Quote Originally Posted by Reluctance View Post
This reminds me of a personal alignment question I have. Wide neutrality vs. narrow neutrality.

It's easy to picture alignment as a 3x3 grid, where the population sorts evenly with 1/3 lawful, 1/3 neutral, and 1/3 chaotic. When actually discussing it, though, the actual arguments tend to tilt either narrow neutral (those who lean towards an alignment count as that alignment are that alignment, neutrality requires either focused balance or utter lack of aligned actions), or wide neutral (an aligned character must be an exemplar of their alignment, since anything else is neutral).
While it's third party (the only third party 3.5 book I happened to buy before they got rare) Quintessential Paladin 2 described two of the three variants you mention quite well-

"evenly balanced" where for Evil and Neutral it's about a third of the population for each:
Low Grade Evil Everywhere
In some campaigns, the common population is split roughly evenly among the various alignments - the kindly old grandmother who gives boiled sweets to children is Neutral Good and that charming rake down the pub is Chaotic Neutral. Similarly the thug lurking in the alleyway is Chaotic Evil, while the grasping landlord who throws granny out on the street because she's a copy behind on the rent is Lawful Evil.

In such a campaign up to a third of the population will detect as Evil to the paladin. This low grade Evil is a fact of life, and is not something the paladin can defeat. Certainly he should not draw his greatsword and chop the landlord in twain just because he has a mildly tainted aura. It might be appropriate for the paladin to use Diplomacy (or Intimidation) to steer the landlord toward the path go good but stronger action is not warranted.

In such a campaign detect evil cannot be used to infallibly detect villainy, as many people are a little bit evil. if he casts detect evil on a crowded street, about a third of the population will detect as faintly evil.
and "moderately wide Neutral" where Neutral is most of the population, and Evil (and Good) are rare:
Evil As A Choice
A similar campaign set-up posits that most people are some variety of Neutral. The old granny might do good by being kind to people, but this is a far cry from capital-G Good, which implies a level of dedication, fervour and sacrifice which she does not possess. If on the other hand our granny brewed alchemical healing potions into those boiled sweets or took in and sheltered orphans and strays off the street, then she might qualify as truly Good.

Similarly, minor acts of cruelty and malice are not truly Evil on the cosmic scale. Our greedy and grasping landlord might be nasty and mean, but sending the bailiffs round to throw granny out might not qualify as Evil (although if granny is being thrown out into a chill winter or torrential storm, then that is tantamount to murder and would be Evil). In such a campaign, only significant acts of good or evil can tip a character from Neutrality to being truly Good or Evil.

if a paladin in this campaign uses detect evil on a crowded street, he will usually detect nothing, as true evil is rare. Anyone who detects as Evil, even faintly Evil, is probably a criminal, a terrible and wilful sinner, or both. Still, the paladin is not obligated to take action - in this campaign, detecting that someone is Evil is a warning, not a call to arms. The paladin should probably investigate this person and see if they pose a danger to the common folk, but he cannot automatically assume that this particular Evil person deserves to be dealt with immediately.
It didn't mention narrow neutral "true neutral is rare" though- maybe because the PHB's alignment chart places humans in that slot- it's the "typical" alignment for them, even if it's not much more common than the others.