Is Taravangian Right?

[Schizoposting]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

The problem is that Ati wasn't weak willed.

And yes Honor wasn't bad before Odium showed up, but that was also within a very short time span of being a shard.

Once Odium did show up he became such a problem even he had to admit that the people of Roshar were better off without him.

Brandon and Taln both consider Cultivation to be part of the problem as well.

And again I will restate @therunner's point: Preservation LIKED the Final Empire.

Sure some vessels are better at it than others, but Sazed showed us that even 300 years leads to serious warpings of your intent.

I think part of the problem is that Brandon has been inconsistent in how he portrays shards: Tanavast and Rayse were barely affected by the intents of their shards, while Ati was entirely subsumed. Furthermore, Ati became far more arrogant and narcissistic by holding Ruin, something that shouldn't have been caused by the intent of the shard. So, I think the simplest explanation is that Ati just lost his mind. Leras was also affected, but to a lesser extent, because recognized the importance of Ruin balancing out Preservation (he also lost his mind at the end, so his opinion should be taken with a grain of salt). 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

There is an uncontacted tribe of people on an island off the coast of India that attack anyone who gets close, even though we are approaching on motorized boats that move faster than they can imagine possible. For all intents and purposes these ships and people are basically divine by comparison, why do the natives not worship them?

The only way possible would be to hijack an existing religion and then adopt changes over the course of centuries. If you try making changes too fast the people will inevitably rebel: see long list of Popes disposed precisely for that reason, or the Pharoah Akenatan. Despite being the highest religious authority change too much too fast and you quickly lose that.

Suppose that you are some random king or feudal lord, and a shard appears before you, preforms a miracle or two, claims to be a god, and demands to be worshipped: what would you do?

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Peter the Great's reforms were incredibly unpopular. His beard tax in particular was loathed by the people, they even had their beards preserved and kept them with them because they didn't want to give them up, but were obligated to do so or face the consequences.

And you can declare anything you want, but that doesn't make it so, anymore than congress declaring an end to world hunger will feed anyone.

How do you propose that a shard make someone like Shallan abandon her views on darkeyes?

Yes, but my point is that governments reform culture all the time, and often they are successful. People today are far less racist than they were in the past, so I don't understand your point about impossibility of getting rid of racism.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

So you force people to stay inside your country?

What if like the Listeners they simply want to leave and be free of you?

And religious authority and brute force are often closely related when we're talking about theocratic government. See: The Inquisition, the protestant reformation, the thirty years war, and many others.

Suppose that California declares its independence tomorrow and refuses to obey the dictates of the U.S. federal government. What do you think will happen?

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

What happens when an authoritarian despot is deposed? The new government has no idea how to function and often collapses under its own weight almost immediately.

For example see the French, Russian and Haitain revolutions.

Immediately following the establishment of a new government they find out that managing a country is a lot harder than they thought, usually followed by a long hard period of learning in which multiple governments rise and fall as people learn how to actually lead.

And so I'll repeat my question: What does your government do when you as a shard disappear for 30-40 years? Or 1-2 thousand?

Yes and during the time that the shard rules directly how do you deal with the problems listed above.

Two things: one, there are plenty of authoritarian governments that were replaced with functioning democratic ones, e.g. in South Korea or Brazil; two, the history of the French, Haitian, and Russian revolutions cannot simply be reduced to people being unable to govern themselves.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

And once a quase-autonomous governing body is created and a catastrophe occurs that requires intervention what form does that intervention take?

The intervention takes the form of whatever the situation necessitates. With giving a concrete situation, it's impossible to be any more specific.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Why does it need to be the entire planet?

To prevent inter-state wars.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

I think the death count of Ashyn+the desolations easily beats that.

Not to mention the multiple planets that Odium vs. Ambition took out.

Or the Catacendre which almost ended all life on Scadrial.

Or the Evil and whatever happened to Threnody.

I don't think the Shards that intervene have the best track record.

I mean Endowment of all the Shards we have seen appears to have the best system and the most she does is send Returned.

Come on man, you can't be seriously comparing the consequences of two shards clashing with the direct rule of a single shard.

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

The most direct answer to this is that Cultivation's moral viewpoint may not involve or allow direct control of the sort you describe. Another way of presenting that is that she is advancing her moral viewpoints to the maximum possible degree, and that her viewpoints are simply not the same as yours. She's doing the things that she believes achieve her values in ways she believes are acceptable. Unless I'm missing something your argument seems to be that because she's not achieving your values in ways that you believe are acceptable she must be holding back or failing in some way to accomplish her own values, and I don't see any reason to believe that that is the case.

Presumably, her moral viewpoint involves defeating Odium, which she has done a terrible job of doing.

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

The Cosmere is shallow on moral philosophy because it doesn't do much to establish what is good or bad (and why), either collectively or for individual characters and situations. It reports that characters feel certain ways sometimes but generally does little to explain why those characters believe their conclusions to be correct or how they fit into broader ethical and philosophical situations. It then puts characters into direct conflict with mutually exclusive goals, creating winners and losers while also prompting readers to choose a "side" that they prefer from those limited options.

No one who isn't a professional ideologue actually has a coherent ethical or political philosophy; if you ask some random person of the street, they will contradict themselves a million different times.

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

That it's a question of your ethical commitments is exactly my point. Blandly asserting a set of arbitrary ethical commitments and then asking why a totally different person isn't behaving accordingly, without establishing at all that the other person agrees with that set, doesn't make a lot of sense. If you are a hard materialist consequentialist I would expect you to operate very differently from a hardened idealist deontologist, and that should not be surprising (even if you find it surprising that the other person holds the views they do).

We can always adopt a postmodern moral relativism and say that all different ethical viewpoints are equally valid, but that negates the point of the discussion. Obviously, if you are ethically opposed to the idea of shardic intervention, then you're not going to intervene if you're a shard. But this is very unsatisfying, unless if you can justify it with some more fundamental principle.  

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

The "moral standards of our society today" is neither clearly defined nor necessarily a standard that we can or should hold others (or ourselves) to even if it were. Trying to apply them as the only possible things a Shard could consider or value inherently asserts that other things are "disproven" as morally relevant. It's saying that Cultivation (for example) is failing because she does not act in accordance with your asserted value set A, and disregarding even the possibility that Cultivation might be working towards value set B. I may have missed it if you already did this, but it would help discussion if these moral standards to which you are appealing were clearly and precisely defined.

I am referring to liberal-humanist common sense, e.g. "kids starving in Africa is bad". If you have an alternate ethical framework, then I welcome you to share it.

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

The presumption that Shardic intervention is inherently for a morally good purpose is the thing that creates this conflict: there isn't any reason to believe that Cultivation (or any of the Shards) isn't (or aren't) already maximally doing this in accordance with their own philosophies, subject to any errors they might make in judging what actions best accomplish what they think is best. It's only in not prioritizing things the same way that you do that any potential conflicts arise-- for example, a consequentialist-aspected goal of "eliminating hunger" might be accomplished by creating sufficient food, or alternatively by killing enough people that existing food becomes sufficient for the survivors. Assuming inherently good moral purposes to any intervention would leave these morally indistinguishable from each other. I'm still not seeing the space in the setup for discussion to really happen, it seems that everything except the conclusion you started with is defined out. Unless I'm misunderstanding, which is uncomfortably common.

It's true that one can strive to achieve any arbitrary goal, but this is a moot point since ethics are socially determined. Now, in the Cosmere everyone has some sort of (post)modern world view, but that's because the Cosmere, as a work of art, is responding to the specific post-modern conditions under which it was made. So, there is no point in considering random possible ethical viewpoints. 

55 minutes ago, Returned said:

If we're only talking about efficacy there are a few possibilities that the text suggests to me. There is danger in direct involvement, both in tying a Shard more powerfully to a planet and investing so much of their powers and natures that it leaves them vulnerable to dangers, such as hostile Shards. There are some results of direct intervention which may be counterproductive to other things the Shard values, such as Sazed's concern about making life in the Elendel Basin too easy for them. Unintended consequences (or disfavored sets of consequences) seem unavoidable at Shard-level scope, so tightly accomplishing specific goals might not even be realistic in the general case. Even within this we still need to define what goals the Shards have before we can do much to assess their efficacy and means in pursuing those goals.

These objections don't really get to the core of the issue: any possible action by definition has unintended consequences, and many shards already heavily invest in worlds. 

11 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

That's just silly. He sacrificed 1000 years of his life to preserve the world from destruction. You don't like his methods, but his intent was always good.

Sure, that's why he enslaved the Skaa.

11 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Except Susebron. The God-Kings have normal human lifespan, apparently. Read the Warbreaker annotations. Raoden isn't necessarily even a dictator.

No, the God-Kings are returned, and therefore immortal. They may commit suicide relatively often, but it doesn't negate this fact.

1 hour ago, ParaTulip said:

Ultimately, the argument in the books is being had between two people who are fundamentally weird in how they are presented. Todium is some kind of fractal of a human with unlimited divine wrath seeping into his soul making the case for intervention while a dragon with a force that thinks the military developments of war is worth it makes the case for non-intervention.

Funnily enough, Taravangian, is actually somewhat of a revolutionary: 

Quote

“Because you killed your father, and now worry the same will happen to you. Like the warlords here, you consolidate power so that no one can kill you.” He stepped toward her, raising a fist, the emotions making a tempest of rage inside him. “I am the very substance of passion, and where a person suffers anywhere in this miserable galaxy, I feel it. That is the burden of this power.” 

 

Edited December 26, 2025 by Schizoposting

[ThroughTheLivingIlliterate He/Him]

3 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Rashek was never well meaning, so I have no clue why you keep bringing him up.

What do you mean he wasn't well meaning? He created caverns for everyone in case of an apocalypse (Literally saved all of Scadrial). He was constantly under the influence of Ruin. I also recall that he was trying to institute different governments, but the one he settled with he found the best. His whole story was about how he was corrupted by having absolute power, and also being immortal. He cared about his subjects, and was even willing to help them, even with the possibility of them killing him (He made the caverns knowing they only mattered if he was dead.). 

[Schizoposting]

9 minutes ago, IlliterateDragon said:

What do you mean he wasn't well meaning? He created caverns for everyone in case of an apocalypse (Literally saved all of Scadrial). He was constantly under the influence of Ruin. I also recall that he was trying to institute different governments, but the one he settled with he found the best. His whole story was about how he was corrupted by having absolute power, and also being immortal. He cared about his subjects, and was even willing to help them, even with the possibility of them killing him (He made the caverns knowing they only mattered if he was dead.). 

He created the Final Empire from the very beginning; just because he had some regrets and did some good in the end does not mean that he was well meaning. This is a man who killed his own uncle for power and committed a genocide against feruchemists. In fact, his crimes are far, far, worse than Taravangain's crimes, and yet the latter is universal considered immoral, despite his intentions being far purer than Rashek's.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

54 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

It's true that one can strive to achieve any arbitrary goal, but this is a moot point since ethics are socially determined. Now, in the Cosmere everyone has some sort of (post)modern world view, but that's because the Cosmere, as a work of art, is responding to the specific post-modern conditions under which it was made. So, there is no point in considering random possible ethical viewpoints. 

This is actually the thing that disappoints me in a lot of the Cosmere books. No one ever suddenly demonstrates how their ethics are alien to ours in an interesting but understandable way. Sure, there is the odd fanatic who will die for their cause or various forms of deranged characters, the Fused and the Inquisitors both demonstrate this kind of behavior.

One of the last things I am remotely invested in for Stormlight at this point is someone refuting the notion of "Watchers on the rim", because I am very much against the idea of an warrior elite that is vital to society. 

[Returned he/him]

As an aside, @Schizoposting, have you ever read the Homecoming series by Card? The first three books, and especially the first, might be of interest to you if you like this topic.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Presumably, her moral viewpoint involves defeating Odium, which she has done a terrible job of doing.

This is a pretty unsupported assumption. She wants to work with Taravangian-as-Odium, which is not the same as defeating it, though she did take out Rayse. Even if we were to agree that this is a meaningful piece of her moral calculus it doesn't follow that micromanaging Roshar would have accomplished it. Honor was directly and openly involved on Roshar, and explicitly had this as his goal, but failed and died in the process. "Be more hands on" is not a recipe for being more successful than Cultivation has so far been, and the struggle is not yet over. Additionally, this does nothing to respond to the possibility that Cultivation is not a consequentialist, an assumption it seems (to me) that you return to frequently but have yet to establish.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

No one who isn't a professional ideologue actually has a coherent ethical or political philosophy; if you ask some random person of the street, they will contradict themselves a million different times.

My critique is not that the moral philosophy of the books is incomplete nor that it is internally inconsistent, it's that it's not there. Occasionally a question is raised, even more rarely discussed in the text, but most often the moral philosophy people claim are in the books (here on the Shard, at least) are things that they project into them. Situations with ethical dimensions are presented but virtually all specific ethical content and reasoning is left to the reader alone.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

We can always adopt a postmodern moral relativism and say that all different ethical viewpoints are equally valid, but that negates the point of the discussion. Obviously if you are ethically opposed to the idea of shardic intervention, then you're not going to intervene if you're a shard. But this is very unsatisfying, unless if you can justify it with some more fundamental principle.  

That's not what I'm saying. We can absolutely assess whether or not we think that Cultivation's activities are the most ethical or appropriate or anything else, according to any definition or standard we care to introduce. What doesn't make sense is to judge a character's choices by a standard there is no reason to believe they hold as if they did hold that standard. It has nothing to do with postmodernism nor moral relativism.

It also leaves the methods to the side, perhaps intentionally as I get the impression that you are a pretty strong consequentialist (from what I've read here that how it seems to me, I'm not trying to describe you to yourself). If methods do matter then how, precisely, is she to prevent war on Roshar? If not, do you perceive any differences between possible methods as long as they accomplish a nominal end? For example, slaughtering all Singers would have prevented future Desolations. Is that better, worse, or the same as those Desolations? If slaughtering the Singers avoided Desolations but expanded the scope and practice of inter-human wars, is that worse, and what solution then? We might also do well to describe what "direct intervention" really describes, as we know that there are restrictions on what Shards can and cannot do, at all or without consequences or risk, which will have strong consequences for what Shards can actually accomplish in these scenarios.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

I am referring to liberal-humanist common sense, e.g. "kids starving in Africa is bad". If you have an alternate ethical framework, then I welcome you to share it.

1. This is not the "moral standards of our society today". The United States this year specifically changed policy, claiming moral appropriateness, to pull food aid from Africa (and elsewhere). It has already led to increased deaths from starvation and will almost certainly continue to do so. There are people who feel that too few Americans are hungry or starving, people who are nominally Christians (so their moral philosophy makes this a dubious conclusion to reach).

2. Claiming common sense as a moral basis is a dodge, and usually not a skillful one. There are groups that are pro-genocide of specific other groups, and find it both common sense and logically appropriate to hold that position.

3. This does not address competing claims nor hard-to-value comparisons, as in my earlier example about lifespans and happiness or misery.

4. The description in your OP suggests a lot of values but doesn't establish them and relies on the Shard/dictator to keep them "good". It's fine, as far as it goes, to say that the goal is to create the "best possible society/civilization", but very unclear on what that actually is. It's not obvious to me that a Shard can fix sexism or racism, for example. Saying that the Shard will "fix wealth inequality" would be a lot more persuasive if the fix were detailed instead of asserted. It's unclear why it's better to develop technology and education when the Shard could directly provide food and any other necessities or appropriate desires-- wouldn't such provision be the most direct intervention possible?

5. What you have shared of the standards you describe still looks question-begging to me. It's still just "a unerring benevolent dictator with perfect knowledge, foresight, wisdom, and moral insight will directly intervene to the best degree to accomplish all the best things" because without details there is no distinction between "better than [x]" and "best" and no space for the dictator to be imperfect, wrong, or mistaken, or have anything ever be beyond their complete control. It's still just "the only things that matter are A, B, and C, and we are assuming that the Shard will completely satisfy A, B, and C with no side consequences".

None of these are fixed by inserting some other random philosophy, be it Kantian deontology or Mills' utilitarianism or Nozick's libertarianism or Heidegger's ontology or classical Stoic corporealist rationalism or Freire's collaborative communitarianism.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

It's true that one can strive to achieve any arbitrary goal, but this is a moot point since ethics are socially determined. Now, in the Cosmere everyone has some sort of (post)modern world view, but that's because the Cosmere, as a work of art, is responding to the specific post-modern conditions under which it was made. So, there is no point in considering random possible ethical viewpoints. 

This reads to me as another dismissal of any ethical evaluations outside of the arbitrary ones you've submitted here. It also would seem to deny the denizens of the Cosmere any opportunity to participate in the social determination of ethics. In your treatment, ethics are something which happen to people who happen to live on a planet where a Shard feels like being in charge.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

These objections don't really get to the core of the issue: any possible action by definition has unintended consequences, and many shards already heavily invest in worlds. 

They are examples of why Shards might eschew greater direct intervention than the levels that we see in the books. As best as I can tell, that is the core issue of your question: the goals are so obvious as to be incontestable, they are easily and directly accomplished by Shard-power beings via direct and constant intervention, and therefore any Shard who is not constantly directly intervening is failing, or at minimum worse than an imagined an a priori morally perfect absolute dictator would be. The examples I gave point at the second item: reasons why they may not behave as you suggest, even if they were to share your viewpoint.

Preservation invested more of itself into Scadrial (well, Scadrians) and as a result was weaker than Ruin and, by extension, presumably weaker than all other Shards. Since we know that Shards have to worry about being attacked or subverted by other Shards, excessive investment will put at risk their ability to continue to dominate their planets and societies. If additional investment is required to meet your definition of direct intervention, a Shard may not be able directly intervene and also preserve the ability to keep intervening. For that matter, non-Shards can also interfere with Shards' efforts to control the world around them. Ruin's efforts to dominate Scadrial were ultimately not successful, so can any Shard's domination be assumed to be stable and enduring? Not all unintended consequences are equal, nor are they evenly distributed around actions, and unintended consequences are salient when we are discussing action vs. inaction.

 

Threads like this tend to spread quite a lot, so let me try to re-consolidate:

The OP asks if any specific set of goals (regardless of the underlying moral philosophies that establish or justify those goals) will be necessarily better achieved by a deific tyrant, who is asserted to be fully morally good, fully committed to those goals, and perfect in moral/ethical knowledge, than any arrangement which involves that deific tyrant exercising less direct control. I think I got the major elements of the question in there, but may have missed something.

If that is accurate then the relevant questions seem to me to be:

1. How fully can the tyrant control affairs on their planet or in their societies, and by what mechanisms?
2. Which problems is the Shard charged with fixing, and how completely, and which are not the Shard's responsibility?
3. How precisely can the tyrant guarantee specific outcomes?
4. In cases of conflicting claims, do outcomes for individuals matter or are we only looking at an aggregate?
5. Are there any aspects of existence which have moral relevance that conflict with being controlled to the extent that the Shard can effect?

I still think that the OP defines most of these questions away, but organizing information like this helps me track where specific issues might be.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Returned

[Schizoposting]

@Returned, I was intentionally vague with respect to the actual content of the shardic utopia, because I didn't want to derail this topic, with a political discussion on what is the optimal form of social organization. I am more interested in shardic rule as such.

14 minutes ago, Returned said:

As an aside, @Schizoposting, have you ever read the Homecoming series by Card? The first three books, and especially the first, might be of interest to you if you like this topic.

No, I haven't. 

14 minutes ago, Returned said:

This is a pretty unsupported assumption. She wants to work with Taravangian-as-Odium, which is not the same as defeating it, though she did take out Rayse. Even if we were to agree that this is a meaningful piece of her moral calculus it doesn't follow that micromanaging Roshar would have accomplished it. Honor was directly and openly involved on Roshar, and explicitly had this as his goal, but failed and died in the process. "Be more hands on" is not a recipe for being more successful than Cultivation has so far been, and the struggle is not yet over. Additionally, this does nothing to respond to the possibility that Cultivation is not a consequentialist, an assumption it seems (to me) that you return to frequently but have yet to establish.

Is it? Clearly, she must have some purpose for her interventions, and the WAT flash backs show that she has a highly antagonistic relationship with Rayse. Furthermore, while Honor wasn't very successful, he still did a better job of resisting Odium than Cultivation. Also, Cultivation could have intervened in a smarter way than Tanavast. 

19 minutes ago, Returned said:

My critique is not that the moral philosophy of the books is incomplete nor that it is internally inconsistent, it's that it's not there. Occasionally a question is raised, even more rarely discussed in the text, but most often the moral philosophy people claim are in the books (here on the Shard, at least) are things that they project into them.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here: Brandon references various real-world philosophies, such as utilitarianism or existentialism over the course of the SA. Certainly, he does it in a very pop-culture way, but it's still there. 

23 minutes ago, Returned said:

1. This is not the "moral standards of our society today". The United States this year specifically changed policy, claiming moral appropriateness, to pull food aid from Africa (and elsewhere). It has already led to increased deaths from starvation and will almost certainly continue to do so. There are people who feel that too few Americans are hungry or starving, people who are nominally Christians (so their moral philosophy makes this a dubious conclusion to reach).

It's true that "neoliberalism" is experiencing a crisis of hegemony in the west, but "Trumpism" doesn't constitute a moral alternative—it signifies a repudiation of norms and morals. 

29 minutes ago, Returned said:

2. Claiming common sense as a moral basis is a dodge, and usually not a skillful one. There are groups that are pro-genocide of specific other groups, and find it both common sense and logically appropriate to hold that position.

In most places supporting genocide is very much still politically incorrect, and people typically justify it through denial. Also, from my understanding, "analytic philosophy" focuses heavily on "moral intuition". 

32 minutes ago, Returned said:

3. This does not address competing claims nor hard-to-value comparisons, as in my earlier example about lifespans and happiness or misery.

Well, I don't think that you can reduce the value of disparate "moral goods" down to a single value. The idea of "objectively" determining which action will net you the most utils is best kept to the econ textbooks. 

38 minutes ago, Returned said:

4. The description in your OP suggests a lot of values but doesn't establish them and relies on the Shard/dictator to keep them "good". It's fine, as far as it goes, to say that the goal is to create the "best possible society/civilization", but very unclear on what that actually is. It's not obvious to me that a Shard can fix sexism or racism, for example. Saying that the Shard will "fix wealth inequality" would be a lot more persuasive if the fix were detailed instead of asserted.

I don't think that society is an unknowable black box; racism has real social causes, and by altering society you can get rid of the factors that cause racism. Now the best way to do this, is a sociological question, not a philosophical one. In the case of wealth inequality, you can just increase taxes, for instance. 

41 minutes ago, Returned said:

5. What you have shared of the standards you describe still looks question-begging to me. It's still just "a unerring benevolent dictator with perfect knowledge, foresight, wisdom, and moral insight will directly intervene to the best degree to accomplish all the best things" because without details there is no distinction between "better than [x]" and "best" and no space for the dictator to be imperfect, wrong, or mistaken, or have anything ever be beyond their complete control. It's still just "the only things that matter are A, B, and C, and we are assuming that the Shard will completely satisfy A, B, and C with no side consequences".

I would like to make myself clear here; I do not support dictatorship in the real world. But in the Cosmere, where not all men are made equal, the rule of a benevolent shard is naturally the best possible outcome, because their vast power and knowledge allow them to affect society on a level no human dictator could ever hope to achieve. Naturally, they can make mistakes, but their ability to do good far outweighs whatever harm they may cause, unless if there is some major drawback to direct intervention.  

49 minutes ago, Returned said:

None of these are fixed by inserting some other random philosophy, be it Kantian deontology or Mills' utilitarianism or Nozick's libertarianism or Heidegger's ontology or classical Stoic corporealist rationalism or Freire's collaborative communitarianism.

I don't get what you mean here, presumably Nozick is opposed to direct shardic rule, because of property rights or whatever. 

52 minutes ago, Returned said:

This reads to me as another dismissal of any ethical evaluations outside of the arbitrary ones you've submitted here. It also would seem to deny the denizens of the Cosmere any opportunity to participate in the social determination of ethics. In your treatment, ethics are something which happen to people who happen to live on a planet where a Shard feels like being in charge.

Fictional characters are not ethical subjects; they are a reflection of real-world ethical sensibilities. Insofar as we consider their ethical dilemmas, we are only considering our own ethics in a roundabout manner. 

59 minutes ago, Returned said:

They are examples of why Shards might eschew greater direct intervention than the levels that we see in the books. As best as I can tell, that is the core issue of your question: the goals are so obvious as to be incontestable, they are easily and directly accomplished by Shard-power beings via direct and constant intervention, and therefore any Shard who is not constantly directly intervening is failing, or at minimum worse than an imagined an a priori morally perfect absolute dictator would be. The examples I gave point at the second item: reasons why they may not behave as you suggest, even if they were to share your viewpoint.

Suppose we adopt the following formulation: shards ought to help mortals live better lives; direct shardic intervention is effective at improving the lives of mortals; therefore, shards ought to directly intervene to help mortals. If you're opposed to the idea of shardic intervention, then you'll either have to reject the major, or the minor premise. 

1 hour ago, ParaTulip said:

This is actually the thing that disappoints me in a lot of the Cosmere books. No one ever suddenly demonstrates how their ethics are alien to ours in an interesting but understandable way. Sure, there is the odd fanatic who will die for their cause or various forms of deranged characters, the Fused and the Inquisitors both demonstrate this kind of behavior.

I don't think that that's really possible; any author is going to be influenced by their concrete circumstances, which makes coming up with something ex nihilo impossible.

1 hour ago, ParaTulip said:

One of the last things I am remotely invested in for Stormlight at this point is someone refuting the notion of "Watchers on the rim", because I am very much against the idea of an warrior elite that is vital to society. 

The Knight's Radiant are a pastiche of the medieval idea of chivalrous knights, so it's natural that they adopt many of their sensibilities. 

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Even granting the above, which I do not necessarily grant, and forgetting that Soulcasters could just make tons of it out of stone, there are lots of other explosives that don't require sulfur. The cheapest is probably ANFO. Explosives don't care about atmospheric oxygen. The whole point of the nitrates is to supply oxygen for the reaction (technically, to replace it). They don't consume any oxygen from air. Ask chemistry major Brandon if you don't believe me.

Note: I consider candles dangerous here on Earth. Because they are. However, very few Alethi buildings, at least, seem to be very flammable.

ANFO wasn't developed until the 1950s so Roshar not having that isn't a counterpoint to their technological development.

And while oxygen isn't necessarily a barrier to explosives, it's a massive consideration for engines.

Yes, but why would Khriss warn Worldhoppers about fire on roshar if they were just earth levels of danger?

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

I think part of the problem is that Brandon has been inconsistent in how he portrays shards: Tanavast and Rayse were barely affected by the intents of their shards, while Ati was entirely subsumed. Furthermore, Ati became far more arrogant and narcissistic by holding Ruin, something that shouldn't have been caused by the intent of the shard. So, I think the simplest explanation is that Ati just lost his mind. Leras was also affected, but to a lesser extent, because recognized the importance of Ruin balancing out Preservation (he also lost his mind at the end, so his opinion should be taken with a grain of salt).

I must disagree. Rayse and Tanavast are shown multiple times succumbing to their Intent. That was what caused Tanavasts 2.5 thousand year self reflection. He was doing what his shard wanted, victory and oathes regardless of the consequences and he realized that this leaves the Rosharan people better off without him.

A lot of why Rayse was hunting down other Shards was because that's what Odium wanted.

Taravangian is shown to almost immediately have to fight against his Shards Intent.

And considering how Ruin talks about Passion, yes megalomania was a part of his shard.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Suppose that you are some random king or feudal lord, and a shard appears before you, preforms a miracle or two, claims to be a god, and demands to be worshipped: what would you do?

Unless they were intentionally hijacking Christianity probably call them a demon and see them as a threat.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Yes, but my point is that governments reform culture all the time, and often they are successful. People today are far less racist than they were in the past, so I don't understand your point about impossibility of getting rid of racism.

You can influence them surely, but remove ideas entirely?

That's something that only the most brutally oppressive regimes in history have ever even approximated.

Could you over the course of thousands of years gotten rid of Prejudice? Without a constant culling of the rising generation, revising history, and observing everything that everyone does? I don't think so.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Suppose that California declares its independence tomorrow and refuses to obey the dictates of the U.S. federal government. What do you think will happen?

You're creating a false comparison.

A more accurate one would be: What would the US federal government do if a group of people left the country with the intention of finding some uninhibited land and governing themselves. Now that's a lot more difficult today than it used to be, but in the Cosmere there doesn't appear to be any planet where this isn't a very real possibility.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Two things: one, there are plenty of authoritarian governments that were replaced with functioning democratic ones, e.g. in South Korea or Brazil; two, the history of the French, Haitian, and Russian revolutions cannot simply be reduced to people being unable to govern themselves.

South Korea was supported by an outside power during the transition. And Brazil was already a quase-self governing body, and I wouldn't call it a functioning democracy, but I'll steer clear of politics.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

The intervention takes the form of whatever the situation necessitates. With giving a concrete situation, it's impossible to be any more specific.

Okay let's run three scenarios of varrying levels of disaster:

1. A new faction in the government wants to implement economic reforms that will inevitably lead to an economic collapse.

2. A government organization mandates a new agricultural technique that will cause a famine.

3. In response to a labor shortage a new law is passed essentially forcing magic users into slave labor for the state.

4. A faction of the government gets their hands on a Dawnshard, causing them to decide to expand their empire and the prosperity it brings.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

To prevent inter-state wars.

And so to avoid a possible outcome you start wars to conquer all other states?

3 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Come on man, you can't be seriously comparing the consequences of two shards clashing with the direct rule of a single shard.

Sure I can for two reasons:

1. Shards do not exist in a vacuum. There are sixteen of them, many of which have been shown to be determined to medle in the against of others.

2. They were comparing them to humans clashing, and arguing that a shard would be better. If there was only one human faction there wouldn't be wars or conflict either.

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

No, I haven't. 

I definitely recommend the first one, The Memory of Earth, at least. It directly involves a lot of the ideas in this thread. Unrelatedly I made some edits to my previous post while you were writing your response, particularly at the end, which may or may not include things to which you'd like to respond. If not, no worries and there is nothing to change.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Is it? Clearly, she must have some purpose for her interventions, and the WAT flash backs show that she has a highly antagonistic relationship with Rayse. Furthermore, while Honor wasn't very successful, he still did a better job of resisting Odium than Cultivation. Also, Cultivation could have intervened in a smarter way than Tanavast. 

Having a goal doesn't mean that one is a consequentialist, nor that they'll do anything at all in order to achieve that goal. We don't know what the full scope of her goals even is, never mind how much success she's had in achieving them. Cultivation's scheming killed Rayse, which is a pretty final event to their antagonism, and completely thwarted Rayse's goal of killing her, which is a pretty decisive victory. It's not obvious that Cultivation cares much about the state of Roshar's people, at least to value one group over another.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

I don't understand what you're trying to say here: Brandon references various real-world philosophies, such as utilitarianism or existentialism over the course of the SA. Certainly, he does it in a very pop-culture way, but it's still there. 

Saying the word "utilitarianism" isn't the same as presenting moral information nor engaging with it in any way. We get Taravangian's reasoning towards a utilitarian conclusion ("hang all four"), along with Dalinar's revulsion at that conclusion, but there isn't much detail or discussion about whether or not one of their answers is better than the other, nor why. They disagree, neither convinces the other by stating their position, and that's it.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

It's true that "neoliberalism" is experiencing a crisis of hegemony in the west, but "Trumpism" doesn't constitute a moral alternative—it signifies a repudiation of norms and morals.

In most places supporting genocide is very much still politically incorrect, and people typically justify it through denial. Also, from my understanding, "analytic philosophy" focuses heavily on "moral intuition". 

Ultra-subjective, semi-presentist, and optimistic. While I find Trumpism to be horrifying, the reason I brought it up is that there are a lot of people who feel that "starving children in Africa is wrong" is not a correct moral position. Those people's moral views are probably about as thoughtfully considered as anyone else's. It is nice to think that people generally are morally cohesive around ideas that are broadly correct, but the idea that common sense morality is something that neatly excises other views or otherwise makes them not count is not a sound one. In my experience people appealing to common sense as their moral foundation tend to just mean the views they happen to already hold, common or not, to the extent that they've thought them through.

As for support of genocide, that (sadly) depends very much on the polity and group. There are plenty of ardent supporters all the time, with disturbing increases at particular times. I'm not really impressed with this very oblique appeal to a "heavy" focus on moral intuition, as a general thing or as a support of innate morality, though I might not be understanding why you've invoked it.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Well, I don't think that you can reduce the value of disparate "moral goods" down to a single value. The idea of "objectively" determining which action will net you the most utils is best kept to the econ textbooks. 

Not at all what I'm saying. You are asserting that the Shard tyrant will make the best decisions on these matters and have set up a system in which their decision is the only factor in what happens, and as such it doesn't seem unreasonable to inquire further about cases which aren't tidy or obvious. The whole point of the exercise is to assess the circumstances of the Shard's absolute rule, and relegating a lot of those circumstances to "I don't know and it can't be known and it's unfair to ask, but the Shard is still the best" seems unreasonable. Unless you are saying that the means don't matter at all, it's fair to ask why one approach is going to be assumed over any other, especially when you're optimizing across a large array of things the Shard will directly impose the tradeoffs among them will at least sometimes be important.

I won't push on this particular point but without more granularity we can't get beyond the "assuming that X is the best, is anything better than X?" dimension I've brought up a few times.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

I don't think that society is an unknowable black box; racism has real social causes, and by altering society you can get rid of the factors that cause racism. Now the best way to do this, is a sociological question, not a philosophical one. In the case of wealth inequality, you can just increase taxes, for instance. 

I'm not sure this is sound, and while I'll agree that improvements through sociology are possible it's not clear to me how the Shard will impose them. "The Shard will fix racism" is a bold claim, even if we were to agree that the Shard could do a lot to mitigate or avoid effects of racism. Increasing taxes is not a very neat solution to wealth inequality, the underlying issue and economies more generally being quite complicated, changeable, and often not amenable to tax-based incentives. It also matters how, precisely, the Shard intervenes. But these are more tangential, as you've stated that the Shard doesn't need to achieve perfection but instead needs only be better than some likely alternative. The issue is more around how solve-able some of these issues are and, if not solved, how much they will frustrate the Shard's intended forms of society.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

But in the Cosmere, where not all men are made equal, the rule of a benevolent shard is naturally the best possible outcome, because their vast power and knowledge allow them to affect society on a level no human dictator could ever hope to achieve. Naturally, they can make mistakes, but their ability to do good far outweighs whatever harm they may cause, unless if there is some major drawback to direct intervention.  

I don't see how this works without the assumption of a morally excellent, benevolent Shard. Shardic domination is the case on Taldain and Nalthis, but neither strikes me as an ideal or even particularly excellent society. It's the assumed benevolence and moral excellence that's doing the work, not the singular domination. In which case, what does the Shard matter to the equation? Why not assume morally excellent, benevolent, mundane leaders? We certainly violate some of what we know of human nature to make those assumptions, but we're already violating some of what we know of Shardic nature to make the assumptions for them.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

I don't get what you mean here, presumably Nozick is opposed to direct shardic rule, because of property rights or whatever. 

Interesting to pick Nozick out of that list! But regardless I presented that list as a counterpoint to the claimed common-sense source of moral determination and reasoning and your challenge to present an alternative framework. My position with the numbered items in the list is both that "common sense morality" is not solid enough to be fairly considered as a framework (items 1 and 2), and that items 3-5 are issues with how the original question is constructed and posed, and that those problems are logical issues rather than instances of disagreement with the particulars of specific views of ethics.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Fictional characters are not ethical subjects; they are a reflection of real-world ethical sensibilities. Insofar as we consider their ethical dilemmas, we are only considering our own ethics in a roundabout manner. 

That's fair enough, though the effects of the arrangement that has them dominated by the Shard are part and parcel of the entire question. We can easily claim that the best society is one in which the governed have agency in how they are governed, for example, in which case their domination inherently harms that claim.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Suppose we adopt the following formulation: shards ought to help mortals live better lives; direct shardic intervention is effective at improving the lives of mortals; therefore, shards ought to directly intervene to help mortals. If you're opposed to the idea of shardic intervention, then you'll either have to reject the major, or the minor premise. 

It's trivial to reject both premises, as there is no particular reason presented to accept either. But let's grant the first, since "ought" gets difficult to work with.

It's the second that needs support and still lacks it. I'm willing to say that Shardic intervention might be effective at improving the lives of mortals. It could also be ineffective, or actively harmful. Shards are not free from uncertainty of outcome, so the outcomes of their actions are not knowable in terms of their efficacy (think of Rashek when he first took up the Well). Shards are also not constrained to only pursuing the best (or even good) outcomes, whatever definitions you care to use for "best" or "good". There also exist conditions of mortals' lives' "goodness" which may inherently conflict with maximal Shardic intervention. I maintain that it is only the assumption of complete benevolence and moral excellence that even potentially achieves the standards in the original question or that allow your second premise.

Edited December 27, 2025 by Returned

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

So, I didn't read everything people said, since it's kind of a lot and I don't really have the time, but here's what I have to say (which may have already been said):

Remember Harmony? Remember how he made a "utopia" (perfect farming conditions and such), and then 300 years later, he says how this might've not been the best choice, since it lessens hardship and the need to invent new technology. He was saying how they should've I vented the radio already or something. I mean, "should've" is also a keyword here, but yeah. Anyway, so basically the Scadrians (at least in the Elendel Basin or whatever it's called) are not progressing technologically as fast as Harmony would've hoped. I personally think hardship is necessary. Either that or the only reason people want to invent stuff is "for fun" or "discovery." Take diseases. They are bad. They kill people. How to stop/lessen that? Boom, vaccines and medicine. That idea. (The same is true for weapons, however.)

I think benevolence is a difficult thing. Taravangian probably thinks what he's doing is for the "greater good." Then there's that whole Jasnah+Todium(+Fen) debate in WaT. I think what Harmony did (or Shardic intervention to give people technology) is kind of like generative AI in that it does the work for you and you don't learn how to do something and exercise your brain "muscles." What happens if the Shard keeps everyone safe and gives them technology, then suddenly disappears/is killed/whatever. Suddenly, the people are left with a bunch of black boxes, so to speak, that they don't understand. Then, how do they repair, replace, and advance that technology? Maybe the Shard can also teach the people, but they would need to see value in that. "Why learn how to do X if it's always done for you?"

I think nudges can be good and people need to learn how to do things for themselves so they can build on that. Of course, the Shard could just give people technology fairly rapidly, then teach the people everything, but I don't know.

With Roshar, they are now starting to make advances (or so it seems), like with Navani (and her work with Raboniel). Could this be because of the "return" of the Radiants? Probably. So, really, was it Nale inhibiting advancements all those years? Now, they even have technology that they never had back before the Recreance, which is honestly likely due to the Desolations.

The singers and humans probably just gotta work together, like the Malwish and whatever the others are called. It seems like Odium (through direct Shardic intervention?) might be preventing this.

With Ruin and Preservation, it seems like subtle nudges was the only way to get things done (except maybe for Ruin).

Also, if you (as a Shard) end up getting on the bad side of the people (through "benevolence" rather than benevolence), this will likely be a problem.

How can you ensure either that people get along and don't war with each other (when doing so might actually hinder natural/non-interventious technological progress), or idk.

I don't like the idea of a Shard with direct rule where the people are not "in the know"; where the people just "do as they're told" and don't actually understand everything. Direct rule would be better IMO if the people understood everything. You know those "it was for your own good" cliches?

Also, even if you believe you are being benevolent, you might end up doing one of those "I let your whole family die because it saved more people," which you either need to teach the people that it's actually a good thing, not do it, kill the person who would not like it (lol), or just deal with people hating you.

While I think that hardship and possibly conflict can be "good" in terms of technological advancements, it may end up simply going on for a long time/forever until an intervention happens. For example, the Desolations.

How do we know you (a Shard) won't grow corrupt and/or insane?

If we have a Shard giving out the technology (are we?), then we have no scientists/scholars. I mean, actually we could, depending on the level of intervention. But also, what if there are a group of scholars spending years puzzling through a difficult problem, then you (Shard) just pops in and says "oh, the answer's 42." Or, they assemble a group and start working, and you do the same. Then, there is no need for them and their research.

What if either people start to distrust what you tell them, or trust it too much and trust it as always being true? What if you are wrong one time?

What if people decide to not follow what you say or something? Are you going to kill them? Spike them with Hemalurgy and control them? Let them do their thing, possibly causing conflict with others or you? Maybe you would only take action if it gets to this conflict?

I might've disagreed earlier, but now I actually think gentle nudges can be a waste of potential. I mean, you are a Shard. You know a lot. You can be of use.

What's the end goal? Are you just trying to advance your planet's people(s) a lot? Do you want them to have "world peace" and "end of world hunger" etc.? I think it's kinda hard to get there. There will almost always, IMO, be dissenters, criminals, wrongdoers, corrupt/power-hungry, oppressed, and poor.

Maybe people end up finding a way to hide from your observance (like metal with Ruin), and use that for "bad stuff."

That was quite a lot.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

10 minutes ago, Theory said:

Remember Harmony? Remember how he made a "utopia" (perfect farming conditions and such), and then 300 years later, he says how this might've not been the best choice, since it lessens hardship and the need to invent new technology. He was saying how they should've I vented the radio already or something. I mean, "should've" is also a keyword here, but yeah. Anyway, so basically the Scadrians (at least in the Elendel Basin or whatever it's called) are not progressing technologically as fast as Harmony would've hoped. I personally think hardship is necessary. Either that or the only reason people want to invent stuff is "for fun" or "discovery." Take diseases. They are bad. They kill people. How to stop/lessen that? Boom, vaccines and medicine. That idea. (The same is true for weapons, however.)

What is imposing the condition where technological development is desirable? What if the social conditions being allowed to progress with more time is better, since it allows the scientific developments to be implemented in a different set of conditions? 

13 minutes ago, Theory said:

With Roshar, they are now starting to make advances (or so it seems), like with Navani (and her work with Raboniel). Could this be because of the "return" of the Radiants? Probably. So, really, was it Nale inhibiting advancements all those years? Now, they even have technology that they never had back before the Recreance, which is honestly likely due to the Desolations.

I do wonder how long it will be until Roshar has its own version of the nuclear bomb. Scadrial has the Haronium-Trellium device demonstrated as a concept, so I wonder if Roshar has its own fabriel version of that? Holding back the development of items that can render entire planets lifeless seems like it is hard to weigh.

 

On the whole, I am doubtful of the idea that technological development is an unalloyed good.

[Nitpicking]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

ANFO wasn't developed until the 1950s so Roshar not having that isn't a counterpoint to their technological development.

Why on Earth are you assuming that they would have to invent various explosives in the exact order the Chinese and then Europeans did here on our planet?

Note that making ANFO consists of ... putting some nitrates in fuel oil. That's it.

Yeah, oxygen levels matter to internal combustion engines. Namely, higher oxygen levels in the atmosphere mean you have to adjust the carburetor/injection valve to admit slightly less air fore a given mass of fuel. It's that easy.

6 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Sure, that's why he enslaved the Skaa.

I never said Rashek was a pure and flawless being. I said he had good intentions. He did. He created the skaa and nobles because he needed (in his opinion) an orderly, controlled society to avoid any risk of freeing Ruin. Over his centuries, he gradually became more and more disconnected from normal human life and fell into the role of god-king, just as real-world politicians like Mao Tsedong did, only moreso. He did in fact save humanity on Scadrial and lay the foundation for it continuing even after his death.

And yes, built a society on a foundation of slavery and ignorance and oppression. I'm not saying I'd emulate him. I'm saying his intentions were good.

[Schizoposting]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

I must disagree. Rayse and Tanavast are shown multiple times succumbing to their Intent. That was what caused Tanavasts 2.5 thousand year self reflection. He was doing what his shard wanted, victory and oathes regardless of the consequences and he realized that this leaves the Rosharan people better off without him.

A lot of why Rayse was hunting down other Shards was because that's what Odium wanted.

Taravangian is shown to almost immediately have to fight against his Shards Intent.

And considering how Ruin talks about Passion, yes megalomania was a part of his shard.

You just proved my point: Tanavast was capable of self-reflection and resisting Honor's intent, while Ati was not. Also, I don't see why "passion" would turn someone into a megalomaniac. 

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Unless they were intentionally hijacking Christianity probably call them a demon and see them as a threat.

You're projecting your modern Christian values on to the past. Before Emperor Julian, Roman paganism was not a codified religion but was instead a loose collection of beliefs. And even if the king or whoever refused to worship the shard, then they could just stage a coup, or worst come to worst, they could start a religious rebellion. 

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

You can influence them surely, but remove ideas entirely?

That's something that only the most brutally oppressive regimes in history have ever even approximated.

Could you over the course of thousands of years gotten rid of Prejudice? Without a constant culling of the rising generation, revising history, and observing everything that everyone does? I don't think so.

Basically no one today believes in the divine right of Kings, so that idea, at least, has been eradicated. Besides, you don't have to remove all prejudice all at once, you can gradually influence society to the point where it no longer exists.

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

You're creating a false comparison.

A more accurate one would be: What would the US federal government do if a group of people left the country with the intention of finding some uninhibited land and governing themselves. Now that's a lot more difficult today than it used to be, but in the Cosmere there doesn't appear to be any planet where this isn't a very real possibility.

 My point is that a shardic government, like all governments, would really on violence if its authority is challenged. Looking for some select example is missing the point.

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

South Korea was supported by an outside power during the transition. And Brazil was already a quase-self governing body, and I wouldn't call it a functioning democracy, but I'll steer clear of politics.

In that case, the shard would also support a gradual transition to democracy. 

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Okay let's run three scenarios of varrying levels of disaster:

1. A new faction in the government wants to implement economic reforms that will inevitably lead to an economic collapse.

2. A government organization mandates a new agricultural technique that will cause a famine.

3. In response to a labor shortage a new law is passed essentially forcing magic users into slave labor for the state.

4. A faction of the government gets their hands on a Dawnshard, causing them to decide to expand their empire and the prosperity it brings.

It depends on how much institutional momentum the disasters have. If they don't have a lot, then the shard could do some behind the scenes manipulation to prevent that from happening. If the government is hell bent on committing seppuku, then the shard would have to take direct control. 

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

And so to avoid a possible outcome you start wars to conquer all other states?

If you are going to take direct control of one country, you might as well take control of all the others.

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Sure I can for two reasons:

1. Shards do not exist in a vacuum. There are sixteen of them, many of which have been shown to be determined to medle in the against of others.

2. They were comparing them to humans clashing, and arguing that a shard would be better. If there was only one human faction there wouldn't be wars or conflict either.

Inter-shardic clashes already happen without direct shardic intervention, so I'm not sure what the point is.

5 hours ago, Returned said:

Threads like this tend to spread quite a lot, so let me try to re-consolidate:

The OP asks if any specific set of goals (regardless of the underlying moral philosophies that establish or justify those goals) will be necessarily better achieved by a deific tyrant, who is asserted to be fully morally good, fully committed to those goals, and perfect in moral/ethical knowledge, than any arrangement which involves that deific tyrant exercising less direct control. I think I got the major elements of the question in there, but may have missed something.

If that is accurate then the relevant questions seem to me to be:

1. How fully can the tyrant control affairs on their planet or in their societies, and by what mechanisms?
2. Which problems is the Shard charged with fixing, and how completely, and which are not the Shard's responsibility?
3. How precisely can the tyrant guarantee specific outcomes?
4. In cases of conflicting claims, do outcomes for individuals matter or are we only looking at an aggregate?
5. Are there any aspects of existence which have moral relevance that conflict with being controlled to the extent that the Shard can effect?

I still think that the OP defines most of these questions away, but organizing information like this helps me track where specific issues might be.

1. They can control society through religion, by having everyone worship them. Worst come to worst, they can use their powers to punish those who disobey them.

2. Presumably their goal is providing the best possible life for their subjects

3. They can create the necessary social structures to promote development, prevent war, reduce crime, etc. 

4. The shard ought to prioritize the general interest of their subjects

5. Not unless if you consider the right to self-determination to be of utmost importance, but even then, the shard could gradually introduce democracy

Now, these are certainly up for debate and interpretation, but I think that regardless of what you think should be prioritized, having a shard in charge would be more effective than having no shard, or minimal influence from said shard.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

I definitely recommend the first one, The Memory of Earth, at least. It directly involves a lot of the ideas in this thread. Unrelatedly I made some edits to my previous post while you were writing your response, particularly at the end, which may or may not include things to which you'd like to respond. If not, no worries and there is nothing to change.

I'll take a look if/when I find the time.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

Having a goal doesn't mean that one is a consequentialist, nor that they'll do anything at all in order to achieve that goal. We don't know what the full scope of her goals even is, never mind how much success she's had in achieving them. Cultivation's scheming killed Rayse, which is a pretty final event to their antagonism, and completely thwarted Rayse's goal of killing her, which is a pretty decisive victory. It's not obvious that Cultivation cares much about the state of Roshar's people, at least to value one group over another.

In practice, basically every political leader is a consequentialist one way or another. Even "good" leaders sent scores of their own troops to dies in war and invariably caused at least some level of civilian casualties. I assume that the same goes for the shards. 

2 hours ago, Returned said:

Saying the word "utilitarianism" isn't the same as presenting moral information nor engaging with it in any way. We get Taravangian's reasoning towards a utilitarian conclusion ("hang all four"), along with Dalinar's revulsion at that conclusion, but there isn't much detail or discussion about whether or not one of their answers is better than the other, nor why. They disagree, neither convinces the other by stating their position, and that's it.

Is your argument that the SA is not explicitly philosophical literature like Thus Spoke Zarathustra or one of Plato's dialogues? In that case I agree, but I think that it's for the best; Brandon is not a philosopher, and any attempt at being one would lead to poor output.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

Ultra-subjective, semi-presentist, and optimistic.

I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean. By "neoliberalism" I am referring to stuff like globalization, the Third Way or the Washington Consensus. And whatever you may think of him, Trump really has reshaped global trade on a fundamental level (even Biden adopted many of his policies vis-à-vis China).

2 hours ago, Returned said:

While I find Trumpism to be horrifying, the reason I brought it up is that there are a lot of people who feel that "starving children in Africa is wrong" is not a correct moral position. Those people's moral views are probably about as thoughtfully considered as anyone else's. It is nice to think that people generally are morally cohesive around ideas that are broadly correct, but the idea that common sense morality is something that neatly excises other views or otherwise makes them not count is not a sound one. In my experience people appealing to common sense as their moral foundation tend to just mean the views they happen to already hold, common or not, to the extent that they've thought them through.

As for support of genocide, that (sadly) depends very much on the polity and group. There are plenty of ardent supporters all the time, with disturbing increases at particular times. I'm not really impressed with this very oblique appeal to a "heavy" focus on moral intuition, as a general thing or as a support of innate morality, though I might not be understanding why you've invoked it.

I'd like to clarify—I never claimed that common sense should be the foundation of ethics. I (rather opportunistically) chose it to avoid having a debate on what exactly it means for a shard to be morally good. As for the part about moral intuition, I was referring to this, since it is a relatively common in analytic philosophy, which does mean that for many philosophers, common sense ought to be the basis of ethics (although I disagree with them).

2 hours ago, Returned said:

Not at all what I'm saying. You are asserting that the Shard tyrant will make the best decisions on these matters and have set up a system in which their decision is the only factor in what happens, and as such it doesn't seem unreasonable to inquire further about cases which aren't tidy or obvious. The whole point of the exercise is to assess the circumstances of the Shard's absolute rule, and relegating a lot of those circumstances to "I don't know and it can't be known and it's unfair to ask, but the Shard is still the best" seems unreasonable. Unless you are saying that the means don't matter at all, it's fair to ask why one approach is going to be assumed over any other, especially when you're optimizing across a large array of things the Shard will directly impose the tradeoffs among them will at least sometimes be important.

I won't push on this particular point but without more granularity we can't get beyond the "assuming that X is the best, is anything better than X?" dimension I've brought up a few times.

Assuming that you're talking about something like the trolley problem, then that isn't really relevant since it's an abstract question that is disconnected from reality. Even, if for instance, there's a tradeoff between air pollution and economic growth, then the shard would resolve the dilemma the same way any other person would: by making an ethical judgement using the information at hand and their ethical values. Since there is no easy answer to this question, the shard would face the same difficulties as anyone else in answering this question, which again, would heavily depend on the concrete situation.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

I'm not sure this is sound, and while I'll agree that improvements through sociology are possible it's not clear to me how the Shard will impose them. "The Shard will fix racism" is a bold claim, even if we were to agree that the Shard could do a lot to mitigate or avoid effects of racism. Increasing taxes is not a very neat solution to wealth inequality, the underlying issue and economies more generally being quite complicated, changeable, and often not amenable to tax-based incentives. It also matters how, precisely, the Shard intervenes. But these are more tangential, as you've stated that the Shard doesn't need to achieve perfection but instead needs only be better than some likely alternative. The issue is more around how solve-able some of these issues are and, if not solved, how much they will frustrate the Shard's intended forms of society.

Well now it depends on how exactly the shard is organizing society: is it laissez-faire capitalist, dirigiste, communist, anarchist or something in between? How you answer depends on your politics, which is why I've kept this vague, since I don't want a political debate here. 

2 hours ago, Returned said:

I don't see how this works without the assumption of a morally excellent, benevolent Shard. Shardic domination is the case on Taldain and Nalthis, but neither strikes me as an ideal or even particularly excellent society. It's the assumed benevolence and moral excellence that's doing the work, not the singular domination. In which case, what does the Shard matter to the equation? Why not assume morally excellent, benevolent, mundane leaders? We certainly violate some of what we know of human nature to make those assumptions, but we're already violating some of what we know of Shardic nature to make the assumptions for them.

A shard would have many advantages over a hyper competent benevolent administration; they would be immortal, have future sight, be able to absorb far more information, they could use magic to intervene, etc.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

It's trivial to reject both premises, as there is no particular reason presented to accept either.

Well, you can reject any and all axioms, but most people don't do this, because they're not radical sceptics. I think that most people, except for perhaps egoists, would accept the major premise. 

2 hours ago, Returned said:

It's the second that needs support and still lacks it. I'm willing to say that Shardic intervention might be effective at improving the lives of mortals. It could also be ineffective, or actively harmful. Shards are not free from uncertainty of outcome, so the outcomes of their actions are not knowable in terms of their efficacy (think of Rashek when he first took up the Well). Shards are also not constrained to only pursuing the best (or even good) outcomes, whatever definitions you care to use for "best" or "good". There also exist conditions of mortals' lives' "goodness" which may inherently conflict with maximal Shardic intervention. I maintain that it is only the assumption of complete benevolence and moral excellence that even potentially achieves the standards in the original question or that allow your second premise.

It seems like your main argument is extraneous to shardic intervention as such and instead depends on them doing a bad job intervening (and it's not a given that shards will necessarily fail). You also don't elaborate on what "conditions of mortals' lives' goodness which may inherently conflict with maximal Shardic intervention", refers to specifically, so I can't respond to an argument that you didn't make.

@Theory, you presented your arguments in a very disjointed and incoherent way, so it's difficult to respond. I'll say this though, when Sazed says, "hardship breeds innovation", he's just plain wrong; the logic of capital necessitates its continuous accumulation; in other words, capitalism cannot exist without economic growth. So regardless of how easy life was for the northerners, they would still see large scale economic development as a result of capitalism. 

2 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

On the whole, I am doubtful of the idea that technological development is an unalloyed good.

I disagree actually; all technological progress is good. But that's neither here nor there.

28 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

I never said Rashek was a pure and flawless being. I said he had good intentions. He did. He created the skaa and nobles because he needed (in his opinion) an orderly, controlled society to avoid any risk of freeing Ruin. Over his centuries, he gradually became more and more disconnected from normal human life and fell into the role of god-king, just as real-world politicians like Mao Tsedong did, only moreso. He did in fact save humanity on Scadrial and lay the foundation for it continuing even after his death.

And yes, built a society on a foundation of slavery and ignorance and oppression. I'm not saying I'd emulate him. I'm saying his intentions were good.

So, do you think that Taravangian also has good intentions? He does genuinely want to "save them all".

Edited December 27, 2025 by Schizoposting

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

You just proved my point: Tanavast was capable of self-reflection and resisting Honor's intent, while Ati was not.

@Frustration did good job of defending my point (thank you), so I'll just reply to this.

Notably it took Tanavast several millennia to just notice he was warped by the Intent of the Shard. Additionally, you might want to take note of the fact, that once Tanavast resisted Honor's Intent one time too many, the Shard left him. 
So if your solution to being perfect ruler as Shard is to resist Intent, there is only so much you can do before the power leaves you, and you die.

Ati was considered the best candidate for holding Ruin by other Vessels, and this is what happened to him. And those Vessels included several quite old dragons.

Quote

Also, I don't see why "passion" would turn someone into a megalomaniac. 

What is megalomania if not unrestrained passion for your goals?

Quote

 My point is that a shardic government, like all governments, would really on violence if its authority is challenged. Looking for some select example is missing the point.

But the problem is shardic government would be entirely subsumed by their Intent.
And because of the power disparity, you end up with perfect dictatorship, where populace has no hope of defending themselves, or challenging the leadership.

E.g. in purely Honor-led society, divorces would be illegal, because it would be breaking of oath.

Quote

In that case, the shard would also support a gradual transition to democracy. 

Why would they do that? I can see Autonomy being compelled to, but other Shards are at best orthogonal to that, if not outright hostile to it.

Also, if the point is that Shard is the dictator, what would democracy even do, if the Shard ultimately has final say?

Edited December 27, 2025 by therunner

[Nitpicking]

10 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

So, do you think that Taravangian also has good intentions? He does genuinely want to "save them all".

Brandon likes complexity. I think T. believes he is acting in everyone's best interest, but on a subconscious level is partly (and only partly) acting out of his selfish desires, masking his own real goals from his own awareness.

I think that might be a weakness he has, actually. A Shard has access to any information it seeks, with exceptions. Could an opponent (Jasnah, I mean) point out to T. that his actions don't match his stated motivations, force him to confront his real motives, and break his mind? Maybe.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

10 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

@Theory, you presented your arguments in a very disjointed and incoherent way, so it's difficult to respond.

Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I was just writing a bunch of thoughts that came to mind.

[Frustration]

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

You just proved my point: Tanavast was capable of self-reflection and resisting Honor's intent,

Which he didn't notice until after the first two and a half thousand years, and then spent the next two and a half thousand years basically absent. And then when he tried to fight it more the Shard rejected him. That's exactly the opposite of the present and helpful shard you are proposing.

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

You're projecting your modern Christian values on to the past. Before Emperor Julian, Roman paganism was not a codified religion but was instead a loose collection of beliefs. And even if the king or whoever refused to worship the shard, then they could just stage a coup, or worst come to worst, they could start a religious rebellion. 

Yes but you didn't ask me to pretend to be a roman governor, or a Chinese emperor, you asked me to pretend that I was a feudal lord. And while technically there was Japanese feudalism, generally when we talk about feudalism we're talking about its European variant, which means Christianity.

Now assuming I'm a roman governor we have a very different situation, but not one that I believe makes your case stronger. While a multitude of constantly changing gods makes acquiring their loyalty easier, it also makes them fickle. Emperor Caligula declared war against Neptune, not exactly the picture of willing obedience you want.

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Basically no one today believes in the divine right of Kings, so that idea, at least, has been eradicated. 

Not really.

While true in the USA we don't see a lot of this, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the people who started the country rejected such a notion. And yet even here it just takes a different form(mostly because we don't have kings) but how many people on both sides believe that their particular Presidential candidate was chosen or inspired by God? 

If you look other places like the UK for example this is still a doctrine of the Anglican church, The Russian Orthodox church uses a lot of the same ideas as does the Chinese communist party, the North Korean and Iranian regimes etc. etc.

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Besides, you don't have to remove all prejudice all at once, you can gradually influence society to the point where it no longer exists.

Then how is this a unique advantage that having an active shard participate in government offers?

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

My point is that a shardic government, like all governments, would really on violence if its authority is challenged. Looking for some select example is missing the point.

Okay so how is it better?

The premise you propose is that an active shard is better for the people than one who encourages and inspires while not taking an active role. But all of your suggestions just seem to be replacing various forms of government with a brutal dictatorship even more ironclad than the final empire.

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

It depends on how much institutional momentum the disasters have. If they don't have a lot, then the shard could do some behind the scenes manipulation to prevent that from happening. If the government is hell bent on committing seppuku, then the shard would have to take direct control. 

So any power that the humans would have is only symbolic and they can only do exactly what the shard wants?

12 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

In that case, the shard would also support a gradual transition to democracy. 

How would it even be a democracy if the shard can just take control whenever they like and won't allow the humans to make decisions they disagree with?

That's not a democracy, that's an absolute monarchy with an elected advisory council.

13 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

If you are going to take direct control of one country, you might as well take control of all the others.

Okay I really don't understand this one. You said the reason for controlling all governments on the planet was to prevent inter-state wars

Spoiler

19 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

To prevent inter-state wars.

 

So to avoid inter-state wars you start inter-state wars, with the objective of putting yourself in charge?

13 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Inter-shardic clashes already happen without direct shardic intervention, so I'm not sure what the point is.

Well actually so far the non-interventionist shards like Cultivation, Endowment and Valor seem to not have this problem.

And indeed we learned recently that the Wars in Era 4 Cosmere are largely driven by the shards

Spoiler

Questioner

We get some indications as we go further in time, in the cosmere, that this is this idea of stalemate between the different worlds.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, between some of the worlds. There's bit of a giant galactic cold war going on.

Questioner

So as that happens, I'm curious, in your mind, is that being more driven by the people of the worlds and their manipulations of the powers going on? Or is this an inter-Shard thing?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to say this is more towards the Shards than the people, but both are involved. And there are flare-ups that are actual full-on conflicts, but I am writing books in periods where that isn't happening because I don't want to deal with that too much with that yet. If that makes sense.

Worldcon 2025 (Aug. 16, 2025)

And worlds without shards inhabiting them seem to be even better off.

So I can't see any reason to believe that Shards intervening results in less suffering.

 

@Schizoposting I've asked this question several times but you haven't answered, I'll assume it just got lost in these walls of text so I'll make it a little easier to see:

What happens to this world government, where the Shard needs to intervene constantly when the Shard disappears without warning for 30-40 years? 

[Schizoposting]

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Notably it took Tanavast several millennia to just notice he was warped by the Intent of the Shard. Additionally, you might want to take note of the fact, that once Tanavast resisted Honor's Intent one time too many, the Shard left him. 

No, the shard left him because he was a terrible person who betrayed Mishram. And still, you're missing the point that Ati would have never been able to have the self-awareness to realize that he was a problem. Besides, WAT shows that the shards can learn and grow, so it's not a given that they would remain focused on a very abstract conception of their intent. 

12 hours ago, therunner said:

So if your solution to being perfect ruler as Shard is to resist Intent, there is only so much you can do before the power leaves you, and you die.

All three of the Rosharan shards resisted their intent for millennia. A good a vessel is one that is strong enough to resist the intent of the shard, whilst savvy enough to satisfy it enough so that the shard doesn't leave them. Tanavast had the first quality but lacked the second; Taravangian has the second, but it remains to be seen if he has the first. For the majority of the shards, the intent can be satisfied without it being much of a problem, e.g. Virtuosity can promote art, while going against it once in a while to punish an artistic serial killer. 

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Ati was considered the best candidate for holding Ruin by other Vessels, and this is what happened to him. And those Vessels included several quite old dragons.

That was the problem actually: he was too closely aligned to the shard's intent. Leras and Ati should have switched places.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

What is megalomania if not unrestrained passion for your goals?

Megalomania is defined as "a psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence", so I don't see what that has to do with unrestrained passion. 

12 hours ago, therunner said:

But the problem is shardic government would be entirely subsumed by their Intent.
And because of the power disparity, you end up with perfect dictatorship, where populace has no hope of defending themselves, or challenging the leadership.

E.g. in purely Honor-led society, divorces would be illegal, because it would be breaking of oath.

It depends on one's interpretation of honor; we have seen no indication that Honor's rule was some brutally authoritarian dictatorship in the WAT flashbacks. And most shard's intents would not lead to any major issues.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Why would they do that? I can see Autonomy being compelled to, but other Shards are at best orthogonal to that, if not outright hostile to it.

Also, if the point is that Shard is the dictator, what would democracy even do, if the Shard ultimately has final say?

They would give the people self-governance so that they wouldn't have to micromanage everything. 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Yes but you didn't ask me to pretend to be a roman governor, or a Chinese emperor, you asked me to pretend that I was a feudal lord. And while technically there was Japanese feudalism, generally when we talk about feudalism we're talking about its European variant, which means Christianity.

Now assuming I'm a roman governor we have a very different situation, but not one that I believe makes your case stronger. While a multitude of constantly changing gods makes acquiring their loyalty easier, it also makes them fickle. Emperor Caligula declared war against Neptune, not exactly the picture of willing obedience you want.

The idea is that the shard will start a monotheist religion with them at the center. This will make it so that people follow them out of conviction, not repression.

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

If you look other places like the UK for example this is still a doctrine of the Anglican church, The Russian Orthodox church uses a lot of the same ideas as does the Chinese communist party, the North Korean and Iranian regimes etc. etc.

I choose the divine right of kings as a random example; the fact that some crackpot may still believe that feudalism is good, doesn't change the fact that it's wildly unpopular. Besides, none of the examples you choose, really believe in the divine right of kings; they may believe in something that you may think is similar, but they don't believe in it as it's commonly understood. 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

So to avoid inter-state wars you start inter-state wars, with the objective of putting yourself in charge? 

No, the shard will take over the entire planet all at once.  

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well actually so far the non-interventionist shards like Cultivation, Endowment and Valor seem to not have this problem.

And indeed we learned recently that the Wars in Era 4 Cosmere are largely driven by the shards

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

We get some indications as we go further in time, in the cosmere, that this is this idea of stalemate between the different worlds.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, between some of the worlds. There's bit of a giant galactic cold war going on.

Questioner

So as that happens, I'm curious, in your mind, is that being more driven by the people of the worlds and their manipulations of the powers going on? Or is this an inter-Shard thing?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to say this is more towards the Shards than the people, but both are involved. And there are flare-ups that are actual full-on conflicts, but I am writing books in periods where that isn't happening because I don't want to deal with that too much with that yet. If that makes sense.

Worldcon 2025 (Aug. 16, 2025)

Ambition did not directly intervene in mortal affairs as far as we know, and yet Odium attacked her anyways. And what makes you think that Endowment being non-interventionist will spare her planet from being conquered by Retribution, if he gets the chance? 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

And worlds without shards inhabiting them seem to be even better off.

Tell that to all the shard free worlds that (Emberdark spoilers) were conquered by the Scadrians. 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

@Schizoposting I've asked this question several times but you haven't answered, I'll assume it just got lost in these walls of text so I'll make it a little easier to see:

What happens to this world government, where the Shard needs to intervene constantly when the Shard disappears without warning for 30-40 years? 

That's why the shard would create a government that would be capable of self-governance without shardic oversight. It doesn't have to be a democracy, but it has to be competent and benevolent.  

6 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Brandon likes complexity. I think T. believes he is acting in everyone's best interest, but on a subconscious level is partly (and only partly) acting out of his selfish desires, masking his own real goals from his own awareness.

I think that might be a weakness he has, actually. A Shard has access to any information it seeks, with exceptions. Could an opponent (Jasnah, I mean) point out to T. that his actions don't match his stated motivations, force him to confront his real motives, and break his mind? Maybe.

Everyone (except for the odd Nietzschean) thinks that they are a good person; Sadeas genuinely believed that he was saving Alethkar; the same goes for Dilaf, Straff, Rayse, etc. Do think that they all had good intentions? If that's the case, then you've made the phrase all but meaningless.   

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

No, the shard left him because he was a terrible person who betrayed Mishram.

The shard does not care about good or evil, only that it saw Tanavast breaking an oath.

6 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

And still, you're missing the point that Ati would have never been able to have the self-awareness to realize that he was a problem.

That was the problem actually: he was too closely aligned to the shard's intent. Leras and Ati should have switched places.

Um, no he really was not.

Every single one of the vessels who knew Ati described him as kindhearted and gentle.

Tanvast even calls him the kindest of the original sixteen.

He very much would realize if he was hurting others, and was not even closely aligned to the Intent of Ruin.

Ruin changed that.

9 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Besides, WAT shows that the shards can learn and grow, so it's not a given that they would remain focused on a very abstract conception of their intent. 

Yeah after almost ten thousand years, two thousand of which were without a vessel which dramatically sped up the process. I don't think any vessel could hold out that long.

11 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

All three of the Rosharan shards resisted their intent for millennia.

What makes you say that?

Rayse and Odium lined up very nicely he didn't need to resist it, they wanted the same things

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium wants to be the only Shard. Odium could pick up other Shards if he wants to, but, he doesn't want to. His Shard is a good match for his personality and he doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

It wasn't until BAM and the false desolation that there began to be a conflict because the power liked her more.

Tanavast began succumbing to his Intent very early on, after the cataclysm of Ashyn he finds himself infuriated that the Singers are less faithful in his worship than when he left.

We don't have enough information on Cultivation to make a call.

30 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

A good a vessel is one that is strong enough to resist the intent of the shard, whilst savvy enough to satisfy it enough so that the shard doesn't leave them. Tanavast had the first quality but lacked the second; Taravangian has the second, but it remains to be seen if he has the first. For the majority of the shards, the intent can be satisfied without it being much of a problem, e.g. Virtuosity can promote art, while going against it once in a while to punish an artistic serial killer. 

That remains to be seen. So far not a single vessel has shown the ability to long resist their shard's intent. Sazed hasn't even made it 400 years and he's almost incapacitated by that fight.

And @therunner gave a very good rundown of the problems that any of the shards would have. Really only Devotion seems like it would be good at direct intervention without causing problems. 1/16 is not good odds.

32 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

It depends on one's interpretation of honor; we have seen no indication that Honor's rule was some brutally authoritarian dictatorship in the WAT flashbacks. And most shard's intents would not lead to any major issues.

We see many problems. Honor doesn't accept human frailties. Honor doesn't accept oathbreaking. If you say you won't stand up until you receive permission, Honor wants you to sit there for ten years waiting.

Additionally

Spoiler

Striker_EZ

Why didn't Odium take the Investiture away from the Fused that rebelled against him at the end of Rhythm of War? At the end of Oathbringer, Odium tells one Fused that questioned him that he could take "that which gave [the Fused] life." So why didn't he do that to Leshwi and the others?

Brandon Sanderson

This is actually an excellent question. Odium, in his previous incarnation-- we'll see how he acts now-- part of the driving force of Odium is this kind of belief, mistaken or otherwise, that Odium represents all emotion, and strength of emotion, and basically the Passions in lore. Rebelling against him in the way that they did is actually in line with Odium's personal directives. The Vessel may not like it, in fact the power may not like it, but at the same time, there's a part of both of them that acknowledges, this is what they set in motion, and this is an appropriate use of the agency of the agents they chose. And so, unilaterally destroying those who turn against him is actually not an Odium thing. It's more an Honor thing than it would be an Odium thing. It's just not in line with how Odium acts or thinks, even though it's possible and there's threats and... That's not saying Odium wouldn't do it. But acting like Honor is not something Odium would necessarily want to do.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

Honor would very much punish you for failing an oath or betraying him.

38 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

They would give the people self-governance so that they wouldn't have to micromanage everything. 

I feel like I'm getting two different ideas on how this theoretical government will work from you.

On the one hand you want the shard to stop all bad outcomes and possibilities from occurring, but also people have free rule and can implement their own policies without the shard.

I don't think that those two are compatible.

40 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

The idea is that the shard will start a monotheist religion with them at the center. This will make it so that people follow them out of conviction, not repression.

Grassroots religious movements take time, which conflicts with the other statement you made here:

41 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

No, the shard will take over the entire planet all at once. 

So how do they do it?

A dramatic an immediate(and necessarily quite violent) takeover, or a grassroots religious revolution? It can't be both.

42 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I choose the divine right of kings as a random example; the fact that some crackpot may still believe that feudalism is good, doesn't change the fact that it's wildly unpopular. Besides, none of the examples you choose, really believe in the divine right of kings; they may believe in something that you may think is similar, but they don't believe in it as it's commonly understood. 

Fuedalism and the divine right of kings are very different.

And yes the divine right of kings, that the reigning monarch is chosen by God to rule and must be followed in its commonly assumed form is the doctrine of the Church of England, which has millions of baptized individuals.

Yes it is alive and well in our modern world.

And while yes I see that it was only one example the fact of the matter is that no matter what idea it is we can find it. Ideas do not die, they change in exact form and popularity but it's not something that any human or Shard could accomplish in anything even approximating human lifespans without the most brutal oppression of said idea imaginable that I do not think that it could be considered as a valid point in favor of a Shardaic government.

50 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

No, the shard will take over the entire planet all at once.

How?

How do they collect taxes, enforce laws, supply resources?

That's just not possible.

Taravangian couldn't even torture Dalinar and look at what Cultivation was doing at Kharbranth at the same time. How is a Shard suppose to take control of the entire world all at once?

53 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Ambition did not directly intervene in mortal affairs as far as we know, and yet Odium attacked her anyways. And what makes you think that Endowment being non-interventionist will spare her planet from being conquered by Retribution, if he gets the chance? 

We also don't know that Ambition didn't. Given the Intent, I would doubt it, but not the point.

The point is that Nalthis is much better off, and has had a much better history than any other planet where the Shards intervened directly.

And how would Endowment being Interventionalist help if Retribution attacked?

Honestly her not being supper invested in the system means she has more power to fight Retribution with, now it wouldn't be enough obviously, but it's something.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Tell that to all the shard free worlds that (Emberdark spoilers) were conquered by the Scadrians. 

But notably they did not have 90% of their population wiped out repeatedly.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

That's why the shard would create a government that would be capable of self-governance without shardic oversight. It doesn't have to be a democracy, but it has to be competent and benevolent. 

So can they make decisions that the Shard doesn't like?

[Schizoposting]

24 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The shard does not care about good or evil, only that it saw Tanavast breaking an oath.

He wasn't breaking an oath; on the contrary he swore to capture Mishram. Honor abandoned him not for the act of betrayal itself, but because of the impact it had on Roshar:

Quote

It rejected me. My trap's aftereffect upon all the Singers was too much for it.

From chapter 124.

31 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He very much would realize if he was hurting others, and was not even closely aligned to the Intent of Ruin.

That's just not true: 

Quote

Everything passes, nothing is eternal. That is what Ati always claimed.…

From Mistborn Secret History part 1 chapter 2.

41 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Ruin changed that.

So, why didn't change Tanavast the same way? 

42 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That remains to be seen. So far not a single vessel has shown the ability to long resist their shard's intent. Sazed hasn't even made it 400 years and he's almost incapacitated by that fight.

Again, Tanavast was resisting Honor all the time. The power wanted a direct clash, but Tanavast repeatedly refused to directly fight Odium. Even after millenia of holding a shard he has able to resist its will so much that it rejected him.

54 minutes ago, Frustration said:

And @therunner gave a very good rundown of the problems that any of the shards would have. Really only Devotion seems like it would be good at direct intervention without causing problems. 1/16 is not good odds.

Only Ruin and Preservation are completely unworkable; Odium, and Whimsy, if controlled by a strong enough vessel, can be made to work; Dominion, Valor, Ambition, Honor, and Cultivation present minor issues; while Autonomy, Mercy, Invention, Virtuosity, Reason, and Devotion have no issues whatsoever. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

I feel like I'm getting two different ideas on how this theoretical government will work from you.

On the one hand you want the shard to stop all bad outcomes and possibilities from occurring, but also people have free rule and can implement their own policies without the shard.

The shard will give people self-determination within limits: for instance, it won't allow people to commit genocide, but it will allow people to choose a slightly different allocation of resources. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Grassroots religious movements take time, which conflicts with the other statement you made here:

So how do they do it?

A dramatic an immediate(and necessarily quite violent) takeover, or a grassroots religious revolution? It can't be both.

It only took Mohhamed a few decades to conquer Arabia, with shardic powers, taking over an entire planet in a short time frame is trivial.

49 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Fuedalism and the divine right of kings are very different.

And yes the divine right of kings, that the reigning monarch is chosen by God to rule and must be followed in its commonly assumed form is the doctrine of the Church of England, which has millions of baptized individuals.

Yes it is alive and well in our modern world.

And while yes I see that it was only one example the fact of the matter is that no matter what idea it is we can find it. Ideas do not die, they change in exact form and popularity but it's not something that any human or Shard could accomplish in anything even approximating human lifespans without the most brutal oppression of said idea imaginable that I do not think that it could be considered as a valid point in favor of a Shardaic government.

It doesn't matter if some lunatic thinks that people should be serfs to a feudal lord, in modern society they're completely impotent. 

52 minutes ago, Frustration said:

How do they collect taxes, enforce laws, supply resources?

That's just not possible.

Taravangian couldn't even torture Dalinar and look at what Cultivation was doing at Kharbranth at the same time. How is a Shard suppose to take control of the entire world all at once?

They would do it the same way any other government does it. I don't understand your objection. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

The point is that Nalthis is much better off, and has had a much better history than any other planet where the Shards intervened directly.

Is it? They're stuck in a premodern society, whilst Taldian is already in the 20th century with limited shardic intervention. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Honestly her not being supper invested in the system means she has more power to fight Retribution with, now it wouldn't be enough obviously, but it's something.

If she directly fights back, Nalathis will be destroyed, even if she had the advantage. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

But notably they did not have 90% of their population wiped out repeatedly.

You're cherry picking the worst example of shardic conflict—most shard worlds are not like this.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

So can they make decisions that the Shard doesn't like?

It depends on the decision: a relatively minor mistake may serve as a learning opportunity, whilst if they decide to commit genocide, then shardic intervention is necessary.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

Sorry if it is rude for me to not engage point by point, as seems to be the style in this thread at the moment, but it seems like the debate has changed terms from "Should a being of higher power, taking the form of a Shard as presented in the Cosmere books, but with a 'benevolent' Intent (in the Cosmere sense), heavily intervene in a society for moral reasons" to "Should such a Shard control a world-state".

 

I question if the role of ruler or leader or god is really the best way to get improve the world and people in it? All of those feel as if they carry with them the notion of becoming the master of the people rather than just trying to make their lives better. Sure, Taravangian in the story is setting up to make himself a double-god galactic emperor, but I continue to think that Taravangian is more into being in control of things than actually helping them due to his actions.

 

Let's look at the history of religion for a bit: Two of the world's largest extant religions are Christianity and Buddhism. While both invoke ideas or histories of royalty and nobility in their founder/savior figure, both such figures are more accurately understood as teachers of divine wisdom than conquerors or rulers in their mortal lives. Rather than seeing technology as an unalloyed good, I see an understanding of the world we live in as the thing that a magical super intelligence should be providing people with.

 

Thinking in terms of how to use or create a state to accomplish goals is limiting.

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

He wasn't breaking an oath; on the contrary he swore to capture Mishram. Honor abandoned him not for the act of betrayal itself, but because of the impact it had on Roshar:

 

Quote

"Even as it happened though, I was forced into another fight. This time with my own power. I braced myself, knowing this might happen, for I had told Mishram I'd choose peace between us. I had led my agents to entice her, and my Radiants had approached her with supposedly honest intentions."

...

"I wrestled with the power, insisting that it see the difference between doing good and being honorable."

...

"The power of Honor knew only one good: keeping oaths.

I knew other goods."

- Wind and Truth chapter 124

I need say no more.

21 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

That's just not true: 

From Mistborn Secret History part 1 chapter 2.

Yes, that is a factually true statement, nothing in the mortal realm is eternal.

That doesn't mean Ati likes destroying.

Aditionally

Spoiler

"Ati perhaps the kindliest among us who had bravely taken up Ruin." Wind and Truth chapter 165

 

Argent (paraphrased)

If Ati had somehow managed to give up Ruin and returned to being a regular person, would his mind have gradually reverted from its corruption by Ruin's intent, or would he always be determined to destroy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Over time Ruin's influence would fade, but Ati would remain a Sliver, so there would be some permanent effects.

Steelheart Chicago signing (Oct. 5, 2013)

Yes Ati was greatly warped by Ruin. Why did it not happen to Tanavast? It did, why was he still capable of self reflection? No clue.

40 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Again, Tanavast was resisting Honor all the time. The power wanted a direct clash, but Tanavast repeatedly refused to directly fight Odium. Even after millenia of holding a shard he has able to resist its will so much that it rejected him.

Not really.

He fought against Odium because he felt his "Honor"(WaT page 1063) demanded it, he pushed the Heralds in the Desolations because that's what Honor wanted. His horrified reaction after the Aherietam was because he realized he had become senseless only wanting victory, to the point Honor begins to develop plans for the greater Cosmere just like Odium.

Spoiler

"Only when one of us fully ruled Roshar could we use it as a stepping stone in our greater Cosmere goals." -Winda and Truth page 1096, chapter 120

 

45 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Only Ruin and Preservation are completely unworkable; Odium, and Whimsy, if controlled by a strong enough vessel, can be made to work; Dominion, Valor, Ambition, Honor, and Cultivation present minor issues; while Autonomy, Mercy, Invention, Virtuosity, Reason, and Devotion have no issues whatsoever. 

I must disagree most strongly.

Dominion is perhaps the scariest of all of them for making an emperor, you want the shards to stop genocidal maniacs, Dominion would be the genocidal maniac. Ambition wouldn't stop at one planet, or even any particular number until it controls everything that is a war with all of the shards. Honor as stated above would cause problems. Cultivation as well. Reason and Invention would both be particularly dangerous. War leads to the greatest number of inventions, Reason drowns out emotions such as Sympathy and Love. Odium as has been shown cannot work, and hates staying on a single planet, it wants war.

52 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

It only took Mohhamed a few decades to conquer Arabia, with shardic powers, taking over an entire planet in a short time frame is trivial.

Yes Arabia, which despite it's size due to the necessity of fresh water is very sparsely populated, with high population density. Controlling that as opposed to the entire world is like hold up a plate as opposed to the entire kitchen.

How do you get them to all of the contents?  You can't do this everywhere all at once you have limited capabilities, and anytime you leave one group alone they lose internal cohesion and fall apart.

57 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

They would do it the same way any other government does it. I don't understand your objection. 

No government has come even close to tackling the logistical challenges of leading a country that large. You have to answer with the regional difficulties of every area on the planet.

If the local government can solve an issue why do they need you? They will very quickly lose loyalty to you, and you can't just force them into submission: where would you get the soldiers for it? The other areas are having the same problem.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Is it? They're stuck in a premodern society, whilst Taldian is already in the 20th century with limited shardic intervention. 

"Limited?" Autonomy is all over their stuff.

And what do you mean "stuck?" Nalthis is one of the most advanced systems in the Cosmere, they have the single most open and freely traded magic system in the Cosmere, and they have a fully developed customs agency for interplanetary travel.

Meanwhile if you live on Taldain you're essentially a prisoner as you are forbidden by Autonomy from leaving.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

If she directly fights back, Nalathis will be destroyed, even if she had the advantage. 

Scadrial survived a direct confrontation of its shards.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

You're cherry picking the worst example of shardic conflict—most shard worlds are not like this.

Am I?

Worlds with Shardaic intervention: Ashyn, Roshar, Scadrial, Taldain

Worlds we know had 90+% of the population wiped out: Ashyn, Scadrial, Roshar.

 

At the very least 3/4 worlds we know of as having high levels of shardaic intervention end up losing the vast majority of their population, and we don't have enough information on Taldain to say if they fall in this boat or not.

 

 

 

Alright, I'll be real this is taking up way more time than I'd like. I'll respond much less frequently now if at all to this topic.

[Schizoposting]

A common trend among this forum, is for discussions to devolve into long responses on a point-by-point basis, that leads to wrangling over minor or irrelevant details. So, instead of continuing this trend, I will take a step back and consider the state of the discussion as a whole. 

There seems to be three main points of contention over direct shardic intervention: the problems posed by shardic intent, the effectiveness of shardic governance, and the possible ethical issues raised by shards intervening in mortal affairs. I will consider these points one at a time. 

In the case of shardic intent, there are two separate viewpoints: @Frustration and @therunner think that shardic intent completely overrides all other priorities, so, even if a veritable saint were to pick up even a seemingly innocuous shard like Invention, given enough time, they would turn into a madman who would commit any atrocity to accelerate technological progress. I disagree with this viewpoint—I think that while shardic intent may strongly affect the vessels priorities, it doesn't completely overide their values; so, in the aforementioned case, the vessel may start to feel very strongly about innovation, but there would still be some limits to how far they are willing to go to promote it.

Now, it's very hard to tell which viewpoint is correct, because we see very little of the shards in the Cosmere, so it's hard to determine exactly how much they have been warped by their intent. Therefore, any analysis should be based on the few examples that we do have; namely, the shards Ruin, Preservation, Honor Cultivation, and Odium. In the cases of Ruin and Preservation, it does seem like the first view is correct, since both ended up as monomaniacs who promoted their shardic intent at all costs. But the Rosharan shards complicate the picture. All three of them have conflicted with the intents of their shards: Tanavast, was rejected for straying too far from the intent of Honor; Cultivation opposed war, even though her shard supports it; and Odium was disliked by his power for being trapped in the Rosharan system. None of this should be possible according to the first viewpoint, since the vessels should have been so warped by their intent that they would have never disagreed with the shard.    

There are a few possible explanations for this discrepancy; one is that Brandon has simply been inconsistent in the way he has written the shards over the past 20 years; another is that Ati may have been an especially poor vessel, which led him to being subsumed by his shard; finally, it's possible that shards with more extreme intents, cause a more extreme change in the vessels ethical values, because the two are more opposed, compared to shards with tamer intents. Whichever of these views is correct will strongly determine the viability of direct shardic intervention. 

As for the question of governance, my vision is that the shard will intervene with the express purposes of creating a competent, benevolent, world government that would ensure peace, security, and the necessary social incentives to promote economic growth, and address social issues. The end goal would be to create a self-running government (presumably a democracy), with the shard intervening only when absolutely necessary to preserve the features outlined above. Now, how feasible is this for a shard to achieve? Given the vast powers and capabilities of a shard, which include the power to create and destroy planets, engineer life on a genetic level, and to see millennia into the future, it's hard to see why they wouldn't be able to achieve this, unless if there is some issue with shardic intent. I have suggested that the shard should create a civic religion to do this, but it's not strictly necessary.  

Finally, let's consider the ethics of shardic intervention. The only possible ethical drawback that I can think of to shardic intervention as such is that it would take away people's self-determination. Now how concerning this is depends on how much you value self-determination: is it a means to an end, or an end in itself? In the case of the former, then it's not an issue so long as the shard's intervention accomplishes ethical goals, such as leading to the overall happiness of the mortals on the receiving end of this intervention. If, however, self-determination is an end in itself, then there are two possibles: either the moral harm caused by limiting self-determination can be overcome if the limitation otherwise produces favorable outcomes, like general prosperity; alternatively, self-determination is non-negotiable, and shardic intervention is unconditionally immoral, regardless of how much good it may bring. I think that for most people, self-determination is not the ultimate moral good, so for them, shardic intervention is morally acceptable so long as the end result is one that is morally good. 

Overall, I think that shardic intervention, when done right, is preferable to no shardic intervention; shardic intent should not provide any major issues for the majority of shards, but it's possible that I will be proven wrong, and that every single shard is a complete lunatic. Ethically, I don't see any problems, again, so long as it's done right.

[therunner he/him]

9 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Only Ruin and Preservation are completely unworkable; Odium, and Whimsy, if controlled by a strong enough vessel, can be made to work; Dominion, Valor, Ambition, Honor, and Cultivation present minor issues; while Autonomy, Mercy, Invention, Virtuosity, Reason, and Devotion have no issues whatsoever. 

How can Odium be made to work? It stopped liking Rayse, and we see what happened with Ashyn. 

And Cultivation would not want to be absolute ruler in first place, it goes against the Intent completely. Cultivation is about nudging and then letting environment do the rest, exactly how she acts and what she describes to Taravangian.

11 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

That was the problem actually: he was too closely aligned to the shard's intent. Leras and Ati should have switched places.

What? No, not at all.  Ati was chosen because he was not aligned with the Shard's Intent, not because he was.

The Vessels wanted someone to keep Ruin in check, and Ati was the best choice according to them. 

Quote

Megalomania is defined as "a psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence", so I don't see what that has to do with unrestrained passion. 

This is also definition of megalomania: "An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions." To be obsessed requires one to be passionate about something.

Quote

It depends on one's interpretation of honor; we have seen no indication that Honor's rule was some brutally authoritarian dictatorship in the WAT flashbacks. And most shard's intents would not lead to any major issues.

Except it does not, we are repeatedly told that the Power cares only about Oaths, not any other thing. It is not honor in any human sense of the word, it is about binding things with oaths, and keeping of those oaths.

4 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

In the case of shardic intent, there are two separate viewpoints: @Frustration and @therunner think that shardic intent completely overrides all other priorities, so, even if a veritable saint were to pick up even a seemingly innocuous shard like Invention, given enough time, they would turn into a madman who would commit any atrocity to accelerate technological progress. I disagree with this viewpoint—I think that while shardic intent may strongly affect the vessels priorities, it doesn't completely overide their values; so, in the aforementioned case, the vessel may start to feel very strongly about innovation, but there would still be some limits to how far they are willing to go to promote it.

Now, it's very hard to tell which viewpoint is correct, because we see very little of the shards in the Cosmere, so it's hard to determine exactly how much they have been warped by their intent. Therefore, any analysis should be based on the few examples that we do have; namely, the shards Ruin, Preservation, Honor Cultivation, and Odium. In the cases of Ruin and Preservation, it does seem like the first view is correct, since both ended up as monomaniacs who promoted their shardic intent at all costs. But the Rosharan shards complicate the picture. All three of them have conflicted with the intents of their shards: Tanavast, was rejected for straying too far from the intent of Honor; Cultivation opposed war, even though her shard supports it; and Odium was disliked by his power for being trapped in the Rosharan system.

I disagree with your description of the Rosharan Shards:
 

• Honor: As Frustration shared, he was heavily skewed by the Shard, and one time he tried to resist it for 'good' the Shard rejected him. He also held the Shard for 2000 years shorter period than either Ruin or Preservation.
  • This shows that even if you manage to resist warping effect, you will simply end up losing Shard.
• Odium: Power disliked being trapped, because it was forced tranquility. As shown in RoW in the scenes with Sja-Anat, the power of Odium loves conflict and acting from passion. It hates acting in patient controlled fashion, things Rayse forced upon it by agreeing to Tanavast's sealing. This is despite the fact that other than this, Rayse is nearly perfect fit for the Shard.
  • You can see this with Taravangian as well, who was generally rather patient man, and basically immediately after picking up the Shard wants to act now, with no regard for patience.
  • This again shows that you cannot act against inclinations of the Shard for prolonged periods of time, even if it is just choosing inaction. Shard ruler couldn't not act if his subjects went against the Intent.
• Cultivaton: I don't know where you are getting the was working against the Intent of the Shard. Cultivation personally might oppose war, but did she do anything to stop Desolations? Not really, she mostly stood on the side and let it happen, cultivating select individuals.

Quote

None of this should be possible according to the first viewpoint, since the vessels should have been so warped by their intent that they would have never disagreed with the shard.    

The viewpoint isn't that Vessels can never disagree with the Shard, it is that overtime it gets more and more difficult until it eventually becomes impossible. Tanavast held the Shard for only 4/5 of the time Ati and Leras did, and already it was very difficult to hold on to himself.
And even if you manage to go against the Shard, if you do it over too long a time, or too strongly, it will leave you.

So ultimately Vessel must act in accordance of the Intent, or they will be Vessel no longer.
 

I mean, take Sazed. He is not a weak-willed person, he is well-intentioned, and 300 years in, he is basically incapable of acting due to his Intent.

4 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

There are a few possible explanations for this discrepancy; one is that Brandon has simply been inconsistent in the way he has written the shards over the past 20 years; another is that Ati may have been an especially poor vessel, which led him to being subsumed by his shard; finally, it's possible that shards with more extreme intents, cause a more extreme change in the vessels ethical values, because the two are more opposed, compared to shards with tamer intents. Whichever of these views is correct will strongly determine the viability of direct shardic intervention. 

I think Brandon has been consistent, it's just that the situations are a bit different and that makes all the difference:

• Tanavast held the Shard for only ~8000 years, 2000 less than Ati and Leras.
• Ruin and Preservation being so opposed sort of 'polarized' them, which might have effected the influence they have on vessels (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/167/#e3031 )
• Being more in-line with Shards Intent will show less severe warping, because in a sense they are already warped in that direction
  • Rayse was always well in-line with his Odium Intent from the descriptions we have of him
  • Koravellium was also in-line with the Cultivation Intent, preferring to act from behind the scenes with nudges, like Dragons seemingly did on Yolen
  • Ati on the other hand, was chosen specifically because his personality was thought to balance the Shard, acting in opposition to it, and he ended up severely warped

4 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

As for the question of governance, my vision is that the shard will intervene with the express purposes of creating a competent, benevolent, world government that would ensure peace, security, and the necessary social incentives to promote economic growth, and address social issues.

This raises several questions:

• Competent according to whose standards?
  • Whimsy would likely have quite a different understanding of what 'comptence' means, if it even cared about it all.
  • Dominion (based on what we see on Sel) would likely see competence much like Darth Vader does, failure is punishable by death.
• Benevolent to whom?
  • What if the Vessel is racist? Combined with Cultivation, or Odium you could get quite horrific outcomes, either divinely imposed eugenics programs, or divinely inflamed genocides.
  • What if Shard decided to create government that benefits ecosphere as whole, and as a result culls human population to far lower levels to reduce their negative environmental impact? I can see Devotion going for that, after all, all are equal in love, so benefit of billions of animals outweighs the death of millions of humans.

The problem is that Shards don't have morals that resemble those of humans, as Hoid I think put e.g. about Odium "It is divine hatred divorced from anything that would give it context", the same goes for all other Intents, they lack context, and so are all monstrous to some extent.

Quote

The end goal would be to create a self-running government (presumably a democracy), with the shard intervening only when absolutely necessary to preserve the features outlined above.

Then however you are arguing not that Shard should rule in longterm, but only setup a system and then enforce it. Basically a hybrid approach, where you start with Taravangian and ideally end with Cultivation. I do think that if such could be done, it might be a reasonable way to go about it.

Problem is, some Shards couldn't stop from interfering, e.g. Odium. It is the most hands on Shard we have seen, and even then the Power disliked not being even more active.

Conversely, some Shards couldn't interfere too much, e.g. Cultivation, so they woudn't setup the system in the first place.

Quote

Now, how feasible is this for a shard to achieve? Given the vast powers and capabilities of a shard, which include the power to create and destroy planets, engineer life on a genetic level, and to see millennia into the future, it's hard to see why they wouldn't be able to achieve this, unless if there is some issue with shardic intent. 

The futuresight is influenced by Shardic Intent, so what the Shards can see is limited by it, and some can see less than others.

E.g. Harmony took one large action trying to help people of Basin, giving them fertile environment and hints at technologies, intending this to help them develop faster, and instead it did the opposite. So futuresight is not perfect tool even on Shard level.

4 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Overall, I think that shardic intervention, when done right, is preferable to no shardic intervention; shardic intent should not provide any major issues for the majority of shards, but it's possible that I will be proven wrong, and that every single shard is a complete lunatic. Ethically, I don't see any problems, again, so long as it's done right.

From the Shards we have seen take active steps on their worlds (Ruin, Preservation, Honor, Odium), who is not a lunatic?
The closest is Tanavast I would say, and he is the only one who lost his Shard because of it.

The other Shards we have seen don't really interfere much overtly, meaning Cultivation, Endowment and Harmony.

Autonomy is kinda in between, because it seems to mostly be hands-off, but sometimes does stuff like incite genocide, which is lunatic behavior in my opinion.

Edited December 28, 2025 by therunner

[Returned he/him]

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

In practice, basically every political leader is a consequentialist one way or another. Even "good" leaders sent scores of their own troops to dies in war and invariably caused at least some level of civilian casualties. I assume that the same goes for the shards. 

Assume whatever you like, but the Shard-tyrant is not a "political leader" in the sense that a mortal leader is. Assuming a consequentialist mode is fine if you want to assert it (it's your hypothetical situation), but it inherently assumes a huge amount into the question-- exactly as in your "good" leader example above.

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

Is your argument that the SA is not explicitly philosophical literature like Thus Spoke Zarathustra or one of Plato's dialogues? In that case I agree, but I think that it's for the best; Brandon is not a philosopher, and any attempt at being one would lead to poor output.

No, though I agree that it is not explicitly philosophical literature. My argument is that the books include scenarios but does very little to engage with their ethical properties. Dalinar and Taravangian talk a bit about the hogmen problem, assert their positions (simplistically), disagree, and then separate. There isn't expansion of those ideas into the broader wars or how Dalinar prosecutes them, for example, even though there are plenty of points where the ideas may intersect. It's as if the book asked a hoary question like "would you steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family", character A says yes, character B says no, and the book just moves on. Little depth, and little that would prompt a reader to do anything beyond project their pre-existing conclusions into the book (as opposed to reconsidering what they think or why).

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean. [...]

I'd like to clarify—I never claimed that common sense should be the foundation of ethics. I (rather opportunistically) chose it to avoid having a debate on what exactly it means for a shard to be morally good. As for the part about moral intuition, I was referring to this, since it is a relatively common in analytic philosophy, which does mean that for many philosophers, common sense ought to be the basis of ethics (although I disagree with them).

It means that what you appeal to as "common sense", and what is a shift in a population's views about what is good or right and what is a temporary deviation which doesn't count, seems extremely unsound and projects your own views onto society generally. "Moral intuition", in the form I most often encounter it, suggests that people have "gut feelings" about the moral qualities that objects, events, and behaviors possess. It does not suggest that those intuitions are correct or useful (though derivations from those might be) and does not account for contradictory moral intuitions (racism is bad vs. racial apartheid is good, for a blunt example). But if you don't believe it and are not using in your arguments we can leave it aside.

I think it's fine to avoid nailing down specific states which are "good" for this thread's questions, if difficult due to abstraction, because the question is about execution rather than determining what is "good" (since moral excellence of the Shard is already assumed).

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

Assuming that you're talking about something like the trolley problem, then that isn't really relevant since it's an abstract question that is disconnected from reality. Even, if for instance, there's a tradeoff between air pollution and economic growth, then the shard would resolve the dilemma the same way any other person would: by making an ethical judgement using the information at hand and their ethical values. Since there is no easy answer to this question, the shard would face the same difficulties as anyone else in answering this question, which again, would heavily depend on the concrete situation.

Famous dilemmas are usually very contrived, but the idea that they are all irredeemably disconnected from reality is false. Emergency room triage staff make decisions like the trolley problem every day, for example. As above we can probably dispense with specific situations (since the moral excellence of the Shard is assumed), but the question fundamentally assumes that the Shard can deliver results-- that's what its direct control is for here. The more fuzziness we inject into the Shard's ability to effect or produce good states, the less meaningful the Shard's tyranny becomes. And I look askance at saying famous moral dilemmas are irrelevant because they're disconnected from reality while simultaneously talking about a Shard magically dominating everything and everyone.

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

Well now it depends on how exactly the shard is organizing society: is it laissez-faire capitalist, dirigiste, communist, anarchist or something in between? How you answer depends on your politics, which is why I've kept this vague, since I don't want a political debate here. 

Except that it seems like this doesn't matter to you. Your argument, as I understand it, is that the means the Shard uses are irrelevant because only the outcomes matter in your evaluation. I'm also unclear about why the political/social organization is so important, because the Shard is exerting direct control everywhere that it matters to an outcome's goodness, so the actual organization is always going to be a dictatorship. The question assumes that the Shard will fix things where it can.

My critique here is that the outcomes may not be achievable (the Shard can't fix some problem X and so their society needs to reckon with that problem's existence while still trying to claim goodness, even of a relative kind, and those tensions and decisions matter to the outcome). Even in cases where it is achievable the methods can still be relevant-- if the Shard reads everyone's mind, Preservation style, and then executes everyone with views that promote X, is that a fix? Maybe. But it will never depend on institutions or structures because the Shard can't be limited by them (it must intervening maximally).

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

A shard would have many advantages over a hyper competent benevolent administration; they would be immortal, have future sight, be able to absorb far more information, they could use magic to intervene, etc.

This misses the point. My claim is that it is the assumptions that define the situation: the moral excellence and benevolence are the factors that matter. We get the same results from any leadership with those same properties. It's not more unreasonable to suggest a succession of leaders with those traits than it is to suggest one that is also a Shard. A Shard definitely has more reach but that doesn't guarantee more or better results (Rashek and Vin had issues during their brief ascensions, and their mistakes were costly and sometimes irreparable). [...]

On 12/26/2025 at 10:09 PM, Schizoposting said:

It seems like your main argument is extraneous to shardic intervention as such and instead depends on them doing a bad job intervening (and it's not a given that shards will necessarily fail). You also don't elaborate on what "conditions of mortals' lives' goodness which may inherently conflict with maximal Shardic intervention", refers to specifically, so I can't respond to an argument that you didn't make.

Almost. My argument is that Shards are not inherently more able to achieve specific ethical outcomes or states unless we assume that they won't. Shards don't need to necessarily fail, only potentially, for their moral excellence and benevolence to fail to deliver. Shards have more power and reach than mortals for sure, but that doesn't mean better outcomes in aggregate with them. If we imagine ethical states or outcomes as a normal distribution around zero (I know it's ridiculous, but bear with me), with negative numbers being "bad" and positive being "good", we might say a mortal's distribution runs from -10 to 10: their good states are balanced by their bad states. A Shards might run from -1,000 to 1,000, which indicates their actions are more extreme in their infliction of goodness or badness, but the mean is still zero. The net ethical outcome of both groups is the same (zero), but individual actions taken by the Shard contain more goodness or badness than the the mortals' because of the Shard's greater reach and power. More, but not necessarily better.

What your argument claims (again, to my understanding of it) is that the mortals and the Shards will not have the same distribution. Instead, the Shard's distribution will be shifted or differently shaped such that its average is greater than that of the mortals. Departing from the clunky distribution analogy, the Shard needs to do a better job of delivering results through its interventions than any other being or arrangement could in order to achieve what the OP lays out. That means it necessarily needs to be less fallible and better at intervening than the alternatives, which may or may not be true, but is the whole discussion.

As to the "conditions of mortals' lives' [...]", I have flirted with describing it many times but not gone into much detail as it seems clear that you are taking a strongly materialist and consequentialist stance, and so will just reject anything else, with an escape hatch of "common sense" to elide details. Consider a world in which a Shard severs the spine just below the neck at birth, leaving all mortals quadriplegic, and keeps each person isolated in a bed in a cell. The Shard directly magics nutrition and medicine into people, and waste out, as needed such that they live as long as is physically possible. This is a world which meets the criteria you laid out: there is no prejudice, no relative injustice, no hunger, no death save from old age, no war, no physical nor emotional violence of any kind, the Shard is directly intervening constantly, etc. I doubt you'll endorse that, despite it being uniquely available to a Shard, its consequentialist tidiness, and its satisfaction of the listed criteria. We might say that despite that satisfaction, removing people's agency and ability to experience things so utterly is bad, as an easy example of its shortcomings. Less extreme examples are fairer, if less clear.

 

So in summary, the moral/ethical dimension of the question is non-unique (mortals and their organizations can also be asserted to be morally excellent and benevolent just as soundly), the capacity of the Shard to act is unique but is not necessarily more able to produce precisely the states and outcomes we want (saying "the Shard can just make a religion or something, or fiddle with tax rates" doesn't cut it, because it's the assumption of efficacy that is at issue), and it's possible that strong, direct interventions (uniquely available to a Shard) to accomplish some goal can also include "bad" properties that cut against the "extra" goodness the Shard is presumed to be able to deliver.

[Schizoposting]

@therunner according to WOB:

Quote

Questioner

Would Jasnah be able to handle Odium's power with her experience handling strong emotions?

Brandon Sanderson

She would be a good candidate.

Questioner

Will she become Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh come on, now you're just fishing for RAFO cards!

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

So, we have direct confirmation that it's best for a vessel to be opposed to the intent of their shard.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

What? No, not at all.  Ati was chosen because he was not aligned with the Shard's Intent, not because he was.

The Vessels wanted someone to keep Ruin in check, and Ati was the best choice according to them. 

That's wrong on two counts: Ati was philosophically aligned with Ruin before his ascension (as I already showed), and he volunteered to take up Ruin:

Quote

Ati, perhaps kindliest among us, who had boldly taken up Ruin.

From WAT chapter 115.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Cultivaton: I don't know where you are getting the was working against the Intent of the Shard. Cultivation personally might oppose war, but did she do anything to stop Desolations? Not really, she mostly stood on the side and let it happen, cultivating select individuals.

She literally tried to stop the war by threatening Taravangian's family.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

The viewpoint isn't that Vessels can never disagree with the Shard, it is that overtime it gets more and more difficult until it eventually becomes impossible. Tanavast held the Shard for only 4/5 of the time Ati and Leras did, and already it was very difficult to hold on to himself.
And even if you manage to go against the Shard, if you do it over too long a time, or too strongly, it will leave you.

I think that it's strongly implied that the effect of holding a shard is "logarithmic", i.e., the vessel will rapidly change at first, but this will taper off as time goes on. So those extra 2000 years probably had minimal impact on Ati (he wanted to destroy the Scadrial long before then anyway). Also, as I said previously, what's needed is someone who can resist the shard, but is at the same time smart enough placate so it doesn't leave them. Taravangian is an example of the latter.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

This raises several questions:

• Competent according to whose standards?
  • Whimsy would likely have quite a different understanding of what 'comptence' means, if it even cared about it all.
  • Dominion (based on what we see on Sel) would likely see competence much like Darth Vader does, failure is punishable by death.
• Benevolent to whom?
  • What if the Vessel is racist? Combined with Cultivation, or Odium you could get quite horrific outcomes, either divinely imposed eugenics programs, or divinely inflamed genocides.
  • What if Shard decided to create government that benefits ecosphere as whole, and as a result culls human population to far lower levels to reduce their negative environmental impact? I can see Devotion going for that, after all, all are equal in love, so benefit of billions of animals outweighs the death of millions of humans.

Well, now this gets into the ethics of how one should rule. Answering this isn't easy; philosophers have debated ethics for millennia. But let's presume that the goal of shardic intervention is ensuring human happiness. In this case, I think that the best way to achieve this is by focusing on the goals that I outlined.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Problem is, some Shards couldn't stop from interfering, e.g. Odium. It is the most hands on Shard we have seen, and even then the Power disliked not being even more active.

Conversely, some Shards couldn't interfere too much, e.g. Cultivation, so they woudn't setup the system in the first place.

I think those issues can be resolved by a smart enough vessel who knows how to manipulate their power. E.g. in the case of Odium, once they've finished intervening on one planet, they can start intervening on other planets; if they run out of planets to intervene on, they can just make more planets.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

From the Shards we have seen take active steps on their worlds (Ruin, Preservation, Honor, Odium), who is not a lunatic?
The closest is Tanavast I would say, and he is the only one who lost his Shard because of it.

The other Shards we have seen don't really interfere much overtly, meaning Cultivation, Endowment and Harmony.

Autonomy is kinda in between, because it seems to mostly be hands-off, but sometimes does stuff like incite genocide, which is lunatic behavior in my opinion.

What makes you think that if the non-interventionist shards were to intervene, they'd turn into lunatics? If they were already predisposed to lunacy, then they'd would've already intervened. Also, much of that is due to vessels, not the shard (particularly in Autonomy's case).

 @Returned you're right that what I am proposing is a particular form of the utopian ideal of an all-powerful benevolent philosopher king. In the real world this is impossible for a myriad of reasons, but the in the Cosmere, the vast power of shards actually makes this feasible. It's true that there's a real danger of shardic intervention by a shard like Ruin, but these shards will intervene regardless of what anyone else may think. I am directing this discussion to shards that are not already intervening. I am not discussing whether or not we should live in a world dominated by shards; I am working on the presumption that the world is already dominated by shards.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

No, though I agree that it is not explicitly philosophical literature. My argument is that the books include scenarios but does very little to engage with their ethical properties. Dalinar and Taravangian talk a bit about the hogmen problem, assert their positions (simplistically), disagree, and then separate. There isn't expansion of those ideas into the broader wars or how Dalinar prosecutes them, for example, even though there are plenty of points where the ideas may intersect. It's as if the book asked a hoary question like "would you steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family", character A says yes, character B says no, and the book just moves on. Little depth, and little that would prompt a reader to do anything beyond project their pre-existing conclusions into the book (as opposed to reconsidering what they think or why).

Well, Dalinar is not a philosopher, so it'd be strange for him to think about political decisions within the lens of philosophy; his personal thought pretty much boils down to "be honorable" and a vague fideism regarding the God-Beyond. Also, I disagree with your assertion that the books don't engage with philosophy, for instance Kaladin challenges the reader to consider not just what is ethical, but also how ethical values may affect the ethical subject holding said values; similarly, Nale is terrified of his existential freedom to make his own decisions, and instead seeks comfort in the immutability of the law. This is a series after all, where God is literally dead.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Famous dilemmas are usually very contrived, but the idea that they are all irredeemably disconnected from reality is false. Emergency room triage staff make decisions like the trolley problem every day, for example. As above we can probably dispense with specific situations (since the moral excellence of the Shard is assumed), but the question fundamentally assumes that the Shard can deliver results-- that's what its direct control is for here. The more fuzziness we inject into the Shard's ability to effect or produce good states, the less meaningful the Shard's tyranny becomes. And I look askance at saying famous moral dilemmas are irrelevant because they're disconnected from reality while simultaneously talking about a Shard magically dominating everything and everyone.

The trolley problem was originally created to mock utilitarianism, so defending it as a legitimate thought experiment is rather strange; regardless, the problem with these sorts of thought experiments is precisely in their abstraction. It's much easier to think abstractly than concretely, which is why so many people here have parroted the cliche that "absolute power corrupts absolutely". In the real world, ethical decisions cannot be trivially reduced to calculating how many utils each decision provides, or whether or not it fits some abstract moral schema.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

As to the "conditions of mortals' lives' [...]", I have flirted with describing it many times but not gone into much detail as it seems clear that you are taking a strongly materialist and consequentialist stance, and so will just reject anything else, with an escape hatch of "common sense" to elide details. Consider a world in which a Shard severs the spine just below the neck at birth, leaving all mortals quadriplegic, and keeps each person isolated in a bed in a cell. The Shard directly magics nutrition and medicine into people, and waste out, as needed such that they live as long as is physically possible. This is a world which meets the criteria you laid out: there is no prejudice, no relative injustice, no hunger, no death save from old age, no war, no physical nor emotional violence of any kind, the Shard is directly intervening constantly, etc. I doubt you'll endorse that, despite it being uniquely available to a Shard, its consequentialist tidiness, and its satisfaction of the listed criteria. We might say that despite that satisfaction, removing people's agency and ability to experience things so utterly is bad, as an easy example of its shortcomings. Less extreme examples are fairer, if less clear.

That reading would be dishonest, because the specific criteria I mentioned were not the ends in themselves, but rather the means for human happiness and flourishing, which was implicit in my original post. Also, I will obviously reject your implication that shardic intervention is inherently immoral, since you have given me no reason to believe otherwise. If your position is that "it's better to be poor and free, than rich and enslaved" then I can respect that, but saying "I will not share my disagreements, because you will disagree with them" is just a cop-out.