Author - Nicoletta Mithra
Title - A Rational Justification for Slavery?
The professor in the heavy academic robes of Hedion University made her way up to the front, then ascended and placed her notes on the pulpit. She looked down on the colourful mixture of faces down there. She gave a little, but still warm smile before raising her voice:
“This is HPP-T.12.01: Introduction to Amarr culture for foreign students in the exchange program for pod-pilots. If you just decided that you are wrong here, or if you made your way in here expecting another course to be held, you have now a few minutes to get out here. Note, though, that this course has to be taken by all foreign students enrolled in the pod-pilot exchange program.”
She waited a little as people shifted on their places and a few of them actually left the room.
“Good. As I made the experience that I can't catch the attention of the exchange students with the, erm..., formal approach that is usually taken for courses here, I'll try to engage you by just jumping in media res:
In my days as pod-pilot I’ve come to notice, that the most debated issue between the loyalists of the Amarr Empire and the members of the Minmatar and Gallentean factions is naturally the issue of slavery. This comes with little surprise. Also, many discussions of superficially non-related topics eventually boil down to the point where slavery is discussed. I’ve further come to notice, that most of my fellow Amarr argue for slavery with the compelling might of the most holy Scriptures. I see nothing wrong in this. But I’ve come to the opinion, that we can’t expect someone not trained in properly understanding the Scripture to accept these theological propositions.
I want to propose – or rather make as strong as possible – the alternate path of discussing the case for – and against – slavery on rational grounds. Many adversaries of slavery will say there evidently is no rational justification for slavery. But I think this discussion is something where no so called ‘prima facie evidence’ is bringing us a point of mutual understanding or agreement. Furthermore, this position of closing down to the possibility of rational argument before it has been even raised is, in my humble opinion, an immunization strategy of the own position and in so far intellectually dishonest. Especially if one takes the position of strong liberal freedoms – which most people arguing for the position that it is a brute fact that slavery is bad and not justifiable - it is, it seems to me, a break with just the principles of liberal freedom as freedom of speech, opinion and rational pursuit of truth. The latter is primarily pursued in the for of rational argument after all.
While religious or political dogmas are not shared by everyone, the Amarr religion and faith are strongly based in the belief that reason and rationality are shared by every (trans-, post-) human being in this cluster and are our primal way of coming to determine what is truth. Even revelation needs to stand and endure in a dialectical relation to reason and rational argument.
Reason and rational argument are the one human faculty that is universally found in all cultures in New Eden to solve problems and disagreement and accepted as authoritative, even if one doesn't see eye to eye in other respects. Thus, argument and debate in an environment that fosters reason and rationality is arguably the best path to walk forward and to solve the problems and disagreement that are as fundamental as the issue of slavery. It comes, though, with the possibility of having to correct ones own views. This might pose (perceived) dangers to the cultural and moral identity of those arguing.
It is my hope, though, that we all are putting more value in truth, then in dearly held beliefs, however integral to our being we believe them to be, which don't hold up if examined in the light of reason. The light of reason is cleansing, but it is neither gentle nor mild and brings many hardships through which we can grow and refine ourselves.
This said, we need a definition of slavery with which to work. I’ll try to propose a neutral definition here, from which we can then commence to investigate the question of justifiability of slavery.
Slavery is
"...the status and/or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised."
If you can accept this definition by genus and species as useful, you can follow along my pleading in favour of slavery.
By the given definition it’s clear that a slave is de jure not able to decide for himself, because this would mean that he owns himself. Instead he is bound to the decisions of his owner. This power to decide is the power attaching to the right of ownership of a person. So the question for justification of slavery can be understood as:
Under which conditions is it just to decide for another person?
We don’t have to pretend that we don’t know such conditions. We all have been children and I think all the different laws of the four nations in this cluster give the parents the power to decide for their children as legal guardians. And this is for a reason. The relationship between parent and child comes naturally:
The child has to learn to decide on its own behalf. Not that I want or aim to equate children to slaves, but it illustrates a certain point. The idea that there are no circumstances under which one person can and should justly decide for another is time and again raised in arguments against slavery. Yet, all civilisations of the cluster basically agree that this idea is a premise which we reasonably should reject, if we don't want to erase institutions like parentship or legal guardians for certain disabled persons.
Another argument against the idea that in the case of slavery it is not justified that someone holds the rights of ownership over another person argues that there is aspecial relation between parent and child that doesn't exist between slave and holder: In the case of parent and child is just that the parent decides for the child, because there is naturally a relation in which the child is dependent on the parents. Thus, in the case of slavery this kind of relation is unjust because it is a relation that is merely established by law (of the Amarr Empire) and against nature.
Let us entertain that train of thought: We just have to think about e.g. the mentally disabled. We as pod-pilots are a privileged class. But we have to accept that there are natural circumstances which prevent even adult humans from making decisions on their own behalf and even prevent them to (re-)developing the very ability to do so. Therefore most of these disabled will be sent into the caring hands of a legal guardian.
Largely the difference between a slave holder and a legal guardian is, I will argue in this essay, one of verbal nature. The slave holder should decide for the slave on the slaves best behalf, as the legal guardian should for his charge. Surely in both cases there are instances where this is not the case. One can surely argue that abuse occurs more often in the relationship of slave holder to slave, but I would like to remind that this doesn’t mean that slavery per se is unjust. We can come to see the slave holder as a special case of a legal guardian. This point is in my opinion underscored by the long tradition in Amarrian law to stress the responsibilities of slave holders to the slave, most recently seen in Emperor Doriam Kor-Azor's effort to formalize rules for proper treatment of slaves.
So I would propose to differentiate between slavery by law and natural slavery:
1. Slavery by law merely means that by positive law, someone has the right to decide for someone else.
2. Natural slavery is the case of someone exercising the the faculty of decision making over someone lacking that faculty (either partly or entirely).
Slavery by law, then, is by necessity legal, but is not in itself just and can very well be unjust. Natural slavery is not necessarily legal, but is a necessary precondition for slavery to be just. The arguments of those opposing slavery usually pertain to the cases of slavery by law, but not by nature. Given that someone has the faculty to make decisions for him- or herself it is always and necessarily unjust if another is then taking this decision from them. Therefore we find in the usual arguments against slavery a valuable criticism of a strictly legalistic idea of justifying slavery. Slavery by law isn't already justified by being legal.
This is a general point: Laws aren't justified by existing in the form of law. There are cases where an action is legal, even explicitly legalised, but still unjust. There are even unjust laws. While law generally (should) aim at what is just, they also need to be of a certain generality. There is a natural tension there in those two demands, which we have to endure in the laws we make.
That said, the conditions for slavery being natural are necessary for slavery being justifiable, but they aren't sufficient for establishing that cases of natural slavery are just. Let us take a look at the relationship between child and parent again. All civilized people of the cluster agree that even in this natural relationship the parents aren't at liberty to abuse their children. There is a second factor that justifies that parents make decisions for their children. This factor is that they are making these decisions on behalf of their children. So, we have a second condition that is generally accepted as a factor that is necessary to justify making decisions for someone else: That is that these decisions aren't merely made for the other person, but with the other persons best interests in mind.
To conclude: I argued that Slavery can't be justified merely by it being legal. This is compellingly shown by those opposing and arguing against slavery. Secondly I argued that these arguments against slavery are better to be understood as a criticism of slavery, as they fail to show that there is no way to justify slavery in another way. This lead me to formulate conditions that are non-legal that are necessary and jointly sufficient to establish certain forms of slavery as just. The conditions I propose are a) the slave being (entirely or partly) unable to make decisions on his own behalf and b) the slave holder making decisions for the slave on the slaves own behalf. This gives the following – admittedly preliminary – result:
Slavery is justified if:
1. The slave is unable to decide on his/her own behalf.
2. The slave holder is deciding on behalf of the slave.
(That is: With the slaves best interest in mind.)
Slavery by law which does not reflect on this natural requirement on slavery has to be identified and dealt with. Law has to be amended to exclude Measures have to be taken to prevent further occurrence of such cases. Also, it has to be made clear that the slave holder has the strict responsibility to make decisions with the best interest of the slave in mind, whenever he decides for the slave. I think some of the recent changes in Amarr law (to which I alluded to above already) point into this direction. Another aspect to this is that it shows that the main goal of slavery is to free the slave, if possible. This is because it is arguably better to make decisions on ones own behalf than having to depend on someone else to do so.
The detractor of slavery has a clear goal now if he wants to defend his position. He has to show that it is either:
I. impossible for a slave holder to decide on behalf of the slave,
II. that there are no slaves, that are unable to decide on his/her own behalf, or
III. that conditions 1. and 2. are not giving necessary and jointly sufficient justification for slavery.
I think that debate along those lines is much more fruitful and promising to better us as human beings than an emotionally loaded exchange of opinions, which we aren't prepared to modify anyway.
Any questions?”
She looked through the ranks of her students, noticing that most of them had drifted away, not following her lecture. No one raised a question. She waited a bit longer and then one of her students eventually reacted.
“Do we need to know this for the exam?” – “Uh, yes, of course.” She answered. – “Is there a script? And is there an online platform for discussion?”, asked another. – “Yes and yes.”, she answered, “You can find both on the course site.” She sighed as the students left the students shifted impatiently on their seats. “Okay, I'll see you for discussion on the site, then. Make use of it!” She sighed inwardly as the students immediately rushed out. She probably never would get used to these foreigners learning habits.
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Topic: YC 116 Writing Contest - 1st Place - Non-Fiction (Read 923 times)