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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6410633" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I find all this a bit hard to follow.</p><p></p><p>If it makes no difference being labelled good or evil, then why would anyone set about trying to change the reference of those labels?</p><p></p><p>I also don't understand your fiend examples. For instance, I don't see why the argument run by your amnizu isn't already available to her.</p><p></p><p>Also, her argument uses the words "compassion" and "cruel". These are evaluative words, too, but they seem to be being used as if they had a fixed meaning. Are they not subject to the "rule of belief"?</p><p></p><p>Upthread (post 477) I said that "My serious reason for disliking Planescape is the one I posted upthread - its appeal seems to me primarily be to those who want the experience of play to be revelations of the cleverness or quirkiness of Planescape. To me, it's emphasis seems to be overwhelmingly on exploration as the goal of play - exploring the alignment system, enjoying the urban squalor of Sigil, being amusd by wacky portal keys, etc."</p><p></p><p>Nothing in the intervening 500-odd posts has really affected this reason. For instance, the whole emphasis on "belief entails truth" shifts the emphasis from making hard choices in play, and living with them and their consequences, to making choices easy rather than hard by making it true, by fiat, that the choice really was right. This is the wish-fulfillment issue that was raised upthread.</p><p></p><p>There is also this emphasis on exploring the alignment system - as if what matters more than doing the right thing is who has the right to use the (purely gameplay) labels of "good", "evil", "lawful" and "chaotic".</p><p></p><p>You may not want to debate Plato and Nietzsche, but to me the serious attempts over the past two-and-half thousand years to make sense of moral conviction and moral disagreement are highly relevant to any RPG that wants to make moral disagreement a focus of play. By setting up a framework that depends on labels that have no meaning outside of AD&D play, rather than trying to grapple with what I regard as the real issues (eg if value really is nothing but conviction, than how is there any form of politics other than mere assertions of power? - this is the fundamental question for contemporary post-Nietzscheans, and one that I think Simon Blackburn and his followers unduly neglect), Planescape shifts a focus from the things I care about in play to exploration of setting elements.</p><p></p><p>Nothing in your posts about "good/evil is subjective", and your seemingly casual use of "arbitrary" to describe convictions about what is right and what is wrong, is persuading me otherwise. Which also feeds back into what I described, upthread, as one of my petty concerns. The factions, as "philosophers with clubs", strike me as incredibly cartoony - they live in a world that they know to be nothing but a reflection of belief, including in its value dimensions, and yet they devote all this effort to promulgating particular values. Why?</p><p></p><p>As I've posted upthread, there are interesting responses to this question - Kierkegaard's philosophy can be seen as a response to a similar question - but to me Planescape doesn't seem to grapple with the issue but rather to squib on it, by shifting the focus from this real issue (of the nature of commitment and motivation in the absence of reasons) to a focus on a non-issue (who gets to wear the "good" ribbon rather than the "evil" ribbon).</p><p></p><p>I have no idea, then, what you mean by "ambiguous morality".</p><p></p><p>Normally, this would be used to describe a situation in which the right choice is uncertain, because - for instance - not all the consequences are knowable, not all the values in play are fully known, the interactions between these things are uncertain, etc.</p><p></p><p>Here's an example that could easily come up in a work of fiction: deliberate non-defensive killing would normally be murder (and hence wrong), but if I kill this man (a serial killer, let's say) then I can stop a whole lot of other suffering that he would otherwise cause - and furthermore, I know this person hates his life and, ultimately, would rather be dead (but is too cowardly, perhaps proud, to commit suicide).</p><p></p><p>What is the right choice here? I would normally regard this as morally ambiguous or "shades of grey". It's the sort of scenario that, in an RPG, might come up in a gritty investigator game.</p><p></p><p>The reason that speaks against killing is the wrongness of murder. The main reason that speaks in favour of killing is the suffering that this man's continuing life would cause to others.</p><p></p><p>An additional complexity is introduced by his desire to die (in an RPG, especially, certain players might be expected to leverage that to enable him to be killed semi-willingly rather than assassinated, thereby sidestepping the dilemma - but pursuing the path raises its own risks, namely of him escaping or winning in the confrontation, and hence isn't necessarily the best choice).</p><p></p><p>The notion of martyrdom has no work to do here. The "ambiguity" inheres in the doubt about the correct choice.</p><p></p><p>If you reach the conclusion that the right thing to do is nevertheless an evil thing (an idea that Machavelli, Weber and Michael Walzer have all explored), then perhaps there is a degree of martyrdom involved (although many commentators on this issue would regard that as an overly self-centred way of describing the situation), but that is not the main issue when we're talking about "moral ambiguity". The main issue is the one of working out that this is the correct conclusion.</p><p></p><p>(As a side-point: if, in Planescape, good and evil are arbitrary labels, then where is the moral ambiguity? I can see a possible semantic ambiguity, if one is not sure what the balance of opinion is on this particular day, but I don't see any <em>evaluative</em> ambiguity.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6410633, member: 42582"] I find all this a bit hard to follow. If it makes no difference being labelled good or evil, then why would anyone set about trying to change the reference of those labels? I also don't understand your fiend examples. For instance, I don't see why the argument run by your amnizu isn't already available to her. Also, her argument uses the words "compassion" and "cruel". These are evaluative words, too, but they seem to be being used as if they had a fixed meaning. Are they not subject to the "rule of belief"? Upthread (post 477) I said that "My serious reason for disliking Planescape is the one I posted upthread - its appeal seems to me primarily be to those who want the experience of play to be revelations of the cleverness or quirkiness of Planescape. To me, it's emphasis seems to be overwhelmingly on exploration as the goal of play - exploring the alignment system, enjoying the urban squalor of Sigil, being amusd by wacky portal keys, etc." Nothing in the intervening 500-odd posts has really affected this reason. For instance, the whole emphasis on "belief entails truth" shifts the emphasis from making hard choices in play, and living with them and their consequences, to making choices easy rather than hard by making it true, by fiat, that the choice really was right. This is the wish-fulfillment issue that was raised upthread. There is also this emphasis on exploring the alignment system - as if what matters more than doing the right thing is who has the right to use the (purely gameplay) labels of "good", "evil", "lawful" and "chaotic". You may not want to debate Plato and Nietzsche, but to me the serious attempts over the past two-and-half thousand years to make sense of moral conviction and moral disagreement are highly relevant to any RPG that wants to make moral disagreement a focus of play. By setting up a framework that depends on labels that have no meaning outside of AD&D play, rather than trying to grapple with what I regard as the real issues (eg if value really is nothing but conviction, than how is there any form of politics other than mere assertions of power? - this is the fundamental question for contemporary post-Nietzscheans, and one that I think Simon Blackburn and his followers unduly neglect), Planescape shifts a focus from the things I care about in play to exploration of setting elements. Nothing in your posts about "good/evil is subjective", and your seemingly casual use of "arbitrary" to describe convictions about what is right and what is wrong, is persuading me otherwise. Which also feeds back into what I described, upthread, as one of my petty concerns. The factions, as "philosophers with clubs", strike me as incredibly cartoony - they live in a world that they know to be nothing but a reflection of belief, including in its value dimensions, and yet they devote all this effort to promulgating particular values. Why? As I've posted upthread, there are interesting responses to this question - Kierkegaard's philosophy can be seen as a response to a similar question - but to me Planescape doesn't seem to grapple with the issue but rather to squib on it, by shifting the focus from this real issue (of the nature of commitment and motivation in the absence of reasons) to a focus on a non-issue (who gets to wear the "good" ribbon rather than the "evil" ribbon). I have no idea, then, what you mean by "ambiguous morality". Normally, this would be used to describe a situation in which the right choice is uncertain, because - for instance - not all the consequences are knowable, not all the values in play are fully known, the interactions between these things are uncertain, etc. Here's an example that could easily come up in a work of fiction: deliberate non-defensive killing would normally be murder (and hence wrong), but if I kill this man (a serial killer, let's say) then I can stop a whole lot of other suffering that he would otherwise cause - and furthermore, I know this person hates his life and, ultimately, would rather be dead (but is too cowardly, perhaps proud, to commit suicide). What is the right choice here? I would normally regard this as morally ambiguous or "shades of grey". It's the sort of scenario that, in an RPG, might come up in a gritty investigator game. The reason that speaks against killing is the wrongness of murder. The main reason that speaks in favour of killing is the suffering that this man's continuing life would cause to others. An additional complexity is introduced by his desire to die (in an RPG, especially, certain players might be expected to leverage that to enable him to be killed semi-willingly rather than assassinated, thereby sidestepping the dilemma - but pursuing the path raises its own risks, namely of him escaping or winning in the confrontation, and hence isn't necessarily the best choice). The notion of martyrdom has no work to do here. The "ambiguity" inheres in the doubt about the correct choice. If you reach the conclusion that the right thing to do is nevertheless an evil thing (an idea that Machavelli, Weber and Michael Walzer have all explored), then perhaps there is a degree of martyrdom involved (although many commentators on this issue would regard that as an overly self-centred way of describing the situation), but that is not the main issue when we're talking about "moral ambiguity". The main issue is the one of working out that this is the correct conclusion. (As a side-point: if, in Planescape, good and evil are arbitrary labels, then where is the moral ambiguity? I can see a possible semantic ambiguity, if one is not sure what the balance of opinion is on this particular day, but I don't see any [I]evaluative[/I] ambiguity.) [/QUOTE]
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