Good. Bad. I'm the one with the Gulotine
*schnioiiick*
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That´s just our modern way of thinking and how we see "Free Will" as part of the end-all, be-all of "Good" - which is pretty much CG.
When you're willing to go to genocide to achieve your goals, you've hit the deep end of the alignment pool.
|
If you work doing evil things you will be evil. Maybe LE, or not.
An executioner, im think works killing people, and its steps you into evil.
Being lawful dont avoid you to being evil (or good).
A torturer is evil only because do his job.
Good people respect the life.
All that before by raw in core.
When you're willing to go to genocide to achieve your goals, you've hit the deep end of the alignment pool.
No genocide. Hell, the Qunari took in their enemies as their own. When others defeat you on the battlefield, you die or become a slave. The Qunari took their enemies in and made them part of the same "family".
All actions the Qunari take in the Dragon Age series are justified if you look at it from their perspective. The human nations of Thedas really are decadent and chaotic in their totality. Events of Trespasser happened, because in Golarion terms the humans almost did a Worldwound on the world and how on earth can you just watch and let that come to pass?
The paladins in Lastwall *defend* the Inner Sea from the orcs and contain them in the Hold of Belkzen, not crusade into their territory and convert them by the sword. The Qun is more like the Cult of the Dawnflower if anything.
It has always been heavily implied that Lastwall is eager to march into Belkzen and finally drive all the orcs away. And I doubt they are going to do with gently.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd say executing a lawfully convicted prisoner who you believe to be innocent is an evil act, but a lawful neutral person can commit the occasional evil act. If they'd never do anything evil, that's probably a sign they're really lawful good.
A lawful neutral person would feel bad about it and would probably resign if it seemed likely to happen repeatedly, but until then, they have a job to do.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I always thought Judge Dredd would be LN..... concepts such as 'Good' and 'Evil' are inherently flawed and so all that is left is an unwavering commitment to the LAW!!!!
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Again, a very modern view of things.
Yeah, no. There's a limit to how far you can dismiss actual, objective, harm being done to people as an arbitrary constraint by dismissing that (you know, the entire idea of being good) as "modern".
You do not like being stabbed. Other people do not like being stabbed either. They've known this at least as long as they've been able to write down "hey, don't stab people"
All actions the Qunari take in the Dragon Age series are justified if you look at it from their perspective.
Justified/excused doesn't mean not evil.
Justified/excused doesn't mean not evil.
All actions the Qunari take in the Dragon Age series are justified if you look at it from their perspective.
Alignment is about justification.
You can take almost any action and align with one of the four alignments.Killing is the most obvious one.
Kill to save someone.
Kill to gain power.
Kill to stay free.
Kill to keep order.
What could even be the alternative?
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Justified/excused doesn't mean not evil.
All actions the Qunari take in the Dragon Age series are justified if you look at it from their perspective.
Alignment is about justification.
You can take almost any action and align with one of the four alignments.
Killing is the most obvious one.
Kill to save someone.
Kill to gain power.
Kill to stay free.
Kill to keep order.What could even be the alternative?
You're describing subjective justification. When jurists speak of Justice, they are commonly describing objective justification.
Relativists, of course, would say that all justice is subjective.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Justice is good. (Fairness)
Lawful is just lawful.
A conviction is enough for LN. A good character requires both guilt and a just reason to kill them. A LG character also requires the legal conviction.
Justice is good. (Fairness)
Lawful is just lawful.
A conviction is enough for LN. A good character requires both guilt and a just reason to kill them. A LG character also requires the legal conviction.
Pish posh. Even LNs can know that there's a problem if the law is continually being misapplied and targeting the wrong people due to people highjacking it or someone having been drunk when they wrote the law.
You should watch the first season of Psycho-Pass
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
When you're willing to go to genocide to achieve your goals, you've hit the deep end of the alignment pool.
That´s just our modern way of thinking and how we see "Free Will" as part of the end-all, be-all of "Good" - which is pretty much CG.
Being completely unfamiliar with the specific example being discussed...
Lawful Good types don't need to see "Free Will" as inherently valuable the same way that CG types do, so it's perfectly acceptable for them to punish those that disrupt the harmonious social order or refuse to live up to their communal responsibilities.
That doesn't mean that they will perform evil actions to enforce their social order.
I am at lost how Lawful Good cannot go to war.
The nations surrounding Qunari when they arrived to the continent were either chaotic or evil. They go to war because they oppose these cultures. Is this "Good is pacifist" argument or something?
I am at lost how Lawful Good cannot go to war.
The nations surrounding Qunari when they arrived to the continent were either chaotic or evil. They go to war because they oppose these cultures. Is this "Good is pacifist" argument or something?
Because "opposing a culture" is not a legitimate cause for war. A lot has been written on this subject, and you might want to Google the phrase "Just War Theory" in order to find out a well-understood theory of what constitutes a legitimate more, and what does not.
There is actually a whole bunch of accepted convention in international law, which should perhaps be capitalized, about what constitutes a cause for war. It's old enough that there's even a Latin term to refer to it: Casus belli.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am at lost how Lawful Good cannot go to war.
The nations surrounding Qunari when they arrived to the continent were either chaotic or evil. They go to war because they oppose these cultures. Is this "Good is pacifist" argument or something?
Its not "cannot go to war" its "cannot go to war just because you don't like how those other people do their thing". Going to war is going to get bob the peasant killed. Can you kill bob the peasant because you don't like that he poisons town wells? Well.. yes. Can you kill bob the peasant because you don't like that he plays the harmonica? No. *
*unless you're trapped in a room with him or something. Then its justificable homicide.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am at lost how Lawful Good cannot go to war.
The nations surrounding Qunari when they arrived to the continent were either chaotic or evil. They go to war because they oppose these cultures. Is this "Good is pacifist" argument or something?
Has anyone actually said that Good=pacifist or that Lawful Good cannot go to war? Please, quote them if you can.
As someone who only played about 1/2 of the first Dragon Age game, and a little of the third, let me ask you a few questions.
1. Are the purpose of the wars undertaken by the Qunari to correct a grave, public evil. Are they not conflicts being done in pursuit of national interests, but are overwhelmingly motivated by a desire to reestablish a just peace.
2. Are the wars actually going to accomplish their morally justified aims (if they exist).
3. Is the injustice created by not going to war disproportionately greater than the inevitable injustice and violence created by engaging in warfare.
4. Do the Qunari exhaust all other reasonable options first before engaging in warfare.
If the answer to any of the above is a "No", then the wars conducted by the Qunari is not morally justified. Simple as that.
Furthermore:
5. Do the Qunari refrain from attacking civilian or neutral targets, and solely target enemy combatants
6. Do the Qunari do their best to ensure that civilian casualties and other collateral are not excessive compared to the advantage gained by attacking a legitimate military target.
7. Do the Qunari refrain from mistreating prisoners of war.
8. Do the Qunari refrain from commiting actrocities or performing highly immoral acts against those they are at war with. Note that forcing combatants to fight against their own side is immoral, as is using weapons that are uncontrolled and prone to causing large amounts of civilian casualties (which would include most uses of Demons, I suspect).
If the answer to any to any of the above is a "No", then the Qunari are not fighting wars in a morally justified manner.
Lastly, after warfare has concluded:
9. Do the Qunari distinguish between leaders and those who follow, and restrict punitive measures to those directly responsible for creating the events that warrant punitive actions.
10. Is the harshness of terms of surrender, laws on conquered peoples etc proportional to the injustice that originally warrented the war.
If the answer to any of the above is a "No", then the Qunari are...you guessed it, not ending a war in a morally justified manner.
In case you haven't noticed, it is really f+#!ing hard to fight a just war. Even world war 2, the most unambiguously justified war in history, only ticks 2 out of 3 boxes (carpet bombing and nuking cities is a no-no). I highly doubt that any power that is fighting offensive wars with any kind of frequency could be morally justified, simply because of how difficult it is to justify.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the Qunari example:
If I remember rightly, when you meet Sten in DA:Origins he is held in a cage. He is a prisoner because he went berserk and killed a family of humans. He accepts that he broke the humans' law and he awaits his punishment. Perhaps the Qun "justified" his actions as far as he was concerned, but Sten nonetheless accepts that he has been legitimately imprisoned. The Grey Warden has the option of breaking more laws by picking the lock on the cage, or can negotiate with the local church to conscript Sten in the war against the Blight.
Even if Sten had his own ethical code that, subjectively, justified his actions, objectively he murdered several civilians. If he did so because of the demands of his ethical/religious code (The Qun), that strongly suggests that the code is objectively evil.
Full disclosure: I am an absolutist, not a relativist. I think that good and evil are objective realities.
The Qunari are LE tyrants. Everyone under the Qun is basically a slave and they will kill everyone who doesn't submit.
They are the worse.
EDIT: The confusion may come in with how progressive they are with trans and gays. But when your people are basically livestock, it takes no special moral fiber to be progressive in those areas. Farmers really don't care if their plow ox identifies as a woman or engages in gay sex.
|
|
On the Qunari example:
If I remember rightly, when you meet Sten in DA:Origins he is held in a cage. He is a prisoner because he went berserk and killed a family of humans. He accepts that he broke the humans' law and he awaits his punishment. Perhaps the Qun "justified" his actions as far as he was concerned, but Sten nonetheless accepts that he has been legitimately imprisoned. The Grey Warden has the option of breaking more laws by picking the lock on the cage, or can negotiate with the local church to conscript Sten in the war against the Blight.
Even if Sten had his own ethical code that, subjectively, justified his actions, objectively he murdered several civilians. If he did so because of the demands of his ethical/religious code (The Qun), that strongly suggests that the code is objectively evil.
Full disclosure: I am an absolutist, not a relativist. I think that good and evil are objective realities.
Not exactly, Sten's ethical code did not justify what he did, which is why he submitted willingly. He didn't intend to murder anyone. He had been knocked unconscious during a pitched battle with darkspawn. When he came to he was in an unknown place, surrounded by strangers who had apparently disarmed him (which, to the Qunari, was akin to stripping someone of their soul). He panicked, and by the time he realized what had happened it was too late. He was ashamed of his actions and regretted them deeply. He deliberately waited for the authorities to arrive specifically to attempt to atone for his transgressions. It wasn't a reasoned action to kill them, it was basically a psychotic break.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sten is also willing to kill the Gray Warden when the Qunari inevitability invade the rest of Thedas. He'd feel bad about it but if the Qun demands the submission of "bas" aka everyone who is not part of Qun than it must be done.
Hell, Iron Bull flat out admits that most of the companions characters in Dragon Age Inquisition would either end up dead because their mages or brainwashed because they would question the Qun. Just because the Qun isn't as racist as the rest of Thedas and is orderly doesn't make them not evil. The Qun is a fantasy version of 1984 that only looks good because Thedas is pretty crappy world to live in.