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

[dave2008]

In the D&D world there are multiple sentient species but what is evil is very much filtered through the writers of the game.

So here's the scenario. There's another species with a very alien mindset and completely different world view. Perhaps they're an insect hivemind or perhaps they're militant conservationists and live in tune with nature.

If they lived on earth instead of 7-8 billion they would have 1-2 billion inhabitants.

Anyway they look at humans somewhere between a food source or an invasive species. They might genuinely believe it's either then or us. They might even be right in this belief who knows. They pass judgement in us much the same way RL humans have on other species.

Let's face it we've driven multiple species to extinction.

Essentially our mere existence they see as a threat due to consumption, reproduction etc. Whatever the reason. Maybe they're just Vulcans that logically see humans as a threat to every other species merely by existing.

In any event they either want to drive humans to extinction or at best limited to an island or something similar. Extinction might be in the traditional way or just banning humans from reproducing in some way.

Either way humans may or may not be top dog the hivemind (or whatever) may or may not be able to deliver on it's beliefs. They are sentient but very alien insectoids, living constructs or even sentient rocks.

Maybe they even live for eons and if it's post apocalyptic the humans were responsible for pushing the big red button. For whatever reason our mere existence offends them on a fundamental level. It may or may not be justified/stupid. We might just deplete resources critical for their survival.

Thoughts?

I don't see a question here, what are you trying to ask?

 

[Blue Orange]

'Survival of the fittest' was actually given by Gygax as the basis of evil morality in the 1e DMG, probably inspired by the real-life Nazis (remember the racially pure blond blue-eyed Suel monks of the Scarlet Brotherhood?). So the idea goes back a long way. (Gygax would have known WW2 veterans, most likely.)

'What is evil' is something philosophers, clergy, and ordinary people have argued over for most of human history. You can have all kinds of interesting examples of values dissonance that are good for writing stories (Roman pagan morality certainly had 'evil' aspects by Christian standards), but I doubt we're going to solve it here.

From the D&D point of view, your invading hive takes what they want without regard to others and therefore is lawful evil given its high level of organization. More than that I don't know if you need to get into unless you are running a campaign that centers around moral issues.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It has already been asked but: why does it matter?

Does the situation in the game become more interesting if you have an objective correct answer to who is "evil" and who is "good"? I'd argue it it does not, quite the opposite.

So just throw away the alignment, let the situation play out and the players to make up their own minds how they feel about things. No need to decide who is "objectively correct."

 

[Mind of tempest]

it evilness is irrelevant as it is us or them thus it is a matter of survival, not morality, were you planning on protection from good and evil matter for some reason?

I would see them as evil but I am not one to talk here.

 

[beancounter]

Any species technologically advanced enough to travel millions of light years within a biological lifetime, has probably solved resource allocation. (e.g. something like the StarTrek replicator)

 

[Mind of tempest]

Any species technologically advanced enough to travel millions of light years within a biological lifetime, has probably solved resource allocation. (e.g. something like the StarTrek replicator)

or can at least harvest the dead rock of a solar system for material.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm trying to get people to think about if another species judged us by our own actions.

Judging an entire species by the actions of its ancestors and the bad apples among them is pretty obviously evil. It requires both the "sins of the father shall be visited upon the son" doctrine, and the "guilt by association" doctrine, which are fundamentally unacceptable, punishing innocent people for misdeeds committed by others. If the sentence for that is genocide, so much the worse: a sapient culture trying to exterminate or corral another sapient culture for these reasons is simply evil. Doesn't matter if they have different views on what is acceptable or not; it is simply, fundamentally unacceptable to apply the two aforementioned doctrines to anyone, and to seek genocide for such reasons is that much worse.

This is not related to (purportedly) unique characteristics of human beings. Other species might easily do things (which I will not specify) that humans find squicky or horrible but which are perfectly fine for them. That's not at issue. These beings are known to have three qualities: they are of highly comparable intelligence to humans (definitely not significantly less intelligent), they form a social structure which allows them to act cooperatively as a group rather than each individual member acting on their own, and they understand the idea of communication and interaction with others.

Unless the species is a sci-fi/magical hive mind truly incapable of understanding the concept of individuality (which is a pretty big "unless"), these characteristics require that the species possess certain faculties and knowledge. It is not possible to have a working society sustainable in the long term if its members are incapable of recognizing the commonalities between the members; there may be stratification, even extremes of it, but fundamentally "de-sapientizing" (if you'll pardon the nonce word) their fellows is incompatible with long-term social stability and cohesive action against humanity. A society which punishes guilt by association and which holds descendants indefinitely accountable for the sins of their forebears is one which will very quickly destroy itself, because the only way to absolve the former is social fragmentation, destroying the ability to cooperate on a large scale, and the only way to solve the latter is suicide. There is a reason humanity figured out real damn quick that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. The ethic of reciprocity, whether in the negative form (don't do unto others what you wouldn't want done to you) or positive form (do unto others as you would have done to you), follows pretty close behind as a fundamental guiding principle of dealing with social groupings.

And if this species is somehow able to reap the fruits of a stable, organized society with a consistent group-wide response ("kill/imprison all humans!") and yet have these principles that are fundamentally antagonistic to the formation of such a society...how? It must be explained. I refuse to accept someone putting it in a black box and asserting that it is simply unknowable to us, that we must simply take the claim at face value and never question it.

Again, this completely ignores any characteristics that might be unique to humans. Maybe you don't need our bizarrely intense bonding instinct which causes us to adore members of other species and instinctively seek to befriend them. Maybe our dangerous curiosity and need to explore beyond the horizon is optional for effective growth as a sapient species. Who knows? But there surely must be things like the above that we can reason about purely from the facts of these aliens being intelligent, able to communicate, and organized by social interaction. (Again, a sci-fi/magical hive mind that lacks that third part would fail to match my analysis, but I am comfortable with that fact. Especially since it would seem to be rather strange if the hive mind is apparently smart enough to reach the stars but too dumb to ever figure out that non-hive life forms are made up of individuals which do not like to be slain.)

 

[Charlaquin]

'What is evil' is something philosophers, clergy, and ordinary people have argued over for most of human history. You can have all kinds of interesting examples of values dissonance that are good for writing stories (Roman pagan morality certainly had 'evil' aspects by Christian standards), but I doubt we're going to solve it here.

Which is precisely why we need to define what ethical framework we’re working from in order to answer this question. These philosophers, religious leaders, etc, have developed many frameworks for what constitutes good and evil, not all of which agree with each other. If we all simply try to intuit a framework, we will inevitably run into incompatible assumptions. However, if we agree upon a consistent framework, we can come to an actual conclusion.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Which is precisely why we need to define what ethical framework we’re working from in order to answer this question. These philosophers, religious leaders, etc, have developed many frameworks for what constitutes good and evil, not all of which agree with each other. If we all simply try to intuit a framework, we will inevitably run into incompatible assumptions. However, if we agree upon a consistent framework, we can come to an actual conclusion.

if we want to be insufferable we could use my ethics theory?

 

[Charlaquin]

if we want to be insufferable we could use my ethics theory?

What’s your ethics theory?