D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

Maxperson said:

All of them have intelligence scores and are as smart as the dumbest PCs.

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I think the question of undead sentience is a good one. Do they have one and where does it come from? As in most cases the dead person's soul can move one, it is not there to provide sentience to the undead form of their corpse. So does the spell create sentience or are they just automatons? And if such sentience exists, how complicated it is? Are these more like animals, who we routinely "enslave" and even kill for food, or are they more akin to humans? Complex undead sentience would indeed be a good reason to question the morality of having them under magical thralldom.

Crimson Longinus said:

I think the question of undead sentience is a good one. Do they have one and where does it come from? As in most cases the dead person's soul can move one, it is not there to provide sentience to the undead form of their corpse. So does the spell create sentience or are they just automatons? And if such sentience exists, how complicated it is? Are these more like animals, who we routinely "enslave" and even kill for food, or are they more akin to humans? Complex undead sentience would indeed be a good reason to question the morality of having them under magical thralldom.

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In the case of skeletons and zombies, semi-sentient seems to be the case. If they have no orders they won't think to walk around looking for victims, but they do have enough sentience and desire if a victim comes wandering by to desire the death of that living being and do whatever it is capable of doing to ensure that the victim dies at its feet. It can make intelligent decisions to that end.

Micah Sweet said:

I mean, a corpse is an object, ultimately.

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This is as much presuming a metaphysic as the world in which creating undead is evil.

Whether a corpse is "an object" or the former house of a soul that still carries moral and ethical valance is an assumption of the fictional world.

Crimson Longinus said:

Why I am bringing up best case scenario examples is to show that it is contextual. I am not denying it is risky and perhaps controversial, but to me inherent evil implies that it is wrong in any scenario, and I just don't see that to be the case.

Furthermore, any circular blathering the books do about evil energies and such is meaningless. Books also think the murderous slaad are neutral. Any genuine assessment of good and evil must be based on real harm, not on dogmatically incoherent alignment system.

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It's not circular blathering. You want this so badly, you seem to miss the forest for the trees.

Start with the rules. The rules say what they say. You've stopped even trying to argue with the actual text- you know that, right? Now you are just kind of just saying, "Look, I just think that if the rules say it's evil, and the rules say that you are using evil to create evil, I don't think it has to be evil." I honestly don't know how to respond to that. As I keep saying, if you don't like the rules, change them. Create your own "evil-free" rules. Knock yourself out. D&D is a DIY game, and if you want to create a game centered on the heroic exploits of the League of Awesome Good-Aligned Necromancers Who Always Ask Relatives' Permission to Animate the Corpses of Recently Deceased People And Do Good Stuff With Them And Then Kill The Undead Immediately, more power to you.

More importantly, I think you are truly not understanding the bigger context. "Putting evil spirits in someone's corpse to do stuff" is not a good thing to a lot of people. There's a reason that they made the rules this way. Did you know that there are all sorts of laws in the United States about this for a reason? There are a lot of people that take this issue very seriously. Not just because of the death thing, but because it is truly disrespectful (taboo) to a lot of people. If a person wants to donate their body to science, that's great. But if someone wants to dig up corpses for their own use? Not so good.

Not to mention the whole consent/slavery thing, which isn't a good look. Just because you're enslaving evil beings that will kill you (and everyone else) f you screw up doesn't help. But the idea of enslaving other sentient beings for your work still doesn't strike most people as, well, good.

Again, you do you. It's your home game. But arguing that undead are just "tools" like a mending cantrip is not going to get you far, either under the rules or in most general conversations.

Crimson Longinus said:

I think the question of undead sentience is a good one. Do they have one and where does it come from? As in most cases the dead person's soul can move one, it is not there to provide sentience to the undead form of their corpse. So does the spell create sentience or are they just automatons? And if such sentience exists, how complicated it is? Are these more like animals, who we routinely "enslave" and even kill for food, or are they more akin to humans? Complex undead sentience would indeed be a good reason to question the morality of having them under magical thralldom.

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Here is the descriptions from the MM:

Zombie:
A zombie retains no vestiges of its former self, its mind devoid of thought and imagination. A zombie left without orders simply stands in place and rots unless something comes along that it can kill. The magic animating a zombie imbues it with evil, so left without purpose, it attacks any living creature it encounters.

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Skeleton:
skeletons arise when animated by dark magic. They heed the summons of spellcasters who call them from their stony tombs and ancient battlefields, or rise of their own accord in places saturated with death and loss, awakened by stirrings of necromantic energy or the presence of corrupting evil.

Animated Dead. Whatever sinister force awakens a skeleton infuses its bones with a dark vitality, adhering joint to joint and reassembling dismantled limbs. This energy motivates a skeleton to move and think in a rudimentary fashion, though only as a pale imitation of the way it behaved in life. An animated skeleton retains no connection to its past, although resurrecting a skeleton restores it body and soul, banishing the hateful undead spirit that empowers it.

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When skeletons encounter living creatures, the necromantic energy that drives them compels them to kill unless they are commanded by their masters to refrain from doing so. They attack without mercy and fight until destroyed, for skeletons possess little sense of self and even less sense of self-preservation.

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I highlighted a few key sections

TaranTheWanderer said:

Here is the descriptions from the MM:

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Thank you. That really doesn't suggest even near human like sentience to me.

Crimson Longinus said:

Thank you. That really doesn't suggest even near human like sentience to me.

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It still has a motivation and a purpose: It disdains life and actively seeks to destroy or snuff it out. It is also powered by by evil. Evil being defined as an energy that seeks wipe out all life.

Also is powered by a "Hateful undead spirit"

It's no wonder necromancy is considered evil.

Snarf Zagyg said:

Olaf The Stout: We are being attacked by the combined armies of the Chocolate Golems, the Elementals from the Plane of Marsh-Mallow, and the Crack Units of the Duchy of Graham!

Zima the Zagnificent: YES! Finally, a proper use for fireball. I hope everyone is hungry....

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You had to drag 1e Castle Greyhawk into it didn't you.

Snarf Zagyg said:

It's not circular blathering. You want this so badly, you seem to miss the forest for the trees.

Start with the rules. The rules say what they say. You've stopped even trying to argue with the actual text- you know that, right? Now you are just kind of just saying, "Look, I just think that if the rules say it's evil, and the rules say that you are using evil to create evil, I don't think it has to be evil." I honestly don't know how to respond to that. As I keep saying, if you don't like the rules, change them. Create your own "evil-free" rules. Knock yourself out. D&D is a DIY game, and if you want to create a game centered on the heroic exploits of the League of Awesome Good-Aligned Necromancers Who Always Ask Relatives' Permission to Animate the Corpses of Recently Deceased People And Do Good Stuff With Them And Then Kill The Undead Immediately, more power to you.

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I mean it is no secret that I despise alignment rules, so yes, I obviously ignore them. But if we are technical, the text about creating undead not being good and if done frequently, evil, comes from description of spell schools. Which the rules specifically say contain no rules! So according to the rules necromancy being evil is not a rule...

Snarf Zagyg said:

More importantly, I think you are truly not understanding the bigger context. "Putting evil spirits in someone's corpse to do stuff" is not a good thing to a lot of people. There's a reason that they made the rules this way. Did you know that there are all sorts of laws in the United States about this for a reason? There are a lot of people that take this issue very seriously. Not just because of the death thing, but because it is truly disrespectful (taboo) to a lot of people. If a person wants to donate their body to science, that's great. But if someone wants to dig up corpses for their own use? Not so good.

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People take all sort of issues seriously. And I hope I don't need to explain to you why I feel "a lot of people feel it is icky, thus it is evil" a questionable justification. That logic has historically been used to label a lot of harmless stuff immoral.

Besides, we are talking about objective evil here, not just some cultural norms. One might hope that in game of fantastical imagination, we might be able to imagine cultures with different mores without labelling them as evil because they're different from ours.

Snarf Zagyg said:

Not to mention the whole consent/slavery thing, which isn't a good look. Just because you're enslaving evil beings that will kill you (and everyone else) f you screw up doesn't help. But the idea of enslaving other sentient beings for your work still doesn't strike most people as, well, good.

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Like I said, that is a valid angle to ponder. If the necromancy genuinely enslaved some part of A person's sentient soul then that would certainly make it far more questionable. But the text from the rulebooks really do not lead me to believe such. If one wanted to add some metaphysical horror to the undead, this certainly would be a good direction to take.

Snarf Zagyg said:

Again, you do you. It's your home game. But arguing that undead are just "tools" like a mending cantrip is not going to get you far, either under the rules or in most general conversations.

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It's a rather dangerous tool like nuclear power. One that is understandably controversial and dangerous if used improperly.

Snarf Zagyg said:

But ... repeatedly animating the dead is evil, because:
A. It's taboo in most societies; and

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That is a terrible argument.

Being taboo can be a reason to look at the taboo thing to evaluate its morality because one reason a thing might be taboo could be if it were evil, but being taboo in and of itself has zero implications for the morality of something.