Is dominate evil?

[Celebrim]

Pfeh. The Law/Chaos axis is nonsense. To say "such-and-such is Lawful" is meaningless.

Pfeh. The same is often said of the Good/Evil axis and you'll find many conflicting opinions on it as well. This is not a proof of nonsense.

 

[Plane Sailing]

A quick reminder to everyone.

1. This subject has been discussed before on more than one occasion. There isn't ONE answer, there are several opinions
2. It can turn into a heated discussion quite easily. If you find yourself getting hot under the collar, don't post in this thread for a while. It'll save problems in the long run.
3. No more comparisons with rape please. That's a topic which we've agreed isn't suitable for ENworld.

Thanks

 

[Celebrim]

And right there your analogy fails - you speak of a software agent. An agent is something or someone to which you delegate your actions. It is an extension of yourself, not a separate entity for our purposes. Asking whether an agent has rights or will is rather like asking if your arm has rights or will, separate from your own.

One argument from the lawful perspective would be precisely that we are no more than agents ourselves. Now, of course you are free to disagree with this moral framework (and in point of fact, I do as well), but its not a trivially dismissable one. Proving that you aren't merely a deterministic software agent of whatever origin is not a trivial task, and some consideration of dilemma of determinism might be profitable here.

 

[Janx]

One thing to ponder with Celebrim's examples, is I get the sense that he's presenting how certain groups of NPCs may feel about the topic.

As such, arguing with him is like arguing with a lot of NPCs with varying opinions.

I certainly agree with one of his early examples, that NPCs wouldn't like to be Dominated, therefore they would consider it an evil act against them.

It may be a reasonable benchmark that if it breaks the Golden Rule against a normal, non-kinky NPC, that it's probably Evil or Wrong.

I also suspect that some acts are qualified Wrong. It is Wrong to hurt Good people. It is not Wrong to hurt Bad people. Bad people try to hurt Good people.

It's simplistic, but generally humans do use a 2 bucket system, and don't extend common rights to the Bad bucket.

So, anybody doing anything bad to a Good person becomes Bad and the act is Evil. But barring Geneva Convention violations, you can do whatever you want to Bad people.

This is why it is OK for adventurers to kill Orcs, but not Villagers.

 

[Dausuul]

Pfeh. The same is often said of the Good/Evil axis and you'll find many conflicting opinions on it as well. This is not a proof of nonsense.

Fair point, and it was putting it strongly to say that Law/Chaos is nonsense. Nevertheless, it's very ill-defined; the descriptions of "lawful" and "chaotic" are a grab bag of behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. The descriptions of "good" and "evil" are much simpler.

Here's what the SRD has to say about good and evil:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

That's it. (The rest of the Good/Evil section is devoted to what it means to be neutral on that axis.) Obviously there is plenty of scope for debate here, but most of the debate centers on questions of "how good is good" and "how evil is evil." Take this very thread. I see some people saying domination is categorically and utterly evil, others saying it's evil except when justified by necessity, and others saying it's a neutral tool. I don't see anybody saying it's good.

Contrast the section on law and chaos *takes deep breath*:

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.

"Chaos" implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility. Those who promote chaotic behavior say that only unfettered personal freedom allows people to express themselves fully and lets society benefit from the potential that its individuals have within them.

Four paragraphs instead of two, and look at all the stuff jumbled together in those paragraphs. Is lawfulness about you, yourself, playing by society's rules (tell the truth, respect authority, honor tradition)? Or is it about being methodical and organized (reliability, lack of adaptability, close-mindedness)? Or is it about your vision of an ideal society (in which people can depend on each other, etc.)?

This is why I tend to react dismissively (sometimes too much so) to claims of "such-and-such is lawful" or "such-and-such is chaotic."

All that said, reading through those definitions, I see very little evidence for domination either way as far as Law/Chaos is concerned. The only thing that might apply is "obedience to authority," but that's about how the Lawful character reacts to authority, not how she makes others react to her. On the other hand, Good/Evil has some things to say on the subject. Domination is not respecting the dignity of other sentients, and it certainly ought to qualify as oppression.

 

[Stormonu]

Dominate is more akin to slavery - slavery of the mind, if not the body.

Whatever a society's moralistic stance on slavery would fall, it would likely feel the same about domination. Personally, I can't ever see it as a good act and about 99.9% of the time, I'd consider it evil.

 

[Squire James]

Generally it is harder to identify one particular act as Evil than it is to identify a person as Evil. For one thing, there's this whole "intention vs. action" argument. If you Dominated someone with the intention to do Good, but through some mistake it had an Evil result, did you do an Evil act or not? Now, replace "Dominate someone" with just about any other verb phrase. Is the answer different?

I agree that Dominate can rarely accomplish a Good purpose, and can often accomplish an Evil purpose. Then again, a person with modern sensibilities can say the same about a Broadsword...

 

[Aran Thule]

Thanks for everyones response.

I agree with Stormonu in that i see dominate as more like slavery then anything else.
Also in respect of the forum and its rules could we please steer clear of moving this discussion in the direction of 'rape' as it tends to get things heated and will get the thread closed.

Also just to put a spanner in the works i dont think we can use the description of protection from evil to help with the definition as protection from good also prevents it from taking effect.

Second, the barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person). The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from good effect. If the protection from good effect ends before the effect granting mental control does, the would-be controller would then be able to mentally command the controlled creature. Likewise, the barrier keeps out a possessing life force but does not expel one if it is in place before the spell is cast. This second effect works regardless of alignment.

 

[steenan]

I don't have a single opinion on this topic. I, myself, don't judge fictional events. And I played various characters, with various approaches to morality, magic and free will. But, if I took a balanced, average view among them, it would be like this:

Charm-like magic affects others' emotions, but does not force them to do anything. It's not much different from affecting emotions through non-magical behavior and conversation and it's judged the same way. If you do it to gain something at the affected person's cost, it's immoral, as is manipulating someone non-magically for the same effect. If you do it for your gain, without any hurt to others, it's a good use of your resources. If you help someone by charming them, it's a sign of virtue.

Magical domination is different. It removes somebody's free will, at least temporary; it makes a person into something worse than a slave, because it leaves no choice at all. In this, it's similar to killing. So, it should be judged as killing. If you use domination to stop an attack against yourself or other person, it's not good, but it's acceptable, unless you had a less violent method that would suffice. Any non-defensive use is evil (of course, in settings that have beings of pure evil, they are seen as aggressive no matter what they do, so you may kill or dominate them without thinking twice).

 

[Umbran]

One argument from the lawful perspective would be precisely that we are no more than agents ourselves.

In a D&D world, "we" (being the mortals) are not necessarily the end of the chain, though. You create an agent, and put your will into it. If you yourself are an agent, you needed to come from somewhere. Something put will into you. There's free will somewhere in the stack. Unless you're going to say it is turtles all the way up...

But I still think the point that "rights" don't have a meaning without free will still holds. The trick to your analogy is that the term "rights" is also a piece of jargon in computer science, which is derived from, but does not mean the same thing as it does in our original frame of context. The "rights" of computer science and your hypothetical agent are more akin to the physical laws of the Universe than any rights of humans.

Think of it this way - every person in the USA has the right to walk down a sidewalk, yes? Barring some specific issue of public safety or what not, I mean. Really, you've got that right. Correct?

My brother was confined to a wheelchair for his entire life. Walking was a physical impossibility for him. The "right" to walk down the street was meaningless, as he could not choose to do so.

Proving that you aren't merely a deterministic software agent of whatever origin is not a trivial task

Logical proof is, if I recall correctly, actually impossible. The basic issue being that we don't know the axioms under which the universe actually operates.

Proof in the colloquial sense (like we use in law, "beyond the shadow of doubt") is either trivial or impossible, or somewhere between, depending upon who you're trying to prove it to, and their belief systems.

some consideration of dilemma of determinism might be profitable here.

As a physicist, I come to the ideas of determinism and indeterminism from rather a different angle than most - in that I think the dilemma of determinism rather neglects some physical laws as we currently understand them. Perhaps, best to say that I think "indeterminism" as the world experiences it is perhaps not the way philosophers typically define it.

But, at that point, we are talking about belief systems (and thus effectively religion), so I doubt we can go much further without running up aginst the board rules.