D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[Jfdlsjfd]

It is not, and you are using a fallacious slippery slope argument to double down on a really bizarre and utterly offensive interpretation of altruism.

While I have trouble understanding his actual point to be honest, I think he might be operating under the idea that he wouldn't be able to choose to be altruistic in case of a Good victory, because he'd be pressured into being altruistic. Though being pressured into it would make it not altruism, so it would be self-defeating for Good people to do that, or it would be distorting the term a lot -- like paying for what you buy isn't altruism, even if one could concievably run away with the goods instead.

If you think that choosing to act kindly towards others is the same as being their legal property, then you need to do some learning about the actual history and horrifying human experience of slavery.

On the other hand, let's not reduce the actual history of slavery to the chattel slavery of the colonial triangular trade and the American cotton farming history, which was probably one of the worst case possible. While it might be the first association made in the US and in places which benefitted from triangular trade, it might not be the one that the person you're debating with makes. Many Roman slaves where actually better off than poor free men, leading centuries later to the disappearance of slavery in the Eastern Roman Empire because hiring laborers was actually less expensive for large landowners than the slave upkeep, so freeing slave was actually economically sound. While it is certainly horrible to be a eunuch at the Qin court, it's better than be a toiling peasant, or drafted into working to death to build the Great Wall, despite not being a slave, and eunuch became, during the later Tang and Ming dynasties, and despite the cultural stigma of castration (which adds but is quite distinct from slavery), a coveted position.

The person mentionning slave doesn't necessary think of the worst case of slavery you're referring to (FWIW, I think of Ancient Greece/Rome foremost, then Egypt even though the pyramid builders weren't actual slave, but it's an association I made as a kid, then of the Atlantic slave trade only), much like when Nietzsche writes about "slave morality", he doesn't refer to actually owned people, but to any kind of person psychologically in a state of submission. I think a Nietzschean reading is much more coherent with the idea developped by the poster you're responding to (at least, it makes it not nonsensical).

 

[Hriston]

The consequences of that would be that it's impossible to be a muscular neutral, which is contrary to the premise of the thread, which gave a specific definition and asked how muscular neutrals would fit within these parameters. If you can't oppose Good without being Evil, it runs contrary to the premises of the thought experiment, as nobody can be Muscular Neutral, so there must necessarily be a way to oppose good without being evil.

This is not true. Muscular neutrals, like neutrals in general, can be unopposed to the tenets of both good and evil, assisting and using the tactics of either as they see fit to maintain balance between the two.

Also, the OP never mentionned good and evil as opposite, just having different sets of values, only one of which is directly contradictory (killing vs respect for life).

It's understood that good and evil is a dichotomy. Good is associated with morality, and evil is its immoral opposite. The OP defines the morality of good and what the inversion of that morality looks like. Harming others is the opposite of altruism (helping others). Oppressing others is the opposite of having concern for (and upholding) the dignity of others. And, yes, killing others is the opposite of respecting the lives of others.

Yes, he was referring, I think, to the idea that Good forces people to be altruistic (either by being a dictatorship in disguise, a dystopia like Ultima V's Lord Blackthorn perverting the virtues, or just plain magical brainwash so you are obliged to be altruistic instead of having free will), which was something possible in the first post's defintion.

That's making good into evil. The premise of the thread is good is actually good, which is why I posted up-thread that the only way I can see muscular neutrality being "justified" is through ignorance. They are misguided non-believers who view the victory of good as undesirable yet also rightly fear the triumph of evil, so seek to forestall the victory of either.

 

[Steampunkette]

So... to cut through the utterly offensive metaphor:

If being a good person is being altruistic and helping others, and you don't do it, then you're not a good person by that metric. But you're also not a bad person. You're just neutral.

Choosing to help others is not "Subservience". It is cooperation. It does not put you into an "Inferior" position to help someone move their couch or to water someone's plants while they're out of town.

Even Nietzsche's Ubermensch were willing and able to help others on their own terms.

 

[Clint_L]

I feel like if your argument hinges on which type of slavery is least awful you should start over with a new analogy.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So if opposing slavery is evil, I would imagine those who are good or neutral would at the least be indifferent to slavery and perhaps for it. They might even own slaves themselves.

You have redefined "slavery" such that it includes being altruistic. That's the thing people are going to constantly push back against. As @Steampunkette said, even Nietzche, the self-crowned king of hating on generally-accepted moral standards, didn't go that far. Hell, even Ayn Rand, who literally built a philosophy on the idea that selfishness was the only path to actual good, didn't actually oppose doing altruistic acts in principle.

Edit: And, going back to the original post where you made this ridiculous claim, the whole argument falls down from the start. You said you want to be perceived as the best neighbor, not just an acceptable neighbor. If we consider this for any other context, the argument is obviously ridiculous. If you want to be perceived as the best musician, not just an acceptable one, you're going to need to create music that appeals to lots and lots of people, which means you're almost certainly not going to be free to choose whatever topics, styles, instrumentation, etc. that you might like. You're going to have to write a crapload of music, and you're going to have to both appeal to audiences and retain artistic creativity etc. Does that mean you're "enslaved" to your audience? Hell no! It just means that "I want to be perceived as the best X" always--always--entails engaging in behavior that others would desire.

Same goes for literally anything else where the subject is developing a reputation. Want a reputation, not only as an acceptable chef, not only as an appreciated chef, but as being among the best of chefs? You'd better get used to pandering, to creating dishes you hate but which you know hungry diners love. Want a reputation, not only as an acceptable politician, not only as a successful politician, but one of being among the best of politicians? Congratulations, you're gonna have to do a HELL of a lot of things you find distasteful or annoying or even offensive, because cultivating that kind of reputation takes time and almost never involves coming out the other side with your hands completely clean. Etc., etc.

If you want to be merely an acceptable neighbor, someone nobody would voice particular complaints about, then you need never do anything at all. But if you want to be known for being a good neighbor, both in the sense of "morally upstanding" and in the sense of "efficacious and/or useful", you're going to have to be morally upstanding and efficacious/useful. Being efficacious/useful to others almost always means at least occasionally helping them even when you don't have to. Being morally upstanding is, of course, a matter of debate, but in the context of neighborliness, it entails showing your neighbors that their lives, well-being, and happiness matter to you, that one of your goals in life is to have neighbors who are happy and successful and minimally beset by problems.

That isn't slavery. You have a decision: Do you dedicate all of your time exclusively to yourself? Or do you choose to dedicate some reasonable portion of your time to assisting your neighbors? If you choose the former, you (almost surely) will not accrue a reputation of being the best of neighbors. You will be known for keeping to yourself, which isn't good, but it isn't horrible either. It's neutral in both the moral-ethical sense and most utility-practicality senses. (If you have neighbors that extremely highly value their privacy, they might like you better...but I doubt they would consider you the best of neighbors.)

 

[Steampunkette]

Randian "Objectivism" (I really hate to use that word to describe it, because there's nothing objective about it) actually outright -states- that people with wealth and power will act altruistically out of their own enlightened self interest.

But that it will only ever be on -their- terms, and everyone else should be grateful and kiss their feet for doing it 'cause she was born in Russia and watched the fall of the Romanov family and the resulting changes to her homeland right in front of her...

Once you contextualize her philosophy with her lived experiences as a bootlicker for the imperial monarchy that was overthrown when she was a child, and the resulting poverty and exposure to antisemitism once her family was no longer insulated by wealth, it all makes a ton of sense as to how she could be so incredibly wrong about what is actually good for society.

 

[lall]

Subservient to whom or what? Slavery is not voluntary. It is forced.

Subservient to others. I have to be concerned about and try to help others.

So you are equating owning people as property with having responsibilities?

Having to serve others is a form of slavery as is being owned by people.

 

[Hriston]

Subservient to others. I have to be concerned about and try to help others.

Subservience entails being prepared to obey others unquestioningly. Having concern for other people doesn't entail following orders from them or anyone else.

Having to serve others is a form of slavery as is being owned by people.

Serving others is not slavery if you are neither owned as property nor forced to serve but are performing the service voluntarily.

 

[lall]

Subservience entails being prepared to obey others unquestioningly.

It can be that. It can also be having to do something for someone else.

Serving others is not slavery if you are neither owned as property nor forced to serve but are performing the service voluntarily.

Having to serve others is slavery, even if voluntary.

 

[Steampunkette]

That's an unfortunate hill to die on, Lall. But it's up to you to pick them for yourself.

No one else is going to buy into your absolutely rotten definition of altruism or helping others as 'subservience', though. So you'll have to die on it, alone.

At least you'll have the view uncrowded.