D&D General Is This Evil? D&D Morality.

[Mind of tempest]

I find the rationale suspect. There is truly no future that doesn't involve them going extinct? And humanity is the only reason this occurs? That's incredibly suspicious. That more or less means that humanity cannot even in principle change its ways. At that point, you've posited a purely deterministic universe where free will is an illusion anyway, so the vast majority of things one would call morality or ethics go out the window to begin with. You've framed the situation so hard you've pushed the morality out of it entirely; it's not just that this species isn't evil, it's that no one and nothing is evil, because it was all predestined anyway.


I reject this analysis. You have, essentially, said that morality is always conditional on survival. No moral system worthy of the name would include that--to do so would be to gut it before you even articulated its first rule. Because there wouldn't be rules. There would only be "as long as it's convenient..."

A fundamental tenet of the idea that there can be "moral" behavior is that there are some things more valuable than survival.

firstly my point was the same as your point that the situation had been rendered morality irrelevant.

secondly, that is how most humans operate their morality otherwise moral dilemmas would never appear.

 

[Zardnaar]

I find the rationale suspect. There is truly no future that doesn't involve them going extinct? And humanity is the only reason this occurs? That's incredibly suspicious. That more or less means that humanity cannot even in principle change its ways. At that point, you've posited a purely deterministic universe where free will is an illusion anyway, so the vast majority of things one would call morality or ethics go out the window to begin with. You've framed the situation so hard you've pushed the morality out of it entirely; it's not just that this species isn't evil, it's that no one and nothing is evil, because it was all predestined anyway.


I reject this analysis. You have, essentially, said that morality is always conditional on survival. No moral system worthy of the name would include that--to do so would be to gut it before you even articulated its first rule. Because there wouldn't be rules. There would only be "as long as it's convenient..."

A fundamental tenet of the idea that there can be "moral" behavior is that there are some things more valuable than survival.

Their prescience may not be perfect.

They're judging us using the same morality we have used on other species. Main point is the way we consume, breed, destroy is diametrically opposed to their values and requirements.

 

[Guest 7034872]

1. I teach moral philosophy. I will never show my students this thread. Ever.
2. D&D "evil," from its very inception, ≠ actual evil. It's closer to something like Jungian archetypes + a mythological mish-mash haphazardly scrambled in with scary monsters coming to eat you in the night.
3. It's your imagined scenario, Zardnaar: you get to decide whether this species is evil or not (by fiat or by some rationale--that too is up to you). As you noted, "what is evil is very much filtered through the writers of the game," and in this instance you're the writer.
4. Seriously--never.