Diotima's Ladder and Alignment

[Moody the Wise]

Here's a scenario that you're probably not unfamiliar with - character is faced with the choice between saving his/her One True Love or a large number of people he/she doesn't know and has no relation to. We see it in comic books all the time, and I'm sure good DMs like to throw it at their characters too. And for all you tvtropes people out there, I'm supremely confident there's an entry about it there.

But what does your reaction to this choice say about your alignment? In the traditional lawful-neutral-chaotic/good-neutral-evil D&D interpretation, I'd say very little. A case could be made for any of those alignments making either choice, although some cases might be stronger than others.

I would suggest that there is only one measure of alignment that counts: selfishness and selflessness. If you rescue the One True Love, you're selfish. If you rescue the strangers, you're selfless. If you try, and ultimately fail, to rescue both, you've got superhero-syndrome, and are in denial about the choices you're making. If you deliberately leave both to die, you're a poor excuse for a character.

In terms of our understandings of Good and Evil, the selfless is Good and the selfish is Evil. An interesting consequence of this is that love, as most people use, experience, and understand it, is a feeling most often associated with Evil, not Good. Love clouds your perceptions and puts the interests of self above the interests of others.

This is seen played out very well in the Star Wars universe. Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side at precisely the moment he put his own self before others, driven by his love for Padme.

Now to tie the philosophy in. In Plato's Symposium, he includes a metaphor of a ladder related to him by a woman named Diotima (scroll down to the bottom). At the lowest end of the ladder, one loves a single person, carnally. As one progresses up the ladder, one comes to love everyone, then to love everyone's souls, then to love laws and institutions, then to love knowledge, and finally to love beauty. We can stick selfishness at the bottom of this ladder and selflessness at the top - the selfish love that makes you choose the One True Love at the bottom, and the universal Love that makes you choose the strangers at the top.

Incidentally, this Platonic model has interesting parallels to Gandhi's formulations of Satya and Ahimsa, but that's for another time - maybe if I feel inspired by raging debate in this thread.

... Discuss.

[ZeroNumerous]

If you deliberately leave both to die, you're a poor excuse for a character.

Or you're a misanthrope who believes One True Love is a heat haze for the idealists to chase after. Characterization =/= deliberate dramatic choices.

[Moody the Wise]

Characterization =/= deliberate dramatic choices.

Ah, but the choice to do neither is a dramatic choice indeed. Inaction is an action in itself. (Do you think that sentence has enough "in"-sounds?)

[Kaiyanwang]

Love clouds your perceptions and puts the interests of self above the interests of others.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that simply evil (or at least selfish) people simply live love in that way. Is not love that necessarily lead to evil: are evil people that are able to react only in a selfish way.

[taltamir]

so... how many of you are rushing to save the starving children in africa at the expense of everything you own, your life, etc?

Not helping is not evil... You can even be good and still not help EVERYONE...

Also, how exactly do you construct such a choice that isn't totally and utterly contrived? and why is it your ONE loved one or a horde of people instead of your one loved one and a horde - 1 of people?

The only time I saw this was in fable 2, and it was constructed in a retarded manner. I wanted to say "return my family and countless - family size people to life"... and the 1 milllion gold option was just pathetic... I had 2.6 million by that point, in cash, plus tons in assets, and rapidly growing. and no use for it btw...

[PhoenixRivers]

If you deliberately leave both to die, you're a poor excuse for a character.

...I can see scenarios where an evil character could do this, and I rather like playing such conflicted evil characters. One who must accept only success, so much so that he'd rather let everything die than acknowledge that he couldn't save everyone. One whose pride is inflated far beyond his perceived morality. Everything is second to his self-image.

In other words, I disagree that this is necessarily a poor excuse for a character.

[ZeroNumerous]

...I can see scenarios where an evil character could do this, and I rather like playing such conflicted evil characters.

Or just a Good character spends the time killing the bad guy, instead of wasting time saving everyone. Better to end the villain's threat than letting the villain escape to do his villainous villainy elsewhere, isn't it?

[Zen Master]

Not helping is not evil... You can even be good and still not help EVERYONE...

Well - either that, or we are all evil. It really depends on how high or low you want to aim in your ideals.

Personally, I've always considered the very vast majority of everyone alive anywhere on the planet to be neutral .... at best.

On a less negative note, I do believe we're moving, slowly, towards more people who are actually good.

Btw, Anakin flirted rather heavily with evil even before losing Padme. I'd say his fall became irredeemable when he lost Padme.

[PinkysBrain]

I break the universe until I can save both or die trying, because the future is not fixed no matter how bad the odds look. Super hero syndrome my ass ... in D&D I am a super hero.

[Foryn Gilnith]

I break the universe until I can save both or die trying, because the future is not fixed no matter how bad the odds look. Super hero syndrome my ass ... in D&D I am a super hero.

Yeah. Save the many, True Resurrection on your true love, Scry-and-Die on the fellow who put you in this situation.

[PhoenixRivers]

True Love is in a Trap the Soul gem, and thus not dead, and not eligible for True Resurrection.

BBEG has Mind Blank active.

Or somesuch. There are fates worse than death.

[Moody the Wise]

so... how many of you are rushing to save the starving children in africa at the expense of everything you own, your life, etc?

Not helping is not evil... You can even be good and still not help EVERYONE...

Well - either that, or we are all evil. It really depends on how high or low you want to aim in your ideals.

Personally, I've always considered the very vast majority of everyone alive anywhere on the planet to be neutral .... at best.

My thoughts exactly, Acromos.

Also, how exactly do you construct such a choice that isn't totally and utterly contrived? and why is it your ONE loved one or a horde of people instead of your one loved one and a horde - 1 of people?

Well, it is fairly easy to construct such a choice, although by nature it would be, as you say, contrived. On the one hand, your reactions to contrived choices are just as important as your reaction to "naturally occurring" choices, and on the other hand, you can find the latter sort in less exaggerated terms if you learn to look at choices this way.

...I can see scenarios where an evil character could do this, and I rather like playing such conflicted evil characters. One who must accept only success, so much so that he'd rather let everything die than acknowledge that he couldn't save everyone. One whose pride is inflated far beyond his perceived morality. Everything is second to his self-image.

In other words, I disagree that this is necessarily a poor excuse for a character.

Fair enough.

Or just a Good character spends the time killing the bad guy, instead of wasting time saving everyone. Better to end the villain's threat than letting the villain escape to do his villainous villainy elsewhere, isn't it?

Sure, you could spend your time killing the villain (if one exists), and end up saving nobody. In most villainous cases, the villain has set it up so that the destruction happens with or without him - think the Joker in The Dark Knight (which, thankfully, does actually kill someone off). Keep in mind too, though, that in the less dramatic everyday choices like this, there is often no villain other than cruel fate.

Btw, Anakin flirted rather heavily with evil even before losing Padme. I'd say his fall became irredeemable when he lost Padme.

I'm not quite prepared to fully debate on Star Wars here, but I'll concede your point, since you acknowledged mine.

[Navigator]

Plato would surely say that choosing to save the lives of many people would be the "good" thing.

The is a lot like the choice of being on a mining cart that can't be stopped, and you have to head it towards a group of people, or a single person that you have a relationship with, or love, or whatever. It doesn't take much thinking to decide that killing your loved one would be the "good" decision.

So does a character that chooses to save his lover lose his status as a "good" person? Suppose you're a cleric of a good-aligned deity of love. It's reasonable to say that the character was preserving "love" in the best way he knew. Though, you could say it was an evil act regardless of doctrine, because the people he chose to kill could have all been lovers.

The question we should be asking is: Is there any situation where choosing to kill the group could be considered a "good" act? And by good, I mean the PHB's definition of "good".

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.

Personal sacrifices. Unless the character has a complex moral doctrine, I think the clause above rules out killing many over others as a "good" act.

[Boci]

Sure, you could spend your time killing the villain (if one exists), and end up saving nobody. In most villainous cases, the villain has set it up so that the destruction happens with or without him - think the Joker in The Dark Knight (which, thankfully, does actually kill someone off).

But had the joker not been stopped then, he would have gone on to do the same again.

[chiasaur11]

True Love is in a Trap the Soul gem, and thus not dead, and not eligible for True Resurrection.

BBEG has Mind Blank active.

Or somesuch. There are fates worse than death.

Well, then. It looks like ignore both and waste BBEG is the way to go in that case.

I mean, you finish him, you can save everyone. You die, you die standing.

[PinkysBrain]

I mean, you finish him, you can save everyone. You die, you die standing.

A person after my own heart.

Emo/DEEP is just not what I look for in D&D ... I want to be heroic, times of doubt and despair (even failure) are fine but in the end I stare moral dilemmas in the eye shout "Who do you think I am" and blow stuff up.

[Rhiannon87]

I don't think that choosing your one love over many is an evil act. Perhaps it isn't good in the D&D definition of things, but I don't think that being selfish is inherently evil. It's neutral. For it to be evil... well, in this case, I think the only evil action is to take no action, to let everyone die and let the BBEG get away with it, when you were capable of saving at least someone (or perhaps of stopping said BBEG). Going after the BBEG and ignoring both groups to be saved could be a good act, depending on the circumstances.

It's an interesting question, to be sure.

[Boci]

I don't think that choosing your one love over many is an evil act. Perhaps it isn't good in the D&D definition of things, but I don't think that being selfish is inherently evil. It's neutral. For it to be evil... well, in this case, I think the only evil action is to take no action.

"Thanks. I've been meaning to break up his him/her for ages, but they always get so tearful when I bring up the subject,"

[Moody the Wise]

But had the joker not been stopped then, he would have gone on to do the same again.

In this particular case, killing the Joker is irrelevant; the Joker posed no immediate threat (although he did happen to escape as a result of people going off to save others), and at any rate that's not what Batman chose to do. The example is also not quite applicable - yes, I know I brought it up - because there's only one person to save in each explosively-rigged warehouse. I brought it up, though, to point out that killing the villain often does not save anyone, because the villain has already set the events of the destruction into motion.

It is, however, one of the great mind-fracks of all time, since the Joker actually lies about who is at each location, and Batman ends up deciding to go save the girl, but it turns out when he gets there that he's actually gone to save the other guy. Right up there with the rats in 1984.

@Navigator: Yes, I think you have grasped what I'm saying very well. To expand upon the concept of personal sacrifice, let's say that the person who chooses to save the one claims to be selfless because he is doing it for the other person. Maybe saving that person even involves the death of the savior, who knows. This proclaimed selflessness, though, reveals itself as selfishness upon examination: the savior saved the one because he loved her, because she had a personal meaning to him that the others did not have. He put his own interests above the interests of others, by which we here mean really the non-ego-attached objective calculation.

[Boci]

In this particular case, killing the Joker is irrelevant; the Joker posed no immediate threat (although he did happen to escape as a result of people going off to save others), and at any rate that's not what Batman chose to do. The example is also not quite applicable - yes, I know I brought it up - because there's only one person to save in each explosively-rigged warehouse. I brought it up, though, to point out that killing the villain often does not save anyone, because the villain has already set the events of the destruction into motion.

It is, however, one of the great mind-fracks of all time, since the Joker actually lies about who is at each location, and Batman ends up deciding to go save the girl, but it turns out when he gets there that he's actually gone to save the other guy. Right up there with the rats in 1984.

BBEG: "You can save him, or her?"
PCs: "Or I can accept that you are insane and thus may be lying about there being a chance of me saving either. And even if I did try and suceed in saving one, how long would it be before you kidnapped two more of my loved ones and offered me the same choice? Therefor I am going to dedicate all me resources to killing you and once that is done I will mourn those you killed in a most cowardly fashion,"

[HamHam]

Choosing to save the person you care about is a Neutral act.

Choosing to save the many people is a Lawful act if anything.

Trying to save both is the Good act, because Good doesn't believe in playing utilitarian games. Good thinks everyone is equally important, and letting one person die is just as bad as letting many die.

[MCerberus]

While you can make a wide variety of arguments, I believe the thought process of the individual making the choice is the final factor. Did the person in question sacrifice the crowd without a second thought, showing neglect or even contempt for the lives of people he/she knows? Did the person sacrifice their loved one because it's the right thing by their morals or did they just think N > 1, so save N.

[Godskook]

So many points of disagreement, so little time, argh!

1.Loving someone is not selfish, nor is it selfish to love one person more than you love strangers.

2.You've only mentioned half the coin in the classic dilemma. In the classic dilemma, the conflict is essentially between love and duty, although duty is sometimes exchanged for something more readily comparable to the 'obvious' love choice.

3.Too much absolutism for my tastes. There's no middle ground to it at all. Watch the movie Master and Commander. About half way in, the Captain makes a decision to pursue an enemy vessel contrary to a promise he made his friend the doctor. He does this unhesitantly. However, later, he abandons pursuit solely to improve their chances at saving the doctor's life. The movie is great for showing a relativistic personal doctrine.

4.Going back to #2, the dilemma has become more confused in recent era as the concepts of duty and love have become more and more muddled.

5.Anakin's dilemma is really bad example to be extrapolating much from because of how many unique setting details are required to understand his behavior. It's also weirder still because when it comes to the 'drama' of those movies, the Jedi Council is the Antagonist, oddly enough, once you discover that the relevant restrictions are unnecessary in the books.

6.To discuss the alignment implications of this dilemma, far more detail needs to be made as to how the dilemma is constructed.

7.You make no allowances for capability or probability.

[Telonius]

I'd save the many, but only because I think love doesn't really work the way most people think it works. With me and my wife it's more like: love all, choose one. Choosing her as my wife - along with choosing all of the consequences that come from that choice, like being faithful to her - ideally shouldn't diminish my love for everybody else. Really ideally, it ought to increase my love for everybody else. I'd save her over any one person (possible exception of our daughter; that would be a coin flip), since they're otherwise equal but one means more to me. But I'd save any two people over her.

[Silentlee]

if i had a choice between the two....i wouldn't even blink....save the many.

if i was saved instead of the many....i'd hate that person who saved me.

[Yukitsu]

I'd usually pick based off of whichever group had a sum total greater number of years left to live (assuming national averages). If one side had my 3 year old nephew, and the other had a few dozen 99 year old nuns, I'd save the 3 year old. If one side had my parents, and the other had an orphanage, I'd save the orphanage.

Edit: No, those nuns don't count as negative years left.

[Silentlee]

side 1....the person you love above even yourself

side 2...1000 random aged male/females of all races


side 2 all day long without remorse.


--edit--

don't come at me with some crap about side 2 having pedophiles and murderers.....cause then it wouldn't be a real choice would it?

[MickJay]

Choosing to save the person you care about is a Neutral act.

Choosing to save the many people is a Lawful act if anything.

Trying to save both is the Good act, because Good doesn't believe in playing utilitarian games. Good thinks everyone is equally important, and letting one person die is just as bad as letting many die.

I have to agree, the whole dilemma reminds me a bit of arguments like "X was much worse than Y, because X caused deaths of 34 million people, while Y only killed 22 million. Z was practically a good guy, he killed less than 15 million".

Ultimately, all of the responsibility falls on the one who set up the whole ridiculous thing, and the hero can only "fail" by total inaction. The best thing to do is to try and save everyone, regardless of the result. From the utilitarian perspective, I can argue that going to save the large group of people is more selfish than saving the loved one, because afterwards the hero gets a ****load of sympathy, gratitude, opinion of the most selfless person alive and they can pick from a whole bunch of girls/guys willing to comfort the hero after their loss. Saving your loved one, on the other hand, nets you hatred, or at least dislike, of the relatives of the people who died, and opinion of a selfish bastard, making it a tough choice to make.

[averagejoe]

Choosing to save the person you care about is a Neutral act.

Choosing to save the many people is a Lawful act if anything.

Trying to save both is the Good act, because Good doesn't believe in playing utilitarian games. Good thinks everyone is equally important, and letting one person die is just as bad as letting many die.

+1

Just the sort of point I would have made if I was the sort to not read the whole thread before commenting.

1.Loving someone is not selfish, nor is it selfish to love one person more than you love strangers.

I don't see how it isn't selfish to love someone. It might not be only selfish, and selfishness in this case might not be a bad thing, but it is definitely something one does to improve oneself.

[Silentlee]

would you save Harvey Dent or whatever maggie gillenhalls(sp?) character's name is in the dark knight