evil that thinks its good

[Torpin]

anyone ever play a character who was evil, knew many of their actions were evil, but thought the ends justified the means and were therefor good.

[chimaeraUndying]

A lot of people have played lawful evil characters, yes.

[PhantasyPen]

Are we talking about in-character or out-of-character? Because I've seen examples of both and the second one never ends well.

[atemu1234]

Evil that thinks it's good is a classic archetype. It even gets a shoutout in BoVD, I'm pretty sure anyone who plays a variety of character archetypes has played one at least once.

Not all evil characters can pull off, "I'm Evil and I know it", after all.

[Malphegor]

Evil that thinks it's good is a classic archetype. It even gets a shoutout in BoVD, I'm pretty sure anyone who plays a variety of character archetypes has played one at least once.

Not all evil characters can pull off, "I'm Evil and I know it", after all.

I think the only way to do the ‘evil and know it’ bit ampngst heroiccharacters is with affable evil. More M Bison or Brian Blessed in a villain role. You love life. You’re cheerful! You send people to be executed with hammy oration and dramatic flair.

You know you’re evil, but the positive vibes people get off of you make them hesitate killing you.

[Ken Murikumo]

I have a religious faction in my current campaign that fall into this category. The idea is they are so "good" that by contrast everyone else is an evil heretic worthy of purging. This has undoubtedly created friction with the PCs. The zinger is that even after committing genocide and wiping whole planets, they never register as evil to detection spells because of their conviction (as the DM i have the power to do this for story purposes).

[Sian]

I would argue that it's easy for quite a few LE to have such a 'warped' view of how to define good (at least in and so far that we doesn't involve physical manifestations of alignments) that they conflate it with law&order which they have no problem with or even actively promote

[Jowgen]

For a delusion to thrive, other, more rational ideas, must be rejected.

First up, the character needs to convince themself that objective measures of Good/Evil are wrong about them for some reason. Usually that they themself are somehow special/exempt or that the whole idea of objective alignment is a conspiracy of some kind. E.g. "That holy sword hurts me because it is powered by Pelor, who's actually the evil Burning Hate".

Then the character needs to use similar mental acrobatics to reject/discount/disregard the opinions of other individuals (even Gods) who claim that their behaviour/outlook is evil. Thinking that they're misguided, being deceived by a more powerful entity, or are in fact trying to deceive them into doubting is one way.

Both of these usually go with a personal heroic narrative, in which the character perceives themself as the one truly sane and good person in the world, who knows what is best for everyone and is just trying to do right/fulfill their destiny/save the cheerleader/world.

Take these three elements and you can have a character who can do just about anything while remaining utterly convinced that they are in fact super duper good. In their eyes, the Jedi can be evil and killing younglings is totally acceptable.

Do note that this sort of narrative moral delusion is not a sane/insane dichotomy or even a gradient. Every sentient thing is delusional on some levels, it's just a question of how well one's delusional patterns match everyone else's. If everyone's on the same page, a delusion is simply common sense.

[noob]

Someone going around and trapping all the people with an evil alignment in a redeemery against their will would be objectively making the world a better place(and thus probably that person would believe he is doing good since after he acts there is less crime and the people behave better toward each other) but would be evil because he would be trapping people against their will.

[flappeercraft]

In general evil beings/people either justify their actions to themselves and are therefore good in their own minds or don’t care. The ones who don’t care are to be honest the outliers as generally ones actions are justified to oneself. For example vampires are generally evil due to their negative energy connection, draining blood, attacking people, etc. But they do so out of self preservation.

[Clistenes]

For a delusion to thrive, other, more rational ideas, must be rejected.

First up, the character needs to convince themself that objective measures of Good/Evil are wrong about them for some reason. Usually that they themself are somehow special/exempt or that the whole idea of objective alignment is a conspiracy of some kind. E.g. "That holy sword hurts me because it is powered by Pelor, who's actually the evil Burning Hate".

Then the character needs to use similar mental acrobatics to reject/discount/disregard the opinions of other individuals (even Gods) who claim that their behaviour/outlook is evil. Thinking that they're misguided, being deceived by a more powerful entity, or are in fact trying to deceive them into doubting is one way.

Both of these usually go with a personal heroic narrative, in which the character perceives themself as the one truly sane and good person in the world, who knows what is best for everyone and is just trying to do right/fulfill their destiny/save the cheerleader/world.

Take these three elements and you can have a character who can do just about anything while remaining utterly convinced that they are in fact super duper good. In their eyes, the Jedi can be evil and killing younglings is totally acceptable.

Do note that this sort of narrative moral delusion is not a sane/insane dichotomy or even a gradient. Every sentient thing is delusional on some levels, it's just a question of how well one's delusional patterns match everyone else's. If everyone's on the same page, a delusion is simply common sense.

I have always liked the idea that evil groups/cultures/species don't use Detect Evil/Detect Good spells...

Think about it... why would an orc or drow care if the adventurers attacking them are Good or Evil? Good and Evil humans, elves and dwarves kill orcs and drow all the same, so, why would they care?

At most, they would have something like "Detect Suckers", a spell that works like Detect Good, but would allow them to know if a foe is slightly more likely to take pity and lower their guard when presented with a show of weakness...

Evil religions would have spells that detect those opposing their own ideals. "Good" would be irrelevant to them. What they care for is if the guy in front of them is an enemy of their church (they could ask for the normal Detect Alignment spells, but they wouldn't care for them...).

Similarly, evil groups like Assassin Guilds and so wouldn't care if other people call them evil, because they have their own deities and ideologies that say they are right and what they do is right...

As for radicals who believe themselves to be defenders of Good while doing horrible things... many probably see themselves as tragic characters, their unsavory but necessary actions tainting their auras, but they know the gods will forgive them, because they are doing it for the Greater Good (plenty of characters like that both in reality and in fiction...). They would say "yes, I am evil because of my actions, but underneath that I am really, really good, because my goals are good..."

And them there are the nutsos who think they are still pure and virtuous despite doing absolutely horrible, despicable things... well, if you are able to delude yourself so much that you think you are saint despite killing, torturing, raping...etc., deluding yourself into believing that Detect Evil spells don't work properly on you too isn't that difficult...

[ezekielraiden]

Do note that this sort of narrative moral delusion is not a sane/insane dichotomy or even a gradient. Every sentient thing is delusional on some levels, it's just a question of how well one's delusional patterns match everyone else's. If everyone's on the same page, a delusion is simply common sense.

Oh come the eff on. Next you'll be saying the law of the excluded middle (a statement that has any truth value at all is either true or false) is merely a "common delusion."

As for my own contribution: Evil usually thinks it's Good IMO. The crushing tyranny of Lawful Evil is the virtues of Efficiency and Hierarchy finally being freed from sentimental restraint and allowed to fix the flaws in society. The callous destruction of Chaotic Evil is mankind finally being allowed to exert its will to power in and on the world, finally getting the freedom to do as it pleases without others unjustly interfering. Etc.

Under such notions, the assertion becomes that everyone else is enforcing a broken, flawed ideology that prevents what is desirable (for The Good is what is to be desired) and enforces much that is undesirable. So sure, your "Detect Evil" pings on me--because your rigid ideology has defined the outputs of that spell to be "evil," not because it IS evil. And sure, your Smite Evil hurts me--because it is a power designed by those artificially enforcing a broken ideology on thee multiverse, because I am a designated target, not because of anything fundamental about me or my behavior. Etc.

This, IMO, is one of several reasons why the allegedly more straightforward value monism is not entirely realistic or effective as a theory of value.

[DeTess]

In the standard D&D universe this is tricky, because "Evil" and "Good" are concepts that are objectively defined. Someone Evil would actually be able to objectively determine their Evilness.

However, in any universe where Evil and Good can't be measured, just about every evil person will have convinced themselves they're doing what is good or right, or at the very worst they're taking what they rightfully deserve. In most stories I've read, only the most petty of villains seem to do things 'for the Evulz'. Just about everyone else has their reasons and see themselves as either a hero, or a misunderstood victim.

I played a character in Shadowrun a while back that was undeniably evil. He killed a lot of people, and cared less than nothing about collateral damage if it got the job done. He saw himself as someone just trying to survive, and later as a just avenger of sorts, not as the monster he really was.

Likewise, I'm currently playing a paladin in 5e that's LN at best. He uses a lot of evil tactics (terror, intimidation, etc.) but they are all for the greater good. That Paladin would step between a group of marauders and an innocent without hesitation, but would then crucify the surviving attackers as a warning to anyone that would come afterwards. And yet he does see himself as necessary force for good.

[Maat Mons]

As for radicals who believe themselves to be defenders of Good while doing horrible things... many probably see themselves as tragic characters, their unsavory but necessary actions tainting their auras, but they know the gods will forgive them, because they are doing it for the Greater Good.

Nah, that's the halfway version. The hardcore version believes he will go to hell for what he's doing. Believes he deserves to go to hell for what he's doing. Does it anyway so that other may benefit. And doesn't believe that his self-sacrifice (vis-a-vis willingling damning himself) mitigates his evil-ness in any way shape or form.

[jdizzlean]

this thread of Villainous Comp (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?541650-Villainous-Competition-XXIV-Wrong-For-The-Right-Reasons) addressed this concept pretty well, you can find several different archetypes that all go about it differently.

[Crake]

I have a religious faction in my current campaign that fall into this category. The idea is they are so "good" that by contrast everyone else is an evil heretic worthy of purging. This has undoubtedly created friction with the PCs. The zinger is that even after committing genocide and wiping whole planets, they never register as evil to detection spells because of their conviction (as the DM i have the power to do this for story purposes).

I have a similar faction in my campaign setting, though they ping good because they worship and follow the dogma of a zealot angel-paragon, and thus get quite literal holy goodness as their powers. They're much more underground though, because almost every other faction hates them and doesn't accept their zealotry, so they become for the most part, glorified vigilantes.

[Raxxius]

Evil and good in d&d are objective.

Right and wrong aren't.

LE tyranny to tightly control the people so that they don't destroy the world is still evil if smite evil blows them up.

If anything in d&d wants to work out if it's evil or not can empirically test that hypothesis.

[daremetoidareyo]

For a delusion to thrive, other, more rational ideas, must be rejected.

First up, the character needs to convince themself that objective measures of Good/Evil are wrong about them for some reason. Usually that they themself are somehow special/exempt or that the whole idea of objective alignment is a conspiracy of some kind. E.g. "That holy sword hurts me because it is powered by Pelor, who's actually the evil Burning Hate".

Then the character needs to use similar mental acrobatics to reject/discount/disregard the opinions of other individuals (even Gods) who claim that their behaviour/outlook is evil. Thinking that they're misguided, being deceived by a more powerful entity, or are in fact trying to deceive them into doubting is one way.

Both of these usually go with a personal heroic narrative, in which the character perceives themself as the one truly sane and good person in the world, who knows what is best for everyone


Someone just accidentally gave a great Treatise on propaganda...

[Yogibear41]

anyone ever play a character who was evil, knew many of their actions were evil, but thought the ends justified the means and were therefor good.

Sounds like the Majority of player characters I have grouped with.

Gave up on anything with a G in it along time ago. LN is about as good as I get now a days.

Alignments in DnD:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_aQupiaCSA

[ericgrau]

anyone ever play a character who was evil, knew many of their actions were evil, but thought the ends justified the means and were therefor good.

That's the vast majority of evil people and characters, really. At least the 3 dimensional ones outside of kid's cartoons. I suppose most of them don't think any of their actions are evil, but most of them do believe their actions are harmful but justified. Heck that's what every single adventurer thinks, and the very small boundary between a good adventurer and an evil psychopath is that the good adventurer's violent actions really are justified. The difference between that and someone who believes his actions are Evil but justified is more a matter of semantics. Or justifying it slightly more due to some alignment mechanic. Heck most forum users are fine with casting [evil] spells and argue in favor of it.

I agree that playing an evil character in general is trouble. Partly because many players have trouble playing them 3 dimensionally, and partly because even when played properly evil characters don't fully get along with others. They're just more discreet about it. And that can often create real world conflict.

[Ashtagon]

Someone going around and trapping all the people with an evil alignment in a redeemery against their will would be objectively making the world a better place(and thus probably that person would believe he is doing good since after he acts there is less crime and the people behave better toward each other) but would be evil because he would be trapping people against their will.

I'm not sure that's the case. It would make law enforcement difficult, for example.

[Manyasone]

Nah, that's the halfway version. The hardcore version believes he will go to hell for what he's doing. Believes he deserves to go to hell for what he's doing. Does it anyway so that other may benefit. And doesn't believe that his self-sacrifice (vis-a-vis willingling damning himself) mitigates his evil-ness in any way shape or form.

This is the sort of LE I could live with. It does not justify itself, but make no mistake, it does so you don't have to do these things that are necessary. Because if not me, then who...

[Yogibear41]

This is the sort of LE I could live with. It does not justify itself, but make no mistake, it does so you don't have to do these things that are necessary. Because if not me, then who...

I played a LE Half-Fiend Paladin/Cleric/Ordained Champion of our campaigns version of Herioneous using the Heretic of the Faith feat. The point of the character was he fought evil with evil using Evil spells like Darkbolt and maintained an evil alignment so he could walk through high powered fiends abilities like Unholy Blight and Blasphemy without blinking an eye.

[noob]

I'm not sure that's the case. It would make law enforcement difficult, for example.

Redeemery turns people good.
So basically he puts evil people in it and out comes the same people but good(but trapping people against their will in a redeemery is evil).
How does it makes law enforcement harder to have no evil citizen?

[Ashtagon]

Redeemery turns people good.
So basically he puts evil people in it and out comes the same people but good(but trapping people against their will in a redeemery is evil).
How does it makes law enforcement harder to have no evil citizen?

If the act of putting people in prison is an evil act, then it is impossible to be lawful good. In theory at least, that's what police officers do with bad people, and they are supposed to be the good guys.

[DeTess]

If the act of putting people in prison is an evil act, then it is impossible to be lawful good. In theory at least, that's what police officers do with bad people, and they are supposed to be the good guys.

I don't think the alignment problem is with'put evil people in prison', but with 'put evil people in a prison where they will be brainwashed'.

[ezekielraiden]

Redeemery turns people good.
So basically he puts evil people in it and out comes the same people but good(but trapping people against their will in a redeemery is evil).

The assertion that "trapping people against their will in a redeemed is evil" is being challenged. That is, that sentence is congruent to "sending convicted criminals to rehabilitative prison against their will is evil," but that would mean all prison is evil, therefore law enforcement is evil.

My position would be that trapping someone against their will, with intent to redeem, is not automatically evil. It is evil if it is done wrongly, but that is precisely the reason we have things like courts, trials, rights, and laws: to ensure that, when punitive or rehabilitative methods are needed, they are only exercized in morally and ethically acceptable ways. It is not evil to incarcerate a lawfully convicted murderer for a morally justified sentence, especially if that sentence is conducted with intent toward healing and improving the individual so incarcerated, and ongoing vigilance for faulty procedure is maintained (e.g. if exhilarating evidence appears, it is speedily and accurately processed and a new verdict is rendered quickly).


How does it makes law enforcement harder to have no evil citizen?

See above. The assertion being challenged is not "IF we lock up all the bad people until they aren't bad anymore, society will be better." Instead, the challenge is levelled at "anyone holding anyone else against their will, for any reason, is committing an evil act."

Similarly, we accept that it is not evil to kill in self-defense, or in defense of another, if no other options were reasonable at the time. We accept that soldiers will kill other soldiers in war, and do not consider them evil solely for having caused deaths (even lots and lots of deaths; consider the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the firebombing of Dresden). More information besides "person A killed person B" is required before we can assert evil acts occurred.

This is not to say that we should not be skeptical. If all you know is "person A killed person B," you are correct, both in moral and in practical judgment, to be suspicious. But you should also not pass final judgment until you know more. Likewise, "person A trapped person B against person B's will" should be met with skepticism, but if you later learn person A is Police Officer Alice who "trapped" accused serial murderer Bob (aka person B) in her police car, I suspect your moral evaluation of Alice would not be that she had committed evil acts by "trapping" this (accused) muderer.

This, IMO, is more a dispute about law than about evil per se. Arbitrary and capricious imprisonment of others would be evil, as would cruel and unusual punishments of any kind, including incarceration. But incarceration itself? You will have a MUCH harder time convincing people that it is evil to send people to prison *in general.*

To be fair to you, it sounds like you specifically mean a person imprisoning others *for brainwashing* (which is generally held to be universally evil), and this person does so without any mandate other than "I want to stop evil people, so I'm going to, no matter what anyone else says!" Such a person is probably not Good, and very easily could be Evil. But the way you described them was insufficient to specify that behavior, vs. the behavior of (say) a police officer who arrests people for widely witnessed crimes.

[noob]

The assertion that "trapping people against their will in a redeemed is evil" is being challenged. That is, that sentence is congruent to "sending convicted criminals to rehabilitative prison against their will is evil," but that would mean all prison is evil, therefore law enforcement is evil.

My position would be that trapping someone against their will, with intent to redeem, is not automatically evil. It is evil if it is done wrongly, but that is precisely the reason we have things like courts, trials, rights, and laws: to ensure that, when punitive or rehabilitative methods are needed, they are only exercized in morally and ethically acceptable ways. It is not evil to incarcerate a lawfully convicted murderer for a morally justified sentence, especially if that sentence is conducted with intent toward healing and improving the individual so incarcerated, and ongoing vigilance for faulty procedure is maintained (e.g. if exhilarating evidence appears, it is speedily and accurately processed and a new verdict is rendered quickly).



See above. The assertion being challenged is not "IF we lock up all the bad people until they aren't bad anymore, society will be better." Instead, the challenge is levelled at "anyone holding anyone else against their will, for any reason, is committing an evil act."

Similarly, we accept that it is not evil to kill in self-defense, or in defense of another, if no other options were reasonable at the time. We accept that soldiers will kill other soldiers in war, and do not consider them evil solely for having caused deaths (even lots and lots of deaths; consider the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the firebombing of Dresden). More information besides "person A killed person B" is required before we can assert evil acts occurred.

This is not to say that we should not be skeptical. If all you know is "person A killed person B," you are correct, both in moral and in practical judgment, to be suspicious. But you should also not pass final judgment until you know more. Likewise, "person A trapped person B against person B's will" should be met with skepticism, but if you later learn person A is Police Officer Alice who "trapped" accused serial murderer Bob (aka person B) in her police car, I suspect your moral evaluation of Alice would not be that she had committed evil acts by "trapping" this (accused) muderer.

This, IMO, is more a dispute about law than about evil per se. Arbitrary and capricious imprisonment of others would be evil, as would cruel and unusual punishments of any kind, including incarceration. But incarceration itself? You will have a MUCH harder time convincing people that it is evil to send people to prison *in general.*

To be fair to you, it sounds like you specifically mean a person imprisoning others *for brainwashing* (which is generally held to be universally evil), and this person does so without any mandate other than "I want to stop evil people, so I'm going to, no matter what anyone else says!" Such a person is probably not Good, and very easily could be Evil. But the way you described them was insufficient to specify that behavior, vs. the behavior of (say) a police officer who arrests people for widely witnessed crimes.
We normally imprison people which does crime and not people which are evil.
Putting someone in prison just because that person have an alignment meaning that this person is more likely to do crime would be similar to deciding "We are going to throw all those very poor people in prison because they are more likely to do crime" just because someone is evil does not means it is right to imprison that person because maybe that evil person never did harm anyone.

Placing people in prison based on alignment without checking whenever that person did anything wrong or not is horrible.
Even more so if it is a prison in which they are mind controlled by skill checks to become good.

[ezekielraiden]

We put in prison people based not on being evil but on doing crimes.
Putting someone in prison just because that person have an alignment meaning that this person is more likely to do crime would be similar to deciding "We are going to throw all those very poor people in prison because they are more likely to do crime" just because someone is evil does not means it is right to imprison that person because maybe that evil person never did harm anyone and was not going to do so.

Sure, but this is different from what you said before. You said "trapping people against their will in a redeemery is evil." This is not a paraphrase, you used those words. That is *exactly* the same as saying "sending people against their will to rehabilitative prison is evil."

You are now saying, "sending people to prison solely because they detect as evil is evil." That's a MUCH different and much more narrow claim. You will find many people who agree with this new claim that do not at all agree with the previous claim, because the previous claim was too broad.

So, now we have a question: is it evil to act to change a person's behavior before they commit a harmful act to others? In the most general case, the answer is no, otherwise teaching ethics and morals would be evil and that is pretty clearly nonsense. (No, I won't argue with people who do not think it is nonsense. Deal with it.) But incarceration without acts that demonstrate it is deserved? Yeah, that's problematic at best, especially with the implied brainwashing that comes with it.

So now we get to an actually juicy question: what about people who *have* done harm and detect as evil, but whom society cannot, even in principle, convict? Is it evil to throw them in this hypothetical "redeemery"?

[EldritchWeaver]

Similarly, we accept that it is not evil to kill in self-defense, or in defense of another, if no other options were reasonable at the time. We accept that soldiers will kill other soldiers in war, and do not consider them evil solely for having caused deaths (even lots and lots of deaths; consider the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the firebombing of Dresden). More information besides "person A killed person B" is required before we can assert evil acts occurred.

The atomic bombing of the Japanese was done after the Japanese offered surrender, but with the condition that their emperor wouldn't be tried for warcrimes. Then after the bombing the USA accepted the surrender with the same conditions. So killing thousands of civilians for nothing is evil.

Firebombing Dresden was part of the strategy to kill civilians instead going after military installations, so the population would try to revolt. This isn't self-defense, so also evil.

[Ashtagon]

I don't think the alignment problem is with'put evil people in prison', but with 'put evil people in a prison where they will be brainwashed'.

If you're not prepared to redeem your prisoners in some way so that they can become functioning members of society, it is kinder to simply kill them.

[DeTess]

If you're not prepared to redeem your prisoners in some way so that they can become functioning members of society, it is kinder to simply kill them.

But there's a difference between trying to reform prisoners (which most prisons do, right?) and brainwashing them (which is what the hypothetical dnd redeemery would have to do to get a 100% evil to good conversion rate).

I think we can both agree that efforts should be made to turn criminals into functional members of society, I just think brainwashing them is going too far.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/d4fd148723445cc5cd21d23cfed35486/tumblr_inline_ncczknZfc31rmbvxm.gif

[ezekielraiden]

The atomic bombing of the Japanese was done after the Japanese offered surrender, but with the condition that their emperor wouldn't be tried for warcrimes. Then after the bombing the USA accepted the surrender with the same conditions. So killing thousands of civilians for nothing is evil.

Firebombing Dresden was part of the strategy to kill civilians instead going after military installations, so the population would try to revolt. This isn't self-defense, so also evil.

I was referring to the soldiers themselves, rather than the nation. But if those examples are too extreme, consider just dropping a bomb on a clear enemy target, containing 300 enemy combatants, where no non-combatants *are* located, nor thought to be located. In the context-free presentation of the original statement, this is 'a single person killed 300 people.' If ALL you knew was "this person killed 300 people," you'd be right to be suspicious of them. But if you had reliable reasons to think they had killed 300 enemy combatants in war? Less so.

Also it is factually untrue that Japan actually surrendered, or even explicitly stated they would surrender, prior to the bombings. It is now a matter of debate among historians (https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/debate-over-japanese-surrender) whether they would have surrendered if the bombings never occurred, because some evidence suggests it could have happened, but none of it is even remotely conclusive. No evidence exists that they actually gave surrender as you claim. Further, the Potsdam Declaration (http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html)--which set the terms of the eventual surrender--makes no mention at all of trying Emperor Hirohito or any specific person or office of the Japanese government, and indeed it is thought that the UK hoped to preserve the office of Emperor, possibly even with Hirohito still occupying it. I fear this has strayed too far into "IRL alignment" though, so beyond these statements of historical record and the Interpretation thereof, I will say no more on this subject in this thread.

[Max Caysey]

A lot of people have played lawful evil characters, yes.

I would argue, that quite a few LG paladins would fall under this category too...

[ezekielraiden]

I would argue, that quite a few LG paladins would fall under this category too...

IMO, YMMV, etc.: I would argue a lot of folks don't actually get how to play LG.

Because the stereotypical "Lawful Stupid" Paladin is pretty emphatically not Good and isn't actually all that Lawful either, because they're (a) rather loose about which laws to enforce and (b) rather desperate to do all the enforcement themselves, usually going for the absolute harshest possible punishment for everyone except themselves.

Few recognize the importance of humility, grace, patience, and kindness. It's like they see "Smite Evil" and think the only thing Paladins should ever do is be fanatically violent 24/7.

[vasilidor]

I have a religious faction in my current campaign that fall into this category. The idea is they are so "good" that by contrast everyone else is an evil heretic worthy of purging. This has undoubtedly created friction with the PCs. The zinger is that even after committing genocide and wiping whole planets, they never register as evil to detection spells because of their conviction (as the DM i have the power to do this for story purposes).

honestly not a game I would enjoy. if you just chucked alignments all together that would be better.

[Segev]

To answer the OP, it's actually pretty easy.

First, define yourself as "good" in your own mind. Define anything that disagrees with your position as "evil."

Next, characterize any amount of defiance of your position as "violence." This may take some effort, but gets easier when you decide that voicing opposition to you can encourage people to try to stop you from doing justice. Worse, it causes you emotional pain, which is just like violence because it can be used to coerce you into complying with their evil demands. Which you know are evil, remember, because they oppose your desires, which are good. Because you're a good person.

Now you're perfectly justified in using any amount of violence, yourself, to defend yourself from those villains who would hurt you and those who support you with their opposition. It's okay to do anything you feel you need to to quell them, because they're evil. Anything that might look "good" that they do is just a smokescreen so long as they in any way oppose your good and just aims. They're trying to fool people. In fact, if anybody accepts their "good" works without spitting on them and even rejecting their aid, those people are also evil, corrupted by the touch of the villains.

Since you're justified in anything you do to thwart evil, even things which would be the most vile of crimes coming from those you've determined to be evil are perfectly moral and heroic acts when you perform them, as long as you're doing it to evil people.

[EldritchWeaver]

To answer the OP, it's actually pretty easy.

First, define yourself as "good" in your own mind. Define anything that disagrees with your position as "evil."

Next, characterize any amount of defiance of your position as "violence." This may take some effort, but gets easier when you decide that voicing opposition to you can encourage people to try to stop you from doing justice. Worse, it causes you emotional pain, which is just like violence because it can be used to coerce you into complying with their evil demands. Which you know are evil, remember, because they oppose your desires, which are good. Because you're a good person.

Now you're perfectly justified in using any amount of violence, yourself, to defend yourself from those villains who would hurt you and those who support you with their opposition. It's okay to do anything you feel you need to to quell them, because they're evil. Anything that might look "good" that they do is just a smokescreen so long as they in any way oppose your good and just aims. They're trying to fool people. In fact, if anybody accepts their "good" works without spitting on them and even rejecting their aid, those people are also evil, corrupted by the touch of the villains.

Since you're justified in anything you do to thwart evil, even things which would be the most vile of crimes coming from those you've determined to be evil are perfectly moral and heroic acts when you perform them, as long as you're doing it to evil people.

That's SJW IRL.

[Calthropstu]

To quote south park, without evil there can be no good so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

[vasilidor]

To quote south park, without evil there can be no good so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

I completely disagree with this notion in its entirety.

[DeTess]

That's SJW IRL.

That's [insert any extremist movement] IRL.

[ezekielraiden]

I completely disagree with this notion in its entirety.

100% with you on that. The only way in which the sentence makes sense is "you can only be good if you freely chose not to be evil." But that's not the same as saying there needs to be evil, and far, far, far away from saying that it's good to be evil sometimes, which is total nonsense.

[Maat Mons]

That's [insert any extremist movement] IRL.

Aw yeah!

Let's get some temperance between the extremes of excess and deficiency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy)) up in here baby!

Doctrine of the Mean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_YsQu5tKEE) all the way!

[Anymage]

To quote south park, without evil there can be no good so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

The character who says that line is Satan. And while he's not lying per se (he's singing to himself with nobody around to persuade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo4XXm8OUP4)), he's still trying to justify things to himself. As someone whose assigned role is to be the face of evil in the universe.

And Satan may have an argument, when God explains that you need to perform this role as part of the greater cosmic plan. Without an omniscient, omnibenevolent architect who you're sure has thought through all possible angles (something vanishingly few D&D settings have, and the few that do rarely have him interact with PCs), the logic of "I kick this puppy because it's part of the grand cosmic plan" is pretty transparent insanity.

[DeTess]

Aw yeah!

Let's get some temperance between the extremes of excess and deficiency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy)) up in here baby!

Doctrine of the Mean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_YsQu5tKEE) all the way!

Linking the XKCD comic about the golden mean fallacy here would probably derail the thread even more :P

Anyway, it bears reiterating that in the standard world of DnD it takes extreme dedication to fool yourself, while in any world without absolute alignments (such as our own) most people doing evil will think they are good.

Yes, even (especially!) those people.

[ezekielraiden]

Linking the XKCD comic about the golden mean fallacy here would probably derail the thread even more :P

Anyway, it bears reiterating that in the standard world of DnD it takes extreme dedication to fool yourself, while in any world without absolute alignments (such as our own) most people doing evil will think they are good.

Yes, even (especially!) those people.

I am usually at my worst when I am totally convinced that I am right, and someone else is wrong.

[Calthropstu]

The character who says that line is Satan. And while he's not lying per se (he's singing to himself with nobody around to persuade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo4XXm8OUP4)), he's still trying to justify things to himself. As someone whose assigned role is to be the face of evil in the universe.

And Satan may have an argument, when God explains that you need to perform this role as part of the greater cosmic plan. Without an omniscient, omnibenevolent architect who you're sure has thought through all possible angles (something vanishingly few D&D settings have, and the few that do rarely have him interact with PCs), the logic of "I kick this puppy because it's part of the grand cosmic plan" is pretty transparent insanity.

I was joking, but I'll tackle it on a philosophical level. In order for something to be good or evil, it must be acknowledged that something is good and the opposite exists. There must be a contrast between right and wrong. In order for knowledge of this, *wrong* must be experienced or, at the very least, imagined. It can be said, in a philosophical context, that merely thinking evil is a kind of evil unto itself ie: thinking the unthinkable.

So for good to exist, its opposite must also exist otherwise there is no contrast and "good" has no context. This is outside the whole "good" being a matter of perspective issue. So to say "without evil, there can be no good" is, at its basest level, correct. Even if the subjective "evil" is mere thought, it must exist in some form for the subjective "good" to be acknowledged as good.

As for the song itself proving Satan is insane, wholly agree. It is hilarious, and I used the quote for humor purposes.

[ezekielraiden]

I was joking, but I'll tackle it on a philosophical level. In order for something to be good or evil, it must be acknowledged that something is good and the opposite exists.

No, no such thing is necessary. The Scholastic philosophers and theologians articulated a completely different idea of "evil." Evil in the Scholastic view does not exist. It does not exist in exactly the same way "dark" does not exist as a substance, or "cold," "stillness," "silence," etc. None of these things exist as entities; you cannot, in our world, point to an object or entity and say "that! That thing! Its essence is cold!" or "that! It is a mote of silence!" The fancy philosophical way of saying this is that, to the Scholastics (who remain important because, through St. Aquinas, their ideas define much Christian moral theory today), "evil" is not a thing, it is merely the privation (lack or absence) of good. Just as there can be no "speed of dark" or "energy of cold" IRL, because dark is a lack of light and not a thing in itself and cold is a lack of heat rather than a presence of coldness, there can be no essence or existence of evil because evil is a lack of good, not a presence of evilness. (And, for a few less value-laden examples, "clean" does not exist as it is an absence of dirt/contamination, "pureness" does not exist as it is an absence of mixture, "slow" is but an absence of speed, etc.)

Generally this is where I'd recommend some reading, but...well, while Aquinas was bloody brilliant as a theologian, his works are drier than the Sahara.


There must be a contrast between right and wrong. In order for knowledge of this, *wrong* must be experienced or, at the very least, imagined. It can be said, in a philosophical context, that merely thinking evil is a kind of evil unto itself ie: thinking the unthinkable.

Er...no? I do not need knowledge of starvation to know food is good for me. I do not need firsthand experience of vacuum to know that low pressure causes breathing difficulties. I certainly don't *become* starving by using the imagination so. It is true that Jesus said (more or less) if you covet a man's wife, you have committed adultery with her in your heart and thus need forgiveness, but that is a statement about fallen humans, not thought in the abstract. I can conceive of a thing as a logical or physical possibility without doing even the slightest evil. (Otherwise, reasoning itself would be evil, and as that would imply our faculties, made in the image of God, were evil, then God would be evil, but that is a contradiction if you accept the theory in the first place; and if you don't, we aren't even talking about the same stuff anymore.)

"Hot" is different from "less hot" (often called cool) or even "pretty much not hot at all" (cold), but these are all amounts of heat, not amounts of cold and heat mixing. Contrast, both literally (because dark is not an object/entity, it is an absence of light) and philosophically, does not require a scale that goes to infinity in two directions. An absolute zero, implying the existence of only one property and its *amount of presence,* is totally sufficient.


So for good to exist, its opposite must also exist otherwise there is no contrast and "good" has no context. This is outside the whole "good" being a matter of perspective issue. So to say "without evil, there can be no good" is, at its basest level, correct. Even if the subjective "evil" is mere thought, it must exist in some form for the subjective "good" to be acknowledged as good.

See above. "Cold" need not exist for heat to exist. Unless you can demonstrate why "good" definitely cannot work like "heat" does, the if-then of your argument is incorrect. That is, your argument takes the form:

1. If good and evil have contrast, then both good and evil exist as independent things.
2. Good and evil have contrast.
3. Both good and evil exist.

I have challenged the first premise as false: there is at least one way in which good and evil can have contrast yet evil does not exist as an independent entity/material/force/object. An if-then statement is false exactly when its antecedent is true and its consequent is false; I have demonstrated (what seems to be) a valid interpretation of the things in question which accepts the antecedent (good and evil are different/have contrast) but rejects the consequent. Valid responses include, but may not be limited to, showing my approach doesn't work (hence, that good/evil don't work as I claim, or that "cold" and "dark" etc. DO independently exist), repressing your current argument to not depend on this if-then (so my rebuttal is irrelevant), or producing an entirely new argument (again, making my rebuttal irrelevant).


As for the song itself proving Satan is insane, wholly agree. It is hilarious, and I used the quote for humor purposes.

Fair enough.

[Maat Mons]

I have challenged the first premise as false: there is at least one way in which good and evil can have contrast yet evil does not exist as an independent entity/material/force/object.

You seem to be using a deliberately obtuse interpretation of "exist." Calthropstu was quite explicitly using a definition of the term in which concepts can be said to have existence. Since evil is defined as the (relative) absence of good, then the concept of evil is necessarily defined as soon as the concept of varying degrees of good is laid out. This is true even if the idea of evil remains implicit, and is never formally given a name.

You two can argue about what constitutes "existence" if you like. But you're really just carrying out a semantic argument about the definition of the word. Nailing down the terminological differences between physical existence and conceptual existence isn't actually going to change anything regarding the points either of you is making.

[ezekielraiden]

You seem to be using a deliberately obtuse interpretation of "exist."

I...frankly don't see how. Especially since this isn't "my" definition. It goes back centuries, and has several real-world examples that actually behave this way (heat/cold, speed/slowness, light/dark, dirtiness/cleanliness, In fact, I was mistaken about my attribution; although St. Aquinas did discuss it in the Summa Theologica, St. Augustine was already discussing it as far back as the 4th century (www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf103.iv.ii.xiii.html). He uses sickness vs. health as an example, though we know today that it is more nuanced than that for that particular axis. (That is, viruses and bacteria exist and are causative agents of sickness, but if one were to examine, say, broken bones, "breaks" do not exist, they are disorder in the structure of the bone, which can be eliminated by restoring the original structure; bones do not exist on a spectrum of "brokenness vs. wholeness," where some amount of "breaks" get cancelled out by some amount of "wholeness, but rather on a spectrum from "zero wholeness" to "complete wholeness," and we either act to reduce the wholeness, introducing "breaks," or we act to increase the wholeness, eliminating them.)


Calthropstu was quite explicitly using a definition of the term in which concepts can be said to have existence. Since evil is defined as the (relative) absence of good, then the concept of evil is necessarily defined as soon as the concept of varying degrees of good is laid out. This is true even if the idea of evil remains implicit, and is never formally given a name.

You two can argue about what constitutes "existence" if you like. But you're really just carrying out a semantic argument about the definition of the word. Nailing down the terminological differences between physical existence and conceptual existence isn't actually going to change anything regarding the points either of you is making.

Not at all--because it's vital to the original argument that "good" and "evil" exist in the same way, at the same time. But "good" and "evil" do not exist in the same way at any time, just as "heat" and "cold" do not exist in the same way at the same time. I will, if it pleases you, grant that evil "exists" in the extremely loose sense of "you can make a sentence which describes this state of affairs," but that's not at all the same as the full extent to which good "exists" under the Scholastic argument.

Call it semantic if you want, but it really is important to know what sense of a word you're using. If this is the argument you want to take, then my reply is that if one accepts the original argument, one is committing the informal fallacy of equivocation, conflating different valid senses of a word and then producing erroneous conclusions as a result of that conflation. As defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Verbal Fallacies
These fallacies, called fallacies of ambiguity, arise when the conclusion is achieved through an improper use of words. The principal instances are as follows: (1) Equivocation occurs when a word or phrase is used in one sense in one premise and in another sense in some other needed premise or in the conclusion (example: “The loss made Jones mad [= angry]; mad [= insane] people should be institutionalized; so Jones should be institutionalized.”). The figure-of-speech fallacy is the special case arising from confusion between the ordinary sense of a word and its metaphorical, figurative, or technical employment (example: “For the past week Joan has been living on the heights of ecstasy.” “And what is her address there?”).

I have made extremely clear, through repeated use of terms like "as an entity," "you cannot point to an object," "amounts of <thing>," etc. This is not "obtuse," it is quite a common use of the word "exist" in philosophy generally and metaphysics specifically. And it really truly does matter which sense you're using at which time, because using a word in two different senses can quite easily ruin the soundness of an argument.

So, if you wish, my argument is targeted at the implicit assumption 0 (paired with what I called 1): "All things which exist, exist in exactly the same way." That is pretty emphatically false, and my litany of examples (heat/cold, light/dark, motion/stillness, sound/silence) demonstrates that this isn't unique to good/evil, but rather a pretty common characteristic of so-called "things" we take to be different, aka we take to "have contrast." There is no such thing as actual "negative temperature," when you rightly understand temperature as a measure of the average kinetic energy of a substance; that is why we have an absolute zero temperature, and we have the Kelvin temperature scale specifically for doing scientific reasoning/calculation involving temperatures. (If it were not for absolute temperature, we would have crazy things like lowering the temperature of an object eventually causing it to have infinite volume or negative volume, neither of which has any sensible meaning. There is no "you cannot observe photons unless you can observe the absence of photons.

My assertion is that good works by this principle. There is no "evil substance" and "good substance" which conflict with one another--and the argument being made depends on that idea, that evil has exactly equivalent existence to good. To whit, "In order for something to be good or evil, it must be acknowledged that something is good and the opposite exists. [...] So for good to exist, its opposite must also exist otherwise there is no contrast and 'good' has no context[....]to say 'without evil, there can be no good' is, at its basest level, correct." If "evil" is defined as the absence of good, then it is not correct to say "without evil, there can be no good"; by substitution, that would be exactly the same as saying, "without the absence of good, there can be no good," which is clearly false for any term you substitute in for the word "good." (E.g., "without the absence of 4, there can be no 4.")

Aside: it could be trivially true, but that would profit us rather little. One could argue that "without the absence of red, there can be no red" in the sense of "without places where red isn't located, you couldn't detect where red is located." But we already know--or, at least, I assume we already know--that there are all sorts of things which simply don't register on the moral good-or-not-good spectrum. A pie is not morally good, nor is it lacking moral good. It's off the scale entirely. Similarly, "the color blue," in and of itself, is not hot, nor does it have an absence of heat: it is not the kind of thing which is capable of possessing or lacking heat. So we already know that there are things which are "neither (morally) good nor lacking (moral) good," and thus we can have the rather trivial form of contrast requested without needing independent existence--conceptual or physical--of "evil." Likewise, there are things which do not register on the true-or-false spectrum, but "true" and "false" do have logically independent conceptual existence, e.g. a contradiction is simply false under all valid readings, while a tautology is simply true under all valid readings; it is not that a contradiction "lacks sufficient truth," it is that it has falsity, and similarly, it is not that a tautology is lacking in falsity, but that it has the property "true."

Or, to put all this another way: When I say, "I took a walk," is "a walk" a thing that exists? I can give it conceptual definition: "a walk" is when I move my legs in order to transport myself, usually on a closed path that returns me to my starting point. Does "a walk" exist in the same way as "a car," "a color," "a number"?

[Maat Mons]

Not at all--because it's vital to the original argument that "good" and "evil" exist in the same way, at the same time.

If by "original argument" you mean the one that no person in this thread has ever endorsed. But you seem to be positioning yourself as an opponent to Calthropstu. And he only ever mentioned the argument by way of saying "My refutation of the conclusion does not involve the refutation of this premise, because it is unnecessary to do so, and because refuting it would be no simple matter."

Seriously, neither he, nor anyone else here was advocating for the position you were presenting yourself as opposing.




Especially since this isn't "my" definition. It goes back centuries

Just because a famous dude, or even many famous dudes would like to define that word that way does not mean that any alternative definitions must be wrong.

Also, literally everything in that paragraph other than affirming that you and a few other people define the word as narrowly as you do, only served to describe the definition you subscribe to.

The trouble is, I already know what your definition is. So describing it in increasingly painstaking detail does nothing except waste both of our time. I'm telling you that you are using a different definition of the word than was being used by the person you quoted. Meaning you are arguing against a viewpoint other than the one he holds. Unintentionally strawmanning the opposition is not productive.

Moreover, even if you feel that Calthropstu was communicating badly, and that it's his fault you thought he meant something different than he did, it doesn't change the fact that you thought he meant something other than what he did.




Call it semantic if you want, but it really is important to know what sense of a word you're using.

Indeed, indeed. I couldn't agree more. That's why you shouldn't have just [i]assumed that Calthropstu was using the one very narrow definition of "exist" that you and St. Aquinas seem to favor.




[I]if one accepts the original argument, one is committing the informal fallacy of equivocation, conflating different valid senses of a word and then producing erroneous conclusions as a result of that conflation.

Precisely. Calthropstu did not want to refute the quoted statement, because there exists a valid interpretation of it. This interpretation doesn't need to be refuted, because it doesn't actually support the conclusion that Calthropstu was refuting. And the entire purpose of Calthropstu's post was to refute the notion that commuting evil acts could be construed as good.

The bit about how he couldn't technically disprove the premise was a fairly irrelevant aside. And it is severely unfortunate that you seem to be treating it as if it were his actual thesis.




Or, to put all this another way: When I say, "I took a walk," is "a walk" a thing that exists? I can give it conceptual definition: "a walk" is when I move my legs in order to transport myself, usually on a closed path that returns me to my starting point. Does "a walk" exist in the same way as "a car," "a color," "a number"?

This is exactly the sort of thing I didn't want to get into when I talked about debating semantics.

Anyway, to sum up. The argument made by a fictional version of the Devil on a comedy show is fallacious. All of us recognize that it is fallacious. There exists one definition of the fictional Devil's premise that is technically true. That definition does not in any way support the conclusion the fictional Devil was claiming it did. And treating Calthropstu as the originator of the very argument he was striving to debunk does him a disservice.



To double sum up. I feel like we each more so disagree with the manner in which the other presents his arguments that with the actual views held by the other. And I'm going to apologize because I think my last post (and the majority of this one ) comes off in a needlessly confrontational manner, while not actually doing that good a job of expressing what I think the issue is.

I regret the entirety of my other post. I probably could have saved us both a lot of trouble if I'd said "Please distinguish more clearly between the viewpoint you're opposing, and Calthropstu's own viewpoint." And I have a suspicion I'm going to regret parts of this post too, but I've decided to post it as-is instead of spending any more time on this.

[Calthropstu]

From a specific logical standpoint, nothing is good and nothing is evil. In order for good and evil to exist, perspective is required.

An example:

person 1: This puppy is evil. It bit me, destroyed all my stuff, caused a breakup with my significant other and if I give him up for adoption it will only cause havoc to someone else's life. Better I simply drown it.

Person 2: That person is evil, he is drowning a puppy. There is nothing that could warrant such an act. I will stop him and destroy his life by having him thrown in jail for drowning puppies.

Scientifically speaking, neither is evil. It is simply a matter of various colliding causes and effects. But from perspective, all three can be considered evil based on your perspective, all three can be considered good based on your perspective.

If that viewpoint exists, then either both good and evil exists from that viewpoint or neither exists from that viewpoint... as the desired outcomes are good and the undesired outcomes are bad. That which causes those undesired outcomes is evil. Or rather, I should say that which causes the LEAST desired outcomes will be considered evil.

In short: Good and evil do not exist independently, but exist within perspective. But to exist in perspective, both or none must exist.

So the statement "without evil there can be no good" is in fact correct.

[ezekielraiden]

Scientifically speaking, [snop]

Science is the study of what can be measured, counted, or subject to statistical analysis. It is the successful fruit of the Empirical Project.

Ethics is not, never has been, and as far as I'm concerned will never be, a science in this sense. "Scientifically speaking"--and I say this as a physicist myself--moral values are un-analyzable. You cannot apply Bayes' theorem or Fourier transform to them because they are fundamentally orthogonal to the kind of abstract object that numbers are. You cannot measure them with devices, because value-judgment (the domain of ethics) is outside the scope of such measurements. It would be like asking a chemist to produce polyphonic music, using only chemistry. At best, the chemist will look at you funny and wonder how you got there to request such a thing.

Science can only acquire truth by these methods, by math and measurement (or "observation," if you prefer). Value judgments are not part of that sphere. But there are questions--vitally important, interesting, useful questions--for which the answer cannot, even in principle, be obtained by measuring or counting. So philosophy will always have a place as a separate discipline.

Despite being a physicist, I'm very big on philosophy, done correctly. (Some of my current research is on philosophy of science, specifically the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it's incredibly exciting.) I can honestly tell you: science qua science has about as much to tell us about ethics as violinists qua violinists have to tell us about quantum field theory: they can construct interesting, sometimes even fruitful analogies and metaphors, but they won't reveal startling fundamental insights about the field.

Also Maat Mons: that was a surprisingly and humblingly gracious way to end your post. I apologize for doing much the same myself. Thank you for having the honesty and fortitude to be so frank about it. You have my respect; that may not mean much in this internet age, but it means quite a lot to me.

[Anymage]

We can talk about the need for Evil in a cosmic sense all we like, if we want to delve into theodicy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy). (Except maybe not here, since you'd be getting close to a lot of real world religious topics.)

That doesn't work so well for an individual character, unless that character happens to be personally instrumental in the grand cosmic design. Individual characters can be extremists who think that the end justifies any number of horrible means, or sometimes characters who actually do agonize but realize that some necessary evils do need to be done. But barring some very strange circumstances (you live in a balance fixated world where an act of one alignment can only happen if an equal and opposite act happens somewhere else in the world, or if you have indeed been tasked as a tempter by the one perfect overgod in the setting), being a jerk in order to make good things happen does not sound like a rational character motivation.

[Nifft]

This puppy is evil.

I bet it thinks it's good.

[Calthropstu]

Science is the study of what can be measured, counted, or subject to statistical analysis. It is the successful fruit of the Empirical Project.

Ethics is not, never has been, and as far as I'm concerned will never be, a science in this sense. "Scientifically speaking"--and I say this as a physicist myself--moral values are un-analyzable. You cannot apply Bayes' theorem or Fourier transform to them because they are fundamentally orthogonal to the kind of abstract object that numbers are. You cannot measure them with devices, because value-judgment (the domain of ethics) is outside the scope of such measurements. It would be like asking a chemist to produce polyphonic music, using only chemistry. At best, the chemist will look at you funny and wonder how you got there to request such a thing.

Science can only acquire truth by these methods, by math and measurement (or "observation," if you prefer). Value judgments are not part of that sphere. But there are questions--vitally important, interesting, useful questions--for which the answer cannot, even in principle, be obtained by measuring or counting. So philosophy will always have a place as a separate discipline.

Despite being a physicist, I'm very big on philosophy, done correctly. (Some of my current research is on philosophy of science, specifically the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it's incredibly exciting.) I can honestly tell you: science qua science has about as much to tell us about ethics as violinists qua violinists have to tell us about quantum field theory: they can construct interesting, sometimes even fruitful analogies and metaphors, but they won't reveal startling fundamental insights about the field.

Also Maat Mons: that was a surprisingly and humblingly gracious way to end your post. I apologize for doing much the same myself. Thank you for having the honesty and fortitude to be so frank about it. You have my respect; that may not mean much in this internet age, but it means quite a lot to me.

That actually was what I was saying. Good and evil do not exist from a scientific standpoint.

[ezekielraiden]

That actually was what I was saying. Good and evil do not exist from a scientific standpoint.

Is it that they do not exist, or that they cannot be analyzed? The two are very different things.

Edit:
As an example, colors cannot be analyzed in terms of sounds, nor can sounds be analyzed in terms of color. So does this mean that, from a deaf standpoint, sound does not exist? That from a blind standpoint, color does not exist? Or is it more accurate to say that those things are not accessible, analyzable, to someone who is deaf or blind?

Because I'm pretty sure you don't think color would cease to exist if all organisms went completely blind, nor that sound would cease to exist if the only perspective available to humans were the dead perspective. I'm arguing that it leads to erroneous reasoning to talk about whether or not something "exists" (in whatever meaning you choose for that term) solely based on whether a particular discipline or method can make useful statements about it.

Because in exactly the same way that abstract things like "good" and "evil" are not subject to empirical analysis ("science"), so too are numbers. You can't empirically demonstrate the existence of 3, it's an abstraction.* But you need 3 in order to conduct empirical analysis. So...do numbers "exist" for science, or not?

*there is a huge debate in philosophy of mathematics about whether numbers are "real abstract objects," merely names given to states of affairs, imaginary things that have useful application, or simply by coincidence working for other applications without any actual link to truth or meaning. This debate is outside the scope of empirical inquiry.

[Segev]

Speaking as an expert in computational intelligence, I know from experiment that you can create an evolutionary algorithm which can learn what we would describe as ethical behavior in various game theory scenarios. Most notably, the prisoners’ dilemma, where it learns eye for an eye and assumption of cooperation until proven otherwise.

So it is probable that ethics can be scientifically tested for its effectiveness. This is likely why enlightened self-interest looks a lot like altruism.

[Ken Murikumo]

honestly not a game I would enjoy. if you just chucked alignments all together that would be better.

1) Good was in quotes

2) We basically did. Anyone with even a minute sense of right and wrong does not align themselves with the faction. We use alignment as more of a mechanical requirement of classes (like monk or barbarian) and even then with a decent argument, i would allow a player to straight up ignore alignment requirements.

[Deadline]

I'm a fan of the saying, "No one is a villain in their own story."

Everyone, even the brutal dictator, believes that their way is the right way. Mustache twirlers are generally rare. Consider "the Operative" character from the Serenity movie. He knows that what he's doing is bad, and that there will be no place for someone like him in the new world, but does it anyway because he knows in his heart that his actions will lead to a better world.

Tyrants who believe that the strong survive and the weak must be culled for the benefit of all are doing things in a manner they believe will achieve a better result.

I like the mention upthread of M. Bison from the Street Fighter movie. He's more of your mustache twirler. "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday." :smallbiggrin:

[Segev]

Mustache twirlers are generally rare.

Hammy ones are a lot of fun.

Serious ones are hard to write well, but can be great.

There's a scene in the early Capaldi Doctor run of Doctor Who where he confronts the villain for sacrificing "worthless" people to an alien thing that gives him wealth and power in return. The Doctor demands to know why those people are worth less than the villain's own life. The villain gives a speech about how his wealth and power make others have decent lives and build up the British Empire.

This would've been a great place for a doesn't-care-that-he's-evil villain. Not quite a mustache twirler, but on that level of "so what if I'm evil?" self-awareness.

"What makes your life so much more valuable than theirs?" demands the Doctor.

The villain leans forward. "Because it's mine," he answers. "Why would I not value it above all others'?"

[Calthropstu]

Is it that they do not exist, or that they cannot be analyzed? The two are very different things.

Edit:
As an example, colors cannot be analyzed in terms of sounds, nor can sounds be analyzed in terms of color. So does this mean that, from a deaf standpoint, sound does not exist? That from a blind standpoint, color does not exist? Or is it more accurate to say that those things are not accessible, analyzable, to someone who is deaf or blind?

Because I'm pretty sure you don't think color would cease to exist if all organisms went completely blind, nor that sound would cease to exist if the only perspective available to humans were the dead perspective. I'm arguing that it leads to erroneous reasoning to talk about whether or not something "exists" (in whatever meaning you choose for that term) solely based on whether a particular discipline or method can make useful statements about it.

Because in exactly the same way that abstract things like "good" and "evil" are not subject to empirical analysis ("science"), so too are numbers. You can't empirically demonstrate the existence of 3, it's an abstraction.* But you need 3 in order to conduct empirical analysis. So...do numbers "exist" for science, or not?

*there is a huge debate in philosophy of mathematics about whether numbers are "real abstract objects," merely names given to states of affairs, imaginary things that have useful application, or simply by coincidence working for other applications without any actual link to truth or meaning. This debate is outside the scope of empirical inquiry.

Actually, you CAN analyze the number 3. It is an absolute, not an abstraction. A number is a count of things. If I take an apple, place it beside another apple then place another, I have three apples. We can change the name (ie, the argument presented in 1984) but the base concept of "three," or what we currently refer to as three, remains unchanged. This many items is 3.

If we now call it 5, and call 5 three, the core cocept remains unchanged we just call it so.ething else.

Good and evil, however, have no absolutes. The goal posts are imaginary, the concept itself a product of human hubris and imagination. It is determined via mob mentality, dictated by arious entities and never truly explained.

Even religions disagree on the nature of evil. But what is evil really?

Is killing someone evil? Some people say always to the point that they oppose the death penalth. Others feel it's ok when protecting yourself or others. Some believe only legal authorities should decide while still others believe other things entirely. We literally cannot agree what is evil.

Evil exists only from personal iewpoints. It is pure abstraction. An imaginary thing that people conjure up to make themsel es feel be5er. "I am good, not evil."

Same with good. It is a matter of perspective, not an absolute. It can't be measured because ot has no real basis,bonly imaginary ones.

[ezekielraiden]

Actually, you CAN analyze the number 3. It is an absolute, not an abstraction. A number is a count of things. If I take an apple, place it beside another apple then place another, I have three apples. We can change the name (ie, the argument presented in 1984) but the base concept of "three," or what we currently refer to as three, remains unchanged. This many items is 3.

But you didn't analyze 3 empirically. You assigned a name, a label, to a physical situation--granted. But you did not use empirical analysis to PRODUCE the concept.


Good and evil, however, have no absolutes.

This, and basically every other thing you have said on this subject, are extremely hotly debated topics. Numerous philosophers agree with you. Numerous philosophers completely disagree with you on every single point--including whether there is general agreement or not about what constitutes "evil" between different cultures/religions. And yet further numerous philosophers disagree with some, but not all, of what you said in this section.


It is pure abstraction.

Produce for me 3. Not 3 objects, not 3 the symbol, 3 itself--the thing to which the labels "3," "three," "tres," "三," "III," "три," etc. all refer. As soon as you can do that, I will 100% agree that the-thing-to-which-the-symbol-3-refers is not an abstraction that can be applied to describe physical situations.

And if you can do that, you shouldn't find producing i = √(-1) that much harder.

[vasilidor]

At work I frequently find myself helping people pick up stuff, not because I care about them or their stuff, but they are taking to long to get out of my way.
I frequently view the people who come into the place I work as horrible, to themselves and most everyone around them. they lie, steal, have no sense of hygiene, and threaten me on a semi regular basis. these same people are often bedazzled and befuddled by my displays of honesty, I do not chase them down to make sure they get their money that they left behind out of any sense of caring about them, but rather desire the reputation of being honest.
I work in a department store as a cashier and self checkout host, and frequently fantasize about attacking people with belt sanders.
my actions make me look altruistic, but I am in fact operating on the concept of enlightened self interest.
I honestly believe that if I did not need these people to help myself survive I would probably cheer if some cataclysm wiped them out.
so the question is: am I good, neutral or evil? (I am betting neutral)

[ezekielraiden]

At work I frequently find myself helping people pick up stuff, not because I care about them or their stuff, but they are taking to long to get out of my way.
I frequently view the people who come into the place I work as horrible, to themselves and most everyone around them. they lie, steal, have no sense of hygiene, and threaten me on a semi regular basis. these same people are often bedazzled and befuddled by my displays of honesty, I do not chase them down to make sure they get their money that they left behind out of any sense of caring about them, but rather desire the reputation of being honest.
I work in a department store as a cashier and self checkout host, and frequently fantasize about attacking people with belt sanders.
my actions make me look altruistic, but I am in fact operating on the concept of enlightened self interest.
I honestly believe that if I did not need these people to help myself survive I would probably cheer if some cataclysm wiped them out.
so the question is: am I good, neutral or evil? (I am betting neutral)

Sounds neutral, yeah. Your disdain for others doesn't actually push you to do harm, but you might derive pleasure from witnessing harm beyond your control, which is kinda evil. Seems to cash out as very slightlt more prominent evil than good, so if we're talking a NWN-style 1-100 scale ("evil" being 1-15, "good" being 86-100), I'd peg you at about 30, maybe 35. Still definitely Neutral, but meaningfully closer to Evil than Good. Your enlightened self interest is pretty strongly flavored with "I'd really rather not do this if I didn't have to." Given that social-obligation sentiment, plus more-or-less saying "if all the rules were suspended, I'd probably be openly happy of these people died" thing (cataclysmic disaster tends to weaken or even remove social order), I suspect you're either Lawful Neutral or True Neutral.

To put it another way: it sounds like if your social station were such that unkindness to these people weren't unacceptable, you'd do it at least some of the time. See, for instance, medieval nobility and how some members thereof treated the poor.

[Ken Murikumo]

At work I frequently find myself helping people pick up stuff, not because I care about them or their stuff, but they are taking to long to get out of my way.
I frequently view the people who come into the place I work as horrible, to themselves and most everyone around them. they lie, steal, have no sense of hygiene, and threaten me on a semi regular basis. these same people are often bedazzled and befuddled by my displays of honesty, I do not chase them down to make sure they get their money that they left behind out of any sense of caring about them, but rather desire the reputation of being honest.
I work in a department store as a cashier and self checkout host, and frequently fantasize about attacking people with belt sanders.
my actions make me look altruistic, but I am in fact operating on the concept of enlightened self interest.
I honestly believe that if I did not need these people to help myself survive I would probably cheer if some cataclysm wiped them out.
so the question is: am I good, neutral or evil? (I am betting neutral)

I think this is a very poor way to gauge your alignment. I mean, come on, this outlook is basically in the job description for cashier. It's bold & italicized for department stores.

[Segev]

A good person helps others pick things up because he wants to help. I would argue that even a person who does so out of a sense of exasperation that these others are in their way and the only way to clear them out is to help them pick things up is actually leaning "good," simply because they never have occur to them the option of attempting to bypass them and demand they come back when they have their ducks in order.

Now, obviously, that doesn't always work, and a neutral person would certainly help out rather than resort to evil acts like murder and other cruelties, because it's the most efficient way to help him get what he wants without actively hurting somebody. But don't overlook the fact that you don't consider ignoring them or cutting in line or other things that are not active harm, but just are denying them the ability to cause harm with their ineptitude.

I would venture to say you're Neutral leaning lawful and good from the description. You aren't motivated out of a love of the rules, but out of self-interest, but you never consider "cheating" the rules in a gross fashion just because you can. You value your reputation of honesty enough to go out of your way for it, rather than merely maintaining a believable facade of having done what is expected. You are irked by others inconveniencing you, but your first instinct is to aid them to get them out of your way faster, rather than to find a way to make them get out of your way on the basis of their inconveniencing you being their fault. Truely morally neutral people are more likely to seek to circumvent (without hurting more than by increasing the targets' delay) people who are causing them delay. Neutral leaning evil people will seek opportunity and excuse to circumvent others on the basis that they deserve it, while evil people will actively seek to harm such obstacles in humanoid form to punish them and to get them cleared out of the way faster and with the least fuss possible.

[Deadline]

Actually, you CAN analyze the number 3. It is an absolute, not an abstraction. A number is a count of things. If I take an apple, place it beside another apple then place another, I have three apples. We can change the name (ie, the argument presented in 1984) but the base concept of "three," or what we currently refer to as three, remains unchanged. This many items is 3.

https://i.imgflip.com/1fmt79.jpg

[Calthropstu]

But you didn't analyze 3 empirically. You assigned a name, a label, to a physical situation--granted. But you did not use empirical analysis to PRODUCE the concept.



This, and basically every other thing you have said on this subject, are extremely hotly debated topics. Numerous philosophers agree with you. Numerous philosophers completely disagree with you on every single point--including whether there is general agreement or not about what constitutes "evil" between different cultures/religions. And yet further numerous philosophers disagree with some, but not all, of what you said in this section.



Produce for me 3. Not 3 objects, not 3 the symbol, 3 itself--the thing to which the labels "3," "three," "tres," "三," "III," "три," etc. all refer. As soon as you can do that, I will 100% agree that the-thing-to-which-the-symbol-3-refers is not an abstraction that can be applied to describe physical situations.

And if you can do that, you shouldn't find producing i = √(-1) that much harder.
3 is a number.

Numbers are a count.

Counting refers to a grouping of objects.

One is a singular object.

Two is a singular object and a singular object.

Three is a singular pbject and a singular object and a singular object.

Numbers tell us how many things there are. In order to define the number three, you must first define numbers themselves.

Which means:

3 is a number which tells us we have 1 and 1 and 1. To define 1 is to say we have a singular countable unit. 3 is a singular countable unit and a singular countable unit and a singular countable unit all grouped together.

So, 3 is a number. A number is a unit to assign to groupings of countable objects. Starting with 0 and going to infinity in both the positive and negative directions.

So there ya go: 3

[ezekielraiden]

3 is a number.

Numbers are a count.

Counting refers to a grouping of objects.

One is a singular object.

Two is a singular object and a singular object.

Three is a singular pbject and a singular object and a singular object.

Numbers tell us how many things there are. In order to define the number three, you must first define numbers themselves.

Which means:

3 is a number which tells us we have 1 and 1 and 1. To define 1 is to say we have a singular countable unit. 3 is a singular countable unit and a singular countable unit and a singular countable unit all grouped together.

So, 3 is a number. A number is a unit to assign to groupings of countable objects. Starting with 0 and going to infinity in both the positive and negative directions.

So there ya go: 3

What is a "countable unit"? What even is "countability" and "unit-ness"? All you have done is state that "three" comes from two other abstract concepts (formally, you have given the set-theory definition). But how did you come to this idea of "sets"? Where did this conception of counting come from? What does "singular" mean except the (abstract) concept if unit-ness, applied to some specific example or other? Where is this "set" so I can see it myself, as an observable, physical object? The set is not the objects themselves, any more than a sentence is a word; a sentence can be made from words, maybe even made from a single word, but sentences are a different category of thing from words.(The set of US presidents is a grouping of presidents, but is not the presidents themselves. A set can never be equal to any of its members; it is a wholly different entity.)

You have described objects to which the descriptor "three" may be applied. But you have not shown three itself to be in the least bit concrete. Concrete things can be *called* three, but I see no object that, itself, alone, is the three of which we speak. Moral good seems rather similar to this: it can be ascribed as a descriptor to a physical, concrete situation, but try as you might, you won't find a particle of goodness any more than you'd find a particle of threeness.

And what exactly is a counting of √2 objects, pi objects, or i = √(-1) objects? Yet I am quite well informed that √2, pi, and i are all numbers.

[Calthropstu]

What is a "countable unit"? What even is "countability" and "unit-ness"? All you have done is state that "three" comes from two other abstract concepts (formally, you have given the set-theory definition). But how did you come to this idea of "sets"? Where did this conception of counting come from? What does "singular" mean except the (abstract) concept if unit-ness, applied to some specific example or other? Where is this "set" so I can see it myself, as an observable, physical object? The set is not the objects themselves, any more than a sentence is a word; a sentence can be made from words, maybe even made from a single word, but sentences are a different category of thing from words.(The set of US presidents is a grouping of presidents, but is not the presidents themselves. A set can never be equal to any of its members; it is a wholly different entity.)

You have described objects to which the descriptor "three" may be applied. But you have not shown three itself to be in the least bit concrete. Concrete things can be *called* three, but I see no object that, itself, alone, is the three of which we speak. Moral good seems rather similar to this: it can be ascribed as a descriptor to a physical, concrete situation, but try as you might, you won't find a particle of goodness any more than you'd find a particle of threeness.

And what exactly is a counting of √2 objects, pi objects, or i = √(-1) objects? Yet I am quite well informed that √2, pi, and i are all numbers.

They are not abstracts but absolutes. Abstracts have no set goal posts, whereas the goalposts of "threeness" as well as your other example sentences are all very well established and observable. A countable unit is anything that exists in any form in a singular form. Anything and everything, or even a grouping of things can be coalesced into a singular countable unit. If it exists, it can be counted. 3 lizards can each have 3 spines upon which are 3 edges. Thinking in terms of object oriented programming, all things are objects. Objects can be counted. Given the lizards, the edges are objects which are a property of of spines which are themselves objects and are properties of said lizards.

A countable unit is an object. All things are objects, all things may be counted. Countability is an inherent property of objects. All objects are a unit. An object is a thing that exists in any form, including the imagination.

Ergo:
Existence -> Object -> Unit -> Countability -> 3


If you want to discuss the nature of existence itself, well that's a bit more complex than I want to get into seeing as how philosophers throughout all of time have pondered and disputed it.

[ezekielraiden]

They are not abstracts but absolutes. Abstracts have no set goal posts, whereas the goalposts of "threeness" as well as your other example sentences are all very well established and observable. A countable unit is anything that exists in any form in a singular form. Anything and everything, or even a grouping of things can be coalesced into a singular countable unit. If it exists, it can be counted. 3 lizards can each have 3 spines upon which are 3 edges. Thinking in terms of object oriented programming, all things are objects. Objects can be counted. Given the lizards, the edges are objects which are a property of of spines which are themselves objects and are properties of said lizards.

A countable unit is an object. All things are objects, all things may be counted. Countability is an inherent property of objects. All objects are a unit. An object is a thing that exists in any form, including the imagination.

Ergo:
Existence -> Object -> Unit -> Countability -> 3


If you want to discuss the nature of existence itself, well that's a bit more complex than I want to get into seeing as how philosophers throughout all of time have pondered and disputed it.

You are using a rather unusual and idiosyncratic definition of "abstract," at least as far as philosophy is concerned. Abstract and absolute are not antonyms. All "abstract" means, as an adjective, is that something lacks physical or concrete existence. See here (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/abstract), here (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/abstract), here (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstract), and here (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/). (I didn't care enough to look for more than four sources, but you will find far more than just these.)

Absolutes are in fact pretty often inherently abstractions; an absolute is not dependent on nor defined relative to some specific index or coordinate system. E.g. an absolute truth in symbolic logic is "A or not A," which is an abstract proposition that can take for the variable A any proposition that can bear a truth value (e.g. "the Moon is made of green cheese," but not "blubber nitwit oddment tweak") Or, since you have some knowledge of computer programming, the Universal Turing Machine is an abstraction that can be implemented physically in many different ways (logic gates, dominoes, neurons, etc.) It is a very rigorously defined abstract concept.

As for the "goalposts" thing, I frankly have no idea what you're trying to say with either that phrasing or the word "abstract." The "goalposts" on threeness are far more malleable than you give them credit for; because numbers are not just counts of things. They are also orderings of things (e.g. "top three best video games" has a fundamentally different sense of threeness than "three apples," despite using the exact same word). Further, you have numbers as measures, which may be very hard to correlate to a count of objects (e.g. temperature measures average kinetic energy...but it is not at all obvious what "objects" you are "counting" because it is not just a tally of collision events.)

As for good? That's dead easy to give an unobjectionable, universal definition, though admittedly one that doesn't have much practical value. Good is that which ought to be done. Evil is that which ought not to be done. That which is neither good nor evil is that which neither ought to be done nor ought not to be done (in other words, it is "optional").

What specific things belong in these categories is a matter of debate. But the same applies to numbers. Is pi actually a number, even though you can't count to pi? Is sqrt(-1) a number, even though it cannot physically exist? It took Western mathematicians thousands of years to accept that zero is a number! If that's not enough to convince you there's a problem, consider the issue faced by the Pythagoreans (the students/disciples of Pythagoras, whose name is well-known today because of the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles). They believed all numbers were either whole numbers (what we now call "positive integers") or ratios of whole numbers (what we now call "positive rational numbers "), and that these were the building blocks of existence. Then one of their order proved, [I]using the Pythagorean theorem, that the hypotenuse of an isoceles right triangle (aka one where the two short sides are equal in length, like a square cut in half along the diagonal) *cannot* be an odd integer times the length of the short sides, but it also *cannot* be an even integer times their length either. Since all integers are either odd or even, this proved there had to be measures that could never be expressed as a ratio of integers (specifically, this demonstrates that sqrt(2) is irrational). The Pythagoreans threw a fit! According to legend, they literally killed this guy rather than accept that numbers didn't work the way they believed numbers worked.

So...no. Either you are simply wrong, or you're using terms so divergently from their usual uses that I can't understand what you're arguing for.

Edit:
If all things are objects, is 3 an object? Is pi? Where are these objects located, if they are objects? And if they are not objects, by your rule (all things are objects), how can we talk about non-things?

[Anymage]

#1: A meter isn't a physical object. There's still a great deal of consensus as to what a meter is, and a high degree of agreement as to how many meters long certain things in the physical world are. Sure, someone on the internet can try to be clever by insisting that they have their own personal, idiosyncratic definition of what a meter is. As soon as the uber driver tries using an idiosyncratic definition of "meter" (or "dollar", since currency values are also defined more by consensus than actual pieces of paper) to charge more than the expected rate, expect the internet philosopher to point to the value of consensus measurements.

Meanwhile, in the real world, good luck getting a clear consensus morality out of any disparate group of people.

#2: If we start talking about D&D instead of the real world, it's possible to go to a physical place made out of tangibly coalesced Good. Spellcasters can literally cast Detect Good, and have perfect consensus as to what that spell does or does not detect. As outsiders to that world we can point to holes in D&D morality. Natives of that world, where Good is a tangible and objective thing, will tend to be informed by the world they live in.

[Segev]

I'm pretty sure discussing whether "three" is abstract or not is outside the scope of defining how a character who is evil can believably think himself good.

[Calthropstu]

I'm pretty sure discussing whether "three" is abstract or not is outside the scope of defining how a character who is evil can believably think himself good.

The argument of three is to prove whether or not good exists as a quantifiable entity. My statement is that it does not. The opposing statement is that good is as quantifiable as the number 3. Proving 3 is quantifiable defeats that line of logic.

[Segev]

The argument of three is to prove whether or not good exists as a quantifiable entity. My statement is that it does not. The opposing statement is that good is as quantifiable as the number 3. Proving 3 is quantifiable defeats that line of logic.

...three is about as literally "quantifiable" as you can get. It's a quantity. :smallconfused:

That's me being pedantic. I desperately want to get in on this argument more seriously, but it's woefully off-topic, considering that you're disproving a choice of analogy rather than attacking the core point, which is that there is a claim that "good" and "evil" are things that can be defined and which have meaning. (I find it odd that, in order to attack the analogy, you're essentially assaulting the concept of defining "three" as a concept, but again, it's veering off topic.)


While there is a ton of nuance and room for debate over specific acts and actions, "good" and "evil" are not so nebulous that we cannot recognize them in general. They have meaning that is universally agreed upon, at least in broad strokes. Very much on topic for this thread, the reason you can have "evil that believes it's good" is because, in part, of the "specifics" that can be disagreed over, and in part because people can get so lost in the specifics that they forget to stand back.

Doing hard things "for the greater good" can be a good act, but the more often you find yourself justifying things that way, the less likely you really are serving the greater good.

[Calthropstu]

...three is about as literally "quantifiable" as you can get. It's a quantity. :smallconfused:

That's me being pedantic. I desperately want to get in on this argument more seriously, but it's woefully off-topic, considering that you're disproving a choice of analogy rather than attacking the core point, which is that there is a claim that "good" and "evil" are things that can be defined and which have meaning. (I find it odd that, in order to attack the analogy, you're essentially assaulting the concept of defining "three" as a concept, but again, it's veering off topic.)


While there is a ton of nuance and room for debate over specific acts and actions, "good" and "evil" are not so nebulous that we cannot recognize them in general. They have meaning that is universally agreed upon, at least in broad strokes. Very much on topic for this thread, the reason you can have "evil that believes it's good" is because, in part, of the "specifics" that can be disagreed over, and in part because people can get so lost in the specifics that they forget to stand back.

Doing hard things "for the greater good" can be a good act, but the more often you find yourself justifying things that way, the less likely you really are serving the greater good.

Psh, I'm Tau. I always serve The Greater Good. All those who do not believe so are obviously against the Tau. Therefor, you must be annihilated with extreme prejudice.

And fed to the kroot.