I am not a fan of alignment in general, specially the modern "alignment as behavior" that D&D adopted. But I got this question in my mind yesterday and wanted to know what others think.

There are two prisoners from a mafia-like organization, A and B.  Both are repentant of their crimes.

Prisoner A says "Now I see I was wrong. I will collaborate with the authorities in order to bring down my organization and atone for my sins. I am not a criminal anymore and owe no allegiance to my former companions"

Prisoner B says "Now I see I was wrong. I will never sin again. But I gave my word, and Id rather do hard time than betray my former companions. I am no rat. I hope they see the light as well."

So, which one is lawful, and why?

Isn't this just a "What is the real meaning of " question? Whichever way you answer it simply becomes part of a more-specific definition of "lawful".

Does the 'law' in lawful refer to mere orderliness? If so, B is more lawful. Or does it refer to the law of the land?  If so, A... unless the criminal organization has sufficient societal standing (like a thieves' guild) that their oaths are a recognized part of the de facto law of the land.  It could also matter what standing private oaths have in the law.

Alignment is silly.

well, both are lawful to me. they are just adhering to different codes.

It depends which law the character considers higher.

A. He is following the law of the established Authority, regardless of his prior associations. If he is doing it out of pure motives to do what is right, he is LG. If he is doing it to forward his own goals, he is LE. If he is doing it out of blind obedience to the Law, he is LN.

IMO, YMMV, etc.

They are both Lawful.

The first has broken the old codes and is following a new code.

The second is following the old codes.

Moral dilemmas and alignment don't really go together.

You can't solve every complex moral dilemma by answering "Yes, no or maybe" to two questions.

If you decide Lawful is strict adherence to a code, with Good being more centered towards the benefit of society, neutral balancing society with the individual and evil working more towards total self-interest within a code at the expense of society, then B.

If you decide Lawful is strict adherence to societal laws, and adherence to personal codes is more chaotic (ie. just being stubborn is not Lawful), then A.

I thought the question was going to be more interesting.

CRKrueger covered the alignment answer. Though personally I'm left with a big who cares. The question of which alignment pigeon hole to put the reformed crook in is far less interesting than whether the reformed crook decides to help society (and maybe himself via plea bargains, witness protection, etc.) and rat out his friends or take his medicine and suffer in silence protecting his old friends at society's expense.

BTW, that's not actually a prisoner's dilemma.

While anyone who's seen my posts over the years knows my utter and abiding contempt for the concept of alignment, this is relatively simple.  Lawful = following the law, period.

"Abiding by a code," no, that doesn't cut it for me.  EVERYone has a personal code, and calling following your own way of doing things "lawful" just means everyone who isn't clinically insane is "lawful.  Now okay, that follows a classic D&D trope where "alignment" = "arguing with the DM why whatever it is you do is 'lawful good,'" but.

Quote from: Bren;845624BTW, that's not actually a prisoner's dilemma.

I thought it was going to be along the lines of "If you are lawful and have been taken prisoner, are you justified in escaping, if by doing so you are breaking the law".

Either one could be any alignment. Even with "alignment as behaviour", which I also dislike, alignment guides general trends rather than specific actions except in extreme cases.

Quote from: soltakss;845750I thought it was going to be along the lines of "If you are lawful and have been taken prisoner, are you justified in escaping, if by doing so you are breaking the law".

That is a good one too.

This one is just a question that came to me after reading a newspaper. No big deal.

I was just thinking that many people use a alignment in a way that anything you do can be justified with any alignment. Say, in your example: I will escape because my prison is unjust, therefore my escape is fighting for fairness. Or, I will accept my sentence because I got a fair trial. And they are both lawful.

Or: I must break the law because my thieves code says so, and I'm lawful... Or am I thief and now that I have become lawful I must stop stealing, etc.

EDIT: of course, I could go for something harder: "can I call myself lawful if I have a code that demands that I go around breaking unjust laws according to my own conscience, and nothing else?" or something. But, again, just wanted to hear peoples opinion in this particular subject.

Quote from: soltakss;845750I thought it was going to be along the lines of "If you are lawful and have been taken prisoner, are you justified in escaping, if by doing so you are breaking the law".

Of course not, unless you were unjustly taken prisoner.

Well, I guess this would only be true under the "Lawful means I care about society's laws" paradigm and not personal code.

If you're using the Law-Neutral-Chaos axis, both options would count as Lawful.