Quote Originally Posted by Aliquid View Post
So LG says "The ends don't justify the means", where as CG will say "Actually...often they do"?
A better way to look at it is that every morality says that the ends justify the means. The question isn't about means. It never really is. It is about ends. But that rarely comes up because most people don't recognise the nature of the discussion.

So take the example of a dragon demanding a sacrifice or burning the town. The arguments look like they are over means, with the ends being 'let town be burnt' vs 'not let town be burnt'. In reality the discussion is about the ends: sacrifice my personal morality, or the morality of the town as a collective in order to protect the town? Sacrifice the town in order to protect the morality of myself and/or the town.

Means are not the real issue. Ends is the real issue. And in a world where good and evil are physical forces, that might be a much harder choice to make than here.

A paladin, for example, fully in line with LG-ness, might recognise the 'greater good' and sacrifice one of pure heart and so on. Personally taking a small child to be chomped on by Big Red. The paladin will fall. The paladin sacrificed their own moral standing (and powers) for the benefit of the community. The paladin fell so others didn't have to.

A chaotic good person may instead say that everyone's moral standing is important to the cosmos. More important than their life. Its not enough for the collective to be good, as individuals we must be good or nothing matters. On this reasoning the CGer may try to stop the paladin.

One could easily think of arguments where the CG is in favour of the collective good and the LG in favour of the individual good. So the specifics of who is in favour of what is not important in this example, merely to show the difference in ends

Everyone believes that the ends justify the means. They just disagree on what the ends should be.