Ethics and politics of alignments

This page will talk about the general
ideology of the sides, divided by a few distinctions. Such as their
professed form of normative ethics, as well as general social theory,
and alignment in general. Note that while most things listed for each of
the alignments are things the games seem to deliberately draw on,
there are also a few further examples that will be listed that may not have been direct inspirations, but are close analogues of the ideas. If you are looking for information about what ties their ethics to certain religions, look on the theism page near the bottom. Note that despite taking inspiration from DnD alignments, the megaten sides do not correspond perfectly with them per say, with some aspects acting different than might be expected.

Note that if you come here from SMTV, that the alignments in that game are fairly scaled back from some of the explicit associations that they are depicted with in other games. And so if some of these associations don't seem present in the narrative of V, this is because not every association is present in every game, or to the same degree.

## General info

One thing to note is that alignments in megaten are different from their appearance in DnD. The game will casually refer to being on a side as being of the alignment that the side is associated with, but not everyone on those sides corresponds to DnD alignments. While individual figures do have their own alignments, which can differ from their faction, the relevant aspect of alignment here refers more to what faction one sides with, of the law, neutral, and chaos themed sides. Most people simply call this alignment, since alignment distinct from this is not highly relevant to most plots.

To give a short description of them, in short law promotes peace and happiness on a large scale, but is willing to override self determination to do it. Chaos seeks to create a world where the strong can make use of a large degree of self determination, even if it results in lower happiness for the masses. Neutral is in between, seeking to promote both some happiness and self determination. While the sides each have more nuance than just this flat description, as well as various different interpretations within, this is the general slant and dynamic of their ideologically pure versions. Note that there is two axises, and so the side called law is the light law side, and the side called chaos is dark chaos. For this reason, in games like II things like dark law were shown to reflect more sides than just law. For example some chaos demons used their radical freedom to sell out chaos for personal benefits. And it came from Is neutral end, implying that the synthesis of values never worked out. So it shows a critique of multiple sides' aspects here.

The axis from light to neutral and dark has to do with people's emphasis on the greater good, to normal scale, to egoistic action. So dark versions of any alignment will lean towards egoism. The normal chaos side is already dark-chaos, and so egoism is part of it. Neutral is neutral, and law is light. So dark law and dark neutral are deviations from normal neutral and law.

In an interview they mention how law is
meant to in some ways be an absolutist depiction of certain western
ideas, in a similar way to chaos being a depiction of an extreme of
some eastern ideas (though obviously with some mixture). And this is
reflected in their aesthetic. Its true that utilitarianism and
socialism are ideas that grew heavily in the west, and that strict
focus on ingroup and hierarchy is eastern. The east also has
more an emphasis of people being part of nature and living in tune
with it, which is something chaos is an interpretation of. And while the east leans more
collectivist it is a different variety than shows up for law. Part of
this has to do with the fact that the west tends to view the world in
static categories, whereas the east views it as dynamic. So certain
depictions of this gives law as about reaching the ideal state and
preserving that state, whereas chaos is about carving out your path
in a dynamic world where nothing stays the same.

Note that the organizations associated with the in-game sides are not monolithic. There are differing trends within the groups, some of which are considered to be corruptions. The endings are associated with specific things, but the groups themselves have various other more negative associations potentially applicable to them. For instance, chaos desires a world of chaos, but in II you also see that some chaotic figures like belphegor consider it in their personal interest to betray chaos and side with someone else. A corruption or alternate version of neutral is jack's squad. And a corruption of law is yhvh's idea that it should be about following his commands. There are various alternate versions, but we will mainly list what the main versions associated with the endings are meant to be, as well as a few noteworthy other examples.

Note also that for this same reason, many of the trends associated with these figures are seen as things that the figures end up doing, rather than something explicitly laid out as an absolute by them. For instance, although law endings themselves reflect utilitarianism, utilitarianism is not necessarily something that all angels profess. Rather, angels have a focus on peace and happiness in general. And law is a manifestation of when that value and focus is taken to an absolute. Similarly in the other direction for chaos. Sometimes figures will instead do it in a balanced way, or be okay with a moderate amount, like yhvh if you resurrect him on the neutral route for SJ. The alignments have different associations, and so the different figures might be doing it for different reasons, or have different ideas on how to.

Another point to note is that it would
be a little mistaken to associate neutral inherently with anti
extremism and the other alignments with extremism. As IVA shows,
neutral can be taken to an extreme as well. And games like devil
survivor show less extreme versions of the others. So while most
games show a less extreme neutral, and more extreme versions of the
other sides, this is not an inherent staple of how they have to be.
Even if in practice neutral more often has a specific ideological
slant towards wanting to prevent extremism. In fact, IVA also still has the different sides exist on the bonds end, still seeking less extreme versions of the different ideas.

Note that while all the sides don't profess existentialist ethics, the approach to ethics as a whole tends to revolve around the existentialist reality that there is no correct answer built into your nature, and so your life is a process of making choices to find out what is right, rather than inherently being ordered to something in particular. That doesn't mean that there is no correct answer, just that it is a reality that you are thrust into the world without it having a preordained narrative that you are also aware of.

As far as an overview of normative ethics in general, moral theories are generally divided into three main categories called
deontology, consequentialism (main version being utilitarianism) and virtue ethics. These divisions are not absolute, but individual moral theories may contain parts of more than one, or inspiration from another. The distinction, then for any given action is that consequentialism says the
morality is exclusively about maximizing the results, deontology says it is about something
in the act itself (I.E. duties to protect people's rights), and virtue ethics says it is about the internal
ramifications or character of the one doing it. Most of the descriptions of the sides here will be about their normative ethics, and politics, with a few more abstract practices thrown in.

## Law - Peace

**Law** focuses on peace and utility, believing that reaching the happiest end with minimal suffering is the ultimate priority and that whatever is necessary to ensure the best ends is what should be done. This results in it being categorized as law, since from a utilitarian angle this would mean that this applies even if it requires overriding someone or even society's self determination in order to arrive there. Law also focuses on patience, doing individual beneficial things when necessary, and not working on trying to create an ideal system until a good opportunity arises for it.

### Utilitarianism

**Utilitarianism** is an
ethical theory which states that the best action is the one that
maximizes utility. Utility can be defined in various ways, but the
most common being happiness and avoidance of suffering. As such, it
is often summed up by stating that it is about promoting the greatest
happiness for the greatest number, since what matters is maximizing
utility across the pool of all people. Utilitarianism can have one
value or multiple values, where secondary values can be things like
virtue or friendship. Utilitarianism is a specific form of
consequentialism, which is the larger umbrella of moral theories that
state that what matters ethically is consequences or outcomes rather
than following rules, or performing the right actions.

Utilitarianism is the primary
basis of law's ethics. Their goal is a world that maximizes happiness
even if it requires some sacrifices, or for the goal of happiness to
override self determination. This ties to how since utilitarianism
focuses exclusively on maximizing value, it is okay with reducing
self determination at times it would lead to greater utility, since
freedom is only instrumentally valuable rather than inherently
valuable in it. Likewise, on the scale of doing vs allowing harm, it
sees both of those as relatively similar, so killing to avoid greater
evils is seen as necessary. Which is why honda says that the nature of god is to sacrifice one for the good of many. Neutral in contrast rejects this focus on
the big picture and does not think you should make sacrifices for the
greater good. Note that dark law sides jettisons this utilitarian
focus, which is one thing that differentiates them from normal law.

A feature of law's plans are
that if they succeed they are incredibly likely to work out, and once
they do generally last extremely long term (I.E. in IV it says it
lasts forever). And this self regulating nature is used to maximize
utility. This is presented as both a positive and negative, since it
implies that once the world is set up, the possibility of it
deviating from this path is rather low. This is accomplished by
structuring humanity in a new peaceful nature that is designed to
work for more positive ends. Neutral sees this plan to arrive
at a specific end as rejecting self determination in a sense, since
it is trying to ensure a specific range of outcomes. Because while
people would be free to pursue different interests in a law-world,
the human mind tends to be restructured in order for the overall path
society takes to stay within certain limits. Although notably, since
the desire for this society would be part of humanity itself, whether
this constitutes a meaningful lack of self determination is
debatable.

Some find utilitarian cold or alien seeming for this aspect, due
to its focus on the big picture rather than directly on personal
relationships. Ironically, it is its egalitarian nature that does
this, since it is saying that if all are equal, saving more is always
better. Likewise the psychological restructuring aspects flow
directly from this. Since if there was another state of the baseline
human mentality that could lead to more utility it is preferable to
get there even if it overrides self determination.

An important aspect for utlitarianism is its **value theory**
or **axiology**. Which is its view on what things constitute
utility. **Hedonism** is the idea that all value reduces to
happiness. Note here that hedonism in an axiological context means
something different from the pejorative definition that means
indulgence. In contrast with hedonism, multi-valued forms of
utilitarianism are known as **ideal utilitarianism**. Though
notably, ideal utilitarianism still places happiness as primary.
Which of these law leans towards is ambiguous at times. Iabeau refers
to law as monistic, so that may call to mind the idea that it has a
single value. However, calling law monistic may merely be aimed at
this absolutist focus on utility in general. Since law draws on both aesceticism and utilitarianism they could be based on the **ascetic hedonism** of epicurus. Epicurus also believed that happiness had
different qualities with some being more valuable than others. Which
can also be called **qualitative hedonism** to contrast
**quantitative hedonism**. A more general term that can encompass this ambiguity of what is best is **welfarism**, saying that what matters is human welfare.

Note that utilitarianism is a moral theory considered very alien
to the east. Which is in keeping with its keeping stated in game and
in interviews how law is based on more western leaning ideas of
thought whereas chaos is more eastern. Thought each has some aspects
of both.

**Prioritarianism** or the priority
view is an expansion to utilitarianism that holds that the goodness of an
outcome is a function of overall well-being across all individuals
with extra weight given to worse-off individuals. Prioritarianism
thus is a subset of utilitarianism that specifies an equality metric
into it, saying that more relative equality is beneficial, since it
matters more to people worse off to have benefits. As a union between
utilitarianism and (some degree of) egalitarianism, it thus closely
matches law ethics, and would be a more precise description than pure utilitarianism. Note that due to the economic concept of diminishing marginal utility, the same amount of resource / help causes more benefits given to those lower down, and so utilitarians would prioritize them generally even without this addition. But prioritarianism makes it an independent addition and focus of the theory.

**Two-Level Utilitarianism** is
a synthesis of act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. It states
that in most cases one should follow specific intuitive rules that
lead to greater utility, but that if you have a higher level of
knowledge that this overrides the need for these rules, and you can
act more directly based on outcomes. Two-level utilitarianism divides
these levels of knowledge into two archetypes called **archangel**
and **prole**, where the
archangel has full knowledge of consequences, and the prole has none.
It is a scale that humans fall somewhere between, but closer to the
prole side.

This highlights the distinction
between many of the things associated with law or law points in-game,
such as benevolence and self-sacrifice, and the killing involved in
the endings. The former are based on the intuitive level of
reasoning, stating that one should comply with rules not to kill. But
the archangel level is represented in game by literal archangels.
This represents the critical level where overriding ordinary
conceptions of rules when it leads to greater utility is justified by
their higher level of knowledge.

One purpose of this theory is
highlighting why even if certain things like killing for the greater
good are okay in theory, that they are not something individuals are
called to act on day to day. Since one is not allowed to act like
they have this higher knowledge level when they actually do not. This
is highlighted directly in overclocked when the angel tells you that
ordinarily killing would be a grave sin, but that all this changes
when you can see the brand of death. To those without this knowledge,
they are merely meant to follow rules which are benevolent in nature.
Law endings are still about benevolence, merely on the large scale
through countless generations. And those with higher knowledge can
undertake more big picture type actions. Which highlights the shift
in zayin when he becomes satan. He realizes that he owes it to the
countless future generations to maximize utility across all time.
Zayin even uses utilitarian language in the visionary items, talking
about saving as many as possible.

**Government house utilitarianism** is a similar concept to two level utilitarianism developed by the earlier utilitarian sidwick. He pointed out that in some cases
people who aren't capable of utilizing it properly would actually
decrease utility by knowing about utilitarianism. And so while it is
a useful doctrine for those who have higher knowledge, it should not
necessarily be commonly discussed. This seems to toe to how law does not necessarily discuss the big picture logic of theirs with the more lay members, who are instead encouraged just to follow benevolent practices.

**Triple Theory**. Derek parfit created a theory called the triple theory of ethics that says that the ideal versions of deontology and contractarianism will actually converge with consequentialism, and so what seems to be distinct theories actually are revealed to be aspects of the same overarching theory. And so it is basically saying that the language of these other things can be used to refer to utilitarian ends. While atlus didn't necessarily know about this specific formulation, this is in essence close to how law is depicted. Since while it has utilitarian ethics, the language it uses is not always utilitarian, but rather often refers to the idea of universal laws and systems. The language of law of course not using utilitarian terminology due to its main figures being angels who use terminology that ties to christian ethics.

**Side constraints** refer to additions to a pure utilitarian system that holds that while maximizing utility is generally right that there are certain actions which should not be undertaken in order to do so. For instance, while normal law endings are okay killing people if it is better long term, the new law ending of strange journey redux despite having the same goal of peace and order has a shift towards the idea that killing for a better conclusion is not optimal.

**Felicific calculus** or **hedonic calculus** is an algorithm formulated by Jeremy Bentham for calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that a specific action is likely to cause. The felicific
calculus could, in principle at least, determine the moral status of any
 considered act. One of the aspects of law endings is the fact that law characters seem to be able to predict the future with high certainty by various means. Such as using the brand of death. And so know how to calculate long term effects. The seven variables are intensity, duration, certainty / uncertainty (of it happening), propinquity / remoteness (how soon it will happen), fecundity (The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.), purity (the likelihood that a pleasure won't be followed by suffering), and extent (how many will be effected).

**Political Utilitarianism** refers
to political theories based on utiltiarian ethics. One major
distinction between them and some other theories is that they see
rights as instrumental rather than inherent. This being because
utility overrides other concerns. While political utilitarianism may
share the conclusions found in other theories, they will often have a
different justification. Jeremy bentham points out that any given law
exists by nature to frustrate some natural desires. And so can be
taken as something that by mere existing can lower utility. As such,
to justify its existence there has to be some demonstrable or
projected benefit. As such, this principle leads to dispensing with
arbitrary laws for utilitarian reasons.

Unlike many other theories of political justification, a
utilitarian account of political obligation is forward rather than
backward thinking, deriving political obligation from the future
goods to be produced by any given system. The utilitarian
justification for why one should comply with a system is derived from
whether doing so would raise utility: in cases that compliance
produces more happiness than noncompliance, one should do so. This
necessitates laws which are aimed at raising utility. And political
authority derives from being a system more likely to do so than
opposing systems.

Some utilitarians point out though that even if a system is
imperfect, that it can still lower utility to disrupt it. And so one
should look at the big picture of what happens to society at large
from this disruption, rather than just the immediate utility of the
law in general. Which ties to the lawful emphasis on patience.
Utilitarianism is also dynamically adaptable to many different
situations. What laws may be ideal in one circumstance may not be
those which are ideal in another. As such, what makes cases like
dictatorships wrong is not anything inherent about the idea of a
dictatorship, but the reality that in real situations they tend to
end badly the vast majority of the time.

Law sees its authoriy as deriving from its ability to put this
system in practice. Uriel in imagine even says that humans can only
live in peace when they live in order. And that only an all knowing
and omnipotent god can speak of order. This system would be one
designed to maximize utility. And this highlights the authority being
derivative of a necessity to arrive at these positive ends. That this
high level of knowledge is necessary to justify superseding ordinary
political processes is actually a warning against doing it in
ordinary instances. Since angels distinguish their system from the
chaotic tyrants by these means.

In utilitarianism, the acts required by law should in most cases
ideally be acts that are utility maximizing even independently of
their being required by law, such as saying not to assault or murder.
However, some actions only produce ideal consequences when performed
in coordination with others. The enforcement of law helps to bring
this about. For example, the spread of typhus, and its prevention. If
only a small amount of people engage in proper cleanliness habits, it
will spread all the same. But a social structure that necessitates
enough do so to stop it makes the individual actions of doing so more
beneficial. Since the social structure at large effects what the
utility of individual acts will be, utilitarianism necessarily moves
from the personal to the political, since political actions have wide
reaching effects in terms of utility.

**Doing vs. Allowing Harm**. On the scale of doing vs allowing harm, law tends to view these as relatively similar, and by extension views it okay at some times to do harms for the greater good. This view is in line with many common consequentialist perspectives.

**Moral bioenhancement** is a subset of moral enhancement that refers to the process of transforming humans or humanity into having an overall better moral character through some form of technology that affects human nature. The distinction between the terms is that bioenhancement specifically implies tangible changes to the human organism, whereas moral enhancement can also refer to mere social means of transforming the moral paradigm. This bioenhancement can be through bioengineering, cybernetics, or other means. This moral enhancement is a large part of the core goal of law, often transforming humanity such that its baseline morality is now much more altruistic and capable to act as such than normal. Law is arguably based more on this than on any particular political vision, with the new political systems instead being made possible via this transformation.

**Longtermism** is an ethical stance which gives priority to improving the long-term future. Associated with utilitarianism, it is tied to the idea that since there will be more people in the future than there are in the present, that when applicable, long term goals supercede ones related to current concerns. They may be based either on the idea of improving each generation sequentially, even at cost to the present, or on preventing existential risks to humanity that wipe it out.

Longtermism is a major basis for the actions of law in many games, since while they may sacrifice a lot of people in the present, it is often done based on long term goals that lead to a more equal and happy world overall. dx2 adds another layer to this, with it being done under the concerns that if it wasn't, vanitas would be much more likely to destroy the world.

**The pannomion** refers to the idea of an ideal utilitarian system of law that jeremy bentham sought to design. The goal would be for it to be complete and self contained according to the principle of utility, and as thus should replace all existing government designs worldwide. Since it is the ideal system, it would not need to be deviated from, rather only internally dynamically updated from within to accommodate context. The project of course never got infinitely far due to it being a much more difficult task than he at first imagined when setting out to construct it.

There are obvious comparisons with with this to the law side, with it being a highly accurate description of their goals. And it has an end-of-history vibe, seeing this construction as something that is meant to be preserved and dynamically updated from inside rather than deviated from as a whole. In-game this of course is depicted as a system of reality as a whole that includes transformation of humanity, rather than merely a government-system.

**The point of view of the universe**
is a phrase saying that a neutral perspective of events from the universe's
perspective would lead to utilitarian ethics, since from its
perspective maximization is always superior. This is actually more or less directly what
ancient of days means in IV when it talks about the collective dispensation of the universe. It means that the whole of the universe
understood as a collective is what ethics are derived from, the
collective being more important than individual parts.

Parfit is another utiltiarian
philosopher who makes a similar argument. He argues that ethics that
have to do with protecting those closer to us as agent relative
deontological ones tend to do inherently lead to a contradiction from
an objective standpoint. Since game theory issues show that this
would lead to different people being unable to both complete their
good duties, since both would need to privilege those closer to them.
And that any coherent ethics would need to be able to accommodate
this objective perspective without contradiction. Parfit also argues that if human individuals are not fundamentally distinct, ethics that necessarily refer to humans as individuals rather than as continuous may not be able to be absolute to begin with.

**Contributionism** is a ethical philosophy that combines utilitarianism and panentheism, by saying that the point of view of the universe can be concieved of as a social conception of god, or as a big picture type of divine record of events, and so what makes actions good is their relationship to this big picture divinity. The ancient Mohists, the first consequentialists in history also used a similar argument sating that since heaven watches over all thigns equally it cares about benefit to all equally.

**Warm-glow giving** refers to the
phenomenon that exists to explain how many people give to charity
by proposing that people engage in impure altruism. Instead of being
motivated solely by an interest in the welfare of the recipients, "warm-glow givers" base their giving on what makes them feel a warm glow the most inside. What they feel most connected to. The concept
doesn't however mean to claim that people have no interest whatsoever in
doing good. Merely that they do imperfect actions by complying with, and using this feeling as a metric, rather than focusing on what does the most good.

The concept of warm glow can also be used to describe the
discrepancy between in game law and neutral ethics. Namely that from
law's perspective, neutral has a warm glow type attitude. One that rejects lawful type responses due to them seeming alien, and not giving this warm glow even if they are ultimately causing more good. Which from
law's perspective, this warm glow is something that neutral needs to
feel to think what is doing is good, and so acts based on this rather
than the big picture. Whereas people working for the big picture need
to be able to overcome this need to feel personally warm inside, and
just act, similar to what happens to you on the law ending of IV. Note of course that warm glow giving is considered better than no giving, similar to how law sees neutral as better than chaos.

**Delegitimizing suffering** is a phrase came up with by zizek to refer to the idea of moving past the inclination to rationalize suffering as ultimately a good or necessary thing. While law worlds have the most happiness and least suffering, neutral might often argue for its own paths as better even though they contain more suffering, because the human frame of mind can do more egoistic actions, and simply rationalizes the suffering as an unavoidable result. Delegitimizing suffering is based around the question of whether that, or any other situation is really a valid rationalization for the much larger amount of suffering that might stem from it.

**The nonidentity problem** focuses on the obligations we have
to people who, by our own acts, are caused both to exist and to have
existences that are, though worth having, flawed existences. In other
words, is it a harm to cause an inferior world to exist, when the
people who exist in it would only exist due to that world being the
one that existed. So even if it is a worse world than another
possibility, the people who are born into that world can't
necessarily be said to personally be victims when that world is the
only one that would cause their birth. And so this opens the question
of moral duties that aren't necessarily to anyone in particular, but
which are an overall sense.

From law's perspective, which does not
focus exclusively on individuals this is still presented as a
concern. Since their ethical calculus is not just about better lives
for those alive now, but countless generations into the future.

**Moral Saints** refer to people for whom their every action is
as close to morally good as possible. This is subdivided between two
types. The rational saint who does this regardless of personal harm
it causes them. And the loving saint, who is so loving that doing so
increases their own happiness as well more than any other
alternative. These are a topic discussed in ethics, to deal with
issues about the impossibility of being a pure moral saint, as well
as how alien one would act relative to ordinary human action, due to
a psychology regular people would have a hard time relating to. Note
that while deontologists might say that both types are equally good,
utilitarians would say that the loving saint is superior, since it
would lead to higher overall utility.

Though full moral saints are an extreme rather than an
orientation, ideas that resemble them show up for law, with you even
being called a saint in strange journey. The concept of moral saints
was actually invented by someone criticizing the idea, discussing how
alien and inhuman it would be. Which parallels how in-game some call
the law mentality alien. Criticisms of the idea say that if people
spent all their time on morality, life might be empty of certain
other things like art. But one response is that such a criticism is
misled, since if at any time creation of art was more beneficial,
that is what the moral saint would subsidize. Note also that the fact
that loving saints are considered superior to rational saints by
utilitarians relates to why the law side intersects with stoic
practice. Because those who raise utility should not be suffering by
doing so, but should be mentally aligned to such a way where its
personally mentally enriching even for themself to do so.

**Self Sacrifice.** Law has a focus on self sacrifice at times, such as in the law ending of IV. A point being made is that
the highest ideal of law is being willing to do what is best for the
sake of others / the big picture even if you lose something in the
process. This doesn't mean that people of other alignments are
incapable of self sacrifice, but the tone of it specifically relates
to law. Whereas chaos would see self sacrifice as a thing to do more when one considers it for their own fulfillment. This is a semi utilitarian theme at times, since utilitarianism would say that it is good to do as a basic moral statement if doing so would lead to better ends. Whereas some other moral systems might say that it is only supererogatory.

Although persona 3
has only a weak law association, its themes as regards the figure
messiah are also meant to be reflective on the themes of law, and self sacrifice as a whole, with the messiah as the archetype of the ideal law figure. And the main character can
sacrifice his life, not since he sees no value in living, but because
he truly understands the value in life in general, being willing to
protect it even at the loss of his own.

### Neo-Stoicism

**Stoicism** is an ancient Greek philosophy which teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. While the goal of stoic practice was serenity and virtue, a common misconception was that the goal was either to be cold or emotionless. Stoics do not advocate emotionlessness however, but divide between irrational impulse based feelings which control you and are based on faulty judgement verses feelings which are either benign, or direct responses. Although many differ on which types of feelings count as which. They also did not advocate emotional repression, but rather practice which would prevent irrational drives from arising.

Law has stoic themes in many cases, most explicitly shown by your own character in IV, whose dispassionate attitude on law is noted by others. Note that while law is western themed, its dispassion based influences stem from both western and eastern sources. More modern variants of stoicism are known as neo-stoicism. Information about this, and its ties to law will be below.

**Pathos or passions** refer to the particular emotions the stoics considered detrimental, and wanted to free themselves from subjugation to. Most specifically feelings like rage that take control of one's actions. They did not however want to erase all feelings, but merely the damaging versions of them. They considered appetite / fear to be the irrational desire / aversion for things not yet happening, and pleasure / distress to be terms for the irrational clinging or aversion to current states of affairs. Note that the stoic aspect of law contrasts chaos' call to unleash your repressed rage in aggressive ways.

**Eupathos** or **eupatheia** or **good mentalities / feelings** were the benign feelings that were contrasted against destructive passions. The sage has no 'appetites', which control him, but does have 'wishes', whose species include kindness, generosity, warmth and affection. Even a sage may have normal feeling reactions, but would not act on them in emotionally destructive ways.

**Preferred indifferents**. To the stoics, the good and bad were simply virtue and vice. Suffering and pleasure were theoretically indifferent. However, they saw it as natural for people to desire pleasure, and so considered this what they called a preferred indifferent. This means something that people want, even if having it is not in itself considered a good in the moral sense. But it is okay to have, so long as it does not conflict with virtue to have. They did not believe in making yourself suffer or depriving yourself of comforts for no reason. Only in being ready to when necessary.

Since law is using a utilitarian framework, rather than a virtue ethical one, the concept could be adapted slightly to make sense in such a context. To a utilitarian the good is raising utility. However, it does not differentiate between where this utility exists. A preferred indifferent to a utilitarian framework then would be you having this utility, rather than it being sorted in a morally equal way where you do not. Utilitarians, despite prioritizing the big picture are not life denying however, and see this experience as fundamentally the essence of the good. Even if the big picture good should be prioritized over your own. Not because its not valuable, but because its too valuable to be selfish about.

**Externals** refer to anything outside of your ability to control. An important part of stoicism is dividing between what things you can have an effect over, and what ones you cannot, in order to not focus on what you cannot have control over.

**Apatheia**, translated as without passion was seen as a state of peace or serenity that the sage would exist in once free from passions. Once one becomes a sage this cannot be disrupted by anything. It refers to a state of mind where one is not disturbed by the destructive passions. This type of mentality seems to be the basis for what you act like in the law end of IV if you answer the questions correctly.

**Neo-stoicism** refers to modern tendencies to update and improve upon the idea of stoicism. It first emerged in the sixteenth century as a means to merge aspects of stoicism with christian doctrines, but later became adapted for modern use via various writers such as Nussbaum.

Nussbaum divides stoic doctrine between the descriptive views and the normative views. Saying that while their understanding of how emotion can influence action negatively is closer to being accurate, their normative idea that the only thing of value is our rational nature is a harder sell. And that a more moderate take to stoicism should be taken, which instead of treating even positive feelings like compassion like just another passion that is dangerous, allows emotions to pass through and decide on them rationally. Hence, it would be shifted away from an explicit moral doctrine to a more general tool that can be mixed with various views.

Law in the games of course adopts a neo-stoic tone. Both in that it contains a merging of stoicism with christian aesthetics, but also in that it is not strictly tied to ancient stoic normative views, seeing it in a more moderate light. While law does seek for the transformation of humanity to largely be rid of aggressive emotional tones that lead to detrimental outcomes, they never adopt some of the strict anti compassion tones that are sometimes associated with stoic doctrine. Although it is worth noting that their willingness to sacrifice some for the greater good in a calm way can be seen as placing the outcome above compassion.

**Upekkha** is the Buddhist concept of equanimity. It is a pure mental state cultivated on the Buddhist path to nirvana. Since shijima in nocturne is the law equivalent for that game, the buddhist concept of dispassion has been related to law slanted ethics directly. Interestingly, this focus on dispassion is absent from the chaos side despite chaos having the biggest aesthetic Buddhist inspiration. Interestingly, the way that lucifer refers to law as **empty** in iv may also be tying it to the buddhist concept of **sunyata**. Since iv gives law a slight buddhist aesthetic in hugo's outfit.

tying these things together may be based on nietzsche's criticisms of monotheism, saying that monotheism represents the desire for nonexistence since its god / ideal is a univeralist thing without particular content or human flaws, whereas polytheistic gods represent the country and people and have flaws. This conflation of monotheism and emptiness likely being a basis of chaos' criticism, doubly so when tied with the idea of an emotional state of serenity being seen as empty by them. But which law might reverse and see as a positive ideal.

**Epicureanism** is an ancient school of philosophy founded in Athens by Epicurus. The school advocated a hedonistic value system, but of a restrained kind: mental pleasure was regarded more highly than physical, and the ultimate pleasure was held to be freedom from anxiety and mental pain. With it advocating a calm and simple life as the path towards an inner peace. Despite the contrast with stoicism, its emphasis on restraint and a calm demeanor gives it a decent overlap. And it became a major inspiration for utilitarianism, which applied a similar value system to everyone rather than its focus on the self. Since law mixes dispassionate ideas with a goal of benefitting people tangibly, it ties to this idea of aescetic hedonism.

**Minimalism** refers to the process of choosing to simplify one's lifestyle in order to avoid certain unnecessary aspects. This can be done for a variety of reasons, such as ecological, economic, spiritual, aesthetic, or to uphold a peaceable mentality. It also crosses over heavily with the idea of simple living. Law has an element of minimalism in order to discourage any indulgence that comes at the expense of the big picture. With in certain games even using a minimalist aesthetic to capture this dynamic.

**Quietism** is a heretical doctrine
 of Christian spirituality that, in general, holds that perfection
consists in passivity (quiet) of the soul, in the suppression of human
effort so that divine action may have full play. This is a union with the divine that happens not in the afterlife, but can even apply in this life, lasting for periods or even a full lifetime. One's own will is left quiet so that god can act within you, similar to the taoist concept of action without action. God, the sole reality, lives and reigns in the
 souls of those who have undergone this mystic death, with their wills brought into full unison with the divine will. Ones in this state are also seen as not needing to perform external acts of piety, having god manifested from within. Less extreme versions of the idea are known as **semiquietism**.

Elements of this show up in the approach law has to the ideal transcendental goal of practice. In SMTII zayin has a realization that yhvh is not god, but merely a face of god. And that one can become a face of god themselves, acting in unison with the divine will. In SMTIV lilith talks about the lawful mentality as giving your mind and body completely over to god, being passive and merely acting in god's name. While this is a more semiquietist approach, not being meant to blot out one's own identity, it has a large element of becoming an extension of the divine will. Jonathan in Iv likewise said that god sought for man to become an extension of his order. And this shift is away from your personal will towards the will of the collective. The great will. Notably however, the great will is a kind of extrapolation of the needs of the many rather than a specific will, or a summary of individual wills. Shijima being literally translated as "silence" may also be related to this.

**Criticisms of authenticity**. The
existentialist concept of always being true to yourself (listed in
the neutral section) is not without serious criticisms. Two main ones
will be listed here. Note that criticizing authenticity doesn't mean that you think you should never live life as is suited to you. Just that the obsession with prioritizing it may have issues. In strange journey among other games it has a fairly explicit indication that law doesn't prioritize authenticity as highly as others. When jimenez and zelenin leave the ship, a crewmember talks about how true to himself jiminez is. And zelenin tells you what her feelings guide her to, but starts over and calls it instead her calling. Implying that while the path is suited to her, it is more about what is best than what is authentic. Note that like stoicism, zelenin mentioning her feelings shows that what law is purging is closer to the stoic idea of dangerous passions rather than feelings as a whole.

The first criticism is that it seems to rely on
either a very optimistic view of human nature, or an ignorance to the
moral ramifications. Namely, it presupposes that there won't be a
conflict between being true to yourself and morality. Which is
something that its not clear why we should assume. Many times
your natural inclinations may be heavily immoral. And so to do the
right thing would be to refrain. This doesn't mean rejecting entirely
your own identity, but rather framing in context what ways it may
need to be shifted. A frequently mentioned worry with the ideal of
authenticity is that the focus on one's own inner feelings and
attitudes may breed a self-centered preoccupation with oneself that
is anti-social and destructive of altruism and compassion toward
others. Christopher Lasch points out similarities between the
clinical disorder referred to as Narcissistic Personality Disorder
and authenticity. And its been noted that an emphasis on obsessive
individualism that this focus could give rise to could be behind some
issues with society that stem from obsessive egoism. Law obviously takes issue with people insisting on their own path when it is detrimental to the big picture.

The second is that the dichotomies that
the concept authenticity was built on, like conformity vs.
independence, individual vs. society, or inner-directedness vs.
other-directedness, may be misguided. The underlying
assumption that considers the individual separate from the
environment is an assumption that erodes that bond between the
individual and community, which ultimately is the source of the
authentic self. And so some argue that this pursuit of individualist authenticity is self destructive, and ultimately ignores the relation between one's self and environment.

**Enlightenment** when contrasted with romanticism refers to the question arising during the age of enlightenment about whether humanity should progress down more logical or emotional directions. In megaten, law is associated with enlightenment and chaos with romanticism. Enlightenment is generally optimistic about the rational ability to improve the world, whereas rationalism is skeptical, saying it can lead to conformism and downplaying of the subjective quality of life. This is part of why in megaten, law looks forward to the goal of an ideal utopia, whereas chaos looks back, to restoring the earlier ways of nature.

### Collectivism

**Collectivism** is the social or philosophical view that emphasizes the
significance of groups, and tends to analyze issues in those terms. Collectivism is a
basic cultural element that exists as the reverse of individualism,
and in some cases stresses the priority of group goals over
individual goals and the importance of cohesion within social groups.
That being said, there is not necessarily a clear definition of what
things count as collectivist. Even some socialists insist that
socialism allows individuality in a way capitalism forces loss of it.
Many of law's stances are collectivist, and this is referred to directly in IV where ancient of days says that the dispensation of the universe is collective. Even utilitarianism focuses
on morality as necessarily globally collective, rather than on duties
to individuals.

Note one interesting thing is that although utilitarianism in practice is not necessarily actively collectivist in every situation, many in japan often consider it distasteful, saying that it seems like an overarching extreme variant of collectivist thinking. Despite this asian perspective on it as collectivist, as an ideology utilitarianism has never been big in asian countries, since eastern variants of collectivism tend to be more vertically collectivist, and utilitarianism doesn't match well with these historically asian modes of thinking.

**Horizontal Collectivism**. collectivism comes in various kinds. Law emphasizes what is known as horizontal collectivism. That focused on equality and benefit of all members, and lack of distinction between groups. It is contrasted with vertical collectivism, which emphasizes hierarchy and distinctness from other groups.

**Brotherly love** in the biblical sense is an extension of the natural affection associated with near kin, toward the greater community. It is meant to be an unconditional love that loves without receiving love back, and a willingness to give even to strangers. It is tied to the concept of loving your neighbor as yourself, and is seen as a more universalist slant, saying that your duties are to all people, not merely those close to you. This emphasis on love and affection is part of the focus of law's connection to all, and has a basis in christian ethics.

Note that in strange journey on the law route when the crew start calling eachother brother and sister this calls to mind actual historical christian communities who did things like this for reasons stemming from this christian concept. Making this an explicit association for law. In comparison, many other groups' ethical focus did not emphasize universal love or altruism to all, such as confucian ethics which professed strong bonds in only your ingroup. So this ties this christian element to law's more universal approach.

**Cosmopolitanism** is the idea that in a moral sense all people belong to a single community. It is contrasted with nationalism, which has exclusionary ingroup focused aspects. The implications of cosmopolitanism are that exclusionary national interests don't have the moral standing to totally override the needs of other nations, and so must work on a global level. The law side focuses on this inclusive concept of relation, being a collectivism of groups as much as individuals. Which is why chaos in contrasts represents both nationalism and invidiualism, being emphasis on distinction and self focus of both groups and individuals.

Note that this is a part of why law is considered more western in tone. Because this focus on a global community and global interests is more associated with the west. Whereas the east tends to focus more on ingroup concerns. Even though the west tends to focus more on individual rights, it does this in a sense of looking at it on a wide scale way of upholding it for everyone. And so while the way law acts is not common in the west at large, aspects of it have a notably western tone, in tying to this cosmopolitan aspect.

**Globalism** is the operation or
planning of economic and foreign policy on a global basis. One of the
features of law is the fact that it presents a kind of global, rather
than particular solution. It contrasts the more tribalist tone of chaos. The term is often used as a pejorative. Chaos rejects the globalist focus, seeing it as somthing that will cause problems for the particular identity of specific groups or people.

**World government** or **global government** is the notion of a common political authority for all of humanity, yielding a global government and a single state that exercises authority over the entire Earth. Such a government could come into existence either through world domination or through peaceful and voluntary supranational union. Although law's final goal seems to have less of government as we know it, due to the transformed humans no longer needing it, it still involves trying to create a universal system, and so relates to the idea of implicit global governance. At least for the process of setting it up.

**Yonaoshi,** or "world renewal" is a term for a shift in focus of the new japanese religions towards the idea of fixing inequality in this world as a spiritual goal. While it started as a more individual tendency to venerate spirits seen as rectifying individual cases of social inequality, it evolved to a messianic belief in a savior figure who would come to create economic equality all over the world. While important to understand in terms of a historical context for the ethics of law, more info will be on the spiritual concepts or japanese new religions pages.

**Utopianism** is the belief in or pursuit of a state in which everything is perfect, or heavily idyllic. When used as a pejorative, it means unrealistic or idealistic. One of the features of ideal law outcomes is their utopian nature, in which most interpersonal strife or suffering effectively ceases to exist. And part of law is seeking to create these situations, or using them as archetypal forms to base their goals on. This fits into their naming schema, with them using various terms for their ideal outcomes, such as arcadia, eden, or thousand year kingdom. Note that the term arcadia means something similar to a greek religion based concept of eden.

**Ethical socialism** is a political
philosophy that appeals to socialism on ethical and moral grounds as
opposed to economic, or consumeristic grounds such as in the works of marx. Namely,
something that considers it morally preferable, rather than making
marxist arguments that it is somehow inevitable or merely inherently
better economics that capitalism will collapse into eventually.

Notably, not all ethical
socialists think that socialism is possible, or should be
attempted immediately even if possible. they are merely identifying
it as an ideal under ideal conditions. Which like other thought experiments can be used to frame
ideology into context. Since something resembling magic and
shift in human mentality is used to accomplish this in-game, it is not
necessarily saying that such a thing is humanly possible. A takeaway of this is that if it is
not a good time to attempt it, than law would advocate not doing so,
and merely using whatever is the ideal system relative to the current
situation.

Law seems to be ethically socialist, since many of its endings,
especially II and IV have socialist themes, yet it rejects marxist logic.
This is in part since its main ethics are utilitarian, which is
something that marx, and later socialists tend to reject. Note that utilitarianism by its
nature will not inherently prefer any single political system, but
rather whichever works the best at the time. A heavy theme of law is
patience, and waiting for the right time, which implies that even if they think that this socialistic arrangement is best once they can set it up and transform humanity that they may not think its a viable plan earlier on. Note that although it has socialist elements, law is not always against hierarchy per say, especially as regards the paternalistic elements.

**Christian Socialism** is a form of religious socialism
based on the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian
socialists believe capitalism to be idolatrous and rooted in greed, one of the deadly sins. Christian
socialists identify the cause of inequality to be the greed that they
associate with capitalism. It is often a form of ethical socialism that uses christian inspired ethics as a basis. And as such ties to the depictions in law.

Many Christian communists assert that evidence from the Bible
suggests that the first Christians, including the Apostles,
professed or established their own proto-socialist society. for example: “And all those who had
believed were together, and had all things in common; and they began
selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with
all, as anyone might have need. And day by day continuing with one
mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were
taking their meals together” (Acts 2:44–46).

**Market socialism** is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy. Market socialism differs from non-market socialism in that the market mechanism is utilized for the allocation of capital goods and the means of production. While law is depicted as wanting social ownership, they are normally still depicted as having markets, and you being able to purchase things from there, with this even extending to how thihngs work in the heavenly realms.

**The Social Gospel** was a movement that applied Christian ethics to systemic social problems such as economic inequality, poverty, and racism rather than merely individual ethical concerns. It was seen as a uniting of certain egalitarian ideas with a christian paradigm. A later more developed version of this idea is **Liberation theology**. It is based on the concept of "Preferential option for the poor," which refers to the emphasis in the new testament of focusing on the treatment of the poor as its central moral drive. It was a heavily central theology to many latin american theologians starting in the mid fifties, and though not inherently marxist was inspired by marxist style critique.

**Technological utopianism** or **technoutopianism** is an ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology could and should bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal. In many games law has a large focus on this. This ties to its themes of artificial order that contrasts the natural chaos of the chaos side. One point being made is that a technological utopia that has uniform advanced would heavily slant to a controlled and more uniform society in some ways. And so this is being depicted as orderly.

**Gradualism** is the hypothesis that
social change should be achieved in small, discrete increments rather
than in abrupt strokes such as revolutions or uprisings. Law seems to
presume gradualism, since it often emphasizes patience and stresses
that bad things happen if one tries to act too quickly to create a
new world when the time isn't ready. Note that the endings ironically
do tend to change things quickly, but this is still in particular
situations rather than assuming one can all the time. In real life, this ties to the fact that social revolutions of any ideology tend to end badly, whereas mere political revolutions may not.

**Entryism** is a political strategy
 in which an organization or state encourages its members or supporters
to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand
influence and expand their ideas and program. In these types of entrism, entrists engage in a long-term perspective in
 which they work within an organisation for decades in hopes of gaining
influence and a degree of power and perhaps even control of the larger
organisation.
 It was a large part of trotsky's idea of the french turn. In SMTI this relates to the presence that the law forces had within the american government.

**Blanquism** refers to a conception of socialism which holds that revolution should be carried out
 by a relatively small group of secretive
conspirators, who would then use the state for socialist ends. It is contrasted with
marxist socialism which believes the workers would have a more central
part. By megaten logic, this often is how law endings are done, with a
small group taking power and setting up the system before turning it
over. It even being referred to as the conspiracy in SMTI. Note of
course due to the magic means of setting it up it is not necessarily
advocating this as a literal ideological front when done in a human way.

**Revolutionism** is a term for revolutionary acts or practices, most notably in revolutionary socialism. While law ordinarily focuses more on slow change and entryism, in II zayin is seen partaking in revolutionary activity against the center. As such, while they normally try to work slowly to their goals they are not irrevocably against more sped up activity if it is required. But do not generally aim at such unless it is either necessary or they already hold most of the cards so that it can be as guaranteed to suceed as possible.

**Posadism** is a fringe form of communism best known for its enthusiasm towards nuclear war as a way of destroying capitalism, and its attempt to introduce elements of Ufology into socialist thought. Arguing that since only communism could allow for interplanetary travel, that any visiting aliens would be communists who would help bring about the world revolution. While this association may be unintentional, law in the games does have some similrities to this, both in its use of nukes towards its ends, as well as the fact that the angels are equated to aliens, and humans rely on them to help spearhead social transformation.

**Enlightened self-interest** is a philosophy in ethics
 which states that persons who act to further the interests of others or of their group ultimately furthers their own self-interest. It is a basis in law about how more focus on big picture thinking, and less on your own egoistic interests ultimately makes things better for everyone, including you. For instance, someone in a law world lives with essentially guaranteed happiness and positive outcomes, whereas in a chaos world they may be constantly at risk of death, even though they focus more on themself.

**Conformism** is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to people who conform to the standards of a larger group or dominant culture. Law and messianism are in a weird realm since while they are depicted as associated with some degree of conformism, in practice they are a counterculture in their world and so its not the main culture one conforms to, but a group that exists apart from it that focuses on the idea of an archetypically perfect culture. In practice law does however have a lot of cultural variety, though the variety is depicted as trying to sublate into a compatible format. Though this is one thematic element that it takes from the conservative slant.

**Post-humanism** is a subset of anti-humanism that has various meanings. In a loose sense it has to do with criticism of humanism, and the humanist conception of the human condition, stating that such a view is outdated. One such criticism is the focauldian idea that the atomc way we view the self is inaccurate due to the self not truly being discrete in this way. Foucault here was opposing a particular
conception of the human being as a sovereign subject who can
understand and actualize itself independently of the larger structures it finds itself in. In contrast to ideologies based around the full realization of the individual, focault saw the notion of the individual as a recent
and aberrant idea. Law likewise uses language that implies seeing the individual merely as an aspect of the larger structures within reality.

**The end of history** is a concept that supposes that a particular political,
economic, or social system may develop that would constitute the
end-point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and thus be the final form of
human government. Though different writers disagree on what that might be. This does not mean that the world would
end, but rather that history in the sense of radical political changes would end, due to society reaching a stage that no longer needs much change. To law obviously, they hold that this concept resembles the
law society. Which once created if done right would remain fairly
stable indefinitely, even though things might still change such as
technological improvements. And the talk they do of apocalyptic
biblical language refers not necessarily to a literal end of the world, but are
relating it to the end of history concept.

**Society of angels** is a term for a thought experiment in which all entities within were morally perfect, and the question of whether governance would still be necessary in such an instance. In megaten, while the angels are shown to have a hierarchy, the human societies they help create do tend to end with very little in the way of leadership due to the collective nature of their acting making it become to some degree obsolete.

**Prayer.** Supplication is a form of prayer, wherein one party humbly asks another party to provide something either for themself or others. In the visionary items for SMTI, law hero describes this as something he wishes to be able to establish as something he could answer. Depicting this kind of prayer as tied to lawful ideology in general, and the existence of a system of protection that if it exists can offer this kind of protection when requested. This is one of many examples where the religious concepts intersect with the more tangible ethical ones. Note the implication of protection being granted to the weak. Something that is lawful in tone, and that chaos would generally reject.

**Faith** is confidence or trust in a particular system or religious belief, in which faith may equate to confidence based on some perceived degree of warrant. The concept of faith comes into play in megaten in which the system of order is something that it is believed you should be able to have faith in, under the assumption that it can deliver what it promises. This contrasts with chaos, in which you are called to rely on yourself, rather than being able to expect protection from the system.

**Death of God theology** is a
predominately Christian theological movement in which the monotheistic concept of God is considered nonexistent, a thing realized
necessarily later in humanity's development, or in more radical cases
that God literally died during the crucifixion. (alternately, not declared nonexistant but simply not able to be relied on as definitely existent) Sometimes it overlaps
with pantheism, saying that the language of god does refer to
something real, despite not being a tangible entity. It considers
itself a close ally of christian socialism, often implying that the
realization of God's absence is a call to action for humanity to
radically engage in the acts of wealth redistribution and taking care
of the weak that Jesus laid out due to there being no cosmic justice
that will ensure that it gets done.

The basis of the death of god is the loss of an assured absolute sense of meaning, and by extension the realization of a need for people to find meaning in reality themselves. While the concept of the death of god applies to all the alignments, the specific concept of death of god theology that applies it to a post christian paradigm is more tied to law specifically. Especially in games like II and redux where the concepts and tone of the church are preserved even after one defeats yhvh, realizing that he is not the sole source of value.

### Pacifism

**Pacifism** is opposition to war,
militarism, or violence. Law's goal is ultimately eternal peace, but
even in the more immediate sense, refusing to kill people tends to
give you law points in almost every game. And glorification of war and
warriors is more associated with chaos, whereas law tends to downplay
them in many cases, seeing them as a necessary evil at times, but
something to hopefully be able to eventually no longer need. In various games, such as IVA, law is explicitly represented with a peace sign, and referred to as peace. Note that even in a non-law world, law slanted figures would seek to spread and inspire this peace.

**Nonviolence**. Some pacifists follow principles of nonviolence,
 believing that nonviolent action is morally superior and/or more
in most cases than violent action. Some however, support physical violence for emergency defense
 of self or others. Nonviolence does not mean refusal even to partake in just wars, but rather always focusing first on what nonviolent solutions may be available. Some extend this not just to physical violence, but acts of aggression. The eastern term for this is ahimsa. Again, like above, note the fact that refusing to kill tends to give law points. In redux's new law ending it emphasized how people will now resolve disputes without turning to violence.

**Contingent pacifism** is a term for pacifism that is understood to not be something one can hold to perfectly in all situations, but rather is an overarching ideal or a principled rejection of unnecessary violence. In contrast with absolute pacifism that may hold that war or violence is always wrong even in the defense of another, contingent pacifism will hold that it is generally negative, but that at times it may be necessary regardless. The law side has a tone resembling this, normally being against warlike situations, but ultimately being willing to do battle if necessary.

**Tranquility of order** is a term made by saint Augustine to refer to the peace that stems from a properly ordered society. Augustine links peace with his meaning of order, in which all things in
the universe have their proper place established by God, their creator.
Peace is therefore the state a person or thing achieves when it is in
accordance with the larger created order. This is tied to the concept of a "just war" as a war only undertaken when necessary to restore and establish this peace. Although megaten doesn't have this concept of implied teleology, the language here used does imply a proper orderly structure underlying peace, which is heavily the depiction it is approached by from the law side.

**Positive peace**. Positive definitions of peace go beyond merely dialectical definitions
of peace as the opposite of war and instead focus on peace as a state
of rest, wholeness, or completion. The peace of a just and tranquil
order points toward something like a condition of wholeness in which
there is solidarity, mutual respect, and satisfaction of needs. In
this vision of peace there is genuine community and human
flourishing. One central concern from the standpoint of positive peace
is the work of peace education, as well as work on nonviolent conflict
resolution and mediation. Related concerns
point toward the importance of justice, with a special focus on
restorative justice and community building. This is ultimately the goal of law, seeing its outcome of the new world as not just about preventing suffering bot a positive spiritually uplifting situation that enhances the flow of life.

**Transformational pacifism** is understood as aiming at a transformation
of psychological, cultural, social, and moral sensibility away from
acceptance of violence and war. Transformational pacifism articulates
a broad framework of cultural criticism and includes an effort to
reform educational and cultural practices that tend to support
violence and war. As such, it is pacifistic action undertaken with a long term goal of shifting societal attitudes. Much of the goals of law show this type of attitude, especially in overclocked where they talk about the larger changes that will stem from it.

**Consequentialist Pacifism**. Deontological prohibitions against violence are usually absolute, while
consequentialist prohibitions against violence are for the most part
contingent. Consequentialist pacifism is usually grounded in some sort of
rule-utilitarianism. A utilitarian pacifist may argue that a rule
against war or other sorts of violence will tend to promote the
greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Utilitarian pacifists appeal to empirical data
to support this rule. They say that history shows us that wars tend to produce
more harm than good. Utilitarian defenders of the just war theory will argue
that some wars however help alleviate suffering, as for example, in the case of
humanitarian wars in defense of human rights. But that one should be careful before undertaking these to make sure the desired outcome is actually the likely result. While consequentialist pacifism is not against the possibility of the need for killing, it also notes that even enemy combatants have value, and so the loss of their death has to be factored into the overall measurement. Note how strongly this idea of seeking pacifism, yet being ready to kill if needed corresponds to the law side.

A further consequentialist argument claims that cultures and states
that fight wars tend to become militaristic and expansionist.
This argument focuses on the long-term negative consequences of a
social and political system that is committed to militarism. One of
these negative consequences is the rise of the so-called
“military-industrial complex” in which social capital is
expended on military infrastructure at the expense of other social
projects. As such, even when fighting, law downplays and tries to avoid the idea of instilling a cultural glorification of the warrior spirit. Seen like in iv where when you fight lilith you tell her you take no joy in fighting.

Related to these consequentialist arguments against war is a more
positive consequentialist argument about the positive power of
nonviolence as a social force. This is grounded in a consequentialist
argument that active nonviolence can produce social goods like respect
for the lives of others, as well as peace and reconciliation.

### Egalitarianism

**Egalitarianism** is a term
with various uses that means emphasis on the equality of all people
in some sense. Law is also about radical egalitarianism in the sense
that no one is considered inherently more important in terms of
personal value than anyone else, even if they are more useful. The
people who may be killed to establish the new world aren't meant to
be implied to be inferior, but simply those who are necessary to
kill. In the endings it generally stresses a heavy lack of different
treatment of different individuals in opposition to chaos glorifying
hierarchy. And also stresses humility. In both games like sj and IV
it shows you destroying the class system, and the people in the new
world being depicted as equals. The criticism comes in in that if you
take egalitarianism so seriously that you view people as
interchangeable that you may seem two faced to be able to kill those
who are necessary for the greater good, and that itself being unequal
even if done to maximize equality. Note that desu 2 refers to the law
analogue ending explicitly as egalitarianism.

Note that egalitarianism is another reason that law is considered
western in tone. Because while extreme horizontal collectivist forms
are not that common in the west, the concept of a loose
egalitarianism of all people, and the need to uphold this is western
in tone. The east focuses more on hierarchy, with less of a focus on
a veneer of total equality. And this is reflected in their respective
social views as well as religions. Note that in practice both are not
that different, but ideas like equal rights were imported to the east
from western ideas.

**Equality of outcome** is a concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used
regularly in political discourse, often in contrast to the term
equality of opportunity. It describes a state in which most people have similar economic situations or amounts of material wealth. Achieving equal
results generally entails reducing or eliminating material
inequalities between individuals or households in a society, and
usually involves a transfer of income or wealth from wealthier to
poorer individuals, or adopting other measures to promote equality of
condition. The term is controversial, because it is not clear how much equality
it specifies.

Note that utilitarians do not
necessarily have to inherently consider equality of outcome an
principle if some inequality makes things better for everyone.
However, under the circumstances, the point being made by the law
side is that all else being equal, it brings higher utility to
prioritize benefits for those lower down. Note that the all else
being equal clause shows that while it points out that this is an
ideal, its not necessarily specifying that it would work in regular
conditions on earth as an immediate goal for utilitarians to shoot
for. Obviously like with all sides, one of the points one has to note
is that in an imperfect situation, if some people are sacrificed,
there is limits to how this is done.

**Positive freedom** is the possession
of the capacity to act upon one's free will, as opposed to negative
freedom, which is freedom from external restraint on one's actions. Namely, it is the actual ability to do what one is
interested in. While negative freedom means that there are no laws
against it, positive freedom means that one realistically has the
opportunities and resources to actually do it.

While liberty is not the main focus of law, (though it is a stated one in ii) law is implied to raise positive liberty heavily, since due to
living in a world where money concerns or fear of criminals and
various other constraints will be removed, one is then free to pursue
more of their own interests without as much risk. And these new
societies aren't implied to have infinite laws preventing what they
want either, since long term its presented more as if people are
simply psychologically structured to not desire to do the types of
things that would be harmful to the new society. This is based on egalitarianism of course, since the basis of positive freedom is that things like poverty can prevent actualization of it, and so for it to sufficiently exist one must not have other impediments such as money impeding self actualization.

**Slave Morality.** According
to nietzsche the original morality of humans was Master morality,
which is the morality of the strong and noble. In reaction to this,
and to their lowly position, the downtrodden reversed this conception
of nobility creating a system that values kindness, humility, and
sympathy, demonizing the old masters. And this became the basis of
christianity, and by extension modern society. Conceptions of
egalitarianism and glorification of the weak are based on this. For
instance, he saw socialism as a kind of secularization of christian
ethics. Nietzsche believed that noble virtues and ideal people would
glorify war as a chance to overcome. And slave morality was
associated more with pacifism. Asura describes order this way in
strange journey, saying it is nothing but comfort for the weak. Nietzsche even says that the essence of slave morality is utility, in keeping with its association with law.

In game, chaos is presented as existing first, and the old gods
corresponding to a kind of master morality. And law emerged in
reaction to this, placing value in humility and working in tune with
its system rather than one's own nobility. Law is also presented as
having more power relative to chaos, and having demonized the old
gods, which parallels nietzsche lamenting that slave morality took
over, demonizing the concept of masters and social stratification.
Nietzsche sees slave morality not as slaves trying to liberate
themselves, but as trying to drag masters down, making universal
slavery by forcing the humble life denying perspective of slaves onto
all. Note chaos insisting that law is about slavery despite its
egalitarian nature, and the fact that in a chaos world there is
casual acceptance of actual slavery.

Interestingly, nietzsche also equates master morality with
polytheism, and slave morality more with monotheism. Since
polytheistic gods represented fallibly represent life itself and
saying yes to it, while monotheistic gods depicted as perfect
entities represent forsaking true values of this world In favor of
saying no to life. He even calls the desire for god a desire for
nothingness, to be removed from the realities of life itself. This
interestingly relates to megaten also, with chaos often insisting
that a law world would barely be called living, and describing god as
“empty.” And in nocturne, the law equivalent side even uses the
word nihilo to describe itself, and associates itself with the void.
Note that the in game sides do not conform fully to nietzsche's
classical descriptions of the past, because all sides also focus on
future developments and are different. But it gives context for the
origin of these ideas.

### Paternalism

**Paternalism** is action done by an authority limiting a
person or group's liberty or autonomy for the purpose of promoting
their own good. While the term is often used as a pejorative, all
governments have a degree of this as the basis of law, such as speed
limit laws, ect. Law often utilizes paternalistic practices in the
process of setting up the world of law, but once the world is set up
these being explicit tends to dissipate. This being because the
peacable mentality is generally worked into the psychology of
humanity itself, such that it does not need constant external
regulation.

One difference between corrupted and normal law figures is that
for good law figures this aspect of administration is aimed towards a
beneficial outcome, and tends to end to leave people be after a time,
whereas corrupt ones violate one or both of those aspects. Yhvh at
times is a corruption in the sense that he sees following him as an
independent good distinct from social welfare. And the center's
system would need perpetual paternalistic action.

Thomas Pogge argues that there are a number of criteria for
justifiable paternalism.

1: The concept should work within human flourishing. Generally
accepted items such as nutrition, clothing, shelter, certain basic
freedoms may be acceptable by a range of religious and social
backgrounds.

2: The criteria should be minimally intrusive.

3: The requirements of the criteria should not be understood as
exhaustive; leaving societies the ability to modify the criteria
based on their own needs.

4: The supplementary considerations introduced by such more
ambitious criteria of justice must not be allowed to outweigh the
modest considerations.

**Authority.** In keeping with the above description of
paternalism, the question arises of what the required authority to
take those actions is. Although different systems have different
means of justification, by utilitarian logic law uses, the authority
simply rests in those who are capable of understanding what the best
ends are, and putting them into practice. For law this is presented
in terms of authority based on the above utilitarian concept of
archangels and proles. Where the higher understanding and information
and one's position to use it gives special authority. In imagine,
uriel says that humans can only live under peace when they live in
order. And that only an all knowing and almighty god may speak of
order. So there is an existential sense in which they see a certain
structure that they embody as required for this absolute peace.

Note that one tension of the side is that some figures still see
yhvh as an absolute authority. And the development of the side is
showing that authority is not absolute, but is contingent based on
your ability to manifest it, which is shown in the side turning
against yhvh when he becomes corrupt. Those with the more self aware
advanced perspective then being aware of the contingent nature of the
system.

**Moralism** is a philosophy that formulated in the 19th century that revolved around the idea of collectively imbuing society with a certain set of morals in order to facilitate a better society. Its main pillars in its early years were the abolishment of slavery, the idea of temperance in use of alcohol, and protests against the removal of Indians in the name of expansion. Its goal was to instill in both the private and social sphere a sense of the need for political changes to happen in accord with morality, rather than being treated as a separate or amoral situation. Though moralism can exist for various political slants. In terms of law, a large part of their goal is the deliberate propagation of a higher and more peaceable moral character.

**Messianic democracy**, also known as totalitarian democracy is the idea of seeing a certain democratic outcome as a kind of pre existing ideal that one should move towards, even if it uses nondemocratic means in the process. This is distinguished from liberal democracy, which tends to have less of a set ideal outcome in mind, and focuses more on the process. The worlds of law are described as a certain form of planned outcome, and seen by enemies as an authoritarive process in the means of constructing, but once the worlds are set up, the people tend to have direct control of the government and their workspaces.

**Cyberocracy**. In futurism,
cyberocracy describes a hypothetical form of government that
rules by the effective use of information. It functions through the
use of rapid transmission of relevant information from the source of
a problem to the people in a position able to fix said problem. This
often implies use of computer based networks, but is not limited to
them. Due to the speculative nature of such an idea, it is still uncertain what type of form it might take. Some of the logistics problems involved being the difficulty of creating such systems, or verifying their applicabbility to tangible problems.

In a cybercratic design, if the system was efficient enough, then the people involved with its logistics would at times come to be
seen more as moderators of the system rather than external decision makers proper. With the implication of their input being
that it is extrapolated from the system rather than with them as the
primary source of the decision. Although this does not mean humans would not have a major role however, due to the need of both the system to be administrated and adjusted, as well a to account for things external to the system itself, or the input of subjective elements. Ultimately a cyberocracy may use
administrative AIs if not an AI as head of state forming a Machine
Rule government.

Megaten has large elements of this as
the basis of law. The basis of the lawful society is the idea that it
is an outcome extrapolated from specific information that is used to
determine the outome. For example, the brand of death being a type of
information system. The depiction of the angels as machines in smtiv
calls to mind the idea of calculating machines determining a
maximizing outcome. And the role of yhvh in a large sense seems to
be to use the near-omniscience that the role grants to extrapolate a
design. But that if it deviates from this, even yhvh ends up the
enemy of law. Because the basis of the system is to follow what the
information points to and administrate it, rather than for the design
to be based on the whims of individual people.

**Social interventionism** is an action which involves the intervention of a government or an organization in social affairs. This can be either in an economic or social sense, ranging from direct action to campaigns for adocacy of certain ideals. It can also be done in a gradualist sense so as to lead society in a direction that it is not at currently. it can be done in a variety of directions, being copatible with various ideologies. One of the hallmarks of law is its larger focus on social interventionism relative to the decrease in a focus on it as you move more towards chaos.

**Cultural assimilation** is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble those of a dominant group. In the case of law it doesn't support random groups culturally assimilating, but in terms of its goal of the ideal outcome it seeks some degree of getting everyone on the same page of the ideal system. But this can preserve the important aspects of the cultures merging together. For instance, krishna being a major god of the western christian looking messians in SMTI. This contrasts against neutral which places more emphasis on allowing pluralism even to the extent that neutral will leave cultures with major crisis-es alone to take care of their own issues.

**Panopticism** refers to the
thought process behind Jeremy bentham's idea of the panopticon and
which can also be used to describe aspects of society. The panopticon
is a prison designed so that one guard without being seen can see
every inmate's room. This forces inmates to act as if they are being
watched even at times the guard is not present. Theoretically you can
even remove the guard entirely without the inmates knowing. As such,
the basis of the idea is that the guard becomes an idea that makes
the prisoners regulate themselves rather than a physical enforcement.

In many law endings the angels
ultimately leave, often killing yhvh as well, leaving the system
without anyone actually in control. Implying that the system became
self regulating as people internalized the orderly nature. This is a
bit different from panopticism since the issue is not that they still
implicitly think there might be judgments, but more that the nature
of how to act in accord with the system has been fully integrated
into them via psychological restructuring. In p5 the holy grail is
explicitly depicted like a panopticon, showing this line of thought.
And is a law leaning figure. In IV, the angels mentin shene duque
becoming the new mikado castle as an eye that watches over mikado.
But at the end the angels die and it is left empty, as they are no
longer required.

**New world order** is a term
found in conspiracy theories for an emerging totalitarian world
government. A common theme is that a conspiracy exists who seeks to
replace sovereign nation states with a world government that will be
hailed as the culmination of history's progress. Many influential
historical and contemporary figures have been purported to be part of
the cabal working to this end by pushing through controversial
policies and orchestrating significant political and financail events
that lead to it. A large element of it is the idea of propaganda, and
the idea that once established it will be hard for people to concieve
of any other system. Some of these conspiracies are influenced by
hegelian concepts of the end of history.

Law has many explicit
associations with this. It is introduced in SMTI as the conspiracy,
and which seeks to over time transform the entire world, overriding
individual systems. The nature of the outcome is presented as an end
of history type event, and once the system is made it is presented as
difficult for people to imagine anything outside of it. In SMTI some
law figures even use the eye of providence as a symbol, which may be
an explicit referece to this. And in overclocked, one of the
shomonkai even refers to the angel's plan as a new world order. And
the messians are based o the knights templar who are often also
associated with these conspiracies.

Likewise the idea of subtle movements from a power elite
corresponds with law being the side of heaven which watches over
everything, but doesn't have the power to simply lawify the world. So
it emphasizes patience, and the idea of working out this plan slowly
over time. Note that this gives law a heavy tone of subtle
manipulation and cunning, rather than just direct ruling. Seen later
like figures with mastema also. Even in games like II there is manipulation and cunning internally, with gabriel and satan
pretending to go along with yhvh until the last moment. Which shows a
break in the plan, and a repurposing it for a different outcome.

## Neutral - Freedom

**Neutral** in game often tries to shirk definition by defining itself more as being between the others than as anything in particular. Nonetheless there are things to be said about it, It Tends to conform to everyday means of
thinking, balancing protections and freedoms. Deontology is often a heavy aspect of it, especially in iva, with it focusing around contrast against lawful utilitarian thinking. But existentialist ethics about promoting freedom to do various things are also an element.

### Existentialism

**Existentialism** is a term applied to the work of certain philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the subjective experience of the human subject, rather than remote abstract metaphysicalpoits or first principles. It is often summed up by the statement that people create their own meaning or purpose rather than having it bestowed upon them from outside. This does not however imply atheism or nihilism, with there being many historical religious existentialists as well. Existentialism focuses largely on the ideas of freedom and authenticity.

To existentialists, the individual's starting point is a
sense of ambiguity in the face of an
apparently meaningless world.
 Many existentialists have regarded traditional logic-based systematic philosophies to be too abstract and
remote from concrete human experience. Existentialism is a large basis of megaten in general with their emphasis on choice, and for neutral in particular existentialist ethics play a large focus. Especially with the neutral emphasis on human experience, freedom, and being true to yourself.

Existentialism can be used in a wider or narrower sense. In the wider scope, Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered to have been the first existentialist philosopher, although he himself did not use the term existentialism. He proposed that each individual - not society or religion - is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it authentically. Highlighted like in persona 5 where you are asked where or how you find meaning in your particular choices. While soren was a chrstian, he believed that even the existence of god did not inherently orient your life to anything - a choice that you ultimately have to make for yourself. While existentialism in the more general sense is still a thing, some of the more specific posits it made have been superseded by more modern structuralist thinking which challenged the degree to which classical existentists placed agency on the individual.

**Existentialist ethics** is the term for the moral philosophy that is derived from existentialism. While existentialism can be read in a few ways, such as a more descriptive sense about the more generalized conception of meaning, some writers expanded on this to make moral dynamics that they saw as explicitly drawing from it. Existentialist ethics generally begins from the perspective that you value your freedom, and so for the sake of consistency you must admit that freedom in general is valuable, and as such respect the freedom of others as well. This dynamic was noted as having a kantian flavor, similar to kant's idea of the categorical imperative which held that ethical action had to be consistent when universalized.

Some existentialists claim that the idea of a perfect morality is dubious. They claim that any complete system of morality, such as
utilitarianism, cannot ever function because mankind will always treat
his own freedom as the foremost value. If the utility calculus was fully
 known such that we could make every person as happy as possible, people
 simply wouldn't follow it consistently, because it will leave no room for their own
wills. And so understanding of morality has to leave room for this ambiguity. This is reflected in neutral's approach to morality, in which it presents the goal not as related to specific outcomes or even principles at times, but in terms of a ground of upholding the ability for people to freely make choices on that front.

As such, existentialist ethics generally revolved around the idea of respecting people's autonomy, and not doing things which severely harmed it. While this is necessarily a somewhat vague concept, and one which even the original writers did not elucidate, neutral takes this dynamic to mean upholding a world that allows for different lifestyles, and balances both enough freedoms that one can pursue different options with enough protections that one is not at severe risk in the process of doing so. Neutral places this emphasis strongly on your interaction directly with other individuals, resulting in its refusal to sacrifice one for the good of many due to this being seen as a lackof respect for the autonomy of the one.

While classical existentialists did not explicitly identify with any type of ethics, and weren't virtue ethicists per say, (and in fact only sketched out the idea of an existentialist ethics in a vague sense), some have held that one can interpret a type of existentialist virtue ethics that holds to authenticity as a virtue. And this seems to be what atlus is going for for the neutral paradigm somewhat. Likewise their focus on freedom seems to place a high value on the kind of respect of different lifestyles implied in the existentialist call to respect the freedom of others.

**Authenticity** is a term used in
existentialist philosophy. In existentialism, authenticity is the
degree to which one is true to one's own personality, spirit, or
character, despite external pressures. A lack of authenticity is considered in
existentialism to be bad faith. Neutral emphasizes this heavily, often
talking about the importance of choosing your own path, sometimes
even to the point of refusing to criticize people who they are
fighting against if those people were being true to themselves. This has been a staple across the series ranging from En No ozuno saying it in I to isabeau in IV to nozomi hinting at it in iva. In persona 5 the word authenticity is used directly, described as being true to yourself.

**Nietzscheanism** is sometimes considered proto-existentialist. Note that one thing
there is to note about nietzsche is that he did not always depict his
work as something that one would take as dogma, but as open ended
that would pave the way for a future he did not consider himself
qualified to describe. For this reason a variety of different types
of people are inspired by him, as well as there being a variety of
interpretations as to what he considered his future world to look
like. Although he himself was heavily hierarchical, the idea of a less hierarchical and more pro social nietzscheanism that focuses on the creativity but not the hierarchy was popularized by **deleuze,** and is occasionally known as **left-nietzscheianism**. Although chaos is more explicitly nietzschean, neutral also draws heavily from nietzsche also. And this ambiguity over his line of thought is worked into the multiple people drawing on it. Even law does indirectly, via death of god theology.

The historical process nietzsche described as starting with master
morality,developing to slave morality and ultimately to potential future values could be
interpreted as neutral in a way. According to nietzsche in ancient history
there was originally master morality championed by the strong and
noble. The victors in strife. But done so unreflectively. Slaves needed to see themselves as
good and so created slave morality which glorified humility and
flipped around the values in a more self aware way so that masters were seen as the villains.
And following this trend, a future morality would come into existence
at some point that transcends both. He saw this as more life affirming like master morality, but self aware like slave morality. And so has aspects of neutral (though in practice he saw it as still hierarchical, and so it would likely lean chaos).

While nietzsche glorified master values
more than slave ones, and so chaos seems more based on his elitist
and glorification of higher men aspects, a more toned down
interpretation could take this story and spin it in a neutral way.
Nietzsche associated master morality with ancient polytheism, and
slave morality with monotheism. Likewise, this future morality would
be associated with atheism, and a lack of clinging to escapism to
other worlds. This can easily parallel the neutral focus on humanity,
as well as the associations of law and chaos.

However, to contrast this nietzsche also mentions that in modern society there is often a weird misguided attempt to mix master and slave morality that tends to be inconsistent and more like flip flopping, due to some people having aspects of both. Which highlights how neutral doesn't see existing neutral society as truly integrated yet, but still having damaging aspects of back and forth lawful and chaotic aspects disrupting it.

The most obvious nietzschean
association comes from dagda's dark neutral though. Information of which is in the dark neutral section. But again, note that the point is not to find out which side
is meant to represent nietzsche's ideals in game. Just like the
religions, aspects can be split among many. And nietzsche didn't
write his work thinking of it as something to be followed like a
dogma. Which kind of would miss the point of creating your own
values. Different people of different alignments can be based on him, since there's simply different potential values one can create. Nietzsche's writings were not necessarily about what the values of the future ethics would be, but about the historical process that leads to them. So the ambiguity about what side represents his future values is likely intentional.

### Nonconsequentialism

**Nonconsequentialism** refers to any type of normative ethical theory that denies that the rightness or wrongness of our conduct is determined solely or near solely by the goodness or badness of the consequences of our acts. This does not however deny that consequences may be a factor in determining the rightness of an act. The primary form of nonconseuquentialism is **deontology**, which says that ethics are determined by ethical rules for action they have to conform to, which exist distinct from conseuquences. Another common form is **virtue ethics**, which revolves more around the virtue of the actors. Although not all forms of these are nonconsequentialist, since there is some overlap such as virtue consequentialism.

One of the difficulties of virtue ethics comes from identifying which traits are considered virtuous, and in which contexts they are considered so. Aristotle listed various things such as courage, truthfulness, temperance, and friendliness among others. Virtue ethics is a wide umbrella, since different forms of it can widely diverge or even overlap heavily with other theories based on what types of things one considers virtuous.

Classical virtue ethics was something called eudaimonistic virtue ethics. This means that they considered that the truly virtuous person would achieve something called eudaimonia, which was a morally charged version of happiness that they said that only the virtuous would be able to achieve. By modern standards this psychologizing of ethics is seen as a little misplaced however. Modern virtue ethics is more often interpreted as agent-based, whereby the morality of a given action is merely seen in terms of the motivational and dispositional qualities of agents. Thus, being virtuous or unvirtuous is taken straightforwardly as the moral framework. While agent based virtue ethicists may still believe in eudaimonia, this will no longer be the focus of ethics, nor seen in a teleological light.

Deontology in contrast has various divisions. It comes in agent centeres and patient centered varieties. Agent centered varieties are based on the duties held by the one acting. Patient centered are based on the duties owed to the ones being acted upon. It can also be divided into single value or multi-value. The single value is associated with kant, and the idea of a categorical imperative from which one can extrapolate all other duties. Multiple valued ones such as ross' prima facie duties instead focus on different values that can't be reduced to eachother. Some forms even combine deontology and virtue ethicist perspectives.

In the games, neutral tends to be strongly nonconsequentialist. The main delineating factor for this being that neutral tends to not want to sacrifice people in order to protect larger numbers. This doing vs allowing distinction being one of the main delineating factors for how to distinguish consequentialist theories. In the negative side though, since neutral places more value in your direct acts, it tends to avoid taking responsibility for indirect acts, or omissions in action. Such as seemingly considering human harms of demons via the environment in strange journey not their direct responsibility. And acting often fairly detatched from concerns to what happens to outsiders. As for the degree to which it leans to deontological or virtue ethicist views, this is also hazy due to it remaining deliberately ambiguous.

To get a grasp on what types of virtues neutral highlights, one has to contrast them with what it rejects. For instance, since it rejects sacrificing people to save more people, it views actions as individual. Helping or hurting people directly is what the virtue is entrenched in, rather than longer term consequences. To add to this, neutral does admit that if you are not willing to make sacrifices of that nature that you may not be able to guarantee positive ends. So it also heavily highlights a form of hopefulness in that you can stick directly with virtue while having hope that you can reach good ends without deviating from it. Since it overlaps with existentialist views, it places great value on authenticity, and choosing what is true to yourself. And since it rejects radical transformation of humanity there is a sense of it valuing naturalness. And it also seems to respect a general concept of heroism, and heroic qualities in general.

**Value pluralism** is the idea that there are several values
which may be equally correct and fundamental, and yet potentially in
conflict with each other. While this could be interpreted to mean that there are multiple right answers to a moral dillema based on different positive values, it could also simply mean that there is an overlapping single answer. Note that any overarching moral theory can be pluralist. Or it can even be used to combine them. While pluralist virtue ethics holds that it is always good to be virtuous, one can hold that there are different means for a virtuousresponse to a given situation based on which virtue is manifesting.

In IV isabeau
accuses law of being monistic, presenting neutral as pluralistic to
contrast it. While they could be more of a general rather than a literal term for its approach, it seems to imply neutral's ethics as containing moral
pluralism. Note that this does not necessarily mean that law and chaos are absolutely monsitic, despite the accusation. But it does imply that what their values are, neutral's pluralism values things from both sides as independent values that can be added together.

Virtue ethics is heavily tied to the idea of **exemplars**.
Archetypical ideals of a perfectly virtuous person used as a metric
for determining virtue. In the interview for iva, it talks about how
nozomi holds that gods are symbols of the ideals envisioned by humans
as their final goal. And as such, from her pluralist view, polytheism
is preferable to monotheism, since monotheism has only one final
target, but there are hypothetically many different ideals to pursue.
And that everyone should choose their own destination. While the goal
is to idealize virtue as a whole, the emphasis here is placed on the
fact that you might prioritize different virtues in an existentialist
type manner based on what matters to you. Note that pluralism, despite holding that different things can be moral is not relativistic. Since it may still think the virtues are stable, even if there are competing ones.

**Doing vs. Allowing Harm**. One of the main things characterizing neutral is that on the scale of doing vs allowing harm it considers doing worse to to significant a degree that it ankowledges that it may be signing on for allowing a lot of harms if the only way to prevent them would be doing harms.

**The middle way** in buddhism is a term for the path of moderation between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification. Note that neutral has a slight buddhist aesthetic at times, with en no ozuno being called a bodhissatva, and presiding in the diamond realm, and steven calls neutral the middle path. And so a tone is given for neutral of seeing what one should do as a path of moderation.

**The golden mean** is a principle that
comes from Aristotle that the desirable ideal is a middle between two
extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. For example, in
the Aristotelian view, courage is a virtue, but if taken to excess
would manifest as recklessness, and, in deficiency, cowardice. This
has obvious neutral associations, due to its idea of balance. Though neutral is never seen referencing aristotle explicitly.

**Te** refers to the tao as understood
as it regards humans. Tao means way, and has both a human
and universal aspect. Te refers to the human aspect of tao. And
translates to virtue or power. Note that the tao in general is the
logic or flow of the universe. Neutral has a taoist tone, and often refers to its ethics as a way or path. While chaos also has an ideal of naturalness, neutral has its own which is also based in taoism that overlaps with its focus on authenticity. Taoism's virtue ethical approach has to do with acting natural and letting natural virtue unfold. Which differentiates it from law's focus on the need to artificially increase virtue for all. Of course, the taoist elements also have to do with balance and accepting the ebb and flow of different properties. Though notably, taoism is not as much about balance as western stereotypes imply.

**Wu Wei** is a term that translates to non-action or action without action. Which refers to the idea that the ideal virtue will become something natural for the practitioner, rather than something deviating far from natural existence. In context for neutral it is also depicting its type of goal as an ideal of neither indulgence, nor going out of one's way for heavy cold calculated altruism, which it would associate with chaos and law. But is more about a beneficial balanced type of practice of self improvement that it sees as helping both yourself and others. This actually has a basis in taoism, where wu wei emphasizes not going out of one's way heavily in order to work hard to cause improvements, but knowing how to make more light touches that can lead to large benefits. It even criticizes those who go more out of their way to try to accomplish more, seeing this as unnatural and likely to backfire. So the practice neutral emphasizes to lead to its own ideal person is more like the goal of the taoist sage.

**Asceticism** is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often
 for the purpose of pursuing spiritual or other types of goals. Ascetics may withdraw from
 the world for their practices or continue to be part of their society,
but typically adopt a frugal lifestyle, characterized by the
renunciation of material possessions and physical pleasures, and time
spent fasting while concentrating on the practice of religion or
reflection upon spiritual matters. While asceticism is not a goal practiced by most neutral figures, the idea of dedicating one's self to a practice in this way is referred to explicitly as asceticism by en no ozuno in the visionary items. Who then withdraws from the world to live in the diamond realm.

One other reason this is associated with neutral is the fact that hermitism is associated with neutral. The idea of remaining relatively solitary is depicted as more neutral leaning, since spiritual law figures are more interested in ordering society, and chaotic ones in self actualizing over it. and so remaining aloof from it is depicted as an in between state. This does not mean that neutral characters as a whole are more solitary, just that being so is seen as neutral in tone. Note how neutral transcendent figures also take more of a hands off approach to benefiting their side, being more of a guide than a direct leader. The hermitist interpretation is also tied to being considered an extreme of neutral's tendency to not want to steer society as a whole, and in some ways focusing more on being an exemplar.

### Moderatism

**Moderatism** is an ideological category which designates a rejection of radical or extreme views, especially in regard to politics and religion. A moderate is considered someone occupying any mainstream position, and who avoids extreme views and major social change. While they may have a leaning in one direction or the other, they prioritize both staying close to the center, as well as being cautious in terms of any change.

**Centrism** is a political
outlook that involves acceptance or support of a balance of a degree
of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy; while opposing
political changes which would result in a significant shift of
society in either direction. It does not necessarily imply that no
changes are needed, but merely that they should be undertaken in a
more reserved way. Centrism is closely related to liberalism, which
has a variety of meanings in different contexts. In practice, it is
more common for centrists to call themselves moderates.

Note that although the sides in
megaten differ from real world political groups, neutral still
preserves the idea of a centrist based balance between them. Note
that the center does not have to refer to the absolute center, but
can include variants of ideologies that lean to it. Note that since
neutral in game is defined relative to law and chaos, things that are
far from real life centrism could still fall under the umbrella of
neutral, such as dagda's dark neutral.

**Political liberalism** is a concept often contrasted against comprehensive liberalism. While the latter refers to the idea that the values that are used as the basis are fundamental values, the former argues for it in a contingent and pragmatic sense, saying that rather than being fundamental, it is simply a presumed basis that provides the basics required for any lifestyle, and which is ostensibly meant to be copatible with different worlviews. Liberal here refers to the term's use in the classical liberal sense referring to individual rights, parlimentary government, and the goal of individual freedoms.

**Horizontal individualism** is individualism that is focused on relative equality between members. It is contrasted with vertical individualism that emphasizes hierarchy, and with forms of collectivism. In game, this is presented as a balanced aspect between law and chaos, since it retains the drive of individualism of chaos with the more equal horizontal distribution of law. Interestingly, the point is also made that the vertical individualism of chaos will collapse into vertical collectivism at times as people use their individual unrestrained power to subjugate others. Which is why things like monarchy and nationalism are associated with chaos.

**Freedom** is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. While there is not much to say here, note that neutral emphasizes freedom heavily. Especially that to engage in different lifestyles. So much so that in iva, neutral is called freedom where law is called peace and chaos is called anarchy.

**Patriotism** is an attachment to a homeland.
 This attachment can be viewed in terms of different features relating
to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or
historical aspects. It encompasses a set of concepts closely related to those of nationalism. This term is used explicitly in Iv where masakado is called a patriot in a positive way. An excess of patriotism in the defense of a nation is called chauvinism; another related term is jingoism. While the neutral side isn't nationalist per say, it does have elements that lean that way in a dubious way such as depicting outside influences negatively, and elevating the country to the level of religion with the goddess of tokyo.

**Capitalism** is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. It can come in a variety of formats, ranging from total free market capitalism to certain aspects of government involvement. If it has strong welfare policies it is known a welfare capitalism. In desu II, fumi
criticizes the up for grabs capitalist nature of neutral society,
saying that it allows the lazy to flourish, leading to decadence. In contrast, both chaos and law have stronger elements of anti captalism. And real life critiques often focus on the fact that it gives those with power and capital the disproportionate amount to extract surplus value from workers to shift wealth in their favor.

Neutral here doesn't seem to necessarily think that capitalism as it already exists is ideal though, since it does still have aspects of self critique and the need for improvement. Which may mean that even neutral can want to move past capitalism as we know it now. Note that even if law characters see capitalism as an issue, their focus on patience and reformism means that they do not necessarily always think it needs to be immediately revolutionized.

**Capitalist realism** refers to the modern tendency to think that the current social order is not only merely correct, but when you internalize it to such a degree that you see it as a fundamental aspect of nature, seeing any deviation as a struggle against some kind of natural default.

In a negative sense, neutral's status quo tendencies embody this. They tend to see the modern social order not even as a system, but as a kind of systemless default that is the absense of a leaning. As such, they tend to avoid aknowledging responsibility for the negatives of the system.

**Rights** are legal, social, or
ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the
fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed
to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or
ethical theory. Rights are important in such disciplines as law and
ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.

Note that while utilitarians tend to consider the concept of rights pragmatic for the workings of society, many others consider them normatively absolute. Neutral in-game seems to base its ethics more
directly on the concept of individual rights. Since to law, rights are pragmatic
for the benefit of the big picture, but not individually real. And
for chaos, rights simply don't exist to begin with. Nietzsche argues
in Genealogy of Morals that human rights exist as a means for the
weak to constrain the strong; as such, they do not facilitate the
emancipation of life, but instead deny it. And chaos having a
Nietzschean and stirneran bent then do not consider rights an
absolute concept either, since they think the strong do not inherently owe the
weak much of anything.

**Rawlsianism** refers to the
works of john rawls which held the idea of justice and rights as
central aspects of political discourse. Rawls’s suggestion is, in
effect, that we should put all our effort into seeing to it that “the
rules of the game” are fair. Once society has been organized around
a set of fair rules, people can set about freely “playing” the
game, without interference. In practice he considers this to resemble
western society, though notes that obviously improvements could be
made. He formulated this to be a working theory of politics to oppose
utilitarianism. While the games do not explicitly reference him, him
being the standard justification for current western society it has a
basis in these views.

To him, when we are ordering society
to determine what is just, we have to make decisions behind a "**veil of ignorance."** That means that we have to pretend that we
don't know who we are or will be when we are actually in the society:
that you could either be poor or rich, etc. The idea is that, once
you move behind the veil of ignorance, you will find that the fairest
way to order the system would be to choose the rules that leave the
people on the bottom "best off" and then following this
secondarily care about the absolute values or distribution of
everyone else. Rawls however argued that the right to liberty should
to some degree trump redistributive economic policy. He believed this
could be encompassed by two principles, the principle of equal
liberty and the difference principle. And that together you hold that
equality should be preferred save for what inequalities improve
things for the worst off. But that these principles were not for
structuring based on utility, but based on rights and free action.
Though utilitarians have tried to turn the argument of the veil of
ignorance against him.

**Communitarianism**. While neutral professes a more overarching political liberalism, just like how in modern politics this is often tempered by a communitarian critique, neutral has elements of communitarianism in it also. Communitarianism holds that societies should be governed in ways in accordance with the community or communities within, rather than via a neutral conception of supposedly objective rights.

While neutral does tend to lean more to a rights based conception, it does have some communitarian elements in that it focuses on the importance of self autonomy of certain communities to live by their own standards (such as in the end of iva), and when adressing the contrast between demons and humans, no critique is ever made about whether demons should live the way they do, only that it is not fit for humans. And emphasis is placed on the element of choice in terms of creating new societies. This is only a moderate degree of communitarianism, since communitarianism is associated more with neutral law, but it is still present.

**Harmony** is a term used to
refer to much of the tradition of ethics in east asia. It refers to
the ideal of balancing different things that could otherwise be at
odds. And provides an important context for understanding the eastern
approach to ethics. In an interview for SMTI, when describing lao
tsu, they mention harmony as his goal. Neutral, perhaps even more
than chaos, has a very eastern tone, and to understand its depiction
one has to understand what aspects of it are shown in an explicitly
eastern light. Harmony is a large facet of religions like
confucianism and taoism, the latter of which is depicted as an
explicit basis of neutral. Though their depictions of it each have a
slightly different focus.

Anthropologists point out how unlike the west which focuses more
on specific rules and attempts to reach an objective answer, east
asian ethics are more pragmatic, and about focusing on preventing
people being at odds and reconciling their concerns together. This
approach can be seen in the approach neutral takes to ethics, in that
it rarely calls other approaches outright wrong, but which in a sense
tries to present itself as reconciling their interests. Which is
consistent with in asia how it is considered more rude to say that
someone's ideology is objectively wrong. This is not a denial of
objective precepts however, merely a different focus.

**A binary opposition** (also binary
system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in
meaning. Binary opposition is the system by which, in language and
thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined against one another. It is the contrast between two mutually
exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right.
Binary opposition is an important concept of **structuralism**, which
sees such distinctions as fundamental to all language and thought. These binaries are not opposed conceptually, but complementary, since we can't concieve of the idea of up without the idea of down.

Criticism of binary oppositions is an important part of post structuralist theories, since they see binaries as things which histoically legitimized detrimental power structures. And so these theories often revolve around deconstructing certain understandings of various binaries. Obviously one can consider the neutral path
to be in some games the symbolic representation of deconstruction of
a choice that was previously presented as more of a binary. Notably however, real life binary critiques tend to not be associated with centrist views.

**Hegelian dialectic**, is usually presented in a threefold manner as comprising three stages of the development of ideas: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.
 In more simplistic terms, one can consider it as; problem reaction solution. Although this model is often named after Hegel, he himself
never used that specific formulation, as his own was subtly different. Hegel ascribed that terminology to
 Kant. And its modern development is more related to Fichte.

What hegel himself used was a three-valued logical model that is
 very similar to the above model, but Hegel's most usual terms
were: Abstract-Negative-Concrete. Hegel used this model to accompany his points in many of his works. The formula, thesis-antithesis-synthesis, does not explain why the
thesis requires an antithesis. However, the formula,
abstract-negative-concrete, suggests a flaw or incomplete-ness, in any initial thesis—it is too abstract and lacks the
negative of trial, error, and experience. For Hegel, the concrete, the
synthesis, the absolute, must always pass through the phase of the
negative, in the journey to completion. The idea about the so called dialectic is that we basically look at the
 thing and the contradiction it develops by itself. It's not about
comparing two things as the phrase antithesis might imply.

In persona 5, the process of thesis and antithesis was mentioned directly by goro as a reason why its good to talk to people who disagree, and he ascribes it to hegel. In mainline, to neutral, this obviously has connotations of evolving past law and chaos. In a large scale, chaos existing originally is the thesis, law the antithesis, and neutral the synthesis. Iva takes this further even advocating for different groups to arise likely to continue this process evolving the system of ethics further. So one reason neutral wants multiple groups to exist is to help have outside influence develop aspects of ideology as they contrast against eachother.

### Gradualism

**Gradualism** is the political goal that rather than seeking any type of radical change, that one should approach change in a slower way. While neutral trends towards moderate positions, it is not against the idea of change per say, but seeks for changes to be undertaken in a slower and more cautious way that doesn't cause a major upheaval to human existence or autonomy. Hence, changes will be able to be internalized in stages, and humans can choose what to keep or reject rather than find themselves suddenly in a radically new situation.

**Enantiodromia** is a principle came
up with by carl jung that the superabundance of any force inevitably
produces its opposite. It is similar to the principle of equilibrium
in the natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in
order to restore balance. He utilized this in a psychological sense,
implying that focusing too much on one extreme led to repression and
denial of one's own mind, and bizarre results, and that proper mental
health involved accepting both aspects. Though this is more of a
psychological issue, it bears ethical ramifications for if one were
to try to live in a one sided way. This is directly referenced
in-game, since the games are based heavily on jung, and jung even
represented this as a balance between god and the devil as
archetypes, and depicted it with a yin yang. More information about
Jung is in the Jung section of the wiki.

### Regionalism

**Regionalism** is a political ideology focusing on the development of a political or social system based on the normative or economic interests of a specific region or group of regions. What this means is that rather than focusing on overarching paradigms that are meant to be omnipresent or spread worldwide, different regions should internally focus on their own regions and the particular interests related to them. It has similar connotations to nationalism, though less aggressive and less inherently self oriented.

Neutral has heavy tones of regionalism both between species, and among humans themselves. The neutral focus on preserving the neutrality of humanity limits its scope to humanity, not overtly focusing on the nature of demon life, seeing it as in some ways outside of its purview. Likewise, it supports different groups having their own paradigms within the larger system. In the negative sense, aspects of neutral do seem to take on a japanese identarian tone, often veering into nationalist sentiments. In an interview for smti, Yosuke niino even says of neutral, "They care little about the outside world which causes them to
become more and more withdrawn and unaware of the things happening
around them."

**Cultural pluralism** is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture provided they are consistent with the laws and values of the wider society. This can be interpreted either as a fact, or as an active ideal.

One facet of neutral is that it is not necessarily trying to erase law and chaos entirely, but to create an overall neutral paradigm. This paradigm can include aspects of law and chaos within it, and eveb law and chaos communities so long as they do not disrupt the overarching society. An additional aspect of this is that while in a more moderate sense, you see neutral endings like bonds in iva end with law and chaos groups still active, in the wider scope neutral never seems to concern itself with the state of demon worlds, seeing those as beyond its purview. As long as the overarching paradigm has possibility of of neutrality it is uncommon for them to host the propagation of a humanitaran crisis to enforce it. This only happening when the balance shifts so far that it makes neutral living impossible.

One negative aspect of this can be whether this tolerance extends so far that it allows damaging things based on the desire to not get involved. In the case of bonds, some of the groups presented as now living on coexistence were very dangerous and often did heavily detrimental things, but the overall paradigm was not focused on dealing with the problems of those groups so long as they did not antagonize the others.

**Non-interventionism** or **non-intervention** is a foreign policy
 that holds that political rulers should minimize relations with other
nations but still retain diplomacy and trade, while avoiding wars
unless related to direct self-defense. This is a large basis of neutral's ideology, and the basis of some of its aspect of tolerance, having a metric of not getting involved unless things are directly in its way.

**Isolationism** is a more extreme form of non interventionism that not only avoids entangling themselves with others' affairs but tries to cut contact to a minimum. Neutral often upholds the seperateness of groups or individuals, seemingly to uphold individual self determination, but sometimes to a fault. An extremist variant of this can result in an isolationist mentality. Neutral often upholds isolationism between humans and demons, and at times between human groups, at the expense of cosmopolitan benefits. Figures like isamu and dagda can be seen as this mentality taken to an even further extreme.

**Cultural conservatism** is described as the preservation of the
heritage of one nation, or of a shared culture that is not defined by
national boundaries. In the case of neutral, some of this exists, albeit in a more moderate form. Neutral's conservatism does not reject all change, but does seek to uphold a concept of a japanse cultural identity that preserves aspects of it considered important to its values. This aspect can be seen as in tension with neutral's more existentialist aspects. Which is likely one reason why between IVs neutral, and the bonds ending of apocalypse these elements were downplayed slightly. In an interview for SMTI, the writers even delineated this conservatism as one of neutral's major aspects.

**Nativism** is the political policy of promoting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants. One of the darker aspects of neutral is its seeming focus on the importance of prioritizing native (japanese) interests to the ignorance of others, as well as human interests to the expense of demons.

**Yamato-damashii** (japanese spirit) is a Japanese term coined in
the Heian period that refers to the old cultural values and
characteristics of the Japanese people as opposed to cultural values of
foreign nations. While gotou is the one who refers to this context more explicitly, a more latent form of it appears in neutral in its strong identification with the nation of japan in general.

**Toleration** is the acceptance of an action, object, or person which one dislikes or disagrees with, where one is in a position to disallow it but chooses not to. Neutral presents itself as a tolerant perspective based on its allowance of other paradigms to exist within it.

**Sovereignty** is the full right and power of a governing body over itself, without any interference from outside sources or bodies. Namely, sovereignty as a concept sees outside influence as often bad even if it can be beneficial if not explicitly desired by residents of some group. Neutral seems to use this argument often, both for why it does not interfere with groups that deviate so long as they do not disrupt the larger neutral paradigm, as well as why it rejects law and chaos. Law sees interference with groups as allowed if it is for the greater good, and chaos sees doing so as allowed if an individual chooses to for personal reasons.

In addition to this, neutral often leans towards this argument as a basis for why it rejects reliance on demons, seeing them as outsiders to human existence, and human society as needing to be able to develop by its own means. This is likewise why neutral gods tend not to intervene directly, seeing humans as having the right and responsibility to accomplish things by themselves.

**The paradox of tolerance** refers to the fact that unlimited tolerance would actually lead to a reduction in tolerance overall, because it would include tolerance of the intolerant. And so to preserve a certain level, some degree of restriction has to be exist. Neutral often stresses this in an ideological way against other sides, allowing various dynamics to exist in society, but not when they begin to impede others. Doubly so against chaos. Since while both neutral and chaos focus on freedom, neutral's focus has more restrictions on paper. But leads likely to more overall, since on chaos there is nothing impeding someone from using their freedom to restrict the freedom of others.

### Humanism

**Humanism** is hard to define, since it is not a word that was
coined to refer to a particular ideology, but to a general mentality
of modernism being when people began to truly love humanity as a
concept, and think of their life on this earth as more primary, and
consider it valuable in and of itself. It is defined loosely as a
stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings,
individually and collectively, and generally rejects the idea that
religious dogma should override ethical principles. Since gods
represent ideologies, this humanistic focus has an additional in-game
meaning of not clinging to specific ideologies if they are found to
be dubious, but adapting dynamically.

Note that rejection of religious dogma overriding ethics does not
mean it is atheistic per say, since it began as a christian movement.
But that one can look directly at human dignity to make sense of
ethics on the human level even independently of being enshrouded in
religious paradigm. Not all atheists are humanistic either. Many of
the atheistic figures chaos is based on defined themselves as anti
humanist, seeing the abstract concept of "humanity" as a
secularization of the idea of god and religious values, and still
presupposing a level of shared collective relation that one should
seek to be free from.
Neutral in-game is presented as a humanist side, although not
inherently atheistic. It does not deny the existence of the spiritual
beings or gods, or even necessarily say that they shouldn't be
venerated. But it rejects strict reliance on them, or human
subjugation to them. Having a more deistic mentality. While neutral
humanism is based on the nature of not letting gods subjugate humans,
and a metaphor for ethics outside of religion, it has a more direct
relationship to a humanistic mentality in that chaos is based more on
the nietzschean anti humanism that sees it as appealing to
nonexistent collective humanity, and law is based more on
structuralist anti humanism that rejects the idea of the autonomous
individual.

**Human dignity** is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. This concept often related to deontological ethics, in which Immanuel Kant
 held that there were things that should not be discussed in terms of
value, and that these things could be said to have dignity.

One concern that the concept raises for ethics is that moral systems that do not have a proper respect of it at their core might end up logically consistent, but in ways that do not properly respect human dignity. Neutral argues that law and chaos in their standard forms do this, since their push for a focus on utility, or egoistic individualism even if consistent place those things above the concept of individual human dignity.

**Human** **chauvinism** is the belief in the superiority of humans, to the expense of other beings. Neutral has a darker tendency of prioritizing human benefit to the expense of demons, or ignorance of the suffering they cause them. One of the darkest examples being the true neutral ending of V, in which you seek to wipe out demons entirely, even those which are benign to humans, due to seeing it as in human interests.

**Optimism or idealism** is the process of forming and pursuing ideals,
most specifically with an optimistic belief that one can achieve the
most positive outcome even if it is unlikely. One facet of neutral is
an ideological form of optimism and a refusal to believe in or
aknowledge no win scenarios. This has been a facet of neutral since
the beginning, with it always placing a large emphasis on the concept
of hope. But this concept of hope became an explicit core aspect of
it in IV, where it is identified as one of the main concepts of the
side. Isabeau even refers to law and chaos as pessimistic, to
contrast the self perceived idealism that is a core aspect of
neutral.

In this sense, neutral tends to adopt a stance of causing harm
being worse than allowing harm. And so it focuses on an insistence
that you shouldn't make sacrifices for the purpose of good ends. It
does however acknowledge that not being willing to make sacrifices
means that things may be more likely to end badly, and lead even more
people to harm. Since you cannot focus on the greater good. It says
that you should retain an idealistic view when refusing to make
sacrifices, hoping that you can arrive at good ends anyways. And
tries to hold to the idea of not doing so even when things end badly
and it causes harm. This is tied to its focus on individual people.

Another aspect of this idealism is that law and chaos tend to
pursue different ideals, seeing them a semi incompatible, but neutral
tries to pursue both. But this results in tension in the fact that it
is on its surface contradictory to maximize two opposed ideals at the
same time. And realistically you will have a more limited version of
each. Neutral hopes to be able to overcome this, and achieve more of
each than can be realistically expected rather than to give up and
focus on a more definitely workable plan. This is shown at the end of
iva, when satan asks you which path you would choose if forced
between ones which would bring harm to either you or your allies. But
the neutral inspired answer is to pick neither. To refuse to accept
that such a limitation exists. It sees this refusal to settle as a
virtue that will help pave the way for new paths in a way that
accepting sacrifices might not. The other sides see this idealism as
naive and veering away from a realistic assessment of the actual
negatives of their own plan.

The darker side of this idealism is that their refusal to make
sacrifices even when likely to end badly can simply steer them in a
bad direction. In IV steven openly says that in your neutral world
people will yearn for joy and affection, but will most likely feel
more pain and sadness. Orcus in strange journey also calls these
optimistic hopes illusions. And in many games, neutral paths are
implied to not solve the problem being faced long term, such as SMTI
or even the new neutral ending in redux. The idealism of neutral is
based in a certain type of heroism that it considers virtuous. To
make certain heroic choices to try to protect and try to accommodate
everyone, even if it is unlikely to work. But the negative aspect of
this is that held to such a degree that it is willing to do so even
at times it is openly dangerous and likely to lead to bad ends (like
flynn giving himself up in iva) is a sharp deviation away from
realism.

**The bioconservative thesis** or **bioconservatism** refers to the rejection of or heavy skepticism of the idea of certain transformations of humanity. Contrasted against law, neutral's version of this implies a rejection of law's moral bioenhancemnt in favor of keeping closer to standard human nature. This conservatism can be based on the idea that certain advancements in biotechnology may risk compromising human dignity, among other issues. While neutral is not against all forms of human enhancement as a whole, at times approving of posthuman beings like steven, it does reject mentalities that too significantly transform the human consciousness. For instance, in redux's new neutral route where you become a posthuman, in the ending arthur asks you if you still feel human, highlighting the risk of losing your human essence and the need to retain it.

**If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him** is a koan used in zen buddhism. While meant to initially sound provocative and blasphemous to the monk who was told to reflect on it, they were meant to reflect until realizing the deeper meaning. Which is that viewing the buddha as exclusively external is a mistaken view which will inhibit ultimate spiritual growth. And that one must ultimately realize that buddha nature lies within, and that one must cultivate this. "kill" here refers to destroying the dualistic image that makes one think there is no internal buddha. Despite this, actual buddhas were still venerated however. This idea is not limited to buddhism, but has analogues in other religions as well, specifically forms of hinduism.

In terms of megaten, the games in general, but neutral specifically emphasizes the realization of demons as something that also exists internally, and so which must be realized not exclusively as external authorities. Lucifer in IV on neutral talks about your desire to subsume demons, having them follow you as shadows in your hopes and dreams. Showing a realization of this connection. And of course in-game this is often depicted via literal fighting.

## Chaos - Anarchy

**Chaos** is based on an ultimate call to self interest, encouraging people to release their repressed emotions to fight for what their will desires, even if it leads to others being trampled over in the process. Chaos claims to ostensibly be about freedom, but this freedom is not ensured for all, but rather advocated for the individual or tribe, who can use their radical freedom to subjugate others. At times, this can become fairly oppressive, with chaos even taking inspiration from japanese fascism. As a polar opposite to law, there is no guaranteed happiness or protection at all, but in exchange you are called to do whatever you desire if you have the strength to do so. So its goal is not maximizing freedom for all, but raising the heights of what one can accomplish if they have the strength.

### Social darwinism

**Social Darwinism** is a term used to refer to various
theories that emerged in the late 1800s that tried to apply the
evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society. Normative
versions held that people should be free to compete even in ruthless
ways in order to facilitate social evolution, and for the more fit to
rise above in a steep hierarchy. It was used variously to justify
things like imperialism, capitalism, or fascism. Forms that try
interpreting it as a literal scientific truth have been seen as
discredited.

Chaos is based heavily on social darwinism, with both Is chaos
ending and the hunter notes in iva stating openly its basis on
natural selection and survival of the fittest. Gaians believe that
ruthless competition, even when taken to lethal extremes, is good in
order to foster the strong coming out above. And that the strong
inherently deserve the right to manifest their will on the world. In
strange journey even saying that the weak have no inherent right to
life, since such is earned via power.

In game this manifests in both interpersonal and group levels,
with gaianns advocating both interpersonal duels as well as war.
Lucifer in Is chaos ending says that the strong surviving would
improve the quality of the people as a whole. Strength here means
primarily physical strength, but can also extend to other skills and
strength of will. And that it only holds them back to have to protect
the weak, saying that this allows the beautiful strong spirits to be
trampled on. They said that in past chaotic systems, The strong ruled
the people while the people respected the strong, cursing their own
weakness. And that this was an ideal mode of life.

Chaos presents this ideology as one of theoretically absolute
freedom and individuality, since people are told that the only
limitation to what you can do is your own power and fitness to do it.
And so the heights of freedom are raised to unlimited means for the
strong. And so it is presented as an extreme of self oriented action,
to contrast law's extreme of big picture action. In seeking out your
own interests, they are encouraged to unleash their repressed
emotions, and engage in behavior of impulse, seeing this as the true
nature of the world.

Despite the focus being heights of freedom for the strong, they do
not lack all government. They start without a rigid concept of laws,
but rulers do appear under this situation in the form of warlords and
the strong manifesting their wills. Making the point that it is only
the strong who achieve max freedom, and the others follow them.
Making the point that unlimited freedom on paper for the individual
allows them the ability to subjugate others, repressing their
freedom.

While chaos approves of hierarchy and forcible subjugation, it
does disagree with inherent class systems that individual people are
not allowed to try deviating from. Because it considers this orderly,
and violating the spirit of competition. The distinction being that
they want each individual to if they end up subjugated it is due to
their own weakness rather than an inherent facet of their birth.
Though notably in real life class systems are often associated with
social darwinism, in-game they are associated more with dark law.

Note that gaian doctrine does not explicitly define this social
darwinism to be pure egoism. In iva it says that while the official
docrines are survival of the fittest, many members confuse this to
mean a dog eat dog situation. Which means that while many consider it
a normative fact to uphold the idea that the strong should succeed
and this as a type of natural living, others consider it a call to do
whatever benefits you, which shows why some chaos demons sided with
the center in ii. The main push is tied to their deep ecological
views in that they see upholding darwinism in society as connected to
upholding a natural order.

While most chaos endings uphold this social darwinism, the new
chaos ending in redux tones it down slightly. One of its main
distinctions being that it denies that only the strong should
survive, and while it is still violent and libertine says that the
strong can use their strength to protect the weak who are close to
them. And focuses more on the unlimited possibility of a world where
you can do anything. Though it is emphasized that it is still a
dangerous world since people are still free to kill.

The specific form of agressive individualist social darwinism seen in chaos is sometimes known on the internet as avaritionism. Though this is not a term used in political philosophy proper.

**Might makes right** is an aphorism either used as a descriptive statement that the ruling forces shape how things are seen, or a prescriptive statement that the strong are more noble and worthy, similar to the idea of master morality. While might makes right is a core staple of chaos, different members of chaos seem to fluctuate between whether they mean that the strong are inherently deserving, or merely that one can act in their own interests, and so the strong have no reason not to. It is an explicit ideal that chaos sees as aon the highest values to uphold.

"**The law of the jungle**" is an expression that means "every man for himself", "anything goes", "survival of the strongest", "survival of the fittest", "kill or be killed", "dog eat dog" or "eat or be eaten". It can be viewed either as a description of a place or event, or as an active ideal.

**Dog eat dog** means that people
will do anything to be successful, even if what they do harms other
people. In IVA's notes it says that many gaians
interpret its philosophy in a violent dog eat dog way when officially it
is only stated to be social darwinism. In strange journey A jack frost also concedes that in the chaotic demon world that that tends to be how things go. In persona 5 Goro accuses the world of being like this already, using it as a justification for the things he does. Though he refers to it as eat or be eaten. Saying he was clearing out the people already like this. And in dsj alex describes chaos as kill or be killed.

**Meritocracy** is a political philosophy holding that power
(and sometimes use of resources) should be vested in individuals
almost exclusively based on demonstrated ability and talent. Although
chaos claims to profess this, its focus is less on all forms of
merit, and more specifically on merit of force. And it is less
structured, but more that your ability to maintain a position through
force is seen as justification alone. In desu 2 the chaos analogue is
focused more on different forms of merit, and explicitly called
meritocracy. In real life it is often used as a pejorative, stating
that it is merely appealed to as a justification for existing
hierarchy that ignores social factors rather than a real plan of
action.

**Elitism**
or **Supremacism** is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite are on the
whole inherently superior, and therefore deserve influence or
authority greater than that of others. Though what consistutes the elite can be delineated in different ways. The fundamental basis of social darwinism is an elitist mentality.

**Trial by combat** was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it was a judicially sanctioned duel. Chaotic factions at times uphold this in a more direct sense, saying that the winner simply inherently deserves victory. Such as the mantra in nocturne.

**The Right of Conquest** is a historically upheld right of ownership to land after immediate possession via force of arms. It was recognised as a principle of international law that gradually deteriorated in significance until its proscription in the aftermath of World War II following criminalisation of a war of aggression. Chaos beleives that things taken by force are generally rightfully yours.

**Imperial way buddhism** refers to the form of buddhism in the
time leading up to world war II based on the heavy merging of zen
with nationalist, militarist and social darwinist attitudes. The
emperor of japan was deemed its divine head.

In dharmic religions, karma refers to the consequences that result
from the undertaking of deliberate actions, most commonly as regards
your future births. This is seen as a spiritual form of cause and
effect rather than a divine judgement, placing the ultimate
responsibility for your actions on you. Imperial way buddhism used
the doctrine of karms to support social darwinism, saying it was a
natural order. It also justified militarism based on the idea of
expansion of influence and the need to protect the realm, and used
the idea of budhdist detachment to resign you to this being the
nature of the world.

Chaos is based heavily both on tantric buddhism and on imperial
way zen. One aspect of this being that it considers this ideal of
social darwinism being one where due to lack of proecctions your
outcome is based entirely on your own power, seeing this as a
manifestation of karma. This being the basis of the first arc of smti
where chaos appears as an anaogue of imperial japan. Imperial zen
also placed the emperor as the primary object of worship above
buddhas, which ties to chaos' focus on warlords above buddhas also.
Though unlike imperial zen, chaos does not think you should consider
yourself absolutely subject to a state or emperor.

**Equality of opportunity** is a political ideal that is
opposed to caste hierarchy but not
to hierarchy *per se*.
The background assumption is that a society contains a
hierarchy of more and less desirable, superior and inferior
positions, and then it advocates that people should have equal
ability to seek these positions with hopefully the most qualified
achieving them. Some criticisms highlight that it is often used as a
mask for inequality when focused on without reference to balancing
outcome also. And that it is used as an excuse to ignore self
perpetuating cycles of poverty. This is highlighted in game when fumi
says that regardless of things holding one back she has no sympathy
for people who don't get out of it.

Chaos claims to be about this, saying that this goal is to have
people only get what they can by their own ability. One issue with
their interpretation however is that they focus primarily on strength
rather than overall skills, and they have no lower bound, so that you
can literally be killed if you cannot prevent it. Likewise, since no
one is exempt from their violence, many will be shafted before having
a chance to manifest their skills. And so this is in many ways a
nominal quality only.

**Satanism** as a self taken identity is a more recent religion
inspired by crowley's thelema, drawing on figures such as nietzsche
and ayn rand. Its most notable form being laveyan satanism. Its
ethics are based heavily on extreme individualism and egoism,
advocating indulgence, self deification, and an eye for an eye code
of ethics. It strongly supports social darwinism, seeing
egalitarianism as something that props up mediocrity and decadence.
And is strongly against the abrahamic faiths, which it sees as
promoting idealism, self-denigration, and herd behavior. Some forms
also support eugenics, or more harsh prison systems.

It has been described as having both hierarchcal and anarchist
elements. And likewise, chaos, which draws on it also unites both of
those influences. Not all satanist groups are theistic. Some see
lucifer as an archetype rather than a real figure. Although notably,
many satanist groups consider themselves allies of eachother
regardless of those perspectives. Note the in-game parralel of the
ambiguity over demons being both archetypes and real beings. Chaos of
course is explicitly satanist, heavily resembling satanist ethics.
Although it also mixes it with various eastern philosophies. Satanism
took the term left hand path from tantric dharmic practices, which
are likewise a large inspiration for chaos. For more information on
satanist groups and their relevant ideology as it pertains to chaos,
check out the satanism
page.

**Thelema** is an occult
practice created by aliester crowley which is often considered a
proto form of satanism. Thelema's teachings held that external ethics
were meaningless, and what mattered was compliance with your true
will. Hierarchy was assumed, with little sympathy being paid to those
beneath you who conflicted with your will. Though respect was paid to
equals who you came in conflict with. Since aliester crowley shows up
as an explicit figure working for chaos, they are presented as a
large basis of its ethics. More information on the spirituality and
satanism pages.

### Libertinism

**Libertinism** is a lifestyle or pattern of behavior
characterized by extreme self-indulgence and lack of restraint, often
which has connotations of rejecting religious authority. Libertines
are devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or
undesirable, especially ones seen as standard precepts of their
larger society. It has large emphasis on acting as one wishes, and
unleashing one's repressed desires. Libertinism is not necessarily
inherently egoistic, since while it is about spurning the majority of
moral concerns it does not necessarily inherently claim there are
none at all. Though it can overlap with egoism, and those who do not
seek moral justifications for their actions. It is heavily associated
with the writer marquis de sade.
This line of thought is a large basis for chaos, since their main
goals are releashing your repressed desires, as well as acting freely
for your own interests and indulgences. Note that for chaos,
libertine is a more accurate literal description than egoism, since
while some chaotic figures seem to be pure egoists, the official
teachings do consider the upholding of the world of chaos an actual
moral concern. For instance, lilith calls tayama evil, which is an
accusation that would not be a meaningful claim to an egoist. And
yama seems to judge by tangible standards.

**Individualism** is ideology or social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Chaos has large elements of individualism obviously, but at times they do also formulate into groups and act in ways resembling group egoism.

**Vertical individualism** is individualism that stresses steep
hierarchy, as opposed to horizontal individualism which stresses
equality. While both neutral and chaos emphasize individualism, chaos
depicts itself as based in pure vertical individualism. Vertical
individualism preferences individuals in the sense in which any
individual on paper has near unlimited power for personal action and
ability to effect their will, but a cost of this is steep hierarchy
in which many people don't have as much power to accomplish things if
they don't rise through it.

Notably, a reason that the term freedom is associated with neutral
rather than chaos is because neutral focuses more on the idea of a
sustained freedom for everyone. Whereas for chaos, while the lack of
structure raises the height of freedom for those who achieve it, in
practice there would be difficulty for those lower down the
hierarchy. In infernal tokyo it showing that the lower class are
basically de facto slaves. While chaos does advocate that the
hierarchies are not set in stone, and that you can try to use your
power to raise through them, in practice this would not be a
realistic option for most. Which is why in SJ the same game where
your team turning chaos refers to it as there being no more masters,
a demon npc talks about how in the old days of chaos humans were
theirs to command.

Interestingly, atlus makes the point that this vertical
individualism and vertical collectivism are closely related, with the
former often collapsing into the latter as people band together and
the steep hierarchy shifts the focus to group thinking since the
lower down have no realistic option but compliance. Which is why
chaos is also associated with the vertical collectivism and
nationalism of gotou.

**Rugged individualism** is a term
that indicates the ideal where an individual is totally
self-reliant and independent from outside assistance in a way that is meant to call to mind old explorers as well as ideals of strength. Chaos often seeks to uphold aspects of this ideal.

**Spontaneity** is a concept that originated in taoism, but was
later absorbed by zen buddhism. Spontinaeity is about acting without
pretention or need for reflection, being more true to your true
nature, as well as nature itself. Chaos, being based heavily on
eastern ideals draws on this element from zen. Chaos seeks to embody
this state of natural existence, living spontaneously and without
inhibitions. Like taoism they even compare this to animals. Since
taoism was about living in tune with nature, often even as a solitary
being, it can also be a basis of chaos' individualist ethics. Taoism
and zen originally however did not see this as an aggressive
mentality, but chaos more explicitly focuses on the impulsive
aspects. Since chaos is specifically inspired by zen buddhism in its
militarized form, these things are also being interpreted in a light
of implied violence and ingroup logic. Being part of the veneer of a
warrior.

**Egoism** is the theory that
one’s self should be the ultimate motivation and the goal of one’s
own action. This often implies that nothing is inherently owed to
anyone else, and so things done for others should generally only be
to arrange mutual benefit or because it is self-fulfilling to do so.
While chaos has a strong trend of egoistic thinking within it, such
as in IV where the right answer is to tell merkabah that you did this
for yourself, chaos as a whole is not necessarily pure egoism, since
it sees the rule of the strong as an independent overall good. Though
iva points out that some members interpret it as pure egoism, with
some even betraying chaos for their own reasons like belphegor in II.

Note that egoistic thinking does not
necessarily imply total individualism. There can be egoism on a group
level, where a group bands together to work for collective interests.
Which you see elements of wth gotou's nationalism working for their
own interests.

The only time the word egoism is used
directly in series however is used not to refer to actual egoists,
but by Goro accusing the phantom thieves of acting egoistically by
using their own standards to do things rather than those of society.
However, this would not be egoism per say unless done in a willfully
selfish way.

**Egoist anarchism** is a subgroup of anarchism founded by max stirner that is considered an extreme form of individualist anarchism. Stirner believed that it was only rational to act in one's self interest, and that if this were pursued by all members of society it would result in the collapse of the state due to no one being left who respected it as an authority. He used the word **spook** for anything outside of your ego such as groups or ideologies that one mistakenly thought they owed loyalty to. He advocated egoism and amoralism, saying that in place of groups or governments that you believed had moral claim on you, there would be the pragmatic **union of egoists** which you joined only when it was in your self interest to do so. While chaos in game does not consistently result in anarchism, nor preach total egoism, they do have elements of egoist anarchism within them, and use an anarchy logo in iva.

Stirner wanted to abolish not only the state, but also the idea that society was an institution responsible for its members. He did not think people were normatively called to work towards anarchism by him, but that in the pursuit of their own interests it would result as the state was disregarded. Many egoists saw the issues with capitalism not that people had what they didn't deserve, but that others did not realize that this was upheld by no moral command and that they were free to disrupt it. Note that despite stereotypes, the vast majority of historical anarchists were not this extreme.

Stirner says that the egoist rejects devotion to the idea of a lofty calling, having no external political leaning besides living themselves out without regard to how well or ill humanity may fare thereby. He held that the only limitation on the rights of an individual is their power to obtain what they desire. For stirner, property simply comes about through might: "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property." These aspects of might makes right, and only your own will mattering being close ties to the chaos side. As well as insistence that compliance with anything but your own will is buying into “authority,” a thing he fully rejected as having any claim over you. He took this to sociopathic levels, saying that even murder is not really wrong for this reason, which ties to chaos' idea that random killing simply happening form time to time is a tolerable thing in their world. Note however that not all members of chaos are pure egoist, despite egoist anarchism being a large inspiration for them.

Even though most anarchists didn't agree with the egoists' ideology, they were sometimes tolerated by more social anarchists as allies for disrupting society, under the assumption that their negative aspects could be pacified later on if it was presented to them as in their own self interest to get along. Some egoist anarchists agreed, but others said that their world would horrify those not yet exposed to it. The reason social anarchists tried to have egoists as allies was because at the time these ideas were formulating many considered the current order bad enough that they imagined that even the idea of no rules or duties would lead to an improvement. And they assumed the amount of egoists who would go around killing would be rather small. And you can see some hint of things like this in chaos, where more peace oriented figures like virochana work for it even though it is more aggressive. And lucifer at the end of II talks about how you can work for relative peace if you desire.

In their own time, many compared stirner with nietzsche, perhaps more than any other two individuals. Although nietzsche was not an anarchists, people noted the similarities of both focusing on one's own self as if they were the only one who existed, and on being true to one's own will, and standing apart from the herd. Even though their ideologies are much different, individual anarchists in general have generally had a strong nietzsche inspired mentality. And it is common for people who glorify selfish egoism to consider them the two main inspirations. Chaos if course draws on the general trend seen within these people.

**Illegalism** is an anarchist doctrine which rejects all moral obligations and governmental law in favour of the satisfaction of one's own desires. Illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. It is largely inspired by max stirner's egoism. They broke off from the anarchists who said that theft from the rich was justified by the idea of individual reclamation, saying that instead it needs no moral justification at all. And that these acts need not be taken in the name of a higher goal, but merely in the name of their own desires. In terms of chaos, this relationship between anti authority arguments in terms of jutification for egoistic or criminal activity is an inspiration for them.

**Tribalism** is the
posession of a strong group identity that distinguishes a member of
one group from other groups. It is often based on strong relations of
kinship that gives members a strong feeling of identity. While chaos
contrasts law's cosmopolitan group oriented thinking, chaotic
individuals still act in groups at times, of bands fighting together
for their own interests. Tribalism can exist on many scales, such as
large ones like nationalism, but chaos more often focuses more on
immediate tribal identity, due to its association more with gang
violence, city-states, and warlords. Different chaotic groups may
focus more on tribalism or individualism, such as gotou in smti
focusing heavily on ingroup rather than pure individual.

This tribalism can also veer a bit into traditionalism, since
while chaos does not care about traditionalism in an internal sense,
seeing change and new ideas as good, it does care about it in the
sense of preserving your own values against outside forces if they
are values that represent you as an individual or culture. And has a
large emphasis on the past.

### Warlordism

**Militarism** is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability to use it aggressively to expand or to promote the interests of their group. It may also imply the glorification of the military and of the ideals
of a professional military class and the "predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state." It can also be tied to glorification of aggressive and violent tendencies that reflect these attitudes.

In contrast with law's emphasis on pacifism and peace, chaos has war as an actual ideal. This is ties to its nietzschean ideas of struggle and overcoming, as well as its social darwinistic tendency to think that people should actively struggle and so only the strong should survive. Since it glorifies the strong, as well as thinks that those who can maintain a position through force should hold it, it heavily implies that an effective warrior class would ultimately be a majority of those with power. One of the titles for the chaos route in overclocked is even explicitly labeled as warlord.

**Warlordism**. A warlord is a leader able to exercise military, economic, and political control
over a territory due to their
ability to mobilize loyal armed forces. These armed forces, usually considered militias, are loyal to the warlord rather than to an established state. One of the chaotic titles in overclocked is warlord, it representing a large element of how chaotic figures take and hold power.

**A war of succession** or **succession war** is a war prompted by a succession crisis in which two or more individuals claim the right of successor to a deceased or deposed monarch. In IV, it points out that a feature of chaos due to the instability of leadership it implies will be that wars of succession, and equivalent struggles for power will be a common occurrence. This is because chaos advocates that no one has an inherent right to their position, and so the strong are free to struggle to depose someone to claim a higher one if it is possible. Even rulership positions.

**Anocracy** is a term for any social system that is part democratic and part dictatorship. Chaos embodies aspects of this in the tension between its ostensible claims to freedom and free association contrasted against the backdrop of absolute rule by the strong. Anocracies are often unstable, having even more political violence than autocracy. And so this tension is reflected in the presentation of chaos. In practice, anocracy normally refers to places that have some kind of state however, whereas chaos' version is mixed with some degree of anarchy.

**Despotism** is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. Normally, that entity is an individual, the despot, as in an autocracy, but societies which limit respect and power to specific groups have also been called despotic. Chaos often has despotic aspects via its rule by force, with the title in overclocked for one of the chaos routes even being despot. Despotism is a synonym for tyranny, which is the english term for the leading chaos races.

**Libertarian to fascist pipeline** is a term for a percieved tendency of those who claim to want unrestrained freedom for selfish purposes to also be willing to accept authoritarian or militaristic means for said purposes over time. Tying to the fact that if the percieved freedom served the egoism rather than the other way around, that its easy for one to accept a shift to different means one sees as more efficient for reaching said end, if the former means weren't working. In this context, while chaos talks about lack of authority and radical freedom, in practice this is shown to result in steep hierarchy and warlords without them taking issue.

**Bushido** ("the way of
warriors") is a Japanese term for the codes of honor that was
alleged to have dictated the samurai way of life. It is generaly seen
as stressing honor, ingroup loyalty, and mastery of martial arts. As
a concept, it was created in the later 1600s, but did not become well
known as an idea until the late 1800s. It draws from the ingroup and
hierarchy aspects of confucianism, while also influenced by shinto
and zen in a sense that was designed to temper the warrior spirit
with a striving for wisdom. The term was later used during WWII as a
synonym for japanese nationalism, tying it to the samurai ideal.

This is a large inspiration for
chaos, especially with the presence of gotou who is based on real
world nationalist yukio mishima who sought to restore japan to these
samurai based warrior values. Mishima was obsessed with
individuality, both on the individual level from the masses, and
desiring japan to separate from the globe as well. He also shared the
chaotic perspective somewhat, by saying: "What we call evil is
just a portion of the original chaos out of which man was born. To
live is to be in chaos, and to retreat from chaos is to be dead."
Both in the presence of gotou, as well as its japanese clan
orientation chaos has a large inspiration from this. Doubly due to
its buddhist associations, which were a large inspiration for
boshido. More information about this in the zen at war section of the
buddhism
page.

In chaos-worlds, the different demon clans function in a way
similar to classical clans, with a strong ingroup focus, and steep
hierarchy. The main difference being an open admission that rule is
based on strength, rather than inherent authority. Chaotic figures
also often don an aesthetic of eastern warriors, and believe that
training in martial arts in conjunction with wisdom is an important
staple of their ideology. And yama even mentions the idea of honor.
Like budhido, a heavy element of chaos is a focus on war, which is
seen as life affirming. The samurai were also of higher classes,
which feeds into the chaotic ideology of seeking to train to be
superior and command a hierarchy as well.

Although words of pure chaos are often too unstable for the modern
conception of nations, sometimes nationalism is an element of chaos
in alternate formats such as those of gotou. Which is a way that
chaos may appear in situations that are not yet too unstable for
nations to exist. And shows the double aspect of how this warrior
spirit can focus on smaller or larger group scales. This ties to the
real facet of nationalist philosophy as group egoism relating to
banding together for its own interests, as well as the fact that
historical uber-nationalist groups tended to be upheld less through
objective legality than by the rule of strength. In WWII japan also
depicted itself as a sacred nation protected by the gods, which ties
to gotou's talk about using the old gods to protect them from outside
forces.

Note that there is some tension between the group focus of
boshido, and the individualist focus of satanism. But chaos as it
appears tries to synthesize these into a continuous doctrine, with
the groups aspects relating to both control by strong individuals, as
well as collective self determination. Note that some real life
satanist groups have had nationalist or strong group leanings as
well, so this focus on self determination of them is not against
groups per say.

An interesting point is that while bushido is associated mainly
with chaos, in Iv and iva the samurai, who are a law organization
talk about the samurai code, which's name is a reference to bushido.

**Gangster**. A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Gangs are another means of contextualizing chaos, and in chaos worlds demons even sometimes describe themself as in gangs. Like in real gangs, chaos glorifies individual action, even of a lawless or criminal nature, but by necessity those who do this form into groups for self preservation. So there is an element of both uber individualism, but tribalism as well. In iva some demons are shown with gangster stereotypes in reference to this.

**Endemic warfare** is a state of continual or frequent warfare, such as is found in some tribal societies (but which is not limited to tribal societies). It is an implicit state of constant warfare with other groups, but which was not always undertaken with the intention for full on war, instead often being limited to minor struggle which was used to establish the strength of one's own group and as an expression of strength in general. Though which could escalate to a full war in stages. This state of implicit constant war marks the mentality of chaos heavily, since war is used as a major theme of chaos, as well as constant struggle, even which includes violence, but in practice this does not always mean literal full out war, but can be tapered down to a relative peace at times.

**Muscular religion** began in the mid 1800s with muscular christianity, which promoted an explicit union between religious values, and fitness, aggression, discipline, sacrifice for the nature of the ingroup, and a dislike of sterile intellectualism, seeing it as divorced from everyday life. It came from late 1700s writings that advocated for fitness as not merely conducive to physical, but also moral health. Seeing it as leading to an aggressive mentality and ability to protect your ingroup from outside groups. While muscular relgion is mostly associated with abrahamic religions, chaos does embody parts of its aspects.

**Vertical** **collectivism** emphasizes hierarchy, and the relation of a group to others. While chaos professes to be about individualism, one aspect of it is the fact that the strong will achieve this, but many others will end up following behind them, and ultimately collapsing into groups. And chaos emphasizes this steep hierarchy on both the individual and group level. Law is not merely all forms of collectivism, but specifically those of a kind that are trying to be a universal system, rather than to support a specific group's interests against others. When the form of chaos veers more into group chaos it can manifest as nantionalism, such as in the case of gotou, or remain smaller and more tribalist.

**Anarcho-monarchism** is an obscure position that combines aspects of individualist anarchism with certain power structures. Although it is viewed as on the surface as a contradiction in terms, it argues that the monarch is a symbol of sovereignty that is reflected in the absolute sovereignty of the free individual. While it is meant to resemble anarchism at local levels, it generally has an underlying backdrop of an established power. Most mainstream anarchists reject it as upholding, or even worsening the very power structures that mainstream anarchism seeks to free itself from however.

This tension between these qualities is sometimes embodied by chaos in-game. Chaos is often depicted as anarchic, even using an anarchy symbol as a logo in iva, and in sj and II talking about how now there are no more rulers. In tension with this though, it has rulership in the form of warlords who hold their position by power, and who call themselves kings, such as lucifer and the king of bel, or even you in iv. This form used by chaos differs from traditional monarchy, since these kings are not seen as having absolute authority, but are merely the ones holding this position. The chaos race is called tyrants in reference to the greek term for someone unlawfully seizing power. There is also an element of nietzsche's aristocracy of the skilled in this, where he says those who prove themself with their power will naturally command a hierarchy with them on top.

**National-anarchism** is a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-Marxist and anti-statist social darwinist ideology. First-wave national-anarchists advocate that different ethnic, religious, or social groups should peacefully coexist by developing separately in their own confederations of autonomous tribal communes within a post-capitalist stateless society. Although a fringe idea in real life, it does tie together two of the aspects of chaotic thought in game. Since the individual places in chaos worlds seem to function like ingroup city states. National anarchism tends to be heavily disliked by most anarchists due to the implicit toleration of racial segregation and racism that could be implied by it.

**Imperialism** is a policy that involves a nation extending its power by the acquisition of lands by purchase, diplomacy or military force. In the chaotic context, chaos supports using violent means to aquire additional rule and power.

**Anti-imperialism** is a term used in a variety of contexts. While chaos holds both imperialist and anti imperialist views in tension with eachother, this balance is based in the fact that its social darwinist ideal calls people to struggle to expand their influence, and others to fight back against this. In the conception relevant to chaos, it refers to nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity. Basically a rejection of the concept of outside rule, calling people to assert their own interests. Though notably, it holds that this is something tou can achieve for yourself via power, not something one inherently deserves.

Chaos emphasizes that groups should be focused on self interest, which at times gives a tone of anti imperialism from the internal perspective. And even in revolutionary contexts you get examples like in IV, where lilith was encouraging the people to rise up of their own accord rather than leading them. Gotou as well rejects the american rule claiming it is imperialist in nature.

**Confucianism** considers most morality to be heavily hierarchical, based on the relations between particular individuals, and the duties the higher and lower individuals have to eachother. These roles having to do with various inter-family roles, and the relation of people to their sovereign. While chaos' form of hierarchy is not identical to this, it is a large source behind the ideology of bushido which is a source of the ideology of chaos. Since in the interview where they mention chaos' eastern tone they are talking about among other things the asian focus on ingroup and hierarchy, this means a basis in confucianism. Ingroup hierarchy and clans distinguishing themself from eachother corresponding somewhat the the city-state or gang violence tone of chaos. Gotou's form of chaos (seen in its own section below) has a more explicit basis in classical confucianism and hierarchical roles.

### Nonconformism

**Nonconformity** refers to refusal to comply with the dominant cultural attitudes. Nonconformity is a main basis of chaos, taken to an extreme in the sense that they uphold your right to act on any nonstandard practice that comes to your mind regardless of the cost to society. But that due to the implied danger of this it is on you to defend your ability to do so. This does provide an implied tension due the fact that the strong can try to enforce compliance via strength however, and the degree it supports nonconformism relates to the degree in which you have the strength to manifest it.

This nonconformism can be reflected on either a personal or group level. While chaos at times upholds individualism, and doing your own thing if it can be upheld, it also upholds the idea of groups doing their own thing, and either rejecting larger society or whatever standards they see at odds with themself. Sometimes the latter can seem self contradictory, if it is reflected in such characters like gotou, who sees his nationalism as the group not conforming to the later international context, even though there was a degree of enforced conformity within. But this is all reflected within the tension of the different ways chaos can manifest.

**Neophilism** is a term coined by robert anton wilson for the slant of strongly desiring novelty and the new, either on an individual or ideological level. It is characterized by a strong desire for and ability to adapt to change, and a dislike of the static, tradition, or commitment. Unlike revolutionaries who seek a specific goal, neophiles seek revolution by nature for its own sake. Neophilism was even explicitly said by him to be something people associate with satanism and heresy. Many chaotic figures in the game will allude to the need for the potential for new and the change, often with an openly stated open ended view on what this would mean.

**Biopunk** is an ideology that involves acceptance of transforming your own body in order to foster rebellion and liberation. In terms of chaos, this is a close analogue of their merging with demons in order to be able to embody this type of chaotic mentality and essence. And so is an important concept for contextualizing the alignment, since the radical transformation of humanity is a large aspect of both law and chaos.

**Romanticism** was an
artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward
the end of the 18th century that focused on emotion and individualism
as well as glorification of all the past and nature. It was a
reaction to the industrial revolution and age of enlightenment, which
it saw as scientifically rationalizing nature in a negative way.

The movement emphasized intense
emotions as an authentic source of aesthetic expeience, and
spontneity as a desirable characteristic. It preferred intuition and
emotion to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, and assigned a high
value to the achievements of "heroic" individualists and
artists. There was a subset of it called **dark romanticism**
that reflected on fascination with the irrational, demonic, and
grotesque. Dark romanticism adapted images of evil in the form of
devils and vampires as emblematic of human nature.

Certain perspectives are often depicted as where they fall on the
scale of enlightenment vs romanticism. Which was the division between
whether society should develop down a logical or emotional route. In
megaten, law is associated with the trend established by
enlightenment, and chaos with the trend of romanticism. More
specifically dark romanticism. Although the movements themselves in
their original forms no longer exist, inspiration from the trends
they started still persist to this day.

**Anti-demonization**. One facet of chaos at least on paper seems to be the rejection of demonization. Many ideologies demonize certain people or figures, seeing them as corrupt. Chaos claims to reject this, in part by literally trying to turn literal demonized entities back into ones that are seen positively, or to identify with the concept of demonization to reclaim it. This stems from the facet that its egoist slant sees that there is little reason to view any specific figures as inherently corrupt. Chaos is of course not entirely consistent on this point, since it demonizes the weak, with all the associations this entails. This is tied to its attitude about nonconformity, seeing demonization as inherent declarations against certain people or practices. But it sees its view on the weak not as demonization per say, but a fact of life that they can't act to achieve their goals without power.

**Spontaneous order**, also named "self-organization", is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a concept found in many fields, such as physics, biology, or economics. One use is the concept of various forms of social orders emerging naturally from the individual actions of many self interested individuals. For chaos, they believe that the struggling of the strong against eachother in a state of chaos will inherently lead to a coherent society. For instance, lucifer in the chaos end of IV says that sadly the new world is filled with chaos, and it shouldn't be left as is. Implying the need for it to form to a relative stability, and chaos seeing such as part of its plan. And they see their lifestyle as a free chaos from which this will emerge, in contrast to the more structured order of law.

**Accelerationism** is the idea that either the prevailing system of capitalism, or certain technosocial processes that have historically characterised it, should be expanded, repurposed, or accelerated in order to generate radical social change. The basis of this presumes that the dominant world structure is on a path of ultimately destroying itself, and that through this annihilation the possibility for a following system emerges. And so in order to reach this future state one should rather than entirely rejecting them expand the processes of the current system to speed up its destruction in a sense. In the early part of strange journey you see demons embodying aspects of human society for the purpose of taking its aspects to their ultimate self destructive conclusion to pave way for a new rebirth.

### Nietzscheanism

**Nietzscheanism** is a term for the philosophy of friedrich nietzsche. Nietzsche believed that the original morality of humanity was master morality. A morality made by the strong to glorify themselves and their achievemenets. In response to this, the weak founded a morality in response he calls slave morality. Slave morality glorified humility, acting like it did this by choice, even though it was as a necessary response to being humbled by the strong. While slave morality was more self reflective than that of masters, it lacked the life affirming elements of early master morality. He says that in the future a new group of people will make a future morality that has the life affirmation of master morality, but in a more self aware way. Nietzsche's ethics are often seen as a type of virtue ethics that glorifies the noble virtues of higher people. He advocated for life affirming values that respected one's own self worth highly.

Note that although
he did talk highly of master morality, and the problems with its
opposite slave morality he didn't merely want people to profess
master morality, but their own personal higher morality. Since he saw master morality as anachronistic in modern day. Likewise, the higher virtues in and of themselves were not treated as a form of ethics by him, but skillful aspects that moral systems can be built on. His idea of a future morality is something that he admits that he cannot fully describe, since he won't be its creator and it does not yet exist, but it will resemble the noble virtues of the higher men, but will be more self reflective, rather than just naive and straightforward way like ancient master morality was.

Higher people would break free from
herd morality and make their own morality based on their own
interests and what leads them to positive life affirmation. A general
idea in Nietzsche's work is that values and interests might clash in
such a scenario, and that this is a normal and good thing, with those who are stronger emerging victorious. Engaging in
conflicts and attempts to assert one's values would be good according
to Nietzsche because the engagements and attempts would be
"life-affirming" exercise of power, regardless how much
power one has in relation to others, and whether you ultimately
triumph. This train of thought is obviously a main basis of chaotic morality in most
of the games, being described almost directly. He even states that war is preferable to a lazy and non life affirming peace for this reason. Nietzsche equates happiness with power, which is a strong chaos leaning. And that it is good to clash because it is also life affirming to express negative emotions.

For nietzscheanism, neutral is based more down to earth aspects, such as the idea of creation of new values, whereas chaos is based on the emphasis on struggle and hierarchy and glorification of war and reinterpretations focused on more extreme ideas. Similar to how real groups like the fascists were inspired by nietzsche to take his ideas in a more extremist direction (that wasn't quite his intention) chaos in its tribalist and social darwinist elements is likewise based not only on the original, but on this reinterpretation in the form of an aggressive ideology. Fascists merged nietzsche's description of past master morality with his goal of the ubermensch to create a new idea from it. And chaos is likewise based on a mix of this description of the past as well as focus on the future.

Like nietzsche, chaos also has a large focus on destruction. Nietzsche talked about how destruction of the old is a necessary step in the creation of the new. That is, in order to create, one must destroy something currently prevailing. And chaos has a large element of this violent tone. In SMTI the gaian priest even used it as one of the main gain lines, talking about how all things need to be at some point destroyed to provide potential for the new.

**Master morality** and its contrast
against **Slave morality** is a central theme of Friedrich
Nietzsche's works, especially On the Genealogy
of Morality. Nietzsche argued that as a whole there were in the past (though this is not a fundamental law. There could have been others) two fundamental types
of morality: 'Master morality' and 'slave morality'. Slave morality
values things like kindness, humility and sympathy, while master
morality values things like pride, courage and strength. Its core essence being nobility. And cultures tended to be heavily shaped in relation to their views on these.

To nietzsche, master morality was the original morality. The morality where people were seen as good due to their tangible qualities, the strong and victors valued themself and were life affirming. Masters saw themself as good and the weak as inferior or ignoble. Nietzsche presents slave morality as an invention of those who were envious of the masters, inventing it because they saw themselves as oppressed by them. Slaves inverted morality out of a need to see themselves as good, making things like humility and good intentions a virtue, and declaring evil to be equivalent to the actions of the masters. Slave morality differentiates
good from evil, (rather than good from bad like the masters) inverting it so that humility and the qualities that
masters consider ignoble are actually the higher ideal, (Note that
law's virtues are criticized and called slavery by chaos) and the
noble qualities are considered evil to have obtained. And they present this humility as a deliberate choice, rather than something they necessarily have from weakness.

The basics of being a
master(or noble) is thinking of yourself as 'good'. On the other
hand, the basics of being a slave is thinking of the master as
'evil'. And slaves have this judgment focused morality in order to
appear smarter than or greater than those they resent. Nietzsche
defined master morality as the morality of the strong-willed, and so
saw what he called slave morality as the weak trying to obtain power
over those with stronger wills. Something he saw as incorrect and
damaging.

In terms of religion, master morality was associated with polytheism, slave morality with monotheism, and the future morality with atheism. He saw polytheistic gods as representing their people, and life affirming qualities. But monotheistic gods, due to lacking particularity, or human flaws weren't properly beings at all, and so representing them as the ideal to seek represented a desire for nothingness. He also noted how monotheistic religions tended to place more emphasis on their afterlives, corresponding to being less life affirming. Note how this parallels many things in-game, such as lucifer even using the phrase "the empty breath of god." And polytheism representing the earliest morality. The future morality also being represented by human life affirmation rather than gods, tying it more to neutral.
Master morality is unambiguously a heavy inspiration for chaos. Even the presumed history nietzsche gives of master morality as the original morality that slave morality being law later triumphs over resembles it. Doubly so since he deliberately associates master morality with polytheism, and slave morality with monotheism. Although chaos is kind of a mashup between master morality and the future morality he spoke of.

**The higher man** (distinct from
ubermensch) is seen as having five main characteristics. He is
solitary, pursues a “unifying project,” is healthy, is
life-affirming, and practices self-reverence. Solitary meaning
unfazed by the attitudes of the herd. Basically someone self
actualized and self loving. Not merely indulgent, but also creative,
and seeking responsibilities to prove self worth. Nietszche was also
anti utilitarian saying that seeking happiness is nonsensical, but
rather one should seek to become a higher man, and happiness would be
a result. Higher people would have self confidence to such a degree
that others might deem it hubris. He was worried that the
existence of slave morality would inhibit and harm potential higher
men.

Note that the implication he gives is that while master morality was professed in the past by a kind of higher men, the higher men of the future would have a more advanced morality. One unknown to us now. So the reason it is hard to place nietzsche's ethics is because while he glorifies master morality somewhat, it is not clear how closely the future morality will resembleit. In practice, much of the descriptions he gave imply it as similar, since he considered that higher men would realize their own superiority and not support concepts like equal rights that appeal to the weak. For instance, master morality he also calls the "pre-moral" period of
mankind. And the values of higher men in the future he likewise says would once again go beyond the concept of good and evil. Note that chaos treats law as empty and life denying more than calling it evil per say. Nietzsche criticized buddhism for being life denying, but did consider its ethics more positive, due to him saying they were already beyond good and evil.

Chaos is tied to the concept of higher men. And chaos calls law slaves many times in game. Nietzsche saw slave morality as trying not to free themselves, but to turn all of society into slaves, forcing the slave like attitude of humility upon all. Interestingly as a counterpoint to chaos, it makes sense for law to
be both socialist and christian, because nietzsche saw socialism as
the secularization of christian values of glorification of humility,
etc, and not fit for those striving for individual greatness. He disliked utilitarianism as well, another law attribute.

Note that nietzsche also did not think a single kind of morality was fit for all people. Higher people would profess higher values, but they are necessarily the few. He even describes a hierarchy where on top is the intelligent, then the physically strong, then those who are neither. The lowest people would likely still profess some slave morality even in the future where the world is once again shaped by higher men. But at the same time, the weak would be following and complying with the standards of the higher. This corresponds a bit to how chaos worlds are seen in game, where the weak in them are not necessarily seen as professing the same morality. Merely having to comply with it.

He says in beyond good and evil that higher men would realize that they do not owe lower people anything. that humanity exists for the sake of higher men to be able to be higher and held up. Which obviously corresponds heavily to chaos and it talking about how the strong should be able to do as they see fit and the weak have no inherent right to life. Making chaos in actuality closer to how nietzsche saw his own ideals, even if people could try to use the ambiguity to defend a more neutral path. But again, the fact that dark neutral is more overtly nietzschean than regular neutral is likely an admission that nietzsche leans chaos. Likely then, atlus considers him to be between neutral and chaos, and so ambiguously presents different interpretations or aspect of him for each. Notably, nietzsche does not so much care what people do as why they do it. Which could carry over to what actions are seen as weak or not in a chaotic society.

**The blonde beast** is a euphemism used to compare the masters of master morality to lions. Nietzsche expressly insists it is a mistake to hold beasts of prey to be
 "evil", for their actions stem from their inherent strength, rather
than any malicious intent. One should not blame them for their "thirst
for enemies and resistances and triumphs". Similarly, it is a
mistake to resent the strong for their actions, because, according to
Nietzsche, there is no metaphysical subject. Only the weak need the
illusion of the subject (or soul) to hold their actions together as a
unity. And that it does not make total sense to make the bird of prey accountable for being a bird of prey. Chaos embodies this idea of animalistic living, and so its depiction seems like a mishmash of this and ubermensch.

**Ubermensch** is a term for an archetypical future figure who would rise above conventional morality to create and enforce their own values. While the "higher men" are a realistic version that leans in this direction that is more achievable, the ubermensch was a more non achievable absolute of the idea. Something that is
an ideal to strive toward more than something presented as if it had
ever been achieved. Since ubermensch create their own values, it is also possible for two of them to have different values. Notably, the ubermensch is not as big of an idea of nietzsche's philosophy as a lot imagine. Being only referenced a few times.

Nietzsche wrote that one seeking
to become the ubermensch should only have friends one can clash with
in order to become stronger from the struggle. Friends you never
disagree with can make you complacent. Which shows that strife can
exist on all levels in the chaotic mentality. Some have also drawn
lines between this and the fact that your friends often become
enemies in the games in general.

While chaos is associated more with the nietzschean paradigm as a whole, the focus on value creation of the ubermensch is compared with neutral also. Despite this, lucifer has a bit of ubermensch about him also, embodying the qualities of strength and autonomy, expecially in smtii where he talks about acting based on his own values. Note that the term Ubermensch was not
coined by nietzsche, but actually comes from **faust**, where the
demons refer to faust as an ubermensch for trying to go beyond human
logical understanding using his drives and motivations to achieve
hidden knowledge. So the association of the concept as coming back
around to refer to something leaning towards the demonic has basis.

**Death of God** is a term that means the societal loss of faith in religion as a basis to use for
absolute values. Nietzsche worried that people would fall into
nihilism once they lost faith in this absolute, and so must overcome
it by creating their own values. The death of god is shown in a more literal sense in the games, with the death of yhvh. Although the different sides have diifferent views on what that means.

**Life affirmation**. One aspect of nietzsche's work is the emphasis on life affirmation. He saw desiring external worlds as a form of rejection of this life, saying that people should affirm their life in this world. Same with affirming platonic values, which he saw as a rejection of the value in tangible exisetence. In strange journey lucifer calls this Joie de vivre, which is a french phrase for intense enjoyment of life.

**Anti-Christ** or **Anti-Christian** is a book by nietzche that expressed many of the ideas seen above. The relevance it has in context being to show him explicitly delineating himself as an opposing force to christianity. Although not directly related, one quote of nietzche was "Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don't throw away the best of yourself." Highlighting that many of the things people considered their vices were important facets of their identity.

**Aristocracy.** Nietzsche's preferred
government seemed to be something like an aristocracy of the higher men that allowed the superior to flourish in a kind of meritocracy. And would see people fall in like behind great men in their natural
order. Though it is not clear how much he literally believed this
himself, or merely depicted it as part of his work. Obviously the
idea of a meritocracy shows up often for chaos. Which also believes that the weak would follow behind the whims of the stronger. Note that although nietzsche downplays the idea of there being a "morally superior" state in an objective sense, he still considers some states to have more value. Note that chaos deviates from nietzsche somewhat in having an anarchic tone.

**Herd mentality**, or mob mentality,
describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain
behaviors. Though he called it various things, nietzsche often
talked about this as a negative thing, saying that one mark of
superior people are their ability to break free from this herd
mentality. Note that the biggest emphasis on breaking free from the herd is dagda's dark neutral. Though chaos still emphasizes this in a more balanced way, saying you are free to assert your own values against the herd.

**The last man** is a term used in Thus Spoke Zarathustra to describe the antithesis of the
imagined superior being, the Übermensch. The last man takes no risks, and seeks
only comfort and security, and because of this lives a long, but empty life. And according to nietzsche is the goal modern society set for itself. In the book Zarathustra confronts the crowd with a goal he
presents as so disgusting that he assumes that it will revolt them.
The lives of the last men are pacifist and comfortable. There is no
longer a distinction between ruler and ruled, strong over weak, or
supreme over the mediocre, and they have a strong egalitarian slant. Social conflict and challenges are
minimized. Every individual lives equally and in "superficial"
harmony. There are no original or flourishing social trends and
ideas. Individuality and creativity are suppressed.

The society of
the last man would go against the theoretical Will-to-Power, the main
driving force and ambition behind human nature, according to
Nietzsche; as well as all other thriving life, in the universe. The
last man, Nietzsche predicted, would be one response to the threat of nihilism.
According to nietzsche this is not even necessarily ideological, but
something they fall into out of pure apathy. And as such relates to the end of persona 5 in what it shows in mementos. Likewise, it is similar to the types of criticism chaos aims at law, though that is more of an accusation than literal. Everything from the egalitarianism to the desire to avoid conflict. Note that nietzsche however used this more to describe western society as it already was. And so there is an element of neutral to it too.

**Amor fati** is a latin phrase that means "love of fate" or "love of one's
fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything
that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary. Nietzsche considered this a mark of higher people. In megaten note that gaians train to accept even death, saying that if they lose fights they deserve death, and that this is merely a facet of life. And in strange journey, the demons accuse humans of not being able to graciously accept death like their ancestors because they are afraid of losing their pleasures. Tying to the past's depiction as more chaotic.

**Anti-Humanism** Stirner and nietzsche both share a common theme of self professed anti-humanism. Stirner says that humanism is merely religion in disguise, since God and the mystical soul are really just projections of man's virtues into an absolute archetype. And so humanism is essentially a renaming of the god from theism from the collective ideal mind of man to the collective body of man. Stirner calling humanism a religion that worships the "god" that is "mankind" ironically ties in with neutral's humanist slant that deifies humans to represent human interests.

What Stirner is denying is that man is essentially a thing at all, or owes anything to "mankind". The whole notion of 'essence', for Stirner, is just a peculiar constructed way of thinking about things, but doesn't actually contain substantive meaning. So, when we say that "Man is a rational animal", what we're really saying is that we have a particular subjective idea of what it means to be a man that we apply to individual men. Stirner sees the individual as the creative nothing who produces their identity through their own will. And so humanism is basically groupthink that in a sense projects similarities that are not there, and that the rational will deviate from as it is another myth of order. This obviously corresponds well to the fact that if neutral in game is considered humanistic, chaos likewise rejects this humanism, seeing it as too structured, and still too lawful, and representing this rejection of humanism metaphorically by placing humans and demons together. Stirner also considers treating people's value only in their relation to collective mankind is a denial of their particular personal or true value as seen by yourself.

**Influence**. fascist regimes were eager to lay claim to
Nietzsche's ideas, and to position themselves as inspired by them. This being in part due to the influence from his sister who edited his works to be more fascist in nature. With fascists depicting themselves as the higher men in an age of last men, and lauding his criticism of democracy and egalitarianism, and his glorification of war and warriors. Despite some overlap, Nietzsche however saw nationalism as another action of the herd. Interestingly, scholars point out that despite his anti egalitarian nature he was focused on an older idea of the warrior and aristocrat, whereas the nationalist was a more modern concept. This ambiguity having place in chaos, since it has both uber individualist aspects, as well as calling to mind older warrior cultures despite the nationalist trend. So chaos is based both on some direct nietzscheanism, as well as in cases like with gotou, it filtered through a fascist lens.

### Deep ecology

**Deep ecology** is an ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of the ecosystem for its own sake. It generally presupposes a radical restructuring of human society to be in tune with nature, and the goal of upholding natural unfolding without humans interfering with it. It often argues that humans are divorced from nature and that human society disrupts the natural order. Deep ecology's core principle is the belief that the living environment as a whole should be respected and allowed to unfold naturally as it does without human disruption.

Chaos tends to view nature in this way, literally calling themselves gaians after the concept of devotion to nature and earth as a superorganism. Although one distinction is that while some real deep ecologists view it through the lens of rights, gaians to not believe in rights per say, but believe in the freedom for things to unfold and struggle, and see the natural world as an embodiment of this that should be upheld. In keeping with law being about the artificial, and chaos about the natural, part of chaos' goal of a chaotic world that is not controlled towards anything is intertwined with the idea of flourishing nature, and not being divorced from its rules. Note that even chaos has an element of holism here, seeing that all of existence should flourish in tune with this process rather than be divorced from it. Similar to how there are corruptions / bad versions of law and neutral, one depicted bad version of chaos is when it lacks this slant towards protection of the world.

The social darwinist element for them is actually tied to the idea of protecting the unfolding of nature as a whole, and seeing humans and demons as something that should not be divorced from the chaotic process. To them, this tension between the need to uphold nature and the seeming egoistic slant is that the latter is not pure egoism, but derives from this overall holistic view of the natural unfolding of the world, and the need to uphold this. While some chaotic figures are pure egoists, some are deriving their darwinism from a kind of view of it as the natural chaos of the world. And as such continuous with a deep ecological view of the need to uphold this. Although this can also apply even if they are not overly concerned with nature as a whole, still seeing it as the natural order.

This gives the ecological elements a darker lens, since they believe that even human and demon society should not be divorced from the harsh coldness of nature which does not inherently guarantee your life, and the fact that in nature the weaker creatures will often die. Note that there is also a religious element to this since chaos sees its gods as embodiments of natural processes, and mem aleph is like a representation of the earth in the same way that yhvh is the face of god.

An interesting contrast between chaos and neutral is that while they both emphasize nature, they mean subtly different things by this. Since while neutral tends to talk more about human nature, and your individual nature, chaos talks more about nature as a whole, and darwinism as a normative force. While neutral also talks about nature a bit in this wider sense, its focus tends to be less on the primal darwinistic nature, and more on a kind of balanced view of nature as reality in general.

**Green Anarchism** is a form of anarchism which professes anarchism for
environmentalist reasons, saying that modern technology is harming
the earth. Chaos has an element of this, focusing on how human technology has divorced people from the laws of nature, and that they need to return to them, and to a focus on being in tune with it. It is one of the major plot drives of SJ, though also shows up a bit in other games, such as in II and IV where ishtar is restored to heal the earth. Green anarchists tend to focus more on egalitarian or peace oriented communes, but the sense in which it is applied to chaos is to not divorce humans from the laws of nature and the logic of earlier societies which harmed the earth less and were more aggressive.

**Neo-Luddism** or **new Luddism** is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. While chaos is not fully luddite, it does have elements of it at times, often rejecting the use of any technology that it sees as divorcing humanity from nature, or inhibiting the unfolding of nature as a whole. At times, like in strange journey chaos even chooses to destroy human society as a whole along with most of its tech to reset this focus in the hopes of being able to develop down a route that lacks certain technological aspects it sees as negative. Neo luddism is often tied to deep ecology and the idea of not using certain types of tech that it sees as harming the environment.

**Anarcho Primitivism** holds that the creation of society
was actually a bad thing for humans, and that we should return to a
state of nature from before most technology to be more in tune with
it. While anarcho primitivists generally profess to be more
egalitarian and peace oriented than some of what chaos is based on, the chaos ending of
strange journey mixes them together, reverting the world to an
earlier state as an ideal. Note though that most chaos figures in
other games don't seem to want this however. Note that anarcho primitivism is not necessarily about environmentalism per say, but is a focus one could have for environmentalist reasons. And they are lumped together in strange journey, being a more extreme version of the logic of chaos.

**Ecofascism** refers to a totalitarian government that requires individuals to sacrifice their interests to the well-being and glory of the land. While most groups in real life are not this, it is commonly used as a pejorative to accuse groups of advocating for extreme measures that veer into this. Chaos in-game has more elements of it though, seeing mass death and dictatorial rule as a helpful process to help restore the earth's environment.

## Alternate forms of law

### God of law

**Yhvh** is listed in his own
section because while he is a lawful entity his ideals are often distinct from the ideology those endings revolve around in certain games. Note also, that in games where yhvh is depicted as less corrupt, in some games he
can be presented as something compatible with other sides as well, such as in strange journey where you can resurrect him and have him
bless and pledge to watch over the neutral world as well. **Shekinah** from strange journey redux can also fit in this section, having an equivalent ideology and filling the same role in a world where yhvh was dead.

The contrast between him and law is
something touched on many times in the series, being shown as early
as II where he is fought even on law, then on nocturne where
presuming yhvh is the one behind the system, he cares about a reason
being chosen, but doesn't care which, then in SJ the restored yhvh
despite leaning law is also fine with other paths, desu where he
backs off it neutral is taken, and finally in iva he is shown to not
really care about the world of law, specifically having been behind
the arising of both sides to play them off of eachother. In iva even having his own third group of high angels distinct from the angels and fallens that were fighting eachother.

While yhvh is normally depicted as wanting a heavenly realm to exist for people to go to after death, this does not always imply his desire to wanting the earth to be lawified as well. In iva, merkabah eventually realizes that yhvh never desired a world of perpetual peace on earth at all, and turns against him. Likewise, when he is depicted as corrupt, the implication usually exists that he desires for the focus to be more on his veneration. Whereas the law route in II shows satan wanting to create a world of law for the people themselves. So yhvh's relation is on-off with the law side at times. Having a distinct realm of his own from heaven often, and often not even being seen by most people or angels. Note also that not even all angels seek to spread the heavenly nature onto earth. While messianism at its founding seemed to venerate him directly, its ideological slant developed different strains, leading to the possibility of fighting against him if he turned out to be a detriment to the world itself.

While yhvh is seen as theoretically representing the paternalistic aspect of law, corrupted version are seen as things that move from being paternalistic for the purpose of good ends to doing so for the sake of control in general. Note that since this section focuses more on the nature of corrupted versions, the concepts here revolve more around specifically religious concepts more than they do general ethical ones.

**Divine command theory** (also
known as **theological voluntarism**) is a meta-ethical theory
which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent
to whether it is commanded by God. Note that this does not tell you
what the content will be, merely from where it is derived. Yhvh in at least II and iva seems to
explicitly believe that his commands are themselves normatively
binding. For instance, in II on neutral, he directly refers to aleph
as committing sins by violating his divine will many times. And he
refers to questioning him as the same as questioning reality. As well
as on law acting as if the act of satan judging him is inherently
incoherent.

This is given some context by the fact
that yhvh seems to consider himself the reflection and embodiment of
the absolute. And so as the god of this absolute nature, he considers
himself the one who makes the infallible decrees from infinity that
must be followed. While real divine command theory is based on god being literally absolute, in megaten it is based on him thinking he is the avatar of the absolute in a particular way. Because while he is not necessarily a true
monotheistic god in game, he is the embodiment and representation of
such an idea.

Divine command theory does not necessarily imply that the commands can
be arbitrary. Since some forms to try to avoid this posit that god
does not consult some independent Platonic realm where the objective
principles of goodness exist, but rather god just acts according to
his necessarily good character, and so is the standard of goodness. But many ethicists question whether this constitutes a standard of objectivity.

As for what his particular commands
tend to be in game, little is made of them, and they are not
elucidated much in game, aside from a few cases such as him noting
that the way aleph was created violates them. They appear to be law
leaning when they are hinted at at all, but the specific creation of a world of law is not generally an explicit part of them, being something he is not always for, or considers something to be held back until he considers it time. If they are meant to resemble what comes from
divine command theory, they would resemble deontological commands
that are absolute (though christianity tends to interpret it more as
virtue ethical). In game they are noted to be
restrictive (in the games where he is corrupt), but lack the kind of
utilitarian benefit associated with the law routes themselves.

**Justification by faith** is a
concept in certain strains of christian theology that implies that a core concept of
being considered just in the eyes of god is to have faith in jesus,
such that the righteousness of him is considered implicitly
transferred to you. Since the righteousness is external, it is also
referred to as **imputed righteousness**. In megaten, when corrupt
yhvh treats belief in him as an independent good, saying in iva “I
offer my hand to any and all who believe In me. Have faith and you
shall receive my blessing.” To which asahi replies along the lines
of “You judge people's worth by how much they believe in you. Obey
you. What are we to you? Are we really worthless if we dont have
value to you?” Here he is placing moral value in the act of belief in him itself.

It should be noted that yhvh doesn't
seem to exclusively be acting selfishly here. He seems to truly
believe that worship of him is good, and that people following him is
a good thing he needs to increase and ensure exists in order to give
value to the universe. He sees explicit monotheism as a necessary perspective, and one which is explicitly focused on veneration of god. So his
existence, and his insistence on being followed relate to that idea
of this as a necessary ideal core to human existence. Since megaten's
world is not inherently monotheist, this relates to voltaire's quite
“*If
God* did *not*
exist, it would be necessary to invent him.“ This also ties to how
interviews imply that people worshiping him are implicitly
worshiping the great will as well. Since yhvh as monotheistic god
conflates himself with it, and sees that absolute aspect as the
foundation of his authority. This is also the implication of the line in iva that his
very existence debases humanity. Because it implies and places the
value of people and moral action necessarily in a relation to him,
rather than as something that exists in and of itself.

Note that these things apply to the more corrupt versions of yhvh. Less corrupt versions are not implied to hold these positions in as much of an absolute, instead trying to be part of the system, and important for that reason. Note also that it doesn't seem like his
goal is always to maximize believers. In some contexts like in iva he intends to uphold a binary choice of for or against him to let people choose. This is based on the christian idea of free will, and god allowing a free choice to people whether to accept or reject him.

Note that the appearance of yhvh's plan
in iva is heavily inspired by the **kabbalah**. In the kabbalah,
the demons who represent the dark side are not bugs or enemies of the
system, but part of it, albeit their influence meant to be rejected
in favor of siding with god. In some forms the moderators of the dark side work for god directly. So the struggle between demons and
angels is deliberate, and all part of the larger system, rather than a true
opposition. In-game it is deliberately caused by yhvh, but the
angels and demons are not aware that it is a ruse, and both have
their own ideas of what the end goal will be, until they realize it
was a trick and unite to fight him.

**An autocracy** is a system of government in which supreme power (social and political)
 is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject
 to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of
popular control. This is often how corrupt versions of yhvh try to run the world. Albeit, often even corrupt versions will be fairly hands off.

**Theocracy** is a form of government in which a deity is the source from which all authority derives. While every side loosely uses religious terminology, these sides also have independent ethics, even non corrupt versions of law. Whereas corrupt versions of yhvh tend to represent thinking of themselves as the ultimate authority.

**Covenant**. A covenant is a formal agreement between two parties seen as being watched over by divine mandate. The idea of the covenant shows up in
the bible both as a promise of god's presence for the Israelites, as
well as is an interpretation of the sacrifice of jesus and promise of
the world to come.

In iva, the covenant is used to
describe an agreement by yhvh that in exchange for faith and
compliance he will bless people with his presence, being with people
in their times of both suffering and joy. (And presumably also involving him bringing his followers to heaven after death) This covenant is decried as empty,
and lacking much substantive meaning, due to his presence without doing anything not carrying much weight. An additional aspect is him willingly forgiving those who ask for forgiveness. The people on
the law side in iva originally believed that the lawful world was
part of this, but krishna points out that a permanent lawful world
was never part of yhvh's plan, and that he deliberately empowers
lucifer to offset it.

**Original sin** is the Christian
doctrine of humanity's state of sin resulting from the fall of man,
stemming from Adam and Eve's rebellion in Eden, namely the sin of
disobedience in consuming from the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. This is often depicted as orienting humanity originally to sin through inheritance, providing a basis for the christian doctrine of salvation from sin. YHVH in iva refers to original sin as well, presumably thinking that humans indeed have some kind of sin nature that faith in him is necessary to free them from. Though no explanation is given as to its connotations.

**The Ten Commandments**,
also known as the **Decalogue**, are a set of biblical laws
relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The commandments include
instructions to worship only God, to honour one's parents, and to
keep the sabbath, as well as prohibitions against idolatry,
blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, dishonesty, and coveting.
Different religious groups follow different traditions for
interpreting and numbering them. While they are not mentioned
directly, unused art for yhvh's second form in iva shows them,
implying his commandments relating to them. Due to the importance
placed on his worship by himself in-game. Various games do imply he

has specific standards beyond merely being worshipped, though what those might be is left ambiguous.

**Cosmicism** refers to the idea that there is no benevolent divine presence, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos. The emphasis is placed on the insignificance of humanity in particular, not necessarily being nihilistic, but rather saying that from humanity's perspective there is little difference, since the scale on which anything that matters happens is so much larger than humanity that humanity is irrelevant and powerless in its face.

In SMTII on the path to yhvh various lovecraftian beings were shown, seeming to imply an element of this associated with yhvh. In this case, the insignificance of humanity is being tied to ideas about how what matters is god, and not humans. Which is being presented as a self-depreciating view. While this doesn't have the exact same connotations in-game as was drawn by lovecraft, the implication being made is that these views that devalue humanity are similar to ones revolving around cosmic indifference. Unlike lovecraft however, this is being presented as a view that can be overcome. More information on the cthulhu mythos page.

### Dark law

Dark law was used
in an interview to refer to the corrupt center from II, to contrast
it with the goal being pursued by satan in the law ending. In-game it
can refer to corrupted law situations that while maintaining the
lawful aspect, drop the egalitarian goals of the
normal law side, becoming heavily hierarchical. It
can also refer to places like mikado from the beginning of IV (or even aspects of tayama, though the games were not consistent on that point). While
corrupted versions of yhvh are also considered corruptions of certain
lawful ideas, and may overlap with dark law, this is a separate entry
related more to things like the center and early-game iv mikado. Note however that dark law places may also consider themself to be following yhvh, and so may overlap with the yhvh section.

Note that since
the normal law side is light law, whereas chaos in general seems to
lean dark chaos, dark law in II is actually meant to reflect features
of a corrupted chaos as well, Since there were chaos demons working with them seeing it as in their own personal best interests to do so.

**Vertical collectivism**
emphasizes hierarchy, and often the relation of a group to others.
One important facet of corrupted versions of law is that while they
remain collectivist, they drop the egalitarian goals, in favor of a
deliberate system designed to benefit those on top of the hierarchy.
While vertical collectivism is an aspect that chaos veers into as
well, chaos in its ideal form combined it with vertical individualism
and the call to move through the hierarchy, whereas dark law has one
that is more rigid. In 1984 they called its version ogliarchical
collectivism, to imply that power never left the small group at the
top.

One important facet of dark law is its emphasis on obedience to rules, and to those higher up, being presented as an absolutist command with harsh punishments for any violation of, regardless of context.

**Elitism**
is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite –
a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality,
high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience – are on the
whole inherently superior, and therefore deserve influence or
authority greater than that of others. While dark law is warped too
far from normal law to even count as a coherent form of ethics, one
basis of it is that it takes the peaceful goal of normal law, but
rather than working it into a utilitarian framework for the benefit
of as many as possible, it simply does it for those it considers the
elite, with little concern for others.

Chaos considers the elite to be those
who are strong, and more skilled, but dark law focuses more on compliance with and core membership to the group (In practice chaos cares about that too, but not on paper). This elitism
is reflected in how the elite in the center were too greedy to give
up their demonic knowledge, which meant that its world would never
have worked without the need for exploitation. Notably, dark law does not think compliance alone is good enough, because it still prioritizes certain core members. Aside from this, they seem to have a few additional standards of elitism in terms of things like being more dignified.

**Pacifism** one partially positive
aspect of dark-law systems is that they do tend to maintain a
relative degree of pacifism. Mikado for example had never known war
in its entire history. Albeit that in part was because it was a
single country. But never had civil war either. However, this has a
negative aspect as well. The pacifistic mentality is often used to
prevent people lower in the hierarchy from rebelling. And notably,
the higher classes tend to live in peace due to being kept aloft from
the issues that plague the rest. While dark law tends to still have
the goal of perpetual peace, in practice its arrangement is
formulated on exploitation, and so the peace is only in the sense of
the system being all-controlling and so unchallenged.

**State socialism** is a
classification for a political and economic perspective advocating
total state ownership of the means of production either as a
temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism, or
as characteristic of socialism itself. It is often used
interchangeably with state capitalism. A facet of dark law that the
center veers into is the fact that it essentially directly controls
all enterprises that exist under it, with the people themselves
having very little of the actual power. Whereas in light law
situations, the people control and run these things more directly,
and have power over how they are run.

**Imperialism** is a policy that involves a nation extending its power by the acquisition of lands by purchase, diplomacy or military force. In the case of dark law, creating a system of exploitation is a facet of its system. And so the dominant power bringing others under its control for this purpose is a major facet.

**Authoritarianism**
is a form of government characterized by strong central power
and limited political freedoms. Individual freedoms are subordinate
to the state and there is no constitutional accountability under an
authoritarian regime. In II, gabriel talks about how the center
claims to want a world of peace, but in reality, in contrast to the
normal law endings created a world of perpetual domination and
control. This is because true law endings once established would
actually have a decent amount of the relevant kinds of freedom.

**Red fascism** refers to attempts to do socialism that collapse in practice into something more akin to fascism. Dark law has a tone resembling this in SMTII, where the purported egalitarian goals had been replaced with a system of domination.

**Monarchy** refers to a power structure where sovereignty rests with a single person. While monarchy is more associated with chaos than law, dark law tends to have absolute rulers, whether it be one or a few. Rule by a few is known as ogliarchy. Dark law also seeks to ensure that its rule is more stable than that of chaos.

**A class system** refers to a
social arrangement in which there are noticeable distinct (often
named) classes that are highly rigid, preventing people from moving
up or down the system. Dark law situations tend to have a class
system, such as mikado with luxorors and casualries, or the center,
with the distinction between districts. While chaos has a steep
hierarchy as well, they tend to allow for it to be more dynamic,
encouraging people to strive to move up it, whereas dark law tends to
try to keep things relatively static. Notably, the normal law side
tends to have a goal of a classless society, so the deviation here is
being stuck in a stratified situation.

**Nimbyism**, short for not in my backyard, is the idea of rejecting unsightly things being seen around one's own living space, usually without an active push for fixing the problems that give rise to them in general. Nimbyism ties to the idea not of wanting to fix some of the issues inherent to poverty, but rather wanting the consequences of this not seen from their living space. They may nominally seek a nice secure community, but without this being an active goal to allow others to partake in. Groups like the center in II reflect this mentality in that the peace they sought was more of a benefit they as the elevated class sought for themselves, rather than seeking to help bring it to more of humanity.

### Neutral law

Neutral law is distinct from the normal law side in that it is less about a cosmic scope of order used for the goals of light and is more about law or order in a human sense. As such, certain manifestations of it tend to be a bit more comparable to dnd law than the main law side. For instance, jonathan at the beginning of SMTIV has a distinct ideology from what the angels have that is meant to reflect neutral law rather than light law. One of the main differences is that while the normal law side is based on its goals of universal peace and uses order as a more abstract mechanism to arrive at it, neutral law is more focusing on group cohesiveness, and often duty. It will often also have a smaller scale goal, such as duty to one's country or group, rather than the light law focus on the greater good. While it does not show up as a unique ending, its relevance to the games is in the relation of it to the larger side, and the question of whether those who are neutral law will end up following the light law side if it arises.

Note here that one reason that neutral law seems more ideologically vague than light law (aside from not being the major focus of the games) is that similar to neutral neutral being neutral on the light and dark spectrum implies a realm of ambiguity in how it can manifest. For instance, in the beginning of IV mikado was a dark law society, but jonathan worked for it not because he thoughthierarchcally, but because of his perceived duties to the community at large. Only to in the end ultimately slide to supporting light law instead. Neutral law figures are often depicted more ambiguous, since their goal of supporting the order in general could easily sway different ways. Another character who can be considered neutral law potentially is demonoid akira, whose focus was more on peace and working together than laws, with him explicitly saying that laws were not his thing. So there are multiple potential formats, and not all of them embody specifically structure based aspects.

**Patriotism** is the ideology of love and devotion to a homeland, and a sense of alliance with other citizens who share the same values. While the regular law side notably lacks any particular consideration for one's particular group in favor of the greater good, the smaller scale neutral law will often focus on more tangible already existing human groups.

**Conservatism** is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. In the context of neutral law this does not mean the specific ideology of conservatives, but rather the concept of conservatism itself, namely preserving a system and accepting more gradual change in the hopes that it would not significantly disrupt one's culture. This does not necessarily mean no change, merely the avoidance of it happening in too quickly or disruptive of a way.

**Deontology**. While light law has utilitarian ethics and uses abstract cosmic order as a means to uphold them, neutral law tends to look more deontological. It is closer to implying that you have duties to your own community, and need to uphold them in particular.

**Collectivism**. One focus of neutral law is on whatever system you are entrenched in, and your relations or duties to it.

**Pacifism**. One part where neutral law diverges from dnd logic is that in smt in general the order law represents is depicted as people functioning together in such a way so as to not lead to strife. And so while the pacifism of certain manifestations of neutral law is a less strong association than light law, they generally tend to want a more peaceable society. Certain neutral law figures might emphasize the peace and order more, while others emphasize the laws more. For instance demonoid akira says that laws and rules were never his thing.

**Communitarianism** is a collection of philosophies that emphasize the connection between the individual and the community. They are based in a critique of the liberal conception of justice as centered around the atomic individual, saying instead that groups have rights and needs the same as individuals, and that the role and responsibilities of the ndividual in society should also take into account collective group goals or needs. This can be not only on an ideological level, but on a metaphysical level that calls into question the nature of the atomic individual. Communitarianism is sometimes seen as leaning economically leftist as well as socially conservative due to combining the need to account for the needs of all community members with upholding their collective traditional goals. Though in practice it can vary widely.

Communitarianism has a semi relativistic aspect in the sense of saying that upholding pre existing community standards or ruling based on collective community goals is valuable in its own right. Neutral law is shown as having an emphasis on this in IV, with jonathan talkiing about the pre existing ways of life of mikado, and even tokyo. Though light law and the actual angels don't have this type of quasi relativistic approach, due to the actual law side upholding the idea of a universal system. In practice, many modern communitarians scale back this approach, saying that there is limits to the degree a community can justifiably do this, and that it also needs to focus on more impartial conceptions of justice.

**Authority**. One issue of neutral law is of course its focus on following codes or authority. While this does not mean never questioning authority, the issue obviously comes up of what is the right code or authority to follow. something that various neutral law figures might answer in different ways. Interestingly, neutral law arguably has more of a focus on rules than light law does, which is more about cosmic order, and often ends in worlds that are not very rule based.

**Honour** is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality
of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and has various elements such as valor, chivalry, honesty, and compassion. In IV, jonathan mentions being honor bound to work for his homeland. Note that while certain iterations of neutral law focus on honour, the actual law side often goes beyond it into a more cold mode of acting.

**Bushido** is a Japanese collective term for the many codes of honour and ideals that dictated the *samurai* way of life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry in Europe. While bushido is more associated with chaos, especially in chaos' focus on militarism, in SMTIV the samurai working for their lawful system have something they call the samurai code, which is a set of rules they follow, seeing it as an important code to preserve the respectability and passiveness of the samurai. Notably, in iva gaston highlights that the samurai code is a product of mikado, not of the angels themselves.

## Alternate forms of neutral

### Steven

**Steven**.
While before iva came out, one would be inclined to think of steven
as just on the regular neutral side, since that was always the side
he was shown on, iva expands his character somewhat. What the
expansion shows is that he is neutral between both the light and dark
neutral paths in-game. And so his own ethics are not limited to the
specifics of either path, but encompass both. This makes his own
positions a bit more abstract and hard to make sense of, other than
by differentiating what both those things have in common that
distinguishes them from other paths. Note that steven does not
approve of anything that just happens to vaguely be called a neutral path though. The
white are also depicted as a kind of neutral, but steven rejects them
presumably because erasing yourself isn't really helping humans
independently flourish.

Note something interesting here is that while he doesn't advocate dagda's path, the fact that he is just as okay with it as with the one more resembling normal neutral shows that he too rejects neutral's common idea of strict deontological duties. Steven seems aware of the inherent reality that godlike beings can never avoid having to do some things that transcend ordinary human person to person modes of ethics. And so while neutral generally advocates more strict deontological focuses in everyday situations, this indirectly shows that he doesn't consider that aspect as absolute. Though he approves of it all the same if done in a way that empowers humanity.

**Human empowerment**. In iva is that both the light and dark
neutral paths share the heavily human-oriented element. Steven seems
to want the human world to follow an explicitly human oriented
philosophy, one that revolves around human flourishing, and humans
being somewhat autonomous from the influence of non-human identified
gods. Though autonomous doesn't necessarily mean no interaction
whatsoever. This does not imply lack of extremism, because the dark
neutral path is very extreme, perhaps moreso than law or chaos in
some ways, but is fine to steven. Despite this, note that he spends
time hanging with the goddess of tokyo. Note that dagda's path is the
type of thing that irl may not be called humanist per-say, since
humanism implies a deeper connection with humanity at large, whereas
dagda's path is about individuals. Steven seems to believe that
certain neutral autonomous paths will help humans self actualize
better, and transcend their natural limits. Though what this means is
left ambiguous.

**Existentialism**. Steven seems to
retain the existentialist aspect of considering people choosing their
own paths as important. In iva leaving it entirely to you which path
you take, though saying he would only be around to help on the
neutral ones. For whatever reason, he only approves of certain kinds
of neutral worlds he sees as allowing certain scopes of this, though
what forms these worlds can take varies widely. Despite this, he
thinks human autonomy and self actualization matters enough that if
the world veers off course he doesn't personally get involved using
supernatural abilities to fix it, seeing that as seemingly impeding
their ability to act on their own.

### Dark neutral

Nocturne, sj and iva all contrast dark neutral with regular neutral. While it has some similarities, such as sharing its existentialist and (somewhat) humanist slant, it ramps up the nietzschean elements, and completely drops the deontology or concepts of rights. Instead focusing more on self reliance. Ideologically dark neutral tends to resemble chaos much more than neutral, though is generally more solitary, not looking for a fight and is more about keeping to yourself than active strife. To see the nietzschean elements of dark neutral check the neutral existentialist section above. Note that steven is treated as the big good of neutral, yet acts neutral between whether you choose a dark neutral path instead of light neutral in iva. The shomonkai while being an example of a corrupt neutral faction are not quite the same as the other examples, since ideologically they don't overtly have the same dark aspects, aside from a willingness to cause more harm for their idea of a greater good.

**Self reliance** is reliance on one's own powers and resources rather than those of others. This also means needing to protect and take care of yourself, rather than relying on society to for you. For dark neutral This also carries over to ignoring others when they are not relevant to your own interests. Not only dagda shows this slant, but even jack's squad in SJ shows this in their agreement to not interfere with you if you stay away from eachother.

**Nietzsche**. dagda's path is depicted as heavily nietzschean in an explicit way. There's a
direct tone of freeing yourself from the herd to have entirely self
created values, and talk about how they are self created in a way
that makes you like your own god and deliberately rejects other
external gods. Which parallels both nietzsche emphasizing rejection of afterlives as well as values external to the self. Nietzsche even emphasized that some degree of solitude is a virtue, because being too social is tied to mediocrity. Note
that its likely no accident that dagda is treated as leaning towards
chaos. You becoming a god on massacre also represents the concept of higher men creating their own values and other humans following them. And dagda's view on humans' relation to gods relates to nietzsche's call to reject not only external platonic values, but the desire for a world other than the real one. So it corresponds to the idea of human empowerment, even if not humanism per say.

**Anti-social behaviours** are actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others. Many people also label behavior which is deemed contrary to prevailing norms for social conduct as anti-social behaviour. Both isamu and dagda profess a lack of interest in others or concern for others being harmed. Likewise jack's squad does as well.

**Hermitism** is the practice of retiring from
society and living in solitude, based upon a variety of motives,
including religious. Also called hermitry, hermitship. Dagda in iva talks about how friends are worthless, and one does not need them. Which implies living a more secluded existence. Isamu creates a world of seclusion outright. The implication here seems to be that lack of interaction in a sense is neither order nor strife, which is why it qualifies for neutral. Goro in p5 shows a bit of this mentality also, saying he survived without teammates and so does not need them. Though this is depicted as a defense mechanism for the fact that he did not have any he was close to.

**Egoism**. A staple of dark neutral is the orientation to selfish behavior, with Steven emphasizing dagda seeking freedom on his own, and dagda emphasizing how from now on people will pull their own weight. Where this differs from chaotic egoistic behaviot however is that it doesn't explicitly seek conflict, but merely seeks its own ends and will run into it if it conflicts with another. Note it is not necessarily pure egoism, despite aligning closely to it.

**Transcendentalism** is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States. A core belief of transcendentalism is in that people and nature are as a whole good, but are corrupted by many social institutions such as religion and political parties. Adherents believe that society and its institutions have
corrupted the purity of the individual, and they have faith that people
are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective intuition over objective
empiricism. Adherents believe that individuals are capable of generating
 completely original insights with as little attention and deference to
past masters as possible. It is only from such real individuals that true community can form. Even with this necessary individuality, transcendentalists also believe that all people possess a piece of the "Over-soul" (God).

Although it may not be a direct inspiration for dagda, it has many similarities, such as thinking that people are good and function best when thinking individually, and without influence from groups. And that they should be independent and self reliant. Note how despite a strong emphasis on individuality, and freedom from formal religion, it still talks about people being one in a larger sense. Note that dagda too in iva uses the phrase one with the universe, still talking about an essence of one-ness despite his individualism. And like transcendentalists places a high value on relation to nature. While it may not be a direct inspiration, it is a large inspiration for nietzsche, which is, and so at the very least is an indirect one.

**Hypocrisy** is the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. Dagda is accused of this in iva, since his actions don't seem to conform to any particular code or self consistency at times. Note that hypocrisy leveled at neutral is a common potential issue, since its balance could be interpreted as flip flopping. For instance, dagda treats forcing others to work for you either via enslavement or brainwashing as not violating self reliance. Whether this is internally consistent or not being left ambiguous.

**Human chauvinism** is already present to a degree in regular neutral, but is often ramped up heavily with dark neutral. Jack's squad openly tortures demons, seeing them as tools, and dagda is willing to help create a world that makes it hard for demons to hold form in general.

### Light neutral

Light neutral is what the bonds ending associated with danu in iva is considered. Since this ending is meant to de facto fill the role of standard neutral, it is similar to the normal neutral / neutral ideology. As such, the aspects here should be considered in addition to the aspects already associated with regular neutral. The main distinctions are its slightly increased focus on peace and tolerance, and respect for other groups and trying to get along rather than be at odds. It also has a large focus on bonds and trust, to reflect slightly bigger picture thinking, focusing on internal cohesiveness within groups. In contrast dark neutral distinguishes itself from neutral in that it rejects bonds, tolerance and friendship as meaningful goals.

**Tolerance** is the acceptance of an action, object, or person which one dislikes or
 disagrees with, where one is in a position to disallow it but chooses
not to. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or as "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward
those whose opinions, beliefs, practices, etc., differ from one's own." In the context of iva it implies a level of tolerance between different groups who are ideologically opposed, and emphasis on trying to foster a relative degree of peace between them.

**Philia** is considered one of the main virtues by aristotle, and it translates loosely to friendship. Aristotle believed that having and fostering close friendships was in and of itself a virtue and morally good action to pursue. These concepts of friendship and trust being a large focus of light neutral.

### The white

**The white** are a group steeped in pessimism, thinking that the world is so corrupt that it would be better to end it entirely. Their goal is to
destroy everything, and they think that destroying the universe is an
actual good, since it has negative value and so reducing it to zero is an improvement. Since they think this is an actual good rather than merely wanting to since they think no values
exist, they are not nihilist per say, despite commonly being considered as such, but relate more to the idea of falling into nihilistic outlooks via pessimism. Note that the white are identified as **neutral** in game, due to believing in neither order nor chaos, but are a pessimistic inversion of not doing so, finding nothing of value to replace it with except oblivion.

**Life Worth Living** For instance,
value theory has a concept called a life worth living which is a life
that was good enough that it was preferable to have existed. And if
the utility of this life goes below this then it means their
suffering was so high it would be better if they had never been. The
main drive of the white is that so many lives are below this, and
will be indefinitely that it is preferable to end all of them rather
than allow reality to continue. So the white can simply be applying
this logic to the collection of reality as a whole. Meaning that the value of existence is ultimately in the negatives, so they think returning it to zero is an improvement.

**Extinctionism** refers not to a
general concept of normative ethics, but to a conclusion one can
reach. Namely, that human extinction (though it can be expanded to
other life also) for whatever reason is preferable. Which is of
course the main drive of the white. This word is not that commonly
known or used however, even though it is the most accurate word for
their ideology.

**Fatalism** is the belief that the ultimate outcome of events is not able to be changed, and is an inevitable fact of life. This can be believed in a literal sense where a mystical force predetermines it, or in a pessimistic sense of certain facts of live being unavoidable. The white are based heavily in a fatalistic attitude that presupposes that no outcome is likely to end well in any realistic sense, and so it is a net positive to avoid living by erasing one's reality.

**Benatar's asymetry.** There is a
concept called negative utilitarianism where preventing suffering
outweighs causing happiness. An unfortunate aspect of it that was
noticed is that if suffering outweighs happiness too much, then even
relatively happy lives containing some suffering are considered not
worth living. His conclusion then is that
allowing life to continue or people to be conceived is immoral as a
whole, and so life should end. This ideology can also apply to
deontology if one considers that bringing new people into existence
is forcing a lot of both happiness and sadness on them without
asking. All in all, it is not considered a well supported theory, but
the point being that there are cases for reality existing as a whole
being less morally preferable than it not. And these cases can be
made using moral intuitions that people already have.

However, the white aren't even
necessarily saying that life in general is intolerable in concept but
rather that in practice, life in that reality is intolerable as a
whole, with them seeing no other way out.

**Will to nothingness** is a term coined by nietzsche to refer to those who after the death of god, respond to the issue of nihilism by passively rejecting the world choose to have no attachments to it in order to avoid suffering. He says that it is tied to the idea that the world as it is ought not to exist. Although its not a perfect match for the white, one aspect of them is that while they reject god as a basis of value and action, they did not have the strength to discover another perspective and to choose to be life affirming. The will to nothing is presented by nietzche as something that comes from falling into nihilism. The white however are not nihilists in-game, since they believe that the world has negative value, and reducing it to zero would actually be an improvement. But they are still used to represent the nihilistic attitude of not being able to find value in life.

**Antinatalism** is a philosophical
position that assigns a negative value to coming into existence,
standing in opposition to natalism. Not all antinatalists believe
that once one exists one should kill themselves, but they share the
belief that its better for any individual, and thus for the world as
a whole not to exist.

### Alignment crossover

While law and chaos normally refer to
ideologies very far from neutral, there are also lite versions of
them. These may contain aspects of both law and neutral, or both
chaos and neutral. But since there are varying groups, they will be
composed of different aspects from each. Neutral law, and neutral
chaos are one type of in between alignment. Sometimes lite enough
versions of these will support an overall neutral paradigm, but work
for law or chaos within it..

Due to neutral's culturally pluralist
nature and its focus on the sovereignty of different groups, while it
fights for neutral in an overall sense, it tends to leave cultures
alone that might lean towards law or chaos as long as they do not
disrupt a wider scope overall neutral paradigm. For instance, in iva
for the bonds route you end with law and chaos characters with you
who say they ultimately need to go back to and support their
respective lifestyles or groups. In addition, neutral often also
approves of angel and demon societies being full law and chaos, so
long as they do not try to transform human society to these natures.

From neutral's perspective, the reason
it might not try to push neutrality can be varying reasons. It may
think that even if other societies are immoral that they are outside
its jurisdiction if not asked for help, or alternatively beyond its
ability to influence. From the perspective of these chaos lite or law
lite groups, there can likewise be different means to explain them.
They may be a hybrid of law/chaos and neutral qualities in that they
think that their leaning is ideal, but like neutral think it is
either impractical or outside their jurisdiction to influence other
groups. They may also think that law or chaos should be reached by
slower more moderate means, or even see the benefits in polar groups
existing.

For instance, in majin tensei II there
is a group called the **tetrarchy** composed of four angels and
demons at relative peace who collectively preside over the worlds for
the sake of maintaining balance in the human realm. Note here that
not all angels and demons desire (human) worlds of full law and chaos
respectively. Some have more moderate views, and like mastema in IV
even interact with, or work together with the other side to achieve
them. For a similar example, in iva yhvh deliberately seeks to
maintain a balance between angels and demons at times too, though
this is not for them to have an alliance, but to be antagonistic,
creating a binary for people to choose from, so they can choose their
own outcome (though this is a darker take on the idea).

## Alternate forms of chaos

### Egoistic chaos

**Egoistic chaos** refers to the specific subset of chaotic figures who interpret chaos not as an ideological statement that one needs to uphold anything in particular, such as the world of chaos, or that there are any moral precepts at all, but merely that you are free to do whatever you wish. Note that since ordinary chaos is often ambiguous where the line between it and egoism ends, egoistic chaos is a thing that will commonly show up as a strain within regular chaos. Despite this, egoistic chaos figures can even do acts that go against the world of chaos if it is in their own best interests. Such as belphegor in II who saw it as in his best interests to side with the center. Note that the term egoistic chaos does not show up in game. It is merely a subset of chaotic figures that you see. Other figures who might qualify for this are douman and the mad scientist from SMTI. douman simply stating that his goal was taking over the world, and the mad scientist talking about how his goal was to destroy it.

**Egoism**. Naturally, the main drive of this egoistic aspect is just pure egoism. Egoism is interpreted as chaos due to chaos' association with doing whatever you please and libertinism.

### Light chaos

Light chaos, while normally not explicitly seen, becomes the main association of the chaos ending in smtv, being represented by tsukiyomi. What differentiates this from regular chaos is that while regular chaos embraces selfishness as a virtue, and acknowledges social darwinism on a personal level, light chaos is more open ended, acknowledging that different paradigms could take a variety of forms, but tolerates conflict between them, even though this is accepted to a degree of intense violence. As such, it retains the chaotic aspects on an intergroup level, (though with more of a tone of tolerance) while internal to a given paradigm accepting different possible dynamics.

This is alluded to earlier in SMTII, when lucifer talks about how chaos can be used to move towards a more pragmatic internal peace if you desire it. And in the depiction of vairochana, who while not challenging chaos as a whole, upholds a more benign domain within it.

Due to the more ambiguous associations, and the low development of plot in V, it becomes harder to describe light chaos in terms of specific political goals, due to having an acceptance that internal paradigms can take a variety of forms. As such, its main focus is moreso interpersonal, upholding the struggle of darwinism and allowing chaos to foster potential moreso in terms of group conflict for the sake of growth, but not encouraging it explicitly interpersonally. It may still have tribalist leanings though, inasmuch as how tsukiyomi talks about the amatsukami claiming the world.

**Cultural pluralism** becomes a major aspect of light chaos, upholding that different paradigms will develop different value systems. But unlike the pluralism of neutral, light chaos encourages strife and a degree of darwinism to test them against eachother. It professes a degree of respect of other paradigms, even when struggling against them.

**Social darwinism**. While light chaos has a degree of social darwinism, it is less than that of dark chaos. It doesn't actively seek for individual members of a society to be constantly at odds, but for larger paradigms as a whole to test eachother, even violently, to see which will win out and survive. Despite this, it tends to have a goal of avoiding too much violence at times, potentially, as in V, even going against dark chaos, seeing it as a liability.

**Meritocracy**. While light chaos doesn't inherently advocate meritocracy internal to the system in every way, it does place value in the strong / gods to gain power and uphold a system, and it believes that systems themselves and their ability to sustain themselves and propagate is a major part of justifying their existence.

**Relativism**. While light chaos is not necessarily fully relativistic, it seems to lean a bit towards the idea that internal to any paradigm, the paradigm itself is to some degree tolerable if it is being upheld properly via the combination of people desiring it and strength.

### Neutral chaos

Neutral chaos refers to the leaning of chaotic characters who while they embody the chaotic aspects of individual action and rebellion do not explicitly hold the regular chaotic drive of selfish action that borders on egoism. Neutral chaos is something seen in certain characters like walter as he is in the beginning of SMTIV before he sides with the regular chaos side. Neutral chaos is more vague than neutral law, since while Jonathan embodies a system that is already reflected in mikado (albeit used for dark law ends), for neutral chaos there is no equivalent group used for association. One of the main focuses of its appearance is the fact that characters like walter who have this leaning can end up siding with dark law when it arises. and so while it shares some similarities with dark chaos, the scale of this is not elucidated on in-game.

**Individualism** is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. A large focus of neutral chaos is this emphasis on individual action. While neutral chaos also tends to accept a degree of hierarchy, it is not as overtly open about it as the regular chaos side, and stresses the ability to struggle for free movement through the hierarchy.

**Libertarianism** is an ideology that comes in various forms (some even collectivist) that upholds the idea that freedom is a high ideal, and should be upheld as a core principle. While neutral chaos does not necessarily have the extreme disregard for systems that dark chaos often does, it does lean in this direction, albeit in an ambiguous way.

**Revolutionism** is the state of being revolutionary. Neutral chaos is often more prone to revolutions, seeing radical change and action in opposition to the idea of more gradual change. This revolutionary attitude is often in response to class systems, seeing them as inhibiting free movement through the social hierarchy. Although neutral chaos figures tend to not be against social hierarchy in and of itself.

**Nonconformity**. One aspect of neutral chaos is its emphasis on not feeling the need to follow social rules.

**Anti-authority** refers to the mentality of denying that authorities have any particular claim over your actions, and so saying that it does not violate any duties to disregard them. It is not necessarily an absolute, but can come in different scales. Note that while chaos disregards authority having any inherent claim over you, chaos does still veer into authoritarianism at times where the strong assert their position by force. Even neutral chaos accepts that with a lack of a centralized focus that their ideology will often lead to strife.

### Nationalist chaos

Nationalist chaos refers to the early game ideology of gotou, who is the first major chaos representative in SMTI. Note that while lucifer never explicitly declares that gotou was doing things incorrectly, and lilith was explicitly working with him, his particular ideology has some noticeable differences from how standard chaos tends to be depicted. And in an interview they talk about how for the goals of chaos to be realized they ultimately had to go past gotou's plans. And in SMTI imagine the gaians state that while they have history with him, they do not seek to revive him because his leadership is a goal slightly differing from their own.

While it has heavy overlap, and retains the social darwinist and militaristic aspects, especially that of budhido and viewing social darwinism through a karmic lens, it tends to downplay slightly the emphasis on personal freedom, instead focusing on the autonomy and identity off the nation as a whole, focusing on the vertical collectivism of chaos, but not the individualism. Due to similarities with regular chaos, for information on gotou, look at the general chaos attributes for militarism and social darwinism above. Note also that while chaos in general seeks to revive the warrior spirit, gotou in particular has more of a focus on traditionalism in general, whereas chaos often sees people as needing to be free to shirk it.

**Nationalism** is advocacy of political independence for a
particular country, often coupled with saying one should prioritize
it or even that it is superior to others. While most chaos figures
are not explicitly nationalist, due to worlds of chaos often being
depicted as potentially too chaotic for the modern sense of a stable
nation to exist, nationalism is depicted as chaos leaning, being presented about an individual country fighting to egoistically preserve its own interests against global unity. In SMTI, gotou is depicted as a nationalist, and heavily invested in the idea of japanese identity. Note how the chaos side in general looks strongly japanese, in keeping with its birth from a group preserving its own identity.

**Fascism** is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that
came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Japan had its own
version called **Shōwa nationalism** or **Japanese fascism,** that
was similar but different in particular to its less modernist
situation. Fascists believe that democracy is incoherent or a failed
idea, and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a
single totalitarian party as necessary to prepare a nation for armed
conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a
state is led by a strong leader, and a martial government composed of
the members of the governing party. Fascism rejects assertions that
violence is automatically negative in nature, and views political
violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national
rejuvenation. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal
goal of achieving self sufficiency.

Similar to nationalism, chaos' goals are not fascist per say, but fascism is depicted as chaotic leaning, being a manifestation of many of their ideals, but in a world still rigid enough to have distinct countries. Fascism is considered chaos being based on many of its same ideals like social darwinism, militarism, rule based on power, and changing laws and orders in accord with need rather than having
an objective system. Many fascists also sought to take power by force, rather than through rule of law, similar to as gotou is shown doing in SMTI. Note that the first art of SMTI in general is a loose world war II parallel with chaos being depicted as paralleling the axis powers.

The reason the games associate fascist type thinking more often
with chaos than law is because though fascism is authoritarian, the
slant of treating law as about order implies more of a globalist
order, whereas even though fascism implies state order, it is
globally chaotic by being about inter-group strife, and even this
internal order is pushed via force rather than law. Law is about a
functioning universal system, and so peace, whereas Mussolini called
fascism heavily individualistic and relativistic, being about people
working for them and their own group's benefit. So chaos' fascistic
elements are more about how it works between groups, rather than
individuals, and are formed by the strong making the weak comply with
this system.

Note of course that while this is a manifestation of
chaos, since it can become rigid, many in chaos would not support
this. For instance, chaos despite being socially darwinistic tends to disapprove of class systems despite that real social darwinists often considered them a natural extension of the idea, and them arising from a more original hierarchy.

**Martial law** is the imposition of direct military control of
normal civilian functions of government, especially in response to a
temporary emergency such as invasion or major disaster, or in an occupied territory. In SMTI gotou is stated to have enacted martial law.

**Radical traditionalism** is a movement opposing modern industrial
society and democracy and looking for a rebirth of an older social
order, which they view as heroic and anti-egalitarian. It usually considers modern democracy to have been a failed experiment, and a manifestation of modernism, seeking to return to the old cultural ways. It tends to have a strong attachment to one's history and roots, and a rejection of the modern. In the case of gotou he specifically sought to not only repel foreign gods, seeing them as modern influence, but to go back not merely to japan's modern gods, but its ancient ones, saying they represented deep iconography of japan's roots. Radical traditionalism is occasionally also vaguely environmentalist, seeing modern industrial society as having separated people from natural living.

**Yamato-damashii** (japanese spirit) is a Japanese term coined in the Heian period that refers to the old cultural values and characteristics of the Japanese people as opposed to cultural values of foreign nations. It was later appropriated during WWII to refer to a need to protect the japanese spirit from outside influence. Gotou in smti is heavily nationalistic in tone, and explicitly uses the term japanese spirit to describe what was lost in modern japan.

**Perennial Traditionalism** is a school of religious thought, based primarily on the writings of René Guénon, a French
 philosopher who claimed that all religions and cultures had a tradition
 of esoteric initiation that went back to "time immemorial." Guénon
believed that the West had become largely void of these esoteric
components due to the new tradition of "intellectualism." There are three postulates of Traditionalists: the existence of a
"Primordial Tradition," the idea that modernity is incompatible with
that Tradition, and that with spiritual effort (usually grounded in
so-called "Eastern" techniques) one can reconnect with that Tradition. Gotou represents this in a sense, since while he emphasizes going back to the old ways and preserving Japanese identity, many of the demons he unleashes and makes use of are not japanese in particular, tying to a kind of universal sense of tradition.

### Barbarism

**Barbarism** refers to a civilization that is seen as primitive and lacking in coherent civilization. One of the issues of chaos is the fact that it focuses heavily on aggressive mentalities and breaking down the old to provide potential for the new. However, a possible problem with this is the potential for this collapse to happen without the followup of a new creation. Side universes like infernal tokyo show a barbaric outcome of chaos where there is no new constructive society being brought forth by the members. This can happen when the destructive mentality overpowers the focus on it being the basis of a new creation. The regular demon ending in nocturne is also a more literal example.

## Other

### Other gods

One thing to note is that not every god
or demon is on a specific side. Many sidequests in various games have
you interacting with gods from various pantheons like the norse or
egyptian or babylonian who don't really enter into the main struggle.
There can be various reasons for this. For some of them, they quite
simply might not be that invested in the struggle. It is possible
that there are some gods who are neutral in the wider sense such that
they will stay out of things and try to manage in whatever world
results. Possibly because they are not even that concerned about ideology. Or they may simply not want to get involved. Or might even have an entirely different ideology. Not every god
or spirit inherently supports a specific side or slant, even if they
themselves have a leaning in ideological terms. This can also be a
reference to how some smaller polytheisms never really tried to
become a big thing, or propagate a large ideology. Some themselves
focusing on a smaller scope of people.

### Nocturne

**Order and Chaos**. Nocturne has its own ambiguous take on order and chaos in a way that doesn't cleanly correspond to mainline alignments. Introduced in tde, the meta-order and meta-chaos sides seem to disagree mainly on whether some abstract rules about rebirth of the multiverse at large should be followed. But these rules are more like physical laws that ambiguously questionable things are implied to follow from violating than they are moral precepts. For
instance, one thing to note about nocturne is that all the reasons
seem to be being presented as leaning towards a meta concept of order, even though the
reason of yosuga resembles more the ideology of mainline chaos.

The meta-order side seems mainly concerned about the world's rebirth using a reason, and that it has one dominant plan for its design, rather than being open-ended. Even if a chaotic plan. Note that the one in charge is implied to be another yhvh, and so this too can be considered a version of him. One that is not that concerned with the ideology the world is made by, as long as it has one, and his own position remains. Breaking this design in any way is implied to be meta-chaos. TDE ideologically resembles normal chaos as well, but with a total rejection of humanity and the world, in favor of a totally demonic paradigm. One that little about is mentioned due to how abstract its nature would be without humanity for context. Due to how abstract that ideological difference between the sides is, and how impossible to make sense of it in human terms, due to being about more abstract concepts of order and chaos that do not correspond well to human ideology, that idea has more or less been dropped past nocturne. Albeit a similar idea was visited in the devil survivor 2 universe.

**Reasons**. Of the reasons little needs to be said due to their similarity with other existing sides. Shijima obviously corresponds mostly to the ideology of mainline law, and yosuga mostly to the ideology of mainline chaos. Albeit with slight changes in tone, such as that yosuga downplays the elements about freedom and focuses more on the elements surrounding meritocracy. Musubi is the one wildcard. Its distinction lies in it being similar to dadga, and dark neutral, but taking the hermitism element to an extreme, seeing human interaction as unnecessary whatsoever. Which is a statement about value theory as much as ethics. Note that one thing that makes the reasons different from mainline alignments is that the people behind them are the ones designing the systems themselves, rather than joining a pre-existing side.

### Devil survivor

The devil survivor series tends to depict its sides as various aspects of the qualities of normal mainline sides, but mixed slightly. For instance, in devil survivor (the septentrione paths, not the triangulum ones) 2 ronaldo represents the socialistic aspect of law, but notably lacks the explicit utilitarian elements. And miyako is depicted as a law leaning character, but who despite being the most explicit depiction of utilitarianism in the series is not depicted as in a situation where much collectivism stems from this. Albeit in a small amount, since she acts more commanding of your group than yamato does. Yamato has the meritocratic, and somewhat social darwinist aspect of chaos, but the anarchic elements are downplayed, and the stoic aspect of law is associated with him rather than Ronaldo. Making devil survivor 2 an inversion of the normal alignment ideologies, with the more law leaning one being depicted as the underdog and more passionate, and the chaos being the one with more power and more stoic. Obviously, devil survivor 2 lacks the religious elements. The triangulum endings are less about overall ideology, and more about how to solve a specific problem.

In devil survivor 1, it focuses more on the religious element and less on the political ones, albeit amane's ending more closely resembles normal law and still includes utilitarian aspects and the focus on eternal peace, albeit approached from an angle that doesn't involve as large of sacrifices (though some death is still present). And naoya's ending is toned down a bit from standard chaos, even involving an option that barely changes the human world. Naoya's ending notably doesn't focus as much on the ideological aspect at all, moreso on the removal of yhvh and the chaos being implicit in its opposition to the order side in general. But some standard chaotic attributes are still present in the side, and the implication of the chaos is still present. One more important point to note about devil survivor 1 is that the shomonkai is meant to be another dark interpretation of neutral. They have neutral ideology, but are using dangerous means to get to it that are likely to backfire, and empowering a dangerous god in the process. They are even color coded to orange, which the neutral religions in I and II are.

### Divine powers

**Divine powers**. The divine powers
are a group of some polytheistic gods in iva who despite having
different ideologies, unite together in order to overthrow yhvh. One important thing to note about them is how just like the
other groups of humans or angels in game function, the divine powers
have representatives from multiple ideologies uniting together. The group as a whole is treated as
neutral, but that is because having slants in both directions evens
out to this. The important thing to note is that the law and chaos
slants of the divine powers are things we see associated with law and
chaos at various points earlier in the series, albeit more in the
background. The reason the divine powers members aren't referred to as alignments is the same reason the reasons aren't. The terms seeming to be exclusive to existing systems, rather than trying to make new ones.

**1 - Krishna**: Krishna wants to
absorb all souls into part of himself to internally relate as a
superentity similar to the human instrumentality project from third
impact. The main reason given being to prevent human suffering. This
is obviously slanted towards law, and specifically SJs law ending
where death and reincarnation are done away with outright. This also
deals with certain thought experiments about how death itself should
not be left in existence if it can be done away with, and obviously has a heavy tone of wanting to do away with suffering. Note that krishna in SMTI was a law character (though under the name vishnu). It also resembles the concept of the omega point (information on the heterodox christianity page) but that is not about ethics per say, but rather an idea about a cosmologically necessary construct.

**2 - Odin**: Odin wants each
god to get control over an equal portion of souls. If we assume
different ideologically slanted gods, this would mean that there's
some kind of mandate of a certain amount of people being under the dominion of each
ideology at any given time. Which is bizarre and not really worth
addressing in much more depth. Nothing else is said about it, so
there's little reason to pay much attention.

The only interesting aspect of it is the fact that since it is balanced, odin is depicted as the neutral analogue of the leading divine powers. But it is inverted, prioritizing gods rather than humans. He also says that there will be no false gods, implying some kind of standard for who can be a god.

**3 Maitreya**: Maitreya
focuses on the concept of nirvana and erasure of self identity. This
is presented as chaotic and individualist, since it is based on
personal practice and reaching it yourself and understanding truth
for yourself, rather than group efforts. How nirvana actually works
in game is left ambiguous. But if its implied to happen in universe
it would mean merging with the world itself, rather than a total
analogue to the buddhist version. If it means your essence spreading
out into the world instead of staying together in one soul, that
could be seen as chaos in a way. But is hard to particularly compare
with any ethical slant in particular. Note that in iva some of the gaians themselves follow him. Tying him more directly to chaos even in game. Note that this element of returning to nature is present in chaos in other other games, though less explicitly.

## Metaethical Theories

**Metaethics** is a branch of analytic
philosophy that explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral
values, properties, and words. Meta ethics is also sometimes called second order morality, to contrast normative ethics being called first order morality. Whereas the fields of applied ethics
and normative theory focus on what is moral, metaethics focuses on
what morality itself is. While the sides have normative ethical
theories associated with them, they don't necessarily specify
metaethical stances in all cases, leaving it ambiguous what if any
metaethics to associate with them. Some metaethics questions make no
actual difference in terms of ramifications for normative theories
though, and so are purely academic questions. But for the sake of
context they will be included, though placed at the bottom due to
being less directly relevant to the games. There are a few different
questions. Note that the terms **objective** and **subjective** can
refer either to mind dependent / independent, or universal /
relative, and so due to ambiguity, one should refer to those concepts
directly for clarity.

**What are moral facts?** This question
asks what exactly moral facts are. There are two mind independent
theories, and many mind dependent theories. **Moral non naturalism**
is the mind independent theory that holds that mathematical facts are
abstract objects like mathematical facts. They simply exist, and have
correct answers, but not anywhere in particular. **Moral naturalism**
is the mind independent theory that holds that moral facts exist in
the world at large. Value objectively exists in tangible places, and
there's an objective fact of moral relation. In terms of mind
dependant theories, one such theory is **constructivism**, which
holds that while values stem from people, there is an objectively
correct compromise that could theoretically be reached from ideal
deliberation. (note that constructivism can also be interpreted as
having mind independent sources of value). Another mind dependant
theory is **ideal observer theory** which holds that moral facts
refer to what an idealized perspective would think about events.
Which implies that there's a logically correct outcome in terms of
opinion. Note that mind dependent theories do not hold that the facts
have to tangibly exist in any minds. But that they exit by virtue of
networks of relation that minds exist in.

**Are moral facts mind independent?**
This question asks whether moral facts exist within the world at
large, or only within human minds. Note that even if the answer is
only within minds, it doesn't mean that morals are up for grabs.
There can be an objective way to compromise between values. The idea
that they exist within reality at large is called **moral realism.**
The idea that they do not is called **moral anti realism.** Note that
moral anti realism does not necessitate nihilism or relativism,
because they can still exist as a network of human relation even if
they are not in reality at large. For moral theories which hold that
values are universal, despite being anti realist it is sometimes
called **minimal moral realism.**

**What is the scale of moral facts?**
This question asks what context moral facts exit in. **moral**
universalism **is the idea that moral facts apply in every context.**
**moral relativism** is the idea that they only apply in certain
contexts. **Error theory** is the idea that they apply in no contexts
(Most commonly called moral nihilism). Note that although moral
relativism is often professed by teenagers on the internet, it is
actually an extremely fringe theory in ethics. Most ethicists,
including atheist ones are simply universalists, which is considered
almost trivially true. This is one question that does apply to
megaten. Law and neutral seem to simply be uniersalist. Chaos may be
relativist, though it is not entirely clear. Nietzsche claimed to
profess relativism, but by modern standards most people who did
simply collapse into universalism. It is possible that yhvh thinks
that morals are relative based on whatever his whims are at the time.
But law moved past this, which is why he is capable of being judged.

**Are morals facts or are they something more like a command?** This question is a little more
vague. Its basically the question of whether moral facts are even a
coherent idea, or whether morals are more like commands. Note that
facts can be true or false, but commands cannot. The position that
they are facts is called **moral cognitivism** and the position that
they are not is called **moral non-cognitivism.** Note that while
error theory is a form of nihilism, some non cognitivisms can also be
forms of nihilism. Others still hold that morals have binding force
however.