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[Adam Mantine]

I think it would be neat if it were possible for a civilization to have different ETHIC standards for what they do vs what they judge other civilizations for doing (for example they might find it ACCEPTABLE for their own people to TORTURE_ANIMALS but find it APPALLING for other civilizations to do it)

[Bumber]

I think you're going to need IRL examples to prove this ever happens. Individuals can hold double standards, but I don't think written laws ever have.

The closest you'd get is "Don't torture our animals, but we can. We don't care if our citizens torture your animals."

[Dunamisdeos]

Can you hear them? The Social Justice League is coming.

[Adam Mantine]

I think you're going to need IRL examples to prove this ever happens. Individuals can hold double standards, but I don't think written laws ever have.

The closest you'd get is "Don't torture our animals, but we can. We don't care if our citizens torture your animals."

Ok I can't think of an IRL example for torturing animals, but how about the United States and torturing people for information?

I can also give an example of different foreign countries being held to different standards than each other. Have you ever noticed that although people rightly consider the stuff Germany did during WWII UNTHINKABLE, for some reason when Imperial Japan committed genocide and conducted human vivisection experiments it was apparently merely MISGUIDED or APPALLING?

[Dirst]

I think you're going to need IRL examples to prove this ever happens. Individuals can hold double standards, but I don't think written laws ever have.

The closest you'd get is "Don't torture our animals, but we can. We don't care if our citizens torture your animals."

Ok I can't think of an IRL example for torturing animals, but how about the United States and torturing people for information?

I can also give an example of different foreign countries being held to different standards than each other. Have you ever noticed that although people rightly consider the stuff Germany did during WWII UNTHINKABLE, for some reason when Imperial Japan committed genocide and conducted human vivisection experiments it was apparently merely MISGUIDED or APPALLING?

I'm not aware of anyone who made a moral case that Japan was any less bad, but legally Germany had signed treaties specifically prohibiting a lot of the things they did while to my knowledge Japan had not.

A simple starting point for the original suggestion would be to cross-match the ethics for comparison.  For example, compare the elves' EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER to the humans' EAT_SAPIENT_KILL... because that dude the elves call an OTHER is what the humans consider a member of their own race.

The complicated one is KILL_ENEMY, KILL_NEUTRAL and KILL_ENTITY_MEMBER.  You compare their KILL_NEUTRAL to your KILL_ENTITY_MEMBER during times of peace, but their KILL_ENEMY to your KILL_ENTITY_MEMBER during war.  Goblins like you better when you're at war with them.

[SixOfSpades]

I think you're going to need IRL examples to prove this ever happens. Individuals can hold double standards, but I don't think written laws ever have.

The closest you'd get is "Don't torture our animals, but we can. We don't care if our citizens torture your animals."

How about "Don't allow any more Muslims to enter the U.S., because they might kill Americans. Meanwhile, American mass shootings are just the price of freedom. We also don't care if our drone strikes kill your civilians."

As for in-game examples, elves are an obvious one.
"We'll casually bring you hundreds of wooden logs every time we visit, but HOW DARE YOU CUT DOWN THAT TREE. We'll also bring along loads of wooden crafts and armor, but HOW DARE YOU BUY SOME OF IT AND THEN TRADE IT RIGHT BACK TO US."

[Bumber]

How about "Don't allow any more Muslims to enter the U.S., because they might kill Americans. Meanwhile, American mass shootings are just the price of freedom. We also don't care if our drone strikes kill your civilians."

Are the mass-shooting Americans in the Middle East civilians going through immigration law? Are terrorist attacks aimed at hostile, threatening targets (regardless of collateral)? Until we start bombing mosques, it's not a sufficient example.
(Furthermore, these issues both stem from engaging a foe that disguises itself as civilians. If they didn't, there wouldn't be any collateral damage or rejected immigrants.)

As for in-game examples, elves are an obvious one.
"We'll casually bring you hundreds of wooden logs every time we visit, but HOW DARE YOU CUT DOWN THAT TREE. We'll also bring along loads of wooden crafts and armor, but HOW DARE YOU BUY SOME OF IT AND THEN TRADE IT RIGHT BACK TO US."

Elven wares have always been grown, not cut. The game now respects this on buy-back.

[Adam Mantine]

What about the inverse situation, like out of control cultural relativism and holding other civilizations to a lower standard.

"We'd never torture people for fun, but you go on ahead, it's part of your culture"

[Bumber]

What about the inverse situation, like out of control cultural relativism and holding other civilizations to a lower standard.

"We'd never torture people for fun, but you go on ahead, it's part of your culture"

Maybe. They probably wouldn't allow it inside their own borders, but it's unlikely there'd be justice/war if it happened elsewhere.

[Dunamisdeos]

What about the inverse situation, like out of control cultural relativism and holding other civilizations to a lower standard.

"We'd never torture people for fun, but you go on ahead, it's part of your culture"

Maybe. They probably wouldn't allow it inside their own borders, but it's unlikely there'd be justice/war if it happened elsewhere.

As I recall, the initial cause for conflict in the story of good old Tholtig was horror at the elves tendency to eat folks.

[Enchiridion]

If I understand correctly, you mean hypocrisy more in the sense of "if I do this then it is of little to no concern, but if you do, then that is terrible!" correct? I think the problem is that they are not aimed. Ethics are very general, they apply to everyone. For instance, there is a huge difference between the following:

Human kills a goblin - Big concern
Human kills a human - Big concern
Goblin kills a human - Big concern
Goblin kills a goblin - Little concern

In order for this to work, ethics must be able to point at whom they apply.

[Salmeuk]

While a laws written words might lack hypocrisy, the process of enforcing that law often introduces . . . subtleties. Uneven enforcement due to any number of factors can dilute even the "fairest" kinds of laws. And sometimes, laws are written with the foreknowledge of uneven enforcement, in order to achieve the secondary goals of the lawmaker. This isn't conspiracy, it's just how the U.S. government works these days (and has worked for many decades). And the more you study the people who make laws through the U.N. and other NGO's you find hypocrisy is pretty normal. Most people who think in terms of "Us vs. Them" don't sense the hypocrisy inherent in nationalism.

Bumber, do you really not believe in hypocritical law? Torture, something that the U.S. has readily participated in over the last fifteen years, is definitely not a legal thing. Geneva conventions and all that, you know? You can go research the wartime actions of any country, superpower or not, and find examples of willingly uneven enforcement. This is usually explained as neccesary due to extenuating circumstances or "to save our boys" or just "TERRORISM!" but none of those counteract the hypocrisy.

IRL ethics are different than laws, though the two often correlate. In DF, you're looking at an extreme simplification of this relationship. DF is brilliant in a lot of ways, but on the cultural side of the simulation it's lacking some categories and definitions and isn't very finely-grained in that regard. I think that civs should probably be allowed to hold contradictory or hypocritical moralities but only if those contradictions are the result of conflicting power within the civ itself. That is rather than a gamefied "this culture is define by their hypocritical application of law and ethics" design. So I'm not sure if that will ever be simulated, since the civs seem to be defined by their cohesiveness - the closest thing to rebellion or revolution in the game is seeing a dwarf run off and join an elven civ because he can't stop thinking about eating people.

[Bumber]

Bumber, do you really not believe in hypocritical law? Torture, something that the U.S. has readily participated in over the last fifteen years, is definitely not a legal thing. Geneva conventions and all that, you know? You can go research the wartime actions of any country, superpower or not, and find examples of willingly uneven enforcement. This is usually explained as neccesary due to extenuating circumstances or "to save our boys" or just "TERRORISM!" but none of those counteract the hypocrisy.

I suppose you have a point. If those in power decide on the laws in secrecy (even easier before the information age) then there's nothing stopping them from starting a war while maintaining hypocrisy.

It might not go over well if the public found out, so I'm not entirely sure if that counts as civ ethics. Without term lengths for those in power, it'd probably be cause for a revolution, which is a good idea as as DF is concerned.

[I don't think the modern US would actually start a war based on treatment of prisoners. It's usually wait until attacked, or pre-emptive strike against threats. The worst that would happen is economic sanctions. It should be noted that the US (ambassador) signed, but did not ratify (have Congress accept), the Geneva agreement related to prisoner treatment. It might not actually be illegal (as far as that term applies) if your nation hasn't accepted the agreement, but you'll definitely be denounced for it.]

[Dunamisdeos]

So, yeah, I'd like to see this as a feature. More options for race creation/modding does not seem like a bad thing, even if most civs don't use it.

[GoblinCookie]

I do not think that it is very realistic for non-civil wars to be fought over differences in ethics in the first place.  As much a hypocrisy is quite realistic as a mechanic at a game level, since it adds a whole element of uncertainty, we cannot take anything about a civilization for granted.  That would be the main function of hypocrisy, to make things more unpredictable and create issues in a civilization, hence reasons for internal conflict.

Wars between civilizations should usually be about something more tangible, most likely territory.  Hypocrisy in this context is not really very relevant, the civilizations care about the actual deeds of the other civilization in regard to their own people in so much as this results in incidents.  They are unlikely to care much about what they abstractly believe about a matter, unlike with civil wars where issues of 'ethics' are potentially cause of conflict.