The soul does not get destroyed or used up in the enchanting process.
Rather it is trapped and used as the motive force to power the enchantment.

When an enchanted item is used up completely or otherwise destroyed, the soul is free to move on to the Dreamsleeve.
Or, in case of Daedra, spawn right behind you and unleash vengeance. As in Daggerfall.

soul, Soul, SOUL. I want souls. I have gems here and they are all empty and I want them filled. souls, Souls, SOULS.

I want them I want them NOW. I love http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r11/Gerza71/Oblivion2011-07-2613-47-54-39.jpg

What is a 'soul' (in TES) anyway? Does it have a consciousness? Memories of its past life?

Good question.
We know that the Amulet of Kings functioned as a soul gem, preserving the souls of Emperors, which coalesced into an oversoul that the current Emperor could use for advice and guidance.
Therefore I think that the soul does retain memories of its past life, at least until it is recycled in the Dreamsleeve.

Well this makes me feel a hell of a lot better. I'm gonna black soul gem every bandit I see now!

Soul-trapping is a ethical grey-zone, as far as I'm concerned... It all depends on how much value you put on a creature's soul. Of course a trapped soul is not "aware" of anything around it, but rather just energy to fuel a magical item, and it experiences no discomfort (after the soul has left the body, that is). I suppose if you believe in an afterlife of sorts, it would be wrong to deny any creature the possibility to "move on".

Since I wouldn't kill innocent human beings, the issue of trapping their souls is not relevant, and as far as I've observed, animals are not "self-aware", and therefore would not be aware of loosing their souls, as the soul is the very essense of "self". To sum up: I see nothing wrong in trapping souls of humans, animals, or undead; but I do see something wrong in killing humans, which is a requisite for stealing their soul.

It's OK if it is to trap a necromancer's soul. They so deserved it. At least that's how I got my black ones.

I've often wrestled with this issue. When I first started playing TES (Oblivion), I was completely against soul-trapping. I used sigil stones instead, and varla stones to recharge my weapons. Eventually, I started using soul gems, but only to enchant and recharge weapons, under the rationale that the soul was released when the charge was used up. I continued to use only sigil stones to enchant armor, clothing, and jewelry.

Ironically, I developed a habit of turning all my grand soul gems into black ones, and then soul trapping dremora in them. Also, I feel better about trapping evil humanoids than innocent animals.

Hey guys let's all get companions and soul trap them =D

Everyone wants to live forever right? Well, trap them in a soulgem and their wish comes true! They get to live, well kinda, for the rest of eternity... As a sword... Or a hammer... Maybe a belt or a nice shoe!

No but seriously, it's a fitting punishment for some guy who wants to take over/destroy the world and claims to be immortal. I get to bash their face into bandits, well actually they don't have a face anymore but the hitting stuff with their soul is way more punishing anyway, for the rest of my life/adventuring career, and then I'll sell them and someone else will continue doing it! For the rest of eternity...
Or until some noob adventurer accidentaly releases them from their punishment, and by then they'll have suffered enough to have some good karma in time for their rebirth, so they won't get reincarnated as a slug... Or a spider. Or some other icky creature.
I'm helping them. Really.

Yes, for my own goals.
No, their worthy of respect too, if they attack their only acting on instinct..
No, alive or dead they are still a spirit worthy of respect.
No, once again they are worthy of respect.

Basically, I think it's okay to soul trap humans, but nothing else. Seems kinda backwards, doesn't it?

For the record and convenience: http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Souls,_Black_and_White

The morals behind Soul Trapping are ambiguous at best in the Elder Scrolls universe, as the true nature of souls is unknown.

The theory I have is that souls in Tamriel is that there is a vast reservoire of soulstuff that is continually recycled.

Think of the soulstuff in this aspect as the components in a computer that give it memory (the computer being the physical body). It holds the data from the individual's experiences in life, backing up the data in an imprint (in this metaphor, it could be a cd or a flash drive). When the computer ceases the to function (assuming it was possible to recycle computer components), the part that hold data is melted down and reshaped to be the component in another computer. The imprinted data, know in the flash drive or cd is not lost, it just moves on. Idk, this metaphor was an attempt to explain things, but might've failed.

In other words, when a soul leaves the body, the consciousness imprinted on the soul moves on to the afterlife, but the soulstuff itself either goes back to the reservoir of soulstuff or ends up trapped in soul gems. That being said, there are probably two reservoirs of soulstuff, white soulstuff and black soulstuff, which of course is reserved for certain forms of life, probably due to the capacity of imprintation that the soulstuff type allows.

When the soul gem is used, the soul is not destroyed, but bound to the item. Items with charges release portions of soulstuff back to the reservoir when it is used, while constant enchantments are the result of a sort of filtration process that runs the soulstuff through, gathering as much energy as possible before the soulstuff returns to the reservoir. In this case, think of the soulstuff as a sort of rechargeable battery. The larger the soul, the more energy is has, but once the energy is used, it goes back to the reservoir, where it has to gather energy before becoming a soul for a creature.

Yes it's a bit confusing. But my morals on the process, based on the Tamriel morals and soul nature, not others, is that manipulating white souls is neither good nor evil. It is unaligned. Harvesting black souls isn't necessarily evil, it's definitely not good, because the individual clearly knows that you're trying to trap their soul in a soul gem, and causing that fear is certainly an evil act.

Oh sh- *disappears*

This makes no sense whatsoever. You're against trapping ghosts, liches, and zombies who are still people only corrupted, and for the most part mindless(zombies, feral ghosts). Yet you're 100% OK with soul trapping living breathing people, who still have their minds, and personalities.


Just.. What?

this is why ive never liked the soul gem system... for the etheical questions it raises, but mostly for the fact that no NPC or anyone else in the TES universe ever EVER considered these questions.

its like im supposed to believe that some thousands of years ago some guy figured out how to trap an organism's soul in a rock and nobody since then has ever asked what exactly that entails. is it just energy; blood or bio-electricity or carbohydrates or what?! is it their actual thinking consciousness, ripped from its body and kept confused and imprisoned until you feel like enchanting something? i mean black soul gems are forbidden, is that because the soul inside is suffering in some way or is it just the logical deduction that you need to murder someone to use it?

i would believe that maybe for tamriel its just one of things, like the dismal treatment of pigs and cows we send to the slaughterhouse, or turning horses into glue because they broke a leg and nobody can gamble on them anymore :spotted owl: . one of those things that is old and practical enough that modern folks never really consider the ethics of it; everyone does it because everyone did it in the past and its far too useful to give up anyway. i would believe that, but the problem is that no where in the lore that i can find has ever put forth ANY question as to the ethics of trapping souls for a fortify health enchant or described what exactly "soul trap" does or how it works or why souls AND ONLY souls can be used for enchanting or if sigil stones are actually soul gems because they can be used for enchanting or....

.... some answers would be nice is all im saying. as for my character(s), theyre going with the above assumption; we dont know what the hell soul trapping entails or how it works, but its too useful to stop doing.

I don't think souls have any concept of time, so whether they get to where they are going now or centuries later it probably doesn't matter.

And for those baddies, I'm guessing they don't really want their soul getting to wherever it is going.

And as for the undead... how do they even have souls?? I mean, you could kill someone, soul trap them and then revive them... what happens if you soul trap that thing? Does revival provide a soul?

As long as the item you make is awesome, it would be an honor to be that enchantment. If the item you make is "the rusty helmet of fortify lockpicking" or something, then yeah, that would be kinda an insult...

There was a plot in Redguard to save the prince by sealing his soul when he died and put it back in his body when the time was right. Would have worked, but the prince ended up possessing Cyrus's sword when Cyrus was SOL.

i soul trapped that guy in Oblivion who sent me to go find his family weapon and i then came to find out i was being hunted. along with that guy who was the reward for finding the weapon. i went in their with my invisibility spell and sneak attacked all of them. then when i found out he didn't play fair he got what he had coming to him. his soul will rot for eternity for what he did. i keep the gem in my study. studying it. i seek more black soul gems simply to punish the wicked.

I think the lore of TES is, in places vague and contradictory. At these junctions or gaps I tend to fill the gaps myself. For instance, I like to think that there is an afterlife in TES despite some sources stating reincarnation. Regarding soul gems, I think they function like a battery. Soul trap charges the battery and when you use the gem to power something, the act of the soul leaving the gem charges the weapon through some magical bricka-brack process that I haven't thought through

I was planning on raising the enchantment skill, but I might reconsider now. Enchanting could be really wrong.

Evil is simply a point of view. If your good character, say a Paladin for the Nine, wants to use evil NPC souls and creature souls to charge his weapons to do good deeds then that should be fine.

But what if the soul ceased to exist after the gem got depleted? No one seems to know if that happens or not.

If I can get my hands on black soul gems, then I'll use them. Even more satisfying when trapped soul belongs to an NPC victim rather than a random bandit.

Role Play?, ring any bell to you?

Where did ye come up with that?

Daggerfall mainly.
Also the way the Amulet of Kings and the Mantella worked.
And Vuhon's Ingenium. The reason for Sul's hatred was that the soul of his beloved fueled the Ingenium, and he wished to release it.
The souls do not seem to be used up, nor their memories erased.
Its like they are the motive force, the hamster in the wheel powering the enchantment.

Daggerfall mechanics had an enchanted item have limited uses, and when an item containing a daedra soul broke, it spawned right were you where and attacked you.

Very limited information on the nature of souls can be found http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Souls,_Black_and_White.
The auhor did not seem to be aware of Arkay's edicts and Mannimarco's Shade of the Revenant concerning the difference between black and white soul gems.