Pathfinder: How views on Slavery influences character alignment

[Kader]

Galorion is some ridiculous anachronistic mess. But if i really had to pick a reference time, i would say 17th century not 19th . There is too much industrial revolution missing.

Eberron would fit 19th century, but Galorion is far less advanced.

I should amend and limit my point to the Inner Sea region. In the Inner Sea (and Molthune is in the Inner Sea's cultural orbit), the aspect of slavery is distinctly what it was in the West in the nineteenth century, with abolition a burning question, underground railroads, efforts to suppress the trade at sea, etc. No reason to assume that Inner Sea ideas should be as strongly felt in Tian-Xia as Molthune, though.

I should also add that for purposes of this topic I'm happy to disregard, and do disregard, where the region is technologically rather than trying to average it in with where they are socially. For this I'm not too worried about whether I can go around and see Viking longships stuffed with falcata-wielding berserkers in plate mail chasing after Chelaxian treasure galleons while dodging frigates.

(Means to communicate ideas does play a role, but this seems well developed in the Inner Sea).

[Kader]

To expand a little on the previous reply to Segev...

It is deep enough buried by surrounding philosophical considerations that it takes more than “not being shallowly engaged.”

No, but I think it gets really difficult to overlook not willfully when it's an issue at the heart of the regional culture wars (and some of the regional shooting wars). It's not that difficult to ask "yeah, but why is all that nice treatment you talk about contingent on chattelization" when big countries in the region have already asked that and answered "Oh wait, it doesn't have to be!" You can have labor, even compulsory labor, without loss of personhood and conversion into property.

Disentangling willful blindness from sincerity is a difficult problem, but it can be helped in this case by a look at actual history.

Classical slaveowners generally didn't articulate these views or for the most part probably even hold them as conventional, unexamined beliefs. They didn't need to develop defensive ideas about slavery because generally nobody was attacking it. An institution that is genuinely unquestioned has little need for answers. (In actual fact slaveowners in systems where slavery was not under attack were often openly ready to admit that even slavery under particularly favorable conditions was a calamity for the enslaved (e.g., Eumaios), but while I think this helps my point it can stand without it).

One historically paradoxical aspect of this Nobilis argument is - my impression is - that in real history slaveowners advanced this sort of justification after they perceived the slave system to be under attack, not before (as why would a typical guy bother to develop these beliefs before?). But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

[Thrudd]

It is deep enough buried by surrounding philosophical considerations that it takes more than “not being shallowly engaged.” As things get wrapped up in politics, the sense that the philosophical disagreement is an attack on their culture, motivated not by honest moral concerns, but dishonest efforts to use morality to justify political and military aggression.

There is rarely a way to learn your own society and culture is wrong while immersed in it. It isn’t impossible, and the more blatantly evil it gets, the easier it is to figure out. But genuinely good people can believe that some rather horrid institutions and practices are not problems if “done correctly.”

It can take being directly confronted with the evils over and over in many forms and under nearly every circumstance to get through to determining he problem is the institution, not (just) the people practicing it.

Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative. If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently. If the cosmos(rules/GM) says X=Evil, then it's Evil and if you engage in it or don't have a problem with others doing it, you aren't Good. Your culture's POV is irrelevant, your day to day behavior is irrelevant. You might be Neutral and almost Good if you would just set your slaves free and start trying to get others to do the same.

In RL, you are right, of course. There's no agreed on universal morality and people don't get assigned alignments from the universe (that we can detect), and everyone's points are valid. But these are arguments against the alignment system used by the game, not arguments that really show owning people to not be D&D Evil.

Owning people in D&D is evil because D&D says it is evil. It doesn't matter if good can come of it (a slave gets food and shelter they didn't have otherwise or learns some useful skills, can open a shop after they get freed), or if a good person could make it not miserable (they treat slaves kindly). You can also claim good might come of conquering other cities by sword and flame- because you know better than they do what is good for them and your rule will be beneficent and fair. The peace and fairness of your later rule might be good, but if you are really Good aligned you won't go about it by conquering with an army. You'll make peaceful deals, use diplomacy, help people to improve even if it doesn't benefit you personally.

[Quertus]

An institution that is genuinely unquestioned has little need for answers.

But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

I think this did a good job expressing what I was trying to get across with my earlier lunacy.

Most people would pretty consistently state that slavery is bad, and Illithids enslaving and eating us would be bad, but that humans doing the same things to animals would not be. Most people would defend circuses and zoos, farms and slaughterhouses, while considering Illithids among the most evil creatures imaginable.

The lack of ability of Playgrounders as a group - let alone humanity as a whole - to express a unified, consistent opinion regarding why slavery is bad is troubling, and gives light to the lie that its evil is obvious.

More troubling, though, IMO, is that the standard answers about Illithids and animals just happen to be that which is most advantageous to us. It carries a strong feel of rationalizing that which we want to be true.

Now, full disclosure, I'm not particularly interested in looking at the morality of these issues personally. I am, in fact, actively disinterested in personally exploring their morality.

What I am interested in is whether people have actually done the deep analysis necessary have consistent beliefs regarding these issues - and what happens when those beliefs are applied to a fantastical setting.

[MrSandman]

Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative. If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently. If the cosmos(rules/GM) says X=Evil, then it's Evil and if you engage in it or don't have a problem with others doing it, you aren't Good. Your culture's POV is irrelevant, your day to day behavior is irrelevant. You might be Neutral and almost Good if you would just set your slaves free and start trying to get others to do the same.

So, having one single wrong belief about reality makes a character who would otherwise qualify as good non-good? Does that work the same way for evil characters?

Say, Mr. Do-badder is an villain by the book. He cheats the tax system, has a band of bandits who rob travellers, blackmails several noble people in Capital city, corrupts youngsters, and murders whoever gets in his way. With one notable exception. Mr. Do-badder cannot stand the abuse of little girls. He firmly believes that abusing little girls in any way is completely wrong. He takes good care that his men should not abuse little girls, and the punishment for doing so is brutal. In fact, on several occasions Mr. Do-badder has risked his life to save little girls who were being/about to be abused.

Now, does this repeated action of doing good (defending others even to the point of risking one's own life) invalidate his otherwise evil life? Does that make him non-evil?

[Satinavian]

One historically paradoxical aspect of this Nobilis argument is - my impression is - that in real history slaveowners advanced this sort of justification after they perceived the slave system to be under attack, not before (as why would a typical guy bother to develop these beliefs before?). But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

Let's ignore Galorion for the moment, i don't feel like looking up slavery details there.

In most cases those attacks on slave systems in fantasy world come precicely from mashing different inspirations regionally and timewise and not caring about how culutural exchange would have influences both.

The most common version is the Evil slaver culture being either Not-Rome or Not-Egypt and Good non-slaver culture being some pseudomedieval feudal monarchy with 90% of population thralls. Which are totally not slaves and thus Good aristocrats can have them.

That is the typical background for slavery alignment discussions.

[Thrudd]

Sorry for the lousy edit job on the quote. My phone is not cooperating.

Anyway. First, Nobilius is LG, not just LN, because he honestly does care for others in general and genuinely upholds the ideals of “good.” Nothing he believes to be inherent to slavery is inherently evil.

There are avowed socialists today who feel capitalism is inherently evil. There are avowed capitalists today who feel socialism is inherently evil. Are those people unable to view capitalists/socialists as anything but genuinely not-good? Or can they see good people who are just, in the avowed-whatever’s opinion, tragically wrong?

Well, if this was a D&D universe, one of those positions would probably be objectively Good and the other not. Those who came to believe in the wrong one would be wrong and very likely not Good. It doesn't matter if they see themselves as right or if they can sympathize with some people on the other side. The universe assigns them an alignment based on their views and actions. If they change their views and behavior, the universe might reassign their alignment.
Nobilius' alignment is not impacted by his earnestness nor by the fact that he does not see what is Evil about owning other people. He is tragically wrong (if it is important for him to not to have a big N on his cosmic leger, which is not necessarily a tragedy). Having a G or an N printed on his soul does not alter that he acts with kindness toward others, it doesn't stop him or cause him to act in any certain way. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative. If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently. If the cosmos(rules/GM) says X=Evil, then it's Evil and if you engage in it or don't have a problem with others doing it, you aren't Good. Your culture's POV is irrelevant, your day to day behavior is irrelevant. You might be Neutral and almost Good if you would just set your slaves free and start trying to get others to do the same.

In RL, you are right, of course. There's no agreed on universal morality and people don't get assigned alignments from the universe (that we can detect), and everyone's points are valid. But these are arguments against the alignment system used by the game, not arguments that really show owning people to not be D&D Evil.

Owning people in D&D is evil because D&D says it is evil. It doesn't matter if good can come of it (a slave gets food and shelter they didn't have otherwise or learns some useful skills, can open a shop after they get freed), or if a good person could make it not miserable (they treat slaves kindly). You can also claim good might come of conquering other cities by sword and flame- because you know better than they do what is good for them and your rule will be beneficent and fair. The peace and fairness of your later rule might be good, but if you are really Good aligned you won't go about it by conquering with an army. You'll make peaceful deals, use diplomacy, help people to improve even if it doesn't benefit you personally.

You're right that D&D alignment is objective, but you're wrong about basically everything else.

Slavery is not an inherently evil practise in D&D. It's a practise which certainly comes with strong potential for evil, but it isn't inherently evil in and of itself. For that matter, wars of conquest aren't inherently evil either. D&D is a game which strongly leans towards killing people who do things you don't approve of. It is entirely legitimate (encouraged even) for a lawful good character to go wage war upon an evil empire to liberate it from its evil ways, or even just to defend others from its evil ways.

And even beyond that, even if you say that you're living in a society which practises an evil form of slavery, that still doesn't mean you're an evil person so long as you don't practise this evil yourself. If you do no evil then you're neutral. If you do no evil and do good in addition to that then you're good. And that good doesn't have to be related to the evil slavery going on in your nation either. You're still good aligned if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, silently disapprove of the evil going on around you, and spend your time doing other miscellaneous good deeds.

[hamishspence]

You're right that D&D alignment is objective, but you're wrong about basically everything else.

Slavery is not an inherently evil practise in D&D. It's a practise which certainly comes with strong potential for evil, but it isn't inherently evil in and of itself.

Depends who's writing. There are 3e and 4e books that emphasise it being inherently evil - not sure about 2e or 5e though.

[Thrudd]

You're right that D&D alignment is objective, but you're wrong about basically everything else.

Slavery is not an inherently evil practise in D&D. It's a practise which certainly comes with strong potential for evil, but it isn't inherently evil in and of itself. For that matter, wars of conquest aren't inherently evil either. D&D is a game which strongly leans towards killing people who do things you don't approve of. It is entirely legitimate (encouraged even) for a lawful good character to go wage war upon an evil empire to liberate it from its evil ways, or even just to defend others from its evil ways.

And even beyond that, even if you say that you're living in a society which practises an evil form of slavery, that still doesn't mean you're an evil person so long as you don't practise this evil yourself. If you do no evil then you're neutral. If you do no evil and do good in addition to that then you're good. And that good doesn't have to be related to the evil slavery going on in your nation either. You're still good aligned if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, silently disapprove of the evil going on around you, and spend your time doing other miscellaneous good deeds.

I doesn't really sound like you disagree with my position at all. You say you're still good "if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, disapprove of evil going on around you..." - that's exactly what I said. The key is that they do not own anyone themselves and disapprove of others doing so - which a defender of the institution of slavery does not. A person doesn't need to be a crusader to be Good, but they do need to disapprove of Evil. Or, I should say, a person who is Good would disapprove of Evil, in addition to not doing it themselves. Even if they were personally unable to prevent that Evil from being done, they would want it to stop.

I think slavery is usually called out as Evil as a whole, at least implicitly as a common villain in adventures are slavers (who are always Evil). But since that term covers a lot of different things, we've been breaking it down. I think the main part of "slavery" which the game has arrived at as being Evil is the owning people as property (along with many of the common methods of obtaining slaves like raiding and loot-taking from wars.) So in a system in which the people aren't owned as property and weren't forced by violence into their roles, a Good person could potentially defend that as there is nothing necessarily or apparently Evil happening.

[JoeJ]

So, just to clarify. What is slavery like in Molthune? If at one end of a continuum you have highly skilled workers who sign long terms contract they can't get out of (As in, for example, some cyberpunk worlds), and at the other end slaves are merely objects that can be used or destroyed at the owner's whim (the Gorean model), where does Molthune fit.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I doesn't really sound like you disagree with my position at all. You say you're still good "if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, disapprove of evil going on around you..." - that's exactly what I said. The key is that they do not own anyone themselves and disapprove of others doing so - which a defender of the institution of slavery does not. A person doesn't need to be a crusader to be Good, but they do need to disapprove of Evil. Or, I should say, a person who is Good would disapprove of Evil, in addition to not doing it themselves. Even if they were personally unable to prevent that Evil from being done, they would want it to stop.

No. I said disapprove of the evil going on, in a society where the practise of slavery is commonly evil. Not disapprove of slavery itself. Even in a society where slavery is commonly practised in an evil way, you can still be a good aligned slave owner if you don't partake in the common abuses going on around you and frown on those who do.

I think slavery is usually called out as Evil as a whole, at least implicitly as a common villain in adventures are slavers (who are always Evil). But since that term covers a lot of different things, we've been breaking it down. I think the main part of "slavery" which the game has arrived at as being Evil is the owning people as property (along with many of the common methods of obtaining slaves like raiding and loot-taking from wars.) So in a system in which the people aren't owned as property and weren't forced by violence into their roles, a Good person could potentially defend that as there is nothing necessarily or apparently Evil happening.

This is where things are breaking down. Most of these things are not inherently evil in D&D, (though I would say raiding people to capture slaves is). If you're making slaves out of enemy soldiers captured in a justified war then I'd say it's a baseline neutral practise, only shifting to evil if you're a real bastard about it. But again, even if your civilization is a horrible culture that raids innocent people to take slaves, that doesn't make you evil so long as you don't partake in the raiding yourself. You can even own slaves taken from this immoral slave raiding if you're disassociated from that particular practise and be a baseline of neutral (pushing to evil if you do evil things to the slaves, pushing to good if you do a whole lot of good things in the rest of your life).

[Durzan]

Oh come on, no one is even trying to address my thoughts on the matter? I posted a long and detailed thought process back on page three and everyone else just ignored it. *grump face*

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh come on, no one is even trying to address my thoughts on the matter? I posted a long and detailed thought process back on page three and everyone else just ignored it. *grump face*

I replied to the general ideas a few posts later.

To be more blunt, the notion that there's not much difference between being free, or being a slave, is ridiculous. A gilded cage is still a cage, and it doesn't matter how "good" your life is if it "belongs to" someone else.

[Segev]

How provincial are we assuming the character is? If she were a dirt farmer, sure, but nobles were generally the class least immersed in solely their own culture and most immersed in larger cultural networks. And this generalizes past the one character in question in the OP, anyway, since dirt farmers with no education or information about the wider world generally aren't the heart of the slaveowning class.

The nobility, however, are also immersed in a culture dedicated to preserving the status quo (or, if to making change, making changes to further enhance the nobles' power).

The more sophisticated the arguments get, the easier it actually is to lose sight of core fundamentals. And thus the easier it is to miss that very deep and important nugget that answers the question as to why slavery is inherently wicked.

No, but I think it gets really difficult to overlook not willfully when it's an issue at the heart of the regional culture wars (and some of the regional shooting wars). It's not that difficult to ask "yeah, but why is all that nice treatment you talk about contingent on chattelization" when big countries in the region have already asked that and answered "Oh wait, it doesn't have to be!" You can have labor, even compulsory labor, without loss of personhood and conversion into property.

This is an easy position to take when one is outside the situation. I am not going to try to play the phychologist here enough to walk you through it, but I would wager that, if we got into a political discussion, I could find areas of political philosophy where I could point out things that are "not that hard" to ask oneself, which you'd reject based on complex and intricate arguments that you believe reveal my simplistic question to be misleading. Meanwhile, I could hold it up as you being "willfully blind" of the evil your philosophy causes.

Disentangling willful blindness from sincerity is a difficult problem, but it can be helped in this case by a look at actual history.

Classical slaveowners generally didn't articulate these views or for the most part probably even hold them as conventional, unexamined beliefs. They didn't need to develop defensive ideas about slavery because generally nobody was attacking it. An institution that is genuinely unquestioned has little need for answers. (In actual fact slaveowners in systems where slavery was not under attack were often openly ready to admit that even slavery under particularly favorable conditions was a calamity for the enslaved (e.g., Eumaios), but while I think this helps my point it can stand without it).

When they were under attack, they did come up with these arguments. And I can guarantee you that not everybody who was pro-Confederacy was in general an evil person. I am sure you could find genuinely good ones. Even those who actively did not hate their slaves.

(Again, I am not justifying them. I am, however, justifying the possibility of an LG person who doesn't 'get' that slavery is inherently evil.)

One historically paradoxical aspect of this Nobilis argument is - my impression is - that in real history slaveowners advanced this sort of justification after they perceived the slave system to be under attack, not before (as why would a typical guy bother to develop these beliefs before?). But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

No, not "with chances to know better." With people telling them, "You're monsters; you should ruin your livelihoods and financial stability because we accuse you of being cruel to your slaves."

Imagine, for a moment, if somebody started a movement accusing parents of being inherently cruel abusers of children who are at best underequipped educationally and emotionally to provide adequate upbringing, and advocating benevolent government centers which would mandatorily take children away from their parents to raise them in a uniformly nurturing environment. They have plenty of arguments which sound good on first blush, especially if you already agree that parents can be abusive. Oh, and they want to charge parents lifetimes' worth of extra taxes to pay for these facilities; after all, it's their fault that the government has to construct them.

Ludicrous, I know, but I could just as easily apply the "it's obvious that these self-serving parents have a chance to recognize their abusive nature and are constructing arguments to oppose this socially-uplifting goal just because they selfishly want to keep those kids to abuse while telling themselves they're good people."

Now, I would be on the side of those defending the parents, and I'd have lots of solid arguments against this atrocity of a movement, but you have to understand that the people behind it could just as easily hold the view you're espousing about all people in a slave-owning society who don't immediately drop their support of it the moment somebody says, "By the way, that practice is evil."

Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative.

Irrelevant.

I'm not saying, "By some view, slavery is not evil." I'm saying, "it is possible for an LG person not to realize slavery is inherently evil."

If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently.

Okay. So if a little old lady with a massive ability to deceive convinces a fighter who wants nothing more than to be a noble and honorable man that Wizard William the Uncharismatic has used charm person and suggestion to fool her children into thinking they're William's friends and turn them against her, and shows him the devastation William is inflicting on the land, is our good and noble fighter an evil man for going and confronting William and his young apprentices, and slaying the evil wizard before he can complete the ritual he's working on while the brainwashed youths plead with him to stop?

Sure, the old lady is actually a wicked hag who is going to magically brainwash the apprentices (who she'd previously done that to) and is actually responsible for the accursed blight ruining the nearby farmland, and there's no way for the low-Int and low-Wis fighter to know that, but his ignorance is no excuse, because alignment is objective, right?

Less elaborately, if Good King Kent insists on doing all executions himself (because he would not burden any others with such woeful tasks), and Rogue Rita successfully frames Innocent Iggy for a heinous murder she committed, is King Kent now neutral for having murdered an innocent man and letting a guilty murderess go, simply because he didn't know any better?



Yes, a person who has good reason to see the core truth of slavery and is actively avoiding doing so is staining their goodness with pride and perhaps other deadly sins to justify an evil institution.

No, one need not be willfully doing that to be unable to see it. This is why you can have a dedicated LG character who simply cannot, without extensive evidence and a massive paradigm shift in her thinking, grasp that slavery is, itself, inescapably wicked.

[Thrudd]

The more sophisticated the arguments get, the easier it actually is to lose sight of core fundamentals. And thus the easier it is to miss that very deep and important nugget that answers the question as to why slavery is inherently wicked.

I'm not saying, "By some view, slavery is not evil." I'm saying, "it is possible for an LG person not to realize slavery is inherently evil."

The people in the world don't need to get through the sophisticated arguments - the cosmos/GM does that, answers the arguments, and assigns an alignment to things accordingly. The denizens of the cosmos are then judged according to their relationships to the established objective moral standards.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter what the person can or can't realize. The fact that they don't realize slavery is evil makes them not Good. So it is not possible for a LG person not to realize slavery is evil, because part of the definition of LG is that they realize slavery is evil.

Their social conditioning has caused them to be Neutral - just as Orc society causes Orcs to be Evil because they are taught that wanton murder and cruelty are correct.

[Max_Killjoy]

The people in the world don't need to get through the sophisticated arguments - the cosmos/GM does that, answers the arguments, and assigns an alignment to things accordingly. The denizens of the cosmos are then judged according to their relationships to the established objective moral standards.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter what the person can or can't realize. The fact that they don't realize slavery is evil makes them not Good. So it is not possible for a LG person not to realize slavery is evil, because part of the definition of LG is that they realize slavery is evil.

Their social conditioning has caused them to be Neutral - just as Orc society causes Orcs to be Evil because they are taught that wanton murder and cruelty are correct.

Do intent and motive matter at all?

Is someone who has been lied to their entire life about something being "good" still just as Evil as someone who has the actual facts at hand and yet still does it?

[Segev]

The people in the world don't need to get through the sophisticated arguments - the cosmos/GM does that, answers the arguments, and assigns an alignment to things accordingly. The denizens of the cosmos are then judged according to their relationships to the established objective moral standards.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter what the person can or can't realize. The fact that they don't realize slavery is evil makes them not Good. So it is not possible for a LG person not to realize slavery is evil, because part of the definition of LG is that they realize slavery is evil.

Their social conditioning has caused them to be Neutral - just as Orc society causes Orcs to be Evil because they are taught that wanton murder and cruelty are correct.

Okay. So a person who only wants to help and be kind who is fooled into thinking that the person carrying a purse is actually a purse-snatcher who stole it from the "nice lady" (who actually wants the purse stolen) is now neutral because he was fooled?

A philanthropist who believes that he's donating to a charity that is working to educate disadvantaged youths and who, no matter what investigations he attempts, always sees only shining happy schools, and never sees the horrific sweat shops and forced-"recruitment" tactics of the organization to which he's donating, is actually neutral or even evil because he's donating to an evil organization he thinks is Good?

A woman administering poison to her children that the wicked quack has told her is medicine meant to cure them, but is actually keeping them sick so the quack can keep selling more poison, is an evil accomplice to the quack because the fact that she doesn't know it's the "medicine" that's keeping them sick isn't changing the fact that giving her kids poison is an evil act?

Every medicine-man, doctor, healer, etc. in history who has believed, mistakenly, that imbalanced humors are the cause of disease, is evil for the people they killed with their leeches? No matter how sincerely they believed they were helping?

The man who turns on an incinerator to dispose of garbage, after following every safety protocol he could think of, is evil if there was a kid who somehow wandered into it and subverted the security and safety protocols that would have warned the man of the kid's presence? After all, him believing his turning on the incinerator wouldn't cause any harm doesn't change that burning a child to death is evil.



The issue, Thrudd, is that you're conflating objectively (im)moral choices with objective results. These are not necessarily equivalent. Even when it is objectively, inarguably evil to, say, wear white after labor day (perhaps doing so guarantees an innocent's death by the end of the day in this wacky hypothetical world), if you do not know and have no reason to believe that it is objectively evil, you are not evil for refusing to believe the silly superstition.

I mean, I can guarantee you that I can find somebody who died on a day any given person wore white after labor day. But you would (rightfully) reject my silly "evidence," unless I could prove causal relation. It would not make you evil for thinking my claim silly, even if my claim were objectively true, if you have no reason to believe it.

[braveheart]

For a point of comparison, let's compare to OP's character to hypothetical warlock Timmy.

Timmy has immense magical power and uses it daily to save lives and free slaves and in general be a hero and good person. However Timmy's patron, the source of his power, requires him to murder someone Timmy has no personal issue with once a month. Timmy wants to keep doing good and needs his power to do good. Timmy saves dozens of lives every month, and could no longer do so if he failed to murder a random person. So every month Timmy goes and finds somone who is close to death and kills them. Unbeknownst to Timmy the souls of every person he kills this way belong to Timmy's patron and are enslaved to the patron.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

[JoeJ]

For a point of comparison, let's compare to OP's character to hypothetical warlock Timmy.

Timmy has immense magical power and uses it daily to save lives and free slaves and in general be a hero and good person. However Timmy's patron, the source of his power, requires him to murder someone Timmy has no personal issue with once a month. Timmy wants to keep doing good and needs his power to do good. Timmy saves dozens of lives every month, and could no longer do so if he failed to murder a random person. So every month Timmy goes and finds somone who is close to death and kills them. Unbeknownst to Timmy the souls of every person he kills this way belong to Timmy's patron and are enslaved to the patron.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

Absolutely Timmy could be good, because what he believes counts for more than what he does. Actions are not important in themselves, but because they are the working out of what a person believes. Objective morality is defined by the nature of the planes in the Great Wheel, and reality in the outer planes is determined by belief.

[Thrudd]

Do intent and motive matter at all?

Is someone who has been lied to their entire life about something being "good" still just as Evil as someone who has the actual facts at hand and yet still does it?

In this system, yes. In reality? I don't like to use "good" and "evil" in that way to apply to people.
Maybe not "just as evil". Maybe they are Neutral if they are far enough removed. But they don't get to be Good until they stop doing or helping others consistently do evil.

For the example of the person duped by an evil old lady and all the similar examples, that is a one-time thing. If it happened every day, and you were able to observe what the evil old lady did during the times she didn't need saving, but you still chose to defend her - I'd say that is closer to the example of the person living in slave society. They aren't living in a vacuum. They see the evil parts of slavery (if we can agree that there are, indeed evil parts of slavery). They have been taught the evil parts are excusable or even correct. So the example is much more like the orc raised to believe murder is good, than the person duped in by a single actor in a situation that is non-persistent.

[Scripten]

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Okay. So a person who only wants to help and be kind who is fooled into thinking that the transvestite carrying a purse is actually a purse-snatcher who stole it from the "nice lady" (who actually wants the purse stolen) is now neutral because he was fooled?

Just a heads up: "Transvestite" is considered a slur. You probably didn't mean to use it as such, but it would be a nice gesture to change that to just "trans*" instead.

A philanthropist who believes that he's donating to a charity that is working to educate disadvantaged youths and who, no matter what investigations he attempts, always sees only shining happy schools, and never sees the horrific sweat shops and forced-"recruitment" tactics of the organization to which he's donating, is actually neutral or even evil because he's donating to an evil organization he thinks is Good?

Seems unrealistic in any reasonably simulated world. But in this case, he would be Neutral at best for his contributions. (In my settings. Other DMs may disagree.) For the charity to be far-reaching enough to be doing this kind of evil, there would need to be a suitably realistic amount of evidence that our philanthropist could find, otherwise the comparison falls apart because the charity isn't big enough to be an institution.

Plus, you're not (or at least weren't) arguing that the slavery-upholding LG character is ignorant; you're arguing that they don't believe in the evidence they see that shows slavery to be evil.

A woman administering poison to her children that the wicked quack has told her is medicine meant to cure them, but is actually keeping them sick so the quack can keep selling more poison, is an evil accomplice to the quack because the fact that she doesn't know it's the "medicine" that's keeping them sick isn't changing the fact that giving her kids poison is an evil act?

Again, is there any method that she can use to investigate further? If not, then I would argue that this doesn't affect alignment, but it's also not a particularly good comparison. Medical quackery is not institutional.

Every medicine-man, doctor, healer, etc. in history who has believed, mistakenly, that imbalanced humors are the cause of disease, is evil for the people they killed with their leeches? No matter how sincerely they believed they were helping?

They would be if evidence was presented that showed that they were killing their patients. A more apt comparison would be the doctors who presented smoking tobacco as beneficial to one's health even as evidence piled up or parents who refuse to have their children treated with medicine when they are sick/injured in the modern age.

Self-delusion is the key aspect, which is necessary when it comes to slavery in (many) RPG worlds.

The man who turns on an incinerator to dispose of garbage, after following every safety protocol he could think of, is evil if there was a kid who somehow wandered into it and subverted the security and safety protocols that would have warned the man of the kid's presence? After all, him believing his turning on the incinerator wouldn't cause any harm doesn't change that burning a child to death is evil.

Not an evil act, though that would be assuming he made all of the appropriate checks beforehand rather than neglecting them. Again, you're making an argument that there is no possible way for the character to gain evidence of the harm being done.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

Timmy is literally a serial killer, regardless of the nature of his soul-stealing. Committing random murders makes him Evil, yes.

But you do bring up a good point. All of these hypothetical suggestions are assuming that the people committing these acts don't realize they are doing harm.

TL;DR: Supporting Evil acts or consequences out of acceptable levels of ignorance is not inherently Evil. (That is, having no basis for comparison or knowledge of harm done.) Self-delusion, on the other hand, is not the same as ignorance. So once a character goes from supporting something out of ignorance to deluding themselves, that is when their alignment would be affected.

[Segev]

For a point of comparison, let's compare to OP's character to hypothetical warlock Timmy.

Timmy has immense magical power and uses it daily to save lives and free slaves and in general be a hero and good person. However Timmy's patron, the source of his power, requires him to murder someone Timmy has no personal issue with once a month. Timmy wants to keep doing good and needs his power to do good. Timmy saves dozens of lives every month, and could no longer do so if he failed to murder a random person. So every month Timmy goes and finds somone who is close to death and kills them. Unbeknownst to Timmy the souls of every person he kills this way belong to Timmy's patron and are enslaved to the patron.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

Timmy is committing willful murder. The disposition of the souls is irrelevant.

A better analogy would be if Timmy's patron required Timmy to get one person per month added to the "paradise" that Timmy's patron runs. Unbeknownst to Timmy, the "paradise" is a work camp and indoctrination center. All Timmy ever sees are the successfully-indoctrinated who think everything is peachy. Sure, he sees other patrons' organizations which he knows are evilly abusive, but he doesn't think his patron would ever do such a thing, and wouldn't see a problem with the compounds in any event if they operated the way he thought his patron's did.

Spoiler: Treating people with respect note

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Just a heads up: "Transvestite" is considered a slur. You probably didn't mean to use it as such, but it would be a nice gesture to change that to just "trans*" instead.

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It literally means "cross-dresser," so I'll change it to that. The intent was to play on the "that man has a purse, and this woman claims he stole it from her" instincts regarding likely ownership of said purse. But changing it to a clearer word to avoid insult or argument is probably for the best.

Seems unrealistic in any reasonably simulated world. But in this case, he would be Neutral at best for his contributions. (In my settings. Other DMs may disagree.) For the charity to be far-reaching enough to be doing this kind of evil, there would need to be a suitably realistic amount of evidence that our philanthropist could find, otherwise the comparison falls apart because the charity isn't big enough to be an institution.

Plus, you're not (or at least weren't) arguing that the slavery-upholding LG character is ignorant; you're arguing that they don't believe in the evidence they see that shows slavery to be evil.

I'm not defending my claim right now. I am attacking a counter-claim that supporting slavery - regardless of what you believe about it - makes you inherently non-good. That, specifically, being factually wrong about the moral and ethical weight of something doesn't matter when it comes to your alignment; your alignment is determined by the outcome of your choices, no matter your intent, knowledge, nor best efforts.

Again, is there any method that she can use to investigate further? If not, then I would argue that this doesn't affect alignment, but it's also not a particularly good comparison. Medical quackery is not institutional.

Actually...it can be. But that's quite a different argument.

Self-delusion is the key aspect, which is necessary when it comes to slavery in (many) RPG worlds.

It can be, but it isn't guaranteed. A lot of RPG worlds portray slavery through a lens most definitely cut by our modern culture, so slavery's evils are put out in the open, and there are extant philosophers who have prominently and clearly spelled out the core evil (unless the RPG writers are actually just as bad as the hypothetical pro-slavery LG character and only touch on peripheral evils without understanding why it truly is evil, kind-of like a person who believes water turns to ice when cold, but doesn't understand that this is due to heat being extracted rather than "cold energy" being "pumped into" it).

The core evil is subtle. And honestly, oft avoided because understanding it reveals its presence in some uncomfortable places that our own society and culture is "perfectly fine" with. Or at least, broad swaths of it are, and get militant about defending.

TL;DR: Supporting Evil acts or consequences out of acceptable levels of ignorance is not inherently Evil. (That is, having no basis for comparison or knowledge of harm done.) Self-delusion, on the other hand, is not the same as ignorance. So once a character goes from supporting something out of ignorance to deluding themselves, that is when their alignment would be affected.

Agreed. My point is that the core reason why slavery is inherently evil, as opposed to merely - like any other institution - potentially corrupted by men who perform evil within it, is very easily missed. So easily missed that one need not be self-delusional to believe that the evils most likely pointed out to him are dismissed as "not slavery's fault." Any more than the instances of law-breaking, power-abusing tyrannical sheriffs or judges are evidence that having legal systems at all is inherently evil.

The argument isn't that this LG person is "right." Nor that they have "a good point." Nor that they should never potentially experience the paradigm-shift that enables the scales to fall from their eyes. But rather that such is not inevitable. That they can, without malice nor willful ignorance, remain convinced of their position due to the way in which things are presented to them by others and the world. Without being internally inconsistent.

[Scripten]

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It literally means "cross-dresser," so I'll change it to that. The intent was to play on the "that man has a purse, and this woman claims he stole it from her" instincts regarding likely ownership of said purse. But changing it to a clearer word to avoid insult or argument is probably for the best.

Personally, I'd just toss the trans aspect entirely. There's a lot to unpack here and it's probably best to do that outside this topic, anyway. Up to you.

I'm not defending my claim right now. I am attacking a counter-claim that supporting slavery - regardless of what you believe about it - makes you inherently non-good. That, specifically, being factually wrong about the moral and ethical weight of something doesn't matter when it comes to your alignment; your alignment is determined by the outcome of your choices, no matter your intent, knowledge, nor best efforts.

Right, but we have to make a distinction here: The LG character must either understand slavery or understand "slavery". Upholding "slavery" is like upholding "murder". If you believe that "murder" doesn't harm anyone, then a Good character could uphold "murder". But obviously murder does harm people, inherently. It kills people, Carl. So supporting murder is not-Good.

So what makes slavery slavery and not just "slavery"? I would argue that the concept of owning people is the key factor. If our LG character's idea of "slavery" does not involve owning people, then they could potentially be Good. As soon as they understand that owning other people is a part of slavery, then supporting it becomes a not-Good act.

If they don't know that slavery involves that, then they aren't actually supporting slavery, they're supporting "slavery". (To additionally supplement Thrudd's post, I'd also add that any society that practices slavery would have to publicly condone owning people and thus being ignorant of that aspect of slavery would be impossible.)

Actually...it can be. But that's quite a different argument.

True, but not in this example, which is what I was talking about. (Actually, you did a good job covering that with the next example, so those fit together well.)

The core evil is subtle. And honestly, oft avoided because understanding it reveals its presence in some uncomfortable places that our own society and culture is "perfectly fine" with. Or at least, broad swaths of it are, and get militant about defending.

I agree with this. The modern world inches uncomfortably close in places. But again, approaching the event horizon of acceptable subjects. I would say that, in most cases, I don't get too deeply into dissecting these ideas in-game because it's just not the right format for it.

But out-and-out slavery, with the ownership of people, isn't something that hits those notes, IMO.

Agreed. My point is that the core reason why slavery is inherently evil, as opposed to merely - like any other institution - potentially corrupted by men who perform evil within it, is very easily missed. So easily missed that one need not be self-delusional to believe that the evils most likely pointed out to him are dismissed as "not slavery's fault." Any more than the instances of law-breaking, power-abusing tyrannical sheriffs or judges are evidence that having legal systems at all is inherently evil.

The argument isn't that this LG person is "right." Nor that they have "a good point." Nor that they should never potentially experience the paradigm-shift that enables the scales to fall from their eyes. But rather that such is not inevitable. That they can, without malice nor willful ignorance, remain convinced of their position due to the way in which things are presented to them by others and the world. Without being internally inconsistent.

Eh, I still disagree here. Once a character understands slavery requires ownership of people, it becomes a matter of self-delusion to consider it a potentially Good institution. The evils of slavery are not, inherently, the treatment of the enslaved, but the explicit ownership of people. Of course, other evils are quite easily stacked on top, but that's the fundamental aspect that makes it inarguable, IMO.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Eh, I still disagree here. Once a character understands slavery requires ownership of people, it becomes a matter of self-delusion to consider it a potentially Good institution.

That's the thing. You don't have to consider it a Good institution. You just have to consider it a Neutral institution. Good people do Neutral things all the time.

[Enixon]

Depends who's writing. There are 3e and 4e books that emphasise it being inherently evil - not sure about 2e or 5e though.

Unless the slavers are from the setting's "Theme Park" Egyptian, Roman or Viking area then the book tends takes pains to say how it's A-Ok when they do it becasue mumble mumble

[JoeJ]

So what makes slavery slavery and not just "slavery"? I would argue that the concept of owning people is the key factor. If our LG character's idea of "slavery" does not involve owning people, then they could potentially be Good. As soon as they understand that owning other people is a part of slavery, then supporting it becomes a not-Good act.

How much of the person has to be owned to make it count as slavery? In a feudal society nearly everybody is owned, at least in part. Ownership is limited with restriction on what duties can be demanded from subjects of different stations, but at the core people in a very real sense belong to their superiors.

[Scripten]

How much of the person has to be owned to make it count as slavery? In a feudal society nearly everybody is owned, at least in part. Ownership is limited with restriction on what duties can be demanded from subjects of different stations, but at the core people in a very real sense belong to their superiors.

I'm not a medieval scholar, but from what I understand of feudalism, I'd say that it counts as a form of slavery and that a Lawful Good character would not support it.

[Max_Killjoy]

How much of the person has to be owned to make it count as slavery? In a feudal society nearly everybody is owned, at least in part. Ownership is limited with restriction on what duties can be demanded from subjects of different stations, but at the core people in a very real sense belong to their superiors.

That's not really a universal truth about feudal systems -- serfdom / chattel peasants are pretty specific to times and locations.

Unless one considers any imposed obligation "ownership".

[Segev]

[QUOTE=Scripten;23225274]

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Personally, I'd just toss the trans aspect entirely. There's a lot to unpack here and it's probably best to do that outside this topic, anyway. Up to you.

Eh, you're right. I wasn't trying to make a point with that; it was flavor/fluff, and if it's distracting, it's not helpful. Removed.

Eh, I still disagree here. Once a character understands slavery requires ownership of people, it becomes a matter of self-delusion to consider it a potentially Good institution. The evils of slavery are not, inherently, the treatment of the enslaved, but the explicit ownership of people. Of course, other evils are quite easily stacked on top, but that's the fundamental aspect that makes it inarguable, IMO.

We agree more than we disagree, given this statement.

The key point I'm getting at is that the notion that owning another person is evil is the part that can be hard to grasp. There are plenty of distracting philosophical arguments, debate points, and examples that can obscure the issue entirely, and provide strong positions to keep from understanding why owning people is inherently an evil.

That's the thing. You don't have to consider it a Good institution. You just have to consider it a Neutral institution. Good people do Neutral things all the time.

There's this, too: one need not show that "owning people is good" to say "slavery isn't necessarily evil." It just needs to be neutral, neither good nor evil in its own right, to be perfectly fine for Good people to do. "Going to the theme park" is neither good nor evil, for instance, but it wouldn't make a Good person slip towards neutrality for doing it.



So, Scripten, I think our main point of disagreement is on how easy it is to realize that the inherent evil is owning other people. Obviously, owning people is slavery, and slavery is owning people. If Nobilius sees no issue with owning people, and simultaneously sees any slaves he or others own as people in their own rights, he can easily miss the core paradigm that makes it inherently evil: it is dehumanizing.

To fully grasp why slavery - owning people - is inherently evil requires a fundamental understanding of the importance of agency and personal responsibility, and a clear grasp of why being owned by another person undermines one's access to both. Why the notion of owning a person inherently points to the notion of owning their life and their rights to living, in all its aspects.

It actually takes a great deal of dedicated thought for somebody who doesn't start actively looking to explain, "Slavery is inherently evil, and here's why," to get to that. Especially if they're surrounded by all the arguments to the contrary, designed to justify, to uphold, or to distract from the problems of slavery.

Nobilius could be a particularly intelligent person and still fall for it. If he's average or a bit dull, he may find it impossible to really figure out what the issue is, and default to the simplistic, surface examination of whether a given person - slave or not - is being treated right. (Of course, the way to get through to less-than-bright Nobilius would be to demonstrate the preponderance of evils that stem from it.)

Such a story arc, however, would take work by others to walk him through, and need not happen to have interesting tales of Nobilius the Good and his personal slaves (who he treats well, and who love him the way paid servants might love a particularly good employer). It can be an interesting way to go, but it need not go there to allow the LG character.

Remember that LG people need not be skilled philosophers to be good and lawful.