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Quote by: Fangrim  The quote in the title is purely decorative. Let's not get jumpy about racism ><
I started a thread in Society and Rights that also had to do with this topic.
Now, I'd like to have a similar discussion the philosophy section. This topic appears to fit both categories, so there's no problem with that, as far as I can see.
Basically:
There is nothing about being a person or being human that exempts us from being assigned as property, or traded as property. There is nothing supernatural or spectacular about human beings that would make us any different from mules or cars in our capacity to be in someone else's ownership.
Particularly in a tribal society in competition with other tribes, a victorious tribe can do what it wants with the defeated, including taking their people as slaves. There's nothing wrong with this, if only to the extent as there's nothing wrong with warfare in the first place, or competition in the first place. It may be disliked, surely; I know I wouldn't like being a slave as opposed to being free. But just because I don't like something certainly doesn't make it immoral, or wrong.
Enslavement of other people's can be thought of as free competition and capitalism to its greatest extent, to an extent that allows us to compete between each other with not only the ownership of money, or guns, or horses, or cars and houses and land, but people as well.
Slavery is not a universal wrong. Discuss.
NOTE: I'm not being racist here. Blacks can own white slaves as well. |
Huh? What other animal besides the human species thinks in terms of owning and exploiting each other? Animals are territorial as are humans, but our concept of ownership is not of nature. Our concept of ownership and property rights is man made, and there it becomes an issue of justice and right and wrong. It is a human rights issue, right up there with women's rights issues. Historically, even in the US, women have been treated very badly when they did not have economic equality.
We saw a time when women couldn't even claim to own their own clothes because they were so completely dependent on the husbands. These women voiced their distressed over the uproar over Black slavery when their own slavery, called marriage, was ignored. A bible that promoted this male domiation over women, as well as slavery, is not something I can appreciate.
Human beings with undeveloped minds may assume brute force gives them the right of ownership and the right to exploitation other human beings, but as aware and thinking human being, I declare it is not justified. Our concepts of ownership and previllege are open to question.