Well whether Dagoth Ur is evil or not is up to you to interprate, is casting down false religions and driving all other races out of your home land wrong? And if it isn't is turning your people into monsters and murdering outsiders an acceptable way to acomplish this? I would have to see I don't see anything wrong with overthrowing the worship of false gods, but driving others out of your land even when they really do nothing there except bring peace and prosperity is counter productive to the goals of progress and unity, therefore it is definately wrong. And the things Dagoth Ur did and planed to do in the hopes of acheiving these goals? That is definately utterly evil, I'm afraid I wouldn't want to know anyone who could interprate it otherwise.



I would have to dissagree, there is more to being "evil" than just being selfish, I actualy think that how you a achieve your goals is more important than what your goals are when it comes to morality, in truth if this weren't the case there would be very few good people indeed, since most people are at least partialy influenced by selfish goals. And driving outsiders from your home isn't really a very good goal to begin with, and it is kind of selfish as well since it's what Dagoth Ur and many Dunmer want but it is actualy AGAINST the desires of every other race, and diversity of races, unity and all those things that driving foreingers from Morrowind would deprive Morrowind of are a GOOD thing, some Dunmer dissagree but that's because they're idiots, or they like to be the ones to rule and Morrowind being part of the Empire doesn't allow them that power, although I wouldn't call them smart either, and besides, what is good and what is bad must be decided by what would be beneficial to majority of the world's population rather than a minority, and having Morrowind as an Imperiel province is beneficial to most people in Tamriel, some Dunmer might not like it but Dunmer aren't the only race in the world, neither is their population greater than the combined numbers of other races. Goals that involve changing good things for the worse are bad goals to work for.



Being able to start long debates about a villian's morality is not really what makes me like a villian, I like villians with motivations that seem plausible, it's even better when the motiviations are not at first apparant yet once you know them are still ones which seem like something a real person might actualy act for, and means of achieving their goals which make an interesting story and give a reason for the hero to want to stop them, as well as give the audiance a reason to want the hero to succeed, a good villian should have a good, complex, unique personality and a voice and appearance that fits his role, a villian should also have concerns other than acomplishing his main goal, he does after all still have emmotions and all that, he should also be motivated by the same concerns which may motivate the hero. A the morality of a villian's goals are not so important so long as these requirements are met. Dagoth Ur was kind of good in the first too, though they really should have put more actualy visible evidence of his actions in the game in order to make the player better able to apriciate the impact of his action,s and he seemed pretty lacking in the latter parts. Especiely personality.

...

Well, at least Dagoth Ur isn't a poet. His deceptions are easier to see through. Self-delusion is no excuse for his deeds in this case. I would say that's it's hard to define him as "evil" or "good", but was he "bad"? He may have had his own intentions, but even then he did not see any other possible way other than using the Heart of the World to power a giant stompy golem and mutate everyone and force them under his will.

This has probably been said, but:
I think Dagoth Ur is evil, but doesn't really see himself so. He sees himself as a "cleanser" of Morrowind; as a savior, really. I suppose you cold say he sees himself the way Hitler saw himself.

Good, evil. Both are value judgements that begin with the word "I ".

There once were a people who watched the clouds for omens, and did it so often they eventually died when they forgot to till the land. "As above, so below" they thought, but forget that the separator was themselves.

In a typical bourgeois fashion, I could approve of his goals but find his methods contemptible, even if certain ideas, such as nationalism, are foreign to me. In this line of thinking, I would therefore find him evil. This is what society would expect of me.

As a philosopher, I will point out that the question cannot be answered without filling several volumes, and even then one would be no nearer to a conclusion not founded on opinon. Let me further add that I identify as a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_skepticism.

If you remember the assassain from Serenity, I kind of think Dagoth Ur is that. He probably knows he is a bad man, but believes he is doing divine work. There's both good & evil sides to his goals, intentions, and means of carrying them out.

The whole fact that there is even a debate on the subject proves he is not an entirely evil villian, which I LIKE. It makes him a lot more believable as a character.

Why should goals and intentions carry such weight over actions?
Whatever his goals may have been (once upon a time, while at the end, he was simply insane), they pale in comparison to his deeds. Enslaving minds, deforming bodies, randomly killing the people and the land, spreading disease and destruction - it is quite irrelevant *why* he would have done that. He might have his own perverted reasons for that, but that doesn't make him less evil, it makes him only believable. The clich? villain who does evil just for the sake of being evil, furthering the plot, laughing maniacally, and getting butchered by the hero, is just that: a tool in a story, and not a very good one. Dagoth Ur has a personality, which makes him more realistic, but not less evil.

He is not evil, just insane.

Lorus has my general attitude and sense of thought down well. Maybe I will make him my official interpretor.

- DJ

I think Lorus is female.

Evil is only from viewpoint, even someone finds Osama Bin Laden Good.
My own view of Dagoth Ur tell's me he's evil, because he want's to do things i find cruel and don't agree with, therefor my instinct tell's me he's my enemy and therefore evil.

(sorry for any gramma errors)

:unsure: I posted "she" right?

Of course I did...

:lol:

- DJ

The two may not be mutually exclusive, insane may be just as subjective as good and evil in this discussion, 'tis a fine (and blurry) line between genius and insanity.

Let's see.

We have people who say that intend matter and people who say they don't.
We have people who say that morals are absolute and people who say they aren't.

Now here's the bit that rubs me.
If a person follows has relative morals they'll be based on his experience in life and hopefully some thinking about what he's doing.
If a person has absolute morals, you need a standard. Now with a bit of thought I can see that such that such person would reject any human form. So that brings in higher powers, god(s).

So why is everybody going to great pains to avoid mentioning that point?

That's what I dislike about these debates. People are discussing from a point of religion, but for some reason can't be brought to bring it up. Yes, the forum rules are against it, but civil debate doesn't usually get locked.

We can be civil, right?

---

Lets take a religion from the world we are talking about; it's as good as any other religion and not half as incendiary. The I is God. Now morals are both absolute and relative.

Works pretty good in reality as well.

Hmm...interesting, you know I don't think I ever thought that Dagoth Ur as having similar views as the Operative from Serenity. The Operative's beliefs certainly aren't very common. I'm not sure I agree that Dagoth Ur had similar feelings, but it is certainly an interesting point to consider.

I do agree on the second part for sure. I found Dagoth Ur's methods and character absolutely repulsive to me, but because of how he is portrayed I actually felt kind of bad for him when I had to kill him. The impression I got of him when I finally met him was that he was a very passionate person of high intellect, but who had this little bit of madness that just totally twisted his ideas into this entirely perverted form.

Yay! I like you two.

heh heh. Don't worry, almost everyone always thinks I'm a male. It is more humorous than anything.

Pretty much exactly how I feel.

Casting all the advanced stuff aside.

He is the villain of the game after all and I don't see how bringing a plague on loads of people is very nice.

Secular humanism, or dunmerism as the case may be, can produce an absolute moral system without belief in a higher power. I'm sure there are other systems as well, though I'm not familiar with them.



Cute.

I've found that moral relativism and pluralism are rampant these days. That's fine, and I see merit in them, but it does get boring and frustrating. We're talking about a maniacal mass-murderer (woot for alliteration), if no one has the cojones to say that is evil then we're headed towards a sad place.

There isn't any such thing. All moral beliefs begin with the words "we ought to" and flounder after that because every "ought" will lead to a "because" and every "because" will be relative to our desires or unique condition as human beings. Every ought will be based on a value and values need to be evaluated by someone. Even the one constant that we all share, "I value my life (and therefore ought to...)" is not an absolute and can be overrided.

And that someone usually takes the form of a general authority. Not necessarily god, more often than not it's our government. Laws are in place because murder is morally wrong as well as being unpleasent for for the victim. As most governments are democratic it is important for their laws and morals to conform to the general consensus of society itself. Although individuals may differ on exactly what is morally good and evil they can generally agree on broad aspects or morality, a godless society needn't be anarchy and lawless.

True. As humans we all share similar desires. The philosophy and the religion and the systems, beautiful as they are, come afterwards, an attempt to provide poor excuses to what we already feel we know.

Very few people seriously stop to think about an ethical system before they act. They act and then attempt to justify their actions within a philosophical system. The systems most often get employed in forums such as these or in hypothetical scenarios.

Exactly. Religion, law, philosophy - it's all secondary, just an attempt at providing consequences to actions most of society feels are unacceptable.

'Good' and 'Evil' are not exclusive of one another, nor are they measured in varying shades of grey. Morality is agreed upon by how it appears, just as the colour cast to your eye by a prism is dependant on where you stand. If you stand to the left it may appear blue ('good' perhaps) and if you stand to the right it may appear red ('evil' perhaps).

Doesn't human perception shape their reality?
Many years ago it was commonly agreed that the world was flat, and for all intents and purposes it was. Nobody ever sailed west, afraid that they'd fall over the edge of the world. Eventually somebody decided that the world was not flat, but rather round. He chose to prove this by sailing from Europe to the 'Far East'. After several months he eventually landed on the coast of 'India' not realising that he wasn't even halfway there. He told everybody that he had sailed all the way to India and they all believed that the world was round, despite there being to 'real' proof.

This is actually an excellent example of propaganda shaping reality.

No learned people of the 15th C., with the exception of a few devout religious well known to be crackpots, believed the Earth was flat. What's more, they knew to within a small number of miles how large it was, and thus how implausible was Columbus's programme of reaching India by sailing west. Had Columbus not fortunately encountered a hitherto unknown continent, his expedition would surely have been lost at sea.

The story of Columbus debating the sphericity of the Earth with the bachelors of Salamanca is a 19th C. invention, appearing first in Washington Irving's fictional History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus and the French polemicist Antoine Letronne's On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers.

^ So you guys, do you think Dagoth Ur is evil?

Congratulations, you two are capable of going off on a petty rant, immersing yourselves in negative vibes and ignoring the original point of the thread. It's something I'm not capable of, but for some reason I'm not jealous.

Now let's get posi and BOT. Pretty please? I'll give you a cookie.

Well to debate if Ur was good or evil we have to define it first.


Patience young grass hopper

Edit: Anyone know any movies where they actually say that?