Forum > General Discussion
In Defense of Evil
MisterK:
--- Quote from: jdale on December 20, 2021, 11:23:04 AM ---That said, all players of RM are human too. I don't think it's unreasonable to use a human standard of morality in such a case. All your human players will be capable of comprehending it, even if your fictional NPCs are not.
--- End quote ---
Actually, I think the basic idea of roleplaying in a fictional universe is to be able to adopt the cultural viewpoints of the cultures you play in, even if they run against the core principles of what we consider good and evil (and there are many variations on that - if I take only my own example, I consider the current state of civilisation on earth as evil).
But additionally, I don't think we need a common reference of good and evil for the players - I know mine certainly don't need it. They do, however, need information on what the culture of their character consider good and evil (if such moral red lines exist).
Saying that, since we are humans (and the game is mostly written with a standard european/north american cultural background), we should use the "common interpretation" of what we, as players, deem good and evil as an absolute reference for a fictional universe seems both significantly biased, detrimental to immersion, and a poor way to consider the relative merits of various cultures. I'd much rather have the players *know* that good and evil are relative, have their character take responsibility for what *they* consider good and evil, and deal with the consequences of those choices.
I stumbled upon a very interesting idea somewhere (it was relative to D&D), in that good and evil were not related to morality *at all*, but were actually related to magical auras. Basically, the magical aura is the reflection of your affinity for specific magic, and "good" and "evil" (since they are basically absolute standards in D&D) were human-centric nomenclature for different kinds of auras (because humans are the majority species in standard D&D worlds).
As a result, you could be a very well-intentioned necromancer and would still register as evil, because your magical affinity was to necromancy, which was tagged "evil" by the human-centric tradition.
And I found this interpretation of alignments quite interesting: it reconciled the "absolute" idea of alignments with the relative idea of moral systems, integrated the "majority rule" of human-heavy settings, was compatible with how the system worked technically, and still provided room to explain how entire species could be tagged with a single alignment without resorting to gross stereotyping and blatant racism. If I do a D&D campaign someday, I will certainly use it.
jdale:
If I obtain the means to query god on its moral preferences without those preferences first being interpreted through human agents, I assure you I will do so.
--- Quote from: MisterK on December 20, 2021, 01:37:26 PM ---Saying that, since we are humans (and the game is mostly written with a standard european/north american cultural background), we should use the "common interpretation" of what we, as players, deem good and evil as an absolute reference for a fictional universe seems both significantly biased, detrimental to immersion, and a poor way to consider the relative merits of various cultures. I'd much rather have the players *know* that good and evil are relative, have their character take responsibility for what *they* consider good and evil, and deal with the consequences of those choices.
--- End quote ---
I think narrowing the moral conception to that of a single culture -- moral absolutism -- is problematic, but the middle ground of moral principles is quite open to consider the "relative merits of various cultures". Indeed, it recognizes that despite the differences, there is a shared good that no one culture has a monopoly on. Conversely the recognition that there are also moral rules which differ between cultures leaves plenty of conflict to work with.
Hurin:
Ok, then basically what it seems the idea of moral principles boils down to is this:
--The one absolute, universal moral 'principle' is the sanctity of life.
--There are also moral rules, but those are relative.
If so, then what if there were a human culture that did not recognize the sanctity of life? The Cathars believed that physical bodies were inherently sinful; they trapped the spirit (which was good) in something that was evil (matter). If I want to include a form of Cathars in my game, and some of them feel that the best way to free souls is to destroy bodies, and that doing so is an act of great mercy... are they Good or Evil?
jdale:
Sanctity of life isn't the only principle I cited. In any case, if you wanted to represent Cathars as rampaging murderers, killing people for their own good, that would be a pretty bad misrepresentation.
But I expect it would be possible to come up with some groups that held immoral beliefs and carried out immoral actions. I think it's fine to call those actions out as such. Genocide, in particular, is a wrong that occurs between different cultures, so relativism has no way to handle it, but I don't have any hesitation in calling it wrong. Immorality at the level of a society or culture usually stems from labeling some people as less than human, but there might be examples that stem from some other belief.
Cory Magel:
--- Quote from: MisterK on December 20, 2021, 01:18:00 AM ---Imagine aliens that come from another world and that have a biology so different (not based on carbon) that our biosphere is actually harmful to them. You cannot communicate with them in any way. They want to change your planet to suit *their* biology - which will kill you because, well, you won't have nutrients and won't be able to breathe whatever passes for an atmosphere when they're done. Your existence is *corrosive* to them, and theirs to you.
--- End quote ---
But they aren't trying to kill you JUST because you're alive. You have something you want to take from you.
Obviously there are huge differences in where the line of evil is drawn. Is what happened to the Native Americans evil? Does it depend on the stage of the process? (Initial accidental introduction of diseases, to misunderstandings, to outright genocide). Do vegans think meat eating people are evil? Are plants aware, we just don't know it, and it's even MORE evil to walk up and uproot a plant that has no chance to run from you like a cow might? Is a male lion evil for killing cubs of his own kind because they aren't his own cubs? If we were having a serious discussion I'd say 'evil' would be partially based how self-aware the creature is causing harm to another creature and, possibly one level of evil further, how self aware that creature is.
But we're talking about a fantasy world.
In my setting I try to separate the label of evil assigned between the living creatures in a world from a more universal idea of true evil. Something that has no reasoning for wanting you dead than because you're alive. Granted, if you tried to assign human thinking to them you could try to say they are simply trying to bring the universe back to it's original form. But, from the perspective of everything that is alive, flora, fauna, monsters, humanoids... everything... it is evil. There's no splitting hairs among even the most 'evil' and 'loving' self-aware beings in the world.
Granted an evil being might try to utilize true evil in some way, but considering the nature of true evil that's a really, really bad idea (in my little world). It'd be a bit like setting your house on fire to kill a thief.
--- Quote from: jdale on December 20, 2021, 11:23:04 AM ---Humans are real. When you find real non-human sentients, we can use them as data points. Everything else is world-building that arises starting from your own assumptions.
--- End quote ---
Trying to debate this topic from a human-centric perspective falls down because we're talking about fantasy worlds with more then just humans or even humanoids.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page