Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

[shilsen]

But that doesn't mean I buy shilsen's idea that how we think about sexuality is solely a cultural construction. While I'm not an essentialist, I think it's pretty hard to argue that there are no essential aspects to how we can think and feel about sexuality.

Actually, from your posts on ENWorld, I'd guess that I'm much more of an essentialist than you are To be precise, I think that the kind of conceptions about sex and sexuality which I'm referring to are primarily a cultural construction. Perhaps they have certain roots in essential aspects of the sex act, but I think they move very far away from said roots in both theory and practice.

While I am not the philosopher necessary to formulate a working logic of why I feel this way, I definitely do not believe that my views on sexuality are irrational. I just can't voice the rationality.

Well, except to say that to objectify women sunders gender equality.

No argument there. I was just arguing that paying a woman for sex only becomes objectification if one has the ambivalent conception of sex I've been referring to above. If sex is viewed as similar to most other physical activity, then paying for sex is no more objectifying an act than paying for a massage or paying for a loaf of bread.

I don't think anybody (or at least not me) would disagree with you and say that objectifying women is fine. I don't think objectifying any indidividual or group is acceptable. The only reason I used female prostitutes in the original story was because female prostitutes have been historically more common. I think this debate would work just fine using male prostitutes, and I wonder what directions the discussion would have gone in if I had written Cedric as explicitly homosexual or bisexual. And since I haven't written him as not bisexual, that gives me some ideas

 

[fusangite]

Ormiss,

Spirited debate is my normal mode on ENWorld, as many can attest. And you'll find that everyone I disagree with gets the same treatment. There is no personal animosity intended.

Anyway, to continue,

Let me say this: Feudalism is a sub-system which required a monarchy (generally) to be in place.

Actually, that's not really the case. Vassalage is a pyramidal structure; how far up it stretched varied from place to place and time to time. Sometimes, there was just the peasant and his lord. Sometimes, there were emperors above barons above lords, sometimes kings. The key feature of the system is that at each level, there is an unequal reciprocal relationship. Monarchy does not entail vassalage nor does vassalage entail monarchy.

The people in a monarchy are already disenfranchised and unequal.

Monarchies come in all shapes and sizes. Two of the G8 nations today are constitutional monarchies (the UK and Canada) and are governed by elected parliaments.

If you want to argue that feudalism/vassalage further disenfranchises the people by separating them into nobles and commoners, that's fine by me, but it sounds a bit like saying "he died of blood loss" of a person who was crushed by a 1,000 ton boulder.

Well, as I've just demonstrated, unequal hierarchical social structures are not intrinsic features of monarchy but they are intrinsic features of vassalage. That's why I chose to specify vassalage.

Also, feudalism was no less consensual than being forced to prostitute yourself to survive--during the first generation.

Yes. But not all prostitutes are coerced; in all likelihood the vast majority are. But, as with monarchy, force is not an intrinsic feature of prostitution.

Actually, from your posts on ENWorld, I'd guess that I'm much more of an essentialist than you are.

Whatever are you referring to?

To be precise, I think that the kind of conceptions about sex and sexuality which I'm referring to are primarily a cultural construction. Perhaps they have certain roots in essential aspects of the sex act, but I think they move very far away from said roots in both theory and practice.

My argument is more tied to my belief that some gender differences with respect to sexual behaviour are social constructions, some arise from physiological and neurophysiological differences between sexes and the majority arise from some kind of dialectic between the two.

 

[Voadam]

Perhaps my use of "rational" wasn't the best choice, since that can be taken to mean a few different things. By rational, I specifically meant (a) not based primarily on emotion, and (b) not culturally mandated.



I'd personally say that any connection between sex and morality is a culturally-mandated one, since there is no intrinsic link between the two. IMNSHO, of course

Uhm can you give me some examples of a valid reason to consider something immoral that is not at base an emotional justification?

Torture for example.

Torture is bad. why? because it hurts people. So? hurting people is bad. Why? It just is.

The last step in a logical chain is always to a self evident truth, which can only be evaluated emotionally. Does it make sense to you on its own. In High School geometry we called this a postulate.

Here the postulate is that sex is fundamentally intimate.

Your postulate is that sex is not fundamentally intimate, it can be impersonal depending on cultural values.

They don't seem to be different in kind statements (they are both postulates), just different in specifics. Of course without more discussion explaining any relevant differences going to the reasoning underlying those statements (i.e. why they are not postulates but consquences of other postulates).

 

[Torm]

Torture is bad. why? because it hurts people. So? hurting people is bad. Why? It just is.

Actually, you can boil this down through logic and science. You're right that it will involve emotion, but not the way you imply:
Scientific exploration of physics, the human body, and human psychology indicates that humans generally share enough of a common experience to allow a general consensus amongst many people's perceptions to act as a predictor for individuals.

To use your example, I do not find torture to be an experience I would enjoy. I haven't actually conducted this poll, but I would be willing to bet that it is safe to say that a majority of the people here would agree. Based on this, it would be a good guess that a new member who joins tomorrow will not enjoy torture, either. When a trend like this is strong enough, one can conclude that exceptions are anomalies, and you might need to look for an extra factor in those cases - like someone who claims to enjoy torture, but who in fact enjoys degradation or certain types of pain. In those cases, there is almost certainly some sort of diagnosable psychological disorder or quirk that removes them from the standard.

To follow this back to the situation under discussion - prostitution - you have to put each type through the same test:

Type I: Being forced to have sex in exchange for money or other compensation like drugs (coercive pimp type situation) is not something I would enjoy, and once again, I would bet most here would agree. So that is wrong.

Type II: Being lured by an amount of money difficult to resist into having sex for it, even though doing so violates the tenets of a religion one wants to follow, or causes an impratical likelihood of spreading disease or causing pregnancy. Here it becomes a little more vague, because there's no threat of violence - if one believes in degrees of wrong, this is a little less wrong than Type I on the part of the johns, a little more wrong on the part of the hooker. Still wrong, all the way around, though. And once again, placing most people here in the shoes of the hooker, I'm sure they would agree they were being wronged somehow.

Type III: Getting paid to have sex that one finds either indifferent or actually enjoyable, when one has no religious strictures against it. If the reasonably normal, not-sick-looking waitress (or waiter, depending on your gender and/or orientation ) offered you a decent amount of money to have sex with them, and you had no belief that there was any spiritual reason or reasonable logistical reason (high risk of disease, fear of pregnancy, angry spouse of the john) for you not to, I believe many people would. I freely admit I would.

The Type III situation is what we are talking about - a situation that it may be hard for many who have certain religious convictions regarding the sanctity of the body, sex, and relationships between men and women to even imagine. But a situation that is nonetheless entirely possible - as has been proven historically - in the absence of religion, or in religions without the same strictures.

 

[shilsen]

Uhm can you give me some examples of a valid reason to consider something immoral that is not at base an emotional justification?

Tempting as that is, this would probably result in a hugely complicated discussion and get into areas of semantics and philosophy which I'd rather not debate here, so I'll pass. But I do understand what you mean by a postulate and why you see it (as used here) as finally coming down to emotional justification. I'd lean closer - though with significant differences - to the kind of position Torm outlined above, so I think we differ mainly on issues of definition.

Here the postulate is that sex is fundamentally intimate.

Your postulate is that sex is not fundamentally intimate, it can be impersonal depending on cultural values.

To be precise, I was saying that while certain cultures view sex as fundamentally intimate, it can be impersonal depending on the perspective of the individuals involved.

 

[Ormiss]

Actually, that's not really the case. Vassalage is a pyramidal structure; how far up it stretched varied from place to place and time to time. Sometimes, there was just the peasant and his lord. Sometimes, there were emperors above barons above lords, sometimes kings. The key feature of the system is that at each level, there is an unequal reciprocal relationship. Monarchy does not entail vassalage nor does vassalage entail monarchy.

True, but you used the word feudalism in the post I originally replied to, and feudalism for me implies the system mimicked in "medieval fantasy" such as D&D. If you meant the entire spectrum of vassalage (which, due to the way language evolves, is quite huge) then I'm appeased.

I did say "(generally)" about monarchy. Vassalage implies that someone is capable of enforcing the system upon others. I'm genuinely interested in being pointed in the direction of a system where no governing body enforced the vassalage in the first place, if you have information about such a system. I can think of none off the top of my head, but I might be missing something.

Monarchies come in all shapes and sizes. Two of the G8 nations today are constitutional monarchies (the UK and Canada) and are governed by elected parliaments.

Well, a constitutional monarchy isn't a monarchy. It's a constitutional monarchy. I'll grant you your point, but I assumed it would be implied that I meant autocratic, "standard" monarchy. I anticipated I might be called out on this point, however. Sweden is also a constitutional monarchy, for your information. An autocratic monarchy (such as the ones that gave rise to feudalism) is inherently disenfranchising and unequal. I think you will agree with me on that.

You mentioned earlier that you cannot be a vassal to a concept or intangible entity. While that is true in the historical sense of the word, it is hardly true in the modern use of the word. You can't be a knight of darkness or a vassal of pain in the logical sense, just as you cannot be a "slave to love." A slave, after all, has to be owned by a person.

 

[Navar]

The problem as I see it is that Good and Evil aren’t relative. They are just as true as up and down (on the Prime Material Plane) or as North and South. Prostitution MAY not hurt (be evil) to the 2 people involved, but it does hurt society. AND hurting society is an evil act. This is the CRUX of the victimless crime argument. IF prostitution is allowed to exist then society is hurt by it. If nothing else it encourages the objectification of women. Objectifying women is a BAD thing (even if it is the social norm it is still bad.) So prostitution encourages a bad thing. Prostitution = evil. If anyone can prove that prostitution doesn't encourage the objectification of women, or that said objectification of women is a bad thing then I have other points, but lets start with this one.

 

[Voadam]

Actually, you can boil this down through logic and science. You're right that it will involve emotion, but not the way you imply:
Scientific exploration of physics, the human body, and human psychology indicates that humans generally share enough of a common experience to allow a general consensus amongst many people's perceptions to act as a predictor for individuals.

To use your example, I do not find torture to be an experience I would enjoy. I haven't actually conducted this poll, but I would be willing to bet that it is safe to say that a majority of the people here would agree. Based on this, it would be a good guess that a new member who joins tomorrow will not enjoy torture, either. When a trend like this is strong enough, one can conclude that exceptions are anomalies, and you might need to look for an extra factor in those cases - like someone who claims to enjoy torture, but who in fact enjoys degradation or certain types of pain. In those cases, there is almost certainly some sort of diagnosable psychological disorder or quirk that removes them from the standard.

To follow this back to the situation under discussion - prostitution - you have to put each type through the same test:

Type I: Being forced to have sex in exchange for money or other compensation like drugs (coercive pimp type situation) is not something I would enjoy, and once again, I would bet most here would agree. So that is wrong.

Type II: Being lured by an amount of money difficult to resist into having sex for it, even though doing so violates the tenets of a religion one wants to follow, or causes an impratical likelihood of spreading disease or causing pregnancy. Here it becomes a little more vague, because there's no threat of violence - if one believes in degrees of wrong, this is a little less wrong than Type I on the part of the johns, a little more wrong on the part of the hooker. Still wrong, all the way around, though. And once again, placing most people here in the shoes of the hooker, I'm sure they would agree they were being wronged somehow.

Type III: Getting paid to have sex that one finds either indifferent or actually enjoyable, when one has no religious strictures against it. If the reasonably normal, not-sick-looking waitress (or waiter, depending on your gender and/or orientation ) offered you a decent amount of money to have sex with them, and you had no belief that there was any spiritual reason or reasonable logistical reason (high risk of disease, fear of pregnancy, angry spouse of the john) for you not to, I believe many people would. I freely admit I would.

The Type III situation is what we are talking about - a situation that it may be hard for many who have certain religious convictions regarding the sanctity of the body, sex, and relationships between men and women to even imagine. But a situation that is nonetheless entirely possible - as has been proven historically - in the absence of religion, or in religions without the same strictures.

What you are saying is that if people generally do not like it done to themselves then it is wrong. If you don't mind having it done to you then it is not wrong.

People don't want to be punished even if they do wrong. Does that make all punishment wrong? Nothing wants to die, does that make all killing wrong? Nobody wants to be fired, is all firing immoral?

Is it impossible to like something that is immoral or wrong without being diagnosably disordered?

 

[Torm]

People don't want to be punished even if they do wrong. Does that make all punishment wrong? Nothing wants to die, does that make all killing wrong? Nobody wants to be fired, is all firing immoral?

Well, there is a certain amount of, "what do I deserve?" involved, too, when it comes to being punished. Once again, you can take this back to what the general answer would be in, say, a poll of 1000 people. "What would you think you deserve to have happen to you if you killed someone else for monetary gain?"

Unfortunately, no one seems to really be doing these polls I speak of for consensus. Which is a shame, IMO, because without them to allow a more objective sentencing for crimes, it frequently does come down to the individual judge or juror - "What am I comfortable with doing to someone else as punishment for this?" Which isn't the same question at all, and is frequently less than they would expect to have happen if they did it themselves. :\ People sometimes like to be gracious and "civilized," so they are lenient. OR, they are forced to ask themselves, individually, "What would I expect to happen to me?" Which is probably a little better, but they still have no way of knowing whether or not their individual answer deviates significantly from the general consensus of the society they are supposed to be serving as a judge or juror. If we had a societal consensus, up front and refreshed from time to time (maybe with the census) of what we consider to be fair to be done to ourselves if we commit specific crimes, that burden would be taken off of them somewhat, and society as a whole would feel that it was served better by the court systems than it is now.

(Of course, fixing the whole plea bargaining arrangement would help too. But that's not directly relevant to what we're discussing.)

Is it impossible to like something that is immoral or wrong without being diagnosably disordered?

Maybe at this time. But, that is only a failing of current psychological knowledge, not an indicator that they won't be at some point in the future. I believe that, if mankind survives long enough, we will eventually understand the root causes of most behavior - all behavior, "deviant" or not, will be diagnosable and potentally "treatable." I only hope that at that point we will have the good sense to place the line between acceptable variance and unacceptable deviance somewhere that still allows for plenty of diversity and individual expression, or we'll doom ourselves.

 

[Endur]

I agree that Lawful should mean Lawful whether you are Lawful Good or Lawful Evil. But I do not agree with your definition of Lawful as obedience to an internal code.

Lawful, for me, is obedience to all relevant codes and authorities. Sometimes the authorities may conflict (i.e. your internal code may conflict with divine orders or orders of your liege lorde), but Lawful requires that you are obedient to all of the authorities.

Oh, a quick postscript to my previous post: I realize some people may find places where the SRD contradicts my definition of Lawful. I don't care. Like I said, I've seen the authors, even ones at TSR/Wizards, screw this up before, and I sincerely believe my way of looking at it works better. After all, if Lawful meant always having to respect "the proper authorities" all the time, you'd have to ride all over the Good/Neutral/Evil spectrum to stay Lawful, just depending on what town you're riding through! And if you look at their alignment definitions, they make it look like the "Lawful" in Lawful Good means something different than the "Lawful" in Lawful Evil. I'm sorry, but Lawful should mean the same concept regardless of whatever else you tack on - but maybe that's just my Lawful nature coming out.

So your example rogue with a strong internal code would be neutral to me, neither lawful nor chaotic.