Is Chaotic evil more evil than Lawful evil?

[WayneLigon]

'They don't think of themselves as evil' is, I think, a wash when applied to people who are not traumatized, insane, or not otherwise in control of their actions. I usually counter with 'your Momma raised you better than that'. People know when they do wrong, and they know what they are doing is wrong. They'll come out with the most fantastic justifications for it later in order to escape punishment or embarrasement but at the heart of things they know they did wrong. They just won't admit it. They're gutless, craven cowards.

The CEO who wink wink nudge nudge 'doesn't know' about the deals that will bankrupt the pension plan while filling his pockets at the same time, the guy passing out Ecstacy at the party, they all know what they are doing is wrong. They can say 'I was doing it to strengthen the company', or 'Everyone does it', but they all know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, that it hurts others while bettering themselves. They may never admit it, perhaps even to themselves, but they still know.

 

[Atom Again]

The American soldiers who performed atrocities such as the MaiLai (sp) massacre were EVIL. That does not preclude their changing their alignment later, but yes, they were evil.

Says who? It's a matter of perspective.

BTW, putting "evil" in captial letters doesn't make your statement any more true.

 

[Atom Again]

Regardless, there are lines that if you cross them, you are evil. . . .

Good and evil are not absolutes,
DB

You contradicted yourself here. You first state that there are moral "lines", then you admit that good and evil aren't absolutes.

 

[Morbog of Ghetto D]

Am I Evil?

Evil is as Evil Does. But...In my campaign (I am DM) Lawful Evil is a more "powerful" evil because they are willing to apply "order" to what they are doing. They have plans , organization, and the means to enforce discipline.

I see CE as an alignement for members of the "horde" while leaders would be LE. Here is my problem....(We play in Greyhawk) My lead NPC Bad Guys are
NE (nerull) and Erethnyul (CE) .....They're both pretty darn evil...

Canibalism, human sacrifice, torture, grave robbery...

Evil is evil....just different Methods.

 

[Davek]

'They don't think of themselves as evil' is, I think, a wash when applied to people who are not traumatized, insane, or not otherwise in control of their actions. I usually counter with 'your Momma raised you better than that'. People know when they do wrong, and they know what they are doing is wrong. They'll come out with the most fantastic justifications for it later in order to escape punishment or embarrasement but at the heart of things they know they did wrong. They just won't admit it. They're gutless, craven cowards.

The CEO who wink wink nudge nudge 'doesn't know' about the deals that will bankrupt the pension plan while filling his pockets at the same time, the guy passing out Ecstacy at the party, they all know what they are doing is wrong. They can say 'I was doing it to strengthen the company', or 'Everyone does it', but they all know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, that it hurts others while bettering themselves. They may never admit it, perhaps even to themselves, but they still know.

I don't accept your argument. In my experience your argument is used by people that really do not want to look at things through someone else's eyes. They are comfortable with their point of view and are unwilling to accept that other points of view exist, let alone may have validity. It is always easier to paint in black and white than in color.

It is true that some people do claim innocence even if they do know, but it is equally true that some people claim innocence because they do NOT know.

 

[buzzard]

I will trot out my old swimming pool example again to demonstrate fallacies.

A person is walking through a neighborhood on a fairly hot day. Nobody is outside almost anywhere. He walks past a house with a swimming pool in the back yard. A young kid has fallen into the pool and obviously cannot swim. The yard has a fence around it saying "No Tresspassing".

If the person is:
LE- He will stand by the fence and watch as the kid drowns and be amused by it. "Ignored the sign, the little moron, serves him right". Even had there been no fence, he would never have saved the kid (unless it was his own).
NE- He will look around, and make sure that nobody is looking. If the coast is clear, he may chuck a rock to two to make sure of the desired outcome.
CE- They will jump the fence and go help the kid shuffle off the mortal coil. They may be a bit careful to make sure nobody is watching.

Moral of our story- it doesn't really matter which stripe of evil we're talking here, we end out with the same outcome, the dead kid.

Oh, and Drifter Bob, you might want to be a bit more careful with who you re describing as evil. You've been slandering groups in a way that enters politics.
buzzard

 

[S'mon]

'They don't think of themselves as evil' is, I think, a wash when applied to people who are not traumatized, insane, or not otherwise in control of their actions. I usually counter with 'your Momma raised you better than that'. People know when they do wrong, and they know what they are doing is wrong. They'll come out with the most fantastic justifications for it later in order to escape punishment or embarrasement but at the heart of things they know they did wrong. They just won't admit it. They're gutless, craven cowards.

The CEO who wink wink nudge nudge 'doesn't know' about the deals that will bankrupt the pension plan while filling his pockets at the same time, the guy passing out Ecstacy at the party, they all know what they are doing is wrong. They can say 'I was doing it to strengthen the company', or 'Everyone does it', but they all know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, that it hurts others while bettering themselves. They may never admit it, perhaps even to themselves, but they still know.

I really don't think that the Japanese soldiers bayoneting wounded POWs in the fall of Sinagpore, or the Mongol hordes who massacred Chinese peasants in the millions, felt that they were doing wrong 'in their heart of hearts'. It just came naturally to them as a result of the values they were inculcated with. Where there is a conflict between different inculcated values, between earlier and later-acquired values - as there must have been for American teenagers in Vietnam, or for many German soldiers on the Eastern Front - then yes, perhaps they did know on some level they were doing wrong, because their actions were not in accordance with certain of their inculcated values.

 

[S'mon]

Says who? It's a matter of perspective.

BTW, putting "evil" in captial letters doesn't make your statement any more true.

Well the the guys who enthusiastically raped and massacred over 500 civilians at My Lai were Evil (Alignment) according to 3e D&D Alignment rules, yup.

 

[S'mon]

Oh, and Drifter Bob, you might want to be a bit more careful with who you re describing as evil. You've been slandering groups in a way that enters politics.

By saying the US army is better than the SS or Stalinist Red Army?
I suppose if I were a veteran of the Waffen SS I might be offended... on balance though his statements seem unremarkable.

 

[S'mon]

For that matter, you should probably read a little more about WW II, it was hardly the cheerfully patrotic fight against evil it has been painted as in retrospect, certainly many of the troops on the front line had much more mixed feelings about it.

Well contemplating the severe risk that you'll be killed or maimed does tend to inculcate mixed feelings... but from everything I've read, including veterans' accounts, I'd say there was quite a remarkable degree of agreement among American service personnel that the enemy was evil and the war worth fighting. I'm sure not everyone agreed, certainly there was a good deal of pro-German sentiment among German-Americans in the USA, but it seems like most people did to an extent rarely seen before or since. Of course the Germans also saw WW2 as a patriotic fight against evil (the USSR), and the Russians saw it as a patriotic fight against evil (the Third Reich).