Some - many, probably - would feel that life as a slave is worse than death. In that frame of reference, anything one would do to save his own life would be justifiable to escape the slavery.
Gary T is correct. Forcing someone into slavery is ethically equivalent to threatening them with lethal force. The ethical guidelines for when you can use lethal force against other people threatening or not threatening you with lethal force are pretty much exactly the same as the ethical guidelines for when you can use lethal force to escape from slavery.
In other words, you can’t kill someone and carve out their kidneys, even if you would die if you don’t get a kidney transplant. But if someone is threatening to carve out your kidneys you can ethically use lethal force against them.
For the people who say that any amount of force is justified to escape from slavery, what about violence against fellow slaves? Is it ethical to kill fellow captives if that would improve your chances of escape? I’m not talking about stoolies, anyone who threatens to call the pattyrollers is threatening you with lethal force. But say you’re about to leave and one of the slaves sees you go, and wishes you luck. You turn to him and say, “Well, sorry about this Jim, but when the master wakes up and sees me gone, he’s gonna start questioning you. And you’re gonna crack under torture, everyone does. So, since it’s you or me, I’m gonna have to kill you. Nothing personal.” Sorry, but you don’t have the right to kill Jim, even though killing him improves your chances of escape.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
For the people who say that any amount of force is justified to escape from slavery, what about violence against fellow slaves? Is it ethical to kill fellow captives if that would improve your chances of escape? I’m not talking about stoolies, anyone who threatens to call the pattyrollers is threatening you with lethal force. But say you’re about to leave and one of the slaves sees you go, and wishes you luck. You turn to him and say, “Well, sorry about this Jim, but when the master wakes up and sees me gone, he’s gonna start questioning you. And you’re gonna crack under torture, everyone does. So, since it’s you or me, I’m gonna have to kill you. Nothing personal.” Sorry, but you don’t have the right to kill Jim, even though killing him improves your chances of escape.
[/QUOTE]
If this ever happens to me, I sincerely hope my fellow slaves are all like Lemur866.
My bolding by the way. 
Jim
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
But I don’t think you really mean this. Sure, against people who threaten to use lethal force against you unless you return to slavery, lethal force is ethically justified. But what about innocent third parties? I don’t think you could ethically do something like kill your master’s child before you escape, even if you knew that the child’s death would distract him long enough to guarantee your freedom. Or you couldn’t ethically rat out a fellow slave and send them to their deaths, even if you knew the reward for ratting out a fellow slave was freedom.
…
The fact that your life or freedom is in danger does not give you license to kill indiscriminately.
[/QUOTE]
Please note that I never said it DID give me the right to kill indiscriminately. I do feel morally and ethically justified in meeting force with force, however. The murder of a child to simply distract pursuit is not meeting force with force (it is, at best, meeting force with indirect force). I wouldn’t feel justified in killing a cat, dog, or even a field mouse, if the only reason for the death was to distract pursuit. This is not to say that, having killed something for a VALID reason, I would hesitate to use it as a distraction – say, for example, I’d killed a chicken for food. I wouldn’t hesitate to, say, scrawl frightening messages or voodoo hexes (or what I imagine could pass for them) on walls, if I thought it’d slow the pursuit down. But I wouldn’t kill the chicken JUST for that reason alone; that’d be wasteful, if nothing else.
Perhaps I should have been clearer on it, but my approach would not be a wild stampede of get-the-hell-out-of-my-way shoulder-blocking, knife-waving, I’m-gonna-kill-you-sucker craziness. I would attempt stealth whenever possible. When confronted, I’d attempt to run before I’d attempt to fight, if it’s a viable option. But when cornered, I will fight, and I will fight to win.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
Bearing in mind your current moral and ethical belief system, how much force are you justified in using to escape to, say, Canada? May you kill your overseer? A fellow slave who happens upon you when you’re making plans and threatens to rat you at? A bounty hunter hired to bring you back to the plantation? A non-slave-owning white farmer who catches you in his barn, hiding from the aforementioned bounty hunters, as you make your way north? A sheriff’s deputy who, though personally opposed to slavery, feels obliged to follow the Fugitive Slave Act and turn you in?
[/QUOTE]
I believe you would be ethically justified in killing any of those people if it was necessary to secure your freedom. Obviously, it would be better to use less force if reasonably possible; just shooting to kill the instant you see anyone isn’t cool. Enslaving human beings or abetting the enslavement of human beings is an odious crime that threatens the very life of its victims, and they have the right to self defense.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
Another question: how much force may be ethically used to free someone ELSE from slavery? Take as a given that we’re not talking about involuntary servitude as a punishment for a duly convicted crime. At what point does on the spectrum from John Adams to Harriet Tubman to John Brown–and beyond–does one become unethical? (If ever.)
[/QUOTE]
This is really the same question. You previously asked how much force was justifiable in freeing oneself from slavery. Unless you see yourself as intrinsically more valuable somehow than others, the only difference here is in point of view.
I feel that, as long as I am following the same guidelines as I would for myself (no unnecessary killing, meeting force with equal force, etc), I am equally justified in all my actions for Jimbo’s sake as if they were for my own.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
But say you’re about to leave and one of the slaves sees you go, and wishes you luck. You turn to him and say, “Well, sorry about this Jim, but when the master wakes up and sees me gone, he’s gonna start questioning you. And you’re gonna crack under torture, everyone does. So, since it’s you or me, I’m gonna have to kill you. Nothing personal.” Sorry, but you don’t have the right to kill Jim, even though killing him improves your chances of escape.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, only if you eat him. Just don’t tell Jim where you are headed. Or even better, lie to Jim. Tell Jim your going the other way. Jim doesn’t have to die!
I would feel justified in doing anything necessary in order to escape. If that means killing hundreds so be it. Taking hostages? No problem.
[QUOTE=pool]
I would feel justified in doing anything necessary in order to escape. If that means killing hundreds so be it. Taking hostages? No problem.
[/QUOTE]
Hostages would be sweet, I would totally make then do my laundry and stuff once the heat was off. And if they tried to get away? Why I’d kill them little bastards.
I myself noticed the irony but it doesn’t change my position. I’m viewing this as having one specific goal. The goal is escape and I will do anything to achieve the goal. If I had no other choice I would take hostages as a temporary means to an end. I would not go out of my way to leave a body count but if it was the choice between murder and escape then I would choose to murder.
[QUOTE=pool]
if it was the choice between murder and escape then I would choose to murder.
[/QUOTE]
Well if I couldn’t do both I would totally choose escape.
whoops I worded that wrong you got me but I think you totally got what I meant. If I had to murder to escape or be captured than I would murder in order to escape.
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Well, assuming the “Navy Seal” option, then yeah, I’d kill anyone, including the kid and his little dog, too. I’m on my way to Canada and getting started on my Northern-Empire-based-on-superior-future-tech-like-Penicillin-and-AK-47s post-haste. (I’m assuming a SEAL could recreate an AK with help - I know how to grow Penicillium already)
If I’m just ordinary old me, then I think I’ll go with **kanicbird’**s toadying-and-wait-it-out program. We’d be the first electrified plantation on the River!
[/QUOTE]
But then you would wind up getting beaten on a treadmill.
If I could add a follow-up question, suppose the child was an 11-year-old boy with a rifle, and an inclination to use it against you? While that wouldn’t be an everyday occurrence, it wouldn’t be unheard-of either.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
But then you would wind up getting beaten on a treadmill.
[/QUOTE]
How So 
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
How So
[/QUOTE]
Slaveholding societies always have a preference for labor-intensive arrqngements over technological ones. So your generator’s turbine would wind up being powered by humans, in my imagining.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
If I could add a follow-up question, suppose the child was an 11-year-old boy with a rifle, and an inclination to use it against you? While that wouldn’t be an everyday occurrence, it wouldn’t be unheard-of either.
[/QUOTE]
Then he dies. If the only way to escape slavery is to kill every living thing in my path down to the insects, then that’s what I do.
[QUOTE=hackysack]
Yeah, only if you eat him. Just don’t tell Jim where you are headed. Or even better, lie to Jim. Tell Jim your going the other way. Jim doesn’t have to die!
[/QUOTE]
“Well, goodbye, Jim. I’m heading south to freedom.”
[QUOTE=you with the face]
Not me. If I were thinking about any children, it would be only my own, the unborn ones who would have to inherit bondage from me if I were to be recaptured. If I were running away with my already-born kids and we were about to get caught? Then this really would be a no brainer for me. The little white kid would have to be silenced by any means necessary, even if it meant death.
[/quote]
If I was unclear before, my qualm at killing the child was based on scruples, not morality. Some things ARE worse than death (in my opinion), and living with the memory of killing a child would be on of them for me.