[Golarion] iIs abortion evil?

[Frosty]

In the Inner Sea Gods book, Pharasma, the goddess of birth and death, considers abortion to be evil. Given that this is smack dab in her portfolio, how "universally applicable" is her view?

In pathfinder and DnD, good and evil are completely objective concepts yes? So would he tenets of the goddess of birth, death, fate, and judgement in the afterlife have any sway over where souls get sent in the afterlife?

For her followers, this is a clear cut case, but what about for followers of other deities who may have different views on abortion? Pharasma is supposed to be impartial, but she IS the final judge on where your soul goes based on your actions in life, and she personally believes the act to be evil.

I wonder if the deities themselves have arguments over this...

[ComaVision]

My ten foot pole and I are going to go prod less dangerous traps.

The Atropal is a giant god fetus and very evil though, just saying.

[Frosty]

My ten foot pole and I are going to go prod less dangerous traps.

The Atropal is a giant god fetus and very evil though, just saying.

My original thread title was going to be "Would a paladin fall for abortion" but I realized that bringing Paladins into the mix never makes a thing easier.

[OldTrees1]

In pathfinder and DnD, good and evil are completely objective concepts yes? So would he tenets of the goddess of birth, death, fate, and judgement in the afterlife have any sway over where souls get sent in the afterlife?

In pathfinder/D&D good and evil are objectively false (as in they are objective concepts that really exist but are provably self contradictory and thus false). WotC and later Pazio failed to be even self consistent (the lowest test of a moral theory) with regards to morality.

So let's presume the DM fixes the contradictions(or replaces it with a consistent objective morality).


Q1) Do the gods know the objective moral truth?
If 2 gods disagree about whether something is moral/immoral then that implies that the gods do not know the objective moral truth. Contrariwise if they do know the objective moral truth, then they probably would not disagree about it.


Personally I fall in the:
Gods do not know the objective moral truth, but they are very good with divination so disagreements are notable and usually more visible than the points of agreement.

[daremetoidareyo]

My original thread title was going to be "Would a paladin fall for abortion" but I realized that bringing Paladins into the mix never makes a thing easier.

A paladin of freedom wouldn't.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I wasn't gonna touch it either... But the OP made some decent points. Pharasma is N, so her views are sometimes less clear-cut than other gods. This strikes me as a Law vs Chaos debate, not good or evil.

[Frosty]

If gods knew the objective moral truth, then good deities would never come into conflict with each other yes? Cayden Caileen and Iomedae probably do not agree on what the most Good way to act is.

[WeaselGuy]

My ten foot pole and I are going to go prod less dangerous traps.

Best quote ever. Can I sig that?

With regards to the OP... I have no idea. If she weren't the "Judge of the Dead", so to say, I would say it falls under the purview of an individual's personal deity. I'm more familiar with the Forgotten Realms than I am with Golarion, so I'm not sure I can give a good answer to that...

[Frosty]

A paladin of freedom wouldn't.

This is pathfinder so there are no Paladins of Freedom. Also, even Paladins of Freedom can't commit evil acts, so it all circles back to whether killing an innocent in the womb counts as evil, which may depends on when the soul starts inhabiting the fetus?

[torrasque666]

Gonna follow Grandpa's example here....
http://i.imgur.com/XujHL.gif?noredirect

[ComaVision]

Best quote ever. Can I sig that?


I'd be honoured :smallcool:

[BowStreetRunner]

None of the views of any of the deities in D&D are universally applicable nor is there any objective moral truth that spans throughout the game regardless of setting. You not only cannot apply the views of one fictional deity to the rest of the game but you cannot even apply real world morals and belief systems. The only point of view that matters is the current DM's interpretation of each deity's perspective and what the player can convince the DM to be true.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I think that's when the magibabble would stake the importance, yes. Although, given the existence of pickled punks...

[FocusWolf413]

I wouldn't say it's an inherently evil act. That deity merely treats it as if it were. The god of art would revile the murder of a painter, the god of knowledge would cringe at the burning of a library, and the god of fertility and childbirth would be angered by abortions.

None of that means any of those actions are evil. That painter was painting with the crushed brains of orphans. That library was filled with nothing but descriptions of torture and how to summon demons. Delivering that unwanted fetus would have killed the mother.

That deity will punish it as if it were an evil action, but that doesn't make it Evil.

[Frosty]

I never asked about views that spanned across settings. I asked specifically about the official setting in Pathfinder: Golarion

[Frosty]

That deity will punish it as if it were an evil action, but that doesn't make it Evil. From the perspective of a soul to be judged, what is the functional difference?

[Segev]

Abortion really, really is too much a real-world issue which, sadly, is politicized and misrepresented to the point that the very real moral and ethical question is obscured and a lot of people answer the question in a truly horrifying way. A way that would, in my opinion, be a hallmark of a horrifically evil society in a fictional setting.

In the interests of NOT sparking an actual political debate here, I will not spell out what answer so horrifies me.




In your individual games...the universality of a given deity's proscription dictating an action's alignment is up to you.


To take it to slightly less controversial grounds: if there was a god of labor and leisure, and he declared slavery to be Evil, would that make it Evil, or him wrong? If there was a god of health and herbalism, and he declared recreational drugs (including everything from hallucinogenic mushrooms to tobacco to marijuana to alcohol) to be Evil, would that make it Evil, or make him wrong?

[OldTrees1]

I never asked about views that spanned across settings. I asked specifically about the official setting in Pathfinder: Golarion


If gods knew the objective moral truth, then good deities would never come into conflict with each other yes? Cayden Caileen and Iomedae probably do not agree on what the most Good way to act is.

That implies, at least in Golarion, that the Gods do not know the objective moral truth(although since Golarion is RAW, it has a self contradictory moral truth). Since they do not know the objective moral truth, all their statements about morality can be taken as personal opinions that they have the power to act upon.


From the perspective of a soul to be judged, what is the functional difference?

The difference being, a moral individual condemned to Hell is still a moral individual and still fulfilled their purpose(the "win condition" for realities with objective moral truths).

[Frosty]

Segev: the opinions of the deity of leisure is not as important because that deity doesn't get to pronounce where you go in the afterlife.

[Segev]

Segev: the opinions of the deity of leisure is not as important because that deity doesn't get to pronounce where you go in the afterlife.

If we're going with "goddess of death has exclusive and absolute judging authority" in a setting where she is thus tied to the laws of metaphysics...then yes, she must know whatever objective truth the setting establishes about what is good and what is evil. Or have a means of judging that puts aside her beliefs (and, being a goddess, she'd probably have long since shed any beliefs that were false, due to being able to tell when they contradicted her flawless judging system).

Therefore, for Golarion, she must not be wrong in her pronouncement that abortion is an evil act.

[Frosty]

Segev: then by logical extension, all Paladins would need to storm abortion clinics in Golarion and smite evil the workers there? Maybe arrest them for attempted murder?

[ComaVision]

Segev: then by logical extension, all Paladins would need to storm abortion clinics in Golarion and smite evil the workers there? Maybe arrest them for attempted murder?

She isn't a valid deity for Paladins.

[OldTrees1]

If we're going with "goddess of death has exclusive and absolute judging authority" in a setting where she is thus tied to the laws of metaphysics...then yes, she must know whatever objective truth the setting establishes about what is good and what is evil. Or have a means of judging that puts aside her beliefs (and, being a goddess, she'd probably have long since shed any beliefs that were false, due to being able to tell when they contradicted her flawless judging system).

Therefore, for Golarion, she must not be wrong in her pronouncement that abortion is an evil act.

I don't see how you reach that conclusion.
Being tied to laws of being (metaphysics) and being in a position to decide the fate of souls do not imply ability to know moral truth (although we hope they coincide). Unless you have some argument for why moral truth would necessarily dictate the fate of souls in a reality with gods?

[Segev]

I don't see how you reach that conclusion.
Being tied to laws of being (metaphysics) and being in a position to decide the fate of souls do not imply ability to know moral truth (although we hope they coincide). Unless you have some argument for why moral truth would necessarily dictate the fate of souls in a reality with gods?

For objective morality to exist and be tied to the planes which serve as afterlife wherein those who are aligned to the plane are rewarded by going to said plane, the decision-making force/entity/whatever about who goes where upon death must not only be objectively right, but strictly bound to honor what they know to be true about the soul's alignment and where it goes.

If the goddess who does the judging corrupts her position with her own biases, then either the planes to which she sends souls are not really bound to alignment (because they can be out of sync with the alignment they supposedly represent), or there is no objective alignment.

Objective forces simply exist; they cannot be defied. Yes, you can use a rocket to propel yourself upwards, but you're applying force against the gravity pulling you down, not turning off nor ignoring gravity. If there is objective morality, then abortion is either good, evil, or neutral. If planes are tied to alignment and serve as final destinations for the souls of the departed, then they cannot accept souls that do not belong there. Therefore, if abortion is not evil, and the sin that made the deciding factor of good vs. evil was abortion according to the judge, the judge would send a soul to the objectively wrong afterlife, and the afterlife in question would be, ever so slightly, twisted away from its alignment with, well, its alignment.

The notion that a soul would go to the wrong afterlife should be one of those adventure-sparking hooks, of grave metaphysical concern to all involved. At least, if there is, in fact, objective morality to which the outer planes-as-afterlives are tied.

[Frosty]

She isn't a valid deity for Paladins.true, BUT, if abortion is defined as evil and is an objective moral truth, THEN Paladins of any religion must stop them because they strive to stop evil acts.

[Segev]

true, BUT, if abortion is defined as evil and is an objective moral truth, THEN Paladins of any religion must stop them because they strive to stop evil acts.

This really is little different than Paladins and other (universally-acknowledged) evil institutions. Yes, they want to stop them. Yes, they'll actively work towards doing so. Yes, they'll have a great deal of moral trouble holding back from doing so immediately if faced with it in person. No, they don't have to target it with Stupid Good zeal in an ineffectual manner just because they know it exists.

Paladinal orders exist just fine without waging active war against every tyrannical nation in the world simultaneously, or even any at all. They can just strive to maintain peace in their region, and work on individual bases to thwart evil's efforts rather than storming the evil stronghold. (It's more likely a CG type would do the latter, anyway; LG types, like paladins, tend more towards careful planning for success, sometimes postponing an effort until they know they've got the resources to succeed.)

[ComaVision]

true, BUT, if abortion is defined as evil and is an objective moral truth, THEN Paladins of any religion must stop them because they strive to stop evil acts.

I disagree. Even if abortion is objectively evil, a Paladin's god could disagree (albeit wrongly). I don't know about Golarion specifically but there are definitely lots of stories elsewhere of Paladins being led astray.

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: This topic is way too close to real-world politics/religion controversies to go anywhere but downhill, even in a gaming context. So I'm closing it down pre-emptively, before it hits that critical point.