[QUOTE=9thFloor]
But doesn’t that mean that we end up with more leisure because our technology allows us to produce more, with less, faster?
[/QUOTE]
Aye, but I am also pointing out that one reason there were so many slaves way back when, is because the wheat didn’t yeild as much at that time. That’s all.
[QUOTE=Zabali_Clawbane]
Aye, but I am also pointing out that one reason there were so many slaves way back when, is because the wheat didn’t yeild as much at that time. That’s all.
[/QUOTE]
Okay.
What’s interesting is why not slaves **and **machinery in the modern world?
It seems that once the zeitgeist changes about something like slavery, there’s no going back even if there would still be economic advantages for bringing it back (assuming for the sake of argument that you could through political overthrow, etc.)
[QUOTE=9thFloor]
Okay.
What’s interesting is why not slaves **and **machinery in the modern world?
It seems that once the zeitgeist changes about something like slavery, there’s no going back even if there would still be economic advantages for bringing it back (assuming for the sake of argument that you could through political overthrow, etc.)
[/QUOTE]
What do you call the situation of the factory workers in places like China, and to some extent India is, much less the hiring of illegal immigrants for less t han minimum wage that goes on in the USA?
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor]
Remember–in totalitarian governments, all of the atrocities described above have been committed by men & women who would test out as psychologically normal; they are merely driven by social pressures to do these things.
Look at the history of slavery. Murder, torture, death. Men selling their own children, fathered on their slaves. Most of these men would test out as normal.
And look at war.
Your opinions of what a normal Human should & should not be able to do are far too sentimental.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly right. We are not intrinsically good or evil. We learn behaviors based on whatever input we are given. Morality is a group behavior, and it’s shocking to realize how easily it can be discarded by almost any one of us. Under the right conditions, practically any one of us is capable of commiting atrocities.
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/ghostsofabughraib/synopsis.html
[QUOTE=Zabali_Clawbane]
What do you call the situation of the factory workers in places like China, and to some extent India is, much less the hiring of illegal immigrants for less t han minimum wage that goes on in the USA?
[/QUOTE]
I think I’m not understanding what you’re saying here; I think those examples indicate that slavery and technology can co-exist, right?
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
Nonsense. We may be ‘better’ because we do not practice slavery, but do not get on your high horse and try to make me believe that the average roman citizen knew that it was wrong to keep slaves.
[/quote]
How about the average early American ? Why do you think they came up with all that rationalization justifying slavery ?
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
Since we stopped being hunter/gatherers, and small family group subsistance farmers we kept slaves. To be honest, no machinery, unless you want to live hand to mouth marginal you had to have a workforce. Agriculture is a labor intense industry.
[/quote]
So ? That doesn’t make slavery necessary. it doesn’t even mean it was good for the society in question; free people tend to do better. It just means it was profitable for the powerful.
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
Historically, they had always practiced slavery, they saw no problems with slavery, and it was pretty much a world wide institution. Everybody did it, and pretty much unless you were on the slave end of the stick you thought nothing about it.
[/quote]
Somehow I doubt that. I expect that the people who supposedly “had no problem with it” would have a conversion experience on the subject if threaten with becoming slaves themselves. And I note that your argument presupposes that the slaveowners were right, given your casual dismissal of the slave’s opinions.
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
To put it into perspective, imagine some time 1000 years in the future, when we can vat grow protein how barbaric we would be considered for thinking nothing about going out and shooting Bambi and chowing down. How horrible we are for keeping countless animals just to kill and eat them … How horrible, didn’t we realize how wrong it was to eat meat from a living being [and yes I know there are vegans out there who preach that … but that is not the accepted norm at this time.
[/quote]
And they’d arguably be morally superior to us, if not by as huge a margin as a non-slave owner is to a slave owner. Your ‘project it into the future’ argument only works if you think we are paragons of moral perfection, and that the future can’t be better than the present.
And your analogy doesn’t work to begin with because animals are objectively inferior. They are INCAPABLE of being our equals. You can’t say that about slaves.
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
We have the leisure to consider slavery bad, but that is after a LOT of work had been replaced by machinery. We are no better than they were.
[/quote]
Even if that is the only reason - not that I believe it - that would still make us better than them. Regardless of our motives.
And if your theory was right, we’d have millions of slaves in this country alone for the things that machinery hasn’t replaced. If you are right, why is there not the mass enslavement of women in America for sex ? We don’t have sex droids. Why aren’t we carrying off all the attractive Iraqi females for sexual slavery, like the old days ?
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
If we did not have an industrial revolution to change things, we would still have a human workforce in the fields and they would be slaves.
[/quote]
Assuming you are correct, that would be because we’d still be socially and morally primitive, as well as technologically.
Also, you do realize that you are justifying every evil that is committed in the world ? If we don’t consider ourselves better than the ancient Romans, why should we consider ourselves better than the Nazis ? Why should we care if some cult in Ohio decides women should be branded and chained if every culture is equal to the other ? Your extreme relativism inevitably leads to total moral apathy.
Or to put it another way. If your extreme relativism is true, MY culture says you are wrong, and by your own logic you can’t call me wrong or judge me in any way. And if your extreme relativism is wrong, then it’s wrong. So either way, I should regard you as wrong. Your relativism makes even moral discussions rather pointless for that reason.
I call bullshit on the claim that Romans didn’t think slavery was bad. They knew it was bad for the slaves, but it was good for Rome. You can’t tell me Spartacus was in two minds about slavery. Plus, many great Romans were Stoics, and a central tenet of Stoicism is equality of all men, free and slave.
[QUOTE=9thFloor]
I’ve always thought it’s an interesting question as to whether or not we’re better off for technological, medical, and “social” advances in every single aspect without exception, in all cases. I think it’s something of an open question.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I don’t think we are better in all ways. It’s just that the ways in which we are better are much more important. As someone once said, the Nazis had an enlightened forestry policy; that doesn’t make the Nazi regime good.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Oh, I don’t think we are better in all ways. It’s just that the ways in which we are better are much more important. As someone once said, the Nazis had an enlightened forestry policy; that doesn’t make the Nazi regime good.
[/QUOTE]
Good point.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And your analogy doesn’t work to begin with because animals are objectively inferior. They are INCAPABLE of being our equals. You can’t say that about slaves.
[/QUOTE]
But they **did **say that about slaves, didn’t they? That they are objectively inferior? Not fully human, etc. Of course, I agree that they were objectively wrong.
But I wonder if that view (wrong as it was) wasn’t sincerely held by some at the time. Surely not everyone at the time believed it to be untrue?
As for animals, you’re right nobody can say they are objectively our equals but humanity might conclude in the future that they are our equals in terms of moral behavior due them (if that makes any sense how I phrased it.)
[QUOTE=9thFloor]
But they **did **say that about slaves, didn’t they? That they are objectively inferior? Not fully human, etc. Of course, I agree that they were objectively wrong.
But I wonder if that view (wrong as it was) wasn’t sincerely held by some at the time. Surely not everyone at the time believed it to be untrue?
[/QUOTE]
I’m sure some did, given how good people are at ignoring facts they don’t like. But willful ignorance isn’t a excuse. And there were free blacks whose abilities proved them wrong.
And they didn’t act like they really believed it, whether they ever admitted it. For example, they put too much effort into rationalizing what they did. To use the example of meat eating brought up earlier; most people honestly consider that moral. How often do you see people come up with rationalizations to defend it ? Especially if there’s no ideological vegetarian asking them to ? How many modern churches have sermons that focus on justifying meat eating, to the exclusion of all else, like Old South churches were known to do about slavery ? They simply acted like people who knew they were in the wrong, even by their own standards - assuming those standards were applied honestly. Not by, say, using the Golden Rule to justify slavery by saying that if THEY were black, they’d want to be a slave.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I’m sure some did, given how good people are at ignoring facts they don’t like. But willful ignorance isn’t a excuse. And there were free blacks whose abilities proved them wrong.
And they didn’t act like they really believed it, whether they ever admitted it. For example, they put too much effort into rationalizing what they did. To use the example of meat eating brought up earlier; most people honestly consider that moral. How often do you see people come up with rationalizations to defend it ? Especially if there’s no ideological vegetarian asking them to ? How many modern churches have sermons that focus on justifying meat eating, to the exclusion of all else, like Old South churches were known to do about slavery ? They simply acted like people who knew they were in the wrong, even by their own standards - assuming those standards were applied honestly. Not by, say, using the Golden Rule to justify slavery by saying that if THEY were black, they’d want to be a slave.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm…I don’t know. I’m sure you’re right about many if not most of the people.
I’ve been reading speeches given at the time apologists for slavery. It intrigues me to try to understand a mindset of someone that I consider wrong on the premise that they are being sincere and not willfully ignorant. For those instances where someone is being willfully ignorant, then it’s clearly not interesting to me and I’d agree that’s just assholes that are trying too hard to defend something they know full well and good is wrong.
But for those others that can sincerely hold a belief that seems so blatantly immoral, I’m intrigued as to how they do so. From what I’m reading, this apologist isn’t claiming that he’d want to be a slave if he were black, but that if he were black he wouldn’t be in a position to have his wants considered as equally valid since being black would define him as not fully human in that view.
What’s really interesting though is this take that I’m getting from this particular book that isn’t even about saying slavery is good but arguing that even if it is bad that the best thing to do is to continue slavery for their own good but treat them well. It’s pretty rich, in retrospect. I’d love to be able to travel back in time and have a conversation with a “sincere” slaveholder of the time that believed he was right.
Then I also wonder about the differences between those slaveholders who considered themselves to be treating their slaves more humanely than other slaveholders. I’m sure there were differences in slaveholders.
It’s fascinating to me how narrow moral relativistic niches can function like that. Like a Nazi that might exhibit some sympathy in some individual situation but then nonetheless go on supporting a system that is massacring millions.
I think the reason I have difficulty with the idea that most people that commit evil know they are doing so and think they’re wrong is that it seems a bit too facile an explanation to me.
However, it’s clear that for many if not most slaveholders you’re probably right at least from a lot of the ‘thou doth protest too much’ stuff from the pulpit.
[QUOTE=aruvqan]
Nonsense. … We have the leisure to consider slavery bad, but that is after a LOT of work had been replaced by machinery. We are no better than they were. If we did not have an industrial revolution to change things, we would still have a human workforce in the fields and they would be slaves. We might pretty up the term and call them serfs, and make laws about how they had to be maintained oh, wait - romans had laws on the treatment of slaves, as did america…and most of medieval europe. Nope, I guess we arent actually better. We just have the leisure to be better.
[/QUOTE]
Nonsense. In the US we fought a devastating war to prevent slavery, at a time when it was still economically viable. We fought over slavery because we thought it was wrong, not because we had factories in places.
One little incident with an ax and no one lets you forget it.
[QUOTE=Will Repair]
One little incident with an ax and no one lets you forget it.
[/QUOTE]
Is that you Lizzie?
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
So ? That doesn’t make slavery necessary. it doesn’t even mean it was good for the society in question; free people tend to do better. It just means it was profitable for the powerful.
[/QUOTE]
As it is with the modern equivalent we see today, with those who own and run the factories in China, and the rich who hire immigrants today. Cite. Also, all the factories hiring illegal immigrants here in this country, the meat processing plants hiring cheap labor and making them work far harder than the would be able to make legal, minimum wage workers.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I’m sure some did, given how good people are at ignoring facts they don’t like. But willful ignorance isn’t a excuse. And there were free blacks whose abilities proved them wrong.
And they didn’t act like they really believed it, whether they ever admitted it. For example, they put too much effort into rationalizing what they did. To use the example of meat eating brought up earlier; most people honestly consider that moral. How often do you see people come up with rationalizations to defend it ? Especially if there’s no ideological vegetarian asking them to ? How many modern churches have sermons that focus on justifying meat eating, to the exclusion of all else, like Old South churches were known to do about slavery ? They simply acted like people who knew they were in the wrong, even by their own standards - assuming those standards were applied honestly. Not by, say, using the Golden Rule to justify slavery by saying that if THEY were black, they’d want to be a slave.
[/QUOTE]
I must say I’m interested in reading your comments about slavery and whether it is right or wrong. Are you using the term “wrong” to be a shorthand way of referring to a non-consensus behaviour? Some of your comments seem to reflect a paradigm that sees right and wrong in some sort of absolute sense…
Ants keep slaves. Male lions frequently kill the young progeny of competing males. These behaviours are perceived by us as neither right nor wrong; they are just behaviours.
Serial killing; slavery; butchering animals; torture–these are behaviours which may or may not achieve a broad consensus depending on the prevailing culture of the time. But in what sense are you applying “right” or “wrong” to them?
The future may as easily be Huxley’s as it may be egalitarian so long as there is a reasonable consensus.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
I must say I’m interested in reading your comments about slavery and whether it is right or wrong. Are you using the term “wrong” to be a shorthand way of referring to a non-consensus behaviour? Some of your comments seem to reflect a paradigm that sees right and wrong in some sort of absolute sense…
Ants keep slaves. Male lions frequently kill the young progeny of competing males. These behaviours are perceived by us as neither right nor wrong; they are just behaviours.
Serial killing; slavery; butchering animals; torture–these are behaviours which may or may not achieve a broad consensus depending on the prevailing culture of the time. But in what sense are you applying “right” or “wrong” to them?
The future may as easily be Huxley’s as it may be egalitarian so long as there is a reasonable consensus.
[/QUOTE]
Spooky as that sounds, I tend towards your view and I’m suspicious of “objectives.”
[QUOTE=9thFloor]
I tend towards your view. I’d add the caveat that during those time of transition, there seemed to then be voices on both sides of the issue. At that point, maybe greed and other such considerations can be figured in for one side. Maybe. And of course, hubris and rationalization and so forth.
What’s your thoughts on the period right before the Civil War and the abolitionist movement vs. slavery apologists, etc.? I know there were lots of other overlapping considerations at play, but surely there was someone at the time that sincerely believed slavery to be evil like the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin? No?
[/QUOTE]
I dislike slavery, and am very glad that we had the industrial revolution so we could finally dispense with it [although sexual slavery still exists, and real physical slavery still exists as many humanitarian organizations can document.] I am very glad that a number of the founding fathers wanted to abolish slavery, and in fact had made importation of new slaves other than those already in slavery and new slaves born of current slave parents illegal fairly early [IIRC 1808 or so, all my legal books are out in the barn in boxes and I hate to search online when I know exactly where in the book the info I need is :smack: ] There are a lot of interesting abolishonist actions going on between roughly 1810 and the beginning of the civil war. Heck, IIRC I vaguely remember that John Adams actually proposed abolition just toward the end of his life, and a number of the northern states actually did abolish slavery before the civil war. Although I would like to reiterate that the civil war was not exactly about slavery per se, it was about the southern states wanting to secede because they wanted to be free to keep slaves. The north refused to consider letting them legally secede [which is technically implied in the original paperwork that they wrote when creating the country]
I have no doubt that there have been a few people all along that thought slavery was wrong, but when 99% of the world is against you - don’t rock the boat. Thankfully we had the revolution that allowed us to consider the philosophy of human rights. America and our revolution made a lot of philosophers stop and reconsider the ‘natural order of the world’. America really did lead the world in emancipation justification. When you combine human rights as a new concept, and industrialization, and agricultural advances everything meshed allowing us to start the ball rolling. Now if we could get the rest of the world to join in where the last bastions of slavery are. Although I would be a hell of a lot happier to end sexual slavery in all forms [and I am considering the serious fundie judeo-christians who consider it a womans place to be barefoot and preggers to be sexual slavery. Maybe she wants a nice wife of her own… or to remain single and abstinant … or to sleep with every male and female that asks. ]
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I don’t believe at all that a valid argument can be constructed against a proposition by saying, “That’s just what X would WANT you to do!” There’s perfectly good reasons to oppose the death penalty – irreversible outcome, moral objections, etc – but “playing into a bad guy’s last wishes” is giving bad guys too much say in the matter.
If a vicious, inhuman killer or a genocidal maniac wants to go out by lethal injection, then it appears we have a confluence of interests. The end result is one less waste of a human on the planet. Like if Osama bin Laden wants to become a martyr, I say we help him out, as opposed to deny him the opportunity.
[/QUOTE]
(I know I’m a bit late responding but I’ve been busy/ill the past couple of days. Is this even the same thread??)
Actually I wasn’t taking any stand on the matter, just noting the apparant irony/oddness of executing someone who would actually enjoy the experience (i.e., is it really punishment if the person likes it?). That’s all.