Out of necessity; not the kindness of their hearts. I'm guessing that it was either join Alessia or fall to Pelinal's wrath.

And the Dwemer didn't zero-sum. If they did there wouldn't be any evidence that they ever existed. Instead there are ruins that dot Hammerfell to Morrowind.

Killing, stealing, breaking the law, etc.

That is not evil.

Evil is a very strong word that is being misused here. It's meaning has been watered down through the ages to be sure.

None of the TES races are inherently evil. It's completely unbelievable and ridiculous to claim otherwise. You can claim that a race has a history of mean individuals or acttions. But there is no inherently evil race.

Evil is based entirely on perspective. What others believe to be an official title slapped on to a particular individual/group because another doesn't like what it did.

What makes that evil? It seems your definition of evil is "Doing harm to innocents." How do you decide innocence?

Did I say zero sum? My bad, was reading some things on Altmer commentary and CHIM which probably got my head mixed it up.

However the main reasons for some of the Ayleids joining the Alessians was because there was a Civil war going on between the Ayleid factions.

This guy gets it!

There is no race (or person) that is INHERENTLY evil. Honestly, I don't even like the word because it's so hard to define. But if I'd have to choose the closest thing to an "evil race", I'd probably say the Sload.

Some people don't care about enlightment. Indeed, the vast majority of Tamrielic population has no clue as to the mythological and metaphysical ideas that govern the world, or only in very watered down ways, and are more occupied with their daily work and surviving instead of some grand spirit journey. I think ethics should be measured by that vast majority, and not some few heroes and applied mythologists. Maybe the heroes are in fact evil?

Exactly that. Evil is harm to innocents. The question who are innocents is hair splitting; until we know otherwise we just assume innocence.

As for the question: According to the few sources we have about them, the Sloads might definitely apply. Their psychology seems to be amoral on a biological level, which means they are in fact capable of great acts of evil without any conscience. Personally, I think that's a bit boring, and maybe we will get counter-balancing sources in the future, but for now, yeah, the Sloads apply.

Just like evil, you have to define innocence before you can know whether you are it. So what is innocence? How does one determine that?

To define evil while ignoring the sole truth of the universe because of the ignorant masses is foolish. There are no ethics in TES that are not drawn from the populace that doesn't know why it exists and where from. Those that form true ethics declare them to be so when recognizing that he is all there is. Not to mention the question brings up race which is by TES definition mythological.

Ethics are nothing more than a hand wave of selfish entitlement apart from divine decree. Where is the moral law of the Aurbris? When has Anu declared his statutes and have had them agree with Padomay? It's order and chaos, not right and wrong.

Broadly speaking, not having done evil. A bit of leeway is usually granted because humans (or, in a TES sense, people) are humans (people).

Flat out denying the existence of evil, in general (as opposed to merely arguing within the context of TES' mythology) seems a bit too try-hard to be edgy to me... What is bad (or indeed, evil) and who is innocent are, after all, things that come up IRL.

Those "ignorant" masses are 90% or more of the fragmented Godhead - the vast majority, at least. And, since the Godhead is indeed fragmented and ever sub-created, individuality does exist in TES. I ARE ALL WE is only true on a mythological level. On a daily life level it's nonsense. So what if you're only a dream? That's just how you're made up. Whether that is by atoms or by dream does IMO not change much.

Ethics are always a construct. As it is a concept that exists in the mind of people, there is a divine spirit associated with it, just as with any other concept in Aurbis, but in the end it doesn't need divine decrees from Anu or Padomay. It's about how people act towards each other. And again, whether those people are made up of of dreams or of atoms is irrelevant. And while the vast majority of people do in fact worship the spirits, the truth is they don't inherently need the spirits - particularly because the spirits are only made up of dreams, too, just like the people.

the dwemer and the sloads are likely the closest