Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Some thoughts on Moral Philosophies in D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8271247" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I appreciate that that's what you're going for, but that's <em>explicitly</em> not how very very hard deontology interprets things. Naturally you--and I, and many other people besides!--do not really share this view. (I'm mostly a virtue ethics guy personally; Philippa Foot is one of my philosophy heroes.)</p><p></p><p>That is, this is a bit like being a physicist going to an electrical engineers' conference and getting upset that they use "j" to denote the imaginary unit rather than "i." You are, essentially, saying "the deontologist MUST only work with <em>my</em> definitions and no others," which the deontologist is just as free to balk at as you are to balk at their rather strident insistence about the alleged "harm" caused by lying to others. Again, I have no skin in that particular game, because I am not a deontologist to begin with, but you should know whenever you get into a debate about ethics that "when I say 'harm,' I specifically mean grievous <em>physical</em> harm and nothing abstract or philosophical" is <em>not</em> going to be met with a particularly friendly response.</p><p></p><p>(Again, for my own position, the various virtues--and their corresponding vices of excess and deficiency--encapsulate why telling the truth is morally superior as a general rule, but make allowance for deceiving a person whose aims are bad. However...)</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure you do. I mean, I can't read your mind, so perhaps you disagree, but "the truth is preferable to falsehood in general" is a pretty common ground rule of moral behavior. E.g. the ethic of reciprocity rejects telling lies in both its positive and negative forms. "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you" (the negative version of the ethic of reciprocity, sometimes called "the silver rule") would imply that, since we do not want others to gain advantage over us or manipulate us via lies, we should not tell lies to others. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (the positive ethic of reciprocity/"golden rule"), which unlike the previous version <em>requires</em> actions instead of merely <em>forbidding</em> actions, expects of you that you tell the truth to others if you wish for others to tell you the truth.</p><p></p><p>These aren't complex philosophical theories; these are simple moral maxims everyday people use and live by. I would be <em>extremely</em> surprised if you said that lying about any random thing whenever a person felt like it was an acceptable behavior, for example, even if the harm caused by those lies failed to meet your "thrown into a woodchipper" standard. E.g., if I lie to someone to tell them I am vaccinated for COVID when I am not, and they catch COVID as a result but experience only mild symptoms, I certainly haven't done any harm to them that is comparable to throwing them in a woodchipper, but I suspect you would consider me morally at fault for having told that lie. (Please do tell me if you WOULDN'T think that though! That implies a very interesting discussion/explanation!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8271247, member: 6790260"] I appreciate that that's what you're going for, but that's [I]explicitly[/I] not how very very hard deontology interprets things. Naturally you--and I, and many other people besides!--do not really share this view. (I'm mostly a virtue ethics guy personally; Philippa Foot is one of my philosophy heroes.) That is, this is a bit like being a physicist going to an electrical engineers' conference and getting upset that they use "j" to denote the imaginary unit rather than "i." You are, essentially, saying "the deontologist MUST only work with [I]my[/I] definitions and no others," which the deontologist is just as free to balk at as you are to balk at their rather strident insistence about the alleged "harm" caused by lying to others. Again, I have no skin in that particular game, because I am not a deontologist to begin with, but you should know whenever you get into a debate about ethics that "when I say 'harm,' I specifically mean grievous [I]physical[/I] harm and nothing abstract or philosophical" is [I]not[/I] going to be met with a particularly friendly response. (Again, for my own position, the various virtues--and their corresponding vices of excess and deficiency--encapsulate why telling the truth is morally superior as a general rule, but make allowance for deceiving a person whose aims are bad. However...) I'm not sure you do. I mean, I can't read your mind, so perhaps you disagree, but "the truth is preferable to falsehood in general" is a pretty common ground rule of moral behavior. E.g. the ethic of reciprocity rejects telling lies in both its positive and negative forms. "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you" (the negative version of the ethic of reciprocity, sometimes called "the silver rule") would imply that, since we do not want others to gain advantage over us or manipulate us via lies, we should not tell lies to others. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (the positive ethic of reciprocity/"golden rule"), which unlike the previous version [I]requires[/I] actions instead of merely [I]forbidding[/I] actions, expects of you that you tell the truth to others if you wish for others to tell you the truth. These aren't complex philosophical theories; these are simple moral maxims everyday people use and live by. I would be [I]extremely[/I] surprised if you said that lying about any random thing whenever a person felt like it was an acceptable behavior, for example, even if the harm caused by those lies failed to meet your "thrown into a woodchipper" standard. E.g., if I lie to someone to tell them I am vaccinated for COVID when I am not, and they catch COVID as a result but experience only mild symptoms, I certainly haven't done any harm to them that is comparable to throwing them in a woodchipper, but I suspect you would consider me morally at fault for having told that lie. (Please do tell me if you WOULDN'T think that though! That implies a very interesting discussion/explanation!) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Some thoughts on Moral Philosophies in D&D
Top