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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6733808" data-attributes="member: 42582">For the reason you give I'll probably refrain from talking about Rand directly.What I will say is that some versions of libertarianism are, in the AD&D 1st ed terms I'm using, best described as CN: they prioritise freedom and individualism irrespective of whether or not it leads to universal wellbeing.Also, this is an example that shows that Gygax's alignment system isn't itself morally neutral. It doesn't fully specify the nature of the good - eg Gygax doesn't distinguish between a rights approach and a utilitarian/wellbeing approach - but it does rule some things out.I agree that they don't. The reason I return to Gygax is because I think the framework he sets out in his DMG (around p 23) and his PHB (around p 33) is basically coherent. (Which isn't to say it's true - see above for why some people might think he's wrong about the nature of the good.)Whereas I am very sypmathetic to the view that once alignment is taken down the path that Law and Chaos are distinct values - which Gygax himself suggests in Appendix IV of the PHB (on the outer planes), and which is strongly reinforced in later D&D texts (eg Planescape) - then it becomes incoherent, and LE becomes oxymoronic.The way I see it, alignment is a label for a certain complex of beliefs and actions.So until you know what a literary character believes, and how s/he acts, you can't apply an alignment label. Working out how a character acts and what s/he believes is a task in literary interpretation. A reasonable amount of the work of literary critics involves debating about the actions and motivations of characters.</blockquote>

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