Inherent "evil" in fictional sapients: a discussion

[123456789blaaa]

An interesting discussion on the moral quandaries and intracracies of making fictional sapient being "evil" was starting to branch off from a different thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?361498-Orcs-Evil-and-Otherness). I figured it was pertinent to make a new thread before the derail got too bad.

First let me clarify that I put "evil" in brackets because its a very subjective term. It also carries a lot of implications that don't necessarily apply to "making a sapient species have certain traits that reduces the moral quandaries that come from exterminating them". Whether something can be said to be evil when it doesn't have the capacity to be good is debatable.

Anyways, some pertinent quotes from the other thread (rearranged for easier reading):


What's interesting in all the examples talked about in this thread is that they are all controversially evil beings, and allegedly the authors of the works themselves questioned the nature and the morality surrounding writing about "evil beings."

There are plenty of works where we get evil creatures that are nothing but evil, but I think that maybe the way people are inclined to think about morality nowadays makes the very concept of thinking about a being as an "evil other" seem wrong.


I am reminded of this quote by G.K. Chesterton ...



So a "monster" in a fairy tale isn't meant to represent an actual human opponent. It's supposed to represent some aspect of the human condition.

Another essay (http://www.timelineuniverse.net/MiddleEarth/OnTolkien.htm)



Another useful essay (http://greenbooks.theonering.net/guest/files/040102_02.html) describes Tolkien's very different treatment of orcs and evil men in his works, such as the Haradrim. One can feel a certain pity and sympathy for men in a bad cause, and the west eventually makes peace with the men of Harad.

This doesn't happen with the orcs, because they are not human. They aren't even Rich Burlew's humans with green skin. Rather, THESE orcs are literally the stuff of nightmares. They are the distilled nastiness of human beings, just as elves are all the distilled goodness of humans at their best.

Fantasy isn't just about conflict with other people. Fantasy allows us to take conflicts that are normally invisible -- say, the struggle against one's own inner darkness -- and make such battles both visible and physical. Case in point: Ventus vs. Vanitas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4oCfJKtjo0). The light and dark of the same person battle physically, which normally happens invisibly on the inside.

So that's the point of a particular kind of fairy tale: To take your deepest fears, dreams, nightmares and give them physical form. Then imagine some hero -- yourself, or some deliverer -- to come in and slay it, vanquishing your fears. Teaching you that dragons can be killed -- not with swords , but with bravery.

After all, the true weapon is not a sword, but the heart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRfukkBIzeU).

You can't humanize such a being, because it's not supposed to represent a human being -- it's supposed to represent all those bits of yourself that you want to overcome. And with such an enemy, there can be no peace, no treaty. Only unending struggle for victory -- or if victory is not possible -- to fight nonetheless. An enemy to whom a man never surrenders, however often he loses.

This is what a fairy tale is for.

And it's a dreadful mistake when a person starts applying the same rules for fairy tale monsters to other human beings.

Hmm ... although to be honest nations do do that with wartime propaganda. They deliberately conflate real human enemies of flesh and blood with nightmare monsters, the better to make people fight them. See the essays above.

I'm not currently fighting a real war, but if it IS something that keeps you going and alive when actually on campaign, it's something that must be put away when the war is over. Because even if it helps a little bit to *pretend* for a little while that your enemies are monsters, it's a terrible thing indeed if you carry those attitudes with you off the battlefield, and then it gets handed down, generation after generation.

It would be best if we never fought wars at all. If we have to, the next best thing would be to fight what Rommel called Krieg Ohne Hass (http://www.armchairgeneral.com/pov-war-without-hate.htm) -- "war without hate".

But that doesn't seem to be very common either. Human beings, as a rule, seem incapable of fighting and killing people they don't hate. And the natural response to having your friends and relatives bombed or shot is to hate the people who did it with bitterness and passion undying. And once they feel that way, they usually don't UNFEEL that way ever.

So this appears to be what we are left with: We shouldn't fight wars. But if we must fight them we are going to have to demonize our enemies if normal people are to fight effectively. And if we do this, we're going to have to accept that we're damaging an entire generation in soul -- multiple generations, in fact, as the survivors will pass down their hatreds to the next generation. It will take centuries for those grudges to die -- assuming that all parties are working their hardest for peace and understanding, and no new quarrel comes from it. Yet it is all too easy for the next generation to refight the battles of the last, as in WWII. And to keep hating and killing each other, generation after generation, war without end.

It's a problem I do not yet have an answer for.

But part of the solution is to recognize that other human beings are not fairy tale monsters, as Tolkien's orcs were, and has his actual human enemies emphatically were not. He explicitly and emphatically rejected any comparison between the orcs and the real-life humans he killed in WWI.

Respectfully,

Brian P.


RE: Redwall...yeah, in hindsight that was a bit odd, although Jacques did try touching on that question with Outcast of Redwall. I don't remember it very clearly, though.

One of the most interesting handlings of an "Always Chaotic Evil" race I've seen has actually been in the roleplaying game Burning Wheel, which was heavily Tolkien-inspired. There, Orcs aren't required to always be evil, but every Orc is not only brought up in horrific circumstances, but also infused with a supernatural Hatred for the good and beautiful. You could play a heroic Orc...but that means having to constantly fight against the evil inside of you that wants you to just burn down the world because it can't stand seeing something so good. Also, the only magic available to Orcs is twisted with hate and evil. One of its strains requires blood sacrifice.

Ever since reading that, I've wanted to play an Orc in the game. That's an immensely compelling story seed.

And I think that's my preferred view in this situation: Orcs are not evil by nature, but the deck is absolutely stacked against them on a supernatural level. And I think that's an interesting thing to explore, and something that's enabled by fantasy--because such a thing doesn't happen in real life. (I love how fantasy can say "you know that thing that isn't that way in real life? Let's see what would happen if it could be...")


Of course, giving the Evil Others such an explanation behind their nature makes them effectively victims of horrible abuse by whoever is responsible for it. So the goal of removing moral quandaries from the heroes is not met. Which is of course for the best, because it's kind of an awful goal.


What? Why?


Part of the creepiness has to do with the fact that, um, there were people who historically believed that there were sapient beings on earth who were subhuman. And that's as far as I can go within forum rules.


Because fighting sapient, feeling beings, even more so if it's to the death, is always going to carry certain moral implications. Removing it is pointless and frankly creepy.


I find the implication that everything must think just like humans do when you get down to it, so nothing can be inherently evil - and by extension nothing can be inherently good - because humans aren't inherently evil is, frankly, far creepier.


Nothing is inherently evil because evil is going against nature. If a creature existed whose pure purpose was to cause harm and destruction it wouldn't be evil, it would just be doing its purpose. I suppose a pathogen would be the embodiment of that, but on the other hand something like a virus can only reproduce by corrupting things so you could call them evil by nature.

Well, that's one interpretation of evil. I just find taking limited ideas as far as possible to be fun.



That implies that a story about scientists trying to cure a disease or firemen saving people from a burning building is worse than a war story because there's no complicated moral choice in fighting something that can't think.

Killing zombies is just taking a man vs nature story and giving it the appearance of a man vs man story. Yes, that is creepy, but it doesn't have to be pointless. Its called allegory and is very important.


Evil is a lot more than just "harm" and "destruction", though. The sociopath who gladly manipulates everyone else around him for his own gain is evil, for example.

Although I'm not opposed to the existence of an inherently evil being (or even a whole species) in fiction, I find it more interesting when evil is ascribed to deeds instead. Arawn wasn't born the Death-Lord, he made himself the Death-Lord through his actions; likewise, the Horned Warlord wasn't corrupted by Arawn's touch, he was already evil before that and, from his point of view, he was blessed by Arawn's magic.



Sadly, neither does the human race, but one can always hope. :-)


...no, it doesn't. Where on Earth are you taking this implication from?


I'm saying man vs orcs is closer to man vs fire than man vs man.

Did you just ignore my second paragraph?


I didn't. It misses my entire point just as much as the first one does. If you're going to pit your protagonist against sapient, speaking beings, which Tolkienian orcs are, you should just accept that it's going to be loaded with certain moral implications. If you don't want them, don't use people as your bad guys. Use zombies, if you will. Or locusts. Except then the words 'bad guys' don't really apply.


I'm not disputing the moral implications.

The only part of your post I disagreed with was the 'pointless' bit. It can be pointless in badly constructed works but doesn't have to be.



I'm sorry, but not everyone cares what someone's point was when they make responses to stuff they say. Sometimes intention just isn't as interesting as implication.

Reducto ad Obsurdium does work to a degree though, if your argument doesn't understand the ways it might be taken wrongly then its a flawed argument (which isn't the same as a valueless one).



Manipulating people for your own gain is only evil if it causes harm.

Forcing someone with hydro-phobia to drink water to avoid de-hydration is violent and direct but isn't harmful unless it causes significant psychological damage at the same time.

There are win win situations that people wouldn't automatically choose of their own free will without outside influence.

Sociopathy isn't evil, its just a mental disorder where some things don't work the way they do in the majority of the population. It can be combined with other traits to make horrible monsters of people but on its own its just a diagnosis.

Most sociopaths hurt people only because they have major theory of mind problems and find it hard to comprehend that their victims aren't having as much fun as they are. That and the major problems controlling anger, which is a different issue that can lead to murder/assault.


But while Orcs are indeed sapient and feeling, since they feel hate, fear and pain, are able to plan, give themselves names and stuff, they have NEVER, not one time in the history of ALL OF MIDDLEEARTH shown the capacity to NOT be violent and aggressive, even moreso when directed by some higher power.

I find it strange that the idea of an immortal sorcerer binding his will into a ring of power is a-ok for fantasy, but beings who will always willfully harm those around them, with certainty, are not.


I'm a bit curious. When dragons and monsters are portrayed as pure evil no one bats an eye, but if they're vaguely humanoid then it's a moral problem. I'm not sure what that says.


Nothing positive about humanity, certainly.


Meh.

We evolved to hunt and kill things that walked on four legs. Its just a bit of left over evolutionary thinking. If lions wrote fiction they're be fine with evil gazelle monsters and talk about the morality of having feline monsters.



Humans regularly fail at that too.

I don't have much of a problem with that kind of society with Drow and stuff because they're so nasty to each other that its all they're learn.



You're over-simplifying a controversial psychiatric diagnosis.

Most sociopaths are not serial killers.

What even is empathy anyway? Its a non-scientific term for a range of very complicated human traits and abilities.

Sociopaths can love other humans. They lack or have a heavily impeded version of what most people consider to be empathy but that isn't the same thing as having no feelings. You don't need empathy to love someone, I've never understood any of the women I've been attracted to.

There was a TV documentary presented a psychologist who dedicated his life to furthering the course of medicine and in studying sociopathic traits in murderers he found that he himself had a lot of those traits. I've read an interview with a sociopath who has violent anger and murderous thoughts on a daily basis but also mentions doing charity work.

Mental disorders can look simple, people who have them are not.


Sort of the point. You can't go around claiming enlightenment and the morale high ground that killing other sentient/sapient beings is always wrong or are such never inherently evil while excluding anything that doesn't have your body shape and/or, on a bad day, is not mammalian.

I mean, making everything be equal to humans is risible enough, but then you're adding... speciesism? Nonhominoidism? Shapeism? ...on top.

Sort of the whole point of taking the moral high ground is to be y'know, BETTER than your animal instincts, residual or no.


I think it's a fundementally good point though - why is the debate about JUST Orcs, when Trolls, Balrogs and Dragons are all equally as inherently evil in the source material?

[Kalmageddon]

Frankly, I don't see the problem with having "evil" races in fiction or otherwise.
As Aotrs Commander said, we don't have a problem with evil dragons, demons and other beings that are often identified as simply evil by nature, so why should we have a problem when they are more humanoid? Maybe because most people don't like to think that humans can be evil, mostly because that forces each individual to admit of having an evil side. In fact I would argue that the whole concept of evil wouldn't exist if we didn't invent it in the first place by looking inside our minds.

From a less philosophical point of view, a race can be evil simply because they have a mind too alien for us to comprehend, which just so happen to make them behave in a way that we would find morally reprehensible and hostile. Think, for example, of a race that evolved from carnivore apex predators. To them, feeling empathy and simpathy towards other beings could be counter-productive, since it would stop them from taking advantage of potential food sources. No matter how intelligent these carnivores are they could simply lack the emotional response that would stop them from killing when presented with the opportunity and motive. And the fact that some of these "other" creatures talk and are intelligent might not register as a reason to treat them any differently.
And of course, there's always the possibility of a race so utterly alien that communication is impossibile and that might not even consider us to be anything like them. To these creatures, killing a human might be the equivalent of felling a tree.

To sum it up, I don't see any reason to categorically refuse the idea of inherently evil creatures that can't be redeemed.

[Lord Raziere]

well coming from a guy who has made an entire universe where no one was inherently evil aside from the literal Evil Incarnate himself, demons all looking DOWN upon him for literally being the worst thing imaginable and all in some way resolving to be BETTER than him- either more ambitious or more active in some way, because Evil Incarnate is so full of sin that he is Slothful to the extreme- and therefore all have little shades of virtue in them because its impossible for even them to be PURE evil, just evil enough to be near irredeemable, aside from a few edge cases who are trying to redeem themselves, and Evil Incarnate himself is AWARE that he is the evillest thing in the universe and is constant torment and pain because he KNOWS as a fundamental part of his nature that the entire rest of universe is morally better than him yet by his nature, is incapable of doing anything to change that, so he just goes with being an eternal Sloth in his despair...

yeah, I pretty much look down upon inherent evil. I like my orcs, dragons, trolls to be just as person-ish as everyone else, and the entire universe (which I call Omnigalaxia) is kind of made from me going "what if I took Dragon Slayers and examined the genocidal connotations inherent in them?" and how the dragons (called Draconarans) are pretty much in hiding and many ways near extinction, all because there was this one ruler who forged the draconarans into conquering empire that the rest of the universe decided to rebel against and basically overthrow, not for bad reasons mind you, but the dragon-slayers in question gone overboard and proceeded to exterminate them way past the point of them not being evil empire people anymore.....this stuff is complex.

but yeah, I basically created all that, because I found the ideas of them simplistic and not interesting, so I put my own twist on them and made them interesting in a way that I like.

[veti]

You've introduced a new word in the thread title: "inherent". It's worth noting what that implies.

"Inherent" means "born". The creature is either evil from (or before) the moment it emerges from its parent/egg/birthing pool/pod/chrysalis/whatever, or something about its individual biology means that it will inevitably act in an evil fashion.

There are two examples I like to bring up in these discussions. One is Ripley's Alien - it's an intelligent creature, which needs to rip its way out of a host body just to be born. Then it's surrounded by hostile, tasty creatures of the same species as the host it just devoured.

Is it evil? It seems harsh to apply such an adjective to a creature that's only a few hours old, has had no opportunity for moral (or any other, for that matter) education of any kind. Given time - a few years, maybe - it'd probably be possible to communicate with it and educate it, in the same way as a baby human. And yet the fact is - okay, the overwhelming preponderence of evidence is - that it will do as much harm as it possibly can, with absolutely no regard to the pain and damage it inflicts, unless it's stopped, and the only known way of stopping it is to kill it.

So, killing it - justifiable self-defence, or infanticide?

The second is D&D's own illithid. Here's a creature that's as far superior to humans, intellectually, as humans are to dogs or pigs. It can train and condition humans, much as humans do dogs. (The mechanics are different, but the basic idea isn't.) From the illithid's perspective, keeping a human slave is no different from how we see keeping a pet dog.

And yet (D&D tells us, categorically), these creatures and their society are Evil with a capital E.

Again: killing an illithid - let's assume it's an adult this time - justifiable self-defence, or genocide?

Now personally, I have no difficulty with either of these questions, because I reject a fundamental tenet of the D&D alignment system: all morality is relative. Morality is a luxury, it's something you can only apply to people/things that are weaker than you. We don't blame people for what they do when they're defending themselves, fighting an invading army or a tyrannical oppressor; it's what they do when the tables are turned, and someone else is helpless at their hands - that's when we start to get all self-righteous. Doctor Who doesn't hesitate about destroying daleks when they're invading some other planet, or imprisoning his friends - the only time he gets morally bent out of shape about it is when the whole dalek race is at his mercy.

So, all other things being equal, I am willing to kill both of the above examples because I'm a human - it would be downright stupid of me not to, unless I have some other way to reliably contain them.

That's not quite the same thing as saying that they're "inherently evil", because a predator/prey relationship isn't so morally loaded as that. But it's close enough.

If I were some hypothetical other creature, that could easily withstand the ravages of either one, then I'd be more tolerant and openminded - but I'm not. Either one is an imminent threat to me, my friends and my family, just by existing in anyplace where I can reach it. So I'm not going to leave it alone or let it go, any more than a nesting triceratops would "just live and let live" with a tyrannosaurus on the next hill.

[HamHam]

At least in the movies, I don't think there is any reason to think the xenomorphs are sapient. To wit:


Frankly, I don't see the problem with having "evil" races in fiction or otherwise.
As Aotrs Commander said, we don't have a problem with evil dragons, demons and other beings that are often identified as simply evil by nature, so why should we have a problem when they are more humanoid? Maybe because most people don't like to think that humans can be evil, mostly because that forces each individual to admit of having an evil side. In fact I would argue that the whole concept of evil wouldn't exist if we didn't invent it in the first place by looking inside our minds.

From a less philosophical point of view, a race can be evil simply because they have a mind too alien for us to comprehend, which just so happen to make them behave in a way that we would find morally reprehensible and hostile. Think, for example, of a race that evolved from carnivore apex predators. To them, feeling empathy and simpathy towards other beings could be counter-productive, since it would stop them from taking advantage of potential food sources. No matter how intelligent these carnivores are they could simply lack the emotional response that would stop them from killing when presented with the opportunity and motive. And the fact that some of these "other" creatures talk and are intelligent might not register as a reason to treat them any differently.
And of course, there's always the possibility of a race so utterly alien that communication is impossibile and that might not even consider us to be anything like them. To these creatures, killing a human might be the equivalent of felling a tree.

To sum it up, I don't see any reason to categorically refuse the idea of inherently evil creatures that can't be redeemed.

Such creatures would not be sapient, because there is no reason for them to be. Apex predators do not need tool use. If they are incapable of empathy, they could not form social groups. Would have no need for language. No amount of animal-cunning such a creature might posses is not sufficient to make it a self-aware thinking being.

--------------

More generally, I think you need to first define what it means for a thing to be evil.

[Forum Explorer]

Well I'd say that in order for something to be truly evil, there has to be free will. And if it doesn't have free will then it can't be 'inherently' evil.

That being said, I think the word evil is thrown around a little too easily.

Take the Xenomorphs or Mindflayers of your example. Is the Xenomorph evil, or is it just acting on it's nature? I mean, we certainly are opposed to it's nature but doesn't make it's nature evil. It's doing what it thinks will ensure it's survival (or the survival of others). Similarly can mindflayers be sustained with non-sapient brains? Or do they have to eat brains of intelligent creatures to survive?

The Wildmage Series touched on this a bit. It introduced a creature (called a Stormwing) that is sustained by the fear and suffering of humans. They also desecrated corpses for similar reasons. But beyond that, they could be quite pleasant, even heroic. They could also be incredibly nasty and evil, but it wasn't an inherent trait of the species.

It's also worth noting that it's our nature to defend ourselves. So Riply killing all of the Xenomorphs is not evil either. The adventurers who hunt down and wipe out the Mindflayer nest are no less heroes for their efforts. When natures are opposed like that it's normal for their to be a level of destruction between the two groups.

[veti]

Well I'd say that in order for something to be truly evil, there has to be free will. And if it doesn't have free will then it can't be 'inherently' evil.

"Free will" is always problematic as a concept. Does the Xenomorph or the Mindflayer have free will? Do I? How exactly would you test that?

If "free will" is a requirement for "evil", then "inherently evil" is a contradiction in terms. If something only becomes "evil" if you choose to do it, then obviously you can't be "born evil" (unless you somehow choose to be born, but that's a whole different can-o-worms).


That being said, I think the word evil is thrown around a little too easily.

Oh, I agree absolutely. That's why I don't actually like the alignment system at all. I don't want to kill Xenomorphs or Mindflayers because they're evil - I want to kill them for the same reason as I'd want to kill a smallpox virus, because they're threats to me and everything I care about. "Good" or "evil" - really, why does it matter?

Okay, in theoretical terms, it would matter if they were willing to be friendly and coexist peacefully, and could somehow communicate that. If they were willing to surrender or nullify the attributes that make them a threat. But in both cases, it's up to them to communicate that intent, before I get the chance to kill them - because it's not reasonable to expect me to pass up such an opportunity, if the cost of my missing it is that the normal prey/predator order is restored the next moment.

[cobaltstarfire]

The Wildmage Series touched on this a bit. It introduced a creature (called a Stormwing) that is sustained by the fear and suffering of humans. They also desecrated corpses for similar reasons. But beyond that, they could be quite pleasant, even heroic. They could also be incredibly nasty and evil, but it wasn't an inherent trait of the species.



They aren't necessarily "sustained" by pain and suffering, immortals don't have any biological needs to survive other than that they not get mortally wounded.

But yeah, they desecrate corpses because they were dreamed up to do so in order to remind humanity that war is not a thing of glory. Almost all of their nasty behavior is really just flat out honesty towards those who instigate war and conflict. Yeah, they are rather prone to dropping down to taunt people particularly the leaders as harshly as possible, but they also universally cherish the lives of children of all species/races and show preference to saving children in danger over desecrating the dead.

I can't remember very clearly, but other than potential psychological harm to onlookers I don't think Stormwings ever go out of their way to do physical harm to others (except for maybe the crows in the Trickster series, but the crows are constantly harrying them).

[123456789blaaa]

You've introduced a new word in the thread title: "inherent". It's worth noting what that implies.

"Inherent" means "born". The creature is either evil from (or before) the moment it emerges from its parent/egg/birthing pool/pod/chrysalis/whatever, or something about its individual biology means that it will inevitably act in an evil fashion.

There are two examples I like to bring up in these discussions. One is Ripley's Alien - it's an intelligent creature, which needs to rip its way out of a host body just to be born. Then it's surrounded by hostile, tasty creatures of the same species as the host it just devoured.

Is it evil? It seems harsh to apply such an adjective to a creature that's only a few hours old, has had no opportunity for moral (or any other, for that matter) education of any kind. Given time - a few years, maybe - it'd probably be possible to communicate with it and educate it, in the same way as a baby human. And yet the fact is - okay, the overwhelming preponderence of evidence is - that it will do as much harm as it possibly can, with absolutely no regard to the pain and damage it inflicts, unless it's stopped, and the only known way of stopping it is to kill it.

So, killing it - justifiable self-defence, or infanticide?

The second is D&D's own illithid. Here's a creature that's as far superior to humans, intellectually, as humans are to dogs or pigs. It can train and condition humans, much as humans do dogs. (The mechanics are different, but the basic idea isn't.) From the illithid's perspective, keeping a human slave is no different from how we see keeping a pet dog.

And yet (D&D tells us, categorically), these creatures and their society are Evil with a capital E.

Again: killing an illithid - let's assume it's an adult this time - justifiable self-defence, or genocide?

Now personally, I have no difficulty with either of these questions, because I reject a fundamental tenet of the D&D alignment system: all morality is relative. Morality is a luxury, it's something you can only apply to people/things that are weaker than you. We don't blame people for what they do when they're defending themselves, fighting an invading army or a tyrannical oppressor; it's what they do when the tables are turned, and someone else is helpless at their hands - that's when we start to get all self-righteous. Doctor Who doesn't hesitate about destroying daleks when they're invading some other planet, or imprisoning his friends - the only time he gets morally bent out of shape about it is when the whole dalek race is at his mercy.

So, all other things being equal, I am willing to kill both of the above examples because I'm a human - it would be downright stupid of me not to, unless I have some other way to reliably contain them.

That's not quite the same thing as saying that they're "inherently evil", because a predator/prey relationship isn't so morally loaded as that. But it's close enough.

If I were some hypothetical other creature, that could easily withstand the ravages of either one, then I'd be more tolerant and openminded - but I'm not. Either one is an imminent threat to me, my friends and my family, just by existing in anyplace where I can reach it. So I'm not going to leave it alone or let it go, any more than a nesting triceratops would "just live and let live" with a tyrannosaurus on the next hill.

A "new" word? I thought that was the whole point of the debate in the other thread? :smallconfused:

Anyways, good stuff. One thing though: Don't treat the alignment system as actually talking about morals. Instead, treat them as Cosmic Forces associated with certain aspects of reality. Thus one could be a morally good person depending on your philosophy but not actually aligned with the Cosmic Force called Good (though it would be pretty hard to be aligned with Evil while being morally a good person...). You avoid the dissonance caused by trying to treat Alignment as an actual moral system.


At least in the movies, I don't think there is any reason to think the xenomorphs are sapient. To wit:



Such creatures would not be sapient, because there is no reason for them to be. Apex predators do not need tool use. If they are incapable of empathy, they could not form social groups. Would have no need for language. No amount of animal-cunning such a creature might posses is not sufficient to make it a self-aware thinking being.

--------------

More generally, I think you need to first define what it means for a thing to be evil.

Considering the sheer breadth of fiction, I think you're making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily true. For example, maybe this tool-using, social group-forming, language-speaking apex predator was created by a god in-universe with magic. They can do all these things because magic.

[Coidzor]

well coming from a guy who has made an entire universe where no one was inherently evil aside from the literal Evil Incarnate himself, demons all looking DOWN upon him for literally being the worst thing imaginable and all in some way resolving to be BETTER than him- either more ambitious or more active in some way, because Evil Incarnate is so full of sin that he is Slothful to the extreme- and therefore all have little shades of virtue in them because its impossible for even them to be PURE evil, just evil enough to be near irredeemable, aside from a few edge cases who are trying to redeem themselves, and Evil Incarnate himself is AWARE that he is the evillest thing in the universe and is constant torment and pain because he KNOWS as a fundamental part of his nature that the entire rest of universe is morally better than him yet by his nature, is incapable of doing anything to change that, so he just goes with being an eternal Sloth in his despair...

Well. That's silly and boring of you.

Do you really think you're reaching across the 4th wall and delivering a take that to anyone by having Orcus depressed and hiding under his duvet (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrcusOnHisThrone)? :smallconfused:


yeah, I pretty much look down upon inherent evil. I like my orcs, dragons, trolls to be just as person-ish as everyone else, and the entire universe (which I call Omnigalaxia) is kind of made from me going "what if I took Dragon Slayers and examined the genocidal connotations inherent in them?" and how the dragons (called Draconarans) are pretty much in hiding and many ways near extinction, all because there was this one ruler who forged the draconarans into conquering empire that the rest of the universe decided to rebel against and basically overthrow, not for bad reasons mind you, but the dragon-slayers in question gone overboard and proceeded to exterminate them way past the point of them not being evil empire people anymore.....this stuff is complex.

but yeah, I basically created all that, because I found the ideas of them simplistic and not interesting, so I put my own twist on them and made them interesting in a way that I like.

I can't even tell if you're being serious here with a name like "Omnigalaxia" and invoking "call a dragon a 'Draconaran,' (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallARabbitASmeerp)" but I can definitely tell you that you haven't really conveyed it as complex.


The Wildmage Series touched on this a bit. It introduced a creature (called a Stormwing) that is sustained by the fear and suffering of humans. They also desecrated corpses for similar reasons. But beyond that, they could be quite pleasant, even heroic. They could also be incredibly nasty and evil, but it wasn't an inherent trait of the species.

Those don't even need to be evil to justify people spending time thinking up ways to kill them off. Rage against the heavens for being ***** enough to just troll humans for being human rather than having made humans better in the first place comes to mind. And if they're all the time going up to powerful people just to insult them, there'd be quite the profit motive as well.

[Forum Explorer]

"Free will" is always problematic as a concept. Does the Xenomorph or the Mindflayer have free will? Do I? How exactly would you test that?

If "free will" is a requirement for "evil", then "inherently evil" is a contradiction in terms. If something only becomes "evil" if you choose to do it, then obviously you can't be "born evil" (unless you somehow choose to be born, but that's a whole different can-o-worms).



Basically yeah, it's a contradiction.

Of course determining if something has free will is tricky. Basically can it make a choice between good and evil.

With choice being determined as the ability to choose one option of of two or more. So the best way to determine if a species has free will is a counter example. If you see a good mindflayer who lives off sheep brains, then that gives evidence that they have free will.

It doesn't even need to be a full lifestyle choice. It can be just an action taken by the creature, though that can be less clear then a full lifestyle.

[cobaltstarfire]

Those don't even need to be evil to justify people spending time thinking up ways to kill them off. Rage against the heavens for being ***** enough to just troll humans for being human rather than having made humans better in the first place comes to mind. And if they're all the time going up to powerful people just to insult them, there'd be quite the profit motive as well.


You might want to read some books in the Tortall series, as what you've said doesn't actually make sense within context of the universe.

[Lord Raziere]

Well. That's silly and boring of you.

Do you really think you're reaching across the 4th wall and delivering a take that to anyone by having Orcus depressed and hiding under his duvet (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrcusOnHisThrone)? :smallconfused:



I can't even tell if you're being serious here with a name like "Omnigalaxia" and invoking "call a dragon a 'Draconaran,' (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallARabbitASmeerp)" but I can definitely tell you that you haven't really conveyed it as complex.



:smallmad: I'm being completely serious. If this the first reaction to my works you have, I guess there is a reason I don't speak about it much to people like you. I'd correct you, but I having the sneaking suspicion that if I showed more you'd just reject it out of hand. how can I trust you to judge it fairly if this what you say of it?

[Cikomyr]

If we are talking fiction, I guess it's important to discuss our personal preferences of what we like to appear (or input, in the case of GMing). In my case, I know I like to avoid any so-called inherently "evil" species, except perhaps as the occasional "Seducing Devil" that is trying to corrupt the human/humanoid soul.

I prefer stories that deal with our inner evil. It's easy to reject evilness as a characteristic of the "other". It's less easy to know your ally and friend is the true monster.

[jseah]

veti:
IIRC, illithids reproduce by injecting a larva into a human brain and converting the human into a new illithid. Their only reproduction method is fatal parasitism.

Reproduction being what it is (essentially the one true biological driver), locking up all the illithids to prevent them from reproducing on humans or otherwise neutering their ability to inject larva is effectively committing genocide.

But hey, genocide isn't Always Bad.
Humans like to live too and you can't just give illithids human sacrifices to tide you over until you invent artificial gestation. So in this case, a war of extermination from the humans is inevitable. (illithids need humans for food, slaves and incubators and therefore cannot exterminate humans without also killing themselves)

[Forum Explorer]

Those don't even need to be evil to justify people spending time thinking up ways to kill them off. Rage against the heavens for being ***** enough to just troll humans for being human rather than having made humans better in the first place comes to mind. And if they're all the time going up to powerful people just to insult them, there'd be quite the profit motive as well.

Well in universe they were actually (originally) created by humans though the process is unknown. But overall it brings up a good point. You don't need for the enemies of the heroes to be evil, just for them to be opposed in a reasonable way.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by HamHam
Apex predators do not need tool use.

Demonstrably untrue, since chimpanzees are extremely successful predators (ask any colobus monkey) and also skilled tool-users.


Originally Posted by L. Raziere
how can I trust you to judge it fairly if this what you say of it?

The context and manner of presentation is important when it comes to sharing story concepts like this. You've presented two rambling, run-on sentences which are a solid paragraph apiece. It's honestly not realistic to expect, nay demand that others should be impressed.

[Forum Explorer]

Demonstrably untrue, since chimpanzees are extremely successful predators (ask any colobus monkey) and also skilled tool-users.


That's not what he said. He said they don't need tool use. Not that they can't use tools.

[Coidzor]

You might want to read some books in the Tortall series, as what you've said doesn't actually make sense within context of the universe.

Why? You haven't exactly sold it very well. :smalltongue: So far they've come across as a very poorly thought out exercise in creating an entire species of victim-blaming trolls whose sole redeeming quality is that they can't abide children being mistreated. But that's sort of tangential, really. And, as was said, I don't need to believe they're *evil* to want to smack them upside the head based upon what I have to go on.

[warty goblin]

The context and manner of presentation is important when it comes to sharing story concepts like this. You've presented two rambling, run-on sentences which are a solid paragraph apiece. It's honestly not realistic to expect, nay demand that others should be impressed.

Plus, judging it fairly is a very different thing than judging it favorably. Indeed I would argue that a fair judgement requires the possibility that the judge decides it's terrible. I just sat a seven hour exam for which I've been studying for the last two plus months, I have every expectation it'll be judged fairly. Which when it comes Section 3 problem 7 is really not a point in my favor, but I'm glad to have the chance to be judged.

[Coidzor]

That's not what he said. He said they don't need tool use. Not that they can't use tools.

So what is something if it's like an apex predator but occupies that position due to its tool use? Civilized? A sophont? :smallconfused:


If we are talking fiction, I guess it's important to discuss our personal preferences of what we like to appear (or input, in the case of GMing). In my case, I know I like to avoid any so-called inherently "evil" species, except perhaps as the occasional "Seducing Devil" that is trying to corrupt the human/humanoid soul.

I prefer stories that deal with our inner evil. It's easy to reject evilness as a characteristic of the "other". It's less easy to know your ally and friend is the true monster.

Ah, but if they're truly a monster, were they ever really your friend?

[HamHam]

Chimpanzees aren't really an apex predator. Admittedly I think quite a few things fit the technical definition that I wouldn't really count myself. But when you're talking about your tigers, your sharks, your xenomorphs, these things are already near perfect killing machines. Tool use is a crutch to make up for a lack of giant fangs and claws and what not. There's a reason sharks have changed comparatively little in millions of years.


Considering the sheer breadth of fiction, I think you're making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily true. For example, maybe this tool-using, social group-forming, language-speaking apex predator was created by a god in-universe with magic. They can do all these things because magic.

What's the point then? Something that divorced from reality is at best an allegorical tool. So what's the allegory?

[Forum Explorer]

So what is something if it's like an apex predator but occupies that position due to its tool use? Civilized? A sophont? :smallconfused:



An Apex Predator. You don't need to use tools to be the deadliest thing around, and you don't need to have your antagonist to be human like intelligent for it to be a threat to the protagonists.


Well that's what I thought his point was, but it looks like I'm wrong.

[Lord Raziere]

The context and manner of presentation is important when it comes to sharing story concepts like this. You've presented two rambling, run-on sentences which are a solid paragraph apiece. It's honestly not realistic to expect, nay demand that others should be impressed.

....I'm honestly leaving this discussion before I get anymore stressed. this is too much for me.

[Kitten Champion]

Considering the sheer breadth of fiction, I think you're making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily true. For example, maybe this tool-using, social group-forming, language-speaking apex predator was created by a god in-universe with magic. They can do all these things because magic.

Yeah, Yoshihiro Togashi did this exact thing in the Chimera Ant arc of Hunter X Hunter. Although the Chimera Ants achieved sapience due to being capable of mutating aspects of creatures they've eaten into their offspring, and by slaughtering and consuming countless humans they've developed a certain degree of humanity which makes them much more terrifying.

Actually, the whole overarching theme of that arc is precisely what this thread is discussing. As the question of what Evil is is considered by the nominal BBEG, the King of the Ants himself, as his consciousness and understanding of reality grows.

The conclusions the arc comes to... are varied and interesting.

[hamishspence]

Well in universe they were actually (originally) created by humans though the process is unknown.

Daine's talking it over with a Stormwing, in book 4 Realms of the Gods- and it went along the lines of

"Immortals are supposed to be created from the dreams of mortals. Now I can imagine mortals dreaming up winged horses and centaurs. Even dreaming of evil versions makes sense. But (no offense meant) how could anyone dream up a Stormwing?"

"Ages ago, a mortal, sickened by war, wished for a creature that would make it clear just how horrible war is. She dreamed the first Stormwing."

[SiuiS]

Oh, I agree absolutely. That's why I don't actually like the alignment system at all. I don't want to kill Xenomorphs or Mindflayers because they're evil - I want to kill them for the same reason as I'd want to kill a smallpox virus, because they're threats to me and everything I care about. "Good" or "evil" - really, why does it matter?


Sort of a tangential quibble, but that's not a problem with the alignment system, that's a problem with people misunderstanding and misapplying it because of the terms used.

Alignment was literally which side you were aligned with. In D&D history, you were literally choosing sides, either the good side, the evil side, or the neutral side. Like, literaly. That's even where alignment language came from, and the drow; the entirety of the metasetting chose either good or evil or "yeah, screw this", and fought for centuries. It took so long that by the end of it, the sides began to fracture into minifactions, based on lawful or chaotic approach, so long that universal languages sprang up around them. The war finally ended when some of the good side wanted to continue because they were winning, andf some of the good side were understandably plussed at the genocide.

This is why all the subterranean monsters are below the ground in the dark places, why they are so few. T,is is the war where gruumsh lost his eye, where Lloth betrayed the elves and took the defectors with her, cursed with skin stained by their hearts. This is why when trolls and orcs and hobgoblins come from deep in the darkest reaches, they bring cleavers and chains and sacks for with which to capture. Because for them, the war never ended, and they weren't human in the first place. The orcs are literally anthropomorphized complex hatred, they are the aggression of a god that was so potent they grew bodies to act themselves out in reality instead of as impulses. The drow are the losers of a civil war, charmed by a demon goddess and who have had millenia to come to terms and instead choose to be pissy and just act out guerrilla aggression against the winning surface races. Demons and devils are not sapient beings, they are manifestations of malice and sin which actively propagate memetically through the cosmos on an energy level.

Alignment reflects this very well, and folds morality into it partially because there is a venn-daigram of creatures for whom alignment is a moral question and for whom alignment is about which side you choose, and only the victors, the surface races, have enough freedom to pick their side based on moral proclivity.

Alignment is who you align yourself with on a comsic scale in a war that still simmers. It's only silly when you get into "is nipple rings lawful or chaos???/?".

[Kalmageddon]

Such creatures would not be sapient, because there is no reason for them to be. Apex predators do not need tool use. If they are incapable of empathy, they could not form social groups. Would have no need for language. No amount of animal-cunning such a creature might posses is not sufficient to make it a self-aware thinking being.

You have absolutely no way of proving this.
You are also equating sapience with the ability to form social groups. I'd like to point out that octopuses are tool users and a very good candidate to be considered sapient or at least being able to potentially evolve sapience at some point in the future and are both predators (though not all of them are apex ones) and solitary animals.
They also don't feel any emotion whatsoever, at least based on our understanding of what emotions are from a neurochemical point of view.

You are just assuming that another sapient creature must mirror our intellect in every way, which is both short sighted and disinformed.

[Kato]

Isn't this one of those topic that comes up every year or so? And in the end we get all philosophical and it either ends in a huge argument - as is normal for discussions on the internet - or - since the playground is on average filled with much better people than the majority of the internet - we agree to disagree.

I... really feel unable to comment on this without writing an essay on the nature of good and evil and if we all did this we'd spend the rest of the week reading each other's essays. It's complicated and in the end it's personal taste or just the willingness to differentiate between real life and fiction.

[Aotrs Commander]

While to some extent I agree with Forum Explorer that evil is a choice...

There also comes a point where, given that not all things think like humans think, in the variety of nonhuman thinking, there comes a point where you can have a creature that inherently - perhaps even so subconsciously - does not WANT to make other than that choice.

And vice versa - for without the capablity of inherent evil there is no capability of inherent good.

If you decide that nothing can be worse than humans and thus nothing can be better than humans you are tacitly making humans the pinnicle of sentience/sapience; because everything is then humans, sometimes wearing a funny hat. And the idea that nothing can be better than humans is not only astoudingly humanocentric but depressing because it means Reality will never get any better.

(And for a lot of people, we're already at the point where this is in effect not even on a species, but personal level; characters like Superman can no longer be treated as something greater, grander and more noble to aspire to; they have to made more flawed, more "human" because people these days just do NOT want to consider that someone else might be able to a better person than them because that might guilt them into actually having to try to improve.)

[hamishspence]

I'd like to point out that octopuses are tool users and a very good candidate to be considered sapient or at least being able to potentially evolve sapience at some point in the future and are both predators (though not all of them are apex ones) and solitary animals.
They also don't feel any emotion whatsoever, at least based on our understanding of what emotions are from a neurochemical point of view.

Don't octopi change color when "angry" or "afraid" etc?

[cobaltstarfire]

Why? You haven't exactly sold it very well. :smalltongue: So far they've come across as a very poorly thought out exercise in creating an entire species of victim-blaming trolls whose sole redeeming quality is that they can't abide children being mistreated. But that's sort of tangential, really. And, as was said, I don't need to believe they're *evil* to want to smack them upside the head based upon what I have to go on.

I'm not trying to "sell" the book to you, and I'm certainly not the sort who is able to tell people about things in a way that is any good. And I'm not really that interested in trying cause you're coming off a little rude.


Either way stormwings don't "victim blame" they desecrate the dead, say nasty things to the instigators, and that's about it.

[Cikomyr]

Ah, but if they're truly a monster, were they ever really your friend?

Off course they were. But that is not the question. You should ask if I was ever THEIR friend.

And, off course, if you ever find out the truth about the nature of that friend, is dealing with them (aka kill them?) Just making you closer to them? Can you truly kill the monster you called "friend" without becoming the monster yourself?

[jseah]

Isn't this one of those topic that comes up every year or so? And in the end we get all philosophical and it either ends in a huge argument - as is normal for discussions on the internet - or - since the playground is on average filled with much better people than the majority of the internet - we agree to disagree.

I... really feel unable to comment on this without writing an essay on the nature of good and evil and if we all did this we'd spend the rest of the week reading each other's essays. It's complicated and in the end it's personal taste or just the willingness to differentiate between real life and fiction.
Why not? Reading essays written by amateur philosophers is fun! That's why we have forum discussions no? =D

I say we make this more fun and write competing fanfiction on moral issues.

And...

While to some extent I agree with Forum Explorer that evil is a choice...

There also comes a point where, given that not all things think like humans think, in the variety of nonhuman thinking, there comes a point where you can have a creature that inherently - perhaps even so subconsciously - does not WANT to make other than that choice.

And vice versa - for without the capablity of inherent evil there is no capability of inherent good.
... look, we have a plot hook already! /joke

More seriously, choosing between good and evil is not necessarily objective. Who's to say that an alien intelligence might not have a different view as to what choice to make? A hivemind intelligence might find it hard to view freedom as a good thing and inadvertently enslave humans to its will without considering whether it is wrong to do so or not.

[GolemsVoice]

In games like D&D, yes, there ARE factions which are inherently evil, often because they were literally made by somebody to BE evil, or they just can't help themselves. Are all of these races truly sapient-evil, in the sense that they can choose NOT to be evil? Maybe not. Will they skin you alive, burn your city and turn your remains into an undead warrior to further their conquest? Absolutely yes.

So if the question is purely philosophical, a demon is maybe less evil than a ruler who abuses his power to torture innocents. However, 99.99% of demons will work to your painful destruction, while the same isn't true of 99.99% of all elves, dwarves or humans.

So are they evil, in a philosophical sense? Maybe not. Are they in any form compatible with other life if these races had their way? No.


So yeah, I have no problem with "always evil" creatures, especially since fantasy is exactly that - fantasy, making up stuff that cannot exist in the real world. If I created a race that had no sense of self, instead seeing themselves as an extension of one central will, nobody would bat an eye. If I made a race that is always evil, people would call it unrealistic and bad storytelling. I'm not buying that.

Now, that being said, yes, always evil CAN have some strange connotations in light of real world events. However, that's the author's failing, not the creature's.

[Cikomyr]

"evil" implies a morality judgement that is removed from the equation when you add "always" to it, in my opinion.

You could qualify something as "always hostile" (ex: predator to preys), but it wouldn't necessarily qualify them as "evil".

Evil is a sweet label to use when one has to build up the resolve to resort to violence.

[HamHam]

You have absolutely no way of proving this.
You are also equating sapience with the ability to form social groups. I'd like to point out that octopuses are tool users and a very good candidate to be considered sapient or at least being able to potentially evolve sapience at some point in the future and are both predators (though not all of them are apex ones) and solitary animals.
They also don't feel any emotion whatsoever, at least based on our understanding of what emotions are from a neurochemical point of view.

You are just assuming that another sapient creature must mirror our intellect in every way, which is both short sighted and disinformed.

What do we really mean by sapient. Because I'm approaching it from the idea of things we could understand as "persons" as opposed to "animals". I think language is an inherent requirement for that. Not just because if we cannot communicate, we cannot actually determine if the other is a person, but also because I think there is good reason to think that language is necessary for abstract thought.

A species without complex social interaction has no reason to develop, and thus will not develop, the capacity for language.

[SiuiS]

Isn't this one of those topic that comes up every year or so? And in the end we get all philosophical and it either ends in a huge argument - as is normal for discussions on the internet - or - since the playground is on average filled with much better people than the majority of the internet - we agree to disagree.

I... really feel unable to comment on this without writing an essay on the nature of good and evil and if we all did this we'd spend the rest of the week reading each other's essays. It's complicated and in the end it's personal taste or just the willingness to differentiate between real life and fiction.

The question is really about two factions, one saying do it right, always, don't deviate, and one saying it's okay to change it up to suit the story. I believe the correct answer is that there are many correct answers based on the story at hand. Much like the correct answer for a math problem is sometimes just distillery it to a shorter math problem, the answer to a philosophical question such as this cannot always arrive at a whole number. Sometimes the answer is 'this equation is used based on circumstances' and that is as far as you can get.


While to some extent I agree with Forum Explorer that evil is a choice...

There also comes a point where, given that not all things think like humans think, in the variety of nonhuman thinking, there comes a point where you can have a creature that inherently - perhaps even so subconsciously - does not WANT to make other than that choice.


Aye. It's worth remembering what evil is. Evil is, fundamentally, against human morality. For a nonhuman it's a useless concept. A normal, morally upright, say, lich, can easily be evil by human standards. This is becauE, while it's possible for evil to be objective, it's not possible for it not to be arbitrary.

The aforementioned Stormwing is evil. Not because it actively decided to be wicked, but because it can only and must always do wicked things – it just can do civil things elsewhen. This is more a comment on the limits of the label "evil" than it is about the inherent moral value of the Stormwing.

Much like sanity, I find.


"evil" implies a morality judgement that is removed from the equation when you add "always" to it, in my opinion.

I disagree. See above. A demon is always evil. This is becauE a demon will always do things which fit evil.
Alternately, at this level, a demon is evil in the other sense of "is". In the "demon is evil = evil is demon" sense.

[Cikomyr]

I disagree. See above. A demon is always evil. This is becauE a demon will always do things which fit evil.
Alternately, at this level, a demon is evil in the other sense of "is". In the "demon is evil = evil is demon" sense.

But does a demon have the choice? How can they know what evil is, if they have no knowledge of the alternative? Is it truly evil if they have no concept of other options?

Can they be redeemed?

[Forum Explorer]

While to some extent I agree with Forum Explorer that evil is a choice...

There also comes a point where, given that not all things think like humans think, in the variety of nonhuman thinking, there comes a point where you can have a creature that inherently - perhaps even so subconsciously - does not WANT to make other than that choice.

And vice versa - for without the capablity of inherent evil there is no capability of inherent good.

If you decide that nothing can be worse than humans and thus nothing can be better than humans you are tacitly making humans the pinnicle of sentience/sapience; because everything is then humans, sometimes wearing a funny hat. And the idea that nothing can be better than humans is not only astoudingly humanocentric but depressing because it means Reality will never get any better.

(And for a lot of people, we're already at the point where this is in effect not even on a species, but personal level; characters like Superman can no longer be treated as something greater, grander and more noble to aspire to; they have to made more flawed, more "human" because people these days just do NOT want to consider that someone else might be able to a better person than them because that might guilt them into actually having to try to improve.)

Yes, I'd say there isn't any inherent good things either.


Now that isn't something I'm saying at all. A species can have an upward trend in that it routinely does better then humans in everything, or it could routinely do worse. The important thing is that it's a choice on the part of that species. They can choose evil, they just don't. Or they might live in an environment where there is greater pressure to not do certain evil acts. That doesn't make them incapable of those acts, it just makes that choice more disadvantageous.




More seriously, choosing between good and evil is not necessarily objective. Who's to say that an alien intelligence might not have a different view as to what choice to make? A hivemind intelligence might find it hard to view freedom as a good thing and inadvertently enslave humans to its will without considering whether it is wrong to do so or not.

That's another reason why I think free will is necessary for good or evil. Because good and evil are subjective and without the ability to do something differently you'll end up with the opposite result from the same action.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by hamishspence
Don't octopi change color when "angry" or "afraid" etc?

Octopi can change colors to express moods, indeed, as well as to camouflage themselves.

But it's cuttlefish which are the true masters of emotional coloration--they can create remarkably subtle and complex patterns, not simply static but flashing and rippling as well, which convey social and emotional meaning we can barely understand.

There's a fantastic program on NOVA which looks at cuttlefish in some detail (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/kings-of-camouflage.html), and which also discusses their intelligence and emotional potential. As one of the researchers says in the program, cuttlefish are probably the closest we'll be able to get to studying an alien intelligence on our own world.

[veti]

Of course determining if something has free will is tricky. Basically can it make a choice between good and evil.

With choice being determined as the ability to choose one option of of two or more. So the best way to determine if a species has free will is a counter example. If you see a good mindflayer who lives off sheep brains, then that gives evidence that they have free will.

OK, so if:
1. Mindflayer reproduction must necessarily involve torturing a human,
2. Torturing a human is something that can only be done by an evil thing, and
3. Mindflayers share the same level of drive as humans to reproduce

... then most mindflayers can't really be said to be freewilled, no matter how intelligent they are?

Conversely: the first time I ever generated a D&D character, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what I wanted to do. My brother, who was introducing the game to me, suggested I roll a D10 for alignment. So... did that D10 have free will?

In case you hadn't guessed yet, I think the "free will" stipulation is - unhelpful and distracting. If I'm being attacked by a lion, I'm not going to stand around wondering whether it's acting out of instinct to protect its territory or family, or whether it's just in a surly mood today - the important thing is that I'm being attacked by a freakin' lion.

[Coidzor]

I'm not trying to "sell" the book to you, and I'm certainly not the sort who is able to tell people about things in a way that is any good. And I'm not really that interested in trying cause you're coming off a little rude.

Either way stormwings don't "victim blame" they desecrate the dead, say nasty things to the instigators, and that's about it.

Well, why should I care about the feelings of an author who'll never come to this corner of the internet when conveying what I've interpreted of what has been said so far? :smallconfused:

So they don't go up and troll the people who are defending their families by fighting for their homes, just the marauding hordes that go around pillaging and plundering then? That's less victim-blamey than going up to a bunch of militia and gloating about how they're going to desecrate their corpses for having the audacity to not want to be killed and enslaved as I had originally interpreted what was said.


Off course they were. But that is not the question. You should ask if I was ever THEIR friend.

And, off course, if you ever find out the truth about the nature of that friend, is dealing with them (aka kill them?) Just making you closer to them? Can you truly kill the monster you called "friend" without becoming the monster yourself?

So monsters are capable of friendship, but now you're talking about retroactively rescinding friendship with monsteren? :smallconfused:

As far as fighting monsters, I think it depends upon whether you believe Nietzche about whether he who fights monsters becomes a monster.

[jseah]

That's another reason why I think free will is necessary for good or evil. Because good and evil are subjective and without the ability to do something differently you'll end up with the opposite result from the same action.
Let's say the Hive doesn't HAVE to assimilate humans. They could just leave the humans free.

But it never occurs to the Hive that not letting the humans run free is evil. Because to the Hive, the union of minds is its only true communication method (indeed, one far superior to human flapping of meat), and besides free-roaming agents without recourse to the group knowledge/skill pool? So inefficient, how could anyone get anything done? =P

[Forum Explorer]

Aye. It's worth remembering what evil is. Evil is, fundamentally, against human morality. For a nonhuman it's a useless concept. A normal, morally upright, say, lich, can easily be evil by human standards. This is becauE, while it's possible for evil to be objective, it's not possible for it not to be arbitrary.

The aforementioned Stormwing is evil. Not because it actively decided to be wicked, but because it can only and must always do wicked things – it just can do civil things elsewhen. This is more a comment on the limits of the label "evil" than it is about the inherent moral value of the Stormwing.

Much like sanity, I find.



I find that when it comes to philosophy definitions like that tend to get thrown out of the window pretty quickly.



OK, so if:
1. Mindflayer reproduction must necessarily involve torturing a human,
2. Torturing a human is something that can only be done by an evil thing, and
3. Mindflayers share the same level of drive as humans to reproduce

... then most mindflayers can't really be said to be freewilled, no matter how intelligent they are?

Conversely: the first time I ever generated a D&D character, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what I wanted to do. My brother, who was introducing the game to me, suggested I roll a D10 for alignment. So... did that D10 have free will?

In case you hadn't guessed yet, I think the "free will" stipulation is - unhelpful and distracting. If I'm being attacked by a lion, I'm not going to stand around wondering whether it's acting out of instinct to protect its territory or family, or whether it's just in a surly mood today - the important thing is that I'm being attacked by a freakin' lion.

Say rather they can't be said to be freewilled in terms of their reproduction. There are many other aspects of life that a being can make moral choices in.


Let's say the Hive doesn't HAVE to assimilate humans. They could just leave the humans free.

But it never occurs to the Hive that not letting the humans run free is evil. Because to the Hive, the union of minds is its only true communication method (indeed, one far superior to human flapping of meat), and besides free-roaming agents without recourse to the group knowledge/skill pool? So inefficient, how could anyone get anything done? =P

Now that raises an interesting question of a different sort. Can you commit evil unintentionally?

I'd say yes.

However there are two types of accidental harm,

Example 1: If I fed someone peanut butter and they happened to be deadly allergic to peanuts and died, well did I commit a sin there? I'd argue that I did not.

Example 2: If I kidnapped someone from Africa and dragged home and taught them to live in my society, well that would be a sin by my standards.

Busy, so I'll explain why later.

[Cikomyr]

So monsters are capable of friendship, but now you're talking about retroactively rescinding friendship with monsteren? :smallconfused:

As far as fighting monsters, I think it depends upon whether you believe Nietzche about whether he who fights monsters becomes a monster.

Nah, you confused my post. I meant to say that while YOU may feel a monster is your friend, he may never feel the same toward you.

So.. tell me. Is he your friend? Is friendship in the eye of the beholder, or an actual bond that ties two people together?


And it's less about "fighting monsters". It's about rejecting your better part. It's about violating the best sentiments in you.

[GolemsVoice]

Obviously he's NOT your friend, as I define "not wanting to actively cause harm to the other person" as an essential part of friendship. I'm not sure where you are going with this.

Maybe I think he was my friend, but he wasn't, if he planned to betray me. I'm not exactly sure what's ambigous about that.

[SiuiS]

But does a demon have the choice? How can they know what evil is, if they have no knowledge of the alternative? Is it truly evil if they have no concept of other options?

Can they be redeemed?

Not relevant. Not relevant. Yes. Technically, no. Or more accurately, mu.

The hallmark of spiritual manifestations is that they are thoughts, not that they have thoughts. It's complicated and touches on details beyond forum remit, but essentially the only, literal, difference between a demon and an angel is whether they are good or evil. A spiritual manifestation is either one or the other. They don't get shades. A demon who is redeemed is no longer a demon, they utterly shift in demeanor and form.

So no, good demons don't exist. It's trite and a technicality and utterly anthropocentric but that's the unfortunate result of having the definitions written by a single species based solely on how things relate to them.


OK, so if:
1. Mindflayer reproduction must necessarily involve torturing a human,
2. Torturing a human is something that can only be done by an evil thing, and
3. Mindflayers share the same level of drive as humans to reproduce

... then most mindflayers can't really be said to be freewilled, no matter how intelligent they are?

False. Human drive to procreate can be sublimated to choice. Ergo, mindflayers drive t procreate can be sublimated.


I find that when it comes to philosophy definitions like that tend to get thrown out of the window pretty quickly.


Of course. Take a venue that doesn't want a clear answer nearly as much as it wants an interesting discussion, and add in people who believe solely in binary thought, and that's what you get.

[jseah]

False. Human drive to procreate can be sublimated to choice. Ergo, mindflayers drive t procreate can be sublimated.
This is not necessarily true. Mindflayers are non-human. Generalizing from humans to them is dangerous.

[Forum Explorer]

Of course. Take a venue that doesn't want a clear answer nearly as much as it wants an interesting discussion, and add in people who believe solely in binary thought, and that's what you get.

I'll admit to the first, but I don't know why you'd think philosophers are prone to believe in binary thought.

Anyways if you want to get really technical about the definitions, then evil refers only to immorality in humans. Check it out these definitions a google search got me.

Evil: profoundly immoral and malevolent

immoral: Not conforming to accepted standards of morality

Malevolent: having or showing a wish to do evil to others.

Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.


Which kinda makes sense because realistically we only hold humans to our moral standards. It's rare these days for someone to call an animal evil.

[SiuiS]

This is not necessarily true. Mindflayers are non-human. Generalizing from humans to them is dangerous.

Not when the post I am replying to is literally setting the standard ad 'mindflayers come from humans, mind flayers have the human procreative drive' it's not. It is, in fact, necessary for that conversational thread. ;)


I'll admit to the first, but I don't know why you'd think philosophers are prone to believe in binary thought.

I don't know why you think a forum full of people debating alignment are philosophers. :P


Anyways if you want to get really technical

Nope. I value discussion wherein the existence of edge cases doesn't undermine statistically probable events and where a book designed to help spread understanding becomes some form of semantic law is not a thing.

If you can use your understanding of the topic for it, cool! But if we have to sart dissectig words and uses of words in certain configurations to arrive at a technically precise version of what's already been said, that's mental self-pleasure. Not interested.

[Coidzor]

Nah, you confused my post. I meant to say that while YOU may feel a monster is your friend, he may never feel the same toward you.

So.. tell me. Is he your friend? Is friendship in the eye of the beholder, or an actual bond that ties two people together?

And it's less about "fighting monsters". It's about rejecting your better part. It's about violating the best sentiments in you.

Oh, ok, that makes more sense that way around, I suppose.

Mostly it's the latter. So, if the monstern is not capable of the friendship, then there was no friendship, only the illusion of one and probable duplicity by the monstern to encourage the belief that there was a friendship.

A sense of betrayal helps that immensely. "I thought we were friends, turns out it was just a horrible monster manipulating me, presumably for some foul end involving my harm, so, predictably, we had a life-and-death struggle" doesn't exactly make for much in the way of violating the best in one's self.

[Forum Explorer]

I don't know why you think a forum full of people debating alignment are philosophers. :P



Nope. I value discussion wherein the existence of edge cases doesn't undermine statistically probable events and where a book designed to help spread understanding becomes some form of semantic law is not a thing.

If you can use your understanding of the topic for it, cool! But if we have to sart dissectig words and uses of words in certain configurations to arrive at a technically precise version of what's already been said, that's mental self-pleasure. Not interested.

Er, are you being sarcastic? I really can't tell. In any case I've likely misunderstood what you were getting at with the whole binary thought comment.


That's why it's proper procedure in these cases to define the key words your argument is based around. Which none of us have done. :smallredface:

Anyways, since I basically define evil as willingly making the morally incorrect choice, I also inherently link it to free will, since you have to first be able to make a choice. Therefore by my definition of evil, there can be no inherently evil creatures.

[jseah]

Er, are you being sarcastic? I really can't tell. In any case I've likely misunderstood what you were getting at with the whole binary thought comment.


That's why it's proper procedure in these cases to define the key words your argument is based around. Which none of us have done. :smallredface:

Anyways, since I basically define evil as willingly making the morally incorrect choice, I also inherently link it to free will, since you have to first be able to make a choice. Therefore by my definition of evil, there can be no inherently evil creatures.So let's say we have creatures that are hostile to humans and want to eat them.

If they could just not eat the humans, then they have a choice and can be labeled Forum Explorer:Evil.

On the other hand, if they never had the choice (let's say it is about as automatic as pain aversion is in humans), then they don't have a choice and do not qualify for FE:Evil. On the other hand, someone else might define evil as "being nasty to humans" and label them Someone Else:Evil.

Alright, where were you going again with that?


PS: Still waiting for your elaboration on accidental harm (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17781862&postcount=45).

[SiuiS]

Er, are you being sarcastic? I really can't tell. In any case I've likely misunderstood what you were getting at with the whole binary thought comment.


Binary meaning it's either one thing or another, it cannot be muiple hong a at once or different thigs in different contexts. That is, an answer is only right when it's right 100% of the time in all situations. Which is frankly dumb.


That's why it's proper procedure in these cases to define the key words your argument is based around. Which none of us have done. :smallredface:

I dunno, I think my loosey goosey explanation worked.


Anyways, since I basically define evil as willingly making the morally incorrect choice, I also inherently link it to free will, since you have to first be able to make a choice. Therefore by my definition of evil, there can be no inherently evil creatures.

But if "moral" is a human construct then choosing to so the immoral thing is still choosing to so the thig humans don't like. That's sort of the point I was making; there is no way to separate morality from humanity without watering it down so bad it's not relevant to anything.

So we have to stop. We have to pick a point where we say "this is sufficient even if there are holes in it". And we make this choice based on our needs. For some stories, orcs are Jerks who decide that being lazy and evil and stuff is what they want. In some stories, orcs are just the rage of long lost gods given limbs and cleavers. Sometimes evil is moral and subjective. Sometimes evil is moral and objective. Sometimes evil is a team name that stuck based on methods.

Can inherent evil exist? Yes, because evil only exists in abstract at all, and it is nothing but a frame of reference. Does inherent evil exist? It depends on what my needs are for framing something to transmit data to you.

Really, instead of playing this weird balancing game, where we want to use philosophy to teach people to have definite moral standards but not become weirdly taboo-ridden cliques, and we balance that with wantig people to be accountable for their actions but also not able to just say it's not immoral because they decide their own morality... I would rather teach people the limitations of slapping a name tag on something and calling it done.

Calling something evil is not an observation. It is a means to an end.

[Forum Explorer]

So let's say we have creatures that are hostile to humans and want to eat them.

If they could just not eat the humans, then they have a choice and can be labeled Forum Explorer:Evil.

On the other hand, if they never had the choice (let's say it is about as automatic as pain aversion is in humans), then they don't have a choice and do not qualify for FE:Evil. On the other hand, someone else might define evil as "being nasty to humans" and label them Someone Else:Evil.

Alright, where were you going again with that?


PS: Still waiting for your elaboration on accidental harm (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17781862&postcount=45).

Oh I was just restating my point of view with clearer definitions. I feel it's important to state your point of view as clearly as possible in these sort of conversations.


Alright, so accidental harm.

There are a few differences between my examples,

First one is consent. I'm not forcing the person to eat the peanut butter. They share in the responsibility of the event. In the second example, the person I'm 'saving' isn't being given a choice in the matter. Therefore the responsibility is entirely mine.

Second difference is who bears the burden of knowledge. If you are at risk from something, you should tell people. Particularly if it's not something that a person could see at a glance. Similarly, if I'm taking the action without the consent of the person I'm doing it to, then the burden of knowledge is on me. I should know what I'm doing before I attempt to help someone.

Third difference is degree of effort. Food preparation, or better yet, sharing food, is something that happens nearly daily and requires a minimal amount of effort. Any accident that occurs is something that happens without much if any forethought. Displacing someone from their home, requires much more effort, planning, and thought. The harm tends to be much less accidental and much more because I was incorrect on what the consequences of my actions would be.

[jseah]

I went back to read a few posts. What was your definition "morally incorrect" again?
Going by your quotes, you seem to define it in terms of human behaviour. So for non-humans (back to the Hivemind), does the same standards apply?


Whatever the answer, it seems like what Siuis would define as "inherent evil" would be a species with impulses that are fundamentally incompatible with a human moral framework. They may not be FE:Evil but Siuis:Inherent Evil they may be.

Then again, that's all just words. Are you making the claim then that Siuis:Inherent Evil should not carry the moral weight he assigns to it? (assuming I have been correct so far)

//Replace Siuis with jseah if you want (although my definition is different)

[Kitten Champion]

The moral perimeters of the fictional universe are determined by the author of that specific work. It's up to the reader to agree or disagree with those perception, and that's rightly going to influence their view of the work. To me, that's the issue. "Inherently evil" or "Inherently good" characters either conform to your personal worldview or bother you in their value's dissonance, but in either case that's pretty much the end of their development.

The Federation and humanity in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek is most often depicted as inherently good, and his purpose for that is to use them as his proxy to soap-box moralize on. Which really is particularly aggravating when they start coming off as smugly superior, self-righteous creeps who chastise the moral failings of others all the live-long day -- not because the characters actually are supposed to be, generally, but because that's what the writers are doing with them, and they're fallible just like me. Even when I agree with them, which to be honest is relatively frequent, I'd prefer people think about the issue themselves and draw their own conclusions rather than having supposedly utopic humans tell their audience what's right through a blow-horn of self-defined moral authority.

The inherently evil characters from, say, an average Stephen King novel are just stand-ins for his own personal prejudices... and its pretty transparent. His utterly unsympathetic and nihilistic *******s are such obvious representations of his personal issues that they just feel absurd. Evil fantasy races rarely even get that mud-puddle level of depth, and the ones that do like Salvatore's Dark Elves, are deeply confusing.

Neither give me the opportunity to think, and neither really develop as a result of their actions, they just sort of are because the author needs them to be... it's boring.

Now, you might just need a villain to fight, and the story is about the protagonist(s) facing his/her/their own issues, in which case I don't mind. Something should be there to provoke some kind of thought, or it's completely disposable... which, fine, it is.

[Kalmageddon]

Don't octopi change color when "angry" or "afraid" etc?

No, same deal for cuttlefish. This is yet more disinformation.
They change colour to communicate. They might try to confuse or scare a predator or attract a mate with a bright display of colours, but this is not an expression of emotion. Neurochemically an octopus's brain is unchanged when they are resting or when they are mating or even when they are running from a predator.
They do not express emotions because they don't have any. Communication is not dependant on the ability to feel an emotion, or your comuputer woulnd't be able to render this message on your screen right now. A cephalopod is undeniably intelligent and capable of communication, problem solving and tool use, yet it has no emotions as we understand them.

[hamishspence]

No, same deal for cuttlefish. This is yet more disinformation.
They change colour to communicate. They might try to confuse or scare a predator or attract a mate with a bright display of colours, but this is not an expression of emotion. Neurochemically an octopus's brain is unchanged when they are resting or when they are mating or even when they are running from a predator.
They do not express emotions because they don't have any.

Source for this?

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/2012/08/21/octopuses-gain-consciousness-according-to-scientists-declaration/

Even emotions (or, according to the declaration, their “neural substrates”) are not dependent on an animal having particular brain structures, such as our cortex, after all. In fact, many other neural regions are activated when we emote and “are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals,” the scientists noted.

That does not necessarily mean that you could have a distraught octopus or an elated cuttlefish on your hands. But this new, formalized conception of consciousness does suggest that the octopus has used its own, more foreign-looking brain to develop some sense of subjective experience.

[No brains]

The way I've felt comfortable seeing it is that Need is cause of 'evil'. I like the way that it meshes with the idea of 'morality as a luxury'.

Creatures usually commit evil acts that mark them as evil creatures to satisfy a need or to allow them to satisfy their needs in the future. When a creature does not have a need, evil acts become unnecessarily risky and so the creature will not commit them.

Consider if a person were a cannibal, they would probably not eat other people if they had as much food as they could store in their metabolism or other containers. They might even give some of their to-be eaten people away to hungry living people so that the cannibal could keep living people from eating them. Or just so they have someone to talk to. Although once the living people learn of how this cannibal thinks, the cannibal might find themselves killing for different reasons.

The big problem in applying this idea to a creature in fiction is that creatures need... needs... to be interesting characters. If something can so easily escape the urge to do anything, then problems with their motivations to do anything appear. So a creature that is inherently not evil can be made, but even that is a Pyrrhic literary victory because the logical idea is just uninteresting.

Another problem would be morality being a responsibility in addition to a luxury. I consider this to be a lesser problem because not everyone seems to agree on a creature with power's is responsibilities. If a creature had no needs by virtue of some omnipotent/scient/present nature, the very existence of evil by external creatures could be seen as evil on the part of the creature. The same thing could be seen as none of the creature's business.

One concept for an inherently evil creature would be something that is eternally hungry and constantly birthing other constantly hungry creatures. It will never have the power to satisfy its hunger or that of its children, so it cannot even consider doing the good it is obligated to do. I like to imagine this creature as something like a gibbering mouther that has smaller fractal mouthers radiating off of it, all biting at each other as soon as their teeth form. It might not have any measurable intelligence just sitting there eating its babies alive as they eat it, but eating your children alive is widely accepted as an evil act.

This was fun to rattle off. I hope it's useful. :smalltongue:

[Kalmageddon]

Source for this?

It was an article that speculated on how different alien intelligence might be and went into detail discussing how some of the things we take for granted in an intelligent being, like some particular emotions or even the presence of emotions at all, are not actually all that likely. On the last point the article described the octopus's brain chemistry and how it doesn't experience emotions as we understand them.
I'll see if I can find it if I have time, I remember getting to that article through multiple links on the subject.

[hamishspence]

It was an article that speculated on how different alien intelligence might be and went into detail discussing how some of the things we take for granted in an intelligent being, like some particular emotions or even the presence of emotions at all, are not actually all that likely. On the last point the article described the octopus's brain chemistry and how it doesn't experience emotions as we understand them.

I'm curious as to how scientific the claims actually are - since when I Google "octopus emotions" all I get are articles suggesting that they (and other cephalopods) are about the only invertebrates that there is evidence have something like emotions, personality, play behaviour, and so forth.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kalmageddon
They do not express emotions because they don't have any.... [they have] no emotions as we understand them.

The first part of your statement can't be proven, and it's certainly not something I've seen any support for. The second part clearly contradicts the first.

And as in the blog which hamish linked to, it's certainly reasonable to assume that cephalopods do, in fact, experience a whole range of emotions. Whether or not those are closely congruent to our own would be difficult to prove or disprove...but then, you could say the same about human emotions, especially as what we consider "universal" human emotions like grief are often mediated through very different cultures.

[Kalmageddon]

The first part of your statement can't be proven, and it's certainly not something I've seen any support for. The second part clearly contradicts the first.

It really doesn't.
I'm tired of this useless arguing, if you want to believe that everything that has a mind feels emotions, suit yourself. I won't be bothered discussing something which is already set in stone from your point of view.

[hamishspence]

It's just that the term "disinformation" for statements along the lines of "cuttlefish have emotions, some of which are expressed through colour change" - is an extraordinary one - and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Now, if you were to link to an article about a scientific paper that conclusively proved a complete absence of any kind of "emotional neurotransmitters" in cephalopods- one that's become widely accepted - that would be a starting point.

[Frozen_Feet]

Such creatures would not be sapient, because there is no reason for them to be. Apex predators do not need tool use. If they are incapable of empathy, they could not form social groups. Would have no need for language. No amount of animal-cunning such a creature might posses is not sufficient to make it a self-aware thinking being.
.

This paragraph is full of fail. Apex predator means the most succesful predator that inhabits the top of an ecosystem's food chain. In most places on Earth? That spot is taken up by humans.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kalmageddon
...set in stone from your point of view.

This phrase certainly fits the tone of your prior statements.

And hamishspence is correct that "disinformation" is an incredibly strong term to be using in this context--you're essentially accusing researchers of the deliberate spread of false information.

A link to a paper in JEB or something similar, along the lines of what hamishspence suggested, would also be useful here.

[HamHam]

This paragraph is full of fail. Apex predator means the most succesful predator that inhabits the top of an ecosystem's food chain. In most places on Earth? That spot is taken up by humans.

I think it actually requires you to have no predators. Stuff will still try to eat us, even though in practice we don't really have to worry about it.

[hamishspence]

Even apex predators can be predated on in infancy.

[Cikomyr]

Oh, ok, that makes more sense that way around, I suppose.

Mostly it's the latter. So, if the monstern is not capable of the friendship, then there was no friendship, only the illusion of one and probable duplicity by the monstern to encourage the belief that there was a friendship.

A sense of betrayal helps that immensely. "I thought we were friends, turns out it was just a horrible monster manipulating me, presumably for some foul end involving my harm, so, predictably, we had a life-and-death struggle" doesn't exactly make for much in the way of violating the best in one's self.

But what if the "horrible monster" was not manipulating you? What if he saw you as a genuine ally/partner and trusted you. He would not sacrifice himself for you, obviously, but he was somewhat straightforward and honest with you from the get-go.

It's just that his monstrous qualities were simply not applicable to you. What if he was a child rapist? Even if he never went up to you and promised you on your 20 years of partnership that "I am not a child rapist", were you to discover that part of him, would you see it as a betrayal?

And that's a scary part of human nature, in my opinion. this is why certain friends of found-out monster never give up on them.. because their better nature refuses to deny their better parts. Because to deny something so beautiful as friendship, you need to put a lot of effort into cutting off a beautiful part of you.

Who among us can casually cutoff a big part of what they consider to be their better side?


Not relevant. Not relevant. Yes. Technically, no. Or more accurately, mu.

Why?
Why?
Why so?
Why not?


The hallmark of spiritual manifestations is that they are thoughts, not that they have thoughts. It's complicated and touches on details beyond forum remit, but essentially the only, literal, difference between a demon and an angel is whether they are good or evil. A spiritual manifestation is either one or the other. They don't get shades. A demon who is redeemed is no longer a demon, they utterly shift in demeanor and form.

So no, good demons don't exist. It's trite and a technicality and utterly anthropocentric but that's the unfortunate result of having the definitions written by a single species based solely on how things relate to them.


Therefore, a Demon CAN be redeemed. He stops being a Demon, but his status is part of a choice. It's evilness that begets demon-ess, not Demon-ess that begets Evilness.

You become a Demon because you are Evil. You do not become Evil because you are a Demon, this is going back to my point: a Demon CAN be redeemed, he just stops being a Demon in the process. Therefore, we are going back to the power of "choice" in the possibility of good vs. evil.

Accepting that Angels and Demons is a fun but stupid book are a single "biological" entity separated only my their moral decisions, we need to have an overall name that designates that specific species/quality of being. From then on, you can separate them into sub-species of Angels and Demons. Let's call that specie "Spiritual Outsiders" (really have no better idea).

Well, from that point on, based on your assessment, Spiritual Outsiders have free-will and are not inherently good or evil. They gain qualities based on the moral decisions they make in their existence.

[No brains]

I don't want to derail the thread too far off topic, especially since the point is moot in a genre where humanoids could originate from gods rather than natural selection, but humans are apex predators specifically because of tool use. Before we changed to make the most of our tools we were still a few links down the food chain. We and our closest great ape cousins are outmatched by large cats and crocodiles. Our last evolutionary changes were the ones that both let become tool users and at the same time the apex predator on the planet (when we have time to arm before a fight).

That said, if a god were to create something like a worg/warg, then that could support Kalmageddons's point of view. Wolves are a social predator that co-operate not to build or gather but only to kill. Magically elevated to the level of humanoid intelligence, such a creature could certainly seem inherently evil because they do not have the option to do anything with their intelligence except find new and better ways to kill more and more prey. Without hands, they really can't create anything that marks a 'civilization' like art or buildings. Any art they would create would probably be complex songs, but there will be no evidence of them when they die attacking an adventurer who could only assume they were 'inherently evil'.

[veti]

False. Human drive to procreate can be sublimated to choice. Ergo, mindflayers drive t procreate can be sublimated.

I said, "most mindflayers". The human drive to procreate "can" be sublimated - by some people. But I gravely doubt that "most" humans are capable of that feat of will.

Hard to test, because presumably, if it was ever tried (successfully) on a society-wide scale, the evidence would promptly die out... The only case I know of where it's been tried at that level was the Shakers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers#Celibacy_and_children), and their experience suggests that a lot of people aren't able to sublimate that urge - they left.