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

[ruleslawyer]

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.

Yes.

 

[Particle_Man]

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.

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).

But D&D in its standard version does have one interesting feature. Good and Evil are as objective, and objectively measurable, in D&Dland, as electricity is in our world. Thus there is a basis for judging good and evil acts that does not require the subjective judgment of any one mortal or any one God.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

An interesting and, IMO, inconsistent feature. (Though I suppose consistency could be introduced by saying that "Good" and "Evil" represent our evaluations of the character and beliefs of the gods and characters rather than the in-game analysis of it). If, for instance, Pholtus in the Greyhawk setting were to relabel Law "good" and Chaos "evil," that would be consistent with his teachings and the magical detections would work just the same way that the rules say they do. Good and Evil (in people and items though not necessarily in actions beyond whether or not they cause a paladin to fall) are objectively measurable in D&D, but, by the core rules, there is no reason to prefer the one over the other (except standards that might be brought from outside of the framework, such as hedonism, altrusism, or convenient matchup with qualities that the player admires). Heironeous says one thing is right, Wee Jas says another, Hextor a third, Pelor, a fourth, Obad Hai a fifth, Kord a sixth, Vecna a seventh, Erythnul an eighth and Olidammara a ninth. Why should any character prefer Chaos to Law or Good to Evil? One can objectively identify the things that the various gods prefer, but that won't tell characters which of the objective forces they ought to prefer--whether Good is actually good or whether Neutrality or even Evil is better.

In other words, in D&D land, Good and Evil may be measurable qualities but strangely they don't necessarily carry the connotations of oughtness and ought-notness that they do IRL. If you're a Hextorian, Evil and Law both come with the ought connotation. Evil, for lack of a better term, is good for them.

Thus the philosophical problem that D&Dland does not and cannot answer: is Good really good? If so, why?

But D&D in its standard version does have one interesting feature. Good and Evil are as objective, and objectively measurable, in D&Dland, as electricity is in our world. Thus there is a basis for judging good and evil acts that does not require the subjective judgment of any one mortal or any one God.

 

[Janx]

In a literal sense, "does fightingevil make you good" the answer is no, because of the obvious answer of "evil people fight other evil people all the time".

However, I think another way to look at the question is that assuming a PC is "Not Evil", does fighting evil make you good. How about, does not fighting evil make you good?

peaceful nuns helping sick people pretty much nail the "don't fight anything, still good" category.

I might put it this way, if you do NOT fight evil, when confronted by it, are you good or are you neutral?

Victims of crime who didn't resist, are they good or neutral?

Citizens of a town that is terrorized by armed criminals, if the citizens don't fight, are they good or neutral?

If someone tries to rob you, and you fight back, are you good? Or just protecting your property (neutral)?

I think, that if confronted by evil and you do nothing, not because doing something at that time is tactically inadvisable, but because, you just want to mind your own business, and hope they'll leave you alone, you are Neutral. At some point, a Good person makes a stand, takes a chance, because it will help himself, and help others. Maybe doing something means reporting to the police, sneaking supplies in or information out, or actually fighting.

The man who regretted he only had one life to give for his country was Good. The man who did nothing when they came for the Jews, was Neutral. And we all know what happened to him.

 

[Patlin]

Victims of crime who didn't resist, are they good or neutral?

Good, neutral and sometimes evil. Criminal prosecutors have a saying: "Crimes conceived in Hell rarely have angels as witnesses." Bad people victimize other bad people all the time. After all, that's who they mostly hang out with. Anyone can be the victim of the crime, and it's just as much of a mistake to think victim means good guy as it would be to think victim means bad guy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

I don't entirely exclude intention, but the reason I can't base alignment entirely on intention is because sanity and lack of dedicated self-delusions are pretty impossible to find in *real* people, let alone in fantasy characters who slaughter terrifying monsters for fun and profit.

 

[buzz]

I voted "Other." I will now champion the rule text from the SRD.

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life.
...
Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Fighting Evil is unrelated to being Good. If a PC's fight against Evil entities does not involve personal sacrifice to help others nor protects innocent life, it has no bearing on whether the D&D universe will deem them Good on the alignment axes.

E.g., killing Evil things and taking their Evil stuff does not make a PC Good. Risking their life to thwart an entity threatening innocent villagers, and then donating the resulting loot to the local temple working to aid the village's recovery... that makes a PC Good.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I voted "Other." I will now champion the rule text from the SRD.

Fighting Evil is unrelated to being Good. If a PC's fight against Evil entities does not involve personal sacrifice to help others nor protects innocent life, it has no bearing on whether the D&D universe will deem them Good on the alignment axes.

E.g., killing Evil things and taking their Evil stuff does not make a PC Good. Risking their life to thwart an entity threatening innocent villagers, and then donating the resulting loot to the local temple working to aid the village's recovery... that makes a PC Good.

I'm a little lost, how is this "other" rather than "neither neccassary nor sufficient"?

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm a little lost, how is this "other" rather than "neither neccassary nor sufficient"?

Because Fighting is not sufficient if it involves no Sacrifice, and Fighting is not necessary if Sacrifice can be made some other way.

If you asked him "Is personal sacrifice to help others necessary/sufficient to be Good", you'd get a different answer.

-Hyp.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Because Fighting is not sufficient if it involves no Sacrifice, and Fighting is not necessary if Sacrifice can be made some other way.

If you asked him "Is personal sacrifice to help others necessary/sufficient to be Good", you'd get a different answer.

-Hyp.

Again, that would mean that fighting evil was not necessary or sufficient. I understood everyhting about his post except "I voted other".