D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)


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The premise of the thread is that good or evil CAN be defeated, forever, and the neutral people in the middle are actively maintaining a balance (that's the "Muscular" part) between good and evil to avoid either side "Winning" and disrupting the balance.
I don't see that premise anywhere in the OP, but I can't dispute that you do see it, so it appears we're each talking about a different thought experiment. I withdraw any arguments I made against your conclusions. My posts are unrelated to the topic you're discussing.
 

Looking into the Paragons of the Neutral alignment the Rilmani, they are framed as being interested in balancing the different forces across the multiverse. They might be motivated by how their home plane The Outlands might be affected if the cosmic forces weren't balanced. Seeing as they have a soldier caste (Ferrumachs) and an assassin caste (Cuprilachs) they definitely will use violence to achieve their goals. Though they would mainly leave it up to their infiltrator caste the Agrenachs, to manipulate opposing sides before using their armies.

Agrenachs haven't appeared since 2e, but they'd probably be the mysterious benefactor that helps the villain escape when Good is victorious or shelters the last heroes standing when Evil is triumphant, introduces flaws into a perfectly ordered system, and creates patterns in something that's chaotic.
 

TBH, while the OP didn't mention the idea of Muscular Evil to prevent winning, just opposing the extremes of Good and Evil, the original OP (Snarf's post, quoted by the OP) mentionned the Circle of Eight, whose goal was to prevent any of them for winning. So I can see the confusion. But there is no stipulation that Good and Evil must be defeatable in the OP's text, nor there is anything that Good is better than Evil. Good is just "altruism, respect for life and concern for dignity" and Evil is "harming, oppressing, and killing other". So basically, if you have a broad definition of other, destroying a species of animal would be evil (humanity on Earth would register as Evil, with our track record), taxmen would be evil, kingdoms would be evil (government without consent is oppression, even if you rule fairly, justly, and build hospitals everywhere) and so on, while a guy who steals people to give to an orphanage would be Good as long as he doesn't kill. It's a very restricted stance that determine those sides, and there is no necessity that everyone being Good is actually something good or desireable.
 
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Taking it as given that
  1. Muscular neutrality between good and evil is a metaphysically valid position,
  2. "Good" is "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings",
  3. and "Evil" is "harming, oppressing, and killing others",
what justifies a position of muscular neutrality?

I suspect some folks will be inclined to refuse the premise here--either by stating that there isn't a valid muscular neutrality for the good v. evil dichotomy, fudging "good" somehow, substituting law and chaos for evil and good, or in some other way (Enworlders are never short on ways to refuse a premise).
I know this is a variant on "refusing the premise", but I don't think 2 & 3 are necessarily meant to be the case in a "muscular neutrality" scenario. I think that assuming they are makes this a lot more complicated and contradictory. I'm not sure why you're assuming 2 & 3 are the case in a Greyhawk-esque scenario.

But if we move past that, I think the only possible justification is going to be metaphysical/magical. I.e. that balance must be assured or there will be some kind of dire consequence. This obviously works a lot better with Law/Chaos, because those have obviously bad consequences if taken to extremes.

Without a mystical/metaphysical/magical element, but with Good/Evil you have to get judge-y and into nonsense and stereotypes I think. You have to start making implausible/obviously-wrong claims like "If everyone is good and no-one is fighting or harming others, and everyone has enough, there's no creativity and no meaning!" or inch-deep cod-philosophical drivel like "there is no light without shadow!", which is like, obviously weird nonsense, but absolutely the kind of thing you routinely found in 1980s fantasy (especially in TTRPGs).

So yeah it's going to have to be dire metaphysical consequences, like if everyone is too good, the Good gods will become too powerful and end the world or or something. Like maybe there's a cosmic game and points are being scored, and if either side gets the max score, the world ends and starts anew, which pleases the implacable and incomprehensible gods somehow but destroys the world.
 

There is no nonsense that an excess of altruism, respect of life and concern for the dignity of other could lead to outcome a muscular neutral would want to avoid. Especially if, like in the Circle of Eight reference, the MN are a very limited number of powerful people.

1. They could simply have more information. If you know that 1,000 years down the line, an unknown invader will appear and get down from a ship, intent on destroying everything, and you let Good take over, it means that Good will have lost the habit of waging wars, and will have mellowed into being wiped -- especially if the structure value life so much that they can't decide that they'll fight back and kill the invader, especially when they learn that said invaders are just poor people drafted in an army. The invading army doesn't need to be a genociding one (because you could argue that the OP's definition of Good doesn't mean they would necessarily reject self-defense), but they could just invade the land and privatize for their own use key ressources (like herds of animal, the best pastures, the mines...), ending in a considerable detriment for everyone else. The MN would want some level of agression to subsist (prompting military technology/magic progress and standing armies) so when the invaders come, they see a world that would defend itself and move on. In a 100% worldwide peaceful world, you're less likely to develop a nuke, after all. The MN would be justified morally even if there is no real threat, but they couldn't prove its absence.

2. Where in the nonsense in the idea that creativity and progress could be stiffled by an overabundance of respect? Developping cures necessitates testing. It will kill and harm people, and it will kill and harm animals. Muscular Neutral wants to prevent the halting of progress by maintaining societies that accept enough evil to continue animal testing, despite while being Evil-as-defined-in-the-OP, they think the global outcome is better than avoiding any individual action toward Evil.

3. Where is the nonsense in saying that an excess of concern for life can't lead to a bad outcome? The immediate empathy for textile worker would have caused a ban of the industrial revolution, preventing all the immensely good outcome of it. Sure it sucked to be them, even if they benefitted in the long run, and society as a whole benefitted largely from progress. Preventing a victory of Good would allow some societies to at least try the industrial revolution.

You could very well have a dedicated group of Neutrals acting to prevent the overdominance of Good-as-defined-by-the-OP as well as the overdominance of Evil, without a metaphysical element making the winning of one side ending the world.
 
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[...] The premise of the thread is that good or evil CAN be defeated, forever, and the neutral people in the middle are actively maintaining a balance (that's the "Muscular" part) between good and evil to avoid either side "Winning" and disrupting the balance. [...]
I didn't explicitly state that, though it captures the spirit.

Really, it's simpler: Unless you're a Evil jerk, why would you ever actively oppose Good? And can you (ENWorld poster) contrive a reasonable basis for someone to do so?

To make this work requires one of two things:

1) Redefining what is "Good" to be more in line with what we know to be evil.
2) An external reason to goodness for why "Good" can't be allowed to win. [...]
Yeah, that's most of what the thread has come up with so far. I don't think those are the only solutions (and 1 is explicitly a cheat), but I'm not confident there are others.

Maybe by incorporating incomplete information, even among divine actors, there are more possibilities.

Lets say that an over-god declares that balance between good and evil is necessary for continued existence, then vacates reality forever. There have subsequently been some signs which suggest that the over-god's dictum is true. Good recognizes that there is a possibility it could, by dominating evil, destroy existence--but Good discounts this because preventing suffering important and the risk of doing so is unknown. Muscular neutrality sees this as irresponsible--because it doesn't discount the existential risk, and because it weighs the cessation of existence as more damaging than the counterbalance of any amount of benefit that could be gained by prevented suffering.

But maybe that's just a species of 2).

Another avenue (I can't recall who first noted this) is to posit something that muscular neutrals want, but that Good doesn't provide or insufficiently provides. That's what I attempted in post 174, and I think this tack leads to wierd answers--which is cool! But maybe it's just a fudge into the 1) category, and a Good world provides everything that could plausibly promote satisfaction and flourishing.

But I think that may actually go too far in its characterization of Good.

Ethics traditionally divides judgments of right and wrong into 3 groups.
  • Are the consequences good.
  • Is the action itself good.
  • Was the intention motivating the action good.
The Good absolutists in this thread (myself included in the first 5 pages) tend to state that Good is all three of these, all the time. But, well... it's trivially easy to come up with thought experiments where they conflict.

Maybe Good vs. muscular neutral is just a difference in conception of Good.

The easiest way to set that up is probably to have Good emphasize actions and intentions, and have muscular neutral emphasize consequences and intentions--so, you could call some specific thing the muscular neutrals are doing Evil, but really it doesn't belong in the same category as Evil Evil if they do it with Good intentions, if the act will have positive outcomes, and if the muscular neutrals are not moustache-twirling jerkwads as their general MO.

I know this is a variant on "refusing the premise", but I don't think 2 & 3 are necessarily meant to be the case in a "muscular neutrality" scenario. I think that assuming they are makes this a lot more complicated and contradictory.
Exactly! Making those assumptions requires us to come up with pretzel logic to explain the apparent contradiction. In an ideal world, that is what makes reading and posting in this thread fun.

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You're both generally thoughtful posters, I'd love to see what contrivances you can come up with.
 

I could see a muscular neutral organization whose goal is to enforce a sort of neutral zone between the warring forces of good and evil.

Kind of like peacekeepers who exert their influence when a conflict is boiling to the point of devastation of people and/or nature.

So then if this is a 'good' thing why not just side with good against evil? This gives evil forces incentive to reduce hostilities rather than just destroying everything they can as they lose. And evil is incentivized to not take on the muscular neutral force as well as they will be overpowered.

They don't necessarily need to have an overarching philosophy of and end goal. They could just be a pragmatic force. They could take the form of an information network to alert them to possible expectations of devastation. Or manipulators who steer leaders and powerful entities away from courses of action that would escalate damage needlessly.

They could also just be a literal powerful force which thwarts some confrontations. Magic being what it is, they might derive great power from their neutrality. They might draw power from the neutral planes. Also, good and evil forces tend to be prepared for each other but less prepared for a lesser known 3rd party.
I like this idea.

Muscular neutrals want to prevent the conflict from escalating.

Good wants to prevent the conflict from escalating too but, by themselves, they can't. Their gains cause Evil to escalate the conflict, which is bad for everyone--and Evil's gains force Good to escalate, for fear of losing and allowing more people to come to harm by Evil. Escalation might just mean sending more outsiders and empowering more mortal vessels at first--but everybody knows that world ending power is on the table if things escalate too far.

The two can't maintain a peace between themselves because Good doesn't trust Evil (justifiably) and Evil doesn't trust Good.

They need a 3rd party guarantor--the muscular neutrals. Muscular neutrals have to fight both sides, or they wouldn't work as a guarantor. Generally they spend more time fighting Evil ...because obviously. But if they don't also fight good, Evil will just escalate the conflict as they would have when threatened by good.

It requires no special cosmological justifications, just the logic of escalation.

It also gets us to the jaded I-know-more-than-thou wizards from secret societies sadly or stoically doing what they see as their duty to destroy the forces of good (and druids, which the preceding sort-of describes)--which, I think, is what many of us imagine muscular neutrals to be.

Sidenote: I'm leery of the term "pragmatic", it's essentially consequentialism with a bunch of unstated goals and assumptions snuck in.
 

Really, it's simpler: Unless you're a Evil jerk, why would you ever actively oppose Good?

Because there is no guarantee that Good (as defined) winning is a good (=desireable) outcome. What is a victory of Good? It would mean that Evil is removed. An absolute Good victory would mean that there is no more Evil (ie, people no longer have the choice to be Evil) or that Evil is extremely controled (police force everywhere so if you attempt an evil act, you're removed, obviously not by lethal force because it would contradict the definition of Good, but through coercion that would be dire enough so nobody attempts Evil). A Muscular Neutral group who isn't necessarily an Evil jerk could fight against Good because they either support free will as a moral principle and don't want a state that would brainwash them, even if it's to do things they don't object, because who knows what would happen if the intent of the brainwashing system owner change in the future, or object a police state where, while evil can be rooted out, individual liberties are at risk. They can't envision "Good winning" without one of these bad outcome being enacted, and oppose this, even knowing that the proponent of a Good victory are really wishing well.

To have a victory over Evil, a Good society would ban alcohol and drugs because they know that drunk and drugged people sometimes can kill people, even without meaning it, by driving under influence for example, and see that teens drinking lead to unwanted pregnancy, and so on, so they determine that access to substances is something they want to prevent in order for removing the possibility of violations of their core tenets (altruism, respect for life and dignity) happening. They'd be Good, following the intent given you the OP's definition, and would need this prohibition since they must be in the position of removing Evil for MN to intervene. MN could oppose that on the basis that it's everyone personal responsability to know when to stop drinking and not driving, and they wouldn't be evil jerks for opposing a Prohibition state, despite the inevitable murders that would arise by allowing alcohol.

You can do the same reasoning with access to weapons. Is it being an evil jerk to fight a good government that would prevent access to wands of fireballs? Or swords? On the basis that widespread availability of these tools increase killings a lot, so they are absolutely enforcing the Good mandate while doing this?

A Good society would enforce altruism, and could do so by creative a massive wealth redistribution system, where inequalities in income and wealth are eliminated or greatly reduced. You can theorically oppose this, like a MN group would, without being an evil jerk, if you value private property more than you value the removing of inequalities. Maybe on a good intentionned basis, like the possibility of getting richer than your neighbour being a necessary drive to actually produce wealth.

A total victory of Good could be a society where there is massive supervision, video everywhere, so an Evil act can immediately be identified and dealt with. MN coud oppose this, and people who oppose drones with camera everywhere or the government reading every mail wouldn't necessarily be "evil jerks".

We don't need gods for a scenario where MN oppose Good to emerge.

Basically MN would oppose Good from winning totally because they can't envision a scenario where killing, inequalities and disrespect for each other would be absolute while maintaining individual freedom and free will. In a setting with magic, there is nothing preventing a Good group to try to cast a spell that woud worldwidely prevent killing (by temporarily paralysing the person trying to remove life). I can see a group of MN opposing this.
 
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I didn't explicitly state that, though it captures the spirit.
I'd be interested in engaging with the premise of the thread, so I have a follow-up question. Since we're assuming Good (altruism and respect for others) can win and defeat Evil (harm and oppression) forever, what does a world where Evil has been defeated look like?

I would need a concrete answer to that question in order to engage in the thought experiment in the OP. As soon as I have to take the possibility of Good or Evil winning absolutely and forever into account when explaining the actions of Muscular Neutrals, I don't think the definitions of Good and Evil provided in the OP are sufficient. Before I can posit why someone would oppose a 100% Good world, I would need to know what that world actually is for the purpose of this discussion.

Really, it's simpler: Unless you're a Evil jerk, why would you ever actively oppose Good? And can you (ENWorld poster) contrive a reasonable basis for someone to do so?
If this is the only question you're asking, without including the premise that a 100% Good utopia can actually be achieved and 100% of Evil actually can be removed from the world, I would posit this:

The Muscular Neutrals don't trust that everyone around them is altruistic, so they don't want to live in a society based on altruism (a Good society, as it were). They don't believe such a society would guarantee their safety and well-being. They would rather live in a society based on enlightened self-interest, where people are incentivized to treat one another well for purely selfish reasons. Since Good would presumably oppose the creation of a society that didn't aspire to Good, Muscular Neutrals must necessarily oppose Good on a societal level. The purism of Good doesn't allow for the type of society these Neutrals are comfortable living in.
 

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