Hmm. I didn't think I was espousing a particularly egoist interpretation of the nature of evil. I thought that the interpretation of evil I was going from has more Thomistic--if evil is a privation of good with no real existance of its own, it's impossible that it could be valued for its own sake. Anything about evil that was valued would really turn out to be a perversion of something good.
I guess there is a certain similarity to an egoist (or emotivist for that matter) definition of evil, however. Neither view of evil allows evil to be valued for itself. I think that the only view of evil that would allow it to be valued for its own sake is probably a utilitarian view of evil. Even then, however, to value the suffering of others would most likely locate pleasure or some other measure of utility in it. I'm not sure any conception of evil really would allow it to be valued in itself rather than for something it perverted or produced.
As to the Nazi paladin, I suspect that he's have a very short life as either a character, Nazi, or Paladin. I'm assuming from the outset that the hypothetical Nazi Paladin would pursue the ideals of good and law and also support a collectivist, nationalist, and racialist National Socialist government.
Since I view good and evil as objective qualities, the Nazi paladin could only continue to be both a Nazi and a paladin as long as his pursuit of good order (I actually don't really distinguish between Law and Good--in games I run there's only one real alignment axis; the law/chaos axis is entirely relativistic and means whatever the players want it to) and his support of the collectivist, nationalist, racialist (since I'm already watering down Naziism right here, we could probably just say you can't be a Nazi paladin right now unless you want to assume that what I just described is still Naziism) government didn't conflict.
This might be possible if the character remained ignorant as to the nature of the Nazi government and served it in capacities where the actions it demanded did not conflict with the demands of Good. So, he might be a largely apolitical homocide investigator in a city without a noticable Jewish population (I think Nuremberg satisfied that criterion) or any other population of people the Nazis deemed unworthy of life and didn't read newspapers or listen to the radio (and if he ever did catch any news, he never looked past the sound bites). If he managed to live through the entire Nazi rule without being in a situation where he would reasonably be expected to figure out the nature of the nazi rule, he might manage to be both a Nazi and a paladin. If he did come into a situation where he would be reasonably expected to figure out the nature of the Nazi rule, however, he would not be justified in intentionally (conscious or subconscious intention) looking the other way. And once he figured out the nature of the Nazi rule, he would be obligated to leave the Nazi party (or at least work against them which would make him a Nazi in name only). If he were asked to do something wrong--by his Nazi superiors or by anyone else--and he did so, he would also endanger his Paladin status. (Not doing so would probably change his Nazi status). If he saw others doing something wrong, he would probably be obligated to oppose it.
You'll notice that the paladin's "Nazihood" has had to be stripped of most of its meaningful characteristics in order for this to work--and even then, it is hard to imagine that the conditions necessary for him to remain both a Nazi and a paladin would be satisfied for any length of time. So, it's unlikely that there can really be any Nazi paladin by my view.
Now, if you were asking whether a paladin can hold the following beliefs:
1. Society as a whole is more important than its individual members.
2. Countries have an obligation to advance their own interests before those of other nations.
3. People have greater obligations to those of their race or nation than to those of other races or nations.
the answer is a qualified yes. All of those principles are probably acceptable (actually, I think the third is innaccurate but it could occasionally be employed to guide choices that would otherwise be arbitrary without leading to wrong actions) but are easily perverted to evil--especially principle #3.
They are also, IMO, low principles on the totem pole of principles. In fact, even enunciating most of them--especially the third--may give them more significance than they actually have. (The third principle gains whatever credebility it has from the notion that people have greater obligations to their families than to others; that principle, however becomes exponentially weaker, the more distant the relation gets and probably can't really be applied justly at any macro level). If they were to conflict with principles like justice or benevolence, they ought to be disregarded. And any paladin who favors a lesser principle over a higher is treading on very dangerous grounds.
If you want to get away from attempts to water down Nazism until it isn't really Nazism anymore, then the answer is that a Nazi "paladin" is probably a LE (LN at best) fighter with a prestige class like Knight Protector of the Third Reich. By identifying "good" exclusively (or primarily) with his country and race, he has ceased to be good.
Wayside said:
I think your position fits a generic D&D campaign pretty well, as these games tend to make good and evil into 'facts' about the world. I'm less sure of your egoist (Ayn Rand-like) stand on the nature of evil, but either way, the question is how would you handle a Nazi Paladin?
There's nothing mechanically flawed with the idea of an Evil Knight of some sort.
".....or is it just me?
