Editorial: Alignment

Alignment seems to me a fundamentally flawed idea. The idea that one person is good and therefore never does anything evil is just not what we see in the world. And an evil person who never does anything good is nonsense (doing good to ingratiate yourself with someone, for example). Oh and if you are "true neutral" then even time you do something good you have to balance it with something evil (and if you purpose is to maintain balance, then it is a good thing you are doing anyway!). Does anyone believe people are like that?

And a whole race is evil? What does that actually mean? If all goblins are like that, then they have no choice, so how can they be considered morally culpable? Let us say instead that goblins have a propensity to cruelty, bullying and cowardice, and it is certainly possible for an individual to be as moral as a human, even if the majority are not. Further, within their own culture, they would consider themselves as moral as anyone else, afterall the first priority has to be to further ones own interests, right?

There certainly is good and evil in the world, and that may well include specific items and individuals in the world. However, the vast majority of people have something else. They have personality.