Quote from: Bren;841090That would be stupid, but no more stupid that Lawful Good following the laws while rarely questioning the point of them because they were created by a 'good' deity, ruler, or society.

Ah, but that's the thing.  A LG person would question a law that did not seem 'fair' or 'just' assuming of course, that the God had already set up a system that promoted fairness and justice, which being a Good God one would assume so.

What you're describing is still a Lawful Neutral person, because they don't question anything, because a Law is a Law is a Rule that MUST be followed.  Lawful Good people will break laws/rules that seem to harm more than help.

Quote from: amacris;841118If we accept that Lawful characters are deontological and Evil characters are consequentialist,

This could also be a fruitful approach. Interesting, could use some mulling over.

Would that make Neutral virtue ethics?

Quote from: Bren;840996Lawful stupid.

+1

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;840969Actually, that's interesting. how would you guys describe the bible Abraham's alignment? He was going to kill his own son because God told him.



Unrelated:

A funny quote from Jose Saramago, btw: "Según la Biblia, dios ordenó a Abraham que sacrificase a su propio hijo. Lo lógico, lo natural o lo simplemente humano sería que Abraham hubiese mandado al señor a la mierda."

Translated: "According to the Bible, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his own son. The logical, natural or simply human response would be for Abraham to tell God to go fuck himself."

José Saramago is right, and arguably that is what God was expecting.
Abraham just failed the test.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;841198What you're describing is still a Lawful Neutral person, because they don't question anything, because a Law is a Law is a Rule that MUST be followed.

No that's your description of Lawful neutral not mine. I maintain that Lawful Neutral must question how to reconcile conflicting rules.

Abraham was Lawful Stupid.

QuoteLawful Good people will break laws/rules that seem to harm more than help.

Not necessarily. Humans are finite, they can't see the big picture that the deity can perceive. From the deity's perspective those harms you want to mitigate by breaking gods immutable laws only make things worse in the long run. Or try reading Kant.

Quote from: amacris;841118If we accept that Lawful characters are deontological and Evil characters are consequentialist

If Lawful is deontological, then shouldn't its opposite of consequentialism be Chaotic, not Evil?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;841355If Lawful is deontological, then shouldn't its opposite of consequentialism be Chaotic, not Evil?

You know, I totally misread the original quote as saying this. This is interesting and potentially fruitful, L = D and E = C is WTF. I'm going to  assume it's a typing error.

Quote from: Bren;841245Not necessarily. Humans are finite, they can't see the big picture that the deity can perceive. From the deity's perspective those harms you want to mitigate by breaking gods immutable laws only make things worse in the long run. Or try reading Kant.

I understand this argument, but it presumes LG characters who are also religious.  

It also presumes a concept of "Law" that supersedes the intent of serving good.  
This is not as common as one would assume.  As one great Jewish teacher once put it: The Torah is there to serve man, not man to serve the Torah.

Quote from: apparition13;841404You know, I totally misread the original quote as saying this. This is interesting and potentially fruitful, L = D and E = C is WTF. I'm going to  assume it's a typing error.

Another way to look at it:

Lawful is principled, Chaotic is unprincipled.

Although that just invites questions of "what does 'principled' mean."

Quote from: Bren;841245Not necessarily. Humans are finite, they can't see the big picture that the deity can perceive. From the deity's perspective those harms you want to mitigate by breaking gods immutable laws only make things worse in the long run. Or try reading Kant.

I'm pretty sure he was referring to human laws, not divine.

Quote from: apparition13;841892I'm pretty sure he was referring to human laws, not divine.

The original example was Isiah being commanded to kill his son which is clearly a divine command.

Even if we go beyond that example, alignment systems like those in D&D treat Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos as fundamental, objective, immutable parts of the world. Applying Law with a capital "L" to culturally relative, changeable, fallible human laws (with a lowercase "l") is wrong-headed and silly in the same way that arguing that there can be different and conflicting Goods in that world would be wrong-headed and silly. I'm not particularly fond of D&D alignment, but if you are going to use it, at least treat all the alignments equally seriously rather than treating some as a caricature.

Quote from: RPGPundit;841839I understand this argument, but it presumes LG characters who are also religious.

I think one could be a Kantian-style deontologist without being religious. The objective aspects of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil in a D&D style setting would take the place of gods in that context. A Lawful person would use Kant's view that the only valid maxims are one's that can be universalized.

QuoteIt also presumes a concept of "Law" that supersedes the intent of serving good.

For Kant, the principle of universality supersedes any hypothetical or single instance of perceived good. His argument that lying is universally wrong (see telling the truth to the axe murderer at your door) would be one example.

Now I don't agree with Kant, for a number of reasons, but it's not like his philosophy is absent of real world believers or advocates.

Upon thinking about this a bit more my view is a little different. (Or at least I think it is, maybe not.) To me, "Good" and "Evil" are about what you do. "Lawful" and "Chaotic" is more about style, how you go about doing an act. What limits you put on yourself is also about law vs. chaos. Do you act in a wild, carefree manner or are you more controlled about your acts?

Example:

Let's say there is a library in your town that is old and needs demolishing. A chaotic-evil person runs up to the building with some gas, matches and burns the place down, maybe with people still inside. A lawful-evil person seeks to use the town council to close the library, decommission the building and hires a contractor to demolish the building. No new library is built and the books are tossed into a landfill. The town suffers but he doesn't care.

A lawful-good person would have the building closed but hire an architect to design a new one, set aside land for it, fund it, have it built. The books would be carefully stored away then moved into the new building. The town has a nice new library and loses nothing but a decrepit old building.

A chaotic-good person, well, I'm not sure. Maybe he would want to keep both the old building and call for construction of a new one but offer no plan on where and how to pay for these places. His only concern is to keep all the old books, somehow, somewhere. (Or maybe that's the neutral-good person, must say I have difficulty separating neutral acts from chaotic.)

Note: The above example presupposes that you consider a town library to be a "good" item to have, a benefit to the town. If you consider libraries to be bad places, a drain upon town finances, well, then the lawful-evil guy might seem good to you.

Quote from: Doughdee222;841926Upon thinking about this a bit more my view is a little different. (Or at least I think it is, maybe not.) To me, "Good" and "Evil" are about what you do. "Lawful" and "Chaotic" is more about style, how you go about doing an act. What limits you put on yourself is also about law vs. chaos. Do you act in a wild, carefree manner or are you more controlled about your acts?

Example:

Let's say there is a library in your town that is old and needs demolishing. A chaotic-evil person runs up to the building with some gas, matches and burns the place down, maybe with people still inside. A lawful-evil person seeks to use the town council to close the library, decommission the building and hires a contractor to demolish the building. No new library is built and the books are tossed into a landfill. The town suffers but he doesn't care.

A lawful-good person would have the building closed but hire an architect to design a new one, set aside land for it, fund it, have it built. The books would be carefully stored away then moved into the new building. The town has a nice new library and loses nothing but a decrepit old building.

A chaotic-good person, well, I'm not sure. Maybe he would want to keep both the old building and call for construction of a new one but offer no plan on where and how to pay for these places. His only concern is to keep all the old books, somehow, somewhere. (Or maybe that's the neutral-good person, must say I have difficulty separating neutral acts from chaotic.)

The Chaotic Good person would have already moved the books to his/her home, for safe keeping (and they would be safe, as they are a GOOD person), and then work on demolishing and rebuilding the structure.  Without consulting the local laws or contractors.

A Neutral Good Person will adopt a mix of the two, depending on which is most expedient, but still safe method.  Is working within the local construction laws the best result?  Which laws can be bent and broken, and still save the books and the library?

A Neutral Evil will look for the most 'efficient' method, as long as it gets them ahead.

It's like a colouring book, a Lawful person will try to keep within the lines.  A Chaotic will likely end up with an expressionist painting if they feel it looks better.  A Neutral person will try to stick within the lines, but might go outside if the situation demands it.

A good example of LE in action would be the captain of the ship in Billy Budd. Budd is court-martialed for killing the sadistic midshipman by accident. Even though it's clear Billy Budd is justified in defending himself, and the captain does have the option of ruling in Budd's favor, he has the sailor hanged because to do otherwise might encourage mutiny in the fleet when they're about to engage the French fleet in battle.

Another example is the Imperial officers in Star Wars, who demand obedience from their underlings while knuckling under to their superiors -all the while willing to kill, torture and enslave anyone who gets in their way (or might be the means to raise their own status).

I've always been more of a Nietzsche guy myself...

I'd go with Tywin Lannister (TV version). He's quite evil, yet he puts his family above himself and his own offspring. This scene cinched it for me:

LINK