Haha, I should have figured this would open a tinderbox. But maybe it's a good vehicle for discussing these things, because as rough (and even arbitrary) as it is the alignment system is a decent enough way for us to categorize what - psychologically - people may think they're doing, versus what they ARE doing, when they espouse a belief.
Most of the people you categorize as LN are either LG or LE. The LE's want the law to punish others (but not themselves), and the LG's, like I said above, tend to think that law is inherently good.
Maybe we're speaking past each other, but isn't the bolded part a bit inconsistent? The law cannot inherently be good
unless it's a good law, according to LG. That may sound like a truism but it's really important. As I think you've even mentioned before, a LG will gleefully break the law in the LE society if it's an evil law. We could get into nomenclature at this point, like "well they wouldn't really call that a Law, just a human-made bad rule", if we're to define Law as "that which is alignment with the Good." But at that point the alignment system is reduced to just GvE. At least in D&D terms, LE is definitely a set of laws, but not ones worth following to a LG. So LG don't believe in the law in and of itself; they believe in adherence
to the correct set of laws, even if those are not the laws of the land they live in. A LG in an evil society would most likely end up in jail as a criminal, which is what Thoreau pointed out. LN is the alignment that champions following the law of the land
because it is the law of the land.
In this case though, the joy you are seeing isn't because the law was enforced, it was because the unworthy were punished and therefore the proper pole is (good-evil).
Again I'll say this for clarity in case we're speaking past each other, but my point actually is that the way punitive people think (I am suggesting) is that the law exists
to guarantee that wrong-doers get punished. It's not some abstract appreciation of law, like philosophers of law or something, that I'm suggesting is behind the LN; it's the fact that the system will crack down on people who step out of line as a systemic principle. It's the dislike of people who do things they're not supposed to (which is different from 'people who do bad things') that IMO is behind the psychology of the LN in ordinary life. I called that classically 'conservative' but this title isn't really so important; I only named it like that as a reference, but you could drop that aspect of it to examine my point if you don't like the title. I understand your reasons for rejecting it.
The "system has to change" is neither Law or Chaos, it's seeking either good (for other's benefit) or evil (for my own benefit). The "system has to go (and not be replaced)" is chaos.
I think this is fundamentally where we're not agreeing, so let me explain my view of it a bit more. I do not think that almost anyone is "chaotic" in the way you describe; fair enough, I suppose your position would be that very few people are of this alignment then. But I think this mischaracterizes a bit what Chaotic is even in D&D (or at least some of the time). Now the cartoony chaotic characters are of course nutty and make very little sense (like, how did they ever accomplish anything with that behavior). But let's take the Forgotten Realms world, with Limbo, home of the Gith. This is a CN plane where the rules of existence bend with thought. However the Gith themselves make their homes there using the strictest of order, where even the slightest deviation in precision means destruction for them all (I'm going off the depiction in PS: Torment here for argument's sake). And yet they are the sort of essence of a CN people, despite their extreme rigidity. The reason their are CN and not LN isn't to do with whether they want laws or not, but rather it's based on the worldview behind their desires. They know that there is no real (or perhaps formally 'correct') structure out there, and they have to create it completely for themselves. It's basically a nominalist (anti-realist) world, and where the justification for any rule the Gith follow is that it's theirs, rather than because it's based in a greater truth. THIS is chaotic alignment as far as humans go; that the rules are going to suit whatever they feel they need at a given time, but that there should be rules. There is another sort of CN, which is the fey CN, which is the satyr-like or capricious insanity of no rules and no purpose other than delight or fancy. But the only people who are like this to any extent are people who cannot function in society, so for the most part I'll ignore this manner of expressing CN when referring to 'regular people.'
Does that clarify a bit why I consider the more 'leftist' mindset to be chaotic-alignment? It's not because I think they want no rules, but because they believe that rules are by definition fluid, changing things, and that there is no "right" position for them to end in. If they did think there was a correct endpoint for rules, they would cease to be progressives at the precise moment where the rules were how they liked them to be, and would become orthodox conservatives; however if Chesterton is right then the sort of mindset actually cannot be satisfied with an end-point because change is its own purpose. That is chaotic alignment, to me. There are, even in D&D, many chaotic characters who have their own version of a code they adhere to; it just isn't the code of the society, and may not be rooted in a "greater law." The 'Robin Hood' type of CG is a decent example of this, but I don't think the RH story purports to suggest that he desires chaos for its own sake, nor does it suggest that he's a closet LG in a bad society, because that would make stealing from the rich a moral imperative, which the story also wouldn't want to say.
Actually no. The simplest system is to seek "good" but to define good as equivalent to what you already believe without examination. Under that system, literally everyone that disagrees with you is inherently evil and can be ignored (sound familiar)? There's no nuance.
I mean, in colloquial terms, sure this could make sense to say. But in D&D terms Good is an absolute set of (quasi-Judeo-Christian) values, not just thinking you're the best no matter what. It isn't possible for a LG in D&D to think of a CG person (doesn't respect law, but does respect good) as evil; they would just think of them as being a pain in the butt and possibly destructive despite their good intentions. The view that whatever you do is essentially the definition of good is a fundamentally CN or CE position, as the axis of measuring the worth of your action becomes only your own desires rather than comparison to a greater law or greater good.
Moral-neutral is actually really tough to parse out. Unless all you mean is moral-indifferent, and you just don't care.
I'm not sure there's an important class of people who truly don't care, but I think that there are plenty of people for whom deeper moral concerns are just not that much a part of their everyday life. Mostly it's pay the bills, get the stuff you want, and try not to dwell on the troubles in the world that
you're not devoting time to helping to solve. This is actually part of why I think there's so much online zealotry right now; because people are vaguely aware that they're armchair moralists (i.e. that they say stuff about it but do nothing) so to make themselves feel good they launch into invective with faceless strangers. But strangely enough I think this could still fall under neutral-morality, insofar as they are not themselves going to feel subjected to an outside opinion that what they think is wrong. Don't forget, D&D morality isn't relativist, so any actual moral relativist living in a D&D world would at best be moral-neutral (i.e. not subscribing to an exterior higher definition of Good outside their own opinion), or perhaps they might end up as Good if by chance their personal views aligned with the 'correctly good' views, sort of like the broken clock occasionally accurate.
Trying to decide what to do if a law is wrong is for an LG very hard.
This much I agree with completely, which is why I think
very few people are LG in our society. It's too difficult, and for the most part cognitive dissonance will change the view rather than change a person's behavior. When faced between "I am not living my life correctly in accordance with my views" compared with "no my behavior is fine because I'm comfortable with it or don't want to change" the views will come into alignment with the already established habits. Very rarely will people break away from their own lifestyle out of the knowledge that they're betraying their values. It happens, but not a lot, because it's very difficult. It could mean giving up a career, a self-image, or other advantages and comforts. It might mean living in jail Thoreau-style. As Nietzsche pointed out, not only will this be unlikely but even memory of the breach of your principles will be washed out; "“Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields.”"
