Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4656515" data-attributes="member: 54707">If killing others and taking their stuff is a part of a creature's nature, how, in-game, we define the behavior of evil creatures, then they are obviously evil based upon their mode of behavior, not their moral choice.If killing others and taking their stuff is a part of a creature's choice, how, in-game, we define the nature of good and heroic creatures, then they are obviously good based upon their motivations, and not their behavior. Because morally they have made exactly the same behavioral choice as the evil creature, generally speaking, but perhaps for different moral and motivational reasons.Therefore behavior cannot be the determining factor in-game of what really constitutes good and evil or I suspect good and evil would have different modus operandi, and not simply different motivations.If a serial killer, out of control of his actions based upon his peculiar psychological nature (or so he claims), or an orc, based upon their own peculiar innate nature and predication, kills and steals the goods of a victim then he is obviously displaying the habits and tendencies of evil.If I, as a defender of the opposite impulses of the evil individual, decide to kill and steal the stuff of the serial killer, or of the orc, because that is my moral choice, my intentional and deliberate course of action, then obviously I am displaying the considered habits and tendencies of heroism and goodness. Is this not self-evidently true?Logically then killing things and taking their stuff (and why kill anything if you're not gonna plunder and enjoy yourself?) , and killing things and taking their stuff (and why kill anything if you're not gonna take from it? - that's what separates barbarism from civilization), are two completely different things. Because one is evil because it cannot be helped, or it is the nature of the beast to act in that way, and the other is good because it is a decision and has chosen to be that way. So to kill and steal for reasons beyond one's control, or because it is in one's nature, that is evil. And obviously so. But to kill and steal as an intentional choice, because one can choose to do so, and as an act of free will, that is good. And obviously so.Now, before anyone thinks I am being too big a smartass (and I am displaying a sort of intentional smartassery, not to mention truthfulness and simplicity, for effect), let me just say this. I personally would kill the terrorist, the serial killer, or the orc, if they threatened me or anyone else I knew. If I were walking down the street and saw innocent individuals I didn't know being truly threatened by terrorists, serial killers, or orcs I didn't know, I'd kill the terrorists, the serial killers, or the orcs if necessary. And I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. (I personally wouldn't kill baby orcs, would probably try to raise one so as to civilize and tame him, but I would kill a sufficiently dangerous and vicious teenage orc if he showed no signs of reform and any inclination to murder. I know when to cash in my chips before I lose my shirt. Or somebody else their pulse.)But to say that the game is just about killing things and taking their stuff, and that this presents no real dilemma that must be addressed in the differences of behavior between how evil operates and how good operates is the same as saying that the same set of problems present no such dilemma in real life.Killing others and taking their stuff always presents a problem, of one kind or another, if you are really honest about it. If no other problem than the one of just how far are you willing to go in your mode of behavior in emulating the operational methods of evil before your internal motivations become superceded by empirically demonstrable bad habit, thereby rendering your vaunted and abstractly philosophical moral choice basically indistinguishable from the moral choicelessness of your evil foe. Anyone in doing evil can justify their actions to themselves. And believe me they do. I've heard countless excuses for just such actions. Where it really counts is if most others can see the difference between your justifications and your actions, or even more importantly can see that your actions are indeed justifiable.When does demonstrated behavior become the real definition of what you are rather than just the inner definition you insist is your "actual one?"It is an interesting debate that I suspect none of us will ever really resolve, generally speaking (though I believe it can be resolved correctly on a case by case basis), but I can say this much from personal experience. You can go too far in emulating the operational methods of your foes in an attempt to achieve good, and actually end up achieving what is not so good at all, if even unintentionally so. Then again you can go too far in trying to be absolutely and intentionally good and thereby end up, through the naiveté of your theory and actions (or inactions), in allowing evil to flourish and the real good, and real innocents, to suffer, or to be annihilated as a result.And that's the real trick in life. Doing good and destroying evil without destroying good by doing evil.And I reckon that's true for games too.Which is not an answer, but it is an observation.</blockquote>

Verification