BNW, you intrigue me.
Re: Killing people based on the decisions they make
It depends on what you mean by being a bad person. If there is one thread I've noticed in this game of ours over the past couple of years, it is that villains, at least in the games I've been in(not necessarily run) do not always get their hands dirty. Sure, sometimes you have someone who's there, screaming obscenities as they scythe their way through the innocent, but for every two of those, there's another guy who would rather be the puppetmaster and send out a proxy. It's at that point that things get sticky and detect evil spells get trotted out and it turns into a mess. But there is always more than one way to be a bad guy. A lot of them call for death, but not always.
Re: Slavery
Okay, I'm totally with you here, although there are some good points made above(regarding slaves watching over other slaves, etc.). Just as being a bad person is a choice, resisting things you dont' want to do is a choice as well.
Re: Bushwacking
Oh boy. That's a sticky wicket. I'm not touching that one, although I am no fan of slavery in any form.
Re: Non-binary world
It's one of the weaknesses of the alignment system used here, methinks. I'm trying to address it in my own homebrew.
Re: Why vs. How
Hmm...
Re: Bonnie and Clyde
I've always thought there was more to their story...Ah well. The ambush worked, but what gets me there is that they were not ambushed from the start- they were given the chance to surrender, and refused it. I would have gone with an ambush from day 2(maybe day 3) if I was in charge of the investigation, but I would have tried to do things legitimately at first myself. I'm not a fan of failing to do something means you're abetting said action-type logic, however. Sometimes you try and fail, and that often gets forgotten.
Re: Bandits and Speccism
Speciism..is that even a word? Ah well. You make a good point here. If I was playing a lawful good character, I'd give the people a chance to surrender, even if it was a token opportunity, be they human, hippogriff, or outsider. In fact, I made a duelist-type character who was lawful good who had that as his schtick.
You don't need to kill them, just don't open the cages...then the goblins that put them in there are responsible for their deaths ;)
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They're people. You can't just kill people because they've made bad life decisions.Yes. Yes you can.
That is in fact, the one of the few legitimate grounds for killing someone. They DECIDED to be a bad person. They decided to make a living off of the misery of others. It was their choice and they should pay for it.
That's actually the cool thing about it.
It's okay to kill things like demons and devils, because they are 100% evil with no hope of redemption.
And it's also okay to kill people who made a bad choice at some point in their lives, since, unlike a demon or devil, who never really had a choice in the matter, a person did have a choice.
So, really, you can kill *anyone,* since *everyone* has done something selfish or thoughtless or cruel at some point, even if it was when they were a toddler and couldn't actually choose to be selfish (or selfless) yet.
It's a good time to be good.
Put a chainsaw on a stick and go to work. If anyone didn't deserve to die, they'll go to the upper planes and be much better off for it anyway!
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They're people. You can't just kill people because they've made bad life decisions.Yes. Yes you can.
That is in fact, the one of the few legitimate grounds for killing someone. They DECIDED to be a bad person. They decided to make a living off of the misery of others. It was their choice and they should pay for it.
That is not a legitimate grounds for killing a person under any moral theory. People don't decide to be bad. They decide that the system is too powerful to fight against, they decide that life is unfair to them and that they are justified in taking what they want, they start off with flawed decision making skills because their parents beat them.
What you're suggesting is best described as lawful evil.
If someone with a knife was dragging your neighbor out of their house by her hair towards a white van would you grab a baseball bat or a pamphlet to ITT technical institute?
That's a completely different scenario. And I would call the police.
Do you think if the Union army had marched into the South and just start bushwacking slaveowners, that would have been the right and moral thing to do? I don't mean Confederate soldiers. I mean groups of Union soldiers sneaking onto Southern plantations and killing the owners of the plantations and the slave drivers? That seems moral and just to you?*Hoists John Brown #1 Flag*
Assuming it would have had a lower butchers bill than the civil war, yes. I don't see why killing someone is better just because they were snatched up off the street, put in a uniform and handed a gun.
So you think it would be morally good to sneak into Mr. Brown's house and kill him in his sleep because he, like all of his neighbors, owns slaves - slaves he inherited from his father.
Do you then go down the hall and kill Mr. Brown's twenty year old son in his sleep? The young man who has now (thanks to you) inherited those slaves? What if Young Mr. Brown is himself troubled by the system of slavery? Let's say you kill him -- after all, he owns slaves, therefore he must die. Do you also kill his younger brother, James, who is only eight years old? Because now James owns all those slaves (since you're killing your way down the line of inheritance).
Do we kill children for owning slaves? I'm sure you can give a pithy answer, but you know what you can't do? Show any form of moral reasoning at work. All you can defend yourself with is expediency and emotional manipulation.
What about me? I own a smartphone, like millions of other Americas. Those smart phones are built in China by people living in slave-like conditions. Is it okay to kill me because I save a few hundred dollars on my smartphone? Or am I innocent because I'm only indirectly benefiting from slavery, and not directly profiting? What about Steve Jobs? he's profiting GREATLY from that chinese slavery. Does he deserve a bullet in the head?
There is no reasoning to your moral reasoning. It's just a bunch of mindless rah-rah heroics, but you're basically using fascist logic to justify doing evil in the name of good.
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And basically, following your logic, if the police set an ambush for a bunch of gangbangers and mowed them down without giving them a chance to surrender, that wouldn't be evil.
Would depend on what they've done. Look at Bonnie and Clyde. They'd killed the last 9 police officers that had tried the "Surrender in the name of the law" approach. Are you really going to become dead cop number 10 following the rules or are you going to do something effective like blow their car to pieces from ambush?
I must have missed this.
Clyde Barrow was an interesting person. He was into petty crimes and such for years before he met Bonnie Parker. A lady who was defiantly attracted to the "bad boy". She was a married woman whose husband was in jail and fell by all accounts madly deeply in love with Barrow.
The rumors were that his first kill may have been while he was serving time in Jail. What was at that point the worst prison in the nation. A place where he was brutally and viciously sexually assaulted. Another inmate, one already serving a life sentence was charged with this murder, yet some evidence, from what I understand, implicates Barrow.
After prison, as an ex con, he had trouble keeping work, and was harassed constantly by the local small town PD. So he reverted back to the only profession he knew, being a criminal.
His first robbery where he was just the driver, was a sad one. He never went into the grocery store himself, knowing the owner. His buddy doing the job, ended up shooting the store owner. Who gets blamed, why the ex con Clyde Barrow.
He knew he would not get a fair shake and would end up "riding the lighting" or worse be back into that same hell whole. He vowed not to be taken alive.
Then he got intelligent. Not smart, but deviously cunning. He robbed a military surplus of weapons and stole and drove exclusively the new Ford V8's. In every way he then outclassed the police, with their old beat up cars and .38 specials and had every reason to fight back and fight back hard.
The police unaware of the situation, and the media making them out as a modern day Robin Hood, just made things worse. There is no positive spin on this story, and even though some heavy horrors caused the beginnings of this story; the man was viscous cunning and cruel. The police had no choice in my opinion but to ambush him and put him down. I hate death, and murder is the worst form. This was in some ways a mercy killing, like putting down a rabid dog.
So, really, you can kill *anyone,* since *everyone* has done something selfish or thoughtless or cruel at some point, even if it was when they were a toddler and couldn't actually choose to be selfish (or selfless) yet.
Seriously?
Look, there is a huge difference between the guy who swiped a few paperclips from the office and the guy who goes into an orphanage, kills all the kids, and wears their head for a hat. If you legitimately can't see that there's no point in trying to show you.
That is not a legitimate grounds for killing a person under any moral theory. People don't decide to be bad. They decide that the system is too powerful to fight against, they decide that life is unfair to them and that they are justified in taking what they want, they start off with flawed decision making skills because their parents beat them.
people DECIDE to DO bad things. They decide to walk into an orphanage and start shooting, or they decide to take people captive and force them to serve for life on the pain of death, or they decide to make a living robbing people. You can pile on all the excuses you want but if the being has free will then it is in fact their decision. You are what you do.
What you're suggesting is best described as lawful evil.
This isn't remotely true. Its so far from true that it would take 10,000 years for the light of truth to reach this statement.
I am not advocating any special authority in the law vs the individual (quite the opposite) I have made no distinction between an action taken by an individual, by societies representative, or the lawful authority in an area. It is patently, manifestly, objectively and blatantly NOT advocating the lawful ethical position.
Secondly, acting in the best interests of other individuals is as far from evil as you can get. Someone does not risk their own life and well being for the freedom of another person without a good motivation. They may in fact employ methods that knock them down to chaotic neutral or even chaotic evil, but there is nothing inherently evil about the use of force, an ambush, or refusing to say "HERE I AM SHOOT ME!" before taking out someone that deserves it.
That's a completely different scenario. And I would call the police.
Whats different about it? That its unlawful? That has no bearing on whether or not its good. You repeatedly equate the two. One person is using force to take and hold another captive. By your idea of morality, hitting him in the head with a baseball bat from behind would be wrong because i didn't offer him a chance to surrender, and he's only kidnapping people because he was toilet trained too early or something.
So you think it would be morally good to sneak into Mr. Brown's house and kill him in his sleep because he, like all of his neighbors, owns slaves - slaves he inherited from his father.
Ok, you didn't get the reference.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_%28abolitionist%29
Not the brightest plan to overthrow an evil society ever, but at least he tried. When you're small and the government is huge you need to keep moving. Staying in one place for any length of time= death.
Do you then go down the hall and kill Mr. Brown's twenty year old son in his sleep? The young man who has now (thanks to you) inherited those slaves?
As pointed out above, i'm not remotely lawful evil, so no. The young man in question hasn't made a choice to inherit the slaves. His lawful possession of the slaves is not indicative of his moral choice to keep the slaves since he's had no opportunity to free them.
What about me? I own a smartphone, like millions of other Americas. Those smart phones are built in China by people living in slave-like conditions. Is it okay to kill me because I save a few hundred dollars on my smartphone? Or am I innocent because I'm only indirectly benefiting from slavery, and not directly profiting? What about Steve Jobs? he's profiting GREATLY from that chinese slavery. Does he deserve a bullet in the head?
Calling the conditions slavery or slave like is a gross misunderstanding of what ACTUAL slavery was. What you're doing here is blatant equivocation in a deliberate attempt to distort my position.
There is no reasoning to your moral reasoning. It's just a bunch of mindless rah-rah heroics, but you're basically using fascist logic to justify doing evil in the name of good.
As opposed to your deep and insightful insistence that Lawful Stupid is the only possible way to be good? Come on. What differences do you think a chaotic good person could legitimately have with a paladin?
the guy who goes into an orphanage, kills all the kids, and wears their head for a hat. If you legitimately can't see that there's no point in trying to show you.Nope, I legitimately wasn't considering crazy straw-man stuff that has never happened as a valid point.
Sure you are.
Because i advocate killing slavers, murderous bandits, and psychopaths, i must also advocate killing the guy swiping paperclips from the office or spaghetti tossing toddlers.
Again, Its not binary. There's a continuum.
Genuine Saint|Build a statue|A Nice guy|Regular guy|Complete Jackass|Thug|Monster|Complete Monster|Dick Cheney
Deciding that someone crosses the line at one point does not in any way shape or form indicate taking out everyone thats not a genuine saint.
Your choices are not superman or Roarshach.
Hey! This wasn't in off-topic before!
Hmmm.
Killing baby goblins is obviously evil. And the mere fact that you're even arguing about this is because Paizo are such an insidious bunch of persuasive propagandists for racism and genocide.
I am a paladin. I love dogs, I love books, I love helping my neighbor. Now, while it's true that I also like fire, fireworks and explosives of all kinds, and I also am not very clean, still, the credence given to these degoblinizing stereotypes by the Paizoboard community is shameful.
If even one such as I can be redeemed by the purifying flame of LGness, then each and every one of you running around stepping on goblin babies are villainous curs and I look forward to smiting you soon!
the guy who goes into an orphanage, kills all the kids, and wears their head for a hat. If you legitimately can't see that there's no point in trying to show you.Nope, I legitimately wasn't considering crazy straw-man stuff that has never happened as a valid point.
Sure you are.
Because i advocate killing slavers, murderous bandits, and psychopaths, i must also advocate killing the guy swiping paperclips from the office or spaghetti tossing toddlers.
Again, Its not binary. There's a continuum.
Genuine Saint|Build a statue|A Nice guy|Regular guy|Complete Jackass|Thug|Monster|Complete Monster|Dick Cheney
Deciding that someone crosses the line at one point does not in any way shape or form indicate taking out everyone thats not a genuine saint.
Why does it go from Regular Guy to Complete Jackass? That's a bit extreme, don't you think?
a goblin baby is an ugly, filthy, poop launcher, projectile vomit machine that cries with an unearthly pitch that probably dives the whole race to the chaotic axis of the ethical scale. Its right up there with the zombie baby from Dead-Alive. It is not a baby. It is a grotesque corruption of the concept of a baby.
So my guess is that you do squish it under your boot, as you would a tarantula, closing your eyes so as not to watch the mess it make as you do so, and also so that I don't make you roll a fort save vs sickened.
Your last breath shall be mine, cur.
Why does it go from Regular Guy to Complete Jackass? That's a bit extreme, don't you think?
I had 2 more degrees in there but it was more lopsided towards the bad guys than the final product.
awesome stuff
I like the way you think. Here, take a pamphlet.
I have enjoyed this thread.
I have enjoyed this thread.
I enjoy the fact that this isn't the first thread I have read on this topic, despite the OP trying to be satirical.
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It's not really the subject matter, it's watching them go at it that's all the fun for me.
Honestly i think it would depend on the setting. I mean HOW inherently evil are goblins in the setting?Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.
Default is not the same as innate. Those with the evil subtype are innately evil. All others are a product of both genetics and environment.
Kill that goblin baby and you may kill the next Drizzt Do'Urden, only in goblin form.
Honestly i think it would depend on the setting. I mean HOW inherently evil are goblins in the setting?Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.Default is not the same as innate. Those with the evil subtype are innately evil. All others are a product of both genetics and environment.
Kill that goblin baby and you may kill the next Drizzt Do'Urden, only in goblin form.
Right. If thats possible then yes, killing the goblin baby is evil. If its not then i don't think it is. Leaving a goblin baby that will absolutely 100% grow up to be evil even when raised by humans alive is putting innocent people at an unacceptable risk.
To paraphrase an associate:
"Babies are parasites that advance to children. Children are Neutral Evil with strong Chaotic tendencies that advance to immature adults after a time. Immature adults are able to mate producing more parasitic offspring. It is whether or not the immature adult ever fully matures that comes to question.
"At least animals have the decency to achieve maturity before producing parasitic offspring. That, I will add, are considered edible in times of famine by many animals, such as lions."
Whoever said Mammy Graul was evil is definitely lying. Cake, on the other hand, is evil.
Man, our party killed her, and it just occurs to me that she was probably pregnant at the time. Does that make me evil?
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Whoever said Mammy Graul was evil is definitely lying. Cake, on the other hand, is evil.Man, our party killed her, and it just occurs to me that she was probably pregnant at the time. Does that make me evil?
No, but you missed out on the XP if you let her give birth and the child grow big enough to fight.
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people DECIDE to DO bad things. They decide to walk into an orphanage and start shooting, or they decide to take people captive and force them to serve for life on the pain of death, or they decide to make a living robbing people. You can pile on all the excuses you want but if the being has free will then it is in fact their decision. You are what you do.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that people have far less free will than you are assuming. This is one of the primary reasons we don't execute all of our criminals for merely being criminals. Because that would be horrendous and unjust; it would be evil.
Just because a person is a slaver in a nation where slavery is legal doesn't mean that they are themselves responsible for slavery. They could be an entirely neutral person who simply sees driving a slave cart to be no different than driving any other merchant's cart. A slave camp guard might even feel sorry for the slaves, but think a job is a job.
You are suggesting that it is morally acceptable to kill a man for doing an entirely legal job in an economy he has no direct control over, simply because the industry he works in is based on an immoral act.
Congratulations Norse, that is the exact same logic used by Osama Bin Laden to justify 9/11. The exact same logic. Al Queda believes that American corporations are responsible for the American governments policy of supporting autocratic dictatorships in the Middle East, and thus the entire corporate structure of America is morally culpable for the tyranny of those autocratic dictatorships. This is the same logic that Ward Churchhill used when describing the 9/11 victims as "little Eichmanns."
Secondly, acting in the best interests of other individuals is as far from evil as you can get. Someone does not risk their own life and well being for the freedom of another person without a good motivation. They may in fact employ methods that knock them down to chaotic neutral or even chaotic evil, but there is nothing inherently evil about the use of force, an ambush, or refusing to say "HERE I AM SHOOT ME!" before taking out someone that deserves it.
Except you aren't acting in the best interests of other individuals. You are acting in the best interests of a limited subset of individuals, while using spurious means to to deny the fundamental humanity of other individuals.
Whats different about it? That its unlawful? That has no bearing on whether or not its good. You repeatedly equate the two.
I repeatedly equate the two because the law is generally based on the concept of the good. The law, at least in the West, is intended to codify the good into a prosecutable form.
And what's different about it is that the man with the knife in this example is probably acting out an evil intent, while the slaver is probably acting out of his own economic self-interest.
One person is using force to take and hold another captive. By your idea of morality, hitting him in the head with a baseball bat from behind would be wrong because i didn't offer him a chance to surrender, and he's only kidnapping people because he was toilet trained too early or something.
Police officers use force to take and hold other captive. That's what the power to arrest is, the power to take and hold others captive. Is it good to kill cops for arresting people?
Let's say I do grab a baseball bat, rush outside, and smash this guy across the back of the head and he dies. According to you, this is good.
But what if it turns out that the guy is her brother, and that he's schizophrenic and off his meds. His motivation is to bring his sister to some location (let's say a public library) to show her proof that the Venusians have implanted mind control devices in his head. While he's dangerous to himself and others, she has (or believes she can get) the situation under control?
Is it still good that I killed him? Because I don't see her being grateful, it certainly wasn't in his best interest, and it seems to be entirely without compassion or mercy to refuse to consider his mental condition in the issue.
That's the problem with your whole line of reasoning. Whether any act is good or not depends entirely on the context of the actions. But context is infinite, and there are always more things influencing any situation that the human mind can consider. So if morality is dependent on context, and the human mind cannot correlate the entirety of context, then it is logically impossible to make a moral decision.
So you think it would be morally good to sneak into Mr. Brown's house and kill him in his sleep because he, like all of his neighbors, owns slaves - slaves he inherited from his father.Ok, you didn't get the reference.
I got the reference, my use of "Mr. Brown" was coincidental, though I can see why it would cause confusion. You did not answer the question.
What if the man in question is Thomas Jefferson. Is it acceptable to kill Thomas Jefferson in his sleep because he owns slaves?
While considering your answer remember that Mr. Jefferson is of the well-intention but inaccurate view that Africans are of an inherently inferior nature that ensures they are unable to civilize themselves, and that it is to their material and spiritual benefits to be held in bondage. Also remember that his treatment of his slaves was not in general cruel or harsh, that they were well-fed, educated and to be freed upon his death, and that during his his life he made frequent attacks on the institution of slavery and was clearly deeply conflicted about the issue.
Calling the conditions slavery or slave like is a gross misunderstanding of what ACTUAL slavery was. What you're doing here is blatant equivocation in a deliberate attempt to distort my position.
If you google the phrase "IPOD city" you'll find plenty of information about the Suzhou mega-manufacturing site and the company that runs it (Foxconn), where most of are cool and nifty gadgets are produced.
One hundred twenty thousand workers living on the factory property, forced to buy food from their employer, forced to pay rent for their space in a dormitory, made to work 15 hour a day jobs with forced overtime, watched constantly by police overseers. Some of these workers are forced to stand doing repetitive work for so long the bones in their spines fuse. And they have no recourse to affect their conditions. Thomas Jefferson's slaves were treated far better than the workers at Suzhou are being treated.
I'm not the one engaging in equivocation here, it's you that's equivocating. What is it exactly that makes slavery evil in your opinion? Is the taking away of people's freedoms? Because the Suzhou workers aren't free. Is the taking away of people's dignity? Because the Suzhou workers aren't allowed dignity. Is the working human beings like animals in unbearable conditions? Because the Suzhou workers are treated like animals.
Is it just the word slavery that makes slavery evil? Just the abstract concept of one person owning another person? Because if that is what makes slavery evil, then yes, I am apparently equivocating. Because its is not the abstract concept of one person owning another that makes slavery evil in my opinion, but the cruelty of reducing another person to an animal-like condition without regard for their right to human dignity that makes slavery evil.
And by that measure, the workers are Suzhou are most definitely slaves.
But now I have to ask: In your opinion, is it acceptable to kill a man who owns a woman as a sex slave? What if being owned is what turns her on? What if its consensual?
Because if owning slaves is justification for killing someone, but having the same amount of control over someone as a master has over a slave and treating them with the same lack of dignity is equivocating and not justification for killing them, then it would seem you would be in the right to kill Mr. Sex Slave Owner just because his girlfriend is extra kinky.
As I said, your moral reasoning is flawed. You can't make moral arguments from hypothetical contexts, because genuine context is always infinitely complex.
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Because i advocate killing slavers, murderous bandits, and psychopaths, i must also advocate killing the guy swiping paperclips from the office or spaghetti tossing toddlers.
You said that it was justified to kill slavers, murderous bandits, and psychopaths because they made bad decisions. The guy swiping paperclips from the office is making a bad decision. Until you explain the mechanism by which you determine which bad things are bad enough to kill someone for, then yes - you are advocating shooting jaywalkers.
That the bandits have been coming for months is a clue that they are not murderous bandits, simply thieving bandits. The man who owns the Trading Post, Oleg, even tried to attack them and drive them off and they only wounded him in return.
Furthermore these bandits live well outside of civilization in an area known to be full of bandits - an area adjacent to the River Kingdoms, where banditry is considered an acceptable means of making a living. These bandits are effectively the local government, and a strong argument can be made that any person who willingly enters bandit controlled territory is asking to be robbed. For example, the bandits were there before Oleg opened his trading post.
I only point this out because you keep trying to make the bandits in my original example much worse than they actually are. While they aren't Robin Hood's Merry Men, in reality they aren't much different than the bandits who became the Merry Men. Given the parameters of the adventure laid out in Kingmaker, it is entirely within the PC's power to defeat the bandits with a minimum of violence and rehabilitate the majority of them into productive members of society. Some of the minor bandit leaders are even suggested as possible members of the government the PCs are eventually called on to form.
And the only one of the bandits that is a murderous psychopath is the Stag Lord, but the Stag Lord's background is one of profound child abuse that has left him horribly scarred, both physically and emotionally. He is a deeply troubled and damaged person, and while the circumstances of the adventure pretty much ensure he'll die by the PCs hands, at no point does it ever become "good" to kill him. It's just an all around tragedy.
Again, Its not binary. There's a continuum.
Exactly. You just seem to refuse to recognize that neutral is along that continuum.
Like you slavers example. Killing people is wrong. Freeing people is good. So you decide slavers are, for some undisclosed reason, not people.
Except they are people. And killing them is wrong, even if sometimes its the most expedient way to achieve something that is good. And when you do something evil to achieve something good, that's neutral.
A character who regularly makes decision like this is not good, they're neutral.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that people have far less free will than you are assuming.
If the canibal isn't responsible for eating someone's face then i'm not responsible for double tapping him in the chest. Sorry, couldn't control myself, no free will and all that.
This is one of the primary reasons we don't execute all of our criminals for merely being criminals. Because that would be horrendous and unjust; it would be evil.
Or rather than some bizarre argument about free will could it be the fact that we realize that someone doesn't deserve to die for selling pot?
Just because a person is a slaver in a nation where slavery is legal doesn't mean that they are themselves responsible for slavery.
Individuals exist. You're too stuck in the idea of a society to remember that.
Those halflings are being held slaves because the "if there's a whip there's a way" chorus ensemble are standing there, preventing their escape and dragging them into captivity. While their are more distant ultimate causes, changing the proximate cause does change reality.
They might not be responsible for slaverY, but they are responsible for taking those halflings slaves. That is a moral injustice they committed and its a moral injustice an adventurer can make them pay for.
They could be an entirely neutral person who simply sees driving a slave cart to be no different than driving any other merchant's cart. A slave camp guard might even feel sorry for the slaves, but think a job is a job.
Lie down with dogs, expect fleas. (lie down within 6 degrees of separation of a dog is a different issue)
You are suggesting that it is morally acceptable to kill a man for doing an entirely legal job in an economy he has no direct control over, simply because the industry he works in is based on an immoral act.
Actually i'm not. Seriously, you need to lump me in with ossama? Its pathetically weak.
I am saying that it is morally acceptable to kill someone that is actively and directly involved in the oppression of others, especially when their death facilitates the end of oppression. The details matter here. You can't simply drop them and pretend you're still following the logic of my argument. Its a slippery slope argument to suggest that you must then follow the web and apply the same guilt to everyone who ever influenced the slave trade and apply the same justice.
Congratulations Norse, that is the exact same logic used by Osama Bin Laden to justify 9/11. The exact same logic.
Behold, the new Godwins.
If i had said it was OK to kill the file clerk at Halfling imports unlimited, or to kill someone wearing halfling made clothing you would have a point. I didn't, so you don't. Were any dictators toppled by 9 11? No. Would any slaves be freed by killing the where's there's a whip there's a way chorus ensemble? Yes.
There's also a difference between capturing slaves and picking which bloodthirsty dictator we like best out of a crowd of inevitable bloodthirsty dictators.
I repeatedly equate the two because the law is generally based on the concept of the good. The law, at least in the West, is intended to codify the good into a prosecutable form.
That the law generally emulates the good does not help you decide if it is right in any particular circumstance. The law is good when it is good is not helpful. You still have no idea if any circumstance you're up against is one of those times.
this is also incredibly problematic because laws vary from place to place. Is shooting the infidel good in one country and bad 500 feet across the border?
And what's different about it is that the man with the knife in this example is probably acting out an evil intent, while the slaver is probably acting out of his own economic self-interest.
That's a non argument. Evil intent and own economic self interests are not discrete descriptions. The WTAWTAW chorus ensemble is carrying out an evil intent (capturing slaves) for their own economic interests. The kidnaper could be taking the woman for ransom money. What you're arguing would be the same as saying "That animal can't be an elephant. Its gray, not a pachyderm"
That's the problem with your whole line of reasoning.
I don't think you're qualified to understand my line of reasoning. You're determined to make it into something its not, and its shading your responses. You seem convinced that taking a step down the slippery slope leads to blowing up buildings.
Whether any act is good or not depends entirely on the context of the actions. But context is infinite, and there are always more things influencing any situation that the human mind can consider. So if morality is dependent on context, and the human mind cannot correlate the entirety of context, then it is logically impossible to make a moral decision.
This is great for the new White Wolf game of Existential Nihlism: The Navel Contemplating. It is less useful for real life and completely useless for D&D.
You make decisions based on reasonable conclusions drawn from information you have. If you stand around thinking "what if" you'll never do ANYTHING because there's always something that could theoretically be going on that would stay your hand. This inaction is far, far, FAR worse than the possibility of making a legitimate mistake.
For the neighbor being kidnaped scenario, how LIKELY are any of those possibilities you listed? Pretty remote. The best course of action is to go with the most likely scenario: she's being kidnapped, and its safer for you and her if the knife weilding nut gets the Louisville slugger to the temple when he's not looking.
You did not answer the question
Your question made no sense at the time. The answer is yes.
What if the man in question is Thomas Jefferson. Is it acceptable to kill Thomas Jefferson in his sleep because he owns slaves?
Yes. Especially if his death is used to aid an escape attempt.
While considering your answer remember that Mr. Jefferson is of the well-intention but inaccurate view that Africans are of an inherently inferior nature that ensures they are unable to civilize themselves, and that it is to their material and spiritual benefits to be held in bondage. Also remember that his treatment of his slaves was not in general cruel or harsh, that they were well-fed, educated and to be freed upon his death, and that during his his life he made frequent attacks on the institution of slavery and was clearly deeply conflicted about the issue.
He was "deeply conflicted" because he knew his excuses were weak but didn't want to have to work for a living. His spiel about Christianizing the heathens and lifting them up was complete malarkey and he knew it.
can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.
If you google the phrase "IPOD city" you'll find plenty of information about the Suzhou mega-manufacturing site and the company that runs it (Foxconn), where most of are cool and nifty gadgets are produced.
The difference is choice. I don't see anything keeping them there. While its horrible (and makes me a hell of a lot less likely to ever buy an ipod) its not slavery. They are apparently being paid more than the room and board (albeit not much)
Also, you are again carrying the argument further than i made it. I didn't say it was ok to kill everyone tangentially involved in the slave trade.
Your ideas of morality would make a game completely unplayable, and life unlivable.
You said that it was justified to kill slavers, murderous bandits, and psychopaths because they made bad decisions. The guy swiping paperclips from the office is making a bad decision. Until you explain the mechanism by which you determine which bad things are bad enough to kill someone for, then yes - you are advocating shooting jaywalkers.
You need a mechanism for this? Its easy. How much harm is being done. The paperclip bandit is near zero: the paperclips are ordered in bulk and the company will probably by the same amount next year anyway. The baby eater is taking innocent life.
No, i am by no stretch of the imagination advocating shooting jaywalkers. It is ridiculously disingenuous of you to suggest that i am.
Exactly. You just seem to refuse to recognize that neutral is along that continuum.
Incorrect. I fully recognize that neutral is there. You however seem to think that good is a nanometer wide hair, neutral is a foot wide platform and evil is an 8 lane superhighway.
Like you slavers example. Killing people is wrong. Freeing people is good. So you decide slavers are, for some undisclosed reason, not people.
Incorrect. Killing people THAT DON"T DESERVE IT is wrong. Freeing people is good. The slavers deserve it.
By your logic, a paladin king that did his own executions would be a contradiction.
Is it just me, or are the posts getting longer and yet saying less? Maybe some people should look into local politics.
The cliff notes version....
Some people bad. Killing bad guys good. Be the hero, collect the xp, collect the loot, do a good deed, wash rinse repeat.
Politics isn't for me. I'm honest, and i scare babies.
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Seriously, there's that goblin baby.
Some day, it will grow up to be a CE menace of local level 1 Commoners. A terrorist. Think Al-qaeda, sans the brains and with more torches. And we're supposed to fight such evil wherever it shows, right? That's what a proper Neutral Good would do.
It's lying on the ground, defenseless. My armored boot hovers over its tiny, football-shaped head.
If I crush it now, am I Evil? 1/10th of Evil? Chatoic Neutral with occasional "twitch"? Just fine? Or just a curious Gnome?
Of course, this isn't a serious thread, and shouldn't be taken so, or Mikaze will run in and start explaining that I should take care of that Goblin and rise him to become a LG Cleric of Iomedae... ;-)
It comes down to perspective. I'm sure that Goblins see humans as evil, too.
Food for thought,
Mighty Thoth-Amon has left his mental signature
I removed some posts. Be nice to one another. It isn't hard. Really.
In the Rise of the Runelords game I DM, the cleric of Sarenrae has taken the Goblin child for fostering at the church. He is using the goblin`s natural fascination with fire to teach him about the Dawnflower.
I removed some posts. Be nice to one another. It isn't hard. Really.
You missed some...
I removed some posts. Be nice to one another. It isn't hard. Really.You missed some...
Got some I missed.
In the Rise of the Runelords game I DM, the cleric of Sarenrae has taken the Goblin child for fostering at the church. He is using the goblin`s natural fascination with fire to teach him about the Dawnflower.
... that isn't going to end well. You should have the goblin invest in Perform: Fiddle.
Honestly i think it would depend on the setting. I mean HOW inherently evil are goblins in the setting?Default CE Goblins. Kill, maim, burn.Default is not the same as innate. Those with the evil subtype are innately evil. All others are a product of both genetics and environment.
Kill that goblin baby and you may kill the next Drizzt Do'Urden, only in goblin form.
Actually, that is the first solid reasion FOR killing Goblin babies that I have seen in this thread.
Actually, that is the first solid reasion FOR killing Goblin babies that I have seen in this thread.
Don't be ridiculous. its not the next Drizzt. No one mentioned the giant, olympic sized cloning vat now did they?
If whirling and possibly eventually dizzy and vomiting goblin dervishes of Sarenrae weilding sactified dogslicers are wrong I don't want to be right.
Makes it easier as a GM too. You can just settle for a nightmare out of the Bestiary for the BBEG.
Mikaze I admire your empathy. I just felt that "goblin baby" is a disingenuous term. Its not cute. Its not biologically designed to tug at your heart-strings. Exactly the opposite, in fact. In Golarion, mind you. Golarion is (mostly) a traditional fantasy setting. Orcs and goblins are UGLY, representations of barbarism and corruption. They threaten your people's homes, their livelihood, their very existence. They are "other", not generally capable of living in coexistence with peaceful races. But really the story context is very important here. We are playing a game about going into the wilderness and killing monsters. Thus the monsters HAVE TO BE monstrous in order for their wholesale murder to be justified. If they aren't, then the story gets complicated (which some people like) and it becomes about questioning "what is right?"
For example, because Golarion is a kitchen sink setting there is a country where inhuman monsters are the norm, and monster redemption is TOTALLY the type of story you run there. In that kind of campaign stomping the goblin baby IS evil, or at least soul numbing. This is a setting where the usual paradigm is intentionally reversed in order to explore the definition of "other". Goblins are people too? Perhaps. Great setting to torture Paladin PCs BTW, make them work at keeping their faith.
Going one step further, there is Kaer Maga, where you can have zombie sex, where weird is normal. This is a city almost on par with Eberron, Shadowrun, or Planescape for its post-modernist deconstruction of the generic fantasy setting. Here goblins might be selling you alchemist fire at a street corner stall, while a goblin baby cries with a slightly less ear piercing pitch in the background. Perhaps their is a litter of them in a repurposed cart with burlap sack over it like a makeshift perambulator. Here a goblin baby IS a baby, because the goblins you meet are selling you stuff, buying groceries, working a day job. They are "the same" as you. Here if a paladin goes on a goblin baby rampage, its because they are intolerant lawful stupid pricks, and their Gods drop them like a bad habit. Or at least that would "feel" appropriate to that setting. It being a part of the greater whole of Golarion, they might get away with it because in the rest of the world goblins are "other".
Mikaze I admire your empathy. I just felt that "goblin baby" is a disingenuous term. Its not cute. Its not biologically designed to tug at your heart-strings. Exactly the opposite, in fact. In Golarion, mind you. Golarion is (mostly) a traditional fantasy setting. Orcs and goblins are UGLY,
Yeah, like your little shrivelled up babies are adorable.
Yeah, like your little shrivelled up babies are adorable.
Mikaze I admire your empathy. I just felt that "goblin baby" is a disingenuous term. Its not cute. Its not biologically designed to tug at your heart-strings. Exactly the opposite, in fact. In Golarion, mind you. Golarion is (mostly) a traditional fantasy setting. Orcs and goblins are UGLY,
Being a (insert Trademarked robot race name here), I have no idea what you're talking about. Our "babies", if you will, come out fully formed and functional.
OH, you mean human babies. Honestly all you fleshy folks look so much alike, I have a hard time telling the difference...
(ahhhh Eberron racial commentary FTW)
Baby war-forged melted for scrap!