Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7870900" data-attributes="member: 4937">Not an argument.Not an argument either.No I don't presume anything of the sort. I can fully agree that a tribal society might be generally lawful, or that a highly structured society could be chaotic. Since you think you are disagreeing with me here or otherwise providing some useful insight, my suspicion is that you don't understand me nearly as well as you think you do.I don't think that is particularly out of line with the normal distinctions drawn between law and chaos, or the way I've been using the terms. I'm not at all sure where you are going with this line of argument though.Allow me to attempt to clarify, because I think I know what you were aiming at, but I think you've slightly missed the target. (And if it turns out you were aiming at something completely different, that will at least clarify why I don't understand you.) The chaotic view is that each situation is so distinct that no rule could provide a reasonable basis for judging the situation. The chaotic may have several axioms and maxims that are supposed to inform their thinking, but they are expected (by themselves and by whom they hold themselves accountable to, if anyone) to use their judgment over any given rule. The chaotic believes that fundamentally all situations are unique, all persons are unique, and no general rule applies to every situation. The lawful view on the other hand is that their own judgment is not to be trusted, but rather that someone or something higher and wiser than themselves have created rules for living that will result in the best outcomes overall, and that those higher and wiser rules are what is to be trusted even in cases when you can't see how or why obeying them results in the best end. Thus, the rule can not and should not be discarded, because to do so would be to suggest that your own wisdom was greater than the law, an action that in and of itself disproves the validity of your judgment. Yep, fully on board with the complexity of the application of either philosophy. For example, in the case of the Monk, if he's actually a part of some sort of lawful philosophical school, they've probably thought the rules out far enough to have considered this very case, and so the wise, learned, and well studied monk will know that there is a hierarchy of duties and obligations that a person has, and will know in this situation what duty or obligation under the law has the higher stature and first claim on his behavior. So for example, the Monk may well know that under the law his vow of silence and his own personal well being and honor comes lower than the life of another, and that under the law he must speak out even if it means suffering the consequences of breaking his vow. What might surprise the chaotic in this situation, is the Monk and the rest of his lawful society might still feel the Monk deserves to pay the penalty of breaking his vow of silence despite having acted in the manner that everyone agrees was right and honorable.</blockquote>

Verification