Rich Morris' Comics - YAFGC and The ComixBlog

One of the things that struck me while reading various strips since the introduction of Madame White eye and Jone is how quickly I came to loathe the other residents of the town that their story was set in.

The other thing that struck me was how many people just like the townsfolk I know.

Perhaps, as I've gotten older, my tolerance for people who strike me as self-righteous and judgmental has waned. But I wonder... if, by some mischance, a typical group of citizens from the Western world were to end up in (for instance), the World of Grayhawk, would they be characterized as Evil, despite the fact that they would quite strenuously protest that they were Good? (I, for my part, suspect that I would be unabashedly Evil, rather than pretend that I even come close to the rather strict requirements to actually be a Good person.)

Depends. In normal circumstances people seems to have altrusitic tendencies (with a very minor segment of exceptions, who just do not). A good deal of altruism is culturally oriented anyhow, so you're much more likely to help certain people and be hostile towards others (across wealth and ethnic lines for instance).

Overall the evil-good axis is about selfishness-altruism but these do not manifest in a purely linear axis, probably because altruism is anyhow an expanded form of selfishness.

I could draw a tentative scale:

1. Me and me. Pure selfish - "evil"
2. Me and my closest acquaintances. Clan altruist, "normal guy".
3. Me and my community/nation. Communal altruist, "hero".
4. Me and humankind (or maybe even animals too). Global altruist, "saint".

A type 3 could behave selflessly towards his nation and with total disregard for the lives and well being of strangers instead. Possibly many nazis were this kind.

So there are no such absolutes. Almost nobody is just "me, me and me" (though there are some, sure) and the various layers of "the other" actually play some role in everybody more or less, just that with different levels of intensity and priority. The scale above can only be a simplification in any case.

Good aligned types therefore probably just represent saint (neutral good?) or hero (lawful good?) wannabes.

Normal people of real life would be more like neutral lawful or pure neutral, I guess. Able to give but quite self- or family-focused anyhow. Capitalist culture anyhow does not promote altruism, this is surely a pre-existent human trait, hence not too "cultural" but rather instinctive.

Add to that the fact that in a fantasy world people are much more certain about the consequences of their actions. They know there is a fundamental Good and a fundamental Evil. Much easier to be on or the other when you are not living your life based on abstract facts and uncertainties, as we are.

Hmm... I don't know that either of these work for me. After all, Glon comes across as a fairly nice guy, yet, we know that he's Evil, given the fact of "Protection From Glon." And if the Gods of this particular fantasy world are active in policing Good and Evil, either their idea of it differs markedly from my own, or they're asleep at the switch. (Unless - and this can be a big "unless" - you're working under a very humanocentric view of Good v. Evil, where what makes one Evil is hostility to Humanity, rather than a more neutral measure.)

Of course, it could simply be my own willingness to see myself as not particularly Good, and therefore I have less reason to cut those around me any slack.

The Gods do not have to intrevene. Just knowing for certain what awaits you in the next life would give an entirely new meaning to your existence.
Not that you can have that in real life given that Good and Evil are abstract notions, and one person's chaotic evil is another persons lawful good.

From my perspective, however, non-interventionist Gods don't provide enough certainty. But, that's just me. I understand where you're coming from.

As for the Real World, I think that I agree with Socrates' assertion that no one can know good and yet choose evil - "Evil" people mistake bad acts for good ones (note that this is separate from the legality or propriety of an act), and we judge them Evil to justify our acting in retaliation. Now, Saint Augustine (I think it was Augustine) may find Evil in the act of such a grievous error, which he attributed to culpable negligence, but I don't go there with him.

For me, good and evil are like the concept of fairness - not so much abstractions, as simple fabrications, ideas that we humans use to organize our world, and think of as real, but actually do not exist in "nature."

Now, it's different when I (fantasy) game, as I have created a very specific understanding of what it takes to be a Good person (and the Good Gods of my campaigns actively enforce it - sometimes in person), and have defined Evil primarily in direct opposition to that. (And, of course, the Evil Gods work to reward and protect people who do Evil acts - also, sometimes in person.)

I Agree. As for the Fantasy Gods it always seemed strange to me that their 'rewards' for evil acts were not that rewarding. They usually dispense some temporary power but it comes with so much pressure and ugliness...
Oh wait. I just described capitalism. Yes, maybe real life and fantasy are not too far apart.

Part of me suspects that it's because authors don't want to be perceived as "endorsing" Evil - so they always have evil people come to bad ends, even when it really damages characterizations and/or the story itself.

I do not expect everyone to agree but i find that blatant evil is usually its own punishment. You cannot be happy when you are hurting people on purpose -just maybe content or satisfied for a very short while but not really happy or serene. Now writers have to make this clear as in a novel everything has to be much more obvious than in real life so they may show a downfall too soon or the character realizing what they did in a flash... i doubt the slow realization that you misspent your life could make for an exciting fantasy story.
Of course you are right that it does spoil some stories, especially since evil usually finds a way to stay on top, happy or not. Pratchett did a good work of not punishing evil but not exalting it either, but then again he does a good work out of anything.

I can buy that. Fear of retribution is never conducive to a good night's rest.

And I mis-attributed... it was Thomas Aquinas, not Saint Augustine, who viewed mistaking evil for good as morally culpable negligence.

Well, the both had the Good/Evil debate polished and running . I guess our half hearted "no real good or evil" attitude would terrify them.

I think that they'd be more upset about the fact that we don't regard God (and, for that matter, Hell) as certainties to be reckoned with in our reasoning. No matter how ironclad our ethics might be, they'd see them as, at best, misguided, and at worst, the work of the Devil.

Which, come to think of it, brings up a point - while I do tend to consider Evil simply a label that people slap on those they dislike, I do think that unethical is quite real, and something to be sanctioned.

And I suppose that we could use that to draw a parallel. Are most people ethical enough that they'd manage to rise to the level of Good, presuming that no particular expression of Faith is involved? I, for my part, postulate not.

I actually postulate the opposite: that faith can make you blind to reality and make of you a fanatic (what is essentially evil and rather stupid).

We come from some 20 centuries (maybe 16 centuries?) of monotheism and more of religiously estabilished morals (moral, mores, is after all a pre-Christian Latin word meaning custom, tradition, conventional law).

Like in the adagio: o tempora, o mores. Such the age, thus the customs (or morals).

But since the very concept of monotheism and specially of an intervening God (nowhere to be seen) has been dramatically eroded (last two centuries or so). We have since re-invented the more realistic concept of ethics: i.e. we make our own morals (actually ethics), not because "God says so" but because we find it best for our society and ourselves.

Personally I strongly question that the famous "ten comandments" of Moses are good in any sense. They are lawful: in fact they are a human law with a divine pretext, but there is little or nothing specifically good about them. Most of the commandments are mere ultra-conservative junk like not having sexual thoughts or not getting involved with someone else's wife. Why does "thou shall not steal" not apply to bankers and capitalists in general? Why does "thou shall not kill" not apply to soldiers, policemen, executioners and even butchers (no mention that animals are any exception). Why should I respect my dad if he's not earning himself any respect? Why should I love "God" when this individual does not even appear to exist or at least is nowhere to be seen, hugged and made love with? Etc.

They are just the general precepts of a theocracy.

I have argued before that in a sense, Jesus (and I'm not Christian) seems at times to breach this lawful (lawful evil?) concept of morals into a chaotic good version: love your neighbor, the rest doesn't matter (you even love God by loving your neighbor). Of course the overall message is less clear cut than that but there is something of that.

But guess that in this sense at least the doctrine of Jesus can be understood as some sort of precursor of modern secular humanist ethics, where people is what matter and not anymore just "God".

But, regardless of religion, the real issue of "goodness" is where you place the rest of people in your values' scale. Are they as important as yourself or are they less important, even irrelevant? For most people the self is central and that has little discussion. When I feel bad, I can hardly help others to feel positive - even with training this is extremely difficult. However for most people the self is also extended to others, normally those that are closer (relatives, friends, maybe neighbors and others). I would say this is the neutral position, when you acknowledge, consciously or not, that egoism and altruism are to some extent intertwined.

But then you can have the occasional person that puts the whole over the part, who for this or that reason considers that the wide community (nation, humankind, etc.) is more important than even the self, bound to die. This could be considered "good" in the sense of altruism, however in some cases this can also bring them to violence (think Che Guevara for example).

So we have a very complex situation in which the words good and bad are not so clearly cut after all. There is an egoist good that means whatever makes me happy (when good can become evil), and there is a social good that means whatever makes society as a whole happy and stable. And probably a bunch of other sectorial or corporative "goods".

What is important, I think, is to understand that there is not such simple and absolute good but a very complex ethic puzzle in which we try to make the best decisions according to our judgment. Probably we can't be asked for much more.

I will side with Maju in that morality is not dependent upon having a God. A religion can give your life meaning or give answers, if you are so inclined, but it cannot make you Good or Bad. A tough question to answer as there are religions for as long as there are people, so we have no God-free cultures to examine, but given that Evil exists in religious societies in a large scale and usually is associated with the religions in question, i doubt that the notion of God works as an evil-repellent.