An interesting thought, and one that I haven't heard people mention once, but evil alignments generally could be aligned with ideas such as social darwinism, or else a sort of "might makes right" mentality. This manifests differently between all three evil alignments, but it ultimately still follows the "might makes right" ideology. A Lawful Evil character would argue that "Law", that is the cosmic order itself, is designed to dominate and oppress. The weak are subjugated through the power of a heirarchical and tyrannical system of being. Killing, slavery, torture, etc. Are all "okay" to them because, as far as they're concerned, those in power inherently "deserve" to harm others to their own benefit, because they are stronger and can exert more "might". With Neutral Evil, I greatly agree with the characterization of "Machiavellianism" as being NE in action. The ideas laid out in The Prince are opportunistic in nature, the idea being that harming others is a necessary means of achieving and maintaining "power", but unlike Lawful Evil, the opportunism implies that the "order" of the cosmos is largely unimportant. Law and Chaos are both simply tools, and if one can be used to advance evil in a circumstance, they will side with it, and side with the other in a circumstance where it hurts more people. It's almost a form of inverse consequentialism, in which the goal is to maximize harm to others, rather than maximize their happiness. Of course, it is still a selfish goal, but in order for it to be *truly Evil* per the game, they *must be selfish to the detriment of others*, otherwise they'd just be Neutral, because Neutrals don't care about whether people are hurt or harmed, only that they benefit. Chaotic Evil I think is the hardest because I agree that for the most part, there *is* no analogue in the real world. I've heard people compare Nietzsche's Will to Power as a Chaotic Evil philosophy, but I'd argue that mainly misunderstands his philosophy, which I'd characterize (along with most forms of existentialism) as closer to Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil. No, I think that Chaotic Evil most of all is just the idea that laws exist simply to protect the weak. It argues that "Might makes right" but that Law exists to try and prevent this from being carried out. In fact, they might very well *agree* with a contractarian that laws exist to protect people who freely enter a contract, but hold that the state of nature, the "war of all against all", is actually something good, because it supports the destruction of those too weak to survive. As with the other two, the goal is to harm people, not just incidentally, but on purpose, because it is "good" that the weak die. This is also why I would argue that *Chaotic Neutral* is a great fit for Nietzsche and the Will to Power. Nietzsche was clearly very influential on Existentialism, which, existentialists usually argue that objective morals don't truly exist, (which ties into the 4th video on meta-ethics). Chaotic Neutral is the closest to an "anti-alignment alignment". It doesn't value either the altruism of good, nor the purposeful harm to others that evil does, but instead supports simple self interest. Self interest isn't evil, because it does not necessitate hurting others, and in fact, one can do good things for others whilst being motivated by selfish goals, even something as simple as "doing a nice thing makes me feel better about myself" is a generally benevolent act, but not "good" by DnD standards, because it was done for selfish purposes. Furthermore, being actively opposed to "Law" makes Chaotic Neutral characters inherently skeptical of the idea that the universe has a specific "purpose" or "meaning", instead saying that individuals should pursue an "authentic" life unburdened by pre-made concepts of meaning (e.g. religion, ideology, morals) which is pretty clearly existentialist at it's core. The same goes for morals. Because the universe itself does not care whether good or evil is done, the only "standard" for what is right or wrong is purely subjective opinion. It makes no more sense for an existentialist to promote evil than it does for them to promote good, because ultimately in their eyes, *both* are constructs that prohibit the individual from forming their own subjective ethical framework. Really the only way I could put it is, "Be good, be bad, in the end what matters is that you chose". I mean, heck, Albert Camus was classed as CN in the last video in the series, I think, and he was one of the most influential existentialists of the modern age.
TL;DR Lawful and Neutral Evil make sense in the video but I wanted to add to it, I came up with a semblance of a framework for CE (social darwinism), and various forms of Existentialism are a better fit for Chaotic Neutral than Objectivism is.
If you want an alternative to Rand that is more Chaotic Neutral and less evil, check out Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own". Just as pro-individual but uses that same reasoning to oppose everything from government, to religion, to capitalism.
Ohhhhh boy Machiavelli. First of all; I agree with the alignement assigned to people who do as the prince says. But my boy Machiavelli ain’t evil chief. CG at least. He published the book with the intention of educating the masses about how they are being oppressed.
I believe the debate is around whether or not he published The Prince to help people, or just to piss off the new government who kicked him out of his position. Either way it certainly helped people, it depends on if you think morality is based on intention or sheer consequence ;). But provided that his goal was benevolent, I think he would be CG yes
Wow. This was actually really well thought out and delivered. Well done man. I'm not a student of philosophy, but I might just look into this a bit deeper and bring up the discussion at my table. Thank you.
The chaotic evil theory would be meta normative nihilism which the idea that their good or evil and thus people should just do whatever can to get power or just destroy everything if they truly desire it.
Nihilism couldn't fit on the alignment chart though. If nihilism is true, then "good" and "evil" cannot exist, and if they don't exist, how can nihilism fall within it? Also, doing "whatever you can" to get power isn't inherently Evil. It's inherently selfish and self-interested, but as per the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, self-interest is inherently closer to Neutrality than Evil (again, not my opinion, just the way the game defines these terms). If doing good things gets one more power, then you should do it. If doing evil things gets one more power, do that instead. A nihilist would inherently argue that doing good or evil is purely incidental. In order to be "Evil" in DnD, you have to purposefully cause harm, not just cause harm incidentally. That said, if a nihilist character were also a short-sighted, zero-sum edgelord (as most nihilists are), then yeah, they'd be chaotic evil for sure.
It's debatable (but we came to the comment section for debates so that's what i'm trying to start) In my opinion, the lawful evil alingment better suits not to the totalitarians themselves, but to people who follows them and fulfils their commands. You know, like in a book called "banality of evil". There's described a trial for a crimes of a german soldier made during ww2, he answered that he did those crimes because he was told to do it. And yeah... maybe he didn't like that, but he wanted to live well in that lawful evil society. so commited those crimes. P.s. The rumor is that some austrian artists are neutral evil, because they just love to break non-agression pacts. P.p.s. And the chaotic evils are murder hoboes)
The moral order of the universe is finally defined in Dragonlance. In that sphere, at least, justice exists as a real thing. Philosophers may still debate whether or not the larger planar multiverse is an existential nightmare, but there is a High God of Krynn who gave a fourth principle over the three axes of alignment: the law of consequence. As you said in your video on the good alignments, the lawful good character keeps their own morality by obedience even if others act otherwise. Good becomes evil if good does evil, even if they do the evil to the evil. Evil does not become good if evil does evil to evil. But if evil can do evil only to evil, then there is no chaos. That's fate. It is unjust if there is no free will. But it does make sense that capitalism would be neutralized in an ideal world.
in response to a chaotic evil moral philosophy, tho i dont have a name for it, Death worshipers tend to lean towerds an idea that if life is suffering then the ultimate release from suffering is death, and by killing people you are minimizing the amount of suffering they would have endured in there hypothetical future, they also tend towered a more selfish version of hedonism were if you maximize your pleasure at the expense of others, its ok as long as you kill them since your still minimizing there suffering, and there suffering is given more meaning by contributing to your pleasure, this idea gets even more dark when you consider things like rape and torture.
I feel like any time I try to think of some philosophy that would correspond to CE, it ends up just being several hodgepodge ideas that do not explicitly dissuade such conduct. Like, you can't have a grounded philosophy of CE because the whole theoretical nature of such requires that one breaks it. Idk, im a STEM major.
I would personally classify Objectivism as a Chaotic Evil philosophy, rather than a Chaotic Neutral one. Objectivists' core philosophy, that altruism is wrong and selfishness is right, runs totally counter to a functioning society by placing the individual ahead of the group. Acting in a purely self serving way to the determent of others was (short of murder) how evil was defined in the previous video. While Rand never advocates for murder, she does advocate for a purely selfish society. A society wherein every person is entirely out for their own profit is one that requires the enforcement of an economic and social inequality that would allow persons to exploit others for their own gain. The utopia Rand envisioned, where no individual impinges on another's rights or ability to be selfish in their own pursuit of selfishness, is pure fantasy. I could be missing a key point of the philosophy, but I simply cannot see how someone acting in purely selfish pursuits could expect to live in the world without disenfranchising others. Your point on Chaotic Evil being “individuality, and greed, and destructiveness all bundled together“ seemed to me to be a perfectly accurate description of Randian philosophy. Love the content BTW, discovered your channel with your previous video and have binging ever since. I hope you keep up the D&D philosophy videos, it seems to be a tragically empty niche you fill quite well!
Morality and Materialism Are the twin evil brothers Ruling the world Good vs Evil is a Construct itself Created for us to keep us in check Using (Hell,Fear,Laws Etc.) And that concept continuously Endlessly Repeats the neutral and chaotic dualities of Sin and imprisons The individual and group Because we live ina material society That deems a person's existence worthy or not. like for instance the universe doesn't care about good vs evil humans commit, and yet the universe will eventually destroy our planet etc.... Should we act like the universe destroy without thought? What Love has the universe ever taken care of(We Dont Count) The Universe could be Neutral but to others it could be a chaotic good or Evil Just my thoughts.....lol philosophy is one of favorites but not favorite
Strongly agree. I studied Randian objectivism pretty extensively, and yeah. It's sociopathic, brutal, solipsistic nonsense. Rand's writing and essays literally breathlessly aggrandize and laud murderers, rapist, and slavers, specifically because they were those things, and were "free from the banal shackles of morality and society". She literally lauded human rights violations, and made poverty or subjugation out to be a moral (or even intrinsic or genetic) failure of those trapped within it. Worth noting that a bunch of folks in American Gov't right now are staunch objectivists. Ugh. Good lord I hate Rand.
I would agree that altruism is wrong but pure selfishness is also wrong, that's a system that is open to too much attack from charming sociopaths and ignores the irrationality of humanity. There should be limited amount of restrictions to selfishness to make it a working theory. Putting things into false dichotomies are just a setup to control or a naive setup to failure and people should be focused about what works rather than what's good or bad.
@@Rhyman1992 Rand's texts were utopian perspectives of her perspectives and Fountainhead still involved a base hatred for anyone that was considered lesser. It was written everywhere into the text. Anyone that wasn't at the pinnacle of that society (the entrepreneurs, who were the only "creators," "inventors," and "producers" according to her work) was just a leech on society and was thus worthless.
Your take on TN has some grain of accuracy, but ultimately it's way off in scope. Simply put TN is when you elevate a singular concept or approach to life above yourself and others. While this can to an extent encapsulate Buddhism and hedonism, ultimately these examples are just too narrow in scope. The druid that only cares for their forest, the scholar that only cares for books. These are also examples of TN. A perversion of hedonism does fit CE proper. I don't know why you don't want to use it, seems pretty straight forward to me.
No because anarchy is a very diverse array of ideas that are not entirely self centered. They are not even entirely chaotic, as many anarchists believe in a society that is simply more mutual than our current one, rather than blatant individualism. Objectivism and Egoism (the theories of Rand and Stirner respectively) perhaps could fit that category of chaotic evil in that regard of radical selfishness. And anarcho capitalism would definitely be chaotic evil. But this is not true of all anarchists. Pytor Kropotkin, author of books such as The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid, would still advocate for an altruistic society, but without the unjust hierarchies a state brings about. The tendencies of anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and other left wing anarchism would be more good aligned. Depending on your definition of lawful, maybe even lawful good. I personally define lawful not only as obeying the laws of a society, but living by any specific set of rules and not breaking them. As opposed to chaotic which means that actions are taken based on context rather than a code.
@@robertmasengale9366 I often call it anarcho fascism because the moral justification for its inevitable suppression of the less powerful is based on a common social darwinist approach.
Okay, there are a few errors here which I can see. Buddhism is neutral good. Speaking about Mahayana Buddhism (and I believe Vajrayana is the same in this regard), there are two different classes of enlightened people, Arhats and Bodhisatvas, the arhat reaches enlightenment solely because they want to escape the problem of their own suffering and are mostly indifferent to others, while the bodhisattva is driven by compassion for all sentient beings. There are very few things in Mahayana Buddhism that are more derided than an Arhat. It is thought that an Arhat still maintains some concept of ego and has not achieved full Buddhahood, and are generally looked upon with disdain. The things is that by being only interested in their own personal liberation, they are still clinging to the ego, when in reality the only thing that exists is the Buddha Nature which comprises all things and is your true "Self", thus a Bodhisattva simply naturally desires to help all things. Theravada Buddhists don't seem to care however, but this is the branch of Buddhism I know the least about and Mahayana Buddhists tend to be unfavourable towards Theravada Buddhists (which is a problem since most of my sources come from a Mahayana or Vajrayana background, so take that with a grain of salt). Also, Buddhism doesn't say that desire is the root of suffering, the sanskrit word is tanha, which doesn't really have an English equivalent, neither does dukkha which gets translated as suffering for that matter, the closest word is craving or clinging. Alan Watts once said that the best translation is that it's a hang-up. He illustrates the idea with an analogy to a monkey trap. The traps are designed such that there's a nut or a peice of fruit in a transparent box with a hole just big enough for the monkey to slip its hand through, but when it grabs the fruit, it's wrist expands and it can no longer get out. If it were to just let go of the fruit it could escape, but the monkey refuses and gets whacked on the head by the hunter. That's how it works basically, we get attached to some false idea of who we are, how the world works, or what the good is and that traps us in the cycle of samsara. When you let go of that, you achieve Nirvana. The etymology of which even means to breathe out, like if this whole time you were desperately trying to hold in your breath because you were afraid of losing it, and then only by letting go and exhaling do you regain it. Lastly, your depiction of anarchism as individualistic is misleading. Like you said, anarchism contains a wide spectrum of views and while there are some anarchists that are completely individualistic (Max Stirner), there are others that are much more collectivist (anarcho-collectivism, at least when compared to anarcho-communism), and most anarchists are somewhere in-between or perhaps beyond this individualist/collectivist dichotomy. The anarchist Alan Carter, who apparently no one, even in anarchist circles has read, described anarchism is being inter-relationist, I.E in that in places moral values in the relations between individuals, rather than the individuals themselves or the collective. I think this is the best way to describe anarchism, as while pretty much all anarchists value the individual, they also recognize that the individual can only develop their capacities through community. A person subsisting in the woods by themselves can never truly be free, since they are bound by drudgery.
Well I am a Consequentialist Libertarian and and a Objectivist. I act purely within my own RATIONAL self interest. That means doing what is OBJECTIVELY best for me. Not just in the short term, but in the long term, while minimising risk to ME. I love people and care for them because I value their virtues and their happiness pleases me and I benefit from their help. Helping and being seen to be help others benefits me and I take pleasure in it (And so do you) . I don't harm others because of potential risk to me and I take personal responsibility form my actions, words, and inaction. therefore I have no resentment for others. Or reason to enjoy or encourage the suffering of others. I am proudly Lawful Evil ( based on altruism being the basis of goodness) Altruism would say a woman should be forced to love an Incel despite the fact he has no virtue and is not worthy of her love and she would almost certainly not enjoy it. N@zis believed they were doing what was best "their people" as do may other hateful extremists, they were motivated by Altruism . Those well meaning lefties pushing the Idea of "White privilege" are paralyzing young people of minority backgrounds especially men and boys with Nihilism . Most of their issues are caused by this narrative in and of itself. The most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely persuaded of the purity of their instincts and the purity of their intentions. - Milton Freidman
Chaotic Evil: Read the Marquis de Sade. There's your moral theorist. You could also argue Nietzsche, though of course he doesn't see himself as evil. Also, for Lawful Evil, you probably want some combination of Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
Your take on Randian philosophy being evil shows a clear lack of understanding of Ayn's beliefs. We Objectivist promotes good, we simply do not believe in sacrificing are labor, our wealth, or our freedoms for the sake of the so called greater good.
Good is self-sacrifice for those "weaker" than you. Whether that be because they are considered second-class citizens, because they are poor and you are noble, or because they are actively being harmed and you have the power to help them. Evil is a focus on the self, even if it harms others, and in some cases because it harms those who you feel oppose your goals. At least it ignores the harm done to others in the efforts to achieve your goals. Neutral isn't really going to go out of their way to harm others, but isn't self-sacrificing. Lawful cares about power structures, history, and tradition dictating rules that society lives by, including paths of leadership. It pushes against change. Chaotic cares about resisting power structures and focusing on individual worth (regardless of good or evil). It loves the concept of change and resists history and tradition, focusing on acting as you want in order to achieve your objectives. Neutral rarely cares either way about the power structures. It adheres to it in most ways because it is an easy path of least resistance, but they aren't really married to the law and are willing to break laws casually if they are unlikely to suffer negative consequences for it, though it isn't about the laws, it is about acting as they want to. Randian Objectivism focuses on the self, to the exclusion of all else. It abides power structures that can be manipulated to control people, but are adept enough to convince people that they are just "doing business." It seeks to lower all restrictions that would stop the (economically) powerful from gaining more power. It ignores the flaws in the power structures associated with corporations, while being critical of those same flaws within governments. It is a form of Moral Darwinism that has been readily used to advocate for things like slavery being legal and for eugenics, forced sterilizations, and even extermination of the homeless. It is effectively a sin within Randian Objectivism not to work towards the benefit of the self but to help others instead. Outside of Rand's work, one of the most "Objectivist" representations within media is the Ferengi. The list of "laws" are all about self-promotion and aggrandizement, create a ton of exceptions for themselves, push taking advantage of others if it is valuable for profit, and is simultaneously hedonistic. I would actually push Randian Objectivism to CE and Hedonism to CN.
An interesting thought, and one that I haven't heard people mention once, but evil alignments generally could be aligned with ideas such as social darwinism, or else a sort of "might makes right" mentality.
This manifests differently between all three evil alignments, but it ultimately still follows the "might makes right" ideology.
A Lawful Evil character would argue that "Law", that is the cosmic order itself, is designed to dominate and oppress. The weak are subjugated through the power of a heirarchical and tyrannical system of being. Killing, slavery, torture, etc. Are all "okay" to them because, as far as they're concerned, those in power inherently "deserve" to harm others to their own benefit, because they are stronger and can exert more "might".
With Neutral Evil, I greatly agree with the characterization of "Machiavellianism" as being NE in action. The ideas laid out in The Prince are opportunistic in nature, the idea being that harming others is a necessary means of achieving and maintaining "power", but unlike Lawful Evil, the opportunism implies that the "order" of the cosmos is largely unimportant. Law and Chaos are both simply tools, and if one can be used to advance evil in a circumstance, they will side with it, and side with the other in a circumstance where it hurts more people. It's almost a form of inverse consequentialism, in which the goal is to maximize harm to others, rather than maximize their happiness. Of course, it is still a selfish goal, but in order for it to be *truly Evil* per the game, they *must be selfish to the detriment of others*, otherwise they'd just be Neutral, because Neutrals don't care about whether people are hurt or harmed, only that they benefit.
Chaotic Evil I think is the hardest because I agree that for the most part, there *is* no analogue in the real world. I've heard people compare Nietzsche's Will to Power as a Chaotic Evil philosophy, but I'd argue that mainly misunderstands his philosophy, which I'd characterize (along with most forms of existentialism) as closer to Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil. No, I think that Chaotic Evil most of all is just the idea that laws exist simply to protect the weak. It argues that "Might makes right" but that Law exists to try and prevent this from being carried out. In fact, they might very well *agree* with a contractarian that laws exist to protect people who freely enter a contract, but hold that the state of nature, the "war of all against all", is actually something good, because it supports the destruction of those too weak to survive. As with the other two, the goal is to harm people, not just incidentally, but on purpose, because it is "good" that the weak die.
This is also why I would argue that *Chaotic Neutral* is a great fit for Nietzsche and the Will to Power. Nietzsche was clearly very influential on Existentialism, which, existentialists usually argue that objective morals don't truly exist, (which ties into the 4th video on meta-ethics). Chaotic Neutral is the closest to an "anti-alignment alignment". It doesn't value either the altruism of good, nor the purposeful harm to others that evil does, but instead supports simple self interest. Self interest isn't evil, because it does not necessitate hurting others, and in fact, one can do good things for others whilst being motivated by selfish goals, even something as simple as "doing a nice thing makes me feel better about myself" is a generally benevolent act, but not "good" by DnD standards, because it was done for selfish purposes. Furthermore, being actively opposed to "Law" makes Chaotic Neutral characters inherently skeptical of the idea that the universe has a specific "purpose" or "meaning", instead saying that individuals should pursue an "authentic" life unburdened by pre-made concepts of meaning (e.g. religion, ideology, morals) which is pretty clearly existentialist at it's core. The same goes for morals. Because the universe itself does not care whether good or evil is done, the only "standard" for what is right or wrong is purely subjective opinion. It makes no more sense for an existentialist to promote evil than it does for them to promote good, because ultimately in their eyes, *both* are constructs that prohibit the individual from forming their own subjective ethical framework. Really the only way I could put it is, "Be good, be bad, in the end what matters is that you chose".
I mean, heck, Albert Camus was classed as CN in the last video in the series, I think, and he was one of the most influential existentialists of the modern age.
TL;DR
Lawful and Neutral Evil make sense in the video but I wanted to add to it, I came up with a semblance of a framework for CE (social darwinism), and various forms of Existentialism are a better fit for Chaotic Neutral than Objectivism is.
this should have way more views wtf the writing and production quality is way ahead of the curve as far as dnd youtube goes
If you want an alternative to Rand that is more Chaotic Neutral and less evil, check out Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own". Just as pro-individual but uses that same reasoning to oppose everything from government, to religion, to capitalism.
Chaotic Neutral: Max Stirners "The Ego and his own"
So a good option for a chaotic evil philosophy would be some combination of anarchism and sadism.
Ohhhhh boy Machiavelli.
First of all; I agree with the alignement assigned to people who do as the prince says.
But my boy Machiavelli ain’t evil chief. CG at least. He published the book with the intention of educating the masses about how they are being oppressed.
I believe the debate is around whether or not he published The Prince to help people, or just to piss off the new government who kicked him out of his position. Either way it certainly helped people, it depends on if you think morality is based on intention or sheer consequence ;). But provided that his goal was benevolent, I think he would be CG yes
I'm loving the sketches and editing
Great video, although I don't necessarily agree with every point. But that's the point; to start a discussion. And you did just that, fantastically
Wow. This was actually really well thought out and delivered. Well done man. I'm not a student of philosophy, but I might just look into this a bit deeper and bring up the discussion at my table. Thank you.
Absolutely fantastic. Please make more videos like this.
Awesome video. I’ve spent many hours trying to place objectivism within the alignment system. I agree with your conclusion.
I loved the philosophers' quotations "in character" :D
The chaotic evil theory would be meta normative nihilism which the idea that their good or evil and thus people should just do whatever can to get power or just destroy everything if they truly desire it.
Nihilism couldn't fit on the alignment chart though. If nihilism is true, then "good" and "evil" cannot exist, and if they don't exist, how can nihilism fall within it?
Also, doing "whatever you can" to get power isn't inherently Evil. It's inherently selfish and self-interested, but as per the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, self-interest is inherently closer to Neutrality than Evil (again, not my opinion, just the way the game defines these terms). If doing good things gets one more power, then you should do it. If doing evil things gets one more power, do that instead. A nihilist would inherently argue that doing good or evil is purely incidental. In order to be "Evil" in DnD, you have to purposefully cause harm, not just cause harm incidentally.
That said, if a nihilist character were also a short-sighted, zero-sum edgelord (as most nihilists are), then yeah, they'd be chaotic evil for sure.
I find your chanel on your last vidéo about moral enligtiment and was anxios to the next one
It's debatable (but we came to the comment section for debates so that's what i'm trying to start)
In my opinion, the lawful evil alingment better suits not to the totalitarians themselves, but to people who follows them and fulfils their commands. You know, like in a book called "banality of evil". There's described a trial for a crimes of a german soldier made during ww2, he answered that he did those crimes because he was told to do it. And yeah... maybe he didn't like that, but he wanted to live well in that lawful evil society. so commited those crimes.
P.s. The rumor is that some austrian artists are neutral evil, because they just love to break non-agression pacts.
P.p.s. And the chaotic evils are murder hoboes)
The moral order of the universe is finally defined in Dragonlance. In that sphere, at least, justice exists as a real thing. Philosophers may still debate whether or not the larger planar multiverse is an existential nightmare, but there is a High God of Krynn who gave a fourth principle over the three axes of alignment: the law of consequence. As you said in your video on the good alignments, the lawful good character keeps their own morality by obedience even if others act otherwise. Good becomes evil if good does evil, even if they do the evil to the evil. Evil does not become good if evil does evil to evil. But if evil can do evil only to evil, then there is no chaos. That's fate. It is unjust if there is no free will. But it does make sense that capitalism would be neutralized in an ideal world.
in response to a chaotic evil moral philosophy, tho i dont have a name for it, Death worshipers tend to lean towerds an idea that if life is suffering then the ultimate release from suffering is death, and by killing people you are minimizing the amount of suffering they would have endured in there hypothetical future, they also tend towered a more selfish version of hedonism were if you maximize your pleasure at the expense of others, its ok as long as you kill them since your still minimizing there suffering, and there suffering is given more meaning by contributing to your pleasure, this idea gets even more dark when you consider things like rape and torture.
The Will to Power is a good fit for CE i think.
Chaotic Evil is Max Stirner's Egoism.
What? No. At worst it’s chaotic neutral.
Nihilism is unaligned because it is specifically the lack of belief in morality
-an optimistic nihilist
(Any/all)
I feel like any time I try to think of some philosophy that would correspond to CE, it ends up just being several hodgepodge ideas that do not explicitly dissuade such conduct. Like, you can't have a grounded philosophy of CE because the whole theoretical nature of such requires that one breaks it. Idk, im a STEM major.
I would personally classify Objectivism as a Chaotic Evil philosophy, rather than a Chaotic Neutral one. Objectivists' core philosophy, that altruism is wrong and selfishness is right, runs totally counter to a functioning society by placing the individual ahead of the group. Acting in a purely self serving way to the determent of others was (short of murder) how evil was defined in the previous video. While Rand never advocates for murder, she does advocate for a purely selfish society. A society wherein every person is entirely out for their own profit is one that requires the enforcement of an economic and social inequality that would allow persons to exploit others for their own gain. The utopia Rand envisioned, where no individual impinges on another's rights or ability to be selfish in their own pursuit of selfishness, is pure fantasy.
I could be missing a key point of the philosophy, but I simply cannot see how someone acting in purely selfish pursuits could expect to live in the world without disenfranchising others. Your point on Chaotic Evil being “individuality, and greed, and destructiveness all bundled together“ seemed to me to be a perfectly accurate description of Randian philosophy.
Love the content BTW, discovered your channel with your previous video and have binging ever since. I hope you keep up the D&D philosophy videos, it seems to be a tragically empty niche you fill quite well!
Morality and Materialism
Are the twin evil brothers
Ruling the world
Good vs Evil is a Construct itself
Created for us to keep us in check
Using (Hell,Fear,Laws Etc.)
And that concept continuously
Endlessly Repeats the neutral and chaotic dualities of Sin and imprisons
The individual and group
Because we live ina material society
That deems a person's existence worthy or not.
like for instance the universe doesn't care about good vs evil humans commit, and yet the universe will eventually destroy our planet etc....
Should we act like the universe destroy without thought? What Love has the universe ever taken care of(We Dont Count)
The Universe could be Neutral but to others it could be a chaotic good or Evil
Just my thoughts.....lol philosophy is one of favorites but not favorite
Strongly agree. I studied Randian objectivism pretty extensively, and yeah. It's sociopathic, brutal, solipsistic nonsense. Rand's writing and essays literally breathlessly aggrandize and laud murderers, rapist, and slavers, specifically because they were those things, and were "free from the banal shackles of morality and society".
She literally lauded human rights violations, and made poverty or subjugation out to be a moral (or even intrinsic or genetic) failure of those trapped within it.
Worth noting that a bunch of folks in American Gov't right now are staunch objectivists. Ugh. Good lord I hate Rand.
@@spiritandsteel you obviously never read a single writing of Ayn Rand if you make those claims.
I would agree that altruism is wrong but pure selfishness is also wrong, that's a system that is open to too much attack from charming sociopaths and ignores the irrationality of humanity. There should be limited amount of restrictions to selfishness to make it a working theory. Putting things into false dichotomies are just a setup to control or a naive setup to failure and people should be focused about what works rather than what's good or bad.
@@Rhyman1992 Rand's texts were utopian perspectives of her perspectives and Fountainhead still involved a base hatred for anyone that was considered lesser. It was written everywhere into the text. Anyone that wasn't at the pinnacle of that society (the entrepreneurs, who were the only "creators," "inventors," and "producers" according to her work) was just a leech on society and was thus worthless.
Don't see that monk video.
Put a lot on my "to read" list 😁 just the music is a bit to disctracting
Went full PhilosophyTube. Love it. Great video.
Your take on TN has some grain of accuracy, but ultimately it's way off in scope. Simply put TN is when you elevate a singular concept or approach to life above yourself and others. While this can to an extent encapsulate Buddhism and hedonism, ultimately these examples are just too narrow in scope. The druid that only cares for their forest, the scholar that only cares for books. These are also examples of TN.
A perversion of hedonism does fit CE proper. I don't know why you don't want to use it, seems pretty straight forward to me.
Hobbes was a hack
Now I'm just an impressionable teenager, but wouldn't chaotic evil be anarchy?
No because anarchy is a very diverse array of ideas that are not entirely self centered. They are not even entirely chaotic, as many anarchists believe in a society that is simply more mutual than our current one, rather than blatant individualism. Objectivism and Egoism (the theories of Rand and Stirner respectively) perhaps could fit that category of chaotic evil in that regard of radical selfishness. And anarcho capitalism would definitely be chaotic evil. But this is not true of all anarchists. Pytor Kropotkin, author of books such as The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid, would still advocate for an altruistic society, but without the unjust hierarchies a state brings about. The tendencies of anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and other left wing anarchism would be more good aligned. Depending on your definition of lawful, maybe even lawful good. I personally define lawful not only as obeying the laws of a society, but living by any specific set of rules and not breaking them. As opposed to chaotic which means that actions are taken based on context rather than a code.
@@WeDwellinaFiefdom Anarcho-capitalism ends up feeling more like an economically focused morally darwinistic approach.
@@robertmasengale9366 I often call it anarcho fascism because the moral justification for its inevitable suppression of the less powerful is based on a common social darwinist approach.
Okay, there are a few errors here which I can see. Buddhism is neutral good. Speaking about Mahayana Buddhism (and I believe Vajrayana is the same in this regard), there are two different classes of enlightened people, Arhats and Bodhisatvas, the arhat reaches enlightenment solely because they want to escape the problem of their own suffering and are mostly indifferent to others, while the bodhisattva is driven by compassion for all sentient beings. There are very few things in Mahayana Buddhism that are more derided than an Arhat. It is thought that an Arhat still maintains some concept of ego and has not achieved full Buddhahood, and are generally looked upon with disdain. The things is that by being only interested in their own personal liberation, they are still clinging to the ego, when in reality the only thing that exists is the Buddha Nature which comprises all things and is your true "Self", thus a Bodhisattva simply naturally desires to help all things.
Theravada Buddhists don't seem to care however, but this is the branch of Buddhism I know the least about and Mahayana Buddhists tend to be unfavourable towards Theravada Buddhists (which is a problem since most of my sources come from a Mahayana or Vajrayana background, so take that with a grain of salt).
Also, Buddhism doesn't say that desire is the root of suffering, the sanskrit word is tanha, which doesn't really have an English equivalent, neither does dukkha which gets translated as suffering for that matter, the closest word is craving or clinging. Alan Watts once said that the best translation is that it's a hang-up. He illustrates the idea with an analogy to a monkey trap. The traps are designed such that there's a nut or a peice of fruit in a transparent box with a hole just big enough for the monkey to slip its hand through, but when it grabs the fruit, it's wrist expands and it can no longer get out. If it were to just let go of the fruit it could escape, but the monkey refuses and gets whacked on the head by the hunter. That's how it works basically, we get attached to some false idea of who we are, how the world works, or what the good is and that traps us in the cycle of samsara. When you let go of that, you achieve Nirvana. The etymology of which even means to breathe out, like if this whole time you were desperately trying to hold in your breath because you were afraid of losing it, and then only by letting go and exhaling do you regain it.
Lastly, your depiction of anarchism as individualistic is misleading. Like you said, anarchism contains a wide spectrum of views and while there are some anarchists that are completely individualistic (Max Stirner), there are others that are much more collectivist (anarcho-collectivism, at least when compared to anarcho-communism), and most anarchists are somewhere in-between or perhaps beyond this individualist/collectivist dichotomy. The anarchist Alan Carter, who apparently no one, even in anarchist circles has read, described anarchism is being inter-relationist, I.E in that in places moral values in the relations between individuals, rather than the individuals themselves or the collective. I think this is the best way to describe anarchism, as while pretty much all anarchists value the individual, they also recognize that the individual can only develop their capacities through community. A person subsisting in the woods by themselves can never truly be free, since they are bound by drudgery.
What alignment of me refusing to like because you’re at 69 like?
I see you also watch PhilosophyTube
Well I am a Consequentialist Libertarian and and a Objectivist.
I act purely within my own RATIONAL self interest. That means doing what is OBJECTIVELY best for me. Not just in the short term, but in the long term, while minimising risk to ME.
I love people and care for them because I value their virtues and their happiness pleases me and I benefit from their help. Helping and being seen to be help others benefits me and I take pleasure in it (And so do you) . I don't harm others because of potential risk to me and I take personal responsibility form my actions, words, and inaction. therefore I have no resentment for others. Or reason to enjoy or encourage the suffering of others.
I am proudly Lawful Evil ( based on altruism being the basis of goodness)
Altruism would say a woman should be forced to love an Incel despite the fact he has no virtue and is not worthy of her love and she would almost certainly not enjoy it.
N@zis believed they were doing what was best "their people" as do may other hateful extremists, they were motivated by Altruism .
Those well meaning lefties pushing the Idea of "White privilege" are paralyzing young people of minority backgrounds especially men and boys with Nihilism . Most of their issues are caused by this narrative in and of itself.
The most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely persuaded of the purity of their instincts and the purity of their intentions. - Milton Freidman
Satanism applys to Lawful Evil, Evil & Chaotic Evil.
Chaotic Evil: Read the Marquis de Sade. There's your moral theorist. You could also argue Nietzsche, though of course he doesn't see himself as evil.
Also, for Lawful Evil, you probably want some combination of Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
Your take on Randian philosophy being evil shows a clear lack of understanding of Ayn's beliefs. We Objectivist promotes good, we simply do not believe in sacrificing are labor, our wealth, or our freedoms for the sake of the so called greater good.
Good is self-sacrifice for those "weaker" than you. Whether that be because they are considered second-class citizens, because they are poor and you are noble, or because they are actively being harmed and you have the power to help them.
Evil is a focus on the self, even if it harms others, and in some cases because it harms those who you feel oppose your goals. At least it ignores the harm done to others in the efforts to achieve your goals.
Neutral isn't really going to go out of their way to harm others, but isn't self-sacrificing.
Lawful cares about power structures, history, and tradition dictating rules that society lives by, including paths of leadership. It pushes against change.
Chaotic cares about resisting power structures and focusing on individual worth (regardless of good or evil). It loves the concept of change and resists history and tradition, focusing on acting as you want in order to achieve your objectives.
Neutral rarely cares either way about the power structures. It adheres to it in most ways because it is an easy path of least resistance, but they aren't really married to the law and are willing to break laws casually if they are unlikely to suffer negative consequences for it, though it isn't about the laws, it is about acting as they want to.
Randian Objectivism focuses on the self, to the exclusion of all else. It abides power structures that can be manipulated to control people, but are adept enough to convince people that they are just "doing business." It seeks to lower all restrictions that would stop the (economically) powerful from gaining more power. It ignores the flaws in the power structures associated with corporations, while being critical of those same flaws within governments. It is a form of Moral Darwinism that has been readily used to advocate for things like slavery being legal and for eugenics, forced sterilizations, and even extermination of the homeless. It is effectively a sin within Randian Objectivism not to work towards the benefit of the self but to help others instead. Outside of Rand's work, one of the most "Objectivist" representations within media is the Ferengi. The list of "laws" are all about self-promotion and aggrandizement, create a ton of exceptions for themselves, push taking advantage of others if it is valuable for profit, and is simultaneously hedonistic.
I would actually push Randian Objectivism to CE and Hedonism to CN.