Slavery and evil

[Lord Pendragon]

That's fine, but where does Neutral fit into this argument, then? I keep hearing people talk about Good and Evil and Evil and Good and how if you aren't Good, you are Evil and if you aren't Evil you are Good. Where does that leave Neutral?

If you aren't a slaver, that doesn't necessarily make you Good. You could be Neutral. If you are a slaver, you're Evil. It isn't that it's only a matter of Good and Evil, it's that slavery is a strongly evil institution, which strongly shunts its participants toward that end of the spectrum. It's the same with any strongly-evil act. Child sodomy, for instance. If you don't sodomize children, that doesn't make you Good. But if you do, you're unequivocally Evil.

 

[Storyteller01]

We're skirting the edge of polite conversation as it is. It's in our best interest to not try to 'outdo evil with evil'...

 

[Iron Sheep]

How do you judge this farmer? Evil? Neutral? Or good? All in D&D terms, of course.

Neutral, as presented. The "slave" is not an innocent denied their freedom unjustly; but the farmer is acting out of self-interest rather than altruism (he needs another worker to replace his dead son). The farmer does nothing cruel or brutal to the murderer, and I am guessing that if the "slave" were to refuse to work then it would be the justice system which would impose sanction, rather than the farmer. So the farmer is not Evil. But conversely, the farmer does not actively try to redeem the murderer, and the farmer does not make any personal sacrifices to help others.

A Good character could, I guess, potentially act this way, as could an Evil character, as long as they were doing enough other Good/Evil stuff in other contexts.

But also "slave" may not be the best term to describe the murderer. It is unclear from what you have written what rights the farmer has over his slave. Can the farmer sell the "slave" to someone else? Can the farmer legally use force to compel obedience in the "slave"? Is the "slave" an unwilling participant in the process, or does the "slave" see this as a way to right a wrong that he has done? The example doesn't state what the potential consequences are should the "slave" refuse to work.

Corran

 

[DMScott]

If alignment is absolute, is slavery evil in places where it is legal? If so, then the majority of human historical figures are evil by D&D's standards.

If not...then slavery is just lawful or chaotic, and depends on its legal status for the definition..but that seems way subjective for an absolute objective system.

Opinions?

For me personally, when I run a campaign in which alignment is absolute, then Law and Chaos are also absolute. A given society might legalize actions that are absolutely described as Chaotic, and vice versa, so legal status by itself has little or no bearing on whether something is Lawful or Chaotic just as it has little or no bearing on whether something is Good or Evil.

For example, say Elves are Chaotic in some absolute sense. This does not mean that an Elven society has no laws, but rather that the laws it does have emphasize Chaotic ideals.

On the question of slavery, where it fits depends on the absolute moral system of a particular campaign and what exactly you mean by "slavery". Often I have slavery in one or more of my campaign cultures; just as often, I model it on the most benign historical examples in which it's more a normal socio-economic status than an expression of dominance over a "lesser" population. That allows me to have mostly non-evil slavery as an aspect of society, while still reserving a spot for evil slavers as villains if and when they go beyond the normal societal customs.

However, I usually make slavery expressly non-Good, so good characters concerned about their alignment can't own slaves or profit by them (with a few rare exceptions, such as when people voluntarily take on a slave-like status as a means of penance for a crime). My take on absolute Good is that it should generally prohibit a lot of actions that society allows, just makes for more interesting games that way.

 

[Iron Sheep]

If that's true, then I would argue that the Law/Chaos axis of the D&D alignment tree is meaningless and all Paladins should be Chaotic Good rather than Lawful Good. I think you are letting your own perspective of Good (illustrated more clearly below) get in the way here.

It's pretty explicit in the Players Handbook discussion of alignment that oppression is (D&D) Evil. This doesn't make the Law/Chaos distinction meaningless:

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

A Chaotic character may find a Lawful Good society oppressive in the way that heat can be oppressive; this does not mean that anyone in particular is oppressing them.

A paladin is surely against oppression: as quoted above, it is the unjust or unfair use of force or authority. Fighting injustice is one of the basic things that define the paladin archetype.

That's fine, but where does Neutral fit into this argument, then? I keep hearing people talk about Good and Evil and Evil and Good and how if you aren't Good, you are Evil and if you aren't Evil you are Good. Where does that leave Neutral?

Let me put it this way...

How would a Neutral character view slavery, in your opinion?

Based of the discussion in the Players Handbook: a Neutral character would not actively participate in slavery. They would find it unpleasant and consider it wrong, but they would not disadvantage themselves to act against it unless they, or someone they cared about was enslaved.

Corran

 

[DMScott]

Since slavery would fall under oppression, in D&D it is most certainly an evil act.

IMHO, that line of argument is kind of silly - Charm Person is at least as oppressive as most historical forms of slavery, and yet it is not an Evil spell. So clearly, the alignment rules do not apply universally even within D&D, let alone to topics not covered in the rulebooks. Saying "X is oppressive, so it must be evil!" just doesn't work with the rules as written - a DM who wants an absolute alignment system must expand (or replace) the standard alignment definitions, and only then can you start to figure out whether something as complicated as slavery is evil or not.

 

[Iron Sheep]

Iron Sheep, the manner and clarity of your responses is in fact exactly what I had in mind for this thread. To me, an intelligent debate is more about opening everyone's mind up to alternate views than it is convincing anyone in particular of anything in particular. Thus my caveat...i don't want anyone to mistake my sometimes devil's advocate arguments for truly espousing the POV in question. Plus, i wanted to see what people thought about this, and asking questions/challenging assertions is a good way to clarify and crystallize an opinion in others as well as in oneself.

Thank you, and again, I understand where you are coming from.

I realise that discussions such as these are fraught with difficulty, particularly as people tend to have their own intuitive sense of what D&D alignments mean based on how things are played in their group and the accumulated history of alignment in the game. I have particular interest in this topic as it actually came up in a game a few years back and was a major sticking point between players.

I must also say that I am quite impressed with the alignment section in the Players Handbook. I'd never really read it closely, relying like most people do on their intuitive sense of the alignments, but the designers have made the concepts very clear, and they are lucidly explained.

Corran

 

[Geron Raveneye]

But conversely, the farmer does not actively try to redeem the murderer, and the farmer does not make any personal sacrifices to help others.

I'm not quite clear here what you mean with trying to redeem the murderer? Could I pester you for an explanation, please?

But also "slave" may not be the best term to describe the murderer. It is unclear from what you have written what rights the farmer has over his slave. Can the farmer sell the "slave" to someone else? Can the farmer legally use force to compel obedience in the "slave"? Is the "slave" an unwilling participant in the process, or does the "slave" see this as a way to right a wrong that he has done? The example doesn't state what the potential consequences are should the "slave" refuse to work.

Corran

Hmmm, sorry, I really wasn't too clear about that part. A "slave" is, as far as I found it defined, an individual that is owned and controlled by another individual, so whatever that farmer would do to his slave, it would be within his rights. I left out any limiting laws of the society in question because I wasn't trying to erect a simulation state, but I admit that, in a society where there are harsh laws against slave abuse, the farmer might simply be neutral and obeying the law. Damn, one incomplete example. Thanks for pointing that out.
As far as D&D morality is concerned, I don't think the opinion of the slave himself plays a role in the alignment adjudication of his slave-holder?

 

[Iron Sheep]

IMHO, that line of argument is kind of silly - Charm Person is at least as oppressive as most historical forms of slavery, and yet it is not an Evil spell.

And magic missile can be used to murder someone at least as easily as any weapon, yet it is not an Evil spell.

Again, they key part of the definition of oppression is the unjust aspect of it. Using charm person to make innocent people do your bidding is (D&D) Evil, just like killing an innocent with a magic missile is (D&D) Evil. Using charm person to bring a murderer to justice is most assuredly not (D&D) Evil, and may even be a superior option compared to using magic missile.

This is the same as saying that denying a slave their freedom is (D&D) Evil, but denying a murderer their freedom while you bring them to justice is not. The analogy is quite precise.

So clearly, the alignment rules do not apply universally even within D&D, let alone to topics not covered in the rulebooks. Saying "X is oppressive, so it must be evil!" just doesn't work with the rules as written - a DM who wants an absolute alignment system must expand (or replace) the standard alignment definitions, and only then can you start to figure out whether something as complicated as slavery is evil or not.

I have to disagree with you here. Whether or not you think they make for a good game (or the sort of game that you want to run), the current version of the alignment system is very well presented in my opinion. They certainly aren't realistic as any sort of representation of moral codes, but they do clearly state what sort of behaviour is characterises particular alignments.

Corran

 

[John Morrow]

Except in unusual and extreme edge cases, by the book in D&D slavery is Evil. Slavery is a situation where a person is forced to perform certain tasks, has no right of refusal, and had little or no choice in their situation.

Can you refuse to pay your taxes? Can you refuse to obey the speed limit? Can you refuse to work and still demand a paycheck from your employer?

Life is full of obligations and things you can't refuse (in any realistic or meaningful way). The question, I think, is not whether slaves have obligations or a right of refusal but what obligations are demanded of them, what rights they have, and what obligations their owners have. Again, I'm not claiming that this arrangement will ever rise to the status of Good but it can certainly fall well within the definition of Neutral, in my opinion.

Someone who routinely owns slaves and uses them to perform tasks for their own enrichment or comfort is (D&D) Evil, just as someone who routinely hurts others for their own enrichment or comfort is (D&D) Evil. The vast majority, if not all, slave owners in a slave-owning society are (D&D) Evil. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't make it (D&D) Neutral.

Employers use employees to perform tasks for their own enrichment or comfort and that's hardly Evil (if you feel that captialism is inherently Evil, then we'll probably just have to agree to disagree). And I think that grouping a slave owner who treats his or her slaves well with a warlord who steals, rapes, and murders his or her way through the weaker villages surrounding him or her simply debases the whole concept of Evil, especially when it's a tangible trait that can be detected.

When a Paladin's "Detect Evil" can't differentiate Thomas Jefferson and Pol Pot, something is wrong.

Again, I am not aruging that slavery is Good. I am arguing that it is not ncessarily Evil. That is, that it can be Neutral. The SRD definition of Neutral is:

"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships."

How does slavery not fit into that definition, especially if the form of slavery practiced prohibits the murder and mistreatment of slaves? Remember, saying that slavery can be Neutral does not mean that slavery is Good.

Roman slavery may have been better than mediaeval serfdom, but that doesn't make it (D&D) Neutral. At its heart it is still an inherently Evil (in D&D terms) practice: people were taken from their homelands against their will and forced to work.

There are plenty of reasons why people became slaves (all were not carted off from their homelands) and the alternative facing at least some of those taken from their homelands was death. Consider that when the Mycenaean Greeks destroyed Troy, they carried the women and children back to Greece to work as slaves who, for example, processed flax into linen. They had destroyed the city, killed all the men, carried off all of the wealth, and had probably killed or eaten all of the animals. Would it have really been more humane for the Greeks to leave them on the shores of Asia Minor to fend for themselves?

The fact that their children were not slaves, that they could purchase their manumission, that they had some rights, and that they may have been materially better off than they would have been in their original lands does not change the fact that these people were required to work against their will.

In the real world, most peple are required to work against their will. I don't have the option to quit my job and survive on the good will of others. In fact, in less than a century in the United States, we've gone from children being required to work to help feed their families to children being supported by their parents well into their twenties and thirties such that they think it's grossly unjust to be forced to do something that they don't want to do.

And yes, that implies that mediaeval serfdom where peasants were tied to the land is oppressive, and therefore (D&D) Evil. Even something like indentured servitude would probably count as (D&D) Evil if people are commonly forced into it by events beyond their control.

So again, we are left with a Paladin being unable to differentiate between Thomas Jefferson and Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, or Jeffrey Dahlmer with their Detect Evil. Is that really useful?

Remeber that D&D does have a third option between Good and Evil. As the SRD says:

"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships."

Why can't slavery fit into that definition? Put another way, why does an act have to cross the threshold of being Good in order to be Neutral?

When I think of (D&D) Good agrarian societies as portrayed in D&D products (such as the Village of Hommlet or the Lendore Isles modules) serfdom is most definitely not a feature. Most farmers are either small landowners or, at worst, fairly paid workers on someone else's land. They have the freedom to leave the land and try their hand at some other line of work if that is what they wish. Nobody is using force, or the implied threat of force, to make them work. They may owe some sort of fealty to a local noble or king, but that's more a matter of (D&D) Law than Good or Evil.

And I would argue that a Good agrarian society in D&D should be structured that way. The question is not whether slavery can be Good but whether it can be Neutral.

Now if you use house rules to change the alignment rules, then "Good" can be whatever you want; and for grim and gritty or "realistic" settings it may even make sense and make a more compelling game to have "Good" be more grey and nuanced. But in the rules as written, its pretty cut-and-dried that anything which deserves the name "slavery" is Evil, in the sense in which the term is used in D&D.

What part of the SRD definition, in particular, makes you think that slavery is Evil? And what part of teh SRD definition of Neutral makes you think that it can't apply to slavery?