This discussion partakes of the alignment grid portrayal of morality which is often utilized in tabletop gaming. I find that the complexities inherent in the grid pattern are useful for evoking certain combined concepts, such as lawful-evil.
Though of course the grid itself is a rather simplified view of morality in many ways. It combines two axes of behavioral spectrum that are not necessarily related (I myself do think they are, but the proof is not conclusive)—the chaos-order axis and the good-evil axis. Order-chaos (or law-chaos) is the less controversial of the two, as the components can at least be defined clearly (though there are many subtleties to explore: see the Recluce series of books by L.E. Modesitt Jr. for a number of interesting philosophical insights/explorations regarding the natures of order and chaos).
Good and evil are not as easy to define, and so the entire conglomerate of the alignment grid becomes somewhat suspect. As an alternative to the analytical philosophy method of starting with base definitions and building up from there, however, we can instead utilize indirect methods of understanding good and evil. The same indirect approaches can then be applied to order and chaos, and in a combined method to the nine base alignments of the grid formed by the combination of the two axes.
Listed, from top-left to bottom right, those alignments are lawful-good, neutral-good, chaotic-good, lawful-neutral, true-neutral, chaotic-neutral, lawful-evil, neutral-evil, and chaotic-evil. Thus, it is possible to be law-abiding but evil, just as it is possible to be a chaotic person but still serve the good. Or neither. Personally I consider neutral-good to be the ideal alignment, as one maintains a balance between order and chaos while still serving the good. Sadly, I have often been closer to chaotic-neutral in temperament and action (or worse), but then hard lessons are often what teaches us our errors and earns us the understanding necessary to improve.
The title of this post warns of the danger of the lawful-evil alignment. The danger is thus: often, law/order come to be equated with good, and chaos with evil (because of indirect effects and consequences generally linked to utilitarian outcomes), but such conceptions do not even acknowledge the possibility of the lawful-evil. We become blind to it. Or, worse, we consider the upholding of law/order to be more important than supporting or pursuing the good. But evil does exist. And when people come to ignore it, or to assume that concepts of good or evil are not relevant in a certain context, then those of evil alignment come to thrive. Further, the lawful-evil alignment becomes the most useful one to hold/have, as it leads to the best outcomes in purely secular/materialist terms, and so more and more people are swayed toward that alignment. Eventually, society itself becomes predominantly lawful-evil, as deeper concepts of good are cast aside or ignored in favor of shallow (and false) re-definitions (such as equating pleasure-pain with good-evil, etc). This scenario is happening just now, all over the world but led by the American model, as order and obedience are pushed forward to take precedence over the pursuit of the good.
But how can we know the good? Or conversely, the evil? If these things cannot be adequately defined then we must rely on indirect methods instead. Personal insight can be useful here, as many people instinctively seek the good over the evil and have a sense of those things that seem good and those that seem evil. Unless trained and informed, however, insight alone is often insufficient. Some people are better at interpreting this inner sense than others, some people lack it entirely, and regardless it is only useful for single individuals, who often come up with conflicting results from each other. This is further muddled because insight is often confused with instinct, which latter sense concerns itself more often with biological species preservation—which can often stray into the moral evil as it preserves the organism. Insight also becomes less useful the more complex the situation. Given that societies themselves and the course of peoples' lives are becoming increasingly more complex in this digital interconnected pseudo-post-industrial age, we come to comparatively fewer incidents in which insight alone (unless trained and learned over years of effort) is a useful indicator for what might be the good choice, or the evil one.
I theorize that there is a more reliable indicator, still simple enough to be useful, though with a number of important caveats. That is, love. In my experience, to the best of my understanding, to the furthest depths of my insight, over the course of decades of moral exploration and complex thought, love alone is the sure indicator of good. If love is present, or, better, central, then so too is good. At least some good. If love is absent then the situation/alignment/choice/etc is either amoral, or evil. Simply thus.
Now for those caveats: one, this must be pure and unselfish love. That is, love of the spirit and not of the body. Or, if one prefers, love of mind alone (though mind that denies the relevance of individual body—I personally find that adherence to concepts of spirit are much simpler and easier than the mental exercise of completely negating purely physical concepts). Most clearly here, love and sex are two entirely different things. Though they can occur at the same time and good/right sex is always accompanied by/an extension of/founded in, love. The effort to equate sex and love seems to me to be a lawful-evil effort to eradicate true concepts of love and thus further transform this into a lawful-evil world.
So, to stray somewhat into terms that may seem religious (though are not—religion is mostly socio-political organization that comes into being to preserve and teach true/important/spiritual concepts to the unending succession of new generations. The truth at the core often becomes lost over time. The terms I am using here are not religious; they are an attempt to grasp at the underlying, dimly understood pure truths of this existence), love is the essence of what we are in being, of how we come into being, and the support and pursuit of love cannot be separated from the support and pursuit of good. By my reference to what we are in being I am not referring to our bodies. We are not these bodies. Rather, we are the undefinable thing/essence/soul that resides within/is contiguous and exercises bound dominion/sovereignty over the bodies that we are born into. Setting aside questions of origin or outcomes after death, because those things are far more speculative and less certain than the manifest truth of current existence, human beings (and other beings) are entities of 'energy' (though of course everything is 'energy' in some form or another and so the term/concept becomes largely useless without explanation) that are embodied, rather than bodies themselves.
Love itself can be somewhat understood as mutual self-sacrifice. That is, energetically speaking, the willful surrender of the being of the self for the good of another/others/all others. When this occurs between two people, each for the sake of the other, love occurs. That is, the mutual self-sacrifice of being effects the creation of love. That is, a synergy occurs, such that more energy is created (far, far more) than is lost to the sacrifice. [Yes, created. For those hung up on the 1st law of thermodynamics, please consider the definitional variation: thermodynamics is concerned with heat energy/work/internal energy—the interaction of matter. Furthermore, thermodynamics itself assumes a contained universe of known dimensions, without hidden dimensions or transformation between exotic states of being/multiversal interaction. These assumptions are outdated and wrong even in mainstream science, let alone non-science (i.e. not blind to half of existence, and the more important half at that) exploration of deeper truth.] So, these two people in love will, even though they are sacrificing of their own being/energy for the sake of the other, become far better off, even in just strictly energetic terms, than they would be without the sacrifice of their being. Provided that the self-sacrifice is mutual, and that love is in fact being created.
So, pure and unselfish love (inadequately explored here, but I think you can get the idea) is an indication of good. And is not present in evil. Evil is characterized, in fact, by selfishness and by the taking from others, for the sake of the individual self, without giving anything back in return, or by giving back less than is taken. Though be careful to consider the whole picture—big evils are often disguised by minor acts of selflessness/giving that obscure great selfishness/takings. Kind of like amazon (and other tech giants in different ways) slowly acquiring a monopoly, which is then exploited to jack up prices/increase profits, started by the apparently selfless offer of 'free' shipping.
Caveat two: not everyone is capable of understanding (at a given time) what love is—for those people who cannot this will not be a useful indicator. Particularly if it is the case that the person has false knowledge/a false understanding of love (such as that love is just another word for sex, etc). Traditionally, ideally, most people learned what love is, intuitively and in a basic sense, from the pure unselfish love of a parent. Usually the mother. That touch of love, that early taste of the glory that is love, is what leads most people to seek it out in their adult lives, and to consider their lives incomplete if they do not have it. Those whose parents were not truly loving in a spiritual sense will not have tasted of it. Those raised without love much the same. Fortunately, our very beings of being (our souls if you will) are themselves created of love, so we have always at hand the means to find what love is and to learn of it. Even without the time, effort, and introspection required for learning of love through exploration of the being of the self, we can still learn of it through material interaction with the world. Self-sacrifice is the key. Of the self, truly the self—I am not talking about indirect things such as time or money or work, although those things can and perhaps should be sacrificed along with the being of the self, as further affirmation. With two people in love this is (this must be) mutual self-sacrifice, but a greater love can be found through self-sacrifice for the good of others, even all others, without the element of immediate personal gain involved in a relationship between two people. And that greater love, once found, can even better teach what love itself is, and that life itself is meaningless, in and of itself, without love.
There are more caveats and concerns, but this post is running long so I will try to wrap up. The danger of the lawful-evil is that of a world without love—or rather, a world in which love has been hidden from human knowledge and understanding, as love itself is part of the being of life and so cannot be destroyed. Evil thrives when love has been hidden away, been encapsulated, been enslaved to selfish purposes. A society can only become evil with the reduction of love in society—and this is entirely possible, as love is an inner thing unless is it brought out into the world by human choice; love exists always within our hearts, but unless there is also love between and among people then the world itself is darkened. The light of love, the pure true light that cannot be seen, is the death of evil. For it exposes that the selfishness of this world is rooted in the temporary existence of these bodies and not in the true enduring being of the soul. So beware the lawful-evil. Beware law and order that places itself above (or worse, seeks to substitute itself for) considerations of good and evil. Seek to increase love in the world and, in so doing, make the world a better place. Truly, directly, and at root, not just through indirect and often questionable means like recycling, green energy, political protests, ect.
[Joseph Jones, 04 August 2022]