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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6632713" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think the incoherence comes from making the mistake of thinking selfishness is the defining trait of evil.   That in turn I think comes from assuming that lawful good is the most good sort of good.  This misperception has even been repeated in the discussion of several published texts (especially in 3e), so its very widespread.A better way to think of the position of LE is, "Screw everyone outside of the community I belong to."   A simplistic example might be a member of a racist group (I'll avoid real world examples) who shows compassion and kindness and acts respectfully toward members of his own perceived community, but who believes that life is ultimately about survival of the fittest and so is completely justified in subjugating and even exterminating everyone who doesn't look like him. More to the point, the way you distinguish a lawful evil philosophy from a chaotic evil philosophy is that the lawful evil philosophy holds up self-sacrifice (for the good of the community) as a virtue of a high order, both for the commander/master and the servant.  The less hypocritical it is about this stance, the more lawful it is.   But simply holding up sacrifice for the good of the community clearly wouldn't make the community good, even if it wasn't being hypocritical, as the community could of course stand for and use a wide variety of means and methods we'd clearly associate with evil. Since we know from this example that self-sacrifice not only can be an attribute of an evil community, but can even increase the perversion and depravity and horror of the community, we know that self-sacrifice is an attribute of lawfulness - not goodness.   People get confused on this by holding up Lawful Good as the highest good, noting self-sacrifice as a notable feature of Lawful Goodness, and so assume its a feature of goodness generally.  Not only can we demonstrate LE as a counter-example, but we can bring up an obvious counter-example of self-empowered goodness that people are familiar with - The Gold Rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."   It's worth noting that from some philosophers the Golden Rule comes under attack precisely because of the central role it places on the self.  "Who are you to judge what is right for someone else based on your own judgment and feelings?  If you would like to be slapped, does that give you the right to slap others?"  This draws into sharp focus what I think is the real central conflict between chaos and law - who is in charge, the individual or the established external Authority or Ideal? (Brief aside here, I'm not claiming that any real world religion that advocates the Golden Rule can be narrowly defined as 'Chaotic Good', as even if we assumed the label had real meaning outside of a game, real religions often approach the topic of 'what must you do to be good' from multiple perspectives, some of which may be seemingly contradictory.)  Again, is self-interest the core of being evil?  What if the higher authority is itself evil?   Isn't selflessly serving evil also evil?Yes, but does chaos demand complete inconsideration of others?  The Golden Rule as I noted in and of itself does not demand the existence of an external judge of what is and is not correct behavior, but leaves each individuals as the sovereign and primary judge.  In and of itself, it renders everyone the high priest of his own religion.   Likewise, even the Silver Rule - "Do not do unto to others what you wouldn't have them do unto you" - which doesn't demand positive compassion or generosity or anything normally associated with the idea of 'good, still places primacy on self-consideration and self-empowerment, but doesn't demand complete inconsideration of others.  "Harm no one; do what you will", is notably self-interested and self-centered, but is also clearly different from a Lawful philosophy of submitting yourself to the desires of an external ruler and judge, and likewise even clearly different in implications from the Golden Rule.I find that statement baffling.  Does it not matter what rules and authorities that they submit to?  Do not the goals of the society whose loyalty they pledge to actually matter?   If a society wishes to feed and clothe the world, no distinction can be found between that that wants to exterminate and enslave it?</blockquote>

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