some people in that era did believe it was ethical, and some didn't. After a while, more and more people were convinced that it was unethical (and conveniently, machinary made slavery less economical for some industries). Once enough people believed/changed their minds about it being ethical, there was a large argument that resulted in laws rather than on individual ethical beliefs.
> Not really comparable because we decided it was morally wrong, not that we were wrong about its effects. Its not like humanity used to think slavery was good for the slave.
People still argue that slavery (in particularly, chattel slavery of Blacks in North America) was good for the slave, and the argument was even more common when slavery was legal but under active debate.
> Sure. Slavery was moral, or if I disagree with it,
I think you mean that slavery was legal. Most people would hold that it was never moral. Some people hold these same beliefs now about some of our current behaviors toward other animals: they're legal but not moral.
You say this mockingly, as if being a slave owner should not overshadow everything else you do in life.
Yes, it should. It absolutely should. Being a slave-owner is massively, grotesquely evil. It should be what you are remembered and rightly denounced for.
> Particularly when you use today's more sensitive moral yardstick to measure yesterday's actions!
Considering slave-owning to be morally wrong is not a modern invention. It was considered wrong at the time too, just not by those who were profiting off it.
For instance, I don't think you'd find many slave who did not think it was evil.
> Slavery existed in part because people thought black people were subhuman and plenty of people argued that quite publicly.
Slavery has existed in every human society, everywhere in the world.
You are correct that this was the pathological, disgusting justification for keeping it, at least in the United States in the 19th century, but that isn't why it existed, not even in part.
> For example, if rights were invented by the government, there would be nothing about slavery that was wrong.
Slavery (or it's near equivalent: peasantry) was not considered unnatural for the vast majority of human history, really up until modern era. As horrible as it was, it was also the basis of many feudal economies the world over, and it probably powered societies through the dawn of agriculture, so at least 10k years. Prior to that, hunter gatherer groups also raised other groups and took slaves.
Industrialization had more to do with slavery's eventual decline than any idea that it was unnatural.
This is reflected in the areas where it ended earlier due to earlier industrialization (England, the Northern States of the US) vs where it ended later due to a persistent preindustrial agrarian society (Russia and the American South).
What is inherent in humans is the capacity for empathy and the ability to mentalize about another human's experience. That can lead to a belief that slavery is wrong, but that belief is in battle with the desire to exploit other humans for your own gain.
> "My readings in history do not suggest to me that this ethical stricture has been a constant throughout history."
Does it have to be? Slavery was the social norm for thousands of years and has only been widely considered unacceptable for perhaps <5% of recorded civilization.
Ditto race equality - we consider it a moral imperative today, but for thousands of years it was not really a thing.
The notion of morality evolves over time - the fact that a moral conclusion is new does not in and of itself make it less, well, imperative.
But there's also the flip side - in this case this is something that has been considered a moral imperative in history. The concept that the rulers have a moral obligation to be informed and just is well supported by historical societies.
Back when we gave power to people based on familial relations, we called this the noblesse oblige[1]. The concept was also applied to other figures of power, such as the monarchy. The concept is mixed up with a lot of notions that one might find offensive today (e.g., that the masses are unable to rule themselves and from which derives the obligation and responsibility to rule fairly in their stead).
Nowadays we don't give out power based on family (much), we do it instead based on wealth and many other secondary factors - race and religion being large among them.
This is objectively, demonstrably wrong. It’s ahistorical.
Unless of course, your view is so myopic and US-centric that you’re blind to any slavery outside of the one specific example you’re obviously referring to. All the while posturing your empathy for others.
The notion of slavery being unethical had been many centuries old at that time.
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