Hey

Ok then.
necromancy is evil because the undead (zombies,skeletons,ghouls,etc) themselves are evil.

I seriously hope you don't actually believe this.

/thread
A gun isn't evil, it's just a tool.

And yet they don't have to be. Ghouls are sentient and can choose their path in life, and even zombies can be given that moral agency with Awaken Undead.

>Depends on the setting.

Non-shit settings shouldn't have evil necromancy (or good/evil narratives).

>Ghouls are sentient and can choose their path in life, and even zombies can be given that moral agency with Awaken Undead.
#notallflesheaters

Why? Motivate your reply, friend.

The two (main) formulations of the categorical imperative:

>Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law

>Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end

"I shall resurrect the dead to serve my will"-The maxim in question.

First formulation analysis:
There's the argument that if people resurrect the dead to serve their will then it will lead to a corpse-deficit. If that's the case, then necromancy would clearly be nonuniversalizable. If, however,not everyone-in a world governed by the above maxim-would employ necromantic servants (perhaps due to the smell), the maxim could well be universalizable. So long as enough corpses exist, it's concievable that everyone could be a necromancer. This, as everything else, depends on the setting.

Second formulation analysis:
This also raises questions, although of a more philosophically interesting nature. What is it about humanity that Kant thinks is important enough such that they must be treated as an end-in-themselves, and should undead servants be classified the same way?

Kant thinks that humans are creatures governed by rational necessity. His imperative relies on this; the reason you've done "wrong" under Kant is because you've committed a logical error. For an undead servant to be covered by the second formulation, it would have to be similarly governed. It would have to be able to make rational decisions between choices. Moreover, the decisions couldn't merely be the instinctual impulses felt by animals; that's not good enough for Kant. Many types of undead fit this bill: Liches, many types of ghosts, etc. Skeletons and zombies may or may not be sentient.

For Kant, it all depends on the setting.

Yes!
Yes!
Why do you post Immanuel "Lawful Lawful" Kant?

Golems also involve the kidnapping, imprisonment, and arguably torture, of still living, intelligent beings. Anyone claiming that necromancy is horrible and immoral while offering golems as an alternative are morons.

Necromancy is fine if it's someone already dead, the soul is long gone to whatever afterlife and is completely unaffected by things that happen to it's body, save for things like resurrection.

>Are they merely automatons

In official settings(the only ones worth mentioning in discussions), this is exactly what mindless undead you raise are.

>There's the argument that if people resurrect the dead to serve their will then it will lead to a corpse-deficit. If that's the case, then necromancy would clearly be nonuniversalizable. If, however,not everyone-in a world governed by the above maxim-would employ necromantic servants (perhaps due to the smell), the maxim could well be universalizable. So long as enough corpses exist, it's conceivable that everyone could be a necromancer. This, as everything else, depends on the setting.
Wait, so you're saying "If not everybody does it, it's universalizable"? Because that's nonsense.
>There's the argument that if people kill others they're annoyed with then it will lead to a people-deficit. If that's the case, then murder would clearly be nonuniversalizable. If, however, not everyone murders people they're annoyed by, then it could well be.
I mean, that second sentence is just plainly nonsensical. You're contradicting yourself: if not everybody in the world can resurrect corpses -- even if it's just because the smell would be unbearable! -- the maxim is not universalizable. I think I'm forced to admit your argument using the second formulation has legs, though.

Most of the time, I just use that without thinking too much to reply to people who seem like they could be utilitarians, e.g.,
>If necromancy is practical, then it's OK!
but this time it seems like there might actually be something interesting to think about here

>Golems also involve the kidnapping, imprisonment, and arguably torture, of still living, intelligent beings
Wait, what?
As far as I'm aware, the original golem of myth was simply made out of clay and animated in the first place by the scroll in its mouth. They can't make decisions.

Probably because he doesn't know that the guy was an avid law and state philosopher that quite literally said "it's not the state's job or purpose to be moral"

In D&D, golems require you to stuff an elemental into it to power the thing.

Kant is a cunt.

Healing magic is addictive. You need more juice to reach full health the higher your level.

I like your style

>Cast awaken undead on average zombie.
>It has an existential crisis.

It's more "undead instinctively attempt to destroy all life if uncontrolled and intelligent undead are enormously evil".

My negative energy plane is a willful entity working towards the termination of all existence.

The good/evil question doesn't really matter. Negative energy wants to kill you and trying to use undead for cutesy 'lol i'm a friendly necromancer' shenanigans is like the guys in Doom using Hell Energy. It only obeys you as long as it's convenient to.

It's the difference between banning necromancy because of one's subjective sense of morality, and banning necromancy because it has a proveably negative effect on the world and those who live in it.

It depends on the setting, but if raising undead has no demonstrable drawback, then there is no logical, justifiable reason to ban its practise. If zombies poison people by their mere presence, or are unreliable and prone to breaking their programming and eating people, or if necromancy rots the practitioner's brains and drives them crazy, then yes, there is fair grounds to ban the practise.

So if you enter this discussion and argue on practical grounds (see above) instead of moral ones, then I will happily accept your argument. But if you attempt to push some "universal morality" bullshit, you can get the fuck out.

>that
>"anime"
Excuse me, what the fuck?

Kant's first formulation is hinges on the logical possibility of the universalizability of the maxim. For example, lying is (famously) prohibited by the first formulation. If everybody followed the maxim "I will lie to get what I want", then we would live in a world where lying no longer made any sense; no one would trust what people say in the first place. It is only the expectation of truth that makes lying possible.

Murder is prohibited for similar reasons. If everyone adopted the maxim "I will kill everyone who annoys me", then we would rapidly run out of people to kill. The maxim would no longer be universalizable.

There are two reasons why "I shall resurrect the dead to serve my will" might be universalizable. 1. It might be the case that there are enough bodies for everyone to resurrect corpses. 2. It might be the case that not everyone needs corpses to serve their will. Remember that we're universalizing maxims here, not actions. It doesn't matter for Kant that not everyone can take the action "Sit on this particular chair right here", it matters for Kant that everyone can adopt the maxim "I will sit on chairs when I'm tired". If there's insufficient demand for undead servants, even given the widespread ability to raise them, then the replacement rate would be sustainable and thus the maxim would be universalizable. The difference between the necromancy example and the murdering-those-who-annoy-you example is that everyone(or enough) people get annoyed with others to make the murder example un-universalizable. My contention is that it is at least conceivable that not enough people would want undead servants to make the maxim "If I want to, I'll raise undead servants to help me" un-universalizable.

Wait, what?

Your argument against the use of necromancy is that there won't be enough corpses for everyone to raise their own undead servants? What if only a few people raised undead servants, but shared the use of their servants with those who didn't/couldn't?

I don't know if you're the same person who was responding previously, and so don't know how much of this to explain.

Kant believes that humans have a universal rational capacity which obligates us to particular action absent our desires. His basis for morality is based on avoiding 'category errors', which he thinks of as logical errors, similar to begging the question or strawmanning.

The first formulation of his categorical imperative is the one in question here. "Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law". What he's trying to say here is that if you have a maxim-a principle- for doing something, you'd better be sure that you could universalize that maxim. You need to ask yourself "could everyone act on the same principle that I'm acting on?". This 'could' is in reference to logical possibility. Take the aforementioned lying example. If everyone acted on the maxim "I will lie to get what I want", then nobody would be able to lie. It's logically impossible to universalize that maxim. Note how this doesn't require that people who lie ask themselves "What if everybody lied all the time?". The categorical imperative doesn't deal with actions; it just deals with maxims.

Necromancy is an analogous situation. The question is, if everybody took the maxim "I shall resurrect the dead to serve my will", then there are one of two possibilities: Either 1, there are enough corpses to keep up with the amount of necromancy going on or 2, there is a corpse-deficit, meaning that the maxim will lead to its own logical impossibility.

If the first option is true, then necromancy passes the categorical imperative, and is ethical for Kant. If the second is the case, then it fails the categorical imperative, and is not ethical for Kant.

Could you explain to me how the will to power doesn't just break down into pleasure? How could the will to power be fundamental if it can only be conceptualized as being concurrent and even subservient to pleasure?

And if it is just a way to get pleasure, then what's stopping us from getting pleasure from other methods, like helping each other out and making just societies?

I don't think necromancy is analogous to lying, though.

It's like using wood to make a chair. If everybody took the maxim "I will craft wood into a chair to rest on", then there are one of two possibilities: either 1, there is enough wood to keep up with the amount of carpentry going on or 2, there is a wood-deficit, meaning that the maxim will lead to its own logical impossibility.

Do you see what I'm saying? By the logic you're using, carpentry is unethical, which is clearly nonsense.

not the original poster but congrats, this is one of the issues taken with Kantianism. The idea of maxims as judge of right or wrong leaves far too much wiggle room (or is shockingly too restrictive) depending on someone's language.

How you craft your maxim can make an act ethical/unethical regardless. At least if I'm following this conversation (just jumping in).
"I will make this specific chair from this specific tree." Not everybody can do this.
"I will make one object from one tree." There might be more people than trees, but nobody only uses one tree in their lifetime.

Zombies are loyal soldiers, free labor, and part of the commons. If zombification is allowed, every incentive is structured such that you must acquire more zombies than your competitors do before your competitors deplete the available pool. Also the "available pool" will quickly begin to include the living for the same reasons.

Every body you haven't zombified can and will be used to steamroll you. And they'll add insult to injury by zombifying you as well.

I think that you've got the right interpretation on your carpentry example. I think Kant would have to say that if everyone adopted the maxim "If I'm tired, I'll craft a chair made of wood" and that would lead to the logical impossibility of chair-making (ie. trees go extinct) then he would have to say that the original maxim is unethical.

has the right of it, though. By gerrymandering the exact text of your maxim, it's easy to make things permissible or impermissible for Kant.

rule of thumb; if it's not native to the material plane then it's not evil to use and abuse that sweet sweet energy those elementals/outsiders abuse by simply existing

>Golems are just as good

Yeah but you're arguing using a wagon made of bones versus a modern, german made tractor.

Clay and rock>bones and sinew.

Necromancy is evil the same way suicide bombers are evil.

Its a thing only evil people use, good people are above it.

If you have a shit system he is shit, Here is the best Invisible servant ever.

so that makes it good depending on religion and culture of the area

thus it's setting dependant

Well of course, but thats the literal case for everything.

Since you know, magic isn't actually real.

Mama always said "Magic is as Magic does."

Except that in at least some cosmologies Evil is an objective force. In those cosmologies, saying "necromancy is Evil" is as valid as saying "an apple has mass." Possibly moreso, because wizards could probably make a massless apple if they put their minds to it.

said the nephandi

There are some cheaper constructs that can be made, one, in particular, any aspiring magical craftsman should look into since it can take care of time dedicated to crafting for you.

I mean, don't ghouls generally eat dead-flesh?
#notallflesheaters could apply to any race or society that eats meat technically.

Yeah but who cares about elementals?

You can even overdose on positive energy and explode! It doesn't extend to healing magic though maybe it should if you start to get a mountain of temporary hitpoints dwarfing your normal ones.

>"hey john, is your sword powered by a screaming imprisoned angel?"
>"don't worry, it's not from this plane, so it's all good"
>"but don't souls like ours and our families' turn into those outsiders after death?"
>"sorry, can't hear you over my kick-ass screaming angel sword, I'm gonna go kill some more stuff!"

Sure, just as valid as "apples are evil", depends on the setting.

Bump

Necromancy without any of the risks or costs is kinda boring.

Smelting aluminum has risks (like the fact aluminum smelters have been known to fucking explode), that doesn't make it evil.

A better criticism of the will to power is that it's still teleological.

Anyhow, Nietzsche was an egoist, so his premise is still basically hedonistic, the difference is that he rejected the notion that pleasure is actually a good, and said that forgoing immediate pleasure to see your aims brought forth was not only acceptable (whereas a philosopher like Epicurus would have said it was foolish) but desirable, as he viewed suffering as a necessary component of growth.

this reminds me of the let's play I saw of the game Birthright: the Gorgon's Alliance where the dude immediately befriended The Eyeless One because he gave the PC access to a spell which made a troop of Skeleton warriors, which were extremely good.

Necromancy uses a lot of evil methods to achieve it's results, that's one of the interesting things about it.

I disagree. I think the "evil" of it is trite, and assumes an inherently tired and bland cosmological narrative. Especially since we keep mashing this Zoroastian and Judaic meme into mythologies where it doesn't fit.

Sure, but the only time I see people wanting good necromancy is for undead production exploits.

Because most gamers are that weird brand of STEMlord that thinks technology is the solution to all of our ills.

I don't want "good" necromancy, I want necromancy that goes beyond good and evil, and to do away with this dichotomistic garbage in fantasy.

You have any examples? I find it hard to see how much of what necomancers do wouldn't be considered evil.

The necromancer of Diablo 2 springs readily to mind, even though its universe is still very much a good/evil dichotomy (though at the very least, not trying to jam it into a completely different style of cosmology).

My basic objection here is the idea of "evil" which implies that it's something from which nothing of merit can spring from. It being "good" would be just as bad, which would imply it's always of merit.

But it is a dark art. You literally have to commune with daemons for many necromantic rituals, and kill people.

>B-but daemons aren't real
Magnus pls go and stay go

>daemons
>evil

The tiger is not evil for being dangerous.

Since we all know It Depends on the Setting, here's a question.

What is the benefit of playing a setting where necromancy is inherently Evil?

A tiger isn't a malicious sapient being.

Daemons act according to their nature. They can't really be considered much different.

It might be their nature, but it doesn't stop them from being anathema to everything else and people who treat with them can certainly be considered evil.

Again, they're not evil for being dangerous. Fire consumes, dams collapse, and smelting aluminum explode, not one of these things is evil for it. The very notion of evil is superstitious.

People don't care that it's a superstition. If a demon comes and steals their baby and uses it in a ritual to cast the world in eternal darkness, they're not going to just shrug their shoulders and move on.

They're evil because they are AWARE that they are evil, you massive retard. A tiger or a fucking inanimate object cannot be evil because they lack consciousness.
This is some basic-tier philosophy that most people would think you'd got figured out at age 12.

If a cow kicks over a lantern and burns down an entire city, they're not just going to shrug their shoulders and move on.

If a dam collapses and destroys an entire city, they're not just going to shrug their shoulders and move on.

I'm an aluminum foundry explodes and kills several people, they're not just going to shrug their shoulders and move on.

>They're evil because they are AWARE that they are evil, you massive retard.

Awareness (consciousness) is an illusion. They act according to their nature and can act in no way but according to their nature.

Now, what is evil? Surely someone with the basic philosophy of a 12 year old can tell me that.

>"Golems are just as good a solution and don't rely on dark arts and soul stealing to make"

I've taken issue with this reasoning since I was a kid and first found out about AD&D. Most golems are powered by a bound elemental. The elemental DOES NOT WANT TO BE BOUND IN THE GOLEM. If the creator loses control of the golem, it goes on a rage BECAUSE THE BOUND ELEMENTAL DOES NOT WANT.

Elementals are not very smart (in AD&D their Int is 2-4), but they ARE aware that they were ripped from their happy home and forced into permanent servitude in a closed-off prison universe.

I don't think I can argue whether or not opening channels to the Negative Energy Plane and slowly eating away at the fabric of the Prime Material Plane is more or less moral than kidnapping hapless retarded fire-people from another dimension and forcing them to run on a treadmill for thousands of years unless I know more specifics of the setting and edition.

They won't consider those a malicious act, perception matters. Evil may not be a tangible thing, but that doesn't matter, it's a label that people assign to things.

At this point, you are beginning to show your ignorance and denial, and resorting to shit-tier philosophy and weak rethorical questions really doesn't help that.

In the case of the first one, they ruined that woman's life (even though she wasn't to blame, not even her cow was to blame), and several building designers and the like have wound up strung up (metaphorically or otherwise) for things that weren't their fault.

But the point here is that the danger involved wasn't indicative of cosmological evil, only danger.

What if demons were made by a cosmological evil?

>A gun isn't evil
Exactly, it's what you do with it that matters. Just like magic isn't evil, it's just a tool. But using it to disturb the remains of people is seen as evil by a great many cultures.

>I have no answer.

Good show. This basic philosophy has been well defended by a master philosopher and rhetorician such as you.

Also consciousness is just an illusory overlay on top of basic physical processes that follow a fundamentally causal and deterministic pattern. You being butthurt about it wont change that: there's no essential difference between man, tiger, or daemon.

What makes the evil evil? If it's simply the fact it's been branded "evil" it makes it a force no different than fire.

Because the entity choose to create demons in order to increase his own power at the expense of others.

Which entity? Is this entity a force of evil itself? How can it be considered to be doing anything outside of its nature?

Nope it's a big powerful guy who had a choice to be either good or evil and choose evil.

So his choices spring freely in a void without cause or reason? Or do they follow a causal pattern?

He acts out of jealousy of his brothers creations and seeks to destroy them out of pettiness.

So he has a reason, and his decisions follow a causal pattern, therefore acting according to his nature. Do note that jealousy, destruction, and pettiness or not inherently evil; merit can still be found in all of them.

I mean sure, you can say that good and evil don't exist but good luck convincing people of that. It's based on emotion not logic.

Who cares what they think? Whether or not something exist is not a matter of what they think.

Why not just use a humunculus then? Or a Bogun. Nothing used but what's in the caster already, they share alignments, and last indefinitely(without having to recast a spell)

People do very much care about what other people think. You can deny labels all you want it won't stop people applying them to you.

The gun doesn't walk around and shot people.

We're discussing whether something can be considered to exist or not. Public consensus has no place here.

The very fact that we're discussing it means it exists.

That's stupid. We could be discussing Mickey Mouse too, does he exist?

Not physically, but he's certainly at least a concept. Good and Evil are categories, you can argue whether or not they apply but the definitely exist.

Nah, then they'd have to spend longer than five seconds thinking about their sense of aesthetics.

>Necromancy uses a lot of evil methods to achieve it's results, that's one of the interesting things about it.

Depends on the setting.

>Sure, but the only time I see people wanting good necromancy is for undead production exploits.

So tie the practise of necromancy to some finite resource, like a certain plant or mineral. Boom, necromancy now has a significant material footprint, and you can start building interesting geopolitics around its widespread adoption and use.

>You have any examples? I find it hard to see how much of what necromancers do wouldn't be considered evil.

Anyone could write a setting in which necromancy doesn't involve blood sacrifice or infernal pacts or whatever, and it would be just as legitimate a portrayal of necromancy as, say, the Forgotten Realms. Because this is all make-believe, and one person's game of pretend is no more or less "true" than anyone else's.

There are Amorvrin, the mindless unliving, and Gulmorvrin, the free-willed eternally suffering unliving with shattered, fractured souls. Both of these are animated by the Shadow of Bukrai, an unholy force emanating from the terrace of Morgath Lord of Chaos overlooking the bottom of the Void Pit containing the alien and primordial Sphere of Bukrai on the otherworld of Yashain.

The Shadow of Bukrai is a mysterious animate force spreading and permeating the world that seems to convert or transubstantiate life into unlife. It emanates from the Sphere of Bukrai. Some mages believe that the Sphere of Bukrai is a demiplane shell or shells forged from the remnants of previously destroyed multiverses. Who forged this Sphere, why it is called Bukrai, and why it might be desirable to warp life into a twisted reflection or inversion of itself is unknown, since the God Morgath seized the Sphere of Bukrai and cast it into the otherworld of Yashain creating the nigh-infinite void pit.

One thing is certain, the Shadow of Bukrai spreads like a plague or pollution weakening life and spreading death and decay. Wherever undead are prevalent, the land, it's flora and fauna, and the people who live in such blighted lands wither. Those who spread the horrifying entropy of Bukrai are certainly evil, even the Morvrin driven by their connection to the sphere. The unlife, those who study and use it, and those infected by it, will never be compatible with life and light.

>that thinks technology is the solution to all of our ills.

what is then?