Moral relativism

Yakuda said:
Irrelevant to the question. Was slavery moral when it was legal?
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Slavery throughout history has two sides to it in simplest terms:

The first is that it was a way of making mass labor affordable. That is, slaves were 'paid' in food and shelter while required to work. They were retained by their owner(s) as part of that arrangement. Even serfdom was this way. Serfs were tied to the land and the lord who owned that land. Leaving meant you had nothing and there was little or no guarantee that any other lord would take you in.

The reason slaves of this sort existed, and often in quantity, was there was no alternative form of production that could do the work. Horses were no more efficient than slaves in terms of work to costs of 'operation.' When better harnesses, wagons, and other implements came along, horses became an alternative to slaves. When machinery became sufficiently efficient, it replaced horses.

The other side of slavery was it was a means to deal with problems like petty criminals, indebtedness, and the like. A modern jail or prison would have been horribly inefficient in terms of cost and manpower to operate. So, the alternative was simply to enslave those that were a nuisance to society and make them work off their debts. Of course, the system was abused but that's a different issue from why it existed.

The African slave trade was no different. In the Americas, the indigenous population collapsed primarily from disease, particularly smallpox. The lack of a local labor force meant that those needing one--particularly for mining and agriculture both labor intensive and low value per hour industries--had to find an alternative source of cheap labor and that was the slave trade in Africa.

Was all of this moral? At the time, the answer is largely yes. It made the system productive with the available technology, took care of a large segment of the population who would otherwise be either a burden or unproductive on society, and the end result was a benefit to society. Slavery comes to an end when there are more productive alternatives. Where slavery exists today, the same thing is still true. A reasonable alternative in terms of productivity doesn't exist where it is practiced.

Of course, an aside to this is if you end slavery what do you do with all the marginally productive people who are no longer slaves? Do they become wards of the state in a mass, expensive, and endless welfare state? How moral is that?
 
People confuse moral relativism with moral skepticism. Relativism does not mean no moral statements can be made, just that they are not universal.
 
Hume said:
What do those words mean to you?
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Use(v): To employ, practice, to make use of.
Use(noun): The employment or the practice of an object.

Context: from Latin contextus. A body or writing, a weaving.

A contextomy fallacy is a shift in the body of writing to another as a non-sequitur (the formal fallacy).

I already know you are illiterate, Hugo.
 
Into the Night said:
Use(v): To employ, practice, to make use of.
Use(n): The employment or the practice of an object.

Context: from Latin contextus. A body or writing, a weaving.

A contextomy fallacy is a shift in the body of writing to another as a non-sequitur (the formal fallacy).

I already know you are illiterate, Hugo.
Click to expand...
Use(v): To employ, practice, to make use of.
Use(n): The employment or the practice of an object.

Context: from Latin contextus. A body or writing, a weaving.

A contextomy fallacy is a shift in the body of writing to another as a non-sequitur (the formal fallacy).

I already know you are illiterate, Hugo.
 
Hume said:
"Context" means a social or political environment. So slavery is illegal, therefore you cannot have slaves.
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Slavery exists in the United States illegally, Hugo.
It is also still legal in other parts of the world.

Context does NOT mean 'social or political environment'. Redefinition fallacy.
 
Into the Night said:
Slavery exists in the United States illegally, Hugo.
It is also still legal in other parts of the world.

Context does NOT mean 'social or political environment'. Redefinition fallacy.
Click to expand...
Slavery exists in the United States illegally, Hugo.
It is also still legal in other parts of the world.

Context does NOT mean 'social or political environment'. Redefinition fallacy.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Slavery throughout history has two sides to it in simplest terms:

The first is that it was a way of making mass labor affordable. That is, slaves were 'paid' in food and shelter while required to work. They were retained by their owner(s) as part of that arrangement. Even serfdom was this way. Serfs were tied to the land and the lord who owned that land. Leaving meant you had nothing and there was little or no guarantee that any other lord would take you in.

The reason slaves of this sort existed, and often in quantity, was there was no alternative form of production that could do the work. Horses were no more efficient than slaves in terms of work to costs of 'operation.' When better harnesses, wagons, and other implements came along, horses became an alternative to slaves. When machinery became sufficiently efficient, it replaced horses.

The other side of slavery was it was a means to deal with problems like petty criminals, indebtedness, and the like. A modern jail or prison would have been horribly inefficient in terms of cost and manpower to operate. So, the alternative was simply to enslave those that were a nuisance to society and make them work off their debts. Of course, the system was abused but that's a different issue from why it existed.

The African slave trade was no different. In the Americas, the indigenous population collapsed primarily from disease, particularly smallpox. The lack of a local labor force meant that those needing one--particularly for mining and agriculture both labor intensive and low value per hour industries--had to find an alternative source of cheap labor and that was the slave trade in Africa.

Was all of this moral? At the time, the answer is largely yes. It made the system productive with the available technology, took care of a large segment of the population who would otherwise be either a burden or unproductive on society, and the end result was a benefit to society. Slavery comes to an end when there are more productive alternatives. Where slavery exists today, the same thing is still true. A reasonable alternative in terms of productivity doesn't exist where it is practiced.

Of course, an aside to this is if you end slavery what do you do with all the marginally productive people who are no longer slaves? Do they become wards of the state in a mass, expensive, and endless welfare state? How moral is that?
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I get all that bit Im talking about the slavery we generally think of here in the US. The only question that matters in my discussion with Hume is, was slavery moral when it was legal?
 
Yakuda said:
why is it illegal? Simply because people dont like it? Thats asinine
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People pass laws for all kinds of reasons...some of them quite asinine. Each law, however, has a story behind it.

Example: It is illegal to own a whale in Kansas City.
This happened because a guy left a dead whale in an aquarium in Kansas City and skipped town. So the city had to pay for disposal of the creature.

It is illegal to wear roller skates in a public restroom in a town in Oregon. I never did learn the story behind that one!

As to your example of owning slaves as 'moral', you are quite correct. If your morals (your context and use case here) makes it okay to own slaves, then to you, it is okay to own slaves...even regardless of the law.

Hugo made the mistake of saying your morals are yours, but then tried to impose his morals on you as 'absolute morals'. This is the 'context and use' trap you so adequately demonstrated.
 
Yakuda said:
Why are you avoiding answering? Either keeping people as slaves is moral or its not.
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There is no such thing as morality in itself. We only talk about better and worse. Absolutists believe in transcendent reality, which I deny.
 
Into the Night said:
People pass laws for all kinds of reasons...some of them quite asinine. Each law, however, has a story behind it.

Example: It is illegal to own a whale in Kansas City.
This happened because a guy left a dead whale in an aquarium in Kansas City and skipped town. So the city had to pay for disposal of the creature.

It is illegal to wear roller skates in a public restroom in a town in Oregon. I never did learn the story behind that one!

As to your example of owning slaves as 'moral', you are quite correct. If your morals (your context and use case here) makes it okay to own slaves, then to you, it is okay to own slaves...even regardless of the law.

Hugo made the mistake of saying your morals are yours, but then tried to impose his morals on you as 'absolute morals'. This is the 'context and use' trap you so adequately demonstrated.
Click to expand...
eople pass laws for all kinds of reasons...some of them quite asinine. Each law, however, has a story behind it.

Example: It is illegal to own a whale in Kansas City.
This happened because a guy left a dead whale in an aquarium in Kansas City and skipped town. So the city had to pay for disposal of the creature.

It is illegal to wear roller skates in a public restroom in a town in Oregon. I never did learn the story behind that one!

As to your example of owning slaves as 'moral', you are quite correct. If your morals (your context and use case here) makes it okay to own slaves, then to you, it is okay to own slaves...even regardless of the law.

Hugo made the mistake of saying your morals are yours, but then tried to impose his morals on you as 'absolute morals'. This is the 'context and use' trap you so adequately demonstrated.
 
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