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Caedite eos omnes, Dominus enim novit ejus.
It's an evil act because killing without justification is intrinsincally evil, and it takes evil to find an argument such as yours to be a justification... remember, alignments are absolute things, not relative.
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These questions also apply to mainstream religions in our world...
Some possible answers:
If you kill good people, it corrupts your soul somehow, the same as if you cast Infernal Healing, only more so. This makes you Evil.
If you kill a good person, you'll deny yourself passage to the good afterlife, which is a bad thing.
Good/evil isn't based on "bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number" but on following the rules, and the rules say Thou shalt not kill.
If you kill all the good people, you'll end up with a world of nothing but evil. This would be a bad thing.
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Is it because it deprives them the choice to stay? Is it because it will sadden those who knew them? Is it something else?
It usually also means pain for them and selfish motives for the killer.
I am not sure whether medicide would count as nonevil on Golarion - it would normally free someone from pain and your motive would be to help, even if you have a hard time to do it.
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Dead Good people cannot do any more Good on the material plane, including swaying people to Good, putting Evil people on the path to redemption and killing the Evil ones that they cannot redeem
Outsiders usually cannot change their alignment. Natives of the material plane have greater freedom to choose what cause they will support, so that is where the fate of existence, including the Aligned planes, will be decided
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Dead Good people cannot do any more Good on the material plane, including swaying people to Good, putting Evil people on the path to redemption and killing the Evil ones that they cannot redeem
In Golarion lore, can't they turn into good outsiders or whatever and then return to the material plane to help people?
Higher level characters are probably more likely to turn into powerful outsiders, so I suppose by killing a good person before they've reached their full potential you reduce the number of powerful good outsiders...
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You know just how long it takes for a soul to turn into a true petitioner to become an actual outsider?
centuries, if not millenia, the outer planes don't quite have the same sense of time as the material plane.
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The act of killing a good person causes a negative fluctuation in the Higgs field, which leads to an accretion of E-bosons on the killer's soul. This accretion increases the attraction between the killer's soul and the lower or "evil" planes, leading to both an increased likelihood of their soul drifting that direction once it is no longer fixed within the corporeal matrix and also a shift in the corporeal matrix towards a negative euthyphro number. The consequences of a negative euthyphro number include reacting to the leptonic packets from spells with the [good] descriptor as an evil boson and vice versa.
Obvs.
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As for the guy who mentioned good follows the rules, wouldn't that fall under Lawful, not Good?
This is broadly a viewpoint that is applied with the real world religions, which are mostly Lawful. From that perspective you don't need a utilitarian reason to justify, say, why a particular day of the week is the holy day of rest. These are the rules; follow them or you're an immoral person.
It makes less sense as an argument in a world where Chaotic Good people have their own afterlife.
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What churches, in Golarian, if any, would be concerned with teaching what happens in the afterlife as a way to deter people from doing evil?
Most good ones, I beleive. The problem is, most priests have no way to prove that what they are saying is true.
They have divine magic? Their opponents do too.
They summon an outsider or allow for a contact with a diety? And what prrof we have that it is saying the truth?
They raise someone from dead? AFAIK, you cannot bring back a soul that has already been judged and visited the actual life, so all that these people can tell about is the Pharasma's Court.
Travel to other planes to meet with petitioners is very rare, most mortals probably have never heard any specifics of a person doing that.
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After death (somewhere in the Petitioner phase), the great majority of souls lose their memories. Killing people (good or otherwise) thereby accelerates this process, and is thereby an evil thing -- although some residue of them normally gets to go on to existence in the good planes, most people DON'T get to enjoy this -- when your memories are gone, you're not yourself. In addition, but souls also have an overall small but noticeably nonzero (greater in certain situations, such as being a victim of Malediction) risk of getting siphoned to the wrong outer plane.
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The act of killing a good person causes a negative fluctuation in the Higgs field...
So...killing good people causes a short change in energy-mass relationships? To be fair, if true, that would mean killing good people probably makes other people fall over and stuff.
Mass, randomised trippings and car crashes seems kind of evil.Good/evil isn't based on "bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number" but on following the rules, and the rules say Thou shalt not kill.
I wouldn't say it's always deontological but it's hard to think of an ethics code that justifies slaughtering good people even in a universe of objective, morally-bound afterlives.
Deontological argument? To port a bit of Kant badly, imagine if everyone did that! The mortal world would soon become endless suffering and evil would dominate forever.
Consequential? That guy might have done something helpful. Heck, you've reduced their impact on the parts of existence they operated with freedom of choice to do good. Good machines can be made easily, good people less so.
Virtue ethics? Doesn't sound courageous to me. Go kill someone who won't stop to say hello.
...Rawlsian? I'd both like a society with good people around and if I was a good person, would prefer to not be killed.
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What churches, in Golarian, if any, would be concerned with teaching what happens in the afterlife as a way to deter people from doing evil?Most good ones, I beleive. The problem is, most priests have no way to prove that what they are saying is true.
There is actually a level 2 spell for that, called early judgment.
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Seems like you could fake that pretty easily with Hallucinatory Terrain or the like.
Consequential? That guy might have done something helpful. Heck, you've reduced their impact on the parts of existence they operated with freedom of choice to do good.
But if you don't murder the good people, they might do something evil at some point and spoil their chance to enter heaven. By sparing their lives, you potentially cause them infinite suffering. This makes all other considerations irrelevant.
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Consequential? That guy might have done something helpful. Heck, you've reduced their impact on the parts of existence they operated with freedom of choice to do good.But if you don't murder the good people, they might do something evil at some point and spoil their chance to enter heaven. By sparing their lives, you potentially cause them infinite suffering. This makes all other considerations irrelevant.
This is where fantasy destiny real life normative belief in free will butt heads.
If you look at either argument (destiny vs free will) then it ultimately doesn't matter.....This is why existentialism exists.
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Neither destiny nor free will apply in a role-playing game universe.
People exist as puppets of higher powers, yet their ultimate fate is decided randomly, on the roll of a die.
Consequential? That guy might have done something helpful. Heck, you've reduced their impact on the parts of existence they operated with freedom of choice to do good.But if you don't murder the good people, they might do something evil at some point and spoil their chance to enter heaven. By sparing their lives, you potentially cause them infinite suffering. This makes all other considerations irrelevant.
Killing people to stop them doing bad things?! It's perfect!
This mildly smacks of pulling the lever just in case of a trolley, however.For a more pertinent point, there is the question of the fear and paranoia that would result from such a policy being enacted is worth it. Especially given it'd encourage actions of self-preservation by actively being not-good. Therefore decreasing total good going round. What's one person's turning from salvation versus many after all?
Now, if we're saying killing one person, then we're probably now talking a one-to-one exchange. Presumably someone so interested in pushing the cause of good acts good so you just damn yourself as a measure to stop someone else doing so. Seems pointless. All you did is rob someone of their autonomy to help nothing.
For a more pertinent point, there is the question of the fear and paranoia that would result from such a policy being enacted is worth it. Especially given it'd encourage actions of self-preservation by actively being not-good. Therefore decreasing total good going round. What's one person's turning from salvation versus many after all?
Now, if we're saying killing one person, then we're probably now talking a one-to-one exchange. Presumably someone so interested in pushing the cause of good acts good so you just damn yourself as a measure to stop someone else doing so. Seems pointless. All you did is rob someone of their autonomy to help nothing.
What about my 'kill all the good people in the universe simultaneously' spell? That's got to be ethical, right?
Anyway, why would you assume people would want to be alive, once we have proof that the afterlife is better? Surely I'd be creating an incentive to be good, so that you could get swept up to heaven in the next great purge?
Neither destiny nor free will apply in a role-playing game universe.
People exist as puppets of higher powers, yet their ultimate fate is decided randomly, on the roll of a die.
Mmmm....'80s pulp fantasy.
To be fair, as long as always chaotic evil is a thing, free will (as we understand it) has probably not just gone out the window but every plane of existence.
Some fleshbags just happen to have this capacity to do actions that make their alignment change. We call these PCs. They call themselves unfairly treated by the GM because "burning orphanages isn't evil!".
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I feel like, aside from neutrals, this is basically a "Kill 'em all and let god sort them out" position; and I've never heard that as anything but a joke.
The unfortunate thing about this discussion is that it's obviously an attempt to do evil (kill indiscriminately) and claim it's fine; but it also misses the moral ambiguity that can make people's decisions matter.
Warning: Depressing real life dilemma inside
F.E. Do you shoot the kid who saw your team hit the beach-head? Seems pretty s+$* to do yeah? But if he runs to town and warns them, you and your team could die (aside from failing the mission.)
That there is the stuff PTSD springs from. One guy killed a basically innocent kid; the other got his team killed for a mistake. Either decision potentially leads to a life of grief.
Stuff like that is far more interesting to probe IMO, as the positions to choose from are clearly not ideal. In the situation presented in the op, the ideal solution is "Lol I get to slaughter this guy with no consequences"; which is just a "having your cake and eating it too" solution.
For a more pertinent point, there is the question of the fear and paranoia that would result from such a policy being enacted is worth it. Especially given it'd encourage actions of self-preservation by actively being not-good. Therefore decreasing total good going round. What's one person's turning from salvation versus many after all?
Now, if we're saying killing one person, then we're probably now talking a one-to-one exchange. Presumably someone so interested in pushing the cause of good acts good so you just damn yourself as a measure to stop someone else doing so. Seems pointless. All you did is rob someone of their autonomy to help nothing.
What about my 'kill all the good people in the universe simultaneously' spell? That's got to be ethical, right?
Anyway, why would you assume people would want to be alive, once we have proof that the afterlife is better? Surely I'd be creating an incentive to be good, so that you could get swept up to heaven in the next great purge?
...That;'s pretty legit. You should cast that. Hang on, wait no - everyone after will struggle to conceptualise good properly and again, we get evil/neutral forever. You really should just kill everyone at once.
Good question. I suppose, for one, detect good doesn't check lawful vs chaotic. Aggressively splitting a couple for eternity over whether they like spontaneity seems mean. Also, most outsiders are made out of mortals' souls aren't they? Which means that you don't get eternal bounty so much as temporary bounty then eternal service. Might as well squeeze in a good life first, no?
EDIT:
I feel like, aside from neutrals, this is basically a "Kill 'em all and let god sort them out" position; and I've never heard that as anything but a joke.
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I feel like, aside from neutrals, this is basically a "Kill 'em all and let god sort them out" position; and I've never heard that as anything but a joke
It is actually what the Pope's legate ordered to his crusaders when they asked him what to do about the people of Béziers (city in the south of France)
Those were mostly good Roman Catholics but did have a sizable community of Cathar heretics in their midst
And the crusaders had no way to sort them out
It was a city-wide wholesale slaughter
EDIT : ninjaed
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We live in a universe where death always has consequences.
Really? Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Oh f!$#.
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We live in a universe where death always has consequences.Really? Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Oh f#%@.
Meh. Don't worry too much. You can always get better.
Just watch your pronunciation. Seriously, I canNOT stress that enough.
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We live in a universe where death always has consequences.Really? Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Oh f#%@.Meh. Don't worry too much. You can always get better.
Just watch your pronunciation. Seriously, I canNOT stress that enough.
I don't know, an old parlour game being what awaits me when I die is enough to justify Lichdom.
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Well, firstly, not all Good people go to a good afterlife. It's a little more complicated that, involving how well you live up to your own standards and what deity you worshiped as well. So you're very possibly not sending them somewhere nice at all.
Secondly, it's immoral to knock someone out, kidnap them, and imprison them away from everything they've ever known regardless of how nice the place you're imprisoning them is. Convincing them to travel there (ie: commit suicide) would be moral by the logic presented, but killing them is still removing from them the fundamental choice of going there or not, and is irrevocable. So that's pretty f@#@ing Evil. And this one applies to real world religions, too.
Thirdly, most people lose all memory of their lives when they become petitioners. You're effectively forcing a memory wipe on someone by killing them. This is, again, pretty Evil.
I could go on, but really, point #2 there is the crux of my argument.
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I have no idea why it's been so important since at least D&D 3.0 for people that die to become brainwashed amnesiacs who aren't even actually themselves anymore even when things ostensibly go well for them after they die.
They're not brainwashed. They're still the people they were, more or less, just sans most memories. It's still not super pleasant, I must agree.
As for why it's necessary, I think the basic logic is so that death means something. If you can't raise someone from the dead, well, you're probably not gonna be visiting them in the afterlife either. Just finding them would be well nigh impossible and they probably won't remember you if you do.
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Killing someone isn't about their morality. It's about that of the perpetrator who chose to commit the act for their own (usually selfish) reasons. The "good" person will be judged on their life. The murderer on theirs.
Most religions also distinguish between killing in self-defense vs. murder.
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I have no idea why it's been so important since at least D&D 3.0 for people that die to become brainwashed amnesiacs who aren't even actually themselves anymore even when things ostensibly go well for them after they die.They're not brainwashed. They're still the people they were, more or less, just sans most memories. It's still not super pleasant, I must agree.
As for why it's necessary, I think the basic logic is so that death means something. If you can't raise someone from the dead, well, you're probably not gonna be visiting them in the afterlife either. Just finding them would be well nigh impossible and they probably won't remember you if you do.
Is someone really the same person without their memories?
This is a question I've had to honestly consider myself, both in working with people who have Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia, as well as dealing with my grandfather, father, and the extremely likely future I face.
Our memories are the accumulated experiences that have made us who we are. They shape how we see and react to the world. They remind us of what we value and what we live for. It's not an exaggeration to say that we are the product of our memories. In that sense, I don't believe that a person robbed of their memories is the same person. For myself, should I lose my memories, I will be effectively dead regardless of the condition of my body.
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Is someone really the same person without their memories?
This is a question I've had to honestly consider myself, both in working with people who have Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia, as well as dealing with my grandfather, father, and the extremely likely future I face.
Our memories are the accumulated experiences that have made us who we are. They shape how we see and react to the world. They remind us of what we value and what we live for. It's not an exaggeration to say that we are the product of our memories. In that sense, I don't believe that a person robbed of their memories is the same person. For myself, should I lose my memories, I will be effectively dead regardless of the condition of my body.
This is a very interesting philosophical question in real life, I agree. Indeed, I tend to agree with you for the most part in that context.
However, in a world with meaningful reincarnation and with proof of a soul that continues to determine things like basic temperament I'm not sure the same standards apply. Indeed I'm fairly certain they don't.
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The act of killing a good person causes a negative fluctuation in the Higgs field, which leads to an accretion of E-bosons on the killer's soul. This accretion increases the attraction between the killer's soul and the lower or "evil" planes, leading to both an increased likelihood of their soul drifting that direction once it is no longer fixed within the corporeal matrix and also a shift in the corporeal matrix towards a negative euthyphro number. The consequences of a negative euthyphro number include reacting to the leptonic packets from spells with the [good] descriptor as an evil boson and vice versa.
Obvs.
No, you're a boson.
Developer
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If we strip morality out of the discussion for a moment, we can see that souls are usually sent to afterlife that aligns most with their actions and personal ethos. In other words, we can say that a soul gets sent to the Abyss because it was evil in life. BUT, we could also say the soul was sent to the Abyss because that's where all the souls who think murder is fun and cool go. The reason the Abyss sucks so much is not necessarily because it's a cosmic punishment for your actions, but because everyone running it thinks murder is fun and cool, and all of those things are more powerful than you are and enjoy making you suffer. Because they're evil.
So, you could argue that it's not just about hurting the person you kill (though that's certainly some of it), but also about the effect on your own soul.
If they don't want to go to heaven yet, then there are some issues...
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oh no
*Dons helmet, grabs bindle stick*
The day has come!
EVERY LIZARD FOR HIMSELF! *Dives into bunker*
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In seriousness, while this is an incredibly difficult alignment question—maybe the hardest of all, in some regards—I would personally say that the primary issue is lost potential. When you're on the Material Plane, you have agency and choice in a complex world where you can grow and learn and change. When you die, that potential is lost, and you are rendered an elemental—no memories, possibly no agency, a shadow of what you used to be. A good person becomes an angel, an evil person becomes a demon*, and they don't get to spend time building model trains or playing with chemistry or climbing trees or getting in barfights or delving in dungeons anymore. Not on their own time, at their own choice. They are cast into the role their planar destination has assigned them. They are the simplest embodiment of what they once were.
Life is potential. Once you die, you're done. Game over. The rest is silence. End of Side B. You might end up on the Party Plane and party down forever, you might end up on the War Plane and fight forever, etc, etc, but you're pretty much always going to be doing that one thing. One could argue that you have lost, or all-but-lost, the capacity to want anything different.
The reason that killing people is evil is that when you kill someone, they die.
*I know that's a simplification, but bear with me, here.
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As a corollary, I think the idea of potential that KC brings up is also the reasoning behind why killing Evil creatures is often considered a good act. Killing is usually an evil act, but by killing an Evil creature one eliminates all potential evil acts they could have performed.
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Personally, I'd still regard killing as an inherently evil act—though it's neutral when the alternative is letting someone else get hurt. That's why a paladin can't just go around killing anyone who pings as evil. An evil person can still grow and change, and therefore still has positive potential. But that comes down to personal perspective.
It's just sort of interesting to me. Is the orcish mine manager who sends his elven workers into unsafe mines just as worthy of violence as the orcish warrior who seeks to kill the elves directly? If not, why not? Is it our built-in respect for the rule of law—"Yes, it's murder, but it's murder via capitalism, and therefore excusable"? Is it the fact that one is wielding an indirect method?
What about a grocer who hikes the prices of his products during a famine where he has the only reliable supply?
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The afterlife to which someone goes to is irrelevant to the morality of killing them.
It's really that simple and basic.
That's kind of my thought as well. If they were going to Heaven (or Elysium or Nirvana or the Happy Hunting Grounds or Valhalla), then they would have gotten to live a full life *and then* gone to Heaven if you hadn't killed them. All you did was shove them on the next available flight and ruin any plans they had for this life.
Also, since petitioners lose their memories and essentially cease to be the people they were in life, you've effectively destroyed that *person* even if you've given Heaven a shiny new coin for it's treasury of harvested souls that it's going to turn into a soldier-angel or something.
Good afterlives still involve annihilation of self, and so are just as horrific as evil afterlives, at the end of it all. *You* are gone, barring unusual exceptions. Something that lived inside of you is now off in another plane, with none of what made you, you (memories, hopes, dreams, family ties, faith, experiences, learning), left inside of it.
So, yeah, killing someone to send them to any afterlife seems bad, unless your goal is to get more blood and souls for your lord Arioch.