Yeah. Unpopular opinion, I know, but I really like alignment. It's pretty easy to say "puts self above others" = evil and "puts others before self" = good.

My quick version of law v chaos is "puts societal structure above individual freedom" = law and "puts individual freedom above societal structure".

Feels like a framework closer to how people actually behave and doesn't invite in-party conflict.

Yeah I generally run any non-neutral alignment as "Willing to go out of your way to perform acts of [help/harm], with the alignment being determined by why you did it and whether you feel satisfied by the outcome, and you intentionally do those acts in a [principled/unpredictable] manner."

As a result, most creatures are generally neutral - They may lean in one direction or the other, but a paladin's divine sense will only reveal evil if someone would actively make choices to harm others, feeling no remorse. Any good deeds are an extension of selfishness, done for the purpose of some kind of gain (lawful: gain is calculated or for an existing purpose, chaotic: gain is for whatever they wanted at the time)

A good alignment for a paladin sense means you're willing to make active choices to sacrifice things important to you (or perhaps for your survival) for the purpose of helping others. That can be as simple as giving up something you wanted or as heavy as charging into a burning building to rescue the occupants. (Lawful: does it because it's the right thing to do, chaotic: does it because it felt right at the time)

Except she follows the law, she just finds loopholes that you could throw a nuke through. She announced her attack on the factory, and didn't attack the town. She also wrote a dissertation on how to shell a town legally.

I'd say lawful evil, trending towards neutral evil

If while acting in your own self-interest you knowingly, through action or inaction, allow others to come to harm, even indirectly, that is evil. In the same way that a character knowingly doing something that benefits others would arguably make them good. A chaotic neutral person may act on a whim or in self-interest the majority of the time, but I doubt they'd let their actions cause actual harm to others.

But trying to pigeonhole human behavior into a rigid matrix of alignments is inherently flawed, people are much more complex than that. Fortunately, DND allows the DM free reign to define that or allow it to be a grey area - in reality, "alignment" will always be fluid.

I prefer to think of good vs evil as altrusim vs egoism. LG is "the laws should protect everyone" and LE is "the laws should protect me". CG is "everyone should be free to live as they please" and CE is "I should be free to live as I please". Acting in pure self-interest with no regard for ideals would be CE, or maybe NE depending on how it's done.

Yeah, at best it's chaotic neutral. It's not evil. Evil is a desire to harm others. Self interest isn't evil, just not good. I would say true neutral because it's not acting in a desire to rebel against laws either, but I could see an argument for chaotic neutral.

For reference for people familiar with BG3, the dead three are evil gods. They actively want to cause harm/death. Evil isn't just someone who doesn't care. Evil is someone who cares and wants to harm.

A "theological" definition doesn't really work in a world where there are actual gods and some of them actively want to cause suffering. The theology of D&D (and most other fantasy settings) is not the theology of Earth Christianity of the 21st century.

It's chaotic evil. But many make the same mistake you do. Evil is not defined by cruelty.

If you're neutral, that means that you observe tenets that mitigate all benefit to others and harm to others from your actions. To act selfishly without thought of morality will inevitably lead someone down a road of evil. No one ever stays neutral or good if they're acting wantonly selfish.

Lawful doesn't mean following the laws. A lawful person isn't obligated to follow the law in the Kingdom of Baby Eating.