Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7746952" data-attributes="member: 42582">Everything you say here is about effectiveness.The better comparison in that domain would be this: a player wants to build a PC who is the deadliest warrior in the universe, and builds that character with a dagger, which, by the rules, can only ever do d4 damage and hence can never be the instrument of the deadliest warrior in the universe.But even that comparison I think is not apt, because in the alignment context I'm not talking about whether or not a character is effective, but whether or not his/her moral vision is viable. If the premise of the alignment system is that law, on its own, can not achieve ultimate goodness then a character whose moral vision is I will achieve ultimate goodness by means of law is already wrong. The game set-up refutes the moral vision from the get-go. And not in some subtle fashion, but quite straightforwardly, by outright denying it.I would find it silly to play a character whose moral vision is self-evidently wrong, from the get-go, in that fashion.No. I'm making the point that nearly every author on the topic of just war takes the view that killing civilians is sometimes morally permissible.For instance, from Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, pp 155-56:Simply not to intend the death of civilians is too easy . . . What we look for in such cases is some sign of a positive commitment to save civilian lives. Not merely to apply the proportionality rule and kill no more civilians than is militarily necessary - that rule applies to soldiers as well; no on can be killed for trivial purposes. Civilians have a right to something more. And is saving civilian lives means risking soldiers' lives, the risk must be accepted. But there is a limit to the risks we require. These are, after all, unintended deaths and legitimate military operations . . . War necessarily places civilians in danger . . . We can only ask soldiers to minimize the dangers they impose.That's contentious. I've heard many diplomats and soldiers argue otherwise, including earlier this week.I don't want to actually call out contemporary contentious cases, so I'll mention historical ones instead: as far as I'm aware, the US government still defends the atomic bombing of Japan on grounds that it ended the war sooner than it otherwise would have, thereby achieving a net reduction in human suffering.</blockquote>

Verification