Is Surviving Evil if it Causes Harm to Others?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Obviously, a good person would almost always choose to end themselves if their continued existence directly resulted in the deaths of others. But things that aren't good don't necessarily jump straight to being evil.

There are few situations where this applies to anything attempting to emulate reality, but a vast majority of people on these boards play fantasy games, so the situation could come up.

What if, whether by limitation of species or because of a magical curse you can find no way of undoing, the only sustenance you can survive on is, say, the flesh of humans you killed yourself? I suppose in a weirdly contradictory setting that's harmonious enough to have large standing hospitals but awful enough to have extremely regular deaths by disease or such, you can sit in a hospital finishing off those who are about to die anyway, but most likely you'll have to kill and eat people who would have lived on in order to, yourself, keep living.

Or maybe it's an even more direct curse; for every week you live, a single random person in the world except yourself is immediately struck dead. In a fantasy world where it's possible to have a curse like this, I figure an appropriate requirement to not be an evil douchebag is to probably be constantly searching for a way to remove the curse, but is choosing your own survival week after week an automatic dump into moral blackness?

This is most appropriate in games with alignment, as there's a tangible result, but it applies in fantasy games in general, I should think. Anyway, what're your thoughts?

[Kane0]

Nah. Unless you have no intent on fixing the curse and in fact, find it enjoyable and/or entertaining. Then you'd be evil.

[kyoryu]

Arguably neutral. But the caster is clearly Evil!

Choosing to sacrifice yourself is definitely a Good act. If the curse has no impact on you, I'd say that trying to cure it is also a Good act.

[Rater202]

Are you doing more Good for the world than Evil? If you bring a net amount of Good to the world, then the act of survival is a necessary evil, making it neutral.

If, on the other hand, you are bring equal or less Good into the world than the evil you have to do to survive, then if you have a good bone in your body, you should probably just lay down and die.

And as always, there are loopholes in this curse. You could kill and eat people who could be argued, from a certain point of view, to deserve death, such as unrepentant murderers. Or perhaps those with incredibly sickness to whom a quick death would be a mercy?

Is this a D&D game? does our reluctant Cannibal know the Clone Spell? Mass produce clones of himself, which are technically alive in a sense, then kill the mindless, soulless clone and eat ti's flesh.

Does rekilling the undead count?

What about a murderhobo who takes out a few barbarians who were planning a little of the old rape and pillage?

[mephnick]

Or maybe it's an even more direct curse; for every week you live, a single random person in the world except yourself is immediately struck dead. In a fantasy world where it's possible to have a curse like this, I figure an appropriate requirement to not be an evil douchebag is to probably be constantly searching for a way to remove the curse, but is choosing your own survival week after week an automatic dump into moral blackness?

Random person a week? Who's to say any of them are better for the world than me? Like 150,000 people die a day on Earth, it's not a big deal.

I don't think it's evil to choose your own life. It's not my fault I'm cursed.

[Segev]

As long as you take no positive action to kill those who die due to your living, you are not evil. You can even be good; self-sacrifice can be noble, but unless you have a depraved indifference to the deaths your continued existence causes, and make no effort to prevent it, you can be a good person. This kind of existence would probably necessitate you becoming a hero, because you're going to have to quest to find a way to fix this curse. However, you're not responsible for those deaths just because you refuse to kill yourself.

On the other hand, if you have to ACTIVELY kill them, and you do, that's your choice and you are evil. Even if the alternative is starving to death, you have no right to actively kill anybody else.

It's about agency. You are responsible for your actions. If it is an external force killing people, you do not have responsibility for it, even if you've been told that your death would make it stop. In fact, anybody who came after YOU to kill you would be rather evil, because you're as much a victim as those who die to that force's power.


To put it in another example, if you are told by the BBEG that he will kill somebody each day that you live, you're not responsible for those deaths just because you refuse to die. He is.

So even if the volcano will erupt if you don't sacrifice yourself to it, you're not responsible for the deaths the eruption causes when you don't; the volcano is. You could be more heroic if you did sacrifice yourself, but wanting to find another way and not being willing to die are not sins. You have a right to live, and no responsibility to lay down your life for others' sake. You also have no right to actively take others' lives from them to sustain yourself, however.

The line is, again, agency. You are evil if you choose to murder. You are not evil for refusing to commit suicide, even if it causes death of others. Murder requires intent to kill. Being unwilling to sacrifice yourself to prevent a death is not intent to kill. It's drive to live. And you have that right.

[goto124]

You could kill and eat people who could be argued, from a certain point of view, to deserve death, such as unrepentant murderers. Or perhaps those with incredibly sickness to whom a quick death would be a mercy?

Adventurers tend to kill a lot, especially monsters. Eating people you were going to kill anyway shouldn't be any more evil than... er... killing them.

[Rater202]

Adventurers tend to kill a lot, especially monsters. Eating people you were going to kill anyway shouldn't be any more evil than... er... killing them.

Was kinda going for that with the murderhobo eating the barbarians what was gonna rape and pillage.

[Maglubiyet]

Obviously, a good person would almost always choose to end themselves if their continued existence directly resulted in the deaths of others. But things that aren't good don't necessarily jump straight to being evil.

It is a truism of life -- merely by living, every organism is depriving life to others.

Designations of "good" and "evil" are nonsensical in this regard.

[Segev]

It is a truism of life -- merely by living, every organism is depriving life to others.

Designations of "good" and "evil" are nonsensical in this regard.

This is a bit of a dangerous generalization. While there are those who would equate animal life to human life in a moral sense, that is not the normal assignment. It may be evil to needlessly torment any living creature, but killing animals for purpose is only considered evil in some rather extreme philosophies. Normally, when one speaks of depriving something of life as being evil, one is assumed to be referring to sentient/sapient/intelligent creatures. That is, people.

I doubt, for example, that the need to slaughter your own chicken for it to have nutritive value to you would make anybody think, "wow, that guy's cursed to be evil or die!" It might be thought, "Eesh, that's an inconvenient curse," but that's it. The curse suggested above is implied to require the killing and consumption of beings which are characterized as people.

[Hawkstar]

This is a bit of a dangerous generalization. While there are those who would equate animal life to human life in a moral sense, that is not the normal assignment. It may be evil to needlessly torment any living creature, but killing animals for purpose is only considered evil in some rather extreme philosophies. Normally, when one speaks of depriving something of life as being evil, one is assumed to be referring to sentient/sapient/intelligent creatures. That is, people.

Except there is no definition of sentient/sapient/intelligent that applies to all humans, and doesn't apply to any animal on some level without being arbitrary and excluding all non-humans. Humans are animals - just self-important about it.

I doubt, for example, that the need to slaughter your own chicken for it to have nutritive value to you would make anybody think, "wow, that guy's cursed to be evil or die!" It might be thought, "Eesh, that's an inconvenient curse," but that's it. The curse suggested above is implied to require the killing and consumption of beings which are characterized as people.

Welcome to the life of an Illithid. I'm pretty sure there are qualitative differences between human and illithid neurology that also allow them to say Humans are non-intellectual equals with just as much authority as humans declare Animals to not be intellectual equals.

[Segev]

Except there is no definition of sentient/sapient/intelligent that applies to all humans, and doesn't apply to any animal on some level without being arbitrary and excluding all non-humans. Humans are animals - just self-important about it.

Welcome to the life of an Illithid. I'm pretty sure there are qualitative differences between human and illithid neurology that also allow them to say Humans are non-intellectual equals with just as much authority as humans declare Animals to not be intellectual equals.

This is why I ultimately used the term "people." We can define "people" and understand what it means. We also are capable of observing living things and determining personhood with a certain degree of intellectual honesty. In truth, illithids know they're eating people. They can philosophize about it if they like, but most don't even care to; they're evil and view other people as chattel to be used as they see fit, anyway.

You can try to make claims about, say, cows and chickens being "people" and equate humans calling them "animals" to illithids thinking of humans as similarly "beneath them," but the truth is that we have the capacity to recognize those qualities which make a person a person. The Turing Test, to a degree, works. (I would argue that even those obviously non-sentient/sapient/intelligent/person devices which can, on occasion, pass said test are not evidence that it's unreliable, because they are purpose-built BY people to fool other people. They're impressive feats of acting, essentially, because they're acting-by-proxy, but actors can create convincing false people all the time.)

In short: animals aren't people. They are very clearly not people.

Also, I will not argue this further, as it's likely to start getting too close to real-world philosophy and even religion for this board's rules. You are, of course, free to disagree and think animals are people, too.

[boomwolf]

That's one of the flaws of the alignment system.

It applies good and evil as cosmological standards, but they only make sense from the viewpoint of a humanoid.

By th e goid/evil logic, predators are evil by default, or monsters are not - as they basically do the same thing, kill a similar lifeforms for food.

Basically it's a poor shoehorn of objective standards over vast number of different subjective viewpoints.

[Segev]

That's one of the flaws of the alignment system.

It applies good and evil as cosmological standards, but they only make sense from the viewpoint of a humanoid.

By th e goid/evil logic, predators are evil by default, or monsters are not - as they basically do the same thing, kill a similar lifeforms for food.

Basically it's a poor shoehorn of objective standards over vast number of different subjective viewpoints.

Nah. If the predators are animals, themselves, then they're not moral agents: neutral. If they're people, then you can judge them on whether they prey upon other people or just upon non-people-type-creatures (which, again, are recognizable even if you can't spell out a strict definition).

The world of the webcomic "Kevin & Kell" is a horrific one wherein every animal is a person; the way they address the issue is interesting, though disturbing.

[Anonymouswizard]

Let's see, curse A is basically a vampire who has to kill unlike HPoH or in Masquerade/Requiem, and is evil. Maybe not capital e Evil, but definitely evil enough that suicide is moral.

Curse B is, strangely, more lenient, as you aren't causing the deaths, I agree with it being neutral as long as you're relatively moral and put effort into solving us.

But switch that to 'random person who had a meaningful interaction with in the past week' and it gets grayer.

[Segev]

Let's see, curse A is basically a vampire who has to kill unlike HPoH or in Masquerade/Requiem, and is evil. Maybe not capital e Evil, but definitely evil enough that suicide is moral.

I'll note that suicide is not directly required to be neutral, here. In fact, with some effort to mitigate or choose carefully, you can manage 'neutral,' especially if you try to do more good than the evil you regretfully cause (using D&D alignments; I, personally, real-world, would not condone murder in any event...though maybe if you were an executioner and could get by on legitimately-worthy death row inmates...). You could even be good if you didn't commit suicide, but were willing to starve to death while you desperately tried to find a way to get free of the curse. Painful way to go, though.

Curse B is, strangely, more lenient, as you aren't causing the deaths, I agree with it being neutral as long as you're relatively moral and put effort into solving us.

But switch that to 'random person who had a meaningful interaction with in the past week' and it gets grayer.

Interestingly, that gives you a little MORE freedom, if only because you can take active effort to avoid it. Don't interact with people more than absolutely necessary. Become a hermit, set up any goods you can't self-produce to be delivered perfunctorily, and interact with people only enough to do minimal business.

It probably still won't work perfectly, but you can at least do your best. Even warn people not to interact with you if they can avoid it, and explain the curse.

[Hawkstar]

This is why I ultimately used the term "people." We can define "people" and understand what it means. We also are capable of observing living things and determining personhood with a certain degree of intellectual honesty

That measurement being "Looks, walks, talks, and/or acts like a Human." Nothing more.

What we see as 'people' don't come across as 'people' to Illithids any more than a horse comes across as a person to a horse-trainer, even though they can both communicate. And a human trying to communicate in the same way as an Illithid does to an Illithid gets about the same respect as a person as humans give talking parrots.

Humans have defined "person" to exclude anything they sustain themselves on, to the point of disregarding all evidence to the contrary.

Nah. If the predators are animals, themselves, then they're not moral agents: neutral. If they're people, then you can judge them on whether they prey upon other people or just upon non-people-type-creatures (which, again, are recognizable even if you can't spell out a strict definition).

Only because, in D&D, animals are not like real-world animals, and are instead some arbitrary and ignorant nonsense based on prejudices and long-held misconceptions.

There is nothing special about life or 'sapience'.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'll note that suicide is not directly required to be neutral, here. In fact, with some effort to mitigate or choose carefully, you can manage 'neutral,' especially if you try to do more good than the evil you regretfully cause (using D&D alignments; I, personally, real-world, would not condone murder in any event...though maybe if you were an executioner and could get by on legitimately-worthy death row inmates...). You could even be good if you didn't commit suicide, but were willing to starve to death while you desperately tried to find a way to get free of the curse. Painful way to go, though.

Why I used moral, not good.

Interestingly, that gives you a little MORE freedom, if only because you can take active effort to avoid it. Don't interact with people more than absolutely necessary. Become a hermit, set up any goods you can't self-produce to be delivered perfunctorily, and interact with people only enough to do minimal business.

It probably still won't work perfectly, but you can at least do your best. Even warn people not to interact with you if they can avoid it, and explain the curse.

It really depends on the curse, are we dealing with 'harmful spell' or 'horrible prophecy'? Because the second type is a much older style of curse, and implies that no matter what you do, a person WILL meaningfully interact with you and WILL die. You can mitigate it, but not completely avoid it. This gets into the 'free will' thing with all prophecies, but as long as the curse is loose enough there's less worries.

[Maglubiyet]

In short: animals aren't people. They are very clearly not people.

Unless they have the People template or subtype -- People Animal or Animal (People).

People with the Animal template, Animal People, should be considered people too. However, People with the Animal subtype, People (Animal), is just plain silly.

[Elbeyon]

What if, whether by limitation of species or because of a magical curse you can find no way of undoing, the only sustenance you can survive on is, say, the flesh of humans you killed yourself?

Turn a rock into a non-intelligent human and slay the newly existing living flesh.

Adventurers murder, I mean kill, humans all the time. Food sources shouldn't be an issue.

Death is temporary. Kill a human and bring them back while keeping their old bits.

Take the evil alignment hit, but change the characters alignment back. Ex: Use lots of good spells if your class doesn't depend on alignment to become good again. Carry around an alignment shifting item. Because getting a good alignment is easy. If people want to change a character's alignment change it back through mechanics. No rp required. Oh, no, I'm eating babies again. *Puts on helm.* But, the universe says I'm good again. "Yay! Thank you universe. You're always right."

To answer the thread tittle with my opinion: No. Lots of people do harm to others by just living for a whole wide range of reasons. I don't see anyone suggesting that they are all evil. Trying to fix the problem (even if they will never succeed) should be enough to avoid an alignment shift.

[Solaris]

Except there is no definition of sentient/sapient/intelligent that applies to all humans, and doesn't apply to any animal on some level without being arbitrary and excluding all non-humans. Humans are animals - just self-important about it.

I'm not concerned with definitions that apply to any animal, just the definitions that apply to animals I'm planning on eating. No animal I eat qualifies as sapient, self-aware, and capable of complex cognitive processes such as tool-making, long-term planning, or building tools to make other tools. These are all things humans are capable of doing outside of a physiological or psychological defect. Aberrations do not define species, and therefore we need not be concerned with a definition broad enough to encompass humanity's aberrations.

[veti]

Can we please not turn this into yet another RL vegetarianism thread?

To the OP: is an illithid evil? Your answer to that question is your answer to your own question. I'm not going to try to persuade you either way.

[Solaris]

Can we please not turn this into yet another RL vegetarianism thread?

When you tap into the madness that is an alignment discussion, all of the crazy will come pouring out.

Besides, we're not discussing vegetarianism. We're discussing personhood for animals and where lines get drawn.

[CantigThimble]

Being weak-willed shouldn't make you evil. If you don't actively risk (or give up) your life to prevent the deaths of others that doesn't mean you're evil or even neutral, just not a paladin.

[theNater]

Except there is no definition of sentient/sapient/intelligent that applies to all humans, and doesn't apply to any animal on some level without being arbitrary and excluding all non-humans.

In D&D there is. Anything with an intelligence score of 3 or more is sapient, and natural human stats range from 3 to 18. Meanwhile, animals have int scores of 1 or 2.

[Hawkstar]

Nah. If the predators are animals, themselves, then they're not moral agents: neutral. If they're people, then you can judge them on whether they prey upon other people or just upon non-people-type-creatures (which, again, are recognizable even if you can't spell out a strict definition).

Except, again - "People" has no definition beyond "Arbitrarily Human".

I'm not concerned with definitions that apply to any animal, just the definitions that apply to animals I'm planning on eating. No animal I eat qualifies as sapient, self-aware, and capable of complex cognitive processes such as tool-making, long-term planning, or building tools to make other tools. These are all things humans are capable of doing outside of a physiological or psychological defect. Aberrations do not define species, and therefore we need not be concerned with a definition broad enough to encompass humanity's aberrations.

Aberrations have just as much right to define species as humanoids do. There are a number of pyschological traits Illithids possess that humans do not that could lead Illithids to conclude that Humans are beyond reasonable doubt Not Sapient (lack of inherent psionics and telepathy first and foremost, followed by radically different instincts, neuropsychology, and ).

Animals ARE sapient, and significantly more self-aware than we like to give them credit for, simply because we cannot speak with them directly. Tool-making and long-term planning have nothing to do with rights to life (Are you saying a Sphinx wouldn't be a person?). Also, humans are far less self-aware than we like to admit, in case you haven't actually watched people interacting with each other, especially in large numbers.

In D&D there is. Anything with an intelligence score of 3 or more is sapient, and natural human stats range from 3 to 18. Meanwhile, animals have int scores of 1 or 2.

Again - animals in D&D are completely divorced from reality.

[theNater]

Again - animals in D&D are completely divorced from reality.

Yes they are. However, given that this is a thread about D&D(and other fantasy games), not reality, it's the D&D animals that are relevant to this conversation.

[Ettina]

In D&D there is. Anything with an intelligence score of 3 or more is sapient, and natural human stats range from 3 to 18. Meanwhile, animals have int scores of 1 or 2.

Is it OK to eat a human whose Int stat has been permanently lowered to 1?

[Maglubiyet]

Don't you have to knowingly perform an evil act for it to be considered Evil? To the OP's question, if you didn't know you were cursed and people died on your account, wouldn't your soul be untainted?

If you slaughter chickens and you happened to unknowingly kill a polymorphed paladin one day, did you commit an Evil act?

Or, what if, the chicken you slaughtered was fated to wander off and be captured and eaten by a starving orphan who would one day rise to become a great champion of justice. But instead, you killed that chicken, the orphan starved, and the kingdom was plunged into wickedness 20 years later for lack of its orphan protector. Your actions may have directly caused the apocalypse...but at least you got some fried chicken.

Anyway, why is causing death in a universe with a known, confirmed afterlife necessarily considered Evil? You're not really destroying anything permanent. Maybe it's Good to kill the innocent so that their souls can ascend to a realm of happiness before they learn evilness and end up somewhere else.

Alignment is so silly.

[Maglubiyet]

Is it OK to eat a human whose Int stat has been permanently lowered to 1?

Yes, that's what Feeblemind is for. Clerics get Create Food and Water, it's only fair that arcane casters have some way to feed themselves too.