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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 962615" data-attributes="member: 3146">Discussing standard game worlds, I don't think there can be any question of discussing what's natural in our world. We're not playing the game in our world. We're playing in the game world's reality and any discussion of what's natural in the gameworld needs to come to terms with that.Still, it's not an open and shut case for magic being natural. It depends heavily upon the model of magic--whether it is technological or spiritualistic (for lack of a better word). Upon consideration, the default D&D model seems to be a mixture of the two with the technological model predominant but the spiritualistic model entering for aligned] spells.And here I thought I was leaving you an out with the Platonic option (which IMO is probably the most coherent option for morality in a polytheistic universe).Not really--since it cannot support an objective view of moral reality. As far as I understand it, a secular humanist basis for morality makes morality into another name for convention--the relevant phrase as seen below is "under such a system of thought, XYZ wouldn't be an evil act" but presumably under another system of thought it might be and both are correct (with reference to themselves) and neither are correct with reference to any outside objective reality. At that point, to advocate any vision of morality--to say that the apparent justice of Cormyr is superior to the apparent cruelty of Thay or Zhentil Keep--is simply ethnocentrism. (Of course, there's not anything necessarily wrong with ethnocentrism either--which is why "secular humanist" philosophers like Richard Rorty advocate ethnocentrism (at least for nice liberal people)).Such a "moral" system has difficulty distinguishing between compulsion and persuasion in other groups and can have no method for spreading other than compulsion (since there is no external ground upon which it can claim to be "better" for someone who doesn't already believe in it) and no method for resolving disputes with other subcultures other than force (direct or implied). In short, it is a recipe for tyranny of the worst kind (pretty much exactly what you denounce as the motive of the "prudish Greyhawk gods"*) whether or not it's original proponents are well intentioned (as I believe its leading lights such as Rorty to be).Of course, any Cormyrian believer in the secular humanist based morality who would refuse to participate in such tyranny and avoid ethnocentrism would be acting in violation of his or her own moral beliefs. If they did not oppose the Zhentil Keeps and Thays of the world, they would be being complicit in the coercion, slavery, and cruelty of those systems. So, refusing to participate in the tyranny of good intentions would be complicity in the tyranny of bad intentions. Thus, a secular humanist based morality could not even fulfill the most basic function of morality--that of being a guide to action and praise or blameworthiness (for as we have seen, all truly significant actions would be wrong and blameworthy).*I use the word tyranny here because I believe--as I suspect you also do--that to enforce a code of belief or action upon other people would be tyranny. . .  unless (and this is the important exception that separates our view of the Greyhawk Gods) that view is actually right and [Good].It's quite possible to imagine that, under such a system, people might think that  humans (or whatevers) don't really have any inalienable rights so it doesn't matter whether or not the corpse is a shell and consequently animating dead is not an evil act. (Of course, not much else would be either).</blockquote>

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