Is slavery in itself okay?

[exnihilo]

That’s nonsense.
If government compels you not to steal does it automatically own you?
If a government compels me to obey traffic laws does it automatically own me?

Can you see the difference between absolute power and limited control?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And that is just the point, limited control. Some forms of slavery do not have absolute control over the slave nor control over the slaves life such that the master could kill the slave.

If you could please explain to me what ownership is. And I dont mean in the legal sense of real and personal (chattel) property because then you would be begging the question as to whether one can own a person. What does it mean to own or possess something? By the way consider that possess, as often used, means to control. Thus we can be possessed by demons. This means demons control us.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

?

Christian teaching is that there is authority, the government, parents etc. If the slavery is immoral then the state and parenthood would be immoral on the same grounds.

Are you really incapable of seeing the difference between the authority of slavemasters (over their slaves) and other forms of authority?

 

[exnihilo]

No you can’t.

I dont understand what you are saying here. Could you please explain?

The only ones who advocate that position (without proof by the way) are Confederate apologists who embrace the Lost Cause historical narrative.
In other words, people arguing from a position lacking any moral or intellectual credibility.

The strength of an argument and the validity of presented facts do not depend on the moral condition of the person. I would accept a good argument from a rabid abortionist even though I find their engaging in abortion to be the most repugnant thing imaginable.

Perhaps God

That is what you said in the previous sentence after all.

God ultimately owns everything. But we posses subsidiary ownership. Again I see a problem in the modern understanding. We really think the state owns everything in this world. In the past people understood different institutions (parents, husbands, masters, the church) to have different areas of control over people. But back to the specific issue who owns children on this Earth? Are they utterly free? I dont think so.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Were they able to be legally manumitted or not? I do not care about societal perception, I care about what was legally feasible.

My statements only hold for cases in which manumission is impossible, which is evident from the fact that I referenced the assumption of possibility of manumission in each of my posts.

That should answer your question about inheriting slaves, then.

False. Slavery is defined as someone owning another person. This was pointed out by several people.

This thread is discussing chattel slavery, as has been explicitly pointed out:

See, chattel slavery is where there’s a legal fiction that a person is an object, subject to ownership. Forced labor is merely where one person is constrained, by law, to work for another.

Ownership is an option because the legal construct is laying out a specific point of view. The fact that there is a legal construct that designates one human to be a possession and therefore sub-human (by definition) is sufficient to condemn slavery as immoral.

You and the slavery apologists keep mentioning the issue of control, etc. and then drawing parallels to other institutions.

Those opposing slavery are not arguing on those grounds. We are saying that the legal ownership and legal designation of someone as property is what is problematic.

Why would you keep arguing about control? No one is even discussing it.

Because he’s (probably) trying to win the argument by changing the terms of debate.
If you can redefine words at will you can win any argument relatively easily

 

[exnihilo]

Are you really incapable of seeing the difference between the authority of slavemasters (over their slaves) and other forms of authority?

I dont think I’m incapable. I think no one has demonstrated it. If you can demonstrate the difference I’ll understand. Make the case.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

You are making a false claim that slavery must consider a slave sub-human. We all agree, I hope, that different humans can have different rights. Whether you agree or not different humans do have different rights: children, parents, husbands, prisoners, soldiers. The difference in rights which is based on a condition is not always a condition of choosing. Different rights do not necessarily make one sub-human. If reduced rights made someone sub-human then prisoners could be abused. In fact I think it is the wide acceptance in our modern society that those with less rights can be abused that causes the strong reaction against the idea of slavery.

Prisoners are all too often abused.
And anyone who knows anything about history could not say with a straight face (metaphorically speaking) that people with fewer rights and power are legitimate (or at least safe) targets for abuse, is a modern idea.

The first example I can think of concerning how wrong this is, is that of the Jews.
Although Protestants living in Catholic kingdoms (and visa versa) is a good example too.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Originally Posted by Baelor
Those opposing slavery are not arguing on those grounds. We are saying that the legal ownership and legal designation of someone as property is what is problematic.

Why would you keep arguing about control? No one is even discussing it.

I’m trying to discuss it and being ignored. If we go with your definition then if there existed an island in isolation with just two inhabitants, a master and a slave, we could not condemn that slavery because there was no legal designation of someone as property. I’m assuming the master does not go through the trouble of writing down laws, titling property, collecting taxes or doing anything else to make himself a government.

If we rely on this legal definition then how is the state not my master for the reasons I indicated a post above? I’ve got their passport title right here. I hope people realize slaves needed papers whenever they traveled off the master’s property just like we need a passport.

No, your views on the matter are being refuted and (then) dismissed.
That’s a key difference.

For the reader’s convenience, here’s a definition of refuted from Dictionary.com.

1. to prove to be false or erroneous, as an opinion or charge.
2. to prove (a person) to be in error.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Originally Posted by AngryAtheist8
That’s nonsense.
If government compels you not to steal does it automatically own you?
If a government compels me to obey traffic laws does it automatically own me?

**Can you see the difference between absolute power and limited control? **

Yes. Yes. Yes. And that is just the point, limited control. Some forms of slavery do not have absolute control over the slave nor control over the slaves life such that the master could kill the slave.

If you could please explain to me what ownership is. And I dont mean in the legal sense of real and personal (chattel) property because then you would be begging the question as to whether one can own a person. What does it mean to own or possess something? By the way consider that possess, as often used, means to control. Thus we can be possessed by demons. This means demons control us.

Apparently not since you can see no difference between slavery and other forms of control.

 

[exnihilo]

Prisoners are all too often abused.
And anyone who knows anything about history could not say with a straight face (metaphorically speaking) that people with fewer rights and power are legitimate (or at least safe) targets for abuse, is a modern idea.

I did not say this is a modern idea. I mentioned the widespread acceptance. Our society has been steadily taking away rights of people convicted of crimes. US society has declared that non-citizens do not have the same rights as citizens and can held indefinitely without trial, tortured and assassinated. It has recently said that even citizens can be assassinated on the order of the president if he in his sole discretion declares the person to be a terrorist. At one time Americans believed that citizenship was not a distinguishing factor as to whether one had certain rights. At one time Americans did not believe that a person could take another person’s life at his sole discretion.

Originally Posted by Baelor
No, your views on the matter are being refuted and (then) dismissed.
That’s a key difference.

I’m sorry I’ve seen dismissed but little refutation. In fact I’ve made several points none of which have been addressed. Two examples are is slavery immoral on an island with no government and citizens must carry ownership papers like slaves when they are off property.

Originally Posted by AngryAtheist8
Apparently not since you can see no difference between slavery and other forms of control.

You seem to be saying this difference is self evident. There are very few self evident truths and this is not one of them. Explain to me the difference. If it is so obvious it should be easy to explain.

 

[Baelor]

Different rights do not necessarily make one sub-human.

Is property sub- or super-human?

I’m trying to discuss it and being ignored.

You are an apologist for slavery, or near enough in this discussion. If you had read my post thoroughly, you would have noticed that I said no one opposing slavery is trying to or interested in discussing it.

If we go with your definition then if there existed an island in isolation with just two inhabitants, a master and a slave, we could not condemn that slavery because there was no legal designation of someone as property.

It is not slavery, so you are correct in saying we could not condemn “that slavery.” I am told that it is rather difficult to speak out against something that does not exist.

 

[exnihilo]

Is property sub- or super-human?

The condition of being property does not change the fundamental nature of the thing which is owned. Is a tree on my property less of a tree?

You are an apologist for slavery, or near enough in this discussion. If you had read my post thoroughly, you would have noticed that I said no one opposing slavery is trying to or interested in discussing it.

Yes, but that is really the fundamental question that needs to be resolved in order to answer the question posed by this thread.

It is not slavery, so you are correct in saying we could not condemn “that slavery.” I am told that it is rather difficult to speak out against something that does not exist.

So what about slavery in a legal framework makes it bad? Normally we work from natural law and morality is not normally determined by the legal system. Normally we would say something is bad thus it should be against the law. We do not usually think that by regulating something with the law it is made bad. The particular regulations could be bad but the power of regulation is not in and of itself.

We do not know this does not exist or has never existed. In fact I would think it quite likely to have existed many times in the past. But thought experiments are very useful even if something does not exist. For instance we could try to think of an actual infinity which Aristotle thought does not exist. I would have no problem speaking against an actual infinity because I agree that they do not actually exist.

 

[Baelor]

The condition of being property does not change the fundamental nature of the thing which is owned. Is a tree on my property less of a tree?

Is property sub- or super-human?

In this case, is your tree sub- or super-human?

Yes, but that is really the fundamental question that needs to be resolved in order to answer the question posed by this thread.

No, it is not. If one can establish slavery’s immorality on other grounds, there is no need to bring in power at all. Which happens to be exactly what has happened on this thread.

So what about slavery in a legal framework makes it bad?

Humans are by their nature not the property of another. One is not “born” a slave except in cases where the legal structure mandates this. We are all the “property” of God, so to speak, not of each other. Slavery is a fundamental distortion of our natural state and natural law.

 

[exnihilo]

Is property sub- or super-human?

In this case, is your tree sub- or super-human?

Property has no bearing on whether something is human or not. You seem to be asserting that fundamental to the definition of being human is that you are not the property of someone or something. I think we must answer what is property. We’ll need to be clear on the definition to discuss this. I would say we we are all God’s property. He created and owns us in a very real sense. He owns our very life and can take it. So we are all property regardless of any legal system.

The tree is not human before or after being owned. Ownership has no bearing on its status of being not human or sub-human.

No, it is not. If one can establish slavery’s immorality on other grounds, there is no need to bring in power at all. Which happens to be exactly what has happened on this thread.

I’ve not seen any other grounds except a declaration of private ownership is evil but public, or collective, or government ownership is not. I’ve also not seen anyone adequately address the issue of children especially their being titled to owners on a birth certificate.

Humans are by their nature not the property of another. One is not “born” a slave except in cases where the legal structure mandates this. We are all the “property” of God, so to speak, not of each other. Slavery is a fundamental distortion of our natural state and natural law.

I find this hard to agree with. When we are born we are title to our parents and under their complete control. Even today one is not born free but becomes free at age 18. In fact the courts call this emancipation. You can apply to be emancipated, like a slave, prior to turning 18. If you are born in the US your are born to a condition of being under its control without any agreement of such by you. The claim of being born free is nice rhetoric but it seems at odds with reality.

 

[Baelor]

I think we must answer what is property. We’ll need to be clear on the definition to discuss this. I would say we we are all God’s property. He created and owns us in a very real sense. He owns our very life and can take it. So we are all property regardless of any legal system.

Indeed. I agree completely, and that reason is the very reason why slavery is inherently evil: it is a distortion of that relationship and our relationship with actual property.

The tree is not human before or after being owned. Ownership has no bearing on its status of being not human or sub-human.

Of course not, at an actual level. But one cannot be both human and property; the two are mutually exclusive. Slaves are not humans, they are property. That is what I am saying. That is their defining characteristic.

I’ve not seen any other grounds except a declaration of private ownership is evil but public, or collective, or government ownership is not. I’ve also not seen anyone adequately address the issue of children especially their being titled to owners on a birth certificate.

Give me quotations from legal documents where they define others as property.

I find this hard to agree with. When we are born we are title to our parents and under their complete control. Even today one is not born free but becomes free at age 18. In fact the courts call this emancipation.

But it is not emancipation from slavery, it is emancipation from parental control. At no point are you actually the legal property of your parents.

 

[exnihilo]

Of course not, at an actual level. But one cannot be both human and property; the two are mutually exclusive. Slaves are not humans, they are property. That is what I am saying. That is their defining characteristic.

One certainly can be both human and property because humans have been such. That is why I dont think being property effects your being human. This can not be mutually exclusive because it has in reality happened. The issue is *should *people be property. Thus we need a moral rule. That rule must follow from an argument, be self-evident, or be revealed (because I accept the revelation of the Christian Faith). I’ve not seen any of these justifications.

Give me quotations from legal documents where they define others as property.

Some marriage vows say ‘to have and to hold’. This is called a habendum clause. You’ll find the same clause in slave sales. I dont know that you’ll find the word ‘property’ in those sales. Give me a quotation from a legal document that defines slaves as property. The issue is not the word property but the actual treatment

But it is not emancipation from slavery, it is emancipation from parental control. At no point are you actually the legal property of your parents.

The distinction of the name of the institution of ownership is not in question. The point is every child has a title of ownership registered with the state and experiences emancipation at some point. If we look at Wikipedia a definition of property is ‘A title, or a right of ownership, establishes the relation between the property and other persons, assuring the owner the right to dispose of the property as the owner sees fit’. If we look at ownership we find ‘determining ownership in law involves determining who has certain rights and duties over the property’. Do parents not have rights and duties over their children? You are basing your case on words. I agree that few people speak of owning their children. But that does not mean they dont.

 

[Baelor]

One certainly can be both human and property because humans have been such. That is why I dont think being property effects your being human.

The designation of humans as property is an attempt to eliminate the ontological nature of humanity as something that involves will. I do not own a human in the same way I would own a cow, or a car, or a house. Why this is the case is self-evident.

The issue is *should *people be property. Thus we need a moral rule. That rule must follow from an argument, be self-evident, or be revealed (because I accept the revelation of the Christian Faith). I’ve not seen any of these justifications.

1. It is self-evident. Nothing is “self-evident” with an 100% rate, and it is self-evident why being legally designated a possession is an affront to the dignity of human life.
2. Slavery is to deny the categorization of someone as a person and replace it with their category as possession. The Roman author Varro considered slaves to be tools, and included them not in the classification of persons but of agricultural equipment. This is what any legal institution of slavery fundamentally does: conflates categories that should forever remain separate. A human is not someone who can be used as property, and although legal restrictions may exist, that is fundamentally what a slave is: a tool, an inanimate object that happens to talk.

It is also interesting that the Romans themselves considered slavery to be a legal state that was against nature.

Some marriage vows say ‘to have and to hold’. This is called a habendum clause. You’ll find the same clause in slave sales. I dont know that you’ll find the word ‘property’ in those sales. Give me a quotation from a legal document that defines slaves as property

Does the habendum clause make someone the legal property of another? If so, please show me where they are legally defined as the possession of another.

And in marriage, two become one in flesh, so that does not apply.

The distinction of the name of the institution of ownership is not in question. The point is every child has a title of ownership registered with the state and experiences emancipation at some point. If we look at Wikipedia a definition of property is ‘A title, or a right of ownership, establishes the relation between the property and other persons, assuring the owner the right to dispose of the property as the owner sees fit’. If we look at ownership we find ‘determining ownership in law involves determining who has certain rights and duties over the property’. Do parents not have rights and duties over their children? You are basing your case on words. I agree that few people speak of owning their children. But that does not mean they dont.

Words are everything in this case. Is the child the legal possession of the parent in the same way that a garden hoe is the possession of the parent? That is, is the ownership in this case the same fundamentally as that of any inanimate object? The answer is, of course, no, and not simply because the parents have obligations to the child and there are restrictions on the behavior of the parents. The parents are guardians, and ownership denotes parentage, but it is not ownership in the same way that I own the laptop on which I am typing this post.

 

[exnihilo]

The designation of humans as property is an attempt to eliminate the ontological nature of humanity as something that involves will. I do not own a human in the same way I would own a cow, or a car, or a house. Why this is the case is self-evident.

I dont believe this distinction is self evident. Speaking for myself I’m not attempting to eliminate the ontological nature of humanity and am not convinced that possession of a human does such. I am trying to understand this claim that possessing a human makes them not human. It just doesn’t follow to me.

In what way would owning a cow be different from owning a human? In both cases you would compel it to do your will. In both cases that which is under your will can obey or not obey. I would agree that owning a house is different from owning a human being in that the object of ownership has no freedom as it is inanimate. This is where things get dangerous. Do we say you can not own an animate object? That has lots of implications.

1. It is self-evident. Nothing is “self-evident” with an 100% rate, and it is self-evident why being legally designated a possession is an affront to the dignity of human life.
2. Slavery is to deny the categorization of someone as a person and replace it with their category as possession. The Roman author Varro considered slaves to be tools, and included them not in the classification of persons but of agricultural equipment. This is what any legal institution of slavery fundamentally does: conflates categories that should forever remain separate. A human is not someone who can be used as property, and although legal restrictions may exist, that is fundamentally what a slave is: a tool, an inanimate object that happens to talk.

It seems we’re getting nowhere with the self-evident aspect. I think very few things are self evident and this is not one of them. And if possession, the power to control, is an affront to human dignity then so is every government on Earth.

Roman and ancient forms of slavery were not the only kinds of slavery. It is true that some forms of slavery considered slaves to be nothing more than tools. It is also true that some forms considered slaves to be people with rights.

What was a conscripted soldier sent to die on the beaches of Normandy? It seems to me they were a tool in the sense you are using it.

Does the habendum clause make someone the legal property of another? If so, please show me where they are legally defined as the possession of another.

It did. And it made the wife cease to exists as a legal person. My point in this, birth certificates, passports, the concept of child emancipation etc. is to point out all the ways that slavery was and is similar to other institutions. By doing so I’m hoping to understand what is the distinction about that institution that made it so terrible.

And in marriage, two become one in flesh, so that does not apply.

If we are talking about the legal side then in the past yes the two became one as a family under the exclusive control of the husband.

Words are everything in this case. Is the child the legal possession of the parent in the same way that a garden hoe is the possession of the parent? That is, is the ownership in this case the same fundamentally as that of any inanimate object? The answer is, of course, no, and not simply because the parents have obligations to the child and there are restrictions on the behavior of the parents. The parents are guardians, and ownership denotes parentage, but it is not ownership in the same way that I own the laptop on which I am typing this post.

I dont see ownership as the distinction. The distinction is in the power to compel that which is owned. A person, an animal and even a tree has some degree of freedom which is outside the control of the owner. A person or an animal can disobey. A tree has the ability to grow or not grow as it will which is in the broader sense the ability within to change. If you own a house it can not change on its own. It can be effected by other forces but has none of its own.

 

[Baelor]

I dont believe this distinction is self evident. Speaking for myself I’m not attempting to eliminate the ontological nature of humanity and am not convinced that possession of a human does such. I am trying to understand this claim that possessing a human makes them not human. It just doesn’t follow to me.

What does it mean to possess something?

And if possession, the power to control, is an affront to human dignity then so is every government on Earth.

Wrong. Governments do not own people. AA and I have been very clear about what definitions we have been using vis-a-vis ownership, slavery, and property. I am not going to discuss an issue using any other definitions.

What was a conscripted soldier sent to die on the beaches of Normandy? It seems to me they were a tool in the sense you are using it.

Did someone own their person?

My point in this, birth certificates, passports, the concept of child emancipation etc. is to point out all the ways that slavery was and is similar to other institutions. By doing so I’m hoping to understand what is the distinction about that institution that made it so terrible.

The distinction is that that has been pointed out over and over again: slavery involves a human legally owning another human person. Not their labor, not the fruits thereof, not a certain part of them, but the person himself.

If we are talking about the legal side then in the past yes the two became one as a family under the exclusive control of the husband.

Did the husband own the wife? Was she is property?

The answers to these questions are clear, but these questions are the ones worth asking, not whether control was absolute, whether the person had rights or not, etc.

I dont see ownership as the distinction. The distinction is in the power to compel that which is owned.

Ownership is a clear distinction. You may not think it matters, but it makes them incongruent.

 

[Baelor]

Perhaps we should take a step back, since we are not getting anywhere.

Slavery: “the state of a person who is a chattel of another,” according to Merriam-Webster.

Chattel: “an item of tangible movable or immovable property except real estate and things (as buildings) connected with real property” ibid.

My questions for you:

1. What freedoms are naturally permitted to humans?
2. Under what circumstances is it permissible to relinquish those freedoms?
3. Is it possible for a person to be the chattel of another naturally, or must this come from a societal (e.g. legal) construct?
4. Do you believe that slavery as defined above is reconcilable with the freedoms in 1)?
5. Should human beings have the right to own others?
6. If the answer to 5) is yes, what restrictions should apply to ownership?
7. If the answer to 5) is yes, under what circumstances should one be able to be a slave?

 

[Portrait]

Portrait;9123150:

I thought your earlier posts were good, showing that slavery is wrong and the Church has worked to eradicate it. Then we have your words above ( I have put in bold). Those kind of words were spoken to slaves in the US to keep them in line, to tell them to accept their lot, to wait for their reward in heaven. This was so wrong and just a justification of and a perpetuation of a heinous system so incompatible with Christianity.

There is no justification for slavery, it is evil.

Dear severus68,

Cordial greetings and hope all is well. Have been enjoying the jolly spendid weather in my neck of the woods today, which is why I have been absent from the thread.

Sorry, dear friend, I was unaware that the sort of words that I used in my post were employed to keep slaves in America under control, so that they would passively resign themselves to their plight. Can you kindly provide some source that substantiates this please?

In any event, notwithstanding that some slave owners may have used such words for ulterior motives, that does not lessen their essential truthfulness and neither would it have rendered them useless as a source of comfort to the slaves in their afflictions. God, dear friend, is in the business of bringing good out of evil and it is very possible, when one considers the Divine providence, that the dignified behaviour and heroic patience of many suffering slaves, may have been used to bring not a few slave owners to faith in Christ and the Church. Moreover, knowing that their true Master had suffered much injustice and left them an example to follow by such suffering, would surely have been a great source of strength and encouragement to them in their bitter trials. In all of their suffering good men can look to their Heavenly Father for protection, full in the knowledge that whatever He allows them to suffer, they will be richly rewarded (S. Matt. 5: 10-12). After all, nothing can so well serve as an answer to one’s enemies as a holy life and noble endurance whilst undergoing bitter trials.

Of course, none this excuses or does anything to redeem the utterly odious business of slavery itself and, you are quite right, it is an intolerable evil and the Church was right to work hard to try to wipe it out. However, whilst the evil of slavery did exist, passages such as I Peter 3: 8-22 would have undeniably been a source of great consolation and strength.

May you, and all other contributors to this thread, have a splendid weekend, whatever you plan to do.

God bless and goodbye for now, dear friends.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait:tiphat:

Pax