Alt Morality Axis and Defined Ethical Axis for 3.5

[God_of_Awesome]

The ethical axis represent your tendency towards order or chaos - being lawful does not mean you follow the laws of the land. You could believe those laws to be utterly retarded. However, a lawful person has a tendency towards organisation and structure, whereas a chaotic person tends to place far more emphasis on the individual. Hence, one might say that the lawful person is more likely to join a proper police force in order to fight crime, whereas a chaotic person is more likely to become a vigilante, operating outside the orderly structure of society. Or, when faced with an unjust society, the lawful person might attempt to change it for the better from within, whereas the chaotic person would be more likely to attempt to tear down the oppressive regime entirely and allow all its people to be free to choose their own path, etc.

Both lawful and chaotic people can have their own personal codes all they like. The chaotic barbarian mercenary who has nevertheless sworn oaths of honour regarding who and how he fights in combat is still chaotic.

Instead of good and evil, use selflessness and selfishness, or Light and Dark for moral axis allignment. Light is selfless, tend to try to help more broader number of people while Dark is selfish and tend to help only itself. That does not mean Light is good and Dark is evil but that is the trend. Light can commit horrible attrocities in the name of a their people and Dark does not need to be prick about helping themselves. A neutral person can be someone who thinks about only their family and friends.

Light would also tend towards Law but a Chaotic Light would help a group but prefer to do it their own way. Dark tends towards Chaos, but a Lawful Dark person would prefer to be a part of organization while using it towards their own ends.

[Morzas]

The Light and Dark axis sounds kind of like old-school Shin Megami Tensei.

The alignment of a creature in most Megaten games is measured across two
different scales: (LAW/NEUTRAL/CHAOS) + (LIGHT/NEUTRAL/DARK)
That is, there are 9 alignments altogether: LIGHT-LAW, LIGHT-NEUTRAL,
LIGHT-CHAOS, NEUTRAL-LAW, NEUTRAL-NEUTRAL, NEUTRAL-CHAOS, DARK-LAW,
DARK-NEUTRAL, DARK-CHAOS.
From the game manual, the meanings of alignments are as follow:

--LAW You believe in law and order, in logic and reason.
You do your best to uphold the structure of society.

--CHAOS You believes in chaos, in emotions over cold logic,
in 'purpose justifies the means'.

--LIGHT You are warm-hearted person, who selflessly commits
good deeds for the sake of others.

--DARK You are evil, descructive and will not stop before
kill or hurting someone if it achieves your goal.

Essentially, LAW believe in order and structure, in rigid hierarchy,
in strict loyalty, in conservativeness and traditions, in logic over feelings
and mind over flesh.
While CHAOS believe in disorder, in dynamism, in constant change and
self-improvement, in one's standing in the world depending only on one's
own merit, in the endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. Their beliefs
are summarised by 'Might makes right', 'Do what thou wilst shall be
the whole of Law', 'Purpose justifies the means', 'To be born, one first has
to die."
LIGHT value the lives of others, tries to help those around them, believes
in kindness, altruism and self-sacrifice.
DARK relish in murder and destruction, do not care about those around them,
do not balk at hurting people to achieve their goals.

Here's some more info for you:

Shin Megami Tensei is a game of moral ambiguity. Throughout the game, you will be presented with a number of choices that will affect the outcome story. None is specifically "right" or "wrong" per se; it is up to the player to decide what the "right thing to do" is. You eventually will have to "pick your side" within the game in the form of your Alignment. The ideals of each faction within the game fall within different Alignments, and the faction you side with will ultimately determine your player's Alignment as well. In addition, every demon you meet in the game has its own Alignment, and how they will react to you will depend on how similar (or different) your Alignments are.

Alignments fall along two axes--the Law/Chaos axis, and the Light/Dark axis.

LAW/CHAOS
By far the most important alignment axis within Shin Megami Tensei, a person's position on it reflects their ethical ideals. The primary point of contention is a battle over what is more important; structure and order, or individual freedom. Those that most value rules and structure tend to gravitate to Law, whereas those that value freedom and individuality tend to gravitate to Chaos.

LAW:
Those who follow the path of Law tend to believe that morality is absolute, and rules are of paramount importance. Society should fall into a strict heirarchy with unbending laws; if everyone follows the law to the letter, there will be no conflict and thus peace and prosperity will follow. Individual freedoms, or even individual lives, are meaningless in the face of the collective, and those that try to bend or break the rules should be punished harshly.

CHAOS:
Those who follow the path of Chaos tend to believe that life has no rules, and the idea that happiness can stem from strict adherance to them is foolish. Laws and the idea of the group ethic are meaningless and only serve to restrain freedoms, preventing individuals from reaching their true potential. The disorder and chaos that will result from the lack of order is to be expected; there will be a lot of death as a result, but natural selection will weed out the unfit, ensuring the continual improvement of humankind.

NEUTRALITY:
Those who follow the path of Neutrality land smack in the middle of the philosophies of Law and Chaos. Rather than favoring order over freedom, or vice versa, they believe that maintaining balance between the two is of the utmost importance. Problems should be handled on a case-by-case basis; sometimes favoring the group, sometimes favoring the individual, depending on the situation. Happiness can never be achieved at either extreme, so individuals that would push either philosophy must be stopped in order to achieve harmony.

DARK/LIGHT
Dark/Light is a more nebulous alignment axis. The official definition is that "Light is closer to being like a god, Dark is closer to being like a demon." A creature's position on the Dark/Light axis primarily reflects how it is viewed by its worshippers or those that "believe" in it, and is not really changable.

Entities loved and worshipped tend to fall into the Light category, whereas those hated and feared fall into the Dark category. However since one man's god is another man's demon, often you will have the same person/deity/demon have both a Light AND a Dark form. (For example, the ancient fertility god Baal was a benevolent deity loved by the Babylonians, but vilified and by the Christians, who called him Beelzebub. Baal would be a Light entity, and Beelzebub a Dark entity, despite being the same person/god.) Light and Dark only applies to supernatural entities; as humans are neither gods nor demons, they will always be Neutral on this axis.

LIGHT:
Light demons are generally gods that are loved and worshipped by large numbers of people. As such, they often fall into the general category of being "good," but not always--many Light gods/demons routinely perform heinously cruel acts. Light demons rarely ever show themselves on the human plane, and most must be explicitly fused or summoned. Should you have a chance encounter a Light demon in your travels, you will find them aloof and unwilling to lower themselves to negotiation with a mere human.

DARK:
Dark demons are generally gods or that are hated and feared by large numbers of people, and as such are often "evil," though not invariably--many Dark gods/demons are kind and benevolent. (as one man's demon is another's god) Dark demons are found much more frequently on the human plane than Light demons. While they generally are perfectly willing to talk and negotiate with humans, they will not willingly join or submit to them.

NEUTRAL:
Neutral demons are those that are neither widely worshipped nor vilified. Generally Neutral demons are monsters or supernatural beings like elves, pixies, or minor deities/demons. Creatures that are not supernatural at all (like humans) fall into this category by default. As neutral demons are much closer to humans than dark or light demons, they are the most open to conversation and negotiation with them as well. Neutral demons are the only types of demons that will willingly become the minions of budding demon summoners through negotiation.

[God_of_Awesome]

Except Dark is portrayed here as evil.

My Dark is just selfish, not necessarily a prick about it.

Light is also selfless but that doesn't mean good.

[Judging__Eagle]

This "Dark"/"Light" seperation you are using is disingenious at best. A strawman or flat out lying at worst.

Describe when and how a light/selfless anything will allow/warrant killing; and I'll show you that they're actually dark.

Selfisness isn't about being a dick. It's about being an asshole and shitting all over people.

Both lawful and chaotic people can have their own personal codes all they like. The chaotic barbarian mercenary who has nevertheless sworn oaths of honour regarding who and how he fights in combat is still chaotic.

You're better off dropping law/chaos. Since you can't even define it and then you can't stick with it.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Hmm. I suppose that a person who helps others for selfish reasons, because her scientific reasoning has indicated that it will work, is just confused?

[Grek]

A Knight Templar would be an evil person with a light alignment.

[God_of_Awesome]

A Knight Templar would be an evil person with a light alignment.

That's a good one. Yes, very much.

[NativeJovian]

I'm honestly not sure how this differs from the standard Good/Evil and Law/Chaos except given different names. Good does nice things for other people just because, while Evil will stab you in the kidneys if it benefits them, regardless of whether you're a crook or a saint. Law focuses on society as a whole, while chaos focuses on the individual. Admittedly, the official material does a terrible job of explaining law and chaos, but I think that law as "group-minded" and chaos as "individual-minded" does a good job of capturing the spirit of the thing.

[God_of_Awesome]

Good is good, Light is not.

Selflessness (Light) although an admirable trait, does not always end well. Take any character that did what he did for his country, his religion, his people or his ideology and commited evil despicable things for it. That character was still quite selfless. A Selfish character (Dark), does what he does for himself and himself alone. But he doesn't need to be inclined to stab everyone in the back to do it. However, unless he has some compunctions, he will if he feels he has to.

[Username17]

I'm honestly not sure how this differs from the standard Good/Evil and Law/Chaos except given different names. Good does nice things for other people just because, while Evil will stab you in the kidneys if it benefits them, regardless of whether you're a crook or a saint. Law focuses on society as a whole, while chaos focuses on the individual. Admittedly, the official material does a terrible job of explaining law and chaos, but I think that law as "group-minded" and chaos as "individual-minded" does a good job of capturing the spirit of the thing.

Still crap.

There cannot be good for the bee that which is bad for the hive.

-Username17

[NativeJovian]

Regardless of whether or not it's crap (which is arguable, but not what's under discussion here), the point was that he didn't change anything except the names. He's trying to separate intentions from consequences, where light is "good intentions" and dark is "evil intentions" without either necessarily having appropriately good or evil consequences, but that's already a school of thought, so it's not really anything new.