What a fascinating story. Even more fascinating is the fact that LSL 1 had copy protection that certainly was not aimed at proving you had the manual, but one designed to prevent people under 18 from playing it. It did this by asking questions you presumably wouldn't know the answer to unless you were eighteen at the time of the game's release. It is one of the most adorable DRMish pieces of coding ever made. Presumably, then, your story is made up?
I think this argument could be defeated by a wondrous invention of our friends from, I believe, Arabia, which is to say, by math. Alignment system in DND (beyond making no sense) is qualitative, and not quantitative. Infernal healing is [evil], okay. How evil? Is it more evil than killing an orphan? How about two orphans? What if those orphans killed your parents?
If, instead, it said [evil, karma -5], and alignment description provided examples of other acts that affect karma (kill an orphan -100, torture him to death -300, save a puppy+20, whatever) it would settle this whole damn argument. Hwalsh would be happy that spell is objectively wrong, Ashiel would be happy because her healing character ends up Good because math works out to positive karma.
Hint books? Okay.
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For the same reason, I like good characters, because I respect and admire characters that are altruistic, protective of life, and concerned for others. Being good means you are a good person who does good things. Not that you're simply acting like a normal person but wearing the right uniform.
But, if it's just how many celestial badgers you can poop out in a day, or how many times you used magic circle against evil as the circle used to conjure an earth elemental, it's pointless. It has little to no
narrative value to the character, and so I simply don't care.
It's particularly wonky when your wizard goes to planar bind a night hag to try and recover a stolen soul (evil spell! good act?) and having to cast protection from good as a prerequisite (good spell!) and your good alignment descriptor peanut butter gets all up in your evil alignment descriptor chocolate.
It's always been a narrative question of whether it's 'more good' to cling to your ideals (such as a code against killing) even when the world is burning around you because of it (an example being Batman constantly putting Joker, etc. into the revolving door that is Arkham, instead of going all Punisher on them, which is the fault of the writers, obviously, since multiple life sentences are generally more effective at preventing mass murder spree recidivism in the real world than in a serial medium that requires iconic villains to be back on the street every time a new creative team is on the book) or 'more good' to sacrifice your own ideals and go all morally-relativistic-boddhisatva and make the 'hard choices' or 'realistic choices' or 'practical choices' as a Punisher type would maintain, claiming that by holding to a code against killing, someone like Batman or Daredevil is valuing his own shiny moral code over *other people's entire lives.*
There's no real right answer there. If a new writer wants to use the Joker, and code-against-killing hero has put him away, he'll escape, and if 'I'll kill him to save others' hero has put a bullet in his brain, he'll get resurrected. Such is the problem with attempting to define 'good' in a serial medium like comic books, where, whether the hero kills or not, the villain will come back anyway, if he's popular enough, and no matter what, the hero looks like a failure on a long enough timeline, since the world never stays saved.
Applying that dilemma to Pathfinder, you've got various classes who don't have a viable healing option *other* than Infernal Healing, such as the Summoner or Magus. If they use it to save someone, it's evil. If they let someone die, and refuse to use it, to avoid tainting themselves with icky evil, then they are valuing their own purity over someone else's life, which seems pretty selfish (especially if alignment is so fungible that he can just cast a bunch of protection from evil spells to push the meter back, since apparently intent and result doesn't matter, just whether or not you cast a spell with the right descriptor).
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I guess that would depend on how common spell casters with Detect Evil are in the games you run; in your example, only 2 of them can actually tell. Wouldn't the majority of the population say "Evil? A wizard used Infernal Healing to save me when I was savaged by an owlbear. An owlbear, I might add, which Holy Joe the Paladin and Granola Steve the Druid both agree totally isn't evil; nuts to Paladins and Druids!"
It is not really up to mortals to decide what is evil and what isn't.
On the other hand, mortals usually do not give 2 spoonfuls about is it or not, because mortal life leads to you being pragmatic.
It is like jaywalking. Just do it while nobody is around and you won't get in trouble.
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I guess that would depend on how common spell casters with Detect Evil are in the games you run; in your example, only 2 of them can actually tell. Wouldn't the majority of the population say "Evil? A wizard used Infernal Healing to save me when I was savaged by an owlbear. An owlbear, I might add, which Holy Joe the Paladin and Granola Steve the Druid both agree totally isn't evil; nuts to Paladins and Druids!"Owlbears are animals (INT 2). You wouldn't use the same argument on a wolf that attacked you; it was just acting like a beast.
If you remove the ability to detect alignment, then moral ambiguity can exist in a game, yes. To truly do that correctly, you have to remove all spells that directly affect good or evil (so no dispel alignment, holy word, etc.). Once you do all that, you can then begin to debate the nature of good and evil. :)
Just acting like a beast? That sounds like Druid-talk to me!
I don't think you'd have to remove all those spells given that a minority of the population that has access to them to begin with, but then, I don't think NPCs know their own alignment.
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...Why do players feel it necessary to argue the alignment rules? In my experience? Storytelling and game creep. And honestly, bad storytelling.
At character creation, you declare your character's alignment, supposedly based on the character's background and upbringing. Then, you grow as a character. So if you make your wizard NG, you should be a fairly decent person. That's your storytelling character.
Then a new splat book comes out and has a new evil spell that sounds cool, and you want it. As a player, you start to argue about why it's not really evil, my Good character should have it, he'll research it himself if you won't give it to him, blah, blah, blah. Basically, the player is now changing the role of the character to try to take advantage of the change of the rules, but doesn't want branded as "the person that changes alignment just to get new powers". So the argument begins.
A good player should recognize that the character knows what is right and wrong, and act accordingly to further the story. But when you add in a score and a victory, the drive to win beats the drive to maintain original concept.
And just to throw out a few ethics problems in the examples given:
- Obi-Wan performed an ethically correct act by leaving Anakin there. He, as a person needing to stop a murderer, went precisely as far as was necessary to stop him from murdering again (to the best of his knowledge). To kill Anakin would be to commit murder from an pure ethics point of view; Anakin's ability to cause harm was removed.
- In a world where Force Lightning exists as the only Jedi power, the option to utilize it may be open for an ethics debate. It is not the only power available. So when the character makes the decision to learn the power and utilize it, they are making a conscious decision to cause unnecessary harm and are therefore knowledgeable of the Dark act.
- There is an interesting ethical question in this: A woman suddenly
You are saying that as if detect evil never gives false positives or false negatives.
"Wait", says John the wizard," how do you know that? "
"How do I know what?" Answers Pete the cleric
"That it is Evil. How do you know that?"
"Well, I wave my arms around, chant some words, magic happens and I know wherever something detects as Evil. My God beams the information straight into my mind."
"And how do you know that it works correctly?"
"What do you mean? It never failed me before."
"Watch this." *casts misdirection on his planarly bound succubus and the paladin * "check our Robert the paladin."
Pete checks the paladin and finds him quite evil
"Well this proves nothing, you cast a spell on him"
"So your God can be tricked by a second circle spell? A very reliable source of information, that. How would you ever know if your detector stopped working?"
Sorcerer Lara chimes in "We can detect that spell you cast"
She tries casting Detect Magic, but wizard is faster and slaps Robert with Magic Aura. Lara detects no spells on the paladin.
"Well, I guess you don't actually know if Infernal Healing is evil or if it just detects as such. Guess we will have to stick to old-fashioned ways to find evil, like finding things that hurt and oppress sentient beings, which infernal healing is not."
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The only way that a near rational argument can be made is to make up a series of what-ifs and speculations that basically aren't true, or at least there's no way of verifying they are true, and would be wholly subjective to the setting that was involved. You could make up a scenario where casting protection from evil gives an angel wings somewhere in the cosmos, or that casting infernal healing somehow strengthens the cosmic forces of evil in some nebulous and undefined way, but at that point it's "yeah, cool story bro" material.
Isnt this who'e thing made up? You know, the magic and demons and stuff? So what if a book comes out that explains that that is why X is evil?
Actually, it kind of has, though not in a pathfinder/paizo book. Maybe it has and I missed it. Anyway, in an old D&D 3.0/5 book they did address that. I think it was Book of Vile Darkness or Exalted Deeds. While discussing evil spells and undead it made specific mention that those are evil because they let more evil influence into the world regardless of the intent of the caster. One could argue that was then, this is now, but I think for a philosophical discussion that is sufficient unless something more recent over rules it. At the very least, I think it makes a stronger argument for design intent. That or an adequate explanation to a mechanical feature post fact.
As to the use of internal healing, well I think that falls into the perview of corrupting influence. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," could be taken litterally here. I'm sure the forces of good and morality and sunshine and puppies will look the other way that one time if you have to save that orphan, but is it so unreasonable to think that constantly, willingly, calling on Hell's power might result in a kind of soul strain?
So casting protection from evil on random strangers becomes an 'anti-corrupting' influence?
does that really sound like a good idea to you?
I can't even imagine enforcing alignment the way it apparently works. It just feels like the morality of a seven year old child to me. I can almost hear,"Am not!" "You are too! Nah nah! Your EVIL!"
Just dumb.
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Consider pirating things online. Objectively, it is stealing, but people come up with all kinds of ways to justify it. Imagine, though, if before downloading something there was a popup sign from the websie that said "just so you know, this is moraly wrong no mater what you tell yourself." People would be pretty unhappy with that because it would force them to choose between the thing they wanted and what was objectively right. That is why people do not like [evil] spells.Consider that a real argument can be made for pirating online to hurt people, and those that consider it not a moral issue primarily seem to think that harm doesn't exist.The thing is, that argument can be defeated. I work in game design and I know piracy is a big deal. One of the things I do is work on DRM so that games can't be pirated. However, one of the huge debates I've seen, even at things like GDC, is exactly how much harm is being done.
This is actually sort of the argument against DRM.
One side says, "If it is good people will buy it. People who aren't going to buy it anyway are not going to buy it if they can't steal it. Since there is no physical loss of inventory, IE if someone taking it doesn't impact someone else able to buy it legally, and if the person who is taking it was never going to buy it in the first place even if they couldn't steal it, was there any actual harm done?"
This is an actual thing that is discussed.
Yes, which is why I said that an argument can be made. I didn't say if the argument was correct, merely that it is debatable, and that debate primarily comes down to how harmful it is.
I dislike theft of digital things (those weren't digital, the internet wasn't a thing back then, people would buy them, then share the disks) because I think it is disrespectful to the company and creator.
However, the argument of it is wrong because it inflicts damage is really nebulous. It can potentially do so. It might not. There are even arguments that pirating spreads awareness of a product and can lead to a sales increase. (I really hate those arguments.)
You probably hate those arguments because they're difficult to prove wrong. I myself have in fact seen the very phenomena of piracy leading to additional legal copies of a thing (in greater numbers than the individual instance of that piracy), and increasing awareness within different circles about a thing, and works in much the same way that the System Reference Document has been the giant force that has kept Pathfinder going. So when people see instances where this happens firsthand, they are likely to become more open to the idea that piracy isn't destructive.
They're also difficult to prove right since it's hard to collect enough data to say if they're 100% certain as to whether or not piracy actually improves sales of a product or serves as free brand recognition advertising for the company, but people see it happen frequently enough to know that it does happen.
Hence why there's a debate about it. >_>
A debate I see both sides of. A debate that makes points on both sides.
You shouldn't pirate, not because it inflicts harm, we can't prove it does, you shouldn't pirate because it is wrong.
Kind of the same reason why you shouldn't cast Infernal Healing.
This is where I just cannot agree with you, because you're making a statement as an authority, but you are not. You haven't made a case for why it would be wrong, or why someone should choose to not do it, besides just stating that it is wrong.
In the same way that people can eat pork, romantically love someone of the same sex, marry people of a different ethnicity, go to work on Sundays, have women with equal rights as men, not murder people because they've become apostates, and thousands of other things that are considered "wrong" merely because someone says they are, you can expect such deep and compelling arguments such as "It's just wrong, it doesn't need a reason" to be swiftly and promptly ignored by the reasoned, because such an argument simply is not reasonable.
Which is why I actually like the core rules on alignment. It makes it very clear what good and evil is from a moral perspective. You can make a very clear case for why things like slavery, sexism, racism, theft, murder, torture, sexual assault, and pretty much all the bad things in the world are evil. Because they hurt, oppress, or kill.
Same with good, but because they are altruistic, protective, and concerned with furthering the dignity of others.
I can definitely accept that piracy might be evil because of the argument that it harms. I cannot accept that it might be evil just because you tell me it's wrong. People have to do better than that.
I could tell you anything is wrong. Even things that are good. If I can't actually provide you a reason why it's wrong, you should very well ignore me.
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"Wait", says John the wizard," how do you know that? "
"How do I know what?" Answers Pete the cleric
"That it is Evil. How do you know that?"
"Well, I wave my arms around, chant some words, magic happens and I know wherever something detects as Evil. My God beams the information straight into my mind."
"And how do you know that it works correctly?"
"What do you mean? It never failed me before."
"Watch this." *casts misdirection on his planarly bound succubus and the paladin * "check our Robert the paladin."
Pete checks the paladin and finds him quite evil
"Well this proves nothing, you cast a spell on him"
"So your God can be tricked by a second circle spell? A very reliable source of information, that. How would you ever know if your detector stopped working?"
Sorcerer Lara chimes in "We can detect that spell you cast"
She tries casting Detect Magic, but wizard is faster and slaps Robert with Magic Aura. Lara detects no spells on the paladin.
"Well, I guess you don't actually know if Infernal Healing is evil or if it just detects as such. Guess we will have to stick to old-fashioned ways to find evil, like finding things that hurt and oppress sentient beings, which infernal healing is not."Hylen the Ethics Major sits back and says, "You are deliberately corrupting the test, John, by not only introducing a new variable, but changing the rules of the test. The question is not "can I hide evil?" but is "Is this one action, by itself, evil?" The test results are clear; the ability to check if a spell is evil or not is not necessary to come from a God, but is a fundamental force."
Jacola the Atheist Cleric pipes in. "Ya, I can still cast detect evil, and I don't believe in gods at all. My spells come from unfettered access to the core of magic, which all people should have access to, if not for higher beings claiming they were deities blocking our natural growth as a species."
Hylen nods sagely. "And the better question is, why are we...
Before you even begin to test something, you need to insure that your testing equipment isn't broken and that results you will get aren't determined by arbitrary factors. E.g. if you are trying to measure your body weight, you buy an accurate weighting scale, go into a room and weigh yourself. You do not try to weigh yourself on a bus driving down a bumpy road, because what the scale would show won't correlate much, if at all, to what you are trying to measure. In case of the evilness of the spell, it is practically impossible to insure proper conditions for an experiment, because it is possible to mess with the experiment and then make it seem(to any observer, including the experimenter themselves) like nobody messed with the experiment. And at that point your results are useless. Are they accurate? Nobody knows. How inaccurate are they? No idea. How can you decrease the inaccuracy? You can't.
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Isnt this who'e thing made up? You know, the magic and demons and stuff? So what if a book comes out that explains that that is why X is evil?
The only way that a near rational argument can be made is to make up a series of what-ifs and speculations that basically aren't true, or at least there's no way of verifying they are true, and would be wholly subjective to the setting that was involved. You could make up a scenario where casting protection from evil gives an angel wings somewhere in the cosmos, or that casting infernal healing somehow strengthens the cosmic forces of evil in some nebulous and undefined way, but at that point it's "yeah, cool story bro" material.
Firstly, it's clear that I'm speaking in context. Since a lot of people like making Star Wars references in this thread, I'm going to break it down for you.
If I said that in Star Wars, the reason that the dark side is sometimes known to have a corrupting influence on people was because it invites invisible gremlins into your brain who turn your eyes yellow and make you poop lightning from your hands, I would be making it up, because there's nothing in the subject material that supports that. Just like there's nothing in the subject material that supports the idea that casting infernal healing means god kills a kitten somewhere, or that casting protection from evil makes babies laugh and angels get their wings.
This should be obscenely obvious.
Secondly, it would matter as far as the campaign setting was concerned (because such an explanation would likely be Golarion specific), but it would in fact help to have a reason. And it needs to be a concrete reason, not a nebulous "it might make the forces of whatever stronger when you draw energy from those planes that are already infinite".
Actually, it kind of has, though not in a pathfinder/paizo book. Maybe it has and I missed it. Anyway, in an old D&D 3.0/5 book they did address that. I think it was Book of Vile Darkness or Exalted Deeds. While discussing evil spells and undead it made specific mention that those are evil because they let more evil influence into the world regardless of the intent of the caster. One could argue that was then, this is now, but I think for a philosophical discussion that is sufficient unless something more recent over rules it. At the very least, I think it makes a stronger argument for design intent. That or an adequate explanation to a mechanical feature post fact.
Well, I don't particularly see a pair of optional splatbooks that were explicitly noted to be targeted at a minority of the playerbase (noted by the books themselves) who wanted to run a very specific type of campaign that (frequently) deviated from the actual core rules of the game as the authority on alignments. Especially when those books (most notably the Book of Exalted Deeds) are actually rife with things that are defined as aspects of the opposing alignment (to the point that they even give exalted classes in those books spells that the BoVD tagged as [Evil]).
I think it has even less bearing on alignment in Pathfinder, given that the book was from two editions prior to Pathfinder (3.0). And since the contents of those books are in fact overruled by the more recent rules on alignment in the core rulebook, they essentially have no place in this discussion. That said, if you want to tread down that aimless path, I do own both books (regretfully, actually, because they were a waste of money) and so I'm able to discuss their (lack of) merits if we absolutely must.
As to the use of internal healing, well I think that falls into the perview of corrupting influence. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," could be taken litterally here. I'm sure the forces of good and morality and sunshine and puppies will look the other way that one time if you have to save that orphan, but is it so unreasonable to think that constantly, willingly, calling on Hell's power might result in a kind of soul strain?
Cast protection from evil a few times. It is for all observable purposes the equal and opposite effect. Patch that soul right up, because that's apparently how it works. Just smear enough blue paint on yourself until you're team blue again.
Same with good, but because they are altruistic, protective, and concerned with furthering the dignity of others.
I can definitely accept that piracy might be evil because of the argument that it harms. I cannot accept that it might be evil just because you tell me it's wrong. People have to do better than that.
Oh, that's easy. Ethics does not play games. Piracy is by its definition theft. You are performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person. That is evil.
The actual arguments about piracy have never been about whether or not it's "wrong". People who have that argument are deluding themselves, and are amateurs in this argument. It's a question of the magnitude and scope, and whether the resources spent to stop it are worth it. "Is it better to be complacent in the realm of piracy, which will then be viewed as tacit approval of the action, or to fight a pointless war of technology to stop it?" That is not an ethical question. That's just the balancing of resource management.
The real problem with all of your arguments, Ashiel, is that they are all based on, "Whatever, I don't care what the fact is, I have a truth." That's fine, and there's nothing really wrong with that viewpoint if tempered with an eye toward society. For example, when you say, "I'm happy being in hell for casting evil spells because I'll know I did right", that's similar to saying "I'm happy for being in jail for stealing food, because I know it was the right thing to do." Sure, Jean Valjean, you might be able to justify it to yourself, but you are still committing evil (and interestingly, Valjean himself never disagreed with the fact that he was a bad person for stealing bread, he just said he had to do it).
The slippery slope in a world where Evil Is Real is that when those children you're healing by 'just summoning evil' need also to be tempered by (in-character) conversations about how it's okay to steal 'little bits' of evil for good purposes....
Specifically pathfinder ethics or all ethics? Because I know a bunch of ethical systems where "performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person" would be considered quite ethical and not evil.
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Before you even begin to test something, you need to insure that your testing equipment isn't broken and that results you will get aren't determined by arbitrary factors. E.g. if you are trying to measure your body weight, you buy an accurate weighting scale, go into a room and weigh yourself. You do not try to weigh yourself on a bus driving down a bumpy road, because what the scale would show won't correlate much, if at all, to what you are trying to measure. In case of the evilness of the spell, it is practically impossible to insure proper conditions for an experiment, because it is possible to mess with the experiment and then make it seem(to any observer, including the experimenter themselves) like nobody messed with the experiment. And at that point your results are useless. Are they accurate? Nobody knows. How inaccurate are they? No idea. How can you decrease the inaccuracy? You can't.The testing equipment is 100% accurate, because they are detailed by a specific fundamental force. The Cosmic Force Paizo, in creating the world, has stated "This spell will tell you the fact of alignment". Illusions and methods around that do not change that. My scale is accurate regardless of the piece of tape I put on the readout. You can interpret your results all you want, but you cannot change the fact.
Okay. You're advocating for evil being a label more than a rigorously tested ethical extreme. It doesn't matter what the spell does, only that it has that label. You're basically arguing for ashiels position by pointing out how silly that labeling is.
Before you even begin to test something, you need to insure that your testing equipment isn't broken and that results you will get aren't determined by arbitrary factors. E.g. if you are trying to measure your body weight, you buy an accurate weighting scale, go into a room and weigh yourself. You do not try to weigh yourself on a bus driving down a bumpy road, because what the scale would show won't correlate much, if at all, to what you are trying to measure. In case of the evilness of the spell, it is practically impossible to insure proper conditions for an experiment, because it is possible to mess with the experiment and then make it seem(to any observer, including the experimenter themselves) like nobody messed with the experiment. And at that point your results are useless. Are they accurate? Nobody knows. How inaccurate are they? No idea. How can you decrease the inaccuracy? You can't.The testing equipment is 100% accurate, because they are detailed by a specific fundamental force. The Cosmic Force Paizo, in creating the world, has stated "This spell will tell you the fact of alignment". Illusions and methods around that do not change that. My scale is accurate regardless of the piece of tape I put on the readout. You can interpret your results all you want, but you cannot change the fact.
You seemed to miss the point. You enter a room, and see a person. You cast detect evil, and it returns " yes, evil ". Is the person actually evil or just under a spell making him detect as such? If your testing equipment is 100% accurate, there is 0% chance it is giving you a false reading, so the person is definitely evil. Except, obviously, that is not true.
Specifically pathfinder ethics or all ethics? Because I know a bunch of ethical systems where "performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person" would be considered quite ethical and not evil.We are on a Pathfinder thread talking about a Pathfinder spell in a Pathfinder world. Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either, but we're talking about Pathfinder. But there's no real world analogous situation, because in the real world, there's no absolute fact behind "Good" and "Evil".
And you were discussing real-world piracy which doesn't exist in pathfinder, hence my question.
>Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either
Utilitarianism begs to differ.
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So, what, boiling people alive in there skin is fine, just don't give a demons fast healing to a child or your boned?
How is that not the most patently absurd outcome?
You seemed to miss the point. You enter a room, and see a person. You cast detect evil, and it returns " yes, evil ". Is the person actually evil or just under a spell making him detect as such? If your testing equipment is 100% accurate, there is 0% chance it is giving you a false reading, so the person is definitely evil. Except, obviously, that is not true.No, I understood your point perfectly. There is still nothing wrong with the testing equipment. "If I can fool the equipment, then the equipment is flawed" is not correct. If I put a piece of uranium inside a Geiger counter, the equipment still works fine, even though it's always detecting radiation.
... No it does not? That Geiger counter is completely useless for any measurements now. That is literally the opposite of "works fine". By this logic titanic " worked fine " after it was hit by an iceberg, it's just that it sank.
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Oh, that's easy. Ethics does not play games. Piracy is by its definition theft. You are performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person. That is evil.Same with good, but because they are altruistic, protective, and concerned with furthering the dignity of others.
I can definitely accept that piracy might be evil because of the argument that it harms. I cannot accept that it might be evil just because you tell me it's wrong. People have to do better than that.
I'm going to pause you for a moment here.
That actually is the debate. Digital piracy is a new thing that people are dealing with. It's not theft in the traditional sense of theft. It is the free creation of a copy of something without consent. It is not equivalent to walking into a store and stealing a jar of pickles, because if you do, you have taken a jar of pickles from the store and they have one less jar of pickles.
It is functionally equivalent to being able to walk into the store, take a picture of the pickles that magically becomes a real jar of pickles, and eating those pickles, leaving the original jar on the shelf. To very many people, this is not theft and equating it to traditional theft isn't going to convince them because they see it as comparing apples to pizzas.
So the real question is, does taking a picture of the pickles hurt people. So it really does come down to whether or not it harms people, or whether or not it helps people. And that's where the water becomes muddy and why there are reasonable people on both sides of the debate. One could argue that by creating a copy of the pickles rather than buying it, you are hurting the store because they didn't sell pickles and you're not supporting the people who picked, jarred, and shipped the pickles for purchase, and that may also lead to them going out of business and not making any new flavors of pickles.
However, there are many counter-arguments that are just as valid. Because the person who copied the pickles may not have been able to afford the pickles, or wouldn't spend money on those pickles if they couldn't just take a picture, which means a sale wasn't lost and so no harm was done. If the person then shared his pickle copy with someone who hadn't tried pickles and they like the pickles and go buy some pickles themselves, a net gain has been made for those peddling the pickles. Or that seeing the person eating copied pickles may draw attention of others watching them eating them, or hearing them talk about how great pickles are, and make them decide to go out and get themselves some pickles. And of course, sharing is caring.
So much of it comes down to the morality behind copying works of others, which is a can of worms in its own right. For example, it could be said that playing a video game in public is a breach of copyright because you are performing or displaying the work publicly, in much the same vein as publicly airing the Star Wars films can be a breach of copyright. Many people would have no issue with watching Lets Plays on youtube, but you're not supposed to make public showings of copyrighted material...usually. >_>
So is everyone watching people streaming on Twitch immoral? Uh, I sure hope not. Is everyone streaming on Twitch immoral? I guess it depends on whether or not you consider a breach of copyright immoral, rather than the breach of a legal document intended to enforce fair trade standards in the same way monopolies are regulated.
The real problem with all of your arguments, Ashiel, is that they are all based on, "Whatever, I don't care what the fact is, I have a truth."
Citation needed.
That's fine, and there's nothing really wrong with that viewpoint if tempered with an eye toward society. For example, when you say, "I'm happy being in hell for casting evil spells because I'll know I did right", that's similar to saying "I'm happy for being in jail for stealing food, because I know it was the right thing to do." Sure, Jean Valjean, you might be able to justify it to yourself, but you are still committing evil (and interestingly, Valjean himself never disagreed with the fact that he was a bad person for stealing bread, he just said he had to do it).
False equivalency, for reasons mentioned in my posts.
The slippery slope in a world where Evil Is Real is that when those children you're healing by 'just summoning evil' need also to be tempered by (in-character) conversations about how it's okay to steal 'little bits' of evil for good purposes. Otherwise, when the incubus shows up and goes, "Hey, you think healing was impressive, check out this other thing!" the children will have no reason to believe that they shouldn't accept it.
It's exceedingly humorous that you not only committed slippery slope fallacy, but you did so while also using the phrase slippery slope.
When you're basing things in reason, their hold is much stronger than if you just say "this is wrong". A child who has been taught that infernal healing can be used because it does no harm, but that they should not hurt, oppress, or kill others, is going to be far more resistant to the incubus because they will be able to judge whether or not what he's selling is okay.
Because they can look at death knell and say, "Y'know, that's great and all, but you just killed something for the purposes of increasing your power. That's very different from that healing thing that sorceress did for my leg, so I want none of it".
Specifically pathfinder ethics or all ethics? Because I know a bunch of ethical systems where "performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person" would be considered quite ethical and not evil.We are on a Pathfinder thread talking about a Pathfinder spell in a Pathfinder world. Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either, but we're talking about Pathfinder. But there's no real world analogous situation, because in the real world, there's no absolute fact behind "Good" and "Evil".And you were discussing real-world piracy which doesn't exist in pathfinder, hence my question.
>Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either
Utilitarianism begs to differ.
Not really. Consequentialism just cares about "the ends justifying the means", and utilitarianism takes a step back and looks at "the big picture". "It's okay to draw on little bits of evil to perform good" is fine, but the problem with it is always no one steps back far enough. That's why ultimately, utilitarianism fails as a structure. Most people step back only to "themselves" or "their families" and doesn't expand it far enough.
Valjean steals bread from the baker. He looks only at his situation. "I harmed one person to save seven; this is fine based on my viewpoint of utility." The baker, however, states that he pays taxes based on the bread he cooked, and now doesn't have the money; he has to take the money he would buy wheat and instead pay taxes, which means less bread made, which means less income. His family now suffers, as does the community that now has less bread total, causing more than seven people's worth of suffering. But the utilitarian doesn't go back far enough to look.
Weirdly, Satanism encourages more cost/benefit observation than utilitarianism does.
I do apologize for the back and forth, I am discussing two different worlds; that was not...
Baker and the thief, effectively, have two diferent ethical systems, because their utility functions likely differ. So what's your point? They are both correct in their own ethical systems. As far as "failing as a structure", I've never said utilitarianism creates happy communities by default or whatever it is you think I have said, but it is a consistent ethical system in which you were wrong.
Nope, not made up at all, as I said in the post, I never worked on that one. I recounted that one from an interview Al Lowe gave a few years ago. He might have referenced one of the other Sierra games (could have been King's Quest or even Quest for Glory) regardless the content is the same.
At least one King's Quest (King's Quest 3 as I recall) required the manual to complete, since one puzzle required you to decipher a code, and the key only appeared in the manual. Without it, you couldn't progress any further in the game. A good chunk of the way through the game, mind you, so very elegantly done.
Of course this debate is kind of odd since it's not really a moral debate. It's a criminal debate.
Pirating games is, objectively, unlawful. It is considered by law to be equivalent to thievery. This is why I don't pirate things.
However this:
However, the argument of it is wrong because it inflicts damage is really nebulous. It can potentially do so. It might not. There are even arguments that pirating spreads awareness of a product and can lead to a sales increase. (I really hate those arguments.)
Is not an argument. This is NUMBERS. It's actually provable that piracy, in the long run, is more helpful to the company than harmful. Widely pirated games usually sell quite a few more copies than ones that don't, even equivalently anticipated AAA titles.
If I had to make a guess, the death of game demos is a big contributor to this. I'm not sure if those numbers have been run, to see if games with demos have the same increase in sales. Or whether Steam's relatively recent (and fairly lax) Return Policy has reduced piracy by any appreciable amount.
Oh, that's easy. Ethics does not play games. Piracy is by its definition theft. You are performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person. That is evil.Same with good, but because they are altruistic, protective, and concerned with furthering the dignity of others.
I can definitely accept that piracy might be evil because of the argument that it harms. I cannot accept that it might be evil just because you tell me it's wrong. People have to do better than that.
I'm going to pause you for a moment here.
That actually is the debate. Digital piracy is a new thing that people are dealing with. It's not theft in the traditional sense of theft. It is the free creation of a copy of something without consent. It is not equivalent to walking into a store and stealing a jar of pickles, because if you do, you have taken a jar of pickles from the store and they have one less jar of pickles.
It is functionally equivalent to being able to walk into the store, take a picture of the pickles that magically becomes a real jar of pickles, and eating those pickles, leaving the original jar on the shelf. To very many people, this is not theft and equating it to traditional theft isn't going to convince them because they see it as comparing apples to pizzas.
So the real question is, does taking a picture of the pickles hurt people. So it really does come down to whether or not it harms people, or whether or not it helps people. And that's where the water becomes muddy and why there are reasonable people on both sides of the debate. One could argue that by creating a copy of the pickles rather than buying it, you are hurting the store because they didn't sell pickles and you're not supporting the people who picked, jarred, and shipped the pickles for purchase, and that may also lead to them going out of business and not making any new flavors of pickles.
However, there are many counter-arguments that are just as valid. Because the...
>When you're basing things in reason, their hold is much stronger than if you just say "this is wrong". A child who has been taught that infernal healing can be used because it does no harm, but that they should not hurt, oppress, or kill others, is going to be far more resistant to the incubus because they will be able to judge whether or not what he's selling is okay.
I don't have the article at hand, but I remember reading an amusing study that looked into this. They found out that plain " X is wrong, no I won't explain why " arguments actually encouraged the behaviour they were meant to discourage, and quite significantly at that. Just thought this was relevant enough to mention.
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Is not an argument. This is NUMBERS. It's actually provable that piracy, in the long run, is more helpful to the company than harmful. Widely pirated games usually sell quite a few more copies than ones that don't, even equivalently anticipated AAA titles.
Curious - did they take into account whether it was correlation or causation? Because - if a game sucks, no one is going to bother either buying OR pirating it.
A big release will both sell more and likely have more people bother to pirate it.
There's not necessarily a causal relationship.
Piracy is more a natural consequence of huge inequality than an indication of any particular moral standard. People wouldn't even contemplate theft if they had the wealth to purchase products. There's enough wealth world wide to solve most of the world's problems, we just choose to spend it on guided explosives and aircraft carriers.
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Is not an argument. This is NUMBERS. It's actually provable that piracy, in the long run, is more helpful to the company than harmful. Widely pirated games usually sell quite a few more copies than ones that don't, even equivalently anticipated AAA titles.Curious - did they take into account whether it was correlation or causation? Because - if a game sucks, no one is going to bother either buying OR pirating it.
A big release will both sell more and likely have more people bother to pirate it.
There's not necessarily a causal relationship.
As I recall the study was done looking at a scattering of games with roughly similar aggregate review scores. Not perfect, by a long shot, but good enough to show a trend.
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The real problem with all of your arguments, Ashiel, is that they are all based on, "Whatever, I don't care what the fact is, I have a truth."Citation needed.All that matters, to me, is that my character is altruistic, protective of life, and concerned for others, and avoids hurting, oppressing, and killing whenever possible. If my character is going to go to Hell because she went around casting infernal healing on people, so be it. She's only all the more altruistic for damning her own soul to save others, and thus more heroic to me.That is Truth versus Fact. Nothing wrong with it, just the way it is.
Then you clearly misunderstood the entire post that was a part of. I wasn't saying that it wasn't evil by the rules, I was saying that if that is the reason the character is "evil", then I don't care, just like I don't particularly care about "team blue" or "team orange", and thus wouldn't care about being evil and the character would still be just as heroic and awesome to me as I originally intended.
I would care about being evil if it were for reasons. I generally prefer characters that are good because of the things good characters are defined through (altruism, concern for others, protecting life), and I generally dislike characters that hurt, oppress, or kill without reservations.
What I was saying is that if this is the reason, then I don't care if the character is "evil" aligned, because the alignment doesn't matter anymore. It's just a game statistic that doesn't actually reflect much about my character beyond her sudden immunity to unholy blight, and hey, that's cool with me since unholy blight is a common weapon of my enemies.
I never suggested that she wasn't legally evil within the system. I was pointing out a reason I see that as a flaw of the system. So my argument hasn't been factless or even fact-questionable, it's just the facts. If being "evil" doesn't actually make you a bad person, why should I care?
I'm going to pause you for a moment here.You're quite right about it being a new concern about digital media and IP issues. It's still theft, which is ethically incorrect. The only question is and always has been "What do we do about it?"
The problem is that it's debatable as to whether or not it is theft. Because theft involves taking something from someone. For example, if a wizard looks at a statue of a piece of art, and says "Hey, Genie, I like that statue. I wish for an exact copy of that statue to put in my living room", he has just committed "piracy" by creating a copy of a thing that was not his. He did not take the statue from the person who owned it, and so when the guy who owns the statue says "Hey, you stole my statue!" the wizard looks at the guy and goes "Lol, whut?"
Which is why it's a new issue. It is something we are faced with that had not previously existed before. It is the ability to, essentially freely, create copies of things. And the moral question is about whether or not that hurts anyone, because to many people, it's not theft.
That's why many people wouldn't steal a jar of pickles from a store, but they would have no issues magically creating a copy of that jar of pickles and eating them. And being told "That's stealing, it's obviously wrong, don't do it" isn't going to convince them because their response is "No it's not, it obviously isn't, and get lost".
False equivalency, for reasons mentioned in my posts.No false equivalency detected. I am discussing the need to understand and accept the consequences of your actions, not whether or not those consequences are correct.
It's a false equivalency because "I'm happy to steal food" involves hurting, oppressing, or killing others. Casting protection from good and infernal healing factually does not. Being happy to be punished for being altruistic is not the same thing as being happy for being punished for doing something that was hurting someone else.
This isn't complex.
It's exceedingly humorous that you not only committed slippery slope fallacy, but you did so while also using the phrase slippery slope.
No slippery slope fallacy detected. My example states that in a world in which Evil is Real, Evil must be tempered with education, something you had not mentioned. I provided the middle ground, which you had not.
No, it's traditional slippery slope fallacy. You posed that healing a child with infernal healing would eventually lead them down a path of jumping on the incubus bandwagon, which is actually more of a leap than saying killing flies will mean you'll grow up to be a serial killer.
Again, if the children are taught not to hurt, oppress, or kill, then they will be able to discern whether or not it's okay. If you tell them "No, the adventurer was wrong to cast infernal healing on you because it's evil and that's why", well, THAT will make them more likely to jump on the incubus bandwagon because it's arbitrary and it was clearly so beneficial.
However, if they're instead taught that hurting, oppressing, and killing others is wrong, they're much more likely to avoid spells like death knell, unholy blight, and things that...y'know...hurt, oppress, and kill.
>When you're basing things in reason, their hold is much stronger than if you just say "this is wrong". A child who has been taught that infernal healing can be used because it does no harm, but that they should not hurt, oppress, or kill others, is going to be far more resistant to the incubus because they will be able to judge whether or not what he's selling is okay.
I don't have the article at hand, but I remember reading an amusing study that looked into this. They found out that plain " X is wrong, no I won't explain why " arguments actually encouraged the behaviour they were meant to discourage, and quite significantly at that. Just thought this was relevant enough to mention.
This is actually why I explain why things are wrong to my little brother, or have traditionally (he's about to turn 18 and he's got a good head on his shoulders). He's pretty resistant to peer pressure (which is something that some studies have indicated is a side effect of explaining/arguing things with children) and he is quickly able to call BS when some of the authority figures in his life say things like "Being gay is wrong", because he was taught to reason. Not taught to just accept some dictation as to something is right or wrong.
I strongly believe the reason the dictation morality fails so utterly when it does is because there is no reasoning behind something being wrong, or at least no reason taught, so the only reason you're not doing it is because you were taught it was wrong. And when you do something that you were taught was wrong and it doesn't hurt you or others, it shakes your conviction that anything else you were taught was wrong actually is. Suddenly you have the "Preacher's Daughter" trope where they're raised up "right and proper" and then turns into a wild hellion, binging on booze, drugs, reckless sex, and shoplifting.