Looking for passges to justify Abraham having a slave

[TMC]

My guess is that you subscribe, at least on this issue, to a very rigid deontic form of ethics and likely have difficulty understanding concepts like mercy and forgiveness, along with the role of teleology in ethical considerations.

You need to understand that in Catholic ethical thinking, moral acts have three dimensions or aspects to be considered in order to fully assess the “wrongness” of such acts.

1. The nature of the act itself
2. The circumstances within which the act takes place
3. The motives or intentions of the agent

Thus, for example, someone, like Abraham who “kept slaves” may not necessarily be condemned for such an act if ‘keeping’ the individuals actually promoted their welfare (2 above) and his reasons for doing so was out of deep concern for doing so (3).

This is quite different from an 18th century plantation owner who kept slaves merely for his own profit, abused them regularly and had convinced himself that slaves were no better than vermin.

If you cannot see any difference at all between the two cases, then, you are correct, that we will just have to disagree on the issue.

Yes, I am sure that the problem is not that we have a legitimate disagreement over the morality of historical slavery, but rather that I am too stunted to understand mercy and forgiveness; and that I have an ill-formed ethical background. I think that this conversation has been interesting to a degree, but can only degrade at this point, particularly if you are going to base your assertions on my intellectual failings.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, I am sure that the problem is not that we have a legitimate disagreement over the morality of historical slavery, but rather that I am too stunted to understand mercy and forgiveness; and that I have an ill-formed ethical background. I think that this conversation has been interesting to a degree, but can only degrade at this point, particularly if you are going to base your assertions on my intellectual failings.

I wouldn’t call them “failings,” perhaps ‘leanings’ or ‘tendencies’ would be a better word. That says nothing about their adequacy. You might, in fact, be right and I might be wrong. Perhaps slavery in Abraham’s time was just as horrible as in the 18th century. You have reasons for thinking that it was. I have offered reasons for thinking it wasn’t.

I also argued that having an unchanging concept of ‘slavery’ that appears to be founded on “rule ethics” or deontic thinking - i.e., x is bad because it breaks a particular moral principle - would seem to prevent anyone from taking into account differences in situations or the intentions of the moral agents involved.

You can take offence at that possibility if you like, but that would seem to leave open that just such a possibility is at play.

I would suggest that rather than going down that path, you simply explain why you think there should be no accounting allowed for Abraham’s intentions, the nomadic situation he was in or the lack of social safety nets at the time when comparing the nature of slavery then with its implementation in the 18th century, if you are ready to do so.

If you choose to leave the debate at this point, then I am fully open to the possibility that you simply need time to ponder your perspective and come up with a suitable argument. I am good with that.

There is no need to feign offence, a mere “I’ll get back to you when ready,” will do.

 

[smeee51]

I’m pretty sure you don’t undertand what I’m saying. My point was that what we call slaves we associate with that nasty business of North American slave trade. In the ancient times ‘slaves’ were part of the societies. They were usually domestic or personal helpers and as such they were part of the household. They had their sustenance and protection and they worked for it performing different duties. Today, the society is structured differently. We as persons are not owned by somebody, but our time and strength is being used in exchange for money. We are still ‘slaves’ to our employers, but not 24/7.
So, in Bible times, there was nothing wrong with ‘owning’ a slave, what made difference was how did you treat him. And since Abraham was loved by God, (James 2:23 even says that he was God’s friend) we can safely assume that he treated his slaves, or houshold workers, with kindness and care.

Your argument was used by slave owners in the americas, they were fed, had some form of shelter and of course protection from the master. there is no difference between the 2 excep a great number of yearst

 

[StrawberryJam]

I wouldn’t call them “failings,” perhaps ‘leanings’ or ‘tendencies’ would be a better word. That says nothing about their adequacy. You might, in fact, be right and I might be wrong. Perhaps slavery in Abraham’s time was just as horrible as in the 18th century. You have reasons for thinking that it was. I have offered reasons for thinking it wasn’t.

I also argued that having an unchanging concept of ‘slavery’ that appears to be founded on “rule ethics” or deontic thinking - i.e., x is bad because it breaks a particular moral principle - would seem to prevent anyone from taking into account differences in situations **or the intentions of the moral agents involved. **

You can take offence at that possibility if you like, but that would seem to leave open that just such a possibility is at play.

I would suggest that rather than going down that path, you simply explain why you think there should be no accounting allowed for Abraham’s intentions, the nomadic situation he was in or the lack of social safety nets at the time when comparing the nature of slavery then with its implementation in the 18th century, if you are ready to do so.

If you choose to leave the debate at this point, then I am fully open to the possibility that you simply need time to ponder your perspective and come up with a suitable argument. I am good with that.

There is no need to feign offence, a mere “I’ll get back to you when ready,” will do.

Expound if you will or can, upon the intentions if you will be so kind. Of the moral agents involved, of course.

 

[Mintaka]

I think it’s pretty clear from the OT and NT Bible that slavery (and concubinage, and concubinage of slaves) was regarded by God as a lot like divorce: “Moses let you do it because of the hardness of your hearts, but in the beginning, it was not so.” There were no slaves in the Garden of Eden. The Divine intention was never to make us slaves, but to make us sons and daughters.

We can argue that OT Hebrew slavery was better than a lot of other places had it, because it was. And there are places where concubines had it worse, and having your ear slit was nicer than some other practices.

But do we care? It was wrong. Again and again, when we read the stories, we see that slavery and concubinage, just like divorce, are associated with human hardness of heart, and with the original Divine intentions not being followed.

The Patriarchs are sometimes good examples to us, and sometimes bad. The writers didn’t record that Moses murdered an overseer in a fit of rage as a good example, or that Noah got dead drunk and exposed himself as some kind of good example, and they didn’t record that Abraham had slaves and had sex with slaves, or that he kicked out Hagar and her baby, as a good example. Those were examples of bad behavior, examples not to follow.