Information On PS's Alignment System

[Draklar]

Originally posted by ross.burns
You\'ve argued consistently that they should be put into the game based on their benefits, as you saw them, that they were useful to newbies and helpful to older RPGers. Haven\'t you?

Go ahead and quote me saying it should be implemented.

And, then, how would you define a right action and a wrong action - which is what most people would call your good/evil, I suspect.

Right action - something that should be done.
Wrong action - something that shouldn\'t be done.

Also, you definition of good/evil is purely secularist. For religious folk good/evil depends on how faitful/permitted their actions are in their religion, for knights of the round table it was how closely their actions matched the chivalry archetype, etc,. Don\'t pretend good and evel are just simple concepts with a shared definition by everyone. No matter what your dictionary dictates.

I\'d like to see you give an argument of how being faithfull alone brings welfare.
Quite frankly \"good follower\" and \"good person\" mean completely different things.

Your responses consist of such arguments as \"for most people\", \"for religious folk\", \"for knights of the round table\". Such arguments hold very little importance to me. I\'d rather see arguments based on reasoning. What other people think is hardly something I\'d be convinced by.

[ross.burns]

Man, I\'m sorry, but terms like \'good\' and \'evil\' don\'t HAVE to have anything to do with welfare. They\'re simply not definitive terms. You can\'t \'reason\' when you use terms like \'good\' and \'evil\'. And your definition of a right or wrong action is circular - what actions ought ot be done, and which actions ought not to be done?

[Kythag]

Draklar ruffles your feathers?

1) I am the most reactionary person on this planet(of course, you haven\'t seen an example of this :\\ ), at times.  Draklar has never ruffled my feathers.

2) I can\'t wait until you meet zanzibar or Verliit or some of the others on here who truly know how to \"ruffle some feathers.\"

Disclaimer:  This is not a condemnation of these people, just a sincere admiration for people who have a knack for irritating people(whether they mean to or not )

Note:  The last time I made a disclaimer, it was disclaimed.  :\\

Edited for missing words.

[Draklar]

Originally posted by ross.burns
Man, I\'m sorry, but terms like \'good\' and \'evil\' don\'t HAVE to have anything to do with welfare.

Then what? Once again I\'m asking for reasoning. And that means philosophical meanings of the terms. Not \"good game\" or such.

Originally posted by ross.burns They\'re simply not definitive terms. You can\'t \'reason\' when you use terms like \'good\' and \'evil\'.

If you don\'t reason when discussing those terms, it explains a lot :[

Originally posted by ross.burns
And your definition of a right or wrong action is circular - what actions ought ot be done, and which actions ought not to be done?

Did you even read all the posts in this thread? Right and wrong are subjective terms based on personal opinions. So what should be done and what shouldn\'t is based on what you believe to be right and what wrong. If for you personally nothing is right or wrong, then that\'s simply sad. It isn\'t right to live, nor is it right to die... It\'s like being a plant, you just exist :[

[ross.burns]

I misrepresented myself when I said one cannot use reason with those terms, what I meant was that one could use reason to make those terms mean anything at all. One might reason that \'good\' has to be based on \'right\' actions - being good and doing good is doing things one ought to do. That is not an unreasonable definition of \'good\'. \'Good\' is as subjective as \'right\'. One might believe that what is \'good\' is what God decides is \'good\' - for instance: an orthodox Jew believes that doing the mitzvot of the Torah is good because God has said they are good. Things are right or wrong and good or evil depending on what God dictates in the Torah - the commanded actions are not always logical or explained (how can not eating one animal or another whilst eating another one - and seemingly by arbitrary standards - be described as either good or right?) but they are always good because God says so. Here, you will notice, right and wrong and good and evil are inextricably linked - one ought to do what God says AND what God says is right AND what God says is Good. You are not doing Good by doing Wrong actions. It is not a confusion of terms, it is simply a different definition of them than yours. One ought to do what God says because God says it - morality is defined by God\'s word. If God had said to Moses when giiving the Torah \"And all Jews must rape children, which he wouldn\'t because God is not only Good and Right, but also Loving (see, in this definition, welfare is separated from good/evil - which refer ONLY to whether God commanded it or not) but if he had, then raping children would be both Good and Right, though not loving or pleasant. The two things are unconnected. An orthodox Jew might say you are confusing your terms, because Good and Evil only refer to God\'s commands, not to whether the actions are pleasant or logical or increase welfare.

This is only one example. Just face it Drakky ol\' buddy, you CAN\'T be correct about this, because nobody can. It\'s non-falsifiable and subjective and dependent on individual believe. There is not one consensual definitive definition of the terms Good and Evil (just as you\'ve already admitted there aren\'t for Right and Wrong). Each person will have his own working definition, and there is absolutely no need for that definition to be based on the consequences of the actions, pain/pleasure debates or any of the infinity of other arguments put forward to explain what is good or evil. This debate has raged on since the dawn of humankind\'s conscience, why do you presume to be able to give the correct answer? The best you can do is give the answer you believe is correct, which I respect as applicable and meaningful to you and probably many others, but not to everyone, nor can it be. To me, for instance, you definition yields no meaning, nor to an orthodox Jew, nor to many other people.

[Draklar]

Oh for crying out loud, even more \"some people believe that\" arguments. I already told you I don\'t care what others believe and unless you give solid arguments for what you say, you won\'t change my opinion. I can come up with a cake religion and believe cake is all-powerful, but will that change anything? No.

I\'d suggest reading up a bit, because believing what people believed in medieval times won\'t take you anywhere.
http://www.philosopher.org.uk/moral.htm

I\'m out, this discussion becomes pointless.

[Kythag]

I really liked that link, Draklar!  It is a very good summation of the history of moral development.  I had actually never studied these philsophers that believe as ross does.  I knew there were people out there, but I didn\'t know they had a place in the history of philosophy(and I have to blame that on the college I took those studies in).  Reading it, I thought of a hypothetical question to pose to you, ross:

Would you be more inclined to accept an alignment system that  had the tenth option to opt out as a non-believer in alignment?  I know you have objections based on alignment \"limiting\" roleplay.  I am merely asking if you believe that this would prevent \"imposing\" alignment on a player.

The reason I asked this is you don\'t fit into the alignment system based on your beliefs.  I know you won\'t ever believe an alignment system has a place because you believe it limits roleplay.  I am only wondering if the category of \"non-believer in alignment\" would be more palatable than having an actual alignment imposed on you.

(I use non-believer in alignment as a term to be descriptive because I can\'t think of a term offhand that would fit there).

[ross.burns]

Yes, that would be acceptable to me. That way people who don\'t want to use it aren\'t stuck with it. That also enables people who actually want to use it in-game still can - that\'s a better idea then making everyone use it or taking it out completely.

Also, I don\'t know if Drakky is still reading this, but I can\'t give anymore reasoned arguments for you - I\'m arguing from the point of Devil\'s advocate anyway, and I\'ve more than defended enough of other people\'s views of what good and evil can mean. If you really don\'t believe anybody except yourself can possibly, even a little bit, be correct, or at least have another valid view point of what good and evil mean, outside of \'good = nice\' \'evil = suffering\' then the discussion was really pointless from the start. I assumed you wanted to know about other people\'s ideas, I wasn\'t trying to dissuade you from yours. That\'s all I asked for myself as well, and I\'ve accepted time and time again that your definition of the terms is a perfectly valid one and many people would find it meaningful. This idea you have that no one else\'s concepts are meaningful, even to them, though, really is ludicrous, and I don\'t shy away from using that term in this instance.

[Kythag]

Draklar and I had to define terms at one point to continue the discussion.  The problem is that terms are not capable of being reconciled between the two views that are being discussed.  A stance of \"agreeing to disagree\" would be a nice way of ending things.

[Draklar]

Originally posted by ross.burns
If you really don\'t believe anybody except yourself can possibly, even a little bit, be correct, or at least have another valid view point of what good and evil mean, outside of \'good = nice\' \'evil = suffering\' then the discussion was really pointless from the start.

I keep changing my world views when I see people give solid argumentation for what they believe. You gave none.

Not to mention the whole determinism... One of the biggest paradoxes I\'ve ever seen.

Our minds are formed by our experiences; Therefore we are results of those experiences. Therefore it is us who make the decissions. Yet determinism states that since human actions could be predicted (noteworthy, which means same as decissions can be predicted), human being lacks ability to make decissions.

Human being lacks the ability to make decissions, because with enough info we could predict his decissions. Paradox.
Interesting world view, but doesn\'t belong in modern times.
In the concept of time we already made all the future decissions. But the keyword is \"we\".

[ross.burns]

Ok, once more, Drakky, that is only your understanding of it - if you start from that same premise as you have (which nobody has to) then it is possible to reach that conclusion. If one starts from an entirely different premise, the one reaches an entirely different conclusion. I gave you plenty of arguments, and no, none of them were solid, but you\'ve yet to provide a \'solid\' argument yourself, if by solid you mean irrefutable. There are no \'solid\' arguments for anything, because all reasoning has to start from somewhere, and that somewhere can be anywhere. You have deemed that your starting place is the only one possible.