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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2161103" data-attributes="member: 27012">Fair enough.  I was thinking specifically in terms of the Good and Evil axis.  From that perspective, everything else is means toward an end, including freedom.  But it's fair to point out that people on the Law and Chaos axis would view order and freedom as ends.  From that perspective, Good and Evil become means.  And that's ultimately why I think the corner alignments are unstable.Actually, even that's not sustainable. Well, there is "utilitarian" and "Utilitarian".  There is the specific sense that happiness is the desired end and the broader sense of doing "moral math" toward a more selfish end.  But I agree with your point and thought I said as much in my reply.If it's the indifference of a cat playing with a half-dead mouse to teach it's kittens to hunt, then I think it should be Neutral because that's what a cat is.  A cat simply doesn't understand the concept of having empathy for the mouse.  Many people interpret this sort of play as cruel because they project human empathy into the situation, but the cat does not understand what they are doing to be cruel.  I'm not sure why sentience should change that and the American justice system certainly uses a conscious knowledge of right and wrong as a criteria for treating people as insane rather than criminals.I personally think that this is one of those areas where the alignment system falls down trying to be everything to everyone.  So I'm projecting a bit of what I think it should be rather than what it is here.  I don't think the problem is with the idea of an alignment system or even the specific alignments but how vaguely the RAW defines them.What argument is that?  I can't tell exactly what you are asking from the edit. Would I call a person who tortures for pleasure Evil while a person who tortures out of perceived necessity Neutral?  Depending on the nature of the torture, possibly.While I think there is a practical reason for that, do you know any DM that actually pulls this off?I don't think I agree with that.  I think that huge alignment differences can be produced simply by adjusting some basic priorities or assumptions.  Ultimately, I don't think that the ends and means distinction matters nearly as much as what you settle on for desired ends.  In many instances, I think intellect is used primarily to justify the means to a desired end but it's the end that's desired that determined alignment.  You'll find the same thing in real world politics.  I don't think that any one political perspective corners the market in intellect even though they all claim that they do.I don't think that it has to, though it might by the RAW.No, not at all.  I mean that you could have a Lawful Good paladin that smites Evil without pause and a Lawful Good pacificst who would never kill another living creature.  You'll see the same thing in coalition politics.  Whenever you force a complicated situation into few categories, you wind up grouping things together that don't necessarily agree with each other or like each other, yet both fit the category description.I think it was a Neutral decision which does not necessarily make the person making the decision Neutral.Possibly.  I think the more annoying aspect is that they use Neutral for both apathy and balance.</blockquote>

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