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I'd say not potentially evil, but it does set the precedent for "What you do to NPCs, expect to be done to you." You kill helpless foes? That triggers the "Foes will now probably kill you if you're helpless' 'game flag' as it were :P
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I don't think this is evil. Possibly not good, but definitely not evil. You were acting in the most efficient manner to preserve the lives of your comrades. Yes, it was done in a somewhat harsh manner, but that's the risk anyone takes when they set out to do battle. It's not like you were out slaughtering helpless children and this guy came to kick your butt, is it? 'cause sure, then I'd say this is probably evil. Otherwise, it's just pragmatic.
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Unless you drink your tea from the heads of your victims and you have dead puppies and kittens hanging from your belt then I wouldn't slap you with the evil title. Repeat offenses can land you with the evil title but if it's down to them or you then basic survival instincts kick in which aren't evil.
This post contains possible spoilers from You Only Die Twice, although I will do my best to keep things as generic as possible. I am also posting this with full knowledge of the GM who ran the event. I'm not attempting to whine, nor am I interested in getting the evil warning on my character sheet removed. I'm just looking for opinions.
** spoiler omitted **
My oracle is a true neutral character. I don't personally believe what he did was evil, although to be sure pragmatic and ruthless. As a GM myself I would have raised an eyebrow to a paladin or any good character performing it; however, I'm wondering what other players and GMs think.
The DM interpreted a Coup de Grace as Evil?
Worse yet, a practical move that saved your group?
No, it was not an Evil act at all, in any sense of the word.
It's far closer to a Good deed, as a selfless act of defending allies.
Accusing us of not reading is much less civilized than us expressing opinions on the matter in the first post. It's also rather rude and somewhat ungrateful. I went through the trouble of reading and answering your post, and then you don't suddenly like the answer you got? Thing is, your DM has a very skewed view of what is Good and what is Evil, if we judged only by what he said to you about that Coup de Grace you pulled off to save your allies.
A question that has me curious is as to how this situation did even arise. Are all the characters Dhampirs? Because if they are not, how did the pharsasmite even harm them with his channel? It was stated further upthread that he thought all of them where undead, so his channel shoudn't have meant anything to non-undead, non-dhampir PCs. Just asking out of curiosity.
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A question that has me curious is as to how this situation did even arise. Are all the characters Dhampirs? Because if they are not, how did the pharsasmite even harm them with his channel? It was stated further upthread that he thought all of them where undead, so his channel shoudn't have meant anything to non-undead, non-dhampir PCs. Just asking out of curiosity.
In my opinion, and in my campaign world, a coup de grace maneuver on anyone that society considers to be a person (e.g. a core PC race) is considered to be murder under the law, pretty much regardless of circumstances. Murder is an evil act. Villainous people should be captured and handed over to authorities, if at all possible.
So, yeah, evil act.
Whether that has alignment consequences on the PC who murdered the evil cleric would depend on a whole lot of other factors regarding the PC, like his other actions, general attitude, etc. Moving a PC's alignment is totally in the hands of the GM, but should not be changed lightly.
A coup de grace on a monster? That's just ridding the world of things that shouldn't be around civilized society. And "monster" includes humanoids of evil races considered to be monsters by society: e.g. goblins, bugbears, ogres, orcs, drow, etc. There's no compunction against slitting the throat of an unconscious ogre, and it's not an evil act.
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@Kalridian: This is one of the reasons I didn't want this thread moved away from the PFS forums.
@Icyshadow: Reactions from some posters have confirmed that the entire thread has not been read. You don't do me any favours by insulting my GM without acknowledging any of the other posts that have already been made.
@Kalridian: This is one of the reasons I didn't want this thread moved away from the PFS forums.
@Icyshadow: Reactions from some posters have confirmed that the entire thread has not been read. You don't do me any favours by insulting my GM without acknowledging any of the other posts that have already been made.
Why are you taking insult to a remark that's not even directed at you?
If you like your DM so much, why don't you let him shift you to straight Evil then?
For all I know, anyone questioning him here is obviously a jerk who should shut up.
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@Kalridian: This is one of the reasons I didn't want this thread moved away from the PFS forums.
@Icyshadow: Reactions from some posters have confirmed that the entire thread has not been read. You don't do me any favours by insulting my GM without acknowledging any of the other posts that have already been made.
Why are you taking insult to a remark that's not even directed at you?
If you like your DM so much, why don't you let him shift you to straight Evil then?
For all I know, anyone questioning him here is obviously a jerk who should shut up.
Do you play PFS? Have you read all the posts, including the ones by my GM? Have you played 'You Only Die Twice'?
I'm not insulted, I'm just frustrated at your behaviour.
I'm not insulted, I'm just frustrated at your behaviour.
Then again, you are dealing with 'The GM is always wrong' Icyshadow...
@Kalridian: This is one of the reasons I didn't want this thread moved away from the PFS forums.
@Icyshadow: Reactions from some posters have confirmed that the entire thread has not been read. You don't do me any favours by insulting my GM without acknowledging any of the other posts that have already been made.
Why are you taking insult to a remark that's not even directed at you?
If you like your DM so much, why don't you let him shift you to straight Evil then?
For all I know, anyone questioning him here is obviously a jerk who should shut up.
Do you play PFS? Have you read all the posts, including the ones by my GM? Have you played 'You Only Die Twice'?
I'm not insulted, I'm just frustrated at your behaviour.
I do not play in PFS, but I am partially aware of the events transpiring in "You Only Die Twice". However, neither of those things change the fact that your character's deed was not Evil, and thus your DM did wrong deeming it such. Also, you're finding yourself frustrated because you want to be frustrated, not because you have to be. I'm not going to apologize for something as silly as that.
Then again, you are dealing with 'The GM is always wrong' Icyshadow...
...nice little exaggeration of the fact that I have had experiences with a bad DM, and would prefer other people didn't suffer the same.
In other words, I only complain about poor DMing because I'm a nice guy. You want to thank me by mocking me for that? It seems oddly ungrateful.
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Then again, you are dealing with 'The GM is always wrong' Icyshadow......nice little exaggeration of the fact that I have had experiences with a bad DM, and would prefer other people didn't suffer the same.
In other words, I only complain about poor DMing because I'm a nice guy. You want to thank me by mocking me for that? It seems oddly ungrateful.
Dude, you've gone we'll beyond that. Your one bad experience has made you so bitter that you essentially jump straight to a default position of "The GM is wrong", even without bothering to read the whole thread (and I'm not talking about just this thread). Frankly, I don't see why any GM would put up with you...I can't see you being any more tactful in real life with your assumption of incompetence and jumping to conclusions than you are in these forums.
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Why are you taking insult to a remark that's not even directed at you?
For all I know, anyone questioning him here is obviously a jerk who should shut up.
Well, I definitely found your tone insulting and the remark WAS aimed at me. I'm not upset or anything but your tone is definitely far more insulting and less respectful than the posts that preceeded it.
Posts that, I'll point out, caused me to actually change my mind. Partly because of the arguments they made and partially because they made the arguments in a calm and polite manner. If you actually want to have a conversation and try and actually convince people politeness DOES matter.
Mergy started this thread because we were BOTH interested in hearing other peoples opinions.
And you got what you wanted. That, and nothing more.
Oh, a change of mind on that? In what regard, if I may ask?
Dude, you've gone we'll beyond that. Your one bad experience has made you so bitter that you essentially jump straight to a default position of "The GM is wrong", even without bothering to read the whole thread (and I'm not talking about just this thread). Frankly, I don't see why any GM would put up with you...I can't see you being any more tactful in real life with your assumption of incompetence and jumping to conclusions than you are in these forums.
Then again, you are dealing with 'The GM is always wrong' Icyshadow......nice little exaggeration of the fact that I have had experiences with a bad DM, and would prefer other people didn't suffer the same.
In other words, I only complain about poor DMing because I'm a nice guy. You want to thank me by mocking me for that? It seems oddly ungrateful.
Feel free to ask the four or so other DMs I still actively play with about how (assumedly) insufferable I apparently am.
Pretty sure they'll surprise you with the fact that as long as a game is running well and everyone is having fun, I AM NOT COMPLAINING.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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@Icyshadow: Within this thread, the GM explained his reasoning, and also that he believed the act to be just barely borderline evil. I made a case to the GM as to why the act shouldn't be considered evil. The GM in question rescinded his original stance and agreed with me that it's not an evil act, and offered to remove the notation from the OP's chronicle sheet (his organized play record of having completed that scenario).
So the GM currently agrees with you that it's not an evil act. After he said so, you came in and said he was wrong. And you wonder how the Mergy got the idea you hadn't read the whole thread?
EDIT: Ninja'd.
...wait a minute. When did I say he was wrong?
Why the hell would I think what the player did was Evil?
Great, now nothing makes sense any more on this thread.
My apologies, I sort of forgot about the first page after your player took a turn trying to provoke me just for giving my opinion.
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I wasn't trying to provoke you Icyshadow. I looked at several responses that seemed ignorant of what had gone on in the thread, and commented on it.
If you hadn't read the thread and were commenting in ignorance, then I don't see what was wrong with my original statement. If you had read the thread, then the comment was not directed at you; in your own words:
Why are you taking insult to a remark that's not even directed at you?
Why are you taking insult to a remark that's not even directed at you?
Because until now, I've apparently been on a rather irritable mood for a variety of reasons.
So, going with Mergy's suggestion and leaving drama at the door...
My most recent character is a first level theoretically Chaotic Good ninja fetchling who is an herbalist merchant... and assassin for hire. In the daytime pretends (via excellent disguise skill) to be a "human with celestial ancestry" (due to his softly glowing eyes) or just a human or half elf (with disguise self) for short bursts when convenient.
The "trick", however, is that he doesn't just wantonly assassinate folks for money. He accepts contracts from those that have been unjustly wronged with no legal recourse to do otherwise. He does his homework on whatever contracted target he's been given. He's walked away from contracts before (and had to leave town hastily because of it) because he's discovered that the mark in question had some extenuating circumstances: perhaps they didn't actually perform the legally untouchable evil act (but someone who hated them wanted them dead, so...), or had some justifiable reason for acting as they did (and really don't deserve death), or perhaps the tale he was given with the contract was true but the spin on it was misleading or outright false (thus the target does not deserve the punishment).
He generally uses poison, specifically augmented drow poison that he makes with his craft (alchemy) skill, on any combatants that aren't his target. He occasionally does "freebies" when no one's asked him to do anything, because, frankly, he's not waiting around for someone to give him money to fix an injustice.
His personal deities are (in order): Desna (ruler of the time he's active, and his moral compass), Calistria (master to the tools of his trade), Pharasma (what he does to others), and Milani (justice disregarding the law).
He was raised to worship those and also Kofusachi, Lao Shu Po, Tsukiyo, Yaezhing though with a solid decade between anyone able to teach or him about those gods, he's very rusty on what said gods are about, so said gods have kind of fallen by the wayside.
In his travels, he's picked up respect for (though he knows little about) Skode, Bergelmir, and Sinashakti as they all seem to fit well with his personal outlooks and beliefs.
He keeps a small shrine with all his gods on it to be honored daily. (As he's not a cleric with no knowledge (religion), he's kind of just going by what "feels right".)
He doesn't actually worship Cayden Cailean (though several aspects might seem to fit well).
He was a foundling as an infant, raised by a Chaotic Neutral ninja clan (which is how he got his skills) who had fled to Varisia from Tian Xia for some reason. He actually has four "parents" that he refers to on occasion (two different families that were part of the much-larger clan who both raised him as a kind of "shared son"). He was very close and romantically involved with one of the clan girls. Ten years ago (when he was 16 years old), the clan was shattered by unknown raiders, and he (along with the rest of the survivors) fled, scattered into the wild. He was unable to find any survivors.
Five years ago (when he was 21), he later picked up herbal skills from the first girl he's ever been with, a wealthy heiress... who later turned out to be part of a human trafficking ring. He killed her in personal combat before assassinating her boss (she was the face, not the head) by way of sleeping poison the two had made together only recently. After secretly freeing any prisoners, he set fire to the mansion and left with a nice horse from their stables, eventually picking up a Varisian-style cart (think "gypsy style") and using it as a house, mobile base, and shop all in one.
Recently, he moved to Absolom. He's received three contracts in the last six months, one of which he's executed (another human trafficker who couldn't be touched by the law), two of which he's walked away from because they didn't deserve it. He's also done one "pro bono" offing of a fellow assassin who did not have his particular moral compass (and was going to kill the woman who'd only really wanted her <explicit expunged> daughter back, but, as that's obviously no longer possible, sought justice instead).
This isn't PFS. The campaign has just started (it's presumed that all the other stuff he did until now got him up to first level).
So... is he actually Chaotic Good? Or something else? My GM and I have already agreed that he is, at least at present. But I'm interested in getting feedback.
EDIT: to add his ages at a few key moments (and to correct "keen" to "key")
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Tacticslion: I think the character background is very interesting, but I have trouble picturing anyone who practises only killing to have a good alignment. He's definitely chaotic, but I would personally have him chaotic neutral. That alignment gets a lot of flack because of how people often portray it (chaotic stupid); however, it's my best interpretation of someone who uses murder to solve problems he perceives in society.
I perceive the good alignment as primarily concerned with altruism and protecting others. Your character seems more concerned with avenging injustice, which, in my opinion, skirts south of the Good sphere.
As much as I like your idea Tacticslion, you'd need to convince a lot of people who stick to the status quo that assassination is not automatic evil.
The game system puts murder on the evil-boat.
I tend to agree; but I certainly consider extenuating circumstance.
Do I think an assassin can be a kind and generous, helpful person? Yes.
But I also like Dexter Morgan, so my judgment may be subject to some bias...
I guess I think people shouldn't have to be shunned for being evil, which takes the "is it evil" debate and downgrades it to "are they fun to hang out with? Will they not kill me? Cool, let's go ransack a dungeon together in a couple weeks. See ya."
Now. I doubt I'd let someone be a professional assassin and have a good alignment. But I find alignment a distressing area of consistent friction among gamers. Assassins are a class that make me want to ditch the alignment system.
For the question of altruism, he (usually) charges 500 gold per HD of the target (or the perception of the HD of the target) for a job. That money? Rarely does he keep any of it. Predominantly it returns to the people on the street, those who are too poor to free themselves from their situation, or those who desperately need aid. Much of the rest goes to his churches.
(This explains his lack of wealth at first level, but also displays his more humanitarian/concern for others treatment. Heck, with 3 gold, 1 silver, and 8 coppers in my pocket in the first play session, he's given away 2 gold and 4 coppers to various NPCs for reasons, even going so far as to pass up attaining dozens of gold pieces and a pocketwatch when he repeatedly pickpocketed a pickpocket; he returned the items to the rightful owners instead.)
Again, I'm not arguing that he is good from your point of view, but I'm wondering what and why you feel that way. Also, I'm throwing out more information that I realize that I didn't give at first.
Specifically, Mergy: in fact, he's very interested in protecting others. The difference (as he sees it) is that he's being proactive (as in preventing people from doing evil in the future) as well as reactive (placing justice according to the crime).
He can't very well 'protect' others by killing from someone who's potentially going to do bad things, and he has few other skill sets than "traveling herb merchant" (which doesn't get him a great deal of political clout or financial boons).
While he could choose to develop a different skill set, he sees his own set as something that is lacking but needed: far too often the poor, innocent, and weak become victimized and abused by the powerful, wealthy, and corrupt (note: he does not equate wealth or power automatically with corruption, but rather knows that said things can corrupt, or allow those who are corrupt to do their thing; he'll just as readily stop a poor weak fellow from doing evil as a wealthy or strong fellow). Further, his methods are not always violent. If possible, he seeks non-violent ends to a situation.
There are times when it's not practical or expedient to use nonviolent means, however, and that's where his other skill set comes in.
The comparison to Dexter Morgan is an interesting one, but not fully applicable. Dexter, as I understand him, is a sociopath. He delights in violence and murder, and is, in fact, compelled to do it by his nature. He's not a good guy, per se, he's a bad guy doing good (ish) things. In some ways, it would be very akin to a demon who underwent alteration by a Helm of Opposite Alignment: he's still a fundamentally chaotic evil creature, but now seeks to serve lawful good... though all he knows is chaotic evil. Now, I'm not saying that Dexter is actually evil or good: I'm giving a profile of his nature.
Jegan, on the other hand, seeks a nonviolent approach first. That's why he so often declines contracts: he won't kill someone who doesn't deserve it or who can be reached, altered, or otherwise defeated by any other means. The difference is, however, when Jegan is alerted to the presence of a continuing injustice that has actively harmed people and will continue to harm more, but legally there is nothing to be done, he won't simply wait for it to happen again. He instead uses his skill set to actively prevent wickedness from forcing itself on to others again.
I can see, now, why he might give off the impression of, "If they did it, I will punish." based on what I said before, which is accurate to a point, but his purpose isn't to go after that guy that did that thing that time; his goal is to prevent evil from preying on others.
I admit it may be a fine bit of semantics or verbal gymnastics, but it may make a difference, and I'm genuinely curious to people's reactions.
I'd edit, but I can't, because it's half an hour too late, so... double post instead. Sorry.
Please change the last sentence of the previous post to read, "I admit it may be a fine bit of semantics or verbal gymnastics, but it may make a difference, and I'm genuinely curious to people's thoughts." because, while I am looking for peoples "reactions" (i.e. "impressions, thoughts, opinions, and ideas"), for whatever reason reading that just seems like I'm trying to stir something up, which I'm not.
Also again, for the record, my GM and I have already agreed that he's chaotic good (though this is subject to GM fiat, of course), so it's not like this is a problem or anything.
Also, for the record, I support pauljathome, as a GM, in making the decision that he did, even though I disagree with it, personally. I also am impressed and appreciate his humility and open minded stance to change his opinion after-the-fact through frank, honest, and open discussion.
I thought the first page of this discussion was a very good read, but on the second one I had to start skipping a lot of post since the point counterpoint felt a bit more emotive.
I was going to first write almost the exact sentiment that Moraith did earlier in that I think it was absolutely a bad call, but I do think that GMs need the ability to makes tough calls on the spot without constantly feeling like they have to walk on thin ice.....or water. To that end I support the GMs decision. At any rate it sounds like we are beyond that now.
I did pick up on something in Pauljathomes later post that did still strike with as off concerning factors of evilness that I don't believe anyone has touched upon. Obviously I am of the more liberal alignment camp. It was stated that the alignment of the victim affects the evilness of an act. I don't think I concur with that. In any circumstance in which I would deem killing the person to be prudent, how they have previously behaved in their life seems irrelevant to me. Either it is prudent to kill them or no, killing based on previous actions seems an act of spite more so than righteousness.
A possible exception to this rule of thumb is made by the fact that if the victim is evil, it may mean that they will likely commit future atrociousness which must be stopped. But in that case it is the likelihood of future actions meriting the death, a possibility that could come up for both good and neutral characters. People may be mislead, wrong, or just placed in a no win situation leading to possible future acts that need to be stopped. At best an evil alignment can perhaps shorthand the thought process on the likelihood of problems occurring, but a good alignment in no way absolves the other end of the spectrum of these type of charges.
1. Self defence is never an evil act (in itself).
2. It is the cleric of pharasma that should be getting a tick for performing an evil action, provided you guys are innocent. Just like the situation in which a paladin kills an innocent under the wrong assumption that said innocent person was a vampire or something.
3. If the argument is that the cleric of pharasma was acting in 'good faith', that argument should also be accepted for your side; you were defending your innocent allies.
If the conclusion is that you performed an evil act, I cannot see how one can use those arguments to defend the action of the cleric. Thus feeding into a loop of evil vs. evil acts, which would make your action justified as neutral and perhaps even good.
Conversely, if you were a bystander while above paladin is killing said innocent person and intervene, I would certainly not call that an evil act, even if it involves killing said paladin (who can be very tenacious as we all know).
@Tacticslion
The only real stumbling block I have with letting someone be GOOD-aligned (as opposed to Neutral on the Good-Evil axis, which I have NO problem with) is that, in PF, Evil is a discrete, tangible, quantifiable thing, not a relative perspective.
Murder is included in the game-portfolio of Evil. No matter how justifiable it might be, the act of killing off other sentients is by-fiat Evil...
It's the extenuating circumstance of murdering BBEGs that opens the door for Neutral assassins in the game as written.
In a home game... shoot, if you wanna be a good assassin, *I* don't care; it's in the strict RAW game where it's problematic.
But that problem won't go away until alignments do.
What was this person going to cause you by their actions? This person you CDGed was going to knowingly cause your death, then it does not matter what alignment the NPC was. You killed someone that was going to cause the death of someone else even if it was yourself.
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It was stated that the alignment of the victim affects the evilness of an act. I don't think I concur with that. In any circumstance in which I would deem killing the person to be prudent, how they have previously behaved in their life seems irrelevant to me.
It was a few posts back, so I wanted to reiterate that this is just one of many factors that I`d consider and not the sole determining factor.
But I stand by my opinion that the morality of the person you are killing affects the morality of your act of killing.
First, there is my sheer visceral feeling that it just seems worse to kill a good person than a bad person. I can't really justify that but its a pretty deep feeling and its one that I believe a great many people share.
One can also make a fairly strong logical argument that killing a evil person will have a great many good secondary effects while killing an evil person will have a great many bad secondary effects.
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I think that's what Sitri meant by:
A possible exception to this rule of thumb is made by the fact that if the victim is evil, it may mean that they will likely commit future atrociousness which must be stopped.
That is, it's not "good" to hurt or kill an evil person in itself, but in general, killing an evil person is more likely to prevent future evil acts than killing a neutral or good person is. Therefore killing an evil person can be justified under the logic of preventing future evil acts, assuming imprisonment and redemption aren't feasible options to achieving that same end
As for that visceral reaction, I think it's part of our human desire for fairness and to see good deeds rewarded and bad deeds punished in kind.
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Unless you drink your tea from the heads of your victims and you have dead puppies and kittens hanging from your belt then I wouldn't slap you with the evil title. Repeat offenses can land you with the evil title but if it's down to them or you then basic survival instincts kick in which aren't evil.
You leave Krim Puppykittyslayer alone. He killed those puppies and kittys in self defense. The skull is an orc who tried to mug him. And he likes green tea.
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Let's look at your #5, how helpless the target is.
...
But someone who you KNOW is going to be awake in exactly one round, with both the ability and intent to kill you and your comrades? That's not the same kind of "helpless". That's more like "temporarily vulnerable".
...
To me, someone in the process of being brought back into the fight is not truly helpless, as far as alignment implications go...
To me, this is the key point. And Jiggy stated it much more clearly that I ever would have.
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I would also like to point out that a lot of these discussion come about because people are trying to partially apply 20th or 21st century, Western European and United States morality to the situations.
If you really look at other cultures and other times, I lot of what we are arguing about would not even be a matter of consideration.
But even if you say we are going to apply those standards, we get more problems because we don't really. We only partially apply them when we want something jumps out at us.
Most of what takes place in a lot of the adventures could very easily be termed evil by current western civ standards.
Orcs attacked a couple of farmers. PC's are hired to go eliminate the threat of the orcs. It is extrememly rare for PC's to determine if those really are the same orcs, prove the orcs did it, find out if all or only some of the orcs were involved. Then to top it off, the PC's loot the orc village. Modern ethics would say that was opportunism thinly disguised as vigilante justice. But it is the basis for many adventures.
I personally think the game would go smoother if we did NOT try apply modern western civ ethics to the situations. But if you are going to, then you should really do so completely. Meaning the PC’s can’t just go attack the assumed bad guys and keep their stuff.
For the OP...
Well, having read through the thread it, and considered the act is... evil. An evil driven by fear (for others and self), but still evil. Would it be enough to change your alignment - no. But it's not good. If you had dropped him dead in the fight, self defense, no problem. Pushing your sword (or other weapon) into his helpless body after he's out of the fight, problem. Why not shiv the guy who was still up? He's ignoring you (and probably trying to save his buddies life) and should have been an easy mark. Or just put the point to his friends throat and threaten to finish things if he doesn't back off. Ask them to surrender (and you'll spare them), etc. There were (were there?) other options than just offing the downed man. On the other hand, they are riskier, your PC isn't good (neutral iirc) and a, minor, act of evil isn't enough, by itself, to change alignment. You sound like it bothered you and you are trying to justify it. Natural, but if you're mulling it over, it's probably not a good thing, shading from grey on over. Imo, of course.
Btw, I think both you and your GM were being quite reasonable about it. Even if he did change his mind :)
It was a few posts back, so I wanted to reiterate that this is just one of many factors that I`d consider and not the sole determining factor.
But I stand by my opinion that the morality of the person you are killing affects the morality of your act of killing.
First, there is my sheer visceral feeling that it just seems worse to kill a good person than a bad person. I can't really justify that but its a pretty deep feeling and its one that I believe a great many people share.
One can also make a fairly strong logical argument that killing a evil person will have a great many good secondary effects while killing an evil person will have a great many bad secondary effects.
Feelings on morality of actions are strong and sometimes oddly ineffable even when consistent. I too fall prey to inconsistency in the thought experiment of the trolley dilemma vs. fat man dilemma based on pure gut reaction, but since I can't properly articulate the difference in the two situations, at least to my own satisfaction, I really can't fault anyone else that judges the situation differently.
... the thought experiment of the trolley dilemma vs. fat man dilemma ...
... what is this thought experiment?
This has been an interesting thread because to me, it seems quite clear-cut that Mergy's action was not evil.
Now, I don't want to accuse anyone of having a broken moral compass, or anything like that, but Mergy's oracle was in position to save his life and the lives of his crew at the cost of this guy's life. Easy choice in my eyes. Maybe there was a chance to work it out with him diplomatically, but that was all it was, a chance.
I don't think the method used to take the cleric out is really relevant. He was going to stand up the next turn and likely start doing his thing again. Coup de grace-ing him was the smart choice.
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This has been an interesting thread because to me, it seems quite clear-cut that Mergy's action was not evil.Now, I don't want to accuse anyone of having a broken moral compass, or anything like that, but Mergy's oracle was in position to save his life and the lives of his crew at the cost of this guy's life. Easy choice in my eyes. Maybe there was a chance to work it out with him diplomatically, but that was all it was, a chance.
I don't think the method used to take the cleric out is really relevant. He was going to stand up the next turn and likely start doing his thing again. Coup de grace-ing him was the smart choice.
I think you're mixing up "good" and "expedient". The downed target was the enemy, sure. Alignment, unknown. His life, basically in your hands at that moment. To kill, or not to kill. If it's more convenient / safer do we kill? Do we kill enemy wounded or POWs when it's convenient? Do you look down at the guy you just dropped and think "better dead"? It's an option and some would justify it due to safety or uncertainty. And I'm not saying finishing off someone "just in case" is not something I would do. Fear, responsibility for others, and anger are all motivators for this. But, whatever else it is, it's not "good". Ask Anakin Skywalker if you're not sure, or to paraphrase the little green guy "to the dark side they lead". And no one ever said "good" is easy or convenient. That's why "neutral" is so popular as an alignment option. It let's you do the expedient thing.
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I would say it's not evil because of ignorance.
If neither sure knew whobthe other was then there was no possible way this was evil.
I would say that doing something evil would be intentional knowing full well that you are acting in your evil nature.
Edit: If neither party was sure who the other was then there was no possible way this was evil.
Typing on a mobile phone is difficult at times.
What I believe he means by "fat man vs trolley"
If a train was coming down a track and was in route to kill five men, but you could pull a lever and divert the train onto another track where it would only kill one man? (most people will answer yes)
If a train was coming down a track and was in route to kill five men, but you could push a man (fat man in the case) onto to track, killing him but stopping the train before it hit the other men, would you? (most people will answer no)
These two options with equal outcomes are often used to discuss how people decide on what is or is not moral.