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Total Members Voted: 18

[Andres]

There is no black and white, Andres. There are only shades of Gray.

See, here's where we reach a major disagreement, and possibly also a misunderstanding. To my knowledge, everyone here thinks that I don't believe in subjective morality. The truth is that I do, but I also believe in objective morality.

Those who only see things in shades of grey are just as misguided as those who only think in terms of black and white. In truth, there's black, there's white, and there's shades of grey.

If a boy steals bread from a poor man to feed his poorer mother, that's grey.
If the poor man gives his bread to the boy's poorer mother, that's white.
If the mother is instead rich and confiscates the poor man's bread because she likes watching people suffer, that's black.

Basically, one is asking you to attack all "Convicted Felons" (An Objective Description) while the other is asking you to attack all "Bad People" (Subjective Description).

Actually what I'm asking is to attack all "Convicted Felons" and also "People Who Would be Convicted as Felons If They Were Tried In Court".

[Rolepgeek]

Oh yeah, also, Reverse Triage.

That's a thing. Is that Objectively Good or Objectively Bad? Because if those things are Objective, everything needs to be one or the other. Otherwise, everything will be Objectively Sorta-Good-But-Not-Quite or Objectively Evil-ish-But-With-Some-Good-Intentions.

People aren't evil. They're fucked up, but they aren't evil. That's literally a five year old's way of thinking. Specifically, the writer of Axe Cop. Where people are either 'good' or 'evil'. Is someone evil because they're incredibly racist but volunteer for charity work all the time? What about a guy whose work has inspired thousands of people for the better, and makes it his life's goal to reduce the discrepancy between rich and poor and help those in need...and also harbors an irrational hatred of women? Is a surgeon whose skill with the knife has saved thousands of lives, and never skips out on work, never refuses to take a call in the middle of the night or change their plans to help someone good, if they also flay small animals in their free time for entertainment?







...Apparently I have strong feelings on this subject that I wasn't quite aware of earlier, despite my also believing there is a way to be objectively a better person, morally speaking, than someone else, mostly defined by selflessness and goodwill towards others.

EDIT: Ah, but what about the poor man's family, who is now bereft of that bread, and of a strong worker who can continue to bring in the meager pay so they may continue their struggling life?
What of the rich woman whose life is stressed by dealing with nobles, and despite her sadism makes the land as a whole more prosperous, including the poor, through her work that may only continue if she has some form of stress relief, in this case unfortunately dealt with by making others suffer?

[Vgray]

I'd love it if we could have these deep philisopical conversations IC. It would be a hell of alot more interesting than whatever shenanigans Talios is facepalming at this tick.

[Fr0stByt3]

See, this is what makes people so complicated. We all think that we're right in what we do, and our personal worldview is the only one that can be acceptable.

[Rolepgeek]

I'd love it if we could have these deep philisopical conversations IC. It would be a hell of alot more interesting than whatever shenanigans Talios is facepalming at this tick.

I would too.

Sucks that my character probably has completely different opinions on the subject(those mostly being 'morality is a social construct of civilization and I am it's god so shut up').

Also that I am in no way willing to translate all that shit into Zhinspeak. Goddamn that would be frustrating.

[Fr0stByt3]

Oh, I'm sure. That looks like a bitch to do sometimes.

[Stirk]

I'd love it if we could have these deep philisopical conversations IC. It would be a hell of alot more interesting than whatever shenanigans Talios is facepalming at this tick.

I think the accents would kill most of the meaning. Oh well, I am bored of this conversation anyway.

[Andres]

EDIT: Ah, but what about the poor man's family, who is now bereft of that bread, and of a strong worker who can continue to bring in the meager pay so they may continue their struggling life?
What of the rich woman whose life is stressed by dealing with nobles, and despite her sadism makes the land as a whole more prosperous, including the poor, through her work that may only continue if she has some form of stress relief, in this case unfortunately dealt with by making others suffer?

This is all morally grey. It also proves that context is key to understanding the morality behind a person and their actions.

Simply because contexts can exist to justify someone's actions, it doesn't mean that those contexts are always there. You can't say that everything is morally grey because every motive or consequence is morally grey.  This is because not all motives or consequences are morally grey. Moral grey exists, but it's not omnipresent. Black and white exists too.

I'd love it if we could have these deep philisopical conversations IC. It would be a hell of alot more interesting than whatever shenanigans Talios is facepalming at this tick.

We're discussing this in OOC because it has applications towards game mechanics.

[Rolepgeek]

No, they don't, because black and white situations do not exist in reality. Reality isn't as simple as 'hurr durr because evil' or 'gyarr nyarr because good'. There will always be mitigating factors, one way or another. Someone takes time out of their day to do charity work because it's the right thing to do don't do it purely because of that. They like the warm fuzzy feeling. It makes their deed no less beneficial to the world, but it isn't purely selfless; they get something out of it. It's an extremely creamy shade of grey, I'll agree on that. As I will agree that Stalin was an extremely dark shade of gray.

Black and white situations exist in black and white cartoons. In reality, there is always something. Even if it's "I like to torture people to death for the funsies". The mitigating factor there is probably something along the lines of 'my childhood is a dark and terrifying place of which no one wishes to speak'. Does that make it okay? No. But something doesn't have to be black for it not to be okay. That's a large part of why laws exist, as far as I know. It's so these debates are merely philosophical, rather than legal. And also to prevent anarchy but you know whatever.

EDIT: It's not about justification. It's about cause and effect. Somebody had a shitty childhood which fucks them up, they take it out on someone else because they don't know how else to deal with it and don't have the strength of will or ability to admit the problem in order to get it fixed. Why not? Because they got fucked up by a shitty childhood.

[Andres]

It's an extremely creamy shade of grey, I'll agree on that. As I will agree that Stalin was an extremely dark shade of gray.

Cool, I guess we're in agreement.

In reality, there is always something. Even if it's "I like to torture people to death for the funsies". The mitigating factor there is probably something along the lines of 'my childhood is a dark and terrifying place of which no one wishes to speak'.

But what if the dude's childhood was fine? What if there is no mitigating factor? In real life, there may always be a tiny mitigating factor at play, but at some point you've just gotta call someone evil and be done with it. Evil doesn't have to describe pure black, honestly. It can simply describe dark shades of grey.

EDIT: I just realised you weren't saying that evil people can only be morally black people and since moral black didn't exist neither did evil. My bad.

I'm just curious, but what do you think of people born with the Evil trait? In your eyes, are they evil?

[Vgray]

On a note unrelated to the morality discussion, I'm half wondering if I should just bite the bullet, admit I'm unoriginal, create a soul eating sword, and trick a human whose name begins with A into wielding it. 

[Andres]

On a note unrelated to the morality discussion, I'm half wondering if I should just bite the bullet, admit I'm unoriginal, create a soul eating sword, and trick a human whose name begins with A into wielding it. 

Where's that from? Also feel free. No one here's gonna hold it against you. It's not against the rules, after all.

[gman8181]

I included the "DnD" stuff partly to appease people who'd complain about morality and partly to specify that the being isn't limited to eating those with the Evil trait.

Those with the Evil trait are evil people. Those without the Evil trait can also be evil people. The race or being would be able to eat evil people regardless of whether they have an in-built trait making them evil or not.

Hmm, how about the trait you want affects people with the "Evil" trait as well as those who act in a manner embodying the "Evil" trait, despite potentially not having it?

Honestly, it probably will only come up in certain "fluff" situations.

Otherwise, you could just specify other traits yours would affect, such as traits that promote aggressiveness, cruelty, etc. Just give your creation a lot of fluff to explain the way it operates.
Like,
Evil Eaters: Humanoids of medium size (Size 0) that have the Eats Evil Souls trait. They target all beings that have the Evil trait or exhibit and derive pleasure from excessive and unnecessary cruelty, violence, warmongering, etc.

You might also want to further define what constitutes "excessive and unnecessary" in the above situations to prevent too many ambiguous situations from cropping up.

[Vgray]

On a note unrelated to the morality discussion, I'm half wondering if I should just bite the bullet, admit I'm unoriginal, create a soul eating sword, and trick a human whose name begins with A into wielding it. 

Where's that from? Also feel free. No one here's gonna hold it against you. It's not against the rules, after all.

Ever play Warcraft III? Know who Arthas Menethil is?

[Rolepgeek]

The Evil trait describes someone who is cartoonishly, mustache-twirlingly Eeeeeeeviiiiil!

The mitigating factor is the trait. So yes, they're 'evil', as a result of factors even more out of their control than someone with a fucked up childhood. Doesn't mean you can let 'em do the shit they want to, but it does mean that blaming them for it or trying to berate them for it, or even say they're bad people, is pointless. The first two would accomplish nothing, and the third is redundant.

And no, I don't call people evil. That isn't, in fact, necessary. Usually, I work on a scale of 'asshole' versus 'nice guy'. At the extremes, 'would and/or does commit genocide/ethnic cleansing', up to 'jumps on a grenade to save civilian lives'. I describe what they do that is good or bad, or both. Because that's what I have access to. I'm not omniscient, so I don't call people evil. If I was, I wouldn't call them evil. Suicide bombers believe they're martyrs, as do their comrades.

And this is leaving aside the fact that there's multiple ways to interpret morality, the most common two as far as I'm aware being Deontologism and Consequentialism. I'm somewhere between the two, like I'm guessing a lot of people are. Some people have morality given to them by their religion and/or imprinted philosophy. That's how they were taught, how they grew up, how they were indoctrinated, whatever you wanna say. Morality is very rarely objective, and when it is, it's mostly shit like 'punching people in the face for no reason'.

Objective quandaries don't show up in real life precisely because they're objective, so no one does them. If it seems like someone does, it's probably because of other issues, like being very impulsive. We all have that tiny part of the brain that says "I wonder what would happen if I just grabbed the wheel out of their hands and pulled really hard" or "What if I smashed the window on this plane out, right now?". We also have the much larger part that says "Well, people could easily die, so we ain't doin' that."