Originally Posted by
Scow2
Even if a race leans toward an alignment, it doesn't mean all members of the race are of that alignment (Though it's a good guess if you're attacking, say, Xykon's forces.) Killing, say, a band of goblins that has been peacefully occupying in an otherwise abandoned keep for the past 20 years, and minding its own business except to sell a powerful magic fruit for a fraction of its value to the villagers every year (And, instead of killing murderous intruders, subduing and detaining them until reparations of a fraction of the damages in life and property they cause are repaid) is definitely an evil act. So is slaying the town bard that's decided to make a living playing a flute just because it happens to have the head of a hyena and successfully-repressed urges to murder everyone and desecrate the corpses clawing in the back of its mind.
People who are evil have and continue to commit evil unless stopped... then again, I don't consider someone as able to ping as "evil" unless they have deliberately and remorselessly killed at least one innocent person, with nothing to redeem them. (I consider "Collateral damage", as demonstrated by Mr. Plump's assessment of Moist Von Lipwig in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal to count). Tolerance of genuine Evil shows a blatant disregard of concern for the dignity of the victims of that person. Alignment takes action and intent to achieve.