Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General About Goblins and other lore

First of all, I think it is good that goblins ( and maybe other races ) are shown as people and not just monsters.
They have their own culture. Even if they are evil and they are not liked by most "civilized" races, they are not mindless monsters.

As I have written somewhere else, for me evil means that a char cares mostly about his own goals or the goals of his group but not about others.
The goals of an evil char can be anything, even good ones. He is evil because he does not care about others.
Evil does not automatically include the desire to harm others, though it can be the case.
When I say "do not care about others" it means that the evil char does not care at all, no matter if others suffer or profit from his actions.
An evil char might help a good char to achieve a good goal, as long as the evil char himself profits from doing so.

Next question: Is slavery evil?
From the point of view of most people today: YES
Was slavery considered evil by cultures that had slavery? I do not know.
In many cultures (e.g. ancient rome or aztec) slave was simply a legal status of a human. A person could become a slave or stop being a slave because of a contract and this was legal according to local law.
In almost all cultures there were individuals who were against slavery, but I think most non slaves were not against slavery, else there would have been no slavery.

Edit: I read my own words again and came to the conclusion: Slavery is evil.
I have defined evil as not caring about others. A person who supports slavery does not care about the situation of the slaves as long as the slaves generate profit.
In a place were slavery is legal, a slave owner is lawful evil if he treats his slaves according to local law.
A neutral evil person violates laws about slavery ( either slavery is forbidden or not following laws for legal slavery) because he does not care about laws and slavery generates profit.
A chaotic evil person may have slaves because he likes to harm and torture others.