Note: in this discussion, there are two basic choices. You can define how you want evil/good and outsiders to work, and assign them that way no matter what the rules say. That's ouse rules, all well and good, and shoudl sit reasonably in the House rules forum. Here, I'm taking the other route - I look at teh rules, and see what that says about how Outsiders may function.
Merlion said:
This is an interesting point. However, I am coming at it from the perspective of actual good and evil, not the weird way D&D alignment works.
"Actual" good and evil are poorly defined. Define them first, then we can talk. Until that time, the wonky way D&D handles them is the only common ground we have to hand.
Philosphically, free will...as in freedom of choice, is a requisite for evil or good.
Hold on there - philosophy is informed by the reality in which the thinker sits. Our "actual" evil and good, however poorly defined, differ significantly from the game's. Specifically, game Evil and Good are detectable, and one can interact with the states of Evil and Goodness in ways actual people cannot. That can and should make the philosophy about them differ.
If a being lacks the ability to choose its actions, then the being itself cant really be considered evil for doing something that it litterally cannot choose not to do.
In our universe, perhaps. But in D&D, Good and Evil are not amorphous philosophy, they are forces of nature. You can't just toss that aside and hope to remain consistent unless you're going to house-rule away a whole lot of magic (which you can do, but you haven't said you're gong to yet).
In game, a thing can usually be considered Evil if it carries around enough evilness to show on a detection spell. How it comes by the evilness, and what it can and cannot do whhile carrying the burden of evilness are separate questions.
Mortals can acquire or lose alignment-burden via action, and while carrying that burden magic interacts with them appropriately. But the burden does not much alter their ability to act. Outsiders, however, may be different. Maybe the burden is part of their physical being, much as my mass is part of my physical being.
My body mass restricts what I may choose to do. There are acts I
cannot perform due to my body mass. Does that mean I lack free will? In a sense, yes, in a sense, no. It depends on whether you decide "free will" is defined more by the resulting action, or by the desire to act.
It may then follow for the Outsider - maybe for them, the alignment burden restricts their available actions. The demon cannot perform good acts, any more than I can jump a tall building in a single bound. Will has nothing to do with it.
It also then follows that "free will" is a false notion, in that it only exists for those creatures who have absolutely no limitations on the actiosn they may perform. Only the truely omnipotent have free will. The rest of us work with pale, restricted versions of the thing.
Note that, with the above, you can still have rising and falling outsiders - if you say that
normally the burden of alignment restricts their actions, but that some circumstances allow them to act otherwise. Maybe normally for outsiders alignment traps them in a synergistic loop - a demon has evilness, so that they cannot act good, and cannot lose the evilness. Rising and falling can happen if and when, somehow, something allows a demon to act in a good way, so that it can shed some of the evil, and break the cycle...
