figuer

But isn't slavery theft?

So to deprive a person of liberty (steal his freedom of action), categorising him as property, forcing him to do as its owner pleases, under penalty of death, is not an absolute evil?

Do yo mean the following?

So I see that for you the (supposed) economic stability (=minimal clothing, food to keep them functional, minimal shelter), which slavery brought to the slaves, justified it, because emancipation brought about some economic hardship during the phase of adjustment to the new conditions. I don't see how a period of economic hardship can be seen as worst than living under a system where one could be killed or punished savagely, where women/children could be raped, where anyone could be sold at any moment and separated from their family and friends, never to see them or hear about them again.

I must say that, not only your capacity of reasoning, but also your morality/value system seems highly flawed.

Clouseau

You must?

figuer

No, the argument is as follows:

1. The Bible is (according to believers), the ultimate and unsurpassable source of instruction towards moral behaviour, and the word of an all good, all wise God.

2. The Bible does not condemn slavery, but rather presents it as something acceptable.

3. Western society in the 21st century condemns slavery as immoral (after a thorough rational analysis of its socio-psychological connotations and consequences).

4. Modern Western ideology has therefore surpassed the Bible as a source of instruction towards moral behaviour.

5. The Bible is therefore not the ultimate, unsurpassable source of instruction towards moral behaviour, and its "author God", is not all good, nor all wise.

Your reduced argument was precisely that "reduced" - to nothing - and therefore a dysfunctional misrepresentation.

Chili

The human condition (or fallen nature) is what makes the animal Man a slave to his own faculty of reason. In this sense is slavery native to Man with the only difference that liberation is not possible if the slave is also the master of the slave (eg. don't we insist that we have a mind of our own and are in charge of our own destiny). Notice that I spelled Man with a capital M to show that the master controls the volition or Man as if he was the owner of the Man. This is why the ego (the master) must be crucified to die after he is identified lest he returns to life and becomes an empowered imposter as if with one leg in heaven and one on earth (called midheaven in Rev. 14:6.

Sven

I wonder where you got this from.

Cheerful Charlie

And in some cases the bible does condemn some forms of slavery.

Deuteronomy 24

24:7 If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.


CC

Roger Pearse

Lots of room for ambiguity in this...

Does it? Certainly room for argument here.

I do not believe that the values of those who control the media agenda in the west in the early 21st century can be considered any guide to morality or otherwise, and certainly did not arise rationally -- indeed I remember them being manufactured.

This seems to be a non sequitur, even on its own terms, tho.

But one may reasonably ask why the ideology of one part of the globe at one period of history is normative? And why this particular bit of history?

This also seems to be a non-sequitur, tho. Does it not also rely on the idea that the values of the selfish generation are the supreme good? -- not one I think one would wish to propose.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

enoch007

I would tend to agree with this statement in the context of classical societies. This is generally due to a much more limited concept of social mobility in these cultures. If one could not obtain some manner of land grant, through conquest, inhearitance etc and had no source of funds available, it was either slavery or banditry.


But I disagree with the analogy to 19th century America. This reasoning is and was often used as a justification for bondage of African slaves. But this reasoning went hand in hand with the notion that Africans were too socially and biologically immature to take care of themselves without supervision.

The entire promise of America to all except the slave was the chance to make ones own fortune in the wilderness alone or in conjunction with others in small communities. There were plenty of good old Europeans who tried it and failed, starved, got scalped, drank themselves to death etc. The plains were filled with the bones of pioneers, but otherwise they were given the chance to try. Would it have been better to have the Europeans enslaved? Or perhaps all should have undergone an undergraduate course in indentured servitude, as was the custom at the very beginning of colonization.

To equate the options of individuals in classically rigid and heirarchal societies to the American experiment in liberty with vast frontier resources that could be exploited constitutes a false comparison.

figuer

Modern Western moral values have been developed, and are still evolving, from centuries of human experience. They are not the product of "the media", they are the product of a humanist-empirical philosophical thought that has as its basis the search for a state of maximum individual happiness within maximum social harmony.

Their current normative character is gained by their effectiveness in achieving the stated goals.

Roger Pearse

You are certainly welcome to believe this if you wish, but rather a lot of people disagree, as you probably know.

If the values are 'evolving', of course, can the current (and so provisional) set be used for anything? Things evolve and degenerate. How can we tell?

I don't understand what you mean.

All the best,

Roger Pearse