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Old Mar 10, 2008, 06:51 pm   #51 (permalink) (top)
Morality Games
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Location: Iowa
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Quote:
So because you've backed yourself into a corner with your - lol - morality games, you are now forced to take the position that enslaving another human being is sometimes good for them.

Remind me again of the problem with using absolutes in some cases?
How have I backed myself into a corner and who said enslaving people is good? You seem to have a problem paying attention.

Although I think enslaving people would be alright if the only alternative was putting prisoners of war (including women and children) to torture or death (which was a common alternative to slavery in those days). Letting the citizens of a defeated city roam free was often considered unacceptable on the chance they would seek revenge in later generations.

Anyway, either stop talking or explain how the following account of things is wrong.

Quote:
If you were born into a noble family in Ancient Greece and somehow acquired a compassionate streak, then perhaps you would feel compelled to free your family's slaves upon ascending to the rank of master of the house.

Of course, in doing so, you would immediately economically cripple yourself, probably fall from political prominence as a result, lose your guards from inability to pay, and thereby become (along with your family, and especially your eldest son) a target for families (probably of a less savory sort) who are in ancestral feuds with yours.

Then you can factor in how your slaves, who are likely foreigners and thereby not elligible for citizenship and legal rights, (the general rule among Ancient Greek city-states) will lack the resources and experience to survive out in the world, and will either become criminals as a result (and thereby be in constant threat of capture and execution) or else fall back into poverty and be sold back into slavery to pay off their debts. Their new masters could be less fair than yourself, and probably, since compassion toward the lower classes is a rarity amongst nobles.

Or, on the other hand, you could just feed them well, give them some comforts and entertainments to make up for the hard labor, see to it their children get married, etc. Note that nobles who took care of their slaves in this fashion generally received much affection (and by extension loyalty) in return.

It appears keeping them in slavery is the better choice, since it is what allows for the most prosperity across the board, and freeing them accomplishes nothing most humans would be induced to consider good if they experienced it themselves.

You could attempt to reform the system, although that would be like walking into a fundamentalist church and telling everybody they need to stop being Christian -- what I mean is, the products of such an endeavor would be equable with what you would get for that kind of approach.

What I am trying to say is there is context you are brought into when born in the world (the-world-as-it-presently-is), and while people should always try for social progress, the harsh reality is that you will be constrained by the nature of the context you find yourself in. So, you should, "do what you can with what cards are in the deck," or, "make use of what materials are available."

In contrast to the complexity of this contextualism, your approach probably appears simple, incapable of explaining the nuances and particulars of phenomena like slavery and freedom.
If you can come up with a counter that is at least remotely feasible, then maybe I'll take you seriously from now on. If it is, "Slavery is bad because it is bad and freedom is good because it is good and you are evil for thinking about this kind of stuff and I am good for not thinking at all," then please spare me.


A moral being is an entity for whom the disadvantage of others is an issue.
– K.H.Y.
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