I guess it seems to me that believing other people are less than human is already an evil characteristic, so I don't see that belief as exculpatory here. This gets into hard questions about what it means to have an evil character, so we may differ on a semantic point rather than a moral one.
Yeah, I've gotta say I definitely run alignment in such a way that someone may think themselves good and actually be evil (and vice versa). It makes for more interesting evil characters, and removes some cartoonishness from villains while ratcheting up tension for the players...but maybe that's just my preference and it's not technically "core D&D alignment" given the non-relative nature of alignment in D&D as written in core. I mean, after all, elves racist against dwarves and vice versa are not default Neutral or Evil Only for some reason, lots of Good NPCs and characters in novels are shown to be explicitly racist against other races, both "Evil Races" (which we see plenty of Good exceptions to over time proving that the racism against "Evil Races" may actually be straight up racism) as well as to the other "Good Races", so it's hard to say where D&D's stance on The Morality of Racism is vis a vis the real world.
edit: to be clear, my stance personally is that someone who views any race as lesser in D&D, even kobolds or orcs or other traditionally maligned races, is at best Neutral, although anything from the Law/Chaos axis seems perfectly plausible there. that's just me tho
I guess it seems to me that believing other people are less than human is already an evil characteristic, so I don't see that belief as exculpatory here. This gets into hard questions about what it means to have an evil character, so we may differ on a semantic point rather than a moral one.
Well, first of, in real life I don't actually think "good" and "evil" are concepts that actually exist, and it would be more accurate to replace them with a grab-bag of terms like "selfless, benevolent" vs "selfish, malevolent".
That aside, with the given example, it's a bit misleading to characterise it as "other people are less than human", as it's really just a sincere, benevolent belief in the White Man's Burden. Which is an excellent example in real life as to how a largely benevolent belief/intention (based on false but understandably believed premises) led to numerous bad outcomes (for various reasons).
To use another example, in real-world racist theory a common belief is in segregation, supported by the idea that "The X race is not inferior to ours, merely different. Because of the differences, it will be better both for us and for them if we live apart."
Now, most people who use this premise use it disingenuously. In real life, inevitably any sort of race-based segregation has led to one side being the "winner" and getting far better treatment, infrastructure, land, etc. than the other.
But, somebody who actually sincerely believed this (which is to say, somebody that would believe and fight politically for the "other" races to get exactly the same benefits as their own race, and who held no personal animus against people of other races) would not, in my opinion, be "evil". They would be tragically misled, but morality IMO is not affected by what mistakes you make or misapprehensions you are under.
(It is worth noting that it would be difficult to imagine any of these theoretical "Unambiguously Good Racists" existing except in an environment that was composed already of an understood racial hierarchy which was backed "scientifically" and by common belief, such as the colonial era, apartheid South Africa, etc. But it is barely possible a sincerely benevolent person could come to such beliefs via another means that included no rancor against "other races", and somehow miss or mistakenly discount the large amounts of evidence that discredit such racial theories.)
Comments
edit: to be clear, my stance personally is that someone who views any race as lesser in D&D, even kobolds or orcs or other traditionally maligned races, is at best Neutral, although anything from the Law/Chaos axis seems perfectly plausible there. that's just me tho
That aside, with the given example, it's a bit misleading to characterise it as "other people are less than human", as it's really just a sincere, benevolent belief in the White Man's Burden. Which is an excellent example in real life as to how a largely benevolent belief/intention (based on false but understandably believed premises) led to numerous bad outcomes (for various reasons).
To use another example, in real-world racist theory a common belief is in segregation, supported by the idea that "The X race is not inferior to ours, merely different. Because of the differences, it will be better both for us and for them if we live apart."
Now, most people who use this premise use it disingenuously. In real life, inevitably any sort of race-based segregation has led to one side being the "winner" and getting far better treatment, infrastructure, land, etc. than the other.
But, somebody who actually sincerely believed this (which is to say, somebody that would believe and fight politically for the "other" races to get exactly the same benefits as their own race, and who held no personal animus against people of other races) would not, in my opinion, be "evil". They would be tragically misled, but morality IMO is not affected by what mistakes you make or misapprehensions you are under.
(It is worth noting that it would be difficult to imagine any of these theoretical "Unambiguously Good Racists" existing except in an environment that was composed already of an understood racial hierarchy which was backed "scientifically" and by common belief, such as the colonial era, apartheid South Africa, etc. But it is barely possible a sincerely benevolent person could come to such beliefs via another means that included no rancor against "other races", and somehow miss or mistakenly discount the large amounts of evidence that discredit such racial theories.)
just yesterday came out this awesome video about tito's earlier days: