About good and evil

The alignment system is fundmentally flawed (but that's a whole other topic). While your definitions of good and evil seem pretty good, your ideas for law and chaos have a few flaws.

I prefer to think of law as a willingness to obey a set of guidelines (however evil, disturbing, or even self-harming they may be), while chaos is refusing to follow any form of guidelines. The nazi officer: lawful because he is obeying the military guidelines set down. The freethinking rebel lunatic: chaotic because he refuses to follow any type of pattern or rule.

All that said, any system that attempts to fit the broad range of human (not to mention dwarven, elvish, outsider, celestial, and yugoloth) emotions into 9 categories is going to have its flaws.

Particularly good examination with regards to good and evil, a little more iffy regarding law and chaos, but those are more theoretic ideas.

I tend to think that the vast majority of people are fundamentally neutral. They want to do nice things for people, but not if it causes them trouble, and they are fairly selfish, wanting stuff for themselves, but not to the point of harming others. Very few people are particularly good OR evil, although some lean one way or another. To be truly good means self-sacrifice on a considerable level, to be evil is to wantonly cause harm without (much) expectation of reward.

In response to the nature / DNA argument. After all, it doesn't matter if you're a insane pyromantic killer because you willingly choose to be or because your dad and his dad were both insane killers and you inherited the crazy. You're still evil and still need to be stopped before burning down half the hive to ashes.

Similarly, the social standards arn't a cure-all either. Sure, everybody in Plague-Mort was killing innocents and whatnot, but that doesn't make it any less evil.

That said, I agree with Kay that nature and social standards DO need to be recognized when determining alignment. But they're not a get-out-of-the-grey-waste-free card.

I agree with neotiamat, that few people are actually good or evil and that most are actually nuetral. I also think that the alignment all come in various shades. As their are many types of one alignment in many people. Otherwise every single planar would be exactly the same in thinking. As for mortals, I think that most people would be nuetral in some way, however it is the adventurers that display their alignment more boldly than the others, as they are more often than not, powerful individuals by their own right and as such are able to explore their morality further than those just trying to get by in the multiverse.

For instance an adventurer may have become a powerful fighter who swears to protect the weak and innocent from harm. He is able to do so, as he has broken away from society as a whole in order to become a driving force of his own morals. Just as an archer might swears to do right by his country and choose to assasinate a king of another nation, although he may still hold fealty to a society, he has become separated from them by attempting to do more than is neccessary. A rogue who chooses to proove himself to a guild, to be better than just, the average cutpurse or highwayman and attempt a more daring caper.

In my opinion everyone has the potential to show strong signs of a paticular alignment but, don't usually show them. Whereas adventurers do because, they entire bussiness is dictated by their morality and their beliefs.

It is a fable

Besides, the point was they are evil, not how they like to enjoy their evilness.

That does not make a person evil. It makes a person an euphamism for male genetalia.

Alignments are guidelines to help players understand the moral compass of the character they are portraying and, by and large, where it ends in terms of its definition. People generally do not consider themself evil if that is what they are since being good or evil is strictly based on cultural reference. I doubt that there is a single fiend who, when asked why they sought revenge on the sod who peeled him rather than 'forgive/forget' answered "Because I'm Evil" as a serious reply.

People and Outsiders have their own goals and culture that drives their motivations. Loth's will do what they want because it furthers their agenda. That you do not agree with their agenda, or means by which they accomplish it, really does not matter to them not because they are evil but because they were not conditioned to care about your opinion. While the Archons make better neighbors, they are no less rigid in their ideals, "Love thy neighbor or be punished!" so to speak.

It is far easier to define a creature's goals and cultural reference to identify their behavior than it is to try and define their alignment. The alignment grid is simply a tool for GMs and PCs to determine how far from 'typical societal convention' a creature is willing to go in order to accomplish those goals.