Oh, this seems perfect.  1 silver piece an hour is affordable by his old means, cheap compared to the Fiducia, and a pittance compared to his stipend and recent assest liquidation.  It's so perfect, if it wasn't a Gnome, Fernando would suspect a trap, but since it is a Gnome, the worst case scenario is that the Gnome's interests aren't actually as advertised and Fernando gets his ear talked off about some inane subject.

"Yes, I have questions.  Mostly about fairness and when loans are fair and when prices are fair vs. unfair."

Fernando lets a bit of excitement into his voice and gets out a silver piece.

"That sounds like an Abadaran question and not a me question."

"I already talked to an Abadaran, and they mentioned insurance and then basically ignored the entire question of ethics.  I already know what actions are Lawful, I want to know what is the dividing line between Evil and Neutral and Good, and how to do better than mere axiology in regards to loans and prices."

Fernando has no idea what 'better than mere axiology' would even mean, but he's gotta hit the Gnome's obsession right to keep him interested.  This also means being more direct and less circumspect about potentially heretical issues, but Gnomes seem to flout society anyway, so hopefully this won't come back on Fernando.

Levrolurment still hasn't looked up from his book. "1 silver piece per hour if you keep pretending to know things you don't know, half a silver piece if you admit your ignorance."

Well, he saw through that quickly.  Half a silver is basically irrelevant compared to figuring out how to be loyal and non obviously Asmodean, so the question is how to keep the Gnome more interested in properly explaining.  Well, it's a Gnome, so there is always the direct approach.

"Which way do I learn more?  Some Gno- uh people don't want to explain the basics and just want to jump in the middle of their favorite parts and it's terrible missing the basics, but their enthusiasm for their favorite parts makes up for it.  So yes, I could barely explain to you what Asmodeanism is compared to everything else, and maybe barely give a single example of something that is Lawful Neutral or Good, but I really don't know much besides that and I would like to learn in whatever order you feel like explaining.  Particularly about non-evil forms of contracts and dealings and loans and price adjustment, but if that is too Abadaran for you, then just explain whatever parts of the non-evil alignments you feel like."

Abadarans generally want to charge way more than a silver or half a silver per hour, or even quarter hour, and Fernando's time isn't that valuable, so an hour of vaguely on topic Gnome rambling is still a good deal, all things considered.

Levrolurment sets aside his book. "In case you're curious, I am significantly more insulted by you thinking I'm an idiot than I am by any negative opinion you might happen to have of me or my species. --There is widespread disagreement about when it is Good to give loans. One popular opinion is that it's never Good to give loans because you're earning money without actually doing any work or providing any value to anyone." 

He's starting to get this Gnome's deal... best to try to avoid flattery and simply says what he thinks with a minimum of flattery and false certainty?

"That doesn't sound quite right to me... but I'm not quite sure how to articulate it, uh" and, no longer carried by false confidence, he stammers a bit "ehm... if there was some Lawful Neutral rate of loaning, and you were charging an interest rate much less than that, it would be giving them something.  And you correctly assessed I don't know much about Good but giving someone something, to benefit them, is Good, right?"

"If there's some Lawful Neutral amount of slavery and you were nicer to your slaves than that would slavery be Good?"

"Maybe, I don't actually know? I sometimes heard Asmodean priests claim that Good people just ended up as slaves to the Good Gods, with just a thin layer of justifications and aesthetics on top.  So if Good Gods can have slaves, maybe there is some level of niceness that makes slavery Good?"

And wow, this conversation has gotten way more heretical than he meant it to, but it seems like the Gnome has answers he needs, and will be offended by obvious lies, so he will just have to risk it.

"Pro-Evil axiologies often hold is that everyone is Evil and therefore you might as well stick with the Evil that is nicer, or whatever. I personally find these axiologies implausible and never defended them myself-- if Good is Evil with a thin layer of justifications and aesthetics, why is Pharasma bothering to sort them into categories? Law and Chaos are very different. --'Axiology' is the study of what is better and worse, which is separate from morality. Good is always morally Good, but perhaps it's best to be Lawful Neutral. Osirians and Arodenites certainly think so."

Wow, hearing the actual definition, that makes his earlier question mentioning axiology completely stupid, doesn't it?  He feels less offended at the Gnome cutting through his bullshit now.

He takes out a notebook, and writes "Axiology => better/worse" just to start giving him some framework for notes.

"So, using these words to make sure I understand them, not because I'm sure I've got it completely right... Prior to the Four Day War people in Cheliax implicitly or explicitly accepted the claim Lawful Evil is better, which is an axiological claim?  And most people would probably claim whatever alignment they are is 'better' except for some people trying for a different alignment?  And the thing were everyone, uh in Cheliax I mean, kind of assumes everything else is just Lawful Evil but worse at it or changing up one thing to count as Good is kind of a result of, uh, the Pro-Evil axiology we were taught?"

An obvious follow up question is what the 'better' alignment actually is... (Lawful Good?) but he'll hold that question for now.

"Mostly true in broad outline, but many people's axiologies are actually disjoint to their alignment. It's not uncommon for Good people to think all systemic alignments of Good are equally axiologically good, for example. Sometimes people favor Erastilian Lawful Good, which is all about tradition and keeping everything the way it is, over Iomedaean Lawful Good, which is all about overthrowing the fundamental nature of reality to replace it with one you like better. And of course many axiologies have nothing to do with gods or alignment at all. I was talking to a very nice wizard the other day whose axiology was that every sapient being should be immortal."

He takes more notes.  He wouldn't have guessed it is often disjoint, or that Lawful Good people often think all Goods (including Chaotic Good) are equally 'better'.  Also, that characterization of Iomedaean Lawful Good makes it sound really awesome and wizardly, maybe he should just get a copy of her holy book and give it a read?

He nods "Immortality seems obviously better, I mean, uh if it is a comfortable form with eating and drinking and non-Evil?  But I guess it opposes Pharasma... does she even have an axiology?  Something in favor of True Neutral?"

He still has his immediate concerns, so he quickly follows up with another question that might get it back to the topic he cares about without giving offense.

"Does pragmatic local reasoning count as an axiology?  Like 'Being Lawful Evil will stop me from being executed for heresy' or 'Being Lawful Evil will make more money in a Lawful country' or 'Being Lawful Neutral will make the second most amount of money while not causing me to be damned'?"

"Pharasmin clerics are mostly concerned with infant mortality and fighting the undead, but to my knowledge she hasn't written any holy books to explain her purpose in creating the universe and sorting everyone into one of nine boxes. --Pragmatic local reasoning falls into the category of axiology but isn't the most interesting kind. Presumably there's some reason you think being executed is bad and money is good." 

He's irritated as having his redirection dismissed but then an idea leaps out to him.

"So yes, my motivation for those things reduces to more fundamental motivations and reasoning... which in turn might be further reducable?  And... leaping ahead... is there a common set of core axioms most axiologies can be reduced to... which stripping them down to identifying you can then reconstruct and expand into a more rigorous, complete, and consistent axiology?"

This is possibly the coolest justification for Lawful Good he could imagine anyone having ever come up with.  Not that it is exactly enough to motivate him to be properly Lawful Good himself, and he needs to check with an actual Good priest that it isn't heresy, but it's still a way to really show his brilliance and loyalty.

Levrolurment beams at him for being a good student. "Many people argue that there is! And they have come up with five hundred different systems for what it could possibly be."

Oh good, he figured it out right.  He hasn't been a good student for almost two decades.

"Do you have a particularly illustrative example system?  And an example that you think is most correct?  And maybe an example that ultimately concludes Lawful Good is better?"

He can steal learn from and appropriately cite the Lawful Good example, and asking for an "illustrative example" and "most correct example" should keep the conversation moving and interesting.

"My favorite Lawful Good system-- which is new and pretty exciting, the gnome responsible is one of my heroes-- is that you should create a set of rules where you'd want everyone else to follow the same rules you do. For example, you shouldn't murder people because you wouldn't want to live in a society where everyone was running around murdering each other. This is Lawful, because you are creating a set of rules that you follow without exception. But it's also Good, because in this situation you would want everyone else to be Good. You want to live in a society where everyone takes care of the old and sick, for example, because you might be old and sick someday." 

"Huh, I'm surprised it's new. It seems logical in an elegant symmetric kind of way, which I assume you would expect from a lawful axiology, and it sounds like you could effectively derive a pretty complete set of rules from a very minimal set of initial assumptions and axioms. Is there a concise treatise written up of it, and if so do you have a copy on you?  Sometime after our talk, I could pay to have a scribe make another copy, with maybe a few more silvers for you for your trouble?"

He is going to do so well at understanding Lawful Good.

"Yes, it really is surprising, isn't it? You are welcome to borrow my copy in order to copy it as long as you pay me a silver for the privilege and promise to give it back."

Levrolurment expects that Fernando will not, in fact, give it back, but feels it is his duty to provide King Drum some enrichment.

"Now, I personally am axiologically Chaotic Good."

He recently made a statement under truthspell of his 'intent to pursue my future dealings fairly and justly', he's not going to rob someone in the course of getting a copy made of a treatise on Lawful Good!

"Often brilliant ideas are hard to discover but obvious in hindsight.  And thank you, yes of course.  Will you be in this coffee shop later today?  Or tomorrow?  Or you could tell me where you are staying for me to return it?  Whatever is convenient for you."  He gets out another silver piece, easily a better value for his money than 1 minute with that Abadaran.

"As to your personal alignment er, uh axiology I mean, I find that interesting.  I would expect, with my very limited thoughts on the matter, that Lawful axiology would be more consistent and logical and symmetric?  But perhaps you've found some asymmetry?  Or logical consistency isn't actually necessary?  Or some angle I'm not thinking of (within my few minutes of thought) on the problem?"

He's actually getting pretty interested in this subject, even apart from trying to appear as an ideal citizen.

"Well, any number of axiologies can be logically consistent. Even 'nothing could make it worth one more child starving, so we ought to free Rovagug and have him devour the universe' is logically consistent. Personally, I feel that each person ought to act to make themselves happiest. Surely everyone can agree that you ought to care about what happens to yourself. And everything else we want we want for the sake of happiness. Happiness alone is self-justifying." 

Wow, even Rovagug cultists can be explained in logical terms.  Could he escape Hell that way?

"I'm surprised happiness alone comes out Chaotic Good, as opposed to Chaotic Neutral, or even Chaotic Evil.  I agree its self justifying, and it at least sounds like a simple, minimal axiom everyone shares.  Maybe so simple I have no idea how you derive anything from it?"

Just being simply happy with no worries is a nice idea, but it feels even more out of reach than achieving greatness or getting out from under his debt.

"Well, in broad strokes, you can look at the kind of people who are happiest and observe what kinds of things they do. But you have to be smart about it. Even if you're happy being Abrogail Thrune, you're more likely to end up one of the people she killed on her way to the throne, and that doesn't bode well for you. --Here I'm talking about the present world and not the afterlives because everyone says their afterlives are the best so it doesn't provide much new information. Except the fact that Evil can't even get its act together to claim its afterlives are nice probably implies something. I personally wrote several papers arguing that Hell was the most pleasant afterlife but my grant didn't get paid out because it was un-Asmodean of me." 

Maybe in other countries that makes sense, but it doesn't seem likely to be true for Cheliax?  Abrograil Thrune probably also killed a lot of Chaotic Good people.

And what the fuck?

"Your grant?  And it wasn't paid for being un-Asmodean?"

He had been starting to assume this Gnome was a foreigner, but apparently he was an ethicist and moral philosopher while living in Cheliax... with grant funding?