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Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 07:34 PM
Welcome to another edition of "Morals in D&D: The Nature of Alignment" or "D&D Is Serious Business"

On today's show: Consuming Intelligent Humanoids, is it an evil act?

First, some context:

In my campaign world my Kobolds are far more similar to evolved humanoid Utah Raptors than they are to dragons. They are a society, but a brutal one. They trade and negotiate with the other races of the world, but since they live underground or in remote parts of the world, they largely keep to themselves.

In the warrior caste's coming of age ceremony they are charged with hunting, killing, and eating a capture Raven-folk warrior. It isn't for sport, it is part of a magical ceremony to transform them into their larger (read: Medium sized) kobold state.

Now, we've established through various discussions that marching into the homes of a bunch of green folks, killing them, and taking their stuff doesn't cause you to lose your alignment as long as you're doing it on behalf of the local farmers or whatever. However, as soon as you take the corpse of one of those green people you go from being "Saviour of the Goodly Folk" to "Hannibal Lector".

To long; didn't read version: Is eating intelligent humanoids, in general, an evil act? Is the entire race an "evil race" for doing it? Is there an instance where it wouldn't be an evil act?

fractic
2008-08-09, 07:35 PM
Eating corpses of intelligent humanoids: not evil
Eating living intelligent humanoids: probably evil
Hunting living intelligent humanoids so you can eat them: evil.

[edit]:
Assuming some degree of sentience in the one who is eating.

Spiryt
2008-08-09, 07:37 PM
Fractic stated it quite well.

However I will change


Eating living intelligent humanoids: probably evil

into : evil as hell too. Seriously, eating someone's alive :smalleek:

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 07:38 PM
Eating corpses of intelligent humanoids: not evil
Eating living intelligent humanoids: probably evil
Hunting living intelligent humanoids so you can eat them: evil.

[edit]:
Assuming some degree of sentience in the one who is eating.

Well yes, assuming the being can tell right from wrong, I figured that was implied in any given morality discussion.

So you down a Dragon because he was going to poison the water hole, good job Woody, now it's ok to eat him because your intent in killing him was not to eat him later?

fractic
2008-08-09, 07:38 PM
Is there really such a big difference between biting a humanoids head off or clubbing him over it first?

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 07:39 PM
Is there really such a big difference between biting a humanoids head of or clubbing him over it first?

That was the point I was going to bring up later in the discussion: Let's say a race of raptor-people have a bite attack?

Spiryt
2008-08-09, 07:41 PM
Well yes, assuming the being can tell right from wrong, I figured that was implied in any given morality discussion.

So you down a Dragon because he was going to poison the water hole, good job Woody, now it's ok to eat him because your intent in killing him was not to eat him later?

Well, killling someone without good reason (whatever is "good reason" would be the topic of looong debate, of course) is generally considered evil.

What you do with body isn't really that important.

Although in the world with ressurections spells it can be "more evil" if counted as conscious atempt at making return impossible.

monty
2008-08-09, 07:41 PM
I'm going to say not evil. Sentient or not, killing to eat is a basic instinct.

FoE
2008-08-09, 07:46 PM
Cannibalism is generally frowned upon in most cultures. I would say it's an evil act, even if it is a ritualistic one.

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 07:47 PM
Cannibalism is generally frowned upon in most cultures. I would say it's an evil act, even if it is a ritualistic one.

"Cannibalism (from Spanish caníbal, in connection with cannibalism among the Antillean Caribs)[1], also called anthropophagy (from Greek: ἄνθρωπος, anthropos, "human being"; and φαγειν, phagein, "to eat") is the act or practice of humans eating flesh of other humans. In zoology, the term "cannibalism" is extended to refer to any species consuming members of its own kind (see cannibalism (zoology))."

Not cannibalism if it's outside of species, by the definition. I know where you're going with it, I'm playing devil's advocate here.

insecure
2008-08-09, 07:50 PM
I'd say that it depends on the motive.

ColonelFuster
2008-08-09, 07:50 PM
Ah ha! Question....
What alignment are the raven-warriors?
(dun dun DUUNNN!!!)

Cuddly
2008-08-09, 07:52 PM
Ritualistic consumption of fallen warriors isn't evil, per se. The reasons for killing must be examined, though.

fractic
2008-08-09, 07:52 PM
I'd say that it depends on the motive.

A creature capable of having a motive rather than basic instict, is intelligent itself. Therefor it is quite capable of differentiating intellingent and non-intelligent creatures. As a result it could avoid hunting intelligent creatures for food.

insecure
2008-08-09, 07:59 PM
A creature capable of having a motive rather than basic instict, is intelligent itself. Therefor it is quite capable of differentiating intellingent and non-intelligent creatures. As a result it could avoid hunting intelligent creatures for food.

He can't avoid it if there only is intelligent creatures, and no insentient creatures.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:00 PM
He can't avoid it if there only is intelligent creatures, and no insentient creatures.

Sure he can, he could grow food or relocate. How on earth would such a situation naturally occur in the first place?

NecroRebel
2008-08-09, 08:04 PM
The local Druids can probably talk to the local cattle. Most people would not argue that, because you can converse with a cow, eating said cow is evil. Extending the analogy further, just because a ravenfolk happens to be capable of speaking and trading with your people, that doesn't really mean that eating them is evil.

Mind you, there must be conduct upheld. The killing of the intended prey must be not to cause it pain; causing pain for the sake of causing pain is clearly Evil. Further, there must be some reason to actually kill the creature. If you do not need to kill something for sustenance, or for another purpose (this ritual in the kobolds' case), it's essentially just killing for its own sake.

The Raven people almost certainly wouldn't like this ritual, but as you've described it I wouldn't call it evil.


A creature capable of having a motive rather than basic instict, is intelligent itself. Therefor it is quite capable of differentiating intellingent and non-intelligent creatures. As a result it could avoid hunting intelligent creatures for food.

This seems to me to avoid the question. Of course the kobolds can avoid hunting intelligent creatures. The question is, is it Evil to do so? State your reasons, and "cannabilism is wrong" is not a reason; it is an opinion or a belief that may or may not have other reason behind it.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:06 PM
A druid being able to talk to a cow using magic, doesn't make the cow intelligent or humanoid.

FoE
2008-08-09, 08:06 PM
OK, I'll try this another way:

Cannibalism by necessity is not inherently wrong, but the scenario you described doesn't meet that qualification. The kobolds consume others as a way of gaining power, not because they don't have any other food sources.

You can argue that the kobolds are only commiting cannibalism by following the dictates of their culture. You can argue that the kobolds are performing this ritual in order to become stronger warriors, which in turn ensures the survival of their tribe. But that doesn't change the fact that the cannibalism isn't strictly necessary.

If you would view an illithid or a vampire as evil for feeding on sentient beings — acts which are necessary for these beings' survival — then you have to consider these kobolds as evil as well. Otherwise there is no evil, and you might as well do away with the notion of alignment altogether.

insecure
2008-08-09, 08:09 PM
Sure he can, he could grow food or relocate. How on earth would such a situation naturally occur in the first place?

In a desert with no chances for leaving without getting killed by lack of food first.

EDIT: Or in the BBEG's evil lair.:smalltongue:

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:10 PM
In a desert with no chances for leaving without getting killed by lack of food first.

Again I ask how did this occur naturally. Why did both of these races settle here in the first place?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-08-09, 08:11 PM
I would say it isn't. The reason for the kill has to be examined, but if the kill was a good or neutral act, I don't see how it would be more evil to eat the corpse than it would be to go and kill a deer for the same amount of food.

insecure
2008-08-09, 08:12 PM
Again I ask how did this occur naturally. Why did both of these races settle here in the first place?

For example, by attempting to travel trough said desert without bringing enough food.

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 08:13 PM
OK, I'll try this another way:

Cannibalism by necessity is not inherently wrong, but the scenario you described doesn't meet that qualification. The kobolds consume others as a way of gaining power, not because they don't have any other food sources.

You can argue that the kobolds are only commiting cannibalism by following the dictates of their culture. You can argue that the kobolds are performing this ritual in order to become stronger warriors, which in turn ensures the survival of their tribe. But that doesn't change the fact that the cannibalism isn't strictly necessary.

If you would view an illithid or a vampire as evil for feeding on sentient beings — acts which are necessary for these beings' survival — then you have to consider these kobolds as evil as well. Otherwise there is no evil, and you might as well do away with the notion of alignment altogether.

I would not, personally, consider Illithid evil because of their feeding habits. The Illithid are evil because they practice slavery, torture, and mind control.


Vampires are evil because they are grey...or rather, because they are powered by negative energy and, in general, have evil intentions. Their feeding habits don't play into it.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:13 PM
For example, by attempting to travel trough said desert without bringing enough food.

So now there are just a small handfull of both races stuck in a desert. The situation isn't going to last because there is no food for either of them. And yes in this situation I think killing each other so that you yourself can eat is evil.

Starbuck_II
2008-08-09, 08:13 PM
Welcome to another edition of "Morals in D&D: The Nature of Alignment" or "D&D Is Serious Business"

On today's show: Consuming Intelligent Humanoids, is it an evil act?

To long; didn't read version: Is eating intelligent humanoids, in general, an evil act? Is the entire race an "evil race" for doing it? Is there an instance where it wouldn't be an evil act?

Cannibals are evil. Eating sentient creatures is not listed as evil in any book I've read.

In fact, my Elf Wu Jen accidently ate Dwarf once at a Giant's home (it was in the stew). There was a Dwarf in the party; he did'nt like me eating it.
I didn't mind. It was actually pretty tasty the DM said. So I kept eating. (funny story I thought)

insecure
2008-08-09, 08:15 PM
I would not, personally, consider Illithid evil because of their feeding habits. The Illithid are evil because they practice slavery, torture, and mind control.


Vampires are evil because they are grey...or rather, because they are powered by negative energy and, in general, have evil intentions. Their feeding habits don't play into it.

Why do they have to be evil just because they're based on negative energy? That's like saying I'm evil because my mother was. (Not that I'm not evil.:smalltongue:)

NecroRebel
2008-08-09, 08:15 PM
A druid being able to talk to a cow using magic, doesn't make the cow intelligent or humanoid.

Ok, but what would define the cow as intelligent, and is it eating an intelligent being what you see as wrong? If so, as I suspect it is, what defines intelligence in that fashion?


OK, I'll try this another way:

Cannibalism by necessity is not inherently wrong, but the scenario you described doesn't meet that qualification. The kobolds consume others as a way of gaining power, not because they don't have any other food sources.

You can argue that the kobolds are only commiting cannibalism by following the dictates of their culture. You can argue that the kobolds are performing this ritual in order to become stronger warriors, which in turn ensures the survival of their tribe. But that doesn't change the fact that the cannibalism isn't strictly necessary.

If you would view an illithid or vampire as evil for feeding on sentient beings — acts which are necessary for these beings' survival — then you have to consider these kobolds as evil as well. Otherwise there is no evil, and you might as well do away with the notion of alignment altogether.

I would not view an illithid or vampire as evil just for feeding on sentient beings. I feed on sentient beings all the time (sentience being defined as "having the power of perception by the senses; conscious," something which every animal I have ever encountered has had) and I'm not evil for it. No, evil creatures are evil presumably because they enjoy hurting, oppressing, and killing others, because that is the definition of evil as referenced by Dungeons and Dragons! All places in the D&D books that reference Evil refer to that definition and no other.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-08-09, 08:16 PM
Now, we've established through various discussions that marching into the homes of a bunch of green folks, killing them, and taking their stuff doesn't cause you to lose your alignment as long as you're doing it on behalf of the local farmers or whatever.
We have? I must have missed that meeting. No, genocide of random races and killing civilians is not acceptable, good players should lose their alignment if they go out of their way to kill every member of a race, even if they're "brutal". A good player would just drive them out.


However, as soon as you take the corpse of one of those green people you go from being "Saviour of the Goodly Folk" to "Hannibal Lector".

To long; didn't read version: Is eating intelligent humanoids, in general, an evil act? Is the entire race an "evil race" for doing it? Is there an instance where it wouldn't be an evil act?
Because there is no reasonable purpose to it.
At least with slaughtering the orc horde you're protecting the society they'd otherwise destroy, but eating them? It's a depraved act of disrespect that serves no purpose than fulfilling your own decadence.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:17 PM
Ok, but what would define the cow as intelligent, and is it eating an intelligent being what you see as wrong? If so, as I suspect it is, what defines intelligence in that fashion?


An int score of 3? Yes it's a cop out because it's a way to difficult question in real life. But in DnD an int of 3 is a threshold for various things.

insecure
2008-08-09, 08:20 PM
Just to bring a new angle to see this from; what if the sentient being would like you to eat him?

Inhuman Bot
2008-08-09, 08:20 PM
On one hand: Cannablisim is considerd a form of desacration of corpses.
On another hand: It's only canablism if one eats one's own race.
On a third hand, It depends on how close they are, geneticly I guess. It's worse for a human to eat an elf then a Quaggoth, but only by a little.
Lastly, eating a sentient being is evil. A paladin feasting on an evil orc's guts would be evil. After all, when you see ghouls do you think "DIE VILLAIN" (this is assuming fairly good aligned, of course) or "Gee, what's wrong with that? Hey mister ghoul, let's hunt some people so we can eat them!"

EDIT: wow, this is a high response topic.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-08-09, 08:21 PM
At least with slaughtering the orc horde you're protecting the society they'd otherwise destroy, but eating them? It's a depraved act of disrespect that serves no purpose than fulfilling your own decadence.What if your character only eats things they killed for another reason? So your character is vegetarian, but if he has to kill someone, he doesn't let their body go to waste? I wouldn't consider that evil.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:21 PM
Just to bring a new angle to see this from; what if the sentient being would like you to eat him?

If this being wasn't under mind control or under any other condition that would impede it's mental condition, then no I wouldn't consider it evil. You are actually helping the sentient being in a way.

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 08:22 PM
Why do they have to be evil just because they're based on negative energy? That's like saying I'm evil because my mother was. (Not that I'm not evil.:smalltongue:)

Your mother was evil, and so are you!

Or rather: If we're going to go with the "int score of 3 cop out" then "Negative energy power makes you evil because the books say so."

Or rather, again: That was mostly a joke, and the "evil intentions" thing is largely what pointed toward it.

NecroRebel
2008-08-09, 08:22 PM
An int score of 3? Yes it's a cop out because it's a way to difficult question in real life. But in DnD an int of 3 is a threshold for various things.

Fair enough. Now, the next question that you should ask yourself, and that I'm asking you, is why? Why is eating an intelligent being wrong? And, perhaps, what makes eating a being with an int score of 3 different from eating a being with an int score or 2? Further, if you happened to have an abnormally stupid Orc, for example, who happened to have less than 3 int (impossible by the rules, I know, but this is a hypothetical so humor me), would eating it be wrong? Or, for that matter, if you had an abnormally intelligent cow with an int more than 3, would eating it be wrong?

Take your questions further. You may find something surprising at the end. :smallsmile:

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:24 PM
There is some merit to the int 3 threshold. Int 3 means that the creatures fully understands a language, usually common. How long would the beef industry last if we'd suddenly find out that cows could understand english perfectly?

Uthug
2008-08-09, 08:24 PM
Quoting from the SRD on alignment:
Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior.
So by the above definition, in my opinion, what would matter the most would be the innocence of these Raven-folk. Obviously this act isn't good, but I think that other factors need to be considered when the kobolds are hunting down the Raven-folk. For example, while hunting them down, is it purely thinking about murdering them to power-up or is it doing it because of peer-pressure and what-not, because it doesn't want to feel left out.

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-09, 08:28 PM
Quoting from the SRD on alignment:
So by the above definition, in my opinion, what would matter the most would be the innocence of these Raven-folk. Obviously this act isn't good, but I think that other factors need to be considered when the kobolds are hunting down the Raven-folk. For example, while hunting them down, is it purely thinking about murdering them to power-up or is it doing it because of peer-pressure and what-not, because it doesn't want to feel left out.

The "power up" is to keep their society alive.

I purposely left the alignment of the Raven-folk out to keep the question ambiguous/the discussion healthy. I'm still not sure if I'm ready to reveal it.

NecroRebel
2008-08-09, 08:32 PM
There is some merit to the int 3 threshold. Int 3 means that the creatures fully understands a language, usually common. How long would the beef industry last if we'd suddenly find out that cows could understand english perfectly?

You avoid my questions. To answer yours, probably for as long as it would if we wouldn't find that out. Maybe not on the same scale, but that isn't the question. The fact is that people are very much used to eating beef and will continue to do so for a long time no matter what.

For my next point, I direct you to China's culture, where it is fairly normal to eat dogs. Chinese people know full well that dogs are very intelligent creatures that form strong interpersonal bonds. They are capable of a wide range of forms of communication and many humans consider canines to be among their best friends or family members. However, in China, where the people are fully aware of this, it is fairly normal to eat dogs. I know I repeated that, but it is important: the fact that a creature is very much capable of communicating with humans does not mean that humans do not view it as food.

FoE
2008-08-09, 08:33 PM
I would not, personally, consider Illithid evil because of their feeding habits. The Illithid are evil because they practice slavery, torture, and mind control.

But that is out of necessity! Practically everyone hates mind flayers! They certainly don't have people volunteering to have their brains eaten; they're the enemy of virtually all races! These poor creatures have no choice but to resort to the most brutal of tactics in order to survive! And how can you fault the illithids for using the abilities inherent to their species? That would be like faulting humans for breathing!

Uthug
2008-08-09, 08:34 PM
Right. So are these Raven-folk attacking the kobolds? If so, I see no problem in them eating the Raven-folk in order to become stronger to defend their society. Of course, from a moral point-of-view, it might be wrong to kill others to defend oneself but seriously, there are no morals if you are dead.
Now a comment on DnD itself. I don't really think that you are meant to consider the evil point-of-view while playing DnD. It seems quite clear-cut, killers are evil and those who kill them are "good". Those who are "good" are never called evil for butchering others no matter their motives.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:35 PM
For my next point, I direct you to China's culture, where it is fairly normal to eat dogs. Chinese people know full well that dogs are very intelligent creatures that form strong interpersonal bonds. They are capable of a wide range of forms of communication and many humans consider canines to be among their best friends or family members. However, in China, where the people are fully aware of this, it is fairly normal to eat dogs. I know I repeated that, but it is important: the fact that a creature is very much capable of communicating with humans does not mean that humans do not view it as food.

But dogs still aren't nearly as intelligent as the dumbest of humans (int 3, mentally handicapped is possibly less). And I'm quite sure that the chinese people would be upset if you ate their dog. But I agree this is a bit of a gray area.

Uthug
2008-08-09, 08:39 PM
They eat dogs because of tradition and possibly other reasons. While other people might find it repugnant to eat man's best friend, I guess those people have been doing it so long that they don't see any problem with it. I don't think this has anything to do with the dog's ability to communicate with them at all. Furthermore, I think that those who eat dog meat are not necessarily those who keep dogs as pets who they treat as part of the family.

NecroRebel
2008-08-09, 08:41 PM
But that is out of necessity! Practically everyone hates mind flayers! They certainly don't have people volunteering to have their brains eaten; they're the enemy of virtually all races! These poor creatures have no choice but to resort to the most brutal of tactics in order to survive! And how can you fault the illithids for using the abilities inherent to their species? That would be like faulting humans for breathing!

Is it necessary for them to torture and enslave other creatures? I wouldn't think so. They do have to eat brains, of course, but they could very well defend themselves from attack without the torture or slavery. It would be more difficult, but not impossible. As for the "abilities inherent to their species," the psychic blasts and charm/dominate effects are obviously intended for hunting. Much like a pitcher plant's scent lures, these abilities clearly are meant to make prey come to them and be docile once they're there.

The fact that the illithids choose (and it is a choice) to use their natural abilities to enslave and torture other creatures is what makes them Evil.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:44 PM
The dog understanding a language or speaking it was merely an example.
But the OP asks us to draw a line somewhere. In the real world probably noone would have moral objections to eating mice. The vast majority has no problems eating cows (religious reasons aside) but there is a significant minority objecting to it. A lot of people have no problems eating dogs but a lot of people have objections too. I suspect that even more people would object to eating dolphins who are supposedly rather intelligent. And all but the entire world agree that eating humans is bad. It's very reasonable that we would also object to eating dwarfs if they would exist.

DnD morality is based on ours. There is a line but it's just very vague. Projecting this to DnD would suggest a line somewhere between an int of 2 and 3.

NecroRebel
2008-08-09, 08:45 PM
They eat dogs because of tradition and possibly other reasons. While other people might find it repugnant to eat man's best friend, I guess those people have been doing it so long that they don't see any problem with it. I don't think this has anything to do with the dog's ability to communicate with them at all. Furthermore, I think that those who eat dog meat are not necessarily those who keep dogs as pets who they treat as part of the family.

Exactly my point. The question was how long the beef industry would go on if it was found that cows were personable creatures at or above canine levels. The answer, of course, is exactly the same case as for the dog meat industry.


But dogs still aren't nearly as intelligent as the dumbest of humans (int 3, mentally handicapped is possibly less). And I'm quite sure that the chinese people would be upset if you ate their dog. But I agree this is a bit of a gray area.

As it should be. But this brings us back to the question, why is it wrong to eat a creature with int 3 but not int 2? You've still not answered that, and I'm curious as to what your reasoning is.

Edit:
The dog understanding a language or speaking it was merely an example.
But the OP asks us to draw a line somewhere. In the real world probably noone would have moral objections to eating mice. The vast majority has no problems eating cows (religious reasons aside) but there is a significant minority objecting to it. A lot of people have no problems eating dogs but a lot of people have objections too. I suspect that even more people would object to eating dolphins who are supposedly rather intelligent. And all but the entire world agree that eating humans is bad. It's very reasonable that we would also object to eating dwarfs if they would exist.

DnD morality is based on ours. There is a line but it's just very vague. Projecting this to DnD would suggest a line somewhere between an int of 2 and 3.

Ah, here we are. This is actually a common logical fallacy, called the "bandwagon fallacy" in common parlance. In short, just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true. Many people believe that medieval scholars thought the world was flat, for example (history suggests that educated people never thought that as it is fairly easy to prove mathematically or just by looking at the horizon from a high place).

This is a fairly persuasive argument for calling eating intelligent creatures Evil in D&D, of course, as you are correct in saying that D&D's moral definitions are based off of common societal norms, but it also doesn't satisfactorily say why you draw the line there as opposed to somewhere else.

Uthug
2008-08-09, 08:46 PM
So now he discussion is on possible alternatives? Well yes, everyone has alternatives, lots of them in fact. No matter what, there's always the choice between dying and something else. It's just that no one really wants to die.

Uthug
2008-08-09, 08:49 PM
On int. The difference is that that is where DnD draws the line between an intelligent and non-intelligent creature in-game. In real life, there would be very little difference but we must remember that it's an in-game context, where a real, solid line needs to be drawn.

fractic
2008-08-09, 08:51 PM
On int. The difference is that that is where DnD draws the line between an intelligent and non-intelligent creature in-game. In real life, there would be very little difference but we must remember that it's an in-game context, where a real, solid line needs to be drawn.

DnD draws a pretty hard line at int 3. It's the mininum score that the normal races can have, every creature with an int of 3 understands a language and I also think you need an int of 3 to take class levels.

Uthug
2008-08-09, 08:56 PM
Yeah well, its their line. I think they drew it such that any player races would not normally fall below it was because they wanted players to be able to play as intelligent creatures able to control their own actions? However, they created most of their monsters to fall below that line because they felt that most monsters(animals) should be much less intelligent than humans. Also, with an int of 1 and 2 being what most animals have, I see no way for seeing which is the more intelligent animal.

Jack_Simth
2008-08-09, 09:03 PM
Sure he can, he could grow food or relocate. How on earth would such a situation naturally occur in the first place?
Kevin and Kell's World (http://www.herdthinners.com/), anyone? MAYFLIES can talk intelligibly there - and not everything can digest plants sufficiently well to survive on them.

Granted, it's not a naturally occuring situation per se, but then, neither's the D&D universe, when it comes down to it.

This seems to me to avoid the question. Of course the kobolds can avoid hunting intelligent creatures. The question is, is it Evil to do so? State your reasons, and "cannabilism is wrong" is not a reason; it is an opinion or a belief that may or may not have other reason behind it.
... except that "X is wrong" is the level of morality most people operate at. And, no matter which ethical framework you take, if you look hard enough, every ethical framework that has the option of saying "X was evil given the circumstances" will have a fundamental assumption in there somewhere that amounts to a statement of opinion or belief, as you put it. Try finding one that doesn't.

Now, granted, a statement that is a simple "cannibalism is wrong" that goes no further isn't particularly interesting in a debate, because it cannot fundamentally be debated. But ultimately, every ethical framework that has the option of saying "X was evil given the circumstances" will have something of that nature buried in it.

FoE
2008-08-09, 09:19 PM
The fact that the illithids choose (and it is a choice) to use their natural abilities to enslave and torture other creatures is what makes them Evil.

So how is the illithids using slavery and torture any different than the kobolds eating people in order to gain strength? To an illithid, most sentient beings are no more than cattle, and you just as much admitted it would be more difficult for the illithids to survive if they weren't willing to employ slavery and torture.

Knaight
2008-08-09, 09:42 PM
On one hand: Cannablisim is considerd a form of desacration of corpses.
On another hand: It's only canablism if one eats one's own race.
On a third hand, It depends on how close they are, geneticly I guess. It's worse for a human to eat an elf then a Quaggoth, but only by a little.
Lastly, eating a sentient being is evil. A paladin feasting on an evil orc's guts would be evil. After all, when you see ghouls do you think "DIE VILLAIN" (this is assuming fairly good aligned, of course) or "Gee, what's wrong with that? Hey mister ghoul, let's hunt some people so we can eat them!"

EDIT: wow, this is a high response topic.

One one hand, killing something then just leaving its body as opposed to using it is disrespectful to the corpse.
On another hand, everything is cannabilism in D&D.
Lastly killing a sentient being for food when you can avoid it is evil, but if they are killed for other reasons, see number 1. When you see ghouls attack somebody then you beat the crap out of them. If they dig up corpses to eat who cares?

chiasaur11
2008-08-09, 09:51 PM
The "power up" is to keep their society alive.

I purposely left the alignment of the Raven-folk out to keep the question ambiguous/the discussion healthy. I'm still not sure if I'm ready to reveal it.

Their alignment is key to the whole thing! I mean, killing and eating ACE races is totally different from killing and eating Angels. Eating your enemies isn't the issue, gross as it may be, the issue is ceremonial murder. If the race would murder Kobold and human alike if left unchecked then the whole thing is, yaknow, understandable. If they're decent individuals, then it's the worst of crimes, even in self defense.

monty
2008-08-09, 09:59 PM
Their alignment is key to the whole thing! I mean, killing and eating ACE races is totally different from killing and eating Angels. Eating your enemies isn't the issue, gross as it may be, the issue is ceremonial murder. If the race would murder Kobold and human alike if left unchecked then the whole thing is, yaknow, understandable. If they're decent individuals, then it's the worst of crimes, even in self defense.

I doubt they're always evil, and the "always" alignments are total bull anyway.

Tengu_temp
2008-08-09, 10:02 PM
I just skimmed through the thread, so it was probably stated several times already, but:

Eating a dead sapient (which in DND means: intelligence 3+) creature is not an evil act alone. It might be evil when you do this with the purpose of causing its family grief, or in similar cases.
Killing a sapient creature for the sole purpose of eating it is evil. Killing a sapient creature because it wanted to kill you, and then eating it, is not evil.

Thanatos 51-50
2008-08-09, 10:17 PM
Sure he can, he could grow food or relocate. How on earth would such a situation naturally occur in the first place?

Said creature has grown, evolved, what-have-you to subsist on a carneverous diet.
Do we consider the wolf evil for eating the lamb, or the carribou? The Lion for the Gazelle? The Tiger for the man?
Nay, we do not.

I say, if we have killed the dragon, if we do not dine on its flesh, then surely the grass will.
However, if we dine upon the dead dragon, the grass will still dine on our resulting excriment!

This kobold people: Do they murder the Raven Warriors to consume them? or simply eat the corpses of the fallen warriors? Therein lies the dilemna. The ritual, if we're talking about slaying the Raven Warrior, is, in itself, Evil - Murder for personal gain. If not, then there is nothing wrong with this act.

I would like to further qualify my statement.
Let us assume the Raven Warriors (Becuase you did state the Kobolds are raven folk and not dragons) face each other in ritual, to-the-death combat. This combat does not make the combatants Evil, and the slaying of their foe in this combat is not murder. (Although the arrangement of such a combat arguably makes the society Evil)

Simularly, assuming the Kobolds and the Raven warriors are at war, and the Kobold consumes the corpse of an enemy warrior, this, too, is not Murder, and therefore, not Evil.

Eldritch_Ent
2008-08-09, 10:17 PM
As far as the alignment system goes, (bless it's broken mis-aimed heart), I would also say it depends on intent.
Or rather, that it's not the *eating* part that's bad. It's the act of killing or lopping off a limb for eating that's bad, since it causes death or suffering of an intelligent creature...

It'd be neutral if you, say, gave him a painkiller than regrew his arm with a regeneration spell or the like. (Of course, if you could do that maybe you should just cast "Create Food and Water" instead.)

In short- massive grey area. It depends on sooooo many things.

Alleine
2008-08-09, 10:59 PM
Important question:
Is said intelligent humanoid undeniably delicious?

chiasaur11
2008-08-09, 11:27 PM
Important question:
Is said intelligent humanoid undeniably delicious?

I knew I forgot an important factor.
It's why pigs are more okay to eat than dogs, despite their (the pigs) being in the top 11 smartest animals.

Bacon. If pigs could try it, they'd understand.

ericgrau
2008-08-09, 11:29 PM
I don't think it's any different from eating humans. Except some might taste better. I hear human flesh doesn't taste very good. chiasaur11's comment explains.

So real question is, is it okay to eat humans under certain circumstances?

Starvation? They were evil and (unlike others) tasty and you had to kill them anyway?

FMArthur
2008-08-09, 11:42 PM
Well, you just have to keep in mind that eating the corpse of someone else doesn't actually do any harm, just that it's extremely taboo and is usually disrespectful of the dead. That said, the dead aren't using their body anymore, so how is it different from any other dead creature? In a normal society that gets really upset and emotional about this sort of thing, such an act is Chaotic, because they're showing that they don't care about the rules and institutions of their people. If they're with a tribe that strictly adheres to a law of eating the enemy out of some superstition that it grants them their powers or something, then cannibalism can also be lawful.

In general, the actual killing of the person is what you should be judging good and evil from, not what happens to whatever physical material is left over from the deceased. Mooning the king is also disrespectful, harmless, and very likely to be seen as evil by the law-abiding people (and the king). But really, it's just chaotic.

chiasaur11
2008-08-10, 12:02 AM
I don't think it's any different from eating humans. Except some might taste better. I hear human flesh doesn't taste very good. chiasaur11's comment explains.

So real question is, is it okay to eat humans under certain circumstances?

Starvation? They were evil and (unlike others) tasty and you had to kill them anyway?

I guess it'd be okay if they were dead anyway and you didn't have other options.

Because if you did, you could be eating bacon instead, and passing up on Bacon for human flesh is just silly.

Knaight
2008-08-10, 12:04 AM
I don't know, there is the whole belief of eating something stealing their powers, and while pigs have formidable mud rolling, that doesn't seem very useful.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 12:19 AM
So how is the illithids using slavery and torture any different than the kobolds eating people in order to gain strength? To an illithid, most sentient beings are no more than cattle, and you just as much admitted it would be more difficult for the illithids to survive if they weren't willing to employ slavery and torture.

In a word, pain. Creatures (probably) have the right to make their lives as comfortable and safe as possible, but they do not have the right to make other creatures' lives as dangerous and uncomfortable as possible. Torture in particular is designed to make the victim as uncomfortable as possible, and that is EVIL. Slavery is even worse, not only causing extreme discomfort to the victims but also intentionally and methodically attempting to strip them of their will (for lack of a better term; self is less accurate but perhaps captures the meaning better).

And before you say it, yes, this is different from killing a sentient to eat them for power. Simply slaying something, particularly in open battle as it's implied is happening in the kobold-ravenfolk case, is causing pain for a relatively short time and then over. Any killing for any reason, even the apparently-holiest cause, is thus an evil act to a certain extent, but not anywhere near that of torture and certainly not that of slavery.

chiasaur11
2008-08-10, 12:21 AM
I don't know, there is the whole belief of eating something stealing their powers, and while pigs have formidable mud rolling, that doesn't seem very useful.

They also are fairly smart for barnyard animals. Not human, chimp, Dolphin, or white lab mouse smart, but still.

And, if a person died from circumstances you're facing at the present, it's unlikely they have any abilities that would help you at the current time.

TheCountAlucard
2008-08-10, 12:58 AM
Bacon. If pigs could try it, they'd understand.

Actually, one of my friends has fed his pig bacon. The pig also enjoys spaghetti.

Feralgeist
2008-08-10, 01:11 AM
I hear human flesh doesn't taste very good.


It's actually quite delicious, i'll have you know. Not greatly unlike pig.

Alleine
2008-08-10, 01:13 AM
Actually, one of my friends has fed his pig bacon. The pig also enjoys spaghetti.

This is awesome.

Yeah, though apparently Hollywood is trying to tell us human meat tastes similar to bacon/is delicious. Just look at the Hannibal Lector movies, people fed other people and don't know it think its delicious. I've read in a few books(history books mind you) that someone told their troops during the crusades that human meat with some salt tastes like bacon. Of course this guy was undeniably crazy and his little army got squashed.

Cannibalism isn't necessarily bad, but you REALLY need to get things cooked right since you can catch all the diseases they had.

Back on topic: Under the circumstances? I'd say this isn't evil. They're already dead and its kinda a cultural thing, plus it isn't cannibalism. Its got some good stuff going for it.
As opposed to "Haha, we raid their town, tie up their men, then eat the women and children alive in front of them. I like to bet on how many go insane by the end of the feast"

Malicte
2008-08-10, 01:14 AM
It's been sorta mentioned already, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that the act of consuming the raven creature in this case is probably NOT an evil act. It seems to be more in line with a typically cultural pattern among the kobolds, and thus is not evil to THEM. Their alignment may run the gamut from Good to Evil, Law to Chaos. It's the party or other societies who consider them evil, but make them evil that does not.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 01:14 AM
Actually, one of my friends has fed his pig bacon. The pig also enjoys spaghetti.

A pig fed on the flesh of his brethren? If you fed a pig a diet primarily of pork, bacon, etc. would it taste any different? Would it possibly taste twice as delicious? With repeated iterations, one could raise a pig whose deliciousness approaches infinity.

On the main topic, remember that the Alignment system is generally meant to describe morality from a human perspective. After all, what other standard do we have? An ACE race may raid and pillage and murder, but I doubt it sees itself as evil, from its cultural point of view. How many people honestly consider themselves to be evil? They don't. Every sentient being has justifications for its own actions, otherwise it wouldn't do them. When you start giving Alignment based on the specific culture's moral system, there are going to be a lot fewer Evil beings, not to mention different alignments of one individual from the perspective of different cultures. Most adventurers are Chaotic Evil from the perspective of the monsters they kill, since they are killing their people and acting in a manner not consistent with their societal norms.

Malicte
2008-08-10, 01:15 AM
A pig fed on the flesh of his brethren? If you fed a pig a diet primarily of pork, bacon, etc. would it taste any different? Would it possibly taste twice as delicious? With repeated iterations, one could raise a pid whose deliciousness approaches infinity.

This MUST be done.

FoE
2008-08-10, 02:50 AM
In a word, pain. Creatures (probably) have the right to make their lives as comfortable and safe as possible, but they do not have the right to make other creatures' lives as dangerous and uncomfortable as possible. Torture in particular is designed to make the victim as uncomfortable as possible, and that is EVIL. Slavery is even worse, not only causing extreme discomfort to the victims but also intentionally and methodically attempting to strip them of their will.

And before you say it, yes, this is different from killing a sentient to eat them for power. Simply slaying something, particularly in open battle as it's implied is happening in the kobold-ravenfolk case, is causing pain for a relatively short time and then over. Any killing for any reason, even the apparently-holiest cause, is thus an evil act to a certain extent, but not anywhere near that of torture and certainly not that of slavery.

Let me pose two scenarios for you:

1) A kobold tracks down another member of an opposing tribe and kills him. He eats the corpse and gains his strength.

2) A necromancer goes to a local cemetery and raises a zombie to add to his army.

How are these scenarios different? In both instances, one sentient being is descrating the corpse of another sentient being in order to gain POWER. It's as simple as that.

Yeah, the necromancer uses supposedly "evil magic," but if he never commanded said zombies to harm another living being, then what would be the harm? After all, he's not actually hurting anyone who's alive.

Consider, as well, that many cultures have strict beliefs concerning the afterlife. What if the Raven tribe's traditions demand certain funeral rites to be performed on their corpses? What if their warriors all have to be cremated? Would it then be an evil act?

There are a few evil absolutes. Rape is evil. Slavery is evil. And I would say "desecrating the dead" ranks on that list as well.

Devils_Advocate
2008-08-10, 03:12 AM
At least with slaughtering the orc horde you're protecting the society they'd otherwise destroy, but eating them? It's a depraved act of disrespect that serves no purpose than fulfilling your own decadence.
Well, personally, I'd rather not get killed any time soon, but I'd also rather not have my body go to waste. Luckily, I'm an organ donor, so there's really no need for such an inefficient use of my remains as consumption. I mean, reuse is way better than recycling, amirite?

So I'd say that if respect is about regard for the wishes of others, then killing me would be disrespectful, but eating my corpse afterward wouldn't be, if there were no better use for it, which there might not be in a world with relatively primitive surgery (but possibly advanced magical healing). On the other hand, if respect is about treating others in accordance with the code of behavior mandated by your society regardless of their personal preferences, then screw "respect" with a serrated shortsword that would make it Lawful, not Good.

I honestly would not be surprised if an orc took the view that killing someone entitles you to do whatever you want with their remains. His argument would probably be "Why wouldn't it?" (Or rather, that's how I'd phrase his thoughts on the matter. The actual orc would more likely respond to disagreement on the subject with "RAAAAAAAAAARGH!" combined with smashing his opponent's skull in, which is really sort of an all-purpose rebuttal. Orcs can do quite well in debates, by orc standards.)

FoE
2008-08-10, 03:47 AM
Well, personally, I'd rather not get killed any time soon, but I'd also rather not have my body go to waste. Luckily, I'm an organ donor, so there's really no need for such an inefficient use of my remains as consumption. I mean, reuse is way better than recycling, amirite?

"Make sure they use every part of my body!"
-Free Waterfall Sr., Futurama

I'll remember that if we ever meet in battle. I'm glad you won't have a problem with me keeping your skull for a trophy. :smalltongue:

fractic
2008-08-10, 04:06 AM
Ah, here we are. This is actually a common logical fallacy, called the "bandwagon fallacy" in common parlance. In short, just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true. Many people believe that medieval scholars thought the world was flat, for example (history suggests that educated people never thought that as it is fairly easy to prove mathematically or just by looking at the horizon from a high place).

My argument is not a fallacy. In the case of the believe that the world was flat, it's objective fact that medieval scholars know that it wasn't so. How people think about it doesn't matter. But morals are not objective fact in our world. They are decided by the majority by the very essence of what they are. Now in DnD morals are objective but they are based on our morals.

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-10, 08:52 AM
Let me pose two scenarios for you:

1) A kobold tracks down another member of an opposing tribe and kills him. He eats the corpse and gains his strength.

2) A necromancer goes to a local cemetery and raises a zombie to add to his army.

How are these scenarios different? In both instances, one sentient being is descrating the corpse of another sentient being in order to gain POWER. It's as simple as that.

Yeah, the necromancer uses supposedly "evil magic," but if he never commanded said zombies to harm another living being, then what would be the harm? After all, he's not actually hurting anyone who's alive.

Consider, as well, that many cultures have strict beliefs concerning the afterlife. What if the Raven tribe's traditions demand certain funeral rites to be performed on their corpses? What if their warriors all have to be cremated? Would it then be an evil act?

There are a few evil absolutes. Rape is evil. Slavery is evil. And I would say "desecrating the dead" ranks on that list as well.


See I've never had a problem with necromancy. It may be repugnant and kinda creepy, but I've never really thought that it necessitates that you be evil to do it. Most of the D&D world would tend to disagree with me on that I think.

SuperPanda
2008-08-10, 08:57 AM
Ah, one of those questions that reminds me why I think the alignment system is so dreadfully useless in a polytheistic and multi cultural setting.

-----------

Disclaimer: I haven't read everything, but I've read enough posts of people repeating something other people have said to be sure no one is going to get up at arms about this.

-----------

Is eating another living creature evil?

No, all carnivorous animals are listed as having a neutral alignment, as such eating other living creatures (even still alive) for survival is not evil.

Is an intelligent creature eating another intelligent creature (dead) evil:

This answer is a little more gray for all the reasons previously mentioned. What is the intent of the consumption? In the case of the example it is a magic based ritual for the gaining of power.

Is the consumption of an intelligent creature necessary to gain power or is it cultural? This point is unclear, it depends on how it is done. If the Raven Warrior is wounded but kept alive and slowly cooked while still concious, or slowly cut to pieces and made to observe as it is being consumed... then yes it is about as Evil as you can get. If instead the Warrior is given as clean a death as possible and the ceremony has parts which give thanks to, or praise, the warrior's spirit; then it is certainly not evil. (considering the kobolds are likely to continue fighting the Raven people it isn't good either, but its respectful at the least).

I'd draw the line with how the enemy is treated though I'd place that a preference to eating Intelligent creatures, humanoid or otherwise, is an Evil tendency seeing as how such species almost always have some belief in the afterlife and it almost always involves their physical bodies (in the time and setting DnD is based in). Also, intelligent and social creatures (such as all Humanoids) complicate the issue more.

If said humanoid's species has a religious practice of mourning which requires the physical body then the "evil" of consuming the body doesn't come from the harm you do to the warrior, but rather to his family. You are intentionally causing grief and sorrow to the loved ones of the person you killed beyond the act of actually killing them (if the person is a warrior most cultures war based consider death in battle to be an honor). If their species does not believe that the body has any roll in the afterlife (hard to believe given DnD magic unless its a druidic culture) then I see nothing wrong with it.

Also "because it tastes better" isn't really that great of a way to judge morality otherwise Paladins wouldn't have a code of conduct. The discussion is from the philosophical and ideal standpoints, not from the practical. From the ideal standpoint it is wrong to kill, from the practical standpoint it is wrong to kill members of one's own culture or society.

Notice that every major religion which states that killing is wrong has had (at least one time or another) had people fight and kill in its name. (The Torah is one of the best sources of this, God instructs the people of Isreal to kill every last individual of a given society so that the offspring don't rise up and bring vengeance upon them, despite having a comandment he issued previously being "Thou shalt not kill"). Killing is generally Taboo only within the context of one's own society.


So I guess I just spent too much time writing this when the following sums it up:

Good and Evil aren't in the acts that you do, its in why you do them. Certain acts such as Slavery and Torture, are impossible to justify rationally without having an Evil intention behind them*. Other acts, like eating and in a war torn world like most DnD settings, killing, are largely motive based. Unfortunately for good people, there is no action that is inherently good in nature like there are actions which are inherently evil in nature.

* Torture is often used as a method of interrogation and is given a justification that it is for protecting the members of the society doing the torturing. This is never a rational justification because torture is not an accurate method of gaining information, it is a useful method of causing another creature to say what you want them to say.

Alchemistmerlin
2008-08-10, 09:09 AM
Very well said Super Panda.

In the case of "How the Warrior Dies", it isn't really a cooking and celebrating thing in my example. The hunters hunt the warrior, and eventually one of them catches him, pounches on him, breaks his neck and consumes him.

Very animalistic, but very quick and I would say less vicious than stabbing someone to death with a sword.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 09:29 AM
Because if you did, you could be eating bacon instead, and passing up on Bacon for human flesh is just silly.

Tastewise, Bacon is said to be the closest alternative to human flesh.


"Thou shalt not kill"
King James did a bunch of things right, but it's "Do not murder".


The local Druids can probably talk to the local cattle.
Druids change everything. On Earth, some people have questions about whether dogs are too smart to eat, cows are too smart, etc. If Druids actually can talk to them, they can easily determine which animals understand that they are being raised for food and suffer as a result.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 09:34 AM
* Torture is often used as a method of interrogation and is given a justification that it is for protecting the members of the society doing the torturing. This is never a rational justification because torture is not an accurate method of gaining information, it is a useful method of causing another creature to say what you want them to say.

You are correct that torture is always evil, but for the wrong reason. The reason it is evil is that the ends cannot justify means such as torture. However, torture can certainly be a useful means of gaining information, provided one has a means of verifying certain pieces of information (such as a Zone of Truth spell, multiple captured prisoners, or other agents in the field).

Earl of Purple
2008-08-10, 09:50 AM
I don't think eating intelligent humanoids is evil. I also don't think that an individual undead creature thing, or even a group of undead, aren't evil and nor is raising them. In my mind, raising a skeleton isn't evil, it merely depends on what the skeleton is being used for. Murdering random people is evil, but raising and commanding one to do the washing up isn't.
EDIT: ok, killing somebody so that their corpse can do menial labour is, maybe, slightly evil. Unless that person attacked first.

fractic
2008-08-10, 09:53 AM
EDIT: ok, killing somebody so that their corpse can do menial labour is, maybe, slightly evil. Unless that person attacked first.

That's not just slightly evil, that's downright evil.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 09:58 AM
I feel the need to pointedly remind everyone that in the D&D world (by the book, at least) morals are objective, not subjective. This cannot be emphasised enough. In D&D, there is no morality debate. Whether something is Evil or Good is verifiable and provable, just as much as whether something is a liquid or a solid, or hot or cold, and so on. In this world, Good and Evil are measurable, quantifiable and definitive things. That's actually pretty scary if you think about it, and I'm not sure I would want to live in a reality like that, but that is the way it works in D&D. (Note: this is why, when discussing D&D morality, it is actually proper to capitalize Good, Evil, Neutral, etc. because these are specific forces in D&D, not just concepts)

To summarize, every action has a definite moral bearing, regardless of circumstance. Not every action is Good or Evil, most are Neutral, but every action falls into one of those categories.

Circumstance does matter, I'm not saying it's irrelevant, but at best circumstance can only mitigate the basic morality of the action. For the purposes of most D&D games, it would seem that killing an intelligent creature is actually a decidedly Neutral act, and it is why and how you do it that determines the overall morality. If it were an Evil act, parties of Good adventurers could not do it on a constant basis and remain Good, and if it were a Good act, people wouldn't get so uptight about their village being slaughtered. So Neutral it is. That being the case, I would say that eating an intelligent creature is also a neutral act, and circumstance determines the overall morality. In the case of this kobold example, I'd say it remains Neutral, possibly leaning toward Evil.

Side Note: of course that doesn't mean that everyone will agree where the line is drawn in a D&D game. That will vary from group to group. But there is definitely a line in standard D&D, and you as a group must decide where to draw it.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 10:09 AM
Whether something is Evil or Good is verifiable and provable,[/I]

I'm not quite sure how. You can measure whether a person is Evil or Good, but it would be pretty tricky to really pin down whether it was one action or another that pushed a neutral person to one side (even if you did have a Church Inquisitor with Detect Thoughts performing the experiment, it would still be a very tough experiment to conduct properly - assuming the Scientific Method even works in D&D).

Morality is objective on Earth, but we still have debates over it; I'm not sure the ability to detect alignment of creatures necessarily makes the debates so much easier.

fractic
2008-08-10, 10:14 AM
I'm not quite sure how.
It's called detect evil.



Morality is objective on Earth, but we still have debates over it; I'm not sure the ability to detect alignment of creatures necessarily makes the debates so much easier.

No it's not! Morality on Earth is an entirely subjective matter. Slavery is now considered bad but the Greeks had no problems with it. Who are we to say that we are right? This is also part of the problem with morality in DnD, while the idea of Good is objective in the game world, people outside the game world decide what exactly it is.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 10:18 AM
It's called detect evil.



No it's not! Morality on Earth is an entirely subjective matter. Slavery is now considered bad but the Greeks had no problems with it. Who are we to say that we are right? This is also part of the problem with morality in DnD, while the idea of Good is objective in the game world, people outside the game world decide what exactly it is.

Read my post. Detect evil doesn't detect acts, it detects creatures.
Many Greeks were previously incorrect about slavery*; we are now correct in saying that it is immoral.

*Though the thoughtful ones always understood it to be immoral. There's a reason why in every society that practices slavery, it is more often the good and intelligent people who oppose it; in societies that ban it, it is generally the mean-spirited or thoughtless people who want to bring it back. The human conscience is capable of determining slavery to be immoral.

fractic
2008-08-10, 10:20 AM
*Though the thoughtful ones always understood it to be immoral. There's a reason why in every society that practices slavery, it is more often the good and intelligent people who oppose it; in societies that ban it, it is generally the mean-spirited or thoughtless people who want to bring it back. The human conscience is capable of determining slavery to be immoral.

This is your opinion. An opinion with which I and many other agree. That doesn't make it objective.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 10:30 AM
This is your opinion. An opinion with which I and many other agree. That doesn't make it objective.

It is my belief, and my belief doesn't make it objective.
Any more than my belief that my cellphone is black makes my cellphone black.
There is a chance that I am wrong, and that morality is subjective and my cellphone is pink. Nevertheless, I am making a factual assertion based on the best evidence available to me. I cannot fully prove that morality is objective any more than you can fully prove that it is subjective. What we can surely agree on is that it is worthwhile to free slaves and punish slaveowners, whereas it is not worthwhile to punish tomato-haters or fans of Stella Artois.

fractic
2008-08-10, 10:31 AM
The difference is that some people think slavery is bad and some think slavery is good while everybody agrees your cellphone is black.

[edit]: And it's not just about agreeing. In case of the cellphone there are objective scientific methods to determine that it's black.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 10:37 AM
Morality is objective on Earth, but we still have debates over it

It is certainly NOT objective IRL. The morals of humanity have changed quite a bit many times throughout history. Many people believe morality is objective, but it cannot be proven (Indeed, many of those same people will readily admit that it cannot be proven, as another core principle of most such beliefs is taking things on faith). Since the relevant definitions of objective and subjective basically refer to whether something is external or internal, it is pretty clear that morality is subjective in the real world. In other words: There is no (verifiable) external object that governs morality (that would be objective morality), and the morals of a situation must be decided by the thinking subject who observes them (hence the term subjective).

That's about as much as we can cover of IRL morality without violating board regulations (maybe a bit more), so if you'd like to continue that vein of discussion please PM me.

In D&D, however, there is a verifiable external object that governs morality, i.e. Good and Evil are tangible forces rather than philisophical or religious ideas. Thus morality is objective, and actions are inherently Good or Evil (or, as mentioned, most often Neutral). Thus, circumstances are far less relevant (though again, not completely so) than in RL. This is also why it is possible for creatures to be Good or Evil by their very nature, whereas IRL it is not so.

Again, it is up to the individuals who play where they want the line drawn, but in D&D there IS a line, verifiable and provable.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 10:40 AM
The difference is that some people think slavery is bad and some think slavery is good while everybody agrees your cellphone is black.

If this sentence makes sense to you, you don't actually know the difference between subjective and objective. Whether people agree or disagree on whether the Earth orbits the Sun has no bearing on whether it's a subjective or objective question. It's objective even if people disagree.

fractic
2008-08-10, 10:42 AM
If this sentence makes sense to you, you don't actually know the difference between subjective and objective. Whether people agree or disagree on whether the Earth orbits the Sun has no bearing on whether it's a subjective or objective question. It's objective even if people disagree.

I realised quickly after I posted that my argument was not right. I've edited my post and will expand on it. Scientific methods are objective because they can be repeated and will allways give the same results under equal circumstances. This is required for something to be objective. Morality isn't because it fails this critirium.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 10:44 AM
It is my belief, and my belief doesn't make it objective.
Any more than my belief that my cellphone is black makes my cellphone black.
There is a chance that I am wrong, and that morality is subjective and my cellphone is pink. Nevertheless, I am making a factual assertion based on the best evidence available to me. I cannot fully prove that morality is objective any more than you can fully prove that it is subjective. What we can surely agree on is that it is worthwhile to free slaves and punish slaveowners, whereas it is not worthwhile to punish tomato-haters or fans of Stella Artois.Trouble with that line of thought is this: The very fact that you cannot prove morality objective MAKES it subjective, by the very definitions of the words. Whether slavery is right or wrong is not scientifically provable IRL, that makes it subjective. The observed fact that most nations have now abolished it does not make it any less subjective, it merely shows that most of the world is subjectively viewing it and coming to the same decision (that it is wrong). Whether your cell is black IS provable, thus making it an objective fact.

Again, in D&D it is possible to prove an action as Good or Evil, thus the term 'objective morality'.

Thrawn183
2008-08-10, 10:57 AM
On the topic of something with a bite attack:
Case 1) Sapient X is at war with Sapient Y. Sapient X possesses a bite attack. Sapient X kills Sapient Y with bite attack by crushing its neck. Sapient X then eats SapientY's corpse.

Case 2) Sapient X and Sapient Y in same background. Sapient X captures Sapient Y, tying Sapient Y upside down so that when Sapient X eats it from the feet down it stays conscious longer before succumbing to unconciousness and death. (Specifically so it causes more pain.)

I think this is a case where the distinction is clear. Both times Sapient X took at least one honkin' big piece out of Sapient Y while Sapient Y was still alive. The morality of the actions are still completely different.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-08-10, 11:39 AM
Whether slavery is right or wrong is not scientifically provable IRL, that makes it subjective.
That's like saying that China doesn't objectively exist because you can't prove it exists with geometry.

Objective morality and subjective morality both exist. Objective concepts include that killing is wrong, taking things from others by force is wrong, and helping an injured person is good.

Subjective morality includes things such as "Would killing in self-defense be acceptable", or "Can I steal medicine to save someone's life?" Things that rational, intelligent people can disagree with.

While subjective concepts, which are complex and can differ from place to place, exist, there objectively moral concepts are those which are so ingrained into basic human psychology and philosophy that only the most aberrant could not possess them.

Eating sentient life is an act of incredible depravity and disrespect. It dehumanizes those of sentient intelligence, condeming them as no better than animals.

Furthermore, it serves no purpose. If you were starving on a desert island and eating your dead friend was the only way to survive, that would be the realm of subjective morality.


Utilitarian fauxlosophy always comes back with "They're dead anyway, what does it matter?" But morality is not built around some cosmic equation of cost/benefit. Anything can be justified by breaking things down to some point where "We're all just molecules, who says murder is wrong?" But for such arguments to matter, the concepts have to be generalized to the point where they are no longer relevant or useful.

It's about the mindset of the person acting, and if that person is engaging in a depraved act such as devouring a sentient being, than they are the ones who are subject to the moral implications.

fractic
2008-08-10, 11:44 AM
That's like saying that China doesn't objectively exist because you can't prove it exists with geometry.

That's just nonsense. China is an idea (in a broad sense) and there is plenty of evidence of it's existance. Sure you can't derive it from logic but that doesn't make it any less of a fact.



Objective morality and subjective morality both exist. Objective concepts include that killing is wrong, taking things from others by force is wrong, and helping an injured person is good.


Why is this objective? Why is killing bad? Why is causingpain bad? Because the person to whom it happens doesn't like it? Why does that matter? It's all subjective.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-08-10, 11:49 AM
That's just nonsense. China is an idea (in a broad sense) and there is plenty of evidence of it's existance. Sure you can't derive it from logic but that doesn't make it any less of a fact.I know, it's nonsense. Just like saying that morality isn't objective because you can't prove it scientifically.


Why is this objective? Why is killing bad? Why is causingpain bad? Because the person to whom it happens doesn't like it? Why does that matter? It's all subjective.
Killing is wrong because it's unjust and immoral, it deprives another of inalienable rights. This is the cornerstone of philosophies worldwide. People often make exceptions, but even the most lax philosophy recognizes that these are exceptions made from a general rule.

If you ask me to find some scientific equation to prove Killing = Wrong from base principles, I can't.
But it's a basic moral fact, one on which all philosophy is based.

If you asked the founding fathers to say how they chose the inalienable rights on which they based the constitution, they wouldn't offer some long "cost/benefit" analysis of murder in society, they'd tell you about the ideals of the Elightenment, which would trace back to older philosophies and older philosophies still.


And throughout all this history, there would be certain basic concepts, givens on which all these ideals are based.

fractic
2008-08-10, 11:53 AM
Killing is wrong because it's unjust and immoral, it deprives another of inalienable rights. This is the cornerstone of philosophies worldwide. People often make exceptions, but even the most lax philosophy recognizes that these are exceptions made from a general rule.

This is begging the question and that's a logical fallacy, argument disregarded



If you ask me to find some scientific equation to prove Killing = Wrong from base principles, I can't.
But it's a basic moral fact, one on which all philosophy is based.


Excuse me? All philosophy? You know the inhabitants of planet Xyfor would disagree. Again you are begging the question here.




If you asked the founding fathers to say how they chose the inalienable rights on which they based the constitution, they wouldn't offer some long "cost/benefit" analysis of murder in society, they'd tell you about the ideals of the Elightenment, which would trace back to older philosophies and older philosophies still.

Yes it's fact that killing is wrong acording to the constitution (yes oversimplifying here) but that doesn't mean it's objectively wrong.



And throughout all this history, there would be certain basic concepts, givens on which all these ideals are based.

This is plain wrong. Not everyone throughout history agrees that killing is bad. It's also completely irrelevant what everybody thinks because that is subjective.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 11:58 AM
*Though the thoughtful ones always understood it to be immoral. There's a reason why in every society that practices slavery, it is more often the good and intelligent people who oppose it; in societies that ban it, it is generally the mean-spirited or thoughtless people who want to bring it back. The human conscience is capable of determining slavery to be immoral.

No. Just, no. I've read Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and related works, and in none of those cases did any of the most famous and influential "thoughtful Greeks" understand slavery to be immortal. Socrates even specifically uses the concept (as a good and righteous thing) as an integral part of his arguments as to why he should not flee his execution.


My argument is not a fallacy. In the case of the believe that the world was flat, it's objective fact that medieval scholars know that it wasn't so. How people think about it doesn't matter. But morals are not objective fact in our world. They are decided by the majority by the very essence of what they are. Now in DnD morals are objective but they are based on our morals.

The example was flawed, but your argument does follow the bandwagon fallacy. In the post I had quoted there, you essentially said "Lots of people think eating intelligent creatures wrong, therefore it is wrong." Then of course I admitted that in DnD that argument was actually rather valid (though not valid in a RL discussion) :smallsmile:


Let me pose two scenarios for you:

1) A kobold tracks down another member of an opposing tribe and kills him. He eats the corpse and gains his strength.

2) A necromancer goes to a local cemetery and raises a zombie to add to his army.

How are these scenarios different? In both instances, one sentient being is descrating the corpse of another sentient being in order to gain POWER. It's as simple as that.

Yeah, the necromancer uses supposedly "evil magic," but if he never commanded said zombies to harm another living being, then what would be the harm? After all, he's not actually hurting anyone who's alive.

Consider, as well, that many cultures have strict beliefs concerning the afterlife. What if the Raven tribe's traditions demand certain funeral rites to be performed on their corpses? What if their warriors all have to be cremated? Would it then be an evil act?

There are a few evil absolutes. Rape is evil. Slavery is evil. And I would say "desecrating the dead" ranks on that list as well.

Of the two scenarios, the first is more evil because it involves killing. I do not feel "desecrating the dead" is evil at all because a corpse is ultimately the same stuff as a rock. Necromancy (as in raising undead) is evil if and only if the created undead are used for other evil acts.

Actually, in DnD we have very clear-cut evidence that there are afterlives and that the spirits of the dead go to those afterlives. This actually proves beyond doubt that bodies are essentially just puppets, so making zombies or skeletons is essentially the same as the Necromancer playing with someone else's dolls while they're away :smallamused: Oddly enough, if you take the alignment system and apply it to this type of necromancy, necromancy is not Evil, either, as it does not necessarily involve hurting, oppressing, or killing others. Fun times, yes? :smallwink:

However, if it is the case that the Raven tribe has rituals concerning the dead it does skew the ritualistic consuption more towards the evil end of things as you are, presumably, causing some grief to the other Ravens. Mind you, this isn't necessarily that great of grief, though, as it is unspecified as to how much the kobolds must eat and what is done to prepare the carcass for consumption. If the kobold needs relatively little, the damage done to the body may be no more than if the Raven was killed in war, which they probably do not consider to be a dishonorable death.

Still, it comes down to this: you believe desecrating a corpse is inherently evil, while I do not. Unfortunately, I doubt that either of us could convince the other, so it appears that we are at an impasse :smallsigh:

fractic
2008-08-10, 12:00 PM
The example was flawed, but your argument does follow the bandwagon fallacy. In the post I had quoted there, you essentially said "Lots of people think eating intelligent creatures wrong, therefore it is wrong." Then of course I admitted that in DnD that argument was actually rather valid (though not valid in a RL discussion) :smallsmile:

I admit I did the bandwagon thing but I claim it's not a fallacy in this case. I claim this because I believe morality is just the sum of peoples subjective interpretations as I have argued in the previous posts.

Yahzi
2008-08-10, 12:16 PM
Why is eating an intelligent being wrong?
Because you don't want to be eaten?


And, perhaps, what makes eating a being with an int score of 3 different from eating a being with an int score or 2?
Because non-sentient entities are not moral agents. Cows, for example, do not fear death in the sense that people do. They can't, because they can't imagine the future (or the past). Thus, raising them to eat them is not the same kind of crime as raising people to eat them, because the cows don't suffer from fear of being eaten while they are raised.


Further, if you happened to have an abnormally stupid Orc, for example, who happened to have less than 3 int (impossible by the rules, I know, but this is a hypothetical so humor me), would eating it be wrong?
Human beings avoid committing acts that, while innocent in themselves, might lead to evil acts later. Not eating orcs guarantees that you won't ever accidentally eat an intelligent orc.

Also, any given race would probably find it unacceptable for orcs to treat their brain-dead coma patients like cows; therefore, that race can't do it orcs.


Or, for that matter, if you had an abnormally intelligent cow with an int more than 3, would eating it be wrong?
Yes.

Yahzi
2008-08-10, 12:24 PM
I claim this because I believe morality is just the sum of peoples subjective interpretations as I have argued in the previous posts.
But people's subjective interpretations are a function of their biological construction.

If we spawned like fish - giving birth to thousands and thousands of young, only a few of which were expected to survive - then infanticide would not be the same kind of crime as it is now.

Given that human beings have an objective nature, objective statements about human morality can be made.

In other words, if eating another being made the kobolds mature (and capable of sexual reproduction) instead of merely powerful, then the kobolds could rightfully argue that, for them, eating people was ok. As long, of course, as they are willing to accept that for other people, killing kobolds is ok.

Blanks
2008-08-10, 12:26 PM
Apologies, I only read the first page.

I would just add the significance it makes that they eat a captured intelligent being.

This beings knowlegde that its going to be eaten amounts to torture I would say. Torture is always evil in DnD.

fractic
2008-08-10, 12:26 PM
But people's subjective interpretations are a function of their biological construction.

If we spawned like fish - giving birth to thousands and thousands of young, only a few of which were expected to survive - then infanticide would not be the same kind of crime as it is now.

Given that human beings have an objective nature, objective statements about human morality can be made.


This is wrong by your reasoning there is no subjectivity whatsoever. That's cleary not the case. Sure it's all a result of the law of physics but that is not the level relevant to the discussion.

[edit]: You also mention human morality specifically. Again this makes it subjective. Since objective morality wouldn't be tied to human beings.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 12:46 PM
Prophanati: I will stop asserting that morality is objective if you stop asserting it's subjective. Obviously neither of us can prove it (any more than I can prove that ANY of reality is objective or subjective). All I can say is that it's more appropriate to treat it like it's objective (rewarding/punishing people for their actions rather than simply finding their "difference of opinion" interesting).

But tell me what this changes in D&D. You know that a creature is evil or good. You don't therefore know that an action is evil or good. Morality is still therefore debatable just like in the real world.

Necrorebel: You certainly didn't read Socrates. And Plato and Aristotle clearly belong in the category of "overrated philosophers who overthink things and come to insane conclusions", not "good thinkers". They were specifically arguing against the best thinkers (Euthyphro, Sophists, etc) who - alas- were less avid writers.

fractic
2008-08-10, 12:48 PM
But tell me what this changes in D&D. You know that a creature is evil or good. You don't therefore know that an action is evil or good.

While this is true strictly it is a logical extension. The phylactary of faitfullness is the perfect example. It can judge actions. And to create it the spells detect evil etc. are used.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 12:54 PM
While this is true strictly it is a logical extension. The phylactary of faitfullness is the perfect example. It can judge actions. And to create it the spells detect evil etc. are used.

Yeah but that one specifically looks at your particular religion. It's interesting that there isn't a deity-free version.

fractic
2008-08-10, 12:57 PM
It is interesting and we'll probably never get a RAW ruling on it. But the scientific method remains. In theory a creature that has a neutral alligment could repeat a certain act over and over to determine if his allignment changes. Just as a thought experiment this shows that it is possible to assign an allignment to an act.

nagora
2008-08-10, 12:58 PM
In the warrior caste's coming of age ceremony they are charged with hunting, killing, and eating a capture Raven-folk warrior. It isn't for sport, it is part of a magical ceremony to transform them into their larger (read: Medium sized) kobold state.
Placing one's goals above those of another intelligent being to the point of killing them (the ultimate in domination) is evil unless in self-defence.

In AD&D domination of others is Evil.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 01:00 PM
Objective morality and subjective morality both exist. Objective concepts include that killing is wrong, taking things from others by force is wrong, and helping an injured person is good.

Subjective morality includes things such as "Would killing in self-defense be acceptable", or "Can I steal medicine to save someone's life?" Things that rational, intelligent people can disagree with.


These are not, in fact, the definitions of objective and subjective.

Objective: 7. being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject (opposed to subjective).
Subjective: 1. existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective).In more plain language, what this means is quite simple. If something exists outside of the 'thinking subject' (that means you) it is objective. If it exists within your thoughts and perceptions, it is subjective. Now, this is where belief and philosophy can be hotly debated, but basically, if something cannot be verified to exist outside the mind of the thinking subject (you), it is considered to be subjective. Since morality (right and wrong or good and evil), cannot be verified to exist outside our own perceptions of a situation, they are subjective ideas.

This does not mean that subjective ideas are any less valid, in fact they make up a great deal of what we are as thinking beings. It merely points out that whether a thing is right or wrong cannot be proven. It certainly can be decided on by the society in question, and those decisions enforced to some degree or another, and that's a good thing. Anything else would be anarchy, which is not quite as fun as some people like to think it is. But it cannot be proven or verified by any external means. That is Subjective Morality, arguably the only kind of morality that exists in the real world. I'm not saying that there's no such thing as right or wrong in the real world, I'm just explaining that these things must be decided upon by individuals and societies. Indeed, most IRL morality debates really boil down to one simple question: What kind of society do you want to live in? That's why so many governments and religions have so many parallels in laws and beliefs, because most people want to live in a society where people are kind and decent, and are willing to be kind and decent in return.

The reason it is so important to remember the difference between objective ideas and subjective ones for the purposes of this discussion is this: In a world of objective morality, the question debates boil down to is not "what kind of society do we want to live in?", but rather "does this act generate x-rays or gamma rays?" the rays being euphamisms for Good and Evil. There esentially is no debate, as it is provable one way or the other. Again, in D&D it is provable that an act is Evil or Good, or that a person is Evil or Good. Such a decision is not arrived at by intelligent debate or concensus, but rather by the magical equivilent of a scientific test. Like I said, it's actually kind of disturbing when you think about it, and I'm not certain I would like to live in such a world.

In our world morality is indeed subjective, and I say that's a good thing. It means we have room for debates such as this, for ideas and thought and discussion, and room to change our minds about things that our ancestors didn't blink at (slavery).

SuperPanda
2008-08-10, 01:06 PM
point:

Can killing be demonstrated to be morally wrong scientifically...

Response:

Assuming of course that morality is being discussed as a philosophy then the only answer is "of course not." Morality, like any branch of the social consciousness of the human animal, is not something which can be quantified in the same nature that physics and chemistry can. Psychology can only pin down soft answers and theories as opposed to hard scientific law (which still only has a 95% probability if you actually understand the science behind it).

Still the common acceptance of psychopaths (individuals with the inability to discern right from wrong) and sociopaths (individuals perfectly capable of determining right from wrong but who lack any care for doing wrong) indicates that there are definitive morals within any given human society.

Looking carefully at virtually ever case of "Killing is wrong" being presented as an argument prior to globalization, the statement appears to be intended as a social moray only for dealing with members of your own society, members equally bound by such a code. Considering the obvious survival incentive of not killing or being killed by members of one's own society and species, it is then logical to draw the hypothesis that the great number of moral systems which despise killing actually despise killing "members of one's own society/group". This is a hypothesis which would require far greater anthropological and psychological research than I could supply at this time to "prove" however it should hold under scrutiny of all but the most ridiculous claims.

The modern day confusion comes from first world liberal practices of extending the notion of group or society to encompass the entire world, which is fine for the person so extending their notion of community but fails terribly when the less privledged individuals still see the world as an "us or them" situation. It is virtually always considered Evil to kill a member of "us" and usually considered Good or Neutral to kill a member of "them" unless doing so in a truly brutal fashion (and even then some depending on what part of history you want to examine).


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

Morals being subjective/objective:

I agree that the book presents the morality of the world as objective, I also stand by my statement that I feel this is stupid (because it basically means that there are entire societies of sociopaths in existence which doesn't make sense if you understand the term sociopath).

My fix for this is to make the intention behind the action the element which is analyzed for morality debates. If two separate characters kill a man, one because the man was attacking innocents with lethal force and the second because the man refused to bargain on the price of a horse, the second is almost always evil and the first is almost always good. The action is the same, the morality is completely reversed.

-------------------------
Question: Why is causing pain bad?

Response: Causing pain is not bad, in fact most medical procedures cause pain in order to stop pain in the future. Growing is painful, learning is painful, and if you happen to be lunch... well, you get the idea.

Causing pain for the pure sake of causing pain is considered evil from the perspective that you are taking delight in nothing other than bringing suffering to another being (sentient or not at that point). It is an action without purpose, which makes it difficult to discuss from a quasi-scientific standpoint.

Psychologically speaking, an act like the above mentioned, causing pain maliciously for not reason other than personal enjoyment, is a way of asserting power over others to increase your sense of self worth. Governing by strength is a basic animal instinct, but if that strength is turned inwards onto the group/pack/society, then loyalty of its members wavers and breaks until the slightest outside pressure destroys their chances of survival. For a non Alpha to be behaving in this manner weakens the command structure of the true Alpha and therefore put society in danger as well. The aggressor must either be put in his place (causing him to "punish" those he can with more ferocity) or killed (at this point the aggressor has become a "them" rather than an "us").

As such, torture and curelty are evolutionarily selected against while a dislike and intolerance for such behaviors are selected for within the human being.

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

The final crutch... objective morality in a world evolved from multiple species types (reptilian, primate, canine, feline, fey--on whom you'd rather I not start into-- ect.)

These species are not, in most cases, based in any way off of any understanding or pretense of biology or anthropology but rather chosen because they look, sound, and might be interesting. Kobolds in the book are not reptilian humanoids, they are short humans that look funny and act like savages most of the time. Similarly, Dwarves are the weird mix of Scotsmen and smiths we saw in Tolkein's story and the Elves are somewhat androgynous (I'm looking at you V).

At this point, you either sit back and relax because it really is just a game, or you scrap the alignment system and find another way to handle these issues, because your not going to be able to manage it with that many factors (let alone the different religions).

Though this point cannot be used to refute a belief that there are real world objective morals because it has nothing to do with the real world.

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

To the responses to my previous post.

Thanks for the note about the King James Bible. Unless "murder" is exclusive to members of ones own group through (in this case, other Jews) I think the example still stands, and if it is then if only goes to prove my actual point better than I thought it did).

To the response to Torturing being wrong because it is inherently evil: I disagree for the reasons I stated under cruelty (causing pain). I placed Torture as wrong knowing that all divinations in DnD have a chance to fail and therefore are unreliable, as such you cannot prove that the Zone of Truth spell is preventing false confessions. More importantly, if your going to use divinations then there are easier ways to go about interrogations than torture. As such it is Evil because it is inefficient and under any level of rational scrutiny boils down simply to "causing pain for the sake of causing pain."

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 01:10 PM
That's like saying that China doesn't objectively exist because you can't prove it exists with geometry.

Strictly speaking, it's impossible to prove that China does in fact exist using logic. You can only prove it exists using your abilities to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, and philosophers still haven't proved those to be at all accurate :smallamused:


Objective morality and subjective morality both exist. Objective concepts include that killing is wrong, taking things from others by force is wrong, and helping an injured person is good.

So why do so many moral people kill, take things from others by force, and not help injured people? These ideals are far from universal, are always modified by caveats (such as the "Is the person trying to kill you" you mentioned below).


Subjective morality includes things such as "Would killing in self-defense be acceptable", or "Can I steal medicine to save someone's life?" Things that rational, intelligent people can disagree with.

Is killing wrong? If yes, then it doesn't matter if it's in self-defense. Killing is wrong. If it does matter if it's in self-defense, then killing is not necessarily wrong, which means that at the very least it isn't that simple, and probably means it is subjective.

Similar arguments also follow for your other "objective morals," such as "I need medicine to save someone's life, I have no money, I have a gun, is taking the medicine from someone else by applying the gun wrong?" If "taking things from others by force" is wrong, it is wrong no matter what is being taken; if it matters what is being taken, it is not objectively wrong. Further, if helping an injured person is objectively morally good, that implies that even taking the medicine by force to help them is also objectively morally good, despite the fact that taking things by force is "objectively morally wrong."


While subjective concepts, which are complex and can differ from place to place, exist, there objectively moral concepts are those which are so ingrained into basic human psychology and philosophy that only the most aberrant could not possess them.

How much psychology have you studied? I'll tell you from experience, and from the studies done on these topics, that these "objective moral concepts" are not ingrained into basic human psychology; if they were, we probably wouldn't have wars, ever, because presumably all but the most aberrant would possess them as well as the desire to be "good," which, when combined, is the antithesis of war.


Eating sentient life is an act of incredible depravity and disrespect. It dehumanizes those of sentient intelligence, condeming them as no better than animals.

Furthermore, it serves no purpose. If you were starving on a desert island and eating your dead friend was the only way to survive, that would be the realm of subjective morality.

Depravity is defined either by standard human condition (which is animal; take humans out of a society and we actually act like opportunistic scavengers similar to lions. Humans, perhaps not surprisingly, evolved from opportunistic scavengers similar in behavior to lions). Standard human condition will do whatever is necessary to survive, so depravity, oddly enough, is doing only things that are not necessary to survive. Guess what? I just defined normal human society (all of them!) as depraved! :smallbiggrin:

You misuse the word "sentient." Don't worry, everyone has done it since Star Trek. Cows have "sentient intelligence;" all it means is they are capable of sensing. That's it. Done. Ever eaten a cow? That was a sentient intelligence.

"Dehumanizing" is already pretty much done as soon as something is dead. If you see a human corpse, you can recognize it as "not-human" pretty easily. As to the serving no purpose part, in the real world you'd usually be right. In the hypothetical case here, though, the kobolds very specifically get a large benefit from it. Does that change things for you?



Utilitarian fauxlosophy always comes back with "They're dead anyway, what does it matter?" But morality is not built around some cosmic equation of cost/benefit. Anything can be justified by breaking things down to some point where "We're all just molecules, who says murder is wrong?" But for such arguments to matter, the concepts have to be generalized to the point where they are no longer relevant or useful.

It's about the mindset of the person acting, and if that person is engaging in a depraved act such as devouring a sentient being, than they are the ones who are subject to the moral implications.

Utilitarians are... an odd sort. They do have some valid points, though; the classic moral quandaries (such as the "stealing medicine" ones) are best solved through a cost-benefit analysis of sorts. Still, if you're going to build a cohesive moral or ethical framework, you absolutely need general principles to build off of, so seemingly-irrelevant general concepts are essential in those cases.

And... The mindset thing. If Hannibal Lecter believed that eating people was not wrong, saying that it's all about the mindset of the actor means that eating people was not wrong, for him. And before you say that that character was obviously deviant himself... Realize that "normal" when applied to people is highly subjective, as what is normal in China (if it exists of course :smallbiggrin:) is oftentimes highly abnormal in Italy (if it exists of course :smallbiggrin:) and vice versa. Lecter may be the most normal person, anywhere, forever! (OK, probably not)


Killing is wrong because it's unjust and immoral, it deprives another of inalienable rights. This is the cornerstone of philosophies worldwide. People often make exceptions, but even the most lax philosophy recognizes that these are exceptions made from a general rule.

So killing is unjust and immoral why? That essentially is the same as saying "Ice cream tastes good because it tastes good," and that proves nothing. Second, philosophies worldwide are almost all based on much less specific principles than "inalienable rights," which many people debate what they include. Further, the fact that you recognize exceptions to moral rules means that that rule is not absolute objective moral truth; see above.


If you ask me to find some scientific equation to prove Killing = Wrong from base principles, I can't.
But it's a basic moral fact, one on which all philosophy is based.

Nope. No philosophy of which I'm aware is based off the principle "Killing is wrong." Philosophies which get anywhere are based off of much less complicated principles.


If you asked the founding fathers to say how they chose the inalienable rights on which they based the constitution, they wouldn't offer some long "cost/benefit" analysis of murder in society, they'd tell you about the ideals of the Elightenment, which would trace back to older philosophies and older philosophies still.

And throughout all this history, there would be certain basic concepts, givens on which all these ideals are based.


Ah, Americanism... The "founding fathers" you refer to are not nearly as influential outside of the USA. The Constitution you refer to is valid only in a small area of the world. As to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the older European theologies they were based on, and the older Greek philosophes those were based on, you should look at those very closely. Philosophies change because people find flaws in older ones, and most modern people would find those older ideals horribly outdated and, quite probably, immoral themselves (see: slavery, woman's suffrage, economic principles, war, etc.).

As to the basic concepts and givens - Yes, there were basic givens on which all ideals were based. "Killing is wrong" was never one of them; that's one of the aforementioned ideals, not a basic concept.




I admit I did the bandwagon thing but I claim it's not a fallacy in this case. I claim this because I believe morality is just the sum of peoples subjective interpretations as I have argued in the previous posts.

Fair enough. I myself base morality on the principle that if an act causes pain it is evil, if it removes pain it is not-evil, if it removes pleasure it is not-good, and if it causes pleasure it is good. And yes, I'm well aware that this leaves room for "good-evil" acts; my moral system involves many highly subjective judgements.




Because you don't want to be eaten?

Means nothing. I want to sleep with a young woman I met a while back... Doesn't mean it is necessarily good to do so.


Because non-sentient entities are not moral agents. Cows, for example, do not fear death in the sense that people do. They can't, because they can't imagine the future (or the past). Thus, raising them to eat them is not the same kind of crime as raising people to eat them, because the cows don't suffer from fear of being eaten while they are raised.

Prove it. I've seen animals run away from things that would kill them. I've seen animals avoid places where they've been injured before, and avoid places where others have died. Animals fear death. They do their damnedest to avoid it, as do humans.


Human beings avoid committing acts that, while innocent in themselves, might lead to evil acts later. Not eating orcs guarantees that you won't ever accidentally eat an intelligent orc.

Also, any given race would probably find it unacceptable for orcs to treat their brain-dead coma patients like cows; therefore, that race can't do it orcs.

That first sentence amuses me. I direct your attention to the American military actions in Vietnam. Innocent in themselves (protecting a nation from invaders) and lead to evil acts later (countless slaughters, a massive war, vast deforestation, etc.). Fun times, yes? :smallfrown:

The second paragraph... Eh, that is an appeal to the majority. Doesn't actually work for proof in this case.


Given that human beings have an objective nature, objective statements about human morality can be made.

They can be made, certainly, but no one has yet presented one that couldn't be argued. Name 1 objective statement about human morality that no one will argue, and I will relent here; otherwise, you're speaking nonsense.




Necrorebel: You certainly didn't read Socrates. And Plato and Aristotle clearly belong in the category of "overrated philosophers who overthink things and come to insane conclusions", not "good thinkers"

You claim to tell me what I have and have not done? :smallamused: Please, direct me to one of the tracts attributed to the man that claims - or even implies! - slavery is immoral. I doubt you are aware of any. For my part, I direct you to the Phaedo (Plato's, yes, but attributed to Socrates).

On Plato and Aristotle... They formed the basis for all Western philosophy since then. For that alone they deserve respect, even if some of their conclusions are clearly insane. Then again, the world itself is clearly insane, so who's to say their conclusions are that far off? :smallamused: And the answer, of course, is most modern philosophers and scholars, but oh well.

fractic
2008-08-10, 01:10 PM
Morals being subjective/objective:

I agree that the book presents the morality of the world as objective, I also stand by my statement that I feel this is stupid


Just because you feel it is stupid doesn't make it stupid. We simply can't truly comprehend such a world. Nevertheless it follows from the RAW that morality in DnD is objective. Maybe the term morality is wrong?



(because it basically means that there are entire societies of sociopaths in existence which doesn't make sense if you understand the term sociopath).


This just means that the term sociopath would take a different meaning in such a world.

fractic
2008-08-10, 01:16 PM
Strictly speaking, it's impossible to prove that China does in fact exist using logic. You can only prove it exists using your abilities to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, and philosophers still haven't proved those to be at all accurate :smallamused:


People call something China ergo the idea China exists. This doesn't yet prove that China is a country for example. But this is provable once we accept the defintion of a country. But then you're stuck with the subjective defintion of a country and so on. You'll have to asume some axioms.




They can be made, certainly, but no one has yet presented one that couldn't be argued. Name 1 objective statement about human morality that no one will argue, and I will relent here; otherwise, you're speaking nonsense.


Actually such statements are easy to make. Here is an objective fact about human morality:

"In the 20th century it was generally considerd bad to kill someone else just for the sake of killing"

This is an objective statement about a subjective matter.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 01:41 PM
Actually such statements are easy to make. Here is an objective fact about human morality:

"In the 20th century it was generally considerd bad to kill someone else just for the sake of killing"

This is an objective statement about a subjective matter.

True, true... I suppose I walked into that one. What I should have said is "Name 1 objective absolute about human morality," which narrows it down quite a bit as it prevents people from naming a timeframe or location (as it would not, then, be an absolute)... Or something similar. I'm not sure on the wording I want to use. Well played.



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

Question: Why is causing pain bad?

Response: Causing pain is not bad, in fact most medical procedures cause pain in order to stop pain in the future. Growing is painful, learning is painful, and if you happen to be lunch... well, you get the idea.

Causing pain for the pure sake of causing pain is considered evil from the perspective that you are taking delight in nothing other than bringing suffering to another being (sentient or not at that point). It is an action without purpose, which makes it difficult to discuss from a quasi-scientific standpoint.

Psychologically speaking, an act like the above mentioned, causing pain maliciously for not reason other than personal enjoyment, is a way of asserting power over others to increase your sense of self worth. Governing by strength is a basic animal instinct, but if that strength is turned inwards onto the group/pack/society, then loyalty of its members wavers and breaks until the slightest outside pressure destroys their chances of survival. For a non Alpha to be behaving in this manner weakens the command structure of the true Alpha and therefore put society in danger as well. The aggressor must either be put in his place (causing him to "punish" those he can with more ferocity) or killed (at this point the aggressor has become a "them" rather than an "us").

As such, torture and curelty are evolutionarily selected against while a dislike and intolerance for such behaviors are selected for within the human being.


I believe I was the one who brought the pain principle up, so I will address this bit.

As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, my personal moral system is based off of the principle that if it causes pain it is evil, if it removes pain it is not-evil, if it removes pleasure it is not-good, and if it causes pleasure it is good. These are simply the premises upon which I base my moral judgements and, of course, are not truly applicable outside that system. Still, I've yet to meet anyone who has too major of objections to it :smallwink:

Medicine, in this system, is intended to remove pain and, if it causes pain in so doing, causes as little pain as possible. In the pleasure-pain system, then, it is "evil not-evil" with emphasis on the not-evil side. Governing well is also a case of attempting to minimize the pain (in the broadest sense of the term; "suffering" might be more accurate) while maximizing the pleasure caused by it, while governing badly fails to minimize pain or maximize pleasure.

Ah... I didn't address the general case. Causing pain can prevent greater pain later, as removing pleasure now can cause greater pleasure later. Any case can be good, not-evil, not-good, and evil in any amount; this is something this system attempts to address because it does not work in strict absolutes.

FoE
2008-08-10, 01:48 PM
In DnD we have very clear-cut evidence that there are afterlives and that the spirits of the dead go to those afterlives. This actually proves beyond doubt that bodies are essentially just puppets, so making zombies or skeletons is essentially the same as the Necromancer playing with someone else's dolls while they're away

Yeah, except that doll is a ****ing corpse.

I'm fairly certain the vast majority of people would object to seeing loved ones turned into zombies, or having their own bodies animated as one.
Rich Burlew himself has weighed in on this subject. In Start of Darkness ...

... Xykon resurrected Lira's body as a zombie after he defeated her just to torment her. And later, Redcloak refused to animate his brother as a zombie, insisting that he would bury him instead. Xykon made him do it anyways, just to be a ****.

Animating a person's body as your undead servant is about one of the biggest indignities you can visit on a person. Therefore, evil.

fractic
2008-08-10, 01:49 PM
True, true... I suppose I walked into that one. What I should have said is "Name 1 objective absolute about human morality," which narrows it down quite a bit as it prevents people from naming a timeframe or location (as it would not, then, be an absolute)... Or something similar. I'm not sure on the wording I want to use. Well played.


Still this might be possible to do. My point was that even though we can state objective facts about something, that doesn't make that something objective itself.

SuperPanda
2008-08-10, 01:50 PM
I didn't say that the idea of morality being objective is stupid, I said I felt the presentation of, and the idea as it currently sits, to be so. There is a large difference between the two of them.

Also if you would consider the amount of time spent upon the presentation of possible explanations for some of the touted "objective" moralities, such as the human taboo against murder, you would doubtless recognize that I do not find the idea of moral objectivity to be stupid. Rather I find it to be frequently presented and/or refuted without having been giving due consideration. In truth I find the idea facinating and would love for it to be presented in such a fashion that I could truely believe in it, though to date I have never found an argument (outside of the ones I've looked for through anthropology and cognitive psychology) which took any more time that to say "objective morality does/doesn't exist because I say so and everyone agrees with me."

-----

The DnD world has objective morals because it has active and interfering gods. But the problem I have with that is that it assumes that all of creation is part of the same society (the society of the gods, not of the people beneath them) and that the gods all share the same morality. This would mean that gods of the slaughter and gods of virtue have the exact same notion of what is right and wrong, but one chooses to command his followers to do what is right and the other chooses to command the followers to do what is wrong (often to their detriment in a storybook style world).

This can only be explained through the gods playing a game with mortal playing pieces (a nice analogy to players playing the game, also a frequent sentiment from peoples living under polytheistic religions such as the ancient greeks). Of course, the DnD pantheon doesn't work well for that because most of the gods and goddesses have no relation to each other what so ever as presented in the books, but this is easily solved by substituting in an interlocked pantheon like the Nordic or the Greek one (I'd suggest the Nordic if your a fan of hard good vs evil rules. Anything descendant from the Frost Giants is evil, anything from the gods is good).

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

But, trying to salvage this train wreck and go back to the actual question:

There is too much of the original example not presented to make a clean argument either from the subjective:

"Well in this case, the Raven Warrior didn't feel a great deal of pain and was killed early so as not to suffer from the ill effects of terror as it waited to be boiled alive... " (or the like).

Or objective:

"In the evolution of these two species, neither of them descended from herbivores or omnivores, as such both of them developed hunting cultures. Since hunting cultures lend themselves more easily to Revenge cultures it is highly likely that the two races, by sheer misfortune of proximity, are now so deep in the blood of the other that reconciliation is impossible (and that they hardly recognize the other culture as intelligent or sentient). In this case, a blanket hatred clothed in the language of justice and valor, likely permeates both cultures making the continued warfare violence for the sake of violence (though with each member of the society unknowing of it)."

In this case, If you evaluate alignments by acts, both sides are evil. If you evaluate alignment by intention, any individual who enjoys it, is evil.

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

Necro-evil:

A very interesting viewpoint and something very similar to what I generally use as my rule of thumb when I DM for my less philosophical players (much to the frustration of the player who likes to play the Vengeance bound assassin who will kill, in as brutal a fashion he can get away with, anyone who insults or harms him, and then insists that he is not Evil in any fashion...)

I basically have a similar system though instead of pleasure vs pain, I use benifit vs burden or solution vs problem. Things that cause more work (burdens) or create imbalances in the system (problems) generally are not good within a game world.

For my personal life I try to govern myself based off of smiles and tears. I don't know what any God in any place thinks of me, but if I can leave the world having been the source of more smiles than tears, I think I'll have lived a good and purposeful life.

sikyon
2008-08-10, 01:52 PM
I believe that morality is directly tied to good/evil, which in the real world is subjective.

Luckily for us, in D&D alignment is objective. Why? Clear existence of gods.

So:

For good aligned:


Eating evil person: good act
Eating good person: evil act
Eating neutral person: evil/neutral act

for evil:

Eating evil person: neutral act
Eating good person: evil act
Eating neutral person: evil/neutral act

for neutral

Eating evil person: good/neutral act
Eating good person: evil/neutral act
Eating neutral person: evil/neutral act

it's a neutral act for mindless beings. Otherwise, because in D&D 3.5 RAW neutrality favours good over evil, all things considered, it takes on the good subset.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-08-10, 01:54 PM
This is begging the question and that's a logical fallacy, argument disregarded
No, it's not. My argument wasn't meant to prove that killing was wrong, it was meant to establish that objective morality exists. To that end, I give an example of an axiom common throughout world philosophy and moral theory as an example of basic principles existing.



Excuse me? All philosophy? You know the inhabitants of planet Xyfor would disagree. Again you are begging the question here.
When you have an example from planet Xyfor I'd love to hear it. I'm talking about general principles that have become axioms in the common philosophies of all but the aberrant.
Until then, don't just cite theoretical examples.
Maybe not every single person believes that killing is wrong, but I'm talking about the important, grander philosophical underpinnings that have made it into the canon of world knowledge.


Yes it's fact that killing is wrong acording to the constitution (yes oversimplifying here) but that doesn't mean it's objectively wrong.Return to what I actually said, I used the constitution as an example of how those idas have formed, not as a way to esatblish what is objectively moral.



This is plain wrong. Not everyone throughout history agrees that killing is bad. It's also completely irrelevant what everybody thinks because that is subjective.Again, I'm not talking about every single person, I'm talking about the philosophies that have survived and have become relevant in the world.


You can disregard every single thing that you can poke a microscopic hole in, but all you succeed in doing is furthering a hypertechnical sense of logical rhetoric that is entirely useless.

fractic
2008-08-10, 01:59 PM
Again, I'm not talking about every single person, I'm talking about the philosophies that have survived and have become relevant in the world.


Yes this is the crux. Surviving and becoming relevant does not make it objective.

Yes, it is objective fact that people have long since thought that killing is bad.
No, it's not objective that killing is bad.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 01:59 PM
Morality doesn't exist without an observer. If there is no one to judge an act as being moral or immoral, then it is neither. There is no moral standard that is universally agreed upon in all situations from the perspective of every observer. In the vast majority of cases, killing is wrong, but there will always be some set of circumstances in which killing someone is moral from someone's perspective.

Except in D&D world, where Good and Evil are certainly real and objective forces, that happen to be very similar to the general consensus of morality in the modern western world.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 02:12 PM
Yeah, except that doll is a ****ing corpse.

I'm fairly certain the vast majority of people would object to seeing loved ones turned into zombies, or having their own bodies animated as one.
Rich Burlew himself has weighed in on this subject. In Start of Darkness ...

... Xykon resurrected Lira's body as a zombie after he defeated her just to torment her. And later, Redcloak refused to animate his brother as a zombie, insisting that he would bury him instead. Xykon made him do it anyways, just to be a ****.

Animating a person's body as your undead servant is about one of the biggest indignities you can visit on a person. Therefore, evil.

Incidentally, extending the doll analogy... Look at the last 4 words of the first sentence in your spoiler. "just to torment her." Now look at it again. "just to torment her." He did it "just to torment her." It's the same thing as a little boy screwing with his sister's dolls "just to torment her." The fact that he's playing with the dolls (or animated the corpse) isn't the evil part, it's the "just to torment her" part.

For the case of Redcloak's brother, it's similar. Redcloak decided that he didn't want to use his brother's things when his brother was away. Not evil. Xykon made him do it to torment him. Evil (the making him do it, not the doing it itself).

In standard DnD cosmology, there's not even technically any way for someone to look at their corpse once they're dead. In OotS cosmology, there is through afterlife scrying, but some people (Roy's mother for instance) don't do that and apparently don't care what happens to their corpses. I'd hardly call that harmful or undignified.


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

No, it's not. My argument wasn't meant to prove that killing was wrong, it was meant to establish that objective morality exists. To that end, I give an example of an axiom common throughout world philosophy and moral theory as an example of basic principles existing.

The problem is that you have yet to show that there are axioms common throughout world philosophy and moral theory, nor have you established that objective morality exists to some of our satisfactions.

FoE
2008-08-10, 02:43 PM
Look at the last 4 words of the first sentence in your spoiler. "just to torment her." Now look at it again. "just to torment her." He did it "just to torment her." It's the same thing as a little boy screwing with his sister's dolls "just to torment her." The fact that he's playing with the dolls (or animated the corpse) isn't the evil part, it's the "just to torment her" part.

No, no, NO. He animated her as a zombie because being undead was one of the worst punishments he could inflict on her! Though I don't recall his exact quote, he taunted Lirian by saying "I bet it's going to piss you off to see your body separated from your precious cycle of life and death." Because zombies are inherently unnatural.


In OotS cosmology, there is through afterlife scrying, but some people (Roy's mother for instance) don't do that and apparently don't care what happens to their corpses. I'd hardly call that harmful or undignified.

Roy's mother had been dead for years before he arrived, and we can't be sure how she reacted after her death. Maybe she spent years watching her children from above before deciding to finally move on and climb the mountain. And although I can't prove it definitively, there's no reference in the comic that she was raised as a zombie. So there's no telling how she would feel about it.

On the other hand, I do know what Xykon did in Start of Darkness to Lirian, and when the next OOTS strip comes out with Roy in it, I don't think he will taking it too well that his body was transformed into a bone golem. I'd be willing to bet money that he will be very pissed.

It's one thing for you to view your dead body as an empty shell, but most people find the prospect of their bodies being violated after death — which would include becoming a zombie — as very upsetting. And for that matter, why do you even raise a zombie? To use them as slave labour/to have them kill other people. Evil purposes, in other words. A necromancer doesn't have to be evil, but the act of raising dead is inherently evil. I'm sorry, but this is not a grey area.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 04:07 PM
No, no, NO. He animated her as a zombie because being undead was one of the worst punishments he could inflict on her! Though I don't recall his exact quote, he taunted Lirian by saying "I bet it's going to piss you off to see your body separated from your precious cycle of life and death." Because zombies are inherently unnatural.

Zombies do not rot. Not rotting means that they do not feed other creatures, an inherent part of the natural cycle of life and death. Inherently unnatural? Yes, but that isn't what I'm debating. I'm debating whether it's evil or not; natural does not mean good and unnatural does not mean evil. Regardless, Lirian, as a Druid, is opposed to all things unnatural, and it is that which made her body being made undead anathema to her, not that making undead of someone is the ultimate punishment. Again, the part that made it evil was the "just to torment her" part, not the "raising as undead" part.


Roy's mother had been dead for years before he arrived, and we can't be sure how she reacted after her death. Maybe she spent years watching her children from above before deciding to finally move on and climb the mountain. And although I can't prove it definitively, there's no reference in the comic that she was raised as a zombie. So there's no telling how she would feel about it.

On the other hand, I do know what Xykon did in Start of Darkness to Lirian, and when the next OOTS strip comes out with Roy in it, I don't think he will taking it too well that his body was transformed into a bone golem. I'd be willing to bet money that he will be very pissed.

How particular dead people may or may not have reacted is largely immaterial. The fact that, now, we know for a fact that the dead for the most part do not appear to give any thought to their former bodies supports my point.

Further, Roy's case is different. He fully intends to use his body as soon as he can, and the fact that some random guy is using it as a bone golem means he can't. It's sort of like if someone borrows your car when you aren't using it, then you have to get someplace fast and your car isn't available. You're going to be pissed, as is Roy. Same thing.


It's one thing for you to view your dead body as an empty shell, but most people find the prospect of their bodies being violated after death — which would include becoming a zombie — as very upsetting. And for that matter, why do you even raise a zombie? To use them as slave labour/to have them kill other people. Evil purposes, in other words. A necromancer doesn't have to be evil, but the act of raising dead is inherently evil. I'm sorry, but this is not a grey area.

Most people get very upset about other people using their things without permission. It is in fact very consistent with my view of things that people would get angry if they learned people would be using their bodies after they were done with them for this reason. However, if you really think about it, you aren't using it any more. You are not harmed if someone else uses it. If someone else can get use out of it, why shouldn't they? The fact that they did it without permission is perhaps somewhat more offensive, but it remains that there is no difference between the two except permission. This line of reasoning ultimately leads one to organ donorship, actually, since that is just giving explicit permission for other people to use your corpse.

As for the why do you raise undead question... "Go, my undead minions! Go and save the children from the burning orphanage!" The fact that you will probably use the undead of slave labor or in war doesn't make it evil any more than the fact that you will probably use a rocket-propelled explosive device in war or terrorist acts makes making one of those evil. Undead can be used for good purposes just as much as a missile can. This is a grey area.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 04:11 PM
Yes this is the crux. Surviving and becoming relevant does not make it objective.

Yes, it is objective fact that people have long since thought that killing is bad.
No, it's not objective that killing is bad.

This exactly. I realize my posts get a bit long-winded, but that's what I was saying.

FoE
2008-08-10, 04:59 PM
You are not harmed if someone else uses it. If someone else can get use out of it, why shouldn't they?

We're not talking about using a person's car after they died. We're talking about their corpse. And we are talking about animating said corpse and using it as a mindless slave, often directing it to kill other people.


"Go, my undead minions! Go and save the children from the burning orphanage!" The fact that you will probably use the undead of slave labor or in war doesn't make it evil any more than the fact that you will probably use a rocket-propelled explosive device in war or terrorist acts makes making one of those evil. Undead can be used for good purposes just as much as a missile can. This is a grey area.

I have never, EVER seen anyone raise undead for the purpose of using them for "good." They make for lousy heroes. Your benevolent necromancer may force undead to perform good deeds, but on their own accord, the undead default to slaying/devouring the living.

Most necromancers kill people in order to raise them as undead. Most necromancers create undead in order to commit further evil acts. And most necromancers do not ask people's permission to be raised as undead. (He is able to speak with them whether they are living or dead, after all.)

These are evil acts. But even if said necromancer did not meet any of those conditions, he would still be committing evil, because THE ACT OF RAISING UNDEAD IS INHERENTLY EVIL. They are unnatural and a violation of the natural order. The magic used to raise them is blacker than black, and nearly all undead exist for nothing more than to feed and consume the living.

Undead=bad. Necromancers who raise undead=bad.

monty
2008-08-10, 05:12 PM
These are evil acts. But even if said necromancer did not meet any of those conditions, he would still be committing evil, because THE ACT OF RAISING UNDEAD IS INHERENTLY EVIL. They are unnatural and a violation of the natural order. The magic used to raise them is blacker than black, and nearly all undead exist for nothing more than to feed and consume the living.

And why is it unnatural? If dead things are meant to stay dead, then Resurrection should be evil too. If it's because you're channeling negative energy (which is not inherently evil), then Inflict spells should be evil too. Take a look at the Necropolitan template in Libris Mortis - it is voluntary, and does not make you evil. The only difference from that is you're using someone else's body instead of your own. Since they don't need it anymore, why let it go to waste?

fractic
2008-08-10, 05:15 PM
Simply put raising undead is evil because the rules say so. You simply cannot disagree with that. In your opinion about morality it might not be evil but it certainly is in DnD.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 05:18 PM
If it's because you're channeling negative energy (which is not inherently evil),
True, there is an interpretation of Negative Energy that is not inherently evil, just a tool like any other. Whether you use this interpretation is up to you and your group. There's a really good compilation of ideas like that and other ways to handle alignment and such in your game. I'll edit this with a link when I find it. Grr, I can't find it, but I'm talking about the Tome series by those guys who's names I can't remember, Dungeonomicon, Economicon, etc. Either way is a perfectly valid way to handle necromancy by RAW, it's up to how your group feels about it.

FoE
2008-08-10, 05:36 PM
There are positively-charged undead who do not feed on the living which are in the Eberron setting. I will agree they are not evil, and in fact they oppose other truly evil undead.

But skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights, vampires, liches and their kin ARE evil by nature, even if they have no minds of their own. They're one of the truly dark shades of black in any setting, even in Eberron, where virtually everyone can be described as morally ambigous.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-08-10, 05:39 PM
And why is it unnatural? If dead things are meant to stay dead, then Resurrection should be evil too. If it's because you're channeling negative energy (which is not inherently evil), then Inflict spells should be evil too. Take a look at the Necropolitan template in Libris Mortis - it is voluntary, and does not make you evil. The only difference from that is you're using someone else's body instead of your own. Since they don't need it anymore, why let it go to waste?

Things like Necropolitan have turned DnD Alignment into swiss cheese. Basically, anytime someone decides it'd be cool to play a Lich/Werewolf/Troll/Demon but they don't want to be evil, they come out with the Baelnorn/Silverwulf/Golden Troll/Redeemon template that lets them, along with some convenient hand-waving for why it's okay.

monty
2008-08-10, 05:50 PM
But skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights, vampires, liches and their kin ARE evil by nature, even if they have no minds of their own. They're one of the truly dark shades of black in any setting, even in Eberron, where virtually everyone can be described as morally ambigous.

I must ask again: why is this so (other than "the rules say so," that's a cop-out)? Skeletons, zombies - they are mindless, and only commit evil if instructed to do so. (from the SRD: "A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative.") The intelligent undead are even more of a gray area - ghouls can "live" off of carrion and do not need to kill to survive, wights and vampires can feed off of animals or come to some other arrangement to feed in a non-evil way (maybe pay a cleric for Restoration every time), and liches do not need to feed at all.

Sure, they're more likely to be evil, but they are not absolutely forced to be so.

fractic
2008-08-10, 05:55 PM
The rules say so isn't a cop out. There might not be very much description about why precisely these things are evil but there aren't any real world equivalents to compare them with.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 05:56 PM
I must ask again: why is this so (other than "the rules say so," that's a cop-out)? Skeletons, zombies - they are mindless, and only commit evil if instructed to do so. (from the SRD: "A skeleton does only what it is ordered to do. It can draw no conclusions of its own and takes no initiative.") The intelligent undead are even more of a gray area - ghouls can "live" off of carrion and do not need to kill to survive, wights and vampires can feed off of animals or come to some other arrangement to feed in a non-evil way (maybe pay a cleric for Restoration every time), and liches do not need to feed at all.

Sure, they're more likely to be evil, but they are not absolutely forced to be so.

While they are not forced to do so, an overwhelming number of them do. That has to mean something as far as their moral compass is concerned.

And of course there are exceptions. There will often be someone somewhere who thinks "[url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch]My Species Doth Protest Too Much", whether from a traditionally "evil" or "good" race.

The rules say Undead are evil. That's how it is. Why are they evil? That depends of your campaign setting. There can be any number of justifications for why an undead is fundamentally evil, it's up to the creativity of the DM to decide. Or, if you still don't like it, you can change that part of the rules and make them Neutral, being without morality or advanced reasoning abilities.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 06:01 PM
We're not talking about using a person's car after they died. We're talking about their corpse. And we are talking about animating said corpse and using it as a mindless slave, often directing it to kill other people.

And I am saying it is the same thing. You seem to put a lot of emphasis on this "corpse" thing, but I am saying that it does not matter. The person to whom the corpse used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again. How is that last sentence's meaning changed if we change out the word "corpse" for "car" or "doll?"


I have never, EVER seen anyone raise undead for the purpose of using them for "good." They make for lousy heroes. Your benevolent necromancer may force undead to perform good deeds, but on their own accord, the undead default to slaying/devouring the living.

I have never, EVER seen China. That does not make it impossible for China to exist.

Also, in DnD the undead which we are discussing are mindless. This means they do not "default" to any behavior; they do only what they are ordered to do. The undead we are discussing are mindless. If ordered to be good, they are good, and if ordered to be evil, they are evil. If not ordered to do anything, they do not do anything. They have no accord of their own.

I must ask: Have you read the Tome of Fiends and the rest of its series over on the Wizards boards? It addresses this topic very well. If you haven't, you may be interested in looking it up, as it discusses different playstyles, what the DnD books do and do not say about undead, and other interesting and relevant topics.

Edit: For your convenience, a link to the Tome of Necromancy (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=632562) on the Wizards boards, the relevant part of the series to this discussion.


Most necromancers kill people in order to raise them as undead. Most necromancers create undead in order to commit further evil acts. And most necromancers do not ask people's permission to be raised as undead. (He is able to speak with them whether they are living or dead, after all.)

Immaterial. Again, most people make missiles and use them to kill other people, but some people make missiles and use them to cause avalanches when no one is around so there are no avalanches when someone is around. The fact that they can be used for evil, and the fact that they often are used for evil, does not mean that they are evil.


These are evil acts. But even if said necromancer did not meet any of those conditions, he would still be committing evil, because THE ACT OF RAISING UNDEAD IS INHERENTLY EVIL. They are unnatural and a violation of the natural order. The magic used to raise them is blacker than black, and nearly all undead exist for nothing more than to feed and consume the living.

Undead=bad. Necromancers who raise undead=bad.

Why is the act of raising undead inherently evil? Negative energy is not evil; the negative energy plane (which is literally all negative energy) is not evil, unnatural is not evil (in DnD Angels are, technically, unnatural creatures). And, again, the fact that many (even most) undead routinely feed on and consume the living is not evidence that undead are necessarily evil any more than, say, the fact that most people in my classes at school have pale skin is evidence that all people in my classes at school have pale skin.



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

Simply put raising undead is evil because the rules say so. You simply cannot disagree with that. In your opinion about morality it might not be evil but it certainly is in DnD.

See, Face of Evil, this is what you should have cited. It isn't internally consistent with the rest of the rules about what undead are and what evil is, but this is something that I cannot actually argue with because it is objective fact :smallsmile: Again, though, I suggest you go look up the Tome of Fiends because it gives a better discussion for why and how this is not internally consistent than I care to.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 06:09 PM
And I am saying it is the same thing. You seem to put a lot of emphasis on this "corpse" thing, but I am saying that it does not matter. The person to whom the corpse used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again. How is that last sentence's meaning changed if we change out the word "corpse" for "car" or "doll?"

Except that a "car" or "doll" is not the same thing as a corpse. Almost every culture on Earth has social taboos against desecration of the dead, and, by extension, of corpses. Objective Good and Objective Evil in DnD are based on the majority consensus of human morality, and desecration of corpses is an almost universally evil act. If, in real life, you took someone's corpse, fitted it up with strings like a marionette, and made it perform theatre, there would be no question that such an act would considered evil. The fact that the deceased "isn't using it anymore" doesn't change anything.

fractic
2008-08-10, 06:09 PM
And I am saying it is the same thing. You seem to put a lot of emphasis on this "corpse" thing, but I am saying that it does not matter. The person to whom the corpse used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again. How is that last sentence's meaning changed if we change out the word "corpse" for "car" or "doll?"


Your car doesn't have spiritual and religious ties to it. Nor will it cause much distress to the surviving family to see the car munching on the neighbours brain.

monty
2008-08-10, 06:11 PM
Your car doesn't have spiritual and religious ties to it. Nor will it cause much distress to the surviving family to see the car munching on the neighbours brain.

What? Seeing a car eating someone wouldn't cause you distress?

vicente408
2008-08-10, 06:12 PM
What? Seeing a car eating someone wouldn't cause you distress?

"That Camaro was like a brother to me! You monster!"

fractic
2008-08-10, 06:14 PM
What? Seeing a car eating someone wouldn't cause you distress?

comic exagerations aside, you get the point.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 06:21 PM
The person to whom the car used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again.

In this case, is it morally wrong to use the car?

The person to whom the doll used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again.

In this case, is it morally wrong to use the doll?

The answer is probably "no" in both cases... So how about we extend this to the "corpse" case? The answer, then, is probably no.



I'm being bullheaded there, but the argument does work... Let's see.

vicente, Good and Evil are very clearly defined in DnD, and by strict RAW the desecration thing is not part of either. I already admitted earlier that that is a reasonably plausible argument for that side though, and continue to do so. Face of Evil just hasn't been arguing that, though :smallwink:

And fractic, the spiritual and religious ties are... Um. Well, it's hard to say how I want to put this. Let's just say that they are not very convincing to anyone not part of those religious or spiritual traditions and leave it at that. I've gotten to the point where I very intentionally look at everything moral without those lenses, so perhaps I'm less suited to that sort of argument than most :smallredface:

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 06:33 PM
When discussing morality in D&D, RL religions, morals, or beliefs have nothing to do with it, save for sometimes defining where your group is comfortable drawing the line. By a strict RAW interpretation (which no one plays but must be used as a basis for these sorts of debates so that we have common ground to work with) Negative Energy is not inherently evil. Thus, using it to raise corpses is not inherently evil, again by 3.5 RAW. Of course, your group may not be comfortable with that, may find the idea of raising corpses to undeath so repulsive that it must be Evil, with a capital 'E'. That's fine, I usually play that way myself, though I do say that mindless undead just stand there until given orders, they don't seek out and destroy life of their own accord, because they don't have their own accord. (go ahead, make your car jokes)

It is not, however, how RAW is written. Of course, the problem with most morality questions and RAW is that they try to cater to too many viewpoints, some diametrically opposed, so the end result is that RAW doesn't really fully support any of those viewpoints. The DM and the group must make their own call about where the objective morals of D&D are drawn.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 06:34 PM
The person to whom the car used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again.

In this case, is it morally wrong to use the car?

The person to whom the doll used to belong is not using it anymore, and may not ever intend to use it again.

In this case, is it morally wrong to use the doll?

The answer is probably "no" in both cases... So how about we extend this to the "corpse" case? The answer, then, is probably no.



I'm being bullheaded there, but the argument does work... Let's see.

vicente, Good and Evil are very clearly defined in DnD, and by strict RAW the desecration thing is not part of either. I already admitted earlier that that is a reasonably plausible argument for that side though, and continue to do so. Face of Evil just hasn't been arguing that, though :smallwink:

And fractic, the spiritual and religious ties are... Um. Well, it's hard to say how I want to put this. Let's just say that they are not very convincing to anyone not part of those religious or spiritual traditions and leave it at that. I've gotten to the point where I very intentionally look at everything moral without those lenses, so perhaps I'm less suited to that sort of argument than most :smallredface:

I think the biggest issue with the "car" argument is that, in most cases, you don't know whether the deceased would object to being raised as an undead or not. If they would object, then the "right" thing to do is to not raise them. If they wouldn't, then neither raising or not raising them is more "right" from their perspective.

Without knowing which stance the deceased has, the "right" thing to do is not raise them, as there is no chance of offending the deceased, while raising them carries the possibility of cheesing them off in the afterlife.

monty
2008-08-10, 06:36 PM
I think the biggest issue with the "car" argument is that, in most cases, you don't know whether the deceased would object to being raised as an undead or not. If they would object, then the "right" thing to do is to not raise them. If they wouldn't, then neither raising or not raising them is more "right" from their perspective.

Without knowing which stance the deceased has, the "right" thing to do is not raise them, as there is no chance of offending the deceased, while raising them carries the possibility of cheesing them off in the afterlife.

Speak With Dead? I think whether they'd object counts as something they knew in life.

Devils_Advocate
2008-08-10, 06:41 PM
Semantics and Morality

"Hey, Dad, know what I figured out? The meaning of words isn't a fixed thing! Any word can mean anything! By giving words new meanings, ordinary English can become an exclusionary code! Two generations can be divided by the same language! To that end, I'll be inventing new definitions for common words, so we'll be unable to communicate. Don't you think that's totally spam? It's lubricated! Well, I'm phasing."
- Calvin

"Hey, wait a minute. If you are acting in a manner your culture deems appropriate, are you not, by the standards of your own society, good?"

When "good" is being used as a noun, not an adjective, the question "What is good?" is really no more than the semantic question of what is meant by the word "good". Seriously. Provide a meaningful, coherent definition and you've answered the question. And because the definition of a word is fundamentally arbitrary and a single word can have more than one meaning, two people can say seemingly contradictory things about goodness without actually making competing claims. If Ben explains that, by "good", he means the greatest benefit for the greatest number, and Tom explains that, by "good", he means obedience to his god, then this really isn't the basis for a dispute over anything but terminology. Their different moralities are just a matter of assigning different meanings to the word "moral" (and so on) in that case.

And yet, Ben and Tom may each feel that the other's definition of "good" is wrong. When they speak of something being the right thing to do, they don't feel like they're just giving their opinions on the meaning of the word "right". Which means that their stated definitions of "right" aren't actually what they mean by "right". Their moral systems serve as bases on which they designate acts as moral or immoral, but they're actually using the terms "moral" and "immoral" to refer to something a bit more fundamental... but which they find themselves unable to articulate. But then, just what do they really mean?

When they speak of moral goodness, I think that most people mean that they think something is... intrinsically preferable. Objectively desirable, independent of individual opinion. The problem with that notion is that it falls apart pretty quickly if you critically examine it. To say that something is preferable means that someone prefers it. To say that something is desirable means that someone desires it. That's describing a relationship between the thing and a person, which means that we really can't be talking about an objective, intrinsic property at all. We're clearly talking about an inherently subjective property.

Yet, bizarrely, even knowing this, one may still feel that a given state of affairs, or deed, or whatever, is intrinsically preferable to another. Even though one knows that this obviously cannot be the case. This feeling may not even match up with one's preferences; one can feel that something is morally wrong and still wish to do it. It may even not match up with one's metapreferences; one can do things that one feels are morally wrong, delight in one's misdeeds, and never once want to be a better person. There's an odd sort of... discernment at work, completely independent of personal enjoyment. This applies to areas other than morality, as well; aesthetics, for example. I think that Johnny Depp is hot, even though he really doesn't do anything for me personally. What the hell do I even mean by that? I just wrote it, yet I really don't know. I know only that I am somehow capable of judging things as good or bad separately from whether or not I like them, in a way that is every bit as ineffable as the mental phenomenon of liking things itself.

And that's what I mean when I talk about my own subjective sense of morality.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 06:48 PM
I'm well aware of the semantic difficulties of discussing morality, but in DnD objective good and evil exist in-universe, as unambiguous forces. The problem with these discussions is when one tries to translate that absolute "DnD Morality" into real-life terms, and vice versa.

Prophaniti
2008-08-10, 06:49 PM
Very, very good post, Devil's_Advocate. If I were your teacher, that'd be an 'A' right there, whether it was in philosophy, psychology, or english. Hell, maybe all three. Well written and thought out.


I'm well aware of the semantic difficulties of discussing morality, but in DnD objective good and evil exist in-universe, as unambiguous forces. The problem with these discussions is when one tries to translate that absolute "DnD Morality" into real-life terms, and vice versa.True, and while it is important to remember that the D&D universe has objective morality, rather than subjective, in the end it is up to the group to decide where they want the line, as well as how hard they want that line to be. I often play without the objective morality in my games, but that requires you also remove those game mechanics that rely on an objective morality, which is more work than you'd think. Because the objective morals of your game must be experienced and dealt with by all involved, they should be defined clearly in ways that your group is comfortable with.

Knaight
2008-08-10, 08:27 PM
We're not talking about using a person's car after they died. We're talking about their corpse. And we are talking about animating said corpse and using it as a mindless slave, often directing it to kill other people.

Yes, but its not a big difference. Someone could use somebodies car to run over pedestrians, which would be evil, as would animating a corpse and using it as a mindless slave to kill people, in both cases the previous owner probably wouldn't be happy about it, assuming an afterlife and that they knew. But if the car was used to transport food, or do other good stuff nobody would mind, and if somebodies corpse was used to plant crops because they are tireless to help out the people who are already living, which doesn't affect the dead the dead person probably won't mind much. Its nobler than being donated for science, and thats hardly uncommon.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 08:52 PM
intrinsically preferable. Objectively desirable, independent of individual opinion. The problem with that notion is that it falls apart pretty quickly if you critically examine it. To say that something is preferable means that someone prefers it. To say that something is desirable means that someone desires it.

Well argued but incorrect. To say that something is desirable means that it is worthy of desire. That to the extent that you can direct your desires, you should direct them towards that thing and away from undesirable things.

The word "desired" means that people do desire it. The word "desirable" means that people ought desire it. There is a difference, and C.S. Lewis in _The Abolition of Man_ explains this difference far better than I can.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm

Riffington
2008-08-10, 08:55 PM
You claim to tell me what I have and have not done?

Yes. You have never read Socrates, flown to Pluto, or thrown lightning bolts with your mind. Sorry but it's true.

Riffington
2008-08-10, 09:03 PM
In more plain language, what this means is quite simple. If something exists outside of the 'thinking subject' (that means you) it is objective. If it exists within your thoughts and perceptions, it is subjective. Now, this is where belief and philosophy can be hotly debated, but basically, if something cannot be verified to exist outside the mind of the thinking subject (you), it is considered to be subjective.

Nothing can be verified to exist outside the mind of the thinking subject.
It is just as fair for me to say "if it cannot be verified not to exist outside the mind of the thinking subject, it is considered to be objective" as for you to make your claim.
A more fair definition is this: if something purports to relate only to the subject, it's subjective. If it purports to relate to an objective reality, it's objective. Hence, "zebras are 10 pounds each" is an objective claim. It happens to be false. "In the year 2313 King Zogreb will eat a steak" is also an objective claim. It happens to be untestable. "Jack Black is a good person" is another objective claim. It is easily-testable in D&D, and less-easily-testable in the real world. Whether it is in fact testable or not in the real world is an interesting religious question... but that fact has no bearing on whether it is objective or not.

Maerok
2008-08-10, 09:07 PM
With the standard mindset of DnD where the players are expected to be heroes, it's evil.

Depending on how your GM wants to set it (see HoH), then you've got the option of "that's how our culture works" and "so what? pass the mustard". Maybe a group the players run into sees cannibalism as part of its religion to help the soul pass on into the next life.

NecroRebel
2008-08-10, 09:24 PM
Yes. You have never read Socrates, flown to Pluto, or thrown lightning bolts with your mind. Sorry but it's true.

Prove it, then, and direct me to one of the writings attributed to Socrates where it implies anything but support for the institution of slavery (which, for those of you just joining us, is the subject that brought about the previous topics). In my case, I again direct you to the Phaedo, in which Socrates claims that he is justified in dying because it is the gods' command, and he must do as the gods command as a slave should do as his master commands. Implicit support of the institution of slavery, there.

Also, just to annoy you, I am now going to claim that I once quickly fled from (flew, to use a somewhat-archaic definition of the word) someone so that I could be near a dog who happened to be named Pluto, so I have in fact flown to Pluto. Also, I have imagined myself throwing lightning bolts, so in and with my mind I have thrown lightning bolts. So there. :smalltongue::smallamused::smalltongue: Just to be impertinent. Just a little.

Lyndworm
2008-08-10, 09:25 PM
Off-topic:

But dogs still aren't nearly as intelligent as the dumbest of humans (int 3, mentally handicapped is possibly less). And I'm quite sure that the chinese people would be upset if you ate their dog. But I agree this is a bit of a gray area.

Actually, Wizards has said that an Intelligence point is roughly a tenth of an IQ point. This means that humans in D&D would average between IQ's of 100 and 120, like in real life, and the highest realistically possible would be about 180. However, having an IQ below 80 is considered mentally handicapped, so an IQ of 30 would actually be much lower than any recorder or estimated in human history.

This is why I DM in my games that the cut-off is five, not three, for sapient races. Dolphins and apes get four points of intelligence, as do elephants and some non-existent beasts. Other things follow suit accordingly.



See I've never had a problem with necromancy. It may be repugnant and kinda creepy, but I've never really thought that it necessitates that you be evil to do it. Most of the D&D world would tend to disagree with me on that I think.

Neither have I. It's a little gross in that you're potentially spreading rot and whatnot across the room, and it's definitely not pretty, but it's not inherently evil. A lot of the D&D books and such disagree with us, but then again we are attempting to apply logic to a fantasy, here.

Somewhere in the distance the pained sound of ceasing to exist can be heard. Then; nothing.



If you asked the founding fathers to say how they chose the inalienable rights on which they based the constitution, they wouldn't offer some long "cost/benefit" analysis of murder in society, they'd tell you about the ideals of the Enlightenment, which would trace back to older philosophies and older philosophies still.

Speaking of the founding fathers, some find it highly likely that George Washington himself committed "the ultimate taboo" of cannibalism. The story goes that during December of 1777 roughly 10,000 men became trapped in the Valley Forge. Over the next six months, over a quarter of those men died of disease, exposure, and starvation. The survivors had little other choice besides eating the less (or more) fortunate in order to remain survivors.

Though I myself haven't seen it, I understand there was a television show a few weeks ago that elaborated the story into a dark comedy of sorts. Something about Washington growing to crave human flesh, murdering children (I guess they taste better?), and secret cults. As I said, I didn't see it, otherwise I'd tell you more.



Simply put raising undead is evil because the rules say so. You simply cannot disagree with that. In your opinion about morality it might not be evil but it certainly is in DnD.

Actually, I can and do disagree with that. As a DM the rules don't actually apply to me. They're only ideas and guidelines for me to draw from, and I can and do change anything that I feel impedes gameplay. The whole point of D&D is to create a unique gaming experience. If we all wanted to play the by the same rules we'd be playing an MMORPG.



skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights, vampires, lichens and their kin ARE evil by nature, even if they have no minds of their own. They're one of the truly dark shades of black in any setting, even in Eberron, where virtually everyone can be described as morally ambigous.

I'm going to have to disagree here. Ghouls and wights may be evil (though they don't neccisarily have to be), but there are certainly good vampires and liches. Haven't you ever heard of a baelnorn? Skeletons and zombies are entirely neutral, as they don't have free will. It's not evil to make them and it's not evil to command them. It's only evil to command them to do evil things.



The rules say so isn't a cop out. There might not be very much description about why precisely these things are evil but there aren't any real world equivalents to compare them with.

It is a cop-out. Despite all of those poor, poor catgirls, many people want there to be some semblance of logic in their fantsy world. The fact that there are no known undead in the real world that we can ask "Why are you so evil, Mr. Zombie/Skeleton/Ghoul/Wight/Vampire/Lich?" doesn't really come into it.

On-topic:

In my campaign world my Kobolds are far more similar to evolved humanoid Utah Raptors than they are to dragons.

You might want to re-think the relation to Utah Raptors. They're probably more similar to Dromaeosaurus (or Deinonychus once they grow to medium size). Utah Raptors were enormous among dromaeosaurs; 7' tall, 20' long, 1,500lbs... Compare that to Dromaeosaurus: 3' tall, 6' long, 30lbs. (Deinonychus: 5' tall, 11' long, 160lbs.) Just a suggestion.



In the warrior caste's coming of age ceremony they are charged with hunting, killing, and eating a capture Raven-folk warrior. It isn't for sport, it is part of a magical ceremony to transform them into their larger (read: Medium sized) kobold state.

Can this ceremony be done without the pseudo-cannibalism?


[QUOTE=Alchemistmerlin;4681047]Is eating intelligent humanoids, in general, an evil act? Is the entire race an "evil race" for doing it? Is there an instance where it wouldn't be an evil act?

Before I answer, I'd like to point out that I don't see much of a difference between any "intelligent" species and another regardless of body type (humanoid, monstrous humanoid, giant, dragon, magical beast, animal, etc.).

In and of itself, no, I don't think eatin sapient creatures is evil. Eating that which you kill is in no way evil, or even disrespectful. In some human cultures, eating the dead (friends or foes) is common and considered the highest form of respect you can grant to the deceased, to the point where people are sometimes by punished by not getting eaten. This actually seems a somewhat logical development in a reptilian society, as well.

However, deliberately hunting sapient creatures for the purpose of causing them pain or dishonoring them (in your eyes or theirs) is an evil act.


So you down a Dragon because he was going to poison the water hole, good job Woody, now it's ok to eat him because your intent in killing him was not to eat him later?

Absolutely. Personally, I'd be disgusted if they didn't do something useful with the body. Especially if the waterhole belonged to starving peasants (which it most likely would). The kind of idiocy that would be needed to prevent such an act is mind-boggling.



That was the point I was going to bring up later in the discussion: Let's say a race of raptor-people have a bite attack?

If they use their bite attack at any time than they're guaranteed to ingest parts of their enemies, even if it's by accident. The idea of attacking and killing with natural weapons that include a bite attack, and then not considering the remains food is more than a little odd to me.



I purposely left the alignment of the Raven-folk out to keep the question ambiguous/the discussion healthy. I'm still not sure if I'm ready to reveal it.

It doesn't matter whether the Raven-folk are evil. Deliberately hunting sapient creatures for the purpose of causing them pain or dishonoring them is an evil act whether those you hunt are evil or not.



In the case of "How the Warrior Dies", it isn't really a cooking and celebrating thing in my example. The hunters hunt the warrior, and eventually one of them catches him, pounces on him, breaks his neck and consumes him.

Very animalistic, but very quick and I would say less vicious than stabbing someone to death with a sword.

In this scenario, the death itself, though merciless, is painless and seemingly done with no disrespect towards the fallen warrior.


Long story short, I think that eating sapient creatures is a neutral act so long as you're not doing it to intentionally cause the aforementioned creature pain or suffering in any other fashion.

So in this case, your dromaeokobolds are not doing evil by eating the Raven-folk for their ritual.

That brings it down to the actual act of killing. Killing sapient creatures is always evil. Always. Sometimes it can be justified, but it's still evil.

In this specific case, the kobolds aren't doing evil. They're doing something that is utterly neccisary in the propagation of their species, no different from one predator eliminating the competition of another.

My final verdict then, is of course:

No. It is a neutral act.

Zack

P.S.
That was too much typing.

Jayabalard
2008-08-10, 09:29 PM
@Riffington: Watch the multi-posting please.


Fractic stated it quite well.
I'll agree: Fractic has the same interpretation that I do.

I've always kind of liked the Duke and Jubal's discussion of the cannibalism taboo (Stranger in a Strange Land)

On a related note: Would any of the people who believe that "Eating intelligent humanoids is always evil" want to weigh in on whether symbolic ritual cannibalism is good or evil?


However I will change


Eating living intelligent humanoids: probably evil

into : evil as hell too. Seriously, eating someone's alive :smalleek:Hmm, I can see where you're coming from... but really it's no more evil than just killing them would be (which may or may not be evil)

For example, if an ogre stumbles into a dragon's territory and gets attacked, then if the Ogre bites a chunk out of the dragon during the fight, there's no evil involved, since the Ogre is fighting (and may kill) in self defense.

RebelRogue
2008-08-10, 10:00 PM
The Book of Vile Darkness states cannibalism (there generally defined to mean the act of intelligent beings eating other intelligent beings) to be Evil. Simple as that!

Devils_Advocate
2008-08-10, 10:02 PM
Well argued but incorrect. To say that something is desirable means that it is worthy of desire. That to the extent that you can direct your desires, you should direct them towards that thing and away from undesirable things.

The word "desired" means that people do desire it. The word "desirable" means that people ought desire it.
Hmmm. Very well, I am willing to concede the point that "desirable", "preferable", ect. can be used as moral terms instead of as synonyms for "desired", "preferred", etc.. I'm not really familiar with that usage, but I'll go ahead and take your word for it.

But what do "worthy", "should", and "ought to" mean in this context? Are these not simply as declarations of what is moral? If they are, then saying that something is moral if it is desirable is equivalent to saying that something is moral if it is moral. There is a subtle but significant difference between simply rephrasing a claim by putting the same concept into different words and actually explaining the concept itself. So, can you rephrase moral claims in non-moral terms? (This relates to the is-ought problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem).)

To illustrate what I'm talking about here, try the following mental exercise: Take a moral statement that you hold to be true. E.g. "Kicking live puppies in anger is wrong." That's just an example. If you don't think that that unqualified statement is unambiguously true, pick another claim that you think is absolutely accurate. Now, then: What would the world look like if that claim were false? What would have to change?

Note: I'm not asking you to concede that any such world exists, or even that such a world is logically possible. I can describe a world in which one plus one equals three: In such a world, I can set exactly one apple down next to exactly one other apple, and there will then be three apples there without any additional apples being added in any way. I can't imagine that happening, but I can describe it.

The point being that if one can't describe how a world in which a given moral claim is true is different from a hypothetical world in which the same moral claim is false, then it's hard to see how a moral claim could be considered to actually tell us anything about the world.


There is a difference, and C.S. Lewis in _The Abolition of Man_ explains this difference far better than I can.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm
"I'm not reading all that! Summarize it in one word."

Knaight
2008-08-11, 12:17 AM
For example, if an ogre stumbles into a dragon's territory and gets attacked, then if the Ogre bites a chunk out of the dragon during the fight, there's no evil involved, since the Ogre is fighting (and may kill) in self defense.

Exactly. That said the "and may kill" bit is unnecessary. There is no ambiguity as to who's coming out of this one alive, and its not the ogre. That said if the dragon bites the ogre, it is most likely an evil act, in particular if the dragon just attacked him from surprise without even asking why the ogre was in the territory.

Riffington
2008-08-11, 05:36 AM
But what do "worthy", "should", and "ought to" mean in this context? Are these not simply as declarations of what is moral? If they are, then saying that something is moral if it is desirable is equivalent to saying that something is moral if it is moral. There is a subtle but significant difference between simply rephrasing a claim by putting the same concept into different words and actually explaining the concept itself. So, can you rephrase moral claims in non-moral terms? (This relates to the is-ought problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem).)

...
"I'm not reading all that! Summarize it in one word."

1. I can't get around the naturalistic fallacy in an absolute sense. I can't, in short, *prove* what is good. Yet, I can offer strong arguments for what is good. Some are indeed related to empirical evidence. Strong circumstantial evidence such as "the kinds of people who kick puppies tend to be jerks in ways that you can recognize as bad" or "people who can understand both these arguments tend to choose A over B". But no perfect proof.

2. There are analogies and relationships between moral and aesthetic claims, but they are not identical. If I am just saying "I prefer Glenfiddich to Glenlivet", I can never convince you that you prefer Glenfiddich. I can give you reasons why despite your current preference for Glenlivet, Glenfiddich is the better scotch, and those reasons may convince you to give Glenfiddich a few more tries in order to learn to appreciate it. There is no moral claim here.
But by analogy, I can convince you that you ought to abhor the kicking of puppies even if you do not have that current feeling.

3. An example of non-identicality. I hold that it is good and proper to advance human knowledge by sending information to others upon request (regardless of the legality thereof.) I can easily imagine that I am wrong, and that one's duty to obey the law trumps this. The world would be a slightly different place if this were true, and while I believe I can determine which of those two worlds I live in, I could be wrong.

Additionally, I can distinguish between a sublime evil act (one that improves a novel) and a good act (one that improves the world).

4. Summary: by (mostly inadvertently) teaching children that morals and aesthetics are entirely subjective, teachers are cheating some of them out of the ability to appreciate literature, and worse.

5. to Necrorebel: There are NO writings attributed to Socrates. Additionally, you seem to have missed my point: Plato is a jerk. His version of Socrates supports slavery, teaches kids how to make their parents look like idiots, believes that it is better to commit suicide than to follow or break a minor law, and forces his family leave his deathbed because they might cry (instead preferring to make a minor philosophical point). When he argues for slavery (in the Phaedo and elsewhere), he is arguing against worthier men who make better arguments than he.

OneFamiliarFace
2008-08-11, 06:10 AM
That was the point I was going to bring up later in the discussion: Let's say a race of raptor-people have a bite attack?

Ooo, that's a good point. (Sorry, I'm having such a blast on these morality convserations on my day off, I can't help myself.)

Because I was going to throw in my towel with the eating people alive = evil thing. I would say that if you do it for fun or sport, then it is evil. If you do it for survival, then it is not evil. A Good race would do their best to eat non-sentient creatures, while a neutral race might not be so picky, but I think the meal would still have to have provoked them first.

For all other types of eating, there were/are many cultures who did/do practice cannibalism either in actuality or symbolically, and I wouldn't view this as evil. Fiction shares no dearth of such cultures either: Martians in A Stranger in a Strange Land eat each other after they die as a way of becoming as close as you possibly can to another person. The Mud People in The Sword of Truth series eat their dead enemies as a way to gain their knowledge.

If you want your Kobold ritual to involve a hunt though, then you might want to make it hunt a non-sentient creature to keep it securely out of the realm of evil. Unless the raven folk are constantly agressing on the kobolds, making them "enemies" to begin with. Still, that'd be iffy. You are talking about another life there, and most times in fantasy, taking a life without it being necessary is a fast-track to Villain Town.

More philisophically:

On Moral Relativism, that stuff really is up to the DM and players in a given case. In most campaigns, good and evil exist as tangible stuff (unlike on earth where we are mostly shooting guesses into the wind), so one can point to something and say, "That is good." And point over there to say, "That is beautiful." If need be, a cleric can cast a few spells, ask a few questions, and back them up. Snap, snap, simple as that. The only problem is that the DM and each of the players have their own moral frameworks. Yikes. People talk all the time about how hard it is to play a charismatic character as a social bungler, but rarely discuss the problems of playing a moral absolute as a moral ambiguity!

Jayabalard
2008-08-11, 06:31 AM
1. I can't get around the naturalistic fallacy in an absolute sense. I can't, in short, *prove* what is good.We're talking morality in a game where morality is concrete, so it is indeed possible to prove what is good and what is evil.


Exactly. That said the "and may kill" bit is unnecessary. There is no ambiguity as to who's coming out of this one alive, and its not the ogre. That said if the dragon bites the ogre, it is most likely an evil act, in particular if the dragon just attacked him from surprise without even asking why the ogre was in the territory.I wasn't actually talking about D&D dragons or Ogres so I can see where you might have come up with that conclusion. Actually, both of them came out of it alive, with the with the Ogre (arguably) the victor, since the dragon didn't manage to eat the Ogre or any of his charges that he was protecting.

Sebastian
2008-08-11, 06:35 AM
Cannibalism is generally frowned upon in most cultures. I would say it's an evil act, even if it is a ritualistic one.

Doing something frowned upon by your or other cultures is not necessarliy evil it could simply be chaotic. Actually cannibalism by itself seems should be more chaotic than evil.

Riffington
2008-08-11, 10:26 AM
We're talking morality in a game where morality is concrete, so it is indeed possible to prove what is good and what is evil.


Not quite. The existence of Detect Evil/Detect Good helps give some evidence, but it still doesn't give any perfect proof. The naturalistic fallacy still applies.

Examples: I am about to go to sleep in a safe place. I have a memorized uncast Summon Monster I. Ought I (morally) to cast it? It would be a detectably Good spell if used to summon a Celestial critter. But would it be particularly moral? No.

Also, the Grey Guard have discovered ways to commit evil acts while retaining a Lawful Good alignment. Does this make their evil deeds any less evil? If you just go by the empirical evidence provided by Detect Good, you might think so. But this just shows the flaw of overreliance on divination.

Prophaniti
2008-08-11, 10:41 AM
Nothing can be verified to exist outside the mind of the thinking subject.
It is just as fair for me to say "if it cannot be verified not to exist outside the mind of the thinking subject, it is considered to be objective" as for you to make your claim.
A more fair definition is this: if something purports to relate only to the subject, it's subjective. If it purports to relate to an objective reality, it's objective. Hence, "zebras are 10 pounds each" is an objective claim. It happens to be false. "In the year 2313 King Zogreb will eat a steak" is also an objective claim. It happens to be untestable. "Jack Black is a good person" is another objective claim. It is easily-testable in D&D, and less-easily-testable in the real world. Whether it is in fact testable or not in the real world is an interesting religious question... but that fact has no bearing on whether it is objective or not.
Sorry, but wrong again. Looks like you won't be getting that 'A' in philosophy.

First, things can indeed be verified to exist outside the mind of the subject, unless you get really deep into some of the more headache-inducing philosophical concepts, which basically reject reality entirely. Not much point in debating that, so for the sake of this argument, I'm going to assume reality exists and we are in it. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but work with me here.

Secondly, I'm not interested in what you consider to be a 'fair' definition of objective or subjective. I'm interested in what the actual definitions of the terms are. If we decide to use your definitions of the terms because you feel their more 'fair', then I must insist we use my definition of 'debate', which I will henceforth define as a lengthy discussion in which you ultimately see how flawed your ideas and opinions are and adopt mine. Does that sound 'fair' to you?

Third, per the actual definitions of the terms objective and subjective, they do not apply to claims. A claim is simply a claim, made by one person asserting that their interpretation of reality is correct. Claims must be verified or they remain simply that.

The best one of your claims, "Jack Black is a good person", will actually serve very well to illustrate my point. In the real world, whether Jack is a 'good person' or not is entirely a matter of opinion. Maybe he did some bad things in the past that I'm not willing to overlook, regardless of what he does now. To me, in that case, he is not a 'good person', and my opinion of his 'goodness' is just as valid as yours. That is what happens with subjective morality, things are open to interpretation and opinion, debate and discussion.

If Jack were in a D&D world, a simple magical test would remove any doubt, and would prove indesputably and undeniably whether Jack is 'good'. There would be no room for opinion, interpretation, debate, or discussion. Case closed, end of story. That is what happens with objective morality. It can be irrefutably proven whether a person or an act is good or evil. In the real world, it cannot be so proven, thus, objective morality remains in the realm of fantasy.

Not quite. The existence of Detect Evil/Detect Good helps give some evidence, but it still doesn't give any perfect proof. The naturalistic fallacy still applies.

Examples: I am about to go to sleep in a safe place. I have a memorized uncast Summon Monster I. Ought I (morally) to cast it? It would be a detectably Good spell if used to summon a Celestial critter. But would it be particularly moral? No.

Also, the Grey Guard have discovered ways to commit evil acts while retaining a Lawful Good alignment. Does this make their evil deeds any less evil? If you just go by the empirical evidence provided by Detect Good, you might think so. But this just shows the flaw of overreliance on divination.
Ok, I've made the point earlier, but let's reiterate. Even in an objectively moral world, every action is not morally right or wrong. The vast majority of your decisions will be decidedly morally neutral.

The Grey Guard I'm actually not familiar with, but obviously, since morality is a cosmic law in D&D, they have found a loophole, just like so many things in the ever-advancing RL field of particle physics seem to find loopholes in our current concept of physics. Grey Guards simply understand the Laws of Objective Morality well enough to accomplish what seems impossible to most. That, or their just a cheesy class that someone made because they didn't want to be restricted by what is, after all, a completely arbitrary alignment system that we probably shouldn't be taking so seriously in the first place...

FatherMalkav
2008-08-11, 11:02 AM
This brings up questions about my current game. We have a Wild Elf Barbarian played by a novice player. He didn't know the religion of D&D before hand so his character is ignorant of the gods (fluff of growing up in an isolated mountain tribe, etc.). He is adventuring with us as a right of passage and after we were ambushed by kobolds in the night he volunteered to take watch. Unknown to us he spent the night skinning and cooking the creatures for breakfast. When asked by the GM on motivation he said "culturally, food was scarce so, like the Native Americans, we used every part of everything we killed." He also had never seen a kobold, though the fact they were armed and armored should have given their sentience away. Here's the question of evil:
1) Is he evil for cooking and eating kobolds he killed in self defense?
2) Is he evil for his cultural upbringing based on survival?
3) Are we evil for eating the kobolds despite the fact we didn't know what we were eating?

The character has also kept to this and most of what we kill he will save and prepare for dinner if possible. He's done this for everything from rats to dragons.

Knaight
2008-08-11, 11:09 AM
We're talking morality in a game where morality is concrete, so it is indeed possible to prove what is good and what is evil.

I wasn't actually talking about D&D dragons or Ogres so I can see where you might have come up with that conclusion. Actually, both of them came out of it alive, with the with the Ogre (arguably) the victor, since the dragon didn't manage to eat the Ogre or any of his charges that he was protecting.

Odd. D&D dragons are typically a lot smaller than the ones depicted in most fiction. So are ogres, but considering the ogres are usually a foot taller, and the dragons usually stretch on into hundreds of feet(thats increments of 30 meters approximately, so 90-270 meters is pretty typical.)

And in the case of the barbarian elf, from the post preceding mine, he's not evil. If you attack someone with lethal force and they kill you you can hardly complain that they are doing something to your body afterwards. You could have just not attacked them. Furthermore how is it less respectful to strip the body and just leave it there, the standard procedure?

NecroRebel
2008-08-11, 12:13 PM
5. to Necrorebel: There are NO writings attributed to Socrates. Additionally, you seem to have missed my point: Plato is a jerk. His version of Socrates supports slavery, teaches kids how to make their parents look like idiots, believes that it is better to commit suicide than to follow or break a minor law, and forces his family leave his deathbed because they might cry (instead preferring to make a minor philosophical point). When he argues for slavery (in the Phaedo and elsewhere), he is arguing against worthier men who make better arguments than he.

You seem to have missed MY point. There are writings attributed to Socrates; that is, someone else essentially wrote something down and said "this is something Socrates said." That's what attribute means, as shown on Dictionary.com, where it says "3. to consider as made by the one indicated, esp. with strong evidence but in the absence of conclusive proof: to attribute a painting to an artist." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/attribute) I'm well aware that there are no writings that claim to have been written by Socrates himself, but Plato, Xenophon, and others have attributed words to him.

As for what "Plato's version" of Socrates believes, it's essentially impossible to find any other version. There is even some question about whether Socrates ever even existed or if he was an invention of Plato's. Supporting slavery was very common at the time, so philosophically justifying it is almost to be expected, and ideally all teachers should improve their students to the point where they can "make their parents look like idiots" as that is a sign that they understand things their parents do not. I won't comment on making the women leave him before he drank the hemlock or chose to die rather than break the laws, other than to say that although I do not agree I can see where he comes from philosophically.

As for Plato being a jerk... Well, I'll reiterate what I said earlier: Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies were often clearly flawed on deep and fundamental levels, but they are largely responsible for laying the foundations of philosophy (and ultimately science descended from it). For that alone they deserve some respect.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-08-11, 12:24 PM
Placing one's goals above those of another intelligent being to the point of killing them (the ultimate in domination) is evil unless in self-defence.

In AD&D domination of others is Evil.

I'm wholeheartedly in agreement with this statement.

Take this scenario:
There's a large island in area X of a generic fantasy world. There a group of ogres, a group of gnolls and a group of humans. The ogres and gnolls hate eachother due to some cliché, and the humans mostly keep to themselves. However, gnoll shamans eventually divine upon a ritual that will make gnoll warriors stronger and as big as ogres. The hitch is, a captured human has to be hunted down, killed and ritualistically eaten for this to take effect. Placing their own race's survival before the humans', they start stealthily capturing humans, starting with the easiest: the elderly, the women and children. By the time the humans realize what's going on, the gnolls are too powerful to fight against (the humans were never prepared for all out war). The remaining human population is forced to flee the island, a mere fragment of its former self and never recovers, as the gnolls eventually eradicate the ogres and begin to claim previously human territory.

Ignoring Monster Manual alignment entries, are the gnolls evil by D&D standards? They were only ensuring their own survival.

Riffington
2008-08-11, 01:36 PM
Sorry, but wrong again. Looks like you won't be getting that 'A' in philosophy.
Good thing I have enough of those already then :p


so for the sake of this argument, I'm going to assume reality exists and we are in it. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but work with me here.

You skipped epistomology. Bigger stretch than you'd like to claim.
The logical conclusion of your argument is that as science advances, things that were subjective become objective. Are you sure you want that?



Secondly, I'm not interested in what you consider to be a 'fair' definition of objective or subjective. I'm interested in what the actual definitions of the terms are.


Ok, let's use the actual ones. Objective: "having reality independent of the mind." Subjective: "arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli"
Note that neither definition references verifiability in any way.
There exist verifiable subjective claims (we just need to monitor the subject sufficiently well), and unverifiable objective claims.



The best one of your claims, "Jack Black is a good person", will actually serve very well to illustrate my point. In the real world, whether Jack is a 'good person' or not is entirely a matter of opinion. Maybe he did some bad things in the past that I'm not willing to overlook, regardless of what he does now. To me, in that case, he is not a 'good person', and my opinion of his 'goodness' is just as valid as yours. That is what happens with subjective morality, things are open to interpretation and opinion, debate and discussion.


You assert this, just as I assert that it is objective but unverifiable. What evidence do you have? Allow me to give you the evidence for my position:
If our opinions are just as valid, we would never bother arguing whether he is good or not. There would be no purpose, since all you could say is "I like him", and my saying "but I like him" would have no bearing. But reasonable people do think it's worth debating the morality of various actions. They do so because they are actually giving real information to one another, to help one another be better people.




If Jack were in a D&D world, a simple magical test would remove any doubt, and would prove indesputably and undeniably whether Jack is 'good'. There would be no room for opinion, interpretation, debate, or discussion.

Sure, just like a radar gun would remove any doubt about whether he was speeding :p

Starbuck_II
2008-08-11, 01:36 PM
This brings up questions about my current game. We have a Wild Elf Barbarian played by a novice player. He didn't know the religion of D&D before hand so his character is ignorant of the gods (fluff of growing up in an isolated mountain tribe, etc.). He is adventuring with us as a right of passage and after we were ambushed by kobolds in the night he volunteered to take watch. Unknown to us he spent the night skinning and cooking the creatures for breakfast. When asked by the GM on motivation he said "culturally, food was scarce so, like the Native Americans, we used every part of everything we killed." He also had never seen a kobold, though the fact they were armed and armored should have given their sentience away. Here's the question of evil:
1) Is he evil for cooking and eating kobolds he killed in self defense?
2) Is he evil for his cultural upbringing based on survival?
3) Are we evil for eating the kobolds despite the fact we didn't know what we were eating?

The character has also kept to this and most of what we kill he will save and prepare for dinner if possible. He's done this for everything from rats to dragons.
No, as long as he not a Kobold. Cannibalism is evil as it turns you into a Ghoul when you die.

No, as long as he didn't eat his own kind.

No, though, it was wrong not to tell you.

Riffington
2008-08-11, 01:38 PM
Ok, I've made the point earlier, but let's reiterate. Even in an objectively moral world, every action is not morally right or wrong. The vast majority of your decisions will be decidedly morally neutral.


So you agree that summoning a celestial critter for no reason is a detectably Good act that is nevertheless morally neutral?

Starbuck_II
2008-08-11, 01:52 PM
So you agree that summoning a celestial critter for no reason is a detectably Good act that is nevertheless morally neutral?

Summoning a Angel to kill babies or Holy Wording an Orphanage are both good acts, I guess.

Telonius
2008-08-11, 01:55 PM
Eating intelligent humanoids? Usually evil.

Eating unintelligent humanoids? I'd peg that as True Neutral. Possibly chaotic good, depending on the situation.

hamishspence
2008-08-11, 02:01 PM
If we extrapolate from Fiendish Codex 2, evil acts always outweigh good ones, and a "good" spell is a very low ranked Good Act.

Casting a "Good" damage spell that hits innocents isn't Good, because the second act (murder) is vastly more evil than the Good act (rank 1, if you extrapolate from Evil spells being rank 1) Murder is rank 5.

Given the outweighing factor (does Holy Word harm the Neutral) and the BoED rule that killing evil people without justification is evil, DM should say:

Your Character committed multiple murders. AND good acts don't actually affect your evil level, anyway, unless done as atonement. He is now very Evil.

Stormthorn
2008-08-11, 02:14 PM
Ok. Let me give my opinion.

Eating an intellignet being is not an evil act in and of itself.
This has answered the question.

In the case of the Kobolds the act is evil because it is the ritualistic murder of an intelligent being that culminates is vandalizing a corpse. All for the purpose of becoming more powerful.
Few people would agrue that you are evil if you beat a man to death and pee on his body so you can steal his sword. And i doubt they would listen to the excuse of "I need that sword to defend my village against freaks who might kill people."

On the other hand, you can eat someone and have it be a good act. Read Stranger In A Strange Land for an example.

Now i have provided examples of how it may or may not be evil.

What make somehting intelligent is fairly simple. A sense of self and the ability for abstract thought. Heck, DnD makes it even simpler by giving you an exact number value.

You people can now stop obfuscating the issue.

Tormsskull
2008-08-11, 02:18 PM
Wow, did I actually read this whole thread, egads.

Ok, a few things:

1.) Is eating an intelligent humanoid evil? It all depends on the DM. That sounds like a cop out, but it is the complete truth. In some worlds, maybe it isn't. In others, it is. If I was to pick up a generic D&D module and run it, and some character wanted to eat a downed enemy, I would not consider it an evil act.

2.) Is animating undead an evil act? See above, but in my world, it is an evil act. The main reason for this is that I don't like neutral mindless undead in my world. They aren't scary, they don't feel right to me. As far as RAW is concerned, passed 2nd edition mindless undead have carried the "Evil" descriptor (IIRC, 2nd edition and previous labeled them as Neutral). So, if a cleric or wizard casts a spell which CREATES an "Evil" creature, the spell its self must be "Evil".

3.) Subjective versus objective. I'm well aware they have (not so) clearly defined dictionary definitions. The laymans way of looking at them (from what I was taught) is that subjective = opinion, objective = fact. If someone said "It is hot today", that is a subjective statement. If someone said "It is 85 degrees today" that is an objective statement.

4.) And finally:



Take this scenario:
There's a large island in area X of a generic fantasy world. There a group of ogres, a group of kobolds and a group of humans.

...

Ignoring Monster Manual alignment entries, are the gnolls evil by D&D standards? They were only ensuring their own survival.


The more important question, where did the gnolls come from since this island has ogres, kobolds, and humans :smalltongue:.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-08-11, 02:31 PM
4.) And finally:

The more important question, where did the gnolls come from since this island has ogres, kobolds, and humans :smalltongue:.

:smallconfused: Thanks for the catch! I meant gnolls the whole time, but I think 'kobold' made it too far into my subconscious by reading the entire thread. Post has been fixed :smallsmile:

hamishspence
2008-08-11, 02:34 PM
Actually, Vile Darkness defines cannibalism as the eating of any intelligent being, especially out of malice.

Not for nothing is it a classic human taboo. Although that may be more modern day, still, whether for survival or not, it tends to cause revulsion.

Riffington
2008-08-11, 02:38 PM
As for Plato being a jerk... Well, I'll reiterate what I said earlier: Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies were often clearly flawed on deep and fundamental levels, but they are largely responsible for laying the foundations of philosophy (and ultimately science descended from it). For that alone they deserve some respect.

They certainly deserve respect, but I fear you are giving Plato and Aristotle the credit for work that was primarily done by Thales and Pythagoras (not to mention Democritus and various Sophists).
At any rate, I believe that the slavery critics to whom Socrates responds (according to Plato's accounts), and those to whom Aristotle responds cannot simply be dismissed. They are the ones presenting the common-sense objection to the weird ramifications of those philosophies. You can often learn more from the common-sense objections to a theory than from the theory itself.

NecroRebel
2008-08-11, 03:56 PM
They certainly deserve respect, but I fear you are giving Plato and Aristotle the credit for work that was primarily done by Thales and Pythagoras (not to mention Democritus and various Sophists).
At any rate, I believe that the slavery critics to whom Socrates responds (according to Plato's accounts), and those to whom Aristotle responds cannot simply be dismissed. They are the ones presenting the common-sense objection to the weird ramifications of those philosophies. You can often learn more from the common-sense objections to a theory than from the theory itself.

Hmm... Perhaps. Although Thales is considered the originator of the study of philosophy in philosophical circles, he isn't that well-known outside of those circles. I had never even heard the name before university, and I doubt most of the people here have heard of him. Further, although he and others were earlier, they usually aren't cited as being as influential as, for example, Aristotle, whos works were essentially the basis for all philosophical thought in the West for a thousand years and more.

You are correct, though, in saying that common-sense objections can be very enlightening. I feel now I misunderstood your original statement that brought about this discussion, as you mentioned that the "thoughtful [Greeks]" felt that slavery was always immoral, and I took that to mean those that were most famous for their thoughts.

Prophaniti
2008-08-11, 04:45 PM
The logical conclusion of your argument is that as science advances, things that were subjective become objective. Are you sure you want that?The logical conclusion is that as our understanding increases, it is possible that things we previously understood to be subjective, we may discover that they are in fact objective. That's all. There's certainly no promise of that, but I would not close my mind to the possibility.

Ok, let's use the actual ones. Objective: "having reality independent of the mind." Subjective: "arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli"
Note that neither definition references verifiability in any way.
There exist verifiable subjective claims (we just need to monitor the subject sufficiently well), and unverifiable objective claims.When I mention verifiability in this discussion, it refers to the ability to verify whether something is objective or subjective, using primarily scientific methods of observation and experimentation. If a thing cannot be observed, and thus not verified (let's say the concept of deity*, for example) it is safe to say that it is a subjective concept, until such time as we are able to observe and verify it's existance outside the thinking subject. *(don't take that as an attack on religion, I myself am religious. I'm also self-aware enough to recognize that you cannot, in fact, prove, disprove, verify, observe, or otherwise quantify such a concept.)

You assert this, just as I assert that it is objective but unverifiable. What evidence do you have? Allow me to give you the evidence for my position:
If our opinions are just as valid, we would never bother arguing whether he is good or not. There would be no purpose, since all you could say is "I like him", and my saying "but I like him" would have no bearing. But reasonable people do think it's worth debating the morality of various actions. They do so because they are actually giving real information to one another, to help one another be better people. Of course morality is still debatable. Opinion is always debatable, at least if both sides keep their minds open and allow themselves to consider other modes and methods of thought. In the end, though, matters purely of opinion or preference (not all that common, actually) cannot be right or wrong unless based on eroneous facts. Ex: in my example, if Jack had not done anything bad in the past, my opinion of him as a bad person would not be valid, since it is based on incorrect information. If, however, Jack had done something horrible in the past, but since then has lived an upstanding life, then it is a matter of interpretation and opinion whether he is a good person overall. It is not something that can be observed, measured, or otherwise verified IRL, thus it is a logical conclusion that his 'goodness' is subjective.

Sure, just like a radar gun would remove any doubt about whether he was speeding :pI'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here... Yes, it's exactly like that. Magic in D&D is capable of determining his 'goodness' to an absolute degree, much as a radar gun is capable of telling somethings relative speed to such a degree. Since his 'goodness' is measurable and observable, 'goodness' in D&D is objective.

So you agree that summoning a celestial critter for no reason is a detectably Good act that is nevertheless morally neutral?
Yes, I do. Consider that a summoned creature is bound by the summoner's will, regardless of whether any orders are contrary to it's nature. Thus, summoning anything is a neutral act. The spell itself may be good or evil because the book says so, but casting the spell and ordering the creature are two seperate acts, and just because you summoned a good creature does not mean it will be used for good ends.

Riffington
2008-08-11, 07:52 PM
If a thing cannot be observed, and thus not verified (let's say the concept of deity*, for example) it is safe to say that it is a subjective concept, until such time as we are able to observe and verify it's existance outside the thinking subject.

So you reject the actual dictionary definitions of subjective and objective that I've provided, then. Objective: "having reality independent of the mind." Subjective: "arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli"
The definitions of these words have nothing to do with verifiability.

If all you want to talk about is verifiable or unverifiable, stick to those words.

For example: by definition, pain is clearly subjective. It is something which exists only in a being's mind. There are things you currently find painful that you can learn to reinterpret as pleasant. The stimulus doesn't change, the observable signs may not change... but the pain has disappeared because pain is subjective.

Yet I can estimate pain from observable signs fairly accurately. I do so every day as an anesthesia resident... and I'm way better at it than a first-year anesthesia resident. The pain only exists in a person's mind, but I can still measure it. It is real, it is measurable, it is subjective.

In contrast, by the definition of objective, the existence of every deity is objective. We have evidence that Zeus does not exist, certainly... but can you prove that Loki does not? You can't - but still, the question of whether he exists or not is not a question about your mind. It is a question that makes sense even if you are unconscious.



I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here... Yes, it's exactly like that. Magic in D&D is capable of determining his 'goodness' to an absolute degree, much as a radar gun is capable of telling somethings relative speed to such a degree. Since his 'goodness' is measurable and observable, 'goodness' in D&D is objective.
What I'm trying to say here is that the ability to measure goodness with the accuracy of a radar gun doesn't kill debate. If it did, speeding tickets would never end up in court. There are false positives and false negatives. More importantly... just proving that something is detectably good doesn't mean it's morally good. Just as a Cleric of Heironeous feels it silly to summon Celestial animals without reason (if it were morally good, he would have no hesitation but would instead rejoice to perform the good deed, but it isn't. It's merely detectably good). And just as a Neutral-aligned Succubus is entirely indistinguishable from an Evil-aligned Succubus (she is undetectably-but-objectively different)... magic just helps one argue. If people who believe in the same Bible can heatedly debate morality, so can two clerics with Detect spells.

Prophaniti
2008-08-11, 09:01 PM
So you reject the actual dictionary definitions of subjective and objective that I've provided, then. Objective: "having reality independent of the mind." Subjective: "arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli"
The definitions of these words have nothing to do with verifiability.

If all you want to talk about is verifiable or unverifiable, stick to those words.
The definitions you quoted are fine, and very close to the ones I quoted from a dictionary earlier. The reason verifiablility came up at all was merely to demonstrate why I feel it is clear that morality is subjective in the real world (because it has no bearing or meaning when a thinking observer is not present or involved. Nothing animals do is morally right or wrong, because they lack the capacity to judge it so.), and what makes it objective in a D&D setting. Morality can definitely be said to "arise from conditions in the brain". I realize I've gone on a bit of a tangent from that, and perhaps grasp the verifiable/unverifiable comparison a bit too tightly. I'll try to stop reiterating it.


In contrast, by the definition of objective, the existence of every deity is objective. We have evidence that Zeus does not exist, certainly... but can you prove that Loki does not? You can't - but still, the question of whether he exists or not is not a question about your mind. It is a question that makes sense even if you are unconscious.And what evidence, exactly, do we have that Zeus does not exist that cannot be applied to Loki? The fact that you don't see him at the top of Mt Olympus? If Zeus is a god, he can avoid observation if he wishes, not to mention that all the myths show him to have a penchant for changing forms. The question of deity is a question contained wholly inside a mind, as there is no direct evidence of such a force existing outside it. Unlike, say, badgers, which can be seen and observed to exist outside an individual's mind.


What I'm trying to say here is that the ability to measure goodness with the accuracy of a radar gun doesn't kill debate. If it did, speeding tickets would never end up in court. There are false positives and false negatives. More importantly... just proving that something is detectably good doesn't mean it's morally good. Just as a Cleric of Heironeous feels it silly to summon Celestial animals without reason (if it were morally good, he would have no hesitation but would instead rejoice to perform the good deed, but it isn't. It's merely detectably good). And just as a Neutral-aligned Succubus is entirely indistinguishable from an Evil-aligned Succubus (she is undetectably-but-objectively different)... magic just helps one argue. If people who believe in the same Bible can heatedly debate morality, so can two clerics with Detect spells.Point taken. Though I mantain that any debate will be about whether the evil person or evil action warrants a response, and to what degree. There will be no debate whatsoever on whether it is evil in the first place, as there is in the real world, because that is proven fact. Also, there is no such thing as a Neutral-aligned Succubus in D&D, they are defined by RAW as creatures purely evil without exception or qualification.

Tequila Sunrise
2008-08-11, 09:19 PM
Is eating intelligent humanoids, in general, an evil act? Is the entire race an "evil race" for doing it? Is there an instance where it wouldn't be an evil act?

Killing and eating intelligent humanoids to complete a right of passage is an evil act, but it doesn't mean that all kobolds who do so become evil after performing that single evil act. There might even be a majority of the kobold population that remains neutral after completing this right of passage, assuming of course that those individuals only do so once and only as a nod toward the status quo.

But this kobold ritual killing and eating of sentient flesh sounds like a very slippery slope. If this kobold society has such a brutal right of passage it probably encourages other practices that all but guarantees that its kobolds go through life being evil aligned.

TS

hamishspence
2008-08-12, 11:33 AM
the MM rules actually specify what happens when alignment differs from alignment subtype (it detects as subtype) So a LG succubus paladin, like the one on a D&D Miniatures card, would detect as evil, despite having full access to paladin powers.

Planescape Torment also had a non-evil succubus called Fall-from-Grace. Epic Handbook had a non-evil half-fiend. In general, you can indeed find non-evil fiends in D&D material. Conclusion, they exist, and should not be smote, if found.

That said, neither the BoED spell, nor the BoED use of diplomacy, work to redeem fiends. Basically, players who come across an evil fiend cannot redeem it, so if you meet one in game, it was probably altered by a deity, or chose to start redeeming itself.

Riffington
2008-08-12, 09:16 PM
I feel it is clear that morality is subjective in the real world (because it has no bearing or meaning when a thinking observer is not present or involved. Nothing animals do is morally right or wrong, because they lack the capacity to judge it so.), and what makes it objective in a D&D setting.


The mistake you make here is very subtle: there must be a thinking Agent, not a thinking Observer. We both agree that nothing cows do is morally right or wrong - both on Earth and in D&D. So in D&D, where we agree that morality is objective, no cow act can be good or evil. Thus, the fact that on Earth no cow act can be good or evil is consistent with morality being objective.

The mistake is subtle because most human agents are also observers of their own actions. Yet if this is not true, they still may commit good or evil deeds. If you are so wrapped up in beating your dog that you do not feel him scratch your arm, you do not feel pain. Such is the nature of a subjective phenomenon.
And such absorption could certainly distract you from the evil of the beating, but I claim it would not absolve you of it.
If you believe that morality is subjective because it requires an observer, you'd have to claim that if you are sufficiently engrossed in your wrath then you committed no evil. (A particularly bizarre ramification of this would be that the beating could become evil an hour later when you contemplate and regret what you'd done)



And what evidence, exactly, do we have that Zeus does not exist that cannot be applied to Loki?

Because Zeus, should he exist, is prideful. He sleeps with every woman who captures his fancy (even if she is forbidden to him, dangerous, a relative, or even his wife.) He commands the Thunders, and smites those who insult him. His maturity level is forever that of an adolescent. To suggest a secret Zeus is like suggesting that unicorns exist, that they have no horn, that they have claws, and indeed that your cat is one. One ought scoff at such a notion.


Also, there is no such thing as a Neutral-aligned Succubus in D&D, they are defined by RAW as creatures purely evil without exception or qualification.

Someone should tell WOTC (see Hamishpence's post). A Good Succubus is both Good and Evil, so Smite Good and Smite Evil both work on her. But a Neutral Succubus is entirely indistinguishable from an Evil one. They are objectively different, but I know no way to tell them apart.

hamishspence
2008-08-13, 11:31 AM
Pity there isn't a Neutral Outsider Bane (fiercebane) weapon, that would glow in the presence of neutral outsiders, whatever their actual alignment subtype.

Fiercebane is in DMG2, and Thats the easiest way of proving a creature to be a good aligned outsider, even if they are of evil subtype.

I don't think a Neutral outsider bane weapon exists though, or a Detect Neutral spell, otherwise that would solve Neutral succubus problem. I think Fall-From-Grace, in Planescape Torment, was Neutral.

Prophaniti
2008-08-13, 12:40 PM
Ok, side discussions first, before we move on to the main point.
Because Zeus, should he exist, is prideful. He sleeps with every woman who captures his fancy (even if she is forbidden to him, dangerous, a relative, or even his wife.) He commands the Thunders, and smites those who insult him. His maturity level is forever that of an adolescent. To suggest a secret Zeus is like suggesting that unicorns exist, that they have no horn, that they have claws, and indeed that your cat is one. One ought scoff at such a notion.True, but there are greek gods who are more... discreet. If you use Zeus' personality coupled with the fact that we see none of his trademark shenanigans ('or even his wife'... that was funny:smallbiggrin:) as proof that he does not exist, the extension of that proof would be that none of the greek gods exist. I don't think you'd find many people who would argue that the greek gods are entirely mythical these days, due to the astounding lack of evidence for their presence. A few, but not many.

A similar proof can be applied to Loki just as easily, since the Norse pantheon was also rife with prideful characters who, if real, would not be hiding or sitting still and watching. Since we see no Thor leaping about the clouds making thunder, it is logical to assume he does not exist, and by extension neither does Loki. You see? The evidence for Zeus' absense can indeed be applied to Loki as well.


Someone should tell WOTC (see Hamishpence's post). A Good Succubus is both Good and Evil, so Smite Good and Smite Evil both work on her. But a Neutral Succubus is entirely indistinguishable from an Evil one. They are objectively different, but I know no way to tell them apart.
If the MM entry states 'Always X alignment', which I'm fairly certain the Succubus does, then that's it, end of story. They're all X alignment. Anyone who later decided to make one of them Y alignment is breaking that rule, deliberately tossing it aside with no justification or even poor effort at finding a loophole. Since, as hamisphence pointed out, fiends cannot be redeemed, they cannot be different alignments than their MM entry. Period.

Assuming that there is some loophole I'm unaware of that allows the creation of such a fiend... Ug, I'd forgotten about that abonimably idiotic detection rule in such situations. Probably blanked it deliberately from my memory. I hold it to be a typo. Someone screwed up and the editor missed it. Either that or it was written by a lobotomized monkey who snuck in when no one was looking... and it was still missed by the editor.

The mistake you make here is very subtle: there must be a thinking Agent, not a thinking Observer.Semantics. What I meant was exactly what you're saying, which is why I qualified the 'thinking observer' with 'present or involved'. Agent is a better word for it, I probably should have started using it earlier.


The mistake is subtle because most human agents are also observers of their own actions. Yet if this is not true, they still may commit good or evil deeds. If you are so wrapped up in beating your dog that you do not feel him scratch your arm, you do not feel pain. Such is the nature of a subjective phenomenon.
And such absorption could certainly distract you from the evil of the beating, but I claim it would not absolve you of it.
If you believe that morality is subjective because it requires an observer, you'd have to claim that if you are sufficiently engrossed in your wrath then you committed no evil. (A particularly bizarre ramification of this would be that the beating could become evil an hour later when you contemplate and regret what you'd done)Again, that's why I qualified with 'involved'. I could have been clearer, and I apologise, I was quite tired when I wrote that last post. What I stipulated is that actions can only be moral when an involved party is capable of judging them so. I didn't mean to imply that they must be actively using that capability at the time.


We both agree that nothing cows do is morally right or wrong - both on Earth and in D&D. So in D&D, where we agree that morality is objective, no cow act can be good or evil. Thus, the fact that on Earth no cow act can be good or evil is consistent with morality being objectiveI follow this with a similar example. We both agree that the actions of a thinking agent can be good or evil, both in D&D and in the real world. In D&D, we know that the basis for this distinction arises from external forces, both because the rules say so, and because those forces are demonstratably present. What I've been trying to say (and this is actually quite a tangent that we've been on here, but I've enjoyed it) is:
In the real world, there is no evidence of such external forces. No rules say they exist, and it is not possible to demonstrate their presence. I do not stipulate that such forces do not or cannot exist, merely that there is no evidence. The logical conclusion of such is that morality arises purely from within the mind of the thinking agent, and as such, is subjective. Or at the very least morality is best classified as subjective until such time as we have evidence indicating otherwise.

So, that's what I've been saying, trying to demonstrate the subjectivity of real-world morality in order to further contrast just how different objective morality would be.

Edit: In fact, one interesting side point of a truly objective morality would be this: if said cow, whom we've already established as incapable of moral action, existed in a world that was truly objectively moral, some fun things start to happen. If, in this objectively moral world, killing babies is Evil, that means it's Evil regardless of circumstance, right? So, if the cow steps on or tramples a baby (even through a purely accidental situation) the baby-killing would remain just as Evil an act. It wouldn't be a neutral accident, it would be an Evil act, despite being performed by a being established as incapable of perfoming moral acts at all. Illogical? Exactly.

hamishspence
2008-08-13, 12:47 PM
no, the point was not that fiends cannot be redeemed, but that players have no mechanical method of redeeming them. In effect, it takes a DM's decision for a redeemed fiend to exist: they have to redeem themselves, players cannot do it.

Since Planescape Torment had one, and Dragon Magazine confirmed its existance, and WoTC gave us the succubus Paladin Miniature, and MM in back says a Good creature with Evil subtype detects as Evil, not You cannot have a good creature with Evil subtype, and some few Fiends in supplements have Usually Evil rather than Always evil, despite Evil subtype, we should conclude with all this evidence put together, that DM is not breaking the rules by having a non-evil Fiend.

hamishspence
2008-08-13, 12:53 PM
Demonweb Pits gives is the Cambion: Often CE, with Evil subtype, explicitly described as 1 in 10 are neutral or even Good.

Always Evil without the Evil subtype means very occasionally Good/Neutral. Dragons are notable example: non-evil chromatic dragons are described in some sources (not just Eberron, Faerun as well)

Always Evil with the Evil subtype? DM's discretion. But, WoTC have made exceptions.

Prophaniti
2008-08-13, 12:56 PM
Ok, ok, just highlight my second paragraph on the subject, then. The one about lobotomized monkeys. I can think of no other excuse for such stupidity.

hamishspence
2008-08-13, 01:00 PM
Yes, the Wizards definition of Always as: All but about 1 in a million is...interesting. still, the precedent was set with the Planescape Torment game, and I suspect the same may have applied in 2nd ed Planescape setting. The risen fiend is a trope, like the Fallen Angel.

monty
2008-08-13, 01:21 PM
Yes, the Wizards definition of Always as: All but about 1 in a million is...interesting. still, the precedent was set with the Planescape Torment game, and I suspect the same may have applied in 2nd ed Planescape setting. The risen fiend is a trope, like the Fallen Angel.

1 in a million is still possible, though. Say there's a billion succubi. That means about a thousand of them not CE. Hardly a lot, but it's definitely not zero either.

Riffington
2008-08-13, 01:55 PM
Ok, side discussions first...
A similar proof can be applied to Loki just as easily, since the Norse pantheon was also rife with prideful characters who, if real, would not be hiding or sitting still and watching.

Sure, but inventing an entire false pantheon is the sort of trick I wouldn't put past Loki. Or perhaps arranging events so Ragnarok works out a bit differently.



What I stipulated is that actions can only be moral when an involved party is capable of judging them so. I didn't mean to imply that they must be actively using that capability at the time.

I don't think I understand. How can a subjective experience be being experienced while it is not being experienced?



I do not stipulate that such forces do not or cannot exist, merely that there is no evidence. The logical conclusion of such is that morality arises purely from within the mind of the thinking agent, and as such, is subjective. Or at the very least morality is best classified as subjective until such time as we have evidence indicating otherwise.


If we don't have any evidence that it's subjective, and we don't have any evidence that it's objective, why wouldn't it be better to classify them as objective until such time as we have evidence indicating otherwise?



Edit: In fact, one interesting side point of a truly objective morality would be this: if said cow, whom we've already established as incapable of moral action, existed in a world that was truly objectively moral, some fun things start to happen. If, in this objectively moral world, killing babies is Evil, that means it's Evil regardless of circumstance, right? So, if the cow steps on or tramples a baby (even through a purely accidental situation) the baby-killing would remain just as Evil an act. It wouldn't be a neutral accident, it would be an Evil act, despite being performed by a being established as incapable of perfoming moral acts at all. Illogical? Exactly.

You are setting up a straw man here. In an objectively moral world (whether D&D or Earth), it is not evil to kill babies regardless of circumstance (any more than a magnet points north regardless of circumstances). It is evil for humans to kill babies in most circumstances. It is never evil for unintelligent cows to kill babies, in either D&D or Earth.
The direction of movement of an object is objective. Yet when one drops a rubber ball, it falls or rises depending on circumstances. If it happens to be dropped underwater, it typically rises.

Mina Kobold
2008-08-13, 02:21 PM
I have not read the entire thread (to long) but I have read abaout that some cannibalists thinks its evil not to eat their dead (why give them to the worms) they would be proud of been eated by family.

Prophaniti
2008-08-13, 07:13 PM
I don't think I understand. How can a subjective experience be being experienced while it is not being experienced?It is being experienced. It is not being processed fully by the thinking agent in the given situation. It is still experienced, and thus still moral in one fashion or another, but the agent may not realize it, or come to a conclusion about it in their own mind, for some time.


If we don't have any evidence that it's subjective, and we don't have any evidence that it's objective, why wouldn't it be better to classify them as objective until such time as we have evidence indicating otherwise?The reason I say it is better to lean on the subjective side is this: If it's objective, that means there is a definite line. X is wrong, Y is good, etc. If someone disagrees with that, no matter how well-structured, reasonable, or persuasive their argument is, there's no room for it. Saying it's objective gives people grounds to shut down discussion and debate, eventually culminating (though a long way down the road) in a religiously or morally totalitarian situation. X is simply not accepted, regardless of logic, reason, discussion, or circumstance.

Keeping the idea of subjective morality helps keep your mind open. Note this does NOT mean that you cannot take a stand against certain actions that you perceive as immoral, it merely means that you can more freely process arguments and disagreements when a reasonable one is presented, without resorting to "that's just the way it is" statements.


You are setting up a straw man here. In an objectively moral world (whether D&D or Earth), it is not evil to kill babies regardless of circumstance (any more than a magnet points north regardless of circumstances). It is evil for humans to kill babies in most circumstances. It is never evil for unintelligent cows to kill babies, in either D&D or Earth.
The direction of movement of an object is objective. Yet when one drops a rubber ball, it falls or rises depending on circumstances. If it happens to be dropped underwater, it typically rises.No, in a truly objective morality, action X is Evil. Period. Let's use betrayal as an example, and say that in this objectively moral universe, betrayal is an evil act, on a very basic cosmic level, akin to physical laws like gravity. If someone commits a betrayal, they have commited an evil act. Circumstances may mitigate the evil, such as a betrayal to save a life (if in this universe saving a life is good). If circumstances or reasons for the betrayal are good enough, it may balance or surpass the evil of the betrayal, such as your example of the ball rising in water, one force is strong enough to overcome another.
But, and this is the important part, it DOES NOT CHANGE the evil of the betrayal. That is a universal constant in an objectively moral universe, just like the strong or weak nuclear force, or gravity. These forces can be countered, but their presence does not change.

Therefore, in such a universe, provided an action is evil in it, the action remains evil regardless of who perpetrates it, even creatures considered incapable of moral action.

Riffington
2008-08-13, 09:24 PM
It is being experienced. It is not being processed fully by the thinking agent in the given situation. It is still experienced,
Is morality the only subjective experience that must occur every time someone acts? Certainly it is nonsensical to talk about pain in a person who is unaware of the pain. Sometimes a spanking hurts, and other times an equally-forceful spanking does not. It is likewise silly to claim that a person smells horse manure if that person has been in its presence so long that they stop noticing it. Aromatherapy, after all, loses its effect when the subject has become too used to the smell, or when the subject is in a fight-or-flight situation that drives all other thoughts from their head.



The reason I say it is better to lean on the subjective side is this: If it's objective, that means there is a definite line. X is wrong, Y is good, etc. If someone disagrees with that, no matter how well-structured, reasonable, or persuasive their argument is, there's no room for it. Saying it's objective gives people grounds to shut down discussion and debate, eventually culminating (though a long way down the road) in a religiously or morally totalitarian situation. X is simply not accepted, regardless of logic, reason, discussion, or circumstance.

Silly man, Totalitarians tend to lean on the subjective side rather than the objective side. If there is an objective truth, then there are ways to know the truth, and prove the totalitarian is doing something immoral. If morality is only subjective, and the Dictator is the one whose subjective opinion matters, then there is no room for debate. I'll avoid listing the various personages living in 1930 who took the "I can construct a new morality" to a dark place.



No, in a truly objective morality, action X is Evil. Period. Let's use betrayal as an example, and say that in this objectively moral universe, betrayal is an evil act, on a very basic cosmic level, akin to physical laws like gravity. If someone commits a betrayal, they have commited an evil act. Circumstances may mitigate the evil, such as a betrayal to save a life (if in this universe saving a life is good). If circumstances or reasons for the betrayal are good enough, it may balance or surpass the evil of the betrayal, such as your example of the ball rising in water, one force is strong enough to overcome another.

This is logically true of ethics based on Deontology.
It is untrue of Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics, the Ethical systems of many monotheistic religions, and (most likely) the true morality which these all attempt to approximate.

Prophaniti
2008-08-14, 09:07 AM
Ok, just a few quick points this morning. Your fist paragraph. Are you kidding me?
It is likewise silly to claim that a person smells horse manure if that person has been in its presence so long that they stop noticing it. Of course he's still smelling manure. It's not like the smell gave up and went away when it wasn't being noticed anymore. It's called being desensatized. This claim sounds like the whole "if a tree falls in a forest..." garbage. Even with pain, I myself have been in many situations where pain has not immediately registered. The pain was still present, still being sent up to my brain for processing, only other forces were overriding it (drugs, adrenaline, etc). With actions, if the action is there, and if any involved party is normally capable of judging it*, the morality is there.
*As we have established humans are, with the exception of a very few suffering from extreme mental illnesses.

Second paragraph: No, what the totalitarian does is take his subjective view of morals and pass it off as an objective view, forcing those who disagree to conform or eliminating them.

Third paragraph: Notice how every single one of those ethical and religious systems, and pretty much every other one on the planet, disagree with each other, on one level or another? To me, that is a pretty clear sign that, IF morality is objective, no one knows where the line is, which makes it a lot more reasonable for an individual to assume THEY don't know where the line is either, and treat morality as subjective. One should definitely keep one's convictions, of course, but as soon as a person starts seeing their own personal convictions as an asolute, objective morality, they begin descending a slippery slope. One that usually ends in all manner of acts being justified because "They are wrong, and I must show them that my way is right."

I will keep my personal view of morality, and have no problem with you (generic you, not specifically you) keeping yours, because I honestly don't know for certain which of us is right, or even if either of us are right. If our views come into conflict, we can at least attempt to work out a compromise, rather than immediately resorting to violence because "you are wrong".

Ok, so not quite such short points... anyway thanks for listening.

hamishspence
2008-08-14, 09:44 AM
D&D morality isn't necessrily synonymous with Real World morality.

That said: Subjective could be described as "It isn't evil if its for a really good cause," or even "all acts depend on context." which leads to the principle of "greatest good of the greatest number" being used to justify atrocities on the individual to save the whole. Which may not be pleasant for said individuals.

Taken the other direction: Objective might lead to person refusing to do a deed seen as evil, even when its a minor one and the lives of millions hang on it.

Morality/ethics is a long and complicated subject, and games simply cannot cover it in detail (and if they did, people would dispute the game rulings)

"appeal to authority" has been protested against, but without some kind of source (PHB isn't very detailed) reasons for a ruling deteriorate to "because I the DM say so"

Saying: Because WoTC say so in books X, Y, and Z isn't always satisfactory, but its better than long convulated arguments.

Prophaniti
2008-08-14, 10:12 AM
True, true. We have gotten a bit of track, haven't we? Still it's been a fascinating discussion with Riffington here. I've enjoyed it, and hope neither of us have said anything particularly offensive to anyone. I've always felt debate and discussion should be the foundations of a thinking culture.

hamishspence
2008-08-14, 10:17 AM
sure. Thing that mainly irritates me is people insisting some WOTC books are automatically invalid because of poor mechanics, or saying D&D doesn't use objective morality, when what they should be saying is: "It didn't in 2nd ed, I don't see why it should now."

Riffington
2008-08-14, 01:52 PM
Ok, just a few quick points this morning. Your fist paragraph. Are you kidding me? Of course he's still smelling manure. It's not like the smell gave up and went away when it wasn't being noticed anymore. It's called being desensatized. This claim sounds like the whole "if a tree falls in a forest..." garbage. Even with pain, I myself have been in many situations where pain has not immediately registered. The pain was still present, still being sent up to my brain for processing, only other forces were overriding it (drugs, adrenaline, etc).


This gets to the heart of the definition of objective vs subjective. A tree objectively falls in the forest. It makes an objective sound wave. Sound is an objective physical phenomenon, so it doesn't matter if it enters anyone's mind. But subjective things only exist in a person's mind. If you don't feel pain, there is no pain - whether because I block your peripheral nerves from transmitting signals, block your brainstem from receiving signals, render you unconscious so that you feel nothing, or verbally convince you that the stimuli you feel are not actually painful after all.
You had situations where you were not in pain (a subjective thing) even though you had certain nerve impulses (an objective thing) going to your brain. Of course, the brain is not exactly the same as the mind, and nerves can fire in your brain without the corresponding sensation in the mind.
Otherwise, what do we mean when we say pain is subjective?




Second paragraph: No, what the totalitarian does is take his subjective view of morals and pass it off as an objective view, forcing those who disagree to conform or eliminating them.

Interestingly, that's not what the well-read-author of the totalitarian bunch said he was doing. He said that morality could be whatever he wanted it to be - ie that he defined his nation rather than merely reflecting it- and that's why he could create a New Morality and force everyone who disagreed to conform or be eliminated.



To me, that is a pretty clear sign that, IF morality is objective, no one knows where the line is, which makes it a lot more reasonable for an individual to assume THEY don't know where the line is either,
Yes, of course.


and treat morality as subjective.

No, of course not. If it is subjective you can define where the line is once and for all, not have to think about it, and justify all manner of acts. If it is objective and you are a bit unsure where the line is, then you have to keep yourself humble.



"greatest good of the greatest number" being used to justify atrocities

For whatever reason, lots of people seem to assume that Utilitarians will try to justify atrocities with this kind of math; actual Utilitarians never seem as interested (something about atrocities not really leading to rainbows or sunshine in the real world).

And yes, I agree that we've been having a discussion that's both civil and interesting.

hamishspence
2008-08-14, 02:04 PM
true about difference between a philosophy being theoretically able to be taken to an extreme, and in practice, isn't.

Outbreak is obvious movie example: kill a few to save the rest. While it didn't turn out that way, how does idea of actively killing people of whom a few would have survived epidemic, to save the nation, sit?

I remeber reading about a survey which said there was a definite difference btween choosing greater number of people to survive when one of two groups is doomed to die, and actively killing a person who wouldn't normally die, to save the many. Train dilemma, and several others.

Switch train track so it hits peole stuck on one track, but misses more people stuck on other track.

The direct killing of the healthy included:

train: push person in front on track to stop train running into other people
Surgeon: kill a healthy person in waiting room and use organs to save multiple people in need.

And several others, adjusted depending on the people two riddle was posed to.

Results seemed to be that majority would choose lesser of two evils when people already guaranteed to die, but 97% would refuse to murder to save the many.

Interesting example of philosophical test.

Riffington
2008-08-14, 03:29 PM
Outbreak is obvious movie example: kill a few to save the rest. While it didn't turn out that way, how does idea of actively killing people of whom a few would have survived epidemic, to save the nation, sit?


That's why we invented quarantine. We have the right to imprison innocent people against their will to prevent the spread of a terrible disease. We do not have the right to kill them. If I read the movie synopsis correctly, the idea of killing infected people rather than just quarantining them was really just to save someone's job, right?

hamishspence
2008-08-14, 03:33 PM
Or Andromeda strain. Or that movie with plane and suspected epidemic on it. its a common trope: disease risk leading to rights violations.

hamishspence
2008-08-14, 03:35 PM
was fear that disease would spread and reduce population of America to around 1%.

Devils_Advocate
2008-09-27, 05:14 PM
Boccob, I put off replying to this for this long?


1. I can't get around the naturalistic fallacy in an absolute sense. I can't, in short, *prove* what is good. Yet, I can offer strong arguments for what is good. Some are indeed related to empirical evidence. Strong circumstantial evidence such as "the kinds of people who kick puppies tend to be jerks in ways that you can recognize as bad" or "people who can understand both these arguments tend to choose A over B". But no perfect proof.
But I'm not asking for a way to prove that anything is anything. I'm not asking you how to reason from our available knowledge to conclusions. I'm asking you to tell me what "good" means, as you use the term. I'm asking you for the objective standard by which an omniscient being, with complete, perfect knowledge of the world, could sort good from non-good. Because as I understand it, you're saying that there is such a standard. And surely which standard you're talking about depends on the definition of "good".

So, can you explain what you're talking about, tabooing (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/taboo-words.html) moral keywords? Because you clearly mean something different by those words than what I mean when I use them. Such definition disputes (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/disputing-defin.html) are resolved by dissolving the question (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/dissolving-the.html). We should not proceed with a discussion behaving as though we think each word to have a single, fixed meaning, because we know that language doesn't work that way in practice. Thus, "What is moral?" -> "What does 'moral' mean?" -> "What do you mean by 'moral'?" Obviously, in order to make progress, one must ultimately answer in terms of words that do not present the same problem, as "should", "ought", "good", "desirable", "preferable", etc. do. If your words are only defined in terms of each other, they ultimately fail to describe anything. So a tree of definitions needs to eventually reach non-verbally defined words (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/extensions-inte.html) in order for a term to relate to reality in that wonderful way that we call "meaning".


But by analogy, I can convince you that you ought to abhor the kicking of puppies even if you do not have that current feeling.
But could you convince any possible being of this? Is there anything logically impossible about a sapient being that only wants to maximize the total number of paperclips in the universe, and is unmoved by all other concerns? If so, what is necessarily inconsistent about a universe in which such a being exists? If not, is it evil for said being to kick puppies? (Because they are in its way, let's suppose.)


3. An example of non-identicality. I hold that it is good and proper to advance human knowledge by sending information to others upon request (regardless of the legality thereof.) I can easily imagine that I am wrong, and that one's duty to obey the law trumps this. The world would be a slightly different place if this were true, and while I believe I can determine which of those two worlds I live in, I could be wrong.
How would the world be different, in that case? How does one distinguish between the two cases, even given omniscience? (Omniscience, obviously, doesn't provide knowledge of the one, true meaning of the word "good", as meanings are not intrinsic properties of words; definitions are not true or false.) What is this "morality" stuff, if it isn't how you feel about things? (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/is-morality-giv.html)


Here's the thing, though. It's not that I think you can't actually come up with answers to these questions. Doing that is fairly trivial, since one can arbitrarily define any term to mean anything. It's that I can't imagine answers that would prompt me to change my own goals or behavior. Maybe it actually is embodied somewhere in the universe that kicking puppies for fun is "morally wrong" -- whatever that might mean -- such that if that part/property/whatever of the universe were different in a certain way, kicking puppies for fun would be "morally right" -- whatever that might mean. There may be definitions of "morally right" and "morally wrong" that make the described scenario true, but I can't think of anything outside of myself that would keep me from disapproving of kicking puppies for fun, even if I knew about it.

Would you act to increase the amount of suffering in the world if you knew for a fact that that was the morally right thing to do? I can't imagine that I would, for any meaning of the term "morally right". And I'd similarly reject any other "moral facts" that clashed with my own conscience. Screw what I'm "supposed to do" (http://imago.hitherby.com/?p=81), y'know?


First, things can indeed be verified to exist outside the mind of the subject, unless you get really deep into some of the more headache-inducing philosophical concepts, which basically reject reality entirely. Not much point in debating that, so for the sake of this argument, I'm going to assume reality exists and we are in it. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but work with me here.
Wait just a minute, bucko. You ain't gettin' away that easy. For just as I ask what this "objective morality" stuff is supposed to mean, I must also ask what it means to speak of "objective reality".

"I think, therefore I am", proclaimed Descartes. The assumption being that while our conscious experiences may give us false impressions of an external world, at least our conscious experiences themselves, to which we have direct access, are undeniably real. But hang on a minute; by what standard, exactly, are they "real"? Just what does "real" actually mean?

To us, Frodo and Aragorn may be fictional characters. But to them, they're real. They even have direct access to their own conscious experiences, just like we do, and can reason "I think, therefore I am." You can hardly object to this on the basis that "There are no Frodo or Aragorn, or experiences had by them, or reasoning done by them." That's begging the question!

I take the "actual world" to simply be whatever world one finds oneself in. So Middle Earth is as real to Frodo and Aragorn as our world is to us, and neither is objectively more real. There's no non-arbitrary, objective basis on which one logically possible being's perspective on this issue is privileged over another's -- just as with morality! How can one consistently accept moral relativism but deny modal realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism), or something like it? Are not the arguments for and against each fully analogous? If not, how not?

Now, one might think to oneself "Well, OK, fine, but there's still exactly one world that I live in, so questions about reality still have right and wrong answers, relative to me." But not so fast. Are there not multiple possible worlds that contain a mind with all of your exact thoughts, memories, and conscious experiences? Surely it must be so, unless it's theoretically possible to extrapolate the entire state of the whole universe using only your current knowledge.

At any given instant, how could you specify what "your" mind is, to anyone else or yourself, except by giving full description of your conscious mind? But that description applies to many of the minds that exist in all possible worlds! Hence, you are all of them, not just one of them. Or rather, what I spoke of as multiple minds are actually one mind which exists in multiple possible worlds.


So you reject the actual dictionary definitions of subjective and objective that I've provided, then. Objective: "having reality independent of the mind." Subjective: "arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli"
I think that you may be misinterpreting that definition of "objective" if you take it to mean independent of any mind instead of independent of the observer's mind. E.g. "Pickles taste disgusting" is a subjective opinion because it is true for some people but false for others, but "Pickles disgust Sally" is an objective fact about the state of Sally's mind. It isn't something that can be true for one person but false for another.

I take a subjective statement to be one that's actually about how the speaker relates to something, but is stated as though it's about a property of said thing. "Offensive" is an example of an adjective that actually tells you about how people react to something, rather than any properties the thing has independent of observation.


Assuming that there is some loophole I'm unaware of that allows the creation of such a fiend... Ug, I'd forgotten about that abonimably idiotic detection rule in such situations. Probably blanked it deliberately from my memory. I hold it to be a typo. Someone screwed up and the editor missed it. Either that or it was written by a lobotomized monkey who snuck in when no one was looking... and it was still missed by the editor.
What so dumb about it, according to you?


For whatever reason, lots of people seem to assume that Utilitarians will try to justify atrocities with this kind of math; actual Utilitarians never seem as interested (something about atrocities not really leading to rainbows or sunshine in the real world).
I once saw this summarized as, roughly, "Would you brutally whip a puppy if doing so would permanently eliminate and prevent any and all bizarre hypothetical moral dilemmas?"

But of course, you don't actually have to come up with bizarre hypothetical scenarios to get cases where some people will condone inhumane treatment because they believe it will lead to a justifying benefit that outweighs the cost. Consider animal testing, or the use of torture in interrogation.

As to the relationship between tyrannical dictatorship and views on the nature of morality: Belief in moral relativism or moral absolutism is orthogonal to willingness to change one's mind about morality, and to holding self-serving and/or cruel moral beliefs. If you can convince people that morality is subjective, that will hardly in itself compel them to accept your moral viewpoint. Nor will convincing people that morality is objective compel them to accept your moral viewpoint! If you can successfully convince people or yourself that your own moral viewpoint is objectively correct, then you may be able to use that as a basis to justify atrocities... but, well, "someone who believes that possessing absolute pebbles would license torture and murder, is making a mistake that has nothing to do with buckets. You're solving the wrong problem." (http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/truth.html)

insecure
2008-09-27, 05:16 PM
http://www.game-warden.com/starfox/Non_SF_related_stuff/JS47/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

chiasaur11
2008-09-27, 05:31 PM
Wow. A zombie thread about consuming the living.

That's... Meta and stuff.

Devils_Advocate
2008-09-27, 11:23 PM
Yeah, I know, it's... been a while. The thing is, I actually didn't forget about this thread. I had meant to post to it for... yikes, several weeks now? But somehow I just didn't get around to it until now. I still had some things that I wanted to say; strange as it might sound, the conversation wasn't over in my head. So it feels good to get that taken care of. Um... better late than never?

What do you mean, I bumped a dead thread just to continue a discussion only tangentially related to the main topic?

Tsk. Fine, then.


On the Ethics of Killing Other Sentient Beings Because They are Yummy

I eat cannibals
It's incredible
You bring out the animal in me
I eat cannibals
- Toto Coelo

First, let's start by defining one basic term. "Sentient" refers to something that possesses awareness. A lot of animals are clearly sentient. It's not too difficult, I reckon, to tell a blind dog from a seeing one, by noticing that one has an awareness of its environment that the other lacks; clearly, dogs have internal mental models of the world, like we do. I mean, sure, you could go into a spiel about how animals are really complex automatons who only appear to be aware, but you could say the same thing about human beings. "I don't really think; my neurons fire and it gives the illusion that I'm thinking." This is on par with saying that there aren't really physical objects, just collections of atoms. It evidences some... interesting standards regarding which statements can be said to accurately describe reality. But apart from such interesting standards, animals are conscious beings.

They also have souls in D&D, by RAW. But that's actually rather less important than the more essential question of whether they have minds. And they have minds in D&D as clearly as the do in real life. They've got mental ability scores an' everything.

What many animals lack is sapience, the sort of human-level intelligent awareness that allows for fancy shmancy things like self-awareness and language. Sometimes, people say things to the effect that their lack of intelligence excuses treating them more poorly than we ought to treat intelligent beings. It's unclear to me how this follows from, like, anything. "It's OK to be mean to him, he's dumb"? Just... what the hell? Is there a specific level of retardation below which it becomes all right to disregard someone's feelings, or does being smarter just generally entitle you to better treatment? Because both of those perspectives strike me as being... not good. I'm pretty sure that there isn't actually a lower limit on human intelligence. It's really more of a smooth bell curve from genuises at one extreme to humans born without functioning brains at the other, I think.

I don't think that most people would accept that there's a level of intelligence below which it's OK to treat other humans without basic respect. Honestly, the general reason for accepting cruelty to groups of beings seems to be plain old bigotry, devaluation of the Other for being different. Even severely retarded humans are still recognizable as human, so they're still worthy of some respect. Similarly, a smart talking animal clearly has some things in common with you. A dumb, non-talking animal doesn't have quite so much in common, so isn't worthy of as much regard. This trend is implicit in the title of this thread. Intelligent humanoids are close to human, so gosh, maybe disrespecting them is wrong. But sapient quadrupeds? Eh...

This isn't to say that we should treat animals the same way that we treat human beings, it's to say that there's no reason they shouldn't be given the same consideration. Different beings may not even have the same moral rights, because a right may not always even be applicable. A rabbit may not have the capacity to make a well-informed decision about what to do with its life, in which case it can hardly meaningfully have the right to do so. On the other hand, I don't see why rabbits would be incapable of suffering, or why they wouldn't have the same basic moral right not to suffer as human beings.

Here's the funny thing: Life in the wild is not necessarily all that great. (http://utilitarian-essays.com/wild-animals.pdf) And if you provide some cows with a nice big area to mill around in, and shelter from the rain and cold, and plenty of food, they'll probably be content to happy most of the time, which is more than you can say for a lot of creatures. And even if you kill them once they're grown, well, it's not like they weren't gonna die eventually anyway, as all mortal things do. So especially if you can provide them with a humane death that's maybe even better than how they might have gone, that's really not so bad. Food animals can actually have pretty good lives.

It's rather sad, then, that the treatment of many animals raised for their meat has been... not good. Like, at all. I'm talking about animals stuck in cramped little cages that they can barely move around in, and force-fed, so that they produce lots of fat, unhealthy but delicious meat in a hurry, because that's what's most cost-effective. Animals that exhibit behavior that would be taken as signs of boredom, frustration, or insanity if displayed by human beings. Not to nag here, but... No, wait. Maybe I am quite deliberately nagging. But, anyway: Do you buy meat? If so, do you know how it's raised, and how it's slaughtered? If not, shouldn't you?

But there's nothing inherently wrong with raising a sentient being so you can eat it. And, just like a lack of intelligence doesn't make it OK to mistreat other sentients, intelligence doesn't make it wrong to use them for food. You could even have a small community of humans that served the specific purpose of being used as food. If you gave them shelter, living space, food, water, etc. they'd even be better off than humanely raised cows, having all of the benefits of intelligence along with all that other stuff. Maybe you could even get them to crank out some interesting works of art or dissertations or whatever for you by showing them that making those things can be fun. If you guide their culture properly, they should see being decapitated and devoured at age 25 as the natural and fitting end of a happy life instead of anything to get all angsty about. Raise the first generation properly and you should be able to get them to raise their kids in similar fashion, and then the whole thing becomes largely self-sustaining. Seriously, there's no inherent moral problem with any of this, it's exactly what illithids would do if they were nice instead of hateful bastards with innate contempt for all other races.


The Beastlands: Who's on the Menu?

'Cause it's an animal city
It's a cannibal world
So be obedient, don't argue
Some are ready to bite you
- Shakira



"Ooh! Throw the ball! Throw the ball! [I]Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball! :smallsmile:"
- a celestial dog

The Wilderness of the Beastlands is a whole plane of existence just filled with all sorts of celestial animals. They're all good-aligned; they all speak Celestial and can communicate with each other; and some of them hunt down, kill, and eat others.

You might think that there would be no need for them to resort to such barbaric behavior. You might think they could arrange for groups prey to send their old, weak, sick members to predators to be quickly and mercifully dispatched, and then there would be no need for all this running about, and everyone would generally be saved a whole bunch of trouble.

There are two problems with that. The first is that these guys are dumb. They have Intelligence scores of 3, which is just barely enough for them to be able to speak a language. They wouldn't think of the arrangement I laid out above, and probably wouldn't understand it if it were explained to them.

The second, bigger, more fundamental problem is that this would make the animals' lives very boring. They wouldn't like that. They have exciting lives, lives driven by the unusually intelligent implementation of their instincts, and they revel in this. See, at the end of the day, they don't have sapience so that they can live like humans do. They have sapience so that they can more fully appreciate their wild, natural lives. And thanks to their elevated ability to learn, and plan, and communicate, and cooperate, they tend to cope with the problems of the wild rather a bit better than their dumber, material plane counterparts, and get along fairly well with each other, and generally do pretty well for themselves. Fancy that. :smallwink:

horseboy
2008-09-28, 12:51 AM
Man, even I stopped after page 4.

In my campaign world my Kobolds are far more similar to evolved humanoid Utah Raptors than they are to dragons.Out of curiosity, do you give them feathers?
You know, the original Draconomicon had culinary reports as to what each of the chromatic dragons tasted like from a "good" dragon slayer. So, I guess it's okay so long as they're evil.


I suspect that even more people would object to eating dolphins who are supposedly rather intelligent.Not this one, he spent all his money on scratch off lottery tickets. :smallwink:
And all but the entire world agree that eating humans is bad. It's very reasonable that we would also object to eating dwarfs if they would exist.Well, yeah humans can get sick off of eating too much higher primate meat. Forgot the name of the disease, I'll have to go looking for it.

Learnedguy
2008-09-28, 01:03 AM
Depends on how they died, doesn't it?

Riffington
2008-09-28, 08:55 AM
All right, I'll participate in this necromancy.

Boccob, I put off replying to this for this long?

I'm asking you for the objective standard by which an omniscient being, with complete, perfect knowledge of the world, could sort good from non-good. Because as I understand it, you're saying that there is such a standard.

First: a moral standard can only be a heuristic. The contour of Everest, like morality, is complex; you may give me an equation that approximates that contour, but no equation will perfectly describe it.

To continue this analogy, nobody's come up with a "perfect equation", but a lot of people have decent maps of Everest. The good maps disagree on a few points, but describe the same general picture. If you find a map that places Everest in New Zealand, I suggest you discard it.



But could you convince any possible being of this? Is there anything logically impossible about a sapient being that only wants to maximize the total number of paperclips in the universe, and is unmoved by all other concerns?
This is why logic alone can tell us little about morality and geography. Is there anything logically impossible about Everest being in New Zealand? I nevertheless assure you that Everest is nowhere near New Zealand.



(Omniscience, obviously, doesn't provide knowledge of the one, true meaning of the word "good", as meanings are not intrinsic properties of words; definitions are not true or false.)

That's like saying omniscience doesn't provide knowledge of the one true meaning of the word "North" and therefore can't tell us whether Buffalo is North of Buenos Aires...



Would you act to increase the amount of suffering in the world if you knew for a fact that that was the morally right thing to do?

I would and I have. This is the main reason I hate working in the ICU, by the way.



"Offensive" is an example of an adjective that actually tells you about how people react to something, rather than any properties the thing has independent of observation.

Does the following make sense to you? "There is actually nothing offensive about the word '*****rdly', though uneducated people may take offense to it. The etymology comes via Scandinavian and has nothing to do with the Latin word for black"

Asbestos
2008-09-28, 11:55 AM
I would not view an illithid or vampire as evil just for feeding on sentient beings. I feed on sentient beings all the time (sentience being defined as "having the power of perception by the senses; conscious," something which every animal I have ever encountered has had) and I'm not evil for it. No, evil creatures are evil presumably because they enjoy hurting, oppressing, and killing others, because that is the definition of evil as referenced by Dungeons and Dragons! All places in the D&D books that reference Evil refer to that definition and no other.

How about we redefine this as sentient and sapient beings. In which case, yeah evil, don't matter if you "need" to do it, as in the case of illithid. An illithid can't not kill its food, a vampire could presumably just run ye olde blood bank in order to get its food and not cause much harm to its 'prey'. Illithid are evil, a vampire doesn't have to be. For example, a vampire lord has a bunch of serfs, but instead of demanding tithes of harvest he just asks they give a pint of blood a month or something.

Devils_Advocate
2008-10-11, 06:48 PM
All right, I'll participate in this necromancy.
Teh yays!


First: a moral standard can only be a heuristic. The contour of Everest, like morality, is complex; you may give me an equation that approximates that contour, but no equation will perfectly describe it.

To continue this analogy, nobody's come up with a "perfect equation", but a lot of people have decent maps of Everest. The good maps disagree on a few points, but describe the same general picture. If you find a map that places Everest in New Zealand, I suggest you discard it.
Yeah, but you can point to Mount Everest. You can tell me how to find it, much as one can describe how to identify a piece of lithium (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/extensions-inte.html). You don't need to be able to know everything about Mount Everest in order to unambiguously identify it. You don't have to list all facts about X in order to get a description that doesn't refer to anything in the real world but X. And given directions to Mount Everest, I can then, in theory, go there, and observe it myself, and try to determine whether various maps are correct or not.

Conversely, you could tell me about Mount Awesometon, describing its great height, and its majestic peaks, and its surroundings. I might then go looking for it, and find that of the many mountains of the world, some fit the description you gave me better than others, but just which one fits the description perfectly depends on what exactly you meant by a few key things, because you used some vague terms; and that, depending on what you meant, more than one mountain might fit the description, or maybe none that I've found yet does.

At this point, there's really no point in checking on mountains anymore. If I want to figure out which actual mountain you were thinking of, or whether you were thinking of a specific real mountain at all instead of several mountains or a fictional mountain, I can really only determine this by questioning you.


This is why logic alone can tell us little about morality and geography. Is there anything logically impossible about Everest being in New Zealand? I nevertheless assure you that Everest is nowhere near New Zealand.
OK, I screwed up here. In fact, I implied elsewhere in my post that absolute morality might be contingent, so what the hell am I doing implying here that it would have to be logically necessary? My bad.

I should have asked, rather, whether there's any reason to suppose that an intelligent being unmoved by moral arguments couldn't exist in our own universe. Do you make the empirical claim that one could never create an amoral artificial intelligence? That it's physically impossible that somewhere in the cosmos, there's a bloodthirsty but honorable intelligent species of space cannibals with no sense of compassion, who can't be moved to compassion through argument? If so, what is the basis for this claim? If not, would it be immoral for the space cannibals to come to Earth and hunt down humans for sport?


That's like saying omniscience doesn't provide knowledge of the one true meaning of the word "North" and therefore can't tell us whether Buffalo is North of Buenos Aires...
An omniscient being would know that

(1) Buffalo, New York, is closer to Earth's Geographic North Pole than is Buenos Aires.
(2) Buffalo, New York, is closer to Earth's North Magnetic Pole than is Buenos Aires.
(3) Buffalo, Illinois, is closer to Earth's Geographic North Pole than is Buenos Aires.
(4) Buffalo, Illinois, is closer to Earth's North Magnetic Pole than is Buenos Aires.
(5) Buffalo, Wyoming, is closer to Earth's Geographic North Pole than is Buenos Aires.
(6) Buffalo, Wyoming, is closer to Earth's North Magnetic Pole than is Buenos Aires.
(7) We would consider the statement "Buffalo is North of Buenos Aires" to be true.
(8) Earth's North Magnetic Pole is closer to Earth's North Magnetic Pole than is Earth's Geographic North Pole.
(9) Earth's Geographic North Pole is closer to Earth's Geographic North Pole than is Earth's North Magnetic Pole.
(10) Earth's North Magnetic Pole is not closer to Earth's Geographic North Pole than is Earth's Geographic North Pole.
(11) Earth's Geographic North Pole is not closer to Earth's North Magnetic Pole than is Earth's North Magnetic Pole.

Amongst many other things. Now, by "Buffalo is North of Buenos Aires" we might mean any of (1) through (6) or similar, but the statement is still unambiguously true because all of the interpretations of it are true. On the other hand, the accuracy of the statement "Earth's Geographic North Pole is north of Earth's North Magnetic Pole" is ambiguous, because depending on which definition of "north" one is using, one might mean either (9) or the denial of (11). Consequently, in saying that an omniscient believes that Earth's Geographic North Pole is north of Earth's North Magnetic Pole, one might accurately be stating its belief in (9) or inaccurately be stating its disbelief in (11). But regardless, our choice of definitions never changes a hypothetical omniscient being's knowledge; it just changes how we refer to that knowledge.

The meaning of a sentence derives from the meanings of its constituent words. Often, multiple definitions of a word will be sufficiently close, or have enough overlap, that changing from one definition to another will rarely alter a statement's truth-value. In such cases, one can generally harmlessly leave unclear which precise definition one is using; this is semantic vagueness. However, the problem with vague terms is that one may wind up in situations where a statement's truth-value does depend on the specific definition chosen. If a tree falls in a forest an no one's around, this still produces sound waves, but nobody experiences any auditory sensations as a result. So, does it "make a sound"? The answer to that question depends on which precise definition of the vague term "sound" one uses. Further, if we both know that the tree falling produces sound waves but no auditory sensations, then the question "Does the tree make a sound?" actually boils down to "Which definition of 'sound' should we use?", since, if we are making excellent use of our gray matter, we recognize that that's the only factor left that we need to know to decide the answer to the question. At this point, one should realize that there is no real "right answer" to the question. Unless you think that the meaning of a word is an inherent property of the word, and not simply a matter of arbitrary convention?

See, when you type out text string X, and X takes the form of a factual claim, you're implicitly making a claim about language: The claim that the sentence "X" is true. But to take "X" to have meaning is to take it to represent a concept. One may recognize that the terms within "X" are ambiguous in meaning, and that "X"'s meaning depends on the meanings of the terms that make it up. As such, it is helpful to specify which meanings one is using. So instead of the oversimplification

evaluate("X", knowledge) -> believed truth value of "X"

the mental process at work is more accurately described as

evaluate("X", chosen definitions of terms in "X") -> meaning of "X"
evaluate(meaning of "X", knowledge) -> believed correspondence of meaning of "X" to reality
evaluate("X", believed correspondence of meaning of "X" to reality) -> believed truth value of "X"

(though this too is an oversimplification). Hence we can more easily see that even complete knowledge of reality may not suffice to determine the truth value of "X". The meaning of "X" depends on which definitions one chooses for its constituent terms, and thus may or may not be a true fact about the world depending on the definitions chosen.

"That which would be known by an omniscient being" is, of course, equivalent to "that which is true". I brought up omniscience simply to show that no amount of knowledge is by itself sufficient to determine the truth-value of a statement. You can have all possible knowledge about trees falling in the forest, and that's still insufficient to decide whether it "makes a sound"; the phrase "makes a sound" only has meaning within the context of a definition of "sound", and the meaning depends on the definition.

This strikes me as highly relevant to a discussion of morality, as "good" seems to me at least as vague a term as "north" or "sound". E.g. it strikes me as highly unlikely that the truth of the statement "it is good and proper to advance human knowledge by sending information to others upon request (regardless of the legality thereof)" doesn't depend on which of the possible definitions of "good" one chooses. And even if it doesn't, it seems very, very unlikely that all of the possible definitions are actually equivalent to each other and overlap completely. That is to say, I believe that there are statements about goodness whose truth-value varies with the chosen definition of "good".

Now, an omnipotent being doesn't have to choose its definitions of words randomly. If it wants to communicate with you, it can most easily do so by using your definitions. And it can even do this if you aren't aware of what your definitions are! Any formal definition you give of a word just represents whatever algorithm you use to sort things into and out of a given category, probably poorly (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/similarity-clus.html). So rather than just relying on your fallible attempts to accurately "point at" your classification algorithm, an omnipotent could just look at your classification algorithm, which is probably largely unconscious, and apply that to its own knowledge.

So, by doing that, it could tell you what is good. It could also tell Fred what is good, but it might tell him things which would contradict what it told you, if you took its words to mean the same things in each case, which they aren't meant to. And it might be that you and Fred don't just disagree about the word "good", but would feel different ways, and formulate different goals, even given the same information. And even if you didn't, some physically possible entity would feel differently. So, even though Riffington::Morality is a one-place function (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/2-place-and-1-p.html), Morality in general is a two-place function.

I think that when someone classifies something as "moral", that tends to be a matter of them noticing that they have feelings/desires/goals/etc. of a certain type relating to it -- maybe even just noticing that their mind has classified it as moral without understanding why! And it seems that the algorithm that produces these feelings/desires/goals/etc. in Being A can be quite different form the algorithm that produces these feelings/desires/goals/etc. in Being B. That's what I mean when I talk about subjective morality.

Does that clarify my position?

Of course, one may notice that things one classifies as moral have commonalities beyond one's classification of them as moral. So, do the things you identify as moral have something identifiable in common other than your own mental state when evaluating them? If not, is it possible that your morality can only be formulated in terms of your own classification algorithm (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/the-meaning-of.html) by someone with a better understanding of that algorithm than you? If so, what (in non-vague terms) is it?


I would and I have. This is the main reason I hate working in the ICU, by the way.
Do you mean the total, long-term amount of suffering? 'Cuz that's what I meant. If so, ugh. I have, at the very lest, strong sympathy with negative utilitarian ethics. This seems like it might be an example where different people have different values of "good".

It also seems like yet another indication that I haven't gotten enough pointers to your classification algorithm to have much of an understanding of how it works. As I am not personally omnipotent, the best I can do is to achieve some sort of approximate understanding through as sort of triangulation. But that requires examples and/or generalizations.


Does the following make sense to you? "There is actually nothing offensive about the word '*****rdly', though uneducated people may take offense to it. The etymology comes via Scandinavian and has nothing to do with the Latin word for black"
No, it doesn't make sense to me. What does it mean to term something "offensive" if not that it offends people?

Fax Celestis
2008-10-11, 07:11 PM
On the "Int 3 Makes It Okay" bit from way hella early in the thread: If I use ray of stupidity to knock someone's Intelligence below 3, does that make them edible?

Riffington
2008-10-13, 12:03 AM
Yeah, but you can point to Mount Everest.

I can identify Mount Everest, and also real-world morality. We can be sure that I'm not talking about Mount Rushmore, or about Kant's ethics. Now it turns out that we can manage to get to the base of Mount Everest, but will never climb very high with surveying gear. We won't be able to improve current maps of Everest. Despite this inability on our part, Everest is real and has a real contour.




Do you make the empirical claim that one could never create an amoral artificial intelligence? That it's physically impossible that somewhere in the cosmos, there's a bloodthirsty but honorable intelligent species of space cannibals with no sense of compassion, who can't be moved to compassion through argument? If so, what is the basis for this claim? If not, would it be immoral for the space cannibals to come to Earth and hunt down humans for sport?

It's a trick question. It turns out that only beings with an innate understanding of good and evil (such as humans) are capable of acting morally or immorally. Dolphins (or giant squid) may be intelligent, but morality does not describe them.



At this point, one should realize that there is no real "right answer" to the question. Unless you think that the meaning of a word is an inherent property of the word, and not simply a matter of arbitrary convention?

Well, it's somewhere between those. The meanings of words are certainly convention, but not arbitrary convention. The meanings of words change over time based on human events, human culture, and human nature. In turn, they shape those things. When Shakespeare coined the phrase "to fall in love", he changed human history forever. That "sinister" means both "left-handed" and "untrustworthy" is not arbitrary at all. The connection has to do with our culture and history, and has some meaning.



I brought up omniscience simply to show that no amount of knowledge is by itself sufficient to determine the truth-value of a statement. You can have all possible knowledge about trees falling in the forest, and that's still insufficient to decide whether it "makes a sound"; the phrase "makes a sound" only has meaning within the context of a definition of "sound", and the meaning depends on the definition.

Your point is well-taken: our reliance on communication-via-language may create a little confusion about what we mean when we say things.
Still, while the meaning of a particular verbal statement may be ambiguous, each meaning can be true or false. So let's simply assume we can actually understand one another's language, and if it turns out we're mistaken we'll fix the mistakes when they become evident.

To reference your example: you and I know very well that by Buffalo, I meant Buffalo, New York. Theoretically I could have meant Buffalo, Montana... but I didn't, and you knew it. The theoretical problems of language are not as big a deal in practice.



So rather than just relying on your fallible attempts to accurately "point at" your classification algorithm, an omnipotent could just look at your classification algorithm, which is probably largely unconscious, and apply that to its own knowledge.

It could tell me what my classification heuristic would be likely to call good (it's not a deterministic algorithm), and it could do the same for Fred. But it could also tell me what is Good.
It could tell me what height I think Everest is, and what height Fred thinks Everest is. And it could tell me what height Everest actually is.



Do you mean the total, long-term amount of suffering? 'Cuz that's what I meant. If so, ugh. I have, at the very lest, strong sympathy with negative utilitarian ethics. This seems like it might be an example where different people have different values of "good".

A doctor in an ICU has certain duties. If a patient's next of kin has diligently done the work of figuring out what the patient would (and wouldn't) want done, and that includes "doing everything", then I do everything. I might explain to their decision-maker how the current suffering will almost assuredly outweigh their tiny chances of getting better and having future pleasure. But given that information, they get to make the decision. And if that decision is to "just try to get him better", then that's what I try to do. It sucks, but it's the right thing to do.



No, it doesn't make sense to me. What does it mean to term something "offensive" if not that it offends people?

That it ought to offend people.

monty
2008-10-13, 12:05 AM
On the "Int 3 Makes It Okay" bit from way hella early in the thread: If I use ray of stupidity to knock someone's Intelligence below 3, does that make them edible?

It's magically delicious!

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 07:38 AM
The big problem is, we don't know that for sure: Highly intelligent animals (dolphins, chimps) might have more of a sense of morality than we are giving them credit for. I read a book discussing this very subject, and it pointed out, on the subject of animals and morality, it is possible that they may have a very primitive sense of it.

Riffington
2008-10-13, 08:34 AM
The big problem is, we don't know that for sure: Highly intelligent animals (dolphins, chimps) might have more of a sense of morality than we are giving them credit for. I read a book discussing this very subject, and it pointed out, on the subject of animals and morality, it is possible that they may have a very primitive sense of it.

If we continue to study them, and discover that they really have a sense of morality (as opposed to some habits that sorta-kinda look like it), then this would be a very meaningful finding. We would be obligated to significantly change our behavior towards them.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 08:45 AM
There is much debate of wheher humanity got morality all at once, or whether it was a case of slow shading over time, and not a matter of "They didn't have it" "They have it now"

Principle applies to hominids: question- were there ever beings that were "Not human" yet fit this sort of criteria- culture, morality, etc) and how far back? I'm inclined toward the notion that apes do in fact have traces of it, so we can't say "any hominoid with morality is human, any without isn't" Its taught, after all.

If we took the view that adult Homo sapions without a proper moral sense aren't "human" we'd be in the position of the Bene Gessarit from Dune. So, I tend to think we can't say just "moral sense" and maybe, not even "potential for moral sense."

Riffington
2008-10-13, 11:31 AM
If we took the view that adult Homo sapions without a proper moral sense aren't "human" we'd be in the position of the Bene Gessarit from Dune. So, I tend to think we can't say just "moral sense" and maybe, not even "potential for moral sense."

Such a view is indeed untenable. A baby or demented adult may lack the capacity for moral reasoning; their actions thus have no moral quality. But they are still human.
So either humanity or morality would suffice to require us to treat a being with a special respect.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 11:36 AM
"either humanity or morality" thats an interesting dichonomy. Why humanity specifically, to that extent? Is it parochialism: the attitude that, because its our species, it must deserve respect?

What about the amoral, but human, vs the moral, but non-human? Are we obliged to weigh them equally?

Or, for that matter, the intelligent but amoral: Intelligent, amoral alien, intelligent, amoral human, are they worthy of equal consideration, or does the human come first?

Talya
2008-10-13, 11:50 AM
I imagining a big brass dragon who eats the kobolds that make their way into her lair...I don't think she becomes evil. They're a nice light snack, and they're invading her lair.

Riffington
2008-10-13, 11:56 AM
"either humanity or morality" thats an interesting dichonomy. Why humanity specifically, to that extent? Is it parochialism: the attitude that, because its our species, it must deserve respect?


I am certain that humans (including babies, the demented, etc) are worthy of this kind of respect. You will find many people who can argue rationally against this fact- yet, push comes to shove, their conscience will tell them that their reason has mislead them.
I cannot give you a reasoned argument for why this should be so without referencing religious texts... but it seems clear that it is so.



What about the amoral, but human, vs the moral, but non-human? Are we obliged to weigh them equally?

I am very skeptical of intuitions that are not grounded in experience. We have no real experience with moral nonhumans, and basically have to extrapolate from our experience with humans. Once we have a few years of experience with moral nonhumans, we can develop these intuitions and give reasonable answers.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 12:00 PM
if we're going to say the kobolds doing it is evil, by same logic, dragon doing it would be evil. Being larger and more intelligent doesn't give you right to do so.

Unless you're saying its ok to eat anyone, if they are Evil.

On the other hand, you might go with: if food is there, its not evil to not waste it.

Not very consistant with Vile Darkness, though.

Heroes of Horror said the idea of being eaten, possibly with knife and fork, by a giant, who looks like a very large person, seems somehow creepier than being munched by a dragon, even if result is the same.

EDIT:
"It seems clear it is so" isn't that just another kind of intuition?

I personally suspect idea is right, but, in that sense, it is an intuitive one. Or rather, one we have been told for a long time.

We know what happens when people disregard idea: horrors, But, whats the logical flaw in disregarding it?

Asbestos
2008-10-13, 01:09 PM
I am certain that humans (including babies, the demented, etc) are worthy of this kind of respect. You will find many people who can argue rationally against this fact- yet, push comes to shove, their conscience will tell them that their reason has mislead them.
I cannot give you a reasoned argument for why this should be so without referencing religious texts... but it seems clear that it is so.


How about say... Kant, or John Stuart Mill, or... plenty of philosophers?


I imagining a big brass dragon who eats the kobolds that make their way into her lair...I don't think she becomes evil. They're a nice light snack, and they're invading her lair.

if we're going to say the kobolds doing it is evil, by same logic, dragon doing it would be evil. Being larger and more intelligent doesn't give you right to do so.

Unless you're saying its ok to eat anyone, if they are Evil

I'm thinking that the dragon is defending its property here and happens to be attacking the kobolds with bite attacks... they're already in its mouth and the intention is to kill them... so, why not? The Kobolds (or whatever they are) the OP mentions are going out with the intent to eat and commit unprovoked murder. The dragon's intent is defense. If the dragon is leaving out trails of gold to lure people into its kitchen... then its evil.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-13, 01:47 PM
Cannibalism is generally frowned upon in most cultures.

So is homosexuality and women's rights. Doesn't make them wrong.

Riffington
2008-10-13, 01:49 PM
How about say... Kant, or John Stuart Mill, or... plenty of philosophers?


Kant incorrectly puts morality in the a priori category of knowledge rather than the a posteriori category. His work on morality relies heavily on this incorrect premise, and is deeply flawed as a result.

John Stuart Mill certainly believed in treating demented people with respect... but couldn't necessarily prove it. Peter Singer extends Mill's work and "proves" that we really should treat cats with more respect as we treat an unintelligent human. While it is obvious that Singer is wrong, I can't prove it by logic alone. If you can, I'd be delighted.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 01:51 PM
Not, interestingly: in D&D. Exalted Deeds had a female celestial with male and female consorts. Though some people try to say thats not quite what they mean by consort. I remember amazon reviews with complaints about that very thing.

Also, Faiths and Pantheons mentions female lover of goddess Lliera.

Exalted Deeds simply said: "Relationships must not be exploitative", but not much else.

As for dragon "I merely chewed in self defense, but I never swallowed" seems like the sort of thing a Good dragon would say honestly.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 02:02 PM
the cat one's tricky.

Thing is, this topic makes me think a lot about What Measure is a Non-Human, discussed over on Media, but from the other direction: is there a point at which a non-human creature gains similar moral and ethical protection to a human one?

While topic may be a bit of a hot-potato, its interesting: I'd like to hear views from both sides.

Then of course there is: Can any circumstance make the eating of a human by a human not evil?

Many would say, when its that or death, its OK. The Alive dilemma.

Question is, should we extrapolate to intelligent non-human creatures, and vice versa?

Asbestos
2008-10-13, 04:10 PM
the cat one's tricky.

Thing is, this topic makes me think a lot about What Measure is a Non-Human, discussed over on Media, but from the other direction: is there a point at which a non-human creature gains similar moral and ethical protection to a human one?

While topic may be a bit of a hot-potato, its interesting: I'd like to hear views from both sides.

Then of course there is: Can any circumstance make the eating of a human by a human not evil?

Many would say, when its that or death, its OK. The Alive dilemma.

Question is, should we extrapolate to intelligent non-human creatures, and vice versa?

I suppose a human could eat a human if one made a statement like "When I die, feel free to eat me" Anyone else curious what people tastes like after this thread?:smallamused: We just need a volunteer!

Muad'dib
2008-10-14, 02:23 AM
If we took the view that adult Homo sapions without a proper moral sense aren't "human" we'd be in the position of the Bene Gessarit from Dune. So, I tend to think we can't say just "moral sense" and maybe, not even "potential for moral sense."

The Bene Gesserit example is not really a good one, especially for this discussion. Their definition of human versus animal had very little to do with morality and more to do with the ability control one's impulses. The animal chews off his leg caught in the trap because his impulsive instincts tell him he must escape. The human on the other hand waits with his leg in the trap for the hunter to return so that he can kill the hunter even though every impulse in his body tells him he must get free.

Also I did not choose this name just to respond to this post. It is a grave coincidence indeed. I didn't I swear!!!

P.S. I know I spelled it wrong, it was a moment of sleepy weakness a week ago.

FantomFang
2008-10-14, 03:23 AM
Disclaimer: I didn't read the entire thread before, but in the case of eating intelligent humanoids, I find ADOM to be an excellent source of judgment; who would have known that Kobold corpses sicken you and giants strengthened your muscles? Its amazing! Nothing like a little min/maxing snack (seriously, major part of this game, morality aside XD)

Just thought I'd toss that in there. Enjoy. /offtopic

Jayabalard
2008-10-14, 07:21 AM
I suppose a human could eat a human if one made a statement like "When I die, feel free to eat me" Anyone else curious what people tastes like after this thread?:smallamused: We just need a volunteer!just buy some hufu

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 07:24 AM
Controlling ones moral impulses might follow from controlling physical impulses. you could argue self-control is a fundamental basis of morality, and without self-control, one isn't moral.

Muad'dib
2008-10-14, 10:47 AM
Controlling ones moral impulses might follow from controlling physical impulses. you could argue self-control is a fundamental basis of morality, and without self-control, one isn't moral.

Yes you could argue that, but you could also argue that in many people moral impulses can also be more reflexive than anything else and that self-control plays no part in it. In fact in some cases, self-control may prevent someone from making the morally sound choice when they go against gut feelings, which is why I tend to look upon impulsive behaviors as more of a separate thing not intrinsically related to morals in a positive or negative sense.

LibraryOgre
2008-10-14, 12:27 PM
Eating intelligent humanoids is not evil.

Killing intelligent humanoids is not evil.

Murdering them is evil.

The distinction between murder and killing is a fairly simple distinction, though people like to make it difficult. It is a killing if they represent a real and present threat to yourself or your community, and are able to defend themselves. It is a murder if you kill those who do not represent a threat to your community, or are unable to defend themselves.

Note that this definition of "killing" as opposed to murder does allow for ambushes and sneak attacks, especially against acknowledged enemies in a time of war; there's nothing wrong with ambushing an orcish war party, especially not if they've previously attacked people. However, attacking those who have made no move to attack you is a murder.

Incidentally, this puts a fair number of humanoid raids in the context of being "killings", since human communities are so eager to send out adventurers to kill them.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-14, 12:36 PM
It is a murder if you kill those who do not represent a threat to your community, or are unable to defend themselves.



Does that mean it isn't possible to murder a spellcaster?


And that any one killing a Monk or a CW Samurai is commiting murder no matter the circumstances?

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 12:38 PM
I'm puzzled: how come you use "killing" rather than "murder" for "attacking those who have made no move to attack you"

More detailed would be "attacking those who have made no more to attack you, or others"

and "With the exception of irredeemably evil monsters" as per Vile Darkness.

LibraryOgre
2008-10-14, 01:44 PM
Hamish: It was a typo, since fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.



Does that mean it isn't possible to murder a spellcaster?
And that any one killing a Monk or a CW Samurai is commiting murder no matter the circumstances?

Generally, PC classed characters are considered capable of defending themselves... even the monk and the samurai. The rule of thumb is that, if you can kill them with no concievable harm to yourself, it is likely a killing.

A wizard facing a monk or CW samurai of similar level might get hurt; the other might succeed at their save, the damage roll might be low on the save or die, and they might get a hit in.

The fighter killing kobold babies doesn't really have an expectation of injury... he's more likely to be blinded by a piece of gore flying in his face than by anything the koboldlings can do to him.

hamishspence
2008-10-14, 01:51 PM
I think the favourite term is "Violence proportionate to the situation"

You've just killed kobold raider, having been asked by villagers to stop the raids. his infant, having hidden, pops oout, sees you and body, and comes at you full speed, unarmed.

Regardless of homicidal intent, the infant poses no threat to you, and has committed no crime you know of, even if it wants you dead.

So, killing it might be considered disproportionate violence, compared to carefully knocking it out.

EvilElitest
2008-10-14, 03:54 PM
Eating the bodies of humans isn't evil, because desecrating a body isn't evil. Its just eating meat. Killing a human for other reasons for self defense or something and then eating them is still ok, so long as the killing wasn't for evil reasons

Killing somebody for the purpose of killing them or hunting them is clearly evil. Its just another version of murder

Its gets a little tricky when you get into something that needs to eat humoids, but D&D (at least 3E where it matters) counts mindflayer's eating habits as evil and a good mindflayer needs to fine an alternate means to substain itself so yeah its evil.

Now eating teh brain of a summoned create with no true personality? I don't know
from
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hamishspence
2008-10-14, 04:01 PM
Vile darkness used the term "for pleasure" as a qualifying factor in their definition of cannibalism. It was also listed after the big list of Evil (or dubious) acts, rather than within it.

So, if you say "if its for survival its OK" and hold up the "for pleasure" bit, you might get round it.

Lords of Madness bit that made at least some intelligent beings' brains necessary to survive, was written after Exalted Deeds' redeemed Mind Flayer.

So what does that mean for said Mind Flayer? Are they subsisting only on brains of evil creatures that they fight. Or are they slowly starving on a diet of unintelligent brains? Or are they retconned out of existence?

EvilElitest
2008-10-14, 04:09 PM
You avoid my questions. To answer yours, probably for as long as it would if we wouldn't find that out. Maybe not on the same scale, but that isn't the question. The fact is that people are very much used to eating beef and will continue to do so for a long time no matter what.

For my next point, I direct you to China's culture, where it is fairly normal to eat dogs. Chinese people know full well that dogs are very intelligent creatures that form strong interpersonal bonds. They are capable of a wide range of forms of communication and many humans consider canines to be among their best friends or family members. However, in China, where the people are fully aware of this, it is fairly normal to eat dogs. I know I repeated that, but it is important: the fact that a creature is very much capable of communicating with humans does not mean that humans do not view it as food.

within the context of D&D that isn't a relevant case through, because it has a clear definition of murder, dogs have an intelligence of 3

hamispace, that is one of the few problems of being a good mindflayer, it sucks but that doesn't justify murder. A mindflayer would have to be constantly doing good things and eat the brains of people that he is killing for other reasons. Or the brains of the recently dead. or find some other source of substance. It is worth noting that the definition of intellegence can vary as well.

Also it is worth noting killing "always evil" creatures doesn't count as murder, he could live off something like that.


Its hard but so is being good
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hamishspence
2008-10-15, 12:46 PM
sorrry if this sounds picky, but dog INT is 2 not 3.

I was mentioning that up to a point it might apply to non-always Evil creatures the mind flayer is allowed to use lethal force against. Like beings attacking villages, etc. Since brain-extraction ability is one of the fastest ways to kill a homicidal enemy, mind flayer can claim "It was a righteous kill. Why shouldn't I get some sustenance out of it as well?

EvilElitest
2008-10-15, 06:08 PM
sorrry if this sounds picky, but dog INT is 2 not 3.

I was mentioning that up to a point it might apply to non-always Evil creatures the mind flayer is allowed to use lethal force against. Like beings attacking villages, etc. Since brain-extraction ability is one of the fastest ways to kill a homicidal enemy, mind flayer can claim "It was a righteous kill. Why shouldn't I get some sustenance out of it as well?

i said that would be fine. If you kill somebody and then eat them, or kill them in an eating like method for reasons unrealated to food its ok. Because violating a body is not evil or good in D&D, so there isn't a problem with it. A mind flayer who eats the brains of attacking goblins is fine, as long as his reason for killing them was to protect himself and others, not eat their brains
from
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