There's a place in the Soul of the Sorceror supplement in which it says that perhaps demons are evil the way squirrels are cute.

I, apparently, have a zombie squirrel living in my big oak tree. It's blackened, patches of fur are missing, its tail is a mess, it moves very slowly, and seems largely oblivious to the world around it. It is about as uncute as it is possible to be.

(I suspect it had a near-fatal interaction with a power line, poor critter, but there isn't a heck of a lot I can do about it.)

- James

I think this post marks the moment when James' brain went "Sput." I'm cruisin' 'round the Forge, and at the moment every thread ends with a Classic West Insight - and now, this.

In my fashion, I shall try to turn this into a Sorcerer discussion. I'm pretty sure James is referring to the quote from Ran Hardin about demons being "evil" insofar as they interact with humans - it's the interface that's flawed or horrible in some way, not the demons "bringing" evil from elsewhere.

So! That would mean that James' un-cute squirrel might be analogized into an un-evil demon. My question then becomes, under what (rare) circumstances would generate such an interface? It's no fun just to say, "Oh, well, THIS demon is good" - we have to have a Humanity interaction that makes sense to us as audience.

Best,
Ron

P.S. James, you might want to call an Animal Emergency Clinic.

Without getting into the whole alignment issue (which annoys me), to say that a demon that is not evil must necessarily be good may be somewhat incorrect. I do enjoy the theory of the casually cruel demon. The one that kills not because it enjoys it, but because its needs necessitate it.

I can even see great interaction with the sorcerer who *wants* the demon to kill, but the demon is reluctant because it detests violence. Perhaps that demon has a need based upon violence and must be forced to fulfill that need by the sorcerer. A suicidal demon, if you will.

Dav

(put the squirrel down James, it is the only humane thing to do)

In my experience, evil is mostly defined as sociopathy.

During the Gulf war, there was a traffic jam eight lanes wide and forty miles long of Iraqi troops trying to retreat to Basra. A fellow I knew in graduate school was one of the people assigned to drop napalm on them. He said he'd drench a few hundred people in napalm, fly back to the airbase, get out of his plane, throw up, get back in and do it again. (This was the infamous "Basra turkey shoot"). Most people would agree that someone willing to do this is not evil, in the commonly accepted sense.

Now, this was a person with a developed social conscience. If you had put any one of those people in front of him, tied up, and told him to coat them with jellied gasoline and light them on fire, I'm absolutely certain he'd refuse, pretty much regardless of circumstances. Most people would agree that someone willing to do this -IS- evil.

The difference is whether or not it's possible to feel an empathetic connection to the person. If you're in a plane several hundred or thousand feet up, it's very easy not to notice that you're doing horrible things to lots of people beneath you; it doesn't hit you on a visceral level.If the person is sitting in front of you, you realize on a very immediate level that this is another human being, in a "there but for the grace of god go I" sense, to whom you're going to be doing terrible things.

I want to avoid the issue of whether or not the person in the plane -ought- to be considering the humanity of the people he's killing. I think people agree that a person of normal ethical development is willing to do that, where a person of normal ethical development would be unwilling to do the same to a person standing in front of them.

As social animals, empathy for the people around us is basically the hallmark of "good." Sometimes this empathy produces negative results, and sometimes people who mostly lack empathy but think of themselves as good on a more abstract or intellectual level can be capable of very positive results.

However, if you think of people who are role models of "good", they usually have an extremely personal involvement with the people they are helping, and an obvious great deal of empathy. On the other hand, we clearly think of as evil people who are willing to personally do horrific things to people. Not to be too conspiracy minded, but I think it's clear that Lee Iacoca personally made decisions that he knew would result in the fiery deaths of innocent people. He's rich, and a lot of peoples' hero. Jeffrey Dahmer, on the other hand, personally tortured, killed, and ate people. Regardless of intellectual considerations, it's pretty clear who your visceral response of "evil" is to.

Moving on from this: cruel is the second cousin to evil. You call something cruel when it displays a complete lack of empathy, but fails to rise to the level of negative consequences implied by evil. Cats are cruel, because we find it hard to think of the torture of mice as something rising to the level of evil.

Which, finally, brings me to demons. Demons are clearly not social animals. They have no concept of empathy. It may not be their goal to cause pain and suffering of innocents, but it really makes very little difference to them if they do. They have no visceral response to cruelty or the prospect of it the way (ethically normal) humans do.

So here's the question: can you have 'good' without displaying any empathy whatsoever? Clearly in game mechanics terms, humanity and 'good' are seperable. Presumably, then, while demons completely lack humanity (and thus empathy), it is possible to be good and lack empathy.

- James

PS: I realize I'm making a very specific definition of "humanity" in game terms here; clearly, loss of humanity may involve loss of other attributes. However, I find it hard to imagine that it is possible to have humanity without having compassion. (Empathy is necessary, I claim, but maybe not sufficient) I think I've mentioned I have an appointment as a special advocate in child abuse, dependency, and neglect cases, and the entire concept of loss of humanity (and how you get it back) seems especially relevant there.

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-05-23 14:42 ]

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-05-23 14:55 ]

I'm pretty sure James is referring to the quote from Ran Hardin

I'm thinking of Arnold Swarzenegger in Terminator 2. The character he was playing was supposed to be a remorseless, conscienceless killer, who had goals that were considered 'good' even though the character himself had no empathy (this was played on in the movie, such as when he shot the essentially blameless security guard in both knees.)

Essentially, if you have goals that sufficiently mimic the way good people act, then you may be considered good even if you completely lack humanity in any conventional sense.

James:

Without delving too deeply into personal philosophies, I just wanted to mention another point-of-view here.

There are a number of people (primarily in business, but also in other places) who believe that all actions can be defined as universally good or evil. In this instance, empathy does not come into play, except as a possible inhibitor toward defined options.

Personally, I enjoy this philosophy, as I feel situational ethics and the like are extremely subjective (and I don't trust the average person further than I could throw him... which isn't far at all). I think of Humanity as those who identify the risk versus reward over the view of right vs. wrong.

Killing someone is wrong. Period. Under this model, extenuating circumstances have little to no involvement. Self-defense may be fine and dandy, but that was a choice of death over possible prison. I can see this, and I can understand it without having to place myself in other people's shoes and attempt to determine the subjective component of all actions... it's too much work, and I don't care enough to do it.

Therefore, I guess I am saying that I see Humanity (from a Sorcerer POV) and empathy as mutually exclusive, or at the very least, not intrinsically linked.

Of course, I think your model has good merit, and a strong backing from a society-level appreciation. I just think in your games, my characters would meet the screaming void of unplayability very quickly.

Dav

Dav,

I think the distinction you're making is between the sort of ethics that have to be thought about, and the sort of ethics that seem to be near universal (at least with respect to members of your own family/group) on a visceral level.

I don't claim that visceral ethics are better than intellectual ethics, but I do think that they're more fundamental to humanity, in the sense that I think that just about all people have some understanding of visceral ethics, whereas only people who have specifically thought about it in some context will have intellectual ethics.

I also think that having one without the other will tend to lead to error (rather different kinds of error). Having intellectual ethics without compassion leads to doing horrific things to individuals for the good of the group; having compassion without having intellectual ethics leads to making short term decisions that are kinder, but may result in long term problems. (The original star trek series, now that I think of it, dealt with this issue a lot; Spock had a lot of intellectual ethics, but very little visceral ethics, while McCoy was more of the reverse, and Kirk was in between.)

Did you know that 20 of the 23 people hung at Nuremberg were M.D.s ? While some of them were clearly just cruel because they enjoyed it, many of them genuinely thought that the horrific things that they were doing would save lives in the long run.

- James

P.S.: I don't really think this is off-topic at all. Sorceror is a game that's fundamentally ABOUT definitions of ethics, and while Ron is very careful to avoid defining them, it's the sort of issue that's bound to come up pretty much right away in games, and may lead to substantial personal conflict between players when the GM implies to one of them that they're a fundamentally unethical person.

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-05-23 15:19 ]

No way is this off-topic. Go, go!

Best,
Ron

P.S. Sorry Raven.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that I think "viceral" ethics lead to more confusion than they are worth (in my experience).

You know: "Never lie." But then, what do you say when your girlfirend asks if she looks fat in some dress? I say yes or no, whichever is true. I figure, how can I be wrong when all I am doing is following a universal rule established by every parent in every place, everywhere (considering your occupation, James, I'm sure you could point to exceptions, but let's not deal with outliers here... and please, no matter what, let me believe they *are* outliers).

I'm just saying that I always get yelled at for following the rules. I hate that. I think that is wrong. If the rule is wrong, then yell at the rule, not me. But I think you get the idea.

I think all ethics are necessarily "intellectual" ethics, based upon the fact that children have no inherent sense of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. Children are wicked little bastards, seriously. Shame, ethics... social mores, if you will, they are all taught, not inborn. Ron, you have psych/soc knowledge... and I know you have plenty of bio in your brain... back me up here (and btw, if I'm wrong and he's right, then feel free to frolick about the other forms :wink: )

I love ethics discussion James, and I realize this post is "idiotic", but I had to respond and my brain is melting... almost finished for the day, almost get to go home. Seriously, I'll do better later, I promise.


Dav

PS: I agree completely with your postscript.

Needs and Desires are tricky because they change the Demon from a tool to something with accountibility and reasoning. But does the Demon really have accountibility? I think not...the Sorcerer is responsible for the actions of the Demon...the Demon is (gasp!) and innocent (or kinda, sorta).

Like, a Demon with the Need to drink blood and the Desire to cause bloodshed (convenient, neh?). By our standards (most of us anyway), this Demon is quite evil. But is it? From the Demon's point of view, these are necessary things. It's not a human and it doesn't have the ability to think outside of itself (or does it?)...which I believe is a definition of empathy (side note: researchers did an experiment with great apes and were shown that the apes do in fact possess empathy). So I think that a Demon is blameless. It's not evil...it's just a force, the way a gun or a tidal wave can cause destruction but not through any kind of malice.

I dunno. I just skirt this whole issue in the Schism supplement...there's no real concept of good/evil. I quote the mighty David Cronenberg (I used this quote in Schism as well):

I don't think that the flesh is necessarily treacherous, evil, bad. It is cantankerous, and it is independent. The idea of independence is the key. It really is like colonialism. The colonies suddenly decide that they can and should exist with their own personality and should detach from the control of the mother country. At first the colony is perceived as being treacherous. It's a betrayal. Ultimately, it can be seen as the separation of a partner that could be very valuable as an equal rather than as something you dominate.

I think all ethics are necessarily "intellectual" ethics, based upon the fact that children have no inherent sense of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. Children are wicked little bastards, seriously. Shame, ethics... social mores, if you will, they are all taught, not inborn.

My perspective on all this is that learning is a developmental function - it is one of the processes we carry out, much like our heartbeat.

The interesting thing is that different species have different "maps" or "recipes" for learning. Humans, for instance, do not have to learn to speak - they only have to learn HOW to speak. Think of walking; same thing. We easily learn those things we are well-built to learn, but we learn other things either very painfully or not at all.

One can teach geese to play soccer (rolling little balls in various directions). One can teach rats to run mazes. It does not surprise me that in each case, the animal performs similar behaviors in the course of its non-laboratory life. The lab subjects are merely modifications of a behavior that they ORDINARILY learn to perform. (And you cannot teach either rats or geese the "other" behavior, by the way.)

Humans learn social mores. More accurately, we INNATELY learn ABOUT social mores. Given data (e.g. an upbringing), conclusions emerge - and in separate instances with different data being taken in, we observe highly individualized takes on how to act.

Nurture is one of Nature's processes. There is no dichotomy. Culture is human biology occurring in a given time and place, with a given history.

Best,
Ron

On natural empathy. Here's my definition of empathy: Being able to, in any fashion, imagine yourself in the role of another. Discusses above is empathy as it relates to social creatures, but here's another (parallel, not mutually exclusive) look at empathy:

On an animal level:
Prey animals tend to have low-empathy. The survival traits involved are fight/flight. You don't need to know what your predator is thinking, you just see it and cope.

Predator animals have a higher empathy. To hunt down something often requires an ability to second-guess the prey. A great cat quietly stalking an antelope ... the cat must have a sense of "what would I do if I were the antelope."

Scavenger animals tend to have the highest empathy. You must know where to get your next meal, by following the predator's behavior AND avoiding the predator. In especially harsh surroundings, you must learn all about your environment and survive by not being fast or strong, but by adapting. Look at crows and rats, they are fairly intelligent scavengers.

This doesn't cover the social model of empathy (Chimps are a tight social group that actively hunt and forage, so they are predators with a high empathy, but they need it for their complex social interaction).

Perhaps humans have intelligence in part because their ancestors were both highly social AND scavengers?

Laslty, I think empathy + self-awareness should be treated like a gift, and I see good vs. evil involving the simple "Do unto others" rule (or a "Do unto others the way they don't want to be treated"). It's way easier for a human to put themselves in the role of victim than, say a lion.

So the idea of a demon being beyond empathy holds merit from an animal point of view if their natural environment doesn't involve the predator/prey/scavenger hierarchy. A demon may not have any sort of empathy, resulting in a detachment (like the Melniboneans from the Elric series) from emotions.

Sh*t. I had a really long post that I managed to delete a moment ago accidentally.

Here's a synopsis:

There actually seem to be three systems of ethics, regardless of the order people learn them in.

(1) Ethics that are based on empathy.
(2) Ethics that are based on rules of behavior.
(3) Ethics that are based on consideration of long term effects/greatest good.

(I personally believe that people also usually learn them in that order, and that there is a possible fourth step in which you learn ways of resolving conflicts between the systems, resource allocation ethics, etc.)

Absence of any of these can produce bad consequences, which you can imagine for yourself (I had long lists of examples of different combinations of ethical lacks, with long asides).

I tend to think of humanity as more related to (1), since it seems like sort of a baseline; a lot of people whom I wouldn't consider to be lacking in humanity have (1) but not (2) or (3).

So, Demons traditionally lack all three of these (they have no empathy, don't have personal ethical codes, and do not have the long term good of any group of humans in mind).

So there are, perhaps interesting stories to be told (and some that -have- been told) involving demons that -do- possess one or more, but not all, of these elements, and the tragedy that results.

- James

PS - Zak, I very much liked your post, but I was sensing that moving in that direction might bog down ...

Incidentally, my squirrel seems more animated now, is interacting with other squirrels, and moving more easily. Either I overestimated the initial extent of his injuries, or he heals very fast. He's still darned ugly, though.

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-05-23 21:11 ]

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-05-24 01:08 ]

James:

On demons and ethical notions:

First, I see demons as having *only* an ethical code based upon rules and set behavior. The fact that, in my games, demons act in a more ethical egoistic manner does not mean that they don't have their own codes... merely that the code allows a broad range of action, with very few restrictions. For a majority of those restrictions, demons search for loopholes (that's kinda what they do, given time).

In a recent Obsidian game, a bound demon hated his master, and specifically misread orders to be most beneficial to himself. This led to some interesting outcomes. I digress.

What I was referring to way up in my first post was that I could see demons that *did* have ethical philosophies that specifically did not mesh well with the standard demon actions. The Need to Kill against the Desire to be a Pacifist for instance. I think conflicting desires and need could make for interesting roleplaying (ala narrativism). Now, I don't think you're arguing this, per se. I think you are arguing your take on demonic behavior versus my own. Which is nifty.

Leaving alone, for a moment, the order of learned ethical mechanics on the part of the human, I want to look at the demon. You stated that humans have empathic ethics as a first step in social more learning. I don't disagree, but I think making a blanket statement that this is always, or even mostly true, could be trouble. Demons, to my mind, could very easily learn these ethics. They may not respect them, and it may be a "childish" way of looking at things to them, but I think they can appreciate it (the better to manipulate you, my dear).

In my experience, in almost all cases (I say almost so that I don't get pounced upon), empathy and intelligence seemed largely opposed. You don't see many stupid sociopaths (by stupid, I mean low IQ... we can debate the impartiality of IQ testing if you want, but let's work with the tools we have). EQ (and defined by the crazy book: "Emotional Intelligence" by someone or other) and IQ are never seen to be simulataneously high in an individual. That whole, "your mind is a glass, you can fill it with Intelligence or Empathy, but you have limited space" idea.

Demons need empathy. While I am not defining empathy as compassion in this instance, I am defining it as the ability to read and understand the feelings and emotions of others. I think demons are quite keen on this point. They just don't really relate to it on an intuitive level. It never really permeates down to the gut-feeling level, if you will.

Um, I'm not sure if I'm getting redundant, so I'll let it stand there for now.


Dav

I'm thinking that whether or not demons have empathy may well be related to the concept of demons in your game. Demons may look on humans as a prey species, to be dealt with carefully and treacherously. They may look upon human as a means to their own ends. They may view them as inferiors, possibly even superiors (after all, humans always have physical form, and don't have to wait for a master to bind them). They may see them as interesting companion animals.

The level of empathy will vary greatly depending on how the demons view the humans. Don't forget this relationship in your games, because it's the single most important way to determine how demons are going to respond to the humans.

Clay

In my experience, in almost all cases (I say almost so that I don't get pounced upon), empathy and intelligence seemed largely opposed. You don't see many stupid sociopaths (by stupid, I mean low IQ... we can debate the impartiality of IQ testing if you want, but let's work with the tools we have).

Greyorm:

Nice response.

I do want to add that I think that understanding, and working in the context of, emotional opinions of others is not necessarily empathy. Sure, most geniuses are noted as empthatic creatures, but I believe this is a misnomer. I think that most intelligent children just understand the best method to get what they want... and that is often working within the accepted paradigms of their parents. I do not think, however, that a child is necessarily kind, sweet, etc. because it *is* (in an absolutist sense), but rather because it is conducive to the ends that the child currently works to attain.

This is all speculation on my part, given that I don't have access to concrete evidence and the like to make this end-all-be-all. It has been my experience that children are manipulative little bastards until about age... well, fo a long time. (I think age 7 sounds about right. I think Saint Augustus might have had something when this was designated as the Age of Reason)

Anyway, all I am saying is that children have little concept of "intangible consequence" as a result of little life-long experience. What I mean by this is that when I child says he/she (let's use "it") hates you, it really does hate you. Pure. I love that. They may not hate you come a minute or two, but hate accurately describes their emotional context at the time. Sure, later in life we add that hate must last X amount of time, or be X degrees of intensity. Listen to the kid, *that* is hate, not some jumped-up froo-froo version of it that we romanticize later in life.

Anyway, I am straying off-topic here. What I am saying is that the child understands that it is upset, and thus, the world should share in its upsetedness. Very egocentric, very manipulative, and rather empathetic, though not in the manner normally prescribed.

I argue that all children use emotional understanding as a manipoulative tool to one degree or another. Highly intelligent children just tend to be more successful (or less successful, but more frighteningly clinical in some cases). Children are, by nature, egocentric. Certainly, for most, this changes (for some, such as... well... people I know, it doesn't).

I do agree with the general statement that I was overly broad in my first post, however, for which I apologize. I hope this cleared confusion about my stance (even if it didn't convince you to agree). Keep 'em comin'!

Dav

(As an aside... completely irrelevant here, so stop reading if those piss you off... if you have the time, read the *beginning* of this thread... way, way back there... then check-out where we are now. Talk about a winding discussion...)


Dav

[ This Message was edited by: Dav on 2001-05-29 16:09 ]

On 2001-05-29 14:42, greyorm wrote:

Check out Zak's post in this thread from the 21st for support of how empathy would be a by-product of intelligence from a biological point of view (though I don't know if Zak has any training as biologist or not).

I think that most intelligent children just understand the best method to get what they want... and that is often working within the accepted paradigms of their parents. I do not think, however, that a child is necessarily kind, sweet, etc. because it *is* (in an absolutist sense), but rather because it is conducive to the ends that the child currently works to attain.

It has been my experience that children are manipulative little bastards until about age... well, fo a long time.

What I am saying is that the child understands that it is upset, and thus, the world should share in its upsetedness. Very egocentric, very manipulative, and rather empathetic, though not in the manner normally prescribed.

I do agree with the general statement that I was overly broad in my first post, however, for which I apologize. I hope this cleared confusion about my stance (even if it didn't convince you to agree). Keep 'em comin'!

Gentlemen, please.

Sorcerer, OK?

Best,
Ron

Gentlemen, please.
Sorcerer, OK?