Is there any place for straight up good vs evil in fantasy anymore? Or are we stuck with gray-and-grey morality and "subversions" forever?
Well OP, let me ask you this:
Are you gaming with real people who you are really friends with in real life, or are you gaming with hypothetical neckbears on /tg/ who nay-say everything?
>>44076326
Here's what you do:
1)Get a group together
2)Tell them you want to run a campaign where they are big, strong heroes
3)Ask them to make their characters
4)Play your game
5)Enjoy!
It's as easy as that.
>>44076326
>want to do something fun with friends
>some troll on the internet might call it cliche or overdone
>not doing it because of this
Weak will detected.
>>44076326
>Is there any place for straight up good vs evil in fantasy anymore?
I think there is, but it's actually far, far more difficult to create than it seems. And yeah, current social conditions aren't exactly favorable to it.
There is always going to be space for a clear, unproblematic archetypes of good and evil. Their proportion on the market will change (we have seen this in all media across history), but the appeal will always exist.
It's just that it's actually really hard to make these archetypes to be really meaningful, and incredibly easy to make them degenerate to shitty clichés, or ideological vehicles.
Plus, you have to compete with evergrowing cynicism that seems to still run rampant these days.
But both of these problems can be dealt with. It's just a matter of patience and care you invest - both into construction of your fiction, and the way you advertise it to other people.
When I write a campaign for DnD, it's big beloved good king Everyonegetsafreepuppy needs you to check out the lair of the big bad evil Totallynotaskeletonman
If I'm writing for anything else, I dip into my own perception of the world and everyone is selfish and corrupt and there is no right answer
So like, it depends I guess
>>44076326
>Is there any place for straight up good vs evil in fantasy anymore? Or are we stuck with gray-and-grey morality and "subversions" forever?
If you actually played game rather than >>44076351
>>44076911
>>44076973
you would know the answer to that question.
>>44076326
>straight up good vs evil
>straight up
>straight
Yeah....nah.
Well, The Sword of Truth is pretty popular, so gear up on your moralic clarity and slaughter those evil commie peaceniks until you too win your bondage-torture-nun waifu, I guess?
>>44076326
Yes, my campaigns
Good and evil clearly defined 98% of the time
Only throw in a tiny bit of gray on occasion to spice it up. Otherwise it's good, noble humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings vs nasty evil orcses and such
>>44076326
Yes, obviously. When has there ever not been? Seriously, even most things you'd probably consider to be grey have pretty clear heroes and villains. It's actually harder to write something where everything actually is a moral grey area than to write something where good guys and bad guys are fairly clearly defined and it's not clichéd.
>>44077569
>>44077787
>Dwarves
>good
Nice try, Urist.
>>44076326
People forget that a campaign of good and evil can be complex morally. It's become a popular meme in the wake of Game of Thrones to mock Lord of the Rings and fantasy of a similar vein as childish and simplistic.
The problem is, people forget that the main point of Lord of the Rings is not the evil that the protagonists are fighting, but the evil they have to overcome within themselves. There is very little ever established about Sauron - the villains we get the most development upon are not orcs, but humans and wizards who are tempted and fail. However, not even this is black and white (stay with good or you're fucked). The main character in Lord of the Rings fails in the end, and needs his friend to help him and its not seen as breaking some sort of inviolate dichotomy.
(Really, the main thing to blame for distorted view on the subject is the whole concept of Alignments, a concept that is really hilariously awkward and stilted.)
So there isn't a requirement that you need to have a clearly evil enemy and lose on your moral complications. On the same hand, you don't need to do it that way either. Questions of good and evil will arise in any campaign or story, regardless of how they are defined and divided.
>>44078843
>Really, the main thing to blame for distorted view on the subject is the whole concept of Alignments, a concept that is really hilariously awkward and stilted.
But games that include the alignments concept imply that, in the universe of the game, morality is objective and measurable. Wouldn't that be ideal for the "straight up good vs evil" fantasy that OP seems to want.
I think for once the answer to OP's question might be "Have you tried playing D&D?"
>>44079791
Not really, no. All the alignments do is produce further confusion, while simultaneously making the core moral principles more muddy and gray. Alignments quite literally remove the aspect of one's personal moral responsibility, ironically making morality not a subject of moral choice. The absurdities they bring to the table constantly distract from what should be the real moral axis of the story, while being essentially an inherent traits, rather than outcomes of one's actions and working effectively as predestinations of your behavior, they make the whole problem of what is right and what is wrong completely irrelevant to you as a player.
Alignments are just dumb, dumb systems. The morality they present is confusing an unrelatable, and the way they influence the gameplay is just plain silly. This is not a way to make a classic good and evil dichotomy work, it's a way to make it completely glaringly absurd and irrelevant.
>>44076911
It is not the trolls of the internet I fear, my friend, but the trolls of my own mind and soul.
>>44079963
Mans, its a fantasy game. You can have heroes and evil. Its okay.
>>44079904
I wasn't defending the alignment system, I think it's dumb too, but I do think it would work for what OP is looking for. It would make for a shallow narrative but it would work.
>>44076973
Kind of easy too. You can take LOTR orcs and have them reproduce like 40k orks by batteling and realising spores. Also have them created by a powerful overlord/mage or something that have given them a hardwired genectic need to kill, or give them the need to eat raw meat but they can't eat eachother because their own meat is to contaminated and have them go after human settlements for a big feast.
Your mind is your limitation
![[evil intensifies].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/pBBwh6U.jpg "[evil intensifies].jpg")
>>44076326
In my campaign, I have made sure to make the BBEG such an unambiguously and famously evil cunt of a person that there is absolutely no moral grey area.
When writing their backstories I gave them free artistic license to pin whatever horrific bullshit the BBEG did to them in their past upon him, and it'd be canon.
The results were interesting.
>>44080136
My point is that it would not. Not unless it was really severally changed around - removing the whole neutral row for starters, and probably confining the players to good alignments only, and even then it would be counterproductive to what OP seems to be after.
Because if you are playing campaign with a straight-forward good/bad moral axis, then the fun comes from being a hero, deciding to do the right thing: the satisfaction comes from your own actions and decisions aligning with the overarching moral conflict.
Having explicitly stated "you are the good guy" in your character sheet, and doing the right thing because that is what your character sheet dictates you to do is fucking stupid and actually takes the whole good feeling away.
>>44080196
That is not really good vs. bad there, that is just fight for survival. Not to mention that it's terribly fucking convoluted and clearly fabricated, which makes it much less interesting.
Really, it isn't easy. LOTR and to a lesser degree Hobbit (which actually isn't that much of a good-vs-evil as it is a coming of age/conquering the chaos kind of story) did it incredibly well. I'd argue that Narnia did a decent job at it too.
I think the best inspiration might be found in stories like "Shuna's Journey":
>Hero is sent to find an artifact that would make the miserable life of his fellow people better ("magical" seeds), comes across slavers, meets a slave girl who clearly has the will to fight, saves her and her sister from said slavers (and risks his life in the process), makes an arduous journey to the land of the Gods where he steals the golden seeds, but is cursed in return - loses his mind, but manages to somehow find his way to the girl he saved before - despite him being pretty much mad and barely recognizing her, she slowly nurses him back to sanity. In the end the two marry and travel home.
That is an archetypical, functional and powerful story with simple moral scheme.
>>44078727
Are you tryina say something about Dwarves you filthy elf lover?
>>44080354
>Simple moral scheme
>The protag is neutral as fuck doing both good and bad
You fucked up, how is stealing from someone who didnt actually do anything to you a good action? It'd be like saying that the guy going to the nearest village and murdering them to plunder their posessions is good since his village is in need, what the fuck?
>>44076326
Of course there is. Haters gonna hate, brah.
This cycle's "subversions" and "deconstructions" are next cycle's cliches anyway. What's fashionable hardly ever impacts that which is really and truly great; the only issue is, most of those specimens that are not outright terrible are merely serviceable nods to the status quo with a few gems of content embedded here and there. Very few works are truly great; those that are suffer not the blows and buffets of the winds of fashion.
>>44076326
>we
Speak for yourself, motherfucker. In the tabletop games I run, the players are the goodguys and they are defending the weak and carrying out justice. Even when my badguys are sympathetic, they're still badguys who are doing bad things.
>mfw player puts evil alignment on his sheet
>inb4 "using alignment at all"
>>44076326
I personally find black and white morality generally boring or too cliched. But I'm not going to tell you you can't go and find a group that would enjoy that.
If you're talking about the general feel of the whole of the genre, where we consider everything from hollywood to pulp novels, I assume you can still find some black and white morality in there. But I've read a great deal of research finding audiences tend to like a bit of moral ambiguity, not too much, but a bit. This is a more recent trend, and is often chocked up to a theme of cynicism running through western civilization.
>>44076374
>2)Tell them you want to run a campaign where they are big, strong heroes
"We don't want to"
What then?
>>44083359
"Then I guess you ain't getting any game at all, since none of you assholes will run."
>>44079904
You'd probably like alignment more if you used it correctly
>>44076326
I'd be happier with off-white and dark grey, honestly. A little wiggle room, but still the classic battle.
>>44079904
Alignment, like Black and White good and evil stories work best when you don't think about things too much.
The shiny paladin in armor is Good because he is Good, don't ask who makes him Good or who defined Good, he just is and that's our premise.
this thread was done last week
>>44083450
But I missed that thread.
>>44076326
I really kind of resent this notion that Good vs Evil is no longer in vogue, or the idea that intentional and on the nose subversion of "classic" narratives is some kind of new shift that has overrun the literature/gaming/vidya worlds.
Yeah, the idea of Sir Gallan McChivalry slaying the Dragon to rescue the fair and helpless damsel Princess Skinsofair has kind of gone out of style in favor of characters and narratives with a bit more weight to them. But that's not anything new. Western interest in antiheroes--or at least heroes that have a personality beyond Good Guy--has more or less always existed. Han Solo is a household term. The Man With No Name was introduced to us in the 1960s. Aragorn was descended from a race of magical racial supremacists who sank their own civilization. "Julius Caesar" presents all of its characters in complex lights; it was written in the 1500s. Odysseus was basically the Classical analogue to Renegade Shepard. People from all corners of civilization have idealized bandits, pirates, bank robbers, rogues, scoundrels, and all sorts of other people normally considered "bad" because since the dawn of history people have preferred complex moral narratives.
If anything Kill the Dragon stories are the exception, not the norm.
And it's not like chivalric stories are dominated with the "classical" Good and Evil binary. Have you forgotten how Lancelot--ostensibly a hero--fucked his best friend's wife and inadvertently catalyzed his kingdom's destruction?
I won't lie, it seems more people nowadays definitely conciously discuss the idea that fantasy nowadays is subversive and deconstruction has become something of a fad. But none of that shit is new; people just think it is because people like you keep insisting stories about characters who are not totally good fighting monsters that are totally bad are supposed to be the standard.
Watching LOTR around Christmas causes this feel
Grey worlds where everyone is a slimy backstabbing amoral asshole with an edgy flaw is fun, but sometimes it's refreshing to be the knight in shining armor, the caped paragon, or the mysterious white hat cowboy
>>44083982
>Lancelot--ostensibly a hero--fucked his best friend's wife
No, I missed the memo when the fuck was Lancelot a hero? Authurian tales were always "don't do this dumb shit"
>>44084026
Why is there no middle ground between "everyone's an asshole" and "no ones shit stinks"?
>>44084026
>Grey worlds where everyone is a slimy backstabbing amoral asshole with an edgy flaw is fun, but sometimes it's refreshing to be the knight in shining armor, the caped paragon, or the mysterious white hat cowboy
You can be that in a morally grey world, just don't expect the people who you're shitting on to be complete assholes who do bad things for no reason.
>>44083982
Don't forget that Romanticism brought this idea of a rebel against the system to the fore - a guy who was independent, didn't need anyone, could be powerful. Big example I can think of is a story whose name I can't remember, where a sorcerer summons all these different spirits and demons to try and solve a problem he's having. He's all powerful, as shown by his total command over these spirits, but he can't defeat his memory or whatever it was that was annoying him.
>>44084065
Lancelot was the hero. Just because he messed up at the end didn't make him any less of a hero and skilled knight. It's more cribbing off the idea of a Greek tragedy, a hero having a single flaw that ruins them.
>>44084065
>when the fuck was Lancelot a hero?
Not the guy you're replying to, but do you not know your Arthurian symbolism? Lancelot represents the pinnacle of earthly knighthood.
>>44084188
Again, I'm not that other guy, but I should probably point out that "for no reason" usually boils down to execution and audience rather than a need to sympathize with evildoers or their motives.
>>44076326
What, are things getting too complex for your simple mind?
>>44084202
>He's all powerful, as shown by his total command over these spirits, but he can't defeat his memory or whatever it was that was annoying him.
Manfred!
>>44076351
>hypothetical neckbears
I have a new monster idea.
>>44076326
You want to know what cut and dried good versus evil looks like? It looks like Episodes I-III.
When you define the sides that clearly, with no room for subtlety, nuance, or complex motivations, the result is boring and unrealistic. There is no interesting story there to tell because there are no real decisions to be made, no loyalties to be tested, no redemption to be sought and earned, and no potential for growth.
>>44076326
>find a guy you think is bad
>stab him
>???
>JAIL!
Because black and white morality is for stupid children with no concept of reality. Grow up and deal with it. Or go back to you pop-up white knight storybook.
>>44083982
>Odysseus was basically the Classical analogue to Renegade Shepard.
Odysseus was basically the Greek version of a Paragon, it's just that the Greeks had a nuanced idea of what a good man did. Those suitors had it coming.
He does have a flaw though, which is his ego. Nearly gets himself and his personal ships crew murdered because he wants to see how butthurt the cyclops is and ladles on the insults, earning him Poseidon's curse.
He shakes it in the finale, where he finally gets his revenge by partnering with a dirty swineherd and disguising himself as a beggar.
Hmm, now that I think about it, I bet the Odyssey gets banned in American schools soon. Wouldn't want to give kids a role model who sneaks in assault weapons and engages in mass slaughter to accomplish his nebulous "revenge" and get into the arms of a girl, would we?
>>44084829
>dividing by zero
GOOFED
>>44077569
Magical Burst isn't always unambiguous morality.
>>44084844
> Wouldn't want to give kids a role model who sneaks in assault weapons and engages in mass slaughter to accomplish his nebulous "revenge" and get into the arms of a girl, would we?
I can guarantee you no one interprets it that way.
The only way a book can really get banned in American schools is if it uses the word "nigger"
>>44080354
Really? I absolute relish being the good guy, especially if I can rub it into people's faces.
> "From my point of view, you're Evil!"
> "Sorry, Detect Evil disagrees."
Being the good guy and being maddeningly, smugly superior to all the shades of grey is great fun. Just absolutely refuse to see their point of view, and speak to them like you're speaking to a retarded child.
>>44084989
>I can guarantee you no one interprets it that way.
I know, and he doesn't sneak in the bow either. I was just making a funny. Hopefully it doesn't give anyone ideas within the school systems.
>The only way a book can really get banned in American schools is if it uses the word "nigger"
This actually causes me to feel shame. Literature as a field and subject is just so fucked by politics that I want to puke. The constant preaching about themes and the straight out barring of offensive viewpoints or even views that contain a whiff of the potentially offensive is toxic.
But this is /tg/, we should stay on topic.
I think writing about good and evil in a modern context is easy enough, you just need a clear line demarcating what falls into each camp. You can do this either by simply designating certain groups as good or having a system of absolute morality. From there on out, all your shades of gray go out the window.
>>44076326
The problem is that
Bad "Good vs Evil" is BAD
Bad "Grey vs Grey" is still okay
Good "Grey vs Grey" is pretty good
Good "Good vs Evil" is REALLY GOOD.
Thing is, for most people, the middle band is a safer choice.
>>44084829
a = 1
a=b
therefor b = 1 as well
1+1 = 1+1
1x2 = 1+1
okay.
1x2 - 1x2 = 1 + 1 - 2
translation: 0=0
okay, still not seeing it
1 - 1 = 0
0 x 2 = 0
0 = 1 + 1 - 2
okay
1-1 = 0
0 x 2 = 0
0 = 1-1
okay yeah the math checks out.
>2=1
what? where did you get that from?
go back to middle school math class.
>>44085217
shut up and let's watch captain planet
>>44076326
I think you have to remember that gaming is interactive and you have to write considering an audience that participates in the story. That means when you're making a setting, you need to include as many options as possible; if your game is entirely built around "the always-good guys versus the always-bad guys", you have one possible game with one possible story. If your game is, say, modelled after the Warring States period then you have multiple competing factions, the rise of a highly-propagandised warrior-myth, and you can do a lot more with that.
A novel can have one story; a game needs to have room for many possible stories. That means the smart option is to create a lot of gray/grey options for GMs to shift into black and white.
>>44076326
Use the Planescape setting. Good and Evil have more meaning when Celestia is a place you can go on holiday and you sometimes meet Thor on your way to work.
>>44085245
>2=1
>what? where did you get that from?
They divided both sides by "(a - b)", which would normally be fine, except that since "a = b", "(a - b)" is zero and dividing by zero is a no-no.
If you don't understand the mistake, maybe you're the one who needs to go back to middle school math.
>>44076326
The overwhelming majority of all stories, including RPGs, are retard-simple good and evil conflicts. Of course good and evil aren't actually objective terms, but it's nearly always exceedingly clear who the storyteller WANTS you to think are the good guys and the bad guys.
It's bad writing, simple as that. In real life there is no evil, aside from some mentally ill people, everyone believes they are doing the right thing.
>>44085591
>In real life there is no evil, aside from some mentally ill people, everyone believes they are doing the right thing.
This is horseshit. Lots of people know when they are being evil. Reveling in evil acts is a pretty human thing, I hate the idea that "all undesirable things are a result of mental illness".
People are not intrinsically pure evil or pure good. But saying that people can't choose to be evil without being crazy is like saying that people can't choose to be good without being crazy. It just doesn't make sense.
>>44085591
> In real life there is no evil, aside from some mentally ill people, everyone believes they are doing the right thing.
Are you that one guy I saw someone post about a week or so ago? The guy who said that A) nobody believes they are doing the wrong thing; B) Right and Wrong are pointless distinctions; C) Being "Evil" just means you're a free-spirited iconclast; and D) Sees Lawful Evil as the most noble alignment, to the point of openly "identifying" as LE?
>>44084214
I think you mean Galahad, the only knight worthy of receiving the Holy Grail.
>>44085658
Also believing you are doing the right thing isn't the same as being actually in the right. Morality is circumstantial but not subjective. That is to say, the same deed has to be judged differently in different circumstances, but it is not impossible to judge something objectively, or objectively enough for all human purposes. It's just hard sometimes.
>>44085695
No, he was represented the divine, the pure. He was god's knight brought down from a place of perfection to shine upon the earth.
Lancelot was the paragon of EARTHLY virtues.
>>44085591
>In real life there is no evil
of course there's tons of evil IRL.
>everyone believes they are doing the right thing
Nothing prevents RPG evil characters from thinking they're doing the same, newfriend.
>>44084714
D&D3.5 because that's what I know best
Hypothetical Neckbear
Medium Magical Beast (Incorporeal, Psionic)
Hit Dice: 3d10+6 (22hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 40'
Armor Class: 12 (+1 Dex, +1 Deflection), touch 12, flat-footed 11
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/—
Attack: Incorporeal touch +4 melee (1d4 Int)
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
Special Attacks: Psi-like abilities
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, incorporeal traits
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +2
Abilites: Str —, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 12
Skills: Listen +5, Spot +5
Feats: Endurance, Alertness
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary or Pair
Psi-like Abilities: Cloud Mind 1/day, Will DC 13 negates
Hypothetical neckbears do not exist; however, being bears, they are too stupid to truly understand this. Instead, they merely try to avoid being observed while they hunt and feed themselves. Because they do not exist, they are unable to eat normal, material foods, which leaves them constantly hungry and upset. The result is that they attack anything that notices them, showing a marked preference for the neck and head of their targets. Anything they strike suffers Intelligence damage as they try to figure out how a bear that doesn't exist is biting their neck and face.
>>44085591
>everyone believes they are doing the right thing.
Belief doesn't fucking matter. If it did, all those fucking Conservatives praying for shooting victims in America would see the dead miracled back to fucking life and shootings no longer fucking happening.
But guess what, champ? Some fucko with a gun can squeeze gat and kill innocent people despite all of these people believing that the 2nd amendment makes people safe and praying to Jebus will stop people from squeezing gat in movie theaters and schools.
>>44085931
>>44084844
Remember that lots of early readers, especially Romans, saw Odysseus as a straight up villain in the Trojan War, and a flawed anti-hero during his Odyssey.
>>44085658
>Lots of people know when they are being evil. Reveling in evil acts is a pretty human thing, I hate the idea that "all undesirable things are a result of mental illness".
First off, while many people do engage in activities they themselves condemn as wrong, and can enjoy it, that's usually limited to things that are fairly harmless, like internet trolling. "Being mean" isn't exactly the level of morally relevant activity that was implied by the OP and in my response, though. Certain groups of people, who have a strong degree of overlap with the psychopathic and sociopathic are also capable of a great degree of harmful selfishness. They might even see their own actions as evil, but of course this is not guaranteed because their actions aren't objectively evil. Again though, not really the point of the OP or my response.
But let's take a look at an example that is: Pol Pot believed he was doing the right thing when he armed children and ordered them to shoot their parents. Most people would condemn his actions as evil, but again, they are not actually evil. Evil is a descriptive term we use to identify the things we don't like, as good is a term that means what we do like. Pol Pot liked the prospects of a Cambodia free of counterrevolutionary interests, and parents are nothing if not exceedingly counterrevolutionary.
>>44085660
No, I'm not that guy.
>>44085776
>of course there's tons of evil IRL.
According to certain definitions of the term, sure. But then I could simply define evil as "activity that takes place in a fictional world" and then, voila, there is no evil IRL.
>>44085931
>waaah guns
Look, chief, belief is exactly what matters when talking about entirely subjective terms like good and evil. You do bring up a great example, though. It's highly probable that the Muslims who kill civilians sincerely believe they are doing the right thing. They are not bad guys except from a perspective that defines them as such. It's just that most do.
>>44085591
Of course there is evil, dingus. But its not a question of automatic evil.
Evil exists inside all of us. Every human. Even the most saintly person has evil in them. Now, before you start thinking I'm edgy - being Good means rejecting your evil impulses because of empathy and compassion, usually helped by reason and wisdom, and maybe made a little clearer by notions of justice or morality - whatever helps.
If you choose to reject all this, you're Evil. It's not struggling with the evil that makes you evil - its the giving in that makes you commit an evil act.
>>44086285
> an evil act.
A truly vapid term.
And there is no reason that anything humans do has to be evil. It's easy to imagine, for instance, that everything which happens was supposed to happen, it's all part of the beauty of nature, or some shit like that. I mean there are literally dozens of major, competing moral frameworks that strongly disagree about fundamental aspects of good and evil. They're all competitive because the term is not objective, it's intended to mean whatever it's been assigned to mean by the speaker. "True evil" does not exist anywhere within nature, we can't measure behavior and declare them, definitively, to be right or wrong.
>>44086344
Even if I agree with most of what you said, you said it in such way that makes me think that you're a fedora wearer and that your floor is littered with dorito bags.
>>44086344
Why do you reject the concept of humanity being able to define evil? Yes, there's no inherent, solid "evil particle". But the nature of evil is something that plenty of potent minds have turned towards. Are you really assuming that your minor edginess, honed on the internet, is really superior to over two thousand years of philosophical thought on the matter?
There is no evil within nature, but humans have the capacity to try and understand and define evil, just as we define lots of other non-physical concepts such as "capitalism", "faith", "fun", "edginess", etc.
Of course, being a nebulous concept, terminology will differ and be up for debate, but you simply can't tip your fedora at evil and make it magically "poof" as a metaphysical concept.
>>44085931
Actually, since murder is drastically dropping in the US, prayer, or more likely the 2A, is either working as intended or not harming anything. Not sure why people think 72 mass shootings since 1982 are enough to shred people's civil rights, but hey.
>>44086520
But don't the Republicans tell us Christianity is dying? Clearly prayer was causing the shootings!
Also, I agree with you that a lot of the gun debate is pretty pointless, but holy crap, stop and think how edgy "72 mass shootings in 33 years, or on average 2 mass shootings a year" sounds.
>>44076326
Black and white morality is boring and for children OP. Good riddance.
>>44086505
>There is no evil within nature, but humans have the capacity to try and understand and define evil,
Yes, people have the capacity to tell each other what they like and don't like, that's highly uncontroversial. I'm just telling you that there is nothing intrinsically superior or inferior about your likes and dislikes. Of course you can and should still argue about why they're extrinsically superior for X reason if you feel like it, and you shouldn't abandon your opinions just because they're not objective.
>Of course, being a nebulous concept, terminology will differ and be up for debate, but you simply can't tip your fedora at evil and make it magically "poof" as a metaphysical concept.
>>44080241
Got any examples?
>>44086252
>According to certain definitions of the term, sure.
ok, according to the dictionary and etymological usage of the term. Its about as open to debate as the meaning of "the."
>>44086842
>muh dictionary
Go look up the word "evil" in your dictionary, hoss.
>>44086344
>"True evil" does not exist anywhere within nature
Of course it does.
Evil can be:
1. A calamitous force.
2. A cause of great injury or suffering.
3. Due to actual or imputed bad character.
>imputed
4. Immoral or wicked (moral codes definitely exist, even if they are social constructs)
5. Marked by anger, irascibility, etc.
The only that are mostly a human thing is #4.
>>44086874
>Evil can be X
Yes, it certainly can be. It can also be Y, Z, or ×, though.
>>44086553
>But don't the Republicans tell us Christianity is dying?
Some "Evangelicals" think that, shitposter.
>but holy crap, stop and think how edgy "72 mass shootings in 33 years, or on average 2 mass shootings a year" sounds.
Look at your posts, and realize how hypocritical it is to accuse others of edginess. It'd be far more logical to ban people from walking in the rain than to ban guns because of mass shootings, as more die in lightning attacks.
>>44086868
I did. See >>44086874
>>44086912
Correct, in the same sense that "the" can mean "rape" or "soup," I guess. I'll go on using the dictionary definition of evil, and you can go on making up your own personal definitions of evil that you can use to prove evil doesn't exist.
>>44087006
"Immoral or wicked" is as subjective as evil.
A "moral code" is a series of opinions about right and wrong. It is, in other words, a series of preferences. As I mentioned previously:
>there are literally dozens of major, competing moral frameworks that strongly disagree about fundamental aspects of good and evil. They're all competitive because the term is not objective
This is really not a difficult concept to graps, ace.
>>44087086
>"Immoral or wicked" is as subjective as evil.
And? "Wicked" is pretty vague, but immorality is effortless to pin down: something against morality (which can be just about anything). Social constructs certainly exist, even subjectively. Even pain is subjective.
You are free to argue that taxes, money, societies, laws, etcetera etcetera don't exist, as opposed to being subjective, but you're wrong.
>a series of preferences
Either your preferences exist or they don't. I'm aware that mine exist, so unless you're going to argue everyone's a P-zombie, your line of argument is dead.
>because the term is not objective
Nor did anyone claim that it was, or that this matters in the slightest.
Man, I just want a shonen anime RPG. Why can't I go around as a hero fighting villains in stupidly awesome ways using friendship or willpower or some shit?
>>44087192
>You are free to argue that evil doesn't exist
I never did this, you can go back and read the numerous times in which I explicitly stated that evil exists and is subjective.
>>44086252
You moral ignorance repulses me. And that's okay. How boring would the world be if everyone knew what they were doing, ethically speaking?
>>44087216
Okay, so you're not the guy arguing that "in real life, there is no evil." Okay.
>>44087276
>You moral ignorance repulses me.
>>44087200
You mean Double Cross?
>>44087277
Of course that's in regards to the OP, who is complaining about the lack of "objective good and evil", which don't exist.
>>44080962
Nothing that the guy does is any way neutral, unless you assume fighting slavers as evil. You might make a weird argument that stealing the seeds of the gods is still stealing, which might be my mistake for not describing the scenario properly: he steals literally a handful of them when the gods are quite literally swimming them, and they don't even use or eat them.
The whole story is, by the way, based on a Tibetian legend about a character who was deemed cultural hero among certain Tibetian tribes, the protagonist is about as "evil" as Prometheus or Hor were.
>>44083392
No, I would not. I'm not using them incorrectly, and alignment are a fucking retarded concept from the get-go.
>>44085110
>Being the good guy and being maddeningly, smugly superior to all the shades of grey is great fun.
Except that makes you exploit a dumb system to be a bastards to others, and only further highlights the absurdity of the whole alignment system. I don't doubt you enjoy it (I can imagine myself feeling the same), but the whole concept of actually relatable good and evil as moral categories kinda dissapears there, don't you think?
>>44085217
This is pretty accurate observation.
>>44087351
OP didn't say objective good or evil, dude. He said "straight up good vs evil." Which isn't unrealistic, a lot of fiction snobs want RPGs and fictional characters that have greater depth than RL people -- most typically, they want villains with more depth than, say, IS types.
People give D&D's alignment system a lot of flak, but it makes for interesting stories. The classic trope of the by-the-books Lawful Good character and the loose cannon Chaotic Good comes to mind.
>>44083359
Find other players.
>>44087468
>OP didn't say objective good or evil, dude. He said "straight up good vs evil."
Riiight, which is why the real life alternative of "shades of grey" is the subject he's complaining about.
There is no moral situation which is cut and dried, all moral questions have countless possible answers and they're all rooted in subjective preferences. What OP says he wants cannot be given, what he really wants is toxic and boils down to bad writing.
>>44087527
Do you enjoy being that one moderately educated guy in the conversation that is so spectacularly wrong that both the great and the small tend to find him below their notice?
>>44086553
>on average 2 mass shootings a year
>in a country of 300 million people
This is not, in fact, significant.
>>44087567
Once you stop treating Good/Evil/Neutral as (static) matters of allegiance and more as ways to describe An Action A Character Takes, you can't do the black/white setting any more.And that's good because what OP wants requires never taking that step and staying in the literary baby zone forever
I can freaking smell the sweaty, oily skin of mouth breathing fedora users
>>44087590
I don't think that meme works how you think it works.
Interestingly misguided discussion about morality you have here.
>>44087527
This post neatly sums up most of the misunderstandings presented in this thread.
First of all, and this applies sadly to most people in this thread: You are treating morality as a problem of either subjectivity, or objectivity. So let me say that clear:
THAT IS WRONG and complete misunderstanding of how epistemology of ethics work. Morals are never subjective, nor objective - morals are, by definition, NORMATIVE.
Morals, which in their core are "nothing more" than group behavioral regulators existing to moderate forms of cooperation between members of a social circle, can only exist where an agent neutral perspective exists, and that alone makes them "more than subjective" - they always, inherently, account for more perspective than one (even if the perspective is abstracted). Also, they pertain behavior, not perception alone, and "objective" and "subjective" are categories really only related to perception alone.
Second of all, while "absolute" or "real" (I'm deliberately avoiding the term "objective here) good is always extremely problematic, it's not that hard to identify "absolute" or "real" evil. There are perceptions and actions that are evil under every circumstances and under every conditions. They can be summed up by pretty simple conditions:
Lack of necessity, awareness of the actor.
If you cause harm and suffering knowingly, and without any benefit gained from it, then what you are doing is unquestionably evil.
>>44087637
>morals are ~subjective~ and ~normative~
back in my day, we dunked Sjws like you in the town well, just sayin. and it was objectively the right thing to do.
>>44087637
Fuck off
>>44087661
Literally nothing from what I've said in any way relateds to SJW in any way. If that is what you project into what I've said, you have a serious projection issue.
>>44087671
Why exactly do you even feel the urge to post something as pointless and asinine as that?
>>44084214
To the fucking French maybe.
Lancelot is a false knight and a traitor.
>>44076326
Blame Game of Thrones.
>>44087685
>Why exactly do you even feel the urge to post something as pointless and asinine as that?
Same could be said about your worthless dribble.
>>44087527
Nobody said anything about real life morality being bad, or at least OP didn't. That's your strawman. "Shades of grey" isn't about realism, its merely a literary trope.
>There is no moral situation which is cut and dried
There are many. If your family or person is being attacked, you defend yourself. This shit isn't complicated, and it doesn't contradict the definition of evil. Your brain's been rotted by 3.x D&D notions of good and evil.
What you're more thinking of is "everyone has their reasons." Well sure, everyone has their reasons, but it doesn't make evil people less evil.
If your homeland is being besieged by an army bent on conquest in the historical periods that resemble D&D, chances are if you can't repel the siege, they're going to have a great murder+rape+pillage party if they win. There's no moral grey horseshit to be found there.
>they're all rooted in subjective preferences
Nah. Your sophistry is on the level of saying "well, stuff is legal over here but not over there, so laws are all nonsense." You can easily envision campaigns about straightforward lawbreakers vs law enforcements, and I know you're not that stupid to be unable to do so. So you can envision ones about ethical vs unethical people, and moral vs immoral people. If you reject the premise of that morality the story may lead you flat, but it still exists, even if its a social construct.
>>44086553
Its statistically insignificant compared to the actual major causes of gun death, neither of which will be solved by banning things.
Unless you want to go back to making suicide illegal, that will stop it for sure.
>>44087730
And how or why exactly is it worthless?
One would assume that understanding of what is morality and how to deal with it would be a fairly important and interesting subject to read or talk about. It's not out of place either, considering that morality has already been being discussed here.
Again, what makes you so angry about it?
>>44076326
Why don't you try subverting the gray on gray? Postmodernism man.
>>44087685
Lol ignore them. Some people are just out looking for a fight, despite not being very good at it.
There is always that element who are eager to crucify someone for knowing... well, just about anything.
I'm glad I looked back in on this thread, it's always nice to find a kindred mind.
>>44087749
>there are historical periods that resemble D&D
maximum cringe
>>44085591
Real life doesn't work like your 90s comics.
>>44087764
>>44087685
samefag
>>44086344
That sounds like something an evil person would say to excuse their actions.
>>44087613
Of course you can do the black/white setting easily. You have Cool Shit. The Have Nots are coming to fuck your day up, and your friends and family too.
Why? Well, because they didn't have enough hugs as children, because they're victims of society, because they have to pay off college loans, because your ancestors oppressed them and they want justice, because their religion tells them to, or whatever else you like.
No matter how 3D you make each last enemy in the invading mob, however, its still a very black and white scenario: they're gonna rape you, kill you, and take your shit. Same goes to your friends and family. Situation that happens plenty often IRL, and hopefully RL is realistic enough.
And of course you can reverse the scenario, with the Have Nots trying to escape the tyranny of the Haves. Or what have you. Us/them is perfectly common and realistic IRL, and not "baby shit."
>>44087692
Lol, I like you. That said, Lancelot was esteemed by his English brethren as the greatest of knights.
Actually, this is tangentially related to the thread topic: why is it so hard for some people to accept that someone can be the pinnacle of wordly knighthood, AND a false knight and a traitor?
>>44087637
>Lack of necessity, awareness of the actor. If you cause harm and suffering knowingly, and without any benefit gained from it, then what you are doing is unquestionably evil.
Wrong. It's easy to develop a conception of good and evil that denies your idea of "absolute evil". In the first place good and evil have no intrinsic qualities, as they are statements of preference. Your claim that harm and suffering are the basis of evil is a subjective claim right out of the gate. Harm and suffering might be the basis of enlightenment, as many different real world philosophies claim.
And of course if you define away "any benefit" from an activity then it is no longer reasonable to have a preference for it, but that's about as useful as simply saying that evil=bad.
>>44087781
Did you just step out of a time machine from the 2000s?
>>44087749
Now, explain yourself without using buzzwords
>>44087749
>Muh guns
>Muh Jesus
>bad is BAD, MKAY
Yeah, you're very manly and cool because you don't take no shit from nobody.
Your conception of good and evil differs from mine, from many other countless people and philosophies. What you think is simply the cut and dried really, really isn't, at all.
Let's take an example that you used:
>If your family or person is being attacked, you defend yourself.
What is pacifism? Like, seriously, this isn't even an uncommon thing.
>>44087797
>Why?
Stop right there. These people are evil, you don't need to concern yourself with "why?"; they do it because they're evil and you aren't. So you get to kill them. If you ask "why?" you're implying that there might be a situation where they are right and you are wrong, which would make you evil and them good. And that shit ain't gonna fly.us vs them is THE grey/gray scenario anyway, since it implies that neither side is good/evil, just egotistical. which is fine.
>>44087801
>In the first place good and evil have no intrinsic qualities, as they are statements of preference.
Actually, that is a mindboggingly stupid thing to say. Of course they have intrinsic qualities: they ARE intrinsic qualities. Good and bad are behavior regulators: one literally exists to encourage, the other to disencourage certain behavior.
Second of all, you are forgetting or not realizing that they exist for FUNCTIONAL reasons. They not just some magical arbitrary concepts we conjured up out of nothingness: they exist to facilitate evolutionary beneficial behavior. That is also the reason why certain fundamental principles that we understand as moral are literally, physiologically hardwired into our brains. Concepts of fairness and cheat-detection specifically. We have entire neuronal circuitry specifically dedicated to these things.
Which does not mean there is ONE perfect, objectively right model to follow: there is multitude of different possible strategies of course: but they still exist to facilitate survival, and that gives them the "intrinsic" value. Behavior that does not improve the fitness of one or his social group, yet still causes suffering goes against the functional logic of moral systems. So no. It's not subjective in the slightest.
And no, no philosophy actually disagrees on that point. A lot (most) moral systems permits causing harm and suffering, but none actually encourages knowing suffering without any benefit to the one commiting it.
The only model that got close to this were the two major totalitarian doctrines of the 20th century, but in case of Nazism it was actually, openly and unappologetically fascination with EVIL - a glorification of EVIL ITSELF that facilitated such behavior - in case of Communism it was veiled by the utopistic pretense of "for the greater good" lie.
The benefit, which really is actually "justification" really is key here, I can't understand how you can just ignore it.
>>44087839
Pacifism gets you exploited and/or killed, m8. Welcome to the real world.
>>44087800
Because generally people have the idea a 'true' knight should also be loyal and trustworthy.
What exactly is 'worldy' knighthood in this context anyway, if its purely martial prowess then sure. But most people don't separate out skill at arms from the moral standards they have for a pinnacle of knighthood.
>>44087861
Marx here, communism don't real and never will real. Actually read the Manifesto and not just the /lit/ cliffnotes. kthxbai
>>44076326
No. But that has less to do with any sort of post-modern narrative conventions and more to do with most RPG players playing murderhobos.
>>44087861
>BIOLOGY AND NATURE ARE THE FINAL ARBITER OF TRUTH
Sure thing Sam Harris
The social and evolutionary utility of good and evil are, again, things you're imposing on them.
>Nazis were EVIL
Holy shit, kid, please go back to Civics 101 or wherever you came from
>>44087839
Pacifism is totally immoral if it leads you to not defend your friends and family.
Conversely, defending yourself against unprovoked or unjustified attack is never immoral in any circumstance.
>>44087910
>Pacifism is totally immoral
Nice opinion, m8, but that's all it is.
>>44087917
If you want to defend the moral stance of letting your family be killed in front of you because violence is morally wrong go ahead.
>>44087917
>inaction
>being justified ever
lol gb2 your room Schopenhauer
>>44076326
The problem is good versus evil is only good when you have an interesting, precise and grand vision of what is good, and what is evil.
This is why, for example, Star Wars worked at it, and countless imitators have failed.
>>44087954
>non-violence
>the same as inaction
So how many meaningful actions have your friends and family ever committed?
>>44087822
Words are only buzzwords if either the speaker or the listener don't know what they mean.
>>44087948
>>44087954
I'm not a pacifist, but if you unironically believe that it's objectively immoral then there's nothing to say to you.
>>44087904
>The social and evolutionary utility of good and evil are, again, things you're imposing on them.
Of course I am. Do you actually have any better theory of morality? Biological principles are objective, they are quite literally representations of the most reliable observations we could make about the world we live in and about ourselves. Unless you actually deny the validity of scientific observation, which unavoidably makes you a metaphysic, you can't actually argue that point any further.
>Holy shit, kid, please go back to Civics 101 or wherever you came from
Read more carefully. First of all: yeah, by our current moral standards, Nazis were evil. Our concurrent moral normatives identify them as such. But my point was that under the Nazi regime, events that were evil under EVERY moral normative standard happened. Not that all people participated in them - and not that all people should be considered guilty of them. But the regime facilitated such events - cases of some of the most pointless and absurd forms of torture ever concieved by man. Concepts that were evil even by Nazi general moral standards, I might add.
And when they happened, they were justified not by moral relativism (which by the way, Nazi germany despised), but rather by a flat-out fascination with evil, which was one of the undercurrents of the philosophy.
>implying evil races don't exist
was only a matter of time before some kid posted /b/ gifs on a blue board. seeya thread.
>>44088000
So do you interrupt whenever someone criticises rape or torturing children with 'lol no such thing as objectively wrong!'.
>>44088049
Humor me: what would be wrong about those actions?
>>44087859
>you don't need to concern yourself with why
That's right, you don't. But as I mentioned, you can make evil fictional characters deeper than RL evil people and it doesn't change jack shit.
There's nothing wrong at all about raising the question of "why?" in a story about good and evil and is its own discussion altogether.
>>44088065
Why would I humour someone like you? Any answer I gave would just get the same pathetic 'lol nothing is wrong, everything is subjective!' response.
Even asking that question means you are trolling, a sociopath or a moron.
>>44088066
You're right of course. But if you're already going "character Y is evil for reason X; they do Z", you can just cut out the middle man and have it be "character Y does Z for reason X" if you want.
>>44088008
>Do you actually have any better theory of morality?
There is no reason to have a "theory of morality". Good and evil are quite clearly what they are, that is to say, preferences. Nothing more needs to be said about the matter.
>But my point was that under the Nazi regime, events that were evil under EVERY moral normative standard happened.
Obviously not, given that whatever happened happened, and was frequently both lauded and state-sanctioned. For the most part, the supposed Nazi behavior towards Jews can easily be understood as being motivated by the science of eugenics and hatred of an ethnic minority, not that that matters.
Your fixation on norms is irrelevant. What is popular is not right.
>>44088065
Depends on whether you're operating under moral absolutism (no explanation needed, it just is), moral relativism (no explanation needed, its just my opinion), the prosocial perspective (its bad for society), the Golden Rule (how would you like it if she raped you?), etc.
Even ignoring that in western society nearly everyone has the same basic moral outlook with only the tiniest of tweaks (which cause great outrage) there are endless outlooks on the prospect, but most of them can say, yeah, that's wrong.
Likewise one can run a campaign with child torturers and rapists as antagonists, have it be straightforward good vs evil, and have absolutely nothing about it be unrealistic or what not.
>>44088087
Noted.
>>44088049
Well actually I do take offense at this completely bullshit meme today that rape is some kind of uniquely evil crime that is on par with or worse than murder. Nonviolent rape is especially harmless, it should be a misdemeanor, not the end of someone's entire life.
>>44088112
>>44088008
Not going to take a side in this debate, but I AM going to point out that the Nazis did an utter fuckload of shit that was illegal by their own laws and absolutely hidden from the light of day.
The Nazis are not a good example of arguing about subjective morality or whatever, because its not as if "jews must be gassed and made into Christmas tree ornaments" or whatever was ever a law on the books or calmly accepted. Most of the stuff that people think is evil about the Nazis was extremely shady and clandestine, even to them. The officers who ordered executions often couldn't bear to watch them without getting sick, etc. They generally knew what they were doing, this isn't blue and orange shit.
A better example for deviant moralities is, say, places where Sharia Law is enforced and accepted.
>>44088141
My bad, did I trigger you? I should've known your poor innocent soul would be offended. Next time, I'll put up a trigger warning for you.
>>44088160
Please do, senpai.
>>44088112
>Good and evil are quite clearly what they are, that is to say, preferences. Nothing more needs to be said about the matter.
Actually, I'm pretty sure a little more needs to be said. Like whose preferences, why do we make such preferences, and by what logic. Also, how and why do we tend to expect multiple people to adhere to one set of preferences, even accept the validity of forcing them to adhere to some greater, overarching moral preferences even when their personal preferences differ.
What do we do when two sets of preferences clash?
You are literally saying that the ENTIRE PROBLEM OF ETHICS can solved by saying "well, that's subjective".
Are you fucking sane? In what fucking reality do you live? Did you somehow NOT NOTICE that good and bad are discussed in social context, and play a major SOCIAL formative role?
And do you seriously believe that an answer that not only solves any form of moral issue, but does not actually give any explanation to the origin of morals might not be complete?
You have not provided me with a better theory - you did not provide us with ANY theory.
>Your fixation on norms is irrelevant. What is popular is not right.
Norm does not mean "it's popular" you fucking cretin. You really don't understand a single concept that we are discussing here. Where the fuck do you get the arrogance to even talk about this subject matter.
>Obviously not, given that whatever happened happened, and was frequently both lauded and state-sanctioned.
Not entirely. And eugenics justify killing people, but not torturing them to death in the most inefficient way possible.
There is absolutely no actual moral justification for things like forcing your prisoners in liquidation camps to preform exhausing and self-evidently counterproductive labor, for an instance. Not even within the rather fucked-up Nazi moral models.
>>44087885
Loyalty and trustworthiness are qualities just like endurance; it's not binary, but something you have in a certain amount, used to stave off something until it's all gone. Don't confuse this with being CONSIDERED loyal or trustworthy; that is a binary status.
Sure, there were plenty of other, lesser knights that didn't fuck their liege lord's queen; but they were not put to the same test Lancelot was.
The difference between Lancelot and his son Galahad is well shewn in the parable of Lancelot and the Tournament of Black and White Knights. (If memory serves, that is in book 15 of Le Morte d'Arthur, chapers... shit. Somewhere around chapters 5-8. Don't quote me on that though.)
>What exactly is 'worldy' knighthood in this context anyway
This makes more sense when you think about Lancelot's Grail Quest, where he is not-so subtle brought face to face with his shortcomings. It's a reflective allegory about the nature of man and man's kingdom under GOD, Logres.
Keep in mind that the Grail Quest marks the zenith of Logres and it's greatness. The Siege Perilous is filled at its start, the round table full and complete for the first and last time; and its filling is both the utmost expression of its glory and the signal of its ending. After the Grail Quest, everything is falling action leading into that fateful parley on the plains of Camlan and the death of the High King.
In this way, Lancelot's Grail Quest is a kind of illustrative parable detailing just what is wrong with Logres, how meagre its virtue and inferior it's greatness and goodness is to that of GOD.
>>44088141
So in all honesty, if you woke up realizing someone had fucked your ass without permission while you were unconscious, you would be comfortable with them only getting a misdemeanor?
>>44088174
>So in all honesty, if you woke up realizing someone had fucked your ass without permission while you were unconscious, you would be comfortable with them only getting a misdemeanor?
Yes, I mean the worst case scenario there is what, some bum botherment for a few days? Does the guy responsible deserve to go to prison for 20 years or more for that?
>>44088169
>Like whose preferences
God's.
>>44088155
That is why I'm not discussing the morals of the regime itself, but merely using cases that happened within their regime as illustrations of things that were not morally justifiable under any moral scheme: including the very Nazi scheme.
The whole discussion was about A) the nature of morals themselves, and B) the (proposed) theory of "absolute" evil in a form of actions that are not morally justifiable under ANY scheme.
Some of the torture methods that were used in Nazi camps are just one of examples. Others could be found in Bolshevik Russia, Pol-Pot's Cambodia, but even much closer to the shirt: such as many of the relatively recent highschool shootings.
All of these, I believe, have something in common, and that something is that they are not justifiable under any moral scheme in the world: they are evil for the sake of being evil, rather than being evil because their justification comes from a different moral scheme.
>>44088204
Theistic moral code and absolute moral trivialism don't usually go hand in hand.
>>44088204
/thread
>>44085702
>Morality is circumstantial but not subjective
Prove that objectively
>>44087766
Resemblance is a matter of degree; an egg resembles a golf ball more than a football, and least of all does it resemble an actuarial degree.
>>44088169
>Actually, I'm pretty sure a little more needs to be said. Like whose preferences, why do we make such preferences, and by what logic.
To what end? So you can shitpost about why your SCIENTIFIC morality is superior? Fuck that noise, go home Harris.
>What do we do when two sets of preferences clash?
Argue with each other about it, whine about it, get mad? I mean nothing has to or should happen, it's a matter for the people who are clashing to resolve in whatever way they see fit, not something to "cure".
>Norm does not mean "it's popular" you fucking cretin.
Normative behaviors as you describe them, aka linked to specific societies and time periods, are absolutely a popularity contest of opinions.
If you drop your absurd fixation on the empirical for five seconds you'd realize how pointless your "utility" becomes.
>And eugenics justify killing people, but not torturing them to death in the most inefficient way possible.
First off, that's a coincidental belief. Eugenics easily COULD justify that behavior, and in fact, many different schools of utilitarian thought could be applied to the same end.
I mean everything you're saying here just reeks of juvenile liberal fedora.
>>44086520
Mass shootings are hardly the only reason you Amerifats shouldn't be allowed to carry guns around. Between 2012-2014 you had over 90 school shootings - that's almost one every week.
>>44088289
45 shootings a year, how many casualties do you think that is
like seriously, this is a country of over 300,000,000
the number of people who die in gun homicides annually is like ~11,000 and about half of that is BLACK ON BLACK VILENZ INNA CITY STRUGGLE
at most a few dozen people a year die in random public killings, that's less of a problem than how many people die from getting lost in the fucking wilderness m8
>>44088289
No one will ever know why foreigners consider a child killed by a gun worse than a child killed by a knife or spoon.
>>44088268
>To what end?
Are you literally asking me why ongoing debate about our moral systems is important? Again, I'm asking you: are you sane? What reality do you live in?
>So you can shitpost about why your SCIENTIFIC morality is superior?
Way to prove that you did not even ATTEMPT to understand a single word that I've said.
Which leads me to a really important thing:
You are arguing here with me because you are so fucking insecure you automatically equate this discussion to dickwaving. You neither care for morals, or for who is right: you care about your willy not being harmed by losing a debate.
>it's a matter for the people who are clashing to resolve in whatever way they see fit
Yes, and they will do a better job when they understand what exactly they are arguing about. You are literally stating that being better informed is a bad thing, somehow.
>are absolutely a popularity contest of opinions.
No. Actually, through majority of history the majority of population had absolutely no say in what concepts are broadly accepted as normative. Acceptance of say, christian morals by the native European pagan population was not by popularity contest.
>If you drop your absurd fixation on the empirical
Do you even listen to yourself?
>you'd realize how pointless your "utility" becomes.
Yes: Usefulness is a useless concept. Again: DO YOU EVEN REALIZE what you are saying?
>Eugenics easily COULD justify that behavior
OK: prove that. Provide an example of how eugenics would justify completely and utterly inefficient forms of torture leading to death of certain population. I'm waiting.
>I mean everything you're saying here just reeks of juvenile liberal fedora.
Says the person who believes "morality is just an opinion, man" is actually some kind of deep and wise revelation.
>>44087621
"Fedora" is the single most powerful (and only) argument in the arsenal of the Christfags to defend their primitive superstition.
>>44084724
/thread
>>44087637
>Also, they pertain behavior, not perception alone, and "objective" and "subjective" are categories really only related to perception alone.
What? No.
>>44087749
>There are many. If your family or person is being attacked, you defend yourself.
If someone attacks me, I'll split his skull open and wear it as a codpiece. Then I'll be thrown in prison for excessive violence and my actions will be decried as evil. I will not agree, however.
Who is objectively right? More importantly, does it matter, when the system has the power to punish me for not adhering to its opinions.
>>44088331
By and large, we don't. Its just I rarely hear of a kid killing a kid with a knife (its tough to do for most people) while hearing of a kid killing kids with a gun is fairly common in America.
And this is from a guy that lives in a place known as Stab City. I know people that have been stabbed for refusing to buy hobos a bag of chips.
>>44087749
>Nah. Your sophistry is on the level of saying "well, stuff is legal over here but not over there, so laws are all nonsense."
Nobody is saying it's nonsense, you intellectually dishonest cunt.
>>44088369
Would the codpiece part not make a great basis for Innocence by means of Temporary Madness?
Like no sane person would do thator such would be my argument anyway
>>44083359
'Oh right, okay, Shoulda lead with that information. Sorry, I'm going to go and find some more players from the disproportionally larger pool compared to GMs available.'
>>44088338
>Are you literally asking me why ongoing debate about our moral systems is important? Again, I'm asking you: are you sane? What reality do you live in?
The point of my question was to point out that you're only interested in "investigating" the topic insofar as it shills for your pop science agenda.
>Yes, and they will do a better job when they understand what exactly they are arguing about
I don't agree that your understanding of morality is in any way improved over that of a layman's, and certainly I don't think it superior to my own. To understand morality as you wish it to be understood is to make ethical conflict about some kind of Huntingtonian clash of civilization rather than about sincere platforms of belief. Normative arguments hold just as little water as spontaneous, arbitrary arguments. What you claim the majority believes does not in any way discredit what a single hypothetical person might believe.
>No. Actually, through majority of history the majority of population had absolutely no say in what concepts are broadly accepted as normative. Acceptance of say, christian morals by the native European pagan population was not by popularity contest.
Obviously I did not mean that norms are chosen like some runway whores, but the point was that they're not superior to alternatives just because the herd is stampeding in their direction.
>Yes: Usefulness is a useless concept.
In the realm of metaphysics, social utility is not relevant - you think otherwise go join fucking Confucius and Mencius and stay out of the adult conversations.
>OK: prove that. Provide an example of how eugenics would justify completely and utterly inefficient forms of torture leading to death of certain population. I'm waiting.
My point was not that eugenics does, but rather that it COULD justify that behavior in the sense that eugenics is just a convenient placeholder for any moral framework. Utilitarian thought easily justifies that kind of activity, for instance.
>>44087948
That's a fallacy.
>>44088021
>Whatever your views on good vs evil are, people coming to fuck your shit up are per-dictionary-definition coming to do evil unto you.
What if I stole their shit, raped their children and set fire to their homes, and they're coming for revenge? I mean, I'd kill them for daring to attack me anyway, but whether it's good or evil would never even enter the equation. I will choose me over them every single time, and whether that's good or evil is going to be up to the perceptions of the observer.
>>44088459
''Do evil unto you'' is a phrase moreso than a definition, to be fair. It relies on the Christian belief that murder is inherently wrong, as it ends a life before its allotted time, and this actually interestingly includes the idea that a murder victim automatically goes to heaven.
Christianity is weird sometimes
>>44088373
The (imaginary or gang related) higher violence rates in America are a result of foreigners who live in countries around the size of one of our states, who aren't really able to wrap their minds around the idea of a country about the size of the EU. Terms like "per capita" are alien to them.
>>44088369
>Who is objectively right?
Nobody, since its not third fucking edition and "objective morality" isn't a thing and never was.
>>44088210
Or like the U.S. writing international laws to prevent any nation except themselves from torturing people.
>>44088489
Dont get me wrong, Im not going to argue either way. My city has a drug, terrorist and stabbing issue such that I know 10 year olds that could make reasonable bombs and 14 year olds that have been stabbed while dealing. Not my place.
Just pointing out that its weird to hear how many school and mass shootings ye have compared to, say, Australia without deciding to implement a system of gun regulation. Or more accurately, a better system of such since I think most places in the US require a background check at least...
>>44088172
You know? I really wish you and I could have a decent conversation on this topic. But I feel like either you've already left after being drowned out by the rest of this spurious nonsense, or worse that you are spouting some of it.
Let's just say I appreciate you.
>>44088322
What makes you think casualties are the only problem with school shootings? If you have reason to believe there's going to be a school shooting every week, what sort of social climate do you think that creates in schools around the country?
I mean, it could lead to a completely insane scenario where students need to pass through metal detectors to be let in, or where they have innocuous items like scissors and pens taken away. Oh wait.
How do you think that sort of thing affects the quality of life of the students? All so you people can have MUH GUNS, which you, by your own admission, mostly just use to kill yourselves anyway.
>>44088331
What is it that drives you Americans to kill each other so much? Ultimately, you're not going to be able to kill a whole lot of people with a spoon before someone stops you. A gun in a school will let you kill as many people as you have bullets.
>>44088498
That is exactly what I'm saying, nimrod.
>>44088423
>you're only interested in "investigating" the topic insofar as it shills for your pop science agenda.
First of all, you are so god-damn insecure that when somebody says something you don't agree with, you literally liken him to a marketer.
Second of all, your view of science is a view of an evil corporate entity existing to harm you and oppress you.
>I don't agree that your understanding of morality is in any way improved over that of a layman's
That is not necessarily the point of the theory I'm providing. Laymen usually actually don't get involved in ethics debates to begin with. What it does, however, is explain where the laymen got their existing moral concepts to begin with. Which is a good start.
>and certainly I don't think it superior to my own.
YOU DON'T HAVE ONE. This is not up to debate even: you do not have any explanation of what morals are, where they came from and what are they good for.
>is to make ethical conflict about some kind of Huntingtonian clash of civilization
First of all, Huntington's predictions were REMARKABLY accurate. Second of all: not really, I never said anything of the sorts. The two aren't even mutually exclusive: sincere platform of belief is the phenomenal side of the mechanical need for social organization. You are setting the two into artificial dichotomy that you yourself constructed.
>Normative arguments hold just as little water as spontaneous, arbitrary arguments.
Except for providing a causal explanation tied to reliable empirical observations, downright to neurological evidence, as well as ACTUALLY accomodating the whole sum of experience that we have on the subject. You still haven't provided a single counterargument, by the way. Except for that you don't like it.
And the counter-"theory" you provided literally fails to explain why morals are debated on a social level. Which is a pretty big problem, considering morals are ALWAYS debate on a social level - they are EXCLUSIVELY social.
(cont.)
>>44076326
No, because He-Man was stupid.
Toys were cool, though.
Anyways, stop liking the wrong things, dummy.
>>44080917
>we're totally good, guys
>and if you claim otherwise I'LL SLAP YOUR SHIT
Alright buddy.
>>44088423
>What you claim the majority believes does not in any way discredit what a single hypothetical person might believe.
What the majority believes is not the real question here, the real question is why the majority creates believes, and how.
>Obviously I did not mean that norms are chosen like some runway whores, but the point was that they're not superior to alternatives just because the herd is stampeding in their direction.
I literally don't understand a single word you are saying there. Nobody even talked about superiority of individual norms. I think we kinda have an almost Socratic level of misunderstanding here:
I'm not talking about A SPECIFIC, PARTICULAR moral code and it's content. I'm talking about the process and function of people forming moral systems to begin with.
The part that you quite apparently completely missed in my previous posts was this one:
>Which does not mean there is ONE perfect, objectively right model to follow: there is multitude of different possible strategies of course: but they still exist to facilitate survival
Which by the way should be self-evident. Moral codes play a major role in our survival, codes that do not facilitate survival will be selected out. It's as simple as that: they would not propagate, because behavior models propagates itself much like genes do. Society that has a code contradictory to it's fitness will either become unable to compete and die, or adopt a code more fit to their survival.
>In the realm of metaphysics, social utility is not relevan
This is a pretty important thing:
You are a metaphysic? Like, you literally believe there is a realm that objectively affects our physical world, yet is not in any way traceable to physical world?
Sure, in world of metaphysics society is irrelevant, but in physical reality, metaphysics are irrelevant. Well, not entirely: but metaphysics are tools: not foundations - they are useful heuristics.
>My point was not (...)
In other words, you can't.
>>44076326
>why are things not boring and simple,?
Are you for real man
People like you are why I rarely come to /tg/ anymore.
>>44088509
Mostly its because Americans would rather be able to defend themselves than to do as, say, Britain or Australia does and replace their gun murders with knife murders. We're a little more independent and skeptical of authority, especially when they know gun control just increases the amount of people who will die.
>>44088565
>What is it that drives you Americans to kill each other so much?
Same as any other country. What is it that drives foreigners to be unable to wrap their head around the concept of "per capita?" Seriously, this is what I don't get. "Oh my god, that country bigger than us has more total violence... how... how the fuck? I don't understand maths!"
>A gun in a school will let you kill as many people as you have bullets.
Oh, so this is about hypotheticals and not actual murder rates.
>>44088572
You seem to be acting as if "there is no objective morality!" is a deep and profound statement, when there isn't even a school of thought called objective morality. There's objectivism, which is damn close to nothing like what is being discussed.
>>44088657
This is a sad statement on the state of some people's understanding, when strength of conviction is considered boring and simple.
>>44088683
Dude, you can own guns in Australia and Britain. You just need to be able to prove you are not a criminal, currently serving time or on probation anyway, that you know how to use and maintain it safely and that you have the means to store it safely.
Hell, you can even get a handgun and a concealed carry permit in Ireland. Just need to prove yer reliable not to turn it on civvies for no reason.
Like thats it. Just prove yer not currently on probation or an escapee and that you're a responsible gun owner. Beyond that, all we do is try to keep track of the guns out there. Its worked fine for us.
>>44084829
nice. edgy. i like it
>>44088582
>Second of all, your view of science is a view of an evil corporate entity existing to harm you and oppress you.
Science is uppity and frequently forgets its place, and then people like you come along and insist it belongs where it clearly doesn't.
>What it does, however, is explain where the laymen got their existing moral concepts to begin with.
A sociocultural explanation is only useful to a sociological assessment, something that I'm sure your fellow undergrads squeal over, but that belongs nowhere near the realm of metaphysics.
Preferences stem from arbitrary, unchosen axiomatic positions. Why do I like mint chocolate chip ice cream best? Because I appreciate the taste most. Why do I appreciate its taste most? An essentially random assortment of environmental, biological, and neurological factors are coalescing to create my arbitrary standard of "the best taste." So it is with principles of right and wrong - though in those cases there is substantial pressure to conform to an "established", and yet equally arbitrary standard.
> you do not have any explanation of what morals are, where they came from and what are they good for.
As I've said this entire time, they're preferences. That's all there is to it. The preferences themselves stem from arbitrary axioms. I am not interested in something as blatantly evangelical as the topic of "what they are good for". They need not be "good" for anything, they're part of the sapient experience. This is where you Harrisdrones simply enter into a loop and break down, you cannot fathom the idea that NATURAL UTILITY is not the end-all-be-all.
>harrisdrone shilling for huntington
>shiggydiggydoo
>MUH SOCIAL SCIENCE
No, I don't care for your analysis of what moral schemes are most efficient and productive. Good and evil are arbitrary qualities and attempting to manipulate public opinion in a direction to suggests otherwise is nothing more than banal politics.
>>44088742
I'm not familiar with Australian laws on the topic, but self defense certainly isn't a right in Britain. This is a country where not only do you have to comply with people robbing your house (by leaving) but you can be jailed if he hurts himself on your fence or whatever. Different values.
>>44088787
That's about as accurate to British law as saying "you can gun down anyone, anytime and get away with it" is to US law.
>>44088787
Thats not accurate really. The law is basically ''Stand your Ground'' with the stipulation that you should really get out if you can within reason. Like if you can get your family out, do so. We have a similar one in Ireland, you can use ''reasonable force'' in defence of your home so long as its necessary. So if they come unarmed, you can drive em off with a hurley, but if they bring a knife you can give em both barrels of a shotgun legally.
Helps that a lot of us have homemade rocksalt shells specifically for such situations.
>>44088754
>Science is uppity and frequently forgets its place
With all due respect, I don't think you have the faintest clue what science is.
Science is a mode of observation. Nothing less, nothing more. It merely describes (objective, only objective) side of reality in as great fidelity as we can muster up. Useful tool, not in the slightest a solution. But it never proposed to be, and neither did I.
>A sociocultural explanation is only useful to a sociological assessment
We are talking about exclusively social phenomena, so I don't think this is actually a problem here.
>but that belongs nowhere near the realm of metaphysics.
You actually believe metaphysics supervine physical reality? Things that somebody made up in their heads are more real than the physical matter from which their head consists?
Look, I'm usually the odd one who defends metaphysics. I actually believe they can be very useful. They are models: (sometimes) useful heuristics. They are ways we approximate the world around us, or models which we use to propagate certain patterns of belief.
But metaphysics do not predate those who made them up. They are human invention - they reflect humanity, not vice versa. And unless you want to deny the whole CONCEPT OF CAUSALITY, you actually can't argue otherwise.
Metaphysics can represent our current moral normatives. They give them a nice sounding fluff text, so to speak. And that is actually often a great thing: no irony in that statement.
But metaphysics don't explain what or who humans are. Humans explain what metaphysics are.
>Preferences stem from arbitrary, unchosen axiomatic positions.
The argument for this is...? What makes you certain that the axioma are arbitrary? Any evidence for that?
>An essentially random assortment of
It's not random. It's complex, but not random. There are causal factors playing role. All I'm doing is following those causal factors. I don't see why we should give up on that.
(cont. once more, golly this is fun)
>>44088830
Most people lead with the shotgun, of course. Even if they're unarmed, it works as a good club.
And many farmers tend to shoot first and explain ''it was dark and I thought a fox had gotten in!'' and get away with it
>>44088816
Not really, self defense is generally a crime in Britain. If they can imply in court that at any point you could have escaped without force, you're fucked.
>>44088636
>the real question is why the majority creates believes, and how.
Patently absurd. The majority has chooses from a platter of attractive options, some are made more or less attractive by virtue of social pressure but as I said previously, sociological concerns do not belong in metaphysical discussions.
>I'm not talking about A SPECIFIC, PARTICULAR moral code and it's content.
No, you're talking about "putting to order" the buffet line and figuring out how to stop people going to the other restaurants. Very technocratic of you, I'm sure Bentham would be pleased.
>they still exist to facilitate survival
See, this is just unconscionable. You do not belong in this discussion. Go report on rocks or trees or something.
>You are a metaphysic? Like, you literally believe there is a realm that objectively affects our physical world, yet is not in any way traceable to physical world?
I am a metaphysical idealist but that doesn't really have anything to do with this discussion. Materialism or no, there is a noumenological realm that's clearly independent. Good and evil exist there, not in any physical space, and no information from a physical space will inform us about the nature of them in that realm.
>In other words, you can't.
Well that's just silly. Eugenics is a placeholder - if Lamarckian genetics were taken as the basis for eugenic policy and certain desirable traits were only accessible through forcing people to commit acts of sadistic torture then it's entirely reasonable. But we need not suppose something that silly, we can instead look to conventional explanations for that kind of behavior - that the perceived balance of harms and benefits flowed to the benefits for whatever reason.
>>44088830
>with the stipulation that you should really get out if you can within reason.
There you go.
>>44088857
Once again, not really. Though i does depend on the judge and jury in question I guess. Even if you yourself could escape, you can argue that you feared for your family or other dependents or that you feared being spotted and chased down as you fled.
>>44088872
Well, yeah. If I can get out without exposing myself to undue risk, I really should, shouldn't I? Its more like a public safety suggestion than anything and just about everyone here knows it. Trust me, trying to outlaw home defence wouldn't work and they know it.
>>44088754
>So it is with principles of right and wrong
The utter mistake you make here is that you assume personal preference is the same as moral code.
Moral code is something that applies to more people than you. That is the foundation of it. You don't do things because of random, arbitrary inherent trait: you do it because you have been systematically conditioned to do those things. You can't argue that something is right because you think it's right. Assuming I'm a pedophile, my preference would be to fuck little girls.
Yet that does not make fucking little girls good. And pedophiles are forced, often quite brutally, to make peace with the fact that their preferences are bad. BAD - MORAL JUDGEMENT.
Because again: morality does not exist in the mind of an individual, it exists in the patter of behavior two or more entities collectively adhere to.
>As I've said this entire time, they're preferences.
See above. They are much more than preferences: they are something imposed into social space. Fucking little girls is wrong even if you are a pedophile. Because we made an agreement, a moral normative, that fucking little girls is unacceptable REGARDLESS OF YOUR PREFERENCE.
>>44088754
>I am not interested in something as blatantly evangelical as the topic of "what they are good for".
You are LITERALLY SAYING that "why's" is "evangelical" at this point. In other words, you literally DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND MORALITY. And if you don't want to understand it, how the fuck do you proclaim your opinion on it valid or relevant?
You do realize that relevance and validity is dependant on JUSTIFICATIONS. And you are literally stating that you don't need justification for your belief, yet that it's correct.
Think about that for a fucking second.
You claim you are right BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO REASON TO FOR THAT PARTICULAR BELIEF. ABSENCE OF REASON MAKES IT RIGHT in your mind.
Dude.
>NATURAL UTILITY is not the end-all-be-all.
What is, then?
>>44088889
Either way, I'm sure you can see why Americans are hesitant to submit themselves to systems which will make themselves more vulnerable to being killed by terrorists and criminals, in exchange for making them about 1% safer from a source of death less common than that caused by, say, peanut butter.
Not to mention that countries with heavy gun control respect their citizens less, shit on their speech rights, etc.
>>44088846
>Science is a mode of observation.
Science is an explanatory methodology. Observation is generally unscientific and science does not rely exclusively on observation. In any case it can only tell us certain things about the probable nature of the "physical world".
>We are talking about exclusively social phenomena
Wrong, morality is not intrinsically social. People can form and possess opinions of right and wrong without interacting with another living thing. Preferences may be informed by social factors but society is not essential to their nature.
>But metaphysics don't explain what or who humans are. Humans explain what metaphysics are.
My stomach is turning at the thought that you unironically believe this.
>What makes you certain that the axioma are arbitrary? Any evidence for that?
They're fundamentally arbitrary, as are all things.
>It's not random. It's complex, but not random.
Even if we could trace a casual chain back to some first movement, that doesn't mean that the axiom in question isn't arbitrary. There yet remains the arbitrariness of particular moments and the arbitrariness of causation itself. Alternative states of reality exist and therefore nothing about a particular order is intrinsically more orderly, or correctly causally linked.
>>44088866
>do not belong in metaphysical discussions.
Except this is not a metaphysical discussion. You believing morality can be only understood metaphysically does not mean that everybody else has to agree.
Also, your actual theory of morality is not metaphysical at all. Literally, you are doing "but muh metaphysics" every time you run out of an argument, as an explanation why you don't have to address an argument, but you never actually utilize metaphysics in your theory. You talk of arbitrary and random physical conditions. WHERE THE FUCK HAS METAPHYSICS EVER COME INTO RELEVANCE HERE?!
>No, you're talking about "putting to order" the buffet line and figuring out how to stop people going to the other restaurants
What the fuck? What the fuck absurd fucking projection is that? Where exactly had I stated anything like that? Quote to me the specific lines where I state ANYTHING remotely close to that.
>You do not belong in this discussion.
You refuse the basic principles of academic debate and you lecture me about not belonging here?
Dude, "BUT MUH METAPHYSICS!" is not an argument. There is no line of reasoning there.
>I am a metaphysical idealist but that doesn't really have anything to do with this discussion.
Actually, that has EVERYTHING to do with this discussion. Your basic stance is not rooted in reason - you literally disagree on what "discussion" is about.
You are on a level of a theist, using argument equal to "I'm right because GOD said so" and you think this does not affect your position in this argument?!
>Good and evil exist there, not in any physical space,
Actually, neurology would disagree. More importantly though: good and evil are patterns. Patterns that exist in physical plain, because the material presence of particules is not the entire describtion of material world: there is also organization of those particles. Patterns: good and bad exist in the exact same world as numbers: they represent specific patterns exibited by the matter.
>>44088866
>Well that's just silly.
That is not silly, that is sad. You being unable to prove your own statement.
>and certain desirable traits were only accessible through forcing people to commit acts of sadistic torture
That is a big fucking IF. Can you please explain how and what traits accessible exclusively through acts of pointless sadism would ever be desirable?
>>44088927
Thats... a very broad generalisation. The main example here is Britain, which is ''free so long as the queen is okay with that'' realistically.
Take Ireland, for example. We enjoy much the same rights and such as America, we have gun regulation as explained previously and by and large we have a pretty low rate of murder per capita. It helps that we tend to be in isolated communities so everyone knows everyone, of course, but still.
I ain't saying that its the only right option, just that it doesn't necessarily mean negatives like you might imagine and it can be done.
By the way, ever read any terrorist handbooks? I found an Al Qaeda one on a local image board a while back, they advised using America gun laws to arm themselves. Something to take into account perhaps. And look at Australia. Gun regulation tends to work a long way towards reducing firearms related deaths. I would bet money that if Australia had more permissive gun laws the murder rates there would be higher. Aussies are fucking mad.
>>44076326
>Good necromancers
>Redeemed succubi
>Light-side Sith
>Noble demons
Good vs Evil is like so passe maaaaaan
>>44088977
They were higher during the time the gun laws were looser.
Now obviously this is a complicated area and way beyond a quick skim, but the rates of gun crime in general and murder in particular did go down post-buyback AFAIK. Whether that'd be the case in the US? Harder to say, its a completely different situation in terms of being able to actually enforce any firearm restrictions.
>>44088937
>Science is an explanatory methodology. Observation is generally unscientific and science does not rely exclusively on observation.
Dude... this is beyond sad.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-explanation/
>Wrong, morality is not intrinsically social.
And your proof of that is...
>People can form and possess opinions of right and wrong without interacting with another living thing.
That is a pretty fucking bold statement that will need some evidence behind it. Provide me with a case of people who have been perfectly isolated for at LEAST one lifespan and then show me how they think in moral categories.
Just because there is not someone watching over your shoulder ALL THE TIME does not mean that your thoughts don't work under the anticipation of social factors.
Read this book, by the way:
http://puxadinho.hotglue.me/?start.head.133196922297&download=1
>My stomach is turning at the thought that you unironically believe this.
Says the idealist metaphysic? Your stomache is turning at the vision of people wanting empirical evidence or sufficient justifications for their beliefs? Really?
>They're fundamentally arbitrary, as are all things.
Citation needed. We are finding more and more casual explanations for various factors in our existence every day. Weather is not arbitary - it's caused by atmospheric conditions. Behavior of animals is not arbitrary - explanations have been provided by etology and biology.
Our ability to improve our predictions increases every day. What gives you confidence that everything is "arbitary". And by the way, I think you are using the word arbitrary wrong.
>that doesn't mean that the axiom in question isn't arbitrary.
Thank you for confirming my belief so soon.
>There yet remains the arbitrariness of particular moments and the arbitrariness of causation itself.
Literally meaningless statement. Causality improves our predictive ability, our predictions affects our phenomenal experience. All you need to know.
>>44088992
Well thats some nice straw their friend.
Personally? I like to make shit subjective in world but maintain a background count of stuff. It lets me decide ''Ok, X god is pissed off with ye because X and Y'' and have it explainable without needing to tell the party ''that is objectively evil''. Keeps em thinking, keeps em on their toes.
The looming threat of Angelic Assault does that to people I find.
>>44088947
>Your basic stance is not rooted in reason - you literally disagree on what "discussion" is about.
Seeing this, I've lost any motivation to continue typing out responses. It's abundantly clear to me that our perspectives are parallel and incompatible. You are interested in some kind of practical knowledge about phenomenal events and probability (for an explicitly stated normative purpose), I am simply defending metaphysical tautologies. I do not care about the utilitarian implications of that defense and you care only for them, we can continue in this fashion indefinitely without reaching a conclusion.
>>44087366
Sorry bud, you ate using alignment wrong. Nowhere in the rulebook does it state alignment controls how your character acts. It's simply labels you get based on your actions. Nothing stops the paladin from burning down an orphanage, he'll just stop being lawful good.
You complaint that tough moral decisions fuck up DnD is also blatantly false since those choices exist to test a characters attitude. The DM doesn't get to present characters with two wrong choices and then laugh when you pick A or B, most people will justify what they pick, you don't get to decide "oh you chose to not sacrifice your true love and as a result 100 people died. Your character is now evil cause I'm allowed to determine how he feels"
>>44088385
And he is not saying that, fucker who can't read, he is equating it with a LEVEL of saying.
>>44088141
Wow what bullshit is this. Yea, rape is uniquely evil. The violation of the self by someone else. It's not hard to grasp, especially with all the trauma it brings from the mental, to the physical, to the social.
>>44088977
I'm not going to comment on Ireland as I am not too familiar with it.
>It helps that we tend to be in isolated communities so everyone knows everyone, of course, but still.
Well yeah. Gang activities and other demographic details to murder rates aside, if Europeans made apples to apples comparisons, they'd notice America is not disproportionately violent at all.
>and it can be done
On a fairly small to medium island type area not bordered by cartels and smugglers and such, with a low population density. Europeans have a hard time wrapping their heads around how different and how large America is.
However, if saving lives was your goal, you could save far more people by banning anyone from walking in the rain.
>Something to take into account perhaps.
Even if we were to pretend for a moment that gun control hampers terrorists and ignore that Islamic State raised a veritable army (200-300 arrests and guns seized in France recently and thousands of homes raided, probably more to it than that) in a nation with ultra heavy gun control laws
AND ALL OF THIS IGNORES the fact that the vast majority of gun murders happen in America in places which already have the most stringent gun control! That's yet another thing Europeans don't get about America.
I keep trying to tell Europeans that if they want to understand America, they have to take a step back and appreciate the scope of it. Trying to cram all of America into just a single set of statistics is as misleading and ignorant as lumping in Russia's problems with Ireland, since afterall, they're both European countries.
>>44088998
>but the rates of gun crime in general and murder in particular did go down post-buyback AFAIK
The rates of murder in the US went down since then as well, is the problem.
>>44089044
>>Seeing this, I've lost any motivation to continue typing out responses.
That is actually the correct response. You should stop typing responses and start to deeply rethink the basic justifications on which your belief stands.
Yes, our two perspectives are incompatible, mostly because you don't have one. If you don't think one can be right or wrong: if these two categories aren't relevant to you, then you are caught in a deeply paradoxical and contradictory mindset. It literally means that your thoughts can never go anywhere.
Metaphysical tautologies, by the way, are a product of certain line of thinking. The problem is that your position actually contradicts the very line of thinking that lead to formulation of the concept of metaphysics, and tautology. And that is not to speak of the process that lead to formulation of philosophy in the first place.
Your thoughts are self-contradictory. To assume validity of metaphysics, one must assume validity of thought processes, and validity of thought process is rooted in validity of cognitive processes, and that is slowly inching your towards the pragmatic, actual world in which we live in, and that you so profoundly refuse to consider relevant.
You, when you think "metaphysics are cool" you are a product of reality. The thought "metaphysics" does not precede thoughts themselves, and thoughts themselves don't precede thinker, and thinker does not precede living organism, etc., etc., etc.
It's unavoidable. If you value cognitive steps, you can't ignore their necessary implications.
>>44089049
Except that is not even in the slightest how they are commonly used, and it still has the issue of moral arbitrarity.
>>44089083
LOL! I mean rape is bad but, uniquely evil? I am legit crying I'm laughing so hard.
>>44088742
You realize that in the USA you have to pass a background check every time you purchase or transfer a firearm from a licensed dealer, convicted felons and people with restraining orders or pending domestic violence charges are barred from owning firearms, and safety and storage requirements are determined on a state level?
As for gun registries, just look at Canada's. Originally supposed to cost $119 million Canadian with a yearly operating budget of $2 million, actually cost over $1 billion to implement and ~$17 million yearly operating budget. Only 3.7% of all inquires to the database actually pertain to criminal investigations, the rest come from the fact that running a license plate automatically does a database check, and less than a dozen cases total has the registry actually played a part in a conviction. America already has a classification of firearms and accessories that are required to be registered, NFA items like SBRs, SBSs, and suppressors.
>>44088830
That's not "Stand Your Ground," that's "Duty to Retreat" and is found in several US states.
>>44089083
>uniquely evil
What about, you know, murder?
>>44088998
USA rates of murder and gun crime in general fell after Australia implemented strict gun control.
Problem is that gun crime and murder rates were already falling before the gun laws were implemented and did not show a significant improvement after the laws were implemented. Interestingly enough, after Britain implemented strict gun control in the 90s their crime rates increased.
>>44076326
>Wanting to play the equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon rather than, say, the fuckin' epic of Gilgamesh
>I shiggy diggy doo
>>44089211
Not gonna lie, G1 Transformers, for example, is about a thousand times easier to adapt into something approaching an RPG campaign (good vs evil or not) than the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The point isn't even adapting the story. It's the themes I'm interested in.
How is a predictable, childish moral dichotomy supposed to be superior or even more fun than more ambiguous characters bouncing off of each other in a vastly more flexible system of morality?
>>44089266
I don't know, look at 40k or the Star Wars prequel. Everyone's a shade of grey dirtbag at best, but it doesn't make it any more sophisticated.
Its also nice for some people to be able to enjoy a storyline without the DM always whipping out his big fat moral greyness dick and railroading the PCs into having done something bad.
>>44086651
One of my PCs decided that, in their backstory, they used to teach young and gifted children in the arts of basic magic, crafting prodigies out of kids with potential.
Then along comes my BBEG, and burns everything to the ground, slaughtering every single innocent child just to fuel his evil ascent to Lichdom.
It was okay'd immediately, and was entirely canon from the get go. The best part about it is that I've made it so that the BBEGdoesn't even remember any of them. He literally didn't care enough to memorise their faces.
>>44089292
>DM always whipping out his big fat moral greyness dick and railroading the PCs into having done something bad.
That would be a DM who fundamentally misunderstands what moral greyness is about. Twisting something good into something bad still uses the same boring dichotomy.
If you want some actual moral greyness, stop focusing on good and/or evil so much.
>>44089332
Kind of hard in a roleplaying game where you're assumed to be a heroic(or at least anti-heroic) figure fighting the infinite darkness.
And even when you're not playing that sort of game, good and evil don't stop existing. 40k isn't morally grey, it's just that EVERYONE is fucking evil. 'Greyness' is genuinely hard to achieve because it requires an extremely delicate balance, and people are quick to assign individuals or groups into the basic categories of 'nice folks' or 'utter fuckheads'.
>>44086344
That is not true. Dolphins are true evil found in nature.
It is less a question of being stuck and more a matter of being at the end of life of the old Romantic medieval tales that began with the Victorian era.
>>44089297
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlhOUyy4wbs
>>44080962
Because Gollum, the trolls, the spiders and the elves are all total dickbags?
The only debatable one is the gemstone and you can argue that it was for the greater good.
>>44089190
Murder can be justified.
>>44084202
Lancelot was a mary sue, though.
Literally so.
>>44089266
Well-done good vs evil is anything but predictable, though I suppose arguments could be made for childish.
The point of clear good and evil is to make you believe in, long for such a thing as pure good, despite being a mature and experienced adult set adrift in an uncaring and subtly nuanced world.
>>44089628
>end of life
I don't think you're right about that, but there's no point defending my point of view. Either you're right or I am, and since our opinions on this matter aren't going to inform any actions that will affect me too much, I'm happy for both of us to wait and see.
>>44086252
>It's highly probable that the Muslims who kill civilians sincerely believe they are doing the right thing. They are not bad guys except from a perspective that defines them as such. It's just that most do.
Yeah, it's not like there's thinly veiled self interest and them reveling in having a "moral highground" to excuse them comitting terrible acts!
>>44087637
Literally the only person with any knowledge on the matter on this thread.
>>44087514
My issue with the alignment system is honestly the neutral column.
>>44083982
A* post man
>>44087749
>Your sophistry is on the level of saying "well, stuff is legal over here but not over there, so laws are all nonsense."
>mfw DM pulls that shit when my knight is in a foreign city
>but anon, child sex slavery is legal here, and a tried and true tradition
>still kill the slaving noble at our court hearing and walk out with the slaves
>>44087839
If your family is going to be murderfucked into oblivion by attackers opting for pacifism is a dumb and selfish move, as it puts your ego over the basic safety of them.
This is why buddhist monks started the gongfu shit.
>>44085854
>>44088476
>Christian belief that murder is inherently wrong
Nigga that belief already existed even before the Egyptians built their sand-triangles.
>>44089995
Except that they themselves allow that some of the people in the thread know what they are about; most of us just aren't that invested in setting people straight (but watching is fun).
