Rule-based methods give you a set of rules - "thou shalt not this," "thou shalt that," and "bell bottoms are definitely not still in style." When the rules don't cover a situation, you pick by the seat of your pants. When two of them conflict, you pick by the seat of your pants and then agonize about not having satisifed both.
Objective-based methods, which are generally more advanced, provide an objective function. Decisions are made to select the option which maximizes the objective function. This requires more thought than simply following the rules, and that's why it's more advanced (and more difficult). However, there are fewer situations it does not cover, and it does not have the problem of disagreeing with itself that sometimes occurs with a rule-based system.
Now, the point of all this deals with common portrayals of good and evil, in both fiction and religious doctrine. Most people don't consciously take fiction to be an accurate description, but it does have a significant influence on our culture and assumptions. "Good" is generally for one or more of the following:
This is all well and good. However, it is also extremely common for good to be portrayed as using a rule-based morality, and for evil to be using an objective-based one. The most striking example of this is the Judeo-Christian bible. The virtuous are those who follow the Commandments - a list of rules. The devil, the evil, does whatever seems most effective in obtaining his goals. In fiction, we regularly see similar situations (very like influenced by the Bible in its portrayal). The villain ties up the maiden on the train tracks while he goes off to commit some greater evil, confident that the hero - following his Rules - will be unable to sacrifice the one person on the train tracks to save the 10,000 that the greater plot will affect. Sure enough, the hero needs to save the maiden on the train tracks. He then goes on to thwart the villain as well, but that's because it's fiction.
Arguably, there was a time when we needed a rule-based morality because we were simply too stupid to apply an objective-based one. However, I think that, for at least some of us, that time has passed. Consciously or otherwise, we perceive the advantages of the objective-based methods. We find rule-based methods to be unsatisfying and restrictive, the mental equivalent of clothing that doesn't allow us the full range of motion.
Our perceptions of good, however, are tied together with our perceptions of a rule-based morality; our perceptions of evil are associated with an objective-based one. There is no reason that this need be the case, but it takes a great deal of thought to realize that there are objectives and methods, two separate concepts which are not of necessity correlated. Anyone who hasn't made this distinction is likely to be drawn to the objectives considered "evil" - not because he agrees with the objectives, but because the people and entities who forward these objectives are viewed as being more intelligent and admirable (as a result of using a more sophisticated decision-making process). Alternatively, if someone does decide to go for the "good" objectives, he is likely to unwittingly cripple his own efforts by applying a (almost certainly inferior) rule-based decision methodology - having assumed that this type of methodology is an integral part of the "good" goals.
What can be done about this? We can educate people about the difference between goals and methods - this is, obviously, what I'm trying to do here. We can't change the Bible, but we can change fiction - if you write fiction (particularly fantasy), I encourage you to break away from tradition and not portray the Good Guys as having a rule-based decision methodology. To do otherwise is to unwittingly encourage people to do evil.
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