What Alignment is Rorschach?

[Nightson]

Killing millions of people to prevent something that might happen is hardly the act of a hero.

What if they apocalypse has a 99% chance? 98% At some point it's acceptable and at some point it's not, given that Ozymandius was the smartest man in the world, who better to evaluate the chances?

 

[Silver Moon]

Wow, six full pages of this!

Why don't we all just consider Alan Moore to be the winner and call it a day.

 

[Nightson]

He's the only one who is willing to die rather than participate in the cover up of the murder of millions.

Ah, but it "die rather" or "die and"

After all, he could have lied there in the room, could have said okay and waited till he got back before he said anything. But he didn't. Why was Rorshach crying? Maybe it was for the millions who died, or maybe it was because he found himself torn in two pieces. Perhaps he found he could neither live with the coverup or expose it, and so he chose death.

 

[ppaladin123]

After all, he could have lied there in the room

See my post on deontological ethics...not lying was the whole point.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Incorrect, I think - in that I don't think the purpose has ever been to make these things consistent across all gaming groups. So long as each DM can peg him as something within the interpretation that he uses, the thing serves its purpose.

If all DM's magically imprinted their beliefs into their players, this would work. Since they dont, alignment is, and has always been, a piss poor system. Well designed rules should be easy to interpret, as they are designed for everyone. I dont have trouble going to one group and calculating my character's attack bonus. I know my first level mage deals d4+1 damage with a magic missile. I dont know if protection from Law grants a bonus to him or not. I frequently cant even get a consensus on a character's alignment within my own group, let alone others.

As there are mechanical consequences for alignment, it should, in a well designed system, be readily apparent what someone's alignment is for all. As its incredibly subjective, its a bad rule.

For the argument, I'd say Rorschach is Lawful Evil. He's methodical, orderly, and driven to protect society as a whole from the weaknesses of the individual. He's cruel and inhumane in his quest to see his goals.

 

[Nightson]

See my post on deontological ethics...not lying was the whole point.

Yes but the whole fact that he has a secret identity would seem to undermine the idea that he was totally unwilling to lie. And he lies to the psychologist as well, and I imagine there are other cases.

 

[Rykion]

What if they apocalypse has a 99% chance? 98% At some point it's acceptable and at some point it's not, given that Ozymandius was the smartest man in the world, who better to evaluate the chances?

Someone might be able to predict that the apocalypse is the most likely outcome of events, but no one can be precise to the exact percentage. There were some points in our own history at which global nuclear war seemed the most likely outcome to many people. Fortunately, we didn't have an Ozymandius to "save" us.

Ozymandius might be the smartest man in the world, but he was still a victim of his own ego. There has to be many other ways that Dr. Manhattan could have been tricked or convinced to help stop a possible apocalypse. The other ways probably weren't spectacular enough to satisfy Ozymandius's superiority complex.

 

[Remus Lupin]

A lot of people hate alignment threads because it's pretty much impossible to come to agreement. That's why I LIKE alignment threads. I've learned so much reading this thread about the possible interpretations of D&D alignment and how they correspond to "real" world ethics (viewed through the funhouse mirror of the Watchmen, of course), that it's given me a great deal to ponder.

The point, I suppose, isn't to come up with THE answer, but to seriously consider the question. Thanks all!

 

[WizarDru]

While he despises drug-users and prostitutes he doesn't go around beating them up or killing them. They've made their own beds using their own free will in his mind, and he's not there to stop them. Condemn them? Sure. Restrain their liberties? Never.

That's a pretty good point. Moore goes out of his way to show Rorschach essentially stepping around prostitutes and ignoring drunks and drug users in the streets. The only time we see him harassing one is when he gives Moloch a hard time about the pills...and that's obviously more because it's Moloch, not the pills.

He's a Neutral character who desires a Chaotic Good world with an incredible intensity. Rorschach is also terribly conflicted in his conception because he's made an avatar / Straw Man for Real World philosophies in a Fantasy World composed of cardboard sets and Straw Man geo-political figures and governments. Watchmen is great and all, but it is ultimately a reflection of emotional and intellectual boogie-men of a past era - kind of like Gulliver's Travels.

I don't know about that. I find a lot of relevance in the situations and concepts of Watchmen that still resonate strongly today. I also find it interesting that Watchmen is fundamentally about the US, but the author is British, putting an interesting perspective on the proceedings.

I also wonder about interpretations based on age. I was 17 when Watchmen came out. Fear of a Nuclear Holocaust was very real in my teens. Reflection on the Vietnam War doubly-so. Bernhard Goetz (dubbed the "Subway Vigilante") and the Guardian Angels were big in the news, referenced by Moore in the introduction to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. I wonder how differently, if at all, someone who didn't live through any of those events or times views the Watchmen and it's themes?

 

[Celebrim]

Deontological ethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is a debate in ethics that has lasted thousands of years.

Indeed. It is a debate which is at the heart of the Watchman story.

Also note that deontology has a "lawful' vibe to it as it is based on duty/obligation. This is another reason why some might call Rorschach "lawful."

Yes, it has a 'vibe' but lets base our judgement on reason and not on feelings. Let's dig a bit below the surface. I know words like 'duty' and 'code' have a lawful feel to them, but really they are nuetral until we answer such questions as, "Duty to whom? Or to what?" and "What sort of code?" There is big difference in believing you have a duty to yourself, or a duty to some higher authority. Some would argue that duty to yourself is no kind of duty at all. Others would argue that duty to self is the highest duty of all: "To your own self be true..." Clearly these people have very different conceptions.

We can say the same thing of deontological ethics. All ethical codes impose some responcibility upon someone that holds them, or we couldn't say that they do anything at all. We could say of someone holding certain consequential ethics, that they have a duty to their fellow man. So by saying that someone has a duty, we haven't said alot at all really.

I think Rorschach clearly holds deontological ethics, but that isn't sufficient to say whether he is lawful or chaotic any more than we could say he was lawful merely because he held consequentialist ethics (he could be an egoist). What we really need to look at is what his deontological ethics require of him.

In Rorschach's case, I think it is fairly clear he doesn't derive his ethical code from any higher authority. He's not trying to be a good Catholic, trying to uphold the Mafia code of honor, or striving to obey the Laws of the Land. He is doing what he feels is right.

Let me quote from what I think is an excellent paragraph in the Wiki article that deals directly with the topic under discussion:

The most pressing difficulty for deontologist philosophers is justifying constraints. Robert Nozick famously points out what has become known as the paradox of deontology. If we are truly concerned about rights (such as the right not to be harmed in certain ways expressed by Kamm's Principle of Permissible Harm) then it seems logical we should seek to minimize violations of these rights. However, deontological constraints themselves prohibit such action. For example, consider a case where someone has maliciously sent a trolley hurtling towards five innocent and immobile people at the end of a track. The only way to stop the trolley and save the five is to throw one innocent bystander in front of the trolley. If the five are killed, this would constitute five violations of the PPH. If the one is thrown in the way, this constitutes one violation of the PPH. However, the Principle of Permissible Harm clearly rules out throwing one in front of the trolley. Hence the paradox. In order to respect the rights of the five, deontologists tell us we must respect the rights of the one.

- emphasis mine

Isn't this precisely the moral conflict that develops at the end of Watchman?

Doesn't Rorschach answer, "In order to respect that rights of the billions, we must respect the rights of the millions." In other words, in order to respect the rights of the many, we must respect the rights of the few or the one. In order to respect the lives of the many, we must respect the rights of the fwe or the one. But quite clearly, if we are respecting the needs of the individual over the needs of the group, we are holding to chaotic philosophy as it was defined way back in the 1st edition Player's Handbook. Chaotics believe that individualism and freedom, trump the weal or percieved weal of the community. Were as the lawful believer believes that the individual must be sacrificed along the way for the greater good, the chaotic believes that the greater good is made up of alot of smaller goods or its not good at all.