Suppose that a D&D character is an ethical nihilist and not believe that "good" and "evil" exist, or if they do...

Depends on the setting. If it's a setting that existed pre-2e then all sentient creatures are actually born knowing what their alignment is and what that means.

Additionally they may or may not also speak a secret language known only by those of that alignment.

I never said he talks about his moral beliefs a lot. Maybe he holds these beliefs but doesn't discuss them. He could have all kinds of interesting things about him.

>I never said he talks about his moral beliefs a lot
If you're going through the trouble to make an "ethically interesting" character, than you're going to talk about it all the time, whether you intend to or not. It's just needlessly complicated for no reason. He could have all kinds of interesting things about him, but you'd have to be very specific for anyone to come up with any applicable situations where he would be uniquely different in a non-pedantic way.

You don't understand Evil or Lawful.

Alignment, when used, is an intrinsic aspect of the setting. Opinion has nothing to do with it.

read the book of exalted deeds. now, is your character altruistic? does he have a respect for life, or a concern for the dignity of sentient beings? is he benevolent? if yes to most of these, he is good-aligned. belief has noting to do with it. Also, ethical nihilism is dumb.

Alignment is a fact in the D&D universe. A person can believe in it or not, it still exists.

I should also point out Alignment is not a person's motivation (though it can factor into that). It does not determine his morality. Alignment as it exists in D&D is reactive. It's the aggregate morality of that person's actions regardless of the hows and whys.

You do not do X thing because you are Y Alignment. You are Y Alignment because you do X thing.

If he does good things and does not do evil things, he is good, not evil.
Neutral works too, but endangering yourself for the sake of others is pretty much the baseline for good alignment.

What is good and what is evil? Well thats some philosophical bullshit I tell ya what.

>itt people spooked about desire being only internal rather than contextually related

>What is good and what is evil? Well thats some philosophical bullshit I tell ya what.
A-are we starting this long ass conversation?

>he fucking framed it

IMO, I interpret it like this:
>Good
Respects other people. Goes out of the way to make other people's lives better when it's in their power.
>Evil
Dislikes other people. Goes out of the way to make other people's lives worse when it's in their power.
>Orderly
Identifies with a particular organization of people, and seeks to further the goals of that organization.
>Chaotic
Focused on their own individual needs, and actively opposes the wills of groups trying to influence them.

This would then make the ethical nihilist good-aligned, because their actions are consistently good aligned, regardless of the motives. He can be convinced that people being happy is a bad thing and make people happy out of spite, but as long as it's intentionally helping others, or preferring helping others to hurting them, they're good-aligned.

I disagree. If a person is intentionally acting in a way that harms others, with their rational being a "greater good", we have to analyze that greater good.

If this person's god wanted people skinned alive to venerate him, this god would, by definition, be evil, and therefore, anyone following it's will would also be evil. Any time a deity demands someone kill people, that deity's reasoning is inherited by it's followers. It sounds like this god is going full on "Blood for the blood lord, skulls for the skull throne", which serves no purpose other than the selfish satisfaction of this god, so by definition, both this god and it's followers would be evil.

ive been reading this recently I think you guys would enjoy it. The first four essays are on the ethics in D&D/alignment system

According to the rulebook, Alignment is based on actions and not intent, so he's leaning toward good. You can reject the cosmic concepts of Good and Evil all you want, but that doesn't change that in DnD (unlike real life) they are very much real, and Good is as Good does.

You're not Good if you go around raping babies because you think it's Good.

>A hypothetical person is thinking wrong thoughts! Waaah!
Be more mad.

>If a person is intentionally acting in a way that harms others, with their rational being a "greater good", we have to analyze that
Depends on your felicity calculus. If following a god that demanded human sacrifice allowed you to save the lives of many people, then it depends entirely on how you determine what goodness is.

To me, goodness is simple, the aggregate of net harm vs. net benefit. If you had to push a button to save the lives of 100 people, but someone somewhere would die, it`s an easy and simple solution. The loss of one life is less than the loss of 100 lives. To a lawful good character and a chaotic good character, it's also a simple solution for the same reasons. The lawful good character will most likely push the button because they are absolutely certain that saving 99 people is worth it in the end because it is "more good" of an action, regardless of circumstance, or will refuse to push the button on principal because killing anyone is wrong. A chaotic good character's actions are more dependent on who the person is, versus how the 100 people are related to them. Generally, they will understand that 99 net lives gained is the best end, but they may act illogically to save someone who could help their cause. A true good character refuses to participate because killing anyone is morally wrong, and although their inaction may directly result in tremendous net harm, their motivations are more aligned with idealistic good.

Evil works the same way. A Lawful Evil character generally pushes the button because the 99 lives gained outweigh the 1 life lost, but may also choose not to push the button depending on the value of the 1 life to their cause. A chaotic evil character will generally not push the button because the net harm of 99 lost lives is the greatest, but they may choose to push the button for the fuck of it, if they're bored. A true evil character will never push the button because the 99 lives lost is most idealistically evil.

To use a more extreme example and expand a little bit, I would subject 1 person to 1000 years of torture if it let 1000 people have 1 year without torture. They are net neutral interactions, despite torture being inherently evil. I would consider this a lawful neutral action because it's done simply for the principle of the greatest net benefit, rather than the moral choice of the "most good" action. A true good character would refuse because idealistically torture is wrong. A true evil character would also refuse because it leaves the possibility of the greatest net harm. Lawful good and lawful evil will generally side for the torture because it would allow for the greatest net benefit. A chaotic good or chaotic evil character is a complete mystery and the answer is more contextual. Being neutral only means your self aware enough to know absolute goodness or absolute evil isn't possible.

Yes.

DnD alignment doesn't track well with moral theory. DnD alignment is predicated on the idea of objective good and evil, which are active physical forces in the universe. Thus, if a character does something within evil's portfolio, they are doing evil, and may be evil, even if they had good intentions. All alignment disputes come from how poorly defined this idea is in the sourcebooks, and people trying to apply personal moral theories to the concept of DnD alignment. Also stirner a shit.

Is the choice you're presenting here 1 person suffers 1000 hours of torture, or 1000 people suffer 1 hour of torture each?

If so, how is any side better or worse than the other? There's the same amount of torture going on in each.

But the amount of physical and psychological damage wouldn't be the same.

Can we add in to the sticky that any thread trying to "break" the alignment system with a what-if is inherently shitposting?

No one who knows what they're talking about has ever claimed that the DnD alignment system represents an actual system of morals, fucking Powerpuff girls has more philosophical nuance. But it was never supposed to be, it's just a simplistic game mechanic where your actions affect your abilities and weaknesses. Now fuck off.

That was the point, it's a net zero of torture either way in terms of ultiltarian. This is why both true good and true evil were on the same side and lawful good /lawful evil were also on the same side. I was trying to use it as an example to show how the alignments would function if the situation was ambiguous. I feel like the "lawful" part wants to inherently preserve the most members of society, whereas the "good" part is relative to the individual being tortured for an inhuman amount of time.

obviously the one person suffering immesurably is worse than many people suffering a little.

he's saying your unreflected utilitarianism has been disected and found wanting since the goddamn 60s.

I've got Monty Python & Philosophy and it's a pretty great read. I've been hesitant to check out the rest of the line as I've heard many of them are a bit shite, but I'll check this one out.

Seems like a certain philosophy recognizing that good and evil are completely arbitrary metaphysical labels that have little to do with intent or values. He'd be right.

Anyways if his actions would paint him good he may wear that label. He'd just as likely be LN though depending how much do gooding he actually does.

A bunch of different authors so the quality is variable, but there are some real gems in it

>It depends on his reasoning for skinning people alive.
As you just stated no it doesn't not, it depends on him believing in Good and Evil to begin with.

Regardless of whether or not he cares about the good-evil label, the label of good would apply to him.

one cannot escape the innate existence of good and evil in the human experience, it's only a matter of semantics if he doesn't want to call it good and evil but prefer to say "it would be better if" he is still using our natural affinity for recognizing good and bad, in relation to different things and in themselves, like in Plato's theory of forms, when you look at the form of good or the idea of good or as Plato calls it "the good itself" of course it exists because we can sanitize it from all other feelings and ideas and refer to it as a stand alone concept, that feeling of good and bad determines what each human decides to do to reach an end that he think to be good no matter what he thinks the end good of all his actions is, good and evil just exists in us no matter how you prefer to call it.

Whence his desire to see them happy? Whence his aversion to their deaths?

You can say he doesn't see in terms of good and evil, but his aversion to other people's kids being murdered is socialized.

i.e. spooks. You can't escape the haunted house that easy brah. The ride never stops

This, "good" and "badl" will always exist whenever one thing is preferred over another in abstract. The only way to live "beyond" good or bad is to have literally no preference for anything and to make decisions at random. This is obviously impossible.

>If he needed to venerate his god, but was a "ethical nihilst" he would be lawful neutral because there is nothing inherently evil in his actions, he's just doing what he has to do to appease his god
If whether or not his actions are evil is dependent on why he believes he's doing it, then there really couldn't be anything inherently evil, could there? Since it's all based on how he feels about it. But then, if there can't be anything inherently evil, by what basis can you declare it to be evil? You're essentially saying that if he believes what he's doing is a utilitary necessity it's neutral, if he's just in it for the lols and doesn't understand the concept of it being evil it's chaotic, and if he knew that it was evil then it would be evil. But how could he "know" it was evil when the thing that made it evil was him believing it was evil? If he believes it's good, is it good? If he believes it's good but doesn't do it, is it evil? This system of moral semi-relativism makes no sense.

>I usually use lawful for moral and chaotic for amoral
so, a lawful evil character is someone who believes there to be a strict moral code, and believes in that code strongly, but chooses to ignore it? What the fuck? What sort of idiot would break with a moral code most of their waking hours, and do so gladly, but still sincerely believe in that moral code?

And if someone's chaotic, how can they be anything other than neutral, since you've already established that if you don't believe that something is good or evil, then it isn't. So a character that doesn't consider morality to meaningfully exist could not be anything other than neutral.

And what is a neutral character on this lawful/moral-chaotic/amoral dichotomy? Someone who believes that morality exists but that it doesn't really matter and can be ignored? How is that different from your version of an evil character?

Essentially, the only alignments that make even a little sense under your system are LG and CN.

Could someone remind me what the spooks shit was about again?

>These things describe things I base most of my decisions of.
>CLEARLY THEY ARE NOT THE MOST OBVIOUS EVIL YOU FOOOL
Its pretty evil desu senpai

Hmm maybe, could be neutral.

The fact that he does it for personal happines puts him in the neutral path, not selfless like good and the fact that he cares about others (without a hefty pay), strangers no less is what makes him not evil.

>ideas to which individuals sacrifice themselves and by which they are dominated. Among the "spooks" Stirner attacks are such notable aspects of capitalist life as private property, the division of labour, the state, religion, and society itself.

Concepts with no intrinsic reality or weight that only exist because we think they exist. If the state lost its ability to enforce itself through violence it would evaporate instantly. If the state didn't exist then private property would also revert to its only non-spook form, which is "If you cross this line I'll kill you"

If I pull someone's eyes out does that make seeing a spook?
isn't everything dependent on a certain system of laws to exists in a certain way?
isn't the spook concept a spook itself because it doesn't exist as anything "physical" in the "real" world?

this idea is silly

>alignments
Not even twice.

+1

>selfish idiot

You've got more spooks than Detroit does.

>utilitarianism

>If I pull someone's eyes out does that make seeing a spook?
No.
>isn't everything dependent on a certain system of laws to exists in a certain way?
Only physical laws.
>isn't the spook concept a spook itself because it doesn't exist as anything "physical" in the "real" world?
Only if you allow it to dominate you

>this idea is silly
You're silly.

>ethical nihilist
Clearly, he would be true neutral, hating both moral and ethical axis on the alignment chart.

>Only if you allow it to dominate you
so is it a spook or not?
are all ideas spooks?
even if they create the reality we experience?
does that mean that loving someone is a spook?
you don't actually feel and experience love? maybe you'd say, "it only exists in your mind" , and I say that from a certain view point everything you are aware of exists in your mind thus the reality you experience is just as much of a spook, it's a question of dimensions as a system of laws in which an environment exist, in the dimension of the army there are strict laws that people with a lot of power or influence enforce, in that dimension you cannot walk around in underwear without getting a military trial, in the same way in the dimension of Earth and the environment we exist in the physical laws dictate that, for an easy example, a thing plus a thing equels two things,everything exists in a certain dimension with a system of laws that governs its particular existence, but to call a huge amount of these dimensions a "spook" and dismiss them as if they don't exist and don't have implications over reality is ignorant and foolish.

In other words it's a metaphysical idea that fails in the test of the human experience and can be dismissed as folly.

>deconstructs forms
>appeal to plato's forms anyway

get it together user

fivehead went and had to write a response to everyone using his first book to be a dickbag. He means from the social, and the necessary interconnected communities from shared experiences. He just thought that shit was so obvious he didn't have to clarify. Turns out he was wrong. No one reads the second book though.

i don't even know where to start with how retarded you are

I don't know where to start with how much of a pleb you are

>whatdidyoujustsaytomeyoulittlepseudointellectual.copypasta

just kiss me already you fucking faggot

It's called "neutral"

He's a wanker. You're one too, OP. Stop posting such pretentious shite.

>telemarketer's

Lawful Good, with an emphassis of law. His passive actions of compassion will net him points in that regardless on whether or not that's what he believes.

Nothing you wrote makes sense.

>desu senpai
Oh, it must be because you're retarded.