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As I recall that was the great test that God put before Abraham when he asked him to sacrifice the only son he was ever likely to have.
I don't want to put us further off topic, but keep in mind that he immediately stopped Abraham as soon as he showed he was /willing/ to do it and express ultimate faith in God's ability to fulfill his promise of making his generations as numerous as the stars.
Its actually considered one of the formative statements behind the Hebrew's (notable for the area and time) total refusal to condone human or child sacrifice.
We should probably try to avoid the tit-for-tat stuff though.
I already feel like I'm ball dancing through a minefield with a blindfold on while covered in raw meat and surrounded by coyotes with rakes tied to them whenever I have to try to discuss the moral philosophy that composes the 'topic' of this thread.
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Kill an infant to save the world? No. A paladin could not do that and remain a paladin. He or she would be putting the continued existence of the world before doing what is right. The continued existence of the world may be highly desirable, but it is not a moral good.
Besides, that slope is greased all the way down. What if killing one baby is not quite enough to do the job? What if it takes two? Only two and hundreds of millions are saved. That's still a relatively small sacrifice... Or maybe it takes ten. Or maybe that infant needs to be tortured to death.
This end justifies the means thing has been covered a million times, but as no one has yet mentioned it yet, I'll post a link to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I don't have any doubt about how a paladin would feel about that situation either.
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The thing about this is that the choice did come out in "Children of Earth" the decision broke the character, forever severed him from his last remaining family, (He sacrificed literally his own grandson to save the other children of the entire planet) and spelled the end of "Torchwood" as a team.
Yeah, Jack has a mean GM.
Jack's got the sort of DM who likes the 'orc babies' situation, but then turns around and wants his players to feel bad if a race of lawful evil monsters dies out. Jack's DM actually has what would best be described as a hillariously and ridiculously inconsistant moral basis to his campaign setting.
Its like his universe is ruled over by madly piping Azathoth if he was British and worked for the BBC.
DM's got one hell of a bestiary though.
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...ultimate faith in God's ability to fulfill his promise of making his generations as numerous as the stars...
It must be said that God did not make his generations 'as numerous as the stars'! He lied!
According to 'The Code', God has fallen! He has lost his paladinhood, all his divine powers and, as the only god, no clerics can now cast any spells, so no atonement for him!
So, since that moment, Humanity has had no divine influence. Now everything in the world makes sense!
Well, humanity isn't over yet. Its possible there will eventually be that many humans, although unlikely based on the laws of physics.
Seeing as he didn't say if he meant the stars then not the stars now (most stars we see are over and gone as the light we see is very old) it could be right.
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...ultimate faith in God's ability to fulfill his promise of making his generations as numerous as the stars...It must be said that God did not make his generations 'as numerous as the stars'! He lied!
According to 'The Code', God has fallen! He has lost his paladinhood, all his divine powers and, as the only god, no clerics can now cast any spells, so no atonement for him!
So, since that moment, Humanity has had no divine influence. Now everything in the world makes sense!
I think that post caused me san damage. @_@
Seeing as he didn't say if he meant the stars then not the stars now (most stars we see are over and gone as the light we see is very old) it could be right.
Any "star" that we see is within our galaxy, or at most within the local galactic group. Beyond that we only see galaxies, since even our most powerful telescopes can't resolve individual stars at that distance. The stars you can see with your naked eyes are almost all close by, within a couple hundred light years. The farthest ones, in, say, the Andromeda galaxy, are roughly a couple million light years away. Since stars typically exist for billions of years, virtually every star we see today is still alive and kicking.
I'd say it is possible. Example, fighting a series of evil expansionistic orc tribes. Kill every last one, and settle decent non-psychos on the land.
Ends justified the means, which was a lot of killing, to calm the whole region down and bring goodly peaceful rule, backed up by smites.
And if there were good orcs, and they proved themselves to your side, yeah, let them join the peaceful lands of Peaceria.
Paladins are heavy into assimilation after all.
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Kill an infant to save the world? No. A paladin could not do that and remain a paladin. He or she would be putting the continued existence of the world before doing what is right. The continued existence of the world may be highly desirable, but it is not a moral good.
Besides, that slope is greased all the way down. What if killing one baby is not quite enough to do the job? What if it takes two? Only two and hundreds of millions are saved. That's still a relatively small sacrifice... Or maybe it takes ten. Or maybe that infant needs to be tortured to death.
This end justifies the means thing has been covered a million times, but as no one has yet mentioned it yet, I'll post a link to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I don't have any doubt about how a paladin would feel about that situation either.
A true paladin could kill the child to save the world and selflessly sacrifice his paladinhood.
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A true paladin could kill the child to save the world and selflessly sacrifice his paladinhood.Kill an infant to save the world? No. A paladin could not do that and remain a paladin. He or she would be putting the continued existence of the world before doing what is right. The continued existence of the world may be highly desirable, but it is not a moral good.
Besides, that slope is greased all the way down. What if killing one baby is not quite enough to do the job? What if it takes two? Only two and hundreds of millions are saved. That's still a relatively small sacrifice... Or maybe it takes ten. Or maybe that infant needs to be tortured to death.
This end justifies the means thing has been covered a million times, but as no one has yet mentioned it yet, I'll post a link to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I don't have any doubt about how a paladin would feel about that situation either.
Unbelievably unimpressed with the hypothetical paladin's selfless sacrifice of class features + innocent child. The exact same logic that gets you that far will take you as far as you want to go. Ten babies, one hundred, one thousand, ten million. We're talking the whole world here! Heck, you could sacrifice most of the human race, to "save" it. In Watchmen, Adrian Veidt was a hero who succumbed to that logic and in so doing became a monster. It certainly wasn't "selfless" of him.
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This 'I'm willing to abandon my ideals therefore I'm selfless' thing is actually a horrendously ridiculously selfish philosophy.
'You might be getting murdered, but I have to feel guilty about it and act as a suboptimal fighter, so really, I'm getting the worse of this!'
The paladin acknowledges a higher power and guidance then that of himself. He also should in general acknowledge that this power is superior and also intrinsically supercedes lesser things like meager survival.
He does what is right with the assumption that doing what is right will result in the right. Like the Lewisian Puddleglum, he aims to live a right life even if there's no benefit behind it. Paladins who go around attempting to maximize good and lacking faith in their own ideals aren't really the ideal paladin.
A lawful good person =/= a paladin. The problem with paladins (tm) has always been the fact that the paladin is expected to be a paragon, an exemplar of what it means to be good.
The trick, as I've stated, is differences in DMs.
If Terry Prachett is your DM, heroism and doing what is right is portrayed as naive and counter-productive.
If your DM is the writers of Dr. Who, expect your paladin to be stuck in a universe of overly moralizing inconsistant morality where doing what is right doesn't make sensse from one session to the next.
If your DM likes King Arthur stories then well, your paladin better have the shiniest armor, be polite, and be willing to sacrifice his life and happiness for stuff like defending a holy tree in the middle of nowhere.
If your DM thinks "Paladin Arthur Anderson" and his holy bayonets and rengeration abilities is an example of what a lawful good paladin should be like, well...I wish you luck. In fact, come to think of it, this seems to be the sort of paladin 3.5 Loyalist is espousing.
To show my nerd cred (yeah, here on the paizo forum in a discussion about paladins...), the Iscariot Organization in the Hellsing anime sort of represents exactly the 'give up my paladinhood for greater good' stuff. Their entire organization is apparently based on assuring they'll be damned, so God will have loyal agents in hell to fight demons for him come the apocalypse.
This is not the behavior of a sane or non-fallen paladin. :/
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The use of drow sleeping potion causing one to lose paladinhood is the sort of decision that only the most hidebound DM would treat with. There's a universe of difference between using some sort of poison that harms someone underhandedly and using what's essentially an overglorified sleeping potion.
Also, the conscript thing ties back into our earlier discussion that the paladin is not responsible for the actions of others.
If people are being endangered by a sobbing guy with a gun who was told he had to shoot five guys or he'll be blown up, he might be innocent, he's certainly in a tragic circumstance, but the cop is not morally in the wrong if he shoots him. Shooting the guy doesn't represent an 'evil' on the part of the cop, it represents an evil caused wholly by the jerks who forced him into the situation. The blame also partially rests with the poor shmuck with the bomb attached who's shooting people.
So it is with the conscripts above. Those conscripts could have chosen to die instead of attacking the city/shrine/whatever, and if they do so out of filial or national obligation they're a justifiable army under arms and therefore a valid military target. If they're being compelled by magical enchantment, the paladin /would/ have to fight suboptimally by attempting to subdue rather then kill them at least if he were in one of my games. Even if the shrine or city falls, this is the correct thing to do. Arguing 'well those people will be enslaved/the artifact captured, etc' is irrelevant to the discussion of whether the paladin acted morally. The 'higher good' in this situation if you want to look at things from a utilitarian standpoint is assuring that the good ideals continue to live on.
This admittedly, is why I find the 'belief makes it real' nonsense many campaign settngs run on to be horrendously counterproductive as it leads people to the thinking that being good only matters if you win, which is so perversely backwards its hillarious.
This raises an issue I want to pound into people's heads over and over again: Failure at effectiveness is not failure at morality.
Paladins 'falling' because they were incapable of accomplishing something represents bad DM adjudication. This even ties to issues of bad judgement. A paladin with an intelligence of 5 who tries and fails to suss out some legal issue has not lost his paladinhood even if someone dies as a result of his lack of intelligence. He may feel responsible, a good paladin will likely feel guilty about it, but in the grand scheme of things as long as he did his utmost, he's good to go.
The problem that this thread seems to live on is the belief that the code is something the paladin imposes solely on himself, a subjective set of things he personally feels defined by. As far as the paladin is concerned, he's not choosing to sacrifices people to preserve his code, his code is the right thing to do. This, as I said like twelve posts ago, isn't going to be a question we solve.
It's a question that comes up in real life almost non-stop with questions of churches not supporting contraception and this causing them to be viewed as enabling evil in some's eyes, or questions about whether bending laws to accomplish some social good is acceptable, or even questions regarding whether giving charity to bums on the street is a good thing, a necessary thing, or a bad thing depending on what the bum might do with the nickles he gets.
People have differing opinions on it. So again, for the practical answer, the paladin player needs to figure out where his DM stands on these moral issues.
For purposes of arguing on the internet, we're not going to accomplish anything. The grand moral quandaries of the human race will likely not find their solutions amidst we nerds having a discussion in the Paizo.com messageboards. And I fear our own 'best good' might be to start winding down this discussion before it devolves into fingerpointing, various shouts of 'heretic!' and attempts to smite one another.
spoilered for space
Spoiler:The use of drow sleeping potion causing one to lose paladinhood is the sort of decision that only the most hidebound DM would treat with. There's a universe of difference between using some sort of poison that harms someone underhandedly and using what's essentially an overglorified sleeping potion.Also, the conscript thing ties back into our earlier discussion that the paladin is not responsible for the actions of others.
If people are being endangered by a sobbing guy with a gun who was told he had to shoot five guys or he'll be blown up, he might be innocent, he's certainly in a tragic circumstance, but the cop is not morally in the wrong if he shoots him. Shooting the guy doesn't represent an 'evil' on the part of the cop, it represents an evil caused wholly by the jerks who forced him into the situation. The blame also partially rests with the poor shmuck with the bomb attached who's shooting people.
So it is with the conscripts above. Those conscripts could have chosen to die instead of attacking the city/shrine/whatever, and if they do so out of filial or national obligation they're a justifiable army under arms and therefore a valid military target. If they're being compelled by magical enchantment, the paladin /would/ have to fight suboptimally by attempting to subdue rather then kill them at least if he were in one of my games. Even if the shrine or city falls, this is the correct thing to do. Arguing 'well those people will be enslaved/the artifact captured, etc' is irrelevant to the discussion of whether the paladin acted morally. The 'higher good' in this situation if you want to look at things from a utilitarian standpoint is assuring that the good ideals continue to live on.
This admittedly, is why I find the 'belief makes it real' nonsense many campaign settngs run on to be horrendously counterproductive as it leads people to the thinking that being good only matters if you win, which is so perversely backwards its hillarious.
This raises an issue I want to pound into...
In the spoilered text, the conversation starts to turn away from the main issue of good and evil. Discussing whether or not paladins should be willing to fall in some circumstances for behaving "dishonorably" is a completely separate discussion (for the record, I think that class requirement is very poorly thought through). Likewise, Chaotic behavior, or one instance of it anyway, will not usually result in a fall, so is also more of a side issue.
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The Brits did give us Warhammer. Paladin questions simply don't come up in that setting.
Ah Warhammer, I actually enjoy it and its future variant a lot.
When everybody's a bad person you don't worry as much about these sorts of arguments. :)
And I'm not getting too far down on Dr. Who, just its got a somewhat inconsistant moral basis. The Doctor was a bit more of a hero in earlier incarnations, ironically after McCoy he started kind of marching to the Valeyard. But, thats off-topic.
And Zog, the ethical as well as the moral stance of the paladin is in the dock regarding 'ends justify the means' arguments. I might have strayed, but its definately a valid concern to be raised.
I'm just worried I might be at the end of being able to provide useful insight here, I might be 'dry.'
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If you only count the visible stars which are about 3,000 plus in an unlit region of the planet, then yes, he more than made good....ultimate faith in God's ability to fulfill his promise of making his generations as numerous as the stars...It must be said that God did not make his generations 'as numerous as the stars'! He lied!
According to 'The Code', God has fallen! He has lost his paladinhood, all his divine powers and, as the only god, no clerics can now cast any spells, so no atonement for him!
So, since that moment, Humanity has had no divine influence. Now everything in the world makes sense!
As God is omniscient then he knew about all stars when he made his promise, therefore he lied, according to strict PF rules.
If God used the 3.5 version it could be said that his 'lie' was not a 'gross' violation,it was just evocative language, so God wouldn't have fallen in 3.5!
I think we're getting both needlessly pedantic and way off base with the talk about real-world religion here.
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As God is omniscient then he knew about all stars when he made his promise, therefore he lied, according to strict PF rules.
Or he was being "clever." He said as numerous as the stars in the sky. Stars aren't in the sky at all, they're in space, so technically, if he has more than 0 descendants (he did), God was telling the truth :P
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As God is omniscient then he knew about all stars when he made his promise, therefore he lied, according to strict PF rules.Or he was being "clever." He said as numerous as the stars in the sky. Stars aren't in the sky at all, they're in space, so technically, if he has more than 0 descendants (he did), God was telling the truth :P
What is 'the sky'?
If it's not a thing that exists as a definable, measurable thing, then God making a promise referencing it is a deception. Fall!
If the sky is what Abraham believed it to be, then God did not fulfil his promise. Fall!
If the sky is what Abraham believed it to be, then God did not fulfil his promise. Fall!
How do you know what Abraham thought: Are you a mind reader?
For purposes of arguing on the internet, we're not going to accomplish anything. The grand moral quandaries of the human race will likely not find their solutions amidst we nerds having a discussion in the Paizo.com messageboards. And I fear our own 'best good' might be to start winding down this discussion before it devolves into fingerpointing, various shouts of 'heretic!' and attempts to smite one another.
Oh, is this an argument? I thought I was enjoying a philosophical debate inspired by a game, which nevertheless forced me to examine my own thoughts on morality.
Arguments are bad. I'll stop thinking now because you said we're not going to accomplish anything.
(Lack of product =/= valueless process)
I am just curious, for a paladin, Do the ends ever justify the means?
What do you all think?
Sometimes.
If you knew that a child existed that would eventually grow up to be Hitler and kill millions of people, would you kill that child?
Ends: Saving millions of people's lives
Means: One child losing his life
I'm pretty sure that everyone can agree that killing a child under normal circumstances is evil.
So I can see some Paladins/Angels saving the child and I can see other Paladins/Angels wanting to kill the child for the betterment of mankind.
I am just curious, for a paladin, Do the ends ever justify the means?
What do you all think?
Sometimes.
If you knew that a child existed that would eventually grow up to be Hitler and kill millions of people, would you kill that child?
Ends: Saving millions of people's lives
Means: One child losing his lifeI'm pretty sure that everyone can agree that killing a child under normal circumstances is evil.
So I can see some Paladins/Angels saving the child and I can see other Paladins/Angels wanting to kill the child for the betterment of mankind.
Yes. I think the main problem with this thread is that in the PF universe, morality actually exists as an actual force of the cosmos - unlike in our world, where it's a concept created by humans to try and make life better for everyone.
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What about becoming little Adolf's neighbor and teaching him to love and respect others, instead of killing him?
What about becoming little Adolf's neighbor and teaching him to love and respect others, instead of killing him?
Raised and discussed.
The ends are the means.
You don't need faith or objective morality to enjoy and promote a moral code. A paladin can be a champion of LG, because they consider LG societies more productive and pleasing than the alternatives.
Most moral dilemmas require "knowing" things to be true. Such perfect knowledge is unbelievable. Also, as a prior poster pointed out, if killing 1 can save 100, who's to say that the life of one of those 100 won't result in something even worse. Our imperfect knowledge means trying to predict the ends is a futile endeavor, anyone trying to do so is going to have to pick an arbitrary number of steps to stop at and return to not being responsible for the actions of others, only their own.
A paladin's greatest impact on the world is not the evils killed and innocents saved, but rather is the influence and inspiration they create, the ripple effects that can create real and permanent good in the world. Not to feed the soulcoffers of gods, just because a better world is worth working towards for any number of reasons.
In a given game, though, it's up to the GM how the world works,so as in every paladin thread, talk to the GM about it first or risk pain and disappointment.
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For purposes of arguing on the internet, we're not going to accomplish anything. The grand moral quandaries of the human race will likely not find their solutions amidst we nerds having a discussion in the Paizo.com messageboards. And I fear our own 'best good' might be to start winding down this discussion before it devolves into fingerpointing, various shouts of 'heretic!' and attempts to smite one another.Oh, is this an argument? I thought I was enjoying a philosophical debate inspired by a game, which nevertheless forced me to examine my own thoughts on morality.
Arguments are bad. I'll stop thinking now because you said we're not going to accomplish anything.
(Lack of product =/= valueless process)
A debate is an argument. You argue your point when you debate. I'm not referring to like 'we had an argument over who should cook dinner' but rather the philosophical arguments being positted.
And its more that the same arguments are being thrown back and forth from both sides of this issue with different glossy coats and brand names on them. The discussion has been quite interesting (its why I'm still participating in it, I keep getting draw back in by discussion points that seem interesting, that I want to refute, or so on.)
My main concern however is a lot of folks aren't able to remain, lets say...detached, and things might get riled up. For example, I seem to have upset you, which I can assure you, was absolutely not my intent.
Also, regarding your statement. The definition of morality as a solely human construct or something transcendant is hardly a closed issue, and also one we really, really, really, shouldn't get into here if we want to maintain a civil discussion.
To continue trying to contribute to this thread, though, Vorg makes a pretty interesting statement about imperfect knowledge. An actor with perfect knowledge finds himself on the razor's edge of really dangerous stuff vis-a-vis final ends, since he knows precisely the consequences of all of his actions and is threfore a direct contributor, as opposed to a person who accidentally contributes. He's not just choosing his choice, but with his perfect knowledge is choosing the outcomes.
Paladins, especially PC ones though, are not perfect actors. They're therefore stuck examining the only thing really at their hands to examine, the moral validity of actions they have immediately available to them. This is the sinkhole the 'idealistic murderers' fall into, where they kill 1,000 innocent people so 'the people of the future can live without having to know the vile taste of kumkwats' or 'These children sacrifice their lives so that glorious Carthage may continue on!'
Reasonable stuff.
No, I wasn't offended, but I may have been a little tactless. I get that way sometimes. Your post came across to me perhaps in a way you didn't intend. That happens sometimes too :)
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Might I add that my post was driven by my general enjoyment of this thread and the wish for it to continue.
Also, moral relativism is pretty difficult to dispute without bringing deities into the equation - but I'll say no more about that, lest I anger almighty Thor...
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Just my 2 cents:
A paladin to me is the "white knight".
They adhere to an altruistic code. True and total altruism (in its strictest philosophical sense) is debated to be able to exist. The way I see it is intent. Does the paladin intend to do good with his every action or is his action self serving or otherwise muddled. Philosophical debate aside, I say a paladin must strive TOWARDS altruism.
In the "sacrifice a baby to save the world" debate- hell yeah a paladin would sacrifice the s&!! out of that thing.... however he would curse his own existence for the rest of his days and wallow in his own self-loathing over the act while constantly seeking recompense. And... of course... he'd fall like a ton of bricks. (And he'd believe it was totally just)