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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6406914" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't understand how I am meant to fit this into a D&D framework, which regards good (ie human/creature wellbeing) as something objectively desirable.Why value human well-being? For a human being, the question answers itself, at least in the self-regarding case!In the real world, there aren't any significant political or social movements that value order or anarchy as ends in themselves. Anarchism, libertarianism, rule-of-law republicanism, etc, are all views about human well-being and how it might be secured.But this is because the paladin thinks that the chaotic choice will undermine human wellbeing. Which in and of itself is completely rational, but which is apparently  contradicted by the cosmology, which tells us - via the existence of Olympus - that it is possible to be chaotic and yet realise human wellbeing.In a different cosmology - eg one which didn't present Olympus and the Seven Heavens as equally reaslising the very same value (ie human welfare, labelled as "Good") - then the paladin's outlook would make sense (subject to other doubts I have about the coherence of the Law/Chaos contrast). This is why I and others in this thread have contrasted the utility of alignment as a way of framing personal beliefs and frameworks for personal choice, with the disutility of alignment as a cosmological framework expressive of objective truths.As I've said upthread, asserting this doesn't make it so. That's not meant to be snide - it's sincere! As I also posted upthread, it's like telling me that in some campaign world the geometry is Euclidean and the circles all have ratios of diameter to circumfrence of exactly 22:7. The words can be written down, but I don't understand what it is that I'm being asked to imagine as being true.The good alignment is defined (as per the quotes I posted upthread) as being the pursuit of human well-being. Gygax, at least - I can provide more quotes if desired - presented the dispute between LG and CG as primarily a disupte over the efficacy of means, rather than a pursuit over the desirability of ends.What does it mean to say that a rational person thinks that order, or disorder, is important not because it contributes to well-being, but independently of its contribution to well-being? That is not a moral opinion (on any standard meaning of "morality"), nor an ethical one (on any standard meaning of "ethics"). It might be an aesthetic one, but are we saying then that the dispute between law and chaos is a dispute about aesthetics? That would make it an odd thing to fight and kill over. It also would sit oddly with the paladin and monk, who seem to treat matters of discipline, honour etc not as matters of aesthetic sensibility but rather as matters of obligation (ie morality and/or ethics).In the real world, or the fiction of the real world, the paladin and monk don't think that law and good are independent axes. They think that discipine, adequate self-resepct, honour, etc are part and parcel of human well-being. It is the contradiction between this competely reasonable outlook, and the dictates of the cosmology (ie its dictates that you can be good indepdently of law and chaos) that I am pointing to, as a reason for regardiing that aspect of the cosmology as untenable.I just think this is more evidence of the incoherence. The rulebooks tell us that the CG character is as good as the LG character, and ingame the characters work this out via spellcasting, but as players and collective authors of the ingame fiction we disregard all that and return to frameworks of evaluation that acutally make sense.This has nothing to do with the post I replied to.The post I replied to presented the paladin's rejection of Elysium's pure good as a response to the threat of corruption. Obviously the paladin doesn't regard law as a corruption of good!The argument you present here seems much closer to the Moorcockian argument that law and chaos, taken too far, can be dangerous. But a paladin can't embrace that argument; rather, if it is true, then the paladin's outlook is basically false. (Notice that Moorcock has no paladin heroes - the contrast with Tolkien is obvious. The same is true of REH.) For me, this is how I have tended to regard Planescape, and is a quite different reason for my personal dislike of the setting - it exhibits a modernistic nihiism that makes romantic fantasy irrational, whereas I have a very soft spot for romantic fantasy.</blockquote>

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