic law. While they would desire order, they would not desire order at the expense of people's flourishing, and this society clearly has people who aren't flourishing. An evil society - an order that prefers suffering - can be changed, and should be changed, and its laws aren't necessarily to be followed if they don't lead to human flourishing.
An LE person values this order, but also doesn't exclusively value it. They also value their own self-interest above all, and would prefer to see an order that sets them up to flourish at the top of a hierarchy. To an LE individual, a civic law is only as good as it rewards them, specifically, and they'd happily break laws that don't. A poor man stealing something shows who is lower and higher on the totem pole in this town - and the shopkeep is higher, and so gets to do whatever they want to the poor man.
Good isn't compatible with hierarchical thinking, with viewing yourself as "above" someone else. A good person has a fundamentally humanistic perspective, valuing all life. LG values all life, and feels that order and cooperation is the best way to achieve the flourishing of all life, which will likely require some civic law. CG values all life, and feels like personal choices and individual perspectives are the best way to achieve the flourishing of all life, which means civic law is actively a detriment to it. Evil, meanwhile, sees the world divided into better and lesser beings. LE believes in a continuum, so that everyone should "know their place." CE believes in more of a binary, where there is them, and then there's everyone else, and everyone else can go screw.
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