no extra steps, that’s exactly what chaotic evil is
Except she follows the law, she just finds loopholes that you could throw a nuke through. She announced her attack on the factory, and didn’t attack the town. She also wrote a dissertation on how to shell a town legally.
I’d say lawful evil, trending towards neutral evil
That sounds like chaotic lawful to me.
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I’d figure Chaotic neutral because to be evil you have to actively do things with malice. If it’s for personal gain according to their personal morality, it’s neutral because they could fall in line with the law by coincidence.
Doing evil because it’s fun and doing evil because it’s profitable are both evil. An evil alignment doesn’t require you to relish the screams of your victims - you just have to decide “those lives are not as important as what I want.”
Then there’s no difference between apathy and evil according to you guys. Not caring if someone dies from your actions is the same as gleefully killing them. Makes total sense.
“Not caring if someone dies from your actions” is basically the definition of negligent homicide.
That’s the idea. Evil is apathy. Peter Singer is willing to make personal sacrifices to help others, and tries to figure out how to help people as much as possible with limited resources. There’s no Evil Peter Singer that makes personal sacrifices to hurt others and tries to figure out how to hurt them as much as possible with limited resources. Evil people are people who just don’t care, and harm others whenever it benefits them.
But maybe in something like D&D where there’s demons, they actually care about causing suffering and the people we think of as evil are merely neutral.
To be Neutral is to be able to do not only good things, bad things, but to also abstain from both. Neutral is ‘boring’ because it doesn’t lock your character into an alignment. You aren’t forced to help people, you aren’t forced to harm people, your character does what would make sense for your character to do, even if it means doing nothing.
Good aligned characters aren’t “forced” to help people if they have a reason not to. Nor are they “forbidden” from stealing. A single act does not determine an alignment and alignment isn’t a cage restricting player autonomy.
Yep, this is basically the “Evil is the Absence of Good” argument, and you could do way worse.
Not caring if someone dies from your actions is the same as gleefully killing them.
Giving 100 gold to a beggar and donating your time and 10 000 gold to an orphanage are not the same thing, but the existence of the 2nd option doesn’t make the first option neutral.
No. Their behavior is self interested. That’s Evil. Didn’t matter how they envision it or whether they have a personal code. If their personal code places the needs of others and the general welfare in a place of high importance then they are Good. Chaotic - Lawful merely describes the methods they’re willing to pursue to achieve those goals.
Self-interest is not evil. Self-interest is a core trait to surviving. Egocentrism is abrasive but also isn’t in itself, evil. An egotistical hero is still a hero even if they save people only for the sake of getting credit for it.
Listen. You need to go out and touch some grass. No one is making a moral argument here. We’re debating a game’s alignment system and how to understand it. In terms of the game’s systems, self-interest is evil. Devils are extremely self-interested and do nothing for the greater good or general welfare.
Yes and I think you have no idea what you’re talking about so take that grass touching advice for yourself and stop replying to my comments with the dumbest shit I’ve heard on this site. “Self-interest is inherently evil!” the fuck it is.
Look, I’m an atheist so I don’t believe in evil. That being said I’m not 13 so I also don’t have a hard-on for Ayn Rand to the point where I get enraged when other people talk about self interest.
I never said anything about it being “inherently evil”. You’re putting words in my mouth. You’d realize that if you actually took some time to cool off.
In the context of D&D, how self-interested a character is determines their moral alignment. It’s a loose description of a mechanic.
No one is making claims about the real world.
Isn’t acting purely in self interest the general definition of chaotic neutral?
If while acting in your own self-interest you knowingly, through action or inaction, allow others to come to harm, even indirectly, that is evil. In the same way that a character knowingly doing something that benefits others would arguably make them good. A chaotic neutral person may act on a whim or in self-interest the majority of the time, but I doubt they’d let their actions cause actual harm to others.
But trying to pigeonhole human behavior into a rigid matrix of alignments is inherently flawed, people are much more complex than that. Fortunately, DND allows the DM free reign to define that or allow it to be a grey area - in reality, “alignment” will always be fluid.
I think this is a little over-broad. As written, the only way to be good is to stop all evil everywhere. Or am I missing something?
No, it still requires something the person does or doesn’t do (within reason) to influence or allow the evil act. If you see someone being mugged and you ignore it and keep walking when you have the power to help, even if just calling the police and walking away, then yes, that inaction makes you a bad person, IMO. But if a bad guy starts a war on the other side of the planet, you’re not evil if you don’t enlist and go fight the evil regime.
But like I said, it’s all a grey area, there is no black and white good and evil in reality. It’s rarely as simple as just “this is good, and this is evil” in real life.
If while acting in your own self-interest you knowingly, through action or inaction, allow others to come to harm, even indirectly, that is evil.
I think most Americans buy products made via unethical labor practices, and which damage the environment, harming everyone.
Are you really making the argument that the vast majority of Americans are evil?
As an American, I’m not not making that argument.
Why not? It’s not a moral argument.
Are you really making the argument that the vast majority of Americans are evil?
With regards to the D&D alignment chart? Sure. I don’t know what kind of weird moral gotcha you’re attempting here but there’s not one to be found.
By that description, the vast majority of people are evil. Well, both evil and good, since most people at least occasionally do things that aren’t in their self-interest to help others. But primarily evil, thanks to the inaction clause on the evil side and nothing comparable on the good side.
They’re also more evil the more educated they are, since they’re more aware of ways that people are suffering harm that they could potentially abate.
For example, if you are not homeless and you are aware that some people are homeless and a storm is coming, if you don’t help them all find shelter - to the extent of bringing them into your own home even if it means you end up not having a place to sleep - by your definition, you’re evil.
I’m not a fan of that definition, either for D&D or anything else, but if it works for your table, great!
An “evil” act does not make a person evil necessarily. We all do bad shit sometimes. My point was it’s a grey area that can’t be defined with 9 alignments outside of the structure of a game, but knowingly allowing your actions to cause harm to others is an evil act.
That being said, the idea of good and evil is entirely the result of fiction. I don’t believe there’s a black and white “good and evil” in reality. Human actions and motivations can’t be defined so broadly IMO.
No. Neutral only cares about the cosmic or universal good. The welfare of others or ones self doesn’t factor into it. Many druids are Neutral because the balance of nature (the natural order) is the motivation behind their actions.
Neutral druids don’t care about the welfare of others? Not even the other druids in their circle?
If given a choice between upsetting the balance and saving a druid they’ll maintain the balance. Healing a wound or something isn’t moral decision.
I prefer to think of good vs evil as altrusim vs egoism. LG is “the laws should protect everyone” and LE is “the laws should protect me”. CG is “everyone should be free to live as they please” and CE is “I should be free to live as I please”. Acting in pure self-interest with no regard for ideals would be CE, or maybe NE depending on how it’s done.
I like your take, you said it better than I did.
I disagree. Lawful or Chaotic describes ones adherence to rules; either those of society or their own moral code. Chaotic would describe one who does not adhere to any rules or guidelines; nothing is off limits except that which would violate their alignment on the Good-Evil axis. Neutral would mean that one would bend those rules to achieve a particular outcome. Lawful is going to stick to the book; they’re very conservative.
Nope. Neutral would be a tendency to act in the interests of the cosmic or universal order. Neither ones self nor the general welfare of others is given priority.
This is the classic theological definition of evil. Evil isn’t the anti-good, it’s the absence of good. Good is typically regarded as some kind of selflessness or care for other, so evil is basically selfishness. There’s nuance, but I wanted to support the challenge to dualistic world view.
They don’t call it Tasha’s Uncontrollable Laughter.
I feel like it’s not clear on whether evil is being willing to hurt people for some minor benefit to you, or if that’s neutral and evil is being willing to make personal sacrifices just to cause harm. The first one is about as evil as you get in real life, but real life doesn’t have demons.
I haven’t heard any stories of demons making personal sacrifices just to cause harm, and demons are definitely evil.
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