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Thread: Why is slavery bad?

  1. #1

    Default Why is slavery bad?

    Foreword: No, this is not a trick question, and no, I am not trying to flame or troll.

    That being said, I'll move on to the topic at hand. I have 2 main (pre)suppositions:

    1. Historiography has established the reasons behind the abolitionist campaigns, centered
    around the figure of Wilberforce, and like everything in history, it was abolished for pragmatic
    (in this case economic) reasons, the later justified as the "moral" and "good thing" to do.
    Mainly this serves to offset the "it was abolished because it was not moral" considerations.

    2. A slave, especially in the ancient forms of slavery, had to be kept well-fed and and in
    good health to be able to work, a luxury most of the global workforce doesn't have, and in
    various instances of "modern" slavery the family had to be kept in good health as well, to
    allow for the reproduction the workforce. Some slaves even served as physicians or teachers
    and had good living standards, again that is not the case for teachers in my country for
    example.

    And I'm not talking about specific instances of slavery, despite what suppostion 1 may have
    led you to believe. I'm talking about slavery in general, i.e., the concept of one person having
    ownership of another, thus making said person much more responsible for his or her "investment"
    (the slave) than a capitalist for his workers, that he can simply pay a low wage and fire him at
    will.

    So I would like for you to present arguments against slavery. For the sake of a fruitful debate,
    please refrain from using arguments such as "It's evil!!1!" and whatnot. Also, this is not a race-
    oriented post, as slavery, as history shows, need not be restricted by race or any other factor.

    EDIT: I was not in which forum I should have put this. If any Moderator thinks it's best to have
    it in another forum or subsection, feel free to move it (not that you need my permission).
    Last edited by Khannis; November 29, 2012 at 01:58 PM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    1. Historiography has established the reasons behind the abolitionist campaigns, centered
    around the figure of Wilberforce, and like everything in history, it was abolished for pragmatic
    (in this case economic) reasons, the later justified as the "moral" and "good thing" to do.
    Mainly this serves to offset the "it was abolished because it was not moral" considerations.
    This doesn't make the abolition of slavery wrong.

    2. A slave, especially in the ancient forms of slavery, had to be kept well-fed and and in
    good health to be able to work, a luxury most of the global workforce doesn't have, and in
    various instances of "modern" slavery the family had to be kept in good health as well, to
    allow for the reproduction the workforce. Some slaves even served as physicians or teachers
    and had good living standards, again that is not the case for teachers in my country for
    example.
    I doubt house slaves made up the majority of slaves. Besides that, it's still wrong, even if they were kept in good circumstances. You cannot ''own'' a fellow human being. It's morally wrong, because it's never voluntary. If a choice was given whether they wanted to become a slave or not, then it wouldn't be wrong. I think.

    And I'm not talking about specific instances of slavery, despite what suppostion 1 may have
    led you to believe. I'm talking about slavery in general, i.e., the concept of one person having
    ownership of another, thus making said person much more responsible for his or her "investment"
    (the slave) than a capitalist for his workers, that he can simply pay a low wage and fire him at
    will.
    A slave owner can also just pay no wage and keep his slaves in piss-poor condition. There's no obligation to treat a slave better than a worker.
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  3. #3

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by NotYetRegistered View Post
    This doesn't make the abolition of slavery wrong.



    I doubt house slaves made up the majority of slaves. Besides that, it's still wrong, even if they were kept in good circumstances. You cannot ''own'' a fellow human being. It's morally wrong, because it's never voluntary. If a choice was given whether they wanted to become a slave or not, then it wouldn't be wrong. I think.



    A slave owner can also just pay no wage and keep his slaves in piss-poor condition. There's no obligation to treat a slave better than a worker.
    1. Nor does it make it right, that's the point, it's irrelevant.

    2. History begs to differ, you can own a human being, and in fact, compared to the time slavery has been around, not owning another person is a fad. Also,
    most slaves in antiquity were captured in wars, so it was a choice, of sorts. Either surrender and be enslaved or die in battle. Not to mention that many
    brought from Africa had been in a similar situation.

    3. There's no obligation, obviously, but why keep your slaves in piss-poor conditions since you bought them and they work better if better fed and better
    cared for? You, as a slave-owner, are just getting more out of your investment by keeping them in better conditions.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khannis View Post
    3. There's no obligation, obviously, but why keep your slaves in piss-poor conditions since you bought them and they work better if better fed and better
    cared for? You, as a slave-owner, are just getting more out of your investment by keeping them in better conditions.
    The same argument exists for "capitalists" paying their workers a higher wage or other benefits. In fact since the laborer at least has the freedom to try and find other employment the business owner also has to compete with other owners on a labor market.

    The slave market sells human beings, and the slave unlike the laborer has no say in the matter.

    So clearly slavery and wage labor are not the same thing at all. Second it is wrong simply because it removes all rights from the individual enslaved. The slave owner is responsible for them, but in the same way they are responsible for their chickens or their cattle. They have no legal or moral responsibility for them as slave owners, and therefore they are not likely to care for them well.

    Throughout history there were slaves who, at least in terms of material comforts, were better off than their struggling free counterparts. Yet enslavement is not a career choice, there is a good reason that a person has to be coerced into it. Being poor with rights is always a more secure social position than being a slave with access to material goods that do not belong to you, and which can be taken away along with your life at the whim of your master.

  5. #5
    Himster's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    The innate human instinct of empathy combined with the necessity of utilitarian ethics for a civilized state (aka a theoretical meritocracy) to function cohesively.
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  6. #6
    Vanoi's Avatar Dux Limitis
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Slavery is bad because people aren't property to be bought and sold.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriakos View Post
    While you are at it, allow Germany to rearm, it's not like they committed the worst atrocity in modern history, so having a strong army can't lead to anything pitiful.

  7. #7
    Claudius Gothicus's Avatar Petit Burgués
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    In order to function properly a System of Social Stratification as rigid as the Slave-Class one needs to be backed by an universally and deeply accepted Set of Values and Norms. In other words: the more rigid(resistant to change and individual action) a Social System is the more powerful the Underlying Moral Consensus has to be.

    I can only think of one Modern, Capitalist and Technologically Advanced country that gets really, really close to such a powerful Moral Consensus. And that's Singapore.

    Other countries(specifically western democracies), by installing rigid Slavery Systems, would be fueling even more their inner social tensions(crimes, corruption and dysfunctional arbitrary actions with their emotional psychological and medical consecuences), or even risk an all out Class-War(The political organization of those ''enslaved'' into a Sub-System of Society that aims to radically, and violently, change the social structure).

    Also, what Himster said:

    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    The innate human instinct of empathy combined with the necessity of utilitarian ethics for a civilized state (aka a theoretical meritocracy) to function cohesively.
    Last edited by Claudius Gothicus; November 29, 2012 at 04:23 PM.

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  8. #8
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Slavery as it has been historically used is bad.
    However, I do agree with Sir Thomas More in his book Utopia in how Utopia implements slavery. Because I don't want to spend a lot of time writing why (at least for now), I'll just copy and paste a paragraph from a paper I wrote in my Utopia class that illustrated elements of More's Utopia that could apply in today's society.
    FYI, this was the first and only draft, so there will be grammatical errors.
    Criminal punishment is one aspect of More’s utopia that stands out as very beneficial to today’s society. He opines a solution in both sections in Utopia. At the time, there were no life sentence for committing crimes, it was either paying a fine (money or something else) or it was punishable by death. Even today there are still crimes in the US that, depending on the state, are punishable by death. In the US today, life sentences are more frequent than execution. This is seen as a negative by many law abiding citizens, why should they have to pay for the upkeep of criminals with life sentences? Instead they would want execution, but why this alternative? Death will not right the criminal’s wrong doing. If a man steals from another, the only way to solve this is to make him pay some sort of compensation equal in value to what the victim lost. What if the man steals another’s life, via murdering him/her? Killing that man certainly will not bring back the victim’s life, the only result of such an event would be a wasted loss of two lives, instead of one, and a loss in the society’s productive capacity. Life in prison, without the criminal having to fulfill any conditions, leads not only to two wasted lives and the loss in the society’s productive capacity but it also will be a drain on those who have to pay for the upkeep of the prisoners, i.e. the law abiding citizens. More’s solution to this is, to put it bluntly, slavery.

    People in the modern condemn slavery as a barbaric practice, but that is because it has not been used in the way that More prescribes. More proposes that the punishment for crimes should be slavery, “…even of the greatest crimes,” (76). More reasons that slavery is a greater punishment than death; in the case of murder it would restore some equilibrium. The condemned would not be a slave for some private owner; instead they would be what one could call a public slave. More says that making criminals slaves benefits the community than the criminal’s death ever would (76). By doing this, instead of having two wasted lives, you only have one and the drop in society’s productive capacity will be small because of the loss of only one life. It is slavery because they would not earn wages they keep, rather those wages would go towards their upkeep at the prison or wherever they are housed. They do not deserve any extra wages, they are supposed to be paying back those who they have wronged, it should not be the other way around. If the slaves are unruly, More says that death is the only option, which can be rationalized. The criminals were given a second chance and decided to waste it. In a way, More is right, there comes a time when you need to draw a line on how many chances you are willing to give. If you are too lenient, then the criminal knows he/she can get away with just about anything. So while More is right about drawing the line on how many chances people deserve, two should not be the rule of thumb, instead it should vary depending on the crime, as should the amount of time spent as a slave. For criminals who have life sentences, More says that there is the chance that if they do their time patiently, their crimes will be pardoned by either the people or the government (in Utopia, More does not say government he says the Prince) (76).



  9. #9

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    The innate human instinct of empathy combined with the necessity of utilitarian ethics for a civilized state (aka a theoretical meritocracy) to function cohesively.
    How would you explain this "innate" empathy? Where was that when whole societies functioned on the basis of slave labor? And "civilized"? How do you judge what is civilized and what's not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vanoi View Post
    Slavery is bad because people aren't property to be bought and sold.
    I sincerely hope you're joking. If people weren't property to be bought and sold, they wouldn't have. But guess what: They were!

    Quote Originally Posted by Claudius Gothicus View Post
    In order to function properly a System of Social Stratification as rigid as the Slave-Class one needs to be backed by an universally and deeply accepted Set of Values and Norms. In other words: the more rigid(resistant to change and individual action) a Social System is the more powerful the Underlying Moral Consensus has to be.

    I can only think of one Modern, Capitalist and Technologically Advanced country that gets really, really close to such a powerful Moral Consensus. And that's Singapore.

    Other countries(specifically western democracies), by installing rigid Slavery Systems, would be fueling even more their inner social tensions(crimes, corruption and dysfunctional arbitrary actions with their emotional psychological and medical consecuences), or even risk an all out Class-War(The political organization of those ''enslaved'' into a Sub-System of Society that aims to radically, and violently, change the social structure).
    How would someone measure these sets of values and the moral consensus? Why Singapore?

    Quote Originally Posted by ☩Lord Inquisitor Derpy Hooves☩ View Post
    Slavery as it has been historically used is bad.
    However, I do agree with Sir Thomas More in his book Utopia in how Utopia implements slavery. Because I don't want to spend a lot of time writing why (at least for now), I'll just copy and paste a paragraph from a paper I wrote in my Utopia class that illustrated elements of More's Utopia that could apply in today's society.
    FYI, this was the first and only draft, so there will be grammatical errors.
    Really interesting, I myself never read the Utopia, but you sure got me curious

  10. #10
    Vanoi's Avatar Dux Limitis
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khannis View Post
    I sincerely hope you're joking. If people weren't property to be bought and sold, they wouldn't have. But guess what: They were!
    Were. Now, they are not. And now, slavery is illegal.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriakos View Post
    While you are at it, allow Germany to rearm, it's not like they committed the worst atrocity in modern history, so having a strong army can't lead to anything pitiful.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vanoi View Post
    Were. Now, they are not. And now, slavery is illegal.
    Thank you, Captain Obvious, for describing the status quo. Your point is?

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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khannis View Post
    Thank you, Captain Obvious, for describing the status quo. Your point is?
    People have rights. They are not property to be bought and sold. That why slavery is bad and also illegal.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriakos View Post
    While you are at it, allow Germany to rearm, it's not like they committed the worst atrocity in modern history, so having a strong army can't lead to anything pitiful.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vanoi View Post
    People have rights. They are not property to be bought and sold. That why slavery is bad and also illegal.
    You realize that's an hypothetical discussion and the status quo has no relevance at all to the discussion of past and present ways human societies organized themselves, right?

    That's why I asked in the original post to refrain from using "It's evil!" arguments, which is just what you're doing.

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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Khannis View Post
    You realize that's an hypothetical discussion and the status quo has no relevance at all to the discussion of past and present ways human societies organized themselves, right?
    Actually, it does. Its what we base our reasoning around in the first place.

    Quote Originally Posted by Khannis View Post
    That's why I asked in the original post to refrain from using "It's evil!" arguments, which is just what you're doing.
    You realize by asking why its bad your inviting comments like that? You asked a moral question. Did you honestly not expect to get answers based on morality?

    I have made my reasoning. People are not property to be bought and sold. That is not a moral argument. Its a legal one. I have rights according to my country's Constitution that legally states slavery is illegal.
    Last edited by Vanoi; November 29, 2012 at 05:03 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriakos View Post
    While you are at it, allow Germany to rearm, it's not like they committed the worst atrocity in modern history, so having a strong army can't lead to anything pitiful.

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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Slavery is bad for ecnomical reasons. Example, you are a slaveowner and I have a business based on wage labor.
    I only have to pay minimum wage for my employees. You on the other hand have to pay for the slaves shelter, clothing and food. You'll end up paying more for your slaves than I will for my employees.



  16. #16
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    At its most basic it's bad simply because the economical freedom of buying, selling and owning slaves infringes on the personal freedom of the slave to make pretty much any decision.
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  17. #17

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Let me get this straight. We are not suppose to bring up the fact that slavery, the removal of peoples rights, is wrong and ammoral?

    Can we please lose the arguement that judgement cannot be passed because of moral relativism? CAST YE IN THE NAME OF GOD-- YE GUILTY!

  18. #18

    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    If you ask why slavery is "bad" and then get answers based on subjective things like morality, I don't know why you would be suprised.

    I will say that slavery was abolished for both moral and pragmatic reasons in different societies, not sure which one you are specifically referring to as slavery was abolished at different times throughout history.

    As for slaves being treated better than laborers in a capitalistic system because slave owners would be more "invested" in them, that is possible in some circumstances, though not all as history has shown, and still, free laborers have certain freedoms that some would trade more material security for.

    And of course, there are many different types of slavery, with chattel slavery, which happened in the US, being among the worst possible forms, though the form of chattel slavery in Latin America was even worse.

  19. #19
    Psychonaut's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    It's wrong because slavery isn't voluntary. One person imposing his/her will on another person is wrong.

    And Khannis, you said somewhere earlier that slaves in ancient times had a choice... but if your only other option is death, how is that a choice?

  20. #20
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    Default Re: Why is slavery bad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Psychonaut View Post
    It's wrong because slavery isn't voluntary. One person imposing his/her will on another person is wrong.

    And Khannis, you said somewhere earlier that slaves in ancient times had a choice... but if your only other option is death, how is that a choice?
    It depends on the context. Are we taking people as slaves by threatening to kill them or are we reducing an accepted death penalty to involuntary labor as an act of clemency?

    The first one is wrong. The second one is not. People have become enslaved for both reasons.
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