Pathfinder: How views on Slavery influences character alignment

[witchwood]

Hey everyone, first time posting on these forums and looking for input on a character's morality.

So I've been working on making a new character for an upcoming Pathfinder game, and I decided to go with a young, fresh faced nobleman's daughter from the nation of Molthune. I decided to play her mostly as a typical, eager young cavalier, ready to venture out into the world, do good and earn acclaim. But when reading more about the nation of Molthune I discovered something; slavery is not illegal there, in fact its very much a part of the society, although Molthune is stated to be one of the better nations for slaves, for whatever that's worth. Now as a native of this nation, this cavalier would have likely been brought up to believe that slavery was justified so long as it was held to a certain standard, and given her noble status there's a good chance she was at least partially raised by slaves while her parents were busy or away from home. I thought it would be really interesting to role-play her as someone who has a sheltered understanding of what slavery is and believes that there is 'good' and 'bad' kind of slavery. I was also really interested in how this would affect her alignment, given that I intended for her to be an otherwise typical cavalier, interested in slaying evil and protecting those is need, only with this one (from our point-of-view) glaring moral issue. I asked over on the Pathfinder Reddit and got a lot of varied answers; some said it was fine to play her as LG at first due to her sheltered upbringing, but that as she became more aware of the world she would either have to change her stance on the issue of slavery or alter her alignment appropriately, others suggested that she should be classified as LE but 'thinks' she's lawful good, leading to the same eventual choice.

I decided to come here to see if I could get any more input, since I do believe it raises interesting questions about the nature of morality in the fantasy setting. So, if you were the DM at this game what would you advise me to put down as this character's alignment?

[Nifft]

I agree with the good-because-sheltered viewpoint.

If she's only seen slaves treated as servants or even (servile) family members, then it's entirely plausible that she thinks slavery isn't all that bad.

(If slavery actually tended to encourage & reward such equitable treatment, it might not be so bad. It is bad specifically because it tends to encourage & reward abuse rather than good treatment.)

So, eventually she'll encounter the other side of the coin, and she'll be forced to make a choice between upholding her culture, or upholding her ideals. I think that's cool.

[awa]

Personal i would say good, ignorance is not evil, its not like your going out and putting people in chains. Worst case you might slide into neutral but you would need to be owning slaves yourself for that to happen at least in my opinion.

While some evil acts are so horrible no amount of good actions can balance them, tolerating relatively mild slavery is not one of them. So enough other good acts at least in my opinion would keep you good. Its not like your a paladin and one evil act is a fall.

[legomaster00156]

I agree with the idea that she is LG. However, it is also true that when she discovers the true nature of slavery, she either has to give up her old beliefs to stay Good, or keep her beliefs and slide into LN territory (or even LE, depending on how vociferously she defends the institution).

[Koo Rehtorb]

I think slavery is more an inherently lawful institution over an evil one. Though obviously some (most?) implementations of it are evil. A lawful neutral form of slavery is probably entirely compatible with a LG person.

[The Jack]

Slavery was almost universal in the ancient world, and most of the time, slaves weren't treated so bad.

The outlier, however, has effects that are still felt today. The Atlantic slave trade was especially brutal, in part because there was more need to de-humanize the victims to justify it, which comes with further problems after the slavery is done.

Because the Atlantic slave trade was so brutal, and so American, it's influenced how people see the rest of slavery, and it's no small help that American media has such international sway.

But slavery, at least most of it, before the Atlantic trade wasn't so brutal. Yes, some societies had rules like "if the slave strikes his master, all the slaves in his house must die" (or something as such) but some saw it as a source of pride to have well kept slaves. I imagine a good portion of slaves didn't feel much worse off than someone on minimum wage (admittedly, without the modern distractions and comforts). In old english lore, killing someone's slave required not insignificant blood price in comparison to killing someone free.

In a lot of societies, it was actually acceptable for a person to sell themselves into slavery for a period of time, to pay off debts. It could be sentence used instead of prison for some crimes. I believe in a serf system, most people are considered slaves, but I'm not too knowledgeable about that.

There's so many nuances and differences and rules concerning slavery across different regions and eras, but the bottom line is that for the most part it wasn't so cruel. Slavery was a universal, and an important part of economics in regions of the world that might surprise you, but it wasn't as terrible as you might believe.

[Nifft]

Slavery was almost universal in the ancient world, and most of the time, slaves weren't treated so bad.

Some were treated well.

Others were worked to death in the silver mines, or put into a big bronze bull statue and baked alive specifically for the entertainment value of their dying screams.

Slavery certainly got nastier after the invention of racism, but it would be difficult to find a time & place where slavery was unequivocally nice.

[Seto]

Without getting into the morality debate, I will attempt to give an answer by RAW:

This viewpoint of your character is a trait that she inherited from her society. It's Molthune's trait. In the Player's Guide to the Inner Sea, Molthune as a whole is given the alignment LN. Katapesh, a "bustling slave city", is Neutral. So if the trait of "having slavery" is not enough to make a society Evil, neither is it enough to make your character Evil. Whether or not she can be Good is another question, since I'm not aware of any Good nation where slavery is legal. (I'd say it's consistent with a strongly Lawful LG character/society, but YMMV). Among the nations, Andoran (NG) is the one that's really called out as abolitionist, but that's more because of the country's particular history.

[Thrudd]

It depends on how absolutist or relativist you want to be with the morality implicit (and explicit) in the alignments, and also how you want to define law and chaos as alignments. Also, the exact nature of slavery in this society relative to your decisions vis a vis morality. Is it ok if you treat your slaves well, even though you legally can treat them in any manner you wish? Do slaves have any recourse to the law, protections from certain types of treatment?

Some GMs and books say slavery is a big "no" for good alignment- this means that very few people in a civilization dependent on institutional slavery could be considered good. And that's not wrong - it just means that it may be very hard or impossible for anyone to be lawful good (if you interpret lawful as abiding by and upholding the laws of civilization).

[Calthropstu]

I wrote a long diatribe on how slavery should be looked at, and realized I had broken forum rules half a dozen ways.

So I will put it like this:
We can't approach this from OUR perspective. We have to approach it from the CHARACTER'S perspective.
I can prove supporting slavery is not, of itself, evil. Even condemning people to slavery is not of itself evil.
Is sentencing someone guilty of manslaughter to hard labor evil? That is slavery.
Is selling yourself into slavery in order to cover your family's debt evil? Is accepting that sacrifice in leiu of payment evil? I would think not.

In the latter case, it could be argued that arguing for such could be a good, noble and honorable act. In a society that maintains that honor is more important than life, such a noble sacrifice on both parties (the person owed sacrificing the debt and the person selling themselves sacrificing their freedom) could be considered a good and just gesture, restoring the honor that the debt depleted tenfold.

Let us also consider that there are/were numerous types of slavery. Serfdom, for example, was a form of slavery. Debtors slavery, forced slavery, kidnap slavery, gender slavery, and numerous others. In a world full of magic, many many more could exist as well.
To argue slavery itself is "evil" is just misunderstanding the term. You assume real world modern thought processes apply but they do not.

[Andor13]

Slavery is not good, no form of slavery is a good thing.

That having been said, there are all different kinds of slavery, and as other have noted the sort practiced in America was one of the worst, ironically because Americas adherence to humanist and democratic values made it necessary to dehumanize someone in order to view them as a slave. Slavery as practiced by some cultures was an economic thing, where someone would sell themselves into slavery to pay off a debt, similar to indentured servitude. (Compare to the scam of some company mining towns where the ticket to get back out of town cost money you could never earn because the company paid less than the cost of living.) In many of the cultures that would take prisoners of war (or raids) as slaves there was a term of servitude of some years, followed by release. (Thralls, Islamic slaves.) In many slaves were entitled to protection under the law, wages, and could buy their freedom.

Which is not to say there wasn't plenty of horror and abuse, but then, that was most people's lot. Humans suck.

I would say someone with a sheltered upbringing could easily be LG, and when confronted with abuse of slaves would have to either try to fight the abuse (directly, if the laws allow such, for example reporting a slave owner for illegal abuses) or seek reforms/abolition if she wishes to remain good, or would slide over to LN if they decides it's just how things are, and at least they aren't being eaten by trolls. Sounds like a good character arc.

[hamishspence]

Is sentencing someone guilty of manslaughter to hard labor evil? That is slavery.

Hard Labor is a step away from slavery - in that you're still a person, and not property.

D&D splatbooks vary somewhat on the issue - but as a general rule, even if "a good person can own a slave or two simply because it is a societal norm" the society itself is going to have a very hard time qualifying as Good.

Good people can commit evil deeds "from time to time" - it's their deeds taken as a whole that determine their alignment, not necessarily individual deeds, unless the single deeds are very strongly aligned.

[The Jack]

[QUOTE=hamishspence;23110841]Hard Labor is a step away from slavery - in that you're still a person, and not property.
[quote]
I felt the presence of ironic eagles of freedom when I read this.
In both, you're a person and a property, potentially not a person and not a property.

May I remind you that present day prisoners aren't allowed to vote, have limited rights and freedoms, and are kept away from civil society so they don't exist* (fun fact; the medieval prison experience was generally far more humane because they didn't isolate prisoners so much from the rest of society)

*may vary by nation

Honestly, I've been dehumanized working a simple min-wage job, so your ignorant modern hangups about slavery are rather irksome

[hamishspence]

The 3.0 FRCS makes exactly the same distinction - saying that while serfdom and indentured servitude can approach the oppressiveness of slavery, serfs and indentured servants are not property in the Realms.

The big list of D&D quotes that may be applicable:

PHB page 104
Evil characters and creatures debase and destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.

FRCS pages 86-87: Slavery
Few of the human kingdoms and cities of the Heartlands permit slavery within their borders. Indentured servitude and serfdom are relatively common practices that approach the brutality of slavery in some lands, but even the most wretched serf or servant is considered a human being, not property.

Conditions of slavery vary wildly between different lands. Slaves in Mulhorand outnumber the free citizens- and, not surprisingly, the life of a slave in Mulhorand is little worse than the life of a peasant in most other lands. Slaves in Thay and Unther endure far harsher treatment, both by callous masters and a society that considers them to be nonentities.

Regardless of the conditions, most Heartland humans find slavery extremely distasteful at the very least, and more than a few consider it an abomination in the sight of the gods.

BoVD page 9: Bringing Despair
Evil creatures often enjoy spreading pain and misery to others. Some do this because breaking the spirits of others makes them feel superior; others sow despair for the sheer joy it brings them.

BoED page 11: Being ahead of your time

On the other hand, your campaign world might more closely reflect the realities of life in Earth's Dark or Middle Ages. Perhaps women are not viewed as men's equals or even sentient beings in their own right, slavery is widespread, testimony from serfs is only acceptable if extracted through torture, and humans of a certain skin tone (let alone nonhumans) are viewed as demonic creatures.

It is vitally important to remember one thing: these factors don't change anything else said in this chapter (or in The Book of Vile Darkness) about what constitutes a good or evil deed. Even if slavery, torture, or discrimination are condoned by society, they remain evil.

Champions of Ruin page 5: Tradition/There Is No Evil
One potential cause for evil is simply following the norms and standards of your ancestors and society. Evil is defined by society, not by the inherent laws of gods or nature. What might be considered the darkest taboo in one place might be a perfectly acceptable practice somewhere else. For example, slavery is illegal in many parts of Faerun but is fairly common in Thay, where even a good person might keep a slave or two simply because it is a societal norm.

Characters might use this philosophy to justify their actions, and they could very well be correct, depending on their individual circumstances.

Cityscape page 148: Slavery
The institution of slavery should always be regarded as an evil by any good-aligned characters in a campaign.

4E Dark Sun Campaign Setting page 197: Slavery and Alignment
Keeping slaves is not compatible with a good alignment, but doing so does not necessarily make a character evil. Most slave owners are unaligned. Overseers who treat their slaves brutally are definitely engaging in evil acts that should outrage good characters.
The question is whether anything can be reasonably done about the situation. Given how commonplace slavery is on Athas, good characters can't reasonably attempt to free every slave they meet, nor should they recklessly challenge slave owners who are too powerful to overcome.
Good characters should be anguished by the abundance of human misery in civilized areas, however, and they should be dedicated to aiding however they can short of attempting suicidal actions.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Hard Labor is a step away from slavery - in that you're still a person, and not property.[/I] aligned.

This seems to be a sticking point. I believe that it would be possible to view someone as both property and a person.

Children are essentially property in most societies; some societies have legal protections against abuse of children, but few argue a child's right to self determination. As the Jack pointed out one can be dehumanized without being property, such as in a bottom rung job at a business with a ****ty corporate culture.

[hamishspence]

That would come under "oppression" - slavery is a form of oppression - but it's just one of many out there.

[Max_Killjoy]

Engaging in, supporting, favoring, or even condoning slavery would be no better than "lawful neutral", and almost unavoidably "lawful evil".

There's no "cultural" aspect to this, no "moral relativity", no "but other places and times are different".

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: A reminder to avoid real-world political analogies in these discussions.

***

That said, I would say that she can still be good... but, as always, consider the spectrum. Alignment isn't nine points... it is a plane defined by those nine points, and your alignment is whichever of those points you are closest to. So, a Lawful Good person might have some fairly messed up beliefs (i.e. "There is good and bad slavery"), but still be, overall, LG. It would put them in the more "southern" part of the LG section, but LG, none-the-less. Especially, IMO, if they held those beliefs out of ignorance.

Using the Great Wheel, you might also consider people by the plane to which they are aligned. Sure, some LG people will be most closely aligned to the Seven Heavens... but about half the population of Arcadia and the Twin Paradises are also LG, and you no doubt have a large number of LG people who live in "northwest" Concordant Opposition.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Following the rules and not to cite real world events, sorry if this makes it seem that I'm just making assertions without evidence.

That would come under "oppression" - slavery is a form of oppression - but it's just one of many out there.

Why is it "oppression" without abuse, if you agree with the FRCS that serfdom is not capital E Evil even though serfs do not have self determination just as children don't? Your quotations have made an excellent case that in 3.x D&D slavery=Evil by RAW. It appears that Golorian may be a more morally gray setting as I have not been able to find RAW assertions that slavery is always Evil and you haven't provided any.

The description of the Evil alignment is the same, but we now fall to debating what exactly "oppression" is and it seems quite difficult to make a case for all slavery is Evil even if the there are laws and social norms protecting slaves from abuse without throwing in serfdom and caste systems in.

Of course even if many slaves are treated humanely it is unlikely that it would be universal across the institution within a country. In the first season of BBC series ROME we mostly see slaves treated like a lower caste, but these are house servants and agricultural slaves who work alongside freemen. In the second season there is a plot revolving around a quarry run on slave labor under hellish conditions. I'd be curious to know what Molthune's imports/exports are as not producing mineral resources or certain crops would remove much of the temptation to create such conditions.

I read a few online sources. Molthune's products aren't explicitly listed, but it seems the primary occupations are expanding the frontier, wheat farming, and the military Service Guarantees Citizenship. The first two are industries that don't make it profitable to keep slaves under hellish conditions while the third is an escape hatch which motivates slaveholders to ensure that being in their service is better than military service.

[Mastikator]

Why is it important that she thinks slavery is good? I mean you can be sheltered for a while but if you see it with your own eyes, if you see how slaves are treated and still think there's anything good about that then there's no way I'd accept that as anything less than depraved and evil.

If you want you can settle for "bad but hey what can you do?" kind of attitude which is callous but potentially realistic.

[icefractal]

My initial thought was no, it wouldn't affect his alignment unless/until he became aware of the problems and then chose to remain in support of it. After all, if it turned out that healing potions were secretly made of captured souls, would that make everyone who'd drunk one retroactively evil?

However, by that standard most Orcs/Drow/whatever should count as good-aligned or at least not evil. They're doing what their society says is correct, what they've been taught is "good", and so shouldn't they be exempt for the same reason as the proposed Paladin?

So now I don't know. The alignment system doesn't work well when you look too closely at it.

[awa]

the important point isn't that she gets a free pass on slavery because her people believe its fine, its can her other heroic actions outweigh the belief that her countries relatively benign slavery is Acceptable.
edit
also its a cavalier not a paladin and they are not held to the same moral standards, they do not fall from a single evil act so all that matters is if her collective good actions out weigh her one evil belief.

It depends on what she encounters in play but i think it would be entirely plausible to see slavery in the outside world and simply come to the conclusion that the way those guys do it is wrong because their cruel, and not look to deeply at her own culture.

[witchwood]

Why is it important that she thinks slavery is good? I mean you can be sheltered for a while but if you see it with your own eyes, if you see how slaves are treated and still think there's anything good about that then there's no way I'd accept that as anything less than depraved and evil.

If you want you can settle for "bad but hey what can you do?" kind of attitude which is callous but potentially realistic.

The general idea is that the type of slavery that she has been exposed to seems very benign, mostly house workers and caretakers who, despite their status as slaves, are afforded a standard of dignity and respect not common in other slave owning nations. Its not so much that she actively approves of slavery and would go out and personally enslave people, it's that the slaves that she has been exposed to have never appeared to be anything less than contented with their position. How much of that is her own naivete and how much is true is yet to be decided (but probably somewhere in the middle).

[Mastikator]

The general idea is that the type of slavery that she has been exposed to seems very benign, mostly house workers and caretakers who, despite their status as slaves, are afforded a standard of dignity and respect not common in other slave owning nations. Its not so much that she actively approves of slavery and would go out and personally enslave people, it's that the slaves that she has been exposed to have never appeared to be anything less than contented with their position. How much of that is her own naivete and how much is true is yet to be decided (but probably somewhere in the middle).

This sounds like the kind of society that would really frown on even calling it slavery, "personal servant" and other euphemisms to enable people like your character to maintain their ignorance. If they are straight up referred to as slaves then that means anyone who says "no" is beaten into submission, or death. A "personal servant" might instead be "reprimanded" through some socially acceptable form of physical punishment or psychological torment.

The longer and more in depth your character is exposed to this slavery the harder it should be remain ignorant. And if you're actively trying to remain ignorant then that is the same as passively condoning it. I think you can get away with LN. But good? A good person would be disturbed by it, even (perhaps especially) if the slaves seem content.

[Max_Killjoy]

This sounds like the kind of society that would really frown on even calling it slavery, "personal servant" and other euphemisms to enable people like your character to maintain their ignorance. If they are straight up referred to as slaves then that means anyone who says "no" is beaten into submission, or death. A "personal servant" might instead be "reprimanded" through some socially acceptable form of physical punishment or psychological torment.

Or magical compulsion, depending on the setting.

It's a rabbit hole that gets more repulsive the further we go down it.

The longer and more in depth your character is exposed to this slavery the harder it should be remain ignorant. And if you're actively trying to remain ignorant then that is the same as passively condoning it. I think you can get away with LN. But good? A good person would be disturbed by it, even (perhaps especially) if the slaves seem content.

Agreed.

[Florian]

@Witchwood:

It´s pretty important to note and understand that Molthune is based on ancient Rome and what makes the main difference between a "serf" and a "slave".

A "serf" doesn't have a full citizenship, but is still fully protected by the law, for all it matters, they can easily sue their contract holders for infringements and win. There are set conditions for how a citizen can become a serf and how a serf can become a citizen and those are codified as well as protected by the laws. For example, an entrepreneur going into insolvency will most likely end up as a serf to his financiers, while a serf going for a tour of duty with the Legion will most likely gain full citizenship.

[War_lord]

There's a precedent for this. In Roman times the "house" slaves of wealthy nobles were relatively well treated, because they were unavoidably part of the household. Particularly "skilled" slaves like tutors. Living in close proximity to the family meant better conditions and better treatment (for the simple psychological reason that it's harder to be horrible to people you've lived with for years). Most of the really horrible stuff happened to slaves being worked to death in the Latifundia or in the terrible conditions of the mines.

Leaving aside the moral ethics of asserting ownership over another (demi)human being (which I apparently have to spell out, has implications that make even the most undignified 9 to 5 look like a picnic). Slavery is evil because of the unparalleled scope of abuse it enables. You don't get fair treatment, you don't have any right of appeal, even if there are laws against egregious cruelty to slaves, they're going to prove difficult to enforce.

[wumpus]

Does the campaign have Paladins? Slavery seems like one of those "gritty realism" things that are thrown into campaigns without wondering if the "joybright" (the opposite of "grimdark") bits are compatible. My guess is the either the paladin orders would eliminate slavery, or the institution of slavery would wind up eliminating the paladin orders (and perhaps any PC or NPC paladin had be ordained/knighted directly by the gods).

You could also eliminate most of the harsh requirements for Paladins to allow them to operate in even mildly "grimdark" areas, but "fighters with charisma-based class features" can't hold a candle to guys like O-chul (note that the Giant is emphatic about Paladins make great NPCs and story characters, but lousy PCs. Maybe "fighters with charisma-based class features" have a place after all).

If you want to expand a morality argument into a theological argument, try insisting that 'the gods said it was ok'. The Giant shot this down in OOTS (even the gods can't declare killing greenskins for xp to be "good"), and using roleplaying specific gods should take at least some of the heat out of any theological argument that occurs (but don't be surprised if it still kills the game).

Another option is to use "fairy tale morality". Much like "the gods say so" it assumes that something like "birthright" or "having more character levels" simply puts a person in a privileged position and that it is right and proper to own lowly slaves. Personally, I don't think I could deal with it for very long without going full murderhobo. Generally the point of "fairy tale morality" is to fit in all the old myths and legendary story places. There's even a trope about it [link suppressed in an act of objectively provable morality].

There's a precedent for this. In Roman times the "house" slaves of wealthy nobles were relatively well treated...

It should be noted that many of these were *extremely* well treated, largely because they were the children of the owners (yes, that implies that even the house slaves were expected to be always sexually available to the masters). And by "extremely well treated" I mean "freed and made some of the richest men in Rome". It wouldn't be too surprising if most of the "house slaves" were literally family, which is why they were treated as such.

Things could get pretty bleak for those without such connections. And in any slave auction, expect the circus owners (who need lion chow) to start the bidding low (Romans didn't like human sacrifice. In areas that had that, expect priests needing more bodies to supply the low bids. Pretty sure this was common in Carthage and Norse areas).

[Calthropstu]

Given most nations in history are guilty of it at some point, I find this belief that "everyone who has ever participated in or condoned slaver is evil" to be horribly uneducated. You are basically saying "my ancestors were evil."

So let's look at some of the good slavery does.


1: Spread of DNA. In a world where the primary means of travel is on foot or with horses, the radius you have access to is extremely limited. Inbreeding was a major problem since traveling to find a mate was very difficult. Slaves generally came from afar, and their use for sex produced sources for a new influx of dna. The world would actually be MUCH worse off if slavery had never been a thing.
To be fair, nowadays such is no longer the case. This benefit is better achieved through the massive strides in transportation. But we aren't talking about modern worlds are we?

2: Labor source. We can argue whether or not using slave labor is a good or bad thing but the results are irrefutable. Many things would never have been built without it, and much progress was fueled by slave labor that would never have been possible without it. Is it evil to realize that fact and, despite misgivings about the nature of slavery, understand that the people at large are greatly benefitting from what the slaves are doing?

3: In many cases, the lot of slaves ended up IMPROVING after becoming slaves. Many slaves were sold by their own countrymen. They were the poor and disenfranchised... many of whom would have starved otherwise. In some cases it was even voluntary.

Yeah, slavery is awful for those who experienced it. But the benefits to others were astronomical. We would not be here where we are today without it. We understand now that there are better alternatives, but did they back then? No.
So condemning it as evil is a bit dismissive of the role it played in making our world what it is today. Not everyone who participated in it was evil... pretty sure not every person who went to the colleseum was evil, pretty sure not everyone who owned a slave was evil and also pretty sure not everyone who supported it was evil. To claim it so is to generalize most of the people in history as evil.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Given most nations in history are guilty of it at some point, I find this belief that "everyone who has ever participated in or condoned slaver is evil" to be horribly uneducated. You are basically saying "my ancestors were evil."

So let's look at some of the good slavery does.

I am perfectly okay with the idea that there's forms of slavery that's lawful neutral aligned, and a good person is perfectly free to engage in neutral practises and still be good. But you're sure making holding that point of view awfully unappealing right now.