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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6693933" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't believe I have.  Just as I have raised a very high (seemingly impossibly high) standard for what it means to be totally evil, I've also raised a very high (seemingly impossibly high) standard for what it means to be totally good.The objection to the first point was anticipated and discussed in detail during the essay.  A valid objection to the essay might be, "You've made evil so extreme that no real persons are actually truly evil?  I mean who is really motivated purely by a desire for nihilistic destruction?  It is a lot easier for me to believe that the underlying motivation for evil is self-interest, and you seem to be suggesting that true evil even works against its own self-interest.  I can't believe in that."  I think I have dealt with that anticipated objection to some extent, and would be willing to deal with it even more.  But the converse of that complaint is the one you describe here, briefly something like: "If evil really is what you say, then no one is purely good either, for who doesn't engage in some form of destructive behavior, either from self-interest or disregard of self?"And my answer is, "Well, among mortals isn't that the expected result?  Don't we expect everyone no matter how bad they are to have a little capacity for good?   Don't we expect everyone no matter how good they are to have a little capacity for evil?  Doesn't that look a lot like the world we actually live in?  I mean, don't all of us no matter how good we consider ourselves, if we reflect a moment, can't we recall times where we behaved in ways we wished we wouldn't have, and done things we think were wrong?"  So shouldn't it be the case that even in a fantasy world, that this sense prevails among ordinary people, and at best we are talking about people who predominately choose to do good, or who predominately choose to do evil?  The word I like to use when discussing this is 'depravity'.  We like to think of people as being evil who are only those people who do things which we think of as being depraved.  And we can observe that some people appear to engage in things that are more depraved than others, and so those people are more evil.  But if we reflect a moment we can imagine things in the other direction as well, with incidents of less and less depraved acts which are still wrong even though perhaps less depraved.  For example, while none of us might have killed someone, and most of us might not have struck someone in anger, we can probably think of times when we shouted things or said things in anger that injured and hurt others.  That action might be less depraved than having killed them, but it doesn't make the action good merely by being 'less depraved'. I want you to pay particular attention to two big misunderstandings of what I've outlined here.  First, I have at no time anywhere in this thread conceded that self-interested motivations are evil.  I very pointedly have not defined evil as selfish.  I am explicitly rejecting the definition of evil that started cropping up in the canon of TSR and particularly WotC where evil was defined as selfishness or self-centeredness.  I don't deny that selfishness can be and almost always is evil, but I don't define evil as selfishness much less some broader term like self-interested or self-centeredness.Secondly, the 'DEEPEST' in that quote is your addition, and it doesn't follow from anything I've said and once against directly contradicts it.  I explicitly defined deepest evil as annihilation of all, including the self.  Being self-interested even to the point of being willfully destructive (much less passively negligent, much less practicing an ethic of reciprocity which has an element of self-interest) is not 'deepest evil' under this conception.  Indeed, as I continue pointing out, having self-interests may not even be evil under what I just outlined.  Indeed, because the reverse - 'goodness' - values your self, you have an interest in self-care and self-concern that is laudable under goodness provided that it doesn't become overweening or disproportionate.  After all, if good is the opposite of my outline, not only does Good value your Self as a thing of worth in and of itself, but how also could you be of any good to anyone else if you were damaged and destroyed as evil desired?I fully 100% disagree.  That is on its face an evil statement.  The real world equivalent is that no one risks themselves unless they have an ulterior motive.  I deny that forcefully.  Of course evil would like to condemn all actions as being motivated by fear, insanity, greed or lust in at least some degree.  Of course evil would like everyone to believe that.  It's a perfect self-rationalization for then being motivated by fear, insanity, greed, or lust yourself.  The fact that evil would like everyone to believe it is so, or the fact that it is common experience that it is so, doesn't make it so.  Again, I don't know where you are getting that, since it is a direct contradiction of what I've repeatedly said.  Where are you getting this idea that I have said that self-interest is evil?</blockquote>

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