Some years back when a now world-famous doctor was young and fresh in practice, he became aware of research into the use of a new wonder drug, and took an interest in this. The drug was being used to assist in cases of addiction to pain medications, but it had some other very promising properties. Because of its interaction with neurotransmitters in the brain, it tended to create clarity of thought, and was suspected of actually enhancing intelligence. The doctor tested this on himself, and was so pleased with the results that he insisted that his fiance also try it. However, it did not work out well. The young doctor was Sigmund Freud, and the drug then being used to relieve morphine addiction was cocaine. He and his fiance both became horribly addicted to it, and although he was able to break the addiction, it is not clear whether she ever fully recovered from the damage done by it.
I tell this story because it very clearly delineates two distinct types of good actions. When I tell it, I almost always also mention the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the Philippians, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, because it, too, distinguishes these two kinds of good acts. You see, we can ask whether what Freud did in encouraging his bride to take cocaine was a good act or not, and we could argue about it at great length, precisely because by one definition it was a very good thing to do but by another it was horribly bad. If we understand the difference between those two concepts, it can make our heroes more praiseworthy and our villains more horrifying.
Freud certainly loved his beloved; that was the entire reason for sharing with her this wonderful discovery he had made, this wonder drug that was going to make their lives and the entire world so much better. He had the best of intentions, the best of motivations, the best of reasons, for persuading her to try it. What he lacked was real knowledge. We can imagine him crying over the pain he had caused, the suffering he brought to the one person in all the world for whom he would have wished no suffering; we can hear him crying, I didn’t know.
He didn’t know. What he did was good, in the sense that he did it out of love. However, the fact that you do something out of love does not mean it was the right thing to do. It was, presumably, the best thing you knew to do at the time. If it wasn’t the right thing, it can still cause more problems than it solves. That doesn’t mean you were a bad person; it means you made a bad choice.
I could go from here into an extensive lesson into the bad choices people make and the consequences that flow from them; but as profitable as that might be, it’s not the point of this column. Rather, I note that most people miss this distinction, between the good motives and the good action, the good person and the good choice. I think that we can enhance play significantly by bringing this to the forefront in our minds, by understanding different meanings of good.
We could distinguish one sort of good by the word beneficent. Freud was certainly beneficent; he tried to do the best he could for those he loved. What he was not, perhaps (and at that time of his life), was wise. He did not know the best thing to do, and his guess was horribly off.
The interesting thing is that beneficent people can do absolutely horrific things. They can exterminate entire races, enslave people they deem beneath them, kill babies, old people, and those with infirmities or handicaps, out of kindness and good will. They can do terrible things to one person out of a desire to do good for another. These are, at heart, good people. They want to do what is best for others. They are just so far off the mark as to what that is that those of us with some objective knowledge don’t understand how they can do that. We call them wicked, because we think they should know better.
The other aspect of this that is just as important is that selfish people can do absolutely wonderful things for totally selfish reasons. It isn’t whether the man gave a million dollars to build the clinic; it’s whether he did so because he wanted to help people, or because he wanted to curry the favor of certain powerful individuals whose support he will need to succeed in his next scheme. The decision which helps others is a good choice, but it might not tell us that we’re dealing with a good person.
This opens a wealth of possibilities for creating villains. It’s always good to have the villain who is entirely selfish, or the one who is truly dedicated to serving evil in some form. Yet to be opposed by someone who is just completely wrong about everything and trying to do the best they can based on that wrong knowledge–and particularly when they are adamantly certain that they are right–adds new dimensions to play.
I’m reminded that the Ghostbusters faced this sort of adversary probably as often as they faced the supernatural evils for which they were better prepared. The EPA administrator who shut down the power on their ghost containment field certainly qualifies here, releasing the imprisoned ghosts when he stops what he thinks is an illegal toxic waste processor. So does the judge who wanted to lock them away for preying on the superstitious with their con game; if ghosts don’t exist, anyone who charges money to help get rid of them must be doing something illegal. The debate with the mayor was in essence this sort of conflict, over what the right thing to do would be. You can always end up at odds with good people who only want the best for everyone, who disagree as to what is the best for everyone. Those conflicts are in some ways the most difficult to resolve.
You can also create far more credible villains by making them people who think they’re doing the right thing, who then view the heroes as the wicked interfering scoundrels who would stop them from saving the world. Just because the villain wants to conquer the world doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy at heart; he just believes that everyone in the world would be better off if he were in charge.
The popular (or, depending on who you ask, unpopular) alignment system of Dungeons & Dragons plays with this exact idea. It suggests that in addition to whether they are good or evil, people might also be lawful or chaotic, by which they mean believing either that the society is more important than the individual or that the individual is more important than the society. Under this scheme, good people who believe it is important to maintain order in society to bring the greatest benefit to the greatest number will be at odds with those who believe bringing the greatest benefit to the greatest number can only be achieved by freeing them from the strictures of rules. The question becomes, what is the best way to help people? The answer is not so clear, and so good people disagree, and work at cross purposes to each other.
The good that knows the right thing to do and does it is of a higher order, perhaps. It is a good that only hurts those for whom pain is necessary–the good that slaps toddler fingers before they reach the fire, or sends a few young men to die against a foe that left unchecked would kill all. It is a good that ultimately benefits everyone it touches, even if it does so by thwarting desires which would cause harm like too much ice cream for the diabetic; or forcing the better good over the more desirable, vegetables instead of dessert, on a grander scale. It knows when a war must be fought to prevent a yet greater evil. It is, perhaps, a perfect and divine good.
It is also more than we can achieve; we can only aspire to it, pray to find it, seek wisdom and guidance along the way. Meanwhile, we have to be content with that lesser good in ourselves, that beneficence, the desire to be good to others, and hope that our knowledge isn’t fatally flawed, our discernment woefully inadequate. That is the only good we can promise; even that is difficult for most of us, but at least it is something to which we could be held accountable. It is beyond us always to know the best thing to do; it is not beyond us always to attempt to do what we believe to be the best thing for the greatest number, even if none of us ever do so.
It is also what is meant by good in alignment: actions intended to promote the greatest benefit to the greatest number. Success in doing so is not required; in trying to decide whether you are playing a good character, we measure the heart, not the outcome. There will be times when what you do as a good character will go horribly wrong, and the blame for it will fall on you; but we will know that you did not intend or expect any of that to happen. You were only trying to help, and if it went wrong because there was something you didn’t know, that doesn’t taint your character, even if it spoils your reputation and hurts uncounted people.
Next week, something different.
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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc. His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.
