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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4230968" data-attributes="member: 4937">Purely a symmantic difference.  Whether or not the chaotic actor is ignoring the external code or consciously defying it, the effect is the same.  The point is the chaotic actor does not believe his actions should be dictated by an external code, but only by internal and personal constructs (or some sort).I think if you drop the assumption that an action is defined by its intention, this will clear itself up pretty quickly.  You are onto something in as much as people actively trying to achieve evil are rare, so rare as that we probably have never seen a whole society with the goal of evil, but I think this is more problimatic for Nuetral Evil than Lawful Evil.  It is sufficient for lawful evil that you are trying to achieve law through evil.  It is not necessary that you be trying to achieve evil through law.  So it maybe that for mortals, the whole bottom quarter of the graph centered on NE is almost inaccessible because nihilism has such low appeal in living organism, but that doesn't imply that lawful evil can't exist.   Again, it is sufficient for lawful good to be trying to achieve law through good.  It is not necessary that it be trying to achieve good through law.Yes, there is.  Plenty of perfectly rational and rigorous philosophies exist out there that do not consider intentionality to be particularly important in determining whether something was good or evil.  They might consider it a mitigating factor when dispensing justice, but the act itself was good or evil based on something other than its intention.Once again, I can't help but think your confusion is that you have a very specific moral philosophy and you refuse to classify it except as 'Good' and refuse to examine your bias or to consider other philosophies relative to your own.  If for example, you were lawful neutral, it would be natural to claim that chaos is just insanity or doesn't exist and that good and evil where constructs.  You might even be right, but in being right you wouldn't hold the philosophy described as 'Good' by D&D. I understand that you are really splitting hairs here.I think your distinct difference just don't amount to much to anyone but yourself.Of course lawful good would be troubled by the indecision between whether to act lawfully or goodly.  All the mixed alignments hold two different goals in tension with another.  A chaotic evil person can be troubled with indecision because the 'good' path seems to lead to short term personal gains.  He might be tempted to do 'good' because it seems easy at the moment.  And so on and so forth.  Isn't the internal struggle and debate between doing what is lawful and doing what seems right the core of what makes lawful good characters so interesting?  Isn't that how we see it play out in the better and more interesting characterizations of lawful good characters?  The tension and indecision is a consequence of imperfect wisdom (or at least that's how LG people understand it), not a consequence of not having allegiance to law and good.  Quite the contrary, without an allegiance to law and good such indecision, confusion, and tension wouldn't exist.  Unaligned people generally don't have internal moral turmoil.What?  Did I say it didn't?You are really stretching now.Err... you still seem like you are stretching to me.  Common sense isn't proof of anything.That's not the definition of slavery, and more importantly that's certainly not how societies that practiced slavery understood the term.  Swell.</blockquote>

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