progress and freedom

Post Reply New Topic

What makes slavery wrong in the first place?

It is economically inefficient. A slave would not be free to switch to another master who paid him more, and thus make a bigger contribution to the economic welfare of the society as a whole.

Sure he would; the master would just sell the slave or loan him. Not only that but masters can cleverly provide cheap incentives for slaves to do well. The system is not necessarily economically inefficient, depending on how the slave system is set up. I would imagine that indentured servitude would be more efficient than other forms of slavery due to the nature of the legal agreement and how would probably be less disincentive to not create some forms of human capital. Even then, economically inefficient doesn't mean wrong that is confusing economics with morality when most economists say they are explicitly different fields.

Do you have any moral issue with slavery? Why or why not? Not asking out of an attack, but because I'm curious to know.

Not really. In terms of my personal thoughts; I would have some issue with intergenerational slavery and with excessive cruelty of any form, but indentured servitude in that I might give up X years of my life for Y benefit is fine with me and merely another contract. I rarely argue much from a personal moral perspective though and although I might assert my own constructions; often these are very liberalistic(or libertarian depending on how you like using terms; I hate the liberal = left-wing thing) with a perspective to prevent anyone from asserting any morality over other individuals.

What would make slavery right or ok?

Curiously, I'd like to read what your arguments would be here, concerning both questions, obviously different views. Out of curiosity.

That is not how these things work and you know it. The burden is not on a person questioning a point of conventional morality but rather on the defender, and the reason being that we consider things right until proven wrong and this is seen with any variant of moral or ethical code. Frankly, I was questioning my opponent for assuming slavery to be evil without accounting for different values. To be honest, I was trying to provoke a bigger, more robust response in terms of defining slavery and why it is wrong.

I was listening to Dennis Pragher today and he was definitely saying something to this effect - that the generations who's earlier years were rooted in the Great Depression and World War II actually knew how to be happy just because they'd come from a place where they knew what real hard times and adversity were - so when they had things it was great. A lot of our generation was raised thinking they had things just naturally coming to them, life was too easy, and that in and of itself - especially parents trying to buy their kids everything and make sure they didn't go through anything they'd had to - if anything just created a kind of fallout all its own.

In and of itself that's just going to be another thing that the current troops coming back from Iraq will have to deal with. Actually *getting it*, knowing how real sh-- can get and how fragile freedom is, just to come back to all the a**holes they knew as kids; that'll probably take an unimaginable amount of self restraint on their part.

Ok, it seemed to my perception, that you were trying to see the same thing in different perspectives, like considering all points of view possible related to a single subject.

well, it is logical to asume that most people here (like 99%? - a guess) would be against slavery, wether they can give a skilled argument or not, which is something that has been learned since young, in school, that slavery is wrong, which not many would give you a good argument, if they can't put it together very well on how to express it, which I don't think I can express it in a way you probably are expecting, but I'll try

I could say that obviously depends on the moral and ethical values why considering such thing as wrong. But why is it? the first thing that comes to my mind is History, I find it interesting, all things related to history in which we can compare how societies were on a certain period of time, and how they are now, and why those changes were made. We could go and looking historically information on why such things were abolished, at least in the western world.

Human rights, it is the first thing mentioned on this issue, as a human being no one owns you, according to the concept, you are not anyone's property, women are not their husband's property, children are not their parents property, giving the idea that humans cannot be owners of others of their same species, if they have the same capabilities, should have the same oportunities.

As well as the treatment, slaves didn't have rights as regular people, only seen as objects, therefore, the cruelty, the punishment if they don't get things done as wished, or for taking the anger of the master, etc.

Now, not sure if that complies with what you expected as an answer.

Well, I am considering a logical reductionist view in many ways. I mean, the number of views on an issue could theoretically be infinite. Slavery is wrong because I think slaves look ugly, etc.

It is logical to assume that because of the cultural values that people grow up in today. Honestly, I don't expect that a good reason exists which is why I made it a question because I want to challenge assumptions.

Yes, you can. I would expect to ultimately be referred to that and then challenge you on why those values are correct.

Well, in how we are brought up, yes, it would. I don't think that most people really saw blacks as human back in those days and the North had murdered blacks as the South had enslaved ones. Ultimately though, nobody can prove humans inherently have rights. The best that most can do is claim that there are consequences that cause rights to be a good idea. Really though, this argument does less well against indentured servitude which is the right for a person to sell their life or a fraction of it. If as a human being you are your own property, then you should be able to sell or loan yourself. If you don't own yourself then how can we even conceptualize your self control.

That is partially true. Slaves were still sort of seen as people, but not really. It was complicated.

It is a very very good response! I still don't see it as a proof of why slavery is wrong, but just an elaboration on a view I already knew. I mean, it then falls down to "why human rights?" and things of that nature.

The thing is that througout history we learn that being a slave has been always against the person's will, after a society was conquered by another more powerful, people were taken to serve them and do dirty work in exchange for staying alive, probably there were many cases in which some of them were treatly better, however they never made that decision willingly, they were forced.

That's where a valuable moral reason comes in, it is wrong for somebody else to go and force you to leave your family and go somewhere else and do stuff against your will, it will cause you psychological distress, and physical as well, I don't think slaves were that well considered about their feelings, after all they were not their own owners, someone else was. Either way you have a family or not, it is still wrong because it is still against your will, that's a right every person is entitled to, to make their own choices about what they want to do in their life.

Freedom, is what most people like and find pleasent and motivation in a society, in which it is a healthier way of living.

Also, a good moral reason for me is a based on empathy or sympathy, in which anyone can really say that being a slave it would not be much of a great experience for themselves, which they wouldn't want that for somebody else.

Having sympathy for people in general or if you value human life and the quality of human life, I can say for sure that you would see slavery as something morally wrong.

Now, this case seems different and strange, as it seemed to me that you would like to be a slave, or sell yourself, like you put it, under certain circumstances. Not sure, but it seemed that way.

People wanting that, or as you said, not owning themselves, it is not a good reason for making that ok, after all, you could change your mind later, and regret it, which there will be no return. Suicidal people don't deserve to die, just because they want to.

Also, as a slave you would lack of certain rights you are entitled to, practically because it is more about your master judgement on what he/she would decide what you need or not, which it is very dangerous.

And there must be other moral reasons which I can't think of it to put it on an argument here

Meh, none of these are proofs of even the existence of an abstract thing such as morality. Only of personal dislike based upon empathy and a philosophical notion, also unprovable, known as rights.

I thought I would get a more elaborated response
As I said earlier, if you value quality of life, you would reject slavery as a way of life.

If you value the quality of life of others. Slavery can greatly improve your own quality of life if you own slaves. Not only that but you have not refuted the idea that more valuable slaves can get much better prizes, which would require some extrapolation as we would have to go from manual laborers which we are familiar with to mental workers which we are less familiar with, and because of this it might be better to analyze a caste system.

Yes, yours, mine and humanity.
if you value others, you are valuing yourself as well.


Yes, of course, having slaves to serve me will improve my quality of life, however, there are some things to consider, first, it is wrong, who am I to believe myself being superior than others, while slaves don't have the right to have a voice and vote and I do?

Second, there is always the chance, the possibilty, always, even if it is small, that things will turn out the opossite way, the roles changed, due to rebellion and that is also a good reason for justice and equality. So everyone are satisfied, IMO.

Cheesy statement, no proof behind it. In fact, by valuing others less you value yourself comparatively more.

You are yourself. Who are you not to believe that you are superior to others? I mean, who are you to refuse that which benefits you?

There is always the possibility that some group will attack you and try to hurt you. Slaves or no slaves does not really change the nature of the world. That is merely an argument from fear that doesn't even really hold up in a modern society where small risks for all are common.