Is Slavery Moral?

[DogmaHunter]

Yes, and people should brush their teeth, but that was not the cultural priority of the day when it comes to basic tribal survival.

I get that. Which is why I understand that the bible, a book written by humans, reflects the barbaric practices of the culture that book was born in.

But here's the thing: people claim it comes from a god. A just god. A loving god. That these are HIS laws and recommendations -NOT those of the primitive people of that culture.

That's the problem.

Yes, for the people back then - they didn't know any better.
A god however, as described in the religion, would know better. A god who condones or even recomends such practices, is an evil entity.

It is that simple.

 

[Allandavid]

I get that. Which is why I understand that the bible, a book written by humans, reflects the barbaric practices of the culture that book was born in.

But here's the thing: people claim it comes from a god. A just god. A loving god. That these are HIS laws and recommendations -NOT those of the primitive people of that culture.

That's the problem.

Yes, for the people back then - they didn't know any better.
A god however, as described in the religion, would know better. A god who condones or even recomends such practices, is an evil entity.

It is that simple.

Boom.....!

 

[devolved]

A god however, as described in the religion, would know better. A god who condones or even recomends such practices, is an evil entity

First of all... What the above translates to is "God needs to think what I think to be good and moral on this issue, otherwise it would be evil or it does not exist"... Which is absurd. You seem to claim that if there is such a God that:

1). You seem to know the context of that ancient reality better than such God. And , upon exhausting all possibilities you are concluding that certain context of slavery can't play out for eventual benefit of human kind.

2) that whatever you view as moral would work better in such context of reality.

If that's not the case, then I'm really confused as to how and on which grounds you are making the above assumption.

 

[DogmaHunter]

First of all... What the above translates to is "God needs to think what I think to be good and moral on this issue, otherwise it would be evil or it does not exist"... Which is absurd.

No. That slavery is evil, is not just a matter of my opinion.
Do you think slavery is okay? This is a serious question by the way.

Do you think that slavery is morally ok? Yes or no.

You seem to claim that if there is such a God that:
1). You seem to know the context of that ancient reality better than such God.

2) that whatever you view as moral would work better in such context

I'm claiming that slavery is immoral and that, by extension, entities (no matter if they are gods or humans) that don't have a problem with the practice are one of the following 3
1. uncivilized (barbaric, primitive, undeveloped, … whatever you wish to call it)
2. psychopathic (ie, not able to distinguish right from wrong and dependend on a perceived authority to inform them of such)
3. evil

You can choose under which of these 3 your god falls.

If that's not the case, then I'm really confused as to how and on which grounds you are making the above assumption.

You don't think that practicing slavery is either ignorant/primitive/barbaric or immoral?

 

[Allandavid]

I think that you are assuming that God agrees with slavery anymore that God agrees with a mother feeding her dead babies to the living as means of survival, as per example I gave you earlier.

When I read the Bible I would disagree with stoning people for breaking the Sabbath, and I would certainly disagree with taking my brother's wife as my wife if my brother dies. But my disagreement exists in a cultural context that I don't reside in.

If your cultural context has shifted to that of OT Israel, I doubt you would have problems with these concepts. Not because these magically become ok in our context, but because morality does have certain embedded measure of "contextual grace" that's directly proportional to available options that we get.

If you think that I wouldn't lie to save Jews from Nazis... I'd lie to the best of my ability to lie. Certain contexts employ "compound morality", meaning that you can't atomize moral concepts and apply these individually.



Of course it was written by men. And of course it is claimed to be inspired by a higher power. I suspect my definition of "inspired" would drastically differ from yours.

Whenever I read this response (and it crops up repeatedly) I have difficulty in deciding whether it is being delivered sincerely...

“We can’t judge the Jews of thousands of years ago, because it was a different culture back then...!”

And in doing so, you throw your supposed god out the door...! Because you people would have us believe that these are “god’s words” that we read in those scriptures. That these are the commandments and instructions of the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-loving creator of our world.

But, as soon as things get tough, it becomes a case of the humans making the rules...

 

[devolved]

But here's the thing: people claim it comes from a god. A just god. A loving god. That these are HIS laws and recommendations -NOT those of the primitive people of that culture

That's not the problem in context of Judeo-Christian model of God.

 

[DogmaHunter]

That's not the problem in context of Judeo-Christian model of God.

I consider it a huge problem, because every other day I'm being told as an atheist by some theist that all morality comes from god/the bible and that things that are wrong, are wrong "because god says so" and that things that are good, are good "because god says so".

Guess what… when driving that argument home, it means that slavery is a-okay.
So is burning witches, stoning people for being gay, stoning disobedient children to death,...

Even infanticide and genocide is okay whenever god is believed to approve of it.

I'ld say that there is no context in which it could ever be okay to engage in genocide or infanticide. The indiscriminate extermination of an entire group of people. No context at all.


Again, I'm totally fine to state that the bible simply reflects the culture in which it was born. I wouldn't expect anything else. But if you wish to claim that it is a reflection of a just god's opinions, awesome morality and rules…. then I would expect the exact opposite of such a book reflecting the barbaric culture of the times.


As I said previously: if he can tell you not to eat shrimp, he sure can tell you not to treat human beings as personal property that can be bought, sold and inherited.

 

[dmmesdale]

No. That slavery is evil, is not just a matter of my openion.

Actually it is. Bible despisers care about bashing the Bible, not slavery.

Do you think slavery is okay? This is a serious question by the way.

They thought it was OK.

Do you think that slavery is morally ok? Yes or no.

Did they think it was OK? Yes or no?

I'm claiming that slavery is immoral and that,

Why should ancient big-brained apes care about your opinion?

You don't think that praacticing slavery is either ignorant/primitive/barbaric or immoral?

Logic fallacies abound in presentism here. Appeals to outrage rather than reason.
Tell us why ancient big brain apes enslaving other big-brained apes is wrong for all people at all times. Try some coherence. Besides your opinion.

Hittite Law Code.

194. If a free man pick up female slaves, now one, now another, there is no punishment for intercourse. If brothers sleep with a free woman, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment. If father and son sleep with a female slave or harlot, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment.

199. If anyone have intercourse with a pig or a dog, he shall die. If a man have intercourse with a horse or a mule, there is no punishment.
--------------------------
Compare analysis does not fit the agenda of the Bible despiser so it is ignored. The Bible despiser is not fooling anybody with their shuck and jive.

 

[devolved]

I consider it a huge problem

I typed in a sentence and somehow my phone posted it hence, I'd like to clarify, but I'll answer your first set of questions and objections.

No. That slavery is evil, is not just a matter of my opinion. Do you think slavery is okay? This is a serious question by the way. Do you think that slavery is morally ok? Yes or no.

Again, before you ask that question I need to know how do you justify your morality beyond some consensus of personal preferences that people agree on? How exactly does that concept work? Is concept of slavery immoral because you would not like to be treated as a slave and there are bunch of people who would agree with you? It seems like you are seeking my agreement prior to explaining what exactly am I agreeing to "as a full package of justifications"?

You are using the word "moral" as justification for judging something or someone good or evil, but I'm trying to understand what building blocks you are using to justify to bases for such judgement outside of your seemingly circular reasoning here.

You have avoided answering this question for several posts now. I don't care as much THAT you think slavery is immoral, as much as I do WHY do you think slavery is immoral.

 

[devolved]

Whenever I read this response (and it crops up repeatedly) I have difficulty in deciding whether it is being delivered sincerely...

“We can’t judge the Jews of thousands of years ago, because it was a different culture back then...!”

That's not the response. Read it again.

Why would you think that slavery is immoral? What justification do you have have for holding such view?

 

[devolved]

I consider it a huge problem, because every other day I'm being told as an atheist by some theist that all morality comes from god/the bible and that things that are wrong, are wrong "because god says so" and that things that are good, are good "because god says so".

That wouldn't be the case for Christian morality or Christian theology.

The central concept of Christianity is rather simple. Humanity got a choice:

1) follow the guidance of the creator-parent in terms of knowing indirectly how things should be done
2) leave and figure things out on their own via trial and error

They (and by extension we) chose #2, and as such God respects humanity's choices, but offers some guidance in the process in a way that would not lead to human death and extinction, and leaving the option open for those who would like to go back to #1 option when all is said and done. #1 is a faith-based knowledge. #2 is a trial/error knowledge. What we have today is a mix of both as a consequence of the original choice that took us down a certain path.

As such it is not God commanding unequivocally as to what God thinks must be done as the "ultimate better", because such was only available through option #1.

God instead works with people's choices and preferences to bring about the best possible outcome given certain situations. If we use Christian maxims, it would be "God works with you where you are".

That's essentially the Christian concept of human reality in a few words.

As I've said before in one sentence ... your quips with morality of God is not a problem with Christian theology, because even in context of Christian theology... it's merely a gateway to getting back to the original #1 proposition through some established lineage of philosophical concepts about God that teach some moral example story as opposed to "you must do what this passage writes".

OF COURSE, from the standpoint of being here and now, and looking at possible explanations, Bible is a book written down by men 2000 years ago attempting to communicate certain morality in context of their view of God 2000 years ago. I would agree with that. As such Christian morality is progressive.

But, what most Christians would allude to is that they are appealing to concept of "known reality" which they are trying to deduce as opposed to a model that holds that we project some meaning unto absurd reality out there.

In which case, you would say that slavery is immoral, but so what? It's a mere projection on certain preferences, just like ignoring the fact that we do that to animals before we slaughter and eat them.... again as a preference. So if there are people who would farm humans for food, basically all you can site is your consensus disagreement vs their consensus disagreement.

It's a much more nuanced approach, and certainly, when you throw out nuances... that's when we get into issues in any context of moral ideas. Because in order to have some absolute proclamations we would need complete knowledge about any given situation or context. We don't. The best we can do is generalize (in the scientific context).

In Christian context it's even bigger challenge, because as Christians we rely on interpreting certain historical narrative in order to derive some consistent morality as to what God is ultimately like.

Words like "love" and "justice", etc, are empty labels that you have to fill with meaning. Hence, we have some claim of an example of "God's avatar" coming back to Earth to formalize a story-concept about what these attributes mean. But, at the same time, it's up to humans to figure that out in context of the nature that we observe about the world around us, the historical claims that we get about God, and what we personally know about our "internal self".

Hence, the goal of Christian theology is to form a model for moral behavior in context of the all of the above-defined variables, hence it's much more nuanced than the box you are attempting to fit it into. THAT'S WHY we have internal disagreements about wide range of concepts, and I don't view that as a detrimental, because each disagreement contains some piece of the ultimate puzzle that we suspect exists as a whole.

As such, it's not a claim of "ultimate knowledge", but rather the opposite. It's a recognition of our collective ignorance, and the necessity to evaluate reality in context of our collective ignorance.

 

[devolved]

As I said previously: if he can tell you not to eat shrimp, he sure can tell you not to treat human beings as personal property that can be bought, sold and inherited.

In light of what I've written above, that's not the case. I hope I don't have to explain again as to why it's not.

But in context of moral claims that go beyond consensus of preferences, you can't provide a reason as to why your projected meaning of some behavior pattern that we should follow is better than other.

For example, would us breeding cattle for food be immoral in such context? How would you justify and make a distinction between superiority of humanity in context of all life to deduce that owning humans is immoral, and owning and eating cattle is morally ok?

Whenever I read this response (and it crops up repeatedly) I have difficulty in deciding whether it is being delivered sincerely...

What I've written above would also be a question for you, because I have difficulty to deciding whether you are arbitrary projecting "superiority of preferences" as you join tribes of people who agree with you... as opposed to appealing to something beyond that.

If it's the former, then why would you have any difficulty? It's merely "consensus by pluralism", and as such any sincerity is not relevant.

It is the latter... what is it that you are appealing to?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Actually it is.

It's not.

Bible despisers care about bashing the Bible, not slavery.

Your mindreading device is broken.

They thought it was OK.

Yes, they did. I'm asking about what YOU think.

Did they think it was OK? Yes or no?

I already acknowledged in a previous post that I know they didn't see anything wrong with it. It was the post where I also explained that because of that, I totally expect the subject to be treated like that in a book that is produced by the people of that culture. This book reflects their ideas (as opposed to the ideas of a god that should know better).

Why should ancient big-brained apes care about your opinion?

Why would an all-intelligent, just, loving and moral god not include in his "good news" that you shouldn't treat people like cattle?
Why would such an entity allow such practices?

Logic fallacies abound in presentism here. Appeals to outrage rather than reason.

I'm appealing to reason. But the problem seems to be that you boys are going back and forward between "it reflects the ideas of god" and "it reflects the ideas of the ancient culture" at your very own convenience.

When it's a thing that is good by our standards - then it's because god.
When it's a thing that is bad by our standards - then it's because people.

Logical fallacies abound in wanting-your-cake-and-eating-it here.

Tell us why ancient big brain apes enslaving other big-brained apes is wrong for all people at all times. Try some coherence. Besides your opinion.

Because it creates an unequal society where one group is exploited and oppressed by the other. That wasn't that hard now, was it?

Ancient "big brain apes(*)" more then likely were to ignorant and / or primitive to realize that. But I'ld guess that an all-knowing, all-good, just and loving God would know better.

(*) ps: is this "big brain apes" thingy your way of rising to the occasion to diss a certain scientific theory?

Hittite Law Code.

194. If a free man pick up female slaves, now one, now another, there is no punishment for intercourse. If brothers sleep with a free woman, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment. If father and son sleep with a female slave or harlot, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment.

199. If anyone have intercourse with a pig or a dog, he shall die. If a man have intercourse with a horse or a mule, there is no punishment.
--------------------------
Compare analysis does not fit the agenda of the Bible despiser so it is ignored. The Bible despiser is not fooling anybody with their shuck and jive.

Not sure what you are on about…
What is your argument here? That there are other texts/rulebooks that are even more vile?

I have no problem acknowledging that. No idea what your point is.

 

[Allandavid]

That's not the response. Read it again.

Why would you think that slavery is immoral? What justification do you have have for holding such view?

On the same basis that I and most of my fellow humans use...that it can be demonstrated that that the wellbeing of my community and the members in it is enhanced by actions that we would describe as ‘moral’ and is damaged by those actions we declare ‘immoral’.

Murder harms the wellbeing of people. So does rape. So does slavery. These are, by their nature, immoral acts.

It isn’t very hard...

 

[DogmaHunter]

Again, before you ask that question I need to know how do you justify your morality beyond some consensus of personal preferences that people agree on? How exactly does that concept work?

I'ld like to point out that in my eyes, you have already lost the argument simply because you answer my question with this question.

When I ask you if you think slavery is moral, your answer shouldn't be some variation of "what do you mean by 'moral'?".

That, in and of itself, already tells me everything I need to know tbh. It shows signs of moral bankrupcy.

But anyway, no my moral compass is most certainly not based on mere consensus of opinion....

My moral compass is based on the acknowledgement of reality. On what it means to be a member of a social species living in an ever expanding cooperative society. On the realization that the overall well-being of members of that society, as well as the society itself, is directly dependend on the well-being of its individual members. It is based on the realization that how I treat others, has a potential direct impact on their well-being which in turn has impact on the well-being of society and my own.

Is concept of slavery immoral because you would not like to be treated as a slave and there are bunch of people who would agree with you?

No. Slavery is immoral because it objectively results in an unequal society where people are being exploited, oppressed and stripped from their dignity and freedom.

It seems like you are seeking my agreement prior to explaining what exactly am I agreeing to "as a full package of justifications"?

Isn't it kind of strange that I need to explain what morality is to you, before you'll even attempt at answering such a simple question as "do you think slavery is morally ok"?

You are using the word "moral" as justification for judging something or someone good or evil, but I'm trying to understand what building blocks you are using to justify to bases for such judgement outside of your seemingly circular reasoning here.

So I explained it a bit.
Another even more simplistic way comes from Sam Harris:
- good are those things that increase well-being of all sentient creatures
- bad are those things that increase suffering of all sentient creatures

Moral behaviour are those things that gets us closer to maximised well-being for all.
Immoral behaviour are those things that gets us closer to maximised suffering for all.

So, now it's your turn.

How do YOU define morality?
And based on that definition, is slavery moral or not?

You have avoided answering this question for several posts now.

I don't actually remember you ever asking me these questions during our exchange?
Anyhow, I answered them. Your turn.

I don't care as much THAT you think slavery is immoral, as much as I do WHY do you think slavery is immoral.

I care for both. But you haven't answered either to me.
So:
Do you think slavery is moral?
Why?

 

[devolved]

I'ld like to point out that in my eyes, you have already lost the argument simply because you answer my question with this question.

When I ask you if you think slavery is moral, your answer shouldn't be some variation of "what do you mean by 'moral'?".

I have to ask you as an Atheist as to what you think morality is because, it's not a 1:1 linguistic presupposition, like an apple, for example, and it's a complex abstract concept. Thus it's not a yes or no answer, because you are asking me to agree to something IN CONTEXT OF YOUR MODEL OF MEANING, without first explaining what such context may be.

Before I can provide a viable answer, I have to understand how do you define morality, and how you justify it as a concept.

So I explained it a bit.
Another even more simplistic way comes from Sam Harris:
- good are those things that increase well-being of all sentient creatures
- bad are those things that increase suffering of all sentient creatures

Moral behaviour are those things that gets us closer to maximised well-being for all.
Immoral behaviour are those things that gets us closer to maximised suffering for all.

Ok, great, in the very least I got a definition from you. I did not ask for a definition. I asked for justification, but fair-enough.

I'll present you with my definition of morality, and explain to you why it's a better fit for our reality, both pragmatically and metaphysically, and when it comes to justification of such concept beyond some formalized opinion.

Morality as I would define it, is a concept that communicates the limited set of actions one can take in any given context of reality in order to:

1) Maintain harmony, symbiosis, and order that we observe and derive from reality
2) To act or abstain from certain actions in accordance with our purpose and responsibility in that context of reality as it relates to #1

In view of the above whether slavery is moral or immoral would depend on context, because slavery is a complex term that has to translate to some situational reality, and you would have to conclude that ALL INSTANCES of one human owning another is wrong in context of situational reality in order to have a blunt proclamation that ALL contexts of slavery are wrong. I can't do that given my definition of what morality is, and Franky I don't even see how it would fit into yours either given certain contextual application.

For example, let's say you live in an era where slave ownership is common. You decide that it's immoral, but you are in such minority that your proclamations are simply downed down by a consensus of people that would argue the opposite.

Now, you decide that a moral course of action would be to purchase the freedom of the slave, but the problem is that when you do that and set someone free, you essentially release them back into the "open season" for someone to capture them and mistreat them.

So, in a limited context of possibilities, you owning a slave and treat them as though they are not by extending the legal protections that you enjoy to them would be A moral course of action. You would still own someone on paper, but in doing so you are actually granting them more freedom than a claim that they are no longer owned by anyone.

In such I don't see that contextual case of slavery as immoral. What you seem to be asking as to whether all cases of slavery is immoral, and therefore if there's a context in which people are told to buy slaves... it would NECESSARILY MEAN that in doing so they would increase suffering of the people that they are buying.

But such is not the case. If you read Leviticus 25, the context is clearly "appropriate and reform". It is not "appropriate, exploit and mistreat for your advantage".

I'll discuss as to why I think your definition of morality is problematic, and lacks justification, and why mine would be a better fit...but I'm out of time this morning.

 

[dmmesdale]

It's not.

Why is slavery evil other than your opinion?

Yes, they did. I'm asking about what YOU think.

Already answered. Big-brained apes have a natural right to enslave other big-brained apes.

I already acknowledged in a previous post that I know they didn't see anything wrong with it.

So why do you think they were wrong and why should we care?

It was the post where I also explained that because of that, I totally expect the subject to be treated like that in a book that is produced by the people of that culture. This book reflects their ideas (as opposed to the ideas of a god that should know better).

So your problem is with a god you do not believe exists. The Bible God self-describes as a slave liberator in Exod. Liberated the Israelites out of Egypt the house of slavery.

Why would an all-intelligent, just, loving and moral god not include in his "good news" that you shouldn't treat people like cattle?

Actually it does not. Hittites, another matter. Regulation was in place for the benefit of the slave. Besides, your appeals are to contrived outrage, not reason. Outrage is no sub for a rational argument. You have no basis for your judgments which extend to anything beyond your opinion.

Why would such an entity allow such practices?

It is an easy answer. I don't know why you can't figure it out unless it is rhetorical. It is not rocket science. If you cannot figure it out then what else can you not figure out?

I'm appealing to reason.

Garbage.

But the problem seems to be that you boys are going back and forward between "it reflects the ideas of god" and "it reflects the ideas of the ancient culture" at your very own convenience.

It is called debate and you don't get to frame the context. I would like to know why you believe it is wrong for big-brained apes to enslave other big-brained apes?

Logical fallacies abound in wanting-your-cake-and-eating-it here.

Presentism and appeals to outrage are easy to understand logic fallacies.

Because it creates an unequal society where one group is exploited and oppressed by the other. That wasn't that hard now, was it?

Where does nature guarantee equality? Equality is a Theistic concept. You are stealing from Theism.

(*)

ps: is this "big brain apes" thingy your way of rising to the occasion to diss a certain scientific theory?

It is an apt description of your views on humanity. Humanity reduced to the level of animals and nothing more.

Not sure what you are on about…
What is your argument here? That there are other texts/rulebooks that are even more vile?

I have no problem acknowledging that. No idea what your point is.

It is all a natural consequence of your atheism. Humans having sex with their mules. No rights or wrongs. Slave women available on demand for sex, both to fathers and sons. And bible critics want to isolate the Bible. What a joke.

 

[devolved]

I'ld like to point out that in my eyes, you have already lost the argument simply because you answer my question with this question.

Again, I'm not really concerned with proclamation of victory as much as I'm concerned with justifications .

As I'll explain later, the issue with your view, although it's highly ironic in context of emphasis on scientific method and etc, it's that it maps to conceptual model that's seeming detached from contextual reality that we actually observe as opposed to the ideals that exist in your head that you end up appealing to.

The greatest possible well-being for all is a rather vacuous concept that we would need to map to reality with some degree of precision. It's like a pageant contestant standing up and says that:

That's what out of context well-being fall all sounds like to me.

 

[devolved]

I care for both. But you haven't answered either to me.
So:
Do you think slavery is moral?
Why?

So, let's carry on for a bit. You would define slavery as a concept of ownership by one human of another.

Again, what does that map to when we map it to contextual reality. If we strip away and look at what's actually going on apart from monetary and quantification concepts, and perceived claims of ownership....

What it maps to ACTUAL REALITY is one group of people forcing other group of people to do what they don't what to do in a context of limiting options for people choices to be able to do and choose otherwise.

That's what you are essentially asking me when when we translate the meaning of the naked facts of reality, because the monetary and property factors are mere projections to justify such treatment of one group of humans by other. If we strip away the concepts of money and property, slavery would still be an act of one group of people limiting choices of other groups of people in order to force them to behave a certain way.

Again, even in such context I can't unequivocally say that such behavior would be immoral independent of context.

"Exibit A" would be what we are doing with prisoners. I would argue that forcing a prisoner to repay some caused loss to the victims by forced labor would be a far more moral choice than simply isolating prisoners from society claiming that such isolation "reforms them". It doesn't. The only thing that can reform them is recognizing the actual value that was stolen, like a life or goods, as it would translate into something of meaningful value that they can give back.

In either case we are forcing them to behave in a certain way by limiting their options.

There are plentiful of other contexts in which we force limit the choices of humans and force them to behave a certain way by justifying such actions to some greater good.

Absent of context, I can't say whether such behavior is moral or immoral, because there's no means to justify any behavior apart from context in question. And that's what you are attempting to define morality as. "Maximizing well-being" is meaningless label by itself. What's meaningful are instances of what you would mean by "maximizing well-being" as these would map to contextual reality.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I have to ask you as an Atheist as to what you think morality is because, it's not a 1:1 linguistic presupposition, like an apple, for example, and it's a complex abstract concept. Thus it's not a yes or no answer, because you are asking me to agree to something IN CONTEXT OF YOUR MODEL OF MEANING, without first explaining what such context may be.

Before I can provide a viable answer, I have to understand how do you define morality, and how you justify it as a concept.



Ok, great, in the very least I got a definition from you. I did not ask for a definition. I asked for justification, but fair-enough.

I'll present you with my definition of morality, and explain to you why it's a better fit for our reality, both pragmatically and metaphysically, and when it comes to justification of such concept beyond some formalized opinion.

Morality as I would define it, is a concept that communicates the limited set of actions one can take in any given context of reality in order to:

1) Maintain harmony, symbiosis, and order that we observe and derive from reality
2) To act or abstain from certain actions in accordance with our purpose and responsibility in that context of reality as it relates to #1

In view of the above whether slavery is moral or immoral would depend on context, because slavery is a complex term that has to translate to some situational reality, and you would have to conclude that ALL INSTANCES of one human owning another is wrong in context of situational reality in order to have a blunt proclamation that ALL contexts of slavery are wrong. I can't do that given my definition of what morality is, and Franky I don't even see how it would fit into yours either given certain contextual application.

For example, let's say you live in an era where slave ownership is common. You decide that it's immoral, but you are in such minority that your proclamations are simply downed down by a consensus of people that would argue the opposite.

Now, you decide that a moral course of action would be to purchase the freedom of the slave, but the problem is that when you do that and set someone free, you essentially release them back into the "open season" for someone to capture them and mistreat them.

So, in a limited context of possibilities, you owning a slave and treat them as though they are not by extending the legal protections that you enjoy to them would be A moral course of action. You would still own someone on paper, but in doing so you are actually granting them more freedom than a claim that they are no longer owned by anyone.

In such I don't see that contextual case of slavery as immoral. What you seem to be asking as to whether all cases of slavery is immoral, and therefore if there's a context in which people are told to buy slaves... it would NECESSARILY MEAN that in doing so they would increase suffering of the people that they are buying.

But such is not the case. If you read Leviticus 25, the context is clearly "appropriate and reform". It is not "appropriate, exploit and mistreat for your advantage".

I'll discuss as to why I think your definition of morality is problematic, and lacks justification, and why mine would be a better fit...but I'm out of time this morning.

Wow. Just... wow.

So first you accuse me of having a morality that is based on the "consensus of opinion" of a group of people and after I explain how that is not the case at all and you give me your understanding of morality….. it turns out that it is in fact YOU who's morality is based, or at least influenced, by consensus of opinion of a group of people.

Your line of reasoning here... do you know what it results in?
Instead of slavery in ancient times… Replace it with the treatment of Jews in nazi Germany.

I can honestly say that your "version" is anything but superior to secular morality (because that is actually what I shared with you…. secular morality - the kind of morality that is actually well through through and reasoned and has justifyable explanation backing it up)

If 95% of a population/tribe/nation/what-have-you thinks it's okay to rape and kill those of other populations/tribe/nations just for the fun of it, then I feel very comfortable and justified in saying that they are all wrong and evil.

You? Apparantly not.