Imaro said:
I'm not talking about deciding what exactly is the greater good, I'm talking about once defined what is more important...
1.)Following a strict code that may or may not be effective in achieving what the ultimate purpose is.
2.) Achieving that goal if, through a higher power than yourself you know that to be the most important thing
You aren't asking me how a Paladin thinks. You are asking me to make value judgements about which alignment, 'lawful good' or 'nuetral good' is more right.
But that is a very different question. One is descriptive. The other is normative. What you are essentially saying is...
"a) I believe Paladins ought to be good."
"b) I believe NG is more morally correct than LG, hense Paladins should be NG."
Fine. As a DM you can make Paladins NG by fiat. But that doesn't change what LG means, and it doesn't change how LG Paladins should be acting. It just means that in your opinion, because Paladins are LG that they are morally inferior to NG. You may be right, but whether you are right or not is immaterial to the fact that in D&D Paladins believe the things that LG philosophies espouse.
Ultimately, that is why so many alignment discussions break down. I can tell you what the different systems stand for. I can describe them. But I can't convince you what is 'right'. I can't assign normative value to the systems (or I can, but in general you won't except it). You are clearly convinced that 'neutral good' is more right than 'lawful good'. Someone else might say, "Clearly it isn't, because according to you Neutral Good advocates torture and torture is never right." Then someone else comes along and says, "No, neutral good doesn't advocate torture because torture is never good (by which they mean morally right) and therefore good (by which they mean the the D&D moral system called 'good') cannot advocate it." Then someone else comes along and says, "Because you two can't agree to a normative judgement about what is 'right', the alignment system is useless.", and ignoring that the problem of disagreeing over a normative value is going to plague any discussion of morality regardless of whether we have a system or not. All of these comments reflect confusion over what the alignment system does and what the conversation is about.
People need to understand that just because something is labeled 'good' in the alignment system doesn't mean that everyone will think of it as morally right. It simply means that in the alignment system there is a certain class of being that believe philosophically similar things and they call themselves good. If we are careful in the description of that group, it will be a meaningful description. But no matter how careful we are, we can't expect everyone to agree to the fact that 'good' is morally right. What we might could expect from reasonable people is a recognition of where thier own beliefs fall in the system. Perhaps you believe that CE is morally correct (therefore 'good'). Perhaps you believe LN is morally correct. The question of who is 'right' is an entirely different question than the question of can we systematically categorize philosophical systems according to a simple two axis map, and I believe that the answer to the latter question is by and large, "Yes".
...since in the end the Paladin should be more concerned with good than law.
Do you see how this is a normative and not descriptive claim?
