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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4265706" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think that the two alignments have to be mutually exclusive with respect to the sorts of behaviours (whether personal or political) that might fit under them, because it is not one's behaviour that brings one under an alignment. Rather, it is one's expressed allegiance to an ideal.I don't agree at all. Consider an analogy to actual teams in real-world moral debate: liberal, conservative and social democrat parties in 19th century and pre-wwII 20th century European politics.These labels &quot;liberal&quot;, &quot;conservative&quot;, &quot;social democrat&quot; are not personality descriptors. They are team labels. But the teams are not arbitrary (and so are unlike modern sporting teams) - they are individuated by their commitments to particular sets of ideals. And naturally, only those who share those ideals will join the team.So it is in 4e - only good people will join the Good team, only evil people will join the Evil team, etc. It doesn't therefore follow that the labels are personality descriptors. They describe the ideals of a collective which only certain individuals will join.I'm not sure that it's helpful to try to talk about the alignment of a society in 4e terms. As far as I can tell, alignment is used to identify bundles of moral ideals that are salient for a game of heroic fantasy (in much the same way that the pre-WW II political labels identify bundles of political ideals that are salient in a post-enlightenment, pre-Keynsian society). I'm not sure that they can be used with much profit for sociological purposes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 4265706, member: 42582"] I don't think that the two alignments have to be mutually exclusive with respect to the sorts of behaviours (whether personal or political) that might fit under them, because it is not one's behaviour that brings one under an alignment. Rather, it is one's expressed allegiance to an ideal. I don't agree at all. Consider an analogy to actual teams in real-world moral debate: liberal, conservative and social democrat parties in 19th century and pre-wwII 20th century European politics. These labels "liberal", "conservative", "social democrat" are not personality descriptors. They are team labels. But the teams are not arbitrary (and so are unlike modern sporting teams) - they are individuated by their commitments to particular sets of ideals. And naturally, only those who share those ideals will join the team. So it is in 4e - only good people will join the Good team, only evil people will join the Evil team, etc. It doesn't therefore follow that the labels are personality descriptors. They describe the ideals of a collective which only certain individuals will join. I'm not sure that it's helpful to try to talk about the alignment of a society in 4e terms. As far as I can tell, alignment is used to identify bundles of moral ideals that are salient for a game of heroic fantasy (in much the same way that the pre-WW II political labels identify bundles of political ideals that are salient in a post-enlightenment, pre-Keynsian society). I'm not sure that they can be used with much profit for sociological purposes. [/QUOTE]

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