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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 9581051" data-attributes="member: 2303">This is an interesting viewpoint. I don't have an example about Good vs. Evil here, but I do have an example about Law vs. Chaos.Law and Chaos as defined by Gygax & Co seems to me to be to be the old east coast of the US vs. the old west, ca 1890. Law is state, organization, banks, the army, Pinkertons and so on. Chaos is the frontier spirit, pioneers, posses, outlaws, and trappers. This is relatively clear and simple. But compare the 1890s US east to Europe at the same time, and it seems chaotic, with robber barons, bribery, and rampant labor conflict. Then you compare Europe at the time to China in 1800, and Europe is a fountain of chaotic initiative vs. China's striving for stability and harmony. My point is that Law & Chaos is always relative. Its a scale from minus infinity to plus infinity. Whether someone is lawful or chaotic depends mainly on where you put your point of reference, where you put zero on the scale from infinite chaos to infinite law.I would argue that the Good - Evil scale is much the same. In general, the tolerance for evil has shrunk over time. If you read ancient history, they did many morally reprehensible things that were acceptable back then. As an example The Melian Dialogue, from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, recounts the tense confrontation between Athens and the neutral island of Melos. Athens demands Melos surrender and submit to its empire, dismissing Melos’ appeals to justice and independence with the stark declaration that "the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." Melos refuses, standing on principle, but Athens besieges the city, conquers it, and brutally executes the men while enslaving the women and children. This was debatable back then, thus Thucydides records it, but today it would be seen as absolute Evil and a serious war crime.My important point is not whether ethics has improved over time (though I believe it has), the important point is that both ethics and morals must always be compared to an arbitrary norm, and we choose this norm so that it showcases the differences we want to point out. Going back to the quote from Maxperson above, I'd say that if what we defeated what we call Evil in a fictional setting, this would establish a new standard for what is Evil out of what was formerly considered Neutral, and likewise the requirements for being called Good would rise, some of what was formerly Good now considered Neutral. To people living under the paradigm of the old "Evil", this would look like everyone is good, but to its contemporaries there would still be perceptible differences separating the new Good from the new Neutral and Evil.Is there an absolute Good "100% altruistic, respectful of life, etc"? I doubt it, but there might be, it is impossible for us to say.</blockquote>

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