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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5821424" data-attributes="member: 463">What is this medieval ethics of which people speak?  I've read a fair bit on ethics and the last time any ethicist argued "slavery was ok" in the West would have been in the pre-Christian Roman Empire.  By the 6th century AD the Codex of Justinian, the basis of both Byzantine law and medieval European Law describes slavery as "against the Law of Nature" (Ius Naturae) though, regrettedly, part of the Ius Gentium, the "Law of Nations", ie man-made Law.Likewise the idea that a noble can kill a commoner but not vice versa is decidedly pre-Christian and pre-Medieval, if it existed at all it'd be a way of looking at the Germanic weregild system, which set a variable value on your head that your murderer had to pay for killing you.  But the weregild system was designed to regulate and reduce conflict in a situation where no strong central authority existed, it simply recognised that the poor man lacked the wherewithal to exact vengeance on the noble who killed his brother, but honour could be satisfied by a payment. Whereas as a practical matter if you killed the noble's brother, of course the noble is going to kill you. Ethics as such barely enters into it.There were no 'medieval ethics' saying that rape, slavery, or the killing of lower-status persons were ok. If Hextorism is equivalent to Satanism then the medieval-ethical approach to the Hextorists in the first post would be, as Gygax once pointed out:a) If possible, convert them to the LG religion to save their immortal souls, thenb) Kill them to prevent backsliding. With (b) being optional - if you're certain they won't backslide, then ok to let them live.  But it's the souls that matter. If you were unable to convert them then you or a duly appointed authority would certainly need to kill them to prevent them from corrupting and damning the souls of others.If Hextor is regarded as a legitimate deity, like a saint in Christianity, then according to 'medieval ethics' you should not be killing the prisoners just as you shouldn't kill them in 'modern ethics', there is no significant difference.Edit: In Europe it has often been 'normal' to kill prisoners of war, except for high status noble prisoners, but it has not been regarded as 'ethical' for nearly two thousand years.</blockquote>

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