Moral Standards.

[Galwylin]

I'm going to try combining some posts...

At 07:29 PM 10/8/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>Replace human with elf and goblin with human in the above examples and use
the
>same moral standard. I don't think a human who ruthlessly slaughters
>non-combatants is a good human. One who attacks goblin raiders could
still be
>considered good. One who attacks goblins who unlawfully cross the border
and set
>up shop is in danger of immoral acts that could be evil.

I'm starting to wonder if elves would return to their treehouse with heavy
hearts. Their description is such that it not out of the realm of
possibility for the attack on helpless humans to cause an attack by the one
that protests it or on the one protesting.

My original observation of your statement though was that slaughtering
goblins would be neutral when the slaughtering of humans would be evil.
Even though you didn't say all elves were evil involved in a gheallie
Sidhe, you did make a judgement different had goblins been the target.
Which is where much of the debate is coming from, I think. Had the target
of the gheallie Sidhe been another race other than human, I don't think it
would be condemned quite so fast if ever. Questioned but condemned? All
demihumans have had a hatred of humanoid races. I'm sure no one questioned
their morality if goblins had entered their forests and built villages
causing the elves to attack, killing non-combantants, until the goblins
were either destroyed or left. I'm not so sure that the situation with
humans is much different. But because it is humans that are the target, we
get a much stronger feeling that this is an evil act. Possibily because
humans and elves are potential player characters while goblins are usually
regulated to monsters. Am I making sense here?

>OK, I'm going a bit too far with this example so I'll reign it back in
now....

Umm, yea. I think so ;D

>The point in all this that I think I'm holding the elves to the same moral
>standard as humans. I think there is a bit more sympathy for elves, however,
>that is misconstruing the argument. Elves are cute, so we justify their
actions
>a bit more. The "elves are just protecting the forests when they chop up
human
>families" argument doesn't work for me any more than a human going into a
goblin
>cave without provocation and slaughtering all the little gobboes would.

I agree there is much more sympathy for elves. Not the cuteness but they
are representative of human desires to live as one with nature that I think
many people find appealing (if impractical). The difference is though that
humans came to the elves' home. Its not the distant past to them yet.
Now, if elves were invading Aduria before humans came to Cerilia, that
would be a whole different story.

At 04:17 PM 10/9/98 +1000, Complete Systems wrote:
>
>> For a historical (pre about 1700, maybe later) or history based fantasy
campaign, I'd have to agree with the idea that the intention is acceptable
for 'good' alignment, but given the preferred interpretation follows modern
(post 1950's) thinking - the answer is instead 'this is an evil act'
despite whatever excuse you use to cover it.

[Whalejudge@aol.co]

On the other hand, what of a human who decides to invade and conquer Thurazor?
Not to exterminate but to acquire territory and bring the goblins into "the
one true church of Haelyn"?

[Gary V. Foss]

Galwylin wrote:

> I'm starting to wonder if elves would return to their treehouse with heavy
> hearts. Their description is such that it not out of the realm of
> possibility for the attack on helpless humans to cause an attack by the one
> that protests it or on the one protesting.

True. I was trying to describe how a good aligned elf would respond to those
events. A neutrally aligned elf would have much less of a problem with it.

> My original observation of your statement though was that slaughtering
> goblins would be neutral when the slaughtering of humans would be evil.
> Even though you didn't say all elves were evil involved in a gheallie
> Sidhe, you did make a judgement different had goblins been the target.
> Which is where much of the debate is coming from, I think. Had the target
> of the gheallie Sidhe been another race other than human, I don't think it
> would be condemned quite so fast if ever. Questioned but condemned? All
> demihumans have had a hatred of humanoid races. I'm sure no one questioned
> their morality if goblins had entered their forests and built villages
> causing the elves to attack, killing non-combantants, until the goblins
> were either destroyed or left. I'm not so sure that the situation with
> humans is much different. But because it is humans that are the target, we
> get a much stronger feeling that this is an evil act. Possibily because
> humans and elves are potential player characters while goblins are usually
> regulated to monsters. Am I making sense here?

I think you are making sense, but I think you are being more sympathetic to the
elven point of view or overcompensating against the human one.... If you are
going to use a moral standard of the kind I was talking about, I don't think there
is a double standard. A human who kills non-combatants is evil. An elf who does
so is too. So is a goblin. It really doesn't matter if those non-combatants are
elves, humans or goblins.

When I said that a human who ruthlessly slaughtered goblins is at best of neutral
alignment, I think that threw the example into some sort of racial terms that
really are peripheral to the moral/alignment issues. A human who ruthlessly
slaughters humans is at best of neutral alignment. A dwarf who ruthlessly
slaughters halflings is at best of neutral alignment. Race is incidental to the
act of killing people. It depends on the circumstances involved.

One last point on issues of race in AD&D. Races exist in a much broader sense
then they do in real life. Goblins are demonstrably much more different from
humans than humans are from each other. In addition, alignments exist in a much
more substantial way in AD&D than they do in real life. In combination, races
tend to follow various alignments much more prevalently than is reflected in real
life. In AD&D terms, it isn't racist to say goblins are evil. With very rare
exceptions, they ARE evil! Elves tend towards neutrality and chaos. Dwarves tend
towards law and good. Etc, etc, etc.

One of the factors that influences the good/evil/neutrality of an action is the
alignment of the creatures involved. Killing an evil aligned goblin is probably a
"good" thing to do assuming that goblin was in some sort of position to do
something about his evil attitudes. I would still say that a human who killed
goblin non-combatants was behaving evilly, but I think there is a difference
between killing an evil goblin or a neutral elf or a good human. Or killing a
good goblin, a neutral human or an evil elf, for that matter.

Gary

[Binagran]

Gary V. Foss wrote:

> Ever seen the John Wayne movie The Searchers? That's a pretty good example of
> what I'm talking about. I think Wayne's character for the majority of that movie
> is evil. He espouses that "the only good indian is a dead indian" philosophy and
> shoots them in the back, which even upsets his fellow indian fighters. (I hope
> everyone realizes what a bad misrepresentation of indian fighters this is. Real
> indian fighters shot indians in the back just as happily as any other way, but
> this is a film made in the 50's when historical accuracy was about as likely as a
> stewardess on a biplane.) He thinks it's better to kill his niece after she has
> been living with indians for a few years as she has "become one of them."
> Towards the end of the movie he becomes more neutral. He rescues his niece
> rather than kill her. In the context of the movie that's a big moral development
> for this character, who is a racist of the highest order.

Just thought I should put my 2cps worth in. If you can refer to a John Wayne film,
the least I can do is refer to a comic.

I would recommend for all those who have been reading these postings to do with
alignment/morality etc. to read the very excellent graphic novel "Watchmen" by Allan
Moore and Dave Gibbons.
This debate reignited my interest in it, and rereading it, it seems that almost every
argument posted here is present in "Watchmen" in some form or another. Depending on
your POV (there's that word again), the character of Rohrsharc (sp?), could either be
seen as a LG character (forgive the use of alignments) or a NE character.
"Never compromise, even in the face of Armageddon"
Admittedly, he was slightly around the bend, but his heart was in the right place (or
was it?)

Anyone got any comments to make about it?

Binagran

[Tim Nutting]

| I think you are making sense, but I think you are being more sympathetic to
the
| elven point of view or overcompensating against the human one.... If you are
| going to use a moral standard of the kind I was talking about, I don't think
there
| is a double standard. A human who kills non-combatants is evil. An elf who
does
| so is too. So is a goblin. It really doesn't matter if those non-combatants
are
| elves, humans or goblins.

I, however, do have a problem with this statement. Killing is evil, be the
victim a combatant or a non-combatant, the act of taking the life of a sentient
being is evil. Let us not apply situational ethics to any situation, as that
is the same as having no ethics at all. To be bluntly honest, there is no such
thing as an extenuating circumstance.

That the act is evil, however, does not make the act unnecessary.

However, the game system at this point has tremendous weakness when concerning
morality. A Paladin who willfully commits an evil deed loses his status as a
Paladin for all time, and yet the character kills for a living. For the
paladin to exist in this fashion, all his actions must be good, including the
killing of another sentient being. Can anyone follow this logic?

You see, by this logic the Nazis were doing good by eliminating the weak from
the world, those beings that were not perfect nor fit to be part of the master
race. From the viewpoint of the propaganda, what was the difference between a
mentally retarded person and a goblin?

| When I said that a human who ruthlessly slaughtered goblins is at best of
neutral
| alignment, I think that threw the example into some sort of racial terms that
| really are peripheral to the moral/alignment issues. A human who ruthlessly
| slaughters humans is at best of neutral alignment. A dwarf who ruthlessly
| slaughters halflings is at best of neutral alignment. Race is incidental to
the
| act of killing people. It depends on the circumstances involved.

Any being that ruthlessly slaughters another being is evil, at that moment. If
it depended on the circumstances, then consider this fictional series of
events:

My wife is killed by a group of gang members who get their kicks off of the
"gool ol' ultraviolence" (thaks Alex...). They obviously took joy in the
mutilation and rape of her, both before and after death, and then are not
punished by the nonexistant law enforcement. Consumed by hatred and the need
for revenge, I plot their hangouts and their patterns, quietly when they are
away on another sating, I move in and plant explosives, tripped when they
return. Of those that survive, I then proceed to gleefully slit their throats
and watch the lives drain from their eyes.

Am I evil? My actions in this brief fiction are those of the same "obviously
evil" individuals that killed my wife, and yet in some way I am justified in my
actions, perhaps excused because of the stresses on my psyche, but does that
change what I have become by giving in to my baser self and not holding myself
to the high standard that all civilized men should?

The problem with "alignment issues" is the simple fact that the concepts of the
alignments are unrealistic. No being is ALWAYS Lawful Good, or Chaotic Good,
that is too codified and rigid. I have found that to take the Alignment as a
desirable state of living for the individual in question works much better.

| One last point on issues of race in AD&D. Races exist in a much broader
sense
| then they do in real life. Goblins are demonstrably much more different from
| humans than humans are from each other. In addition, alignments exist in a
much
| more substantial way in AD&D than they do in real life. In combination,
races
| tend to follow various alignments much more prevalently than is reflected in
real
| life. In AD&D terms, it isn't racist to say goblins are evil. With very
rare
| exceptions, they ARE evil! Elves tend towards neutrality and chaos. Dwarves
tend
| towards law and good. Etc, etc, etc.

This, I see, as a demonstrably damagin situation with RPGs, especially AD&D.
This statement indicates that a society has absolutely nothing to do with the
final outcome of a citizen. Even if there were a genetic predisposition for a
goblin to be a self-serving coniving, back-stabbing bastard, that does not
excuse the senseless slaughter of the species. Further, if alignment were
subject to genetic predisposition would mean that a character can never change
his alignment, because it is not subject to change, his genetic code will not
allow it.

| One of the factors that influences the good/evil/neutrality of an action is
the
| alignment of the creatures involved. Killing an evil aligned goblin is
probably a
| "good" thing to do assuming that goblin was in some sort of position to do
| something about his evil attitudes. I would still say that a human who
killed
| goblin non-combatants was behaving evilly, but I think there is a difference
| between killing an evil goblin or a neutral elf or a good human. Or killing
a
| good goblin, a neutral human or an evil elf, for that matter.

I am sorry, but I will never, ever, condone the killing of any sentient being,
and label the act "good" in any way, shape, or form. That killing is sometimes
necessary is a fact. War happens because of the base natures of sentients.
The actions of the United States in World War II were not in any way good, but
they were necessary. It was inevitable that conflict would occur for several
reasons.

Assign this situation to Mhoried. The citizens there, by and large, are good
folk, they prefer to help their neighbor when asked, but they also will trust
to what they feel is the good nature of their neighbor. However, they are also
independant and they love their lives, they want to live. If given the choice,
I can see that they would allow Markazor to live in peace, but they are not
given the choice. Markazor, as the puppet state of the Gorgon, is an
expansionist realm that will seek to over-run her neighbors. Thus, because the
good folk of Mhoried wish to keep their lives of freedom, they must kill their
neighbors. There is simply no choice.

Now we get to the unavoidable situation of a moral code in which killing is
evil. Absolution of sin is required, else there would be no way for a good
person to ever be good. This explains how the folk of Mhoried can still be
good. They are watched over by a divine being that blesses the actions of
those who would defend themselves, and thus when they repell the attacks from
Markazor, while their hearts and souls are stained by the deeds performed,
there is absolution.

Morality, by definition, is not circumstantial, it is absolute. If it were
circumstantial, then personal choice and view is allowed to enter the
situation. Morality is a code of ethical behavior that defines right and
wrong. A person's view on it does not change it one bit.

Tim Nutting
"Honesty does not require effort,
Truth does not require explanation"