Malevolent is the direct opposite of benevolent, so I like the symmetry there. Also it seems a gross perversion of Darwin or Nietzche to attribute the philosophies of conquest and domination to either of them. I am guessing you are trying to find a term that removes the value judgement that malevolent brings, but I think the value judgement is part of the point. These are civs that wish to do harm to others, which is the exact definition of malevolent.

Darwinistic doesn't imply aggression or malevolence, as often times more altruistic and selfless acts are more beneficial to survival. It would be suitable to replace pragmatic, but the naming isn't in line with the fiction in my opinion.

Survival of the fittest means that survival is conditional to how well you fit in your environment, in which case, like its been said before, self-sacrifice, solidarity, altruism and cooperation are perfectly viable strategies. It depend on your environment.

And if you look at our ecological system, the libertarian randian doctrine of "fuck you, got mine" isnt actualy well represented in nature, for good reason.

No.

"Social Darwinism" is an obscene abuse of a hard-thinking scientist's name to falsely legitimize non-scientific doctrine.  It has no roots nor basis in Darwin's work and is largely used by plutocrats to justify their self-amassed (or inherited) wealth.

The names are fine as they are.

I would prefer if the ethics system would take into account stuff you do outside of random events.

That annoyed me how in GalCiv 2, I could wipe out one race after another, yet still be officially "good". This time, I think that would be neat if you could win Malevolence points for declaring an unjustified war against a innocent neighbor and conquering their planets. That would give evil races even more of a reason to start wars of aggression and be a threat to the galaxy, which would be appropriate. Or, on the other side, maybe getting Benevolence points for intervening in a war that an evil race started (fighting in the war, ending it with diplomacy, or even just supporting the other side with credits/techs), or helping your less developed neighbors catch up. Or maybe even Pragmatism points if you bribe or manipulate yet another race into doing your dirty work against a rival.

The latest developer interview I read on Space Sector hinted that they wanted to go in a "grand strategy" direction. Some of the titles in that genre, like Paradox's games, could get very politically complex. It would be a thrill to see the morality system in GalCiv 3 reach that level.

I vote for no change.

Imperialism/Militarism? Mercilessness also works

Pragmatism could also do with being renamed. If we're assuming Pragmatism is the effective pursuit of a particular goal (personal wealth? expansion of the species?) without regard for other things which might conflict, then any and all of the three could be argued to fit the description, and depending on the goal, the pragmatism of things like "free trade" are also highly debatable. Maybe a better name would be Mercantilism?

The Benevolence tree doesn't necessarily actually imply benevolence either, and it can definitely be argued that "benevolence" is a contradiction because it's paternalistic while also implying ethical perfection (which in turn involves seeking for everyone to be self-empowered, and you therefore not to have power over them, so paternalism can't apply), and also the very structure of Galciv games implies limits to how emancipated ordinary people could possibly actually be in reality. Maybe Internationalism would be a better word (of the liberal sort, not the revolutionary sort)

I tend to believe that the result of conquering a planet isn't the mass execution of the populace, but rather the mass disenfranchisement of the populace. After all, it's stated that the listed planetary population is the number of your citizens on the planet, not necessarily the true planetary population.

Problem: define 'unjustified war.' Violations of claimed space and influence pushes are aggressive acts, and in my opinion I am within my rights to treat them as such. Setting up a colony in my back yard is also arguably a hostile action, as is building a space station of any kind in 'my' space (and worse, the game has an at best poor method of defining territorial space in influence). Declaring war to reclaim colonies lost in a previous war is also not necessarily malevolent.

Problem: preventing a hostile empire from (quickly or cheaply) winning a war and becoming more powerful is pragmatic rather than strictly benevolent. Entering a war on the side of the weaker party to prevent their opponent from becoming more powerful is also pragmatic rather than strictly benevolent. Entering a war on the side of the weaker party so you can weaken the stronger party while they're distracted is at best pragmatic and could be malevolent. Ending the war without wiping out or reforming an evil empire (reforming as in improving the character of, not recreating, one) is more pragmatic than benevolent.

This is arguably at least as malevolent as it is pragmatic, as if I can manipulate another faction into fighting a rival of mine, I can weaken two potential opponents and distract them, giving me an opportunity to go after them while they're busy, or after their allies while their forces are too thinly stretched to intervene effectively. Playing multiple factions off against one another to maintain a balance of power of some kind is at best pragmatic, if it's to keep any one rival from becoming too strong to fight, and could be malevolent, if it's to keep any potential rivals weak and divided.

This is the one thing on your list which is most clearly benevolent. However, this can easily be a pragmatic action rather than a benevolent one, as a technologically backwards neighbor is not a very useful ally against anyone who isn't about as technologically backwards as they are.

The problem with assigning a moral judgment to any game actions is that it carries assumptions about why I'm doing something. Intervening to defend a trading partner so that my economy doesn't get too badly screwed up isn't really benevolent, nor is building up a potential ally's technological level. Causing two states to fight one another is pragmatic, in that it weakens potential rivals and targets at little direct cost, but it is also malevolent, especially if you're doing it to keep them busy while you go off and do something to the states that they might have aided had they not been busy or if you do it to distract them while you prepare to slip a knife into their back, or if you get them to declare war on an ally so that you can avoid the malevolent penalty for being honest about your wars of aggression while dragging your allies into the war despite the alliances being more like mutual defense pacts (here's a 100 BC, now go declare war on the Altarian Republic. Woops, I'm allied to the Altarians? Oh dear, I "didn't know" that. Well, I'll just help myself to these colonies over here, and smash a couple of your fleets over there, and ...).

"Benevolent" and "Malevolent" are antonyms. No change needed.

Benevolent means literally "to wish well", to be a "well-wisher".

Malevolent means "to wish ill", to "wish evil".

There is nothing here that is Darwinian.  It is all about one's intentions--one's wishes for some other thing or being.  The reason or motivation behind the wish has nothing to do with whether or not the act itself is benevolent or malevolent.  One's action may be benevolent for the "wrong" reason, or malevolent for the "right" reason.

It's not a line of reasoning. It's the direct translation of the Latin. It's a fact that an act can be benevolent or malevolent without knowing the actor's intent. I can wish a million dollars to you, and that is benevolent, whether or not I am your heir.  And whether as your heir I plan to terminate you later, or not.

Nope. You're stating a tautology. "The game doesn't know the intent behind my gift, therefore the game doesn't know the reason I gave the gift." Like all tautologies that is true.  And it doesn't enlighten. Although I'm not sure that giving any old gift is necessarily benevolent, I'll play along in order to make the argument. If I give you a gift but intend to take it back later, that doesn't change the fact that I gave you a gift, which playing along now I will say was a benevolent act.  Let's say that later, I change my mind about taking it back.  That doesn't retroactively change the gift-giving act--following your line of reasoning--from malevolent to benevolent.  In either case, it was a benevolent act.  Just as if I had given the gift with no intention of taking it back, which you would apparently agree is a benevolent act, but then only later I decide to take it back. That decision--with no action--did not change the gift giving to malevolent. And even if I carry out my plan, and take the gift back later, the original act was benevolent, and the taking-back act would be malevolent.

Unfortunately, you're missing the point. Actions can be benevolent or malevolent without knowing the actor's intent, but the GCIII alignment system isn't about the actions - it's about the actor, and knowing intent is important when it comes to characterizing the alignment of the actor. If performing benevolent actions makes a person benevolent, then those petty criminals who are required to perform community service in reparations for their past actions are "benevolent" people even though they're probably only doing it because they have to. The civilization that declares war on an aggressive expansionist empire based on slavery while it's invading a little country because it represents a good time to take a bite out of a major competitor is "benevolent" because they've performed the arguably-benevolent action of involving themselves in a war against an evil empire on the side of a weaker party.

Slapping the "benevolent" or "malevolent" label on in-game actions means granting "benevolent" or "malevolent" points to states that perform those actions, but the fact that I performed a benevolent action does not in and of itself make me a benevolent person. Since the GCIII alignment system is more about my outlook than my actions, why I'm doing something matters. Otherwise you're back to GCII's system of pay enough money and you too can be an angel.

I am not arguing about the characterization of the action, I am arguing about the characterization of the actor. There is an important distinction between the person who performs benevolent actions because they think it's the right thing to do and the person who performs benevolent actions because they see some benefit for themselves in performing that action. The person who supports free public healthcare because they think that people have a right to adequate medical treatment has a relatively benevolent outlook. The person who supports free public healthcare because they believe that their workers will be more productive if they have access to adequate medical treatment has a relatively pragmatic outlook. The person who supports criminal rehabilitation programs as an alternative to or replacement for prisons because they believe that no one deserves to be locked up for the rest of their lives has a relatively benevolent outlook. The person who supports criminal rehabilitation programs as an alternative to or replacement for prisons because running the programs is cheaper than running the prisons has a relatively pragmatic outlook. Same action, different characterization of the actor. I may not have made this sufficiently clear earlier, but when I gave examples and characterized them as 'benevolent,' 'malevolent,' or 'pragmatic,' I was characterizing the actor, not the action.

Galactic Civilizations III has an alignment system which is about characterizing the actor. The nature of the action is of little importance for this, and so labeling an action "good" or "evil" is of little value, and in fact is detrimental to the alignment system because the label will come with an expectation of receiving angel points or demon points for performing the action with the appropriate label. Once you start giving angel or demon points for performing certain actions, you're back to the buy-your-way-into-heaven plan of GCII - get all the benefits of enslaving, exterminating, and torturing people, producing illegal weapons, engaging in criminal activities for fun and profit, and then pay 20,000 credits and become angelic. Pick up all the early-game benefits of being evil, and have all the late game benefits of being good or neutral, for a lump sum of money that wasn't that hard to accumulate and that you didn't even need to have at the time of alignment-locking.