On the nature of Good and Evil (Or 'Good is hard')


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

301 to 350 of 386 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | next > last >>

Ilja wrote:
Weirdo wrote:
I'm not familiar with the episode in question, but if the destroyed ship contained (or likely contained) civilians and the person giving the order knew that, then it's a very good example of when performing an evil act (after thinking carefully and looking for another option) would be the right thing to do.

*SPOILERS* (but it's an early episode)

** spoiler omitted **

'just following orders' is pretty much the definition of LN surely?


Yah, i'm pretty certain killing a ship of innocent folks, even to save an even larger number of innocent folks, is evil. It's just justifiably evil given the situation.

Shadow Lodge

thejeff wrote:
It's a game. It's not real-life. Of course it's structured to reward heroics. That's implicit in the CR system and basic adventure design.

Let me rephrase that: his definition of heroics means that it's impossible to be heroic unless the system rewards never accepting an imperfect moral action because a hero who is forced to make an imperfect moral action (accept a lesser evil) has failed as a hero.

The CR system and adventure design is not structured to reward never accepting imperfect moral actions.

thejeff wrote:
If you want to structure your game world to require choosing the lesser of evils in order to succeed, go right ahead. But remember that it's your choice and your design. And please make sure your players know. Especially the paladins.

Yeah, my group communicates on this front (and as a general rule if I were to present a no-win situation, I wouldn't penalize a paladin for choosing a lesser evil in a situation where they legitimately don't have a better option).

thejeff wrote:
Weirdo wrote:
Yes, exactly. Let's say you're told that there's a 50% chance of an disease breaking out what will kill 100,000 people unless you develop a cure, and developing the cure requires the death of 100 monkeys in medical experimentation. The right thing to do is develop the cure, even if the disease never breaks out and in hindsight the monkeys died in vain.

But what if it's 100 people, not monkeys?

That's still saving 500 lives for every person you kill. (Technically, a 50% chance of 1000 lives, but over many trials it works out.)
Obviously worth it right?
What if you have to kill a 1000 people? Or even 10,000? That's still 5:1. Still the right thing to do, isn't it?
Or take it the other way: Still only 100 people, but only a 1% chance of the disease breaking out.

The same argument applies.

And when you're talking about saving the world, any atrocities should be fine, right? First you have to conquer it and enslave everyone so they can work together to stop the coming apocalypse. Completely justifiable, right?
Or maybe you're just doing it enforce the peace and stop all the needless wars or to free the peasants from exploitation. And the current restrictions are just in place to preserve the revolution.
There's always a reason.

Rob got it right on vaccination and medical treatment in general. Now most treatments give you the individual right to accept a tiny risk of death for the treatment, but mandatory school vaccinations don't. More generally, Public Health Spending decides to prioritize certain diseases over others, by inaction sentencing some people to death in order to save the lives of others with diseases that are more common or easier to treat (so a cure is more cost-effective in terms of lives saved). If you decide to provide free treatment for Disease A, saving to save an estimated 10,000 lives, but cut the budget for Disease B at a cost of 100 lives, the result is the same as if you decided to kill 100 people to save 10,000. People are just more emotionally connected when you're personally killing the 100 instead of just allowing them to die.

The fact that it is harder to make these decisions when human lives are involved does not mean that we cannot and do not weight human lives in decision making - and that there is still a morally correct answer.

Eben TheQuiet wrote:
Yah, i'm pretty certain killing a ship of innocent folks, even to save an even larger number of innocent folks, is evil. It's just justifiably evil given the situation.

Would you say that "justifiably evil" is the same thing as "morally correct" or "the right thing to do" - are you agreeing with Anzyr's assertions that some things are "right but not good"?

This is an interesting point because someone (Voadam?) pointed out upthread that they would consider sacrificing innocents morally correct in some circumstances but still evil in all circumstances. Thus a paladin would be expected to sacrifice the innocents but still need an atonement.


Rod Godfrey wrote:
You cannot use hindsight, they used the best information they had, which was a viable atomic weapons program, the least damaging method of achieving the goal, a commando team (rather than saturation bombing) and made the call, I am sure the people involved wish they could, with waht they then knew have made a different call, but we have the best intel available, and trying to sleep at night, not a time machine.

Of course one must make do with the best information available, because we can't simply wait for omniscience. That doesn't somehow prevent me from making a judgment using hindsight; it just means that my judgment must be tempered by the fact that the information was incorrect.

But that's not the point. The point, simply, is that "we must choose between the lesser and the greater of two evils" is usually a silly thing to say, because it denies the possibility of a third choice which may be preferable to both. And rarely, in the real world or in fantasy, do only two choices exist.

Re: vaccinations and the like. I think people would be absolutely appalled at someone who developed vaccinations by deliberate testing on human beings until they found something that worked. That's a different moral calculus from "we know this works most of the time, but sometimes fails, and sometimes that failure has dire consequences" which is the actual consideration made there. If nothing else, it's the difference between intentionally killing someone on the one hand and doing something which will probably help them but has a small chance of hurting them instead.

Shadow Lodge

Glendwyr wrote:
Of course one must make do with the best information available, because we can't simply wait for omniscience. That doesn't somehow prevent me from making a judgment using hindsight; it just means that my judgment must be tempered by the fact that the information was incorrect.
Glendwyr wrote:
That's a different moral calculus from "we know this works most of the time, but sometimes fails, and sometimes that failure has dire consequences" which is the actual consideration made there. If nothing else, it's the difference between intentionally killing someone on the one hand and doing something which will probably help them but has a small chance of hurting them instead.

So intentions matter, but an action made with the best intentions using limited information is still morally wrong? Is that what you mean by "my judgment must be tempered by the fact that the information was morally correct," or did you just mean "I should regret having made that choice because it turned out poorly but it was still the right thing to do at the time"?

To go with the vaccination / medicine example, if someone has an allergy to the medicine we're using but there's no easy way to test pre-treatment and we give them the medicine and they die - was it morally wrong to treat them because in hindsight we know that the treatment could not have helped? Or was it morally correct because with the information we had at the time it was more likely to have helped than hurt?

Glendwyr wrote:
But that's not the point. The point, simply, is that "we must choose between the lesser and the greater of two evils" is usually a silly thing to say, because it denies the possibility of a third choice which may be preferable to both. And rarely, in the real world or in fantasy, do only two choices exist.

True, but sometimes all the multiple choices are bad (and this is called the "least evil" instead of the "lesser evil"). From the POV of the saboteurs, their options were:

(1) Do nothing and risk a Nazi nuclear bomb (catastrophic if it happened)
(2) Bomb the area, causing lots of civilian casualties
(3) Sink a boat, causing a few civilian casualties.

Of the three, the third was to the best of their knowledge least evil. I don't think any less-damaging methods of sabotage (fourth options) were known.

Glendwyr wrote:
Re: vaccinations and the like. I think people would be absolutely appalled at someone who developed vaccinations by deliberate testing on human beings until they found something that worked.

That's actually how human clinical trials work. You weed out most of the stuff that doesn't work first, but once you can't get any further by testing stuff in tubes, mice, or monkeys you deliberately test it on humans. Mostly the stuff that doesn't work at this stage is just ineffective, but there have been a handful of cases where really bad effects popped up in the human testing stage.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I see a significant difference between using a vaccine that has a good chance of helping each person and a very small chance of harming them and actually picking people to kill. Even if the same number of people wind up dying.

There is a matter of intent. It's still in each person's best interest to take the vaccine.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Weirdo wrote:
So intentions matter, but an action made with the best intentions using limited information is still morally wrong? Is that what you mean by "my judgment must be tempered by the fact that the information was morally correct," or did you just mean "I should regret having made that choice because it turned out poorly but it was still the right thing to do at the time"?

Obviously, I'm not being terribly clear here!

It strikes me that frequently people are using "the right thing to do" to mean the efficient thing to do, and not the morally correct thing to do. In other words, it's being suggested that committing a lesser atrocity is "the right thing to do" when it prevents a greater atrocity. At a bare minimum, I would say that committing the lesser atrocity can be defended as the "right" thing to do only if it is the least of all evils and not simply the lesser of two. You're thinking along similar lines, so I doubt we're as far apart as we might appear to be.

Even so, the reason we call something "the least of all evils" is because it's an evil. It's not an evil for which I would condemn someone, but neither is it an evil for which I would praise someone.

Going back to your example, then, I would say that it was a rational thing to do at the time, and as a well-intentioned act was not morally blameworthy. I certainly don't accept that it's morally praiseworthy. Does that make it the right thing to do? That depends entirely on what we mean by "right."


Good is easy because the game world is going to be structured to reward it. There really can be no meaningful sacrifice since there is an almost assured return on that investment.

Of course back in the real world this often the argument for "good" as well, on utilitarian grounds of providing some benefit for engaging in the prescribed course of action.

The OP is grasping at the definition of Good brought forward by Plato in Utopia, which is one that deracinates Goodness from actual outcomes (which is also where Anzyr fundamentally disagrees with this definition of Good.) A good deed is its' own rewards, and ipso facto suffering on the part of do-gooder is necessary to demonstrate their lack of ulterior motives.

Also, as an aside, I'm not seeing in game terms where it is evil to hurt, oppress and kill those that are evil themselves, unless it's something grossly hyperbolic (in b4 gross hyperbole) that could be seen as a debasement of sapient life in itself.

In D&D chopping the head off of everything that shows up as Evil under your Paladin radar generally isn't going to imperil your soul, barring any divination skewing shenanigans giving false positives.

The suffering and death of evil is good and right.


Mikaze wrote:
Skullford wrote:
Assuming the accuracy of history the Conquistadors would be lawfully neutral considering who they were wiping out, like the Incas and Aztecs. In Pathfinder it would be the equivalent of taking out an Orc colony.
Oh hell no.

Hell no.

(because just once was not enough).


thejeff wrote:
Weirdo wrote:
Yes, exactly. Let's say you're told that there's a 50% chance of an disease breaking out what will kill 100,000 people unless you develop a cure, and developing the cure requires the death of 100 monkeys in medical experimentation. The right thing to do is develop the cure, even if the disease never breaks out and in hindsight the monkeys died in vain.

But what if it's 100 people, not monkeys?

That's still saving 500 lives for every person you kill. (Technically, a 50% chance of 1000 lives, but over many trials it works out.)
Obviously worth it right?
What if you have to kill a 1000 people? Or even 10,000? That's still 5:1. Still the right thing to do, isn't it?
Or take it the other way: Still only 100 people, but only a 1% chance of the disease breaking out.

The same argument applies.

And when you're talking about saving the world, any atrocities should be fine, right? First you have to conquer it and enslave everyone so they can work together to stop the coming apocalypse. Completely justifiable, right?
Or maybe you're just doing it enforce the peace and stop all the needless wars or to free the peasants from exploitation. And the current restrictions are just in place to preserve the revolution.
There's always a reason.

Dude, I like the way you think. Let's expand on your analogy:

You are walking down the street with your paycheck. A man steps out of the shadows carrying a club. He says that, while your paycheck might help you a bit, he could help dozens of poorer people with that money. So he demands your paycheck, and threatens to take it from you by force if you don't hand it over. That's both chaotic and (harmful) evil (especially if he has to beat you down to get it). So what if he gets three people to agree with him that you should lose your paycheck for the benefit of others? Still evil. What if he gets a hundred? A thousand? How many people are necessary to make his evil good?

Ok, so he gets the hundred people and they call themselves a "town." Now is it good? Or he gets ten thousand and calls himself a city. Or ten million and calls it a nation. Is suddenly his theft (since you still don't want to give up the money) not evil?

Awesome! You've just logically proven that all taxes are evil! I hope you don't mind, but I've notified the IRS of your accomplishment. I figure they'll want to congratulate you, or something...


Eirikrautha wrote:
I hope you don't mind, but I've notified the IRS of your accomplishment.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the IRS is not evil? =)

Don't go into Power Dome A wrote:
Also, as an aside, I'm not seeing in game terms where it is evil to hurt, oppress and kill those that are evil themselves, unless it's something grossly hyperbolic (in b4 gross hyperbole) that could be seen as a debasement of sapient life in itself.
The game seems pretty clear about it to me:
prd wrote:
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

I see "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others," not "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing the innocent." The inference seems pretty obvious. YMMV.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Eirikrautha wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Weirdo wrote:
Yes, exactly. Let's say you're told that there's a 50% chance of an disease breaking out what will kill 100,000 people unless you develop a cure, and developing the cure requires the death of 100 monkeys in medical experimentation. The right thing to do is develop the cure, even if the disease never breaks out and in hindsight the monkeys died in vain.

But what if it's 100 people, not monkeys?

That's still saving 500 lives for every person you kill. (Technically, a 50% chance of 1000 lives, but over many trials it works out.)
Obviously worth it right?
What if you have to kill a 1000 people? Or even 10,000? That's still 5:1. Still the right thing to do, isn't it?
Or take it the other way: Still only 100 people, but only a 1% chance of the disease breaking out.

The same argument applies.

And when you're talking about saving the world, any atrocities should be fine, right? First you have to conquer it and enslave everyone so they can work together to stop the coming apocalypse. Completely justifiable, right?
Or maybe you're just doing it enforce the peace and stop all the needless wars or to free the peasants from exploitation. And the current restrictions are just in place to preserve the revolution.
There's always a reason.

Dude, I like the way you think. Let's expand on your analogy:

You are walking down the street with your paycheck. A man steps out of the shadows carrying a club. He says that, while your paycheck might help you a bit, he could help dozens of poorer people with that money. So he demands your paycheck, and threatens to take it from you by force if you don't hand it over. That's both chaotic and (harmful) evil (especially if he has to beat you down to get it). So what if he gets three people to agree with him that you should lose your paycheck for the benefit of others? Still evil. What if he gets a hundred? A thousand? How many people are necessary to make his evil good?

Ok, so he gets the hundred people and...

I love libertarians. They're wacky.


System-wide, taxation is evil when it is significantly oppressive, and not when it is not significantly oppressive. As far as Pathfinder goes. It's right there in the frickin' definitions and has nothing necessarily to do with how many people are backing up the tax collector.

Shadow Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Taxation as I see it is Lawful behavior in that it involves a n organized collective effort to gather money for group projects. Taxation that benefits the people is LG, taxation that maintains the state with no net benefit or cost to the taxed is LN, and taxation that oppresses the taxed for the benefit of the ruling class is LE.

Glendwyr, that does make it clear and I think I agree with everything substantive. I'm certainly using "the right thing to do" to mean either the most morally praiseworthy or the least blameworthy option - the choice a moral person ought to make.

As for efficiency, it's certainly not always the right thing to do, but efficiency can be considered if you're trying to maximize the number of lives saved. For example, I might be a policy maker trying to decide whether to fund lung cancer or breast cancer research with a limited amount of money. The research money affects the rate of cancer survival. Thus I am deciding to save some people while allowing others to die, making a decision where lives will be lost either way but some deaths can be prevented. It may be the case that because breast cancer is already well-funded, additional funds in lung cancer research save more lives per dollar than breast cancer - in this case I may decide to fund lung cancer because it is the most efficient way to save lives. Making this decision based on efficiency is in fact very moral - more moral than if I were to make the decision based on the fact that breast cancer is more popular with the voters, or because I am at risk or a loved one is at risk for one particular kind of cancer and I want to improve my personal odds.


Rob Godfrey wrote:


'just following orders' is pretty much the definition of LN surely?

Well, I would say to a degree. Following orders on very evil actions is in my opinion over the edge to evil. Say, the evil overlord gives the order "execute these fifteen babies so I can have myself a laugh", following that order would be evil.


Rob Godfrey wrote:


'just following orders' is pretty much the definition of LN surely?

One does not have to dig very deep to answer this one either.

Quote:
"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Weirdo wrote:

Would you say that "justifiably evil" is the same thing as "morally correct" or "the right thing to do" - are you agreeing with Anzyr's assertions that some things are "right but not good"?

This is an interesting point because someone (Voadam?) pointed out upthread that they would consider sacrificing innocents morally correct in some circumstances but still evil in all circumstances. Thus a paladin would be expected to sacrifice the innocents but still need an atonement.

Morally correct? No. Right thing to do? Again, no, but 'right' is much more subjective.

As I've said all along, the least bad choice (when in a no-win situation) is just that... the choice aimed at minimizing the bad.

The reality is that these decisions (and all the situations I've seen presented in this thread) are actually scenarios in which there are multiple issues in play are still multiple issues, even if they are immediately linked by circumstances.

Saving thousands of innocents in Pathfinder will only ever be a good thing to do. Killing 100 innocents will only ever be an evil thing to do. If there truly is no third option (which is always in question, but for this discussion we'll assume is the case) then it doesn't make killing the hundred good or morally correct. A good person will still carry the burden and consequence of killing 100 innocents.

At the same time, anyone who has the same values or morals as the unfortunate decision-maker and has to judge whether it was the "right thing to do" to kill the 100 to save the thousands has to keep the context of the decision in mind. Usually this is when you hear people say "well, it was the right thing to do". Which, if we're being literal and proper with our words, should actually be phrased as "It's terrible that you are responsible for the death of 100 innocents, but I can understand it given the context." And I would hope their consequences of those actions would be minimized (if not altogether removed) given the situation. I mean, seriously, if the decision-maker truly is a good person, they are already forced to live with the weight of 100 innocent deaths on their conscience.

Shadow Lodge

Then what should a morally correct person do when faced with a choice where all you can do is minimize the bad (whether there are only two options or ten, all bad)?

As I said previously, I define "the right thing to do" as "the thing a morally correct person ought to do". Even if there isn't a "good" or "morally praiseworthy" option, there has to be a choice a moral person should take. There may be debate over what action a moral person should find "less bad" - hence different ethical philosophies like virtue ethics vs utilitarianism vs categorical imperatives - but as far as I know all ethical systems agree that some action is morally preferable. For example, utilitarianism says it is morally preferable to lie to save a life, while categorical imperatives say you should never lie even for a good end.

Note that "do nothing" is also an action that has moral consequences (as in "evil wins when good men do nothing.")

Eben TheQuiet wrote:

If there truly is no third option (which is always in question, but for this discussion we'll assume is the case) then it doesn't make killing the hundred good or morally correct. A good person will still carry the burden and consequence of killing 100 innocents.

...
I mean, seriously, if the decision-maker truly is a good person, they are already forced to live with the weight of 100 innocent deaths on their conscience.

I did agree earlier that I thought that a Good person would take the least bad option but still regret the losses. I don't think that anyone is saying a Good person should feel happy with choosing a lesser evil.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

They do the best they can, always seeking good even when they fear there isn't any to be found.

I'm a little confused. Do you think I'm advocating that good people do nothing when in tough or impossible situations. I'm not.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Glendwyr wrote:


I see "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others," not "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing the innocent." The inference seems pretty obvious. YMMV.

If that were the case then killing anyone would always be evil, every time, no matter what, which is clearly not the case.

Shadow Lodge

Don't go into Power Dome A wrote:
Glendwyr wrote:


I see "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others," not "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing the innocent." The inference seems pretty obvious. YMMV.
If that were the case then killing anyone would always be evil, every time, no matter what, which is clearly not the case.

There's a couple ways to resolve this.

1) Killing is always evil, but sometimes it's the least evil thing and good people are permitted to take the least evil action. This unfortunately means that paladins will fall any time they kill a sentient creature, which is not typically how people play the game.

2) Killing is nonevil if the target is evil or has actively evil intent. This is a frequent assumption in fantasy games but does get into "Team Celestial / Team Fiend" territory since the morality of the action depends on what "team" the target is on.

3) Killing is nonevil if the alternative is causing greater suffering and/or death, for example by allowing an unrepentant killer to live. This one sits better morally with some people than (2) and also allows adventurers to sometimes kill sentient creatures, but it is contradictory with the idea that "the least evil is still evil."

4) Killing an evil creature is nonevil only if the alternative causes greater suffering: a combination of 2 and 3 which has lesser versions of the disadvantages of each (in that it allows in some cases it may be moral to kill evil things simply because they are evil, and in those cases differentiates between evil and not evil based on the level of evilness of the alternatives).

Eben TheQuiet wrote:
They do the best they can, always seeking good even when they fear there isn't any to be found.

So they refuse to accept an imperfect moral action, potentially pausing widespread suffering by failing to prevent the greater evil?

Or they bite the bullet and go for the least evil after looking for and failing to find truly good alternatives?

Eben TheQuiet wrote:
I'm a little confused. Do you think I'm advocating that good people do nothing when in tough or impossible situations. I'm not.

I'm confused because you don't seem to be using "morally correct" or "the right thing to do" in the same way that I'm using them and haven't clearly defined these terms OR said what term you would use to describe the situation that I use those terms to describe.

You've been using a lot of noble language to describe good actions, but I can't figure out your actual position on moral dilemmas.


Weirdo wrote:
Don't go into Power Dome A wrote:
Glendwyr wrote:


I see "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others," not "evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing the innocent." The inference seems pretty obvious. YMMV.
If that were the case then killing anyone would always be evil, every time, no matter what, which is clearly not the case.

There's a couple ways to resolve this.

1) Killing is always evil, but sometimes it's the least evil thing and good people are permitted to take the least evil action. This unfortunately means that paladins will fall any time they kill a sentient creature, which is not typically how people play the game.

2) Killing is nonevil if the target is evil or has actively evil intent. This is a frequent assumption in fantasy games but does get into "Team Celestial / Team Fiend" territory since the morality of the action depends on what "team" the target is on.

3) Killing is nonevil if the alternative is causing greater suffering and/or death, for example by allowing an unrepentant killer to live. This one sits better morally with some people than (2) and also allows adventurers to sometimes kill sentient creatures, but it is contradictory with the idea that "the least evil is still evil."

4) Killing an evil creature is nonevil only if the alternative causes greater suffering: a combination of 2 and 3 which has lesser versions of the disadvantages of each (in that it allows in some cases it may be moral to kill evil things simply because they are evil, and in those cases differentiates between evil and not evil based on the level of evilness of the alternatives).

How about the usual standard of "in self-defense or defense of others", with all the usual qualifications, but with enough of "imminent" clause removed that you cam go track down the threat and deal with it rather than having to wait until it is actually attacking.

Thus, you can go attack the orc band that's been attacking the villagers, but you can't just go attack the tribe of orcs that hasn't been causing any problems, just because they're evil.

You can't attack the necromancer in town, even though he pings as evil, until you find out he's turning people into wights in the catacombs.


Planescape had an interesting take on this - violence is/was an invention and tool of evil, and mercy is/was an invention and tool of good. Both sides, in early primordial conflicts, infected the other with these concepts. As the original planar paragons - the priminals and baernoloths - began to die/fall from power, they created successors deliberately 'tainted' with aspects of the opposing side, to better effect their purpose.

The result was evil beings that could refrain from killing people, and good beings that could kill people in the first place.

Shadow Lodge

thejeff wrote:
Weirdo wrote:

2) Killing is nonevil if the target is evil or has actively evil intent. This is a frequent assumption in fantasy games but does get into "Team Celestial / Team Fiend" territory since the morality of the action depends on what "team" the target is on.

3) Killing is nonevil if the alternative is causing greater suffering and/or death, for example by allowing an unrepentant killer to live. This one sits better morally with some people than (2) and also allows adventurers to sometimes kill sentient creatures, but it is contradictory with the idea that "the least evil is still evil."

4) Killing an evil creature is nonevil only if the alternative causes greater suffering: a combination of 2 and 3 which has lesser versions of the disadvantages of each (in that it allows in some cases it may be moral to kill evil things simply because they are evil, and in those cases differentiates between evil and not evil based on the level of evilness of the alternatives).

How about the usual standard of "in self-defense or defense of others", with all the usual qualifications, but with enough of "imminent" clause removed that you cam go track down the threat and deal with it rather than having to wait until it is actually attacking.

Thus, you can go attack the orc band that's been attacking the villagers, but you can't just go attack the tribe of orcs that hasn't been causing any problems, just because they're evil.

You can't attack the necromancer in town, even though he pings as evil, until you find out he's turning people into wights in the catacombs.

I'd see that as a specific variant on option 4, since it allows killing someone with the specific evil intent of causing death in order to prevent that death. Maybe option 3 if it allows killing someone in self- or other-defense if they are under the effects of Dominate Person or similar and thus free of personal evil intent.


Glendwyr wrote:


Are you seriously trying to tell me that the IRS is not evil? =)

Well played, sir!


thejeff wrote:
Eirikrautha wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Weirdo wrote:
Yes, exactly. Let's say you're told that there's a 50% chance of an disease breaking out what will kill 100,000 people unless you develop a cure, and developing the cure requires the death of 100 monkeys in medical experimentation. The right thing to do is develop the cure, even if the disease never breaks out and in hindsight the monkeys died in vain.

But what if it's 100 people, not monkeys?

That's still saving 500 lives for every person you kill. (Technically, a 50% chance of 1000 lives, but over many trials it works out.)
Obviously worth it right?
What if you have to kill a 1000 people? Or even 10,000? That's still 5:1. Still the right thing to do, isn't it?
Or take it the other way: Still only 100 people, but only a 1% chance of the disease breaking out.

The same argument applies.

And when you're talking about saving the world, any atrocities should be fine, right? First you have to conquer it and enslave everyone so they can work together to stop the coming apocalypse. Completely justifiable, right?
Or maybe you're just doing it enforce the peace and stop all the needless wars or to free the peasants from exploitation. And the current restrictions are just in place to preserve the revolution.
There's always a reason.

Dude, I like the way you think. Let's expand on your analogy:

You are walking down the street with your paycheck. A man steps out of the shadows carrying a club. He says that, while your paycheck might help you a bit, he could help dozens of poorer people with that money. So he demands your paycheck, and threatens to take it from you by force if you don't hand it over. That's both chaotic and (harmful) evil (especially if he has to beat you down to get it). So what if he gets three people to agree with him that you should lose your paycheck for the benefit of others? Still evil. What if he gets a hundred? A thousand? How many people are necessary to make his evil good?

Ok, so

...

I'm not a libertarian, but I do enjoy pointing out logical fallacies (in this case, the slippery slope) through examples...


Don't go into Power Dome A wrote:
If that were the case then killing anyone would always be evil, every time, no matter what, which is clearly not the case.

"Evil implies killing others" does not mean "killing others is always evil," as Weirdo has pointed out. Nevertheless, we know that the rules do not make a distinction between killing others and killing the innocent. Make of that what you will. For my part, I find the team celestial / team fiend version of good and evil to be utterly daft, and I see no need to rehash that discussion for the 400th time.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Weirdo wrote:

So they refuse to accept an imperfect moral action, potentially pausing widespread suffering by failing to prevent the greater evil?

Or they bite the bullet and go for the least evil after looking for and failing to find truly good alternatives?

In that scenario, I'd think a good-striving person would do the second. And the difference between him and his Neutral/Evil counterparts is that he doesn't sleep with a clean conscience for a good long time.

Weirdo wrote:

I'm confused because you don't seem to be using "morally correct" or "the right thing to do" in the same way that I'm using them and haven't clearly defined these terms OR said what term you would use to describe the situation that I use those terms to describe.

You've been using a lot of noble language to describe good actions, but I can't figure out your actual position on moral dilemmas.

I'm not trying to be vague, but I am sticking pretty strictly with the Pathfinder Good/Evil axis part of the discussion. For a person primarily concerned with that, their moral compass is dictated by the saving or killing of innocent life. So, for the most part (and from that perspective), "morally correct" should be synonymous with "good". And yes, I've avoided using the phrase "right thing to do" because, as I said before, it's completely relative to perspective, perception, and personal values.

Given that I'm trying to stick pretty close to the Good/Evil part of the discussion, I guess I find it appropriate that I'd use a lot of noble language.

I'll see if I can do a better job of saying how i believe PF Good/Evil plays into these situations. A person seeking to fully uphold good in this kill 100/save thousands situation would see them as two evils. Period. Knowing the unique, irreplaceable nature of life, they'd seek with all their effort—and with a willingness to sacrifice themselves in whatever capacity if necessary—to save both groups of people. Failing to do so, and with zero seconds left on the clock, they'd still be driven to act... and, in this case, would likely try to minimize the bad... killing the hundred to save the thousands. Like his Neutral or Evil counterparts, he can rejoice in his success in regards to the thousands. Unlike his Neutral or Evil counterparts, he can't simply reduce it to a numbers game and sleep easy about the 'greater good'. Instead, the killing of the hundred is still a grave evil to him, and will live with that weight on his conscience, and will even willingly accept whatever consequences come from his actions.

What else am I missing?


Eirikrautha wrote:
I'm not a libertarian, but I do enjoy pointing out logical fallacies (in this case, the slippery slope) through examples...

It's not a slippery slope in this case.

Oppressive taxation is still evil, probably more so than the guy in the alleyway, so the slope leads nowhere incorrect.

Non-oppressive taxation isn't analogous to the example, because you agreed to it beforehand as part of the social contract you signed in order to enable you to receive a paycheck in the first place. Thus, it is not comparable to a man surprising you in a dark alley. Far more comparable to the man making sure you paid your cover charge since you're partying in his bar.

Since non oppressive taxation is not fairly relatable to the man with the club in a way that keeps the chain of comparison intact, it's not a problem either.

Shadow Lodge

Eben TheQuiet - That's very clear, thanks, and I agree.

Quote:
And yes, I've avoided using the phrase "right thing to do" because, as I said before, it's completely relative to perspective, perception, and personal values.

Very fair point. I personally switched from "Good action" to "right thing" in order to discuss choosing the least evil (not really good) option, but you're right that it's also used to describe actions judged on the Law-Chaos axis or to describe how an evil culture still considers itself "right" even if it's clearly not "Good" with objective alignment.

Grand Lodge

Skullford - Forgive me, I'm nub wrote:
Again I was talking about real life. Look at Democrats and Republicans they certainly think of the other side as evil, some would go so far as to say controlled by the devil.

Dude, not even close.

I'm sorry, I know this isn't a political forum (although there already seems to be a fight over taxation) and it's a tad off topic, but this false equivalency always bothers me.

You have one party - ONE - that's claiming the other is evil. The Dems would probably classify the other side as fractured, wrongheaded, out-of-touch, what-have-you. But it takes only the kind of ignorance that can be fostered by the religious right to see a disagreement in policy as making the other side "EEEEVVILLLL". I mean you gave it away when you said 'controlled by the devil'; there's only members of one party I ever hear accusing the other of being in the devil's employ, and it's definitely not the party that inherited Jefferson's Enlightenment ideals.


Coriat wrote:
Eirikrautha wrote:
I'm not a libertarian, but I do enjoy pointing out logical fallacies (in this case, the slippery slope) through examples...

It's not a slippery slope in this case.

Oppressive taxation is still evil, probably more so than the guy in the alleyway, so the slope leads nowhere incorrect.

Non-oppressive taxation isn't analogous to the example, because you agreed to it beforehand as part of the social contract you signed in order to enable you to receive a paycheck in the first place. Thus, it is not comparable to a man surprising you in a dark alley. Far more comparable to the man making sure you paid your cover charge since you're partying in his bar.

Since non oppressive taxation is not fairly relatable to the man with the club in a way that keeps the chain of comparison intact, it's not a problem either.

Nobody actually signs a social contract. It's a convenient metaphor explaining why we need to basically accept the status quo of governance. There's no free choice involved. You can leave, unless of course you don't have resources or there's nowhere better to go. On a similar note PF social contract accepts a world where killing masses of people is acceptable adventuring behavior. The people on this thread who simply assert they know what constitutes evil simply refuse to account for the culture and world these adventures take place in. Good and evil is mostly subjective, the alignment system is bad, but if you're using it only the players should really decide (save extreme circumstances).


Create Mr. Pitt wrote:


Nobody actually signs a social contract. It's a convenient metaphor explaining why we need to basically accept the status quo of governance. There's no free choice involved. You can leave, unless of course you don't have resources or there's nowhere better to go. On a similar note PF social contract accepts a world where killing masses of people is acceptable adventuring behavior. The people on this thread who simply assert they know what constitutes evil simply refuse to account for the culture and world these adventures take place in. Good and evil is mostly subjective, the alignment system is bad, but if you're using it only the players should really decide (save extreme circumstances).

Really? Nobody asked you to sign the form? :D I suspect we all, *sigh* or most of us anyway, understand the nature of the social contract.

The acceptability of killing "masses of people" depends on alignment and circumstances for the most part.

"Good" and "Evil" might be subjective in real life, but not in D&D / Pathfinder. Unless you make use of Rule 0. The alignment system reflects a world in which good and evil are objective forces. You can say "that's not realistic" which many do, but hey neither is "magic". If you, assuming you're the GM, feel that's not acceptable you can change it. You can, alternately, redefine what is good and evil or largely ignore the subject. But, it's the GM who should decide about the nature of good and evil in the game. Unless you want every individual to decide on his own differing interpretation and apply it to just his character or have discussions / votes among players on whether or not something is / is not evil.

Ymmv. Of course :)


Ross Byers wrote:

A bit...inspired by the Alignments of Pastry thread, I wanted to clear up what appears to be a common misconception (in my opinion) about Good and Evil.

Good is Hard.

Let me repeat that. Good is Hard...

Agreed. I think most people, in game as well as real life, are best described as NN at best.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I don't normally like to codify alignment, but here's how I see the main reason why Good is Hard:

The morality of any act depends on both the motivation and the nature of the act itself. In my book, both have to be Good for the act to be Good.

If either Act or Motive are Evil, then the action is Evil.

The remaining kinds of actions are neutral.

Here's a matrix.

Good motive, good act: Good action.
Good motive, neutral act: Neutral action
Good motive, evil act: Evil action.
Neutral motive, good act: Neutral action
Neutral motive, neutral act: Neutral action
Neutral motive, evil act: Evil action.
Evil motive, good act: Evil action
Evil motive, neutral act: Evil action
Evil motive, evil act: Evil action

So, nine combinations. One is Good, three are Neutral, five are Evil.

Good is Hard.

The Exchange

Good is Easy and Evil is Hard (to play in Pathfinder)

To role-play an evil character is VERY hard since you are going against the vast majority of your personal core values and the idealized playing you did as a child when you were a make believe hero. Society constantly lauds the heroic and makes it easy to ingrain what that means into you at an early age.

To play a character with the blackest soul, is almost impossible since you have no standard to compare. You have to constantly stop yourself from acting in a good fashion. You cannot let yourself slide (oh so easily slide) into the trap of doing something nice. Every action has to be thought out to make sure you are doing everything for yourself and never taking into account the values that you live every day in real life. When you play an evil character you must always make the hard choice to do something that in real life you would utterly despise.

I say again Good is Easy since you get to continue play acting that you have done since childhood. Evil is Hard since most of us never play acted an evil character for any perceptible length of time.

The Exchange

I say again, since we are discussing Good and Evil in the context of a game NOT in real life -

(Playing a character as) Good is Easy.

There is no soul-forging struggles to do the "good" thing. If it is a choice of giving up your treasure for the encounter so a town can be rebuilt (without getting anything for it) or keeping it, the easy choice is to give up the treasure. Keeping the treasure goes against most people's personal beliefs so strongly that you would always despise that character and soon lose all enjoyment playing it. Sacrificing your PC's life (when you can just make a new one) for a "heroic" end is easy. Letting an innocent die so your character can have a bit more loot is hard.

(playing a character as) Evil is Hard

Silver Crusade

One way I like to describe the difference between Good, Neutral, and Evil along with the selflessness vs selfishness axis was:

Consider the monkeysphere issue.

Evil tends to have a small monkeysphere, if it contains anyone but themselves at least. That is, most evil people that aren't of the cartoonish "wake up in the morning and eat a kitten" variety have someone beyond themselves that they care about. That care might be genuine or utterly selfish, but given how easily people can compartmentalize their lives it shouldn't be surprising to find that most evil people have those "hidden depths". They might be driven to extreme ends to protect or benefit their monkeysphere, no matter the cost to those outside of it.

Neutral people tend to have a wider monkeysphere, and while they may not be as hostile to those outside of it, they tend to remain less caring about those outside of it than those within. That's not to say that they see terrible things happen to those outside of it and remain apathetically uncaring as a rule, but they're far less likely to move to help those outside of it than those within.

Good? They don't play the monkeysphere game. If they have to have a sphere, it encompasses everyone.

One might point at certain good-aligned characters who have prejudices or are less concerned with people outside their "sphere". I'd say those elements of their characters are flaws, not examples of Good at work. That doesn't make them bad characters. It's just that their failings aren't examples of Good simply because they themselves are generally good.


Sargonoth wrote:

(Playing a character as) Good is Easy.

(playing a character as) Evil is Hard

I agree that it can be hard to play Evil, but I don't think Ross meant that it was hard to play good when he said that Good is hard.

"Good is hard" and "it's hard to play a good character" are two different things.

The Exchange

But that is NOT how Pathfinder defines Good and Evil (which is the only issue relevant for the game since it drives who spells and NPCs interact). Instead, Pathfinder defines Good and Evil as a very explicit set of behaviors and attitudes to allow the GM to adjudicate easily

/Quote Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. (from the CRB) Quote/

There is no "monkeysphere" in Pathfinder. Your definition is very logical and very understandable for real life. However, this is your belief system and NOT the explicit system defined by the designers.

The Exchange

Laurefindel wrote:
Sargonoth wrote:

(Playing a character as) Good is Easy.

(playing a character as) Evil is Hard

I agree that it can be hard to play Evil, but I don't think Ross meant that it was hard to play good when he said that Good is hard.

"Good is hard" and "it's hard to play a good character" are two different things.

When he says that being good as an adventurer is even harder (quote is about three quarters down in his original post), that sounds like he is reffering to playing a character. In fact the whole second half of the original post is about playing a "good" character

The Exchange

When the original post is in the "Pathfinder RPG" general discussion forum, one can assume that it is referencing role-playing characters (as either a player or a DM) in the Pathfinder game system and not as a philosophical discussion as to the real-life nature of good and evil (there are countless off-topic threads covering this topic). Further, when he references whether using a spell is good or evil, this is explicitly discussing role-playing

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Weirdo wrote:
In a world more like ours, refusing to pick one of the evils can mean picking the greater evil by default. It's evil to kill civilians, but if the alternative is the Nazis getting a nuclear bomb? It's not heroic to cause massive suffering because you can't accept anything less than perfection.

In a world more like ours, questions of good and evil aren't part war planning or any serious discussion outside of demagogues or philosophers. In a campaign that's being advertised as HEROIC FANTASY, should mean that a heroic option should exist, even if it means great sacrifice, and might take effort for the herooes to discover.

IF the DM isn't going to permit a heroic option, he should be chucking alignment considerations out the window along with the Paladin class. Because lets face it, these discussions NEVER come up when a Paladin isn't involved.

Silver Crusade

I've actually had them come up with my barbarian involved.

Silver Crusade

Sargonoth wrote:

But that is NOT how Pathfinder defines Good and Evil (which is the only issue relevant for the game since it drives who spells and NPCs interact). Instead, Pathfinder defines Good and Evil as a very explicit set of behaviors and attitudes to allow the GM to adjudicate easily

/Quote Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. (from the CRB) Quote/

There is no "monkeysphere" in Pathfinder. Your definition is very logical and very understandable for real life. However, this is your belief system and NOT the explicit system defined by the designers.

?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mikaze wrote:
I've actually had them come up with my barbarian involved.

I was referring to discussions on the board where Alignment discussions are best titled... "Is this a good way to make a Paladin fall?" Over the last 100 threads on alignment, I'd defy you to find five where Paladins don't come up.


Sargonoth wrote:
Good is Easy and Evil is Hard (to play in Pathfinder)

This statement assumes a couple of things:

.

1. It's Good to whole sale slaughter bad guys. Superman and Batman would disagree.
2. In order to be Evil you have to be ALL Evil ALL the time in everything that you do. Not the case.

How about a guy who builds homes for the homeless and gives money to orphans, but on the weekends likes to do a little serial killing. The list could go on, the world is filled with people who appear to be very good, but harbor secrets that make them the most vile specimens of humanity. Likewise it is very possible for your PF character to do a lot of Heroic things and still not be Good.

Sargonoth wrote:
To role-play an evil character is VERY hard since you are going against the vast majority of your personal core values and the idealized playing you did as a child when you were a make believe hero.

That is a very generalized statement of humanities core values. Assuming that most people's core values are Good (Pathfinder definition), which is not really accurate past the ages of very small children. There was going to be a lot more to this but it probably isn't appropriate in this setting. Suffice it to say, not everyone's experience is the same. I think most people's core values fall squarely in the Neutral category (Pathfinder definition).

Sargonoth wrote:
Society constantly lauds the heroic and makes it easy to ingrain what that means into you at an early age.

Very true. Society also idealizes murderers, serial killers, mobsters, thieves, hit men, secret societies, addicts, and the list could go on and get much darker. One of my favorite examples is the movie Taken, the original not the sequel. The "hero" is certainly idealized, he is the epitome of awesome... but there is no G in that guy's alignment. There might not even be an N. LN at best with a high probability of LE. How about the Sopranos, Public Enemies, about half the main crew in The Walking Dead, almost any character in Game of Thrones, Clyde Shelton of Law Abiding Citizen, the cops in The Shield, and Dexter? Another of my personal favorites is John Creasy from Man on Fire.

Man On Fire:
A drunken, suicidal ex-Special Forces operative, he gives his own life for a little girl he is hired to protect, the ultimate act of good and love. But he murders, brutalizes, and tortures a LOT of people to find her after she is kidnapped. In one of the first scenes he cuts ALL of a guy's fingers off an cauterizes them with the cigarette lighter while interrogating him. When he is done with that guy he sends him off a cliff in his car. Then he uses an RPG to stop a motorcade, closes distance and tosses a grenade under one car, kills all the drivers and guards and takes one hostage. When that hostage wakes up he has his pants down and Creasy tells him there is a small timed explosive inside him. He interrogates him, then walks away and lets the explosive do it's work. This guy was a hero for his country, and he made the ultimate sacrifice to protect this child, but he is NOT a Good guy.

Yes, society idolizes heroes. Some of them are Good, a lot of them are Neutral, a good portion are probably best classified as Evil.

::EDIT::
Almost forgot another favorite, Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition.
Anyone think James Bond is Good?

Sargonoth wrote:
To play a character with the blackest soul, is almost impossible since you have no standard to compare.

You are assuming a character has to have "the blackest soul" to be Evil. This is not the case, you can have a conscience, a code, and do very good things; but in a very Evil manner.

Sargonoth wrote:
You have to constantly stop yourself from acting in a good fashion.

I think several of my above examples counter this point. There are plenty of Evil characters who are heroes and on some level have common decency.

What about your Good characters? Do you offer surrender before you slaughter an entire camp full of your enemy? Do you offer surrender to the BBEG. Jedi do, but I have seen very few adventurers who do. In fact, there are plenty of adventuring parties out there who kill enemies who have surrendered, or whom have been beaten into submission and could be subdued. Some of them do this simply because they have no other good option for handling these enemies. Even allowing a defeated enemy to bleed out when you could stabilize them is a grey area, probably not Evil but certainly not Good.

Sargonoth wrote:
You cannot let yourself slide (oh so easily slide) into the trap of doing something nice.

Who says Evil people can't be nice, polite, even helpful?

Sargonoth wrote:
Every action has to be thought out to make sure you are doing everything for yourself and never taking into account the values that you live every day in real life.

I don't think the values most humans live every day are as inherently Good as you think they are. If they were there would be far less crime, abuse, corruption, and general Evil in the real world. There are certainly Good people out there, but the majority are probably Neutral (if we are reducing people to game terms).

Sargonoth wrote:
When you play an evil character you must always make the hard choice to do something that in real life you would utterly despise.

Not really, I very closely identify with quite a few of the examples I have provided above. Characters whom could be classified as heroes, but are certainly not Good aligned. You don't have to go around raping and pillaging, or killing children, to be an Evil character. Mr. Creasy was an incredible hero, also quite probably Evil.

I have played a character who suggested, and then chipped a large portion of money into, resurrecting a mid level corrupt (not Evil) merchant the party Wizard accidentally murdered in his home. He also made a deal to sacrifice his arm to gain the release of the party cleric from a crazy necromancer (long story). In the same city I also snuck into a prison and killed a prisoner who spit on my face when the party was questioning him for information. Now, that prisoner was a member of a group who had attacked the party in the streets. We managed to capture him and let the guards handle him, then visited to find out why they came after us or who sent them. He probably wasn't Evil either, most likely Neutral, but he spit in my face and I didn't appreciate that.

Sargonoth wrote:
I say again Good is Easy since you get to continue play acting that you have done since childhood. Evil is Hard since most of us never play acted an evil character for any perceptible length of time.

It's not that hard to play an Evil character, even if you as a person aren't Evil. Have you ever been a Sith in a Starwars game? Have you ever entered the Thieves' Guild ore the Dark Brotherhood in an Elder Scrolls game? Have you ever played the Hitman series, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, The Last of Us, or any host of other games? If you have, you are probably not as unfamiliar with evil and corruption as you think. And just because you may play an Evil character doesn't mean you can't be a hero. Anyone consider murdering hoards of clueless guards, probably just doing their jobs, in Assassin's Creed to be the sign of a Good guy? But you are unquestionably fighting against a greater Evil in those games. Anyone play the Last of Us? That was a brutal game and the main character was by no means a Good guy, but he was Ellie's hero, he saved her life and was ready to die for her on multiple occasions.


in fact, i would rather see the alignment system drop. there are many evil heroes in fiction. some of them do some pretty grotesque things, but the only thing that makes you a hero, is not what you do, but how people percieve you. Batman is probably Chaotic Evil, but he is still considered a hero. in fact, in the gold and silver ages, he murdered villains on a regular basis and was really no different from the punisher.

batman even killed people with a smile on his face, which showed he was evil, and for two whole ages, the law didn't really care because he was helping them with their job.

superman, in the same pair of eras, also killed people. in fact, he was as ruthless as batman was.

a lot of heroes, can be considered neutral or even evil. Judge Dredd, was lawful neutral with an evil slant. he wasn't corrupt, and he had a paladinlike code, but he was slaughtering people left and right, inflicting all sorts of bad cop torture, and well, he seemed pretty vicious. there was a reason Joseph Dredd had a Reputation

even in Anime, Look at Nanoha Takamachi, she is a heroine of questionable morales, she is extremely violent, causes massive amounts of collateral damage with a smile on her face, literally nukes people she wants to befriend to see if they are worthy of her friendship, also happily, tortures the friends she nukes after 'befriending them' in the form of intense training regiments, and sparring that involves abuse, as well as inflicting abuse itself, she beat up and nearly murdered a terminally ill child because the child had a powerful artifact, and she is ruthless to her enemies, despite being more ruthless to her friends

Nanoha is chaotic evil, but she is portrayed as a heroine, doesn't change the fact she is chaotic evil and probably the arcane full casting equivalent to an antipaladin.


Anzyr wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Good people need not make hard choices or necessary sacrifices.
The actual alignment rules wrote:
Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
But they won't make the necessary ones. When the only way forward requires the sacrifice of innocent lives, they'll falter, while the Evil will move forward. They are unwilling to do the necessary things, because to do them is not Good. A truly Good person would sacrifice their alignment, but they will not.

I disagree with you a bit here.

I believe the "Greater Good" alignment is Lawful Neutral. Go watch 24 and tell me Jack Bauer is not Neutral - yet he is still a damned hero. He has made many sacrifices in regards to the needs of the many.
I don't know many characters that I'd call evil that do things for people other than themselves. "The ends justify the means" is not an argument I'd attribute toward an evil character. An evil character seeks to debase or destroy life. If he is doing something to promote someone other than himself, or someone else for a reason other than his own benefit, then he is acting outside of his alignment.


TiaxTheMighty wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Good people need not make hard choices or necessary sacrifices.
The actual alignment rules wrote:
Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
But they won't make the necessary ones. When the only way forward requires the sacrifice of innocent lives, they'll falter, while the Evil will move forward. They are unwilling to do the necessary things, because to do them is not Good. A truly Good person would sacrifice their alignment, but they will not.

I disagree with you a bit here.

I believe the "Greater Good" alignment is Lawful Neutral. Go watch 24 and tell me Jack Bauer is not Neutral - yet he is still a damned hero. He has made many sacrifices in regards to the needs of the many.
I don't know many characters that I'd call evil that do things for people other than themselves. "The ends justify the means" is not an argument I'd attribute toward an evil character. An evil character seeks to debase or destroy life. If he is doing something to promote someone other than himself, or someone else for a reason other than his own benefit, then he is acting outside of his alignment.

the intent matters more than the actions, but many Player characters commit genocide out of greed and a lust for power. that is enough to call the majority of adventurers as evil as the bandits they emulate.

301 to 350 of 386 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / On the nature of Good and Evil (Or 'Good is hard') All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.