Unanimous Good

[kyoryu]

Y
These are contradictory statements though. All theft "deprives people of their possessions". Period. Ergo, all theft involves "harm", which you identify as "evil". Yet you start out stating that theft is morally nuetral.

I view it the opposite. Theft, by itself, is morally evil. It may be neutral under certain circumstances in which the harm you are doing is justified (in the same way other harmful acts like assault, imprisonment, killing, etc, may be). There must always be additional external factors that allow for the commission of an otherwise "evil" act to make it anything other than evil. And yes, this may have a law/chaos aspect with regards to rules/not-rules (or laws, or whatever), but that does not remove the basic moral aspect as well. Taking things from people is harm. Harming people is evil. That's the default you should start from, or your moral system just can't work.

Those are the exceptions to the rule though. The starting point has to be "stealing is wrong". Only after you start there can you carve out exceptions. It's funny because you keep making broad statements about theft not being evil, and I keep pointing out basic theft cases where one person takes something from someone else for their own benefit, and you keep only responding with rare Robin Hood scenarios.

Here's the problem with assuming the Robin Hood scenario: It's too easy to rationalize property others own as "not needed by them" and "needed by me/someone else". The very concept you are using is really an outgrowth of fairly modern sociological philosopy (and a large number of steps down that philosophy as well). I think it can be problematic, especially if playing in a semi-medieval setting, to try to apply really modern concepts of property and rights into a basic moral code (especially something like alignment). But that appears to be what you are doing here.

I generally agree with you here.

What I've found that works is something like this:

Acts that infringe on others (theft, imprisonment, harm, etc.) are evil. Acts that help others that do not gain you anything are good. Things that do neither are neutral.

Most people do some mix of all of the above, at various times.

Good people will do a lot of neutral things, and a lot of good things. They'll do some evil, but usually more "minor" evil, and usually only in great need and as a last resort, and they'll feel bad about it.
Neutral people mostly are the same as good people, but they do less good things (probably a lot!) and are slightly more likely to do evil. IOW, good and neutral people are mostly the same, except good people do more good. But both still do a ton of neutral.
Evil people do evil willingly and with little compunction. Maybe not *big* evil, but evil nonetheless. The harm it does to others doesn't really enter into it, but impacts on them do.

In concrete terms, a good person may steal bread to feed themselves or others in need. They'll do so if they have no money, and they'd likely try to get or work out a deal with the shopkeeper first. But if all else fails? Sure, they'll steal it. But they'll feel really bad about it, and probably try to make amends when they get the opportunity.

An evil person? They'll steal that bread just because they're a little hungry, it's there and they can get away with it.

A good person can still do evil, and an evil person can do good. And there's grey areas between them, and fuzzy bits.

I find this to be a good framework for gaming. It doesn't require you to think about what justification is required (as "it's good if you can justify it" just really asks you to be clever in your justification). It sets understandable lines. It's predictable - someone knows, in general, what is evil and what is good and what is neutral. Most of the things that would be evil/good line up really well, and the weird bits are usually in weird areas. It allows for interesting villains - characters that do evil things, but for good reasons, are still seen as evil, overall.

About the only weird one is Robin Hood, but it's worth noting that in a lot of the original legends, the money Robin stole was, effectively stolen in the first place. So there's that.