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2019-10-14, 12:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: Is a Lawful Good person always a positive, wholesome person to be around?
I would argue that the situations where you have to choose between them are actually quite rare, unless you live somewhere they're routinely and actively coming into conflict such as a tyrannical LE regime. Most of the time, LG just views Law as the means to accomplish Good ends; it's a means they believe is inherently superior for creating lasting good because it avoids the sort of shortcuts and unintended consequences that Chaos can cause, even if it might take longer or require more effort in the short run. In other words, while the two can come into conflict, LG characters act in accordance with this alignment because they genuinely feel it's the better approach to maximizing Good overall.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2019-10-14, 12:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2018
Re: Is a Lawful Good person always a positive, wholesome person to be around?
I have a different understanding of the situation myself. That is, when I play Lawful Good, it is usually in this form:
Laws exist to serve some function--unlike the endless interminable debates about human purpose, all mortal laws by definition have a purpose. A law which merely fails to achieve the purpose for which it was designed is not a good law, but it need not strictly be a bad law--many laws go defunct, that doesn't make them bad, but they have become unneeded chaff. A law which not only fails at its intended purpose, but actively interferes with that purpose (or any other law's purpose) is an actively bad law, and the very meaning of 'law' means that it not only can be, but SHOULD be replaced. To behave in any other way is to deny the validity of law.
So we are then left to ask: what are the correct purposes for laws? Naturally, laws can have a variety of individual purposes, e.g. some laws regulate safety, other laws prescribe the transfer of power, other laws bind participants to sworn duties such as contracts or offices, etc. But laws may also have a common purpose, a function that all law supports, or at least must not oppose. For me, the common and fundamental purpose of all law is the good of those within its purview--no law should exist that actively opposes the good of those governed by it, and ideally, every law that exists actively supports their good. It is this purpose which allows us to test and grade laws. Of course, it is entirely fair to then ask, how does one determine this good? What does one do if one does not know? You do what you think is best to the limit of your abilities--including your ability to judge what is best.
To say that one "must choose either Law first or Good first" is sort of a non sequitur. It confuses how the parts relate to one another. In one sense, "Good always comes before Law" because Good is what defines the valid purposes to which Law may tend. But in a different sense, Law precedes Good--consistency and formalization are how one achieves any effective large-scale end. Law constitutes the reasoning that elucidates the nature of the Good, for instance. Neither can truly be said to be "first" because their "firstness" or "secondness" depends entirely on the kind of question you're asking.
Edit: Or, y'know. What Psyren said, I just had to be wordier and less coherent.Last edited by ezekielraiden; 2019-10-14 at 02:21 PM.