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Linguistic definitions and perception of social models and morality.
I think this is where many begin to divide.
Alex Smith 908's word "slavery" is not the same word "slavery" that is used by Fergie (or, for example, myself). AS908's is inherently evil - it requires oppression and cruelty. Of course it's evil.
This is not the definition used by others. In a similar manner of comparing real-world morality to PF morality: the things in question share a marked similarity, and are parallel to each other, but clarity and objective certainty (and a dash of savagery) can allow for "good" things to be objectively good in ways that would be surprisingly divergent from commonly-accepted real-world morality beliefs. Because demons may always be smote by Paladins (barring extra-universe GM shenanigans) without fear of failure. In the real-world, we have to work to discern whether or not a thing is "evil" by our subjective* belief system.
Hence the disconnect.
* I say subjective, because I am subjective: even though I believe in an objective morality, I, myself, am subjective and prone to failure of understanding.
Well, I was quoting the Pathfinder alignment section, but if we are quoting the dictionary, let's do it fully:
op·press
əˈpres/
verb
gerund or present participle: oppressing
"keep (someone) in subservienceand hardship, especially by the unjust exercise of authority.
But we are not talking about hardship or injustice, so oppression is not really an applicable word.
We are talking about subservience:
"Subservient means "compliant," "obedient," "submissive," or having the qualities of a servant. Something that's subservient has been made useful, or put into the service of, something else."
Given peoples willingness to proudly declare themselves servants of religions, governments, philosophies, etc. I'm just not seeing the inherent Evil oppression of being a servant.
(also known as: suppressed evidence, fallacy of incomplete evidence, argument by selective observation, argument by half-truth, card stacking, fallacy of exclusion, ignoring the counter evidence, one-sided assessment, slanting, one-sidedness)
Description: When only select evidence is presented in order to persuade the audience to accept a position, and evidence that would go against the position is withheld. The stronger the withheld evidence, the more fallacious the argument.
Example: quoting oppression from a dictionary but crossing out the part that proves us wrong and then dismissing it as if it was irrelevant.
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Example: quoting oppression from a dictionary but crossing out the part that proves us wrong and then dismissing it as if it was irrelevant.
Oops! Sorry about that. I had intended the strikethrough to indicate the parts that I felt where not inherent aspects of slavery in a fantasy world. Thus concluding that it did not meet the conditions of "oppression", which I agreed was an Evil characteristic.
Sorry for any confusion.
EDIT: As Tacticslion indicated - If your definition of slavery requires oppression and cruelty. Of course it's evil. I would add that either way it is an affront to Chaos.
Example: quoting oppression from a dictionary but crossing out the part that proves us wrong and then dismissing it as if it was irrelevant.Oops! Sorry about that. I had intended the
strikethroughto indicate the parts that I felt where not inherent aspects of slavery in a fantasy world. Thus concluding that it did not meet the conditions of "oppression", which I agreed was an Evil characteristic.Sorry for any confusion.
EDIT: As Tacticslion indicated - If your definition of slavery requires oppression and cruelty. Of course it's evil. I would add that either way it is an affront to Chaos.
Funny as I see good and evil defined in my CRB but slavery isn't - what are we to do.... oh yeah use the actual dictionary that includes oppression - as there is no other definition that fits the word.
I find it funny now that you retreat to the idea that you are using some alternate definition of slavery - so please give us a quote from the game material that doesn't include "hardship, especially by the unjust exercise of authority." Please remember that the word 'especially' does not also mean 'exclusively'. Alternatively, perhaps you could give us a dictionary definition that meets this definition you are working under - without parts in strikeout - that exists even in the real world; I will need a source also as I'm curious where it exists outside of stormfront.org
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For all definitions in this thread, I use google and enter:
define: (word)
for example- define: slavery
Yeah, I'm pretty lazy. Sorry about that.
EDIT: And if you look back in the thread, you can see what definitions I was using.
Again, since we are talking about Pathfinder alignment issues, I would encourage everyone to re-read the alignment section again.
"Law: Law implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. ""Chaos: Chaos implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. "
A creature composed of Law, is going to exhibit a fanatical amount of obedience to authority, while likely lacking (perhaps actively fighting) the traits of Chaos.
How did you get from "obedience to authority" to "fanatical amount of obedience to authority"?
I totally disagree that being lawful makes you a fanatic.
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Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure we've never said that slavery isn't evil. We've said there are societies that practice it that aren't evil, in terms of their statblock alignment.
(And PF alignment isn't a good representation of morality in the real world--it's a vast oversimplification. Moreover, game designers, while many of them are lovely humans, aren't trained ethicists or even people with a better grasp on right and wrong than the average person; the alignment system is a very crude mechanic slapped atop a complex and nuanced subject.)
Real world stuff aside, in Pathfinder mechanics and they way they play out in doing things like city and nation statblocks, sometimes N is a balance between good and evil, and sometimes it's the absence of doing anything spectacularly good or spectacularly evil. So, the fact that a LN society practices slavery doesn't mean that slavery isn't evil. It just means that it's also doing enough good things, or has enough good people in it, that on balance it comes out as LN.
So, the fact that a LN society practices slavery doesn't mean that slavery isn't evil. It just means that it's also doing enough good things, or has enough good people in it, that on balance it comes out as LN.
Which is what I think a lot of people complain about. How much good is needed to balance something as evil as Slavery? To read some people's opinion on here... no amount of 'good' would tolerate it.
The one I always notice is Osirion... I've glanced through the book a few times, though I've yet to play there... but I didn't see any huge amount of 'good' on the scales. It seems like like a great bit of Neutral with a dose of Evil tolerance. They treat their slaves well... allow them roles in the government... but it's still slavery.
It feels like Paizo's opinion is 'Slavery isn't good... but it's not Devil worshiping 'Evil' either...
Which I actually think is one of the issues with Game settings. all the descriptions and stuff focus on the bad stuff and not the good stuff BECAUSE as the heroes, these are plot hooks to deal with. If the setting was All Good all the Time... there wouldn't be much of an adventure there...
Though I guess I'm not a particular fan of Societies and nations having an Alignment to begin with... Seems weird to lump that many different people with different beliefs all under one blanket umbrella.
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To hop in to play devil's advocate - I could see a neutral form of slavery if it were only used as a punishment for criminals - possibly enforced with a geas. Then it would really be a form hard labor, and (depending upon how it's defined) not really slavery at all.
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One could argue that hard labor is essentially slavery, as long as it is being done towards an end, and not just make work (turning big rocks into small onrs).
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Penal labor was evil before and it's evil now. Not so much for the concept (which, on paper, makes a certain amount of Javert-style sense) as the inevitable execution. When officers of the law become recruiters of cheap labor, things tend to go downhill very quickly.
I would also encourage everyone to crack open their core rule books and read the section on alignment again. It is VERY DIFFERENT then real world assumptions about morality. For example, in the real world, most people associate freedom with goodness. However in the game world, that association does not exist.The Internet is perhaps the most free construct of human endeavor to date, but "goodness" is not a blanket term that applies.
Just imagine what a ####-fest these boards would be without the constant moderation of Paizo staff.Unfettered human freedom is not good and never will be.
Yeah, the sort of people who think all freedom is good are the ones who think pure freedom of speech is even literally possible.
On an unrelated note, I think we need to start writing up more nuanced alignments for the modern era. So far, I have "Cynical Hipster". We must continue to grow the library.
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And we never really outgrew the mentality that system of necessity bred. The necessity is gone, but the mentality remains. I'm not specifically referring to the death penalty—I'm talking about how we approach criminals in general.
Penal labor hasn't been necessary for a long time. We just kept it around for a long time after we needed it, particularly when it came to African-Americans. Old habits die hard.
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Penal labor was evil before and it's evil now. Not so much for the concept (which, on paper, makes a certain amount of Javert-style sense) as the inevitable execution.
...
You can kind of say the same thing about slavery. Ostensibly, restricting someone's freedom and forcing them to perform labor for the service of society isn't inherently evil when they have done things to warrant it (severe debt, criminal behavior, etc). It's not a shining beacon of Good either, but there isn't any inherent evil. Just like killing someone for doing unlawful things isn't inherently evil (there is an Empyreal Lord of executions, after all).
Its just that any form of labor like Slavery almost inevitably creates a great deal of evil, because that's how it goes for any system that involves a gross imbalance of power and a number of strong incentives to abuse that power.
Oh, and since I haven't seen anyone mention it yet in great detail, it's probably worth pointing out that there are (at least) four categories of forced labor that the term "slavery" is being used for:
1. "standard" style slavery - the sort that happened in southern US cotton fields. A form of labor which was rife with cruelty and is very difficult to defend in a reasonable manner.
2. Slavery that is is kind of wishy-washy and not really (ostensibly) different. The sort of slavery that is best described as: "Well, she doesn't own her own body, but her lot in life isn't really any worse than it would be if she was just a free negro maid" type slavery (which might be true, but only because of how bad even non-slaves have it).
3. A Schindler style subversion that deliberately defies the intention of the system.
4. Any hypothetical form of labor that matches the dictionary description of Slavery. Naturally, this is ridiculously broad and (IMHO) difficult to definitively define as Evil in it's entirety, since it's scope is well beyond what has actually been practiced in places that permitted slavery in the real world.
Discussing whether or not Slavery is evil is a very different conversation for each category. 1. is pretty blatantly evil. 2. sits in that uncomfortable area where it is a half truth at best and is pretty much inevitably accompanied by other evils which make it half true. 3. might be OK, but, well, there were very few Oscar Schindlers in Nazi Occupied Europe, and there are even fewer slave holders that could be reasonably portrayed in this light. 4. is an interesting conversation if you want to discuss hypothetical social structures (which could be relevant in, say, Kingmaker), but has little relevance to the vast, vast majority of Golarion or real life. It's worth remembering this, because some of the people in this thread seem to have been talking about totally different things, and that amount of disconnect does not make for a productive discussion.
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How did you get from "obedience to authority" to "fanatical amount of obedience to authority"?
I totally disagree that being lawful makes you a fanatic.
If you check my post, I said, "A creature COMPOSED of Law." That is to say, an outside with the Lawful subtype (Archons, Devils, Inevitables). These creatures are the embodiment of Lawful ideals made flesh. They are as Lawful as a Water Elemental is wet or a Fire elemental is... well, fire. I would think that it would be difficult for most humans to even imagine the absolute inflexible dedication to Law that these outsiders embody.
And just to say it for the tenth time: Real World alignment and morality are DIFFERENT then In-Game alignment. Applying Real-to-Game or Game-to-Real is not effective, because they are VERY different! Comparing in game alignment to the real world is about as relevant as comparing real world magic to magic in the game world.
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Penal labor was evil before and it's evil now. Not so much for the concept (which, on paper, makes a certain amount of Javert-style sense) as the inevitable execution. When officers of the law become recruiters of cheap labor, things tend to go downhill very quickly.
I think that's a pretty weak slippery slope argument.
Kidnapping people and keeping them confined is evil - and therefore prisons are evil?
IF officers of the law arrest people wrongfully in order to enslave them - that is evil. But that's true of pretty much everything governments do; they can pretty much all be abused in evil ways. Traffic tickets to people you don't like. Regs specifically designed to help the people who paid you off and hurt their competitors. Etc.
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I can't believe this thread is that long.
How did it go beyond:
OP: "Is hiring a slave considered an evil act ?"
Answer: "Heck yes, it is! There is no way owning someone like they're a vulgar object can be anything but evil!"
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Penal labor was evil before and it's evil now. Not so much for the concept (which, on paper, makes a certain amount of Javert-style sense) as the inevitable execution. When officers of the law become recruiters of cheap labor, things tend to go downhill very quickly.I think that's a pretty weak slippery slope argument.
I think it's amazing how many people use the term "slippery slope" without knowing that the term is generally defined as a fallacy.
Kidnapping people and keeping them confined is evil - and therefore prisons are evil?
As others have said on the other slavery thread where someone else tried this angle, if prisons are run like they are here, probably. That said, the purpose of a jail is to hold people prisoner so they can't cause more trouble. When you introduce a benefit the state derives from holding these prisoners, however, a conflict of interest develops. Look back a ways in our world's history and you'll see officers essentially acting as press gangs, grabbing criminals for trumped-up charges (especially blacks) and sending them off to earn the state some moolah. Look to the present and you shall see officers doing the same thing, this time to hit "quotas". You'll see for-profit prisons suing the government for not providing enough prisoners.
IF officers of the law arrest people wrongfully in order to enslave them - that is evil. But that's true of pretty much everything governments do; they can pretty much all be abused in evil ways. Traffic tickets to people you don't like. Regs specifically designed to help the people who paid you off and hurt their competitors. Etc.
As I said, in theory it's a valid system (if a bit questionable, since it's rare, though not wholly infeasible, that forced labor can actually work as a viable means of rehabilitation). It has yet to be implemented rightly. Any society that attempts to implement it is likely to slip into evil regardless.
Like the wondrous "slavery was actually good" societies people like to bring up, in reality, the system almost never works because it is a flawed system. Like capitalism, or communism, it's just too ripe for abuse to function long-term in a non-evil manner.
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I can't believe this thread is that long.
How did it go beyond:
OP: "Is hiring a slave considered an evil act ?"
Answer: "Heck yes, it is! There is no way owning someone like they're a vulgar object can be anything but evil!"
What if they own someone like they're a very nice object?
clearly there are many shades of gray
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Like capitalism, or communism, it's just too ripe for abuse to function long-term in a non-evil manner.
Wait... what!? I don't think we're going to come to any agreement on this, but capitalism is pretty much the basis for tons and tons of benefits to the world, including the bulk of technological advancements. What people point out as 'crony capitalism' isn't actually capitalism at all: it's central planning, which is basically anti-capitalism.
Is capitalism perfect? No. But to paraphrase Churchill - it's the worst form of economics except for all of the others.
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I can't believe this thread is that long.
How did it go beyond:
OP: "Is hiring a slave considered an evil act ?"
Answer: "Heck yes, it is! There is no way owning someone like they're a vulgar object can be anything but evil!"What if they own someone like they're a very nice object?
clearly there are many shades of gray
There is no good form of dehumanization. Some things are merely evil.
Slavery is one of those things, like torture and rape. No shades of gray here.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can't believe this thread is that long.
How did it go beyond:
OP: "Is hiring a slave considered an evil act ?"
Answer: "Heck yes, it is! There is no way owning someone like they're a vulgar object can be anything but evil!"What if they own someone like they're a very nice object?
clearly there are many shades of gray
There is no good form of dehumanization. Some things are merely evil.
Slavery is one of those things, like torture and rape. No shades of gray here.
I read through this whole thread just so I could say this, and you beat me to it by less than an hour!
Ninja!
Also quite correct.
Slavery is oppression and strips the slave of its dignity therefore evil, full stop.
At no point is the fact that someone is reduced to the same status as a chair or a favorite painting, and can be killed/mistreated as such anything but evil. Even if the slave owners do not do such the institution allows for it and is therefore evil.
It will never be anything but evil to make a person into an object.
If you want to make up an institution where a person A pays a person B a fair wage and has no rights to their person aside from litigation if the agreed upon work is not completed for the agreed upon timeframe, call it something else, that is not slavery. Once person A has the legal right to person B outside of the defined work or has ownership of person B that is slavery and reduces person B to the status of a cart or a horse.
Slavery inherently removes the humanity from a person and makes them a thing, this is inherently evil even in pathfinder terms.
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If you want to make up an institution where a person A pays a person B a fair wage and has no rights to their person aside from litigation if the agreed upon work is not completed for the agreed upon timeframe, call it something else, that is not slavery.
That sounds like a pretty basic contract.
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That sounds like a pretty basic contract.
If you want to make up an institution where a person A pays a person B a fair wage and has no rights to their person aside from litigation if the agreed upon work is not completed for the agreed upon timeframe, call it something else, that is not slavery.
Yep pretty much what I was getting at.
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This is almost as bad as alignment forums
Like capitalism, or communism, it's just too ripe for abuse to function long-term in a non-evil manner.Wait... what!? I don't think we're going to come to any agreement on this, but capitalism is pretty much the basis for tons and tons of benefits to the world, including the bulk of technological advancements. What people point out as 'crony capitalism' isn't actually capitalism at all: it's central planning, which is basically anti-capitalism.
Is capitalism perfect? No. But to paraphrase Churchill - it's the worst form of economics except for all of the others.
Cronyism is an inevitable function of politics and economics. There is no such thing as an economic system that escapes it without central intervention. And crony intervention of regulatory agencies... such as bank presidents being put on committees that regulate banks, tends to have a deleterious effect on such moderation.
So there really is no point on bringing up Capitalism without cronyism... any more than it is to discuss Soviet Communism without it's apparaticks.
[
So there really is no point on bringing up Capitalism without cronyism... any more than it is to discuss Soviet Communism without it's apparaticks.
apparatchiks?
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Wait... what!? I don't think we're going to come to any agreement on this, but capitalism is pretty much the basis for tons and tons of benefits to the world, including the bulk of technological advancements.
Capitalism was the system that supported the American slave trade, and very good arguments could be made that neither system could have flourished without the other. Capitalism very proudly reduces people to nothing more then their dollar value, in essentially exactly the same way as slavery. There is absolutely nothing in capitolism that is incompatible with slavery, so I would not argue it's virtues.
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Wait... what!? I don't think we're going to come to any agreement on this, but capitalism is pretty much the basis for tons and tons of benefits to the world, including the bulk of technological advancements.Capitalism was the system that supported the American slave trade, and very good arguments could be made that neither system could have flourished without the other. Capitalism very proudly reduces people to nothing more then their dollar value, in essentially exactly the same way as slavery. There is absolutely nothing in capitolism that is incompatible with slavery, so I would not argue it's virtues.
Capitalism supports whatever swells the bottom line. Which at various stages, included slavery, the replacement of slavery with underpaid industrial workers, including child labor, the relocation of jobs to third world countries, or the manipulation of stock purchases, and sales to again, generate income.
The personality indexes of many CEO's are comparable to those of a psychopath. It's the evolutionary result of what flourishes best in the environment capitalism opereates in, and creates.
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This. Tired of this topic - tired of seeing people try to justify the very worst of humanity in some manner like they suddenly found some clever logic bomb that turns a topic on it's head.
From my reading of the thread, absolutely no one has tried to justify the worst aspects of slavery (especially American slavery).
Thanks to moderators deleting such posts. Thank you Moderators!
I wouldnt say so alone OP, so in my games would greatly depend on culture, race...
With that said, on golarion, there is no example that comes to mind where this would be fine? Maybe im just not remembering right. While i do know a few other RPGs with worlds where this action could vary from evil to even good depending on how you go about it.
Why is there an extreme push-back against calling premodern societal norms evil? The whole point of an objective morality is that some things are good or bad regardless of cultural norms, though intent might mitigate those issues. D&D and by extension Pathfinder alignment operates on the assumption that morals are objective not subjective, hence having literal creatures composed of good or evil. If you want a subjective morality play another game instead.
Take for example the Greek practice of killing unwanted children via exposure. The Egyptians found this practice horrific and would regularly mount expeditions to known places where the children were left to die (usually manure heaps) so they could be adopted. This is a situation with fairly obvious good and evil people. This was even a period when the Greek city state system was really a slave state, and the Egyptians had few if any slaves*. The Greeks would be evil 100% in Pathfinder even without going into their treatment of women. The only possible exception being Thebes
*quick sidebar Egypt at the time had no formal currency so everyone was paid in food or beer, and said payment was usually organized by the state. If you consider that serfdom then Egypt had low level slavery throughout. It is however an awkward issue because there wasn't really an alternative.
Hey Alex where did you find your information on the contrasting views of child abandonment Greek vs Egyptian ? Interesting stuff.