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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4230622" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'm not at all sure what you mean by this, however people with lawful beliefs regularly ignore personal confusion or doubt in favor of conforming to external code that they believe in.  This is the essense of having a 'lawful' mind set.  The opposite, overturning external codes when they are at odds with you current feelings is 'chaotic'.  The middle ground is weighing the two against each other as if each had some value.  Obviously, no mortal is going to be perfect at following thier own convictions, or perfect at adhering to some external code so every mortal is going to be somewhat 'nuetral' by the simple virtue of not having perfect violition or understanding.Not at all.  The society could easily believe that 'the ends justify the means' and that what it was doing was regrettable and far from the ideal, but was necessary to achieve its 'good' final aim.  And note by 'good' in this sense, I'm merely meaning 'desirable to the society'.  I don't mean to claim that every desired end is good.  In particular, the end goal could be very evil despite its percieved desirability.  !!! I'm inclined to agree that we have very different ideas of what an evil action is.  I don't believe that evil requires being conscious that you are doing evil, nor do I believe 'everything breaks down' if you accept that evil is evil whether you believe or understand it to be evil or not.  Knowingly doing evil indicates greater depravity, but doing evil and not knowing it for evil does not make it not evil.That's a fair indication of I think the heart of the argument here.  I think you are biased toward thinking that lawful good is good.  That is, all your arguments seem to indicate that you think lawfulness is an unseparatable component of goodness.  Lawful good actions don't require allegiance to society (I never said that they did), but alleigence to goodness in general is merely 'good' - not lawful good.  Lawful good is allegiance to a shared and externally critiquable code which is designed to promote goodness.  It claims that lawfulness is an inseparable component of doing good, but from the perspective of a neutral good party, the lawful good person is comprimising on good values for the sake of achieving order and conformity. I'm inclined to agree with you that slavery is an evil practice, but I'm also willing to concede a little of my own lack of perfect sagacity when I consider how recently the human race has come to this conclusion.  For most of human history, slavery was practiced as a part of normal human society virtually everywhere and I have no doubt that in a good many cases slaves were comfortable in thier position as slaves.  I also note that in much of human history, the slaves of great households could rise to positions of influence and power by virtue of thier attachment to thier masters.  So I hardly think it should be obvious to anyone that slavery is evil regardless of your intelligence, nor do I agree that even a LG person made uncomfortable by the institution of slavery would do 'everything' in thier power to change the laws.  A LG person would do everything allowed by thier code to change the laws, or else if not would soon cease to be LG.  Assuming only you assume 'freedom' is a thing of enherent absolute goodness.  Our American society holds it as such for what I think are good and sufficient reasons, but it could simply be that we are 'chaotic good' and mistaking chaotic values as being inherent components of goodness.  Do you advocate that policeman should break down doors without due process any time they suspect a crime may have been committed?  How much power should a lawful good magistrate have to follow up thier hunches?  Would such advocacy not eventually lead to a police state - something we tend to describe as 'lawful evil'?No they don't.  The 'cop who follows the system' conflicting with the good cop who breaks the rules when they conflict with his own perceptions of what is good ('Dirty' Harry, for example) are classic staples of American fiction.  Are you claiming that no such conflict over following the rules designed to promote liberty and goodness and breaking them to do immediate good exists? The problem with slavery is that the institution in practice so widely varies that it is difficult to make general claims about it.  In some practices, slaves are personal property.  In others they are state property and you merely have the usury of them.  In some practices the period of servitude is for life and you are a slave by caste or birth.  In other practices, the period of servitude is strictly limited.  In some practices, the slave has no more rights than an animal.  In other practices, slaves are strictly protected by the law and have various rights and at least in theory methods of redressing wrongs.  In some practices, slaves are second class citizens or not citizens at all.  In others, slaves are merely second class family members.  In some cases, slavery is considered an honorable estate and slaves can acquire property and power.  In others, slaves don't even own thier own bodies.  In most cases, the reality is far more complex than either extreme.  In some practices, slaves are disposable labor.  In other practices, slavery is a form of public welfare system designed to protect the poor from deprivation.I'm glad we are rid of it, but I'm not at all convinced I understand the institution.</blockquote>

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