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[Adrian]

Right now ethics are assigned to civilizations, which works fine as it is. But i propose we go a little deeper:
Lets give every individual their own list of ethics and redefine relationships between people as a modifier of ethics oriented at whoever fills that relationship (ie. If a psychopathic dwarf considers murder to be acceptable, a husband/wife ethic could make that into being acceptable only in self defense)
On a technical note this would make the in real life complicated relationships between people as simple as arithmetic. And it would give great interplay between people of conflicting ideologies.

Next, laws.
Because laws are, even in real life, nothing more than forcing your own ethics on other people. (consider for instance the abortion- and euthanasia debates)
In Dwarf Fortress laws shouldn't just vary between civilizations, but different cities should have different laws.
New lawhs would be put forward by a noble and be accepted or rejected by having the other nobles take a vote on it. (ie. If the mayor absolutely detests cats, he may propose a law which makes owning a cat a punishable offense)
Having multiple individuals cast a vote on new laws would promote the laws towards a mean of the ethics of the population. Thereby ensuring there will always be people breaking laws, without having to imprison your entire fortress.

For added bonus some of the code could be imported from Liberal Crime Squad. It also features politicians voting on laws based on their liberality/conservativeness

The ethic system is nice as-is, but it has so much more potential

[Putnam]

I like this kind of "personal ethics" system, actually. I don't like the idea of voting, though. Except for mayor, the government in these games seems a bit more... autocratic.

It would be really great because laws that go against the moral zeitgeist of a particular location could be cause for revolution, which is always interesting. Similarly, it would allow for cults of personality and other interesting things to come up when someone with differing ethics, but a large amount of charisma, gains a position of power.

[robertheinrich]

Allowing civilization ethics to change over time (influenced by important/charismatic historical figures) has the potential to make worldgen much more interesting. If it is balanced enough, that is. Right now, if you contradict the ethics of other civs, they will start sieging you. So in the worst case every world would become homogenous after a given amount of time because of eccentrics who influenced their followers into picking up odd beliefs then everybody gets killed.

[Helari]

There are berserk dwarves and vampires and such irregardless of the dwarf civilizations ethic against murder, there are also bandits even though there's an ethic in place against stealing.

Ethics as of now seem to be just there to define the laws of the different civs, not what creatures in that civ think.

Edit: Are bandits and such even active in world generation? I'm pretty sure stealing or (not war or monster rampage related) murdering during world gen is not yet implemented.

[Putnam]

There are berserk dwarves and vampires and such irregardless of the dwarf civilizations ethic against murder, there are also bandits even though there's an ethic in place against stealing.

Ethics as of now seem to be just there to define the laws of the different civs, not what creatures in that civ think.

Edit: Are bandits and such even active in world generation? I'm pretty sure stealing or (not war or monster rampage related) murdering during world gen is not yet implemented.

Just because there are exceptions doesn't mean rules hold.

Banditry and murder are both implemented, yes.

[Escapism]

I agree with a lot posited in this thread, and actually necroed a similar thread just a few days ago, so I'll just quote what I posted there. I notice I'm a bit of a grammatical butcher, but such is life when you are forced to re-read your own posts.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another thing I think would be interesting is dynamic ethics for your own fort. Your initial dwarves all come from the same civilizations, which has its own sets of ethics. As your fortress grows, how you rule your fort as well as outside interference affect this. Gruesome conflicts, a harsh environment, civil conflicts, poverty and crime (when these are implemented) would serve to make your citizens less inclined to altruism and compassion, while prosperity and peace would do the opposite. Immigrants would share the ethics of the civilization from which they hail, possibly with some RNG variance depending, for instance, on their former profession/social standing. The ethics, of course, are not on a single axis of moral/amoral, but follow the pattern of current ethic tags, i.e [KILL_PRISONERS:ACCEPTABLE], [KILL_GOBLINS:HONOURABLE] and [SLAVERY:DESPICABLE]

These ethics would then determine what actions are deemed to be acceptable by your populace, with civil disorder, unhappiness, emigration and strife between different fort factions as possible repercussions for actions that are deemed to be out of line by some groups/individuals. Your actions would in turn also have an effect on this. If you choose to impale your enemies corpses on pikes to scare off your enemies, it might cause an uproar at first. The next time you do it, your dwarves might possibly condone it seeing how effective it is at demoralizing invaders, or be hardened in their resolve and chose to emigrate/become even more unhappy etc.

The same can of course be applied in adventurer mode where your reputation would include your deeds, which in turn would result in different attitudes from different civilizations.

The variability on ethics from what civ you choose could thus be a step towards making starting civ actually make a difference in terms of gameplay. A dynamic raw system for different civs depending on interciv relations, e.g [KILL_Civ1:ACCEPTABLE][KILL_Civ2:UNTHINKABLE], would also serve to make civilizations and ethics more interesting (enemy of my enemy).

It could also be used as a factor in calculating when a settlement would consider itself to be different enough to want to become independent, with perhaps ehtics being a subgroup of a more general "culture" definition.

[Putnam]

I think that would be better formatted like this:

[KILL_CREATURE:creature:UNTHINKABLE]

[KILL_ENTITY:entity:REQUIRED]

And so on.

[MuseOD]

>irregardless
That made me more angry than it should.
Either way, I think that ethics should be linked to a Civ's past. Ie, if Goldmasters Purpleonion in the south was founded by Human McGoldmaster, when he had slain a giant bull, then those who slay giant bulls would be lauded in GP. Equally, if McGoldmaster's forces were saved by a whale, then killing whales would merit a death sentance.

[Blade Master Model 42]

I'm always up for more complex, less straightforward ethics systems. +1