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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9530567" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I was thinking, for example, sexual assault. There is no context I can conceive of where a CG person would do that. I don't personally see CG as consequentialist.I also find that consequentialism has a very serious risk of actively encouraging evil behavior in the name of good, if it is calibrated at the wrong scale. Things of the "well if we purify the gene pool now, we make everyone better forever after!!" that are, as stated, literally just evil in a funny hat.Really? I find it trivially easy to keep the two separate, and I say that as someone who has been described by friends as actually Lawful Good in real life.Law is a tool. Good is a goal. Laws are by definition teleological, they pursue some chosen end, but Law itself cannot tell you which ends are worthy. Good (or Evil!) can tell you which ends are worthy, but need not specify any particular method for seeking those ends."Sacrifice" only when it is needful or highly beneficial, to be clear. Sacrifice simply to be sacrificial is generally frowned upon. ("Or if I give my body to the flames that I may boast, but I have not love, I gain nothing.")I also don't think electing to make sacrifices for another, nor choosing to do something kind purely because kindness is the right thing to do, need to have any relationship whatsoever to individual relationships. Firefighters save people from burning buildings without knowing anything about them. Some people donate huge sums of money to charity and yet wish their donations to remain anonymous; that is altruism specifically without individual relationships, since the donation is made in secret. I myself have tried to give aid and charity to people I have never met and will never know, because I believe it is the right thing to do, even if nobody ever knows about it. "Character is who you are in the dark."Good is about doing right by others, even if it isn't easy or comfortable to do so. Part of doing right by others is trying to understand what they want and need, and respecting them as ends in themselves, never to be seen as means to some other end. Another part is sharing what you have with those in need, even if that means you get less as a result. A further part is making sacrifices for others that are in need. Etc. These things require thought and consideration to implement wisely. They cannot be boiled down to a pithy maxim or list of singular instructions.(And, to be clear? I LOVE it when works actually put in the time to give Evil the same treatment. It's boring to make Evil boil down to "graaah, feel my unholy rage!!!!" or "what if Nazis....were ALIENS???" It's so much more interesting when Evil has reasons, and is trying to win the argument, not just kill their debate opponent.)</blockquote>

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