Paladins aren't always nice

[Rincewind1]

The problem is, that we can't really argue much for moral relativity in FR, because it's a DnD setting - which means it features actual personifications of moral absolutes, and in fact, those moral absolutes - gods, demons, devils, celestials, etc. etc. - are the driving power of the (multi)universe. Slavery may not be at all times despicably evil - let's face it - Roman slaves, outside the sentenced prisoners, had much better lives usually, and chances to free themselves, than feudal serfs - and feudal contract is something widely accepted in FR.

While slavery may -not- be evil, it is certainly not good - and a paladin should, in my opinion, not partake in the acts, if he does not condemn it. In fact, I'd say that the fact that Mulhorand (sp?) is supposedly LG, while a nation with completely legal slavery, is an omission and a mistake on part of the FR's design. A culture openly partaking in evil/neutral acts, should be evil/neutral.

[Calixto]

I had decided not to reply in the thread anymore, but your statement about slavery not being inherently evil in RL greatly puzzles me, and I would like to know your reasons to believe that slavery is not what 99,9% people thinks it is - evil.
 
Yes, we have today debates about moral issues. But we speak of issues that people is divided upon. Abortion, death penalty. No one is debating whether slavery is wrong or not because, well, it is and always was. And evil in real life is not subjectively, but objectively defined, and pretty much the great majority of people has the same opinion, at last as far as slavery is concerned. That is because, well, you will hardly find anyone who thinks slavery is anything else than evil.
 

Do you think slavery, being an almost globally (at least in the west) accepted practice up to the 19th century, was considered justifiable because people didn't really care about evil back then? Or do you simply think it was abandoned because mankind 'got smarter' and suddenly realized it was actually wrong? Both sentiments are entirely dismissable.

Oh no, they cared about evil, only not a great deal. Slavery was either seen as a necessary evil, for example to sustain societies, or something that, altough evil, was the right thing to do, for example the enslavements of people after a battle, since the victors desserved the spoils.
 
Did slavers often try to justify themselves thinking that they did their victims more good than harm, for example because their conditions of living would improve? Yes. But all of them were aware that enslaving was wrong. Because the basis of enslavement is the reduction of someone to something lesser. How could that not be inherently evil?

[Halfbrood]

If only such conflicts raged IG...

Locking.