D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

[Tolerable Tyrant]

I'm having a troublesome time understanding why the animate dead spell is considered evil. When I read the manual it states that the spall imbues the targeted corpse with a foul mimicry of life, implying that the soul is not a sentient being who is trapped in a decaying corpse. Rather, the spell does exactly what its title suggests, it only animates the corps. Now of course one could use the spell to create zombies that would hunt and kill humans, but by that same coin, they could create a labor force that needs no form of sustenance (other than for the spell to be recast of course). There have also been those who have said "the spell is associated with the negative realm which is evil", however when you ask someone why the negative realm is bad that will say "because it is used for necromancy", I'm sure you can see the fallacy in this argument.

However, I must take into account that I have only looked into the DnD magic system since yesterday so there are likely large gaps in my knowledge. PS(Apon further reflection I've decided that the animate dead spell doesn't fall into the school of necromancy, as life is not truly given to the corps, instead I believe this would most likely fall into the school of transmutation.) PPS(I apologize for my sloppy writing, I've decided I'm feeling too lazy to correct it.)

 

[Tonguez]

There have been real human cultures which practiced cannibalism. Sometimes it was eating parts of dead members of the community as part of the grieving process. Sure, it sounds pretty gross to us, but I think it is rather culturally insensitive for us to call it evil.

my ancestors were cannibals and its still common to tell legends of our ancestors going to battle and then cooking and eating their defeated enemies. Theres even a story of the survivors of one battle being captured and made to carry baskets filled with the bodies of their dead as rations for the further campaign (no supply lines needed)
While that later story does engender feelings of discomfort over the ‘hard core’ nature of that particular ancestor (I often describe him as being a young thug at the time), never would he be considered evil.
of course there is no desire to revive the practice

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay, but I was responding to


This forum is doesn't really seem the proper venue for an in-depth philosophy discussion, and honestly I don't really care. People have been debating the true nature of good and evil, right and wrong forever. Seems to me it's about as useful as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, which is why I limit my concerns to gaming.

How is this not about gaming? I'm just not all that interested in commercial interests and popularity, and don't really want to discuss them particularly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

With respect, then your argument is poorly formed.

That YOU don't care about commercial success is irrelevant in what THEY view as requirements or the basis for choices. What they "have to do" should be considered from their point of view and needs, not yours.

Disagree. I'll stipulate to the fact that it certainly matters to them, but it's not really a question of game design, or whether or not focusing the rules on a particular moral viewpoint would make a good game (for any given group of players). I'm interested in the OPs question at a level beyond simply, "will it sell". Sometimes is seems a lot of folks around here care about that question more than anything else.

 

[Lanefan]

How is this not about gaming? I'm just not all that interested in commercial interests and popularity, and don't really want to discuss them particularly.

Problem is, there's no way to have these discussions about 'the world's most popular role-playing game' without considering commercial interests; as oftentimes commercial interests are (at the very least) one of numerous forces driving the design decisions that get made.

Popularity is a corollary, in that a prime commercial interest is to have the game be popular and thus maintain sales.

And so, whether or not we want to consider these things is moot: we have to, regardless. Put another way, if we want these discussions to have any practical foundation it's not a choice we get to make.

If we were only talking about our own homebrew system that we never really intended to sell to anyone else, however, we could ignore commercial interests and popularity to our hearts' content.

 

[Clint_L]

I just don't think it is meaningful to talk about an action being evil or good without context. Immanuel Kant tried to establish absolute rules for good and evil via pure logic, arguing that morality could be as logically absolute as mathematics, but I think most will agree that he failed, largely because he was unable to see that his assumptions were rooted in his own cultural assumptions and biases. And his logic leads to some pretty wild outcomes when actually applied.

So casting animate dead can't be inherently evil because no action can be inherently evil. Actions are just actions, and evil is a subjective interpretation of what they mean. There is no getting away from it: context matters.

 

[Baron Opal II]

So casting animate dead can't be inherently evil because no action can be inherently evil. Actions are just actions, and evil is a subjective interpretation of what they mean. There is no getting away from it: context matters.

That's a modern mindset. Which is fine, we're modern people. And you can change the rules however you please, that's the great thing about this game.

 

[Lanefan]

I just don't think it is meaningful to talk about an action being evil or good without context. Immanuel Kant tried to establish absolute rules for good and evil via pure logic, arguing that morality good be as logically absolute as mathematics, but I think most will agree that he failed, largely because he was unable to see that his assumptions were rooted in his own cultural assumptions and biases. And his logic leads to some pretty wild outcomes when actually applied.

So casting animate dead can't be inherently evil because no action can be inherently evil. Actions are just actions, and evil is a subjective interpretation of what they mean. There is no getting away from it: context matters.

An action can be inherently evil and yet still be used to good ends

That this happened still doesn't excuse the action itself from being evil, which is (I think) the pushback you're getting here.

 

[payn]

That's a modern mindset. Which is fine, we're modern people. And you can change the rules however you please, that's the great thing about this game.

This. Actions are inherent in D&D with alignment so you can have cool axiomatic, anarchic, holy, and unholy weaponry. Spells and more. Dont like it, dont use it, but dont make up some morally relativistic world where people eat each other then raise dead and tell us it makes more sense.

 

[Clint_L]

An action can be inherently evil and yet still be used to good ends

That this happened still doesn't excuse the action itself from being evil, which is (I think) the pushback you're getting here.

How can an action be inherently evil? What does inherent evil even mean? Evil is not a substance. It's not a quality of the universe. It's not a thing. Actions are actions. Good and evil are interpretations of what they mean, from a particular perspective. They don't exist independently.

You can argue that in the magical world of D&D alignment can happen because good and evil can be objectively real in fantasy land...but they can't. There is no way to define them that isn't ultimately a circular argument. The notion is logically incoherent. That's why thousands of year's worth of philosophy have tried and failed to define them.

So you can say that in D&D world evil is real and here's how we define it...but those definitions are always going to be rooted in subjective opinion. Really, all you're doing is practicing virtues ethics: defining right and wrong based on an arbitrary authority.

The underlying problem here is that no one can or has ever been able to objectively define "good" or "evil." Without that starting place, there's no point in even worrying about whether something can be inherently good or evil. Animate dead is not inherently evil because nothing is inherently evil.

 

[Oofta]

How can an action be inherently evil? What does inherent evil even mean? Evil is not a substance. It's not a quality of the universe. It's not a thing. Actions are actions. Good and evil are interpretations of what they mean, from a particular perspective. They don't exist independently.

You can argue that in the magical world of D&D alignment can happen because good and evil can be objectively real in fantasy land...but they can't. There is no way to define them that isn't ultimately a circular argument. The notion is logically incoherent. That's why thousands of year's worth of philosophy have tried and failed to define them.

So you can say that in D&D world evil is real and here's how we define it...but those definitions are always going to be rooted in subjective opinion. Really, all you're doing is practicing virtues ethics: defining right and wrong based on an arbitrary authority.

The underlying problem here is that no one can or has ever been able to objectively define "good" or "evil." Without that starting place, there's no point in even worrying about whether something can be inherently good or evil. Animate dead is not inherently evil because nothing is inherently evil.

In the real world there are no "Negative" or "Positive" planes of existence either. There's no HP, AC, or attack bonuses either. People's abilities can't be broken into a set of 6 simple numbers. People don't heal overnight.

It's evil because it's a game. A game that uses easily recognizable constructs that give guidance to the DM and player. You keep applying real world logic and reasoning to a game, it just doesn't work that way. Animating dead not evil in your campaign? Concepts of inherently right and wrong are nonexistent? Cool!

But most I've ever played with over decades don't care. We want to play a game and it has nothing to do with philosophical debates that have no answer. For us? The default that animating dead is evil because it requires negative energy simplifies the ugly complexity of the real world into something we can agree upon and deal with.

Most of the time I want to be on "Team good guy fighting evil". It's not at all realistic, it's not the real world, it's purely escapism action movie hero stuff and I love it.