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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeavenShallBurn" data-source="post: 4234790" data-attributes="member: 39593">Pemerton:  This is why posting in the wee hours of the morning leads to misunderstandings.  I'll try to explain my positions on the matter more fully.We aren't so much disagreeing here on terminology.  You are drawing a hard line between Maxim and act whereas my readings of Kant always tended to give the impression Maxim and Act are one and the same at a certain level.  For example, the Maxim:  Humans must always be considered not a means but an end in themselves.  This maxim is like a metatemplate for actions.  All acts which consider humans as ends in themselves are Good, those which consider humans a means to an end are Evil (to use D&D terms).  The Maxims are broad categories which could be broken down into individual self-contained Maxim/Action units.  Similarly while it's probably me who is using the term wrongly Consequentialism is not what I was attempting to convey.  I was moving from deontological rather than consequentialist reasoning.  That the Alignment system of 3e/etc. were deontological absolutist systems in which the moral weight of the act is purely in the act not the results thereof.  We can see this in the older system from the objective and material nature of alignment in the mechanics.  Kant was both an objectivist and an absolutist, the only issue really is that his insistence on intent was a result of the free will/determinism conflict.  Which in certain contexts strikes me as missing it's own point, this is one of them.  The quality of individual actions having an objective, absolute, and quantifiable morality in themselves independent of intent does not preclude free will.  The ability to act in an unconstrained and non-deterministic fashion is preserved.  What causes a fit is that modeling certain religious systems they have presupposed unequal weights between the Good and Evil ends of the moral spectrum and assigned differing validity to them based on this.  Mostly in postulates that benevolance is an integral or foundational part of free will.This was one of those early in the morning garbles.   I was responding to an argument from what seemed to be a primarily utilitarian view that objective ethics cannot be judged because there is no way to know their consequences.  What I was attempting to convey is that the morality of actions do not become undefined or imperceivable in a system that holds to an objective morality standard.  It's the criteria by which they may be known that change.   An system such as Kant's or the 3e Alignment system does not operate on a consequentialist basis thus it cannot be measured using consequentialist criteria.  But that does not mean it cannot be measured at all.  Muffin of Chaos was attempting to evaluate the morality using improper criteria for that particular system and coming up with a null value answer.  Expected, but he jumps to the conclusion that because one set of criteria give no value all must give no value.No arguing with you here in that such a simplification seriously cuts down on potential discord.  I just hate to see such a full system, with such a unique basis and ideas go away.  Especially when it's a system that can cause a game to spawn serious philosophical considerations on the nature of morality.  And especially that its constraints and nature are so different than RL.</blockquote>

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