Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7743603">Because To the first part: if it is indeed alien and therefore incomprehensible, then our puny human morality is inapplicable.&nbsp; We can't say an incomprehensible being is evil, because it's incomprehensible!&nbsp; To say that we know such a thing is indeed evil, would be to say that it is actually compreensible by our puny human morality.&nbsp; That's why it's a garbage argument.&nbsp; You can't on one hand saying X is incomprehensible and then on the other hand say X is also evil.&nbsp; The latter means you comprehend it.&nbsp; The former means you don't.&nbsp; To the second part: Because it's an extension of the first argument.&nbsp; &quot;We here in Reality Land can't comprehend what Fantasy Land is like!&quot;...but, you just made an argument of how things in Fantasy Land may be.&nbsp; Which is?&nbsp; Can we comprehend Fantasy Land or can't we?These are bad arguments that tend to be made when *thing in question* has a fundamental flaw that is difficult to explain away as anything other than a fundamental flaw.&nbsp; So arguments like &quot;Well we must just not be able to understand how this flaw is actually a feature!&quot;&nbsp; Or...maybe Occams Razor is right once again, and the simplest answer must be the truth: this thing is flawed.To this I argue: silence is consent.&nbsp; Doing nothing is just as bad as supporting it.&nbsp; You knew it would do evil, eventually and did nothing.That's the problem with the &quot;born evil&quot; problem with D&amp;D.&nbsp; If it's evil yet at the moment not taking evil actions and you know that once it takes action, the only actions it will take are evil ones, then the only good thing to do is to prevent it.&nbsp; Otherwise, by allowing evil to survive and take actions in the future, you have allowed evil to happen.This is demonstrated with Epicurus's &quot;God trilemma&quot;, see also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil" target="_blank">The Problem of Evil</a>.Granted, the heros may not be all-powerful, but if a good character does not take an active role in stopping evil, they have rather directly too, allowed evil to happen.&nbsp; This generates the &quot;killing baby orcs is a good thing&quot; problem whereby an otherwise lawful good character is faced with the &quot;problem of evil&quot; and must choose to either kill babies, who must by their evil nature take evil actions, or stop being considered a good person because they allowed evil to flourish.----------Bringing this back to the OP, this is one of the precise reasons that games like D&amp;D view killing as a primary solution to conflict as opposed to other games.&nbsp; Because quite literally, D&amp;D and its descendants have set up such a terrible dichotomy of &quot;Either you're good and you kill orcs, or you're allowing evil to flourish.&quot;&nbsp; There really is no other choice than to kill.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 7743603"] Because To the first part: if it is indeed alien and therefore incomprehensible, then our puny human morality is inapplicable. We can't say an incomprehensible being is evil, because it's [B]incomprehensible[/B]! To say that we know such a thing is indeed evil, would be to say that it is actually compreensible by our puny human morality. That's why it's a garbage argument. You can't on one hand saying X is incomprehensible and then on the other hand say X is also evil. The latter means you comprehend it. The former means you don't. To the second part: Because it's an extension of the first argument. "We here in Reality Land can't comprehend what Fantasy Land is like!"...but, you just made an argument of how things in Fantasy Land may be. Which is? Can we comprehend Fantasy Land or can't we? These are bad arguments that tend to be made when *thing in question* has a fundamental flaw that is difficult to explain away as anything other than a fundamental flaw. So arguments like "Well we must just not be able to understand how this flaw is actually a feature!" Or...maybe Occams Razor is right once again, and the simplest answer must be the truth: this thing is flawed. To this I argue: silence is consent. Doing nothing is just as bad as supporting it. You knew it would do evil, [I]eventually[/I] and did nothing. That's the problem with the "born evil" [I]problem[/I] with D&D. If it's evil yet at the moment not taking evil actions and you know that once it takes action, the only actions it will take are evil ones, then the [I]only[/I] good thing to do is to prevent it. Otherwise, by allowing evil to survive and take actions in the future, you have allowed evil to happen. This is demonstrated with Epicurus's "God trilemma", see also: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil"]The Problem of Evil[/URL]. Granted, the heros may not be all-powerful, but if a good character does not take an [I]active[/I] role in stopping evil, they have rather directly too, allowed evil to happen. This generates the "killing baby orcs is a good thing" problem whereby an otherwise lawful good character is faced with the "problem of evil" and must choose to either kill babies, who [I]must[/I] by their evil nature take evil actions, or stop being considered a good person because they allowed evil to flourish. ---------- Bringing this back to the OP, this is one of the precise reasons that games like D&D view killing as a primary solution to conflict as opposed to other games. Because quite literally, D&D and its descendants have set up such a terrible dichotomy of "Either you're good and you kill orcs, or you're allowing evil to flourish." There really [I]is no other choice[/I] than to kill. [/QUOTE]

Verification