Over in the "I Hate Clerics" thread, RPGPundit raised a side discussion:

Quote from: RPGPundit;646719See, "law" and "chaos" are real things, while "good" and "evil" as most societies use it don't actually exist (the only thing that is good really is that which is True, and denying truth is evil).

Quote from: apparition13;646937Law and Chaos are real things? 99% of the arguments over what alignments mean are over how people define law and chaos. They aren't remotely real.

Quote from: RPGPundit;647268I find them considerably more definable than "good" and "evil" which depend far more on cultural norms.  Arguments about law and chaos tend to be about which of these is more ethically appealing.

Now, I kind of agree with The Pundit, but with some caveats. But heck, let's open this up for a separate discussion. Do people see Law/Chaos as real, or at least more real than Good and Evil? Do they seem vaguer than Good and Evil, as apparation13 suggests? Or are they more primal, but still ultimately a cultural construct?

Michael Moorcock.

/thread

I think that Law and Chaos are just thesaurus entry for good and evil. Good/law or evil/chaos. All visions (or opinions) in the eye of the beholder.

Sure, I can see Law and Chaos as real things ...in the realm of an RPG, and it's a notion I usually subscribe to when DMing.

How can one honestly say law vs chaos is more real than good vs evil. Its all the same. Hell depending on who you talk to, their definition of evil and good, or chaos and law can be totally the opposite of you. One mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter. One who you perceive as committing evil acts, can be seen as by another committing a deed of unparalleled good. How can one say law or evil is less realistic than chaos and law. Especially being they are all flips of the same coin.

Quote from: Ronin;647579How can one honestly say law vs chaos is more real than good vs evil. Its all the same.

I guess some people haven't read Erekosë and the way he breaks the balance in the end, which basically, from a Moorcockian point of view, validates the exact point you are making, that Law and Chaos are human constructions, the way Evil and Good are in other ways.

Yet, from a "genre emulation" standpoint (which is something I don't get behind, as it is treating RPGs as emulators of other media instead of media of their own), it kind of makes sense given that you've got Chaos Butterflies and Lords of Law instead of, you know, good guys and bad guys...

Wait.

Good and Evil ....
Essentially, there are things that is claimed to be "Good", however, if they really isn't good, but just thought of as good (spanking children for raising them is in some places still thought of as "good", but it really just hurts the children), then it is just social constructs.

Evil, on the other hand, is supposedly that which is hurtful, but as some allegedly "good" things also is hurtful, plus the metaphysicality often claimed by the Abramic religions, it has become claimed that good and evil really is on a metaphysical plane, thereby even claiming that not phisically hurting someone can be "Evil", and that hurting someone is "Good".
That standpoint is, of course, a load of bullshit, and only a social construct.
"Evil" has thus rather been used as a kind of "buzzword" to alienate and persecute anything odd, and anything that has claimed that the socially constructed "good" isn't Good at all.

Now, Law and Chaos:

Law is a social construct. It is Morals upheld in a martial or near-martial way(police).
It is no more "Real" than good or evil.
What about the Natural Laws, then?
Gravity, attraction, and so forth?
In that case, if you want Order ... i'll show you a Dimond.
Perfect order also means totally stuck.

Chaos ....
Nah, that isn't real either, it is defined as disorder(figure that), cruelty/evil(see above), imperfection.
However, it is also defined as uncivilized, wild, and random.

Essentially, the "Law vs Chaos" thing is only a way to bring the "civilization vs wilderness" - thing to metaphysical heights ... or lows, with "Civilization" claiming to have a "moral highground" that it really doesn't have.

However, if you are smack down in the middle of a society that claims that Law vs Chaos and/or Good vs Evil is true ... then it is really hard to see it for what it is, and if you do, it is still damn near impossible to try convincing others that it is all rubbish without getting branded as "Evil", or possessed.

To be honest, almost every RPG setting ignores Law/Chaos or Good/Evil as real things, as well as the influence of Gods that are actually real.  Historians can say that the Medieval mind actually believed in God so it is the same thing, but it really ain't.  People didn't come back from the dead.  Priests couldn't put your arm back on or remove the scars of the Black Plague you survived.

Manifest deities would change the entire mindset of a culture at least as much if not more then "real arcane magic" would.

Not to pick on anyone in particular, but for example, take Rob.  He's a longtime player and GM, writes great gaming stuff, yet in a thread about "What sticks in your craw about settings" he mentioned rain shadows.  What do rain shadows have to do with weather in a world where whether or not it rains depends on whether your gods feel like making it rain?

People are so used to the concept of a subtle, non-overt, physically absent deity, that it seems to be a blind spot for them to make that leap.  If you can't get to where the gods whether through will or simply by existing, form the laws of the universe, then you're not gonna get to Law/Chaos/Good/Evil as a "thing" most likely.

Most people who can get Law/Chaos are really thinking in scientific terms of Order/Entropy, as a result, Good/Evil seem to be less real as when viewed through the lens of the scientific universe, they are relative.  I doubt anyone, not even the most devout human living today, natively thinks of a universe where angels dance on the head of a pin because God wills it.  Because even they know they're wrong, and they'll never see an angel anyway.

I think they are aesthetically real, as in Nietzsche's Apollonian vs Dionysian, and I think they exist on a psychic level with most western minds comfortable with dichotomies and opposites.

As for the objectiveness of their existence, who knows. I don't think it's that big 'a deal to be honest.

Law and chaos are how the world is organised, good and evil are why it's organised in that way. Law is predictable, structured, sterile. Chaos is wild, creative, and destructive. They are a philosophical simplification of many divergent factors which fits well into fiction.

Of course in the real world, no objective good and evil can exist, but as far as RPGs and fiction in general go, why not? So you can slaughter vampires, ghouls and orcs all day long and sleep well that night, assuming you got them all.

So basically law and chaos are simplifications of real forces, good and evil are imaginary but a lot of fun.

I've moved on a bit from that in my own game, using Primevals as the bad guys instead, embodiments of the ancient horrors that stalked just outside the light of the campfires of stone age man as he clawed his way up towards civilisation, and that have never really left us.

The night hag, the tickler, the tall man, the slowing darkness, the following beast, the faceless terror, skitters and the weeper, things that will make your skin crawl in a far more personal way than a distant daemon prince on a throne of bones in a fluorescent palace in chaosville. Overtones of Twin peaks.

If we're talking real world, Reaction vs Revolutionary would be a better term.

I like the notion of Law versus Chaos, because it's a fight on a much more abstract level, than Good versus Evil.

So shouldn't Law be Akin to Bourdieu's concepts of Habitus and Doxa where as Chaos would be the conscious rejection of those ?

Good and Evil are heavily infuenced by cultural contextualisation obviously. However, I think there are a slew of accepted absolutes. If you are religious the grey area is far smaller.

I certainly think there are Evil Laws and that some people that break laws do it for good reasons without those laws themselves being unjust.

Course Nietzsche woudl disagree with me....

Since Pudnip has described himself as a Thelemist (if I recall) thus believes that 'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law' and probably has an entirely different opinion.

Quote from: talysman;647570Now, I kind of agree with The Pundit, but with some caveats. But heck, let's open this up for a separate discussion. Do people see Law/Chaos as real, or at least more real than Good and Evil? Do they seem vaguer than Good and Evil, as apparation13 suggests? Or are they more primal, but still ultimately a cultural construct?

My basic approach to good/evil is the one from behavioral economics/game theory/biology. Good = altruistic, you should help others even if it costs you; neutral =  wary-cooperation/reciprocal-altruism, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours (1); evil = it is acceptable to hurt others to achieve your goals (2).

(1) With the implication that favors done today will be returned tomorrow.

(2) Here the technical terminology isn't as useful, it's frequently "defector", from game theory, but selfish can also work, though there is frequently an implication of sociopathy as well.

This is basically the Harm-Care axis from Jonathan Haidt. Note that it deals with individual interactions, as in "was anyone hurt", not necessarily actions that societies may or may not judge as immoral (drugs, prostitution, speech, etc.).

I like this because it's pretty simple and straighforward, and avoids the question of "social convention".


Law/Chaos is a different beast entirely.

Quote from: Benoist;647573Michael Moorcock.

/thread

is an answer, but I've read Moorcock and it was never clear to me what he meant.

Quote from: Ronin;647575I think that Law and Chaos are just thesaurus entry for good and evil. Good/law or evil/chaos. All visions (or opinions) in the eye of the beholder.

I think this is also implied in some settings/writings.

Quote from: CRKrueger;647622Most people who can get Law/Chaos are really thinking in scientific terms of Order/Entropy, as a result, Good/Evil seem to be less real as when viewed through the lens of the scientific universe, they are relative.

Order/entropy is also used, and makes sense in a physics, but...

Quote from: The Traveller;647635Law and chaos are how the world is organised, good and evil are why it's organised in that way. Law is predictable, structured, sterile. Chaos is wild, creative, and destructive. They are a philosophical simplification of many divergent factors which fits well into fiction.

perfect entropy is predictable, structured and sterile (all matter and energy is evenly distributed throughout the universe), while "wild, creative, destructive" is the province of negentropic (complex, "ordered") open systems, so the physics definitions wind up getting inverted.

Quote from: Rincewind1;647655If we're talking real world, Reaction vs Revolutionary would be a better term.

I like the notion of Law versus Chaos, because it's a fight on a much more abstract level, than Good versus Evil.

This gets tossed into the mix, but how do you tell apart a reactionary extremist (al Queda) from a revolutionary one (Red September)?

You get Lawful = predictable in behavior/follows a behavioral code vs. Chaos = unpredictable/random in behavior, but you also get Lawful = social convention vs. Chaos = individualism, and social conventions can be pretty random, while individualists can have strict behavioral codes. This leads into lawful and chaotic as analogous to deontological vs. consequentialist ethics.

Personally I like lawful = social, chaotic = individual, with eusocial insects as the ultimate in lawful and asocial solitary animals as the ultimate in chaotic. Not for any philosophical reason, just because it makes determining whether someone or something is lawful or chaotic a matter of determining how big their social group is, which is simpler than trying to fit their behavior into a conceptual scheme. If it lives in big groups its lawful (Humans, Orcs, Bison), if in small groups its neutral (lions, wolves), if its solitary its chaotic (tigers, dragons, most spiders). Individuals can vary, with some preferring more social connections and others living as hermits.

A consequence of this is that at the lawful end, good and evil become more complicated than the simplicity of harm care, since good must now include "what is good for the social group, even if it harms individuals", and evil implies that altruism for the sake of the group may be mandated, but other groups are fair game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;647675So shouldn't Law be Akin to Bourdieu's concepts of Habitus and Doxa where as Chaos would be the conscious rejection of those ?

I'm only somewhat familiar with Bourdieu, but I think maybe, for Doxa at least. Habitus I'm not so sure about, since it would seem to include all deeply learned behavior. But like I said, I'm not sure what all Bourdieu would include in habitus.

QuoteSince Pudnip has described himself as a Thelemist (if I recall) thus believes that 'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law' and probably has an entirely different opinion.

At face value this seems chaotic, since it rejects all social rules, but then again "what thou wilt" could be a sophisticated and complex moral philosophy, so who knows.

Quote from: apparition13;647704I think this is also implied in some settings/writings.
Order/entropy is also used, and makes sense in a physics, but...

perfect entropy is predictable, structured and sterile (all matter and energy is evenly distributed throughout the universe), while "wild, creative, destructive" is the province of negentropic (complex, "ordered") open systems, so the physics definitions wind up getting inverted.

This is fiction, not physics.

The problem as I see it is: the definitions of both "Good vs. Evil" and "Law vs. Chaos" change from culture to culture, but they don't change at the same sense.

We're all familiar with how Good and Evil change from culture to culture. The problem is that some definitions do not intersect at all with other definitions. For example, apparition13's definition (altruism vs. selfishness, or help vs. harm) fits some Christian interpretations, but not all... and that's just Christian interpretations; we aren't even considering other religious and moral systems, including some that don't seem to have good and evil at all.

Law and Chaos are always some version of Order and Disorder; what changes there is what kinds of order and disorder are relevant. Just cosmic order? Or civilization in general, either in the universal sense or one specific sense (or every specific sense?) Or the concept of rules in general? Or just behavior as a group vs. behavior of individuals?

So: there's a core concept behind Law vs. Chaos, and the societal definitions relate to the stuff around the core, while Good vs. Evil at its core is just "what society values", but what those core values are changes. That's the sense in which Law/Chaos are more real than Good/Evil, but with the caveat that the universal definition of Law/Chaos is pretty fuzzy.