Hypothetical scenario and ethical implications

[irdeggman]

OK, being a church leader (Vice President, will be president next year in part of the standard 3 year committment) of a church under the United Church of Christ denomination I feel I need to set some things in perspective here:

Saying that Christian churches are lawful good is in one way a stretch and in another perfectly accurate. They do all live by their own interpretations of Christ's doctrine. Some have more structure and rules than do others. But pretty much saying they are all lawful is a matter of interpretation (basically it is a comparision issue). They are or are not lawful as compared to something else. When compared to Muslim traditions they aren't lawful in any way shape or form. There is a whole lot more structure there than in pretty much any Christian adapatation. Same with the Jewish faith, there is a whole lot more structure and organization there than even the Roman Catholic structure.

The Old Testament was from the Jewish texts and the Laws are what have been referenced here. The New Testament (Jesus' teachings and spread of Christianity) specifically had that the 2 commandments that were most important were to to Love the Lord thy God above all others and to Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else is supplemental to those two.

The following is a link to our church's website (woefully out of date) and an article I wrote, so people can get an understanding of at least some of my personal feelings and beliefs.

http://www.tidewaterucc.com/WH%20Newsletter.htm

Note that what I am talking about as far as BR and fantasy go is a game, plain and simple and not to be confused with how I (or anyone) should live their life. By its very nature the game is epic and stretches the imaginations. If we put too much real life into it then it loses the wonder of being a game.

So much for the preaching back to the game. . .

[geeman]

I haven`t participated in this thread, though I`ve been reading it

carefully and with much interest. Kudos to all, BTW, on the tone in which

most of the posts have been made. Often these are the kinds of discussions

that degenerate into name calling and snide remarks, so it`s good to see

folks in the community discussing things with such maturity, especially

since everyone has also managed to remain pretty much on topic. Keep it up!



When it comes to medieval morality I would like to throw out one

thing. Often what gets defined as "medieval morality" employs a heavy dose

of modern context to the situations being discussed. That is, it assumes

more modern circumstances in what is an entirely medieval conflict. We

should try to avoid "armchair morality" that assumes the people involved

are not engaged in a much more desperate struggle than was really the

case. That is not to say that the good/evil of an action is determined by

the predominant morality of the culture at large--which I think is

untrue--but that the situational issues are often broader than they are

presented. The kinds of situations that are often being discussed would be

evil in a more modern context because many modern wars are "wars of choice"

to use a recently coined term. In earlier times, however, competition for

resources was a much more proximate thing than it is now. When discussing

the genocidal acts of European settlers to the New World, for instance, one

should bear in mind that life expectancy amongst European settlers was a

good ten to fifteen years higher than it was for those who remained at

home. If life expectancy in the first place is in the mid- to late 30`s

that`s a pretty significant jump. The same diseases that wiped out native

Americans by the millions were often in full force in Europe and though the

population had built up a level of immunity they still killed thousands of

Europeans every year. Earlier European colonists, of course, had a

substantial rate of death, but after footholds in the New World were

established one could live there longer and with a lower rate of infant

mortality than one could in most European cities. In that context,

European migrants to the New World are fleeing a force more deadly than the

Mongol invasion, and we should bear in mind that their migration is not

entirely willful in the first place.



While there are a lot of factors involved, it is safe to say that when

population density reaches a certain point average life expectancy starts

to go down, and a population can either improve their technology to support

the higher density, diminish or expand. Technical progress, unfortunately,

is a generally slow process, so the choice is more often life (by

expansion) or death (which is what diminishing represents.) If one defines

the primary concern of "good" as having reverence for life, then one is in

a situation in which one must face the unpleasant reality of choosing life

for the largest number of people possible, which leads to other people

losing out. As unpleasant a reality as this is, certain lifestyles and the

cultures they support must end for what is essentially the greater

good. People often pile an amazing amount of rationalizations upon that

situation in order to justify choosing one group over the other, but in the

final analysis the morality of the conflict is based on the total numbers

of people who will survive. The reality, of course, is that there is a

broad overlap of all these issues, but what is so often debated in modern

times is (in simplistic terms) that we can employ technological solutions

to resolve the issue rather than resort of expansion or diminished

populations. That option was not as readily available in pre-Modern times.



In such a situation certain overt acts are unequivocally evil. Handing out

smallpox infested blankets to native peoples is definitely an evil act. I

don`t think anybody could contest that with much credibility. However,

most of what gets lumped into that same category--the mere presence of

Europeans in the New World which spread disease because such people were

carriers, for instance--is really not an evil thing by definition. These

are, after all, people in competition with other people not simply for the

sake of competition, but for the resources to survive. "Ownership" of land

or claiming land is not in and of itself an evil thing to do for all that

it is in conflict with the latter-day reinterpretation of the culture of

many native Americans in that 20th century New Age kind of way. Native

peoples competed with other native peoples before Europeans arrived and

many elements of that native/native conflict were at least as horrific as

things done by the settlers. That`s not to cast native Americans as evil,

it`s merely to point out that in conflict people do unpleasant things in

order to survive, and we should try to employ the same standard when

examining one as the other in as objective a manner as possible.



To put all this in a D&D/alignment context, I`d suggest a couple of

things. Alignment is a very blunt tool. Good/neutral/evil and

law/neutral/chaos. There`s not a lot of room for variation there. In the

past I`ve suggested a point value like that presented by Monte Cook in

order to express alignment (or some other system of "allegiance") because

it not only works better but allows for more articulation of a character`s

morality. If using strictly the alignment system, however, one can still

use a bit of that kind of thinking without going all out with points and

ratings. I`d suggest that what determines a character`s (or a realm`s)

alignment isn`t single actions, but the sum total of their actions. A

character (or realm) that committed an overtly evil act is not necessarily

evil any more than a devoutly evil character who has a lapse of conscience

and rescues a toddler from a burning house becomes good. They may not be

"pure of alignment" in a way that might be demanded of a paladin, but they

can still be one or the other. With that in mind, a war would not

necessarily change the alignment of a realm--even if one considers war an

absolute evil--especially if the circumstances of that war were morally

ambiguous. As long as the nation on the whole is more good than evil (or

more good than neutral, really) the alignment need not change.



Gary

[irdeggman]

Heh, ok well it seems like my 5 points have held true so far then and after this last bit of discussion, maybe we could add a couple points

1) The people's belief in the regent is what determines his RP collection. (true for all regents except source regents)

2) If a landed/guild regent does an act that is considered evil by some of the good gods, it may not be considered evil by the people. For example, genociding the goblins in the spiderfell who have raided their provinces for centuries. (It would be genocide as they have no where to run except into hostile lands if the conquering regent doesnt allow them to stay in the spriderfell.)

3) If a temple regent does an act this considered evil by his/her good diety, it will likely be considered evil by the temple followers, as they would generally follow the moral code set by the diety. (of course some clerics maybe able to swindle the people for a while, however, it wouldnt likely be long before some other clerics get messages from their diety telling them of the wrongs done in his/her name)

4) If a landed/guild regent does an act that is considered good by some of the good gods, it may not be considered good by the people. For example, giving charity to goblins, whom the populace hates.

5) If a temple regent does an act that is considered good by his/her diety, it will likely be considered good by the temple followers.

6) The basis for determining any alignment/morality issue, should be grounded in the context of the game, and not in our modern day views. The context of the game includes our approximate historic views of the Middle Ages to Rennaisance time periods.

7) If the landed/guild regent does an act that is considered evil by the temple regent, and the people generally didnt think that the act was evil, the temple regent may attempt to rile up the people against the landed/guild regent to force the regent to seek amends. Keeping in mind that the people need to be convinced that the act was indeed evil.

8) If the landed/guild regent does an act that is considered good by the temple regent, and the people generally didnt think that the act was good, the temple regent may attempt to get the people to support the landed/guild regent's action. This would be like positive reinforcement of the regents choice of action.

If I were to change anything, I would just clarify #3:

3) If a temple regent does an act this considered evil by his/her good diety, it will likely be considered evil by the temple followers, as they would generally follow the moral code set by the diety. (of course some clerics maybe able to swindle the people for a while, however, it wouldnt likely be long before some other clerics get messages from their diety telling them of the wrongs done in his/her name) Of course the temple alignment is determined by the temple regent, however, this doesn't mean that the temple regent is above his/her deity who grants the regent the power to cast spells.

As we all know, the cleric must obay, in some respects at least, the wishes and code of the deity if the cleric wishes to remain within the good graces of the deity and continue to cast divine spells. Otherwise, the cleric would need to attone or find a new diety to worship, that is more inline with the cleric's views.

So how does one justify Haelyn (LG) having LE priests? The logic fades. I prefer that the deity is more concerned with their portfolio than alignment, now if Good is part of their portfolio that is another issue.

Pretty much the way 3.5 does things as far as deities go is via their portfolios (see
Deities and Demigods (3.0 but still works) for examples of how gods use mortals or need them in actuality (pg 16) or The Complete Divine for why character serve their god(s) (pgs 5-6)).

Portfolios are what the god is responsible for hence what he is concerned with.

[tcharazazel]

irdeggman

So how does one justify Haelyn (LG) having LE priests? The logic fades. I prefer that the deity is more concerned with their portfolio than alignment, now if Good is part of their portfolio that is another issue.

Oh im so glad you finaly brought that up, i was waiting for you to do so, heheh.

Heres my response to the whole issue about allowing clerics be 2 steps away from their deity.

After all the talk on the theoretical/ethical thread, its brought up some old thoughts about the cleric's alignment not having much restrictions upon it, something that bugged me about the BR version of clerics.

Honestly, as the cleric gets his/her power from her deity, the deity should really be determining who deserves to gets to use their power. As such, it doesn’t really make sense for evil clerics to get power from a good deity, just like it doesn't make sense for chaotic clerics to get power from a lawful deity.

There is nothing stopping a CE character from being a priest of Haelyn, however, Haelyn would never grant the character any powers. I would say this would hold true for anyone who is evil as Haelyn certainly is opposed to evil and would not want to be represented by evil people nor would he favor them with his power.

Now then, if the clerics’ alignments were solely dependent upon the sect and not the deity, the 2 steps away rule makes sense. However, the sect is not the one granting clerics their powers. The deity determines who gets to represent them and be favored with their power. Thus, as a deity would prefer to have those clerics who would best represent them, ie having an alignment close to the deity’s, it doesn’t make sense to have the 2 steps away rule. So, the sects and clerics should Both be within 1 step of the deity’s alignment.

Examples then for each alignment:

For a LG deity: the clerics can be LG, NG, and LN.
For a LN deity: the clerics can be LN, LG, LE, and TN.
For a LE deity: the clerics can be LE, NE, and LN.

For a NG deity: the clerics can be NG, LG, CG, and TN.
For a TN deity: the clerics can be TN, NG, NE, LN and CN.
For a NE deity: the clerics can be NE, LE, CE and TN.

For a CG deity: the clerics can be CG, NG, and CN.
For a CN deity: the clerics can be CN, CG, CE, and TN.
For a CE deity: the clerics can be CE, NE, and CN.


You understand that the logic really fades in the BRCS idea of allowing clerics to potentially be 2 steps away from their deity, and not my explanation for #3, which makes logical sense:


3) If a temple regent does an act this considered evil by his/her good diety, it will likely be considered evil by the temple followers, as they would generally follow the moral code set by the diety. (of course some clerics maybe able to swindle the people for a while, however, it wouldnt likely be long before some other clerics get messages from their diety telling them of the wrongs done in his/her name) Of course the temple alignment is determined by the temple regent, however, this doesn't mean that the temple regent is above his/her deity who grants the regent the power to cast spells.

As we all know, the cleric must obay, in some respects at least, the wishes and code of the deity if the cleric wishes to remain within the good graces of the deity and continue to cast divine spells. Otherwise, the cleric would need to attone or find a new diety to worship, that is more inline with the cleric's views.

[tcharazazel]

Gary, I like your alignment by points idea, very cool. And I totally agree alignments are a very blunt tool to use. However, you seem to be arguing for an alignment change and not an alignment infringement, which is a different thing. As an alignment change would be the character choosing courses of action that reflect a different alignment over a long period of time. An alignment infringement would be like those 1 time examples that you gave.

As in the BRCS, pg 101, an alignment infringement results in a minor loss or possibly a major loss of regency. Of course, if the regent was acting in a manner that was similar to the realm's general alignment, such an infringement may actually be appreciated and approved by the public. If he were to actually change to the realm's alignment the public may consider it a great thing.


I also agree that historically, the people acted more on a survival instinct. Something that does not have as strong an influence upon our beliefs, actions ect, as we're gamers who obviously have free time to enjoy playing diverting games, think about abstract ideas, and argue for or against them. These are definite luxuries in the middle ages.

[tcharazazel]

irdeggman

Note that what I am talking about as far as BR and fantasy go is a game, plain and simple and not to be confused with how I (or anyone) should live their life. By its very nature the game is epic and stretches the imaginations. If we put too much real life into it then it loses the wonder of being a game.

That is so true, and I totally agree we should keep this idea on the front of our minds.

irdeggman

OK, being a church leader (Vice President, will be president next year in part of the standard 3 year committment) of a church under the United Church of Christ denomination I feel I need to set some things in perspective here:

Very cool , always nice to learn more about yall. Heh, I just got enough credits to minor in religion, however, i decided against it as I could only pick one minor so I went with rhetoric. I studied the torah, the bible (early christianity), the Quran, hinduism, budhism, greek/roman and Norse mythology. All fun stuff, some of which i still keep up on, however, my knowledge in these areas wouldnt compare to some of my friends who were really interested on religion.

[anacreon]

Originally posted by A_dark@Jun 2 2004, 01:29 PM
In the ancient greek tragedy of Orestis, the good son of Agamemnon kills his mother (who killed her husband) in revenge after Athena herself advised him to do it. He believe it was a good thing to do. The gods did not agree and the Furies were sent after him. The act itself matters, not the justification for it.

OK, OK. I was waiting to get to the last message before I responded, but this was too much for me to take. So let me put my classics MA to good use.

Orestes killed his mother under divine mandate. Apollo himself ordered him to do so, and was right beside him all along the way. In general, in Greek vision Apollo is a much more positive deity than the Erinyes.
The Erinyes themselves do not need to be sent by anyone to avenge people. In this myth, actually, they represent the primitive and even barbaric way of life, in which blood relations are the only things that matter, and thus blood far outways the importance of contractual relationships (such as marriage). Because of this, the Erinyes are a subversive element in institutes of the Polis, and thus they are rejected by the Olympian Gods (Apollo is quite disdainful toward them, and expresses revultion by them). Fact is that the Erinyes are forced to litigate (much to their chagrine) on the matter against Apollo, with Athena as judge. Athena, in the end, rules against the Erinyes, and worship to them is included as part of the Polis only in order to placate them (and in no means in order to show acceptance of the values they stand for).

I think that this case works directly against your argument. It is the background and intentions that make the act of murder justifiable.

[Osprey]

But, Osprey, if you use medieval morality to judge good vs evil, then you might get very violent and brutal paladins, which I think is not really what was intended in the game. Genocide wasn't "evil" in medieval Europe (Aztecs died from Spaniards... Cortez...), slavery wasn't "evil" in Renaissance Europe (dunno about medieval Europe) etc etc... Personally I cannot imagine a paladin acting against goblins as Cortez acted against Aztecs... And how about a paladin acting against the Rjurik or Vos as Cortez acted against the Aztecs?

Hmm, we might get very violent and brutal paladins, aye?

Tell me, in D&D, why are paladins such strong fighters? Strong base attack bonuses, complete simple and martial weapon proficiencies, full armor proficiencies...sounds like a crusading knight to me!

If Christian Crusaders weren't the inspirational template for the classic paladins of D&D, then what the heck were? And are paladins of Haelyn all that different from the basic PHB versions? Not as far as I can tell. They pretty much define the standard if you ask me.

I think paladins can be some of the most viscious and brutal characters in D&D. Why? Because they're so narrow-mindedly focused on "fighting evil" that they can't see the forest for the trees. A lot (the majority even?) of atrocities are commited by zealots, because they more than most people are willing to do whatever is necessary, no matter how unpleasant or unsightly that may be.

If goblins are judged as irredeemably evil by a paladin, why wouldn't he be willing to kill every last one of the wretched villains? Is it not for the greater good of "true and gentle folk everywhere?" Is he not protecting the weak and less fortunate, those who would be the goblins' next victims of murder, rape, slavery, or torture?

It's all in how you spin it...but remember, every paladin is a warrior, and warriors excel at one thing above all else: killing. If a paladin is a character who excels at violence, then he darn well better have a system of ethics that justifies that killing while keeping his alignment, else he won't be a paladin for long. Which means every paladin has a list of those who can justifiably be slaughtered in the name of good.

Welcome to Birthright.

[tcharazazel]

For those who are unfamiliar with the pretext of the myth. Agamemnon killed his daughter before going to Troy as ritual sacrifice, generally considered to be done inorder to show his commitment. When Agamemnon returned from Troy his wife killed him, in revenge for the sacrifice of his daughter.

Then Orestes killed his mother by mandate of Apollo, ect. and basically the Erinyes are arguing that Agamemnon's wife's crime was less severe than Orestes' act.

[anacreon]

Originally posted by tcharazazel@Jun 3 2004, 09:06 AM
Agamemnon killed his daughter before going to Troy as ritual sacrifice, generally considered to be done inorder to show his commitment.

Sorry to be so tiresome and knitpicking, but that's just the way I am.
Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigeneia because Artemis demanded it. A short while before, Agamemnon killed a pair of deer calves (is that the right term?). Artemis, as protectress of all young animals, demanded retribution in the form of the sacrifice of Agamemnon's eldest daughter. As long as Iphigeneia went on unsacrificed no wind would blow on the Isle of Euboea, and thus the Greek fleets could not set sail to Troy. Agamemnon, as well as most Greek heroes had to sail to Troy or face the consequences of breaking an oath given to Hellen's father under Zeus' name.