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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9314227" data-attributes="member: 2067">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.</blockquote>

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