The Great Wheel is actually worse than that. If Balance is King (as it explicitly is) then good is pointless. If you do good and Balance is King then there's an equal amount of evil to balance it out. If I set up an orphanage and save two dozen orphans that would be a good act. An equal amount of evil would happen in order to balance it out. And my actions have made that act
necessary. Which means that in the grand scheme of things my actions haven't done any good. I can't even say "
It matters to that starfish" without being aware that there are just as many starfish that my acts are making things
worse for because balance. By trying to do good I'm dooming starfish. And it matters to
those starfish. The closest you can get to doing lasting good in the world is by utilitarian accounting along the lines of
Omelas - if you consider that to be an acceptable compromise. On the other hand I can do evil freely. If I launch a campaign of looting and pillaging I'm having fun and getting rich. It doesn't bother me
in the slightest that somewhere someone else is creating an orphanage that's cancelling out my evil. I'm having fun and getting rich.