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witchwood
2018-05-29, 02:07 PM
Hey everyone, first time posting on these forums and looking for input on a character's morality.

So I've been working on making a new character for an upcoming Pathfinder game, and I decided to go with a young, fresh faced nobleman's daughter from the nation of Molthune. I decided to play her mostly as a typical, eager young cavalier, ready to venture out into the world, do good and earn acclaim. But when reading more about the nation of Molthune I discovered something; slavery is not illegal there, in fact its very much a part of the society, although Molthune is stated to be one of the better nations for slaves, for whatever that's worth. Now as a native of this nation, this cavalier would have likely been brought up to believe that slavery was justified so long as it was held to a certain standard, and given her noble status there's a good chance she was at least partially raised by slaves while her parents were busy or away from home. I thought it would be really interesting to role-play her as someone who has a sheltered understanding of what slavery is and believes that there is 'good' and 'bad' kind of slavery. I was also really interested in how this would affect her alignment, given that I intended for her to be an otherwise typical cavalier, interested in slaying evil and protecting those is need, only with this one (from our point-of-view) glaring moral issue. I asked over on the Pathfinder Reddit and got a lot of varied answers; some said it was fine to play her as LG at first due to her sheltered upbringing, but that as she became more aware of the world she would either have to change her stance on the issue of slavery or alter her alignment appropriately, others suggested that she should be classified as LE but 'thinks' she's lawful good, leading to the same eventual choice.

I decided to come here to see if I could get any more input, since I do believe it raises interesting questions about the nature of morality in the fantasy setting. So, if you were the DM at this game what would you advise me to put down as this character's alignment?

Nifft
2018-05-29, 02:13 PM
I agree with the good-because-sheltered viewpoint.

If she's only seen slaves treated as servants or even (servile) family members, then it's entirely plausible that she thinks slavery isn't all that bad.

(If slavery actually tended to encourage & reward such equitable treatment, it might not be so bad. It is bad specifically because it tends to encourage & reward abuse rather than good treatment.)

So, eventually she'll encounter the other side of the coin, and she'll be forced to make a choice between upholding her culture, or upholding her ideals. I think that's cool.

awa
2018-05-29, 02:19 PM
Personal i would say good, ignorance is not evil, its not like your going out and putting people in chains. Worst case you might slide into neutral but you would need to be owning slaves yourself for that to happen at least in my opinion.

While some evil acts are so horrible no amount of good actions can balance them, tolerating relatively mild slavery is not one of them. So enough other good acts at least in my opinion would keep you good. Its not like your a paladin and one evil act is a fall.

legomaster00156
2018-05-29, 02:22 PM
I agree with the idea that she is LG. However, it is also true that when she discovers the true nature of slavery, she either has to give up her old beliefs to stay Good, or keep her beliefs and slide into LN territory (or even LE, depending on how vociferously she defends the institution).

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-29, 03:08 PM
I think slavery is more an inherently lawful institution over an evil one. Though obviously some (most?) implementations of it are evil. A lawful neutral form of slavery is probably entirely compatible with a LG person.

The Jack
2018-05-29, 03:28 PM
Slavery was almost universal in the ancient world, and most of the time, slaves weren't treated so bad.

The outlier, however, has effects that are still felt today. The Atlantic slave trade was especially brutal, in part because there was more need to de-humanize the victims to justify it, which comes with further problems after the slavery is done.

Because the Atlantic slave trade was so brutal, and so American, it's influenced how people see the rest of slavery, and it's no small help that American media has such international sway.

But slavery, at least most of it, before the Atlantic trade wasn't so brutal. Yes, some societies had rules like "if the slave strikes his master, all the slaves in his house must die" (or something as such) but some saw it as a source of pride to have well kept slaves. I imagine a good portion of slaves didn't feel much worse off than someone on minimum wage (admittedly, without the modern distractions and comforts). In old english lore, killing someone's slave required not insignificant blood price in comparison to killing someone free.

In a lot of societies, it was actually acceptable for a person to sell themselves into slavery for a period of time, to pay off debts. It could be sentence used instead of prison for some crimes. I believe in a serf system, most people are considered slaves, but I'm not too knowledgeable about that.

There's so many nuances and differences and rules concerning slavery across different regions and eras, but the bottom line is that for the most part it wasn't so cruel. Slavery was a universal, and an important part of economics in regions of the world that might surprise you, but it wasn't as terrible as you might believe.

Nifft
2018-05-29, 03:44 PM
Slavery was almost universal in the ancient world, and most of the time, slaves weren't treated so bad.

Some were treated well.

Others were worked to death in the silver mines, or put into a big bronze bull statue and baked alive specifically for the entertainment value of their dying screams.

Slavery certainly got nastier after the invention of racism, but it would be difficult to find a time & place where slavery was unequivocally nice.

Seto
2018-05-29, 03:49 PM
Without getting into the morality debate, I will attempt to give an answer by RAW:

This viewpoint of your character is a trait that she inherited from her society. It's Molthune's trait. In the Player's Guide to the Inner Sea, Molthune as a whole is given the alignment LN. Katapesh, a "bustling slave city", is Neutral. So if the trait of "having slavery" is not enough to make a society Evil, neither is it enough to make your character Evil. Whether or not she can be Good is another question, since I'm not aware of any Good nation where slavery is legal. (I'd say it's consistent with a strongly Lawful LG character/society, but YMMV). Among the nations, Andoran (NG) is the one that's really called out as abolitionist, but that's more because of the country's particular history.

Thrudd
2018-05-29, 04:36 PM
It depends on how absolutist or relativist you want to be with the morality implicit (and explicit) in the alignments, and also how you want to define law and chaos as alignments. Also, the exact nature of slavery in this society relative to your decisions vis a vis morality. Is it ok if you treat your slaves well, even though you legally can treat them in any manner you wish? Do slaves have any recourse to the law, protections from certain types of treatment?

Some GMs and books say slavery is a big "no" for good alignment- this means that very few people in a civilization dependent on institutional slavery could be considered good. And that's not wrong - it just means that it may be very hard or impossible for anyone to be lawful good (if you interpret lawful as abiding by and upholding the laws of civilization).

Calthropstu
2018-05-29, 08:00 PM
I wrote a long diatribe on how slavery should be looked at, and realized I had broken forum rules half a dozen ways.

So I will put it like this:
We can't approach this from OUR perspective. We have to approach it from the CHARACTER'S perspective.
I can prove supporting slavery is not, of itself, evil. Even condemning people to slavery is not of itself evil.
Is sentencing someone guilty of manslaughter to hard labor evil? That is slavery.
Is selling yourself into slavery in order to cover your family's debt evil? Is accepting that sacrifice in leiu of payment evil? I would think not.

In the latter case, it could be argued that arguing for such could be a good, noble and honorable act. In a society that maintains that honor is more important than life, such a noble sacrifice on both parties (the person owed sacrificing the debt and the person selling themselves sacrificing their freedom) could be considered a good and just gesture, restoring the honor that the debt depleted tenfold.

Let us also consider that there are/were numerous types of slavery. Serfdom, for example, was a form of slavery. Debtors slavery, forced slavery, kidnap slavery, gender slavery, and numerous others. In a world full of magic, many many more could exist as well.
To argue slavery itself is "evil" is just misunderstanding the term. You assume real world modern thought processes apply but they do not.

Andor13
2018-05-29, 08:12 PM
Slavery is not good, no form of slavery is a good thing.

That having been said, there are all different kinds of slavery, and as other have noted the sort practiced in America was one of the worst, ironically because Americas adherence to humanist and democratic values made it necessary to dehumanize someone in order to view them as a slave. Slavery as practiced by some cultures was an economic thing, where someone would sell themselves into slavery to pay off a debt, similar to indentured servitude. (Compare to the scam of some company mining towns where the ticket to get back out of town cost money you could never earn because the company paid less than the cost of living.) In many of the cultures that would take prisoners of war (or raids) as slaves there was a term of servitude of some years, followed by release. (Thralls, Islamic slaves.) In many slaves were entitled to protection under the law, wages, and could buy their freedom.

Which is not to say there wasn't plenty of horror and abuse, but then, that was most people's lot. Humans suck.

I would say someone with a sheltered upbringing could easily be LG, and when confronted with abuse of slaves would have to either try to fight the abuse (directly, if the laws allow such, for example reporting a slave owner for illegal abuses) or seek reforms/abolition if she wishes to remain good, or would slide over to LN if they decides it's just how things are, and at least they aren't being eaten by trolls. Sounds like a good character arc.

hamishspence
2018-05-30, 01:10 AM
Is sentencing someone guilty of manslaughter to hard labor evil? That is slavery.

Hard Labor is a step away from slavery - in that you're still a person, and not property.

D&D splatbooks vary somewhat on the issue - but as a general rule, even if "a good person can own a slave or two simply because it is a societal norm" the society itself is going to have a very hard time qualifying as Good.

Good people can commit evil deeds "from time to time" - it's their deeds taken as a whole that determine their alignment, not necessarily individual deeds, unless the single deeds are very strongly aligned.

The Jack
2018-05-30, 05:44 AM
[QUOTE=hamishspence;23110841]Hard Labor is a step away from slavery - in that you're still a person, and not property.
[quote]
I felt the presence of ironic eagles of freedom when I read this.
In both, you're a person and a property, potentially not a person and not a property.

May I remind you that present day prisoners aren't allowed to vote, have limited rights and freedoms, and are kept away from civil society so they don't exist* (fun fact; the medieval prison experience was generally far more humane because they didn't isolate prisoners so much from the rest of society)

*may vary by nation

Honestly, I've been dehumanized working a simple min-wage job, so your ignorant modern hangups about slavery are rather irksome

hamishspence
2018-05-30, 06:07 AM
The 3.0 FRCS makes exactly the same distinction - saying that while serfdom and indentured servitude can approach the oppressiveness of slavery, serfs and indentured servants are not property in the Realms.

The big list of D&D quotes that may be applicable:




PHB page 104
Evil characters and creatures debase and destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.


FRCS pages 86-87: Slavery
Few of the human kingdoms and cities of the Heartlands permit slavery within their borders. Indentured servitude and serfdom are relatively common practices that approach the brutality of slavery in some lands, but even the most wretched serf or servant is considered a human being, not property.

Conditions of slavery vary wildly between different lands. Slaves in Mulhorand outnumber the free citizens- and, not surprisingly, the life of a slave in Mulhorand is little worse than the life of a peasant in most other lands. Slaves in Thay and Unther endure far harsher treatment, both by callous masters and a society that considers them to be nonentities.

Regardless of the conditions, most Heartland humans find slavery extremely distasteful at the very least, and more than a few consider it an abomination in the sight of the gods.


BoVD page 9: Bringing Despair
Evil creatures often enjoy spreading pain and misery to others. Some do this because breaking the spirits of others makes them feel superior; others sow despair for the sheer joy it brings them.


BoED page 11: Being ahead of your time

On the other hand, your campaign world might more closely reflect the realities of life in Earth's Dark or Middle Ages. Perhaps women are not viewed as men's equals or even sentient beings in their own right, slavery is widespread, testimony from serfs is only acceptable if extracted through torture, and humans of a certain skin tone (let alone nonhumans) are viewed as demonic creatures.

It is vitally important to remember one thing: these factors don't change anything else said in this chapter (or in The Book of Vile Darkness) about what constitutes a good or evil deed. Even if slavery, torture, or discrimination are condoned by society, they remain evil.


Champions of Ruin page 5: Tradition/There Is No Evil
One potential cause for evil is simply following the norms and standards of your ancestors and society. Evil is defined by society, not by the inherent laws of gods or nature. What might be considered the darkest taboo in one place might be a perfectly acceptable practice somewhere else. For example, slavery is illegal in many parts of Faerun but is fairly common in Thay, where even a good person might keep a slave or two simply because it is a societal norm.

Characters might use this philosophy to justify their actions, and they could very well be correct, depending on their individual circumstances.


Cityscape page 148: Slavery
The institution of slavery should always be regarded as an evil by any good-aligned characters in a campaign.



4E Dark Sun Campaign Setting page 197: Slavery and Alignment
Keeping slaves is not compatible with a good alignment, but doing so does not necessarily make a character evil. Most slave owners are unaligned. Overseers who treat their slaves brutally are definitely engaging in evil acts that should outrage good characters.
The question is whether anything can be reasonably done about the situation. Given how commonplace slavery is on Athas, good characters can't reasonably attempt to free every slave they meet, nor should they recklessly challenge slave owners who are too powerful to overcome.
Good characters should be anguished by the abundance of human misery in civilized areas, however, and they should be dedicated to aiding however they can short of attempting suicidal actions.

Hand_of_Vecna
2018-05-30, 06:25 AM
Hard Labor is a step away from slavery - in that you're still a person, and not property.[/I] aligned.

This seems to be a sticking point. I believe that it would be possible to view someone as both property and a person.

Children are essentially property in most societies; some societies have legal protections against abuse of children, but few argue a child's right to self determination. As the Jack pointed out one can be dehumanized without being property, such as in a bottom rung job at a business with a ****ty corporate culture.

hamishspence
2018-05-30, 06:26 AM
That would come under "oppression" - slavery is a form of oppression - but it's just one of many out there.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-30, 09:33 AM
Engaging in, supporting, favoring, or even condoning slavery would be no better than "lawful neutral", and almost unavoidably "lawful evil".

There's no "cultural" aspect to this, no "moral relativity", no "but other places and times are different".

LibraryOgre
2018-05-30, 09:59 AM
The Mod Wonder: A reminder to avoid real-world political analogies in these discussions.

***

That said, I would say that she can still be good... but, as always, consider the spectrum. Alignment isn't nine points... it is a plane defined by those nine points, and your alignment is whichever of those points you are closest to. So, a Lawful Good person might have some fairly messed up beliefs (i.e. "There is good and bad slavery"), but still be, overall, LG. It would put them in the more "southern" part of the LG section, but LG, none-the-less. Especially, IMO, if they held those beliefs out of ignorance.

Using the Great Wheel, you might also consider people by the plane to which they are aligned. Sure, some LG people will be most closely aligned to the Seven Heavens... but about half the population of Arcadia and the Twin Paradises are also LG, and you no doubt have a large number of LG people who live in "northwest" Concordant Opposition.

Hand_of_Vecna
2018-05-30, 10:48 AM
Following the rules and not to cite real world events, sorry if this makes it seem that I'm just making assertions without evidence.


That would come under "oppression" - slavery is a form of oppression - but it's just one of many out there.

Why is it "oppression" without abuse, if you agree with the FRCS that serfdom is not capital E Evil even though serfs do not have self determination just as children don't? Your quotations have made an excellent case that in 3.x D&D slavery=Evil by RAW. It appears that Golorian may be a more morally gray setting as I have not been able to find RAW assertions that slavery is always Evil and you haven't provided any.

The description of the Evil alignment is the same, but we now fall to debating what exactly "oppression" is and it seems quite difficult to make a case for all slavery is Evil even if the there are laws and social norms protecting slaves from abuse without throwing in serfdom and caste systems in.

Of course even if many slaves are treated humanely it is unlikely that it would be universal across the institution within a country. In the first season of BBC series ROME we mostly see slaves treated like a lower caste, but these are house servants and agricultural slaves who work alongside freemen. In the second season there is a plot revolving around a quarry run on slave labor under hellish conditions. I'd be curious to know what Molthune's imports/exports are as not producing mineral resources or certain crops would remove much of the temptation to create such conditions.

I read a few online sources. Molthune's products aren't explicitly listed, but it seems the primary occupations are expanding the frontier, wheat farming, and the military Service Guarantees Citizenship. The first two are industries that don't make it profitable to keep slaves under hellish conditions while the third is an escape hatch which motivates slaveholders to ensure that being in their service is better than military service.

Mastikator
2018-05-30, 11:53 AM
Why is it important that she thinks slavery is good? I mean you can be sheltered for a while but if you see it with your own eyes, if you see how slaves are treated and still think there's anything good about that then there's no way I'd accept that as anything less than depraved and evil.

If you want you can settle for "bad but hey what can you do?" kind of attitude which is callous but potentially realistic.

icefractal
2018-05-30, 11:55 AM
My initial thought was no, it wouldn't affect his alignment unless/until he became aware of the problems and then chose to remain in support of it. After all, if it turned out that healing potions were secretly made of captured souls, would that make everyone who'd drunk one retroactively evil?

However, by that standard most Orcs/Drow/whatever should count as good-aligned or at least not evil. They're doing what their society says is correct, what they've been taught is "good", and so shouldn't they be exempt for the same reason as the proposed Paladin?

So now I don't know. The alignment system doesn't work well when you look too closely at it.

awa
2018-05-30, 12:10 PM
the important point isn't that she gets a free pass on slavery because her people believe its fine, its can her other heroic actions outweigh the belief that her countries relatively benign slavery is Acceptable.
edit
also its a cavalier not a paladin and they are not held to the same moral standards, they do not fall from a single evil act so all that matters is if her collective good actions out weigh her one evil belief.

It depends on what she encounters in play but i think it would be entirely plausible to see slavery in the outside world and simply come to the conclusion that the way those guys do it is wrong because their cruel, and not look to deeply at her own culture.

witchwood
2018-05-30, 12:34 PM
Why is it important that she thinks slavery is good? I mean you can be sheltered for a while but if you see it with your own eyes, if you see how slaves are treated and still think there's anything good about that then there's no way I'd accept that as anything less than depraved and evil.

If you want you can settle for "bad but hey what can you do?" kind of attitude which is callous but potentially realistic.

The general idea is that the type of slavery that she has been exposed to seems very benign, mostly house workers and caretakers who, despite their status as slaves, are afforded a standard of dignity and respect not common in other slave owning nations. Its not so much that she actively approves of slavery and would go out and personally enslave people, it's that the slaves that she has been exposed to have never appeared to be anything less than contented with their position. How much of that is her own naivete and how much is true is yet to be decided (but probably somewhere in the middle).

Mastikator
2018-05-30, 01:56 PM
The general idea is that the type of slavery that she has been exposed to seems very benign, mostly house workers and caretakers who, despite their status as slaves, are afforded a standard of dignity and respect not common in other slave owning nations. Its not so much that she actively approves of slavery and would go out and personally enslave people, it's that the slaves that she has been exposed to have never appeared to be anything less than contented with their position. How much of that is her own naivete and how much is true is yet to be decided (but probably somewhere in the middle).

This sounds like the kind of society that would really frown on even calling it slavery, "personal servant" and other euphemisms to enable people like your character to maintain their ignorance. If they are straight up referred to as slaves then that means anyone who says "no" is beaten into submission, or death. A "personal servant" might instead be "reprimanded" through some socially acceptable form of physical punishment or psychological torment.

The longer and more in depth your character is exposed to this slavery the harder it should be remain ignorant. And if you're actively trying to remain ignorant then that is the same as passively condoning it. I think you can get away with LN. But good? A good person would be disturbed by it, even (perhaps especially) if the slaves seem content.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-30, 02:34 PM
This sounds like the kind of society that would really frown on even calling it slavery, "personal servant" and other euphemisms to enable people like your character to maintain their ignorance. If they are straight up referred to as slaves then that means anyone who says "no" is beaten into submission, or death. A "personal servant" might instead be "reprimanded" through some socially acceptable form of physical punishment or psychological torment.


Or magical compulsion, depending on the setting.

It's a rabbit hole that gets more repulsive the further we go down it.




The longer and more in depth your character is exposed to this slavery the harder it should be remain ignorant. And if you're actively trying to remain ignorant then that is the same as passively condoning it. I think you can get away with LN. But good? A good person would be disturbed by it, even (perhaps especially) if the slaves seem content.


Agreed.

Florian
2018-05-30, 02:58 PM
@Witchwood:

It´s pretty important to note and understand that Molthune is based on ancient Rome and what makes the main difference between a "serf" and a "slave".

A "serf" doesn't have a full citizenship, but is still fully protected by the law, for all it matters, they can easily sue their contract holders for infringements and win. There are set conditions for how a citizen can become a serf and how a serf can become a citizen and those are codified as well as protected by the laws. For example, an entrepreneur going into insolvency will most likely end up as a serf to his financiers, while a serf going for a tour of duty with the Legion will most likely gain full citizenship.

War_lord
2018-05-30, 03:06 PM
There's a precedent for this. In Roman times the "house" slaves of wealthy nobles were relatively well treated, because they were unavoidably part of the household. Particularly "skilled" slaves like tutors. Living in close proximity to the family meant better conditions and better treatment (for the simple psychological reason that it's harder to be horrible to people you've lived with for years). Most of the really horrible stuff happened to slaves being worked to death in the Latifundia or in the terrible conditions of the mines.

Leaving aside the moral ethics of asserting ownership over another (demi)human being (which I apparently have to spell out, has implications that make even the most undignified 9 to 5 look like a picnic). Slavery is evil because of the unparalleled scope of abuse it enables. You don't get fair treatment, you don't have any right of appeal, even if there are laws against egregious cruelty to slaves, they're going to prove difficult to enforce.

wumpus
2018-05-31, 01:29 PM
Does the campaign have Paladins? Slavery seems like one of those "gritty realism" things that are thrown into campaigns without wondering if the "joybright" (the opposite of "grimdark") bits are compatible. My guess is the either the paladin orders would eliminate slavery, or the institution of slavery would wind up eliminating the paladin orders (and perhaps any PC or NPC paladin had be ordained/knighted directly by the gods).

You could also eliminate most of the harsh requirements for Paladins to allow them to operate in even mildly "grimdark" areas, but "fighters with charisma-based class features" can't hold a candle to guys like O-chul (note that the Giant is emphatic about Paladins make great NPCs and story characters, but lousy PCs. Maybe "fighters with charisma-based class features" have a place after all).

If you want to expand a morality argument into a theological argument, try insisting that 'the gods said it was ok'. The Giant shot this down in OOTS (even the gods can't declare killing greenskins for xp to be "good"), and using roleplaying specific gods should take at least some of the heat out of any theological argument that occurs (but don't be surprised if it still kills the game).

Another option is to use "fairy tale morality". Much like "the gods say so" it assumes that something like "birthright" or "having more character levels" simply puts a person in a privileged position and that it is right and proper to own lowly slaves. Personally, I don't think I could deal with it for very long without going full murderhobo. Generally the point of "fairy tale morality" is to fit in all the old myths and legendary story places. There's even a trope about it [link suppressed in an act of objectively provable morality].


There's a precedent for this. In Roman times the "house" slaves of wealthy nobles were relatively well treated...
It should be noted that many of these were *extremely* well treated, largely because they were the children of the owners (yes, that implies that even the house slaves were expected to be always sexually available to the masters). And by "extremely well treated" I mean "freed and made some of the richest men in Rome". It wouldn't be too surprising if most of the "house slaves" were literally family, which is why they were treated as such.

Things could get pretty bleak for those without such connections. And in any slave auction, expect the circus owners (who need lion chow) to start the bidding low (Romans didn't like human sacrifice. In areas that had that, expect priests needing more bodies to supply the low bids. Pretty sure this was common in Carthage and Norse areas).

Calthropstu
2018-05-31, 02:48 PM
Given most nations in history are guilty of it at some point, I find this belief that "everyone who has ever participated in or condoned slaver is evil" to be horribly uneducated. You are basically saying "my ancestors were evil."

So let's look at some of the good slavery does.


1: Spread of DNA. In a world where the primary means of travel is on foot or with horses, the radius you have access to is extremely limited. Inbreeding was a major problem since traveling to find a mate was very difficult. Slaves generally came from afar, and their use for sex produced sources for a new influx of dna. The world would actually be MUCH worse off if slavery had never been a thing.
To be fair, nowadays such is no longer the case. This benefit is better achieved through the massive strides in transportation. But we aren't talking about modern worlds are we?

2: Labor source. We can argue whether or not using slave labor is a good or bad thing but the results are irrefutable. Many things would never have been built without it, and much progress was fueled by slave labor that would never have been possible without it. Is it evil to realize that fact and, despite misgivings about the nature of slavery, understand that the people at large are greatly benefitting from what the slaves are doing?

3: In many cases, the lot of slaves ended up IMPROVING after becoming slaves. Many slaves were sold by their own countrymen. They were the poor and disenfranchised... many of whom would have starved otherwise. In some cases it was even voluntary.

Yeah, slavery is awful for those who experienced it. But the benefits to others were astronomical. We would not be here where we are today without it. We understand now that there are better alternatives, but did they back then? No.
So condemning it as evil is a bit dismissive of the role it played in making our world what it is today. Not everyone who participated in it was evil... pretty sure not every person who went to the colleseum was evil, pretty sure not everyone who owned a slave was evil and also pretty sure not everyone who supported it was evil. To claim it so is to generalize most of the people in history as evil.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-31, 03:22 PM
Given most nations in history are guilty of it at some point, I find this belief that "everyone who has ever participated in or condoned slaver is evil" to be horribly uneducated. You are basically saying "my ancestors were evil."

So let's look at some of the good slavery does.

I am perfectly okay with the idea that there's forms of slavery that's lawful neutral aligned, and a good person is perfectly free to engage in neutral practises and still be good. But you're sure making holding that point of view awfully unappealing right now.

Calthropstu
2018-05-31, 03:39 PM
I am perfectly okay with the idea that there's forms of slavery that's lawful neutral aligned, and a good person is perfectly free to engage in neutral practises and still be good. But you're sure making holding that point of view awfully unappealing right now.

LN with many predicating it towards LE is probably the main tendency of slavery as it existed in the real world. In a fantasy setting though, we can pretty much build it however we like.
In point of fact, in the forgotten realms setting mortals are virtually slaves to the gods because of the whole wall of the faithless thing. Being able to change your master does not mean you don't have a master.

Florian
2018-05-31, 03:49 PM
LN with many predicating it towards LE is probably the main tendency of slavery as it existed in the real world. In a fantasy setting though, we can pretty much build it however we like.
In point of fact, in the forgotten realms setting mortals are virtually slaves to the gods because of the whole wall of the faithless thing. Being able to change your master does not mean you don't have a master.

I try to be vague at this, but we also have systems in place in RL the enforce some things and could be considered "slavery", but are genuinely agreeable with a deontologist stance.

hamishspence
2018-05-31, 04:22 PM
The institution can be considered Evil, and the acts associated with the institution evil, without making everyone involved Evil-aligned.

After all, it's the preponderance of acts as a whole (combined with attitude/outlook) that help determine a character's alignment - not one single act.

War_lord
2018-05-31, 04:30 PM
Given most nations in history are guilty of it at some point, I find this belief that "everyone who has ever participated in or condoned slaver is evil" to be horribly uneducated. You are basically saying "my ancestors were evil."

If you're not able to step back and say "some of the things my ancestors did were wrong" that's a pretty disturbing character flaw for you to have.


1: Spread of DNA. In a world where the primary means of travel is on foot or with horses, the radius you have access to is extremely limited. Inbreeding was a major problem since traveling to find a mate was very difficult. Slaves generally came from afar, and their use for sex produced sources for a new influx of dna. The world would actually be MUCH worse off if slavery had never been a thing.
To be fair, nowadays such is no longer the case. This benefit is better achieved through the massive strides in transportation. But we aren't talking about modern worlds are we?

This is a justification of rape, plain and simple. You are saying that rape was justified or at the very least has a net benefit. Sex slaves did not, and in parts of the world today do not, have the right to say no. Aside from that, we didn't inbred ourselves to death in the Middle Ages when slavery was greatly curtailed in most of Europe, even after the black death, which would suggest we didn't need to import women as property.


2: Labor source. We can argue whether or not using slave labor is a good or bad thing but the results are irrefutable. Many things would never have been built without it, and much progress was fueled by slave labor that would never have been possible without it. Is it evil to realize that fact and, despite misgivings about the nature of slavery, understand that the people at large are greatly benefitting from what the slaves are doing?

Slavery is actually terrible for the economy outside of slave owners. An enormous portion of the potential labor force is (literally) tied up in one place instead of fluidly moving to were the demand is. People could have been gainfully employed with the same, or better, results.


3: In many cases, the lot of slaves ended up IMPROVING after becoming slaves. Many slaves were sold by their own countrymen. They were the poor and disenfranchised... many of whom would have starved otherwise. In some cases it was even voluntary.

And the life of many others because worse when soldiers came, killed their fathers or husbands and dragged them off to be worked, or raped, till they died.


Yeah, slavery is awful for those who experienced it. But the benefits to others were astronomical. We would not be here where we are today without it. We understand now that there are better alternatives, but did they back then? No.
So condemning it as evil is a bit dismissive of the role it played in making our world what it is today. Not everyone who participated in it was evil... pretty sure not every person who went to the colleseum was evil, pretty sure not everyone who owned a slave was evil and also pretty sure not everyone who supported it was evil. To claim it so is to generalize most of the people in history as evil.

Even if we say that your "benefits of slavery" were actually beneficial, and there's nothing to suggest that. That doesn't make the act any less wrong. Certain horrific experiments were carried up during the period of WWII, and those experiments provided data that was later applied the development of beneficial technology. That does not retroactively make crimes against humanity acceptable. Wrongdoing should always be condemned.

parryhotter
2018-05-31, 04:42 PM
Bottom line, slavery is inherently evil. Period. As it is a matter of control over someone else and lowers that person to a mere piece of property, stripping them of free will etc. This is why slavery is evil and why there were modules written where PCs destroy slave owners.

The Jack
2018-05-31, 04:43 PM
Here's how you can defo have it "good"

1: when enslaving enemies, you see it as giving them better lives under your richer nation and better culture, and a good deal of them eventually see it that way. They are safer, and have better access to resources than they did prior.

2: When enslaving criminals, you see it as a redeeming service; they give back to society where once they took. This also frees up law abiders for higher pursuits (Artistic, Scholarly, Mercantile) while giving temporary criminals skills and connections for lawful endevours after the sentence, benefiting society as a whole, especially in the long run.

3: Voluntary slavery is a good way to pay debts that cannot otherwise be paid.

4: slavery is well regulated and slaves do have certain rights.

5: you may believe that Society is greater and more important than the individual.

War_lord
2018-05-31, 05:04 PM
Believing you're doing a self serving thing for selfless does not somehow make it good. The triangle trade was justified as a civilizing mission. The Magdalene laundries in Ireland were justified as saving "fallen women". As it turns out, people who do evil things are fantastic at coming up with self serving justifications for greed.

Calthropstu
2018-05-31, 05:21 PM
If you're not able to step back and say "some of the things my ancestors did were wrong" that's a pretty disturbing character flaw for you to have.



This is a justification of rape, plain and simple. You are saying that rape was justified or at the very least has a net benefit. Sex slaves did not, and in parts of the world today do not, have the right to say no. Aside from that, we didn't inbred ourselves to death in the Middle Ages when slavery was greatly curtailed in most of Europe, even after the black death, which would suggest we didn't need to import women as property.



Slavery is actually terrible for the economy outside of slave owners. An enormous portion of the potential labor force is (literally) tied up in one place instead of fluidly moving to were the demand is. People could have been gainfully employed with the same, or better, results.



And the life of many others because worse when soldiers came, killed their fathers or husbands and dragged them off to be worked, or raped, till they died.



Even if we say that your "benefits of slavery" were actually beneficial, and there's nothing to suggest that. That doesn't make the act any less wrong. Certain horrific experiments were carried up during the period of WWII, and those experiments provided data that was later applied the development of beneficial technology. That does not retroactively make crimes against humanity acceptable. Wrongdoing should always be condemned.

Oh, I can admit some of the things my ancestors did may or may not have been wrong... But being wrong and being evil are two completely different things. In order to judge something as evil, we have to look at it objectively and judge things within the context that existed at the time.

It's all well and good to say "slavery is wrong," but for thousands of years it was utilized on every single continent. So to them, it wasn't wrong, it was a fact of life. Very few wanted to BE one, but many, maybe even most, wanted to HAVE one. Call it ignorance, call it short sightedness... but evil?
I am just extremely hesitant to call the majority of historical mankind evil. That's all I am trying to say.

Your point about the middle ages is flawed. Yes, the absence of slavery did not deplete the population... no one said it did. What it DID do was decrease VARIETY. During the middle ages, it was, if I recall correctly, estimated that fully 75% of marriages were between cousins. Now, cousin marriages in a single (I believe that statistic was from Romania) generation has little effect, but compounded over several generations it has a serious impact. Decreased intelligence, birth defects, still births... numerous issues can be attributed to the massive rate of cousin marriages. Royal families, in particular, were massively susceptible to it.
So yes, imported slaves most definitely had a positive impact in that regard.
Edit:
As for "condoning rape," saying in a historical context that both wartime rape and sexual slavery helped perform a needed, but now outdated, function of diversifying the human gene pool is not condoning modern rape.

hamishspence
2018-05-31, 05:31 PM
I've no problem with saying that the majority of historical people have committed evil acts, even if they aren't "evil-aligned by D&D standards".

Neutral means "mix of good and evil", mostly, not "has never committed an evil act nor a good one".


D&D is significantly more "enlightened" than real medieval societies, and depending on the setting, 30% percent of the population may still qualify as evil by D&D standards. A medieval (or earlier) society would likely have an even higher percentage than that. Perhaps not the majority - but a very large minority - maybe close to 50%.

Kader
2018-07-04, 03:09 AM
Some were treated well.

Others were worked to death in the silver mines, or put into a big bronze bull statue and baked alive specifically for the entertainment value of their dying screams.

Slavery certainly got nastier after the invention of racism, but it would be difficult to find a time & place where slavery was unequivocally nice.

To your first point yes - in real life whipping was the iconic emblem of slavery both ancient and modern. It would be pointless to try to adjudicate a brutality contest between two horribly brutal systems, but it is correct and necessary to point out that like modern slavery classical slavery was founded on the whip.

To your second point, the early moderns invented fewer ideas than they are generally credited with, for good or ill. I think the marriage of slavery and prejudice was probably never a new thing under the sun. Like the moderns, the ancients either justified slave systems based on odious theories of racial superiority and inferiority (Greeks) or arrived at the same place from the opposite direction (Romans, who mostly rejected Aristotelian theories of "natural" slave races but didn't in the least let that stop them from piling up demeaning servile stereotypes).

A slave society can work without specifically race-based prejudice, but then the need of a slave society for prejudice will just be filled by some other form of prejudice.

(Or as Mouritsen wrote of the Roman system, "The Roman construction of the slave as morally deficient and dishonoured was in no sense original, but can be found in most slave societies. It may reflect a common, perhaps even universal, tendency of rulers and masters to despise their subjects for their very servility and submission.")

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

Swinging back around to the original question of the thread, the platonic form of slavery is Lawful Evil (and it is worth noting that tihs is Pathfinder/Golarion, where the god of slavery is also the god who stands for Lawful Evilness in its own right). That is not to say that every person who has the least bit to do with a slave society is LE, but that participating in such a society is an influence towards L and especially E in their lives. Participating in such a society makes it harder to be Good or Neutral, and the more deeply involved in the slave system you are, the harderer ( :smallcool: ) it is.

It's morally corrosive - like a current tugging you towards evil, so you have to work to stand still and work even harder to get Good. Not impossible, especially if you stay in the metaphorical shallow water, which in this case represents the limited superficial engagement with the slave system that the OP outlines.

Characters are allowed to hold some beliefs that don't fit their overall alignment. Maybe even for the long term. Your character might go through the campaign never having their shallowly founded ideas of slavery challenged with respect to their good alignment, which is OK.

But it is worth thinking about what might happen if you have a crisis of conscience (as an aside, when I think crisis of conscience over slavery, I think de las Casas). Such a thing might be caused by reflection, by learning more, or even by a sudden external event thrusting you into the deep end. What would you do if a desperate slave with a cut up back pounds on your door some night and begs for sanctuary, and you face a sudden choice between your good alignment and your belief that slavery is just? Will you come down on the side of a good alignment and turn against the slave system (de las Casas did)? Even if doing so risks alienating family, friends, your peers in the nobility? Will you refuse to help, and tell yourself that it's his fault, if slaves would just do what they're told their masters wouldn't have to beat them (plenty of his fellow encomenderos went this way, and I expect that for any of these who were originally decent people, that increasingly compromised good alignment didn't last long at all)? Will you try to compromise and kick the crisis of conscience down the road, maybe trying to help this one slave but telling yourself it's just an isolated case of a bad egg for a master in an otherwise decent system? Might you ask for advice, or struggle with indecision until someone else steps in? Maybe all of these and more are possibilities depending on how your character grows, the influence of other PCs for good or ill, etc.?

One of the engaging parts of roleplaying characters with potentially conflicted morals and beliefs is thinking through the future of those conflicts, how the beliefs or indeed the morals might strengthen or collapse or simply change a little under the pressure of new ideas, information, or situations.

Satinavian
2018-07-04, 07:58 AM
To your first point yes - in real life whipping was the iconic emblem of slavery both ancient and modern. It would be pointless to try to adjudicate a brutality contest between two horribly brutal systems, but it is correct and necessary to point out that like modern slavery classical slavery was founded on the whip.Whipping was also an iconic emblem of disciplinary measures of regular armies of free men. That alone says nothing

To your second point, the early moderns invented fewer ideas than they are generally credited with, for good or ill. I think the marriage of slavery and prejudice was probably never a new thing under the sun. Like the moderns, the ancients either justified slave systems based on odious theories of racial superiority and inferiority (Greeks) or arrived at the same place from the opposite direction (Romans, who mostly rejected Aristotelian theories of "natural" slave races but didn't in the least let that stop them from piling up demeaning servile stereotypes). prejudice is as old as humans. But slavery tied to racism is indeed a modern invention that somehow became necessary because the idea of human rights got traction but somehow those should not apply to everyone.

In ancient times slaves are mostly prisoners of war and just a thing that happened to the losing side, just like the regular pillaging. It just made the booty a big bigger but mostly it also made sure that the losers would not come next year for the revenge. Before slavery as war consequence became widespread, we have mostly massacres instead and they still happened often when later when it was not possble to take war prisoners as slaves for logistical reason and they couldn't be ransomed.


A slave society can work without specifically race-based prejudice, but then the need of a slave society for prejudice will just be filled by some other form of prejudice.Slave societies without race based prejudices were the norm, not the exception.

Kader
2018-07-04, 12:54 PM
That alone says nothing.

It does say something - it is a marker of an objectively brutal system whether or not it there are also other objectively brutal systems in history. But especially so when whipping is so ubiquitous that it becomes emblematic of the institution itself, as it did of slavery but never did of the legions or the phalanx.


In ancient times slaves are mostly prisoners of war and just a thing that happened to the losing side, just like the regular pillaging. It just made the booty a big bigger but mostly it also made sure that the losers would not come next year for the revenge. Before slavery as war consequence became widespread, we have mostly massacres instead and they still happened often when later when it was not possble to take war prisoners as slaves for logistical reason and they couldn't be ransomed.

This is the common ancient justification for slavery. That said, don't uncritically accept their justifications as objective fact. In particular don't accept that most slaves actually were prisoners of war. Quoting Harper, p. 8 (https://books.google.com/books?id=IPU8ZAcrOtIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false),


By the 1980s the case for emphasizing capital in the causal framework of slavery was gaining momentum. The death knell for the conquest thesis quickly followed, as for the first time research turned to ask the primary question of whether or not conquest even could have produced a slave system on the Roman scale. The answer has been a resounding "no," which continues to echo through the discussion.

Also I caution against imagining enslavement or massacre as a binary choice even in the minority of cases when the slaves really were prisoners of war ("If we didn't enslave them, we'd have to kill them!"). The ancient ideology was not that the victor had the choice between killing and enslaving, but rather that he had the choice between killing and anything he pleased. Make them slaves. Confiscate their weapons and kick them out of your territory. Depose the leaders and install friendly ones. Demolish their town walls so that they don't feel safe defying you again. Extract a bunch of tribute and go home. Extract a bunch of tribute and come back for more in a few years. Take hostages to ensure good behavior. Install a garrison and collect taxes. Uproot the populace and settle them in a different region where they'll be distant from friends, surrounded by strangers, and become dependent on you for protection in the unfamiliar setting. Make the defeated leaders bow to you and then have them govern their people as your vassals. Etc. etc.

After a victory slavery was never the only, or even the only pragmatic, alternative to massacre. Just one of countless options for dealing with the defeated. And it wasn't the go-to option when victors wanted to be merciful, but was when they wanted to be cruel (or punitive, greedy, etc.). For example, contrast the Roman victory in the Latin War (after which they incorporated the Latins into the state and granted them a set of limited citizenship rights) with the Roman victory in the Third Punic War against Carthage (after which they enslaved everyone left in the city and burned it to the ground).


Slave societies without race based prejudices were the norm, not the exception.

I recommend wariness here also. This statement is more broad than is defensible even for societies that didn't limit slavery to certain races (such as Rome). But what I meant was that I think you end up at prejudice against slaves as a necessary, emergent feature of a slave society, whether you ground that prejudice in "scientific" racial theories or a less pseudoscientific, more cultural approach as e.g. the Romans. Many paths to the same place.

Unlike my first post this is more strictly a derail since it doesn't discuss the OP's question, so I'll cut myself off here and point to a few good contemporary sources instead.


Harper's Slavery in the Late Roman World (https://books.google.com/books?id=IPU8ZAcrOtIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false), particularly chapters:
2 - The endless river: the supply and trade of slaves (As it says on the tin)
5 - Semper timere: the aims and techniques of domination (A good treatment of the volatile mix of reward and violence)
7 - Sex, status, and social reproduction (An argument that slavery lay at the heart of ancient sexuality)
11 - The community of honor - the state and sexuality (Late antique developments, Constantine's reforms and what were effectively anti-miscegenation laws, etc.)

Mouritsen's The Freedman in the Roman World (https://books.google.com/books?id=sOWxzU66-7sC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false), particularly chapter:
2 - Macula servitutis - the stain of slavery (A good treatment of the stigma associated with ancient (Roman) slavery, especially the discussion starting on p. 17)

Mouritsen also touches on social mores, and later laws, against miscegenation (with regard to freedmen and freeborn women, which is always the pairing that slave societies are touchiest about) on pp. 50-51, much more briefly than Harper.

Enixon
2018-07-05, 03:33 AM
I could have sworn that one of Pathfinder's Lawful Good or Neutral Good deities, I keep thinking Iomedae or Sarenrae, actually condoned enslaving your defeated foes, I believe the notion was that putting them to work rather than putting them to the sword ment they had a more chances to turn over a new leaf.


This was waaaay back in the first Pathfinder Campaign setting book, the one that came out before the actual Pathfinder core rules (which I suppose ment it was technically a third party 3.5 D&D book) so it's possible that's been retconned. And even if it's not putting the surviving orcs(or whatever) to work as a way to have them make up for all the marauding they had been doing is a bit different than "normal" slavery anyhow. But still seems at least a little relevant.

Lunali
2018-07-07, 08:22 AM
Slavery is entirely on the law vs chaos spectrum, not good vs evil. It is entirely possible to have LG societies with slavery, though there would have to be strict regulations about the treatment of slaves, probably to the point that they are better off than the general populace. This would undermine the greatest advantage of slave labor, so it is unlikely that such a society started as LG. More likely would be a society where the sentiment shifted against slavery, imposing stricter laws until the slaves were so well off that they started arguing against ending it completely.

On a smaller scale, a LG slave owner in a LN/LE society might own people as slaves because it protects the slaves from other people harassing them.

That said, the country in question is not such a society.

Anxe
2018-07-07, 09:35 AM
I wrote an essay on the morality of slavery for one of my campaigns that tried to reconcile its ubiquitous nature with our modern feelings on it.

Here's the link:
http://gurutama.wikia.com/wiki/Slavery

Segev
2018-07-07, 11:41 AM
Her goodness will show in how she reacts to how slaves are treated. She can respect the legal institution of owning the exclusive right to the individual's labor, viewing it as little different than a contract for a single task. She would likely view it much as we view employees today. Just... longer term and with stricter contracts. Slaves refusing to work are cheating their masters, since their master already paid for that labor.

However, she would likely be horrified that anybody would interpret "owning" a slave as owning their bodies, or their wills, or the right to do anything to the slave that is beyond the contracted duties. Demanding demeaning labors of slaves who are not recalcitrant, cruelty of any sort that is not very carefully restrained to "necessary punishment" (for behaviors which would likely get a free man punished by the law), and any sort of abuse that free men would be allowed to fight back against... that will horrify her to see people engaging in.

It is highly likely that her LG society is one where "slave" doesn't mean "inhuman property to be disposed of as the master sees fit." Many "slave" concepts were closer to indentured servants or the like, and, while they couldn't just quit, had plenty of legal rights. One owned a contract on their labors, not on their lives and bodies. And slaves had rights. Fewer than peasants, who had fewer than citizens, who likely had fewer than nobility, but rights nonetheless.

Her goodness, then, shows in how she protects mistreated slaves from cruel masters, and will even go so far as to declare people unworthy masters and seek to rescind their ownership on the basis that they are evil and/or lawbreakers (by her culture's standards) for how they abuse people.

Consider that abusing an employee is illegal in modern day; she might view abusing slaves in the same light.


Slavery certainly got nastier after the invention of racism...wait, wait... do you honestly think racism was invented with the African/Atlantic slave trade?

Racism's been around since the first time two tribes with slight family differences met and could tell at a glance to which tribe another person belonged. We talk about "white" and "non-white" nowadays, but not 100 years ago, if you asked two white Europeans (or European-descended Americans) if they were the same race, the Scottsman and the Irishman would be insulted and telling you how they're not like that inferior other one. To this day, Koreans don't like other Asians, and the feeling is mutual. They have tons of stereotypes and slurs they use on each other that would, transliterated, make you think you'd walked into a KKK meeting discussing the neighboring black church.

Russians for hundreds of years had very negative views of the plains-nomads on the steppes. Two pre-Columbian Amerindian tribes would be horrifically insulted if you told them they were the same, physically, and be able to point out the 'obvious' differences that made the other inferior.

Racism is nothing new. It wasn't "invented," certainly not after the various famous historical slave cultures. It goes back to pre-Roman times.

Quertus
2018-07-07, 03:11 PM
To your first point yes - in real life whipping was the iconic emblem of slavery both ancient and modern. It would be pointless to try to adjudicate a brutality contest between two horribly brutal systems, but it is correct and necessary to point out that like modern slavery classical slavery was founded on the whip.


Whipping was also an iconic emblem of disciplinary measures of regular armies of free men. That alone says nothing.

Let's not forget, "spare the rod, spoil the child", or the paddle. Corporal punishment has been iconic of multiple industries, including child-rearing


Humans suck.

I would say someone with a sheltered upbringing could easily be LG, and when confronted with abuse of slaves would have to either try to fight the abuse (directly, if the laws allow such, for example reporting a slave owner for illegal abuses) or seek reforms/abolition if she wishes to remain good, or would slide over to LN if they decides it's just how things are, and at least they aren't being eaten by trolls. Sounds like a good character arc.


It depends on what she encounters in play but i think it would be entirely plausible to see slavery in the outside world and simply come to the conclusion that the way those guys do it is wrong because their cruel, and not look to deeply at her own culture.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for a good character to view slavery as good - so long as they find certain practices often associated with slavery as abhorrent. And this needn't require her to question her beliefs - just because rape exists, do people generally question whether sex is evil?

No, I think that the character is fine as lawful good, and, depending on how things play out, possibly even with keeping both her alignment and her beliefs. But that sounds like a great role-playing setup, should those come into conflict.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-07, 08:16 PM
Slavery is entirely on the law vs chaos spectrum, not good vs evil.

Um... what?

legomaster00156
2018-07-07, 10:45 PM
I could have sworn that one of Pathfinder's Lawful Good or Neutral Good deities, I keep thinking Iomedae or Sarenrae, actually condoned enslaving your defeated foes, I believe the notion was that putting them to work rather than putting them to the sword ment they had a more chances to turn over a new leaf.
Sarenrae's clergy on the southern continent of Garund frequently kept and keep slaves, which has more to do with secular culture than religious tenants. Sarenrae does not condone slavery, but seems happy to turn a blind eye to it - something that rubs most other Good deities (especially CG ones) the wrong way.

Thrudd
2018-07-08, 12:00 AM
Let's not forget, "spare the rod, spoil the child", or the paddle. Corporal punishment has been iconic of multiple industries, including child-rearing





I think it's perfectly reasonable for a good character to view slavery as good - so long as they find certain practices often associated with slavery as abhorrent. And this needn't require her to question her beliefs - just because rape exists, do people generally question whether sex is evil?

No, I think that the character is fine as lawful good, and, depending on how things play out, possibly even with keeping both her alignment and her beliefs. But that sounds like a great role-playing setup, should those come into conflict.

This is really a "define your terms" situation. The words used for the alignments can mean a lot of things in a lot of contexts. In this case, they're particularly asking about Pathfinder, in which those terms are defined fairly specifically in the context of alignments. Under "neutral good", it specifically says these characters find slavery abhorrent and seek to destroy the institution wherever they see it, legal or not. It goes without saying that chaotic good feels even more strongly about it. Lawful good says nothing specifically about slavery, but based on how strongly neutral good (aka "true" good) feels about it, it would be fair to assume that lawful good also feels that slavery in most forms would be unjust. If they lived in a slave-owning society, they would seek to have the laws changed through legal means - by convincing the ruler or legislators or by seeking a government position for themselves and run political campaigns to change the laws. If a lawful good person ever owned or purchased slaves, it would almost certainly only be for the purpose of setting them free.

Lawful neutral could accept slavery as a legal institution in their society, and could justify enslaving someone as the lawful treatment for prisoners of war and criminals, but I think that the capturing, trading and selling of slaves would always be considered evil, since it is actively oppressing people purely for one's own benefit. A society that depended on institutional slavery for large portions of its economy would necessarily need to employ those evil people to raid for more slaves - so even if you weren't evil yourself, you would need to be turning a blind eye to evil acts (something a neutral person can get away with but not a good person regardless of their law/chaos stance).

A system wherein "slavery" was only ever either a voluntary condition engaged in order to pay a debt, or a condition of forced and unpaid servitude as a punishment for crime, would be a different matter. If it were imposed by courts following legal codes, and laws protected inhumane treatment of the prisoner/slaves, and it was usually or potentially temporary - that would be a different matter. However, such a society would not be able to use slaves as a major contributor to the economy- there wouldn't be enough of them to do a significant amount of work. It wouldn't be much different than the modern prison system, where convicts are put to work. Some of them are sentenced to life in prison, but most of them are only there for a few years, and the total prison/slave population is never more than a very small percentage of the overall population, probably less than 1%.

So I would say that if a person was brought up in a slave-owning society, but had been sheltered from the evils of the act of enslavement and the poor treatment of many slaves, she would likely be Lawful Neutral or True Neutral. As this person came to see the evil of it, she would become Good if she decided slavery was wrong and needed to end. She would still be Lawful if she believed that she could create change through legal means, by getting the laws changed somehow to put an end to the evil acts and freeing people who are held against their will unjustly. If she decided this was no longer possible or couldn't tolerate it anymore, and was going to start breaking the law and just start freeing slaves (without buying them or otherwise doing it legally), she would probably shift to Neutral Good.

Quertus
2018-07-08, 07:02 AM
This is really a "define your terms" situation. The words used for the alignments can mean a lot of things in a lot of contexts. In this case, they're particularly asking about Pathfinder, in which those terms are defined fairly specifically in the context of alignments. Under "neutral good", it specifically says these characters find slavery abhorrent and seek to destroy the institution wherever they see it, legal or not. It goes without saying that chaotic good feels even more strongly about it. Lawful good says nothing specifically about slavery, but based on how strongly neutral good (aka "true" good) feels about it, it would be fair to assume that lawful good also feels that slavery in most forms would be unjust. If they lived in a slave-owning society, they would seek to have the laws changed through legal means - by convincing the ruler or legislators or by seeking a government position for themselves and run political campaigns to change the laws. If a lawful good person ever owned or purchased slaves, it would almost certainly only be for the purpose of setting them free.

Lawful neutral could accept slavery as a legal institution in their society, and could justify enslaving someone as the lawful treatment for prisoners of war and criminals, but I think that the capturing, trading and selling of slaves would always be considered evil, since it is actively oppressing people purely for one's own benefit. A society that depended on institutional slavery for large portions of its economy would necessarily need to employ those evil people to raid for more slaves - so even if you weren't evil yourself, you would need to be turning a blind eye to evil acts (something a neutral person can get away with but not a good person regardless of their law/chaos stance).

A system wherein "slavery" was only ever either a voluntary condition engaged in order to pay a debt, or a condition of forced and unpaid servitude as a punishment for crime, would be a different matter. If it were imposed by courts following legal codes, and laws protected inhumane treatment of the prisoner/slaves, and it was usually or potentially temporary - that would be a different matter. However, such a society would not be able to use slaves as a major contributor to the economy- there wouldn't be enough of them to do a significant amount of work. It wouldn't be much different than the modern prison system, where convicts are put to work. Some of them are sentenced to life in prison, but most of them are only there for a few years, and the total prison/slave population is never more than a very small percentage of the overall population, probably less than 1%.

So I would say that if a person was brought up in a slave-owning society, but had been sheltered from the evils of the act of enslavement and the poor treatment of many slaves, she would likely be Lawful Neutral or True Neutral. As this person came to see the evil of it, she would become Good if she decided slavery was wrong and needed to end. She would still be Lawful if she believed that she could create change through legal means, by getting the laws changed somehow to put an end to the evil acts and freeing people who are held against their will unjustly. If she decided this was no longer possible or couldn't tolerate it anymore, and was going to start breaking the law and just start freeing slaves (without buying them or otherwise doing it legally), she would probably shift to Neutral Good.

Alignment is the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs. There, I said my signature line.

Is it possible to have a character whose personality generally matches Lawful Good, but, on one particular issue, does not? Yes, fairly clearly, it is.

In such a case, which of these abhorrent boxes would we put them in? The one that they mostly match? There is general consensus from the Playground that this is the correct answer.

Make a character with a personality, not a caricature of an alignment. Play that personality to its logical conclusion.

Play the generally good person who happens to come from a slave state, and has never questioned the potential for slavery to be bad - or maybe even considers it good, especially if one of the slaves has, say, told the story of how, say, selling themselves into slavery to clear their debt and winding up in her family was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Then, if you encounter slavery that is unlike what you are accustomed to, roleplay your character accordingly. Yes, this is bad, but why is it bad? Are they doing slavery wrong? Are they committing horrors and calling them slavery, slandering slavery's good name? Does slavery inherently lead to abuse, or only when preformed by inferior races (countries, not species)? Or is slavery in general bad? Roleplay your character's reaction based both on their history, and what, specifically, they see.

And, if they come to accept the evils of slavery, and accept that it is fine, you should maybe change which of the 9 abhorrent boxes you put them in.

Thrudd
2018-07-08, 10:14 AM
Alignment is the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs. There, I said my signature line.

Is it possible to have a character whose personality generally matches Lawful Good, but, on one particular issue, does not? Yes, fairly clearly, it is.

In such a case, which of these abhorrent boxes would we put them in? The one that they mostly match? There is general consensus from the Playground that this is the correct answer.


I understand, and generally agree about alignment, but the game rules are clear that alignment is an actual thing, not subjective or relative to context. There is the option of alignment-less play given, but that's not really what the topic was asking about.

If the game is being played according to the rules, as it sounds like (not some house rules, not redefining what the alignment words mean), then it is very explicit. Good abhors slavery. So that is one particular issue, the only one so explicitly mentioned (so you know it's important) where it does define your alignment, there's no "almost" or "mostly" there. Yes, you can follow Lawful Good behavior on all other counts, but if you have a blind spot for the evils of slavery you are not technically Good.

This is apart from the character's own perception of themselves. Many characters believe they are "good", that is allowed. What they think about themselves does not affect the objectively defined alignment the game assigns them. That depends on their true beliefs and behavior as defined by the player. If they truly believe slavery is wrong, they can be Good. If they don't, they are Neutral or Evil. To say otherwise is to propose an amendment to the Pathfinder rules regarding alignment, and ask whatever GM to agree to adopt those amendments. So the argument must be framed thus:
" the official rules say you can't be good. But I believe you should consider using different (or no) alignment rules. You could be considered good according to my proposed changes. Suggest this to your GM."

Satinavian
2018-07-08, 10:29 AM
I understand, and generally agree about alignment, but the game rules are clear that alignment is an actual thing, not subjective or relative to context. There is the option of alignment-less play given, but that's not really what the topic was asking about.

If the game is being played according to the rules, as it sounds like (not some house rules, not redefining what the alignment words mean), then it is very explicit. Good abhors slavery. So that is one particular issue, the only one so explicitly mentioned (so you know it's important) where it does define your alignment, there's no "almost" or "mostly" there. Yes, you can follow Lawful Good behavior on all other counts, but if you have a blind spot for the evils of slavery you are not technically Good.

This is apart from the character's own perception of themselves. Many characters believe they are "good", that is allowed. What they think about themselves does not affect the objectively defined alignment the game assigns them. That depends on their true beliefs and behavior as defined by the player. If they truly believe slavery is wrong, they can be Good. If they don't, they are Neutral or Evil. To say otherwise is to propose an amendment to the Pathfinder rules regarding alignment, and ask whatever GM to agree to adopt those amendments. So the argument must be framed thus:
" the official rules say you can't be good. But I believe you should consider using different (or no) alignment rules. You could be considered good according to my proposed changes. Suggest this to your GM."Good characters can do evil things and stay good and evil characters can do good things and stay evil.

Alignment are not like paradin rules. You don't lose your alignment if you do a single thing that doesn't fit. Instead you have and keep the alignment that fits your behavior best.. And yes, that means as long as the neutral and evil alignments are a worse fit, you stay good.

Thrudd
2018-07-08, 10:57 AM
Good characters can do evil things and stay good and evil characters can do good things and stay evil.

Alignment are not like paradin rules. You don't lose your alignment if you do a single thing that doesn't fit. Instead you have and keep the alignment that fits your behavior best.. And yes, that means as long as the neutral and evil alignments are a worse fit, you stay good.

A persistent belief/attitude is not the same as a single act or a mistake. Believing slavery is tolerable or good is a thing you are "doing" at all times. It's not like you broke a law once. It's more like someone who says they are good but believes it's ok to kill prostitutes. That's just one evil thing, right? They give money to charity and fight for truth and justice all the time, they just have this one thing where they think it is their duty to murder prostitutes. That is "one thing" that makes you evil, regardless of all other behavior and beliefs.

Also, read the rules for alignments. It literally says Good abhors slavery and always opposes it. That's not an opinion. To say otherwise is to propose new rules (which is fine, but be clear that's what is being talked about). You don't agree with the book definition and want new way to approach alignments. That's fine.

Nifft
2018-07-08, 03:07 PM
...wait, wait... do you honestly think racism was invented with the African/Atlantic slave trade?

Looks like I didn't say anything like that, so I guess you're just doing a straw-man. Not sure why you'd do that.

Also, not sure why you think it's okay to talk about real-world politics, but I'm not going to get trolled into that sort of discussion.

You're making several bad assumptions, and correcting them seems to be against the forum's rules.

Spore
2018-07-08, 09:51 PM
If I learned ANYTHING in my Latin classes, it's that there certainly was a distinction between good slave owners and bad ones. Reality is, slave was a term for all kinds of situations. From captured enemy soldiers that are worked to death to the urban house servants that are living better than the average commoner.

However playing the "naive noble woman" is about as cliché as slavery being entirely evil and bad-wrong. I'd play her naivete softer. She knows there are good and bad slave owners. But owning or being a slave isn't a objective quality to her, it is simply a permanent employment situation. Now if an owner abuses their slaves, she will step in. But the worst she experienced yet was people throwing undercooked food into their servant's faces. She hasn't witnessed the true horrors that are possible with such an arrangement.

Thrudd
2018-07-08, 10:39 PM
If I learned ANYTHING in my Latin classes, it's that there certainly was a distinction between good slave owners and bad ones. Reality is, slave was a term for all kinds of situations. From captured enemy soldiers that are worked to death to the urban house servants that are living better than the average commoner.

However playing the "naive noble woman" is about as cliché as slavery being entirely evil and bad-wrong. I'd play her naivete softer. She knows there are good and bad slave owners. But owning or being a slave isn't a objective quality to her, it is simply a permanent employment situation. Now if an owner abuses their slaves, she will step in. But the worst she experienced yet was people throwing undercooked food into their servant's faces. She hasn't witnessed the true horrors that are possible with such an arrangement.

Does she somehow not know or never wonder where all these slaves came from? That they were probably free people with their own farms and families just like her until someone raided their town and kidnapped them? Has she never seen slaves being bought and sold and carted around in chains in the forum? Has she never seen children born to slaves being separated from their parents and sold off? Could she really think anyone actually wanted to be a slave, even the well-treated ones in rich families? They are certainly glad they didn't end up in the fields or the mines, but surely she knows they would rather have remained in their own homes with their own families. It is hard to believe an adult who lives in and participates in such a society being that sheltered or naive.
Unless she is a young child, she understands what slavery is, and has either chosen to accept society's apologies for it (to allow her to turn a blind eye to the necessary evils being comitted), or she believes it is wrong but maybe lacks the power or influence or courage to do anything about it. If she is Pathfinder Good, then at the very least she would start manumutting slaves whenever she had the chance.

Also, characters with Good alignment believing that slavery is bad and must be stopped does not mean they are necessarily correct all the time or that they can't make the distinction between real slavery and something called "slavery" that actually isn't.

Also, I'd like to point out that even pedagogues and other house slaves were almost definitely taken into slavery forcibly by conquerors or raiders. They didn't volunteer to be owned by someone. They got lucky and get to live in a rich house, better than most poor free people, but they were still taken against their will, away from families, their homes probably destroyed. There is no "good" or "kind" way to make someone a slave.

The implication is that Pathfinder alignments are referring to the above as "slavery", something similar to historically known circumstances, and not some minor subset or precisely limited form of servitude that is actually totally just and humane and coincidentally happens to be labelled "slavery".

Quertus
2018-07-09, 01:03 AM
The implication is that Pathfinder alignments are referring to the above as "slavery", something similar to historically known circumstances, and not some minor subset or precisely limited form of servitude that is actually totally just and humane and coincidentally happens to be labelled "slavery".

I find it hilarious that this is not just an issue of us Playgrounders using our words differently, but of attempting to engineer a character who uses her words differently. "Of course slavery is fine. Whatever this is, it's horrible - but it's not slavery. Slavery is fine."

Satinavian
2018-07-09, 01:46 AM
A persistent belief/attitude is not the same as a single act or a mistake. Yes, it is even worth less as far as alignment is concerned. How you act upon such a belief is the important thing.



Also, characters with Good alignment believing that slavery is bad and must be stopped does not mean they are necessarily correct all the time or that they can't make the distinction between real slavery and something called "slavery" that actually isn't.

The implication is that Pathfinder alignments are referring to the above as "slavery", something similar to historically known circumstances, and not some minor subset or precisely limited form of servitude that is actually totally just and humane and coincidentally happens to be labelled "slavery"."historically known", as if.

Slavery was a very common thing. But the overwhelming majority of societies which practiced slavery, did not, in fact have a slave based economy. Or some kind vast network of human trafficking to keep the supply running. I am not sure why the very few societies that completely depended on slavery should be the focus and not the many others that didn't.


Also, I'd like to point out that even pedagogues and other house slaves were almost definitely taken into slavery forcibly by conquerors or raiders. They didn't volunteer to be owned by someone. They got lucky and get to live in a rich house, better than most poor free people, but they were still taken against their will, away from families, their homes probably destroyed. There is no "good" or "kind" way to make someone a slave.True for tutors mostly. But not actually true for all kinds of privileged slaves. You will often find arrangements where people do give up their freedom as person in exchange for upward mobility : an education, gear and a lifelong job with privileges. We have so many historical cases of groups that would best be described as "unfree nobles" that this doesn't hold true.

It is an old idea, really. The old mighty families are always a threat to the rulers. So, how to establishing elite fighters or ministers/ bureaucrats who don't want to change the ruling family ? Take slaves (or other groups of low influence like heathens or orphans or criminal eunuchs or at least the poor). Those could not go for the throne for lack of backing. And they would be loyal and thankful, wouldn't they ?

Well, often that worked but sometimes even slaves running the gouvernment or being the core of the army proved powerful enough to take over.

Societies can be complicated. And generalisations are a bad idea.
It is even difficult to find a clear line about what counts as slave and what is clearly some other kind of unfree people.

kyoryu
2018-07-09, 10:38 AM
Taking away someone's freedom is Evil. Full stop.

That said, I can see situations where you could be a Good slaveowner - specifically, cases where slavery was for life with no way of freeing the slaves, and you bought them explicitly to give them a better standard of living, and them proceeded to treat them as if they had rights.


I've no problem with saying that the majority of historical people have committed evil acts, even if they aren't "evil-aligned by D&D standards".

Neutral means "mix of good and evil", mostly, not "has never committed an evil act nor a good one".

Sorta. It's not a cosmic credit card. A neutral person probably does any number of small goods and small evils.

A single, sufficiently evil act would be enough to make you Evil, without appropriate contrition and redemption. Conversely, it would take a lot of small-good acts without any real Evil, or likely some very strongly Good without any strongly Evil acts to become Good. Murdering orphans on the weekdays but then saving orphans during the week makes you evil, not neutral.


Good characters can do evil things and stay good and evil characters can do good things and stay evil.

Absolutely. Though I (as said above) maintain that a single sufficiently Evil act done without remorse or contrition is enough to put you in Evil. Good is a harder road.

Motivation and circumstance matter, too. Stealing a loaf of bread from a wealthy baker to feed your family after exhausting every other opportunity for work and to find food, having incredible remorse over it, and then paying the baker back when you get money? Evil, yes, but a very minor one. Stealing a loaf of bread from a poor family because you felt a bit peckish? A much larger evil.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-09, 10:40 AM
Taking away someone's freedom is Evil. Full stop.

So... putting someone in jail is evil? :smallconfused:

braveheart
2018-07-09, 12:08 PM
Given that the character's society is structured in a way that treats its slaves humanely and is on the whole LN then it can be reasoned that as long as she is good in numerous other ways, and acts against abusive slavery then she could stay LG however a grayer form of LG

MrSandman
2018-07-09, 12:14 PM
If the game is being played according to the rules, as it sounds like (not some house rules, not redefining what the alignment words mean), then it is very explicit. Good abhors slavery. So that is one particular issue, the only one so explicitly mentioned (so you know it's important) where it does define your alignment, there's no "almost" or "mostly" there. Yes, you can follow Lawful Good behavior on all other counts, but if you have a blind spot for the evils of slavery you are not technically Good.


Sorry, would you mind referencing where in the rules (that is, which book/page/website/etc) it says that and gives slavery as the concrete example that always stands true? I didn't find anything about slavery and alignment, but I found this:

Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.
Link: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html

This would imply that whether or not a LG character can think that slavery is sort of okay depends on how much leeway you want to give based on the bold sentence.

Nifft
2018-07-09, 12:27 PM
Taking away someone's freedom is Evil. Full stop.

Therefore it's Good to immediately execute criminals & suspects rather than imprisoning them, since imprisonment is full-stop Evil.

Private property and locked doors are Evil, because everyone must always have the freedom to move without limitation.

Soldiers are never AWOL, because they always have leave to do whatever they want at any time.

It's also Good to allow anyone to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-09, 01:09 PM
Wasn't someone just complaining about people reacting to things they didn't really say?

This thread could use a little less "reading for things to attack".

Segev
2018-07-09, 03:01 PM
My apologies if I put things together anybody did not mean to be taken together to form an implication.


Regarding LG people with no issue with slavery, consider it like this:

Marriage is supposed to be a loving relationship where each cares for the other, and generally serves to legitimize sexual relations and the children that issue therefrom. I doubt anybody who thinks "marriage is fine" but has a problem with political marriages being loveless constructs feels there's a contradiction. Similarly, if they see an abusive marriage, full of rape of an unwilling partner and other physical and emotional abuses, they don't view marriage as the problem, but how the participant(s) in that marriage are behaving.

So, to our LG noblewoman from a culture where slavery is just fine, she has, if not a romanticized notion of slavery, at least a notion that slavery is fine as long as the participants are behaving well. If she sees abuses happening, she doesn't see it as a problem with slavery, but as a problem with the master engaging in the abuses. As a Lawful Good person, she may value freedom of choice to an extent, but not nearly to that which an NG or CG person would. To her, the constraints placed on a slave by their legal status are for their own good, and the good of society. It is the responsibility of the master to treat them well, and she likely even comes from a society where mistreating slaves is no better than mistreating peasant freemen. (Ideally, no difference exists whether the victim is slave, freeman, or noble.)

If the LG believer in marriage as a good thing saw an LE society where one member of a marriage had a right to abuse (in any way) the other, he'd have a serious problem with the laws and traditions of that society. But that wouldn't make him suddenly "realize" that marriage is evil.

Similarly, I would see this LG noblewoman only finding herself questioning the goodness of slavery if she not only saw abuses, but saw them somehow demonstrated to be so inevitable that they're happening in ways she never knew back home, because they more or less have to. Barring that, she'd see slavery as just fine, and simply take issue with any slaveowners who treated slaves in an evil manner.

Scripten
2018-07-09, 03:19 PM
-snip-

The problem with that logic train being that slavery is inherently abusive.

A Lawful Good character may exist in a world where slavery is considered normal and routine without attempting to (outright) dismantle that society, but condoning, participating in, or otherwise upholding the institution of slavery is definitively not Good, based on the standards of society by which alignment is determined. (Remember, we don't have to observe this via historical precedent. RPG settings are not The Real World and those with defined alignment axes are quite apparently written to be examined from a modern perspective.)

Nifft
2018-07-09, 03:35 PM
The problem with that logic train being that slavery is inherently abusive.

The PC's character arc ought to be about discovering that truth.

However, it's not a simple truth, nor is it necessarily easy to observe as an outsider.

Limited-contract indentured servitude seems to have worked out somewhat better than permanent racial/caste chattel slavery, and even within chattel slavery there are examples of good treatment -- since confirmation bias is a thing, it's quite reasonable for the PC to (temporarily) try to justify the system she's familiar with for some span of time, until evidence accumulates sufficiently that she's able / forced to discard her upbringing.

Scripten
2018-07-09, 03:55 PM
The PC's character arc ought to be about discovering that truth.

However, it's not a simple truth, nor is it necessarily easy to observe as an outsider.

Limited-contract indentured servitude seems to have worked out somewhat better than permanent racial/caste chattel slavery, and even within chattel slavery there are examples of good treatment -- since confirmation bias is a thing, it's quite reasonable for the PC to (temporarily) try to justify the system she's familiar with for some span of time, until evidence accumulates sufficiently that she's able / forced to discard her upbringing.

I'm in complete agreement here. The distinction would be the choices the character makes in response to gaining knowledge. Once they are no longer ignorant of the state of their society, that initial impression they have would ebb away. Some amount of justification is understandable, but when you're working with alignment, that justification (or lack of introspection) is the difference between a character that is Good and a character that is merely convinced they are Good.

And of course, nothing is stopping that character from remaining convinced of their own virtue despite their own self-delusion. That's actually a fairly interesting and complex character, but they're firmly Neutral or Evil by any reasonable reading of the alignment systems I've seen (discounting FATAL).

Thrudd
2018-07-09, 04:22 PM
Sorry, would you mind referencing where in the rules (that is, which book/page/website/etc) it says that and gives slavery as the concrete example that always stands true? I didn't find anything about slavery and alignment, but I found this:

Link: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html

This would imply that whether or not a LG character can think that slavery is sort of okay depends on how much leeway you want to give based on the bold sentence.

Sorry, it might have been from a 3rd party Pathfinder SRD site that does not reflect the actual wording from Paizo, which I didn't realize until now. I own that; my whole statement is predicated on an official wording which is only official for whomever wrote this website. https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/additional-rules/

Not that the official wording of Paizo influences anyone in their opinion of how alignments should be interpretted in Parhfinder, regardless. I do find it reasonable, however, to describe as Evil the practice of raiding and pillaging to provide a class of permanent servants and laborers - how the society treats those slaves after capture notwithstanding.

If all slaves in the society were convicted by lawful means of crimes or volunteered for servitude, and those people had legal protections from inhumane treatment, then you could make a case for a lawful good support of that specific society's slavery. If in any case people are worked to death, are allowed to be abused, or taken by force into servitude, then Good must object and seek to remedy such practices.

Segev
2018-07-09, 04:31 PM
The problem with that logic train being that slavery is inherently abusive.Not...necessarily. I would generally agree, from a modern perspective and with my own personal emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility, but I can see a coherent and recognizably-good argument to the contrary. The inherent problems are not blatantly obvious when the institution is constructed as it would be by an LG society (perhaps as inheritors of an LN tradition).

To make the claim that slavery is "inherently abusive" at its core, one must have a very specific set of items on the list of what constitutes "abuse." And most of those abusive items also make the concept of "nobility" and "royalty" inherently abusive. Heck, if there weren't a moratorium on real-world political discussion, I could give examples of inherently abusive structures that many would claim are for the good of the victims, and are in fact cruel and abusive to end. The same applies to a society which sees slavery as "fine," and has specific ideas of what is and is not abusive wrt slaves and others.

Specifically, you need to see inability to choose one's career as abuse, and inability to choose one's employer as abuse. And even the former one is something which may not be a problem, depending on the nature of the slavery laws. You just didn't see, for instance, house slaves and tutors to citizens in Rome told, "Okay, I don't need a tutor anymore. you're going to be a scullion or mine worker, now." The kind of slave you were just didn't have that happen at the casual caprice of your master. That took what was essentially a legal issue coming up, and you being found criminally liable in a way that called for hard labor slavery as a punishment.

One of the most obvious abuses is sexual. If they're your property, you can use them however you want, right? Not necessarily. In an LG society that sees sex as as personal a thing as life and other such things, rape would still be rape, even of a slave. One could no more legally rape one's slaves than one could legally rape one's employees.

But to get to the point of slavery being "inherently abusive," you have to get to the core of what choices are required to be left to an individual for it NOT to be abusive. And that is a much, much stickier argument than I think this board is willing to support, because it inevitably gets into real-world parallels. And it's not a settled issue in modern Western culture. Sure, we're all against slavery as we understand it today. But there are a lot of parallel individual liberties to the core ones surrounding ownership of one's own life and labor that people are not so in agreement on. I would have to use arguments that would be uncomfortably close to certain positions I politically and morally oppose to demonstrate how an LG person could believe slavery is not inherently abusive, but I could do it.

(Incidentally, this is why I don't inherently believe people who disagree with me on those moral and political subjects are inherently evil; I can see how good people would believe as they do. I just think they're wrong.)


A Lawful Good character may exist in a world where slavery is considered normal and routine without attempting to (outright) dismantle that society, but condoning, participating in, or otherwise upholding the institution of slavery is definitively not Good, based on the standards of society by which alignment is determined. (Remember, we don't have to observe this via historical precedent. RPG settings are not The Real World and those with defined alignment axes are quite apparently written to be examined from a modern perspective.)You have not really supported the mechanical argument that Good alignment's RAW precepts define slavery as inherently evil. But, at the same time, the fact that you're resorting to this suggests to me that you're unable to support the claim you made about it being inherently abusive, since there are a LOT of things that the alignment system's RAW say that are easily scoffed at as overly broad or revelatory of personal writer preferences than anything else. In short, the "RAW," such as they are, are mostly suggestions and guidelines, meant to provide examples and a rough picture, not meant to be a legal document interpreted to the letter in all situations at all times.


The PC's character arc ought to be about discovering that truth.

However, it's not a simple truth, nor is it necessarily easy to observe as an outsider.This, I fully agree with.


Limited-contract indentured servitude seems to have worked out somewhat better than permanent racial/caste chattel slavery, and even within chattel slavery there are examples of good treatment -- since confirmation bias is a thing, it's quite reasonable for the PC to (temporarily) try to justify the system she's familiar with for some span of time, until evidence accumulates sufficiently that she's able / forced to discard her upbringing.Even lifetime indentured servitude based on something other than race/caste is going to be a lot harder to find the obvious non-Good flaws in. All the objections one might raise can be addressed, for the most part, by specific laws against such abuses, and compared to similar laws preventing such treatment of freemen.

Nifft
2018-07-09, 04:43 PM
You have not really supported the mechanical argument that Good alignment's RAW precepts define slavery as inherently evil. But, at the same time, the fact that you're resorting to this suggests to me that you're unable to support the claim you made about it being inherently abusive, since there are a LOT of things that the alignment system's RAW say that are easily scoffed at as overly broad or revelatory of personal writer preferences than anything else. In short, the "RAW," such as they are, are mostly suggestions and guidelines, meant to provide examples and a rough picture, not meant to be a legal document interpreted to the letter in all situations at all times.

You quoted Scripten, but put my name on the quote, and used a quote-link to a totally different thread.

Segev
2018-07-09, 04:59 PM
You quoted Scripten, but put my name on the quote, and used a quote-link to a totally different thread.

Gah, sorry. Fixed now, I think. (I did mean to quote you with the last two, just from THIS thread.) Unless I've botched that again.

Durzan
2018-07-09, 05:08 PM
Here's the thing... I see the institution of slavery as being tied strictly to Law vs Chaos, while how the society generally implements slavery and treats their slaves as being what we need to consider belonging on the Good & Evil scale.

This stems from the realization that slavery isn't that much different from being a free man. In some societies, slaves are treated much better than free men, and in others they are treated worse. Slavery, like all aspects of society, is 90% psychological in nature. What did most of the work in keeping a slave locked down and subservient in any society was not specifically the chains or the whips (although they did have their place and effect), but the slave's own mind... IE they were psychologically conditioned (through fear, mistreatment, and so forth) to think and act in certain ways.

When you realize this, soon you come to the understanding that its not really that different for "free" men in any society past, present, or future in the real world or in a fictional one. We may be considered "free" in America, but like slaves we have been conditioned to act and think in certain ways, are subject to certain rules and expectations, risk facing punishment if we disobey, and so on and so forth. All actions have consequences, wether natural or artificial in nature. So in that sense, can anyone truly say they are free? Being free in modern society is just slavery with a bigger box to play in, while "freedom" in feudal and caste-based time periods/places is essentially what we'd call slavery nowadays. So long as psychological conditioning exists (and it always will), we are and will remain in bondage to others and to the boundaries set by groups as a whole. Even the rich and powerful are in psychological bondage to the slavery of society.

But I digress. When dealing with slavery, whether in the real world or a fantasy world, one must ask themselves a few questions:


What does it mean to be a slave in the first place?
Is slavery the norm or outside of the norm?
How does one become a slave?
How does one stop being a slave?
How does the society as a whole treat their slaves?
How is slavery viewed among this society?
What are the general laws and regulations regarding slaves be like, if there are any any?


Depending on the answers to these questions determines whether or not slavery is Lawful, Good, or Evil. If a society values individual freedom over everything else, slavery likely doesn't exist as an institution, and said society is likely either Chaotic in nature, or at least a neutral/lawful society where slavery is completely illegal, and where the rights of the individual are clearly defined.

If a society has complex rules and regulations regarding slavery, (Including the legality or legality of slavery), then chances are its probably a lawful society. Expect slavery to be specifically defined and for the government to regulate the trade of slaves.

If a Lawful society generally views slaves as people (IE just because they are legally required to work for you doesn't mean they are animals; its the contract of who the slave is working for that is bought and sold, not the person themselves), then it is probably a society that is either Neutral or Good on the good-evil scale. In such nations, expect slaves to retain some rights, and the slave owners to be expected to treat them with some dignity (IE owners are expected to give them proper food and lodging, not kill them or mistreat them, and in some instances even pay them; laws would protect against inhumane treatment). Also expect there to be rules regarding how to become a slave (Example: Stuff like you have to willingly sell yourself to pay off a debt, or you are a slave for a years as the result of being found guilty of a crime), how to get out of slavery (Example: Slaves are automatically set free after a period of time stated in their contract, or they could save up enough money to purchase their freedom early), how long they stay a slave (IE slaves are not permanently stuck as slaves), etc.

If a society generally treats its slaves as commodities or as animals, then it is probably Evil in nature. This is the kind of society we think of when we typically picture slavery. They are bad without question.

Anyway, to answer your original question, if your character is lawful good and comes from a lawful society where slavery is legal, and her slaves were well treated, its entirely possible for her to support slavery as a concept without having to shift her alignment. As soon as she realizes that other nations don't treat slaves all that well, she would draw her sword and seek to fix this injustice!

She would consider the forms of slavery of Orcs, Drow, and other evil creatures (and nations) to be barbaric, a perversion of the natural nature of society! She would fiercely speak out against the inhumane treatment of slaves, and be advocating laws and regulations to ban inhumane treatment and giving slaves certain rights. She would encourage slaves to obey their masters (so long as such orders were legitimate and legal), but not let them push them around (after all, in her eyes, the relationship between a slave and their master would be similar to an employee and their boss).

So no, I see no problem with your lawful good character being an advent supporter of slaver; no alignment change is needed, so long as she sticks to her values and doesn't let the mindset of slavery equaling a work animal you can abuse. You just gotta provide the right context for her beliefs, play very carefully, and most importantly, be consistent! Slavery is a sensitive subject for many, so you gotta approach this tactfully

Tajl
2018-07-09, 05:38 PM
The PC's character arc ought to be about discovering that truth.

However, it's not a simple truth, nor is it necessarily easy to observe as an outsider.

Limited-contract indentured servitude seems to have worked out somewhat better than permanent racial/caste chattel slavery, and even within chattel slavery there are examples of good treatment -- since confirmation bias is a thing, it's quite reasonable for the PC to (temporarily) try to justify the system she's familiar with for some span of time, until evidence accumulates sufficiently that she's able / forced to discard her upbringing.

I think slavery is tool. it can be used for good and evil. It depends on what is alternative for being slave. Freedom is nice thing and in modern world we have used to being free, but you cant eat freedom and when you don't have anything to eat...

Limited-contract indentured servitude looks like better system at first glance, but it is really? Sometimes freedom is only freedom to starve. For example is it really a good deed to give very old slave freedom when he is too old to work? So that instead of owner feeding him he can beg in some street corner and starve.

Is it better to be free worker who is hired when he is needed and starve when he is not, or slave who do exactly same work for same employer but will not starve as as slave his owner will always feed him.

Mining works is bad and and slaves will die young, but if slaves doesn't do that then free workers do it and most likely they will die young too. Mining is just dangerous business and is there really any difference when mine owner buys some slaves to do mining or if he hires some people who would otherwise starve so that they can't really say no and then pays them so little that they have to make debt so that they can't leave before they have paid their debt, which of course will never happen. In both cases some unfortunately people work in the mines until they die and earn nothing while doing it.

Or slave could be favorite slave of the emperor. One whose job is to govern that empire when Emperor focus on drinking and making heirs. Should good person feel bad because that slave is not free. Even if that slave is the second most influential man in the country.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-09, 06:06 PM
A gilded cage is still a cage.

Better free to starve than forced to eat, better to die standing than to live kissing the floor.

Scripten
2018-07-09, 07:07 PM
Not going to do a point by point, because I'm on mobile, but I would counter with the following:

Regarding slavery as evil: slavery implies abuse because it is servitude and ownership of a person against their will. One could make the argument that using criminal prisoners as slaves is evil, but I can see that as neutral. (I wouldn't categorize it as Good unless the criminals are being given usable skills, which I will concede makes the use of the word slavery here a misnomer at best.)

Also, while I do not have my books in front of me, I would argue that the Thri-keen in D&D being evil is due to them being slavers. There are other examples (and I'm fairly sure I've read that slavery is considered an evil trait in a number of other RPGs' allotment section directly), but honestly I didn't really consider "prove that RPG writers consider slavery evil" on the agenda for today.

Nifft
2018-07-09, 07:16 PM
Also, while I do not have my books in front of me, I would argue that the Thri-keen in D&D being evil is due to them being slavers.

Maybe that's a setting thing for Dark Sun?

In the 3.5e XPH, they're biased towards Chaotic, and mixed (mostly Neutral) on the Good-Evil scale. There's nothing about Thri-Kreen being inherently slavers (nor being inherently evil) in the XPH.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-09, 07:24 PM
Better free to starve than forced to eat, better to die standing than to live kissing the floor.

The fact that you have a strong subjective opinion on the subject does not make it an objective fact.

Scripten
2018-07-09, 07:29 PM
Maybe that's a setting thing for Dark Sun?

In the 3.5e XPH, they're biased towards Chaotic, and mixed (mostly Neutral) on the Good-Evil scale. There's nothing about Thri-Kreen being inherently slavers (nor being inherently evil) in the XPH.

Ah, you are correct. It was actually Neogi, which are in Volo's guide in 5e. They're defined as emotionless like Lizardfolk, but are evil because of the rigid slaver culture of their society, as well as their ability/willingness to control sentient minds.

icefractal
2018-07-09, 07:46 PM
As far as a hypothetical society where slavery conditions were so good as to be beyond reproach - why would they even have slavery at that point? Free workers don't need to be guarded, and have less issues in general. And when you consider the unpleasant working conditions that people accepted during, say, the industrial revolution, any job that /requires/ enslaving people is not going to be remotely good.

As far as slavery as an alternative to improsonment, my main issue would be that it creates perverse incentives - see asset forfeiture and for-profit prisons for examples. When sentencing someone guilty puts money in your pocket (including indirectly), it has a tendency to bias the justice system.

Kader
2018-07-09, 08:41 PM
Let's not forget, "spare the rod, spoil the child", or the paddle. Corporal punishment has been iconic of multiple industries, including child-rearing.

This is considerably weaker than what I meant when I described the whip as emblematic or iconic of slavery in a way that it was not of other institutions that sometimes also involved corporal punishment.

If you mentioned to a Roman (or a person from most other slave societies) that you spent twenty-five years under the whip, he will understand you as saying that you once were a slave, and that meaning will come perfectly naturally to him because of the overwhelming ubiquity of the whip in slavery. However, if you subsequently explain to him that you didn't mean to say you were once a slave, but that you were once a child subject to your parents' authority, it would seem bizarre and unsettling to him that you chose that metaphor.

In the Roman literature (I keep coming back to Rome partly because it dwarfs other slave systems and partly because Rome is my field of study), the comparison between master of slaves and parent of children is in fact explored, but to exactly the opposite conclusion than the one you are aiming at. The metaphors were used to illuminate contrasting treatment rather than similar treatment. Cicero for example contrasted master with father in de re publica: actions are commanded by the will like a father commands his children, but in contrast, desires are crushed by the will like a master crushes slaves (the literal words are coercet et frangit, "repress and break").




If I learned ANYTHING in my Latin classes, it's that there certainly was a distinction between good slave owners and bad ones. Reality is, slave was a term for all kinds of situations. From captured enemy soldiers that are worked to death to the urban house servants that are living better than the average commoner.

Definitely a fair point - slavery was rarely undifferentiated and there were almost always internal hierarchies, with some favored and others disfavored, or a few put in more or less responsible positions over the rest and given commensurate privileges.


Slavery was a very common thing. But the overwhelming majority of societies which practiced slavery, did not, in fact have a slave based economy. Or some kind vast network of human trafficking to keep the supply running. I am not sure why the very few societies that completely depended on slavery should be the focus and not the many others that didn't.

This is certainly true, but I'm not sure where you're going with it. It seems like there may be an unstated understanding that slavery in societies that did allow it but that did not place it centrally in the economy was not as bad, but I'm not sure that's defensible. Also not sure whether that's actually your point or whether I am mistaking it.


Well, often that worked but sometimes even slaves running the gouvernment or being the core of the army proved powerful enough to take over.

Worth noting (and a lot of pop culture references, e.g., game of thrones, miss it) is that mamelukes along the Egyptian model were freedmen, former slaves who were manumitted as part of the process of ensoldiering them. Slavery provided the input into the system, but part of turning the slaves into soldiers was freeing them.

Kader
2018-07-09, 08:49 PM
Similarly, I would see this LG noblewoman only finding herself questioning the goodness of slavery if she not only saw abuses, but saw them somehow demonstrated to be so inevitable that they're happening in ways she never knew back home, because they more or less have to.

Which is in actual fact the case, at least if all the slave societies that ever existed on Earth are taken as guides. But realizing it could, I think, make for fun roleplaying.

It took real people a few thousand years to work through the morals of it and get to the place where all *looks at thread* most of us are now, after all.

It is genuinely intellectually difficult to achieve the sort of Copernican revolution of thought involved in being the first to realize that an institution that has been characteristic of all of human society since time immemorial is inherently evil.

On the other hand, Pathfinder (with its abolitionist nations confronting slavery) is already on our side of that revolution, which puts the morals of slavery a bit more front and center as far as any given character goes. Slavery can't really be dismissed as just the way things are when there are whole countries (Andoran) out there crusading to put an end to it.

Spore
2018-07-09, 10:05 PM
Does she somehow not know or never wonder where all these slaves came from? That they were probably free people with their own farms and families just like her until someone raided their town and kidnapped them? [...]
Unless she is a young child, she understands what slavery is, and has either chosen to accept society's apologies for it (to allow her to turn a blind eye to the necessary evils being comitted), or she believes it is wrong but maybe lacks the power or influence or courage to do anything about it. If she is Pathfinder Good, then at the very least she would start manumutting slaves whenever she had the chance.

I agree. Any other interpretation does make world building a headache (anything starting with life debts Chewbacca style).


I asked over on the Pathfinder Reddit and got a lot of varied answers; some said it was fine to play her as LG at first due to her sheltered upbringing, but that as she became more aware of the world she would either have to change her stance on the issue of slavery or alter her alignment appropriately, others suggested that she should be classified as LE but 'thinks' she's lawful good, leading to the same eventual choice.

That, basically. She is lawful neutral (imho) unless she abuses her power over the slaves (she might have as well, there are no consequences; and kids are cruel sometimes). Remember Molthune is independant of Cheliax because they have a strong military and their Chelaxian roots lie deep. I'd play it like a slightly less rigid Sparta. It's expected of her to be skilled at arms. She should have been deeply indoctrinated that her place in the hierarchy is rightfully hers. Slave abuse is bad but she should not let a slave rise above his or her station. Remember this:


Governor Teldas has recently proclaimed that any labourer that serves five years in Molthune's armies can become an Imperial citizen, helping to swell the army's ranks.

However I just like the interpretation as follows. Slavery might be a bad thing and when the girl was younger, maybe the children of slaves (who are slaves by heritage) even played with her. They don't know differently, and the adult slaves are prompted to keep their mouths shut.

Slaves are ultimatively barred of this opportunity to rise to citizenship and this honestly might be her turning point: A childhood friend could really REALLY want to help her country (and become free) and she does everything in her might to help him or her achieve that.

Usually something drastic happens in the young adulthood to show a character such as that that slavery is non-good (I'd say sensible slavery starts off at the grey area of neutral), with the archetypical example being outright abuse of owned people. However you should not forget a typical result of legal slavery: You have to be able to afford keeping them: i.e. feed them, keep them in a presentable manner (clothes, hygiene, general health) and that just might be enough that they're better off than Old Bob, the ill-stricken farmer and father of two that barely can support himself. They might have 'stockholm-y' qualities to them because after a while freedom could feel dangerous and scary.

Enixon
2018-07-11, 02:55 PM
This doesn't have much to do with the current line of debate but it's something I've always found kind of interesting when reading through D&D (and other RPG) Setting books. When the books detail the standard "bad guy" nations and monster cultures, like Thay in the Forgotten Realms, "being slavers" is typically pretty high on the "why it's okay to kill them in random encounters" list, but then you get to the setting's "Not-Egypt" or "Not-Rome" area and the book suddenly has to back pedal and explain how "it's okay when they do it" and the like.


Just something that popped into my head while reading this thread.

Thrudd
2018-07-11, 03:22 PM
This doesn't have much to do with the current line of debate but it's something I've always found kind of interesting when reading through D&D (and other RPG) Setting books. When the books detail the standard "bad guy" nations and monster cultures, like Thay in the Forgotten Realms, "being slavers" is typically pretty high on the "why it's okay to kill them in random encounters" list, but then you get to the setting's "Not-Egypt" or "Not-Rome" area and the book suddenly has to back pedal and explain how "it's okay when they do it" and the like.


Just something that popped into my head while reading this thread.

Right, and I think the explanation usually hinges on how people treat their slaves and that there are laws that protect from cruelty. But they tend to ignore or devalue the means by which people are made into slaves, which I think is equally or more important for determining the alignment-nature of a society. Realistically those evil slaver/raider cultures exist because of and in symbiosis with the not-Rome and not-Egypt. I think it is disingenuous or short-sighted to separate them in any moral sense. If any of your slaves are gotten by someone being captured and dragged from their homes against their will, your slavery is evil.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-11, 03:36 PM
Right, and I think the explanation usually hinges on how people treat their slaves and that there are laws that protect from cruelty. But they tend to ignore or devalue the means by which people are made into slaves, which I think is equally or more important for determining the alignment-nature of a society. Realistically those evil slaver/raider cultures exist because of and in symbiosis with the not-Rome and not-Egypt. I think it is disingenuous or short-sighted to separate them in any moral sense. If any of your slaves are gotten by someone being captured and dragged from their homes against their will, your slavery is evil.

Agreed.

And if your slavery is fed by coercing people in debt into servitude, it's evil.

And if your slavery is hereditary, it's evil.

And really, if your slavery is slavery, it's evil.

Segev
2018-07-11, 03:52 PM
Agreed.

And if your slavery is fed by coercing people in debt into servitude, it's evil.

And if your slavery is hereditary, it's evil.

And really, if your slavery is slavery, it's evil.

Yeah, in general, "slavery" as we think of it today is going to be evil on the face of it, to the point that we cannot see an LG society practicing it.

To see an LG society practicing it, the term has to be stripped of a lot of the obvious (to us) implications of what owning another person allows the owner to do to that person.

In essence, the slave stops being chattel-level property in an LG society. At the worst end of it, it's somewhere hovering just above a pet or a child in terms of personal rights. The owner has all decision-making regarding "well-being" decisions, and directs the slave's life, but is generally expected to have the slave's best interests at heart, and to take good care of said slaves, treating them kindly and well. At the most idealistic end of it, the slave has all the rights to dignity that any freeman does, except the ability to determine who his employer is. He may or may not have say in what his job is, but any LG society is going to see misusing a slave as not just wasteful but immoral. And slaves who do get the crap jobs (sometimes literally) either are the ones who genuinely deserve the penal duty, or who are otherwise well-treated and appreciated.

The reason we see slavery as evil through and through today (and I happen to agree with this) is because we recognize that the ability to tell somebody that they are a prisoner and permanent employee, even if that's ALL there is to it, engenders an attitude of entitlement and power to abuse that will lead to and even tacitly encourage such abuses.

It's a system where safeguards of self-determination are removed when they needn't be. Self-determination allows even the poorest of employees to decide that he's better off seeking other employment than withstanding the abuses of his current boss. Slavery traps them there.

But I can absolutely see how an LG society coming at it from a different historical and philosophical perspective would say that the problem isn't in slavery, but in some people just being unworthy slave-owners. If I were inclined to engage in debate from an RP standpoint (or like I was on a debate team, where making the argument for a position you don't hold is considered a sign of good skill), I could construct some fairly decent debate positions for that LG apologist which, even if you didn't agree with him, would leave you convinced he really is both Lawful and Good at heart. At least, I think so. (I am not, in fact, a very good debater. But I see in this case how to do it.)

Because this is so charged a subject, I feel the need to emphasize: I do not think slavery is good nor justified. I just see how an LG person could believe it, given the properly-framed worldview, and still be LG. Even after thinking it through.

Scripten
2018-07-11, 04:15 PM
I mean, once you remove the major parts that make slavery, well, slavery, it kind of ceases to be slavery, doesn't it? At this point we're talking about a lot of institutions and conflating them under the term slavery, which is likely the cause of a lot of the disagreements and proclamations.

Nifft
2018-07-11, 04:19 PM
I mean, once you remove the major parts that make slavery, well, slavery, it kind of ceases to be slavery, doesn't it? At this point we're talking about a lot of institutions and conflating them under the term slavery, which is likely the cause of a lot of the disagreements and proclamations.

Presumably that's why it's done.

In good conscience: reforming the system so that it's kinder and gentler.

In bad faith: as a cover for the abuses that they want to continue, so the great masses of the people don't think of those abuses as the norm.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-11, 04:24 PM
Yeah, in general, "slavery" as we think of it today is going to be evil on the face of it, to the point that we cannot see an LG society practicing it.

To see an LG society practicing it, the term has to be stripped of a lot of the obvious (to us) implications of what owning another person allows the owner to do to that person.

In essence, the slave stops being chattel-level property in an LG society. At the worst end of it, it's somewhere hovering just above a pet or a child in terms of personal rights. The owner has all decision-making regarding "well-being" decisions, and directs the slave's life, but is generally expected to have the slave's best interests at heart, and to take good care of said slaves, treating them kindly and well. At the most idealistic end of it, the slave has all the rights to dignity that any freeman does, except the ability to determine who his employer is. He may or may not have say in what his job is, but any LG society is going to see misusing a slave as not just wasteful but immoral. And slaves who do get the crap jobs (sometimes literally) either are the ones who genuinely deserve the penal duty, or who are otherwise well-treated and appreciated.

The reason we see slavery as evil through and through today (and I happen to agree with this) is because we recognize that the ability to tell somebody that they are a prisoner and permanent employee, even if that's ALL there is to it, engenders an attitude of entitlement and power to abuse that will lead to and even tacitly encourage such abuses.

It's a system where safeguards of self-determination are removed when they needn't be. Self-determination allows even the poorest of employees to decide that he's better off seeking other employment than withstanding the abuses of his current boss. Slavery traps them there.

But I can absolutely see how an LG society coming at it from a different historical and philosophical perspective would say that the problem isn't in slavery, but in some people just being unworthy slave-owners. If I were inclined to engage in debate from an RP standpoint (or like I was on a debate team, where making the argument for a position you don't hold is considered a sign of good skill), I could construct some fairly decent debate positions for that LG apologist which, even if you didn't agree with him, would leave you convinced he really is both Lawful and Good at heart. At least, I think so. (I am not, in fact, a very good debater. But I see in this case how to do it.)

Because this is so charged a subject, I feel the need to emphasize: I do not think slavery is good nor justified. I just see how an LG person could believe it, given the properly-framed worldview, and still be LG. Even after thinking it through.


See, I don't think they could actually be good, no matter how good they thought they were.

A system that gives one person the ability to tell another person that they are a prisoner and permanent employee is in and of itself inherently evil.*

It is in and of itself inherently evil for one person to own another person.


* (Setting aside the spurious comparisons some have made to blur the line with working, fair and just, justice systems.)

Segev
2018-07-11, 04:47 PM
I mean, once you remove the major parts that make slavery, well, slavery, it kind of ceases to be slavery, doesn't it? At this point we're talking about a lot of institutions and conflating them under the term slavery, which is likely the cause of a lot of the disagreements and proclamations.Sure. But you also have to realize that the term has historically been used to refer to institutions and practices which are more akin to the "not really slavery anymore" kind of slavery described.

And there have been institutions far WORSE than what we consider slavery that aren't called by that term, even though we'd probably say, "that sounds a lot like 'slavery' to me" if we had them described in detail.

The fundamental requirement for it to have the denotative term accurately applied is the notion of owning the person or their labor without that person being able to decide to legally terminate the relationship (or at least, not without paying a fee to get out of it - e.g. buying their own contract).

Yes, we can say, from our perspective, "That's not really slavery," but if we're only doing that so we can keep saying, "Slavery is always evil," we're into the "no true Scottsman" fallacy.

I don't actually think we need go there to make the assertion, mind. But we do need to work harder than simply making the assertion.


See, I don't think they could actually be good, no matter how good they thought they were.

A system that gives one person the ability to tell another person that they are a prisoner and permanent employee is in and of itself inherently evil.*

It is in and of itself inherently evil for one person to own another person.


* (Setting aside the spurious comparisons some have made to blur the line with working, fair and just, justice systems.)Part of the problem is that the "spurious comparisons" are often what is termed "slavery" in other cultures.

Part of the problem is that some cultures have what we'd recognize as 'slavery' under another name, and would claim nevertheless to abhor "slavery" as an institution and insist theirs wasn't.

I do agree with you, Max: anything that has a person who's done nothing wrong held captive and his labor owned unconditionally by another is not a good institution.

My point, however, is that I can see how an LG person, coming from a different perspective, would have to have a lot of philosophical work and analysis, far beyond what most people bother doing even with the best of intentions, to come to that conclusion. It's a pretty deep examination (often deeper than we, as children of the culture in which we grew up, realize it actually is...and sometimes deeper than we give it, as many would just have a knee jerk "slavery == evil" reaction without actually being able to tell you why) to really get to the root of why slavery is fundamentally evil. It's far from being obvious if you aren't starting from the knee jerk "slavery == evil" position.

And a completely LG person with a moderate but not soul-searchingly deep examination of the institution, could very easily come from a society where the notion that slavery is evil on its face is alien. Such a person would agree that various abuses that happen to slaves are wrong. He would also point out that such abuses happen in non-slave employer/employee relationships, and that corrupt officials always are an issue. He'd blame many of the problems on corruption of the system, not the system, itself.

Getting down to the root of why personal freedom and the right to one's own agency is critical to avoiding evil requires very thorough understanding of interconnected consequences. It's easy to snarl even those with "slavery == evil" knee-jerk reactions with some of the stuff that you have to parse through to get there. If you don't inherently believe slavery to be evil on its face to start with, getting through them is even harder.

Thus, I can see a perfectly believable, sympathetic, and noble-minded LG character who believes slavery to be just fine. He doesn't think abusing slaves is fine. But slavery existing, even owning slaves? That's totally fine with him. And yet, we would not likely view him as an evil man, because even when slavery's obvious evils come up, he's there defending the slaves from those evils.

I would still say he's wrong, and could argue well with him on why, but I can see why he'd be hard to convince and even construct large parts of his hypothetical argument for him.

Satinavian
2018-07-12, 12:51 AM
As far as a hypothetical society where slavery conditions were so good as to be beyond reproach - why would they even have slavery at that point? Free workers don't need to be guarded, and have less issues in general. And when you consider the unpleasant working conditions that people accepted during, say, the industrial revolution, any job that /requires/ enslaving people is not going to be remotely good.Yes, slavery can become easily less efficient than using free workers for a lot of reasons.

That is why so many societies were slavery did exist never made it a really important part if their economy. And never have seen any need to import slaves or finance some slave catching operation elsewhere - there was just no demand for that many slaves, especially if it took effort or money to get them.

Slaves were convicted criminals or war prisoners of battles fought anyway (and probably very near) or people heavily indebted. In all those cases they started out already in the power of someone else with the expectation to somehow make that a positive thing for the one holding that power. Those future owners would not have bought slaves to make the work and would very likely be happy for an opportunity to sell instead (or simply take ransom).

The only occations where slavery is economically valid is either by mistreating slaves, a completely emptied labor market (as has happened after certain desasters or during transition periods) or for decidedly longterm projects to avoid labor fluctuation.


As far as slavery as an alternative to improsonment, my main issue would be that it creates perverse incentives - see asset forfeiture and for-profit prisons for examples. When sentencing someone guilty puts money in your pocket (including indirectly), it has a tendency to bias the justice system.
Imprisoning as punishment is a pretty new thing because it costs money and doesn't help victoms or justice system. Traditional alternatives to slavery as punishment are
- exile
- a payment or confiscation of wealth, maybe even from the family
- corporal punishemnt

Satinavian
2018-07-12, 02:36 AM
The fundamental requirement for it to have the denotative term accurately applied is the notion of owning the person or their labor without that person being able to decide to legally terminate the relationship (or at least, not without paying a fee to get out of it - e.g. buying their own contract).

That is really broad, including pretty much all kinds of unfree or half-free people. Even historic use is not that encompassing. People like
Ministerialis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerialis)
Serfs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom)
Coloni (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonus_(person))
Lassen/Laten/Liten

Would all be slaves. And arguably in less monetized economies where taxes had to be done in form of labor, it might most regular inhabitants.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-12, 02:44 AM
That is really broad, including pretty much all kinds of unfree or half-free people. Even historic use is not that encompassing. People like
Ministerialis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerialis)
Serfs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom)
Coloni (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonus_(person))
Lassen/Laten/Liten

Would all be slaves. And arguably in less monetized economies where taxes had to be done in form of labor, it might most regular inhabitants.

Serfs are definitely slaves.

Segev
2018-07-12, 08:52 AM
That is really broad, including pretty much all kinds of unfree or half-free people. Even historic use is not that encompassing. People like
Ministerialis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerialis)
Serfs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom)
Coloni (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonus_(person))
Lassen/Laten/Liten

Would all be slaves. And arguably in less monetized economies where taxes had to be done in form of labor, it might most regular inhabitants.
Indeed. That was part of my point.

Any of those terms might translate as “slave” on first brush with another culture which doesn’t have rose forms of servitude. And even in some that do.

hamishspence
2018-07-12, 09:00 AM
Serfs are definitely slaves.

In the Realms at least, a distinction is made:

FRCS pages 86-87: Slavery


Few of the human kingdoms and cities of the Heartlands permit slavery within their borders. Indentured servitude and serfdom are relatively common practices that approach the brutality of slavery in some lands, but even the most wretched serf or servant is considered a human being, not property.

Conditions of slavery vary wildly between different lands. Slaves in Mulhorand outnumber the free citizens- and, not surprisingly, the life of a slave in Mulhorand is little worse than the life of a peasant in most other lands. Slaves in Thay and Unther endure far harsher treatment, both by callous masters and a society that considers them to be nonentities.

Regardless of the conditions, most Heartland humans find slavery extremely distasteful at the very least, and more than a few consider it an abomination in the sight of the gods.

Segev
2018-07-12, 10:15 AM
In the Realms at least, a distinction is made:

FRCS pages 86-87: Slavery

We're getting into semantics, here. For your LG kingdom, a "slave" might be better treated than an FR Serf. Including more civil rights and freedoms.

Just about any argument that "slavery is always evil" can genuinely be applied to serfdom, too.

Thrudd
2018-07-12, 12:27 PM
We're getting into semantics, here. For your LG kingdom, a "slave" might be better treated than an FR Serf. Including more civil rights and freedoms.

Just about any argument that "slavery is always evil" can genuinely be applied to serfdom, too.

That's why I think you need to look at the actual practices in effect, aside from just the words "slavery" or "serfdom". Also define "good" and "evil" and the criteria by which the game/universe applies those labels to people and actions. Otherwise people are potentially not even debating the same thing.

IE: Sparta's helots were technically "serfs", but the system in place and the acts required to repress them would definitely be "evil" by D&D standards.

1. How does the society in question function, what are it's exact practices re:servitude/labor- including how people are chosen for servitude and the manner in which society enforces its social hierarchy, not only how they are treated during their servitude. Each practice/act must be judged according to an agreed on objective definition for good, neutral or evil alignment.

2. What is the experience and awareness of the person in question re: the society they live in. What is their relationship with and involvement in those practices that may have been labeled "evil" or not good? Does the alignment system say a person is by default "good" until proven otherwise? Or are they neutral by default and must prove either goodness or evilness through their actions and reactions to pressures and conundrums? Can you be good if you have never had to face a moral conundrum through which you chose kindness or selflessness or compassion over comfort or greed or safety?

Segev
2018-07-12, 12:45 PM
That's why I think you need to look at the actual practices in effect, aside from just the words "slavery" or "serfdom". Also define "good" and "evil" and the criteria by which the game/universe applies those labels to people and actions. Otherwise people are potentially not even debating the same thing.

IE: Sparta's helots were technically "serfs", but the system in place and the acts required to repress them would definitely be "evil" by D&D standards.

1. How does the society in question function, what are it's exact practices re:servitude/labor- including how people are chosen for servitude and the manner in which society enforces its social hierarchy, not only how they are treated during their servitude. Each practice/act must be judged according to an agreed on objective definition for good, neutral or evil alignment.

2. What is the experience and awareness of the person in question re: the society they live in. What is their relationship with and involvement in those practices that may have been labeled "evil" or not good? Does the alignment system say a person is by default "good" until proven otherwise? Or are they neutral by default and must prove either goodness or evilness through their actions and reactions to pressures and conundrums? Can you be good if you have never had to face a moral conundrum through which you chose kindness or selflessness or compassion over comfort or greed or safety?
And all of this is why, speaking specifically to the OP's question of whether an LG person could support the theoretical institution of slavery, I say "yes."

He just has to lump the abuses into a category of things that he can justify as not being inherently part of slavery, and the ones he can't as things that can be done "with a light touch" and as "no worse" than any other institution's methods of keeping order. Can't have soldiers deserting the army, so harsh punishments for such behavior are fairly normal. Can't have swindlers taking payment and never rendering service, so forcing them to make good on it is a necessity.

Again, not defending it, myself. Just pointing out how somebody with the right mindset and historical perspective could be a Lawful and Good person and still logically defend the institution and have no problem hanging out with slave owners nor with owning slaves, himself. Heck, he might have a good friend who's a slave he grew up with. Either due to hereditary slavery (which is harder to defend, but could be done to an LG person immersed in the culture's reasonable satisfaction) or due to that friend having been not that well-off and selling himself into slavery being a leg up, financially.

"Wow, you know Jered?"
"The poor kid you hang out with?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it like that, but yeah, he's always had it a little rough. His dad just died, and his mom's having trouble supporting his baby sister."
"Ouch. That's poverty for you. Sucks. Maybe some charity?"
"They're too proud to accept it; I've offered."
"Maybe you can convince them to take it if Jared or his mom are selling themselves into your service? You could even practically order them to move into one of your nicer servant's quarters and be responsible for taking care of them, then. Gotta be better than that hovel he was always embarrassed to invite us to."
"Hey, that might work. I'll see if Jared wants to be my footman. It'd be a great excuse to hang out more."


Contrived? Yeah, but not ridiculously so. And to a culture that doesn't view slavery as stigmatic and doesn't accept any sort of cruel abusive behavior from slave-owners, would be a moderately reasonable way to look at it. All with good intent from our LG friend-of-Jered, and just clever/sensible in a culture, again, where slavery is a thing that's just a particular contractual relationship of exclusive service.

(I've seen similar, but not identical, plots involving taking the mother as a wife or second wife or something, in various fictions. The one I remember most clearly was a manga set in the Steppe region of Asia, where a young wife whose husband was noted for refusing to take a harem because he loved her so much became close friends with a working-class man's wife when the latter was pregnant with their first child. The husband died some time after the child was born, and the rich man's young wife was distraught for her, and convinced her husband to take her friend on as a second wife in order to support her and the child.)

Thrudd
2018-07-12, 02:41 PM
And all of this is why, speaking specifically to the OP's question of whether an LG person could support the theoretical institution of slavery, I say "yes."

He just has to lump the abuses into a category of things that he can justify as not being inherently part of slavery, and the ones he can't as things that can be done "with a light touch" and as "no worse" than any other institution's methods of keeping order. Can't have soldiers deserting the army, so harsh punishments for such behavior are fairly normal. Can't have swindlers taking payment and never rendering service, so forcing them to make good on it is a necessity.

Again, not defending it, myself. Just pointing out how somebody with the right mindset and historical perspective could be a Lawful and Good person and still logically defend the institution and have no problem hanging out with slave owners nor with owning slaves, himself. Heck, he might have a good friend who's a slave he grew up with. Either due to hereditary slavery (which is harder to defend, but could be done to an LG person immersed in the culture's reasonable satisfaction) or due to that friend having been not that well-off and selling himself into slavery being a leg up, financially.

"Wow, you know Jered?"
"The poor kid you hang out with?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it like that, but yeah, he's always had it a little rough. His dad just died, and his mom's having trouble supporting his baby sister."
"Ouch. That's poverty for you. Sucks. Maybe some charity?"
"They're too proud to accept it; I've offered."
"Maybe you can convince them to take it if Jared or his mom are selling themselves into your service? You could even practically order them to move into one of your nicer servant's quarters and be responsible for taking care of them, then. Gotta be better than that hovel he was always embarrassed to invite us to."
"Hey, that might work. I'll see if Jared wants to be my footman. It'd be a great excuse to hang out more."


Contrived? Yeah, but not ridiculously so. And to a culture that doesn't view slavery as stigmatic and doesn't accept any sort of cruel abusive behavior from slave-owners, would be a moderately reasonable way to look at it. All with good intent from our LG friend-of-Jered, and just clever/sensible in a culture, again, where slavery is a thing that's just a particular contractual relationship of exclusive service.

(I've seen similar, but not identical, plots involving taking the mother as a wife or second wife or something, in various fictions. The one I remember most clearly was a manga set in the Steppe region of Asia, where a young wife whose husband was noted for refusing to take a harem because he loved her so much became close friends with a working-class man's wife when the latter was pregnant with their first child. The husband died some time after the child was born, and the rich man's young wife was distraught for her, and convinced her husband to take her friend on as a second wife in order to support her and the child.)

I don't think you are being nearly comprehensive enough in your analysis of the institutions and practices involved. Also, as far as the game goes, alignment is not relative to the culture you are brought up in. If enslaving people based on heredity is not good, it doesn't matter if you were brought up to believe it was ok. That means you were brought up evil or neutral.

What I am saying is, any declaration that says "you can be good and still support slavery", can only be applied to a specific example of a society. It surely is not true that it is possible in all instances of slavery, or in most instances of things called slavery, for someone to be good. In arguing for a hypothetical version of servitude that could be tolerable to Good, you can't ignore procurement/assignment to and enforcement of servitude, and remember that alignment "Good" is not relative according to the society or upbringing, it is universal for the entire world/setting.

When the question is "is it possible for this specific character to be good?", we need to identify all the specifics of that character's society and also what is objective requirement for being Good in that game world.
It seems based on the description of the OP's particular society that she could not be good. I think, by the PF/D&D application of alignment, that most historical societies' treatment of servitude also could not be called good, and a D&D(contemporary post-modern western culture) "good" person would need to object, resist or subvert those systems if they found themselves living inside of one.

Segev
2018-07-12, 03:07 PM
I don't think you are being nearly comprehensive enough in your analysis of the institutions and practices involved. Also, as far as the game goes, alignment is not relative to the culture you are brought up in. If enslaving people based on heredity is not good, it doesn't matter if you were brought up to believe it was ok. That means you were brought up evil or neutral.I wouldn't expect the person brought up in a society that has slavery as "okay" would be comprehensive enough to get to the core problems with slavery as an institution, either.

People can be factually wrong about what is good for themselves and others without being evil. Being evil requires that you fail to care about or actively seek to cause harm to others. The Well-Intentioned Extremist is a kind of antagonist who can be genuinely good and noble, and the challenge can be to show him the error of his ways. The best example I can think of, though, is from the Bible, and that risks treading into forbidden topics (religion). (The other kind of Well-Intentioned Extremist, which is more common, is justifying his evil vision in "greater good" terms, but through his actions demonstrates that he not only doesn't quite believe it, himself, but that he's actively afraid of being proven wrong. This is more typical, because it allows the writers to avoid having the antagonist be too easily thwarted by just talking to him, and enables the climactic fight at the end where the heroes prove they're the more righteous, after all.

Let me clarify my intended tone of the last paragraph, because I know text transmits it poorly: I say none of that with bitterness or sarcasm or disdain. That is a perfectly fine way to write a villain. But it does obscure the much rarer genuine well-intentioned extremist who honestly wishes there were ways to avoid the harm he causes.

It's more usual to see them as heroes, though. Protagonists, in stories where hard decisions are necessary.


What I am saying is, any declaration that says "you can be good and still support slavery", can only be applied to a specific example of a society. It surely is not true that it is possible in all instances of slavery, or in most instances of things called slavery, for someone to be good. In arguing for a hypothetical version of servitude that could be tolerable to Good, you can't ignore procurement/assignment to and enforcement of servitude, and remember that alignment "Good" is not relative according to the society or upbringing, it is universal for the entire world/setting. Absolutely. My point isn't that slavery can be or should be considered good. I would actually disagree with our hypothetical LG person who thinks it's fine. Because, unlike this hypothetical LG person whose arguments I'm constructing, I have done the deeper analysis to understand the fundamental evils buried at the core of slavery.


When the question is "is it possible for this specific character to be good?", we need to identify all the specifics of that character's society and also what is objective requirement for being Good in that game world.
It seems based on the description of the OP's particular society that she could not be good. I think, by the PF/D&D application of alignment, that most historical societies' treatment of servitude also could not be called good, and a D&D(contemporary post-modern western culture) "good" person would need to object, resist or subvert those systems if they found themselves living inside of one.We don't have sufficient description of her society to make that judgment.

All it takes for her to be LG and still think slavery is generally okay is for her to believe that slavery can be instituted by Good-aligned people who would not abuse their slaves. The abuses and harms slavery causes in general would obscure the rood evils of it; she would reasonably view all those "but see what harm it does!?" arguments as inappropriately blaming slavery for the evils of individual slave-owners. She has doubtless seen slavery elevate the standard of living of some over the destitution and deprivation of homelessness. She likely sees slaves that are happy to be members of the households in which they work, and determines from this observational evidence that slavery can be instituted positively.

You don't have to be a brilliant and deep thinker with high Int and Wis sufficient to see through all possible flawed philosophies to be Good. Not being so can lead to tragic errors in judgment, but making honest mistakes - even arguing strenuously in favor of what is a mistaken position - doesn't make you Evil. Or even Neutral. It just makes you wrong.

icefractal
2018-07-12, 08:16 PM
The issue with cultural relativity in D&D is - what about Illithids? In their society, humans/dwarves/etc are seen as food, not on the same level of sapience as "real people" (Illithids). If an Illithid has never been outside that society, and never talked to their food, should they be considered neutral (or even good, assuming they're nice to other illithids)?

Also; based on a number of things, I'm pretty sure D&D alignment is actions-based, not personality/intent based. You don't become evil by accidentally killing someone (you stepped on a hidden tripwire that was rigged to kill them), but you do become evil by intentionally killing people for what you incorrectly thought was a good reason. So I think someone who's inclinations are good but operates on the principles of an evil society would be neutral or evil, just a lot more likely to change their ways and /become/ good in the future.

That said, there's more to life than RAW/canon. If your group is cool with the concept, go for it.

Thrudd
2018-07-13, 12:17 AM
I wouldn't expect the person brought up in a society that has slavery as "okay" would be comprehensive enough to get to the core problems with slavery as an institution, either.

People can be factually wrong about what is good for themselves and others without being evil. Being evil requires that you fail to care about or actively seek to cause harm to others. The Well-Intentioned Extremist is a kind of antagonist who can be genuinely good and noble, and the challenge can be to show him the error of his ways. The best example I can think of, though, is from the Bible, and that risks treading into forbidden topics (religion). (The other kind of Well-Intentioned Extremist, which is more common, is justifying his evil vision in "greater good" terms, but through his actions demonstrates that he not only doesn't quite believe it, himself, but that he's actively afraid of being proven wrong. This is more typical, because it allows the writers to avoid having the antagonist be too easily thwarted by just talking to him, and enables the climactic fight at the end where the heroes prove they're the more righteous, after all.

Let me clarify my intended tone of the last paragraph, because I know text transmits it poorly: I say none of that with bitterness or sarcasm or disdain. That is a perfectly fine way to write a villain. But it does obscure the much rarer genuine well-intentioned extremist who honestly wishes there were ways to avoid the harm he causes.

It's more usual to see them as heroes, though. Protagonists, in stories where hard decisions are necessary.

Absolutely. My point isn't that slavery can be or should be considered good. I would actually disagree with our hypothetical LG person who thinks it's fine. Because, unlike this hypothetical LG person whose arguments I'm constructing, I have done the deeper analysis to understand the fundamental evils buried at the core of slavery.

We don't have sufficient description of her society to make that judgment.

All it takes for her to be LG and still think slavery is generally okay is for her to believe that slavery can be instituted by Good-aligned people who would not abuse their slaves. The abuses and harms slavery causes in general would obscure the rood evils of it; she would reasonably view all those "but see what harm it does!?" arguments as inappropriately blaming slavery for the evils of individual slave-owners. She has doubtless seen slavery elevate the standard of living of some over the destitution and deprivation of homelessness. She likely sees slaves that are happy to be members of the households in which they work, and determines from this observational evidence that slavery can be instituted positively.

You don't have to be a brilliant and deep thinker with high Int and Wis sufficient to see through all possible flawed philosophies to be Good. Not being so can lead to tragic errors in judgment, but making honest mistakes - even arguing strenuously in favor of what is a mistaken position - doesn't make you Evil. Or even Neutral. It just makes you wrong.

I think you're still overlooking. The people actually living in a society don't need to do a deep analysis of it to see the issues I'm thinking of. There would be things they unavoidably see on a near daily basis, that we from non-slave societies don't necessarily think about, that would make it clear that what's going on isn't "good". It's not about being able to deduce things that aren't obvious, it would be about seeing daily abuses and choosing how to react to them. How people become slaves and what it requires for them to remain slaves isn't a secret from anybody.

You wouldn't be Neutral for thinking you could reform slave society, you'd be Neutral if you weren't actively trying to do it. If you didn't even think society needed reforming, but thought it was only about how individual people treat their slaves, you would definitely be at least Neutral. Also, the alignment system does, in fact, judge people for having flawed philosophies. If you think it's ok to treat people from outside your tribe as sub-human, then you aren't Good, even if you were taught that as a child and everyone around you believes it.

Quertus
2018-07-13, 08:40 AM
The PC's character arc ought to be about discovering that truth.

Could be. But "ought to"? That seems rather table- and player-specific question to answer, rather than a mandate of heaven or law of physics.


The issue with cultural relativity in D&D is - what about Illithids? In their society, humans/dwarves/etc are seen as food, not on the same level of sapience as "real people" (Illithids). If an Illithid has never been outside that society, and never talked to their food, should they be considered neutral (or even good, assuming they're nice to other illithids)?

I think that eating the minds of their foodstuffs, and knowing first-hand kinda removes any doubts about ignorance.

Now, that still leaves two possibilities: either we really are mindless cattle compared to Illithids, and they are justified in their actions, or they are evil.

Consider: is raising animals for the slaughter, and eating them evil? They have minds, emotions, etc, just like people. Yet humans enslave, imprison, and consume them. How much introspection might it take to see that as obviously evil?

Andor13
2018-07-13, 10:23 AM
Has anyone brought up yet those societies where slaves were the military or political power holders, like the Mamluks or Chinese court eunuchs?

I will say I do find the weirdest part of the slavery/alignment debate the unexamined claim that slavery is somehow inherently lawful. Why? Slavery is currently illegal in every country on Earth (although I don't think back country Mauritania knows that yet) yet it is still relatively commonplace. So why would sex trafficking be a lawful act? Why would using people as illegal slave labor be lawful?

Plenty of historical societies I would describe as Chaotic practiced slavery in various forms, and many lawful ones didn't.

Slavery isn't (IMHO) linked to Lawfulness, it's linked to authoritarian views on power. And authoritarians, in their very focus on personal power rather than societal power tend towards chaos on the D&D Law/Chaos scale.

Scripten
2018-07-13, 10:30 AM
Slavery isn't (IMHO) linked to Lawfulness, it's linked to authoritarian views on power. And authoritarians, in their very focus on personal power rather than societal power tend towards chaos on the D&D Law/Chaos scale.

I can't find myself agreeing to this. Authoritarianism relies on the use of laws to exert power - you can't have authoritarianism without laws. That, in and of itself, makes it Lawful.

And while it's totally reasonable to have a Chaotic character working within authoritarian infrastructure, I'd argue that anyone who identifies as authoritarian would have to be Lawful. (Or at least consider themselves as such.)

Andor13
2018-07-13, 10:47 AM
I can't find myself agreeing to this. Authoritarianism relies on the use of laws to exert power - you can't have authoritarianism without laws. That, in and of itself, makes it Lawful.

And while it's totally reasonable to have a Chaotic character working within authoritarian infrastructure, I'd argue that anyone who identifies as authoritarian would have to be Lawful. (Or at least consider themselves as such.)

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Authoritarians usually cloak themselves in a guise of lawfulness, but they care only about personal power, and will change the laws at a whim in their own interests. Look at Putin and Erdogan. Look at the rise of the Fascists. "Authoritarians are lawful" is a lie the people at the base of authoritarian regimes tell themselves in order to pretend that the horror is justified, and that it can't happen to them if they just toe the line.

And really, by the standard "can't have X without laws" there is absolutely no system of government or politics save base anarchy which isn't Lawful.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-13, 10:49 AM
Has anyone brought up yet those societies where slaves were the military or political power holders, like the Mamluks or Chinese court eunuchs?

I will say I do find the weirdest part of the slavery/alignment debate the unexamined claim that slavery is somehow inherently lawful. Why? Slavery is currently illegal in every country on Earth (although I don't think back country Mauritania knows that yet) yet it is still relatively commonplace. So why would sex trafficking be a lawful act? Why would using people as illegal slave labor be lawful?

Plenty of historical societies I would describe as Chaotic practiced slavery in various forms, and many lawful ones didn't.

Slavery isn't (IMHO) linked to Lawfulness, it's linked to authoritarian views on power. And authoritarians, in their very focus on personal power rather than societal power tend towards chaos on the D&D Law/Chaos scale.


I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Authoritarians usually cloak themselves in a guise of lawfulness, but they care only about personal power, and will change the laws at a whim in their own interests. Look at Putin and Erdogan. Look at the rise of the Fascists. "Authoritarians are lawful" is a lie the people at the base of authoritarian regimes tell themselves in order to pretend that the horror is justified, and that it can't happen to them if they just toe the line.

Is it your opinion, then, that "lawful evil" is an impossible thing? That unjust, unfair, or abusive laws cannot exist?

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 11:22 AM
Fiendish Codex 2 had a list of traits that LE societies tend to display:



Unquestioning deference to authority: rulers are loved and obeyed because they are rulers.

Worship of strength: benevolence is considered undesirable and a sign of weakness, in leads and neighbours- people grow up hoping to prove their strength and their ability to dominate others.

Strict rules: Conformity to a single identity is harshly enforced. Citizens strive to prove they belong to a mass whose collectve wisdom is greater than individual will. Foreigners and minorities are oppressed when weak and seen as threats when strong. All endeavors, however innocuous, must express the prevailing idealogy.

Intrusive Control: Authorities monitor all pursuits and activities, ensuring that strict rules are followed to the letter. Ordinary people are expected to be strong, pure, militant, and self-denying.

Harsh Punishments: tough punishments are routinely meted out for even minor infractions. the common person enthusiastically supports public humiliation, flogging, torture, etc. Ordinary folk view such measures as essential to the maintenance of social discipline.

Bureaucratic precision: all transactions, especially those of enforcement authorities, are tracked and recorded with obsessive attention to detail. No act is too sadistic or gruesome to engender shame- all must be recorded for posterity's sake.

Exemptions for rulers: The rules are meanst for everyone except figures of high authority, who by definition are so important that the actions cannot be contained in a rules set- they deserve all the comfort, pleasure, and aggrandizement they can get. Anyone who says this attitude represents a contradiction in terms is imprisoned, arrested, and tortured.

Expansionist aims: Believing fervently in their manifest superiority, citizens of this culture cannot bear the thought of other societies that are organized differently or adhering to other values. Such decadent cultures must be conquered, subjugated, and turned into reflections (though inevitably inferior ones) of the lawful evil society.

Segev
2018-07-13, 11:27 AM
I think you're still overlooking. The people actually living in a society don't need to do a deep analysis of it to see the issues I'm thinking of. There would be things they unavoidably see on a near daily basis, that we from non-slave societies don't necessarily think about, that would make it clear that what's going on isn't "good". It's not about being able to deduce things that aren't obvious, it would be about seeing daily abuses and choosing how to react to them. How people become slaves and what it requires for them to remain slaves isn't a secret from anybody.

You wouldn't be Neutral for thinking you could reform slave society, you'd be Neutral if you weren't actively trying to do it. If you didn't even think society needed reforming, but thought it was only about how individual people treat their slaves, you would definitely be at least Neutral. Also, the alignment system does, in fact, judge people for having flawed philosophies. If you think it's ok to treat people from outside your tribe as sub-human, then you aren't Good, even if you were taught that as a child and everyone around you believes it.
I am afraid I'm going to have to ask for specifics, at this point. What are the inherent abuses that you believe somebody growing up in a slave-owning society could not help but see and associate specifically with slavery, with little to no deep analysis?

Keep in mind that, as a society that is LN to LG in general, it would have laws that, at a minimum, protect slaves as much as American laws protect pets from the cruelty of their masters and children from the cruelty of their parents, and probably that protect employees from abuse by their employers.


Has anyone brought up yet those societies where slaves were the military or political power holders, like the Mamluks or Chinese court eunuchs?Not really. Those do tend to be interesting. And make the question of "what does it mean to be a slave?" even fuzzier. But I don't think this is what the OP is asking about.


I will say I do find the weirdest part of the slavery/alignment debate the unexamined claim that slavery is somehow inherently lawful. Why? Slavery is currently illegal in every country on Earth (although I don't think back country Mauritania knows that yet) yet it is still relatively commonplace. So why would sex trafficking be a lawful act? Why would using people as illegal slave labor be lawful?

Plenty of historical societies I would describe as Chaotic practiced slavery in various forms, and many lawful ones didn't.

Slavery isn't (IMHO) linked to Lawfulness, it's linked to authoritarian views on power. And authoritarians, in their very focus on personal power rather than societal power tend towards chaos on the D&D Law/Chaos scale.Speaking to modern-day slavery of the illegal sort, it's in a fuzzy space because, technically, they're not legally "slaves." They're "unlawfully imprisoned." Now, that seems pedantic or semantic, and for good reason. Let me elaborate.

Slavery is viewed as a Lawful (as opposed to Chaotic) institution because, for it to actually be "legitimate" slavery, it has to have a concept of ownership.

In a chaotic or criminal enterprise, "ownership" is, itself, fuzzy. If a sex trafficking victim who is held as a slave manages to win over her owner, or just to escape from him, she can be free, because there isn't a social and legal structure designed to enforce his ownership of her outside of the men and weapons and tools of imprisonment he can use to hold her. There's no formal difference between the sex trafficked slave and the pretty young thing that the cartel boss told to get in his car to take back to his manor. His "kept women" are no more or less slaves than any he buys on the black market, because in all cases, it's his threat of violence and his physical entrapment (as well as any enticements he might offer) that keep his partners trapped with him.

In theory, the farm workers forced to work the opium and marijuana fields of a cartel are "employees" as much as they are "slaves." In practice, it's closer to classic serfdom.

Where the Cartel (or whatever) holds de facto sway, it imposes order. It may be technically illegal by international or national law of the recognized government of the region, but in practice, it's a functioning mini-State of its own. Any enforced concept of ownership is orderly by nature.

Chaotic societies tend to eschew formalized notions of ownership in favor of an idea that if you use something and nobody contests your claim (or is able to do anything about it), it's more or less "yours." "I stole it fair and square" is a deliberately ironic statement that is nonetheless true in Chaotic societies.

You need a strong concept of ownership to separate slavery from simple bullying and theft.

Heck, strip away the veneer of faux contractual participation from the classic protection racket, and most victims of it are effectively enslaved. They turn over significant portions of their earnings to their masters, they must do what their masters demand in terms of providing goods and services, and they have no freedom to leave their master's employ. Even moving away is...discouraged...unless the master has decided to get rid of them.

But we don't call it "slavery," because in theory, the protection racket isn't asserting ownership.

Black market slavery in modern civilized societies is similarly not able to properly enforce a legal concept of ownership. There's no difference between the slave bought at black market and the "employee" who signed on out of fear or hope and now finds himself unable to quit for fear of his life. It isn't the same as discussing slavery as an institution of society, which inherently requires ordered structures to make it meaningful as an institution.

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 11:45 AM
Speaking to modern-day slavery of the illegal sort, it's in a fuzzy space because, technically, they're not legally "slaves." They're "unlawfully imprisoned." Now, that seems pedantic or semantic, and for good reason. Let me elaborate.

I don't see the distinction as mattering, even in the modern day. IMO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostis_humani_generis


The tradition of classing the pirate as "hostis humani generis" has been expanded to one other particular class of seafaring criminal, that of the slaver, who, by trafficking in human flesh upon the high seas, is similarly held to be in a state of war against all humanity. These treaties, as well as the customary international law, allow states to act similarly against slavers.

This applies even when the "buyers" are in fact criminals within their own countries. A ship caught carrying people to be sold, is going to be treated as a slaver, regardless of the laws on slavery in the country the ship is heading to.

Segev
2018-07-13, 12:00 PM
This applies even when the "buyers" are in fact criminals within their own countries. A ship caught carrying people to be sold, is going to be treated as a slaver, regardless of the laws on slavery in the country the ship is heading to.

As a general - though there are lots of nuances and exceptions - rule, criminal behavior is Chaotic.

Slavery as an institution is a Lawful thing because, to make it differentiable from any sort of thuggish compulsion, it requires an enforcible and thus well-defined concept of ownership. These slavers and pirates are either privateers, making them actually lawful and technically waging war, or are criminals who aren't really engaging in Lawful activities, themselves. The institution into which they sell their captives may well be Lawful, but it's only when they actually get enrolled in that institution that it's really "slavery." Before that, it's just captivity. Captivity is not inherently lawful nor chaotic.

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 12:15 PM
Being enslaved by orcs is still being enslaved, even if their only concept of "enforcible ownership" is muscles.

A point is made in FRCS that orc slaves suffer a lot - at least as much as Thayan ones.

In the context of D&D it's made pretty clear that "illegal captivity & coerced labor" is slavery. In fact, just the captivity can qualify as "being enslaved" - given the intended endpoint.


If you kidnap someone with the intention of selling them or making them work, then, by definition, you have enslaved them.


The D&D writers don't really consider "thuggish compulsion" of this kind to be "not slavery" - thus it ends up being called slavery in the books.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-13, 12:24 PM
Being enslaved by orcs is still being enslaved, even if their only concept of "enforcible ownership" is muscles.

A point is made in FRCS that orc slaves suffer a lot - at least as much as Thayan ones.

In the context of D&D it's made pretty clear that "illegal captivity & coerced labor" is slavery. In fact, just the captivity can qualify as "being enslaved" - given the intended endpoint.


If you kidnap someone with the intention of selling them or making them work, then, by definition, you have enslaved them.


The D&D writers don't really consider "thuggish compulsion" of this kind to be "not slavery" - thus it ends up being called slavery in the books.


If there are no laws, is there "illegal captivity"? Sure, there's immoral, unethical, and unjust captivity regardless of the law... but can there be "illegal" acts without any laws to violate?

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 12:29 PM
There's always some places with laws - no D&D world is a completely lawless place. Thus, there is a law against kidnapping - which is being violated by the slavers.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-13, 12:41 PM
There's always some places with laws - no D&D world is a completely lawless place. Thus, there is a law against kidnapping - which is being violated by the slavers.

What if the place the slaves are taken from has no laws, either?

(I'm not saying this makes slavery OK, or right.)

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-13, 12:47 PM
People always get confused by this. It's why Lawful should really be called Order.

Lawful doesn't mean "follows all the laws everywhere ever". It means you believe in a world view that relies on things like hierarchical authority.

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 12:47 PM
Orc tribes may not have laws, but they have customs.

In which case, when an orc tribe raids another one in the night and kidnaps some members, it would be a case of

"Slavery is permitted by custom" in these societies, rather than "Slavery is legal in these societies"

but the distinction matters little.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-13, 12:50 PM
People always get confused by this. It's why Lawful should really be called Order.

Lawful doesn't mean "follows all the laws everywhere ever". It means you believe in a world view that relies on things like hierarchical authority.

I don't really disagree, but in this case I was responding to the idea of slavery being "illegal captivity" by pointing out slavery can exist in places where it's not illegal, either because it's actively legal, or because there is no law.

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 12:56 PM
I was responding to the idea of slavery being "illegal captivity" by pointing out slavery can exist in places where it's not illegal, either because it's actively legal, or because there is no law.

I look at it this way:

"Illegal captivity + work is always slavery"

"Legal captivity + work is sometimes slavery". The main way to make legal captivity not slavery, is to emphasis that the captive is not owned, and has rights. Hence, the criminal "doing hard labor" isn't generally considered a slave.

Scripten
2018-07-13, 12:57 PM
I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Authoritarians usually cloak themselves in a guise of lawfulness, but they care only about personal power, and will change the laws at a whim in their own interests. Look at Putin and Erdogan. Look at the rise of the Fascists. "Authoritarians are lawful" is a lie the people at the base of authoritarian regimes tell themselves in order to pretend that the horror is justified, and that it can't happen to them if they just toe the line.


It seems like you are conflating Lawfulness with Goodness a bit here. Being Lawful doesn't have to mean that laws are just, as Max_Killjoy pointed out.

Like I said, Chaotic individuals can exist in or even lead a Lawful society - the point is that their power is codified through the establishment of rule of law. I'd like to avoid getting too deep into politics, but your examples of authoritarian leaders is quite cherry-picked. Imperial rule (examples of which lasted for many hundreds or thousands of years) is authoritarian and were in many cases quite happy to maintain a rigorously defined society where the laws are not capricious.

hamishspence
2018-07-13, 01:01 PM
Imperial rule (examples of which lasted for many hundreds or thousands of years) is authoritarian and were in many cases quite happy to maintain a rigorously defined society where the laws are not capricious.

Or, as DMG2 3.5 puts it "Empires are always Lawful. If they become Chaotic, they fall apart."

Andor13
2018-07-13, 02:30 PM
As a general - though there are lots of nuances and exceptions - rule, criminal behavior is Chaotic.

Slavery as an institution is a Lawful thing because, to make it differentiable from any sort of thuggish compulsion, it requires an enforcible and thus well-defined concept of ownership. These slavers and pirates are either privateers, making them actually lawful and technically waging war, or are criminals who aren't really engaging in Lawful activities, themselves. The institution into which they sell their captives may well be Lawful, but it's only when they actually get enrolled in that institution that it's really "slavery." Before that, it's just captivity. Captivity is not inherently lawful nor chaotic.

This is circular. "Slavery is lawful because if there are no laws it's not slavery." Someone can be a slave in the presence or absence of laws that either support or forbid the practice of slavery. The only thing that effects is whether or not the one keeping slaves is a criminal, as far as the slave is concerned laws only matter to the extent that they ameliorate the conditions of their slavery.


Is it your opinion, then, that "lawful evil" is an impossible thing? That unjust, unfair, or abusive laws cannot exist?

I have not the slightest idea how anyone could draw that conclusion from what I wrote.


People always get confused by this. It's why Lawful should really be called Order.

Lawful doesn't mean "follows all the laws everywhere ever". It means you believe in a world view that relies on things like hierarchical authority.

I agree that Order might be a better term than Lawful, but I disagree that an adherence to hierarchical authority is mandatory. Unless you are claiming it's impossible to have a Lawful Democracy? Plus Lawful/Chaotic isn't a binary proposition, it's on a scale.


It seems like you are conflating Lawfulness with Goodness a bit here. Being Lawful doesn't have to mean that laws are just, as Max_Killjoy pointed out.

Like I said, Chaotic individuals can exist in or even lead a Lawful society - the point is that their power is codified through the establishment of rule of law. I'd like to avoid getting too deep into politics, but your examples of authoritarian leaders is quite cherry-picked. Imperial rule (examples of which lasted for many hundreds or thousands of years) is authoritarian and were in many cases quite happy to maintain a rigorously defined society where the laws are not capricious.

Lawfulness is when the law is held to be higher than the individual. Authoritarian Societies can be lawful, Bureaucracy Era China for example (also an excellent example of a Lawful Evil Society.) All Fascist regimes, and most Authoritarian ones that I'm familiar with change the law to suit the leaders, not the other way around. Term Limits getting in the way? Remove them. Parliament getting uppity? Better re-write the constitution. Kingdoms, and Imperiums both tend to operate this way as well, that's why England is so proud of the Magna Carta, it's one of the few times a King was forced to submit himself to the law (and even then English Kings still had the Star Chamber.) Now there are examples where attempts to change the law failed, because the society wasn't willing accept the change. I can't, off the top of my head, think of an example where blood wasn't shed before the law was changed back.

Scripten
2018-07-13, 02:55 PM
I agree that Order might be a better term than Lawful, but I disagree that an adherence to hierarchical authority is mandatory. Unless you are claiming it's impossible to have a Lawful Democracy? Plus Lawful/Chaotic isn't a binary proposition, it's on a scale.

A democracy or republic is still hierarchical. While, yes, the hierarchy is beholden to a system of distributed governance, representatives at any given time have a degree of accountability to their superiors. Even in a direct democracy, some population of executors exists to carry out the will of the voting population.

But I do agree here that Law/Chaos is a spectrum, with every society existing on a certain range over its existence. Most (successful per longevity) societies have historically been more Lawful than Chaotic, but Chaotic societies exist.



Lawfulness is when the law is held to be higher than the individual. Authoritarian Societies can be lawful, Bureaucracy Era China for example (also an excellent example of a Lawful Evil Society.) All Fascist regimes, and most Authoritarian ones that I'm familiar with change the law to suit the leaders, not the other way around. Term Limits getting in the way? Remove them. Parliament getting uppity? Better re-write the constitution. Kingdoms, and Imperiums both tend to operate this way as well, that's why England is so proud of the Magna Carta, it's one of the few times a King was forced to submit himself to the law (and even then English Kings still had the Star Chamber.) Now there are examples where attempts to change the law failed, because the society wasn't willing accept the change. I can't, off the top of my head, think of an example where blood wasn't shed before the law was changed back.

This is still an expression of power through the use of laws, even if those laws change over time. I'd argue that a Chaotic society would not use the rule of law to begin with.

Of course, this is all pretty subjective, since alignments are just a sometimes useful contrivance for determining character choices.

Thrudd
2018-07-13, 03:24 PM
My point, however, is that I can see how an LG person, coming from a different perspective, would have to have a lot of philosophical work and analysis, far beyond what most people bother doing even with the best of intentions, to come to that conclusion. It's a pretty deep examination (often deeper than we, as children of the culture in which we grew up, realize it actually is...and sometimes deeper than we give it, as many would just have a knee jerk "slavery == evil" reaction without actually being able to tell you why) to really get to the root of why slavery is fundamentally evil. It's far from being obvious if you aren't starting from the knee jerk "slavery == evil" position.

And a completely LG person with a moderate but not soul-searchingly deep examination of the institution, could very easily come from a society where the notion that slavery is evil on its face is alien. Such a person would agree that various abuses that happen to slaves are wrong. He would also point out that such abuses happen in non-slave employer/employee relationships, and that corrupt officials always are an issue. He'd blame many of the problems on corruption of the system, not the system, itself.

Here's the thing- that's not how alignment works. It doesn't matter what a society thinks. It matters what the game rules/universe/DM thinks is Good. If slavery in a given society is objectively non-Good (because it involves capturing people in conquest, or buying and selling people that others have captured, or using force to coerce people to work, etc.) by definition, a person who thinks that slavery is an acceptable thing isn't Good, no matter how they arrived at that belief. Even if they really, truly believed that their city/tribe was better than all others and being a slave in their city is an improvement over any other sort of life, they are wrong and are not Good.

If your society engages in wars of conquest and takes captives as loot, then slavery for them would not be Good. If society engages in raiding for loot and slaves- not Good(prob. Evil). If society tacitly approves of raiding by buying slaves from raiders, that slavery is not Good. If slaves are born into bondage, not Good. If violence and threat of violence can be used to coerce slaves to work, not Good. If slaves are treated like property rather than as fellow people, branded or tattooed or permanently marked to distinguish them, not Good. If non-criminal slaves are shackled, bound or caged as a routine practice, not Good. If slaves can legally be abused or forced to do things a free worker/employee could not- not Good. If a non-criminal cannot choose to end their servitude or seek employment elsewhere- not Good.

If a person looks around their world, sees these things going on and does not decide that they are wrong and should stop, then they are not Good. The reason or social conditioning leading to their decision is irrelevant. It is possible, under objective universal alignment, to be labeled for wrong views despite your intentions and despite the source of those views.

The only way "slavery" could be acceptable to Good is if it refers only to workers that are assigned jobs, beholden to a superior or the state, that have the same legal protections as other people and are not held against their will (unless they are convicted criminals carrying out a justly applied sentence of labor).

That people can suffer abuse under systems acceptable to Good, as well, is irrelevant. That there are people trying to take advantage of any system for their own benefit does not mean all systems are therefore equally Just.

Segev
2018-07-13, 03:57 PM
This is circular. "Slavery is lawful because if there are no laws it's not slavery." Someone can be a slave in the presence or absence of laws that either support or forbid the practice of slavery. The only thing that effects is whether or not the one keeping slaves is a criminal, as far as the slave is concerned laws only matter to the extent that they ameliorate the conditions of their slavery. The question here is about the institution of slavery, or of slavery as an institution, and whether one can be LG and still be cool with owning slaves.

Not about whether all instances of anything termed "slavery" is lawful, chaotic, good, or evil.

The institution of slavery, almost tautologically by being an institution, is Lawful-aligned.



If slavery in a given society is objectively non-Good (because it involves capturing people in conquest, or buying and selling people that others have captured, or using force to coerce people to work, etc.) by definition, a person who thinks that slavery is an acceptable thing isn't Good, no matter how they arrived at that belief.And there we have it. You've outlined things that make it non-good. Please recognize here that I am not going to speak for myself, but am going to argue from the "in character" perspective of Nobilius Beneficus, the LG scion of a powerful house in a slave-owning society where slavery is accepted as "just fine."

Enemy soldiers captured in war are given work to do, lest they become burdens on the capturing army. This isn't really 'slavery,' and selling soldiers into slavery to civilians is generally a bad idea. I scoff at your notion that that's how any legitimate slaves happen.

Using force to coerce people into working is hardly necessary. Slaves who don't work simply won't be fed more than the minimum to survive, and may be denied privileges such as their discretionary allowances. Your own culture starves people who do not work, which I think is far more cruel. At least our starving poor have the option to sell themselves into indenture to escape that horrific poverty.

Okay, now I'm done talking as him for a bit.

The point is, he doesn't see "slavery" the way you do, and any forced enslavement of those he'd deem innocent (and, remember, even if you soundly disagree with him on the issue of slavery, he is LG in all ways other than that) he would view as horrifically as you would view the incarceration in prison of the innocent. Even though I doubt most people have too much trouble with the notion of, say, murderers being imprisoned.


Even if they really, truly believed that their city/tribe was better than all others and being a slave in their city is an improvement over any other sort of life, they are wrong and are not Good. As you can see, that isn't the position an LG person need take to believe slavery is just fine.

You haven't really hit the core point of why slavery is inherently wicked, and neither has our hypothetical LG okay-with-slavery person.


If your society engages in wars of conquest and takes captives as loot, then slavery for them would not be Good. If society engages in raiding for loot and slaves- not Good(prob. Evil). If society tacitly approves of raiding by buying slaves from raiders, that slavery is not Good. If slaves are born into bondage, not Good. If violence and threat of violence can be used to coerce slaves to work, not Good.All things our LG person would agree with. "That's evil of those slave owners," he'd say. "But these need not be how slavery is practiced."


If slaves are treated like property rather than as fellow people,Here, you're getting very close to the actual heart of it, the part the LG person brushes past.


branded or tattooed or permanently marked to distinguish them, not Good.But here, you've veered away from it, giving him something to focus on that allows his justifications to stay intact.


If non-criminal slaves are shackled, bound or caged as a routine practice, not Good. If slaves can legally be abused or forced to do things a free worker/employee could not- not Good.And we're back in "safe" ground for him to feel justified in dismissing your criticisms as being unrelated to slavery, since anybody being treated this way is wrong and it would be wrong of the perpetrator whether he owned the person or not.


If a non-criminal cannot choose to end their servitude or seek employment elsewhere- not Good."That's just silly," says Nobilius. "Many free people lack this option, as well. Over-invested in their own business, or unable to find better work in a hard economy, or even simply under contract to complete a task. Your notion of leaving work you're not happy with would lead to nobody being able to pay for anything in advance, which would restrict many craftsman's jobs to only the already-wealthy. No, people can be forced to complete their tasks and not abandon them, once the terms are settled, or we undermine society."



The only way "slavery" could be acceptable to Good is if it refers only to workers that are assigned jobs, beholden to a superior or the state, that have the same legal protections as other people and are not held against their will (unless they are convicted criminals carrying out a justly applied sentence of labor). Actually, the State is no more legitimate an owner of people than are individuals. I hold out your claim here as indicative of how cultural bias can make even a good-hearted person who cares about human rights view slavery as perfectly fine; your position here ignores the true evil at the heart of slavery, justifying it.


That people can suffer abuse under systems acceptable to Good, as well, is irrelevant. That there are people trying to take advantage of any system for their own benefit does not mean all systems are therefore equally Just.And here, you've just argued Nobilius's point. The system of slavery isn't evil, according to him; the evils you have mentioned are all evil men taking advantage of the system. Just because they do this doesn't mean the system is inherently unjust.



Now, the core reason why Nobilius is factually wrong, but that he's missing in his analysis, goes very very deep into the core of what slavery means: slavery means owning another person. It denies their basic humanity (or equivalent term in a world with non-human sophonts), and all the evils you list arise more often with slavery than in other institutions because of this sometimes-subtle dehumanizing factor. When one's labor is inherently not one's own, when one's choices are inherently denied them, one is not a complete human being. This is acceptable for children, unable yet to be responsible for themselves. This is similarly acceptable for the mentally incompetent, who need a competent caretaker to look out for them.

But such relationships are of caregiver, not taskmaster. When one is dealing with those competent to do labor, to judge their own life, taking that away and selling that Agency to another is evil.

It doesn't matter if it's ownership by private citizens, corporations, or the government. The notion of owning another human being (or equivalent sophont) is where the inescapable evil arises.

But while I spell it out thusly, it takes really scraping to the core of what Agency means, and linking it inexorably to the concept of Good, to get there. It is very easy to miss it, even in lengthy discussion and examination, but especially if one has grown up surrounded by philosophical arguments designed to avoid that point and instead justify the institution this point reveals to be wicked.

Because it is a hard-to-reach point - so hard that we haven't really had it exposed here until this post in this thread, despite many people discussing how slavery is inherently evil - that I claim that one can have an LG person who's never managed to reach said point. Who therefore thinks all the "evils of slavery" are really evils of individual men who would do the same things with or without slavery, and thus there's nothing wrong with slavery itself as an institution, provided it (like so many other things) has the necessary legal regulations to protect all parties involved in it.

Not because he's right and it's fine, but because everything outside of that core point can be sloughed off as people abusing a system, not evidence that the system itself is evil. And that core point is not easy to reach without some deep examination of some notions that, frankly, were absolutely radical about 250 or so years ago, and still are contested by many around the world today.

Thrudd
2018-07-13, 06:00 PM
The question here is about the institution of slavery, or of slavery as an institution, and whether one can be LG and still be cool with owning slaves.

Not about whether all instances of anything termed "slavery" is lawful, chaotic, good, or evil.

The institution of slavery, almost tautologically by being an institution, is Lawful-aligned.


And there we have it. You've outlined things that make it non-good. Please recognize here that I am not going to speak for myself, but am going to argue from the "in character" perspective of Nobilius Beneficus, the LG scion of a powerful house in a slave-owning society where slavery is accepted as "just fine."

Enemy soldiers captured in war are given work to do, lest they become burdens on the capturing army. This isn't really 'slavery,' and selling soldiers into slavery to civilians is generally a bad idea. I scoff at your notion that that's how any legitimate slaves happen.

Using force to coerce people into working is hardly necessary. Slaves who don't work simply won't be fed more than the minimum to survive, and may be denied privileges such as their discretionary allowances. Your own culture starves people who do not work, which I think is far more cruel. At least our starving poor have the option to sell themselves into indenture to escape that horrific poverty.

Okay, now I'm done talking as him for a bit.

The point is, he doesn't see "slavery" the way you do, and any forced enslavement of those he'd deem innocent (and, remember, even if you soundly disagree with him on the issue of slavery, he is LG in all ways other than that) he would view as horrifically as you would view the incarceration in prison of the innocent. Even though I doubt most people have too much trouble with the notion of, say, murderers being imprisoned.

As you can see, that isn't the position an LG person need take to believe slavery is just fine.

You haven't really hit the core point of why slavery is inherently wicked, and neither has our hypothetical LG okay-with-slavery person.

All things our LG person would agree with. "That's evil of those slave owners," he'd say. "But these need not be how slavery is practiced."

Here, you're getting very close to the actual heart of it, the part the LG person brushes past.

But here, you've veered away from it, giving him something to focus on that allows his justifications to stay intact.

And we're back in "safe" ground for him to feel justified in dismissing your criticisms as being unrelated to slavery, since anybody being treated this way is wrong and it would be wrong of the perpetrator whether he owned the person or not.

"That's just silly," says Nobilius. "Many free people lack this option, as well. Over-invested in their own business, or unable to find better work in a hard economy, or even simply under contract to complete a task. Your notion of leaving work you're not happy with would lead to nobody being able to pay for anything in advance, which would restrict many craftsman's jobs to only the already-wealthy. No, people can be forced to complete their tasks and not abandon them, once the terms are settled, or we undermine society."

Actually, the State is no more legitimate an owner of people than are individuals. I hold out your claim here as indicative of how cultural bias can make even a good-hearted person who cares about human rights view slavery as perfectly fine; your position here ignores the true evil at the heart of slavery, justifying it.

And here, you've just argued Nobilius's point. The system of slavery isn't evil, according to him; the evils you have mentioned are all evil men taking advantage of the system. Just because they do this doesn't mean the system is inherently unjust.



Now, the core reason why Nobilius is factually wrong, but that he's missing in his analysis, goes very very deep into the core of what slavery means: slavery means owning another person. It denies their basic humanity (or equivalent term in a world with non-human sophonts), and all the evils you list arise more often with slavery than in other institutions because of this sometimes-subtle dehumanizing factor. When one's labor is inherently not one's own, when one's choices are inherently denied them, one is not a complete human being. This is acceptable for children, unable yet to be responsible for themselves. This is similarly acceptable for the mentally incompetent, who need a competent caretaker to look out for them.

But such relationships are of caregiver, not taskmaster. When one is dealing with those competent to do labor, to judge their own life, taking that away and selling that Agency to another is evil.

It doesn't matter if it's ownership by private citizens, corporations, or the government. The notion of owning another human being (or equivalent sophont) is where the inescapable evil arises.

But while I spell it out thusly, it takes really scraping to the core of what Agency means, and linking it inexorably to the concept of Good, to get there. It is very easy to miss it, even in lengthy discussion and examination, but especially if one has grown up surrounded by philosophical arguments designed to avoid that point and instead justify the institution this point reveals to be wicked.

Because it is a hard-to-reach point - so hard that we haven't really had it exposed here until this post in this thread, despite many people discussing how slavery is inherently evil - that I claim that one can have an LG person who's never managed to reach said point. Who therefore thinks all the "evils of slavery" are really evils of individual men who would do the same things with or without slavery, and thus there's nothing wrong with slavery itself as an institution, provided it (like so many other things) has the necessary legal regulations to protect all parties involved in it.

Not because he's right and it's fine, but because everything outside of that core point can be sloughed off as people abusing a system, not evidence that the system itself is evil. And that core point is not easy to reach without some deep examination of some notions that, frankly, were absolutely radical about 250 or so years ago, and still are contested by many around the world today.

You've explained how a person can think they and their system are good, but you have ignored the other major part of this - that there is an objective alignment system which labels those things not-Good. So Mr.Nobilius is Lawful, certainly, but he is not Good no matter how much he thinks he is right. Because he and his society do, in fact, practice non-Good things and allows non-Good things to be practiced for their benefit and comfort, and he approves of those practices. Even if it is a foreign idea to him and his culture and would require a deal of introspection and perspective he's not likely to ever attain, treating people as property is objectively not Good and therefore he isn't LG, he's LN. Before you say that one non-good act isn't enough to change his alignment: he has had a lifetime of being presented with opportunities to choose between Good and not-Good in the form of every slave he's ever seen that someone treats as property, and has hundreds or thousands of times chosen the non-Good act of ignoring instead of helping. This is why every adult in a slave society who is not actively resisting or working to reform that society is at best Neutral.

He is saying "that would be an evil practice" of the examples, but he is not saying particularly what is his society's practice. This is what's important. He needs to say "slavery in my society works in such and such a manner" and to show that none of the things that are allowed under their laws are unjust or non-good.

The implication based on his objections is that his theoretical Good slave society has as its only sources of forced-servitude:
-captured soldiers from objectively justified defensive wars
-justly convicted criminals
-people voluntarily choosing servitude in order to pay off a debt

He has not specified that these people have legal protections. He has not specified that the duration of servitude is tied to any legal code. The type of society that can actually, objectively be determined to be compatible with Good lacks many or all of the features of what we'd call a slave society.

If I went to his society and saw that they had voluntary indentured servitude enforced by the terms of a legal contract, criminals sometimes serving out sentences of labor, and POWs being put to work in an army camp and then set free to return to their home lands as part of conditions for ending the war (but never sold to civilians for profit by the returning soldiers), and all those people were treated humanely according to a legal code and had recourse to legal protections in case of abuses...I would not identify that as a slave society, even if they called some or all of those people "slaves".

My saying that Good/just laws can be manipulated does not also mean the there is no such thing as unjust laws. That was my point. He is wrong - laws that allow slavery are inherently unjust and not-Good. To be Good in such a society requires going against the social order in some way. That is not a case of bad people corrupting society, it is bad society corrupting the people (or not giving good people any legal way to protect themselves or others). If it is not against the law for a slave owner to beat his slaves, or keep them chained in a shack, or force them to work until they collapse from lack of food - then you can't say the system is being ruined by bad people, the system says the bad person is justified in their behavior and the slave is wrong if they complain.

I also did not say my own or any other society was all Good, necessarily. This is not a claim that his society is bad because another society is better - alignment is not relative. I am saying that law codes which allow not-Good things to be legal are not-Good, and Good people would not defend them. Lawful Good people would be working to fix the laws so not-Good things are not legal (that's what makes them Lawful).

A Good person could conceivable find themselves in a slave society, but they would not try to defend it, they would try to fix it. A Lawful Good person would be trying to reform the laws to make all the Evil things illegal (the resulting society may look very different than the origina one). A Good person in general would be working in some way, within or outside of the law, to protect people being harmed and to put an end to those causing the harm (even if that means doing illegal things like freeing slaves or killing cruel slave owners, esp. as Chaotic Good). A Lawful Good person would not long be able to stay Lawful Good in a society where the laws are so clearly not Good - in the likely case that they can't get the laws changed, they'd leave for somewhere with more just laws. Or, they would shift to Neutral Good or Chaotic Good, because they've decided the laws need to be resisted and undermined, and start freeing the slaves of bad slave-owners, and all those who were made slaves by the unjust laws.

Quertus
2018-07-13, 07:36 PM
Everyone who uses animals as a slave labor force, enslaves them for food or entertainment, who views animals as property, is inherently Evil, right?

Every person who has eaten farm-grown meat, every D&D character with a horse, every modern human who hasn't thought through the ramifications of treating a creature with thoughts and emotions as property, is decidedly non-good, and probably Evil, right?

Nifft
2018-07-13, 07:54 PM
Everyone who uses animals as a slave labor force, enslaves them for food or entertainment, who views animals as property, is inherently Evil, right?

If you're confused about animals being people, then I guess this sort of statement might make sense to you.

But animals aren't people.

Quertus
2018-07-13, 09:02 PM
If you're confused about animals being people, then I guess this sort of statement might make sense to you.

But animals aren't people.

Perhaps more accurate to say, I'm as confused about humans being animals as your average Illithid. :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-13, 09:09 PM
When is the last time a chicken invented calculus, or painted a masterpiece, or held a conversation with you about the nature of the stars in the sky and why some seem to move and others don't?

The idea that the difference between Illithid and humans is the same as the difference between humans and a chicken just doesn't cut the mustard.

Andor13
2018-07-13, 09:09 PM
The question here is about the institution of slavery, or of slavery as an institution, and whether one can be LG and still be cool with owning slaves.

Not about whether all instances of anything termed "slavery" is lawful, chaotic, good, or evil.

The institution of slavery, almost tautologically by being an institution, is Lawful-aligned.

The word institution means Laws, or Custom, or simply long standing practices.

I disagree with the notion that anything that is a Law or Custom must, by use of the term, be Lawful. To pick an extreme example, in the Buck Godot series by Phil Foglio the planet of New Hong Kong passed a law saying that "There shall be no new laws on New Hong Kong." They have abided by that law, but that doesn't make them a Lawful society, it makes them an Anarchy.

Similarly Organized Crime families are a long standing custom in many places. That makes them an Institution, it does not make them Lawful, even though many of the have very strong internal rules or customs.

Carried to the extreme there cannot be any societies more organized than Limbo that don't count as Lawful.

In D&D, societies as well as people, as rated on a scale from Lawful to Chaotic. The assumption that slavery is a characteristic of lawful societies but not chaotic ones is not one I find stands up to examination. For example I would argue that the Norse cultures are as close to Chaotic as you can get, but they still practiced slavery. Many Chaotic monster races keep slaves.

Quertus
2018-07-13, 09:42 PM
When is the last time a chicken invented calculus, or painted a masterpiece, or held a conversation with you about the nature of the stars in the sky and why some seem to move and others don't?

The idea that the difference between Illithid and humans is the same as the difference between humans and a chicken just doesn't cut the mustard.

I agree, but not the way you'd think.

I had a cat who did a better job teaching and communicating than most humans I've met - and, I believe, better than all humans I've meet if given the same limitations.

I suspect Illithids may be more justified in enslaving humans than humans are of treating animals as property.

But that's not exactly my point.

My point is, what justifications do we use for treating animals differently? Could one not use similar justifications for treating slaves differently? Has a slave ever invented calculus, painted a masterpiece, or held a conversation with you on the nature of the stats in the sky? IIRC, they haven't done so for me, so therefore slavery is moral?

Should we ever encounter other sentient life, I'd like our morality to be sufficiently well defined that we don't have to change our morality to prevent them enslaving or exterminating us, and justifying it under our moral code.

Has a human ever invented interstellar space travel, held an intelligent conversation with you on the different flavors of thoughts, or created telepathic art? No? Then they are inferior species, and we can own them.

Illithid enslavement of humans is moral.

That's something that I'm assuming we'd like to avoid being true, right?

Nifft
2018-07-13, 09:57 PM
I suspect Illithids may be more justified in enslaving humans than humans are of treating animals as property. You'd be wrong, of course.


My point is, what justifications do we use for treating animals differently? Could one not use similar justifications for treating slaves differently? Has a slave ever invented calculus, painted a masterpiece, or held a conversation with you on the nature of the stats in the sky? IIRC, they haven't done so for me, so therefore slavery is moral?

Should we ever encounter other sentient life, I'd like our morality to be sufficiently well defined that we don't have to change our morality to prevent them enslaving or exterminating us, and justifying it under our moral code.

Personhood can be granted to all sorts of intelligent life-forms (including artificial ones) without making animals into people.


Illithids are evil and alien -- this is explicit in their write-ups. They treat people like animals. That does not mean people are animals, and it does not mean animals are people. It means Illithids are evil.

Illithids doing an evil thing and claiming that it's justice is not actually proof that the evil thing is justice.

Evil beings can and do lie.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-13, 09:58 PM
I agree, but not the way you'd think.

I had a cat who did a better job teaching and communicating than most humans I've met - and, I believe, better than all humans I've meet if given the same limitations.

I suspect Illithids may be more justified in enslaving humans than humans are of treating animals as property.

But that's not exactly my point.

My point is, what justifications do we use for treating animals differently? Could one not use similar justifications for treating slaves differently? Has a slave ever invented calculus, painted a masterpiece, or held a conversation with you on the nature of the stats in the sky? IIRC, they haven't done so for me, so therefore slavery is moral?

Should we ever encounter other sentient life, I'd like our morality to be sufficiently well defined that we don't have to change our morality to prevent them enslaving or exterminating us, and justifying it under our moral code.

Has a human ever invented interstellar space travel, held an intelligent conversation with you on the different flavors of thoughts, or created telepathic art? No? Then they are inferior species, and we can own them.

Illithid enslavement of humans is moral.

That's something that I'm assuming we'd like to avoid being true, right?


By concentrating on the specific examples I gave of things chickens haven't done that humans have, you're missing the point. Not having invented interstellar travel doesn't make people "dumb animals" -- not having done anything of the sort and indeed being grossly incapable of doing anything of the sort is evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that chickens are, however.

Fixating on one example is like trying to prove I'm not an adult because I don't have children, and ignoring all the other evidence that I am, in fact, an adult.

And no, you don't get to define away an adult's adulthood or a person's personhood by playing silly semantic or categorical games.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-13, 10:20 PM
Similarly Organized Crime families are a long standing custom in many places. That makes them an Institution, it does not make them Lawful, even though many of the have very strong internal rules or customs.

I would absolutely describe organized crime families as leaning Lawful. Again, Lawful doesn't mean "always obeys the law".

Thrudd
2018-07-14, 01:02 AM
Everyone who uses animals as a slave labor force, enslaves them for food or entertainment, who views animals as property, is inherently Evil, right?

Every person who has eaten farm-grown meat, every D&D character with a horse, every modern human who hasn't thought through the ramifications of treating a creature with thoughts and emotions as property, is decidedly non-good, and probably Evil, right?

That depends on the DM and the setting. If they declared it so, then yes. Maybe they're vegans...I've known some folks who do genuinely believe all those things to be true in real life. Otherwise, no. As human creators, we generally write our rules as human-centric and favoring our own way of life. If we were Illithids writing the rules of the universe, it wouldn't be Evil to enslave and eat humans.

But the rules have been established in this case. In D&D and PF, treating animals as humans have always treated animals is not considered Evil on the alignment scale. The distinction is made for creatures of human-like intelligence - enslaving, eating, hurting us and people like us for fun or profit is what is called Evil.

gmatht
2018-07-14, 01:53 AM
It is easy for people to be caught in a false dichotomy. Say you have your Neutral society where taking PoWs as slaves is legal, and its major rival is an Evil society that tortures PoWs to death for the lulz. Then your character would see the choice as being between slavery and murder. Slaves might have more rights in a Neutral society than they had previously in the Evil society (which may not be saying much). Your character might idly think of some third way without taking it seriously "We could charge them with Attempted Murder, and put them in boxes that we could call jails. If they were in a jail, they couldn't hurt anyone. Hmm, but if we put them in boxes they couldn't gather food. It would be kinder just to kill them outright. What silly ideas I have!".

The character would be picking the most Good option their cultural understanding allows them to consider. It might be interesting is if your character came across Good societies and their values.

MrSandman
2018-07-14, 01:54 AM
In D&D, societies as well as people, as rated on a scale from Lawful to Chaotic. The assumption that slavery is a characteristic of lawful societies but not chaotic ones is not one I find stands up to examination. For example I would argue that the Norse cultures are as close to Chaotic as you can get, but they still practiced slavery. Many Chaotic monster races keep slaves.

Here's where you're missing the point. Nobody has said anything about slavery occurring only in lawful societies or that chaotic societies can't have slavery. The point is examining how slavery works in a lawful society.

Andor13
2018-07-14, 10:02 AM
Here's where you're missing the point. Nobody has said anything about slavery occurring only in lawful societies or that chaotic societies can't have slavery. The point is examining how slavery works in a lawful society.

No, the OPs post is about a LG character dealing with slavery in her society. I'm raising a tangential point about how the D&D alignment definitions themselves assign slavery to Law and freedom to Chaos.


I would absolutely describe organized crime families as leaning Lawful. Again, Lawful doesn't mean "always obeys the law".

Ok. What culture, custom or people would you describe as chaotic?

Quertus
2018-07-14, 12:14 PM
Ok. What culture, custom or people would you describe as chaotic?

Playgrounders. They can rarely stay on topic, often skirt the rules or brazenly ignore them, and tend to have a "your way is not my way, but that doesn't make your way wrong" attitude. :smallwink:

Satinavian
2018-07-14, 02:53 PM
He is saying "that would be an evil practice" of the examples, but he is not saying particularly what is his society's practice. This is what's important. He needs to say "slavery in my society works in such and such a manner" and to show that none of the things that are allowed under their laws are unjust or non-good. Ok, let's just make some example slaver nation X to have some context for the theroretical debate.


The implication based on his objections is that his theoretical Good slave society has as its only sources of forced-servitude:
-captured soldiers from objectively justified defensive wars
-justly convicted criminals
-people voluntarily choosing servitude in order to pay off a debt That is true for X.

If I went to his society and saw that they had voluntary indentured servitude enforced by the terms of a legal contract, criminals sometimes serving out sentences of labor, and POWs being put to work in an army camp and then set free to return to their home lands as part of conditions for ending the war (but never sold to civilians for profit by the returning soldiers), and all those people were treated humanely according to a legal code and had recourse to legal protections in case of abuses...I would not identify that as a slave society, even if they called some or all of those people "slaves".No, we are not building some unrealistic utopia.

POW slaves go home when they are ransomed or when their homeland has paid reparations and there is a prace treaty. Until then their work is taken in lieu of reparations. Also, while POW slaves usually belong to a state, a POW can also end up private property if he surrendered to a certain person directly (Which serves as incentive for soldiers to not kill everyone). Criminals usually end up private property of their victoms and people in debt become property of their creditors.

All slaves have certain rights. Usually less than free people, Free people have usually less rights than citicens (who also pay tax and must serve). Citicens have less rights than ruler. Exceptions always exist. I would not go in too much detail, but let us say that only taxpaying citicens have full legal access and that slaves always have the right to own property. And that slaves owning other slaves is a thing that happens.

If it is not against the law for a slave owner to beat his slaves,Not sure about that one. How archaic do we want X to be ? Let's say a slave owner can beat his slave if the law also allows a family head to beat spouse and children and people are thinking of it in the same way.

or keep them chained in a shackI don't see that as something that happens in X. Why would someone do that? But it should also probably not explicitely forbidden.

, or force them to work until they collapse from lack of food But that should not be allowed. Slaveowners should be responsible to provide for their slaves.


I also did not say my own or any other society was all Good, necessarily. This is not a claim that his society is bad because another society is better - alignment is not relative. I am saying that law codes which allow not-Good things to be legal are not-Good, and Good people would not defend them. Lawful Good people would be working to fix the laws so not-Good things are not legal (that's what makes them Lawful). X is not good. But X is neutral and Good people from X have no problem whatsoever defending X's legal system.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-14, 03:16 PM
Ok. What culture, custom or people would you describe as chaotic?

Lone wolf mass shooters. (Some) forms of Anarchism. Bonnie and Clyde style outlaws that aren't tied to larger criminal organizations with a rigorous structure. Somalia as a whole (individual parts of the country and people in it may still be lawful).

Chaotic people/countries in the real world are extremely rare, I would say. I would also say that the vast majority of countries over the course of human history have all been Lawful Evil.

Durzan
2018-07-15, 09:19 AM
honestly, this is why i tend to downplay or ignore alignment altogether in my games. I could easily create a slave owning society that could be classified as lawful good.

Segev
2018-07-15, 09:25 AM
You've explained how a person can think they and their system are good, but you have ignored the other major part of this - that there is an objective alignment system which labels those things not-Good. So Mr.Nobilius is Lawful, certainly, but he is not Good no matter how much he thinks he is right.
If I went to his society and saw that they had voluntary indentured servitude enforced by the terms of a legal contract, criminals sometimes serving out sentences of labor, and POWs being put to work in an army camp and then set free to return to their home lands as part of conditions for ending the war (but never sold to civilians for profit by the returning soldiers), and all those people were treated humanely according to a legal code and had recourse to legal protections in case of abuses...I would not identify that as a slave society, even if they called some or all of those people "slaves".

Sorry for the lousy edit job on the quote. My phone is not cooperating.

Anyway. First, Nobilius is LG, not just LN, because he honestly does care for others in general and genuinely upholds the ideals of “good.” Nothing he believes to be inherent to slavery is inherently evil.

There are avowed socialists today who feel capitalism is inherently evil. There are avowed capitalists today who feel socialism is inherently evil. Are those people unable to view capitalists/socialists as anything but genuinely not-good? Or can they see good people who are just, in the avowed-whatever’s opinion, tragically wrong?

There is a level of indirection here that severs the chain of culpability. If you help a little old lady across the street, and it turns out that that was all the evil bound demon needed to be let out of the binding seal the the street represented, are you guilty of performing an evil act? No. You’re duped into aiding another’s evil, despite your best efforts to be well-intentioned. I would look askance at any DM who made a paladin fall for such a thing.

Similarly, being wrong about the inherent goodness or evil of an institution doesn’t make you more wicked.

To your second point, Nobilius would scoff at your “No True Scottsman” definition of “slavery.”

“You don’t like the term,” he would say, “so you warp and change it until it must include things you can identify as evil, despite its plain meaning clearly including the response subtle and acceptable practices of the institution. I do not deny that it is slavery when evil men force the innocent into it, only that slavery is not at fault, but rather the evil and greed of men abusing it. You do not, therefore, get to brush aside the practice of it when done responsibly and in a Good fashion just to justify your absurd claim that slavery is inherently evil.

“It’s like saying pies are evil, because any pie that isn’t somehow cursing or poisoning those who eat it isn’t a real pie.”

Kader
2018-07-15, 10:04 AM
I wouldn't expect the person brought up in a society that has slavery as "okay" would be comprehensive enough to get to the core problems with slavery as an institution, either.

[...]

You don't have to be a brilliant and deep thinker with high Int and Wis sufficient to see through all possible flawed philosophies to be Good. Not being so can lead to tragic errors in judgment, but making honest mistakes - even arguing strenuously in favor of what is a mistaken position - doesn't make you Evil. Or even Neutral. It just makes you wrong.

I generally agree strongly. Slavery is an institution that pulls towards LE, but it is possible to have people of other alignments engaged in it, even people who are good (for now) especially if that engagement is shallow.

That said, one caveat is that this is strongest when slavery is really a relatively unquestioned everyday fact of life. As was for example the case in 50 but not in 1850 in the real world. Golarion is firmly in the nineteenth-century camp, with coalitions trying to sweep the slave trade from the seas, publishing houses churning out abolitionist literature (and probably proslavery literature in Cheliax and such), and so on. Whether slavery is right or not is a very prominent moral fault line being actively struggled over by the societies of Golarion.

This tends to harden positions on both sides and makes the sort of liminal and only partially rationalized LG position you advocate harder to maintain. It's simply harder in such circumstances to go through life and never be prompted to consider your position less shallowly.

(Whether you rise to the prompt or whether your shallowness starts to become willful is another question, and has alignment implications).

Segev
2018-07-15, 10:28 AM
It is deep enough buried by surrounding philosophical considerations that it takes more than “not being shallowly engaged.” As things get wrapped up in politics, the sense that the philosophical disagreement is an attack on their culture, motivated not by honest moral concerns, but dishonest efforts to use morality to justify political and military aggression.

There is rarely a way to learn your own society and culture is wrong while immersed in it. It isn’t impossible, and the more blatantly evil it gets, the easier it is to figure out. But genuinely good people can believe that some rather horrid institutions and practices are not problems if “done correctly.”

It can take being directly confronted with the evils over and over in many forms and under nearly every circumstance to get through to determining he problem is the institution, not (just) the people practicing it.

Kader
2018-07-15, 10:52 AM
How provincial are we assuming the character is? If she were a dirt farmer, sure, but nobles were generally the class least immersed in solely their own culture and most immersed in larger cultural networks. And this generalizes past the one character in question in the OP, anyway, since dirt farmers with no education or information about the wider world generally aren't the heart of the slaveowning class.

Satinavian
2018-07-15, 11:08 AM
That said, one caveat is that this is strongest when slavery is really a relatively unquestioned everyday fact of life. As was for example the case in 50 but not in 1850 in the real world. Golarion is firmly in the nineteenth-century camp, with coalitions trying to sweep the slave trade from the seas, publishing houses churning out abolitionist literature (and probably proslavery literature in Cheliax and such), and so on. Whether slavery is right or not is a very prominent moral fault line being actively struggled over by the societies of Golarion.Galorion is some ridiculous anachronistic mess. But if i really had to pick a reference time, i would say 17th century not 19th . There is too much industrial revolution missing.

Eberron would fit 19th century, but Galorion is far less advanced. Not that it matters slavery seemes to be quite rare on Galorion.

Kader
2018-07-15, 11:54 AM
Galorion is some ridiculous anachronistic mess. But if i really had to pick a reference time, i would say 17th century not 19th . There is too much industrial revolution missing.

Eberron would fit 19th century, but Galorion is far less advanced.

I should amend and limit my point to the Inner Sea region. In the Inner Sea (and Molthune is in the Inner Sea's cultural orbit), the aspect of slavery is distinctly what it was in the West in the nineteenth century, with abolition a burning question, underground railroads, efforts to suppress the trade at sea, etc. No reason to assume that Inner Sea ideas should be as strongly felt in Tian-Xia as Molthune, though.

I should also add that for purposes of this topic I'm happy to disregard, and do disregard, where the region is technologically rather than trying to average it in with where they are socially. For this I'm not too worried about whether I can go around and see Viking longships stuffed with falcata-wielding berserkers in plate mail chasing after Chelaxian treasure galleons while dodging frigates.

(Means to communicate ideas does play a role, but this seems well developed in the Inner Sea).

Kader
2018-07-15, 12:41 PM
To expand a little on the previous reply to Segev...


It is deep enough buried by surrounding philosophical considerations that it takes more than “not being shallowly engaged.”

No, but I think it gets really difficult to overlook not willfully when it's an issue at the heart of the regional culture wars (and some of the regional shooting wars). It's not that difficult to ask "yeah, but why is all that nice treatment you talk about contingent on chattelization" when big countries in the region have already asked that and answered "Oh wait, it doesn't have to be!" You can have labor, even compulsory labor, without loss of personhood and conversion into property.

Disentangling willful blindness from sincerity is a difficult problem, but it can be helped in this case by a look at actual history.

Classical slaveowners generally didn't articulate these views or for the most part probably even hold them as conventional, unexamined beliefs. They didn't need to develop defensive ideas about slavery because generally nobody was attacking it. An institution that is genuinely unquestioned has little need for answers. (In actual fact slaveowners in systems where slavery was not under attack were often openly ready to admit that even slavery under particularly favorable conditions was a calamity for the enslaved (e.g., Eumaios), but while I think this helps my point it can stand without it).

One historically paradoxical aspect of this Nobilis argument is - my impression is - that in real history slaveowners advanced this sort of justification after they perceived the slave system to be under attack, not before (as why would a typical guy bother to develop these beliefs before?). But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

Thrudd
2018-07-15, 01:24 PM
It is deep enough buried by surrounding philosophical considerations that it takes more than “not being shallowly engaged.” As things get wrapped up in politics, the sense that the philosophical disagreement is an attack on their culture, motivated not by honest moral concerns, but dishonest efforts to use morality to justify political and military aggression.

There is rarely a way to learn your own society and culture is wrong while immersed in it. It isn’t impossible, and the more blatantly evil it gets, the easier it is to figure out. But genuinely good people can believe that some rather horrid institutions and practices are not problems if “done correctly.”

It can take being directly confronted with the evils over and over in many forms and under nearly every circumstance to get through to determining he problem is the institution, not (just) the people practicing it.

Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative. If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently. If the cosmos(rules/GM) says X=Evil, then it's Evil and if you engage in it or don't have a problem with others doing it, you aren't Good. Your culture's POV is irrelevant, your day to day behavior is irrelevant. You might be Neutral and almost Good if you would just set your slaves free and start trying to get others to do the same.

In RL, you are right, of course. There's no agreed on universal morality and people don't get assigned alignments from the universe (that we can detect), and everyone's points are valid. But these are arguments against the alignment system used by the game, not arguments that really show owning people to not be D&D Evil.

Owning people in D&D is evil because D&D says it is evil. It doesn't matter if good can come of it (a slave gets food and shelter they didn't have otherwise or learns some useful skills, can open a shop after they get freed), or if a good person could make it not miserable (they treat slaves kindly). You can also claim good might come of conquering other cities by sword and flame- because you know better than they do what is good for them and your rule will be beneficent and fair. The peace and fairness of your later rule might be good, but if you are really Good aligned you won't go about it by conquering with an army. You'll make peaceful deals, use diplomacy, help people to improve even if it doesn't benefit you personally.

Quertus
2018-07-15, 01:32 PM
An institution that is genuinely unquestioned has little need for answers.

But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

I think this did a good job expressing what I was trying to get across with my earlier lunacy.

Most people would pretty consistently state that slavery is bad, and Illithids enslaving and eating us would be bad, but that humans doing the same things to animals would not be. Most people would defend circuses and zoos, farms and slaughterhouses, while considering Illithids among the most evil creatures imaginable.

The lack of ability of Playgrounders as a group - let alone humanity as a whole - to express a unified, consistent opinion regarding why slavery is bad is troubling, and gives light to the lie that its evil is obvious.

More troubling, though, IMO, is that the standard answers about Illithids and animals just happen to be that which is most advantageous to us. It carries a strong feel of rationalizing that which we want to be true.

Now, full disclosure, I'm not particularly interested in looking at the morality of these issues personally. I am, in fact, actively disinterested in personally exploring their morality.

What I am interested in is whether people have actually done the deep analysis necessary have consistent beliefs regarding these issues - and what happens when those beliefs are applied to a fantastical setting.

MrSandman
2018-07-15, 01:45 PM
Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative. If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently. If the cosmos(rules/GM) says X=Evil, then it's Evil and if you engage in it or don't have a problem with others doing it, you aren't Good. Your culture's POV is irrelevant, your day to day behavior is irrelevant. You might be Neutral and almost Good if you would just set your slaves free and start trying to get others to do the same.


So, having one single wrong belief about reality makes a character who would otherwise qualify as good non-good? Does that work the same way for evil characters?

Say, Mr. Do-badder is an villain by the book. He cheats the tax system, has a band of bandits who rob travellers, blackmails several noble people in Capital city, corrupts youngsters, and murders whoever gets in his way. With one notable exception. Mr. Do-badder cannot stand the abuse of little girls. He firmly believes that abusing little girls in any way is completely wrong. He takes good care that his men should not abuse little girls, and the punishment for doing so is brutal. In fact, on several occasions Mr. Do-badder has risked his life to save little girls who were being/about to be abused.

Now, does this repeated action of doing good (defending others even to the point of risking one's own life) invalidate his otherwise evil life? Does that make him non-evil?

Satinavian
2018-07-15, 01:47 PM
One historically paradoxical aspect of this Nobilis argument is - my impression is - that in real history slaveowners advanced this sort of justification after they perceived the slave system to be under attack, not before (as why would a typical guy bother to develop these beliefs before?). But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.
Let's ignore Galorion for the moment, i don't feel like looking up slavery details there.

In most cases those attacks on slave systems in fantasy world come precicely from mashing different inspirations regionally and timewise and not caring about how culutural exchange would have influences both.

The most common version is the Evil slaver culture being either Not-Rome or Not-Egypt and Good non-slaver culture being some pseudomedieval feudal monarchy with 90% of population thralls. Which are totally not slaves and thus Good aristocrats can have them.

That is the typical background for slavery alignment discussions.

Thrudd
2018-07-15, 01:55 PM
Sorry for the lousy edit job on the quote. My phone is not cooperating.

Anyway. First, Nobilius is LG, not just LN, because he honestly does care for others in general and genuinely upholds the ideals of “good.” Nothing he believes to be inherent to slavery is inherently evil.

There are avowed socialists today who feel capitalism is inherently evil. There are avowed capitalists today who feel socialism is inherently evil. Are those people unable to view capitalists/socialists as anything but genuinely not-good? Or can they see good people who are just, in the avowed-whatever’s opinion, tragically wrong?


Well, if this was a D&D universe, one of those positions would probably be objectively Good and the other not. Those who came to believe in the wrong one would be wrong and very likely not Good. It doesn't matter if they see themselves as right or if they can sympathize with some people on the other side. The universe assigns them an alignment based on their views and actions. If they change their views and behavior, the universe might reassign their alignment.
Nobilius' alignment is not impacted by his earnestness nor by the fact that he does not see what is Evil about owning other people. He is tragically wrong (if it is important for him to not to have a big N on his cosmic leger, which is not necessarily a tragedy). Having a G or an N printed on his soul does not alter that he acts with kindness toward others, it doesn't stop him or cause him to act in any certain way. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-15, 03:10 PM
Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative. If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently. If the cosmos(rules/GM) says X=Evil, then it's Evil and if you engage in it or don't have a problem with others doing it, you aren't Good. Your culture's POV is irrelevant, your day to day behavior is irrelevant. You might be Neutral and almost Good if you would just set your slaves free and start trying to get others to do the same.

In RL, you are right, of course. There's no agreed on universal morality and people don't get assigned alignments from the universe (that we can detect), and everyone's points are valid. But these are arguments against the alignment system used by the game, not arguments that really show owning people to not be D&D Evil.

Owning people in D&D is evil because D&D says it is evil. It doesn't matter if good can come of it (a slave gets food and shelter they didn't have otherwise or learns some useful skills, can open a shop after they get freed), or if a good person could make it not miserable (they treat slaves kindly). You can also claim good might come of conquering other cities by sword and flame- because you know better than they do what is good for them and your rule will be beneficent and fair. The peace and fairness of your later rule might be good, but if you are really Good aligned you won't go about it by conquering with an army. You'll make peaceful deals, use diplomacy, help people to improve even if it doesn't benefit you personally.

You're right that D&D alignment is objective, but you're wrong about basically everything else.

Slavery is not an inherently evil practise in D&D. It's a practise which certainly comes with strong potential for evil, but it isn't inherently evil in and of itself. For that matter, wars of conquest aren't inherently evil either. D&D is a game which strongly leans towards killing people who do things you don't approve of. It is entirely legitimate (encouraged even) for a lawful good character to go wage war upon an evil empire to liberate it from its evil ways, or even just to defend others from its evil ways.

And even beyond that, even if you say that you're living in a society which practises an evil form of slavery, that still doesn't mean you're an evil person so long as you don't practise this evil yourself. If you do no evil then you're neutral. If you do no evil and do good in addition to that then you're good. And that good doesn't have to be related to the evil slavery going on in your nation either. You're still good aligned if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, silently disapprove of the evil going on around you, and spend your time doing other miscellaneous good deeds.

hamishspence
2018-07-15, 03:16 PM
You're right that D&D alignment is objective, but you're wrong about basically everything else.

Slavery is not an inherently evil practise in D&D. It's a practise which certainly comes with strong potential for evil, but it isn't inherently evil in and of itself.

Depends who's writing. There are 3e and 4e books that emphasise it being inherently evil - not sure about 2e or 5e though.

Thrudd
2018-07-15, 04:39 PM
You're right that D&D alignment is objective, but you're wrong about basically everything else.

Slavery is not an inherently evil practise in D&D. It's a practise which certainly comes with strong potential for evil, but it isn't inherently evil in and of itself. For that matter, wars of conquest aren't inherently evil either. D&D is a game which strongly leans towards killing people who do things you don't approve of. It is entirely legitimate (encouraged even) for a lawful good character to go wage war upon an evil empire to liberate it from its evil ways, or even just to defend others from its evil ways.

And even beyond that, even if you say that you're living in a society which practises an evil form of slavery, that still doesn't mean you're an evil person so long as you don't practise this evil yourself. If you do no evil then you're neutral. If you do no evil and do good in addition to that then you're good. And that good doesn't have to be related to the evil slavery going on in your nation either. You're still good aligned if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, silently disapprove of the evil going on around you, and spend your time doing other miscellaneous good deeds.

I doesn't really sound like you disagree with my position at all. You say you're still good "if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, disapprove of evil going on around you..." - that's exactly what I said. The key is that they do not own anyone themselves and disapprove of others doing so - which a defender of the institution of slavery does not. A person doesn't need to be a crusader to be Good, but they do need to disapprove of Evil. Or, I should say, a person who is Good would disapprove of Evil, in addition to not doing it themselves. Even if they were personally unable to prevent that Evil from being done, they would want it to stop.

I think slavery is usually called out as Evil as a whole, at least implicitly as a common villain in adventures are slavers (who are always Evil). But since that term covers a lot of different things, we've been breaking it down. I think the main part of "slavery" which the game has arrived at as being Evil is the owning people as property (along with many of the common methods of obtaining slaves like raiding and loot-taking from wars.) So in a system in which the people aren't owned as property and weren't forced by violence into their roles, a Good person could potentially defend that as there is nothing necessarily or apparently Evil happening.

JoeJ
2018-07-15, 04:47 PM
So, just to clarify. What is slavery like in Molthune? If at one end of a continuum you have highly skilled workers who sign long terms contract they can't get out of (As in, for example, some cyberpunk worlds), and at the other end slaves are merely objects that can be used or destroyed at the owner's whim (the Gorean model), where does Molthune fit.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-15, 05:38 PM
I doesn't really sound like you disagree with my position at all. You say you're still good "if you refrain from owning slaves yourself, disapprove of evil going on around you..." - that's exactly what I said. The key is that they do not own anyone themselves and disapprove of others doing so - which a defender of the institution of slavery does not. A person doesn't need to be a crusader to be Good, but they do need to disapprove of Evil. Or, I should say, a person who is Good would disapprove of Evil, in addition to not doing it themselves. Even if they were personally unable to prevent that Evil from being done, they would want it to stop.

No. I said disapprove of the evil going on, in a society where the practise of slavery is commonly evil. Not disapprove of slavery itself. Even in a society where slavery is commonly practised in an evil way, you can still be a good aligned slave owner if you don't partake in the common abuses going on around you and frown on those who do.


I think slavery is usually called out as Evil as a whole, at least implicitly as a common villain in adventures are slavers (who are always Evil). But since that term covers a lot of different things, we've been breaking it down. I think the main part of "slavery" which the game has arrived at as being Evil is the owning people as property (along with many of the common methods of obtaining slaves like raiding and loot-taking from wars.) So in a system in which the people aren't owned as property and weren't forced by violence into their roles, a Good person could potentially defend that as there is nothing necessarily or apparently Evil happening.

This is where things are breaking down. Most of these things are not inherently evil in D&D, (though I would say raiding people to capture slaves is). If you're making slaves out of enemy soldiers captured in a justified war then I'd say it's a baseline neutral practise, only shifting to evil if you're a real bastard about it. But again, even if your civilization is a horrible culture that raids innocent people to take slaves, that doesn't make you evil so long as you don't partake in the raiding yourself. You can even own slaves taken from this immoral slave raiding if you're disassociated from that particular practise and be a baseline of neutral (pushing to evil if you do evil things to the slaves, pushing to good if you do a whole lot of good things in the rest of your life).

Durzan
2018-07-15, 07:02 PM
Oh come on, no one is even trying to address my thoughts on the matter? I posted a long and detailed thought process back on page three and everyone else just ignored it. *grump face*

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-16, 09:14 AM
Oh come on, no one is even trying to address my thoughts on the matter? I posted a long and detailed thought process back on page three and everyone else just ignored it. *grump face*

I replied to the general ideas a few posts later.

To be more blunt, the notion that there's not much difference between being free, or being a slave, is ridiculous. A gilded cage is still a cage, and it doesn't matter how "good" your life is if it "belongs to" someone else.

Segev
2018-07-16, 10:24 AM
How provincial are we assuming the character is? If she were a dirt farmer, sure, but nobles were generally the class least immersed in solely their own culture and most immersed in larger cultural networks. And this generalizes past the one character in question in the OP, anyway, since dirt farmers with no education or information about the wider world generally aren't the heart of the slaveowning class.The nobility, however, are also immersed in a culture dedicated to preserving the status quo (or, if to making change, making changes to further enhance the nobles' power).

The more sophisticated the arguments get, the easier it actually is to lose sight of core fundamentals. And thus the easier it is to miss that very deep and important nugget that answers the question as to why slavery is inherently wicked.


No, but I think it gets really difficult to overlook not willfully when it's an issue at the heart of the regional culture wars (and some of the regional shooting wars). It's not that difficult to ask "yeah, but why is all that nice treatment you talk about contingent on chattelization" when big countries in the region have already asked that and answered "Oh wait, it doesn't have to be!" You can have labor, even compulsory labor, without loss of personhood and conversion into property.This is an easy position to take when one is outside the situation. I am not going to try to play the phychologist here enough to walk you through it, but I would wager that, if we got into a political discussion, I could find areas of political philosophy where I could point out things that are "not that hard" to ask oneself, which you'd reject based on complex and intricate arguments that you believe reveal my simplistic question to be misleading. Meanwhile, I could hold it up as you being "willfully blind" of the evil your philosophy causes.


Disentangling willful blindness from sincerity is a difficult problem, but it can be helped in this case by a look at actual history.

Classical slaveowners generally didn't articulate these views or for the most part probably even hold them as conventional, unexamined beliefs. They didn't need to develop defensive ideas about slavery because generally nobody was attacking it. An institution that is genuinely unquestioned has little need for answers. (In actual fact slaveowners in systems where slavery was not under attack were often openly ready to admit that even slavery under particularly favorable conditions was a calamity for the enslaved (e.g., Eumaios), but while I think this helps my point it can stand without it).When they were under attack, they did come up with these arguments. And I can guarantee you that not everybody who was pro-Confederacy was in general an evil person. I am sure you could find genuinely good ones. Even those who actively did not hate their slaves.

(Again, I am not justifying them. I am, however, justifying the possibility of an LG person who doesn't 'get' that slavery is inherently evil.)


One historically paradoxical aspect of this Nobilis argument is - my impression is - that in real history slaveowners advanced this sort of justification after they perceived the slave system to be under attack, not before (as why would a typical guy bother to develop these beliefs before?). But my intuition seems to feel that even if they then internalized the justification, there's a sort of insincerity involved in internalizing a tactical belief.

Basically it seems to me that in real history people developed and articulated these beliefs precisely in response to being confronted with chances to know better. This is a defensive belief, and defensive beliefs develop when there's a need to defend. But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.No, not "with chances to know better." With people telling them, "You're monsters; you should ruin your livelihoods and financial stability because we accuse you of being cruel to your slaves."

Imagine, for a moment, if somebody started a movement accusing parents of being inherently cruel abusers of children who are at best underequipped educationally and emotionally to provide adequate upbringing, and advocating benevolent government centers which would mandatorily take children away from their parents to raise them in a uniformly nurturing environment. They have plenty of arguments which sound good on first blush, especially if you already agree that parents can be abusive. Oh, and they want to charge parents lifetimes' worth of extra taxes to pay for these facilities; after all, it's their fault that the government has to construct them.

Ludicrous, I know, but I could just as easily apply the "it's obvious that these self-serving parents have a chance to recognize their abusive nature and are constructing arguments to oppose this socially-uplifting goal just because they selfishly want to keep those kids to abuse while telling themselves they're good people."

Now, I would be on the side of those defending the parents, and I'd have lots of solid arguments against this atrocity of a movement, but you have to understand that the people behind it could just as easily hold the view you're espousing about all people in a slave-owning society who don't immediately drop their support of it the moment somebody says, "By the way, that practice is evil."


Except in D&D/PF, alignment is objective, not relative.Irrelevant.

I'm not saying, "By some view, slavery is not evil." I'm saying, "it is possible for an LG person not to realize slavery is inherently evil."


If you defend horrid institutions, the cosmos labels you not Good. It doesn't matter how good you think you are or whether you've never known anything else in your life or whether it would be hard for you to see things differently.Okay. So if a little old lady with a massive ability to deceive convinces a fighter who wants nothing more than to be a noble and honorable man that Wizard William the Uncharismatic has used charm person and suggestion to fool her children into thinking they're William's friends and turn them against her, and shows him the devastation William is inflicting on the land, is our good and noble fighter an evil man for going and confronting William and his young apprentices, and slaying the evil wizard before he can complete the ritual he's working on while the brainwashed youths plead with him to stop?

Sure, the old lady is actually a wicked hag who is going to magically brainwash the apprentices (who she'd previously done that to) and is actually responsible for the accursed blight ruining the nearby farmland, and there's no way for the low-Int and low-Wis fighter to know that, but his ignorance is no excuse, because alignment is objective, right?

Less elaborately, if Good King Kent insists on doing all executions himself (because he would not burden any others with such woeful tasks), and Rogue Rita successfully frames Innocent Iggy for a heinous murder she committed, is King Kent now neutral for having murdered an innocent man and letting a guilty murderess go, simply because he didn't know any better?



Yes, a person who has good reason to see the core truth of slavery and is actively avoiding doing so is staining their goodness with pride and perhaps other deadly sins to justify an evil institution.

No, one need not be willfully doing that to be unable to see it. This is why you can have a dedicated LG character who simply cannot, without extensive evidence and a massive paradigm shift in her thinking, grasp that slavery is, itself, inescapably wicked.

Thrudd
2018-07-16, 11:00 AM
The more sophisticated the arguments get, the easier it actually is to lose sight of core fundamentals. And thus the easier it is to miss that very deep and important nugget that answers the question as to why slavery is inherently wicked.

I'm not saying, "By some view, slavery is not evil." I'm saying, "it is possible for an LG person not to realize slavery is inherently evil."

The people in the world don't need to get through the sophisticated arguments - the cosmos/GM does that, answers the arguments, and assigns an alignment to things accordingly. The denizens of the cosmos are then judged according to their relationships to the established objective moral standards.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter what the person can or can't realize. The fact that they don't realize slavery is evil makes them not Good. So it is not possible for a LG person not to realize slavery is evil, because part of the definition of LG is that they realize slavery is evil.

Their social conditioning has caused them to be Neutral - just as Orc society causes Orcs to be Evil because they are taught that wanton murder and cruelty are correct.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-16, 11:06 AM
The people in the world don't need to get through the sophisticated arguments - the cosmos/GM does that, answers the arguments, and assigns an alignment to things accordingly. The denizens of the cosmos are then judged according to their relationships to the established objective moral standards.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter what the person can or can't realize. The fact that they don't realize slavery is evil makes them not Good. So it is not possible for a LG person not to realize slavery is evil, because part of the definition of LG is that they realize slavery is evil.

Their social conditioning has caused them to be Neutral - just as Orc society causes Orcs to be Evil because they are taught that wanton murder and cruelty are correct.

Do intent and motive matter at all?

Is someone who has been lied to their entire life about something being "good" still just as Evil as someone who has the actual facts at hand and yet still does it?

Segev
2018-07-16, 11:17 AM
The people in the world don't need to get through the sophisticated arguments - the cosmos/GM does that, answers the arguments, and assigns an alignment to things accordingly. The denizens of the cosmos are then judged according to their relationships to the established objective moral standards.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter what the person can or can't realize. The fact that they don't realize slavery is evil makes them not Good. So it is not possible for a LG person not to realize slavery is evil, because part of the definition of LG is that they realize slavery is evil.

Their social conditioning has caused them to be Neutral - just as Orc society causes Orcs to be Evil because they are taught that wanton murder and cruelty are correct.

Okay. So a person who only wants to help and be kind who is fooled into thinking that the person carrying a purse is actually a purse-snatcher who stole it from the "nice lady" (who actually wants the purse stolen) is now neutral because he was fooled?

A philanthropist who believes that he's donating to a charity that is working to educate disadvantaged youths and who, no matter what investigations he attempts, always sees only shining happy schools, and never sees the horrific sweat shops and forced-"recruitment" tactics of the organization to which he's donating, is actually neutral or even evil because he's donating to an evil organization he thinks is Good?

A woman administering poison to her children that the wicked quack has told her is medicine meant to cure them, but is actually keeping them sick so the quack can keep selling more poison, is an evil accomplice to the quack because the fact that she doesn't know it's the "medicine" that's keeping them sick isn't changing the fact that giving her kids poison is an evil act?

Every medicine-man, doctor, healer, etc. in history who has believed, mistakenly, that imbalanced humors are the cause of disease, is evil for the people they killed with their leeches? No matter how sincerely they believed they were helping?

The man who turns on an incinerator to dispose of garbage, after following every safety protocol he could think of, is evil if there was a kid who somehow wandered into it and subverted the security and safety protocols that would have warned the man of the kid's presence? After all, him believing his turning on the incinerator wouldn't cause any harm doesn't change that burning a child to death is evil.



The issue, Thrudd, is that you're conflating objectively (im)moral choices with objective results. These are not necessarily equivalent. Even when it is objectively, inarguably evil to, say, wear white after labor day (perhaps doing so guarantees an innocent's death by the end of the day in this wacky hypothetical world), if you do not know and have no reason to believe that it is objectively evil, you are not evil for refusing to believe the silly superstition.

I mean, I can guarantee you that I can find somebody who died on a day any given person wore white after labor day. But you would (rightfully) reject my silly "evidence," unless I could prove causal relation. It would not make you evil for thinking my claim silly, even if my claim were objectively true, if you have no reason to believe it.

braveheart
2018-07-16, 11:29 AM
For a point of comparison, let's compare to OP's character to hypothetical warlock Timmy.

Timmy has immense magical power and uses it daily to save lives and free slaves and in general be a hero and good person. However Timmy's patron, the source of his power, requires him to murder someone Timmy has no personal issue with once a month. Timmy wants to keep doing good and needs his power to do good. Timmy saves dozens of lives every month, and could no longer do so if he failed to murder a random person. So every month Timmy goes and finds somone who is close to death and kills them. Unbeknownst to Timmy the souls of every person he kills this way belong to Timmy's patron and are enslaved to the patron.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

JoeJ
2018-07-16, 11:48 AM
For a point of comparison, let's compare to OP's character to hypothetical warlock Timmy.

Timmy has immense magical power and uses it daily to save lives and free slaves and in general be a hero and good person. However Timmy's patron, the source of his power, requires him to murder someone Timmy has no personal issue with once a month. Timmy wants to keep doing good and needs his power to do good. Timmy saves dozens of lives every month, and could no longer do so if he failed to murder a random person. So every month Timmy goes and finds somone who is close to death and kills them. Unbeknownst to Timmy the souls of every person he kills this way belong to Timmy's patron and are enslaved to the patron.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

Absolutely Timmy could be good, because what he believes counts for more than what he does. Actions are not important in themselves, but because they are the working out of what a person believes. Objective morality is defined by the nature of the planes in the Great Wheel, and reality in the outer planes is determined by belief.

Thrudd
2018-07-16, 11:54 AM
Do intent and motive matter at all?

Is someone who has been lied to their entire life about something being "good" still just as Evil as someone who has the actual facts at hand and yet still does it?

In this system, yes. In reality? I don't like to use "good" and "evil" in that way to apply to people.
Maybe not "just as evil". Maybe they are Neutral if they are far enough removed. But they don't get to be Good until they stop doing or helping others consistently do evil.

For the example of the person duped by an evil old lady and all the similar examples, that is a one-time thing. If it happened every day, and you were able to observe what the evil old lady did during the times she didn't need saving, but you still chose to defend her - I'd say that is closer to the example of the person living in slave society. They aren't living in a vacuum. They see the evil parts of slavery (if we can agree that there are, indeed evil parts of slavery). They have been taught the evil parts are excusable or even correct. So the example is much more like the orc raised to believe murder is good, than the person duped in by a single actor in a situation that is non-persistent.

Scripten
2018-07-16, 12:01 PM
Okay. So a person who only wants to help and be kind who is fooled into thinking that the transvestite carrying a purse is actually a purse-snatcher who stole it from the "nice lady" (who actually wants the purse stolen) is now neutral because he was fooled?

Just a heads up: "Transvestite" is considered a slur. You probably didn't mean to use it as such, but it would be a nice gesture to change that to just "trans*" instead.




A philanthropist who believes that he's donating to a charity that is working to educate disadvantaged youths and who, no matter what investigations he attempts, always sees only shining happy schools, and never sees the horrific sweat shops and forced-"recruitment" tactics of the organization to which he's donating, is actually neutral or even evil because he's donating to an evil organization he thinks is Good?

Seems unrealistic in any reasonably simulated world. But in this case, he would be Neutral at best for his contributions. (In my settings. Other DMs may disagree.) For the charity to be far-reaching enough to be doing this kind of evil, there would need to be a suitably realistic amount of evidence that our philanthropist could find, otherwise the comparison falls apart because the charity isn't big enough to be an institution.

Plus, you're not (or at least weren't) arguing that the slavery-upholding LG character is ignorant; you're arguing that they don't believe in the evidence they see that shows slavery to be evil.



A woman administering poison to her children that the wicked quack has told her is medicine meant to cure them, but is actually keeping them sick so the quack can keep selling more poison, is an evil accomplice to the quack because the fact that she doesn't know it's the "medicine" that's keeping them sick isn't changing the fact that giving her kids poison is an evil act?

Again, is there any method that she can use to investigate further? If not, then I would argue that this doesn't affect alignment, but it's also not a particularly good comparison. Medical quackery is not institutional.



Every medicine-man, doctor, healer, etc. in history who has believed, mistakenly, that imbalanced humors are the cause of disease, is evil for the people they killed with their leeches? No matter how sincerely they believed they were helping?

They would be if evidence was presented that showed that they were killing their patients. A more apt comparison would be the doctors who presented smoking tobacco as beneficial to one's health even as evidence piled up or parents who refuse to have their children treated with medicine when they are sick/injured in the modern age.

Self-delusion is the key aspect, which is necessary when it comes to slavery in (many) RPG worlds.



The man who turns on an incinerator to dispose of garbage, after following every safety protocol he could think of, is evil if there was a kid who somehow wandered into it and subverted the security and safety protocols that would have warned the man of the kid's presence? After all, him believing his turning on the incinerator wouldn't cause any harm doesn't change that burning a child to death is evil.

Not an evil act, though that would be assuming he made all of the appropriate checks beforehand rather than neglecting them. Again, you're making an argument that there is no possible way for the character to gain evidence of the harm being done.


Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.

Timmy is literally a serial killer, regardless of the nature of his soul-stealing. Committing random murders makes him Evil, yes.

But you do bring up a good point. All of these hypothetical suggestions are assuming that the people committing these acts don't realize they are doing harm.

TL;DR: Supporting Evil acts or consequences out of acceptable levels of ignorance is not inherently Evil. (That is, having no basis for comparison or knowledge of harm done.) Self-delusion, on the other hand, is not the same as ignorance. So once a character goes from supporting something out of ignorance to deluding themselves, that is when their alignment would be affected.

Segev
2018-07-16, 12:44 PM
For a point of comparison, let's compare to OP's character to hypothetical warlock Timmy.

Timmy has immense magical power and uses it daily to save lives and free slaves and in general be a hero and good person. However Timmy's patron, the source of his power, requires him to murder someone Timmy has no personal issue with once a month. Timmy wants to keep doing good and needs his power to do good. Timmy saves dozens of lives every month, and could no longer do so if he failed to murder a random person. So every month Timmy goes and finds somone who is close to death and kills them. Unbeknownst to Timmy the souls of every person he kills this way belong to Timmy's patron and are enslaved to the patron.

Can Timmy be considered Good on the alignment system? He steals souls regularly even though he doesn't know it. But he on the whole helps people and does do with the goal of doing good.Timmy is committing willful murder. The disposition of the souls is irrelevant.

A better analogy would be if Timmy's patron required Timmy to get one person per month added to the "paradise" that Timmy's patron runs. Unbeknownst to Timmy, the "paradise" is a work camp and indoctrination center. All Timmy ever sees are the successfully-indoctrinated who think everything is peachy. Sure, he sees other patrons' organizations which he knows are evilly abusive, but he doesn't think his patron would ever do such a thing, and wouldn't see a problem with the compounds in any event if they operated the way he thought his patron's did.




Just a heads up: "Transvestite" is considered a slur. You probably didn't mean to use it as such, but it would be a nice gesture to change that to just "trans*" instead.

It literally means "cross-dresser," so I'll change it to that. The intent was to play on the "that man has a purse, and this woman claims he stole it from her" instincts regarding likely ownership of said purse. But changing it to a clearer word to avoid insult or argument is probably for the best.



Seems unrealistic in any reasonably simulated world. But in this case, he would be Neutral at best for his contributions. (In my settings. Other DMs may disagree.) For the charity to be far-reaching enough to be doing this kind of evil, there would need to be a suitably realistic amount of evidence that our philanthropist could find, otherwise the comparison falls apart because the charity isn't big enough to be an institution.

Plus, you're not (or at least weren't) arguing that the slavery-upholding LG character is ignorant; you're arguing that they don't believe in the evidence they see that shows slavery to be evil.I'm not defending my claim right now. I am attacking a counter-claim that supporting slavery - regardless of what you believe about it - makes you inherently non-good. That, specifically, being factually wrong about the moral and ethical weight of something doesn't matter when it comes to your alignment; your alignment is determined by the outcome of your choices, no matter your intent, knowledge, nor best efforts.



Again, is there any method that she can use to investigate further? If not, then I would argue that this doesn't affect alignment, but it's also not a particularly good comparison. Medical quackery is not institutional.Actually...it can be. But that's quite a different argument.



Self-delusion is the key aspect, which is necessary when it comes to slavery in (many) RPG worlds.It can be, but it isn't guaranteed. A lot of RPG worlds portray slavery through a lens most definitely cut by our modern culture, so slavery's evils are put out in the open, and there are extant philosophers who have prominently and clearly spelled out the core evil (unless the RPG writers are actually just as bad as the hypothetical pro-slavery LG character and only touch on peripheral evils without understanding why it truly is evil, kind-of like a person who believes water turns to ice when cold, but doesn't understand that this is due to heat being extracted rather than "cold energy" being "pumped into" it).

The core evil is subtle. And honestly, oft avoided because understanding it reveals its presence in some uncomfortable places that our own society and culture is "perfectly fine" with. Or at least, broad swaths of it are, and get militant about defending.


TL;DR: Supporting Evil acts or consequences out of acceptable levels of ignorance is not inherently Evil. (That is, having no basis for comparison or knowledge of harm done.) Self-delusion, on the other hand, is not the same as ignorance. So once a character goes from supporting something out of ignorance to deluding themselves, that is when their alignment would be affected.

Agreed. My point is that the core reason why slavery is inherently evil, as opposed to merely - like any other institution - potentially corrupted by men who perform evil within it, is very easily missed. So easily missed that one need not be self-delusional to believe that the evils most likely pointed out to him are dismissed as "not slavery's fault." Any more than the instances of law-breaking, power-abusing tyrannical sheriffs or judges are evidence that having legal systems at all is inherently evil.

The argument isn't that this LG person is "right." Nor that they have "a good point." Nor that they should never potentially experience the paradigm-shift that enables the scales to fall from their eyes. But rather that such is not inevitable. That they can, without malice nor willful ignorance, remain convinced of their position due to the way in which things are presented to them by others and the world. Without being internally inconsistent.

Scripten
2018-07-16, 02:12 PM
It literally means "cross-dresser," so I'll change it to that. The intent was to play on the "that man has a purse, and this woman claims he stole it from her" instincts regarding likely ownership of said purse. But changing it to a clearer word to avoid insult or argument is probably for the best.

Personally, I'd just toss the trans aspect entirely. There's a lot to unpack here and it's probably best to do that outside this topic, anyway. Up to you.



I'm not defending my claim right now. I am attacking a counter-claim that supporting slavery - regardless of what you believe about it - makes you inherently non-good. That, specifically, being factually wrong about the moral and ethical weight of something doesn't matter when it comes to your alignment; your alignment is determined by the outcome of your choices, no matter your intent, knowledge, nor best efforts.


Right, but we have to make a distinction here: The LG character must either understand slavery or understand "slavery". Upholding "slavery" is like upholding "murder". If you believe that "murder" doesn't harm anyone, then a Good character could uphold "murder". But obviously murder does harm people, inherently. It kills people, Carl. So supporting murder is not-Good.

So what makes slavery slavery and not just "slavery"? I would argue that the concept of owning people is the key factor. If our LG character's idea of "slavery" does not involve owning people, then they could potentially be Good. As soon as they understand that owning other people is a part of slavery, then supporting it becomes a not-Good act.

If they don't know that slavery involves that, then they aren't actually supporting slavery, they're supporting "slavery". (To additionally supplement Thrudd's post, I'd also add that any society that practices slavery would have to publicly condone owning people and thus being ignorant of that aspect of slavery would be impossible.)



Actually...it can be. But that's quite a different argument.

True, but not in this example, which is what I was talking about. (Actually, you did a good job covering that with the next example, so those fit together well.)



The core evil is subtle. And honestly, oft avoided because understanding it reveals its presence in some uncomfortable places that our own society and culture is "perfectly fine" with. Or at least, broad swaths of it are, and get militant about defending.

I agree with this. The modern world inches uncomfortably close in places. But again, approaching the event horizon of acceptable subjects. I would say that, in most cases, I don't get too deeply into dissecting these ideas in-game because it's just not the right format for it.

But out-and-out slavery, with the ownership of people, isn't something that hits those notes, IMO.



Agreed. My point is that the core reason why slavery is inherently evil, as opposed to merely - like any other institution - potentially corrupted by men who perform evil within it, is very easily missed. So easily missed that one need not be self-delusional to believe that the evils most likely pointed out to him are dismissed as "not slavery's fault." Any more than the instances of law-breaking, power-abusing tyrannical sheriffs or judges are evidence that having legal systems at all is inherently evil.

The argument isn't that this LG person is "right." Nor that they have "a good point." Nor that they should never potentially experience the paradigm-shift that enables the scales to fall from their eyes. But rather that such is not inevitable. That they can, without malice nor willful ignorance, remain convinced of their position due to the way in which things are presented to them by others and the world. Without being internally inconsistent.

Eh, I still disagree here. Once a character understands slavery requires ownership of people, it becomes a matter of self-delusion to consider it a potentially Good institution. The evils of slavery are not, inherently, the treatment of the enslaved, but the explicit ownership of people. Of course, other evils are quite easily stacked on top, but that's the fundamental aspect that makes it inarguable, IMO.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-07-16, 02:24 PM
Eh, I still disagree here. Once a character understands slavery requires ownership of people, it becomes a matter of self-delusion to consider it a potentially Good institution.

That's the thing. You don't have to consider it a Good institution. You just have to consider it a Neutral institution. Good people do Neutral things all the time.

Enixon
2018-07-16, 02:27 PM
Depends who's writing. There are 3e and 4e books that emphasise it being inherently evil - not sure about 2e or 5e though.

Unless the slavers are from the setting's "Theme Park" Egyptian, Roman or Viking area then the book tends takes pains to say how it's A-Ok when they do it becasue mumble mumble :biggrin:

JoeJ
2018-07-16, 02:34 PM
So what makes slavery slavery and not just "slavery"? I would argue that the concept of owning people is the key factor. If our LG character's idea of "slavery" does not involve owning people, then they could potentially be Good. As soon as they understand that owning other people is a part of slavery, then supporting it becomes a not-Good act.

How much of the person has to be owned to make it count as slavery? In a feudal society nearly everybody is owned, at least in part. Ownership is limited with restriction on what duties can be demanded from subjects of different stations, but at the core people in a very real sense belong to their superiors.

Scripten
2018-07-16, 02:38 PM
How much of the person has to be owned to make it count as slavery? In a feudal society nearly everybody is owned, at least in part. Ownership is limited with restriction on what duties can be demanded from subjects of different stations, but at the core people in a very real sense belong to their superiors.

I'm not a medieval scholar, but from what I understand of feudalism, I'd say that it counts as a form of slavery and that a Lawful Good character would not support it.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-16, 02:40 PM
How much of the person has to be owned to make it count as slavery? In a feudal society nearly everybody is owned, at least in part. Ownership is limited with restriction on what duties can be demanded from subjects of different stations, but at the core people in a very real sense belong to their superiors.

That's not really a universal truth about feudal systems -- serfdom / chattel peasants are pretty specific to times and locations.

Unless one considers any imposed obligation "ownership".

Segev
2018-07-16, 02:43 PM
Personally, I'd just toss the trans aspect entirely. There's a lot to unpack here and it's probably best to do that outside this topic, anyway. Up to you.Eh, you're right. I wasn't trying to make a point with that; it was flavor/fluff, and if it's distracting, it's not helpful. Removed.

[QUOTE=Scripten;23225274]Eh, I still disagree here. Once a character understands slavery requires ownership of people, it becomes a matter of self-delusion to consider it a potentially Good institution. The evils of slavery are not, inherently, the treatment of the enslaved, but the explicit ownership of people. Of course, other evils are quite easily stacked on top, but that's the fundamental aspect that makes it inarguable, IMO.We agree more than we disagree, given this statement.

The key point I'm getting at is that the notion that owning another person is evil is the part that can be hard to grasp. There are plenty of distracting philosophical arguments, debate points, and examples that can obscure the issue entirely, and provide strong positions to keep from understanding why owning people is inherently an evil.


That's the thing. You don't have to consider it a Good institution. You just have to consider it a Neutral institution. Good people do Neutral things all the time.
There's this, too: one need not show that "owning people is good" to say "slavery isn't necessarily evil." It just needs to be neutral, neither good nor evil in its own right, to be perfectly fine for Good people to do. "Going to the theme park" is neither good nor evil, for instance, but it wouldn't make a Good person slip towards neutrality for doing it.



So, Scripten, I think our main point of disagreement is on how easy it is to realize that the inherent evil is owning other people. Obviously, owning people is slavery, and slavery is owning people. If Nobilius sees no issue with owning people, and simultaneously sees any slaves he or others own as people in their own rights, he can easily miss the core paradigm that makes it inherently evil: it is dehumanizing.

To fully grasp why slavery - owning people - is inherently evil requires a fundamental understanding of the importance of agency and personal responsibility, and a clear grasp of why being owned by another person undermines one's access to both. Why the notion of owning a person inherently points to the notion of owning their life and their rights to living, in all its aspects.

It actually takes a great deal of dedicated thought for somebody who doesn't start actively looking to explain, "Slavery is inherently evil, and here's why," to get to that. Especially if they're surrounded by all the arguments to the contrary, designed to justify, to uphold, or to distract from the problems of slavery.

Nobilius could be a particularly intelligent person and still fall for it. If he's average or a bit dull, he may find it impossible to really figure out what the issue is, and default to the simplistic, surface examination of whether a given person - slave or not - is being treated right. (Of course, the way to get through to less-than-bright Nobilius would be to demonstrate the preponderance of evils that stem from it.)

Such a story arc, however, would take work by others to walk him through, and need not happen to have interesting tales of Nobilius the Good and his personal slaves (who he treats well, and who love him the way paid servants might love a particularly good employer). It can be an interesting way to go, but it need not go there to allow the LG character.

Remember that LG people need not be skilled philosophers to be good and lawful.

MrSandman
2018-07-16, 03:25 PM
The best part of this discussion is that it is in the context of a game where it is okay for a Paladin to go to an ancient temple, murder all the sentient creatures that live there without any provocation other than being labelled as monsters, loot their belongings as well as ancient artifacts, and still call herself Lawful Good.

Segev
2018-07-16, 03:37 PM
The best part of this discussion is that it is in the context of a game where it is okay for a Paladin to go to an ancient temple, murder all the sentient creatures that live there without any provocation other than being labelled as monsters, loot their belongings as well as ancient artifacts, and still call herself Lawful Good.

That's...arguing from parody, actually. In classic D&D, said paladin is justified because those monsters ARE evil, and HAVE done horrid things, and are usually either planning additional horrid things, or otherwise are perpetuating them. It's only in reductions of the game to silliness, with all nuance and backstory ripped out to service a hack-n-slash style of play that wouldn't care about the question being discussed here, that your description holds any real accuracy.

Enixon
2018-07-16, 03:47 PM
That's...arguing from parody, actually. In classic D&D, said paladin is justified because those monsters ARE evil, and HAVE done horrid things, and are usually either planning additional horrid things, or otherwise are perpetuating them. It's only in reductions of the game to silliness, with all nuance and backstory ripped out to service a hack-n-slash style of play that wouldn't care about the question being discussed here, that your description holds any real accuracy.

To be fair, that does seem to be the angle assumed by a good number of people both here and on other gaming forums given how often people seem to want to make their PCs alignments change to evil becasue they killed the poor innocent orcs that were just expressing their culture by butchering the peasants of the local Sleepy Little Town in the name of Grummush :biggrin:

hamishspence
2018-07-16, 03:54 PM
Unless the slavers are from the setting's "Theme Park" Egyptian, Roman or Viking area then the book tends takes pains to say how it's A-Ok when they do it becasue mumble mumble :biggrin:

The FRCS makes excuses for "Realms Egypt" (Mulhorand) - because the ruler is a paladin - but I don't remember it trying to claim that "Realms Viking" (Sword Coast North) slavery was not evil.

Though "Serfs aren't slaves" may be the excuse you're referring to.

I can't recall there being a "Realms Rome" though.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-16, 04:01 PM
To be fair, that does seem to be the angle assumed by a good number of people both here and on other gaming forums given how often people seem to want to make their PCs alignments change to evil becasue they killed the poor innocent orcs that were just expressing their culture by butchering the peasants of the local Sleepy Little Town in the name of Grummush :biggrin:

Ah, the "joys" of hypocritical cultural relativity (to be clear, in reference to those players, not you).


To which I say, paraphrasing a certain Mr Napier:


"Be it so. This slaughter of children is your custom; sharpen your swords. But my nation has also a custom. When raiders slaughter children, we make war on the raiders, and those not killed in battle are hung by the neck until dead, and we confiscate all their property. My soldiers shall sharpen their swords, and my carpenters shall erect gibbets on which to hang all captured.

Let us all act according to national customs."

Enixon
2018-07-16, 05:04 PM
The FRCS makes excuses for "Realms Egypt" (Mulhorand) - because the ruler is a paladin - but I don't remember it trying to claim that "Realms Viking" (Sword Coast North) slavery was not evil.

Though "Serfs aren't slaves" may be the excuse you're referring to.

I can't recall there being a "Realms Rome" though.

Oh I was talking about setting books in general not just the Realms specifically, and how they all seem to have that one country that's based on some real world ancient culture that's well known in pop culture for having slaves but since they don't want to make it seem like they're calling (insert IRL culture here) Evil, they make a point of having a couple lines in the fluff saying how they treat their slaves better than some other countries treat their poor freemen or something along those lines to differentiate them from all the other Mordor-esque slave keeping "bad guy countries".

Nifft
2018-07-16, 06:21 PM
Oh I was talking about setting books in general not just the Realms specifically, and how they all seem to have that one country that's based on some real world ancient culture that's well known in pop culture for having slaves but since they don't want to make it seem like they're calling (insert IRL culture here) Evil, they make a point of having a couple lines in the fluff saying how they treat their slaves better than some other countries treat their poor freemen or something along those lines to differentiate them from all the other Mordor-esque slave keeping "bad guy countries".

I dunno about that.

Greyhawk for example is full of PC countries which are overtly or covertly run by bad guys, like how the Great Kingdom publicly worshiped Hextor and turned its viceroys into undead abominations -- and someone should go do something about them -- but slavery seems to be generally illegal even in many (most?) of the overt bad-guy countries, and the evil isn't winked at nor papered over. It's more like: "Yep, this situation sucks. Somebody with a big sword should definitely try to fix this."

I've read about how Greyhawk has an abundance of so-called Militant Neutrality, which is to say a plurality of nations who aren't evil, but also aren't particularly good.


Eberron has a bunch of PC countries which are ambiguously moral at best, but I think they also tend to avoid slavery.


Dark Sun had slavery all over, but if I recall correctly it wasn't justified -- it was just evil, in a grim world where evil was sometimes the only way to survive.


So... maybe it's not common for a setting to do the wink-wink "totally-not-evil" slavery thing. Where in specific did you see this before?

Durzan
2018-07-16, 07:27 PM
See, I actually disagree with the notion that slavery in and of itself is evil; rather it is the TYPE of slavery and the society that institutes it that I see as being what makes it good or evil. Different societies have different contexts on what being a slave means and is. In fact, in some ancient societies and in some fantasy societies, the word "slave" essentially means the same thing as employee. Basically, I just realized that what we think of as slavery is really only one specific connotation unique to our modern society... and promptly divorced said notion from the word itself.

Saying you can own a person is kinda ridiculous if you think about it; its just as much a lie as if I were to tell you guys that I'm actually a purple dog. No matter what you do to them, you never can actually fully control them (assuming you don't use magic to literally make them a meat puppet), although you can influence them quite a bit through your actions or lack of actions. Beat them and threaten them all you like, that person still can still always fight back or defy you in some form or fashion if they want to, or choose to submit, or whatever. They still have their own thoughts and their own mind. Owning something alive is an illusion, owning a location is arguably an illusion. You own a piece of land, the land don't care, its all once piece. You say own a person, it doesn't really matter either, as its just you spouting bullcrap. You can limit someone all you like, they still have the ability to act and choose.

What IS evil though is the mistreatment of people in general. That is what I consider evil. Male or Female, bond or free, you harm someone to impose your will on them without due process of law, then it is evil. Since slavery is Lawful, the punishment must be within the bounds of the law, and cannot be excessively cruel or unusual. Docking a slave's pay (slavery doesn't always mean they aren't paid, despite the connotations we've applied to it. The term slave in some contexts meant the same thing as a hired servant) would be an acceptable form of punishment.

I've seen cases where free men and women were treated worse than slaves, and while they had rights in theory, in reality they had far little to none. This occurred historically as well as in fantasy. And I've also seen some cases where slaves actually had more rights and powers than supposedly free men.

I've seen stories where being "owned" by another was literally part of their culture, and being set free was considered a bad thing... something dishonorable and cruel. They are technically slaves, but other than the cultural customs, they are basically "free" in how they act and are treated. They could go out and buy stuff, they could get married, they were free in all but name.

Likewise, I've seen stories where free men and women were treated far worse than any slave in real life or in fiction. Where in theory they had rights, but in reality they were basically slaves in all but name.

So when you've seen stuff like that, it makes you question... whats the difference between a free man treated as a slave, and a slave treated as a free man? Not much, thats what. It means that Freedom is quite often an illusion. All slavery really is then, is saying... "You do what I say and [bad consequences] don't happen; Do this and maybe [good concequences] may happen" which is essentially what a Societal Law is just on a larger scale.

It gets even more interesting when you consider that any race, Human or otherwise are all psychologically conditioned from birth to obey the laws, local customs, culture and traditions, and so forth. If they obey, nothing bad happens; if they don't they are punished in some way. I dunno about you, but doesn't that sound a lot like what we consider slavery, just in a much bigger cage that has been gilded quite a bit? The exact shape and dimensions vary from society to society, but its still a cage.

Slavery does the same thing, its just there's no illusion involved, and the cage is USUALLY smaller. A slave is psychologically conditioned to not run away and obey their master, lest they be caught and punished. If a slave no longer views himself as a slave, then he's gained the power to break free. So long as a slave is psychologically dominated, they shall remain a slave. The chains and whips are tools to keep this the case, but they aren't what actually keeps a slave in place as a slave.

In the Wheel of Time, the Seanchan are interesting with regards to this dynamic. While Damane were treated literally as animals, with da'covale it was somewhat different. At times it almost made you wonder who really was free and who was enslaved. If you read some of the background lore on them, da'covale actually could have more rights and a better life than a free man... so selling your children to be da'covale was reasonably common way to try and give them a better life. Mistreating your da'covale was frowned upon, so the biggest part of evil in slavery was effectively reduced or neutralized. Yes, technically they considered them property, but they had laws and regulations to discourage mistreatment of slaves. And while I wouldn't consider them lawful good in nature (hardly any group or people in Wheel of Time could be considered lawful good, Except maybe Perrin), their system makes quite a bit of sense from both a structural and legal standpoint.

With a bit of changes, you could easily craft a similar system for a Lawful Good society where slavery is accepted and actually works. To bypass the notion that owning people is evil, simply say that you do not OWN the person, you OWN a contract that states they must obey you. Tack on some laws that protect slaves from being mistreated or being forced to do things that are against the law or would violate their person, legal ways for people to get into and out of slavery fairly easily, and include a way for slaves to gain status and prestige, and presto... you got yourselves a system of slavery that fits a Lawful Good nation.

Quertus
2018-07-16, 09:29 PM
To which I say, paraphrasing a certain Mr Napier:



"Be it so. This slaughter of children is your custom; sharpen your swords. But my nation has also a custom. When raiders slaughter children, we make war on the raiders, and those not killed in battle are hung by the neck until dead, and we confiscate all their property. My soldiers shall sharper their swords, and my carpenters shall erect gibbets on which to hang all captured.

Let us all act according to national customs."


This would be so much better than the D&D alignment system.

Kader
2018-07-16, 09:42 PM
A slave is psychologically conditioned to not run away and obey their master, lest they be caught and punished. If a slave no longer views himself as a slave, then he's gained the power to break free.

If this sort of mushy all-you-need-to-do-is-believe stuff were true, textbooks would have rather fewer images of defiant slaves tied to the whipping post, and history would be littered with the bones of far fewer failed runaways and the wreckage of far fewer failed slave rebellions, because the vast majority of those who embraced the power of positive thinking and resolved to free themselves might have been expected to succeed.

Outside of psychological fantasies, history is a little grimmer on these counts. There's a reason slave revolts failed as a rule and most runaways were caught, and it's not because you could get 90% of the way to freedom just by changing your thinking.

Kader
2018-07-16, 10:38 PM
Segev, I apologize for leaving a good deal of your post out and only responding to some quoted parts, but for one I think it is getting unwieldy and for two I think a good deal of it is devoted to arguing against not-what-I'm-saying.


The nobility, however, are also immersed in a culture dedicated to preserving the status quo (or, if to making change, making changes to further enhance the nobles' power).

I don't think this is defensible as stated. If you amend the argument to say only that aristocratic culture tends conservative, it might be defensible, but even then you would have to contend with a lot of examples of times and places when reformist or other nonconservative attitudes dominated. But it would be most accurate of all to acknowledge that aristocratic culture is not monolithic in this respect and there are always various camps.


This is an easy position to take when one is outside the situation. I am not going to try to play the psychologist here enough to walk you through it, but I would wager that, if we got into a political discussion, I could find areas of political philosophy where I could point out things that are "not that hard" to ask oneself, which you'd reject based on complex and intricate arguments that you believe reveal my simplistic question to be misleading. Meanwhile, I could hold it up as you being "willfully blind" of the evil your philosophy causes.

It seems a tall order to maneuver me into loudly praising evil as good, but even if you do, you would not prove your point to me, since in my opinion I am Neutral with moral aspirations, rather than Good. Consequently, of course, I could not serve as an example of a good person with bad beliefs.


No, not "with chances to know better." With people telling them, "You're monsters; you should ruin your livelihoods and financial stability because we accuse you of being cruel to your slaves."

[...]

Now, I would be on the side of those defending the parents, and I'd have lots of solid arguments against this atrocity of a movement, but you have to understand that the people behind it could just as easily hold the view you're espousing about all people in a slave-owning society who don't immediately drop their support of it the moment somebody says, "By the way, that practice is evil."

This is the part where you're arguing against not-what-I'm-saying, specifically against something much more inflexible than what I'm saying.


It is genuinely intellectually difficult to achieve the sort of Copernican revolution of thought involved in being the first to realize that an institution that has been characteristic of all of human society since time immemorial is inherently evil.


Characters are allowed to hold some beliefs that don't fit their overall alignment. Maybe even for the long term. Your character might go through the campaign never having their shallowly founded ideas of slavery challenged with respect to their good alignment, which is OK.

But once parts of society have broken that path - when abolitionism is a big deal in the world:


This tends to harden positions on both sides and makes the sort of liminal and only partially rationalized LG position you advocate harder to maintain. It's simply harder in such circumstances to go through life and never be prompted to consider your position less shallowly.


But on the other hand the Good part of you constricts a little each time you fend off a chance to know better.

"Go through life." "Constricts a little bit each time."

I demand the "immediate" moral 180s that you ascribe to me of nobody, whether or not they get abolitionist pamphlets in the mail. But in the latter type of world, which Golarion is and even more so than ours ever was (you've got goodly churches of liberation running underground railroads and slavers rallying under the banner of the King of Hell, for Christ's sake, there are some moral clues here), the situation of the world may present you with more and more frequent challenges to your alignment with respect to your belief-that-conflicts-with-your-alignment. And it's more likely that - eventually - you'll have to edit one or the other.

Please consider my hopefully more clear position and let me know if there are still points of contention, and we can discuss them further.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-16, 10:44 PM
With a bit of changes, you could easily craft a similar system for a Lawful Good society where slavery is accepted and actually works. To bypass the notion that owning people is evil, simply say that you do not OWN the person, you OWN a contract that states they must obey you. Tack on some laws that protect slaves from being mistreated or being forced to do things that are against the law or would violate their person, legal ways for people to get into and out of slavery fairly easily, and include a way for slaves to gain status and prestige, and presto... you got yourselves a system of slavery that fits a Lawful Good nation.


Sophistry.

"Oh, but it's OK, we don't own people, we hold contracts!" -- a rose by any other name, and if it walks etc like a duck...

Forcing a person to sign a contract, that states they must obey, and cannot leave, and that you own the products and benefits of their labor and effort, is still slavery, regardless.


What you're effectively doing here is trying to shine a turd.

Durzan
2018-07-16, 11:27 PM
If this sort of mushy all-you-need-to-do-is-believe stuff were true, textbooks would have rather fewer images of defiant slaves tied to the whipping post, and history would be littered with the bones of far fewer failed runaways and the wreckage of far fewer failed slave rebellions, because the vast majority of those who embraced the power of positive thinking and resolved to free themselves might have been expected to succeed.

Outside of psychological fantasies, history is a little grimmer on these counts. There's a reason slave revolts failed as a rule and most runaways were caught, and it's not because you could get 90% of the way to freedom just by changing your thinking.

It aint fantasy. I never said it was all you needed to do, so why the heck did you assume that such was the case. I said half of what kept slavery a thing was that a decent chunk of the slaves WERE conditioned. The brutal treatment, the collars, the whips and stuff were a part of attempting to break the slave to the conditioning, and even a part of the conditioning process itself. Everything else helps reinforce or induce the manipulation and conditioning needed to make a slave more docile. Chains restrict movement, whip induces fear of punishment, etc. Of course, if a slave isn't conditioned, they're more likely to rebel, duh. You use psychological manipulation to make them more agreeable, use punishments to keep them in line, and perhaps a bit of rewards as positive reinforcement if they do what they are told.

Some slaves would take longer to condition than others, and the many that died hadn't yet gotten to that point when they rebelled or tried to escape. IE they realized what they were up to, and fought it tooth and nail to try and get the hell out of there. Fact of the matter, is that psychological conditioning is what keeps most slaves from revolting, its not just the whips and the chains and the fear of punishment (which is a form of psychological manipulation, I might add).

There's a reason slaves were given days off at times in a certain society. Its part of the psychological conditioning, and provides an outlet to help prevent revolt. If that conditioning is broken (not always hard to do), then they attempt to escape or revolt. Read the biography of Fredrick Douglass for heck's sake.

If you got 100 slaves out in the fields, how many would run if they were conditioned to believe that they would be killed as soon as they passed the boundary of the property? Doesn't matter if it was a lie or not, you instill fear into them to the point where it becomes habit to obey and it makes a slave owner's job far easier. If they weren't told that and are new, then ya of course they would bolt or revolt.

All that your comments indicate is that quite a few slaves weren't affected by the propaganda BS.

Honestly though, if they weren't attempting psychological manipulation, then quite frankly they were morons for trying to keep slaves that would revolt. (still doesn't make it right) If you are gonna do something, you gotta do it right. A slave that isn't conditioned is a threat.


Sophistry.

"Oh, but it's OK, we don't own people, we hold contracts!" -- a rose by any other name, and if it walks etc like a duck...

Forcing a person to sign a contract, that states they must obey, and cannot leave, and that you own the products and benefits of their labor and effort, is still slavery, regardless.


What you're effectively doing here is trying to shine a turd.

Not really.

The contract could be entered willingly in such a society, and the only way you'd be forced into it is as a form of punishment after due process of law (No man deserves to have rights restricted or punishment without going through a fair trial). The contract would state how long they would work for, and/or how much money they had to earn to pay back their debt to society, and they would be set free when either of those two conditions were met.

If its a Lawful Good society, then the rules and regulations would effectively make it the rough equivalent of prison labor and indentured servitude anyway... so calling it slavery would be moot unless that society actually uses the term Slavery in a different bloody context than we do. Which, ya know, was kinda the darn point of my thought excersise there.

But whatever.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-16, 11:52 PM
Look up "Laogai" if you think there can be a "just" system of state-run slavery, made "fair" by the law.

JoeJ
2018-07-16, 11:56 PM
That's not really a universal truth about feudal systems -- serfdom / chattel peasants are pretty specific to times and locations.

Unless one considers any imposed obligation "ownership".

I can force you to work for me. Not every day, but a specified number of days per year, on a job that is both horribly unpleasant and extremely dangerous. In addition, you have to bring a certain number of other people with you, to also work at this job; how you get those people is your concern. The rest of the year you are free to return home and live however you like (and can afford), but you'd better not be lazy because you also have to pay me money for the privilege of having that home. What you owe me comes before your own living expenses, of course. And you also have to save up enough to pay for your food and other expenses during the time you're risking your life for me.

You didn't choose these obligations; you were born to them. And you are fortunate enough to have people who have to work for you, even as you have to work for me. Not everybody is as lucky as you are. Potentially, if you please me, I could graciously allow you enough farmland to improve your standard of living. But you'd still have to work for me. If you refuse, I'll have you imprisoned, and possibly even executed.

So what would you call that? Slavery? Partial slavery (after all, you are free to do whatever you like for much of the year)? What I described is not the life of a serf, but of a baron.


The point I'm making with all this is that ownership of a person is not an all-or-nothing affair. Gorean-style total chattel ownership is the outlier; most forms of ownership are significantly less complete: a person has obligations they didn't choose and can't get out of, but also a certain amount of genuine freedom. And at some point we (arbitrarily?) draw a line and say that everything beyond this line counts as slavery.

Durzan
2018-07-17, 12:11 AM
Look up "Laogai" if you think there can be a "just" system of state-run slavery, made "fair" by the law.

Thats more hypnotism than psychological conditioning. Psychological conditioning is getting someone used to and accustomed to a situation through manipulation. There is a big difference.

And, the Dai Lee were using it to maintain order and power. In other words, it was specifically designed to be corrupt.

WindStruck
2018-07-17, 12:19 AM
Ah, the "joys" of hypocritical cultural relativity (to be clear, in reference to those players, not you).


To which I say, paraphrasing a certain Mr Napier:


"Be it so. This slaughter of children is your custom; sharpen your swords. But my nation has also a custom. When raiders slaughter children, we make war on the raiders, and those not killed in battle are hung by the neck until dead, and we confiscate all their property. My soldiers shall sharpen their swords, and my carpenters shall erect gibbets on which to hang all captured.

Let us all act according to national customs."


https://media.giphy.com/media/GQnsaAWZ8ty00/giphy.gif

Kader
2018-07-17, 12:36 AM
It aint fantasy. I never said it was all you needed to do, I said it was the main component. Everything else helps reinforce or induce the manipulation and conditioning needed to make a slave more docile. Of course, if a slave isn't conditioned, they're more likely to rebel, duh. You use psychological manipulation to make them more agreeable, use punishments to keep them in line, and perhaps

Some slaves would take longer to condition than others, and the many that died hadn't gotten to that point when they rebelled or tried to escape. IE they realized what they were up to, and fought it tooth and nail to try and get the hell out of there. Fact of the matter, is that psychological conditioning is what keeps most slaves from revolting, its not just the whips and the chains and the fear of punishment (which is a form of psychological manipulation, I might add).

There's a reason slaves were given days off at times in a certain society. its part of the psychological conditioning. If that conditioning is broken (not always hard to do), then they attempt to escape or revolt.

If you got 100 slaves out in the fields, how many would run if they were conditioned to believe that they would be killed as soon as they passed the boundary of the property? Doesn't matter if it was a lie or not, you instill fear into them to the point where it becomes habit to obey and it makes a slave owner's job far easier.

To be clear, I wasn't arguing with where you said that psychology was an important aspect of slavery - I agree with you that far. I was arguing with the part I quoted, where we take that correct observation and from it conclude:


If a slave no longer views himself as a slave, then he's gained the power to break free.

If we plug this conclusion into a model of history, it will suggest things that don't match observed reality. Fantasy. It gives the wrong answers. So we need to backtrack to the correct points about the importance of psychology and fear and such without taking the wrong turn that leads to viewing the institution as somehow built on air.

So I backtrack to psychology and then take a different turn. The psychology isn't based on a trick. Yes, the master wants the slave to be governed by fear, but he achieves that not by tricking him into thinking the master is stronger than he really is, but by making sure the infrastructure is genuinely in place that if all 100 of those field slaves bolt at once, 99 or so won't make it and can look forward to being tortured to death, or, even worse and rather more likely, tortured not to death (it's a rare slave system in which slaves are cheap).

So yes, the master had an interest in making slaves think that running away or resisting was pretty hopeless. Generally he didn't try to do this by deceiving them with psychological manipulation. He did it by making it actually pretty hopeless to run away and rubbing the slave's face in how actually hopeless it was. Why do you think masters so often taunted slaves as runaways and practically dared them to try it? That's not someone trying not to disturb a carefully crafted illusion of helplessness, it's someone looking for a chance to hammer in a reality.

So you're not trying to teach the slave a lie, you're trying to show him a truth, that escape is a colossally long shot and much more likely means getting hurt badly. Once he learns that escape is really a long shot and being tortured for trying isn't, you don't have to waste both of your time punishing him for trying and failing.

Illusion, deception, lies... not part of it in any substantial way.

I hope the respects in which I agree and the respects in which I disagree with you are now clearer.


a) Truth be told, I'm not even sure why this mental flip to seeing themselves as free people is even necessary at all for successful slave resistance, in those cases where slaves did successfully get away or otherwise resist. Much less the most important step.
b) I see that you edited and expanded your post at some point after I had already started replying. I will look at the edited post and I may make corresponding edits to this post if it seems that I should, but I am going to bed now.

Satinavian
2018-07-17, 01:58 AM
That's...arguing from parody, actually. In classic D&D, said paladin is justified because those monsters ARE evil, and HAVE done horrid things, and are usually either planning additional horrid things, or otherwise are perpetuating them. It's only in reductions of the game to silliness, with all nuance and backstory ripped out to service a hack-n-slash style of play that wouldn't care about the question being discussed here, that your description holds any real accuracy.Killing evil people unprovoked is murder and just evil. That is even far more obvious than the slavery thing.

Being evil doesn't warrant death. Particular crimes might lead to such punishment. And preventing some other evil stuff might call for deadly violence if there is an immediate known threat and more peaceful options are not available.

But to make killing those evil beings justified, you would have to explore their motives, actions, earlier wrongdoings etc. You have to use game time to do so to make it acceptable.

There is not such a thing as an acceptable target aside from mabe undead (which are not technically killed, only destroyed which maybe doesn't make it murder) or fiends (which are technically most of the time only banished and otherwise also full of strange alignment logic)


But once parts of society have broken that path - when abolitionism is a big deal in the world:I have precicely never been in a game where abolitionism was a thing. That would thus neer be a reasonable assumption for me. Maybe part of Galorion has it but i rarely play on Galorion and did not hear of that before.


But going back to "slavery is ownership of people and thus evil". That is the central core of slavery alignment. Everyone who can agree on that can't justify slavery. It is also irrelevant what kind of slavery is actually practiced.

Now :
Why is owning people wrong ?
That is not explained in D&D books. It comes from real worls ethics. Precicely it comes from two central ideas :

1) There exists something like "natural rights". Right of ownership of oneself is one of them. Every human starts with it. Children are not owned by their parents nor by owners or parents nor by state or other authority.

2) Some rights are inalienable. Ownership of oneself is one of them. Humans don't have the freedom to sell themself nor can they lose their own property right as form of punishment.

That is real world stuff. 17th century-18th century stuff. You have a couple of forerunners which are mostly concerned with matters of religion and soul and how unfree people are still responsible for their own soul, but the main moral arguments against slavery instead of against cruel practices evolved really that late. Yes, it took even far longer to actually apply those ideas and get rid of slavery/serfdom in most countries. But the timespan where slavery was seen as fundamentally wrong by most philosophers and not yet abolished, was actually really short for an institution that is at least four millenia old.


I don't think that is fitting for most fantasy systems. I don't apply anachronistic social ideas any more than i apply anachronistic scientific ideas. PC won't have a sudden inspiration and come up with human rights any more than they have a sudden inspiration and come up with a working steam engine.

But that means people in most fantasy worlds often lack the philosophical groundwork to argue that slavery is bad in itself. That doesn't mena that it can't be evil when their is cosmic Good and cosmic Evil. But when asked why it is evil, the answer would have to be something nebulous like "Maybe the Gods don't like it ? Dunno". If people even know it counts as cosmic evil, which is not a given.

Max_Killjoy
2018-07-17, 08:27 AM
Thats more hypnotism than psychological conditioning. Psychological conditioning is getting someone used to and accustomed to a situation through manipulation. There is a big difference.

And, the Dai Lee were using it to maintain order and power. In other words, it was specifically designed to be corrupt.

...

Oh, you hit the thing from Avatar.

No, the REAL Laogai, from real China -- penal labor, "reform through labor", "reeducation through labor". That is, the state using prisoners as slaves to run state-owned factories.

Segev
2018-07-17, 08:39 AM
Killing evil people unprovoked is murder and just evil. That is even far more obvious than the slavery thing.
Never said otherwise. You’re still trying to force it into a parodic model.

In the classic style of game, one of two things is generally true: the dungeon exists in a state of war with the nearby locale, or the denizens have done something specific that requires response to prevent the innocent townsfolk from being victimized.

I get very tired of the pretense that players are generally blind to implications that are smugly pointed out be folks who have to make up pastiches of games that strip out the fluff to remove all justification for the player characters’ actions.

“John McClain is a monster who murdered a bunch of people during their private Christmas Party because he didn’t want to be there,” is a similarly accurate presentation of Die Hard.

Kader
2018-07-17, 08:47 AM
I have precicely never been in a game where abolitionism was a thing. That would thus neer be a reasonable assumption for me. Maybe part of Galorion has it but i rarely play on Galorion and did not hear of that before.

Welcome to Andoran, birthplace of freeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom! (https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Andoran#Andoran_and_slavery)

Andoran is the main Golarion nation seeking to abolish slavery everywhere (rather than just inside its own borders), but per James Jacobs, Paizo's creative director, for countries that don't state anything explicitly, any nation with Good in its alignment listing has abolished slavery (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i85b?So-where-is-Slavery-practiced#6).

For underground railroads, Bellflower Network (https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Bellflower_Network).

Satinavian
2018-07-17, 10:09 AM
Never said otherwise. You’re still trying to force it into a parodic model.No.

I am just still annoyed by players and GMs treating alignments as basically team colors to circumvent any need to build up a conflict or justify it and get right to the fighting. That does happen and i hate it.

It is not my wish to characterize that way to play as "normal" and be smug about the hypocricy in calling those murderous freaks good.

In classical D&D a paladin is NOT justified in killing monsters just because they are evil.

If you have a paladin in your group, you probably do include conflicts where he can apply his rightful violent anger as a GM. But if you are not doing so, if those evil persons/ monsters are just part of the scenery the paladin is not allowed to kill them.

MrSandman
2018-07-17, 11:02 AM
That's...arguing from parody, actually. In classic D&D, said paladin is justified because those monsters ARE evil, and HAVE done horrid things, and are usually either planning additional horrid things, or otherwise are perpetuating them. It's only in reductions of the game to silliness, with all nuance and backstory ripped out to service a hack-n-slash style of play that wouldn't care about the question being discussed here, that your description holds any real accuracy.

Treasure hunting is a valid reason for adventuring in D&D for all alignments (maybe a Paladin should be doing something better with her time, though), and many dungeons include neutral sentient creatures that's perfectly fine to kill.

All this is to say that alignment in D&D is extremely muddy at best. Discussing how slavery and LG alignment relate is very good and interesting. Ultimately, however, D&D alignment is bogus and any moral/philosophical discussion can only go so far until it reaches a dead end. This discussion reached it in page three.

Durzan
2018-07-17, 12:00 PM
...

Oh, you hit the thing from Avatar.

No, the REAL Laogai, from real China -- penal labor, "reform through labor", "reeducation through labor". That is, the state using prisoners as slaves to run state-owned factories.

But in that instance, we are specifically dealing with communist China, which has a completely different economic system than the capitalist economy assumed to be happening in your standard fantasy nation or city-state.

Also, you could make a strong case for the Chinese government to be Lawful Evil in nature at worst, and Lawful Neutral at the absolute best, though I'd argue LE as they deliberately trample on the natural rights of man whenever its convenient.

A truly LG society would more than likely respect natural rights, and would tailor their system of slavery/indentured servitude/prisoner work camps accordingly.

HOWEVER, I will acknowledge that such a system would be prone to corruption like all human social creations are. If such a society isn't diligent, I could easily see corruption in the economy, justice system, and government could potentially cause a slow decline in the nation's morals over time. But then, thats likely to occur in all societies if given enough time for the wrong people to gain power.

But then, that ties back into my original point that all forms of society are in a sense a form of slavery maintained through more insidious and subtle means than what we typically define as being slavery.

Durzan
2018-07-17, 12:08 PM
To be clear, I wasn't arguing with where you said that psychology was an important aspect of slavery - I agree with you that far. I was arguing with the part I quoted, where we take that correct observation and from it conclude:

If we plug this conclusion into a model of history, it will suggest things that don't match observed reality. Fantasy. It gives the wrong answers. So we need to backtrack to the correct points about the importance of psychology and fear and such without taking the wrong turn that leads to viewing the institution as somehow built on air.

So I backtrack to psychology and then take a different turn. The psychology isn't based on a trick. Yes, the master wants the slave to be governed by fear, but he achieves that not by tricking him into thinking the master is stronger than he really is, but by making sure the infrastructure is genuinely in place that if all 100 of those field slaves bolt at once, 99 or so won't make it and can look forward to being tortured to death, or, even worse and rather more likely, tortured not to death (it's a rare slave system in which slaves are cheap).

So yes, the master had an interest in making slaves think that running away or resisting was pretty hopeless. Generally he didn't try to do this by deceiving them with psychological manipulation. He did it by making it actually pretty hopeless to run away and rubbing the slave's face in how actually hopeless it was. Why do you think masters so often taunted slaves as runaways and practically dared them to try it? That's not someone trying not to disturb a carefully crafted illusion of helplessness, it's someone looking for a chance to hammer in a reality.

So you're not trying to teach the slave a lie, you're trying to show him a truth, that escape is a colossally long shot and much more likely means getting hurt badly. Once he learns that escape is really a long shot and being tortured for trying isn't, you don't have to waste both of your time punishing him for trying and failing.

Illusion, deception, lies... not part of it in any substantial way.

I hope the respects in which I agree and the respects in which I disagree with you are now clearer.


a) Truth be told, I'm not even sure why this mental flip to seeing themselves as free people is even necessary at all for successful slave resistance, in those cases where slaves did successfully get away or otherwise resist. Much less the most important step.
b) I see that you edited and expanded your post at some point after I had already started replying. I will look at the edited post and I may make corresponding edits to this post if it seems that I should, but I am going to bed now.

Well, there's more than one form of psychological manipulation. You can give people the illusion of freedom, like what happens in many modern day societies; you can use brutality and fear to try and break their mind (yes that is a form of crude psychological manipulation); you can try and make them feel like they are indebted to you; you can try and make them think that slavery is normal and in some circumstances even better than being free, and so forth.

There are many ways to put someone into bondage, some of them is direct, others more indirect. At the end of the day, My overall point was that there really is very little technical difference from being a free man or a slave when you actually break it down.... and thus both are in a sense an illusion. All societies significantly influence their citizens to act in certain ways, which is a form of manipulation of the psyche. What we call slavery is just one term for a specific subform of said manupulation.

Now, there is also Physical and Emotional manipulation, but these are often what is used to bring about or supplement the Psychological manipulation.

I'm essentially saying that our definition of slavery is way too narrow, and that societies themselves enslave the public... some more than others, but still.

Roland St. Jude
2018-07-17, 04:31 PM
Sheriff: This thread is a mess of real world politics and religion references.