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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 1756566" data-attributes="member: 13966">DannyAlcatraz, not be condescending or disrespectful, but you keep focusing on the teleological (results-oriented) matters and not the deontological (act-oriented) matters.  No matter what the reason, for example, killing an innocent is always evil, even if it is for the sake of the greater good.  The act is evil, even though the consequences may be good (i.e. in case that person was inadvertently about to bring on the apocalypse and yet was completely convinced that their experiment or whatever was only going to benefit humanity).  The overall result may be profoundly good for everyone else, but it is still quite bad for that one innocent and thus evil because it violates their inherant right to life and contentment. Your arguments are Utilitarian, based on what produces the most overall good or least overall evil.  This is not usually sound reasoning when it comes to ethics, though it is often valid.  Oftentimes the most important ethical/moral matters are those revolving around the act itself, not the results (if the act itself didn't matter, people would just immediately nuke any country that had a dictator or international terrorists based in it, because it would provide more good for the world at large, but obviously that would be flawed logic, because there are plenty of innocent people in those countries who would also be nuked and yet never wanted anything to do with the tyrants/terrorists; as already mentioned, killing innocents is evil no matter the reason and no matter what 'greater good' may come of it).  I do realize now, though, that some of my reasoning earlier was flawed, because I haven't been able to find any references now in the Core Rules of 3E that say negative energy carries a taint, so I must have just been remembering seeing such references in non-Core books for D&D, or maybe something from 2nd Edition (which are of course invalid in the current Core Rules As Written). D&D has a relatively black-and-white alignment system that has personifications of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, and Neutrality, so many creatures, objects, forces, spells, and acts in D&D are inherantly Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic.  Fiends in D&D are infused with Evil even if someone reforms them later to be saintly, and likewise many undead in the Core RAW are infused with Evil regardless of what they do after their animation.  Creating undead is Evil in the Rules As Written, by the Core Rules at least.  All Core spells that make undead are capital-E Evil, so the creation of undead is an evil act regardless of its consequences.  The consequences don't change the fact that making an undead in the first place is Evil by the Core Rules.  It would seem by the Core Rules that since creation of undead is an Evil act, that there must be some reason for it. Lacking any better indicators, the only reasons seem to be that the spells channel substantial negative energy with each casting, and that the act itself violates the natural order of things (birth, life, death, decomposition/rebirth, etc.).  Also, by the Core Rules, making someone into undead apparently prevents their soul from returning through Raise Dead or whatnot, and probably prevents them from enjoying their proper afterlife (or prevents them from suffering in some purgatory as they rightly deserve, if they were evil in life).  This obviously violates the natural order of the black-and-white D&D alignment system and multiverses.  This would seem to be the reason why creating undead is evil by the Core Rules, though it is merely a hypothesis based on the most obvious things in the Core RAW. Channeling negative energy might not always be evil, but the only real uses for negative energy are destruction and the animation of undead (the latter is, again, Evil by the RAW).  Many other things can be used for destruction, including positive energy (excessive amounts of it, such as from the attacks of a Ravid in the Monster Manual, or from the Positive Energy Plane in the MotP, can overwhelm a living creature and thus harm them).  However, most things useable for destruction also have some benign uses as well.  Fire can provide comfort, warmth, cooking, and forging, while positive energy can heal living creatures, acid can be used for etching words/patterns into stone and metal, as well as having a potential use in creating underground delves for dwarves and their ilk, and electricity can power technology, provide light, and so on.  So most of these forces are not evil in and of themselves, but they can be used for evil purposes, just as with nearly anything.  Many of these forces are entirely natural as well, such as the five standard energies of 3E D&D.  The elements and energy planes are likewise neutral in D&D's core rules.  Their use is only evil if they are being used to harm relatively-innocent creatures, or if being used to destroy property or nature's essentials (nature can regenerate and replace a great deal, and its bounty is there for the taking, but it's still wrong and harmful to the ecosystems and nature itself in D&D to take too much of nature's material, for instance). Raise Dead, Resurrection, and such have no alignment descriptor because they can be used to bring folks back to life (a normal life, and they don't allow the subject to live beyond their natural lifespan, so there's no violation of mortality and natural order).  They grant true life, and since they have no alignment descriptors, it's obvious that something in D&D's Core makes them acceptable in the natural order (mind you, this is just the Core Rules, homebrew settings and variant campaign worlds can differ).  At the very least, they allow someone a chance to resume their life generally where they left off, maybe a chance to reform themselves, a chance to complete unfinished business the right way, and later die of natural aging or whatever to return to the natural cycle or to their afterlife with potentially fewer troubles burdening their soul.  They can be used to bring back someone evil, but then it's only the results that are evil, as the Resurrection or whatever generally is not by the Core RAW.  This is just like using Inflict Serious Wounds to hurt an innocent, in that it may be evil, but not capital-E Evil by the rules.  Any Cleric can cast ISW, because it channels negative energy to smite someone, and that someone may be evil, making it justified, but in other circumstances it wouldn't be.  However, Animate Dead is capital-E Evil by the RAW, meaning that something about the spell/act itself is Evil, regardless of its uses or consequences. Trap the Soul, Soul Bind, etc. aren't capital-E Evil by the Core RAW, because they can be used for a range of purposes from the righteous to the neutral to the vile, from denying a fiend Resurrection to preventing a gold dragon or dryad from Resurrection.  No one wants the just-defeated evil warlord/fiend/whatever to rise up again and resume its reign of terror, so some goodly wizard Binds its Soul once his adventuring team slays the villain.  Likewise, an evil wizard could use the same spell to deny a return by some goodly crusader, but according to the RAW, Bind Soul and such is not inherantly aligned (for whatever reason), so the spell itself may not be evil even though its use might sometimes be so.  Again, Animate Dead differs in that the RAW define it as an Evil spell, so apparently the essence of Soul Bind's effect is not evil (it does not violate the natural order or whatnot in Core D&D, for whatever reason). BoVD, BoED, MotP, CD, MotF, Eberron, and such are not Core Rules material, so they don't really factor into this argument much, because they are specific to certain settings (whether it's the core setting of Greyhawk or not, they're still not part of the Core Rules, so they're essentially like homebrew/flavor supplements; relevant only in the context of their associated setting and the design assumptions made for that particular campaign setting alone).  Okay, I'm done now.  I've clarified my point and noticed my earlier mistake, and described Ethics as taught in college right now.  If I've made any spelling/grammatical errors, it is to be noted that it's past 1 AM here in Arizona now, and I've had an exhausting/frustrating day.  {:^)</blockquote>

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