[Evil Inbox] Weren't the Soldiers Just Following Orders?

[Raenir Salazar]

Slightly tongue in cheek title, but I think its slightly appropriate since it forms a nice contrast with the fact that the Deva cites the Yamashi.ta Standard aka Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles in regards to Roy tolerated a Token Evil PC on his team.

As such, do people believe that the soldiers and officers under Tarquin's command had the responsibility to refuse Mr T's orders given a moral choice of not following them was available when engaging the Order? If yes did they deserve to go to one of the Evil Afterlife's or was it permissible under their culture/city's* laws and should be allowed to the Neutral or Good Afterlife if otherwise suited?

*Another way of phrasing the question would be, is Morality Absolute, Up to the Gods, or is it Relative? We know Roy to be Lawful Good and probably deserving to go to Celestia in that he saves me when he can, generally obeys the law and adhere's to his principles. But would this have to be the case for someone from say, lets call it Salazia.

Let us suppose Salazia is ruled by a troika of the heads of the largest most powerful ruling families. Their orders are absolute and they routinely order the execution they believe to harm the interests of the nation, which is synonymous with their interests. This has been going on for a thousand years and they have been at war for nearly as long with a neighbouring nation of Mu, which is also a dictatorship but composed of five ruling people instead of three.

Further suppose, that these two nations are the only nations and encompass the whole world on a single pangea like landmass.

They have ruled for so long that all literature prior to their rule has been revised or deleted entirely. All other forms of thought, or alternate moralities, of any religion previous than the current State religion or Ideology has been erased from history. History as written more or less has begun when the State claims it does.

Language itself, has been incrementally changed so that anything pertaining to traditional morality as we understand it as been fundamentally altered or purged from spoken or written language. You cannot think of dissenting because there are no words to express it, suppose even the concept of what is the difference between good or evil has been erased.

This is an extreme example, but its meant to express an inductive way of thinking, if for example in such as example we agree "A Soldier in either country could still go to the Lawful Good if they were a lawful person and generally good when it did not conflict with the laws and society" then the question is "Why not in Tarquin's regime?" And if we say "No, even then. They should have on some level understood and made the moral choice even if they couldn't even express what such a choice would be" this would mean also no in Tarquin's regime.

Discuss.

[The Giant]

Discuss.

Let's not. This topic is too close to the "Is X action by Y character morally justified?" and those topics are locked around here.

Those soldiers are in the Lawful Evil Inbox because those specific soldiers are Lawful Evil. It is not intended to represent every soldier currently being killed, and there are plenty showing up in Acheron, Gehenna, Hades, Mechanus, Carceri, the Outlands, etc. It is not even really intended to be every Lawful Evil soldier killed, as Director Lee isn't responsible for every LE mortal that dies.

Further, the fact that Tarquin would kill their families for hurting Elan does not mean that the soldiers saying that are not also Evil. The two factors have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Tarquin's not about to say, "Well, you killed my remaining son, but you detect as Evil, so let's go get a beer." Evil soldiers can still not want their families to be killed. And it doesn't mean that the soldiers are being actively coerced into serving in the army through threats to their loved ones—just that they know where the boundaries are.

Thread locked.