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Solo
2008-05-31, 11:49 AM
Not when they have been the victim of a brainwash when they were young.
Being as humans have brains, which, I assume, can be sued for introspection, any reasonably intelligent person is capable of re-evaluating his beliefs and changing them if they are not compatible with real world observations and logic.

After all, not all the sons of racists few up to be racists; many determined for themselves that racism was incorrect and threw off their shackles, so to speak, even though they grew up in heavily racist environments - you might call it brainwashingly so..

If a person has the ability and opportunity to change, but do not, and if it is blatantly obvious that the person's belief conflicts with reality, then I am afraid it is indeed a person's own fault for having whatever erroneous belief.

Blanks
2008-05-31, 11:51 AM
So what you are saying Solka, is more or less the following:

If:
People have free will about bigger issues, but not smaller ones.
They never find out they have been charmed.
You never charm in order to gain something material.
You treat them like genuine friends and not "puppets".

Then:
Its not evil to use "Charm person"

I think everyone can agree to that.

I just feel that its a lot of "ifs", and that any moral rule that depends on the subject knowing about whats happening is suspect, partly because it won't always be under your control if they find out or not.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-05-31, 11:53 AM
If a person has the ability and opportunity to change, but do not, and if it is blatantly obvious that the person's belief conflicts with reality, then I am afraid it is indeed a person's own fault for having whatever erroneous belief.

I'll give you that point. But you assume that they all have the ability and opportunity to change, that's two big assumption.

Also, somebody can be very, very, very brillant, but never actually have the capacity for introspection.

Ziren
2008-05-31, 11:55 AM
Not when they have been the victim of a brainwash when they were young. You are not born rascist or religious, but grew into it trough either ignorance of simply sheer lack of perspective.


Both of which is part of your personality, for which, according to your logic, you aren't responsible because it is exclusively shaped by your DNA and environment.



If he has the potential/capacity to do something else. Or wanted to try something else, then you denied him his dreams, or his ambition/potential, which is wrong.

Listen, I am not saying that using Charm Person to make somebody do things they wouldn't do outside of the spell effect is right. I am saying that Charm Person, merely to be friend, isn't wrong. You will not find any example when you force somebody to DO something they wouldn't naturally do that I'd say is a moral thing, because you are affecting their ACTIONS, which I find immoral.

Don't your friends influence your actions in any way by just being your friends?
I.E. if you were a homophobe and one day your best friend has his coming out you would probably (not necessarily) reconsider your attitude, wouldn't you? Note that this was an example of how friends can have positive influence on you. It's just as likely that they're having a negative one.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-05-31, 11:55 AM
I just feel that its a lot of "ifs", and that any moral rule that depends on the subject knowing about whats happening is suspect, partly because it won't always be under your control if they find out or not.

Well, they will simply think, in retrospect, that they spent a good time with the wizard. They won't realize they were charmed. I actually believe that, if the victim spent ennough time charmed with the wizard, he will actually grow to genuily like him, since the "good experience" always have an influence about how you see someone.

But, Blanks, it was the OP's question. So I don't see why we are argumenting if the OP's statement is immoral or not: you just said "we can all agree on that"

Dervag
2008-05-31, 12:00 PM
Confusing them will work juuuuuuust fine.I do not think you are using the word 'confused' in the sense I am using the word 'confused'.
___________________________


Would you like to be under the influence of Charm Person so that someone else can make you their friend?

If no, we can agree that Charm Person should probably not be used for the purposes that the OP described.

If yes, then well...If somebody were trying to overcome the initial barrier to acquaintance (taking "make you their friend") literally, I think I'd be OK with it afterwards if they turned out to be basically a decent and nice person in unrelated ways.

Would I want to be kept under that spell continuously? Not really, no, because it lends itself to abuse.

Would I want someone to use that spell to sleep with me? Well, if it were anyone I'd be basically OK with having slept with I wouldn't mind. But if it were such a person, they probably wouldn't need the spell- I'm a single guy, not a cheerleader.
_______________________


Perfume and charm person is NOT the same (would you object if all your spell slots were switched with perfume bottles?)They're not the same. I was the one who introduced this comparison, and my point was "If perfume is OK, and Charm Person is not, where do we draw the line between them?"
_______________________


yup. Since I the only thing I lost in the process is my so-called free will to choose whom I like (something we already have established isn't "that" much of a free will; you can't choose who you like and who you don't). I don't really think it's that much of unethical thing to do. You are all freaking over the "loss of free-will", personnally, I don't really think there is such thing (not on the mind-scape you think it exists, anyway). We are already conditionned by our environnement anyway.Human beings are self-editing; we are just about the only thing in nature that can deliberately change the parameters we use to make our own decisions. We can decide whether or not to do something on the basis of a seemingly relevant fact or not.

If you don't call that free will, then you've defined "free will" to be a chimerical fiction, and we might as well recycle the term "free will" to refer to something that can actually exist in the real universe. Such as the human ability to decide whether or not to do things, and to deliberately choose to ignore or consider new factors that we didn't pay attention to before.
__________________________


I can't answer that question, since I have not real knowledge of those schools of toughts.Yes, but I ask you to acknowledge their existence and to realize that Behaviorism is not the only school of psychology or philosophy. Nor is it the only "scientific" one, since it doesn't have more evidence supporting it than its competitors do.
___________________________


No, because you took the example to the extreme, which is a big sophism. In your example, you steal the life of someone. Even if you brainwash him into acceptance, you denied him of his life, his possessions, his friends. It's an immoral action.

In the case of Charm Person, your victim still has all that. Which removes the "immoral" aspect of it.You could use "Charm Person" to screw up someone's life, steal their money, or things like that. Con men would kill for the power Charm Person gives you.

Also, many people believe that they possess mental and bodily integrity, defined by their own control over their mind and body. Charm Person can be used to violate that belief. Even if the belief is a complete fiction, they still feel robbed, in which case you have hurt them greatly.
____________________________

SolkaTruesilver
2008-05-31, 12:03 PM
Both of which is part of your personality, for which, according to your logic, you aren't responsible because it is exclusively shaped by your DNA and environment..

... exactly? Err.. I mean, that was my point.. You don'T get to choose your toughts.



Don't your friends influence your actions in any way by just being your friends?
I.E. if you were a homophobe and one day your best friend has his coming out you would probably (not necessarily) reconsider your attitude, wouldn't you? Note that this was an example of how friends can have positive influence on you. It's just as likely that they're having a negative one.

Perhaps. But I don't think hanging around an homophobe will make me one, if I am not already one.
Same with rascism.

If a rascist if charmed by a black, then there is a good amount of chance he will eventually make the connection (black =/= bad) since he is EXPOSED to his hate object. On the other hand, if a non-rascist white man is charmed by a Klan member, there is about as much chance for the Klan member to "convert" him as anyone can "convert" a friend to political beliefs. Personnally, I find it quite hard.

I really think direct exposition can only grow your tolerance factor, while intolerance has to be argumented

Wulfram
2008-05-31, 12:11 PM
I'd make a distinction between the basic use of making someone into your friend, and the potential opposed charisma check.

The first I'd consider generally broadly equivalent to the use of tricks and deceit, while the second is the more like putting a knife to their throat.

Both are probably evil if used selfishly, but the first is in a relatively low level, everyday sort of way if you're not really hurting them.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-05-31, 12:15 PM
Yes, but I ask you to acknowledge their existence and to realize that Behaviorism is not the only school of psychology or philosophy. Nor is it the only "scientific" one, since it doesn't have more evidence supporting it than its competitors do.

Oh, I ackowledge them, all right. I mean, I acknowledge that other people may think different things than I. It's just that I have defined my own view of what the human being is, and I am proud to be able to articulate it. You can take it or reject it, but isn't the point of an argumentation?



You could use "Charm Person" to screw up someone's life, steal their money, or things like that. Con men would kill for the power Charm Person gives you.

Also, many people believe that they possess mental and bodily integrity, defined by their own control over their mind and body. Charm Person can be used to violate that belief. Even if the belief is a complete fiction, they still feel robbed, in which case you have hurt them greatly.


Yhea... so?
In the conditions said earlier, you are using "Charm Person" TO MAKE FRIEND. That's not screwing someone's life, stealing his money, having sex with him, making his thrall. All those things are immoral, since they are denying something from him.

Making "friend", in my personnal view of the world, isn'T denying anything at all. It's simply changing someone's view of the caster, one that the person simply did not had any choice over to begin with. Either he would have liked the caster, or he wouldn't. He had not choice over it.

Ziren
2008-05-31, 12:19 PM
... exactly? Err.. I mean, that was my point.. You don'T get to choose your toughts.

Okay, I made myself clear there. Affinity to break rules (whatever they might be) is, according to your logic, exactly as predetermined as everything else. Therefore I can't be held responsible for any action.



Perhaps. But I don't think hanging around an homophobe will make me one, if I am not already one.
Same with rascism.

If a rascist if charmed by a black, then there is a good amount of chance he will eventually make the connection (black =/= bad) since he is EXPOSED to his hate object. On the other hand, if a non-rascist white man is charmed by a Klan member, there is about as much chance for the Klan member to "convert" him as anyone can "convert" a friend to political beliefs. Personnally, I find it quite hard.

I really think direct exposition can only grow your tolerance factor, while intolerance has to be argumented

At the very least your tolerance towards their intolerance will grow. If someone who has actively fought against racism is charmed by a racist, then he will most likely give up that fight (even if his mindset won't change) because he doesn't want to anger his "friend".

Or another, more simple example: You're more likely to start smoking if you hang around smokers.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-05-31, 12:23 PM
Or another, more simple example: You're more likely to start smoking if you hang around smokers.

Owned! :smallbiggrin:

All right, you got me there. You are right. But I'd say, if you take the Law of Great Numbers, over all, more good thing will happen out of this than bad things. I still think it's a marginally non-unethical actions, but there is a crapload of conditions for it to be non-unethical.

Blanks
2008-05-31, 12:55 PM
you just said "we can all agree on that"Yes, IF the conditions are met, its not evil. I just don't think they are met.

I would say that if you used Charm person to avoid having to harm a person its okay. But using it to gain friends, or in other words, because it feels nice for you... not okay on my scale.

Then again, I have to differentiate between what I would let a player do ingame, and my beliefs offgame.

Starbuck_II
2008-05-31, 01:04 PM
\

You're fighting an uphill battle against reality, you know.

I for one always have a battle with reality. It is my ninja way. :smallbiggrin:

Collin152
2008-05-31, 02:09 PM
I do not think you are using the word 'confused' in the sense I am using the word 'confused'.


I think you vastly underestimate my natural powes of deception, manipulation, and other such devious methods of persuasion.


Also, it is totally possible to choose ones thoughts. I'm doing it right now.
Either that, or I'm far more insane than I previously believed.

Hectonkhyres
2008-05-31, 04:38 PM
For a real world thing to ponder: Going by some of the arguments I have heard, all government is innately evil. The whole system is based on the principal that you need to be intimidated into doing the right thing for your own good. The fact that we would all die in an orgy of self-destruction and madness is apparently irrelevant.

Hell, in one of my homebrew campaign worlds, all gods are evil. A god in this world is a massively powerful (but not quite omnipotent) being with a permanently active mindrape spell in place. That the god can not turn off. Ever. If a god tells you to have a good day, you damn well will have a good day. And most of them don't abuse their power/curse.

My personal opinion is that a human being, or any other creature, has no inherent rights of any kind. Not the right to vote, nor the right to free speech, nor to be something other than a slave, nor even to live. All these things are things human being got together and decided everybody should have. That the world is a better place to live with these freedoms than without them... that we would rise up and butcher any person or group who tries and take them away.

But consider this: Slavery is condemned because human beings are bastards and, almost without exception, treat said slaves even worse than livestock. If you had some impossible, infinitely benign and wise being who is considerate of the wishes of his slaves, many would have far fewer problems. Look at the Abrahamic god as sometimes portrayed: mankind is referred to as his sheep and he is still seen as benign. Its all based around the oath of fealty.

Flickerdart
2008-05-31, 04:42 PM
In that case, would it be ethical for me to brainwash someone into having no desire save to slave away in my carcinogenic dust mines for the rest of eternity? From their perspective, nothing is forced on them: They chose to work in my mines because they truly enjoy the activity. After all, nobody really gets to choose what sort of job they'd enjoy.
But this is your fault for making that order, not Charm's fault. Besides, it wouldn't work; Charm isn't that powerful.

Anyways, being Charmed makes you be friends, not enjoy everything you do. If your significant other asked you to slave away in said mines, you would NOT be happy doing it.

And if we're not talking about Charm, the argument is moot: Charm is the central topic here.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-31, 05:07 PM
For a real world thing to ponder: Going by some of the arguments I have heard, all government is innately evil. The whole system is based on the principal that you need to be intimidated into doing the right thing for your own good. The fact that we would all die in an orgy of self-destruction and madness is apparently irrelevant.

Hell, in one of my homebrew campaign worlds, all gods are evil. A god in this world is a massively powerful (but not quite omnipotent) being with a permanently active mindrape spell in place. That the god can not turn off. Ever. If a god tells you to have a good day, you damn well will have a good day. And most of them don't abuse their power/curse.

My personal opinion is that a human being, or any other creature, has no inherent rights of any kind. Not the right to vote, nor the right to free speech, nor to be something other than a slave, nor even to live. All these things are things human being got together and decided everybody should have. That the world is a better place to live with these freedoms than without them... that we would rise up and butcher any person or group who tries and take them away.

But consider this: Slavery is condemned because human beings are bastards and, almost without exception, treat said slaves even worse than livestock. If you had some impossible, infinitely benign and wise being who is considerate of the wishes of his slaves, many would have far fewer problems. Look at the Abrahamic god as sometimes portrayed: mankind is referred to as his sheep and he is still seen as benign. Its all based around the oath of fealty.

I wouldn't introduce Religion here, both because of rules, and because the perspective of the Abrahamic god changes MASSIVELY when you look at everything it is claimed he said.

Preeminent example: For the chance of having revenge on the hebrews, he offers Moses to void the pact with Abraham (Yes, he DID that offer) and to make a new pact with him. All the hard work would go to waste. Everything would have been for naught.

To me, that is the attitude of a very moody and untrustworthy being. Almost a con man. Not a good guy, certainly.

Hectonkhyres
2008-05-31, 05:46 PM
Oh, agreed, but thats a different subject. Lets try a hypothetical usind a god of a different type and personality:

Just picture a god in D&D, the only god worshiped on some world of the prime material, who decided to take care of the sapients of said world at the cost of a little of their free will. Everyone there is subject to the effects of a charm spell by him with no saving throw.

He is your friend and, with no choice in the matter, you are his. He basically lets you live your life as you wish but pops in to give you a little advice from time to time and perhaps pull your ass out of the odd fire. You end up living your life in a more satisfactory and less painful measure than you would if left purely to your own devices.

Is this god evil, a thing to be fought and slain by a group of adventurers and their resident Ur-Priest? It may not be a world quite suited for everybody, but is it a nightmarish thing that shouldn't be allowed to exist? This scenario is a larger scale version of what using charm for benign purposes is to my eyes.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-31, 05:48 PM
Oh, agreed, but thats a different subject. Lets try a hypothetical usind a god of a different type and personality:

Just picture a god in D&D, the only god worshiped on some world of the prime material, who decided to take care of the sapients of said world at the cost of a little of their free will. Everyone there is subject to the effects of a charm spell by him with no saving throw.

He is your friend and, with no choice in the matter, you are his. He basically lets you live your life as you wish but pops in to give you a little advice from time to time and perhaps pull your ass out of the odd fire. You end up living your life in a more satisfactory and less painful measure than you would if left purely to your own devices.

Is this god evil, a thing to be fought and slain by a group of adventurers and their resident Ur-Priest? It may not be a world quite suited for everybody, but is it a nightmarish thing that shouldn't be allowed to exist? This scenario is a larger scale version of what using charm for benign purposes is to my eyes.

Nope, he ain't evil. I'd classify him as neutral.

See, there's a reason to let children burn themselves with the fire (And then douse the flames and make sure the burn is very, very, very light). They have to learn from their mistakes, else, they'll just try and repeat the experiment when you're not looking. It sounds harsh, but trust me, experience is the best teacher you'll ever find.

Flickerdart
2008-05-31, 05:55 PM
Nope, he ain't evil. I'd classify him as neutral.

See, there's a reason to let children burn themselves with the fire (And then douse the flames and make sure the burn is very, very, very light). They have to learn from their mistakes, else, they'll just try and repeat the experiment when you're not looking. It sounds harsh, but trust me, experience is the best teacher you'll ever find.
Wasn't there some book on this? Where they had a whole planet of humans who evolved a particular trait doing that to the entire universe? Making fires not hurt, and injuries heal instantly and so forth. And then the being taking care of one planet dies or stops, and it screws them all over?

No, there definitely was a book like this. Some sci-fi book. I think people with that trait were called Slides, or Swipes, or something.

Dervag
2008-05-31, 07:06 PM
My personal opinion is that a human being, or any other creature, has no inherent rights of any kind. Not the right to vote, nor the right to free speech, nor to be something other than a slave, nor even to live. All these things are things human being got together and decided everybody should have. That the world is a better place to live with these freedoms than without them... that we would rise up and butcher any person or group who tries and take them away.Here's the problem with that interpretation, though:

You're saying that rights are purely constructed. OK. But if you do that, then you end up in the position of saying that ethics and morality is purely constructed as well, because in the absence of rights there is no reason to do or not to do anything for ethical or moral reasons. It cannot be ethically or morally 'right' or 'wrong' to treat a person in a given way, not if they have no rights.

But the point of the exercise in morality is to identify actions which are choiceworthy* for their own sake. Your argument then leads to the conclusion that no actions are choiceworthy for their own sake, because if such actions existed then we could construct ethical or moral rules around them. And there would be definable 'rights' with roots in those choiceworthy actions, such as "people have a right not to be stopped from performing an inherently choiceworthy action."

*"Choiceworthy" as in "it is intrinsically preferable to act in this way, regardless of external or practical concerns."

And that leads to a consistency issue. Your own words suggest that you do not believe that there are no actions choiceworthy for their own sake, because you talk about an orgy of self-destruction and madness like it would be a bad thing. And yet for that to be true, there has to be something about existence and sanity as opposed to destruction and madness. For that to be true, there has to be something to live for.

If I ask you "why do you want to live?" you will presumably have an answer. Either that answer takes the form "because I would rather live than die," or it takes the form "I have something I need to do that I can't do if I'm dead." The first implies that living is an intrinsic good. The second implies that something else is an intrinsic good: either your reason for living is an intrinsic good, or your reason for doing the thing that gives you a reason to live is, or... et cetera.

The fact that you have a reason to live, and to prefer existence and sanity to destruction and madness, indicates that you do in fact believe in intrinsic goods of some kind. But if intrinsic goods exist, they are necessarily not constructed- we can't just have created them out of thin air. To do that we would need a reason, in which case the good in question would be extrinsic- something we do for the sake of something else, and not for its own sake. And, as I said before, if there are intrinsic goods, then there have to be 'natural rights' that people have in order to pursue those intrinsic goods.

If it is intrinsically better to be sane than to be mad, then people have a right not to have their sanity mucked with, and so on.

Thus, your proposition that rights are purely constructed and do not exist naturally contradicts your proposition that sanity is preferable to madness. Or that any thing is preferable to any other thing. For there to be any reason to prefer one thing or another there has to be an intrinsic good hiding somewhere in the underbrush.

Did that make sense?
_________________________


Oh, I ackowledge them, all right. I mean, I acknowledge that other people may think different things than I. It's just that I have defined my own view of what the human being is, and I am proud to be able to articulate it. You can take it or reject it, but isn't the point of an argumentation?No, it isn't, not quite.

The point of debate is that you're supposed to have good and compelling reasons for the things you're saying. If you believe something that lots of other people disagree with, and that you don't have much evidence for, fine. But using that as the foundation for your entire argument isn't a good idea. In this case, your argument seems to be:

"There's no such thing as free will, so it doesn't matter if I use mind-affecting magic to make someone do or want something, as long as I didn't physically harm them."

The problem is that you can't do a very thorough job of proving that there is no such thing as free will. No one can. So this line of reasoning is almost guaranteed to get bogged down. If you want to discuss the philosophy of whether or not we have free will and what "free will" actually means, fine. But if you want your argument to be convincing, you have to start from basic assumptions that make sense to other people.


Making "friend", in my personnal view of the world, isn'T denying anything at all. It's simply changing someone's view of the caster, one that the person simply did not had any choice over to begin with. Either he would have liked the caster, or he wouldn't. He had not choice over it.Lots of people would argue, with reason, that I have plenty of choice about whether or not I'm going to like you when I first meet you.

Also, keep in mind a person may value the security of their mind and body from tampering just like any other possession. This is why rape is so widely regarded as a horrible crime. It's not the physical harm as such. It's the harm done to the victim's concept of themself and of their own control over their body.

Charm Person attacks a person's security of mind, which makes it a big deal. Does that mean it's always wrong? I'm not sure. But you can't just dismiss the problem by saying "people don't have any power to decide how they feel anyway." Because there's a lot of evidence that people do have that power, and even if they don't have that power that doesn't give you a right to take that power for yourself.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-31, 07:11 PM
Here's the problem with that interpretation, though:

*Snip*

Dervag, just a small offtopic question: Just how many points did you pour into Critical post?*

Seriously. For some reason, about 95% of the posts you make seem to expose an important piece of information previously ignored, or cause an important erosion in another poster's position.

*Here's the stats for Critical Post:

Critical Post
Passive
Levels: 100
Effect: Percentage chance that your post will be insightful, equal to the level of Critical Post.
Cost: 3 points per level.

Hectonkhyres
2008-05-31, 08:31 PM
Everybody is different and sometimes these differences are huge. But by and large we can agree on certain things. We don't like the thought of being gutted in the street so we declared murder/assault to be evil. We don't like the though of being left there to die by passing pedestrians and so we declared charity and mercy good. Most men (the half of the population with the power to enforce their will) disliked the thought of coming home to find their wife in bed with another man and so we declared adultery evil.

The reason why some things are considered desirable and some things are considered undesirable is irrelevant. No doubt each case comes down to some detail of the wiring of human brain selected for by a billion years worth of evolutionary pressure combined with a certain amount of random juryrigging. Doesn't matter: evil is what we call things that are either themselves unpleasant or which render the world a less pleasant place to exist.

You post the question 'why do you want to live'. I answer: I'm a stupid monkey who knows no other way to exist. All the monkeys before me who chose differently didn't produce children and removed themselves from the equation. And there is always time for death later, however nice it might happen to be.

As for the orgy or madness and self destruction, I like being at least nominally safe and able to partake of such things as clean running water and electricity. A lot of people happen to agree with me. Some people don't... rather going off to the frontier to endure a brutal existence without luxury or security. I'm happy if someone wants to live like that, but screw them if they want to in any way inflict the barbarian way of life upon me. Civilization is better for people who like civilization, barbarism for those who like barbarism. It doesn't mean either side is right by some magical objective standard.

GoC
2008-05-31, 09:34 PM
Domination of the mind, re-writing memory, coercion, other applications of force against another person. Essentially, something that changes them as a person; the examples of "well what if I put on deoderant" is simply a change to make yourself less foul-smelling. Changing someone's perception of you by way of magically altering their mind is crossing the line.

Charm Person doesn't change a person's nature though breaking up with your girlfriend may change her nature.


Being able to issue someone an order to have sex with you, regardless of whether they want to or not, is the same as being handsome and amusing? Really?

Charm Person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmPerson.htm) doesn't work that way.

Oh, and they do want to.


Again, you can issue orders. "Engage in sexual intercourse with me" is neither suicidal nor obviously harmful, so it's a valid order.
You can issue orders only if your charisma is high enough to convince a naturally friendly person to "do it".

In conclusion I wouldn't mind either using or receiving a Charm Person spell.

EDIT: By "wouldn't mind" I don't mean I mightn't be annoyed.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-31, 09:38 PM
Charm Person doesn't change a person's nature though breaking up with your girlfriend may change her nature.



Charm Person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmPerson.htm) doesn't work that way.

Oh, and they do want to.


You can issue orders only if your charisma is high enough to convince a naturally friendly person to "do it".

In conclusion I wouldn't mind either using or receiving a Charm Person spell.

I hope you don't mind people throwing SUMEo'D's or Pink Tentacles at you.

GoC
2008-05-31, 10:23 PM
I hope you don't mind people throwing SUMEo'D's or Pink Tentacles at you.

Throwing what?

GoC
2008-05-31, 10:28 PM
I'd make a distinction between the basic use of making someone into your friend, and the potential opposed charisma check.

The first I'd consider generally broadly equivalent to the use of tricks and deceit, while the second is the more like putting a knife to their throat.

Both are probably evil if used selfishly, but the first is in a relatively low level, everyday sort of way if you're not really hurting them.

Wow, didn't see this post. That sums it up perfectly for me.
If this was my thread I'd award it to you!:smallbiggrin:

Devils_Advocate
2008-06-01, 02:23 AM
Thus, your proposition that rights are purely constructed and do not exist naturally contradicts your proposition that sanity is preferable to madness. Or that any thing is preferable to any other thing. For there to be any reason to prefer one thing or another there has to be an intrinsic good hiding somewhere in the underbrush.

Did that make sense?
No, not at all. It's entirely possible to prefer something without it being intrinsically preferable. Two people can even have completely opposite, mutually exclusive preferences.

The concept of something being "intrinsically preferable" blatantly makes no damn sense. "Preferable" is a completely subjective property that tells you how someone feels about something. It just means that someone prefers it. There's nothing that's preferred by everything. I would suggest that rocks, for example, have no preferences. "Preferable" isn't a real property of the thing that supposedly has it, like hardness is. The real quality is the preferring of the thing that's done in someone's mind. It's just one of the weird quirks of our language, like saying that Tom offended Jack, as if Jack's reaction to Tom's behavior is something done by Tom, not Jack.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-01, 10:03 AM
Throwing what?

Super Ultra Mega Enervations o' Doom. In other words, a metamagicked enervation.

GoC
2008-06-01, 06:56 PM
Super Ultra Mega Enervations o' Doom. In other words, a metamagicked enervation.

Yes I would mind. Why wouldn't I?

Curmudgeon
2008-06-01, 07:30 PM
Contrary to intuition, Alter Self can be used on people other than yourself. Uh, how is this possible?
Alter Self
Transmutation
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level (D) (I'm excepting scenarios involving familiars of the same type as yourself, and treating them as "people".)

Dervag
2008-06-01, 07:59 PM
The reason why some things are considered desirable and some things are considered undesirable is irrelevant. No doubt each case comes down to some detail of the wiring of human brain selected for by a billion years worth of evolutionary pressure combined with a certain amount of random juryrigging. Doesn't matter: evil is what we call things that are either themselves unpleasant or which render the world a less pleasant place to exist.What I'm saying is that whatever chain of events led to you thinking that, you do think that, and your reasons have to trace back to something. The something may very well be "I enjoy this" or "It amuses me to do so."

If so, you are making a statement that it is better to be amused than to not be amused. Why? At this point you've hit something that can only be desirable for its own sake. The only reason to seek out amusement is because it is preferable to be amused than to not be amused. Thus, we wind up with an objective standard for judging what should and should not be done: amusement.


As for the orgy or madness and self destruction, I like being at least nominally safe and able to partake of such things as clean running water and electricity. A lot of people happen to agree with me. Some people don't... rather going off to the frontier to endure a brutal existence without luxury or security. I'm happy if someone wants to live like that, but screw them if they want to in any way inflict the barbarian way of life upon me. Civilization is better for people who like civilization, barbarism for those who like barbarism. It doesn't mean either side is right by some magical objective standard.This itself implies an objective standard- that people should be able to pursue the style of living they like. In short, that you have a right not to be impeded in living with a society with clean running water, et cetera. While Hrun the Muscular has a right not to be impeded in living in a society without those things, because he feels that not having running water makes him more badass.

Relativism implies an objective standard too- that of tolerance. States that give you civilization and Hrun barbarism are objectively preferable to states that force you to live in Hrun's barbarism or Hrun to live in your civilization. Or, worse yet, involve Hrun living in civilization and you living in barbarism. Because that just sucks.

When I talk about objective judgement criteria, I'm talking about them in the abstract. Perhaps the objective best is the system that maximizes the number of people that are amused, or that live in the style they would like to live, or whatever. The question of what is objectively best is bigger than I am and I admit it. It must be resolved by discussion. There may not be an obvious answer.

The question of whether some state of affairs can exist that is objectively preferable to some other state of affairs that can exist for intrinsic reasons, on the other hand, I think can have only one answer. Determining whether such states exist in general as a far simpler question than finding out what they are in specific, and one that the normative nature of preferences doesn't have any bearing on.
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No, not at all. It's entirely possible to prefer something without it being intrinsically preferable. Two people can even have completely opposite, mutually exclusive preferences.

The concept of something being "intrinsically preferable" blatantly makes no damn sense. "Preferable" is a completely subjective property that tells you how someone feels about something. It just means that someone prefers it. There's nothing that's preferred by everything. I would suggest that rocks, for example, have no preferences. "Preferable" isn't a real property of the thing that supposedly has it, like hardness is. The real quality is the preferring of the thing that's done in someone's mind. It's just one of the weird quirks of our language, like saying that Tom offended Jack, as if Jack's reaction to Tom's behavior is something done by Tom, not Jack.I don't really agree, you see.

To start, I define the phrase "outside our heads." This refers to things which, if they do not have a physical existence in the portions of the universe not directly controlled by a human mind, are manifest in that universe. For instance, the inverse square law of gravity is not a physical object. You cannot fill a teacup with inverse square law of gravity as you can with water or sand or plasma or some other physical substance. You cannot point to the inverse square law of gravity. If someone asks for directions to the inverse square law of gravity, you will not be able to provide them with such directions, as you would be able to give them directions to Carnegie Hall or Angkor Wat or Aldebaran.

And yet, the inverse square law of gravity exists "outside our heads," according to my definition. Its workings are equally binding upon all. Sufficient examination of the things they work on will reveal their existence to any adequately capable and open mind. It is there, even if I cannot point to it. It is part of how physics work.
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I maintain that there are philosophical truths which, like the inverse square law of gravity, exist "outside our heads." They are not something that some intelligence had to decide on; they are simply true. We may or may not be able to grasp these truths or make use of them, because we may not be examining them sufficiently. Or we may not have adequately capable and open minds to perceive them. But they're still there anyway.

One of the major categories of such truths, I maintain, is that of things which are 'intrinsically preferable'. As in, it is better, more choiceworthy, more deserving of your preference, to have things this way.