140 réponses à ce sujet

[foolish_sagacity]

In all honesty DungeonHamster, I feel very similarly to you. I don't want to believe good doesn't exist. And I can't believe that we only do good out of pure selfishness, even though there seems to be a line of logic to that argument as I've heard it worded. In regards to there being an absolute human scale of morality I'm willing to concede it is possible. We all do tend to feel strongly as a species that killing each other is bad, mkay?

But imagine if some alien species came and observed our planet. Imagine that they see a world that is overfull of a bunch of largely selfish, obstinate hairless apes that are destroying a planet because there are too many of them using too many resources. Not that i'm a crazy environmentalist, but let's say these aliens know this road but know it leads to ecological disaster for most if not every species. What if they believe, and even have empirical evidence, that without murder, or killing off all but the genetic strongest in a species a world is doomed to perish. What if warfare, us killing each other until only the srongest were left, was the best thing for the whole planet?

I know this is full of holes, but what i'm trying to say is that I don't think we can find absolute morality where every living thing in this universe benefits. Most of us routinely kill insects. Even I will kill a hornet or bee if I feel like they may endanger a person allergic to them. Morally, I feel wrong killing bees, even if I know a child nearby is allergic to it. And just by existing I have killed thousands of life forms, against their best interests.

I know it sounds pretty silly, but I don't believe there can be universal right and wrong, only a very rough, beaten up scale of human right and wrong. Our existence requires destruction and death, wheteher we ever murder another man or not.

[Baelin Firestorm]

A. The moral majority is neither.

B. Without some form of constraint (ecclesiastical framework, moral compass, etc.), people will stray into chaos and madness.

C. What was that you said about hats?

[MrGOH]

Baelin Firestorm wrote...

A. The moral majority is neither.
B. Without some form of constraint (ecclesiastical framework, moral compass, etc.), people will stray into chaos and madness.
C. What was that you said about hats?

A. Right on.
B. Too late.
C. I like hats.

[EricHVela]

C. What was that you said about hats?

Enough people aren't wearing them.

I've come to the conclusion that morality plays and games are based on the writers' moralities. I stand by the idea that there is no absolute objectivity in morality.

One issue with designing games around morality is that, even if you make it ambiguous, the player will be rewarded or punished according to the game's environment (situation, NPC's, etc.) regardless of the player's moral intent. Another is that the same action can have many intents, but the player could only justify a limited set of those due to development constraints (and usually only know what those options are after-the-fact instead of before making the choice).

The only solution I see is having a living Game Master controlling the game and interacting with the players... not unlike a table-top D&D game. (Didn't NWN [and NWN2] offer that kind of environment?) That way, you have something that can attempt to accomodate all professed intents (such as the famous: "Discretion is the better part of valor and fear is the better part of discretion, so I valiantly flee in terror [for a Lawful Good kind of valor-based character]").

Modifié par ReggarBlane, 28 octobre 2009 - 11:57 .

[Mihilz]

Baelin Firestorm wrote...

B. Without some form of constraint (ecclesiastical framework, moral compass, etc.), people will stray into chaos and madness.

People pick and choose from ecclesiastical frameworks to justify whatever they want to do anyway, for good or evil. The tendency for people to back-up their actions with ecclesiastical authority has lead to some of the worst incidents of chaos and madness in history.

[Baelin Firestorm]

Mihilz wrote...

Baelin Firestorm wrote...

B. Without some form of constraint (ecclesiastical framework, moral compass, etc.), people will stray into chaos and madness.

People pick and choose from ecclesiastical frameworks to justify whatever they want to do anyway, for good or evil. The tendency for people to back-up their actions with ecclesiastical authority has lead to some of the worst incidents of chaos and madness in history.

 My point was simply that people find whichever crutch works within their tolerance levels and use it as an anchor to guide their decisions. Many use religion, others find some form of philosophical belief, etc.. This forms the basis of their conscious which in turn keeps them from committing actions that their more primal or base instincts instruct them to do.

Imagine a world where every person loses their conscious for 24 hours. Want to take a guess how many would still be alive once that 24 hours was up?

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. ~ François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

Modifié par Baelin Firestorm, 29 octobre 2009 - 12:13 .

[Cuuniyevo]

While there have been many interesting points raised by many people, far too many of them have been off-topic and for me to respond to them would perpetuate that. =0
Discussing how morality, religion, and societies are portrayed and how they might be portrayable in games is fine; debating real life past events is just asking for a flame war. Thankfully, it hasn't progressed to that stage yet, but c'mon, people…discussing whether or not someone or some group of people in the past was justified in their actions will probably never get you anywhere. In real life, every person gets to make their own decisions, and they have to deal with their own consequences. If people want to discuss religion throughout history, start a thread in Off-Topic, enjoy arguing for a few dozen pages, and get locked. That's the traditional internet way.

tls5669 wrote…
If you know anything about the DnD system just think as everyone being neutral.

I'd rather not. It would be frustrating to be proven wrong every day. Besides, if you were talking about the characters in DA:O, that's also incorrect; some of the characters do try to be 'Good' and some really don't care, and some do try to be 'Evil' even if they may not acknowledge it as such. I'm not saying any of the characters are 100% Good or 100% Evil, but I'm sure there are at least some who are at least 1 point past the edge of Neutral. That being said, DA:O does not use the DnD system, so your point is kinda moot. =P

BomimoDK, you're describing a system similar to the one I would dream of having in a 'perfect' RPG, but the problem with such a dynamic system is that it woud be impossible to implement. Artificial Intelligence technology has not progressed enough to where a computer-controlled character could actually respond to what you did in-game. There would always be mistakes or inconsistencies. So instead, every RPG uses scripted responses. The writers decide what you can do and what the characters will do in response. Dynamic AI that can actually form sentences and opinions does not exist yet. That being said, a scripted form of what you describe is in the game, and I for one will love exploring the possibilities that have been written in.

foolish_sagacity wrote…
But in the grand theme of this discussion I'm not sure I can fully subscribe to any of the exact beliefs portrayed here. I believe some people are confusing morals and ethics, and others may understand the boundaries between the two but are believing that morals exist on their own merit, when they cannot exist on anything but mental, human, philosophical and societal levels. There is no way to establish absolute morals.

Agreed, people are confusing morals and ethics. You are one of those people. =P
We are not establishing morality. No person in history established morality. People establish ethics. Morality is the unseen but constantly felt set of 'rules' or 'natural laws' that have existed, exist, and will exist, regardless of how we feel. When different people disagree about what is moral, it is not morality that is fluid or malleable. It is those individuals' perspective and grasp of morality. Ethics are sets of rules created by societies that may or may not 'overlap' or 'agree with' morality. Many ethical codes exist and many share common features, and they are usually based upon that civilization's view of morality, but none of them are perfect.
The belief in absolute morality is that even if you do not know what the right thing to do in a situation is, there exists a correct path. You may not see it, but the correct path does exist. There is something good, and there are things that are not. If for whatever reason you cannot see the 'right' way out of a situation, do the best you can. Try to do the right thing. Even if you can't actually be perfect, it's better to try than not, isn't it?
The rest of your post is mostly off-topic, but I will say this: You do not know what was going through the minds of those people in the past. You may disagree with their actions, but you should not presume to know their intent. Also, just because it's not under the purview of science does not mean that it is not real. We could debate the definition of real, but that too would be off-topic. x_x

MadHatt3r wrote…
… does "Good" actually have a definition or is it simply not Evil ?

I would say it's the other way around; Evil is the absence of Good. As has been brought up before—if not brought to its logical conclusion—the vast majority of people who do evil things do not consider themselves to be evil or consider what they're doing to be evil. Either they have lost their grasp of what goodness is, or they have stopped trying to be good. Perhaps they think goodness is weak; perhaps they think goodness is too difficult; perhaps they think goodness doesn't apply in the situation they are in; perhaps they just got fixated on trying to do something that they thought was good, but as time passed, they started doing that thing for its own sake and forgot that their real goal was goodness… There are any number of reasons a person might start doing evil, but the thing they all have in common is that the person stops doing (or starts doing less), good. Ergo, Evil is the absence of Good.
That being said, Maria Caliban is right about there being a topic in the Off-Topic forum about it. I have avoided the thread for the most part due to a somewhat cynical view of philosophical threads on OT fora. I've been in too many discussions over the years that never ended satisfactorily. The main problem being a lack of standard definitions. You cannot hold a proper debate if you're using different definitions for the same words. Two people who may actually agree with one another may fight for hours because of a misunderstanding about tenses. >_<

foolish_sagacity wrote…
… What's important to me is that Dragon Age has every character believing they are right. …

Agreed. That is way more interesting (and accurate) than a simple Good - Neutral - Evil progression standard to most RPG's.

Lotion Soronnar wrote…
… I agree with your belief in absolute morality. But, I don't think "the goal justifies the means" is any more true than "the means justify the gaols".
They WHY you do something is equally important as WHAT you are doing. The form a whole and trying to judge purely on one is like trying to read the book with half the pages missing.
While intent might be the more important aspect, the action aspect CANNOT be ignored.

I never said the goal justified the means. =P I said your action is irrelevant. Move arm right, move arm left, move arm up. Those actions are neutral, empty, irrelevant. It is your intent and the consequence that is important. If you know what the consequences will be, you must take them into consideration (they're in your head now, and cannot be removed—you literally must take them into consideration) and they are now incorporated into your intent.

tinfish, I agree that there is still censorship in games, and on that topic, you cannot truly make your own decisions in any game that you did not make. You are making choices that the developers make available to you. However, even if they are not true decisions, the experience can be and often is very enjoyable.

ReggarBlane, agreed. A live and fluid RP session is almost always the best.

Baelin Firestorm wrote…
… Imagine a world where every person loses their conscious for 24 hours. Want to take a guess how many would still be alive once that 24 hours was up? …

5.8 billion, at least. That is, if you believe that a person without their conscious is unconscious. If you were referring simply to people losing their rationality, that's an entirely different question.

Modifié par Cuuniyevo, 29 octobre 2009 - 04:32 .

[SnakeStrike8]

So I see another morality argument thread in disguise. You people must really enjoy spouting your views to audiences that will likely never turn to your system of thinking. Not that I'm complaining, of course; it's just human nature to assume you're right and anyone who doesn't agree is wrong.



I'd insert my own thoughts into the ongoing debate, but my own views seem to have been pretty well covered by the other posters. Well done, ladies and gentlemen!

[Baelin Firestorm]

SnakeStrike8 wrote...

So I see another morality argument thread in disguise. You people must really enjoy spouting your views to audiences that will likely never turn to your system of thinking. Not that I'm complaining, of course; it's just human nature to assume you're right and anyone who doesn't agree is wrong.

I'm a xenophobe in real life. Extremely antisocial with underpinnings of paranoia and deeply rooted cynicism. Etc., etc..

Ultimately.. ..what do I know?

[Lughsan35]

You remind me of a sign I saw recently...

It said <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<My Neighbor doesn't believe guns should be allowed to be owned by anyone.  I PROMISE not to use MY GUNS to defend him if you want to do anything about that.  

[Tragick Flaw]

Morality is such a fun subject. Too bad I don't feel smart enough to contribute anything constructive in this debate.

[Herr Uhl]

Tragick Flaw wrote...

Morality is such a fun subject. Too bad I don't feel smart enough to contribute anything constructive in this debate.

Nah, no need for smarts, just heaps of spare time being bored pondering things.

[foolish_sagacity]

Oh, Herr Uhl has it right. Morality is just fun, and no person has ever figured it out. I Smarts has nothing to do with figuring it out, they may even get in the way of figuring out, though my personal belief is they CAN'T be figured out. Everyone should throw in their two cents.

To Cuuniyevo, I'm not a correct-all type of person, nor do I think i'm right more than 40% of the time, but Ethics is the study of morality, and morality is a malleable system. Good and evil are abstract symbols that form the focal points of the moral scale, but morality is an institution that seems to exist only with sentient life and should therefore have a beginning and ending. Not that helps my ranting be more coherent to the masses, I see everything as interconnected issues to every other thing so I tend to enter digressions, a lot.

But I don't believe there is a universal right or wrong, the moral correctness of an action is judged by sentient beings, not by a universal gravity of morals. The reason people bring up the past events of the world as examples of morality is because we can thousands of years later add our own moral judgment to them. I think the Crusaders were generally bad, smelly barbarians who broke their religious vows and took many innocent lives for little reason. They probably thought VERY differently, and we will never know exactly. Lotion's historical source thought they were morally good on the scale of intention and slightly fuzzy on the moral scale of actions.

In terms of games and art/entertainment in the broader sense you're OMG right. All performed or written art, from plays to games to books, has an authorial written intent for its moral scale. That means it is limited what issues may come of it. But I believe that many times what is interpreted from an artform is intensely personal, because what is going to morally catch an individual's eye is intensely personal. Many books or plays have been interpreted very differently than authors intended. That's why I want to see Dragon's Age have the loose system of morals (not non-existent) that I feel let's one really experience a believable moral scale.

Games like Fallout, The Witcher, Baldur's Gate and Planescape all had believable moral landscapes because there wasn't one code of conduct that predominated. Fallout highlighted survival, but how you choose to survive was the crux of its moral examination. Planescape had many societies that all believed different things, but ultimately I felt most "good" when I chose to let people live as they wished and not interfere with their ways (I.E. don't kill the smart undead, or force them to be "free" of undeath, or tell them their king is a sham, just let them live because they do no harm.)

The Witcher was enjoyable as a game of morality because your good intentions often led to bad consequences, but ultimately, it was up to me to decide if I still felt I had done right. Many good people died because of my choices in that game, and I truly felt sad for that, but I also believe that in the end I chose all the best options. I'm thoroughly convinced without any guide's help I made all the most righteous decisions.

And I hope that Dragon Age succeeds in challenging my decision making skills enough to make me question right and wrong, because that's not just a good game but good art if it can do so. And I think it has a chance, the best chance in years, to do that. In summation though, I don't believe morality is any set thing, but comes solely from human judgments, both at the time of the action but also afterwards.

Also Cuuniyevo, I mean none of this in an argumentative sense, and I don't believe I'm necessarily right, just differently minded.

[Cuuniyevo]

foolish_sagacity wrote…
… Good and evil are abstract symbols that form the focal points of the moral scale, but morality is an institution that seems to exist only with sentient life and should therefore have a beginning and ending.  Not that helps my ranting be more coherent to the masses, I see everything as interconnected issues to every other thing so I tend to enter digressions, a lot.

But I don't believe there is a universal right or wrong, the moral correctness of an action is judged by sentient beings, not by a universal gravity of morals. …

Then we disagree about the definitions of the words we are using. I would posit that morality is very much like logic, mathematics, or physics in the sense that we have, over the course of millennia, 'discovered' rather than 'created' these principles. We have not discovered or 'locked down' all of the principles yet, and as you say, we may never, but I do not believe that these things change from person to person. Our understanding expands and changes, but the principles themselves remain constant. That's what I believe. You may disagree, and I can respect where you're going with that, but I just don't believe the same thing.

In terms of games and art/entertainment in the broader sense you're OMG right. All performed or written art, from plays to games to books, has an authorial written intent for its moral scale. That means it is limited what issues may come of it. But I believe that many times what is interpreted from an artform is intensely personal, because what is going to morally catch an individual's eye is intensely personal. Many books or plays have been interpreted very differently than authors intended. That's why I want to see Dragon's Age have the loose system of morals (not non-existent) that I feel let's one really experience a believable moral scale.

Yeah, everyone gets to choose what to think and believe, and authors are people too. ………Most of them anyway…… Anyway, they can't help but express themselves in their work. Even if it is subtle, every story has its own focus and its own lens. For a brief moment, by watching or reading or playing these stories, we see a new world from a new perspective, similar to our own, perhaps, but still unique. You're right though, that our own perspective—or lens, if you prefer— can easily change how we interpret these stories to something the original authors never intended.

Games like Fallout, The Witcher, Baldur's Gate and Planescape all had believable moral landscapes because there wasn't one code of conduct that predominated. Fallout highlighted survival, but how you choose to survive was the crux of its moral examination. Planescape had many societies that all believed different things, but ultimately I felt most "good" when I chose to let people live as they wished and not interfere with their ways (I.E. don't kill the smart undead, or force them to be "free" of undeath, or tell them their king is a sham, just let them live because they do no harm.)

Fallout may be the most awesome (awesome does not necessarily mean best, just most likely to give a sense of awe) RPG of all time, so far. You truly could create your own character, and the NPC's of the world were very well realized, with all of their own motives and goals. What you did in the world really changed their lives and because they were written so well, you actually cared about it while doing it. The characters in The Witcher did each have their own beliefs and those were portrayed very well, but the mechanic of choosing what to believe could have been handled much better. I don't want to spoil the story for those who have not played it, but I was frustrated from time to time by the way all of the decisions were about yourself; the parts where you were asked why you did something were well done and interesting, but they used that mechanic to define yourself, not convince anyone else. It was like the whole game was about finding out who you were. Interesting, but why am I the only one who gets to change my mind? I know you told me you're fighting here, and why I should agree with you, but why can't anyone else be convinced by my point of view for once? Why do I have to agree with you, disagree with you, or pretend I don't care? Those are the only options? The game was well written, but it was obviously based on a book where they didn't want to stray too far from canon. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to pick up P:T.

The Witcher was enjoyable as a game of morality because your good intentions often led to bad consequences, but ultimately, it was up to me to decide if I still felt I had done right. Many good people died because of my choices in that game, and I truly felt sad for that, but I also believe that in the end I chose all the best options. I'm thoroughly convinced without any guide's help I made all the most righteous decisions.

I too enjoyed The Witcher, and think they did a great job, but they did not truly let the players create their own character. Much like Mass Effect, your character was already created ahead of time, and for the most part you just got to make choices about what path to take. That is in no way a complaint, as I will always prefer a good storyline to a completely freeform one in my games. I've completely sworn off Bethesda for that very reason: they give you the ability to make your own decisions, but there isn't really any depth to any of it. You can get every item in the game, but there's no reason to. You can become the world's best marksman, but there's no reason to. I know what they were trying to do, but I have despaired of them ever actually being able to succeed. So…back to the somewhat more linear, but well written and well delivered storylines of the more traditional RPG's.

And I hope that Dragon Age succeeds in challenging my decision making skills enough to make me question right and wrong, because that's not just a good game but good art if it can do so. And I think it has a chance, the best chance in years, to do that.

I am in complete agreement. BioWare's writers are great.

In summation though, I don't believe morality is any set thing, but comes solely from human judgments, both at the time of the action but also afterwards.

I disagree. Unless we discover extra-terrestrials, we may be the only beings in the universe that can appreciate morality, but I do not believe that we 'came up with it'.

Also Cuuniyevo, I mean none of this in an argumentative sense, and I don't believe I'm necessarily right, just differently minded.

Nor do I. We are of one accord on this.
That being said, I do believe that I'm right. If I didn't believe in the philosophy that I currently do, then I would search until I found one that I could believe in. To give a real-life example: When I was going to school I never put down an answer I knew to be incorrect. Of course I put down wrong answers, and I made mistakes sometimes, but I never intentionally put down a wrong answer, because that would be wrong. Instead, I went back in the books until I found or figured out an answer I could accept. I have no particular skill in any particular studies; what successes I have had were due to my stubborn nature that refused to give up on the idea that there is always a correct answer.

[Thibbledorf26]

I would like to respond to a post that said murder, rape and torture are never acceptable in any civilized society. That is not true, many societies that were civilized have had government-sanctioned murder, rape and torture. They just don't call it that. In a certain  ountry during WWII, decent people allowed mass murder to happen because it was linked to 'protecting said country's interets' and 'purifying the world'.  In some countries, women who dated soldiers from opposing countries in the past were stripped naked, tarred and feathered by their own communities. This is a form of rape, but was seen as patriotic punishment of a betrayer. A country recently performed torture on inmates, which violated its own law and international law. But the torture was not called torture, it was called 'interrogation', 'national defense' and 'anti-terrorism techniques'. Governments and people can link evil things to good causes, or desensitize people to them with euphemisms and propaganda.

edited:to remove specific contries

Modifié par Thibbledorf26, 30 octobre 2009 - 02:13 .

[Stukim]

"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun."