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Was slavery-era America worse on the dimension of human rights or just different? Why does cultural relativism excuse horrors of actual modern people with acce

Was slavery-era America worse on the dimension of human rights or just different? Why does cultural relativism excuse horrors of actual modern people with access to and awareness of all modern thinking, modern technology, and modern examples of societies who achieved moral progress, but we’re perfectly comfortable saying slave owners of the past are responsible for their crimes despite being raised by slave owners in a society of slave owners embedded in a world of slave owners with a history absolutely chalk full of slave owners?

Y_Y 2y ago
I agree with your point, but I think it's not fair to blame cultural relativism. Relativism means not prescribing a single morality applicable in all contexts. That's something on which reasonable people will differ. If you do accept it though, you're not obliged to permit everything. For example I think that there were relatively moral people who lived in e.g. the US and Saudi Arabia ~300 years ago and accepted slavery unquestioningly. It would have been better if they had questioned and rejected it, but I don't think they are evil for not doing so. In the modern US I think that only someone tremendously immoral would accept and participate in enslaving others. This belief makes me a moral relativist (at least by some reasonable definitions). All the same I think I'm much closer aligned with your feelings on the morality of modern Middle Eastern society than GP. All that to say, being a moral relativist allows you to have weird dissonant views, but it doesn't require it.
- ethanbond 2y ago
  Sure, I don’t believe cultural relativism is itself in all cases wrong. I think it’s obviously wrong when used to excuse obviously immoral things done in a context where they are in fact obviously immoral (such as much of the Middle East in the modern day).
- Simon_ORourke 2y ago
  So you're saying that morally the difference between cannibal and anyone else in society is simply a menu preference?
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    Yes, in fact in hindsight I should just have written that instead.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Slavery, throughout history, was generally not seen as desirable. Rather, it was either seen as a necessary evil, upon which a "logical rationale" (read: cognitive dissonance) was built up to justify it, or as a form of punishment. Aristotle actually predicted its end about 2000 years before it happened [1]: --- For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, "of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods." If, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves. - Aristotle ~350BC --- He also made regular indirect mention of abolitionists and abolitionist causes, which have obviously existed for millennia. It's not just some coincidence that the Industrial Revolution happens and within about a century most of every country (that had benefited from said industrialization) had outlawed slavery. It's not that we became more moral, but rather it became comfortable enough to dispose with slavery. So we did, and then attributed that to "modern thinking." [1] - https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt
  - ethanbond 2y ago
    That is an immense leap from "if we could have machines do it, we wouldn't have slaves do it" to seeing slavery as undesirable. Aristotle was a staunch believer in "natural slaves" who didn't have the faculty of rational deliberation and therefore were (and should be) guided by those who do have that faculty. This line of thought can be traced all the way through to the modern day, and obviously well up to abolition. There's really not much evidence at all that slaveholders saw their activities the way you describe ("necessary evil"). There's no evidence that we first had a necessity for slavery and then obviated it through automation. In fact, automation in the Americas increased demand on the labor of enslaved people. If there was any external triggering event of abolition, it'd have been Darwin's On The Origin of Species and contemporaneous breakthroughs in science that destroyed the philosophical foundations that slavery was built upon (natural god-given supremacy, as Aristotle believed). The abolitionist movement was an intellectual and moral one, through and through. You can just read the writings of abolitionists to hear what convinced them into their positions.
theblobawakens 2y ago
>modern examples of societies who achieved moral progress But we haven't achieved moral progress. G7/G20 countries have essentially merely physically outsourced slavery out of sight to second world factories and third world hell holes. Through the magic of fiat money and currency exchange rates, we have deluded ourselves for half a century that we are in fact not colonizers and oppressors anymore. Just one example are the Coltane mining wars in Congo: 1998-2008 5.2 million killed or dead from hunger (and it'd probably be higher if people hadn't more or less stopped counting after 2006). You probably didn't even know it happened,and yet millions today work at slaves to continue producing minerals for our digital comfort.
- ethanbond 2y ago
  Those countries can outlaw those conditions whenever they want. When they do, they’ll have achieved some additional moral progress. I’m pretty sure you’d be crying foul if the US decided to go and enforce its laws over there.
oliviabenson 2y ago
Do you berate your parents and grandparents each day for their participation in a society that had segregation? Do you walk over hot coals every morning to repent for the benefits you reap by virtue of being born into a society built on the backs of the segregated? Do you deride and express disgust at your peers as they relish in the taste of the pain and suffering of the billions of conscious, feeling animals we genocide every year? Do you opt-out of the industries and services today that take advantage of the suffering of less fortunate individuals forced to service you in order to survive? Slavery was bad. Slavery is bad. Slavery is not excused. However, frothing at the mouth with rage when speaking about the actions of another society because they don’t share the same moral values as you without thinking a step further is hollow, it is empty, it is meaningless. Why is “modern thinking” (whatever that means) good? Why is maximum individual freedom at the expense of the whole good? I am like you, I believe in that, but if you interact with people from different cultures, you will discover that is not a belief held by everyone. For many people, individual freedom at the expense of the whole is not good and they have observed that from these “modern” societies. Look at how deeply unhappy the U.S is, the pain and suffering of hundreds of millions of people. Is limiting access to healthcare an example of “modern thinking”?
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Where is anyone proposing berating anyone? You can say that a segregated society was less good than a non-segregated one without saying that everyone who lives or lived in a segregated society is worthy of berating/disgust/derision etc. I don't blame individual Iranians for living in a culture that is worse on many important dimensions than western liberal cultures, but that doesn't prevent me from making a fair judgment that (at least on those dimensions) it is actually worse. Modern thinking: things like pluralism and liberalism. These are actual ideas that emerged in the late 1800s and which are responsible for immense human thriving, immense liberation from suffering all over the world. Upstream of all political and social reform is an intellectual reform, i.e. new "thinking." I am not referring to "maximum individual freedom," and in fact this idea is fundamentally in tension with pluralism and liberalism. Maximum individual freedom at the expense of the whole is a bad idea because it yields bad outcomes, just like various forms of theocracy are bad ideas because they yield bad outcomes. The ideas that yield expanded suffrage, expanded legal protections, expanded access to prosperity are good ideas because they produce good outcomes. Yes sure, the US/the west broadly isn't perfect, etc, but note that we can discuss all the ways in which it's broken so we can get to work fixing it. That's a good outcome and it's a critical part of the path to more good outcomes on more important dimensions. You're not arguing that other forms get to better outcomes or whatever, you're just arguing that there's no such thing as good or bad outcomes and therefore no such thing as good or bad ideas. Try going to Qatar or Iran and asking someone for their opinion on their heads of state. I think you'll find their reaction far more chilling than the fact that our health insurance system is broken.

Y_Y 2y ago

I agree with your point, but I think it's not fair to blame cultural relativism. Relativism means not prescribing a single morality applicable in all contexts. That's something on which reasonable people will differ. If you do accept it though, you're not obliged to permit everything. For example I think that there were relatively moral people who lived in e.g. the US and Saudi Arabia ~300 years ago and accepted slavery unquestioningly. It would have been better if they had questioned and rejected it, but I don't think they are evil for not doing so. In the modern US I think that only someone tremendously immoral would accept and participate in enslaving others. This belief makes me a moral relativist (at least by some reasonable definitions). All the same I think I'm much closer aligned with your feelings on the morality of modern Middle Eastern society than GP. All that to say, being a moral relativist allows you to have weird dissonant views, but it doesn't require it.

ethanbond 2y ago
Sure, I don’t believe cultural relativism is itself in all cases wrong. I think it’s obviously wrong when used to excuse obviously immoral things done in a context where they are in fact obviously immoral (such as much of the Middle East in the modern day).
Simon_ORourke 2y ago
So you're saying that morally the difference between cannibal and anyone else in society is simply a menu preference?
- Y_Y 2y ago
  Yes, in fact in hindsight I should just have written that instead.
somenameforme 2y ago
Slavery, throughout history, was generally not seen as desirable. Rather, it was either seen as a necessary evil, upon which a "logical rationale" (read: cognitive dissonance) was built up to justify it, or as a form of punishment. Aristotle actually predicted its end about 2000 years before it happened [1]: --- For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, "of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods." If, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves. - Aristotle ~350BC --- He also made regular indirect mention of abolitionists and abolitionist causes, which have obviously existed for millennia. It's not just some coincidence that the Industrial Revolution happens and within about a century most of every country (that had benefited from said industrialization) had outlawed slavery. It's not that we became more moral, but rather it became comfortable enough to dispose with slavery. So we did, and then attributed that to "modern thinking." [1] - https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt
- ethanbond 2y ago
  That is an immense leap from "if we could have machines do it, we wouldn't have slaves do it" to seeing slavery as undesirable. Aristotle was a staunch believer in "natural slaves" who didn't have the faculty of rational deliberation and therefore were (and should be) guided by those who do have that faculty. This line of thought can be traced all the way through to the modern day, and obviously well up to abolition. There's really not much evidence at all that slaveholders saw their activities the way you describe ("necessary evil"). There's no evidence that we first had a necessity for slavery and then obviated it through automation. In fact, automation in the Americas increased demand on the labor of enslaved people. If there was any external triggering event of abolition, it'd have been Darwin's On The Origin of Species and contemporaneous breakthroughs in science that destroyed the philosophical foundations that slavery was built upon (natural god-given supremacy, as Aristotle believed). The abolitionist movement was an intellectual and moral one, through and through. You can just read the writings of abolitionists to hear what convinced them into their positions.

theblobawakens 2y ago

>modern examples of societies who achieved moral progress But we haven't achieved moral progress. G7/G20 countries have essentially merely physically outsourced slavery out of sight to second world factories and third world hell holes. Through the magic of fiat money and currency exchange rates, we have deluded ourselves for half a century that we are in fact not colonizers and oppressors anymore. Just one example are the Coltane mining wars in Congo: 1998-2008 5.2 million killed or dead from hunger (and it'd probably be higher if people hadn't more or less stopped counting after 2006). You probably didn't even know it happened,and yet millions today work at slaves to continue producing minerals for our digital comfort.

ethanbond 2y ago
Those countries can outlaw those conditions whenever they want. When they do, they’ll have achieved some additional moral progress. I’m pretty sure you’d be crying foul if the US decided to go and enforce its laws over there.

oliviabenson 2y ago

Do you berate your parents and grandparents each day for their participation in a society that had segregation? Do you walk over hot coals every morning to repent for the benefits you reap by virtue of being born into a society built on the backs of the segregated? Do you deride and express disgust at your peers as they relish in the taste of the pain and suffering of the billions of conscious, feeling animals we genocide every year? Do you opt-out of the industries and services today that take advantage of the suffering of less fortunate individuals forced to service you in order to survive? Slavery was bad. Slavery is bad. Slavery is not excused. However, frothing at the mouth with rage when speaking about the actions of another society because they don’t share the same moral values as you without thinking a step further is hollow, it is empty, it is meaningless. Why is “modern thinking” (whatever that means) good? Why is maximum individual freedom at the expense of the whole good? I am like you, I believe in that, but if you interact with people from different cultures, you will discover that is not a belief held by everyone. For many people, individual freedom at the expense of the whole is not good and they have observed that from these “modern” societies. Look at how deeply unhappy the U.S is, the pain and suffering of hundreds of millions of people. Is limiting access to healthcare an example of “modern thinking”?

llamaimperative 2y ago
Where is anyone proposing berating anyone? You can say that a segregated society was less good than a non-segregated one without saying that everyone who lives or lived in a segregated society is worthy of berating/disgust/derision etc. I don't blame individual Iranians for living in a culture that is worse on many important dimensions than western liberal cultures, but that doesn't prevent me from making a fair judgment that (at least on those dimensions) it is actually worse. Modern thinking: things like pluralism and liberalism. These are actual ideas that emerged in the late 1800s and which are responsible for immense human thriving, immense liberation from suffering all over the world. Upstream of all political and social reform is an intellectual reform, i.e. new "thinking." I am not referring to "maximum individual freedom," and in fact this idea is fundamentally in tension with pluralism and liberalism. Maximum individual freedom at the expense of the whole is a bad idea because it yields bad outcomes, just like various forms of theocracy are bad ideas because they yield bad outcomes. The ideas that yield expanded suffrage, expanded legal protections, expanded access to prosperity are good ideas because they produce good outcomes. Yes sure, the US/the west broadly isn't perfect, etc, but note that we can discuss all the ways in which it's broken so we can get to work fixing it. That's a good outcome and it's a critical part of the path to more good outcomes on more important dimensions. You're not arguing that other forms get to better outcomes or whatever, you're just arguing that there's no such thing as good or bad outcomes and therefore no such thing as good or bad ideas. Try going to Qatar or Iran and asking someone for their opinion on their heads of state. I think you'll find their reaction far more chilling than the fact that our health insurance system is broken.