"Evil" spells in 5th edition?

[CrackedChair]

So what spells in 5th edition would really qualify as "definitely evil"? I know animating the dead and the like does not constitute as a good act, but what kind of magic would really push others off the slippery slope?

[Corran]

Magic jar seems evul enough. But then again, most necromancy spells have an evil air about them.

Immolation looks particularly nasty according to its description too. Or is it just me?

Disintegrate could be considered particularly evil (and effective at the same time), considering that you play in a world where raising people back from the dead is a common enough(?) thing, so denying this opportunity to those you killed, could potentially pass as something evil as well.

Finger of death? Meh, I just cirlcled back to necromancy...

Honestly, I think most spells could be viewed as evil, with the appropriate application and the right idea behind them.

Edit: Roleplaying comes into that, big time. I mean, you could use dispel magic against a flying (via a spell) enemy (possibly using counterspell against their attempt to feather fall too, if they have that spell too), to make them drop to their doom, and it wouldnt necessarily pass as an especially evil act (ya know, since in combat you kill your enemies). But top that with a Bellatrix Lestrange cackling laughter, and there you have it; the magic you used was totally evil!!!:smallwink:
Not sure if that is very relevant to what you want to know though...

[Rhaegar]

So what spells in 5th edition would really qualify as "definitely evil"? I know animating the dead and the like does not constitute as a good act, but what kind of magic would really push others off the slippery slope?

I wouldn't consider any spell in and of itself evil, but what you do with the spell. Some spells may be more likely to be used in evil ways than others. I can't think of any spell though that can't be used in at a minimum neutral way given the right circumstance.

[KorvinStarmast]

So what spells in 5th edition would really qualify as "definitely evil"? I know animating the dead and the like does not constitute as a good act, but what kind of magic would really push others off the slippery slope? Read the spell description. If it says it's evil, then it's evil. Otherwise, you need to go to other sources in the books to find a relationship.
A word search of the SRD found very few instances of the word "evil" in spell descriptions at all, and none that clearly spelled out the spell itself as evil. But with fireball, (the word evil nowhere in the text) if you torch the orphanage, you used a spell to commit evil.

For example:
Dispel Evil and Good.
If you dispel Good, you are probably doing something evil, but maybe circumstances are such that your keeping a celestial or a fey away form you is for a greater good.
Conclusion: Spell is not evil inherently.

Spirit Guardian: ... "if you are evil, they appear fiendish." Seems more a matter of the caster being evil than the spell .

The full rule set might have a few more instances and spells, but the spells themselves seem to be "this be magic, what you do with it is what you do."

[Sirithhyando]

I dont feel a spell have a good or evil aspect.
The one casting it on the other hand...

As said by the others, it's situationnal, but it's always the use of the spell that can be good or evil, not the spell itself. (re-reading... not sure i'm clear enough but i think what i meant can be understood... sorry for my not too great english)

[Steampunkette]

Any spell with a Mind-Controlling or Mind-Altering core function is, honestly, far more evil than your common damaging spell.

Such spells change who you are as a person, or steal away your most basic and fundamental autonomy for a time.

... doesn't really get more evil than that.

[Naanomi]

Apart from spells that create undead which are... explicitly at least ambiguous morally... I'd say spells that conjure Evil beings (fiends mostly) into the Prime material are likely Evil (Gate, planar ally, etc); as would any magic that forcefully bonds Good creatures into service (Planar binding on a celestial) are probably also capital 'E' Evil; at least in the overwhelmingly vast majority of circumstances

[willdaBEAST]

I wouldn't consider any spell in and of itself evil, but what you do with the spell. Some spells may be more likely to be used in evil ways than others. I can't think of any spell though that can't be used in at a minimum neutral way given the right circumstance.

I agree with this sentiment. In my mind it's much more about the intent than the spell itself (barring spells that are specifically described as evil like Animate Dead). You could even use something innocuous like Leoman's tiny hut to forcibly trap a family in their home, or trap one member outside of the home.

One interesting situation I experienced was casting Tasha's Hideous Laughter on a frost giant who was swimming over to try to board a boat my party was on. The spell specifically mentions damage as the main trigger for overcoming the effect and my DM ruled that drowning wouldn't count as damage. The frost giant still got to make regular saves, but kept failing. In my mind, causing a creature to laugh uncontrollably and drown them self in the process is extremely evil.

[Squiddish]

Any spell with a Mind-Controlling or Mind-Altering core function is, honestly, far more evil than your common damaging spell.

Such spells change who you are as a person, or steal away your most basic and fundamental autonomy for a time.

... doesn't really get more evil than that.

To be fair, there are valid uses for most of them. Alter memories could be used to hide a traumatic memory and/or brain destroying eldritch secret, charm person could be used to get someone to stop contemplating suicide, et cetera.

Mind you, that's not what most adventurers will use them for, but the option is there.

[Steampunkette]

To be fair, there are valid uses for most of them. Alter memories could be used to hide a traumatic memory and/or brain destroying eldritch secret, charm person could be used to get someone to stop contemplating suicide, et cetera.

Mind you, that's not what most adventurers will use them for, but the option is there.

If the person involved -consents- then it's not evil, because that's them giving you permission. So that use of Modify Memory would be cool so long as the victim/patient/whatever was cool with you doing it.

Charming someone to keep them from killing themselves, though... I dunno. I have complicated feelings when it comes to suicide in that I believe it is someone's right to end their own life but that we should do everything in our power to make their life better to keep them from doing it.

Mind-Controlling them, though... I still feel like it's wrong, there.

Check out Jessica Jones, for example. She tries to kill herself to escape from The Purple Man's mind-control and sexual assault but he won't let her. He stops her and drags her right back into the pain and misery of what he's doing to her.

[Naanomi]

Mind Control is an ethically tricky subject to say the least... is it more evil than the slaughter that is the normal adventurers take part in?

Does the justification for its use change in clear self-defense situations (Dominating a rapist to surrender to the authorities)?

Is mind controlling a guard to look the other way while you free a criminal better than killing him (or worse? Does it matter if the guard would rather live than not?)?

Is there an ethical distinction between magically increasing your own manipulation skills (like Glibness) as opposed to influencing people to be more gullible (like Charm)?

Is combat uses of spells like suggestion ('drop the weapon!') meaningfully distinct from disarming them in a more mundane manner? Or emotional manipulation (like Fear)?

If there is clear mental health concerns involved, does it change things (like how we force mental health treatments on the actively psychotic in real life) if the intent is therapeutic?

I don't think there are clear answers to these, and definetly people will have different perceptions as to where 'the line' is... but I personally wouldn't go so far as to say such magic is inherently 'capital E evil' the way demon summoning is

[Steampunkette]

Comparing an evil act with a more evil act is just moral relativism.

Is demon summoning -really- that bad if you're doing it to get the demon away from a victim he's been torturing on another plane of existence that he's about to kill?

It's not a question of whether it's "More" evil or a better outcome, but whether it's evil inherently.

I can morally justify killing a person, but the actual act of killing a person is itself still an inherently destructive and evil act that -requires- justification.

By nature, I feel that mind-control spells are evil, but can of course be justified on a case by case basis as pretty much any evil act can (Barring some really vile outliers, folks, I'm not making an absolute for you to come in and disprove).

[Breashios]

Part of what is evil may be defined in the campaign world, by its deities or its society. I have run a world where society did in fact find mind controlling spells to be of a greater evil than using an abandoned body to help construct a wall, for instance.

Personal morality, however, is exactly that. Personal. One might act according to that or to societal norms or other forces (deific), etc. One may even act contrary to their personal morality to abide by the rules of compelling outside pressures and be considered good by those forces.

[Gastronomie]

Feeblemind is a spell that makes the target mentally handicapped. This is quite a terrible thing to do. (Then again, this is a world where adventurers kill evil humanoids all day, so it might not be that special.)

[Naanomi]

I see a distinction between 'evil' and 'Evil' in the standard DnD cosmology... many actions can be 'evil' in that they cause harm, violate significant societal norms, etc. Many spells may be 'evil' depending on their use; some spells are more inclined than others to be 'evil' than others but there are probably jusifed uses of nearly anything published in existing 5e material.

'Evil spells', alternatively, is magic that empowers the cosmic 'lower planes' associated metaphysical 'Evil' in the objective 'Good VS Evil' structure that underlies the Outer Planes and echoes beyond. In this sense is the way that I label animating dead, demon summoning, etc as 'Evil' in ways that fireball and dominate person are not

Your custom cosmology for your home game may of course run under different assumptions, but the classic Great Wheel cosmology runs on principles like this

[Sicarius Victis]

No action is inherently Evil or Good; alignment comes in at the motivation and expected results. And even then, it's still often debatable about how Evil or not the motivation is. Is killing an innocent person and trapping their soul in a gem just because they annoyed you Evil? Sure. Is killing the BBEG and trapping their soul in a gem to keep them from coming back to murder people Evil? That's arguable.

And is a usually-Evil act for the sake of Good still Evil? Is it Good? Do the ends justify the means, or do the means justify the ends? What's the alignment of a Good act perpetrated for the sake of being Evil, or an Evil act perpetrated for the sake of being Good?

Really, the 9-alignment system just doesn't work.


In my mind, causing a creature to laugh uncontrollably and drown them self in the process is extremely evil.

That may be pretty evil, yeah, but it's also pretty funny.

...After typing that, I feel like I just might actually be Evil.

[druid91]

Comparing an evil act with a more evil act is just moral relativism.

Is demon summoning -really- that bad if you're doing it to get the demon away from a victim he's been torturing on another plane of existence that he's about to kill?

It's not a question of whether it's "More" evil or a better outcome, but whether it's evil inherently.

I can morally justify killing a person, but the actual act of killing a person is itself still an inherently destructive and evil act that -requires- justification.

By nature, I feel that mind-control spells are evil, but can of course be justified on a case by case basis as pretty much any evil act can (Barring some really vile outliers, folks, I'm not making an absolute for you to come in and disprove).

Is it really evil? We subject ourselves to mind control literally every day. Every time you speak to someone you're affected by what they say to you. This accumulates in small positives and negatives to strongly shape who you are and what you believe.

There is a reason hermits traditionally seclude themselves from human contact to clear their thoughts.

[Tanarii]

Individual actions aren't evil in 5e. It's the overall behavior that stems from your alignment potion of your personality that is evil.

That's why even necromancy creating undead is worded the way it is. Only evil casters choose to do it frequently. Not that any one casting of the spells is evil, or what you do with a given casting of any spell.

As to why those particular types of spells are something only evil casters would do frequently: decide yourself if you do it. The phb is just setting a standard. It's up to you as the player to decide the details. It's a game system fiat Personality / Roleplaying rule. It just is.

[druid91]

No action is inherently Evil or Good; alignment comes in at the motivation and expected results. And even then, it's still often debatable about how Evil or not the motivation is. Is killing an innocent person and trapping their soul in a gem just because they annoyed you Evil? Sure. Is killing the BBEG and trapping their soul in a gem to keep them from coming back to murder people Evil? That's arguable.

And is a usually-Evil act for the sake of Good still Evil? Is it Good? Do the ends justify the means, or do the means justify the ends? What's the alignment of a Good act perpetrated for the sake of being Evil, or an Evil act perpetrated for the sake of being Good?

Really, the 9-alignment system just doesn't work.



That may be pretty evil, yeah, but it's also pretty funny.

...After typing that, I feel like I just might actually be Evil.

It 'doesn't work' because you're using modern subjective ethics where you can 'justify' what you've done.

D&D works on "Literal gods say this is what's right, and this is what's wrong. Some will grant you favors for doing the wrong thing, and some will grant you favors for doing the right thing. But they all for the most part agree as to what type of behavior belongs on what team." morality.

[NecroDancer]

Animating the Dead is evil if you forget to regain control over them.

In some campaigns all undead creating spells are evil but that's dependent on the campaign not the spell itself.

[Sicarius Victis]

It 'doesn't work' because you're using modern subjective ethics where you can 'justify' what you've done.

D&D works on "Literal gods say this is what's right, and this is what's wrong. Some will grant you favors for doing the wrong thing, and some will grant you favors for doing the right thing. But they all for the most part agree as to what type of behavior belongs on what team." morality.

In which case it still doesn't work, because that's not the morality-based alignment system that it claims to be. Instead, that's just an allegiance-based alignment system, where your alignment stems mostly from whichever deity's ideas you choose to follow - which isn't, in fact, the alignment system that D&D claims to use. And in an alignment system based off of allegiance like that, "Good and Evil" are still immensely subjective. What if one deity says that all killing is Evil, and another says it's Evil not to give a mercy-kill to someone who's suffering? Which is "correct"?

[Naanomi]

It 'doesn't work' because you're using modern subjective ethics where you can 'justify' what you've done.

D&D works on "Literal gods say this is what's right, and this is what's wrong. Some will grant you favors for doing the wrong thing, and some will grant you favors for doing the right thing. But they all for the most part agree as to what type of behavior belongs on what team." morality.
Actually the Gods themselves have to adhere to the greater forces of Good and Evil (and even more so Law and Chaos), they are not its masters; nor its servants... they operate in parallel on a frequent basis but at the end of the day Good and Evil are powerful, basic forces in the universe that don't operate on anyone's whims... not even divine whims

[Steampunkette]

Is it really evil? We subject ourselves to mind control literally every day. Every time you speak to someone you're affected by what they say to you. This accumulates in small positives and negatives to strongly shape who you are and what you believe.

There is a reason hermits traditionally seclude themselves from human contact to clear their thoughts.

That... is just ...

When I say "Mind Control" in a thread about "Evil Spells" I fairly clearly don't mean "Talking to someone", Druid. Keep the semantics out of it.

[Steampunkette]

Actually the Gods themselves have to adhere to the greater forces of Good and Evil (and even more so Law and Chaos), they are not its masters; nor its servants... they operate in parallel on a frequent basis but at the end of the day Good and Evil are powerful, basic forces in the universe that don't operate on anyone's whims... not even divine whims

^ That.

Good and Evil in D&D are -objective- forces, rather than subjective ideals or personal morality. Even to the Gods.

[Naanomi]

^ That.

Good and Evil in D&D are -objective- forces, rather than subjective ideals or personal morality. Even to the Gods.
And that is sometimes where things get tricky. Take mind control... a hallmark of evil creatures, yes (succubi and the like, and possession) but inspiring emotions (calm especially) is a common angelic power... and many of the Gods of Love (traditionally in the Chaotic Good end of the alignment pool) are famous for their charm and dominate effects. Leads me to think that on a cosmic level mind control isn't inherently 'Evil' the way undeath creation is

[druid91]

That... is just ...

When I say "Mind Control" in a thread about "Evil Spells" I fairly clearly don't mean "Talking to someone", Druid. Keep the semantics out of it.


It's hardly semantics now is it?

You said the reason why mind control spells are evil is due to them fundementally altering who you are and robbing you of your autonomy.

I'd say that the former happens every time you have a meaningful discussion with someone. Are discussions an evil act?

And as for the latter, it simply alters you, changing what you do with your autonomy.

[Unoriginal]

By nature, I feel that mind-control spells are evil, but can of course be justified on a case by case basis as pretty much any evil act can (Barring some really vile outliers, folks, I'm not making an absolute for you to come in and disprove).

There is nothing inherently evil in, say, a charm spell, just like there is nothing inherently evil in a fire spell, but I consider that casting Charm Person on someone should be treated with the same level of hostility than if the caster had tried throwing a fireball.

It's inherently harmful, like combat spells are. But making the Bugbear not fight you for a while is just as inherently evil as casting Sleep or Hold Monster on him, aka it isn't.

Something I think 5e got well is that mind-control spells basically always have for result the person hates the caster's guts when they're freed from their control


I see a distinction between 'evil' and 'Evil' in the standard DnD cosmology... many actions can be 'evil' in that they cause harm, violate significant societal norms, etc. Many spells may be 'evil' depending on their use; some spells are more inclined than others to be 'evil' than others but there are probably jusifed uses of nearly anything published in existing 5e material.

'Evil spells', alternatively, is magic that empowers the cosmic 'lower planes' associated metaphysical 'Evil' in the objective 'Good VS Evil' structure that underlies the Outer Planes and echoes beyond. In this sense is the way that I label animating dead, demon summoning, etc as 'Evil' in ways that fireball and dominate person are not



That distinction existed for 3.X, but in the way 5e describe it, Evil is just evil.

[Naanomi]

That distinction existed for 3.X, but in the way 5e describe it, Evil is just evil.
That distinction has existed since before 2e; and for there still to be the Outer Planes, fiends and celestials, etc it must still be true at least to some degree

[Findulidas]

Check out Jessica Jones, for example. She tries to kill herself to escape from The Purple Man's mind-control and sexual assault but he won't let her. He stops her and drags her right back into the pain and misery of what he's doing to her.

I think the sexual assault makes it evil here. You can flip it and say its more evil to fireball someone to death compared to just mind controlling them for some time and not having to kill them.

[Steampunkette]

It's hardly semantics now is it?

You said the reason why mind control spells are evil is due to them fundementally altering who you are and robbing you of your autonomy.

I'd say that the former happens every time you have a meaningful discussion with someone. Are discussions an evil act?

And as for the latter, it simply alters you, changing what you do with your autonomy.

Yes. It is ABSOLUTELY semantics.

If you say words I can choose how to interpret them, what to take from the conversation, and move on with my life largely unaffected or deeply affected but still in control of my actions and thoughts, able to select my responses and any physical activity accordingly. As compared to losing control of my physical form when you say the words to the "Dominate Person" spell, effectively becoming a prisoner in my own form, or the Roofie-like effect of a Charm Person spell or Philter of Love.

You're stretching the definition of mind control so hard I fear you're gonna pull something.


I think the sexual assault makes it evil here. You can flip it and say its more evil to fireball someone to death compared to just mind controlling them for some time and not having to kill them.

The sexual assault was -why- she wanted to commit suicide, Findulidas. Well, that and being forced to be muscle for some guy she violently despised. He stopped her from killing herself to -escape- that existence using his Mind Control, condemning her to further degradation and pain.

The argument wasn't about the sexual assault and forced labor, but about the stopping of a suicide attempt through mind control. That even that might be an evil act, even if it's to offset a bad outcome.

Context is the key to that discussion.


And that is sometimes where things get tricky. Take mind control... a hallmark of evil creatures, yes (succubi and the like, and possession) but inspiring emotions (calm especially) is a common angelic power... and many of the Gods of Love (traditionally in the Chaotic Good end of the alignment pool) are famous for their charm and dominate effects. Leads me to think that on a cosmic level mind control isn't inherently 'Evil' the way undeath creation is

Not in the objective reality of D&D, no. No spell is, otherwise the spell would have the Evil descriptor, or be blanketly marked as an evil act. Even Animate Dead doesn't get that descriptor or treatment in 5e. Neither does Finger of Death or Power Word Kill, both of which are spells which have no potential purpose other than killing.

Still. I find Mind Control Effects to be one of the more heinous things. And any Lawful society would likely make their use outside of explicitly sanctioned situations a -very- serious crime, don't you think?

[Findulidas]

Context is the key to that discussion.


Yes and so mind control isnt evil. Its the context that makes it evil.

[Tanarii]

5e Alignments are Moral and Social Attitudes, that result in typical, but not required, general behavior. They are one aspect of a 5-dimensional personality system. They are potential motivations the player can use to make in-character decisions.

As such, when it comes to raising dead, 'only evil casters cast such spells frequently' is just another piece of motivational data for a player to consider when making decisions for their character, aka Roleplaying.

Making a decision in regards to casting any other spell doesn't have any additional motivational data, so it's based purely on existing alignment behavior description, personality, ideal, bond and flaw. If any might apply.

Gods, objectivity, etc have nothing to do with it. Nor does any one given action stem purely from alignment. And definitely one given action does not result in alignment. Casting a spell cannot be Good or Evil, by definition of Alignment. At most, taking a certain kind of action over and over again can be the result of holding certain moral and social attitudes.

And yes, it's entirely possible for alignment to be objective in the 5e Alignment and Perosnality system. As in, the character's in-game belief about what they are (good/evil etc), don't have to match the objective Alignment the player has written on the character sheet, and is going to use to make in-character decisions. The player can write Lawful Evil, and play them using the lawful evil behavior (overall, typically, not-consistently, when it might apply), but the character can believe they do is 'for the greater good'.

[Steampunkette]

Yes and so mind control isnt evil. Its the context that makes it evil.

I disagree....

I think the act itself is evil, and the context can justify that course of action. That doesn't make it a neutral or an inherently good act, it just justifies that specific instance.

Much like the killing of a person is evil, but certain circumstances can justify the action itself. Self Defense, for example, is a justification of an evil act. Murder is not the "Antitesis of Justification" for the morally neutral act of killing a person.

[Tanarii]

I think the act itself is evilThere is no such thing as an Evil, as in Alignment associated, act in 5e.

[Steampunkette]

There is no such thing as an Evil, as in Alignment associated, act in 5e.

A fact which I stated, previously.

At this point I think it's safe to say this particular train of discussion has moved onto a discussion of ethics as relates to spellcasting independent of D&D alignment function.

[Tanarii]

At this point I think it's safe to say this particular train of discussion has moved onto a discussion of ethics as relates to spellcasting independent of D&D alignment function.Okay. I'll stop trying to drag D&D Alignment function back onto the train then. :smallbiggrin:

[druid91]

Yes. It is ABSOLUTELY semantics.

If you say words I can choose how to interpret them, what to take from the conversation, and move on with my life largely unaffected or deeply affected but still in control of my actions and thoughts, able to select my responses and any physical activity accordingly. As compared to losing control of my physical form when you say the words to the "Dominate Person" spell, effectively becoming a prisoner in my own form, or the Roofie-like effect of a Charm Person spell or Philter of Love.

You're stretching the definition of mind control so hard I fear you're gonna pull something.

That's a difference of time and degree. We're you to find yourself in a cult, you'd certainly experience something akin to dominate person and it would work solely by social manipulation.

The difference between charm person and manipulating them is that it compresses the whole experience down into a few moments.


I disagree....

I think the act itself is evil, and the context can justify that course of action. That doesn't make it a neutral or an inherently good act, it just justifies that specific instance.

Much like the killing of a person is evil, but certain circumstances can justify the action itself. Self Defense, for example, is a justification of an evil act. Murder is not the "Antitesis of Justification" for the morally neutral act of killing a person.

Is killing a person evil though? Why would it be? What about killing is inherently evil?

[Steampunkette]

That's a difference of time and degree. We're you to find yourself in a cult, you'd certainly experience something akin to dominate person and it would work solely by social manipulation.

The difference between charm person and manipulating them is that it compresses the whole experience down into a few moments.

I wonder if brainwashing and actively manipulating people are generally considered to be evil? Huh... would you look at that! They -are-...

Here I thought you were talking about a discussion like the one we're having and the extended, or abbreviated, impact it will have on our respective personalities.

If you're talking about various forms of emotional and mental manipulation through dialogue (generally through lying and mental or emotional abuse) then there's little enough difference and, yes, of course it is evil.


Is killing a person evil though? Why would it be? What about killing is inherently evil?

... I'm not going to hold your hand through philosophical fundamentals. If you don't understand that killing a person is an evil act on the most rudimentary level then I can't help you.

I don't respond well to Sea Lions.

[druid91]

I wonder if brainwashing and actively manipulating people are generally considered to be evil? Huh... would you look at that! They -are-...

Here I thought you were talking about a discussion like the one we're having and the extended, or abbreviated, impact it will have on our respective personalities.

If you're talking about various forms of emotional and mental manipulation through dialogue (generally through lying and mental or emotional abuse) then there's little enough difference and, yes, of course it is evil.



... I'm not going to hold your hand through philosophical fundamentals. If you don't understand that killing a person is an evil act on the most rudimentary level then I can't help you.

I don't respond well to Sea Lions.

I wasn't aware rehabilitation of criminals or boot camp was considered evil. Much have I to learn about evil.


It is in the nature of rocks to fall with great force when unsupported. Does this mean that rocks are evil or risking evil because someone might be killed?

That killing someone is evil is hardly a philisophical fundemental. It's a statement that requires a number of more fundemental starting suppositions.

What it is, on the other hand is a commonly held belief.

[Steampunkette]

I wasn't aware rehabilitation of criminals or boot camp was considered evil. Much have I to learn about evil.


It is in the nature of rocks to fall with great force when unsupported. Does this mean that rocks are evil or risking evil because someone might be killed?

That killing someone is evil is hardly a philisophical fundemental. It's a statement that requires a number of more fundemental starting suppositions.

What it is, on the other hand is a commonly held belief.

Rehab of criminals is not mind control. They're still in control of their thoughts and actions, but societal rules are reinforces so that they're aware, and likely frightened by, the consequences of breaking those laws. I've yet to see a prison documentary that uses brainwashing and emotional manipulation to train criminals to be any different.

As to your laughable rock presumption I will, again, state that I'm not going to hold your hand through fundamental philosophy.

And yes. The statement that killing a person is evil is a fundamental aspect of philosophy. A basic precept for which there is much consideration, but a basic precept, nonetheless.

[coolAlias]

I've yet to see a prison documentary that uses brainwashing and emotional manipulation to train criminals to be any different.
Does Clockwork Orange count? :P

Anyway, OP, without getting into real-world debates about what is evil, your best bet is to decide on a campaign-by-campaign basis what constitutes 'evil' magic.

In a campaign I am running, all Warlocks are considered evil as other-worldly patrons are very unlikely to have humanity's (that includes non-humans) interests at heart. Wild Sorcerers are also considered evil because their wild magic (in this campaign setting) is actually destructive to the fabric of reality.

I didn't label any specific spells as evil, but if that was a theme I was running with I might even just say that casting any spell in public is at least frowned upon, if not outright illegal, mainly because it's difficult/impossible to discern what that spell is until it's completed.

If you're more concerned with character alignment, keep in mind that 5e is very lenient in that regard.

In any case, ask your players what they think of your proposition. Is this something they are interested in exploring? Is it something they are willing to take into account when making decisions for their characters, or would they rather not be bothered with it?

If the players aren't on board, consider a different theme for your campaign; if they are, ask them what spells they think should be evil.

[druid91]

Rehab of criminals is not mind control. They're still in control of their thoughts and actions, but societal rules are reinforces so that they're aware, and likely frightened by, the consequences of breaking those laws. I've yet to see a prison documentary that uses brainwashing and emotional manipulation to train criminals to be any different.

As to your laughable rock presumption I will, again, state that I'm not going to hold your hand through fundamental philosophy.

And yes. The statement that killing a person is evil is a fundamental aspect of philosophy. A basic precept for which there is much consideration, but a basic precept, nonetheless.

So they use fear of consequences without utilizing emotional manipulation?

Kind of got that the wrong way around...

No it really isn't. I don't have to think for more than a moment to bring to mind philosophies where killing someone is not evil at all.

For killing someone to be evil, first a philosophy has to have the idea that some actions should be forbidden for some reason, and then it must also come up with a reason for why the particular action should be forbidden. Whether that reason is because that person has an intrinsic right to live, something that is not universally agreed on so it can hardly be considered basic philosophy, or because it could invite reprisals, because that person is somehow valuable or even just because Pelor says it's bad and he can smite you.

Each of these will determine how strong the taboo against murder in a fictional society would be, and each would determine what circumstances if any such a taboo could be violated and "justified".

[Waterdeep Merch]

Good and evil are constructs of the mind, not inherent in the world. We determine such things based on what we see as right or justifiable versus what is wrong or unjustifiable. There are rigid thinkers who see certain activities as always good or evil, and more malleable thinkers who believe you should judge each event separately according to intent and outcome.

Core D&D tends to take an opposite view of this, making moralizing... difficult. There are literal, quantifiable energies belonging to good, evil, and even law and chaos. They can and do take physical form, and can even have cognizance. From a philosophical viewpoint, this is all horrifying.

It's worth mentioning that since there is nothing requiring specific alignments to utilize any particular spells and only two that I'm aware of even directly talk about morality (animate dead and protection from good and evil), there are no spells in the PHB that are innately good, evil, lawful, or chaotic. They do not come from any such source.

Except maybe animate dead if used regularly. But that's an argument for five billion other topics.

If you want to apply real world morality instead of D&D's frankly terrifying and insane morality, then you can either look at it rigidly or malleably. Rigidly, very few spells outside of the healing and resurrection subsets aren't evil, as they cause harm or intend to cause or contribute to harm. Malleably, they're all neutral by nature- what matters is why you're casting dominate person.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I recently came into this dilemma myself because of a magic item I designed for my campaign. 5E seems to be pretty open ended with how it defines spells and from what I've read (unless I've missed something) the intent of the caster is really what defines whether or not a spell is wholly evil.

Mind Controlling something with good intentions isn't something I would consider an evil act. Raising a horde of zombies to help aid in the defense of a small village might seem dark but it definitely isn't evil in my opinion.

If I had to choose spells that I would find a hard time making an argument for "the intentions were right even if the process was wrong" I'd place Weird on that list. Drawing in the deepest fears of someone seems like a malicious intrusion of the mind. Another strong contender would probably be Imprisonment just by the fact that if you're shrewd enough with your release conditions, you could lock something away for the rest of their life and while it's not a spell, Hurl Through Hell is just about the most evil thing I can think of barring sending someone to hell and NOT bringing them back.

Again to reiterate however, context is really key in DND. Given the right circumstances, even a simple cure wounds could be passed off as an act of evil.

[Tanarii]

... I'm not going to hold your hand through philosophical fundamentals. If you don't understand that killing a person is an evil act on the most rudimentary level then I can't help you.I'm sorry, but what are you basing this on? Because in real life, there is no such thing as an evil act. Edit: Good or evil are fictional concepts is what I mean. So what's your fictional basis for this claim?

Edit: Oh, I like this. It says it far better than my 'fictional concepts' does:

Good and evil are constructs of the mind, not inherent in the world. We determine such things based on what we see as right or justifiable versus what is wrong or unjustifiable. There are rigid thinkers who see certain activities as always good or evil, and more malleable thinkers who believe you should judge each event separately according to intent and outcome.

[Naanomi]

Still. I find Mind Control Effects to be one of the more heinous things. And any Lawful society would likely make their use outside of explicitly sanctioned situations a -very- serious crime, don't you think?
Eh... hard to say. A society that mind controlled everyone into being 'good citizens' and remove any deviance is a very lawful stance... probably lawful evil but could be argued to be lawful neutral (sounds like something that would happen in Arcadia). Opposing mind control is mostly a Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral stance I'd say

[Findulidas]

And yes. The statement that killing a person is evil is a fundamental aspect of philosophy. A basic precept for which there is much consideration, but a basic precept, nonetheless.

Saying its a fundamental aspect of philosophy is incorrect. Have you ever heard about moral particularism?

Im not here to argue about it, but its something I subscribe to. Just to be clear.

[Steampunkette]

Alrighty. Here it goes:

Humans are, at least philosophically speaking barring philosophical zombies, a function of an emergent property of the particle cloud that is considered the body. Our Consciousness is emergent, and as unique as anything can be in a material universe bounded by physical, and ostensibly metaphysical, laws.

All acts which impinge upon or are based in ethics and moral action require Consciousness. A decision to act, followed by the action. Or the decision to take no action and the resulting inaction. Consequences, and consequently consequential philosophy, take rise from the decision and the action.

The destruction of that consciousness is bad/wrong/evil/etc because it ends the series of decisions and actions or inactions and causes further consequences beyond that. The act -can- be justified (Self Defense, Saving Others, Etc) but it must be defended within the philosophical confines of our society, belief system, and philosophies which discuss ethics.

That is not to say that there aren't philosophies which debate the ethics of killing (Heavens knows there are! Everything from the aforementioned Particularism to Materialism question the ethics) but it's pretty much a settled precept that is debated from that perspective.

There's no philosophical process that starts with "Killing People is GREAT!" and moves into "But -why- is Killing People great?" Or "Is killing people -actually- great?" There are those which attempt to quantify killing people as an ethically neutral act, but they do so by taking the basic precept and arguing about it, rather than starting out with the converse precept.

And because ethics only applies to emergent consciousnesses, a Rock cannot be "Ethically Wrong" when it falls off of a cliffside and crushes someone. It made no decision, it took no action, it simply existed.

[Tanarii]

The destruction of that consciousness is bad/wrong/evil/etcAh. This part, bad/wrong, is sufficient to cover my objection to 'evil' not really being something real IRL.

[druid91]

Alrighty. Here it goes:

Humans are, at least philosophically speaking barring philosophical zombies, a function of an emergent property of the particle cloud that is considered the body. Our Consciousness is emergent, and as unique as anything can be in a material universe bounded by physical, and ostensibly metaphysical, laws.

All acts which impinge upon or are based in ethics and moral action require Consciousness. A decision to act, followed by the action. Or the decision to take no action and the resulting inaction. Consequences, and consequently consequential philosophy, take rise from the decision and the action.

The destruction of that consciousness is bad/wrong/evil/etc because it ends the series of decisions and actions or inactions and causes further consequences beyond that. The act -can- be justified (Self Defense, Saving Others, Etc) but it must be defended within the philosophical confines of our society, belief system, and philosophies which discuss ethics.

That is not to say that there aren't philosophies which debate the ethics of killing (Heavens knows there are! Everything from the aforementioned Particularism to Materialism question the ethics) but it's pretty much a settled precept that is debated from that perspective.

There's no philosophical process that starts with "Killing People is GREAT!" and moves into "But -why- is Killing People great?" Or "Is killing people -actually- great?" There are those which attempt to quantify killing people as an ethically neutral act, but they do so by taking the basic precept and arguing about it, rather than starting out with the converse precept.

And because ethics only applies to emergent consciousnesses, a Rock cannot be "Ethically Wrong" when it falls off of a cliffside and crushes someone. It made no decision, it took no action, it simply existed.

There are actually plenty, they just don't see common adoption. Due to the whole 'killing people is great' tenet being frowned upon. But you see shades of this kind of thinking in the characterization of Klingons, or the Mandalorians, or a number of other proud warrior race dudes.

[Waterdeep Merch]

-snip-

Not to be dismissive, as I recognize it as a working philosophy, but this is a very realist viewpoint on ethics. I ascribe to a more nominalist one, which can be best described as 'nothing that cannot be quantified in time and space exists and is thus subjective and never fixed'. I also identify my outlook as a nihilist one.

Combining this, it basically goes: good and evil are up to witnesses to determine, and are never true or false. One's outlook may thus call one thing wrong and another right, as a sapient being with the ability of reason is wont to do, but even they must recognize that such views come from themselves and are not universal truth.

What this means for spells and good and evil? It depends on both the why and to whom. I do happen to agree that dominate person and spells like it are generally not ethical, but I cannot say it is never ethical, nor can I agree that everyone must agree that it is so. It's up to interpretation.

[90sMusic]

Any spell with a Mind-Controlling or Mind-Altering core function is, honestly, far more evil than your common damaging spell.

Such spells change who you are as a person, or steal away your most basic and fundamental autonomy for a time.

... doesn't really get more evil than that.

The effects are temporary though, usually very short lived.
There's also good reasons to use them as you could make someone forget trauma, possibly prevent a war that would cost thousands of lives, turn an evil person into a good person, etc.

No spell should be considered evil in and of it's self. It is entirely how it is used that counts.
I mean, unless you had something like the Torture Curse from harry potter, that is pretty evil. I can't imagine a "good" person ever using it because even if you did so for a good reason, torturing someone is still pretty darn evil.

Fun fact: In a campaign once, I used a 9th level bestow curse which makes it permanent. Instead of doing one of the typical penalties, I made up my own as the spell allows as long as it isn't any more powerful than the listed effects. So what I did was permanently make this ******* impotent. :D We all had a good laugh. Except him obviously.

Also, @Steampunkette. In D&D, you're wrong because unlike the real world where everything is subjective and open to interpretation, things in D&D are NOT subjective. Everything is very clearly designated as GOOD or EVIL or somewhere in between by the literal gods that created and shaped reality. At the end of the day, you can argue until you're blue in the face that things you may have done were actually good and not evil, or whatever other argument you wanted to make, but when you die if the gods decided you did evil ****, you're going to hell or the abyss, they simply don't care about your opinion or beliefs because D&D has OBJECTIVE Good and Evil that is defined.

From a subjective perspective, you could argue that the Devils in Hell are the ultimate good guys and should be praised and helped however you are able.

[Naanomi]

Also, @Steampunkette. In D&D, you're wrong because unlike the real world where everything is subjective and open to interpretation, things in D&D are NOT subjective. Everything is very clearly designated as GOOD or EVIL or somewhere in between by the literal gods that created and shaped reality. At the end of the day, you can argue until you're blue in the face that things you may have done were actually good and not evil, or whatever other argument you wanted to make, but when you die if the gods decided you did evil ****, you're going to hell or the abyss, they simply don't care about your opinion or beliefs because D&D has OBJECTIVE Good and Evil that is defined.
Again, the Gods didn't decide anything about Good and Evil, their objective presence in the cosmology exists beyond the Gods. In general, unless you are a specific servant of a God or have explicitly pledged your soul to a being (who wants it); the Multi-verse itself makes that call

Maybe the Old Ones (not the Great Old Ones, different beings) made Good and Evil... but they exist 2-3 tiers above the Gods on the cosmological scale

[coolAlias]

Another thing to consider: there have been many cultures (probably all of them...) in which slaying one's enemies was considered not only not evil, but good. Just think of the Greeks and the vikings - many of the "heroes" were considered heroic for their prowess at raiding and pillaging other tribes, and this always involved lots of killing and other unsavory acts.

These days, those same "heroes" would be considered by most people to be psychopathic mass-murderers, and granted, even back in those days the victims would likely see them that way as well.

So what does all of this have to do with D&D? Well, we already have our "Evil" pillagers and worse, usually orcs, and we decry their foulness whenever they step into our lands. In the same breath we praise the heroes who go forth to destroy them wholesale, preferably to the last child. In other words, "standard" D&D does not follow today's morality at all, but more that of the Greeks of yore.

Anyway, my attempted point is that it is kind of fruitless to try and apply real-world morality to D&D. I've played in and run games where morality was not so black-and-white, where orcs can be good etc., and it's lots of fun, but everyone has to know that going in otherwise people tend to default to "kill 'monsters' and steal their stuff," which has pretty much always been the D&D paradigm.

[Steampunkette]

Not to be dismissive, as I recognize it as a working philosophy, but this is a very realist viewpoint on ethics. I ascribe to a more nominalist one, which can be best described as 'nothing that cannot be quantified in time and space exists and is thus subjective and never fixed'. I also identify my outlook as a nihilist one.

Combining this, it basically goes: good and evil are up to witnesses to determine, and are never true or false. One's outlook may thus call one thing wrong and another right, as a sapient being with the ability of reason is wont to do, but even they must recognize that such views come from themselves and are not universal truth.

What this means for spells and good and evil? It depends on both the why and to whom. I do happen to agree that dominate person and spells like it are generally not ethical, but I cannot say it is never ethical, nor can I agree that everyone must agree that it is so. It's up to interpretation.

So your position on ethics is that it's all subjective at all times and there is no central pillar of ethical action or treatment...?

Cool. I hope that works out for you. It -really- would not work out well for a society...


The effects are temporary though, usually very short lived.
There's also good reasons to use them as you could make someone forget trauma, possibly prevent a war that would cost thousands of lives, turn an evil person into a good person, etc.

No spell should be considered evil in and of it's self. It is entirely how it is used that counts.
I mean, unless you had something like the Torture Curse from harry potter, that is pretty evil. I can't imagine a "good" person ever using it because even if you did so for a good reason, torturing someone is still pretty darn evil.

Fun fact: In a campaign once, I used a 9th level bestow curse which makes it permanent. Instead of doing one of the typical penalties, I made up my own as the spell allows as long as it isn't any more powerful than the listed effects. So what I did was permanently make this ******* impotent. :D We all had a good laugh. Except him obviously.

Things are good or evil because we quantify them as such. We as humans are, to our knowledge, the first, last, and only arbiters on what things are positive and negative.

Stabbing someone is wrong. Stabbing someone with a very small sharp object while they're under anesthesia to remove a tumor from their lungs after entering into a joint agreement to do so is not wrong.

This is because the stabbing has been Justified by the circumstances, making it an ethically neutral (and for consequentialists ethically positive) act to take.

It's entirely possible to do something harmful for the right reasons and justify the action. But the action needs justification to be morally right. You don't need an ethical justification or specific circumstances to make it ethically justified to scratch your head or walk across the street because those acts are inherently neutral, they cause no harm.

Mind Control is an invasion of a person's most intimate and private space, and an act of fairly clear harm. Thus it would need the justification of resulting in a positive outcome (for consequentialists) or being a "Lesser Evil" (for moral relativists) or being an act between consenting individuals.


Also, @Steampunkette. In D&D, you're wrong because unlike the real world where everything is subjective and open to interpretation, things in D&D are NOT subjective. Everything is very clearly designated as GOOD or EVIL or somewhere in between by the literal gods that created and shaped reality. At the end of the day, you can argue until you're blue in the face that things you may have done were actually good and not evil, or whatever other argument you wanted to make, but when you die if the gods decided you did evil ****, you're going to hell or the abyss, they simply don't care about your opinion or beliefs because D&D has OBJECTIVE Good and Evil that is defined.

From a subjective perspective, you could argue that the Devils in Hell are the ultimate good guys and should be praised and helped however you are able.

This has been touched on and I specifically addressed it, twice: I know D&D has an actual objective morality, or it did before 5e popped up and killed the Evil descriptor on spells and explicitly made every player act as morally neutral as possible in description. This particular train of discussion has moved onto the philosophical implications of such spells being viewed through modern philosophical understanding. Please don't take us back to the station.

[Findulidas]

So your position on ethics is that it's all subjective at all times and there is no central pillar of ethical action or treatment...?

Cool. I hope that works out for you. It -really- would not work out well for a society...

Thats how societies work though. You think killing is evil? Thats wrong. Murder is evil, there is a huge diffrence. Killing a soldier in battle is ok. Killing a criminal when hes exchanging lethal attacks is ok. Killing a suicide bomber is ok. I can go on about when its ok. Its all about context. Thats what determines what is ok and what isnt. I find it particularly amusing that you atleast dont understand this point of view. Considering you first went out and said that killing is wrong, however context changes that. So all you have to do is to say that there always is a context and voila the fact killing is always wrong no longer applies, its irrelevant. And outside of abstract philosophical arguments there will always be a context.

[Waterdeep Merch]

So your position on ethics is that it's all subjective at all times and there is no central pillar of ethical action or treatment...?

Cool. I hope that works out for you. It -really- would not work out well for a society...
This is correct. All reason is bias. To say otherwise is, well... biased.

It can be well-informed bias. It can be much agreed upon bias. It can be cultural bias. But make no mistake- it is bias.

The point to this philosophy isn't to reject reason and ethics. It is to remember that no ethical viewpoint is permanent and unassailable. What we perceive as right may not be right from someone else's views, and bigotry can result from refusing to see that. Right or wrong only have the meaning that we give them, and they need never be permanent.

Even if no one is outwardly attacking or rejecting a view, it should still be examined from time to time. It's hard to do all of this without first accepting that any and all views are a kind of bias.

As to the last part, hard to say. There's never been an entire society that focused on observing their own ethics and changing them to avoid bigotry. I don't feel it's fair to say it wouldn't work. It's also not fair to say it would.

It simply doesn't.

[Steampunkette]

Thats how societies work though. You think killing is evil? Thats wrong. Murder is evil, there is a huge diffrence. Killing a soldier in battle is ok. Killing a criminal when hes exchanging lethal attacks is ok. Killing a suicide bomber is ok. I can go on about when its ok. Its all about context. Thats what determines what is ok and what isnt. I find it particularly amusing that you atleast dont understand this point of view. Considering you first went out and said that killing is wrong, however context changes that. So all you have to do is to say that there always is a context and voila the fact killing is always wrong no longer applies, its irrelevant. And outside of abstract philosophical arguments there will always be a context.

Killing is a bad/wrong/evil act that can be justified. You're literally just listing off a bunch of situations where it is justified to kill someone and pretending that is the baseline where situations where it isn't justified are aberrant.

With all contextual situational modifiers removed, killing a person is wrong. On it's face, at it's core. It is antithetical to the continuation of the species, the structures of society, and the most fundamental understandings of human rights. It is only when you modify the act situationally that it becomes justified.

This is why the act of killing, itself, is inherently, fundamentally, wrong. The ability to Justify it does not make the core precept morally neutral or positive, only the specific instance. This is something I've maintained throughout the entire discussion, Findulidas. I'm not saying that killing is inherently unjustifiable (Though some do make that argument, particularly those who seek to engage entirely through passive, peaceful, resistance). Only that at it's core, it's baseline, it is wrong.

The fact that instances of it can be justified does not mean killing gets a carte blanche pass of neutrality. Far from it. The fact that killing -needs- justification shows that it is a negative act.


This is correct. All reason is bias. To say otherwise is, well... biased.

It can be well-informed bias. It can be much agreed upon bias. It can be cultural bias. But make no mistake- it is bias.

The point to this philosophy isn't to reject reason and ethics. It is to remember that no ethical viewpoint is permanent and unassailable. What we perceive as right may not be right from someone else's views, and bigotry can result from refusing to see that. Right or wrong only have the meaning that we give them, and they need never be permanent.

Even if no one is outwardly attacking or rejecting a view, it should still be examined from time to time. It's hard to do all of this without first accepting that any and all views are a kind of bias.

As to the last part, hard to say. There's never been an entire society that focused on observing their own ethics and changing them to avoid bigotry. I don't feel it's fair to say it wouldn't work. It's also not fair to say it would.

It simply doesn't.

Agreed.

The finest philosophy is like science: Challenged, tested, and discarded where it fails to be replaced by new ideas and concepts to better provide a more stable and reasoned existence through personal and social understanding.

Oddly enough, I think humans are genetically -wired- to engage in philosophical and sociological testing as a biologically forced evolution of Society itself. Why else would we have Teenagers?

When people are young, they rail against all manner of concepts, even those instilled at an early age. Even precepts that they were raised to hold close to their hearts. The hormonal changes and the increase in neuro-complexity is radical and well documented. But the sociological impact of those changes may be overlooked.

Just a fascinating thought, to me.

[KorvinStarmast]

Ok, I'll say this.
There are no evil spells. There are spells used for evil purpose. The OP question is flawed in its basic premise.

I'll offer the George Carlin point made in his famous Seven Words You Can't say on television, part of which includes a digression into "those bad words!" He takes the seven words, and then mocks their being picked out for isolation.
His conclusion, after some jokes, is that the words being "bad" is based on the thoughts behind them. He then points out the dual purpose words, for example:
On television, you can prick you finger but you cannot finger your prick.
It's the meaning or intention behind the word that would get the censors in an uproar.
In a racy movie:
Man and woman are having a vigorous intimate encounter. As it gets more fevered, she utters "f* me f* me f* me" with intense passion. Mostly a positive purpose there.
Ten minutes later, the story's protagonist is speaking to an opponent, a corrupt detective, and says "f* you, pal."
Same word, but with a negative purpose.

As with words so with spells. It's what it's being used for that attracts a value judgment of evil or good.

More examples: Fire:
Use it to cook dinner? Good.
Use it to burn down your neighbors house? Evil.

Mind Control spell

Use it to seduce the princess and impregnate her with your child? Likely Evil.

Use it to control and calm a raging madman with a bloodied butcher's cleaver in his hand? Likely Good.

This interruption in the usual bickering over alignment is completed.

[Tanarii]

Also, @Steampunkette. In D&D, you're wrong because unlike the real world where everything is subjective and open to interpretation, things in D&D are NOT subjective. Everything is very clearly designated as GOOD or EVIL or somewhere in between by the literal gods that created and shaped reality. At the end of the day, you can argue until you're blue in the face that things you may have done were actually good and not evil, or whatever other argument you wanted to make, but when you die if the gods decided you did evil ****, you're going to hell or the abyss, they simply don't care about your opinion or beliefs because D&D has OBJECTIVE Good and Evil that is defined.
In 5e, Alignment is Objective in that the player writes down the actual Alignment (with associated behavior) they are planning to use as part of the motivations they'll use to make decisions when playing the character. It doesn't matter what the PC or character believes about their in-game actions, it's still objectively what the player writes down and uses.

In other words, a character is objectively Lawful Evil because the player writes down Lawful Evil, and uses the Lawful Evil associated behavior when making decisions for the character, even if the PC believes (in-game) that their actions are 'necessary, because I'm doing the right thing for the greater good!' Or whatever.

It has nothing to do with Gods, or specific actions being good or evil.

[Naanomi]

And, although less than previous editions, there is a host of mechanical effects tied to alignment still... it isn't just a role playing aid, it is a 'real thing' with real effects

[Findulidas]

Killing is a bad/wrong/evil act that can be justified. You're literally just listing off a bunch of situations where it is justified to kill someone and pretending that is the baseline where situations where it isn't justified are aberrant.

With all contextual situational modifiers removed, killing a person is wrong. On it's face, at it's core. It is antithetical to the continuation of the species, the structures of society, and the most fundamental understandings of human rights. It is only when you modify the act situationally that it becomes justified.

This is why the act of killing, itself, is inherently, fundamentally, wrong. The ability to Justify it does not make the core precept morally neutral or positive, only the specific instance. This is something I've maintained throughout the entire discussion, Findulidas. I'm not saying that killing is inherently unjustifiable (Though some do make that argument, particularly those who seek to engage entirely through passive, peaceful, resistance). Only that at it's core, it's baseline, it is wrong.

The fact that instances of it can be justified does not mean killing gets a carte blanche pass of neutrality. Far from it. The fact that killing -needs- justification shows that it is a negative act.


Once again you state your opinions as facts. My view (and many others would agree) is that acts are neutral to begin with. Its the context that make them evil or good. If killing is bad its because its against the propagation of the species, the structures of society, human rights and there is nothing to counteract those values. All of that IS context. Whats more you can add or subtract a number of diffrent other things such as is it sapient, does it care (or even want to get killed) and so on. These clearly could be just as important as what you thought were the most important reasons.

I know you maintained you positions throughout the argument. Im just trying to atleast make you understand somebody elses worldview so you dont go around and say its fundamentally so and act as if we all agree to this.

Now Ive lost interest in this. Well atleast it was fun at first.

[Steampunkette]

Once again you state your opinions as facts. My view (and many others would agree) is that acts are neutral to begin with. Its the context that make them evil or good. If killing is bad its because its against the propagation of the species, the structures of society, human rights and there is nothing to counteract those values. All of that IS context. Whats more you can add or subtract a number of diffrent other things such as is it sapient, does it care (or even want to get killed) and so on. These clearly could be just as important as what you thought were the most important reasons.

I know you maintained you positions throughout the argument. Im just trying to atleast make you understand somebody elses worldview so you dont go around and say its fundamentally so and act as if we all agree to this.

Now Ive lost interest in this. Well atleast it was fun at first.

Dude, I've been in your worldview. I've waded chest deep through moral relativity.

It doesn't work. The idea that everything is always shades of gray forever and there is no right or wrong is, itself, wrong. It's why Consequentialism fails, too. A Consequentialist would tell you that it's morally appropriate, and in fact ethically necessary, to go back in time and kill Hitler before he becomes the Fuhrer and creates endless strife, because what is the life of one innocent child compared to the consequence of saving all the lives he will eventually grow up to destroy.

But it's still murder. It's still killing a child who has not committed the atrocities you're killing him in order to prevent.

I don't know if you consider yourself to be a Moral Relativist or a Consequentialist, but either way I specifically answered that I understood that thought process, earlier.


So your position on ethics is that it's all subjective at all times and there is no central pillar of ethical action or treatment...?

Cool. I hope that works out for you. It -really- would not work out well for a society...

So get off your high horse about "Trying to get me to understand" as if your position was complex or otherwise beyond my ability to accept or understand. If you're interested in an understanding of why Moral Relativism is ultimately a philosophical failure, look to Apolonio of Tyana. Sure he died somewhere around 1900 years ago, but the dude was pretty sound in "Relativism Refuted".

[Naanomi]

At the end of the day it doesn't matter either way, because the DnD cosmology is built on the assumption of Objective Morality. Discussions of relativism in this context would be wrong; Good and Evil exist, are (at least in some perspective) defined and knowable, and if I really needed to I could summon an Angel who could give me a definitive answer to most moral quandaries.

(For what it matters I largely agree with moral relativism at the ultimate, 'cosmic' level; but that the stance doesn't lead to any practical relevance in day to day living... so adopting a more relevant morality stance 'in practice' is essentially necessary to navigate our socially interconnected world successfully)

[Zanos]

At the end of the day it doesn't matter either way, because the DnD cosmology is built on the assumption of Objective Morality. Discussions of relativism in this context would be wrong; Good and Evil exist, are (at least in some perspective) defined and knowable, and if I really needed to I could summon an Angel who could give me a definitive answer to most moral quandaries.

(For what it matters I largely agree with moral relativism at the ultimate, 'cosmic' level; but that the stance doesn't lead to any practical relevance in day to day living... so adopting a more relevant morality stance 'in practice' is essentially necessary to navigate our socially interconnected world successfully)
This is absolutely true but I have some time to kill and Godwins law has already been invoked, so 'ere we go:


Dude, I've been in your worldview. I've waded chest deep through moral relativity.
If I told you "I killed someone" you can't say what I did was wrong definitively without more context. Something being objectively wrong would require that context never matter, and by your own admission context does matter.

So no, I don't think charm person is more evil than fireball. I sure as hell didn't consent to being exploded. I'd rather have charm person cast on me and let someone into the building after hours then be set on fire. The suggestion that a spell whose only purpose is to mortally wound people is less evil than a spell whose purpose is to make them like you for a short period is ridiculous.

Might as well jump in on the philosophical discussion here too. All people are morally relative to some degree. This is why there's two sides to every story, and people often both think they've been wronged from their own perspective.

I also reject the assertion that there's some absolute central moral pillar. Modern ethical societies are largely utilitarian frameworks. Up until WWI it was entirely normal to march all your dudes into someone else's country when they did something you didn't like and shoot them all until they did what you wanted, and it only stopped being that way until our capacity for destruction made it impractical to continue to do so. We don't put trade sanctions on NK when they do something we don't like because it's right, we do it because it's MUCH easier than going there and shooting everyone, and less politically devastating than dropping nukes on someone. Over time our societies imperfectly normalize what's politically practical as being ethical, because it's mentally convenient to internalize what you do and the standards your society establishes as the right thing.


It doesn't work. The idea that everything is always shades of gray forever and there is no right or wrong is, itself, wrong. It's why Consequentialism fails, too. A Consequentialist would tell you that it's morally appropriate, and in fact ethically necessary, to go back in time and kill Hitler before he becomes the Fuhrer and creates endless strife, because what is the life of one innocent child compared to the consequence of saving all the lives he will eventually grow up to destroy.

But it's still murder. It's still killing a child who has not committed the atrocities you're killing him in order to prevent.
Are you saying you wouldn't kill a child to prevent the Holocaust? There's a lot of reasons this specific scenario isn't a great example because changes to history could mean much worse things happen, but if you had 100% certainty that killing a single child would prevent millions of people from being tortured to death in concentration camps, you seriously would not do it because it offends some central moral authority? Who's responsible for this central moral authority, by the way? I certainly hope it's not any nation's government. I also certainly hope you don't think it's you personally, because the idea that you've discovered some absolute morality that all humans should conform to is supremely arrogant.

[druid91]

Dude, I've been in your worldview. I've waded chest deep through moral relativity.

It doesn't work. The idea that everything is always shades of gray forever and there is no right or wrong is, itself, wrong. It's why Consequentialism fails, too. A Consequentialist would tell you that it's morally appropriate, and in fact ethically necessary, to go back in time and kill Hitler before he becomes the Fuhrer and creates endless strife, because what is the life of one innocent child compared to the consequence of saving all the lives he will eventually grow up to destroy.

But it's still murder. It's still killing a child who has not committed the atrocities you're killing him in order to prevent.

I don't know if you consider yourself to be a Moral Relativist or a Consequentialist, but either way I specifically answered that I understood that thought process, earlier.



So get off your high horse about "Trying to get me to understand" as if your position was complex or otherwise beyond my ability to accept or understand. If you're interested in an understanding of why Moral Relativism is ultimately a philosophical failure, look to Apolonio of Tyana. Sure he died somewhere around 1900 years ago, but the dude was pretty sound in "Relativism Refuted".

There are no shades of grey. There is no white, and there is no black.

In the end, morality and ethics are artificial memetic control systems embedded within human social groups in order to facilitate cooperation and thus mutual survival of those groups.

Any moral principle you can name has its origins in survival instinct even if it's memetic imperitives eventually override that instinct. Taboos against murder arise out of a desire not to be murdered. Taboos against adultery arise out of the desire to know your genes have passed on.

And even this, the biological imperitive is false. It might be natural. But doesn't make it meaningful. Surviving just means you live on. Nothing more or less. It's only preferable due to the fact that evolution favored creatures which prefer to survive over those who want death. Choosing to live is hardly a choice at all. It's something you're programmed to do. What is love or friendship but a means to find mates and a tribe? What is loyalty?

The idea that relativism is somehow self refuting is nonsense that presumes morality must be some great universal standard. Morality is not a law of nature. Morality is a brand of glue. Some people use Krazy, others Gorilla, and still others use bargain bin Super Glue.

It's only purpose is to bind the group, the tribe, together in the face of a hostile environment. And also to show who's in the group and who isn't.

[KorvinStarmast]

Morality is brand of glue. Some people use Krazy, others Gorilla, and still others use bargain bin Super Glue.

It's only purpose is to bind the group, the tribe, together in the face of a hostile environment. And also to show who's in the group and who isn't. I liked this post, regardless how much I agree with or don't. Nicely done.

[Naanomi]

Morality is not a law of nature.
Except of course, in the context of this discussion and default DnD cosmology, it is... Good and Evil, Law and Chaos... they are measurable traits very central to existence. There are creatures made of Good, made of Evil. You can go to the 'Good' part of the Universe, and the 'Evil' as discrete places. There are creatures that can recognize good and evil on sight, magic that interacts differently with people who are more Good and more Evil. In the context being discussed, that sort of relativism is just demonstrably wrong

[druid91]

I liked this post, regardless how much I agree with or don't. Nicely done.

And that pointed out to me I forgot an a.

[Zanos]

Except of course, in the context of this discussion and default DnD cosmology, it is... Good and Evil, Law and Chaos... they are measurable traits very central to existence. There are creatures made of Good, made of Evil. You can go to the 'Good' part of the Universe, and the 'Evil' as discrete places. There are creatures that can recognize good and evil on sight, magic that interacts differently with people who are more Good and more Evil. In the context being discussed, that sort of relativism is just demonstrably wrong
That's completely true, yeah, but I think we ventured a little bit outside of the scope of the Great Wheel cosmology when we started talking about killing baby Hitler with time travel. Unless there's some Hitler hanging out in Baator I don't know about...

[Naanomi]

That's completely true, yeah, but I think we ventured a little bit outside of the scope of the Great Wheel cosmology when we started talking about killing baby Hitler with time travel. Unless there's some Hitler hanging out in Baator I don't know about...
Probably (although... he seems more like a Pandemonium and/or maybe Carceri kind of guy?), after all Rastilin and Eliminster have both been to Earth... and there have been other points of contact as well. And as for time travel, chronomancy is a well established magical art... though messing with important parts of the timeline has some pretty dire personal and cosmological consequences

[Findulidas]

snip

Oh Im sorry. I guess thats what happens when you go discussing something over more than a day doing many things in between. You forget some of the things people have said in between.

I obviously dont agree that it doesnt work. You also dont have to go 1900 years back since there are prominent philosophers still having this view, I suppose jonathan darcy is one of them. I also dont mind the notion that there will always be shades of gray, since I think that is actually how things are.

I also see several problems with that hitler story in your own worldview. That is that killing is always wrong. Since if you could go back in time and kill hitler, if you choose not to then you have still made a choice. Since inaction is infact also an action. You are then indeed at some level allowing it to happen. You would then have to weigh the lives of those people compared to his anyway. You could of course do something else besides killing him that would probably change the course. So it does infact create a gray area anyway.

Also I obviously didnt think you wouldnt understand since that would mean I wouldnt even have the discussion. I only thought you misunderstood what I was saying.

Im losing interest here again. I only felt like responding since you felt insulted and that was not what I intended. Sorry again.

[druid91]

Except of course, in the context of this discussion and default DnD cosmology, it is... Good and Evil, Law and Chaos... they are measurable traits very central to existence. There are creatures made of Good, made of Evil. You can go to the 'Good' part of the Universe, and the 'Evil' as discrete places. There are creatures that can recognize good and evil on sight, magic that interacts differently with people who are more Good and more Evil. In the context being discussed, that sort of relativism is just demonstrably wrong

Does that really refute what I said at all? Each alignment has its own beliefs about what is and is not proper behavior and rewards appropriate behavior with boons and punishes inappropriate behavior.

That two of the alignments are called Good and Evil does not mean that Evil does not have it's own sense of what is good. In this case, selfishness and ruthlessness combined with a brutal form of meritocracy. If you have power you are good. If you are weak you are bad. If you can advance your power by crushing the weak you should, etc etc.

Also could we avoid the Godwin?

[Naanomi]

Evil doesn't consider itself 'its own version of right' in this scenario though, Evil gleefully recognizes its own nature as Evil and revels in it as a fundamental force of the universe. It doesn't, by and large, try to justify its Evil nature or couch it in 'this is really what is best' terms.

[druid91]

Evil doesn't consider itself 'its own version of right' in this scenario though, Evil gleefully recognizes its own nature as Evil and revels in it as a fundamental force of the universe. It doesn't, by and large, try to justify its Evil nature or couch it in 'this is really what is best' terms.

It might not say that explicitly but that is still how they behave. They reward Evil behavior and punish Good behavior.

Your presuming they need to Justify it as big G good. They don't being Evil, to Asmodeus is just what is right and proper. Just like upholding the tenets of good is right and proper to a Solar.

[Steampunkette]

This is absolutely true but I have some time to kill and Godwins law has already been invoked, so 'ere we go:

Lemme stop you there: Godwin's Law is accusing the opposing party of being Hitler or equating them to Hitler. There's been no Reductio ad Hitlerium in this thread.

Discussing killing Hitler doesn't count.


If I told you "I killed someone" you can't say what I did was wrong definitively without more context. Something being objectively wrong would require that context never matter, and by your own admission context does matter.

No. You're mistaking an understanding of points of moral belief with the inability to accept ethical justification, here. As I've said, repeatedly, I'm not saying Killing is unjustifiable. I'm saying that it requires justification to be an ethically neutral or even positive act.

You're mistaking my position for Moral Absolutism. If I was attempting to convey Absolutism, I would not discuss justification because Absolutism does not -allow- for Justification.

Less than two paragraphs in you've misrepresented me in two separate ways. I don't think you understand my positions at all...

That said, if you told me you killed someone of course I would immediately ask for context: The base action is wrong and I would want to figure out if your action was justified.

If you told me "I scratched my elbow." I wouldn't ask for moral justification or further information, though I would be confused as to why you felt I needed to know about your itches.


So no, I don't think charm person is more evil than fireball I sure as hell didn't consent to being exploded. I'd rather have charm person cast on me and let someone into the building after hours then be set on fire. The suggestion that a spell whose only purpose is to mortally wound people is less evil than a spell whose purpose is to make them like you for a short period is ridiculous.

And here we go with a third one: At no point did I say that spells designed to mortally wound someone (Or even injure a person) aren't evil. My only statement was that mind control spells represent an unacceptable violation of a person's most private self.

I have noted, however, that comparing evil acts and declaring one of them to be more evil and thus the other to not be evil is a logical fallacy.

Though I wonder if it's Consequentialist since your basis is "The outcome (ostensibly) isn't as bad."


Might as well jump in on the philosophical discussion here too. All people are morally relative to some degree. This is why there's two sides to every story, and people often both think they've been wronged from their own perspective.

That's not moral relativity. That's perception of reality. If I draw the number 9 on the ground and you standing opposite to me tell me that I've written the number 6 you are wrong, even though your perception of the situation is simply different. You're making a judgement without the full understanding of the situation (In this case the decision on my part to draw the number 9).

Moral Relativity involves there being no set-points of ethical action. The idea that killing isn't inherently wrong, but instead can only be right or wrong when given appropriate context of Intent, Action, and Consequences (Intended and Otherwise).


I also reject the assertion that there's some absolute central moral pillar. Modern ethical societies are largely utilitarian frameworks. Up until WWI it was entirely normal to march all your dudes into someone else's country when they did something you didn't like and shoot them all until they did what you wanted, and it only stopped being that way until our capacity for destruction made it impractical to continue to do so. We don't put trade sanctions on NK when they do something we don't like because it's right, we do it because it's MUCH easier than going there and shooting everyone, and less politically devastating than dropping nukes on someone. Over time our societies imperfectly normalize what's politically practical as being ethical, because it's mentally convenient to internalize what you do and the standards your society establishes as the right thing.

That would be Cultural Relativism. The idea that soldiers are not at fault, even when they commit atrocities, so long as it is sanctioned by their culture/government/etc. Cultural Relativism equally applies to all sides and all atrocities, so long each society condones those atrocities. It's similar to Moral Relativism, but not the same. Instead, it mandates that culture determines fixed points of morality to which justifications can be applied.

Nice to see it crop up, though!


Are you saying you wouldn't kill a child to prevent the Holocaust? There's a lot of reasons this specific scenario isn't a great example because changes to history could mean much worse things happen, but if you had 100% certainty that killing a single child would prevent millions of people from being tortured to death in concentration camps, you seriously would not do it because it offends some central moral authority? Who's responsible for this central moral authority, by the way? I certainly hope it's not any nation's government. I also certainly hope you don't think it's you personally, because the idea that you've discovered some absolute morality that all humans should conform to is supremely arrogant.

Should I kill baby Hitler? No. For a variety of reasons, actually. But for the purposes of this discussion I'll place it in ethical terms:

Lil' Hitler has committed no crimes and done nothing to justify his death. To kill him would be just as morally unsound as killing any other child.

Nor should I intervene in his existence through warning political bodies that would likewise do him harm, as that would similarly leave me morally culpable.

Would I stop Hitler's rise to power? Oh, heck yeah! Not even a question in my mind that I would do everything in my power to keep him from becoming the Adolf Hitler we all know and despise. Between trying to educate him as a child, stopping his unlawful actions in the Beer Hall Putsch, and so forth. Even if I knew that my actions would stop me from being born (Which they almost certainly would since my family is a military family) I would do what I could to stop him. In fact if he had a Gun at the Beer Hall Putsch I would be morally and ethically justified in using lethal force to stop him from committing the assassination he was attempting at the time.

But I could not ethically justify killing him until he had done something worth killing him over.

WOULD I kill Baby Hitler? I honestly don't know. I'd like to think I'd maintain my moral core but knowing what he would accomplish in his life I fear I might spike his baby self like a football. Hypocritical, sure, but I never claimed to be more than human.

As to the core of the moral authority I'm speaking of: It's not a God, or a Nation, and it's certainly not myself.

It's the conclusion of philosophers of various locations in the world and across thousands of years of time through deductive and inductive reasoning that has convinced me that there are essential ethical anchor points onto which individual ethical philosophies are hung. That there are certain truths and individual rights we all possess as sapient beings possessing of a Consciousness.

Excepting of course Philosophical Zombies. Screw those guys.

[Naanomi]

It might not say that explicitly but that is still how they behave. They reward Evil behavior and punish Good behavior.

Your presuming they need to Justify it as big G good. They don't being Evil, to Asmodeus is just what is right and proper. Just like upholding the tenets of good is right and proper to a Solar.
Asmodeus as a 'fallen celestial' (maybe? His real background is unclear) isn't the best example... there isn't really a pure Evil equivalent of an Angel (Angels represent Goods ability to work together despite differences, something Evil lacks). Yugoloth (or perhaps the Baernoloth that created them) are probably the closest equivalent; and they are clear that they are not doing anything to Reward or Punish any specific behavior, just doing what they want (as selfishness incarnate) that happens to align with the Cosmoc Evil forces that birthed them. Evil things are Evil and do Evil; they don't 'work for team evil' or 'adhere to the philosophy of evil' in any meaningful sense (though perhaps some do)

[druid91]

Asmodeus as a 'fallen celestial' (maybe? His real background is unclear) isn't the best example... there isn't really a pure Evil equivalent of an Angel (Angels represent Goods ability to work together despite differences, something Evil lacks). Yugoloth (or perhaps the Baernoloth that created them) are probably the closest equivalent; and they are clear that they are not doing anything to Reward or Punish any specific behavior, just doing what they want (as selfishness incarnate) that happens to align with the Cosmoc Evil forces that birthed them. Evil things are Evil and do Evil; they don't 'work for team evil' or 'adhere to the philosophy of evil' in any meaningful sense (though perhaps some do)

This would be because there is no Team Evil. Evil, as per D&D morality is excessively individualistic and selfish. The rewards available to evil are due to this very stance. If you gain power, you will gain followers who hope to gain some for themselves, followers you exploit to get more power for yourself.

There is no Team Evil but that does not mean following it's philosophy will not get you aid from others doing so.

[Steampunkette]

There are no shades of grey. There is no white, and there is no black.

In the end, morality and ethics are artificial memetic control systems embedded within human social groups in order to facilitate cooperation and thus mutual survival of those groups.

Any moral principle you can name has its origins in survival instinct even if it's memetic imperitives eventually override that instinct. Taboos against murder arise out of a desire not to be murdered. Taboos against adultery arise out of the desire to know your genes have passed on.

And even this, the biological imperitive is false. It might be natural. But doesn't make it meaningful. Surviving just means you live on. Nothing more or less. It's only preferable due to the fact that evolution favored creatures which prefer to survive over those who want death. Choosing to live is hardly a choice at all. It's something you're programmed to do. What is love or friendship but a means to find mates and a tribe? What is loyalty?

The idea that relativism is somehow self refuting is nonsense that presumes morality must be some great universal standard. Morality is not a law of nature. Morality is a brand of glue. Some people use Krazy, others Gorilla, and still others use bargain bin Super Glue.

It's only purpose is to bind the group, the tribe, together in the face of a hostile environment. And also to show who's in the group and who isn't.

I disagree.

You're right that the moral imperative to not murder comes out of a desire to not be murdered. But whenceforth comes that desire? Certainly not an animal mind which has no concept of murder. They have no concepts -of- desires. Animals are stimulus and reaction, right? But there comes a point where stimulus and reaction aren't all that's going on. When vagaries and complexities push to a different direction.

Humans, and our cousins and ancestors, were communal and social creatures long before philosophy came along. There were in-groups and out-groups among primates long before the first one sat up and tried to come up with a method of conveying anything more complicated than where food was. If that survival instinct exists, and we are nothing but in-groups and out-groups, whenceforth comes Ethical Philosophy?

If it's just a glue made up of survival instincts to try and maintain a social structure, what do we need it for if we've got those survival instincts? And, more importantly, why isn't it working?

We no longer live in troops. In extended families as the earlier primates of our respective family lines once did. We've moved into a very different society, into a very different social structure. If Ethical Philosophy is nothing but a survival instinct we'd all cling to the same one, instinctively.

But we don't. We don't because as much as we are animals, and make no mistake humans are absolutely animals, we possess consciousness and sapience. We're capable of discerning and understanding on a level most (Known) animals cannot. Ethical discussions and considerations are a thing beyond a Pigeon's understanding, regardless of what it's instincts might be.

Philosophy can even be Self-Destructive, as it is in the form of extreme Absolutism among people who believe that violence under any circumstances must be avoided even at the cost of one's own life. And people who cling to that philosophy have been slaughtered while maintaining passive resistance and absolute nonviolence.

I agree that society evolved alongside our biology. That instincts guide many of our actions and thoughts. But if instinct was all there was, there would be no moral absolutists setting themselves on fire and burning to death to protest against violence rather than using violence to protect themselves and their offspring.

The emergence of Consciousness has thrown instinct for a loop.

[druid91]

I disagree.

You're right that the moral imperative to not murder comes out of a desire to not be murdered. But whenceforth comes that desire? Certainly not an animal mind which has no concept of murder. They have no concepts -of- desires. Animals are stimulus and reaction, right? But there comes a point where stimulus and reaction aren't all that's going on. When vagaries and complexities push to a different direction.

Humans, and our cousins and ancestors, were communal and social creatures long before philosophy came along. There were in-groups and out-groups among primates long before the first one sat up and tried to come up with a method of conveying anything more complicated than where food was. If that survival instinct exists, and we are nothing but in-groups and out-groups, whenceforth comes Ethical Philosophy?

If it's just a glue made up of survival instincts to try and maintain a social structure, what do we need it for if we've got those survival instincts? And, more importantly, why isn't it working?

We no longer live in troops. In extended families as the earlier primates of our respective family lines once did. We've moved into a very different society, into a very different social structure. If Ethical Philosophy is nothing but a survival instinct we'd all cling to the same one, instinctively.

But we don't. We don't because as much as we are animals, and make no mistake humans are absolutely animals, we possess consciousness and sapience. We're capable of discerning and understanding on a level most (Known) animals cannot. Ethical discussions and considerations are a thing beyond a Pigeon's understanding, regardless of what it's instincts might be.

Philosophy can even be Self-Destructive, as it is in the form of extreme Absolutism among people who believe that violence under any circumstances must be avoided even at the cost of one's own life. And people who cling to that philosophy have been slaughtered while maintaining passive resistance and absolute nonviolence.

I agree that society evolved alongside our biology. That instincts guide many of our actions and thoughts. But if instinct was all there was, there would be no moral absolutists setting themselves on fire and burning to death to protest against violence rather than using violence to protect themselves and their offspring.

The emergence of Consciousness has thrown instinct for a loop.

The ability to abstract our instincts is present, but that does not mean we act independently of those instincts.

What it does mean is that those instincts are capable of mutation. Allowing various imperitives that started out secondary to survival to ascend above it in priority. By identifying the principle with the self, the abandonment of it is to die.

Sapience is a vague word. One with no real meaning. Our cognition is more complicated. But ultimately no more than reaction to stimuli.

[Steampunkette]

The ability to abstract our instincts is present, but that does not mean we act independently of those instincts.

What it does mean is that those instincts are capable of mutation. Allowing various imperitives that started out secondary to survival to ascend above it in priority. By identifying the principle with the self, the abandonment of it is to die.

Sapience is a vague word. One with no real meaning. Our cognition is more complicated. But ultimately no more than reaction to stimuli.

The ability to abstract our instincts and actively act -against- our instincts means we act independently of our instincts in those instances. If we did not act independently of our instincts we would follow our instincts in those instances.

That, alone, shows that more than instinct is at play.

It's the classic argument of Reductionism versus Emergentism. Which you and I, respectively, follow fairly clearly.

But hey! Common ground in Physicalism, right?

[Naanomi]

Sapience is a vague word. One with no real meaning. Our cognition is more complicated. But ultimately no more than reaction to stimuli.
Self-awareness and cognition are absolutely selected for traits, with high survival utility (especially when living in increasingly complex social groups). One only has to work with individuals with significant cognitive and/or theory of mind impairment to see the value. They are an amazing emergent adaptive trait, not a spanner in the works

[Unoriginal]

or couch it in 'this is really what is best' terms.

Err, depends what you mean.

Most evil beings in 5e D&D are aware they are doing evil things and harming others. But they do consider it the best course of action for themselves, and would not find odd that others agree.

[KorvinStarmast]

Unless there's some Hitler hanging out in Baator I don't know about... All of the junk mail I sent to him via that Post Office Box on Mount Celestia, got returned as "undeliverable". (I figured he'd try to go for the "big lie" with Goebbels and get an apartment there, hiding out in the artist's colony). Fail.

That is that killing is always wrong. Try not to use that line around any of us veterans who have been invited to attend a shooting war, if you please. While it isn't a happy time confetti tossing deal, your position is beyond narrow and even wrong. There is indeed justifiable war and thus justifiable and non-wrong killing, since war involves killing by definition. (See UN articles on when collective armed action is or isn't within the charter, among other accepted norms). I'll stop there as we are getting too close to RL stuff.
This would be because there is no Team Evil. Evil, as per D&D morality is excessively individualistic and selfish. The rewards available to evil are due to this very stance. If you gain power, you will gain followers who hope to gain some for themselves, followers you exploit to get more power for yourself. There is no Team Evil but that does not mean following it's philosophy will not get you aid from others doing so. Though they may screw you anyway, for their own benefit. It depends ...

[Steampunkette]

In defense of Findulidas, Korvin, he was misunderstanding my position as an absolutist position, not espousing an absolutist position on killing. And then using a Consequentialist argument to refute my purported absolutist position.

[Findulidas]

Try not to use that line around any of us veterans who have been invited to attend a shooting war, if you please. While it isn't a happy time confetti tossing deal, your position is beyond narrow and even wrong. There is indeed justifiable war and thus justifiable and non-wrong killing, since war involves killing by definition. (See UN articles on when collective armed action is or isn't within the charter, among other accepted norms). I'll stop there as we are getting too close to RL stuff.

You are aware that it wasnt my position at all right? The fact that killing is always wrong that is

[willdaBEAST]

I disagree.

You're right that the moral imperative to not murder comes out of a desire to not be murdered. But whenceforth comes that desire? Certainly not an animal mind which has no concept of murder. They have no concepts -of- desires. Animals are stimulus and reaction, right? But there comes a point where stimulus and reaction aren't all that's going on. When vagaries and complexities push to a different direction.

Humans, and our cousins and ancestors, were communal and social creatures long before philosophy came along. There were in-groups and out-groups among primates long before the first one sat up and tried to come up with a method of conveying anything more complicated than where food was. If that survival instinct exists, and we are nothing but in-groups and out-groups, whenceforth comes Ethical Philosophy?

If it's just a glue made up of survival instincts to try and maintain a social structure, what do we need it for if we've got those survival instincts? And, more importantly, why isn't it working?

We no longer live in troops. In extended families as the earlier primates of our respective family lines once did. We've moved into a very different society, into a very different social structure. If Ethical Philosophy is nothing but a survival instinct we'd all cling to the same one, instinctively.

But we don't. We don't because as much as we are animals, and make no mistake humans are absolutely animals, we possess consciousness and sapience. We're capable of discerning and understanding on a level most (Known) animals cannot. Ethical discussions and considerations are a thing beyond a Pigeon's understanding, regardless of what it's instincts might be...

... I agree that society evolved alongside our biology. That instincts guide many of our actions and thoughts. But if instinct was all there was, there would be no moral absolutists setting themselves on fire and burning to death to protest against violence rather than using violence to protect themselves and their offspring.

The emergence of Consciousness has thrown instinct for a loop.

I'd argue that ethical philosophy comes from leisure. When immediate survival is no longer taking up all of your time, considering your place in society or the universe is natural. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that morality is a form of control. People in positions of power will quickly establish rules that everyone else has to follow, often to their own benefit. As more and more people began to live in closer proximity, it seem inevitable that some kind of social contract will develop.

You're pretty careful about your wording in respect to animals, but I think we grossly underestimate their self-awareness or sapience. Dolphins are a huge question mark for us: we know they have common languages and localized unique languages, but we understand almost nothing about what they communicate to each other.

Humans also have the tendency to project our narrow view of intelligence onto whatever we're studying. Chimps are much smarter than dogs, but they fail a simple test where the researcher points to two covered dishes (one containing a treat). The chimp will randomly pick a dish to investigate, while a dog will go to the one that was pointed at. Dogs have evolved to read our facial expressions and follow directions, whereas chimps could care less.

I think society evolved along with our biology, until agriculture. Agriculture fundamentally changed our relationship with the world. Fixed dwellings became possible, we moved away from tribes by focusing on family units, gender inequality became prominent and for once we had a surplus of food, allowing for large population centers.

Personally, I'd argue that farming broke us as a species and that the reason we have so many ethical problems is because we're living counter to our biological and mental needs. I'm not trying to claim that a hunter gatherer lifestyle would be endless fun, but to me that seems to be the social setting we thrive in as a species.

[Zanos]

Lemme stop you there: Godwin's Law is accusing the opposing party of being Hitler or equating them to Hitler. There's been no Reductio ad Hitlerium in this thread.

Discussing killing Hitler doesn't count.
Godwin's law only asserts that there will be a comparison involving Hitler, not necessarily one that involves opposing parties. It's not actually a logical fallacy or anything, just an amusing observation about the abuse of a serious tragedy in internet discussions.


No. You're mistaking an understanding of points of moral belief with the inability to accept ethical justification, here. As I've said, repeatedly, I'm not saying Killing is unjustifiable. I'm saying that it requires justification to be an ethically neutral or even positive act.

You're mistaking my position for Moral Absolutism. If I was attempting to convey Absolutism, I would not discuss justification because Absolutism does not -allow- for Justification.
I will get to this further down.


That said, if you told me you killed someone of course I would immediately ask for context: The base action is wrong and I would want to figure out if your action was justified.

If you told me "I scratched my elbow." I wouldn't ask for moral justification or further information, though I would be confused as to why you felt I needed to know about your itches.
Because scratching your elbow is uninteresting and typical. There's few to no possible justifications that could make that act have any moral consequence. It's an extremely poor example of a "neutral" action. On the other hand if I said "I didn't go to my father's funeral", that action has no immediately discernible moral bearing, but would likely still prompt someone to ask why I had done that.


And here we go with a third one: At no point did I say that spells designed to mortally wound someone (Or even injure a person) aren't evil. My only statement was that mind control spells represent an unacceptable violation of a person's most private self.

I have noted, however, that comparing evil acts and declaring one of them to be more evil and thus the other to not be evil is a logical fallacy.
True, A being more X than B is X doesn't make B not X. But based in the framework of the discussion of D&D, damage spells are pretty essential, therefore I assumed that the majority of people wouldn't class them as inherently wrong.

But that begs the question: are damage spells bad? If so, are they worse than mind control spells?


Though I wonder if it's Consequentialist since your basis is "The outcome (ostensibly) isn't as bad."
Desiring to avoid bad outcomes and promoting good outcomes seems like a reasonable moral framework to me.


That's not moral relativity. That's perception of reality. If I draw the number 9 on the ground and you standing opposite to me tell me that I've written the number 6 you are wrong, even though your perception of the situation is simply different. You're making a judgement without the full understanding of the situation (In this case the decision on my part to draw the number 9).
Intent cannot be divined. We can only make moral decisions based on the information we have. To a blind man, there is no 6 and no 9. Telling you I observe a 6 is not incorrect based on the information my perspective permitted; I observed a 6. You can have a flawed perception of reality, true, but making a decision based on incomplete information does not make a decision bad. It's not possible to do any better.


Moral Relativity involves there being no set-points of ethical action. The idea that killing isn't inherently wrong, but instead can only be right or wrong when given appropriate context of Intent, Action, and Consequences (Intended and Otherwise).
Inherent: existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.

If you are arguing that killing is inherently evil, it can not be justified. It's wrongness is essential to the action, if it wasn't wrong it wouldn't be killing. Apparently I have mischaracterized your argument as moral absolutism, but based on your suggestion here that killing is inherently wrong, I think that's a reasonable inference.


That would be Cultural Relativism. The idea that soldiers are not at fault, even when they commit atrocities, so long as it is sanctioned by their culture/government/etc. Cultural Relativism equally applies to all sides and all atrocities, so long each society condones those atrocities. It's similar to Moral Relativism, but not the same. Instead, it mandates that culture determines fixed points of morality to which justifications can be applied.

Nice to see it crop up, though!
That's not what I'm saying at all. It isn't Americans not blaming soldiers in Vietnam for fighting against them, it's Americans not even recognizing that going to Vietnam in the first place was immoral, because it was done by Americans for Americans. This is just basic tribalism, which is moral relativism.


Should I kill baby Hitler? No. For a variety of reasons, actually. But for the purposes of this discussion I'll place it in ethical terms:

Lil' Hitler has committed no crimes and done nothing to justify his death. To kill him would be just as morally unsound as killing any other child.
I would disagree that it's just as unsound. Intent matters. Grabbing a random child and stabbing it to death is not as bad as killing a specific child to prevent a calamity. While you could argue that both are wrong to some degree(although I would argue that the latter isn't wrong at all), mitigating circumstances apply. Again, you claim to be saying that you aren't arguing for moral absolutism, but once again you've disposed of the concept that an action can be justified. Saying that killing baby Hitler to prevent the Holocaust is just as bad as killing baby Sophia because you wanted to test out your new knife seems very absolutist to me.


Nor should I intervene in his existence through warning political bodies that would likewise do him harm, as that would similarly leave me morally culpable.

Would I stop Hitler's rise to power? Oh, heck yeah! Not even a question in my mind that I would do everything in my power to keep him from becoming the Adolf Hitler we all know and despise. Between trying to educate him as a child, stopping his unlawful actions in the Beer Hall Putsch, and so forth. Even if I knew that my actions would stop me from being born (Which they almost certainly would since my family is a military family) I would do what I could to stop him. In fact if he had a Gun at the Beer Hall Putsch I would be morally and ethically justified in using lethal force to stop him from committing the assassination he was attempting at the time.
Ah, the third options. Works in media, not so often in reality. Circumstances often force choices that are distasteful.


But I could not ethically justify killing him until he had done something worth killing him over.
Above you said that if he had a gun at the Beer Hall Putsch you would kill him to stop him, but by this logic you wouldn't be able to. Pulling out a gun is not wrong on it's own, and many people decide to back down before they commit violent offenses. If you knew he was going to do something violent in the past but wouldn't do it then, and you expect him to do something violent now, what makes stopping him now more ethical?


WOULD I kill Baby Hitler? I honestly don't know. I'd like to think I'd maintain my moral core but knowing what he would accomplish in his life I fear I might spike his baby self like a football. Hypocritical, sure, but I never claimed to be more than human.
I might hesitate but I could say for certain that I would do it if there wasn't another way, and I would hope if given the chance that someone else would as well. I would not place my own moral integrity on a pedestal above the goodwill of the millions that might suffer as a result of my actions.


As to the core of the moral authority I'm speaking of: It's not a God, or a Nation, and it's certainly not myself.

It's the conclusion of philosophers of various locations in the world and across thousands of years of time through deductive and inductive reasoning that has convinced me that there are essential ethical anchor points onto which individual ethical philosophies are hung. That there are certain truths and individual rights we all possess as sapient beings possessing of a Consciousness.
What of the conclusion of philosophers of various locations in the world and across thousands of years of time through deductive and inductive reasoning that didn't convince you? What about the conclusions of religious scholars that span that same time and locales? Philosophy is not provable, and choosing to be convinced by a specific branch has no more inherent value.


Personally, I'd argue that farming broke us as a species and that the reason we have so many ethical problems is because we're living counter to our biological and mental needs. I'm not trying to claim that a hunter gatherer lifestyle would be endless fun, but to me that seems to be the social setting we thrive in as a species.
Modern living does not free us from the consequences of biology. Simply due to inheritance, those that survive and reproduce will continue to be selected for, regardless of the society we create. The only thing that changes is who is selected for. We aren't extinct yet, so it must be working to some degree.

[Steampunkette]

I'd argue that ethical philosophy comes from leisure. When immediate survival is no longer taking up all of your time, considering your place in society or the universe is natural. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that morality is a form of control. People in positions of power will quickly establish rules that everyone else has to follow, often to their own benefit. As more and more people began to live in closer proximity, it seem inevitable that some kind of social contract will develop.

I definitely agree that philosophy, like all pursuits of higher thought, occurs in leisure as opposed to stress. Society, similarly, forms when there is opportunity for nonviolent interaction.

Morality can be a form of control. But that isn't it's explicit function. Rather, morality is a logical series of propositions and arguments and counterarguments based on what will help or harm individuals, groups, or social structures. It can be used to control by individuals in a position to dictate morality, and thus mandate social norms (Culturally Relative Morality), but at a fundamental level it's just an exploration.


You're pretty careful about your wording in respect to animals, but I think we grossly underestimate their self-awareness or sapience. Dolphins are a huge question mark for us: we know they have common languages and localized unique languages, but we understand almost nothing about what they communicate to each other.

I am -incredibly- careful about my wording with respect to animals. I recognize that Dolphins have a form of self-awareness as do some species of birds and octopi. But to my current knowledge we've seen no evidence of consciousness on the level that we would accept as sapience. When we do I will crow it from the rooftops with delight, should it happen in my lifetime.

I eagerly await the day we can translate even a single dolphin dialect and begin communication, regardless of how rudimentary. But until that time I'm comfortable giving dolphins a pass on Moral Culpability.


Humans also have the tendency to project our narrow view of intelligence onto whatever we're studying. Chimps are much smarter than dogs, but they fail a simple test where the researcher points to two covered dishes (one containing a treat). The chimp will randomly pick a dish to investigate, while a dog will go to the one that was pointed at. Dogs have evolved to read our facial expressions and follow directions, whereas chimps could care less.

This is less an issue of consciousness as an emergent property of physiology and the philosophical impacts thereof and a digression into quantification of intelligence. Which, by the by, I'm entirely happy to do!

Though I feel like we should definitely lay out that there are different types of intelligence, some of which are more valued in different cultures than others. Everything from cunning to situational awareness to pattern recognition to social cues. I think humans fairly clearly understand and respect that there are animals which possess high intelligence in some of those categories, but none seem to have high marks in all of them... yet, at least.

Though I readily admit that might be an issue with perceptive testing on our part.


I think society evolved along with our biology, until agriculture. Agriculture fundamentally changed our relationship with the world. Fixed dwellings became possible, we moved away from tribes by focusing on family units, gender inequality became prominent and for once we had a surplus of food, allowing for large population centers.

I mostly agree with this, aside from the aforementioned idea I have about the serious mental reconstruction during teen years and propensity to rebel against societal structures being a biological component of societal evolution. I think as a species we're not only biologically predisposed to society, but biologically predisposed to force that society to evolve as if it were a living thing.

The big difference being a lack of genetic random mutation replaced by the random mutations of higher thought. Everything from philosophy to technology altering the structure of society itself.


Personally, I'd argue that farming broke us as a species and that the reason we have so many ethical problems is because we're living counter to our biological and mental needs. I'm not trying to claim that a hunter gatherer lifestyle would be endless fun, but to me that seems to be the social setting we thrive in as a species.

I would say we're far better at Thriving, today, than we were as a hunter gatherer population. Even from a purely biological standpoint, our population has exploded massively and placed us on top of every environmental food chain we've come across. The ethical issues we face, therefore, aren't a side effect of moving beyond our initial parameters: They're societal mutations that are being negatively selected through cognitive evolution.

[Steampunkette]

Godwin's law only asserts that there will be a comparison involving Hitler, not necessarily one that involves opposing parties. It's not actually a logical fallacy or anything, just an amusing observation about the abuse of a serious tragedy in internet discussions.

Comparison involving Hitler. Not discussing his death or the ethical implications thereof. ;)


Because scratching your elbow is uninteresting and typical. There's few to no possible justifications that could make that act have any moral consequence. It's an extremely poor example of a "neutral" action. On the other hand if I said "I didn't go to my father's funeral", that action has no immediately discernible moral bearing, but would likely still prompt someone to ask why I had done that.

It probably would prompt people to ask why, but probably not out of questions of your ethics or morality. But that's mistaking societal norm for ethical considerations. It's not a matter of whether you've done something right or wrong, but curiosity. That's why I chose the elbow-scratching example. Something that isn't socially aberrant or ethically questionable.


But that begs the question: are damage spells bad? If so, are they worse than mind control spells?

Damage spells are violence, violence itself is inherently bad, so yes. They're bad. I don't know if I'd place them better or worse than mind control spells, but neither would I say the use of them is unjustifiable.


Desiring to avoid bad outcomes and promoting good outcomes seems like a reasonable moral framework to me.

It is. But it's only a framework. And one that can lead to some ugly, ugly, means when people believe their ends justify them.


Intent cannot be divined. We can only make moral decisions based on the information we have. To a blind man, there is no 6 and no 9. Telling you I observe a 6 is not incorrect based on the information my perspective permitted; I observed a 6. You can have a flawed perception of reality, true, but making a decision based on incomplete information does not make a decision bad. It's not possible to do any better.

What I'm saying is that perspective has no bearing on the truth of the number 9 I've drawn on the ground. Even if it looks like a 6 from your perspective, you would be wrong to say that it IS a 6. Not that you perceive a 6. Your refutation, here, does not reflect the circumstances I put forth.

I'm not saying the decision is bad because faulty information, only that the assumption is wrong, independent of any following act. While you might perceive a 6, and the blind man perceive nothing, the 9 remains a 9.


Inherent: existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.

If you are arguing that killing is inherently evil, it can not be justified. It's wrongness is essential to the action, if it wasn't wrong it wouldn't be killing. Apparently I have mischaracterized your argument as moral absolutism, but based on your suggestion here that killing is inherently wrong, I think that's a reasonable inference.

If I were trying to present an argument of Absolutism I wouldn't discuss Justification at all, because I would be presenting absolutes. It's only a reasonable inference if you don't understand what Absolutism is.


That's not what I'm saying at all. It isn't Americans not blaming soldiers in Vietnam for fighting against them, it's Americans not even recognizing that going to Vietnam in the first place was immoral, because it was done by Americans for Americans. This is just basic tribalism, which is moral relativism.

No. It isn't. It's Cultural Relativism. It's making moral judgements based on the precepts provided by the Culture. American Culture determined that allowing Communism to "Infect" Vietnam was unacceptable and gave moral sanction to the killing of the enemy soldiers (And civilians) to ensure that end did not come to pass. They did attack for Tribalistic reasons (Though not "Yay America!" so much as "Yay Capitalism!") but the acceptance of the American Public for Vietnam was Cultural Relativism. Meanwhile the younger Americans rebelled against that Cultural Relativism, and to a much lesser degree the Tribalism that inspired it (Lots of young people opposed the Vietnam war, a much smaller quantity sought to end Capitalism in the US).

Even if it WERE Tribalism, it would still not be Moral Relativism. Moral Relativism states that no action is inherently good or bad. They are all perfectly ethically neutral and only the circumstances and intent matter to Ethical Considerations. Tribalism makes the Tribe the Ethical Compass.

In either case, Moral Relativism is inaccurate.


I would disagree that it's just as unsound. Intent matters. Grabbing a random child and stabbing it to death is not as bad as killing a specific child to prevent a calamity. While you could argue that both are wrong to some degree(although I would argue that the latter isn't wrong at all), mitigating circumstances apply. Again, you claim to be saying that you aren't arguing for moral absolutism, but once again you've disposed of the concept that an action can be justified. Saying that killing baby Hitler to prevent the Holocaust is just as bad as killing baby Sophia because you wanted to test out your new knife seems very absolutist to me.

And it's cool that you're a Consequentialist, where the outcome is vastly more important than the action itself. A person who believes that the Ends justify the Means. I disagree, and have done my best to convey that, here. I honestly thought I did it pretty well in the next section, but you seem to disagree.


Ah, the third options. Works in media, not so often in reality. Circumstances often force choices that are distasteful.

Above you said that if he had a gun at the Beer Hall Putsch you would kill him to stop him, but by this logic you wouldn't be able to. Pulling out a gun is not wrong on it's own, and many people decide to back down before they commit violent offenses. If you knew he was going to do something violent in the past but wouldn't do it then, and you expect him to do something violent now, what makes stopping him now more ethical?

Readying a weapon for violence is, itself, an act of violence. An implicit, though I daresay readying a weapon is an explicit, threat at the very least meant to terrify, and almost always presaging an act of physical violence. If I had a reasonable expectation that he intended to use his weapon for violence I would be ethically justified in stopping that violent act, even if I didn't know for sure he intended to kill people. I might feel guilt over the matter, or doubt my actions based on my lack of knowledge, but I would be justified.


I might hesitate but I could say for certain that I would do it if there wasn't another way, and I would hope if given the chance that someone else would as well. I would not place my own moral integrity on a pedestal above the goodwill of the millions that might suffer as a result of my actions.

You misunderstand, me, Zanos. I would do everything in my power to stop him, Ethically, if I could resist the urge to spike him like a football.

I'm not saying "I'd let him live his life unchanged" I'm saying that I hope I wouldn't kill an innocent baby for the actions that baby might commit.

Your moral conviction places you in a position where killing Hitlerbaby is totes acceptable. Mine does not.


What of the conclusion of philosophers of various locations in the world and across thousands of years of time through deductive and inductive reasoning that didn't convince you? What about the conclusions of religious scholars that span that same time and locales? Philosophy is not provable, and choosing to be convinced by a specific branch has no more inherent value.

I find that I haven't -chosen- to be convinced. I initially started as a Moral Relativist. Then came Utilitarianism as I began to learn about Physicalism. Later I moved onto Consequentialism after running into the whole Trolley Problem and it's bastard children. As my life has progressed I have railed against other philosophical positions and arguments. Some I've argued to a standstill, others I've 'defeated' and others I've acknowledged as superior.

Ultimately I have figured out that no philosophy is perfect because all of them collapse under their own weight once you reach their extremes. This applies to -every- type of philosophy, not just ethical philosophy.

The arguments that didn't convince me are arguments that have either been taken apart, shown to be flawed in conception, or otherwise "Disproved" by the arguments that have convinced me.

[druid91]

The ability to abstract our instincts and actively act -against- our instincts means we act independently of our instincts in those instances. If we did not act independently of our instincts we would follow our instincts in those instances.

That, alone, shows that more than instinct is at play.

It's the classic argument of Reductionism versus Emergentism. Which you and I, respectively, follow fairly clearly.

But hey! Common ground in Physicalism, right?

Personally I find Emergentism to arise from the Black Box problem. In the case of human behavior the mind is the Black Box, we can easily observe the stimuli, and we can easily observe the reaction of the person, but we cannot easily observe every facet of the cognition that creates that reaction and thus we cannot easily predict or codify Human cognition. This leads some to believe that it cannot be predicted or codified.

I believe it just means it's excessively complicated and we haven't figured it out. Yet. I also don't believe we act against our instincts, but instead our ability at abstraction and empathy allows us to replace the focus of our instincts. Pushing us towards another goal than just survival.



I'd argue that ethical philosophy comes from leisure. When immediate survival is no longer taking up all of your time, considering your place in society or the universe is natural. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that morality is a form of control. People in positions of power will quickly establish rules that everyone else has to follow, often to their own benefit. As more and more people began to live in closer proximity, it seem inevitable that some kind of social contract will develop.

I actually did mention this. Though I did not specifically mention the positions of authority that develop.


In the end, morality and ethics are artificial memetic control systems embedded within human social groups in order to facilitate cooperation and thus mutual survival of those groups.

[Tanarii]

And, although less than previous editions, there is a host of mechanical effects tied to alignment still... it isn't just a role playing aid, it is a 'real thing' with real effects
It's still primarily a roleplaying rule (ie a mechanical roleplaying rule), albeit an objective one. Barring a few interventions, such as the optional rule for planar environs or the lycanthropy curse, the player chooses the alignment they want to use as a basis for their roleplaying. What the PC subjectively believes they are morally in-game isn't relevant to determining the objective alignment, because it's objectively what the player writes down and uses as a portion of their personality to help determine in game actions.

And that objective Alignment the player has selected, and uses as a portion of their personality to help make decisions for their character, can then also be used for some few non-roleplaying mechanical affects, such as the ability to use certain magical times.

That's not to say if a player NEVER makes decisions in line with their chosen Alignment's typical (but not required) behavior, and CONSITENTLY makes decisions in line with with another Alignment's typical (but not required) behavior, a DM would be out of line to strongly recommend a new Alignment for the character. Because they're playing the character that other way anyway. Nor that a player shouldn't start choosing to make decisions based on an imposed Alignment change from those few things that do it. Both of those make perfect sense. Players need to be reasonable if either are the case, and not jump on some 'but it's my character only I get to chose.' In these cases, the player should reasonably choose to either adjust to the way they're playing anyway, or accept there is an in game affect on their character's personality and roll with it.

About the only time it gets tricky is if the DM has a campaign rule (usually no Evil characters) or the player is being a disruptive player and using Alignment or other personality traits as an excuse. Edit: or refuses to accept a fiat roleplaying rule, such as 'only evil casters regularly cast [spells that create undead]'. Or the DM tries to enforce alignment changes, especially ones based on single specific actions, which 5e Alignment doesn't really support.

[Naanomi]

If anyone is curious, from a previous thread on the topic:

Firm Mechanical Effects:
-sprites can detect it with their 'Heart Sight' ability
-some magic items work differently for people of different alignments: a night hag's soul bag, candle of invocation, obsidian steed, robe of the archmagi, sword of answering, talisman of pure good/ultimate evil, book of exahlted deeds/vile darkness, many intelligent items
-your alignment can be forcefully changed by artifact effects, undeath, lycanthropy, nilbogism, deck of many things, etc
-only evil characters can be Oathbreaker paladins
-modrons lose their axiomatic mind if they are non-lawful
-water weirds can have their alignment forcefully changed with certain spells
-the regional effects around a ki-rin, unicorn, and some dragons lair effect evil and non-evil creatures differently or detect alignments
-attuning some artifacts requires killing someone 'of the same alignment'
-someone who is being resurrected knows the alignment of the person trying to resurrect them
-Raksasha damage resistance overcome by good characters (with piercing weapons)
-the damage type (and type of creature summoned) for 'spirit guardians'

Soft Mechanical Effects:
-animate dead has language that indicates it may carry specific alignment consequences for its use
-the fluff of some monsters seems to indicate they can 'sense' alignment (angels, devils, flumphs, etc) though their stat block does not include an ability to do so
-it is heavily implied that the Outer Planes 'know' your alignment and may treat you differently (optional rules about alignment in terms of psychic dissonance exist, but it is implied the effect exists even if you don't use the mechanic... and most of the outerplanes have optional rules that address alignment)
-scarecrows and will-o-the-wisps can only be animated by the spirit of an evil individuals

Default Cosmology 'mostly fluff' but technically have mechanical implications;
-where you end up when you die in the default cosmology

Setting Specific:
-Curse of Strahd has a bunch of things that reference alignment specifically

[Tanarii]

Alignment behavior are also a 'soft' roleplaying rule. I'd certainly consider that a mechanical effect.

IMO all of these work just fine if you consider that players (or DMs for NPCs) should want to play their character while keeping in mind the typical (but not required nor consistent) behavior associated with the creature. Regardless of what the creature believes the morality of its actions to be.

Some of them might bring about quite a shock to a character that believes they're good but is faced with the hard objective truth of their player/DM selected Alignment, of course. :smallamused:

[KorvinStarmast]

You are aware that it wasnt my position at all right? The fact that killing is always wrong that is No, that was not clear. As I think I was treading far too close to RL issues, I'll leave it at that. Go on back to what you all were talking about, I won't interrupt again.