To be Good is to make a conscious choice to be not Evil, to have tasted the forbidden fruit, but willfully rejected it.
After all, isn't that what makes us human - a choice, or at least, an illusion of it.
Can you truly be called Good, if you don't know anything but Good? If it's something as natural for you as breathing? If Evil is something you can't even fathom to exist?
The one who doesn't know how to be Evil, the one who is naive and pure-hearted is not Good.
A truly Good person is the one who was tempted numerous times, but who resisted the temptation every single time. The one who was not merely told that "Evil is bad, Good is awesome" for his entire life, but who had a meaningful choice between Good and Evil with no strings attached.
With that out of the way, does that mean that a jaded veteran Paladin who loathes his job but keeps doing it, is in fact more Good than, for example, a wide-eyed naive Paladin straight out of the training?
>>46409440
>Can you truly be called Good, if you don't know anything but Good? If it's something as natural for you as breathing? If Evil is something you can't even fathom to exist?
Yes, of course. what kind of question is this.
You're saying angels of pure good who are so pure and good they can never be evil, indeed, they are the anti-evil, the dark matter of good to evil, that they are in fact, NOT good simply because of your dumb non-argument?
Tell me this, can you truly be dry if you are so dry you don't even know what it means to be wet? One would say such a state isn't "not dry", it's fucking SUPER DRY.
What you are describing is SUPER PENULTIMATE GOOD.
Someone who has fallen and redeemed himself is NOT superior to someone who never fell to begin with. Your virginity can't be restored, and you can't unrape yourself.
>>46409440
There's a reason man was considered most good BEFORE eating of the fruit of knowledge.
>>46409471
>Someone who has fallen and redeemed himself is NOT superior to someone who never fell to begin with.
That is not my case.
My case is this - can someone who has never been offered a forbidden fruit considered to be as pure, as someone who was offered forbidden fruit, but who willfully rejected it, time and again?
>>46409490
Duh, of course they can. Their mind hasn't been at all tainted by even thoughts of evil, of course they're more pure. Jesus, this is like high school level philosophy.
>>46409490
They are purer. Even the mere presence and knowledge of evil can corrupt. That is why your good character is so jaded and loathesome of his job.
>>46409521
>>46409531
I fail to see the value of being hardwired to do Good, as opposed to making a conscious decision to be Good.
>inb4 "the conscious choice is only an illusion"
Indulge me here for a bit, okay?
>>46409560
>I fail to see the value of being hardwired to do Good
And that's why you can't see why your question is stupid. You're comparing someone who can't fall to someone who can.
>>46409440
>To be Good is to make a conscious choice to be not Evil, to have tasted the forbidden fruit, but willfully rejected it.
Can I stop you right here at your premise? Resisting evil isn't the only important thing contributing to being good, goodness can also be taking action to improve the lives of others. Entities that are defined as being immune to the temptations of evil generally also have plenty of good deeds under their belt, at least theoretically, so they get to be good even without the extra credit from confronting the darkness in their hearts and not fucking up.
>>46409560
Let me give you a visual aid since you seem to be retarded.
The jaded paladin is not more good than the idealistic paladin, they just philosophize different. They may be .more resistant to corruption from a certain perspective, but that is making assumptions about the naive idealist. Which is kind of the point - the jaded has been tested and passed, the naive could either pass or fall. They are Schrödinger's paladin. They exist in a state of both purity and possible corruption until observed under trial. From this we can assume the jaded paladin is more reliable, simply because we cannot make assumptions about the naive paladin
>>46409471
That's a false dichotomy, and you know it.
The idea being presented here is that the choice to do Good acts even when you know and understand the ease and reward of Evil acts is more Good than simply doing them by rote because it's all you know. If you're an angel or an archon or whatever, sure you're an "avatar of Good" for whatever that's worth, but since doing good is in a celestial's nature it's no more impressive than a wolf hunting or a cow grazing. What is truly amazing and impressive is when a man - a truly powerful, but flawed creature - chooses to do good over evil because it's what he aught to do, and not because it's the only thing he knows how to do.
>>46409560
I don't believe in any of that illusion crap. But someone who can literally not do evil, is better then someone who can. Think of it like this, there's a smart kid and a dumb kid in a class.
The smart kid passes tests and actual field assignments easily, without breaking a sweat. The dumb kid always does worse then him, but is slowly improving. Which kid do you think is going to be more likely to be hired based on his grades?
>>46409440
"Good" is just what each side's bad guys call themselves
>>46409609
A wolf isn't less of a hunter and a cow isn't less of a grazer just because another animal decided to learn how to hunt or graze.
If you are X good due to nature or circumstance, you are X good. Period. Someone else doesn't get an X+1 bonus just because reasons.
>>46409609
Sure, it might be impressive, but it doesn't make the person better then the Angel. They still had to work and actually avoid evil, which automatically makes someone's who isn't even tempted in the first place, let alone having to resist, better.
>>46409609
You really think having to put in conscious and considerable effort to be good makes you more good than something that is literally good incarnate?
I don't have some fancy logical fallacy term to throw at you, but if I did I'd call it "you're a retard".
>>46409658
Everyone likes Ollanius Pious and moans about his retcon. Because Olly's deed is more impressive than the same deed done by some custodian.
Okay, let's put it this way: Doing good because you can't do anything else is for filthy casuals and doing good consciously is for real playaz.
>>46409619
Lucifer pls go
>>46409440
Being Good is about the effort you put into making good deeds, not the effort you put into not doing evil ones.
>>46409744
I think it's more like completing the game on easy and hard difficulties.
Sure, you both completed the game and experienced the same content, but who gets more respect for it - the one waltzed through it on easy, or the one who persevered through it on hard?
The one who stayed comfortably within the limits of his Good doctrine, or the one who made an effort and surpassed himself to rach the Good?
An ant that can lift a human is more impressive than a human that can lift two humans.
>>46409744
Wut? That has nothing to do with good or bad, and second, we already agree that yeah, it makes' pretty cool, but not gooder.
The guardsman standing up to Horus is cool because both of them no he can't stop Horus, but he doesn't give a shit, he's still gonna give' the finger!
>>46409744
Impressive =/= better.
It's 'better' from a story telling perspective. No one wants to watch the flat, unchanging angel be Good all the time. That's boring.
But that doesn't mean that the angel is less Good than the street urchin turned respectable soldier or the friar which struggles with his lust. Objectively he is more Good than either of these people, as he is Good enough to be above their temptations. He defies the human condition by his nature.
What you seem to be confusing is a Good character with a well written good-aligned protagonist. Angels are flat characters by their nature. They're static and predictable. This makes them a relatively poor fit for most story telling purposes, as they'll almost never 'fall.' They can be counted on to do the right thing 99.999% of the time. This invariably makes them boring. The good-aligned mortal protagonist is better for this purpose because he can still fall. He can be slave to human temptation and emotions in ways the angel can't. This makes it so we can relate to them and sympathize with their struggles, but it also makes them less Good than the angel by nature. If they were as Good as the angel they would be above temptation all together.
Put it another way: There was that guy who ran in the Olympics even though he was on two prosthetic feet. That was really impressive, but he still came in last, because there were people there who were still better runners than he was.
>>46409821
No, again, that doesn't work, because its more like the person who goes around saying that them having beat higher difficulties in this video game objectively makes them a better person in all regards.
Look OP, this ultimately comes down to what the word "good" means to people as shown with the back and forth going on. I personally think that good is more an ideal to be strived for; and thus, the jaded paladin, having put in more effort, is more deserving.
I kinda recall a philosopher agreeing with this point of view that was mentioned in harvard's justice lecture, but I can't recall his fucking name.
>>46409866
That guy's example is dumb and your example is dumber.
This could be applied interestingly to D&D alignments.
Will less creatures, and most non PCs, would get their Good/Evil hacked off their alignment, and instead, oh, replace it with whichever god/devil they serve if applicable.
>>46409440
How about the inverse?
To be Evil is not to merely be, well, evil, but to actively supplant and destroy everything Good because of a conscious choice to be, well, Evil?
To give in to temptation every time and resist Good with all you can?
>>46410355
I agree, if anything, it makes a more-or-less clear-cut alignment chart, unlike DnD alignments.
You're not better than someone else at something if you struggle to achieve it whereas they do it effortlessly. Resisting strong temptation is an indication of good willpower, nothing else.
>>46410691
You're better than someone else, if your skill is exceptional amongst your species/class/whatever, while their skill is average amongst their species/class/whatever.
You may not be better than them at that skill, but being exceptional has its own inherent value.
>>46411145
No, you're not better than them at the thing. If the thing is being good, and they are effortlessly good without being tempted, and you must struggle to overcome your nature to be good, then you're not as good at being good as they are. It's more personally impressive, sure, but if I'm picking teams and optimising for maximum goodness I'm not going to take Grim Joe The Jaded Paladin over Angelface McLiterallyMadeOfGood just because Joe's more good relative to his species. On an absolute level, there's still a clear winner.
This is a ridiculous argument about semantics anyway. Suffice to say that in the presumably standard D&D environment this question was postulated in Good and Evil have specific definitions which do not agree with the statement being made.
