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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9225304" data-attributes="member: 7035894">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&amp;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&amp;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 &quot;good&quot; or &quot;evil.&quot; 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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9225304, member: 7035894"] 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 [I]thing[/I]. 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 [I]nothing[/I] is inherently evil. [/QUOTE]

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