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<blockquote data-quote="Greg Benage" data-source="post: 6910177" data-attributes="member: 93631">Just what I said: I should have specified, again. The question in the OP is whether it was an evil act, not a lawful or socially justified one. We can think of lots of examples of societies, historical or fictional, where evil acts would be lawfully and/or socially justified. Most of human history, in fact: men can do what they want with their slaves, men can do what they want with their wives, men can do what they want with their children, etc. In some, but not all, of these cases, there was conflict between what was lawful according to the lawful authority and what was moral according to the moral authority.The question is whether cutting the throat of a defenseless person in a bar was an evil act, and my challenge therefore should have been: &quot;What's a setting where such an act would be morally justified&quot; (i.e. not evil)? I still think, from what I've gathered, that by the terms of his own moral code the samurai in Rokugan would not be morally justified in cutting the man's throat. I didn't so specify, and I believe that's the source of our miscommunication. That's what I hope you'll make of it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Greg Benage, post: 6910177, member: 93631"] Just what I said: I should have specified, again. The question in the OP is whether it was an [I]evil[/I] act, not a lawful or socially justified one. We can think of lots of examples of societies, historical or fictional, where evil acts would be lawfully and/or socially justified. Most of human history, in fact: men can do what they want with their slaves, men can do what they want with their wives, men can do what they want with their children, etc. In some, but not all, of these cases, there was conflict between what was lawful according to the lawful authority and what was moral according to the moral authority. The question is whether cutting the throat of a defenseless person in a bar was an [I]evil[/I] act, and my challenge therefore [I]should[/I] have been: "What's a setting where such an act would be [I]morally[/I] justified" (i.e. not evil)? I still think, from what I've gathered, that by the terms of his own moral code the samurai in Rokugan would not be morally justified in cutting the man's throat. I didn't so specify, and I believe that's the source of our miscommunication. That's what I hope you'll make of it. [/QUOTE]

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