"In Rahadoum, I had limits on what I could say and foreign travel. I had stricter obedience to Rahadi philosophy than the law needed. I had to obey the academy's policy and that would include following orders from the deans but what orders they could customarily give was far more limited than in Cheliax. I didn't see any feudal contracts or really any serfs, I don't think Rahadoum has ever had many and none since the atheist revolution. I think obedience requirements were pretty common among apprentices but, again, what orders they could customarily give were very narrow by Chelish standards. Would the law enforce obedience if you gave an uncustomary order? Probably not, but I think mostly no one tried."

"What are 'illegal orders'? Or, I mean, I can tell that they're... orders that are illegal... but what sorts of things would that cover? And what's the punishment if someone gives one anyway?"

"A specific punishment isn't baked into the basic concept. The important thing is that they're orders that are not licit to obey despite coming from someone who can normally issue orders. If the Lord Marshal ordered me to break my vows it'd be my duty to refuse him."

"...I might be misunderstanding you, but the way you phrased that makes it sound like — a thing about what sorts of orders people will get in trouble for listening to, rather than about what sorts of orders people will get in trouble for giving? And if we're worried about people ordering other people to do horrible things, I don't think the people giving the orders will care if the people listening might get in trouble for it. And — it's the right thing to do, to refuse if someone orders you to do something horrible—" (her chest feels tight) "—but I don't think — it doesn't make sense to me to... punish the person who got ordered extra because they should have... known it was an illegal order and not listened?"

“I don’t think illegal orders is about punishment, as much as right or wrong. We had some customs back home kind of like that. Some things are wrong to do, and so evil that everyone has a duty to refuse to do it, even on orders. Or, at least, a man who gives in to that kind of order should get some new scars before giving in, or he isn’t much of a man.”

“But we lost a lot of those customs, year by year. When I was young, one rule was to never turn on family, even if the lord or priest says it. But the schools put a stop to that. A boy gets used to hurting his brothers when a teacher orders it, hard to make him stop once he’s grown.”

”So, to get that kind of thing back, seems like we need to get a full list of what orders are normal to give and what orders are wrong to give and follow.”

Victòria still feels kind of confused. Less confused than she felt about the paladin, though, like he's saying things that make sense and she just hasn't thought through what they mean yet.

He's right that there are some things you shouldn't do even if you're ordered to. Chosen Artigas shouldn't have tortured innocent people to death to serve Asmodeus even if he was being ordered, even though he'd have died for refusing. Victòria is not really sure how the idea of illegal orders would help, though, it's not like the Asmodeans were going to make that sort of thing illegal — well, no, that's not exactly right — the paladins are calling them "illegal orders" like it's about Law but Enric is talking more about orders that are Evil, probably the paladins are just doing the annoying thing Lawful people do where they act like everyone should be Lawful, and that's why they're not just called "orders you shouldn't follow because they're super Evil" or something. Except it's not like having a list of orders people should never follow because they're super Evil would have stopped Chosen Artigas, it's not like he could possibly have been confused about whether it was wrong to torture innocent people to death. And also the Asmodeans wouldn't have told people what the list was, but that's not the point, they're not in charge anymore. Sort of. But — Enric is right that he should have refused, and that it's right for people to hold it against him that he didn't.

She's not really sure why the scars are relevant, if someone orders you to torture someone to death you shouldn't do that even if they're going to hurt you. Maybe that's for orders that are... still Evil but not as bad as torturing someone to death? Where — maybe you'd deserve to be hurt if you followed the order, but not to die for it, and so if you make them... hurt you as much as you'd deserve for following the order... before you do it, then it — sort of balances out? Or something? She's not really sure what it means to say that illegal orders aren't about punishment, that part is still confusing.

...whipping your classmates for getting bad grades in school is Evil but not as bad as torturing someone to death. And Victòria did plenty of that, and — she thinks when she was a little kid she was mostly happy about it, because she it meant she was doing well, but even once it was too late to be a wizard — for that matter, even once she'd stopped worshipping Asmodeus in her heart — it never occurred to her that it might be wrong. That it might be the sort of thing she should refuse, if she were brave enough, which — she probably wouldn't have been, but—

Probably she should have realized sooner that she was Chaotic Neutral. That's not really the point.

She's not really sure how she could've figured out that whipping your classmates wasn't just normal before the azata explained it. Or, if she'd thought it might not be she could've just asked people from other countries, but it didn't even occur to her. So probably it's a good idea to tell everyone what the illegal orders are, and then people will know about them, and some of them will be Evil or scared but probably not all of them? Unless their list of illegal orders is stupid the way some of Lastwall's rules are stupid.

...That was an awful lot of thinking to get to "probably telling people what the illegal orders are is a good idea" but at least she got there, she guesses?

"Is there a list or something of illegal orders that we could look at?"

"I don't think you can have a full list of everything it's evil to do if ordered, but examples would help. But - the problem isn't just that people can give orders that would be evil to follow, although of course that's part of it. It's that a man who has otherwise unlimited authority over you can still make your life hell, if you do anything else he disapproves of. We can tell people that they can't be ordered to kill their children or pray to Asmodeus, and fine, that's better than them killing their children and praying to Asmodeus, we've done well. But a person whose master can order them not to speak, not to move, not to walk, not to wear clothes, not to eat, or to hold hot coals or to sign another contract - what they say they do or don't want doesn't mean very much, on any other matter.

...maybe we want to ban the worst categories of things, and then - give tax breaks or something to people whose employees are allowed to quit, or who have certain lists of protections, or can't be hit, or something. That wouldn't be rights, but maybe the floor would go for it over a ban? But we still ought to put some more time into figuring out which things people think are normal and which things people think are infernal, I really couldn't tell you."

"That's part of why I was wondering if there was a list, I thought not letting people eat was just a totally normal punishment until the paladin said that in Lastwall they think that's torture."

"There's a list and I can list it if we want it, though I'm not sure the structural properties of the 'illegal orders' concept are what we want here - maybe some of the specifics will be useful, though. It's illegal to order someone to commit a crime, break an oath or treaty or negotiated lawful agreement, or violate a policy of an authorized and acknowledged order - such as a church - that they belong to. It's illegal to order someone to take an oath. It's illegal to countermand a lawful order if you don't have the authority to do that, and in general to give orders outside the scope of your authority, or that do not serve any lawful purpose, or that are only licit in a specific context like wartime when it's not obviously wartime and you can't sufficiently demonstrate that it's non-obviously wartime. It's illegal to order a punishment that requires a court-martial if there hasn't been such a court-martial, either to order someone to submit to it or to carry it out."

"It being illegal to order someone to take an oath, is that how the not conscripting people whose consciences say no works?"

"- I think that's separately enshrined in the Lastwall code but it's not unrelated, why?"

"Had a fellow ask me if I'd bring up the right to not be conscripted against conscience if there was a moment for it, is all."

She had some things she was going to say about the illegal orders rules, which really seem like they're a lot more about being Lawful than about being Good (why is it illegal to order someone to break an oath, but not illegal to order someone to do something Evil??), but now she's distracted by what Delegate Soler just said, which is also confusing.

"How does that... work? Like — I don't know how to explain this, but — if there's a war that's Evil, then no one should be fighting in it? Or does that just mean 'no conscripting people for Evil wars' or something?"

"Fellow was an Abadaran, I think Abadar doesn't like wars unless they're defensive and it's got nothing to do if they're Evil."

"I think I'm still confused — uh, I learned the words for 'listening to your conscience,' like, two weeks ago from a pamphlet, I might have misunderstood it?"

"People's consciences speak to different aspects of the right thing to do at different volumes. Some people may reasonably fear they'd do themselves dreadful harm if they did any violence at all to anyone ever."

"...so it's like, even if someone's conscience is a little broken, we still shouldn't make people do things it's telling them not to do, because then they might stop listening to it when it's telling them not to do things that are actually Evil?"

Victòria is still pretty sure she's not understanding right but maybe it'll help to try to clarify?

"...is it important to the business of this committee that I explain this to your satisfaction here and now, because I'm not sure how time-consuming it might be."

"...well, I want to be sure I understand the point of the proposal before we vote on it, but if we're not voting on it today I can see about getting someone to explain it to me later. I'm not trying to, like, waste the committee's time or anything."

"Different people come to different conclusions on matters of morality because their consciences tell them different things," he says, "because, just as Paladin Jornet says, there are a thousand aspects of Good and different people feel different ones at different strengths. One aspect of goodness is refraining from hurting others, another is opposing evil, a third is obedience to lawful authority, and so forth and so on through all the many virtues. Lastwall's policy of conscription exemptions sets those who are unwilling to fight evil due to morality or simple cowardice to hard labor in the service of the state instead of to the task of fighting evil, because someone must maintain roads and fortifications and it may as well be those unwilling to defend their homeland from constant orcish invasion."

Hey, if Lastwall lets you get out of the military by doing hard labor then maybe that's a reasonable provision for getting out of contracts, except that in Cheliax hard labor is mining and that seems like not an amazing alternative to almost anything. Oh well. It's an idea.

"What does it mean that an order is illegal if it serves no lawful purpose? What are lawful purposes?" That could just be not committing crimes, but that was listed separately, so -

"It's meant to exclude things that have nothing to do with the licit order-giving context at all - one wouldn't order one's military subordinate to, uh, sing a song, for instance. In principle it could protect against some of the - encroachments - you mentioned, like an order not to eat or not to wear clothes."

"That seems potentially really useful, but only if there are well-understood limits to the context, and I can't think how you'd require that all contracts have a well-understood context that they apply to. Maybe it works for most employment, or apprentices... I'm not sure it works for domestic service, and it definitely doesn't work for marriage. It might work for serfs?"

"—Wait, sorry, uh, this probably isn't relevant to the committee but do people in Lastwall think it was Good to obey the Asmodeans two years ago??? Since they were Lawful and in charge?"

"No."