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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6737878" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't blame you.  I'm having a hard time finding the language I need to express myself.  You are right about the dictionary usage of the words.  But I don't think I'm quite conveying how problematic that they are in their bias.  You complain for example that my observation on the bias of self words is false, because the word "selfless" has a positive connotation.  But if their is a bias that self is bad and that being in self is bad, then we would expect the word for not self and noting being in ones self to imply good.  Whereas the words that mean being in ones self and the quality of self are negative.  I believe that there is a subtle "lawful good" bias to the English language in this respect that is making this concept hard to discuss because the language inclines us to overlap law and good as being inseparable.  And to be fully clear with where I'm going, I believe that this bias toward rejection of self being good, creates a problem where people reject Good as being their good, because it seems to require the rejection of self.  And I believe this rejection of self is not an essential aspect of Good and misses Good's take on the self.   Obviously, I think this bias applies to how D&D has typically been discussed for example both the positive bias Paladin as strictly LG because LG is "most good", and in rejection of Good as being good in things like Gygax's description of Pholtus the first LG god as being effectively a cruel deity or the general stereotype of Paladin jerks, or later the tendancy for 2e and later generation writers to focus on Selfishness as the quintessential aspect of Evil.   And I also think this bias infects our real world views.Yes.  I'm casting around for a way to talk about self that is distinctive from the connotation of good and evil.I understand what it is.  I'm wanting to see your examples of Chaotic that are relativists at least in some degree, as to me expressly refusing to use something outside the individual to judge something is the essential nature of the Chaotic moral world view.  I don't agree with the definition, nor am I convinced that literal selflessness ought to have the connotation it has.  I don't necessarily see sacrificing the self as the central aspect of good.  Good neither denies that the self has worth or that the not self has worth.  It approves of the self placing itself in the service of others, but doesn't approve of this if the basis of that appraisal is simple self-abasement.To simply what I think is going on here, Evil sees no worth in anything.  Lawful rejects that anything has inherent worth or qualities, but instead sees that everything could have worth through its potential proper relationship to everything else and is working toward what it sees as the perfect state of those relationships.   Chaos believes the opposite, that the relationships between each thing and every other thing are meaningless, governed by chance, and transitory, but the that each bit of everything is unique, has its own qualities, and therefore worth something.  Good says, you are both half-way right, both the thing itself and its relationships are things of potential worth.   The four combined philosophies take parts of each position and combine them; chaotic evil for example asserts that each thing only has any worth to itself and so the only thing of meaningful value is your own self.  Lawful good says, that yes, it's a great idea to have everything have inherent worth, but the inherent worth of anything being less than the worth of the whole, that can only be brought about when each component of the whole recognizes that.  And so forth.I would say that this is the essential nature of LE, and lacking this view point, neither the society nor its members are actually LE.  And notably, collectively horrifying.  This society doesn't want people to value others more than themselves so that everyone collectively will be affirmed and happy.  It's goal isn't merely order, but a state of permanent fear and suffering.  In short, this is the world view that sees what you or I would consider a dystopia as the desired end state.  This reoccurs in all sorts of fiction from 1984 to A Wrinkle in Time, but I think that you can find examples of that dystopia held up as the ideal and advanced as a goal in the real world, both historically and in modern times.In their own minds, they wouldn't.  In the perfectly LE state, they'd see themselves as machine components whose existence was validated by their suffering.  It would be a world of perfectly loyal perfectly abased beings, in total submission to their slavery, forever in torment but unable to even imagine or hope for any other existence.I think that largely covers it, save that if the gear wants to be part of the machine because that's what it believes it is, then its individual alignment (to the extent we can even speak of such a thing) is going to be the same as the machine also.  It's completely subsumed to the machines purpose.  Exploit is a fairly good word, since I don't think LG's exploit their lower castes (though a CG critic would certainly claim that they did).  I think it would be sufficient to assert that the social order is maintained through fear and cruelty, and that the rulers have no true regard for the health and weal of the lower castes, but think of them only as how they can serve either themselves or the society as a whole.I disagree.  I would see this of a case of a CG who just failed a 'wisdom check' and acted in a way that violated their own principles, and that in so acting they were inherently putting themselves in a place of moral crisis where either they'd eventually have to repent of the action or change their alignment.  A right-minded chaotic person would overthrow the evil ruler, but then not assume power - even if it meant a greater risk the previous regime could come back.  In their mind, it would be a greater moral failing to risk becoming the very thing that they hate, than to allow society to fall into folly yet again and then have to try to save their fellows from themselves all over again.  Only by providing an example of a victor who didn't assume authority, would there be any hope of breaking out of the cycle of tyranny and violence.  To the extent that they would concede some system needs to be put in place, they'd try to establish a non-lawful social structure that didn't have them inherently in the top spot.  A good example of this in fantasy literature is the resolution of the conflict in the novel 'King Rat' by China Mieville.Ok, so what is?Well, Choatic Evil certainly isn't, but then we no longer have an ultimately and pure expression of chaos.We can't be sure that he does this for selfish reasons unless we know his own internal reasoning.  If he legitimately feels he's the best for the job and no one else can do it as well (and in particular, if this isn't an assessment based on personal vanity alone), then it's perhaps not the case he's being selfish.  Since I would prefer to have each of the paragons of each alignment embody the ideals of that alignment, an since this is the LE paragon, I propose that his actual reasons aren't selfish, however cruel and horrible his goals may be, they aren't being done merely to advance his personal power relative to others, but the absolute power of Hell.Maybe, but D&D divides demons from devils and says they are fundamentally different things.  As I noted, I think this is frequently disregarded and we are left with no discernible difference in motive or goals between the two factions.  Dante's Inferno describes a hell were treachery is expected.  But if the Nine Hell's aren't exactly Dante's Inferno, then I suggest that it's not actually a place where treachery is expected - because treachery embodies a chaotic concept, not a lawful one.  the Nine Hells are a place where struggle, cruelty and slavery is expected, but not actually strife. Well yes, but in play I prefer to actually be coherent on alignment.I think you did.  You described a LE barrister acting out of pure self-interest with no apparent loyalty to anything but himself.  Without any mention of belief in something higher than his own self-interest, I would default to thinking the barrister is CE and find his LE alignment surprising and indeed contradictory.I disagree.  You've given him not one single lawful trait.You've given no examples that he believes in the worth of the law and places his faith in it.  You are describing someone using the law for his own selfish purposes.  This is not an example of believing in or having faith in the law, and good reason to believe that the law is not worth having faith in.  After all, we can clearly see that the law is being misused, and that the outcome is injustice.  Quite likely the barrister you describe also knows the law is unjust and sees that the system is effectively stupid, and that only a fool would place his faith in the law given how a selfish person like himself misuses the system.  None of the things you describe give me any indication of anything but a CE man who sees himself as smarter than all those poor fools and reveals in his own sadistic pleasures.  You've given me plenty of proof of his evil, but none of his lawfulness.</blockquote>

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