How would you classify "Good by any means neccessary"

[Nifft]

I'm starting page 3 with: "It's evil, but with a fun back-story."

Cheers, -- N

 

[Harmon]

Apologizes

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Sometimes, it's how you present the issue. There is a classic question involving a runaway train which places you at the railroad switch. If you do nothing, the train will kill five men who happen to be working on the track. If you do switch tracks, the train will kill one man who is working on the other track. Standard disclaimers apply: you do not have time to warn any of the men, you have no way to stop the train, etc.

This is silly! Buttons are not how one escapes dungeons! I would smash the button and rain beatings liberally down on the wizard for playing such a trick!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the train example, you always opt for the track with the most people on it...because it is best to crush your enemies, have them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

As far as the evilness of the actions regarding the time traveler and the evil person as an infant (avoiding all the time paradox stuff)- you are killing an infant, a person that has not made the choices that led you back in time to kill them. You would only be justified in that killing if they had reached the point when they turned evil- before that you have killed an inocent.

You cannot avoid time paradox in time travel.

With time-travel, the evil is a matter of perspective: To those who cannot travel time, you are killing someone who has not comitted an evil act. To those who can, you are killing someone who has- the actions of their lives are part of your history, after all.

However, the option no one ever considers in these examples is this: alter that monster's life without killing him. You don't kill Baby Hitler, you find out what caused his anti-semetism and try to alter that...or simply relocate him.

In a sense, it is like the penalty for attempted murder. People get arrested for attempted murder every day, but in no jurisdiction of which I am aware is death the penalty for attempted murder. At worst, is is punished as non-capital murder- 25 to life (unless the crime is only "attempted murder" because the would-be killer is stopped in the act by deadly force).

Of course, the change has to be significant. Merely moving Baby Hitler into the home of Rabbi Feinbaum may not be enough. You might just be providing the catalyst for his anti-semetic vies when the Rabbi gets arrested for kidnapping him...

If, OTOH, Rabbi Feinbaum lives in the USA, or you t-port him to the doorstep of a mission in Africa...

 

[Nifft]

This is silly! Buttons are not how one escapes dungeons! I would smash the button and rain beatings liberally down on the wizard for playing such a trick!

Where have you been?! My video games have lacked such glorious ranger and hamster dialog for years!!

Thanks, -- N

 

[GSHamster]

Now, obviously this would be quite fascist in nature and realistically I imagine that there would be an unusually high amount of corruption within said organization, but just for the sake of argument assume that they always had good intentions and good results, and only their means were dubious.

Would you lean towards calling them good, neutral or evil? My personal opinion is neutral, with a very thin line between it and evil.

Evil. In my opinion, ends do not matter for alignment purposes. The only thing that matters is the means. It's the path that's important, not the destination.

I believe that if you follow this principle, it is far easier to come to an internally consistent view of alignment, as well as resolve most alignment questions in a reasonable manner.

Of course, a lot of adventurers will rebel against this, because Evil offers the easy solution, and sometimes the only solution, and so they seek to justify their use of Evil means.

 

[delericho]

Sometimes, it's how you present the issue. There is a classic question involving a runaway train which places you at the railroad switch. If you do nothing, the train will kill five men who happen to be working on the track. If you do switch tracks, the train will kill one man who is working on the other track. Standard disclaimers apply: you do not have time to warn any of the men, you have no way to stop the train, etc.

Assuming that on either track the train will then slow to a halt without further damage, then flip the switch. Numbers wins out.

Still, it's an Evil action.

In a variant of this problem, you are on a bridge above the railway track where five men are working, next to a very fat man. If you push the fat man off the bridge, his mass is enough to stop the train and save the other five men. You yourself are not heavy enough, there is no way for you to warn the other five men, etc.

It's absurd to think that one man, no matter how fat, is heavy enough to stop a runaway train moving at any sort of speed, especially if it's fast enough to deny you time for a warning. It's particularly absurd to think that he's not so fat that you can move him, yet fat enough to stop the train, and incidentally, that you're not able to sacrifice yourself to apply that same strength to stopping the train.

Even if all of the above doesn't apply, it's extremely unlikely I could do the calculation quickly enough to be sure that the death of the fat man would definately be enough to stop the train, and yet couldn't warn the other men. Without that certainty, there can be no justification for pushing the fat man, since you might well just be adding 1 to the death toll.

However, if I were somehow certain of all the cases (certain, not merely sure) then yes, push the fat man. Numbers wins out. But it's still an Evil action.

 

[shilsen]

In the train example, you always opt for the track with the most people on it...because it is best to crush your enemies, have them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

Dannyalcatraz for the win!

 

[FireLance]

Still, it's an Evil action.

It depends on whether you are taking a deontological or consequential perspective. From a deontological perspective, it is evil, regardless of the outcome. From a consequential perspective, allowing the worse outcome to happen would be the evil act.

 

[Mardoc Redcloak]

They're good (probably not lawful good though; they seem to flagrantly violate the law.)

As this thread demonstrates, this conclusion contradicts pretty sharply with our intuitive response to such an organization - as, indeed, it should. The reason for this conflict is embodied in the example itself:

just for the sake of argument assume that they always had good intentions and good results, and only their means were dubious.

Going around torturing and abusing people is very rarely done with good intentions and practically never has good results. Thus, an organization that actually does go around torturing and abusing people is almost certainly evil.

But in theory, could a good organization do such things? Sure. The differentiation between "means" and "ends" (or between an "action in itself" and its consequences) is generally pretty incoherent anyway, and even if a definite line could be drawn, such a distinction would still be morally arbitrary.