Is fighting evil necessary and/or sufficient for being good.

[ruleslawyer]

SNIP

Sometimes the resources required to neutralize that evil could actually be more efficiently used on mitigation, but like in most other areas, you usually have the potential for far more evil reduction for your buck/time/whatever through eliminating sources of evil.

My more specific response on South Africa (specifically some clarifications regarding the exact nature and effect of the sanctions and the degree to which international relations played a part in the anti-apartheid struggle) qualifies as political discussion, so I'll leave it out.

The more general points I will make that are directly D&D applicable are this:

1) In any campaign world with a nuanced political sensibility, is violent action of any kind without its own negative political, moral, or social repercussions? If so, I would argue that you do *not* get "far more evil reduction for your buck." Violence tends to beget violence, as it has done for millenia in the real world.

2) Isn't a nonviolent solution that accomplishes *the same ends* as a violent solution necessarily a better solution? Granted, the example is contrived in that I'm assuming a situation in which there are two equally effective responses to a problem, one of which is violent and the other non-violent. But *in such a situation,* would you not agree that the nonviolent response is better?

3) It is easy for violent action to be veiled in moral pretext; nonviolent action, even if veiled in moral pretext, does not have the same negative consequences. Sure; I can write my Congressman a letter protesting legimitate issue x, even if my real agenda is sinister issue y, but there's only so much "evil" implicit in that action. *Assassinating* my Congressman under the pretext of legitimiate issue x is more problematic. Or wouldn't you agree?

 

[airwalkrr]

But does that mean that you're divorcing the act from the intent of the act?

If someone does something we might objectively consider evil, but his intent is good, is it an evil act?

-Hyp.

Sometimes I wonder if Hyp does nothing but peruse these boards and play devil's advocate with the socratic method. (That sounds like a great name for a song.)

I would factor both intent and action. If a character is a crusader against evil (good intentions), but often does evil things to fight evil (evil action) then the character is probably neutral. If a character is a villain whose foes are all evil by necessity (neither good nor evil), and often does evil things to fight evil, then the character is probably evil.

Niether intent nor action alone I think are sufficient to determine alignment. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And a villain whose aims are both selfish and happen to benefit most of society at the same time is not necessarily any less a villain.

 

[Hypersmurf]

And a villain whose aims are both selfish and happen to benefit most of society at the same time is not necessarily any less a villain.

So donating hundreds of thousands of gp to benefit widows and orphans through altruism is good, but donating hundreds of thousands of gp to benefit widows and orphans for the tax breaks in neutral?

-Hyp.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

So donating hundreds of thousands of gp to benefit widows and orphans through altruism is good, but donating hundreds of thousands of gp to benefit widows and orphans for the tax breaks in neutral?

-Hyp.

"Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others." If it is costing you nothing, and even gaining you something other than a warm fuzzy feeling, then your charitable contribution is in fact neutral rather than good.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Enlightened self interest (an essentially neutral form of doing the right thing) still helps many people, and can even allow a group of neutral people to form a 'good' society. CN psycho characters aside, a neutral allignment can contribute to the world. It just stops at the point of sacrifice.

 

[I'm A Banana]

CN psycho characters aside, a neutral allignment can contribute to the world. It just stops at the point of sacrifice.

CN characters get such a bad rep. Every society needs its malcontents!

 

[Patlin]

Put me down for Neither. And it's good to see you, KB! Sara is still poking around the periphery of Clash of Earth and Sea.

 

[Slife]

No.

You could just be an evil warlord who put on a silly hat.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Are you saying that if someone thinks that raping and torturing children is good, then its good?

No, intentionality based morals obviously have to operate under the Reasonable Humanoid test. If someone's intentions are delusional, particularly self imposed delusions, the intentionality test does not apply. For instance, in Everyone's Favorite Stick Drawing D&D Comic, our favorite paladin attempted a fatal blow agaisnt a blameless lawful good fighter, but did not fall for it. Her intention was to fight evil, and due to a houseruled exceptionally strong lingering evil aura, the intention was reasonably applied. Later, the same paladin again attempted a fatal blow against a good character, and again had the intention of fighting evil, but in this case her intentions were so warped and self deluded that they were deemed unreasonable by the gods and she fell.

Most people who use an intentionality based morality probably assume sanity and a lack of dedicated self delusions, but don't bother to spell it out.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I would tend to say that you cannot be a good coward. Courage is the form of every virtue at its testing point and a coward who does not have courage will not have the other virtues either--at least not for long.

Is a single act of cowardice sufficient to define a person's alignment? When I'm the DM, that rather depends upon the act of cowardice and the kind of cowardice displayed. (A different kind of courage is required, for instance, to charge seemingly difficult odds than to sacrifice reputation to do the right thing. And choosing death over evil requires another kind of courage as well; moreover, the various kinds of courage do not always coincide. The world is replete with people who would stand with Leonydas at Thermopylae but who would not ascend to the headsman's block with Sir Thomas Moore and there are also people who would endure execution for the truth but who will not endure scorn).

I guess I'm convincing myself of your argument now. I'm obviously employing a definition of courage that is not remotely limited to martial courage. I will, however, maintain that an apparently good person with the capability to fight evil but who, when push comes to shove, does not do so, is either no longer good or was never good in the first place. That's not to say they're necessarily evil--neutral is probably the most likely answer as D&D defines alignments. But not good. Could they then become good later? (Or, perhaps demonstrate that they were really good all along even though they didn't look it at that particular point?) Sure. But in that case, I would expect their other actions to be consistent with a person who would fight evil even if the situation and capability never came up again. (If it did never come up again, how would you know? IRL, or in D&D, we wouldn't short of supernatural revelation--such as a detect good spell (which is in pretty short supply IRL)).

While I agree that abstaining from a fight against evil is not (generally) a good or even neutral act, I'd be leary of defining someone's allignment by such an incident. Can you be a good coward? A good person with bad perspective?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think reasonable humanoids are few and far between, in the context of moral reasoning, generally tend to be defined as "people who agree with us."

Would a reasonable person approve of early 21st century western sexual morality? Maybe if the reasonable person is a 21st century westerner or a late first century Roman. If said reasonable person is your early fifteenth century mexica, an early Roman, eighteenth century American, or even early 20th century American, odds are their reactions would be very different. For a topic more germane to most D&D games, how about revenge killings? There once more, your reasonable 11th century Icelander (say, Burnt Njal or Skarphedin), 13th century Scotsman, or 20th century Arab is likely to have a different answer to your reasonable 21st century Dutchman. Hence the problem of the reasonable person test. Real people react to different things in different ways and controlling for sanity (in any non question-begging way) doesn't change that fact. Nor does controlling for general mental capacity. The concept of a "reasonable person" divorced from time and culture is an enigma since there are no people reasonable or otherwise who are divorced from time or culture. (Or, if there are, their existence is not universally acknowledged and discussion of it is forbidden on these boards). Hence, reasonable in this sense generally turns out to mean "agrees with me and shares my worldview." Otherwise, I can't see what standard one would apply to judge between the modern American and the Viking or the Aztec and the Dutchman (or for that matter, the Dutchman of 1575 and the Dutchman of today).

Things are, of course, quite different if there actually is an individual who could judge right and wrong independently of human cultures, but discussing divine command theories of ethics probably treads on thin ice on these boards. (And a typical polytheistic D&D world where different gods present radically different ideas of vice and virtue would not be sufficient for divine command theory anyway).

No, intentionality based morals obviously have to operate under the Reasonable Humanoid test. If someone's intentions are delusional, particularly self imposed delusions, the intentionality test does not apply. For instance, in Everyone's Favorite Stick Drawing D&D Comic, our favorite paladin attempted a fatal blow agaisnt a blameless lawful good fighter, but did not fall for it. Her intention was to fight evil, and due to a houseruled exceptionally strong lingering evil aura, the intention was reasonably applied. Later, the same paladin again attempted a fatal blow against a good character, and again had the intention of fighting evil, but in this case her intentions were so warped and self deluded that they were deemed unreasonable by the gods and she fell.

Most people who use an intentionality based morality probably assume sanity and a lack of dedicated self delusions, but don't bother to spell it out.