The morality of necromancy

[Shrykull]

I was wondering about this one. Sure it's definitely freaky to see the dead walking and fighting, but do you think it's immoral in a game to animate dead to use for your own means? The most valid argument against I think, is that the person's soul is brought back to animate the corpse, therefore it's a form of torture and slavery, and the dead should rest in peace. But what if unitelligent undead are no more alive and have souls then a robot or a puppet controlled with strings?

[SirNitram]

I was wondering about this one. Sure it's definitely freaky to see the dead walking and fighting, but do you think it's immoral in a game to animate dead to use for your own means? The most valid argument against I think, is that the person's soul is brought back to animate the corpse, therefore it's a form of torture and slavery, and the dead should rest in peace. But what if unitelligent undead are no more alive and have souls then a robot or a puppet controlled with strings?

Most games put necromancy on the evil side of hte scale. Especially the dark world of Ravenloft. You're essentially denying the dead(Who in these games, really do have souls) their final rest.

[beyond hope]

... But what if unitelligent undead are no more alive and have souls then a robot or a puppet controlled with strings?

Most cultures I can think of have taboos against robbing tombs or desecrating the dead. Look at the outrage over the guy who was dumping corpses instead of cremating them. Even if you accept the view that all you're doing is magically animating a corpse instead of putting it's soul back in it's rotting body, it would still be an "evil" act.

[Vendetta]

I was wondering about this one. Sure it's definitely freaky to see the dead walking and fighting, but do you think it's immoral in a game to animate dead to use for your own means? The most valid argument against I think, is that the person's soul is brought back to animate the corpse, therefore it's a form of torture and slavery, and the dead should rest in peace. But what if unitelligent undead are no more alive and have souls then a robot or a puppet controlled with strings?

What if they signed a contract in life that allows their corpse to be animated?

[beyond hope]

If the courts and the public would accept it, then our hypothetical necromancer would be living in a culture where they don't care much about what people do with dead bodies, and it would be a moot point.

[Mark S]

Morality is in the eye of the beholder.

[BlackWarMewtwo]

It's use of someone else's body, usually without permission.

Sure, they're not using it anymore, but it's still theirs. It's kind of like keeping someone's hand after they die as a cup holder, or putting someone's cremated remains into an hourglass.

[beyond hope]

Morality is in the eye of the beholder.

Only to an extent. A serial killer might not view murder as "immoral;" that doesn't make him right.

It's use of someone else's body, usually without permission.

Sure, they're not using it anymore, but it's still theirs. It's kind of like keeping someone's hand after they die as a cup holder, or putting someone's cremated remains into an hourglass.

Or pulling the gold fillings out of the teeth of dead bodies, or tanning skin with interesting tattoos to use as lampshades.

[Solauren]

Gotta remember those two uses...


Here's a $50 question.

What if, in D&D 3.X at least, its a clone of yourself? They are 'born dead' so to speak (with no soul) if your still alive.

Would it be evil to clone yourself a few dozen times and animate them? They are, after all, your body. (if you die and are cloned, your soul jumps into the new clone body)

[Symmetry]

Gotta remember those two uses...


Here's a $50 question.

What if, in D&D 3.X at least, its a clone of yourself? They are 'born dead' so to speak (with no soul) if your still alive.

Would it be evil to clone yourself a few dozen times and animate them? They are, after all, your body. (if you die and are cloned, your soul jumps into the new clone body)

I would't have any objection to that, though some people would say (implicitly) that its gross and so must be immoral.

[beyond hope]

Gotta remember those two uses...


Here's a $50 question.

What if, in D&D 3.X at least, its a clone of yourself? They are 'born dead' so to speak (with no soul) if your still alive.

Would it be evil to clone yourself a few dozen times and animate them? They are, after all, your body. (if you die and are cloned, your soul jumps into the new clone body)

Thinking about that makes my head hurt.

[Andrew J.]

Necromancy is perfectly fine. And if you think differently I'll kill you, reanimate your corpse, and force it to agree with me.

[Exonerate]

Gotta remember those two uses...


Here's a $50 question.

What if, in D&D 3.X at least, its a clone of yourself? They are 'born dead' so to speak (with no soul) if your still alive.

Would it be evil to clone yourself a few dozen times and animate them? They are, after all, your body. (if you die and are cloned, your soul jumps into the new clone body)

Thinking about that makes my head hurt.

I guess if they have no soul, there's not much stopping that...
Though you have to consider how you turned them into corpses, since they are sentient... right?

[SecondStorm]

I was wondering about this one. Sure it's definitely freaky to see the dead walking and fighting, but do you think it's immoral in a game to animate dead to use for your own means? The most valid argument against I think, is that the person's soul is brought back to animate the corpse, therefore it's a form of torture and slavery, and the dead should rest in peace. But what if unitelligent undead are no more alive and have souls then a robot or a puppet controlled with strings?

Most games put necromancy on the evil side of hte scale. Especially the dark world of Ravenloft. You're essentially denying the dead(Who in these games, really do have souls) their final rest.

I was wondering, isnt the "standard" Animate Dead spell just taking a given dead corpse and reanimating? IIRC It doesnt put the soul back in the body.
Although desecrating a persons corpse sure isnt a moral thing either..

This only applies to the Animate Dead spell. Any spell that brings back the deads soul and consciousness against the persons own free will is horrid.

One thing struck while I making this post...what about Undead animals?
They dont have souls. How ethically wrong is it to animate those? I mean your basicly just making an automated "robot" who should posses no rights of any kind.
This is basicly the same argument as Solauren .

[Solauren]

Gotta remember those two uses...


Here's a $50 question.

What if, in D&D 3.X at least, its a clone of yourself? They are 'born dead' so to speak (with no soul) if your still alive.

Would it be evil to clone yourself a few dozen times and animate them? They are, after all, your body. (if you die and are cloned, your soul jumps into the new clone body)

Thinking about that makes my head hurt.

I guess if they have no soul, there's not much stopping that...
Though you have to consider how you turned them into corpses, since they are sentient... right?

[Solauren]

Gotta remember those two uses...


Here's a $50 question.

What if, in D&D 3.X at least, its a clone of yourself? They are 'born dead' so to speak (with no soul) if your still alive.

Would it be evil to clone yourself a few dozen times and animate them? They are, after all, your body. (if you die and are cloned, your soul jumps into the new clone body)

Thinking about that makes my head hurt.

I guess if they have no soul, there's not much stopping that...
Though you have to consider how you turned them into corpses, since they are sentient... right?

Stupid pressing the wrong button.... (smacks self)

Nope no soul.
The idea behind the clone spell now is post-mortim wizard resurrection method.
i.e Red Mage gets toasted by Black mage, and White Mage is not around, so Black Mage clones Red Mage instead, and the orginal Red Mage soul moves in

That's the short hand version.
So no, unless the clone subject is already dead, no soul.

Hey, I think I found a loop moral loop hole?

'You can you say I'm animating the dead? It's my clone! Failed spell left a body that was never really alive!"

[Shrykull]

This only applies to the Animate Dead spell. Any spell that brings back the deads soul and consciousness against the persons own free will is horrid.

I haven't read the animate dead spell description, but raise dead which brings the person back to life rather than animating the corpse can't be used if the person's soul isn't willing to return.

One thing struck while I making this post...what about Undead animals?
They dont have souls. How ethically wrong is it to animate those?

I'd still say it's bad if they don't have "souls" but are conscious after they are animated, and can feel what it feels like to be undead (if they can)

[Shrykull]

That's the short hand version.
So no, unless the clone subject is already dead, no soul.

Could we ever do this for real if we found out what constitutes consciousness, and could make a clone without one, or who knows, maybe grow one without a head and put your head on it?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I once created a fictional Byzantine successor state from an alternate earth that had magic--a bit of a blend of Ars Magica and Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire--which had been founded by an Epirote noblewoman who had fled the turmoil of the Empire after the sack of Constantinople in 1204--fled it to an entirely different world. Though ultimately an evil individual her necromancy was hardly that typically seen--she primarily animated corpses to use them as a very convenient form of labour in a massive series of underground mines in the Despotate she ruled.

The result was a continuous flow of metals and gems that appeared in the Imperial economy (and were accounted for via bookkeeping tricks by the palace eunuchs, who were in on the entire scam) in balanced and well-timed measures to keep the state's budget afloat against the considerable exertions of internal and external aggrandizement she indulged in. She'd used them before for other things--and in fact her sister was a mummy and a thaumaturge who was effectively a very powerful lich under her control--but essentially the Empire was kept wealthy, prosperous, and militarily successful (especially in siege contests of endurance), while she maintained an outward appearence of being a pious daughter of the faith.

A effectively immortal one, at that; necromancy, strictly, is the power over life and death, and there should be no reason why a necromancer couldn't manipulate their own ability to survive with some of their strength, though surely sooner or later that would catch up with them. One supposes that a very disciplined necromancer could just use such powers to extend their life by several centuries only... But in general magical systems work so that the temptation to use the powers for other purposes arises. The Lady and Despotnia has most certainly suffered from them; she just serves as an example of a more judicious but hardly minimalistic usage of such power.

(Of course, I was basing that creation more on Ars Magica and Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire, with a dash of Avicenna's philosophy thrown in for fun, and no doubt it's much different in the FR..)

[Kuja]

I once created a fictional Byzantine successor state from an alternate earth that had magic--a bit of a blend of Ars Magica and Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire--which had been founded by an Epirote noblewoman who had fled the turmoil of the Empire after the sack of Constantinople in 1204--fled it to an entirely different world. Though ultimately an evil individual her necromancy was hardly that typically seen--she primarily animated corpses to use them as a very convenient form of labour in a massive series of underground mines in the Despotate she ruled.

The result was a continuous flow of metals and gems that appeared in the Imperial economy (and were accounted for via bookkeeping tricks by the palace eunuchs, who were in on the entire scam) in balanced and well-timed measures to keep the state's budget afloat against the considerable exertions of internal and external aggrandizement she indulged in. She'd used them before for other things--and in fact her sister was a mummy and a thaumaturge who was effectively a very powerful lich under her control--but essentially the Empire was kept wealthy, prosperous, and militarily successful (especially in siege contests of endurance), while she maintained an outward appearence of being a pious daughter of the faith.

A effectively immortal one, at that; necromancy, strictly, is the power over life and death, and there should be no reason why a necromancer couldn't manipulate their own ability to survive with some of their strength, though surely sooner or later that would catch up with them. One supposes that a very disciplined necromancer could just use such powers to extend their life by several centuries only... But in general magical systems work so that the temptation to use the powers for other purposes arises. The Lady and Despotnia has most certainly suffered from them; she just serves as an example of a more judicious but hardly minimalistic usage of such power.

(Of course, I was basing that creation more on Ars Magica and Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire, with a dash of Avicenna's philosophy thrown in for fun, and no doubt it's much different in the FR..)

But why go through all that when you can go up to any Warlock in the Orcish Horde and he'll say:

"Thok make dead guy fight. Dead guy fight good. Thok not get hurt. Thok make more dead guys fight."

[The Yosemite Bear]

What about the other classic Necromancy, the speakers with the dead?

sure it's disturbing their rest, and violating their bodies.

However in say the course of a murder investigation, it could be easily justified morality wise. It's the easiest way to catch the person's killer, is to ask the dead person, who killed them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

But why go through all that when you can go up to any Warlock in the Orcish Horde and he'll say:

"Thok make dead guy fight. Dead guy fight good. Thok not get hurt. Thok make more dead guys fight."

Because, well, that's just a pretty crass utilization of magic, Kuja. *shakes head* Perhaps sending a zombie horde against a neighboring state just to disperse it through your miraculous powers might be useful as a popularity trick, but otherwise... It's just stunningly inefficient. You could be using them with picks, and shovels, and carts, in mines, to make lots of money for one of the most ridiculously low overheads in history. Countries with large budgets and inefficient tax collection schemes like this.

[Darth_Shinji]

Reminds me of one of the Hawk & Fisher novels where the city of Haven officails entered into a contract with a powerful family and its sorcers to animate the dead as cheap labor. Lots of people protested it....Though only for the fact that they were losing thier jobs, not the morality of it.

Of course Haven is not known for its morality of its citzens....

[Eleas]

I was wondering about this one. Sure it's definitely freaky to see the dead walking and fighting, but do you think it's immoral in a game to animate dead to use for your own means? The most valid argument against I think, is that the person's soul is brought back to animate the corpse, therefore it's a form of torture and slavery, and the dead should rest in peace. But what if unitelligent undead are no more alive and have souls then a robot or a puppet controlled with strings?

In most games I have played, the creatures rarely are animated using their own souls, but are rather given a nigromantic "skeleton" of energies. And given that, the only ones arguing that it's "evil" should be ignorant peasants and religious fanatics... which unfortunately means almost everyone.

[greenmm]

What about the other classic Necromancy, the speakers with the dead?

sure it's disturbing their rest, and violating their bodies.

However in say the course of a murder investigation, it could be easily justified morality wise. It's the easiest way to catch the person's killer, is to ask the dead person, who killed them.

Sounds like you'd love reading Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. She's a vampire hunter who also happens to be an "animator" -- i.e. she can reanimate dead bodies. In her case, the bodies do have their memories (i.e. the soul), with their ability to function depending on how long they've been dead.

As to the relevance... she works for a company which specializes in reanimating the dead, and they tend to get customers such as:
-- insurance companies trying to determine if a client's death was accidental or suicide (example was a guy who blew his head off with a shotgun, but it turned out it was because he tripped while carrying it the wrong way)
-- inheritors contesting the validity of a later will
-- geneologists looking to confirm family connections
-- police/PI's looking for information on who a victim's killer was, when conventional forensic methods won't work