Are the gods truly amoral, or... ?

[MaGyunia]

We've seen multiple instances where it became obvious that Beerus (or any other Hakaishin, presumably) and Whis (or any other Tenshi, presumably) are rather amoral beings/entities.

Ever since Battle of Gods and throughout the entirety of the arcs of DBSuper it was implied and even obvious that they cared little about who would win in a particular fight, regardless of one party being "good" and the other being "evil" (Beerus even says in Fukkatsu no F to Bulma: a fight is a fight, I'm not going to intervene; I don't care about your revenge, Freeza, just do it a little farther away). Whis doesn't reprimend him on any of this. It's to be assumed that it's the same with any Hakaishin and respective Tenshi. Then we have the Daishinkan, who supposedly behaves in the same manner, and the special case of the Zen-ou(s), who can wipe out a Universe from existence instantly (!) but display rather childish behavior and appear to just be excited with childish games and nice, toe-to-toe battles.

However... Whis does indeed give Goku an opportunity to wipe out Freeza and goes as far as intervening directly to allow it in Fukkatsu no F, both he and Beerus become regulars on Earth (especially because of the food, of course, but maybe not just that...) and seem to form a bond with Bulma and, obviously, Goku and Vegeta (along with everyone else from the "team", by extension, although to a much lesser degree). Beerus and Whis take it upon themselves to wipe out Zamasu before he can kill Gowasu and display actual concern with the potential consequences of Zamasu's/Black's complex and dangerous actions (not just for themselves), and the best exemple: Zen-ou had it in mind to wipe out everything (!) from existence if the winner of the tournament came out forth with a self-serving wish, which illustrates and demonstrates a sense of good and evil, and valuing good instead of evil (#17 wishing to bring back all the wiped out universes was a demonstration of benevolence which they appreciated deeply).

Doesn't this make them good? All of them, the Zen-ou(s), the Daishinkan, the Tenshis, and even the Hakaishins. At least potentially.

Quick thought after pondering these good and evil and morals concepts: It was funny that things turned out in a way that it was actually an "official" member of Freeza's army who literally saved Broly from being killed and annihilated by a completely and utterly good guy: Gogeta.

[Code]

That's a difficult question, because all our moral concepts are completely centered around humans.
For example: We think murder is evil. But what we really mean is, murdering a human being is evil. If someone kills a cow... we don't consider that murder. If someone kills an ant, we don't even blink an eye.
Maybe Zeno looks at mortals the same way we look at ants. Does that make him amoral? Maybe his morality is just on a totally different scale, that we don't understand?

There's also an underlying question, if there are objective moral values at all (that exist independently of humans, like laws of nature) or if all morality is a human invention. If there was no life in the entire universe, would murder still be wrong? If so, why?
This is still an open question in philosophy.

[ironfist2020]

To me its the fact hirerchy dosent exist and beerus destroy half of a planet just because he dosent like the food. Truth is. In an advanced and complicated universe such as we live in the idea of gods is primitive. But thats a shonen anime so what do we expect.

[SupremeKai25]

The Gods are amoral and apathetic. Why wouldn't they be? They have lived for millions of years. Even the oldest of mortals is but a spit compared to a young Kai.

Ironically, It is Zamasu the only God who devoted a lot of attention to understanding the concept of good and evil. While the gullible Gowasu lets evil reign supreme because his precious laws bind him to inaction, and the Gods of Destruction act based solely on their whims, Zamasu at least CARED about good and evil, even though his concept of evil was flawed. When have you ever heard Beerus or Whis talking about good and evil? Never. Because they don't care. They have witnessed the rise and fall of thousands of civilizations, why should they care if Goku and the others died? Beerus certainly seemed more than willing to destroy Earth just because someone stole his food. He never had a problem killing millions of innocent lives because the food made in a certain planet didn't satisfy him. This is the harsh truth. If Goku died, Beerus and Whis would just move on. Do you really think they care? They have lived for millions of years, who knows how many mortal "friends" they've had during their long lives.

As for Zeno, he is the most cold-hearted character in the entire franchise. He ended trillions upon trillions of lives in six different universes because he was bored one day. Sure he rewarded 17 for making a generous wish, but that is far from being enough. And if it had been Freeza in 17's place making the same wish, Zeno would have let the most bloodthirsty tyrant in Universe 7 return to his evil ways simply because he passed the "test".

Champa is just as bad as Beerus. What was Champa doing while the Universe 6 earthlings were destroying each other in countless world wars? Nothing. What did he do once the earthling species was driven to extinction and their planet turned into a blighted wasteland? Try to take control of Universe 7's Earth. And once he lost that stupid tournament, he quickly backstabbed his own team and threatened to kill them.

In fact, I am not sure why Goku is so friendly with Zeno and Beerus when they are just as ruthless as Zamasu was... Zamasu never destroyed entire universes because he was bored one day.

[MaGyunia]

Of course they would just move on (Beerus and Whis) if Goku (and Vegeta, and Bulma, and everyone else they met on Earth) died, unless Whis really has some expectations about Goku's and Vegeta's potential to become the next Hakaishin for Universe 7. That's the only reason.

The discussion about the whole morality thing, good and evil, is a human-made concept. One of the countless human inventions over the centuries. In truth - you can contradict me here as much as you want, it's my belief, but it threatens to set us off-topic and go towards religion, etc., topics about which I have a very strong position about - there is no good and evil, just the will/instinct to survive, created/developed, like everything else in the real world, over millions of years through a process called theory of evolution (I would call it "fact" of evolution...). Nature knows best. This might be complete social darwinism, but that's the way nature works and has always worked, and needs to work, and what applies to animals applies to humans even more: the weak perish and the strong live on. When a mother cat senses that one of her sons is sick and won't live long, she kills him, usually by eating him. Is this evil? No. Just pragmatism. If we saved every weakling or deffective human being the species, over thousands and millions of years, would become fragile. Darwinism explains how we got here, and it needs to be continued to be applied, not just by nature, but by ourselves when setting the basis for how our civilization/society works. I know many people will disagree with this and even be outraged, but it's just fact. It's scientifically proven that monkeys, for example, don't cooperate because of any sense of morality. They cooperate because, over millions of years, it was "proven" by the scientific method (experiment) that working in teams and cooperation with each other produces best results than working solo. That's it. No morality.

There's no morality, no good and evil. Just the will/need to survive and propagate the species. This, in turn, leads one to contemplate all sorts of philosophical questions, namely about the "meaning of life", but we would go completely off-topic here (this is not Dragon Ball-related at all...). Morality and religion are the two most dangerous of all human inventions throughout the centuries and have caused about 90% of all human conflicts and wars.

Getting back to Dragon Ball... taking into account it's a fictional universe, I perfectly accept the existence of all-powerful and even immortal gods. If I accept everything else in the franchise which simply doesn't exist and cannot exist in the real world, why not the concept of "gods"?

The question was more about there being (or not being) any sense of good and evil on the part of the Hakaishins, the Tenshis, Daishinkan and the Zen-ou(s). Let's keep it that way, please. I'm not criticizing anybody. If I did I'd have to direct that criticism to myself, as I took part in the deviation of the Dragon Ball world.

[Code]

I think you're misunderstanding evolution. Evolution is a description of how things are. It's not and was never intended to be an answer to how thing should be.
If someone explained to me how my car works, that doesn't tell me anything about where I should drive with it. Evolution is just that. The explanation of how the car works.

Also survival is kinda irrelevant for humans. We've won the survival game. In fact, we've won so hard, that we are now actively trying to help other species survive.
Do you think at some point lions are going to dethrone us, because we've become fragile? We've got rifles, man! And bombs. And cities. We will be fine.
How is survival an argument, if there are absolutely no threats to us? The only way we will cease to be the dominant species of this planet are natural disasters and self-destruction. Neither of which can be prevented by passing on the correct genes to the next generation.

[BWri]

I think the entire cast is amoral. Only Gohan and Future Trunks and maybe Krillin seem to buck this. For the most part characters like Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo seem motivated by survival and strength. Android 18 and 17 are mostly nihilistic, only caring about their families. Tien sometimes seems to have morals, but I'm not sure if that's prevalent in the manga like it is in the anime. Yajirobe is one of the strongest people on the planet and doesn't want to do anything to help protect it. Doesn't even want to train.

**Should probably stay on topic too lol. I mentioned the cast because I feel Toriyama in general prefers amoral characters. I've also read Sandland and Jaco and most of his characters seem to have this matter-of-fact cynicism and lack of morals. I think that extends to his idea of gods. I believe he mentioned this in an interview, his idea of the gods' fickle natures. I just think that's what he likes to write.

I think the characters all form their own morals, different from what we typically think of as morals.

[DragonBallFoodie]

Everyone in DB is various degrees of amoral. This extends to the gods too.