How to Evil Properly?

[Flamestrike]

"Is what an evil person would say?" Sooo... Every peasant throughout the ancient world is evil, by your definition.

Yes. Every peasant that saw the world as dog eat dog, and approved of or engaged in rape, murder and slavery, yes. They were evil.

Ditto every Nazi that approved of or engaged in the Holocaust. Also evil.

Moral relativism and the danger of applying objective definitions of morality and ethics based upon modern concepts.

Mate, 5E is written for us to apply modern objective definitions of words in the text. Unless you can prove otherwise, when I see a word in a 5E PHB released a few years ago, and written by modern authors, living in the modern world, I presume that when they printed the word 'evil' and 'good' the intent was for those words to mean what we know them to mean, not what Adolf Hitler, a Drow priestess or 1st century AD murdering rapist Roman legionnaire would have though they meant.

I dont really want to engage in this conversation any more. You're literally condoning brutal torture and murder and slavery and rape as being morally good, simply if there is a broad social consensus it is acceptable. You're entitled to that opinion of course, but I not only find that view repugnant, I also wholeheartedly disagree. We're talking different languages and in different worlds im afraid for a meaningful discussion at this point.

 

[aramis erak]

No matter your personal definitions of good and evil, (which I agree, are almost always subjective to a degree,) the AD&D/D&D3.x 9 poisition alignment scale has a defined and absolute definition for them. Why absolute? Because moral alignment (G/E axis) is magically detectable. Clerics and Paladins can in fact flat out magically detect it, without failure chance. Thus, it's a natural function of the setting that it's absolute.

Now, in BX/BECMI, detect evil is more subjective - as that flavor doesn't have a stable good/evil axis... and detect evil is fundamentally different, being about likeliness to do the caster harm.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I don't believe that every peasant, no matter how tough the era they grew up in was, ever thought that rape, torture, murder, and slavery were okay. Good people and Evil people have existed in every society, throughout history, regardless of the overall leanings of the politics of the day.

 

[3catcircus]

Yes. Every peasant that saw the world as dog eat dog, and approved of or engaged in rape, murder and slavery, yes. They were evil.

Ditto every Nazi that approved of or engaged in the Holocaust. Also evil.



Mate, 5E is written for us to apply modern objective definitions of words in the text. Unless you can prove otherwise, when I see a word in a 5E PHB released a few years ago, and written by modern authors, living in the modern world, I presume that when they printed the word 'evil' and 'good' the intent was for those words to mean what we know them to mean, not what Adolf Hitler, a Drow priestess or 1st century AD murdering rapist Roman legionnaire would have though they meant.

I dont really want to engage in this conversation any more. You're literally condoning brutal torture and murder and slavery and rape as being morally good, simply if there is a broad social consensus it is acceptable. You're entitled to that opinion of course, but I not only find that view repugnant, I also wholeheartedly disagree. We're talking different languages and in different worlds im afraid for a meaningful discussion at this point.

Sigh...

I'm not condoning anything. I'm stating that in a game attempting to model anything from ancient to medieval, the modern notions of good and evil don't apply.

The Code of Hammurabi, for example, dictates certain crimes and punishments (mostly death). Owning and killing slaves revolves around money rather than whether or not it is wrong to own slaves. Theft, harboring fugitive slaves, accusing someone of wrongdoing with no proof, not abiding by your word, not paying your debts - all were serious crimes with most leading to death as a punishment. The idea of eye-for-an-eye punishment for injuring your equals originated here. Injuring a "freed man" or a slave (i.e. those below your station) - not so much a crime - pay a fine.

I don't believe that every peasant, no matter how tough the era they grew up in was, ever thought that rape, torture, murder, and slavery were okay. Good people and Evil people have existed in every society, throughout history, regardless of the overall leanings of the politics of the day.

But I guarantee those same peasants had no problem with stealing food, not paying taxes, or poaching game, if they didn't get caught.

My point is that in older society, their values were very different than those that we have now. How else do you account for the fact that in Rome, killing ones' own family or assaulting someone of a higher station was criminal, but beating someone if a lower station or killing your slaves because you could were no big deal?

Or why slavery was allowed to exist into the 19th century as colonial powers brutally engaged in conquest while exploiting the local populace who were looked at as lesser humans? Sure there were people who felt that to be wrong, but the majority of society didn't think twice about it for quite a long time...

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sigh...

I'm not condoning anything. I'm stating that in a game attempting to model anything from ancient to medieval, the modern notions of good and evil don't apply.

The Code of Hammurabi, for example, dictates certain crimes and punishments (mostly death). Owning and killing slaves revolves around money rather than whether or not it is wrong to own slaves. Theft, harboring fugitive slaves, accusing someone of wrongdoing with no proof, not abiding by your word, not paying your debts - all were serious crimes with most leading to death as a punishment. The idea of eye-for-an-eye punishment for injuring your equals originated here. Injuring a "freed man" or a slave (i.e. those below your station) - not so much a crime - pay a fine.

But I guarantee those same peasants had no problem with stealing food, not paying taxes, or poaching game, if they didn't get caught.

My point is that in older society, their values were very different than those that we have now. How else do you account for the fact that in Rome, killing ones' own family or assaulting someone of a higher station was criminal, but beating someone if a lower station or killing your slaves because you could were no big deal?

Or why slavery was allowed to exist into the 19th century as colonial powers brutally engaged in conquest while exploiting the local populace who were looked at as lesser humans? Sure there were people who felt that to be wrong, but the majority of society didn't think twice about it for quite a long time...

But so what? Isn’t there an absolute answer in regard to the morality of slavery? Isn’t it safe to say that it’s always wrong, and that we’re not just saying so because we live in a society that views it that way?

And even though D&D mimics a medieval society or culture in some ways doesn’t mean that it can’t disregard some elements as well. It’s not medieval Europe, it’s a fantasy. There’s no need to adhere to medieval culture about everything. Or anything, really.

Ultimately, pointing to actual world history to support a view about a fantasy world just doesn’t mean all that much.

 

[3catcircus]

But so what? Isn’t there an absolute answer in regard to the morality of slavery? Isn’t it safe to say that it’s always wrong, and that we’re not just saying so because we live in a society that views it that way?

Ask that same question to an ancient Roman, a Celtic Warlord, an Arab trader alive in 1805, or a partner in the Dutch East India Company. You won't get the same answer as you or I would provide.

And even though D&D mimics a medieval society or culture in some ways doesn’t mean that it can’t disregard some elements as well. It’s not medieval Europe, it’s a fantasy. There’s no need to adhere to medieval culture about everything. Or anything, really.

Ultimately, pointing to actual world history to support a view about a fantasy world just doesn’t mean all that much.

True, but in the context of asking the question of what is good or evil, both fantasy and real world can and do have different opinions across cultures and societies. A British aristocrat in the 1700s might not necessarily consider slavery to be evil, but he might consider the inability to pay your debts to be evil. How else do you explain the prevalence of slavery and debtors' prisons back then?

That's the point every one is missing. One nation's evil could be another nation's normal.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Ask that same question to an ancient Roman, a Celtic Warlord, an Arab trader alive in 1805, or a partner in the Dutch East India Company. You won't get the same answer as you or I would provide.



True, but in the context of asking the question of what is good or evil, both fantasy and real world can and do have different opinions across cultures and societies. A British aristocrat in the 1700s might not necessarily consider slavery to be evil, but he might consider the inability to pay your debts to be evil. How else do you explain the prevalence of slavery and debtors' prisons back then?

That's the point every one is missing. One nation's evil could be another nation's normal.

I understand your point perfectly. I just disagree with it.

No one in the real world (or at least, very few people, I suppose) think of themselves as evil.

But if that’s how we categorize alignment, how one thinks of one’s self, then no one is evil. So it has to be based on an Objective View. It is evil to enslave another sentient, full stop. Not “it’s evil if your society is post some kind of enlightenment and you should know better” or any other qualifier.

Some things are simply evil, regardless of societal acceptance. Now, we can likely discuss how different members of such a society may not be evil, depending on their level of awareness of or involvement in the evil activity in question and so on, but ultimately for alignment to work, it has to be objective.

I would even likely go beyond just the alignment rules and say that this largely applies to actual morality, too. I don’t think that the real world can be boiled down to a 9 point morality code, but overall I think there is some inherent rightness or wrongness to most actions, and that many are self evident.

This is where we run headlong into the problems of applying the very simple alignment system to the real world.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Just because slavery was a thing 200+ years ago does not mean that everyone 200+ years ago condoned slavery. Lots of people understood it was wrong, even then.

 

[DammitVictor]

Just because slavery was a thing 200+ years ago does not mean that everyone 200+ years ago condoned slavery. Lots of people understood it was wrong, even then.

Kinda like how slavery is still a thing today, and you can probably say that most people are opposed to it.

 

[Fenris-77]

The moral relativism thing can be taken too far. Sure, what a given culture may have thought was evil or not can be very different. As modern people we are all possessed of a sense of morality that sees things like slavery and murder as bad things (mostly). We can't escape that just because we want to play a game. That's why D&D doesn't have a truly Medieval or Dark Age moral framework, because it would alienate a lot of players. So we suspend a little disbelief and smear some Vaseline on the lens we use to view our historical exemplars. The game provides examples of slavery, mistreatment of common folk, and all manner of supernatural threats precisely to give our modern sensibilities something to struggle against. They are in game to give players a thoroughly safe set of targets for their fantasy gaming. We don't even shrug about the casual violence in D&D because the targets are so obviously bad, so obviously wrongs in need of righting. That's why we have CE Orcs, demons from the abyss, and undead sorcerers.

Trying to describe the contents of the fantasy world according to modern ethical sensibilities is foolish (past a very general level) IMO. These are not actual cultures that evolved with actual traditions, these are fictional entities written, in very broad strokes most often, to play roles in the fiction. They are only detailed and realistic to the extent that they need to be to play that role. There's no underlying pattern of development over time through which some sense can be made of the current state of affairs.

Obviously, some fantasy takes the above and turns it on its head. Nothing but shades of grey for everyone and a moral conundrum or anti-hero under every rock. That's a different menu item. I'm speaking generally here, fully realizing that there are individual examples that work differently.