Good and Evil, and the stupid versions thereof

[Sartharina]

Doesn't matter - if it's the word that the rulebook uses for that kind of act:

I misused the word. Should have used "Stupid CLEANSE PURGE KILL Good"

An act can be genocidal even without any "systemic abuse" - V's Familicide spell for example.

Familicide is genocidal (Quite literally), and it targets innocents. Swording Evil people is not Genocidal, even if it racks up a similar bodycount.


... actually, the Perfect Fireman Axe is better for the task. And a Tyrannosaurus Rex with robot machinegun arms also helps.

[hamishspence]

Swording Evil people is not Genocidal, even if it racks up a similar bodycount.

It can, however, qualify as Murder, when there is not "Just Cause".

The forces of Good are obliged to place certain limitations on their violence - in order for that violence to qualify as "Good" or "not Evil".

This is because Good is concerned with life - if the world was destroyed, and the Lower Planes were destroyed, and all that was left was souls (Good ones) rather than living beings - this would be a huge failure for the powers of Good.

[Sartharina]

This is because Good is concerned with life - if the world was destroyed, and the Lower Planes were destroyed, and all that was left was souls (Good ones) rather than living beings - this would be a huge failure for the powers of Good.

You seem to have gotten Good and Positive Energy mixed up. And you're also speaking as though the souls aren't alive, when they very much are.

[hamishspence]

And you're also speaking as though the souls aren't alive, when they very much are.

Not going by Complete Divine - a soul isn't the same thing as a low level outsider.

You seem to have gotten Good and Positive Energy mixed up.

"Good implies respect for life".

To strongly Good beings - killing is always a tragedy - and it takes fairly extreme circumstances for it to be excusable. The same sort of circumstances that turn Murder into Justifiable Homicide.

[Ettina]

There's also the Miko version of Stupid Good where you kill people for littering because that is a selfish and evil act and it is the duty of all good-aligned individuals to purge evil wherever they see it.

That's not stupid good, that's stupid lawful. Miko at her best barely skates by as good, but throughout her entire character arc, she's consistently lawful stupid.

[Ettina]

Zombies in many games are Always Evil, even if they do nothing more than what any wild animal does.

Similarly, according to the rules, a Lawful Good Necropolitan would still ping on detect evil, purely because they're undead.

[Sartharina]

That's not stupid good, that's stupid lawful. Miko at her best barely skates by as good, but throughout her entire character arc, she's consistently lawful stupid.

Are we reading the same Miko? The one I read did not kill evil Bandits on sight (only after they insulted and attacked her), went out of her way to help civilians in trouble, and not only confirmed that Roy and his party were guilty of crimes through investigation (Though she did get the Linear Guild's crime pinned on the OotS, one of their 'evils' was their typical disregard for NPCs, and another, and another exaggerated the effects), but also confirmed that Roy detected as Evil before attacking - and she was willing to hold up her attack once Durkon managed to convince her that Roy wasn't Evil (And she verified).

Miko isn't a "Smite-Happy" paladin outside of a single gag. Instead, she's the "Stupid Good" type of Paladin acting on partial/incomplete information and leaping to conclusions. She's a deconstruction of the "If the law is wrong/corrupt, it's the Paladin's duty to rebel against it" paladin and "Party Police" paladins ("We WILL do things my way, which is the Right and Just way. Help the peasants! Don't Impersonate Royalty! Live an aescetic life!")

[Wardog]

Well ''realistic''.....

There is Stupid Good like:

1.Telling the truth An even happens that is very evil, wrong and illegal, but where no one good is directly hurt. And you and some others greatly benefit from this event. Yet, the Stupid Good person will still come forward and ''tell the truth'' and ruin everyone's lives forever.

I can't think of anything that would reasonably fit that description. Why would people's lives be "ruined forever" by revealing that you/others have benefitted from something "very evil, wrong and illegal"?

I don't think the examples you gave explain that, or even have anything much to do with that point:

Star Trek gives a great example: Evil Cardassian does horrible evil experiments in life forms and builds up a huge library of knowledge. A bit later an alien attaches itself to a human. A quick search shows that only the Cardassian's knowledge can help save the life of the human. So what do you do? Ignore the knowledge gain using utter evil? Just ''hope and pray'' that you can find another way? Or is it ok to say ''we can use the knowledge for good'' and just not worry where it came from?

How about the classic Demon Kickstart. At one time Slog was a nobody, but then he sold his soul to a deman and the demon jump started his carrier. So, now, after Slog has spent 20 years ''doing good all on his own'' is it ok to ruin his life by digging up the dirt that he got help from a demon 20 years ago?

Or the Robin Hood twist: A person Robs the Mob, and then take that money to pay off the debt of a church, day care center or foodbank. Does that place refuse the ''blood money'' and close down?

1) Is Stupid Good, but doesn't have anything to do with the original point. Noone is having their lives ruined by you telling the truth about the Cardassian. (They are being Stupid Good by refusing treatment).

2) If selling your soul is "very evil, wrong and illegal", that presumably means doing so causes a lot of harm (or will lead to a lot of harm in the future). If the demon is going to come back one day and turn Slog into a horrible monster (for example), people need to be aware. If the demon is going to come back and drag Slog down to Hell, people probably ought to know to. On the other hand, if nothing is bad is going to happen, then why was this act "very evil, wrong and illegal"?

3) Either the church/food-bank/etc has a good reason for refusing the money, or it doesn't. If it does, letting them know where it came from is Good (and concealing it from them could cause all sorts of other problems in the future). If it doesn't, then it is the recipient that is being "Stupid Good", not the person telling them the truth about the money.

(Besides, I haven't seen that moral dilemma come up much. "Should I take blood money?" is more often about when the bad guy is offering them some of their ill-gotten gains, and you have to decide whether taking it would help legitimize the evil acts, or put you in their debt. "Robin Hood stole the money from the bad guys" is only somewhat different from "the courts fined the bad guy, and the government uses some of that money for social programmes". (And the difference is more about Law vs. Chaos).

2.Not Letting Go Someone, in the course of good, does something a bit on the gray side. They let their superior know and end up doing good and saving that day. But then the Stupid Good superior still has them arrested and charged.

Yea, this is like if someone is badly hurt you rush them to the nearest hospital...and ignore things like stop signs and red lights. You can make it to the hospital and save the persons life, but idiot Robocop will still give you 15 tickets for all the traffic laws you broke.

That's Lawful Stupid, not Stupid Good.

3.Blindness The bad guys put a bomb in a town to go off at midnight, and the good guys stay there looking for the bomb until it explodes and kills them.[/QUOTE]
As others have said - if there are still people in the blast area, that's not "Stupid Good" - that's "beyond-the-call-of-duty heroism". If everyone has evacuated, that <I>might</I> be Stupid Good, but that depends on how important whatever would get destroyed is. And I'mnot even sure what

It's only hero good if it's direct.

means.

[Talakeal]

Same thing. If you enjoy hurting me, then it doesn't matter whether I'm hurt by a good act (you reported a crime I committed) or an evil act (you took my money). The spite is the same either way.

But I give back somebody else's money, even if I don't like her, because it's the right thing to do.
.

I am not sure if we are talking on quite the same frequency.

What I was trying to say is that some people do try and hurt people simply out of spite. Regardless of what act they are actually performing, I would say that if you are doing something purely because it will hurt someone else regardless of whether or not it benefits you, then you are acting out of spite or malice which is pretty close evil for evil's sake. Likewise a sadist who simply wants to hurt others is more or less evil for evil's sake.

Now, I guess you could use it as some sort of reverse "psychological egoism" in which case people are hurting others not because it is evil but because they feel good when they inflict pain, but I would say that it comes close enough to evil for evil's sake in either case.

[Prince Raven]

While you certainly have an interesting take on alignment, Sartharina, I think we've established that according to the base rules and how most people play that a paladin can't go around killing everyone who detects as evil and remain Good.

[Sith_Happens]

So you admit people who just want the world to burn aren't same and this should not be considered models of rational and acceptible behavior?

...No? You claimed that the posters talking about the idea of "evil for evil's sake" on the first page were assuming rational actors. I pointed out that there is no actual evidence of that in their posts.

[Talakeal]

...No? You claimed that the posters talking about the idea of "evil for evil's sake" on the first page were assuming rational actors. I pointed out that there is no actual evidence of that in their posts.

Rational is really a sliding scale. Philosophically, all motivations boil down to "because I put value in it" rather than any universal concept of rationality*. Someone can be clearly insane, but someone can also be sadistic or disturbed without being "irrational". Loving someone and wanting what is best for them is really no more rational than hating them and wanting to hurt them, they are both goals based on social constructs and human feelings. Also, in a world where there are tangible manifestations of evil in the form of gods and demons it might actually be perfectly rationale to assist them by performing evil for evil's sake.


*: This always bugged me about the Vulcans in Star Trek. They always talk about putting logic above desire, but without emotional desires to guide it you can't have any sort of goal or motivation.

[Grim Portent]

*: This always bugged me about the Vulcans in Star Trek. They always talk about putting logic above desire, but without emotional desires to guide it you can't have any sort of goal or motivation.

You kind of can, but the only realistic goal you can have is to propagate on general principles (think ants, bees or termites). So all they should realistically be doing is making more of themselves and improving their lifespans. Pretty dull really.


The stupid versions of good include things like trusting the captured bad guy when they say they want to reform, right before they jam a sword in your spine, saving monsters from falling to their death and so on.

Careless trust, misplaced mercy, misguided charity, excess honesty, these are the failings of good. (Prior list may or may not contain all the failings of good.)

[Lanaya]

You kind of can, but the only realistic goal you can have is to propagate on general principles (think ants, bees or termites). So all they should realistically be doing is making more of themselves and improving their lifespans. Pretty dull really.

Still no. Without emotion, why would you have any reason to pursue the propagation of your species? People only want to do that because they like their own species, which is an irrational response. You could say that it's the purpose of your existence to produce more of your species, but why do you care about your purpose in life if you don't have emotions? A purely logical being does nothing, because it has no reason to do anything.

[Grim Portent]

Still no. Without emotion, why would you have any reason to pursue the propagation of your species? People only want to do that because they like their own species, which is an irrational response. You could say that it's the purpose of your existence to produce more of your species, but why do you care about your purpose in life if you don't have emotions? A purely logical being does nothing, because it has no reason to do anything.

Well in the Vulkans case they embraced logic and forsook emotion to preserve their race, so their logic is slanted towards that goal, with a side order of utilitarian ethics. But the logical purpose of life is to make more life, emotion doesn't enter into it. Tons of species that are essentially mindless reproduce, and even species that eat their own kind reproduce. It's not about liking your own species, it's about your body being programmed to make you breed, hell emotion is one of the things that prevents people from breeding since it applies so much circumstantial baggage to children.

[Lanaya]

But the logical purpose of life is to make more life

No it's not. Life doesn't have a purpose. It isn't the purpose of fire to burn, or stars to give off light, or water to make things wet. It's just what they do. Trying to assign very human concepts such as a purpose to such phenomena is a rather anthropocentric way of looking at things. And again, why does it matter if you have a purpose? There's no logical reason to fulfill that purpose, it's just something that some people might do because it makes them feel good about themselves and gives them some sense of accomplishment.

[SiuiS]

I don't think most people would be neutral though. Most people side with good or evil not just by choice, but by life style.

If you find a 100 gold bag and keep it for any reason, you have done an evil act. After all a good person would turn the money in and/or try to find the owner.

I agree with the first part. The second part is confusing law for good. Ownership is not good. You don't need to return the gold to be good. You need due diligence on returning the gold. If it's not feasible then you can keep it. Or you can keep it and when someone comes along and lays out how they're 100 gold poorer and you're certain it was theirs, redeem it then.

I think you're going with your own headcanon here. There are many settings where there's a constant cosmic war between celestial and demonic forces, and where both sides are dogmatic, scary and don't really care much about mortals (or care about them in creepy ways), but DND is not one of those settings.

It very much is. It tries not to be, nowadays, but the roots are still there and are taken by accident by people who don't know what they're replicating.

A living D&D world maybe should not be, but this hypothetical "as it is in the books" game? Definitely. I prefer your game to this hypothetical one though.

I prefer the Eberron approach:

Problem: that's an exception what proves the rule; it has to be called out that this setting does not operate like normal D&D. This setting has actual morality and not alignment. That means alignment is not inherently what Eberron has, but the other option.

Same thing. If you enjoy hurting me, then it doesn't matter whether I'm hurt by a good act (you reported a crime I committed) or an evil act (you took my money). The spite is the same either way.

Yes and no. Alignment is not a debit system where you balance it and get the Net Alignment Points. It is fully possible to perform an act that is simultaneously good, evil, neutral and lawful. Because action, immediate outcome, intention, and reasonable responsibility all play a part in it. A good act done for evil ends is both; but you end up more evil even as you put good in the world. It's, quite frankly, a terrible system for anything other than mortals caught in an immortals war.

I would argue that a universe with literal objective Good and Evil is be so far divorced from our modern interpretation of morality that the words themselves have almost entirely different meanings. Arguing a literal morality from a subjective perspective is always going to cause arguments.

Well spoke.

Why not? He inflicts suffering on others, depriving them of their livelihoods, and hastening their deaths. He provides no services or redeeming qualities to offset his villainy. It's easy to overvalue the lives of scum when you don't think about what the repercussions of their actions are. And, if in response to being killed, his friends and family and other scum looking for an excuse decide to burn down the city his presence blighted, the suffering from their actions is on them, not the guy who put the thief down.

And...:

Eh. It's not that simple, still. He's evil, but killing him isn't the only recourse. As you said, if you can make him not evil, you still win.

That's it. Both you and Frozen Feet are right on different levels. They are based on modern standards (slavery is always evil, people have fundamental rights etc.), .

3e has slavery as Lawful, not evil. Chattel slavery is evil due to the injustices committed against the sovereignty of the slaves, Viking era slavery (where war survivors get into Viking society as the lowest social caste and are told to climb the ladder) and fomorians (lawful neutral, nothing evil about their continent wide mind control slavery rings) are all lawful.

this is actually not true in second edition as well there were non-evil fiends as well (perhaps earlier editions as well i don't know one way or the other.

actually where does it say killing fiend is always a good act with no qualifiers of any kind.

In planescape perhaps, but by default "fiend" was a term specifically for evil outsiders from the lower planes.

Heck, even Dragonlance, the undisputed most black-and-white Good vs. Evil setting in all of D&D (to the point that Law and Chaos are an afterthought and the entire world is Color-Coded for Your Convenience), had a Good empire get wiped out by its own gods for growing so zealous and intolerant of Evil that it screen-wrapped to being Evil (or at least Lawful Stupid) itself.

That's a factor of D&D in general, really. See prior thing about how drow happened.

I don't see how "Because it causes you pain and suffering" is functionally different from "Because it's the evil thing to do."

Intention. Pain is a catalyst for growth. The drill instructor at paladin academy does not gain evil points when he whomp a a student in combat training. This is because he does it so the pain can help him instruct; he does not relish it for the pain but the lesson, and his heart feels compassion and a bit of remorse.

[Talakeal]

No it's not. Life doesn't have a purpose. It isn't the purpose of fire to burn, or stars to give off light, or water to make things wet. It's just what they do. Trying to assign very human concepts such as a purpose to such phenomena is a rather anthropocentric way of looking at things. And again, why does it matter if you have a purpose? There's no logical reason to fulfill that purpose, it's just something that some people might do because it makes them feel good about themselves and gives them some sense of accomplishment.

That kind of reminds me of Charles Forte's criticism of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection as a sort of tautology. To paraphrase "Things that are good at surviving survive. Those that aren't are dead. Therefore all surviving life has been able to survive."

Intention. Pain is a catalyst for growth. The drill instructor at paladin academy does not gain evil points when he whomp a a student in combat training. This is because he does it so the pain can help him instruct; he does not relish it for the pain but the lesson, and his heart feels compassion and a bit of remorse.

And if your intention is to cause pain for the sake of causing pain because you are a sadist / malicious / spiteful / hateful and get pleasure from seeing other people suffer?

[Sartharina]

"Because I enjoy it" is a different motivation from "Because it is the [Alignment[/i] thing to do."

[hamishspence]

3e has slavery as Lawful, not evil. Chattel slavery is evil due to the injustices committed against the sovereignty of the slaves, Viking era slavery (where war survivors get into Viking society as the lowest social caste and are told to climb the ladder) and fomorians (lawful neutral, nothing evil about their continent wide mind control slavery rings) are all lawful.

BoED at least calls it Evil rather than Lawful. Which raises the question of what kind of slavery they're calling Evil - all kinds - or only a subset.

[Synar]

I can't think of anything that would reasonably fit that description. Why would people's lives be "ruined forever" by revealing that you/others have benefitted from something "very evil, wrong and illegal"?

I don't think the examples you gave explain that, or even have anything much to do with that point:


1) Is Stupid Good, but doesn't have anything to do with the original point. Noone is having their lives ruined by you telling the truth about the Cardassian. (They are being Stupid Good by refusing treatment).

2) If selling your soul is "very evil, wrong and illegal", that presumably means doing so causes a lot of harm (or will lead to a lot of harm in the future). If the demon is going to come back one day and turn Slog into a horrible monster (for example), people need to be aware. If the demon is going to come back and drag Slog down to Hell, people probably ought to know to. On the other hand, if nothing is bad is going to happen, then why was this act "very evil, wrong and illegal"?

3) Either the church/food-bank/etc has a good reason for refusing the money, or it doesn't. If it does, letting them know where it came from is Good (and concealing it from them could cause all sorts of other problems in the future). If it doesn't, then it is the recipient that is being "Stupid Good", not the person telling them the truth about the money.

(Besides, I haven't seen that moral dilemma come up much. "Should I take blood money?" is more often about when the bad guy is offering them some of their ill-gotten gains, and you have to decide whether taking it would help legitimize the evil acts, or put you in their debt. "Robin Hood stole the money from the bad guys" is only somewhat different from "the courts fined the bad guy, and the government uses some of that money for social programmes". (And the difference is more about Law vs. Chaos).




That's Lawful Stupid, not Stupid Good.

3.Blindness The bad guys put a bomb in a town to go off at midnight, and the good guys stay there looking for the bomb until it explodes and kills them.
As others have said - if there are still people in the blast area, that's not "Stupid Good" - that's "beyond-the-call-of-duty heroism". If everyone has evacuated, that <I>might</I> be Stupid Good, but that depends on how important whatever would get destroyed is. And I'mnot even sure what

means.

I see your stupid good and raise you a Kantian Paladin.


He may not lie. No, not even then.

[Sith_Happens]

Intention. Pain is a catalyst for growth. The drill instructor at paladin academy does not gain evil points when he whomp a a student in combat training. This is because he does it so the pain can help him instruct; he does not relish it for the pain but the lesson, and his heart feels compassion and a bit of remorse.

You're twisting the context on its head. I was talking about "Because it causes you pain and suffering" as the intention behind an act, not about "Causing pain and suffering" as the act itself.

BoED at least calls it Evil rather than Lawful. Which raises the question of what kind of slavery they're calling Evil - all kinds - or only a subset.

Presumably only a subset, otherwise the Formians have some 'splaining to do.

[hamishspence]

Or it's just that they've been "grandfathered in" - being portrayed exactly as they were in older editions - without taking into account that morality's gotten stricter.

Quite a lot of 3.0-3.5 monsters act in a fashion that DMs would probably call evil if it was the players doing it.

One could go with "Slavery is evil - but formians commit enough Good overall that they're Neutral rather than Evil" - but there's no evidence of such Good behaviour on their part.

[Wardog]

I agree with the first part. The second part is confusing law for good. Ownership is not good. You don't need to return the gold to be good. You need due diligence on returning the gold. If it's not feasible then you can keep it. Or you can keep it and when someone comes along and lays out how they're 100 gold poorer and you're certain it was theirs, redeem it then.

I would say that both Good and Lawful people would want to try to return the gold to its rightful owner. However, keeping it for yourself would not generally be Evil.

Although this probably also depends on circumstances - if you see a charity collector accidently drop their collection, and snatch it up before they realise its missing, that would tend to evil. But you find the gold in the middle of the desert, outside any lawful jurisdiction and with no possible way to determine who it belonged to (or how many years its been lying there), then I'm sure even a paladin could take it without any criticism.

[hamishspence]

I would say that both Good and Lawful people would want to try to return the gold to its rightful owner. However, keeping it for yourself would not generally be Evil.

Although this probably also depends on circumstances - if you see a charity collector accidently drop their collection, and snatch it up before they realise its missing, that would tend to evil. But you find the gold in the middle of the desert, outside any lawful jurisdiction and with no possible way to determine who it belonged to (or how many years its been lying there), then I'm sure even a paladin could take it without any criticism.

Yup - the code says a paladin may not steal - nothing there about finding, salvaging, etc.

[Frozen_Feet]

That kind of reminds me of Charles Forte's criticism of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection as a sort of tautology. To paraphrase "Things that are good at surviving survive. Those that aren't are dead. Therefore all surviving life has been able to survive."

That's not a real criticism. Natural selection is a feedback loop, and all feedback loops give appearance of tautology because the causes and effects are interlinked.

The nature of evolution as a feedback loop also means that yes, propagating is the purpose of human life. Evolution leads to beings capable of choosing a purpose, and those who choose a purpose antithetical to propagating will remove themselves from nature. Repeat this a few hundred, or a few million, times and you will end up with a population with self-chosen purpose to primarily propagate.

Purposes don't need to be intrinsic, they can be emergent.

I see your stupid good and raise you a Kantian Paladin.


He may not lie. No, not even then.

This is not as much of a handicap as it's often portrayed as.

[Talakeal]

That's not a real criticism. Natural selection is a feedback loop, and all feedback loops give appearance of tautology because the causes and effects are interlinked.

The nature of evolution as a feedback loop also means that yes, propagating is the purpose of human life. Evolution leads to beings capable of choosing a purpose, and those who choose a purpose antithetical to propagating will remove themselves from nature. Repeat this a few hundred, or a few million, times and you will end up with a population with self-chosen purpose to primarily propagate.

Purposes don't need to be intrinsic, they can be emergent.



This is not as much of a handicap as it's often portrayed as.

It isnt a criticisizim in that he is Saying the theory is wrong. He is saying that the theory just states the painfully obvious and he doesnt see why it is such a revolutinary idea.

Also, I really dont think that you can assign purposes to natural phenomenon like that. If I randomly throw a basket of eggs into the air, and those that land on concrete smash while those that land in the grass remain intact, would you say "the purpose of eggs is to find grass"? Or how about I have a bunch of tools, and those I use regularly tend to break and get thrown out while those that sit on my shelf collecting dust linger for decades, so therefore is the purpose of tools to not get used?

I guess this is just a natter of philosophy with no right answer, but I dont think that just because something is more long lasting in certain condtions means that its sole purpose is to seek those conditions.

[Sartharina]

It isnt a criticisizim in that he is Saying the theory is wrong. He is saying that the theory just states the painfully obvious and he doesnt see why it is such a revolutinary idea.

It seems obvious to us now, in hindsight. But it wasn't. Most scientific theories tend to be incredibly obvious.

[Frozen_Feet]

I don't think you grasped my argument. I'm not arguing the eggs landing on grass landed there on purposes. I'm arguing that after a few hundred generations, when the chickens that lay those eggs have begun to purposefully lay their eggs on grass, you will see chickens arguing that it is, indeed, purposeful to lay the eggs on grass.

As for your tool metaphor, it's not the tools that have evolved to choose their purpose; instead, we would see the human saying that the tools he uses frequently "have a purpose", while those he doesn't use are "purposeless".

[Talakeal]

I don't think you grasped my argument. I'm not arguing the eggs landing on grass landed there on purposes. I'm arguing that after a few hundred generations, when the chickens that lay those eggs have begun to purposefully lay their eggs on grass, you will see chickens arguing that it is, indeed, purposeful to lay the eggs on grass.

As for your tool metaphor, it's not the tools that have evolved to choose their purpose; instead, we would see the human saying that the tools he uses frequently "have a purpose", while those he doesn't use are "purposeless".

Of course they would; but they would be doing so because they are driven by hormones rather than pure logic. I would think that the Vulcans, or those like them, would be smart enough to tell the difference.