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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6619208" data-attributes="member: 42582">First, just for clarity: we are fully agreed that Gygax doesn't pin down what is good. In the description of LG, for instance, the PHB talks about the "common weal" and says that "the benefits of this society are to be brought to all", whereas the DMG says that, for LG, "good is best defined as whatever brings the most benefit to the greater number of decent, thinking creatures and the least woe to the rest." So even within LG there is scope for differences of opinion between Sen/Nussbuam "capacity" advocates, Rawlsian "justice as fairness" types, and classical Benthamites.Now turning to the real point:I think a character can meaningfully ask, What is Good? But if you wanted a campaign focused on the sort of moral/political disagreement I just described, I don't think the alignment system is going to help you. It has no label, for instance, to capture these differences of opinion. Using the ordinary language of morality, a Rawlsian regards a Benthamite as immoral, because willing to allow impermissible interpersonal trade-offs; but a Benthamite isn't evil in the sense that the alignment system uses that word - s/he is not someone for whom purpose is the determinant. (In alignment debates, you often see posters say that anyone who thinks the only constraint on means is that they serve the desired end is evil, but this is not how Gygax characterises evil. Not all thorough-going consequentialists are pursuing just their own self-interest.)Within the language of 9-point alignment, where I think you do get interesting debates about the nature of the good is where that relates to law vs chaos. For instance, as I said in my OP, chaotic good people are going to be more sceptical of interpersonal trade-offs than the LG. So you could imagine a CG person arguing that the LG is allowing dignity or true happiness to be undermined, by letting people's own plans of life and self-conceptions be distorted or overridden by social constraints. So that's how I would see the "what is good" question fitting into my narrativist 9-point alignment framework!</blockquote>

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