Alignment Sucks

[Username17]

Isn't D.tology the same thing as strict adherance to a written code, with the only difference is that every line item is given equal weight?

No. Deontology requires the acceptance of specific axioms on faith, but the evaluation of actions and intentions are calculatable and derived from those axioms. A rigid code and a Deontologist will both tell you "Don't kill people", but their answer is totally different:

Rigid Code: "Because I said so."

Deontologist: "Because if everyone killed someone, there would b noone left, so the action is ungeneralizable."

The only thing you have to take on faith for Deontology is that you can't bring cookies to class unless you bring some for everyone. A rigid code has and requires no explanations.

This means that if an entirely new verb is invented, Deontology will be able to tell you whether you should do it or not, and a rigid code can't.

-Username17

[User3]

Alignment is used a lot in the game but I don't think that there's a single spell ability, spell, or creature that depends critically on alignment that needs to stick around.

Smite evil could just be smite, or if you feel it's too powerful to have a palidan smite a bear once a year you could make it smite undead and evil outsiders and bump the damage. That said calling on the forces of "good" to kill a bear that's trying to eat you doesn't seem particularly not good.

Holy word is a terrible spell that acording to the rules would bother a highlevel demon well killing all the greedy shopkeepers in the area.

Detect evil hurts the game limiting the amount that PCs can be double crossed.
http://frost.bbboy.net/emoticons/sets/m ... ks:[br]The only really important alignment function is aligned damage reduction which I would need some rebalancing, but making a +1 enhancement that does an extra point of damage and can pierce lawful DR would seem pretty balanced.

I can't think of any reason why good evil mechanics needs to be in the game, being good has story consequences being evil has story consequences and that's all that's needed. Every mechanic that depends on alignment can either be removed, not depend on alignment anymore, or be trivially revised and the game will be better for it.

[Lago_AM3P]

No. Deontology requires the acceptance of specific axioms on faith, but the evaluation of actions and intentions are calculatable and derived from those axioms. A rigid code and a Deontologist will both tell you "Don't kill people", but their answer is totally different:

Rigid Code: "Because I said so."

Deontologist: "Because if everyone killed someone, there would b noone left, so the action is ungeneralizable."

I'm still not seeing how these two are different. Rigid Code seems to have the ability to add additional retarded things at ones leisure and to leave out specific rights that we take for granted (like the right to be free from slavery)...

But...

Since you have to define a list of axioms for D.tology ahead of time in the first place and evaluate cause and effect, where does the line for utilitarianism and rigid code cross? For example, while there's no way the people who made up the Bible could've predicted filesharing, I'm sure if they concretely defined their goals enough one could say that the Bible is against it because that's stealing.

[Josh_Kablack]

Rigid codes have an exhaustive list of rules. Deontology has only a couple axioms, and you have to figure out how to derive now rules from those axioms.

[Username17]

Deontology actually shares more in common with Utilitarianism than it does with a Rigid Code. Under Deontology you basically figure out the utility of an action if performed in every situation by everybody, and then determine if it is allowable. Under Utilitarianism you just figure out the utility of an action taken by you in the circumstance you are actually in and compare it to the utility of any other actions available to you with your present circumstances and determine which are better.

Deontology is situation blind, and generates a rigid code, but it essentially uses Utilitarianist ethical math to generate that code.

Once you had done all of the math for every action, Deontology would in fact be just one rigid code among many, but its justifiations, as well as its extensibility, are completely different from that of a "normal" rigid code.

-Username17

[dbb]

The type of Utilitarianism described is the more traditional Act-Utilitarianism, the sort originally promulgated by Bentham. There is also another variety, Rule-Utilitarianism, which is based not on the utility of individual acts but on the utility of rules generalized across society, that would end up being a better point of comparison to the Kantian deontological framework under discussion here. The main difference between them would then be that the Kantian derives his moral judgements from some sort of Categorical Imperative-ish axiom, and the Rule-Utilitarian derives his based on how much good for society overall results from them. The practical difference would end up being pretty small, since the Categorical Imperative smacks of Rule-Utilitarianism, but the reasons would be very different -- for a Utilitarian, results are the basis for morality, and for a Kantian the universalizability of an act is what counts.

Strictly speaking, "deontology" is a just class of moral philosophy that judges the moral content of actions according to particular norms, rather than a particular brand of moral philosophy; it is more properly opposed by consequentialism (the idea that an action's rightness or wrongness is judged on its results) than by utilitarianism per se. And even "opposed" is kind of a stretch, since a lot of consequentialist theories incorporate some deontological elements, and vice versa. There's actually a branch of Deontology that's sort of like having a Rigid Code, that being the theory that what's good is what God tells you to do (c.f., um, the one of Plato's dialogues where he's being "instructed" by the priest -- I think it's Euthypro, but it's been literally 10 years since I had my last Philosophy class).

--d.

[Neeek]

Err...Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory.

Utilitarianism is probably the least workable option of any ethical theory I've ever encountered, honestly. The main obvious problems are 1) You are assigning moral qualities to events that really don't warrent them (Let's see, will I increase the overall happiness of the world more if I have Corn Pops or Frosted Flakes this morning?). 2) It doesn't allow for supermoral actions. Under Utilitarianism you are expected to always go "above and beyond the call of duty" if it would make life in general better. 3) It allows for the justification of some actions that are, AFAIC, absolutely immoral. Such as slavery. 4) It's too hard to do. You have to be able to predict the future to make it work, and even then you'd have to be able to predict the outcome of multiple possible futures for every action you take.

Kant's Deontology is just a hard way to live, in general. It'd be great if everyone used it though. It's hard to go wrong with "Do what you would want anyone in the same circumstances to do" as a way of life.

Personally, I tend to lean more towards Hobbs's ideas for Social Contracts. Basically, you do what you think will help your group the most, and let everyone be damned(unless helping them would help your group in some way).

EDIT: The theory of "Doing what God tells you" is called Divine Command, and is usually considered to be laughable at best. The issue there is "Is this the right thing to do because God said so, or is God telling you to do it because it is the right thing to do on it's own?" If the answer is the second one, then you probably need to look deeper into what's right and wrong. If the answer is the first one, you aren't someone I want anywhere near me, because that's how truly horrendous things get justified in the name of religion.

[dbb]

Sure -- I phrased that unclearly; the intention was that while utilitarianism is a subset of consequentalist moral theory, you'd normally say "deontology is opposed by consequentialism" rather than "deontology is opposed by utilitarianism", in the same sense that you'd say a truck is opposed by a car rather than by a Porsche 911.

Pretty much all of the various theories of ethics I studied had holes in them that would make you uncomfortable with the idea of actually living with them. Of course, if we had a perfect theory of ethics, there wouldn't be much room for further research.

I don't put much stock in the Divine Command theory of ethics, but I thought it warranted mentioning in the context because of the uneasy juxtaposition of deontology and rigid codes; the two are not really exclusive, since deontology is more of a "why" than a "how" classification. The issue you mention is IIRC sometimes called the Euthyphro dilemma after the aforementioned dialogue, which raises the same question: are things Good because God tells you to do them, or is God Good because he tells you to do Good things?

--d.

[Username17]

The idea behind the consequentialist theories is that you base actions and punishment upon the expected results of such actions. You can't see the future, but often times you can predict it with decent accuracy.

So let's say that person A is attempting to apply antibiotic cream to person B's scrape. Unfortunately, A grabbed the wrong bottle and ends up pouring acid all over B's wound. Ouch!

Now, the consequences of that action were bad. Person A has every right to feel guilty, because what they actually did was bad. But that doesn't mean that judicial punishment should come down on person A! Since the entire acid-on-the-wound incident was an accident, there's no benefit to society in punishing it.

Seriously, what good consequences could come of imprisoning people for committing errors? It might encourage people to be more careful, but it equally might encourage more people to cover up their mistakes.

---

Net result: people make errors, you tell them they fvcked up and did bad things, then you move on.

A non-consequentialist theory is honestly impossible to administer. Someone does wrong but means well, and you don't have any leverage on them. Well-meaning dumbasses still go to heaven - and look where that got us?

---

As to slavery, organlegging, etc etc. No. Utilitarian arguments can be made to support Slavery. Religious and even Deontological arguments can be made for Slavery. The fact is that the Utilitarian argument against slavery is way better than the argument for could ever hope to be. It goes like this:

[*] Rome didn't implement Water Mills or even have their windlesses moved by donkeys.

[*] Greece built steam engines, but never once used them to do work.

[*] The Aztecs never implemented wheels.

Slavery inhibits the implementation of labor-saving devices and divides the populace against itself. The consequences of implementing slavery are bad, regardless of what peoples intentions are.

-Username17

[User3]

Since Frank linked to this, I figured I might as well ressurrected it again...

Setting aside the insanity that is Law and Chaos for a second, how would it be if we defined Good/Neutral/Evil this way:

Good: Generally does/attempts to do actions that are "extra" morally right(Or supermoral actions) and does not do things that are morally wrong. Basically, supermoral actions would be things like helping a random person carry in their groceries when there is no benefit to you. Not doing it isn't wrong, but doing these things is "more right". I guess.

Neutral: Doesn't do much along the lines of supermoral actions, but also doesn't do things that are morally wrong. So the Neutral person wouldn't jump in front of a car to knock someone else out of the way, but also wouldn't knock them in front of said car then take their wallet.

Evil: Does things that are morally wrong. The nature of the rest of their actions is, frankly, irrelevant.

[Maj]

For Neutral, you could also say that they attempt to balance any supermorally right action with a supermorally wrong one.

[User3]

1124803771[/unixtime]]For Neutral, you could also say that they attempt to balance any supermorally right action with a supermorally wrong one.

Not really. At least, I don't think so. If you are willing to kill people to get what you want, I really don't care all that much if you also occasionally randomly save someone's life: You are still Evil. Redemption can only come if you renounce your past immoral deeds and strive to never do them again.

A better term for what I had as Neutral is "does what is morally permissable, and does not do what is not morally permissable."

[RandomCasualty]

Neutral is someone who cares about himself and his friends, but could care less about some random person on the street.

Being evil is D&D is pretty much a separate condition which overrides your previous alignment. If you get enough evil points, it usually doesn't matter how many good points or neutral points you have, you're labelled as evil.

[Essence]

Which is entirely retarded.

[User3]

Not as retarded as the alternative. If you weigh "good points" and "evil points" equally, then somebody who gives to charity, helps old ladies accross the street and does volunteer work six days a week can get away with still having a Good alignment while brutally murdering an innocent and unsuspecting victim every Thursday night.

[Essence]

Actually, that would net you a Neutral alignment.

And really, that is the only way to fairly run a neutral alignment in an absolute-alignment system. Under your description, it is far easier to become evil than good, and nearly impossible to become anything else once you are evil. That's dumb.

It is better to allow characters who commit Evil acts to atone to Neutrality by committing Good acts, which your system doesn't allow, than to force someone who doesn't realize the Evilness of their act (such as righteously slaying a Silver dragon that is under a Polymorph spell and looks Red) to remain Evil basically forever because they commited an Evil act once.

If the option for atonement also allows a forward-thinking character to commit a bunch of Good acts before he goes out and does Evil, that's totally OK -- and, in fact, should be encouraged, as it makes a character's alignment something that is constantly on his mind as he determines how to roleplay. It's much more interesting than the "Be a Hero. Do Good. Don't do Evil, even once, or you're not a Hero any more ever" alternative.

[Murtak]

Not as retarded as the alternative. If you weigh "good points" and "evil points" equally, then somebody who gives to charity, helps old ladies accross the street and does volunteer work six days a week can get away with still having a Good alignment while brutally murdering an innocent and unsuspecting victim every Thursday night.

Now, let's assume for a moment that we are talking about actions that balance themselves out. Balancing murder with anything is tricky, so let's look at another example. Our bad guy regularly steals for his own profit. He also regularly gives to the poor. In addition to that he beats up thugs who opress the weak.

So we have
- stealing
- assault
- helping the poor
- helping the weak

Does that look like a good guy to you? Bad? Neutral? I am not sure myself - it depends a lot on whether the ones he helps could have gotten help from the city guard and the likes. But I can easily see this guy having a neutral alignment.

[Fwib]

Wouldn't the alignment-change be more like: Evil acts shift your alignment rapidly downward toward the level of evil of the act, but good acts only move your alignment up slowly?

That would better fit the usual view of good and evil, no? You have to do a lot of good compared the the amount and severity of evil to be regarded as good again, or even non-evil.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm warning you guys, you seem to be walking into the pitfall that is something vaguely resembling the star wars d20 dark side points stuff.

Which I really don't like.

So under that everyone is basically just automatically "good" (or at least neutral). But if you do bad things you earn "Evil Points". You can un-earn evil points by doing good.

However.

The Mechanic for earning evil points is utterly subjective and unclear. I kill a guy? Earn an evil point. Or maybe not. Even kill a droid? Well, did I do it in anger? When I Jedi Mind trick people left right and center, just like the movie good guys, am I doing it in pride or for some other evil motivation, who is to say? So evil points can just happen all over the place, or not much at all, or both. On top of that some skill uses earn you evil points. Force Lightning? Who cares if you are strapping yourself in to power the generator for a hospital full of starving ewok orphans with leperousy thats some evil points for you!.

And unearning evil points is just as vague, you get it by making sacrifices and heroic acts, which oddly can include things like killing, mind tricking and droid junking just like the actions that earned you evil points in the first place. But though there are skills/powers that automatically earn dark side points there aren't skills/powers that automatically UN earn darkside points.

Of course star wars screws you over further by making the point at which you become REALLY evil then be based on your wisdom score (yay, my subjective tally of 3 evil points is worth more/less than other peoples equal subjective tally, if we all commit 12, 1 point evil acts some of us are WAY MORE evil than others...)

And of course it then makes it even worse by throwing around permanent con drain for dark side characters. Just to remind us that in all branches of d20 evil is totally weak.

Having a good points vs evil points tally/scale is basically the same thing as that. Its even basically the same as just having two arbitrary and poorly defined words representing your characters behaviour/philosphy.

Unless you can list if not every then very nearly every action that nets you evil points/the evil descriptor and every action that nets you good points/the good descriptor and do it in such a way as to CLEARLY define the differences between those actions such that there are not cart loads of actions that are subjectively one way or another its just another vague alignment system waiting to cause arguments.

Not that big arbitrary iron bound lists of alignment rules on what you are allowed to do with your character are going to fail to also cause arguments and player angst.

[RandomCasualty]

Well basically evil is a lot like darkside points, and it's not an innately bad set up, so long as you don't get into all the evil hosing crap mechanics that D20 SW does.

Evil and good shuoldnt' really just be a straight point system, where your'e good if you did more good than evil by a certain amount and neutral if your good and evil points are more or less equal.

The D&D system actually isn't that bad conceptually. A serial killer who always gives to charity and does other nice stuff should still be qualified as an evil, so long as he keeps on killing. Removing your evil points needs to require legitimate attonement.

Now, as for D&D's actual code of what's evil and what's good, that's entirely ambiguous, but I don't think you'll ever have a system of morality that isn't ambiguous in a fantasy RPG. Fantasy ethics are really weird. Heroes are expected to kill, steal, and do all kinds of crap on a regular basis, and they're classified as good. You just can't have any absolutes like "Thou shalt not kill" or any other strict code morality.

Morality is an ambiguous topic in real life, there's just no way you're going to make it simple no matter how you try to do it.

[Maj]

I sat in a psychology/philosophy class on evil for an entire quarter. At the end of the class, we were no closer to defining what "evil" meant than we were on the first day - which is to say, we never were able to come to a consensus as to what actual evil was.

There's no way that any set of forced game mechanics can begin to actually cover such a vague topic as evil. It's just not gonna happen.

[Murtak]

Where the heck does that "a serial killer who also gives to charity is still evil" argument come from? How the heck can you say that some sort of point system can not work because of something that does not work in either system?
Of course some hypothetical guy who kills someone every week and then makes the world a tiny bit better is going to be evil - no matter how you choose to keep track of it.
It is like me stating that addition does not work because 2+2 is not -7. Of course it isn't, but that is not relevant to the discussion at all.

So, no, murdering someone (say, 1000 bad points) and giving to charity (say, 5 good points) don't balance out at all and so this person is evil. But, hey, murdering someone and then being nice and giving to charity once a week for 4 years (for a total of 1000oddsome points) just might qualify as neutral, no?

[RandomCasualty]

Well how common morality is viewed, evil works much like star wars dark side points. You accumulate evil to a point until you finally actually become evil. The only way to remove those evil points is to atone, not necessarily to just start doing good to "balance the scales". So long as you continue to do evil, it doesn't matter how much good you do, by conventional morality, you're still evil.

Good alignment is actually more of a frame of mind than anything. YOu're dedicated to the preservation of life and protecting others, and all that great hero stuff. If you don't actually hold that philosophy it doesn't really matter how many babies you save. Good isn't about performing good deeds, it's about believing in a benevolent philosophy.

Neutral isn't necessarily a balance between good and evil so muhc as it is not-good and not-evil. They don't fit into either category distinctly so you label them as neutral.

Evil is about actions. Performing evil actions gains you evil points and pushes you farther toward evil. You can hold the beliefs that raping, pillaging and genocide are all acceptable and good things but you'd still be neutral until you actually performed some evil acts. A murderer is evil because he killed someone, not just because he thinks about killing people.

And fundamentally that's why you can have evil points but you really can't have good points. Evil is all about what actions you take, good is a set of beliefs.

But overall alignment is a total waste of time. We would be better off just having [holy] and [damned] subtypes for the extremes of each (paladins, angels, devils, etc.) and then leaving everyone else as being undetectable. Then you just say that only holy people can wield holy swords, and only damned people can wield unholy swords. You could do the same for law and chaos to a degree too, though I don't anticipate anything other than slaadi and modrons having the [ordered] and [chaotic] subtypes, though if you wanted you could give all constructs the ordered type and all shapechangers the chaotic type possibly.

And that allows you to put morality back in human hands, instead of some judgment of absolute morality that the universe somehow labels you with.

[Username17]

Actually, the very instant you talk about "common morality" as if that had anything to do with anything, you're talking out of your belly button. People don't agree about what evil means. Evil is stuff that's bad, but people can't even agree as to whether it's bad intentions or bad actions. A lot of people have no problem at all characterizing a man-eating tiger as evil. A lot of people have no problem at all characterizing a human who perfectly follows the precepts of a religion which is not theirs in good faith as evil. There are people who take issue with the characterizing of either entity as evil, and there are people who don't even understand why both entities wouldn't be evil.

The statement "common morality" doesn't mena shit. If you start talking about "common moral views" as if there are any you are talking about less than nothing. You are assuming for the sake of argument that people who don't agree with you actually do. Maybe you think of good and evil as some sort of pristine camel of goodness that you heap evils on to until it eventually collapses and you don't go to heaven. Maybe you think of people as being innately charged with evil and having to undergo some ritual in order to be washed clean of misdeeds. Maybe you think of evil and good as being in a tug of war that can be moved back and forth by actions or thoughts or both. Whatever. I can guaranty you that others don't share your views, whatever they are.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1125282614[/unixtime]]Maybe you think of evil and good as being in a tug of war that can be moved back and forth by actions or thoughts or both. Whatever. I can guaranty you that others don't share your views, whatever they are.

Yeah, definitely. Though I'm mostly talking about the D&D system (or at least how I thought Gygax wanted it to be) conceptually.

Good and evil are entirely relative and to have them have any meaning we have to separately define them in the context of the game. D&D sorta does this, but admittedly in a horribly vague manner.

If it were up to me though, I'd really just ditch alignment except for things which obviously uphold the extremes of any alignment.