Can someone explain the lawful good, chaotic good type of memes?

[Canny McTin-Face]

I see them everywhere and even though they seem very straightforward i'm still kind of confused about their context. Someone please explain this to me.

[Zubenelgenubi]

http://easydamus.com/alignment.html

[White Knight]

As explained, it's from Dungeons & Dragons. It's a simplified system to organize people into basic motivations, and has proven to be so useful that it quickly spilled out into the world in everyday conversations (for nerds anyway).

I still reference alignments, it makes life rather easy. Once upon a time, I considered myself Chaotic Good, then Neutral Good, and wound up as Lawful Good (with neutral tendencies).

So, to put it briefly, it consits of nine categories: Good, Neutral, and Evil, along with Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. The Good/Evil part is about how you treat others mostly, the Law/Chaos stuff is about your attitudes towards authority...more or less.

It fails because it doesn't factor in a person's ability to lie to themselves. People can do atrocious things, and ascribe themselves high moral values, in doing so. A system like this assumes some kind of objective morality (god's point of view). In the end, it's bulky and over-simplified, but quite useful all the same.

[Zubenelgenubi]

Originally posted by White Knight:

A system like this assumes some kind of objective morality (god's point of view).

It doesn't have to be the objective morality dictated by a religion, that often decides what is moral based on their plans for conquest or desire for wealth. Your own conscience is a built in guide to objective morality, and some people say that's a real connection to the divine. But yeah, most people have lost touch with it, and the voice of their ego is louder.

[White Knight]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

Originally posted by White Knight:

A system like this assumes some kind of objective morality (god's point of view).

It doesn't have to be the objective morality dictated by a religion, that often decides what is moral based on their plans for conquest or desire for wealth. Your own conscience is a built in guide to objective morality, and some people say that's a real connection to the divine. But yeah, most people have lost touch with it, and the voice of their ego is louder.

It assumes there is an objective morality, which is patently absurd to people who weren't raised in a religious household. Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, are not things that exist on some imaginary tally sheet. Humans and their motivations, are complex.

You and I could argue for hours about ascribing an alignment to Donald Trump, for example. That argument would get us nowhere...because the model is overly simplified, and we can never truly know what is in another person's heart or mind. Isn't that why Christians often say that only god can judge us?

What you consider "good", could easily be considered "evil" to others. I might plan an intricate and orderly rebellion, that someone else would describe as "criminal", etc.

Some people think a book can help them make moral choices, while others consider that same book to be proof that those people are the very last to ever have anything meaningful to say about morality.

Life is much more complex than some people are willing to accept.

[Zubenelgenubi]

Originally posted by White Knight:

It assumes there is an objective morality, which is patently absurd to people who weren't raised in a religious household.

This is so wrong, though. I'm telling you that our own conscience should tell us it's bad to hurt people psychologically or physically, and that is true objective morality. Before religion complicates things and says it's ok to do immoral things to people in the name of their god.

The idea religion is the only source of objective morality causes people to give up on objective morality when they realize how immoral religions have been.

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

Originally posted by White Knight:

It assumes there is an objective morality, which is patently absurd to people who weren't raised in a religious household.

This is so wrong, though. I'm telling you that our own conscience should tell us it's bad to hurt people psychologically or physically, and that is true objective morality. Before religion complicates things and says it's ok to do immoral things to people in the name of their god.

The idea religion is the only source of objective morality causes people to give up on objective morality when they realize how immoral religions have been.

I agree. Morality is objective. Even atheists or people not grown up in a Judeo-Christian society know that killing innocents is wrong. There's a very tiny percentage of the population that doesn't inherently know right from wrong (like less than a percent of the population) because of biological/mental anomoly.

Even most people who are considered evil know things they do are wrong, but for a variety of reasons, they don't care. Religion was just a means to give people some sort of punishment or deterrent beyond man to incentivize not doing evil things.

Most atheists would even agree that the ten commandments are pretty basic rules of society, that killing outside self defense is wrong, stealing is wrong, etc. Has nothing to do with religion though, it's got to do with the fact that morality is objective.

[CryHavoc&LetSlipTheCreepsOfWar]

I don't see morality as objective (I'm an atheist, btw) but as an emergent property of society. It's not restricted to human groups either, even other social animals such as chimps have some form of 'morality'. But outside of such group interactions there is no morality. Nature is amoral. Hurricanes and earthquakes for instance are niether 'good' nor 'evil'. You can't ascribe an immoral position to a lion hunting a gazelle either.

Saying morality is objective is like saying that nature is moral/immoral and not totally amoral.

We evolved in groups and depend on groups for our survival, therefore we have biological 'morality modules' in our brains and agreed upon sets of rules that are external to our beings.

[talemore]

Chaotic evil and chaotic neutral are two different things. The chaotic evil is just evil and the chaotic neutral is mad. Neutral is insanity cause it lost track on what's good or bad. The evil knows what's evil and the good know what's good. If you are a neutral character you are insane by the definitions of dungeons and dragons.

[Commander Makara]

Originally posted by CryHavoc&LetSlipTheCreepsOfWar:

I don't see morality as objective (I'm an atheist, btw) but as an emergent property of society. It's not restricted to human groups either, even other social animals such as chimps have some form of 'morality'. But outside of such group interactions there is no morality. Nature is amoral. Hurricanes and earthquakes for instance are niether 'good' nor 'evil'. You can't ascribe an immoral position to a lion hunting a gazelle either.

Saying morality is objective is like saying that nature is moral/immoral and not totally amoral.

We evolved in groups and depend on groups for our survival, therefore we have biological 'morality modules' in our brains and agreed upon sets of rules that are external to our beings.

Right. It's not objeectvive morality but imposed by society. Conscious is formed through societal convention plus biological impulse too - neither of which are objective though they may be shared throughout separate societies.

LAst time I pointed out these kind of things people assumed that I was advocating against certain societal norms - I'm not - I'm just pointing out that a tendency for societies to agree on certain values does not imply those values are necessarily universally objective.

[Zubenelgenubi]

Any morality which is just something people abide by for societal reasons is something they'll violate when no one is looking or they think they can get away with it, so it isn't objective. If it has to be enforced or imposed it's not something people are following objectively and independently. Even the most immoral person will behave morally if you put a gun to their head.

True objective morality is based in empathy, and it's more likely that was a natural trait which helped us build civilizations rather than something which arose from civilization. Although unfortunately at some point our civilizations began to promote narcissism and a lack of empathy, which is making our civilizations unpleasant.

[Commander Makara]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

Any morality which is just something people abide by for societal reasons is something they'll violate when no one is looking or they think they can get away with it, so it isn't objective. If it has to be enforced or imposed it's not something people are following objectively and independently. Even the most immoral person will behave morally if you put a gun to their head.

True objective morality is based in empathy, and it's more likely that was a natural trait which helped us build civilizations rather than something which arose from civilization. Although unfortunately at some point our civilizations began to promote narcissism and a lack of empathy, which is making our civilizations unpleasant.

Yay! I am in complete agrreement with you!
Isn't that a nice change? :)
Happy New Year! <3

----
And that "True morality", being 'natural' as you put it is tempered through n evolutionary benefit to survival of the species overall, but also ones own genetic strain - a la Dawkins )

___

[CryHavoc&LetSlipTheCreepsOfWar]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

Any morality which is just something people abide by for societal reasons is something they'll violate when no one is looking or they think they can get away with it, so it isn't objective. If it has to be enforced or imposed it's not something people are following objectively and independently. Even the most immoral person will behave morally if you put a gun to their head.

True objective morality is based in empathy, and it's more likely that was a natural trait which helped us build civilizations rather than something which arose from civilization. Although unfortunately at some point our civilizations began to promote narcissism and a lack of empathy, which is making our civilizations unpleasant.

Laws are not the same thing as morality. They can be moral, or they can be immoral. They can be coercive and immoral. You can also make a moral person do something immoral if they have a gun pointed to their head or to the head of a loved one. Laws also depend on cultural contexts and what is seen as a necessity in one culture isn't necessarily in another. Laws are objective, but I still don't see how morality is.

Empathy has its limits. There were a few studies done suggesting that people in general emphasize with members of their own groups more than with people of other groups. It's easier to dehumanize someone from an outgroup than an ingroup. Also, members of smaller groups tend to be more empatheitic towards each other, which has roots in our evolutionary origins. Most of the history of our species was spent in small clans where everyone knew who everyone was, not in large cities where most people are complete strangers to you.

For instance, consider this scenario. Within Group A, there are laws that prohibit its members from killing each other...laws that are obeyed. Would you consider members of that group to be moral?

Now let's say Group A raids Group B's territory to steal resources and murders members of that group. This is fairly common in our species. Would you still consider Group A to be moral?

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

True objective morality is based in empathy, and it's more likely that was a natural trait which helped us build civilizations rather than something which arose from civilization.

There is no “true objective morality”. An objective process is one that gives the same result regardless of who undertakes it. Such a morality does not exist. I wish people would get over the urge to insert “objectivity” into things as if it’s needed for strength. Subjectivity is not a weakness.

(Edit: to be clear, what I mean does not exist is not objective morality rules - there are an infinite amount of sets of those that one could (subjectively) choose to abide by. Rather, I object to the idea that some of those sets are on some kind of “higher level” of objectivity, purer, better, more real, more universal etc, as people generally mean by words like “true” in this context.)

[CryHavoc&LetSlipTheCreepsOfWar]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Originally posted by Zubenelgenubi:

True objective morality is based in empathy, and it's more likely that was a natural trait which helped us build civilizations rather than something which arose from civilization.

There is no “true objective morality”. An objective process is one that gives the same result no regardless of who undertakes it. Such a morality does not exist. I wish people would get over the urge to insert “objectivity” into things as if it’s needed for strength. Subjectivity is not a weakness.

I agree.

[Cigarette]

Vergins.