The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 4:52 pm So much talking has gone on. But nowhere is there an answer to Henry's question.

I gave one solid answer to Henry's question. There can be others that are also solid, but I thought appealing to self-interest might give a second's pause at least to the would-be slaver owner or apologist.
viewtopic.php?p=800906#p800906
Henry seems not to have been around or not opted to reply.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 5:42 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 4:52 pm So much talking has gone on. But nowhere is there an answer to Henry's question.

I gave one solid answer to Henry's question. There can be others that are also solid, but I thought appealing to self-interest might give a second's pause at least to the would-be slaver owner or apologist.
viewtopic.php?p=800906#p800906
Henry seems not to have been around or not opted to reply.

Well, honestly, I have to say that answer wasn't really very good...and rather far from "solid."

How do you prove that "self-interest" is also "moral"? A whole lot of people think it's actually the opposite, so you should surely show that they're wrong.

And how do you show that something that "diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners" is also morally "evil" or forbidden?

Moreover, I can think of easy countercases. I'm sure that the rhetoric of anti-slavery activists also "diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners." Is that also immoral? Or how about slave rebellion? It would do the same thing, wouldn't it?

You can see how unhelpful that reply is. But the core is that it doesn't come close to showing that secular thought can ground a moral prohibition on slavery.

And let's look at the decadence of the US southern slave-owners. We can set aside the whole slavery is evil and even the exploitation of humans. Let's look at decadence separate from that.

The slave-owners had a tendency to not invest in infrastructure even on their own estates. Travelers from other countries and the North often remarked on how dilapidated things were. A man might own 100 people and thousands of acres but live in a house with "cracked windows" and "poor food" and there would be bad roads and fallen fences because his wealth was tied up in human property rather than liquid cash or community investment.

They spent money on extremely expensive fashions from Europe to help their cosplay as Old World gentry. They even took this so far as dressing up as knights and kings. Outsiders often saw them as lazy and contrasted them with the bustling industrious North. What I referred to as atrophy in earlier posts. They consider manual labor beneath them, even not well off slave-owners. In the North a professional might well take pride, despite their salary in some carpentry skills, for example.

They had a violent sense of honor, where perceived minor slights could lead to duels and death, part of the same Old World fantasy life. There was a real pattern of debt, unlike those in the same wealth class in the North and this was not debt to increase production or as mentioned about to improve infrastructure, but debt for the fantasy lifestyle. In short, the "decadence" was that they became a function-less elite: a group that claimed social superiority while contributing little to the technological or moral progress of the era.

Alexis de Tocqueville said you could see the difference in one place by noting the difference between the two side of the Ohio River. The Northern side where work was seen as part of a healthy, vital life and the enervated Southern side, where people even saw minor clerical work as beneath them. They would have been happy as courtiers in Versailles wearing baroque complicated clothing and showing off their lack of ever doing anything useful. They would have loved to walk the red carpets in Hollywood, Kardashians in the making.

And so on to the sexual: Wealthy planters often participated in the "fancy trade," purchasing young, light-skinned enslaved women specifically as sexual concubines. These women, often called "Fancy Maids," were high-status symbols of a master's wealth and "decadent" lifestyle, a practice that was publicly acknowledged even if socially frowned upon by some. They also had near limitless access to sex and used it not as some insignificant minority action, but as something quite common, hence the lighter skinned black women for the fancy trade. Other visitors to the South noticed the awkward position of the Plantation white women who could see light skinned slave children who looked like their husbands.

Gambling and blood sports were more culturally pervasive and socially accepted in the South than in the North during the Antebellum period. Cockfighting and animal-baiting (such as bear-baiting) were far more common and public in the South.

Obviously many of these things happened in the North also, but in the South they were vastly more likely to be part of proud identity, and then, yes more prevalent.

Obviously much of this is available if there are slaves doing all your basic stuff and there to be raped. But I think the very fact of slavery leads to the attitudes here.

So, would be slave owners...be a bit more selfish. Take care of yourselves better by not falling into the atrophying trap of owning other humans.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 5:54 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 5:42 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 4:52 pm So much talking has gone on. But nowhere is there an answer to Henry's question.

I gave one solid answer to Henry's question. There can be others that are also solid, but I thought appealing to self-interest might give a second's pause at least to the would-be slaver owner or apologist.
viewtopic.php?p=800906#p800906
Henry seems not to have been around or not opted to reply.

Well, honestly, I have to say that answer wasn't really very good...and rather far from "solid."

How do you prove that "self-interest" is also "moral"? A whole lot of people think it's actually the opposite, so you should surely show that they're wrong.

That's the lovely thing about self-interest. It doesn't have to be viewed as morally wrong, but if it goes against their self-interest and the question asker is a conservative, this opens a door to it being wrong for him, according either to his interests or morals. And wrong to him.

And how do you show that something that "diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners" is also morally "evil" or forbidden?

If they don't like those things, I don't need to. That's the beauty of it. If they like decadence sloth fantasy incompetence and atrophy, yes, the argument won't work. But this would be an embarrassing admission for a conservative.

Moreover, I can think of easy countercases. I'm sure that the rhetoric of anti-slavery activists also "diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners."

Ah, you're one of those people who think that dealing with difference of opinion weakens one.

Or how about slave rebellion?

That would put a little life in their lazy ass decadence.

You can see how unhelpful that reply is. But the core is that it doesn't come close to showing that secular thought can ground a moral prohibition on slavery.

I wasn't trying to show that secular thought can ground a moral prohibition on slavery. Hell, I'm theist you little turd.
I showed what was wrong about slavery to the values of the questioner. And the likes and dislikes of the questioner.

You can only see the nails you have a hammer for. You repetitive little drone.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 6:17 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 5:54 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 5:42 pm

I gave one solid answer to Henry's question. There can be others that are also solid, but I thought appealing to self-interest might give a second's pause at least to the would-be slaver owner or apologist.
viewtopic.php?p=800906#p800906
Henry seems not to have been around or not opted to reply.

Well, honestly, I have to say that answer wasn't really very good...and rather far from "solid."

How do you prove that "self-interest" is also "moral"? A whole lot of people think it's actually the opposite, so you should surely show that they're wrong.

That's the lovely thing about self-interest. It doesn't have to be viewed as morally wrong, but if it goes against their self-interest and the question asker is a conservative, this opens a door to it being wrong for him, according either to his interests or morals. And wrong to him.

That doesn't mean "immoral." It just means "impractical." But slavery is manifestly very practical for certain outcomes: for example, it means that slave owners do not die in malarial swamps, like their slaves do. And it saves work. And slaves are cheap, relative to other hired labour. And they can't run away, like the Indians the owners tried to enslave and failed. And they can breed more from their "stock," so don't have to buy new ones. And they don't have to feed them well, or educate them, like they would have to do with other workers...in fact, the system of slavery was so useful, so practical that it floated an entire economic system and constituted a whole way of life in the Old South.

So self-interest is not the friend of your argument here. It is a strong argument for the master to continue to enslave.

How do you show that despite having definite practical advantages, slavery is still "wrong"?

And how do you show that something that "diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners" is also morally "evil" or forbidden?

If they don't like those things, I don't need to. That's the beauty of it. If they like decadence sloth fantasy incompetence and atrophy, yes, the argument won't work. But this would be an embarrassing admission for a conservative.

It's not a conservative argument. It's one based on secularism. Should secularists ever be embarassed? Why, if nothing's immoral? And "if they don't like those things" they don't have to like them?

Moreover, I can think of easy countercases. I'm sure that the rhetoric of anti-slavery activists also "diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners."

Ah, you're one of those people who think that dealing with difference of opinion weakens one.

False paraphrasing. I said no such thing.

Or how about slave rebellion?

That would put a little life in their lazy ass decadence.

Prove that "decadence" and "lazy ass" are immoral for secularists.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 1:19 pmSee, this is part of a pattern. You don't respond to some things, or perhaps can't understand them, and so you wander. Try to find a new arena where maybe you can win a point.

So, far computers don't have autonomy.

Neither do most Humans, even and especially after all the "Slaves were Freed".

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 1:19 pmThey are still tools. The closest to humans are AIs but it is debatable that they are the computers but rather the software and heuristics. Anyway, they are amazing tools, but they are still tools, owned by humans individually or in organizations.

They don't own themselves. And given that they are property, patented property, that metaphor works very well there. So, you should be on my side. You consider yourself to own yourself. They don't own themselves, so the metaphor should be bothersome for you to.

When we have AIs that are autonomous and choosing their own pursuits and free, we can revisit the metaphor.

I'm not interested in talking more about computers or AIs. If you want to say your mind or brain is a computer, go for it. I'd rather not have use a metaphor that compares me to something that is not free, for example and also that is, still, simpler than my mind.

I'll expand on my metaphor and position--computerization mimics core areas of the human brain, but not ALL areas of the human brain. There, is that better for you? Do you understand now? Specifically, computerization mimics the Logic and Mathematical aspects of the Mammalian brain. However computers excel and vastly out-perform human individuals' capabilities to perform complex mathematics. Humans use tools: calculators specifically, to compensate.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 1:19 pmHell, I don't even know your position on Slavery. Were you arguing that it is OK? Would you choose to own slaves? Maybe you posted this somewhere. I don't know. We should be nicer to the benign slaveowners, it seems. You didn't like my idea that slaveowning might be problematic for the slaveowners. But what is you position?

When I was young, I had more Liberal values that most Humanity should be 'free', individualistic, and provided economic opportunity. Now that I'm getting older, and become wiser, I know that's not the case. Most of Humanity chooses Security over Freedom, and so welcome Slavery over Freedom. People sell themselves out cheaply. Consider the case of prostitution, drug-dealing, and petty crime for the basest examples. Human life is cheap, sadly.

I still want a 'Freer', healthier, stronger society. But this is exclusive of the matter of 'Legal Slavery' as the premise of this thread. Formal slavery, I no longer believe, is an impediment to a Freer populace. Because there's never going to be large societies of Free Men. Free Men are always a very small minority of civilizations and history.

I believe it's worse, now, to act as though "Formal, Legal Slavery is abolished", for a cruder, more deceptive, most dishonest and pervasive form of Global Slavery. It's worse to pretend that a populace is free when they're not, and to fuel their self-deception. Transexuality, pretending men are women, women are men, is a form of this Neo-Liberal Slavery. Westerners must "use their language" or suffer attack, or even public assassination (Charlie Kirk).

Slavery and Servitude never disappears; it only evolves into more deceptive, pervasive, and complete forms.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 1:29 pmThere, you've found a good criticism of your metaphor. Can your self be stolen? It seems like your answer is not. But property can be. Good point, a weakness in a metaphor where we don't really even need a metaphor.

No, the point is that I asked you first. Can my self be stolen? Not that I'm aware of, or at least, not easily. It depends on how people define their 'Selves' doesn't it? If people self-identify in ways that are easily bought / sold / taken / victimized / etc. then yes, they can be stolen.

There is kidnapping.
There is imprisonment.
But neither of these can necessarily get at the aspect of self-identity that may be 'taken'.
Some people would kill themselves before accepting another's power over them.

Wizard22 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2026 8:39 am Neither do most Humans

So, what. I was talking about why I don't like using the computer metaphor for mind or brain.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 1:19 pmThey are still tools. The closest to humans are AIs but it is debatable that they are the computers but rather the software and heuristics. Anyway, they are amazing tools, but they are still tools, owned by humans individually or in organizations.

They don't own themselves. And given that they are property, patented property, that metaphor works very well there. So, you should be on my side. You consider yourself to own yourself. They don't own themselves, so the metaphor should be bothersome for you to.

When we have AIs that are autonomous and choosing their own pursuits and free, we can revisit the metaphor.

I'm not interested in talking more about computers or AIs. If you want to say your mind or brain is a computer, go for it. I'd rather not have use a metaphor that compares me to something that is not free, for example and also that is, still, simpler than my mind.

I'll expand on my metaphor and position--computerization mimics core areas of the human brain, but not ALL areas of the human brain. There, is that better for you? Do you understand now?

Seriously, I am starting to doubt your intelligence. I understand the metaphor, I prefer not to use it for reasons given.

Specifically, computerization mimics the Logic and Mathematical aspects of the Mammalian brain. However computers excel and vastly out-perform human individuals' capabilities to perform complex mathematics. Humans use tools: calculators specifically, to compensate.

Notice how you ignored the issue of computers being things and things that do not own themselves. By all means, use that metaphor too, though I find it odd since you consider using I own myself as a must, but you also like to compare your mind to something that does not own itself. Do you even believe what you claim to believe?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 1:19 pmHell, I don't even know your position on Slavery. Were you arguing that it is OK? Would you choose to own slaves? Maybe you posted this somewhere. I don't know. We should be nicer to the benign slaveowners, it seems. You didn't like my idea that slaveowning might be problematic for the slaveowners. But what is you position?

When I was young, I had more Liberal values that most Humanity should be 'free', individualistic, and provided economic opportunity. Now that I'm getting older, and become wiser, I know that's not the case. Most of Humanity chooses Security over Freedom, and so welcome Slavery over Freedom. People sell themselves out cheaply. Consider the case of prostitution, drug-dealing, and petty crime for the basest examples. Human life is cheap, sadly.

I still want a 'Freer', healthier, stronger society. But this is exclusive of the matter of 'Legal Slavery' as the premise of this thread. Formal slavery, I no longer believe, is an impediment to a Freer populace. Because there's never going to be large societies of Free Men. Free Men are always a very small minority of civilizations and history.

I believe it's worse, now, to act as though "Formal, Legal Slavery is abolished", for a cruder, more deceptive, most dishonest and pervasive form of Global Slavery. It's worse to pretend that a populace is free when they're not, and to fuel their self-deception. Transexuality, pretending men are women, women are men, is a form of this Neo-Liberal Slavery. Westerners must "use their language" or suffer attack, or even public assassination (Charlie Kirk).

I agree with one part of this. People can reassure themselves they are not slaves and that slavery is binary and so if they are not owned like in chattel slavery they can reassure themselves they are free. I think that likely is part of people's array of schema's so they don't notice how they are not free. But as far as formal slavery, I don't think it is good for anyone. And actually the elites that are getting off on all the other forms of slavery, I think they are hurting themselves also. Not that I give a shit about them, but it adds to the idiocy of their abuse, since they are actually hitting themselves in the head with hammers also.

Since you seem to be losing steam in this debate, I'll offer one more thing...

In systems of legal, formal slavery, at least people know the obvious difference between 'free and slave', and so, hypothetically, those of the lowest class could try to climb out and attain their freedom. As demonstrated, when the system is "Pure Equality", then this adds another very unnecessary barrier to the lowest class. They don't know they're free or slave, but think they're free, when they're not.

That's far worse, in my opinion. So then, they're doubly slaves and doubly hopeless.

Wizard22 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2026 9:01 am Since you seem to be losing steam in this debate, I'll offer one more thing...

Losing steam?? Is that why you never concede anything and never agree with people you disagree with on certain things because it would seem like you are losing steam or are weak? Pathetic. I still thing slavery damages the slave-owner also. I still prefer not to use 'own myself' and think your inability to understand that not using your metaphor for autonomy and agency means I don't value those qualities or have them. I don't thinking using owning my children makes sense except for parents who treat their children only as things. I haven't even seen an attempt on your part to counter my first post. You reacted to it, yes.

In systems of legal, formal slavery, at least people know the obvious difference between 'free and slave', and so, hypothetically, those of the lowest class could try to climb out and attain their freedom. As demonstrated, when the system is "Pure Equality", then this adds another very unnecessary barrier to the lowest class. They don't know they're free or slave, but think they're free, when they're not.

That's far worse, in my opinion. So then, they're doubly slaves and doubly hopeless.

Wow, you set the bar high. This is worse, so this is ok. That might work on people who are in fact liberals, if you can get them to agree with the non-formal slavery idea - not easy, I know from first hand experience - but I'm not a liberal. So, it just sounds like someone who wants to own slaves or thinks he does and will be happy in a sick but not completely sick society, and he will justify himself with that. And that's precisely why I focused on the slave-owners interests. But I appreciate you laying out your argument, finally. X is worse than Y so Y is fine.

It should be obvious to most or all Westerners by now, that without "formal Slavery", then systems of Duty, Honor, and Responsibility cannot easily proliferate throughout the middle and lower classes, hence why I called them Plebs before. This is why a 'dishonest' system of slavery, that the lower classes are treated as such, have no autonomy, want no autonomy, and the State is perfectly willing and enabling this... is worse.

That's my position.

Wizard22 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2026 9:18 am It should be obvious to most or all Westerners by now, that without "formal Slavery", then systems of Duty, Honor, and Responsibility cannot easily proliferate throughout the middle and lower classes,

Well, you'd have to demonstrate that. Otherwise this is just a kind of appeal to incredulity. 'What, you can't see the obvious?'

hence why I called them Plebs before.

Yes, you were correct about the your use of the word, but that hardly means your position in general is correct.

This is why a 'dishonest' system of slavery, that the lower classes are treated as such, have no autonomy, want no autonomy, and the State is perfectly willing and enabling this... is worse.

That's my position.

yes, you said that above. You've added nothing. and it fits the general argument X is worse than Y, so X is OK or even good. Further you just assume the only way to foster those values is with 'formal slavery'. Yes, some states did say they honored those values but one, did they really enact them and then more important for your argument even if they did is slavery a necessary part of that. Those societies were generally pagan, maybe that's the secret ingredient. In Rome, you had The Cursus Honorum, they were shame cultures rather than guilt leaning cultures. Who knows what is necessary. Of course these societies wandered into decadence and dictatorship also. Further Honor could include the sense of not wanting to own others but to achieve through one's own work and collaboration with peers. The Nazis had slaves and had those values. That worked out well for them.

Basically you just continue to assert stuff and think it's obvious.

Oh, I'm not granting that it is worse and have fun convincing the poor and middle classes that formal slavery will help them because they will know if they are free or not. Formal slavery always has propaganda about the slaves and that has always included bullshit.

Negro Slaves of the Antebellum South had more dignity, honor, and respect, than the meth and Fent-addicted zombies of the US West coast right now.

So much for Liberalism.

Try again IWP...

Wizard22 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2026 10:17 am Negro Slaves of the Antebellum South had more dignity, honor, and respect, than the meth and Fent-addicted zombies of the US West coast right now.

There are so many steps missing for that to even qualify as an argument. But a better example: they had more dignity, honor and respect than most of the slave-owners who were decadent and atrophies. Of course, those are not the only criteria I would want to evaluate my life. And then there's all the stuff you ignored.

So much for Liberalism.

When teaching a variety of subjects there are students who make specific mistakes, perhaps even many, but they sort of get the general structure. Like say you are teaching English. They make many mistakes with tenses, articles, adjectives, but with smaller exceptions they get the word order correct. This is so much easier to fix. You give them spot rules. This is true in many subjects. With your scattered chaotic 'arguments' I'd have start from a very basic level so that you could even see what you're doing is messed up. Like here.

Try again IWP...

Self-congratulation over that is funny. Assertions, even partially irrelevant claims, are being conflated with an argument, let alone coming in range of an argument that refuted anything. If I were you I might pretend to have empathy and say I feel sorry for you.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 6:10 pm Let's look at decadence separate from that.

To call something "decadent" is to say it's declining from some "better" state. That implies a value judgment, and a hierarchy of values (from "integrated" to "decayed.") From what secular scale is this value judgment derived?

Outsiders often saw them as lazy and contrasted them with the bustling industrious North.

Prove that a secularist is morally obligated to agree with the North on that.

They had a violent sense of honor,

Prove that violence is "bad," secularly.

And so on to the sexual: Wealthy planters often participated in the "fancy trade," purchasing young, light-skinned enslaved women specifically as sexual concubines.

Prove that secularism requires us to agree that sexual activity of any kind is "bad."

Gambling and blood sports

Can you show that secularism requires us to agree these are "evil?"

So, would be slave owners...be a bit more selfish.

But selfishness has to be as close to a virtue as anything secularism knows.

So what's your evidence that your readers here, assuming they're secular, have to agree that ANY of the things you list are "bad," or "evil" or "to be deplored." Just as one can't do it with slavery itself, it's not possible with any of these other supposed-detriments you list. Secularism does not provide any moral criteria at all that anybody is obligated to follow.

This is the problem. Your argument requires more than a blithe assumption that secularists all are obligated to agree on the "badness" of laziness, or violence, or gambling and blood sports, or rape...or slavery.

What then is "decadence?" Secularism has no explanation for that, either. Whatever is, simply is. Secularism knows no "good" or "bad" of it, no "better" or "worse," except for instrumental purposes (such as saving labour or achieving sexual gratification) that are themselves in need of moral categorization -- a categorization that secularism simply cannot provide.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2026 1:55 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 6:10 pm Let's look at decadence separate from that.

To call something "decadent" is to say it's declining from some "better" state. That implies a value judgment, and a hierarchy of values (from "integrated" to "decayed.") From what secular scale is this value judgment derived?

Outsiders often saw them as lazy and contrasted them with the bustling industrious North.

Prove that a secularist is morally obligated to agree with the North on that.

They had a violent sense of honor,

Prove that violence is "bad," secularly.
or violence, or gambling and blood sports, or rape...or slavery.

What then is "decadence?" Secularism has no explanation for that, either. Whatever is, simply is. Secularism knows no "good" or "bad" of it, no "better" or "worse," except for instrumental purposes (such as saving labour or achieving sexual gratification) that are themselves in need of moral categorization -- a categorization that secularism simply cannot provide.

IC, you really have to stop this. The secularist cannot prove these things to your satisfaction because you consider these things as coming from God and the secularist isn't going to accept that starting point. This is not a failure on the part of the secularist but a failure on your part.

I assure you, secularists can make perfectly good arguments to base these things IN SECULAR TERMS. The fact that youn refuse to accept taht basis is YOUR problem, not theirs. But please note also that it is not just secularists with who you have this problem. There are people who may believe in God or gods with whom you also are in disagreement.