On the Subjective Nature of Law

[Savage Wombat]

I'd like to hear arguments from people who disagree with me.

In the Paladin threads of late, a recurring theme is the adherence of a Lawful character to local law and custom - this suggests that Lawfulness, and therefore Chaoticness, is subjective. Open to interpretation, subject to debate. What's lawful here, to this god, is not to this other god.

Strictly according to D&D rules, I say this is not possible. The game system allows for the Detection of Law, in the same way that it does Evil. In that sense, Law is therefore an almost-tangible force, a property of the universe. The question of whether someone is lawful can be settled by asking the nearest cleric. (I exaggerate slightly.) I've had a campaign where the city laws specified that "doing Evil" was illegal - similarly, a city could throw out laws that, under testing, prove to be "not Lawful".

If you had a spell, say, "Detect Precious Metals" - and then found out that, in this region, platinum didn't register because the locals didn't consider it precious - would you think that a reasonable ruling?

So, in conclusion - if you allow for the subjective nature of Law (or any alignment) you MUST therefore throw out or reinterpret the alignment system with regards to magic. Otherwise you have conflict.

Who wants to argue with me? Anyone? Bueller?

 

[Crothian]

Bueller doesn't post here anymore. I think once he got saved, he bolted.

What's wrong with having alignments subjective? BoVD does a good job of using this variant. You can also have concrete versions of law and subjective version of law at the same time. THis gets a little tricky and is not that easy for everyone to handle.

Spells care about what the person who casts them thinks or the power the spells come from. It's not always up to local custom or belief.

 

[Piratecat]

Hrmmm. Until this last week in Singapore, it's been illegal to chew gum. If I travel there from the US, it would be illegal for me to do so despite not being illegal in the US -- so if I was a paladin, I'd obey those laws.

If they had a law that said it was mandatory for you to execute someone who bumps you on the train, though, I wouldn't do that -- because that would conflict with what I consider to be a more important law of my religion.

Where am I going with this? I dunno -- unless it's to say that not all laws are equal, that paladins are probably expected to use their judgment and discretion and common sense, and that they would probably obey all local laws unless/until they conflicted with a deeper held religious law. Even then, they'd do what they knew was correct and then accept the consequences for their actions.

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

IMO, the forces of law(and chaos, good, and evil) are all fairly set in stone for what they stand for. Laws, which means those people in different cultures create aren't and can vary wildly. They can also be interpreted differently depending on what culture a character comes from. A law that says you cannot chew bubble gum, using PC's example, is not necessarily lawful(the force of law).

Paladins are suppose to follow their own god's law and the law of man as long as the two can co-exist. If the two cannot, then their god's law is what the paladin follows.

 

[Silveras]

I am not going to argue with you.

The name "Lawful" is misleading. It actually has little or nothing to do with "law" (in the legal sense). However, there are very few one-word summations for "reliant upon authority" as a personality trait.

Lawful characters seek guidance on their moral actions, referring to a hierarchy of "authorities" for that guidance. They look to local tradition, they look to local law, they look to regional/cultural tradition and law (which over-rides local tradition and law), they look to religious writings (which over-rides traditions and laws), and so on.

Faced with the question "Is it right to kill these young Goblins before they grow into a menace ?" the Lawful character would "consult the authorities".

1. What does my holy text say ? Is the answer there ? Yes ? Good. I do that.
2. What does my local spiritual guide say ? Does my local Cleric say I should not do this, or that I should ? Is there a clear answer there ? Yes ? Good.
3. What does the local law say about it ? Are Goblins afforded the protections humans are, or is a bounty offered for their ears like they were animals ? Is there a clear answer there ? Yes ? Good.
4. What has been the traditional response ?
5. What do I think I should do.

It is that tendency, to want guidance and external confirmation, that "Detect Law" actually picks up.

Chaotic characters, on the other hand, approach things without recourse to "authority"

They would go through the reverse process.
1. What do I think I should do ?
2. What does local tradition say ?
3. What does local law say ?
4. What does my spiritual guide say ?
5. What does my holy text say ?

Lawfulness, in some ways, can also be viewed as "socially integrated" or "group-oriented". The Lawful character makes efforts to "fit in" much more than the Chaotic character. The Lawful character is inclined to join a Guild or professional organization; the Chaotic is inclined NOT to.

 

[nonamazing]

But I don't think that the magic you refer to can detect abstractions of these principles. The spells detect whether or not a person or object is connected to one of these forces, but not ideas and concepts. The spells have to be targeted, of course, and how can you target an idea? So I don't think you could use detect law to find out if a particular piece of legislature is lawful.

Also, most people and objects don't even show up at all on these spells. You have to commit yourself pretty strongly to one of these ideals in order to have an aura that resonates powerfully enough to be detected.

How about this? What if there is an Absolute Law (in the sense of a Platonic Ideal), but all that mortals can do is strive to get closer to it or farther away from it? With this perspective, a paladin would want to respect local laws because they represent an attempt on the part of the people to bring themselves close to Law, even though the attempt will certainly be less than perfect (as mortals can never achieve perfection). But even though the paladin would respect and follow the laws in most all situations, he would not ignore his own personal strivings toward Absolute Law whenever they come into conflict with the imperfect laws of others. This sort of perspective could possibly apply to any of the alignment axes.

 

[Wombat]

or we could just fall down to the level of the Chinese Legalist theory...

If even minor offenses are punishable by the death penalty, no one will commit any crimes at all.

I don't know if Legalism ever got beyond the pure theory stage, but it is a truly frightening and logical, the ultimate reductionism.

 

[milotha]

We've always played that the Paladin had a set standard of moral codes that they had to follow. This set can vary from paladin to paladin depending on who or what they are a paladin of. Once these are set, the players follows this code. This is their laws. This helps obviate the subjective nature of laws in D&D. So, their moral code is set. This makes it easier to play a paladin, and less open to GM interpretation.

Note: A chaotic player can change thier code as they go from town to town and adventure to adventure.

 

[Kormydigar]

I'd like to hear arguments from people who disagree with me.

In the Paladin threads of late, a recurring theme is the adherence of a Lawful character to local law and custom - this suggests that Lawfulness, and therefore Chaoticness, is subjective. Open to interpretation, subject to debate. What's lawful here, to this god, is not to this other god.

Strictly according to D&D rules, I say this is not possible. The game system allows for the Detection of Law, in the same way that it does Evil. In that sense, Law is therefore an almost-tangible force, a property of the universe. The question of whether someone is lawful can be settled by asking the nearest cleric. (I exaggerate slightly.) I've had a campaign where the city laws specified that "doing Evil" was illegal - similarly, a city could throw out laws that, under testing, prove to be "not Lawful".

If you had a spell, say, "Detect Precious Metals" - and then found out that, in this region, platinum didn't register because the locals didn't consider it precious - would you think that a reasonable ruling?

So, in conclusion - if you allow for the subjective nature of Law (or any alignment) you MUST therefore throw out or reinterpret the alignment system with regards to magic. Otherwise you have conflict.

Who wants to argue with me? Anyone? Bueller?

I posted this piece in another thread, before I saw this one:

A lot of folks misinterpret what "Lawful Good" means to a paladin. "Good" and the duty to perform good deeds is pretty straightforward in most campaigns. "Lawful" needs a bit of clarification though. Lawful has different meanings to different deitys. What a paladin has to do to remain lawful depends on the laws of his or her deity. A lawful fighter on the other hand, who is not the servant of a deity, would serve the civil law of the land in which he or she lived.(Although a lawful good fighter in a land ruled by evil would surely consider some laws morally wrong and not obey them) A paladin is a religious zealot. As such, they follow the law of thier deity first, and the laws of man second. The main problem might be that the laws of the church are not fully defined in a campaign, leaving the paladin's player with little guidance. Does the paladin have a right to mete out high justice on the spot for the most evil of crimes? If so, what are those crimes? Do paladins have to achieve a specific rank in the church to dispense such justice? These questions should have some answers before a campaign begins to eliminate some arguments over what behavior is appropriate for the paladin. If the DM does not have all the details of church law worked out in advance, perhaps the would be player of a paladin can assist with designing church policy and work to create cool campaign material that would help define the role of the character. Doing this kind of design work also leads to a diversity in types of paladins. Yes, they are all lawful good, but each one has a different view of what is most important, and most sacred.

Having said that, and reading the other posts, I agree with Piratecat for the most part. As to the use of detection spells to determine law/chaos, I feel the subjectivity of law or chaos does not conflict with such spells at all. If a spell is used to detect a lawful personality it will work, regardless of what laws the subject feels bound to obey. The same spell cast on a paladin, and a town magistrate (assuming they were both true to the laws they served) would reveal lawfulness. It would likewise succeed when cast on a servant of Hell, ethics being the issue and not morality. As to the use of a Detect Law spell to validate or invalidate a law is kind of silly. The spell detects lawful creatures, spells, and magic items. The spell in this case has no subject and would therefore not function. As for the supposed Detect Precious Metals spell, what constitutes a precious metal would be decided by the creator of the spell when it was written.

 

[Zimri]

I am on the bandwagon that says "Lawful was about the worst descriptor that could have been chosen to oppose chaos" I have no idea why he didn't just pick "order" it would have made things much easier.