Is it evil to eat intelligent monsters?

[BiggusGeekus]

If I'm not allowed to heat my home with treant wood then you certainly can't go around eating my cousin Mike. Fair's fair.

 

[Gez]

A hungry troll may eat his own left arm. It'll regrow eventually. Is that cannibalism? No, because, while trolls are monsters, they aren't intelligent.

This post brought to you by Meaningless -- Making no sense since 1878.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

It all depends on the culture. In some cultures canabalism is alright (there is arguably nothing inheritly evil with canabalism), I'd suspect in cultures like these eating intelegent monsters is fine (though no doubt there could be exceptions). It also depends on weather or not these animals are recognized as intelegent and if they are able to communicate. People eat dolphin, octopus, and apes. These are all reasonably intelegent animals. Arguably sentient, but I don't think we condem anyone to hell if they ate them (they're just breaking the law), unless you're a crazy animal rights activist or a reasonable human being.

 

[Hand of Evil]

For my campiagn area I have it define that it is, this is a cultral taboo and what I see as being on the road to darkness. In my game; being evil is doing my defined acts day-in-and-day-out, and to eat flesh from my list can make you evil. Is it evil to everyone in my game world, no, but to the general area my game represents it is.

See every post I have made on defining good and evil in your game and building taboos.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Eating formerly-intelligent corpses isn't in itself evil. There is a difference between disgusting and evil, though both tend to be poor ways to win friends and influence people. Of course, things done to get to this point may be evil. "Because it tastes good" is NOT a non-evil reason to kill an intelligent being!

Well-said.

 

[Sejs]

and if it is wrong then in LG society should all intelligent creatures have 'rights'?

Good gravy, no! It's a pseudo-mythic mideval type society - there no Civil Liberties for Non-Humanoid Sentients Union that'll swoop in and persue legal action or anything like that. Having rights at all is a pretty modern construct.

 

[diaglo]

Soylent Green is ....


LG imo.

 

[ARandomGod]

Eating formerly-intelligent corpses isn't in itself evil. There is a difference between disgusting and evil, though both tend to be poor ways to win friends and influence people. Of course, things done to get to this point may be evil. "Because it tastes good" is NOT a non-evil reason to kill an intelligent being!

ExActLy

Eating them isn't what's evil or not in the first place, how they die might be something to consider on the good/evil axis however.

You can eat your brother if it's culturally ok with you, but you can't kill him for those tasssty drumsticks and still claim to be good.

OK, to be fair you can still *claim* goodness. In fact, it's probably a good idea to deny having committed the act in the first place.

As to whether it's good or evil to kill intelligent beings to eat them. That depends a lot on the definition of sentient and, of course, your characters relative knowledge. Oysters might just be the smartest animal on the planet, but at worst I'm uninformed for eating them. Monkeys... Well, there are cultures that do indeed eat monkeys. Is that act evil? I'm going to say not, but I'd be willing to entertain debate to the contrary. In fact, I'd be willing to say that it would be evil if *I* were to do it. But I'm willing to listen to and attempt to understand cultural, sociological and psychological reasons that another might do it and not be evil.

So, define "intelligent".

But,
Eating the griffon and hunting it for the purpose of griffon stew are two completely different topics.

Note: Pigs are actually quite intelligent.

 

[Tonguez]

Note: Pigs are actually quite intelligent.

yes and during my teens I had much inward turmoil about eating pork - well at least until mum cooked us pork chops for dinner - mmm I do love pork!

oh and thanks for the replies

so the basic concensus is meat is meat but killing intelligent things is not good practice, cool...

 

[Chimera]

I suspect that, on a typical D&D world where you can't throw a rock without hitting someting intelligent and where most of them are hostile...

that you worry a lot less about whether eating something intelligent is murder or "evil".

They ain't you, they ain't your family or friends or allies. And they taste good.

Pass me a griffon wing. And how 'bout a slice of that Behir too.