Times change - Was it ever right to be a slaveowner?

[Walter]

We know allowing people to be made homeless and live on the streets is wrong. Have you or anyone here done anything about it?
The witches once burned their own children as sacrifices in their pagan rituals do you not think what goes around comes around.

If you believe Christianity and the devil are made up then ultimately the only people responsible for 'wrongs' are human beings.
In which case as 'free will' exists no one forces mankind to do these things,. then it still remains human beings fault.

Whatever you do or see being done which is wrong. LOOK at who and what causes the wrong to be done.

Who got in those boats and went to foreign lands and decided to bring those men and women back as slaves?

Who burned the witches? They did not do it to themselves?  Why become witches?  That is right not everyone burned was a witch just accused. Why did the colour of the skin become a right to make those human beings slaves?

You can make all the cheap shots you care to make but ultimately all  you need is human beings to do evil.

...... the bleeding obvious!

[Nearly Sane]

We know allowing people to be made homeless and live on the streets is wrong. Have you or anyone here done anything about it?
The witches once burned their own children as sacrifices in their pagan rituals do you not think what goes around comes around.

If you believe Christianity and the devil are made up then ultimately the only people responsible for 'wrongs' are human beings.
In which case as 'free will' exists no one forces mankind to do these things,. then it still remains human beings fault.

Whatever you do or see being done which is wrong. LOOK at who and what causes the wrong to be done.

Who got in those boats and went to foreign lands and decided to bring those men and women back as slaves?

Who burned the witches? They did not do it to themselves?  Why become witches?  That is right not everyone burned was a witch just accused. Why did the colour of the skin become a right to make those human beings slaves?

You can make all the cheap shots you care to make but ultimately all  you need is human beings to do evil.

Just to note tfat you have now accepted that slave oening was evil and can be judged in that sense as the same as thr point of the article.

[Anchorman]

And there is no reliable evidence of witches burning their - or anyone else's - children. Propaganda.

[Robbie]

Cutting up cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and relishing their flesh......will hopefully seem immoral some time in the future.  Then we can say....it was never right in the first place!

Sririam, there is a programme advertised today on BBC iPlayer called 'Carnage' (not to be confused with an earlier BBC2 programme of same name):

"Presenting itself as a history documentary made in a utopian 2067, when humans have long been banned from enslaving and eating other animals.   It chronicles shifting attitudes to meat over the previous 125 years."

There's more said, that it has bite, wit and satire and stars a well known English actress of whom you may not have heard, Linda Bassett.

I read your post earlier and thought you find find 'Carnage' worth a watch if you can get it. I will watch it over the next few days.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/simon-amstell-carnage

[Sassy]

And there is no reliable evidence of witches burning their - or anyone else's - children. Propaganda.

Go back to sleep Anchorman. You do not just service to God or man, because everything is really about you.

Wiccan a good place to start but try not to hide behind any straw men the sun just might set it on fire and singe your bum.

[Robbie]

I didn't know of Wiccan followers burning children Sassy. From where did you get the information? I've read about Moloch the ancient pagan god of child sacrifice.

You were right when you said many people were burned as witches who were not witches, just accused of witchcraft.It was scandalous.
Plus as yousaid it's always people who do the evil& that's regardless of any religion to which they pay lip service.

[Anchorman]

Go back to sleep Anchorman. You do not just service to God or man, because everything is really about you.

Wiccan a good place to start but try not to hide behind any straw men the sun just might set it on fire and singe your bum.

-
Please provide substantiated evidence of proven witches burning their children, Sass.
Thanks.

[Robbie]

Ankerman, I do not know if this is substantial evidence but I found this article (wholesome reading before retiring - not):
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Child-Sacrifice_among_European_Witches

[Nearly Sane]

Ankerman, I do not know if this is substantial evidence but I found this article (wholesome reading before retiring - not):
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Child-Sacrifice_among_European_Witches

you read the first sentence and weren't sure?

[Robbie]

It is true according to some Christian writers, I've no idea if it is true or not but might tail in with what sassie has gleanedf  from internet. PERsonally i am sceptical about everything I read on internet butjust put it in. My computer has been out of action for a day or mroe, had to use someone else's so was eager to post on my own when I got up briefly.No more than that. I've no bias.

[floo]

Go back to sleep Anchorman. You do not just service to God or man, because everything is really about you.

Wiccan a good place to start but try not to hide behind any straw men the sun just might set it on fire and singe your bum.

Sass, you are talking about yourself as usual!

[Anchorman]

 Let's be honest here. In their zeal to enact the Leviticus injunction (whilst blithely ignoring other injunctions in the same book and the fact that, if they were indeed Christian, the New Covenant supercedes them all), certain authors either invented or grossly exaggerated the crimes of so-called witches in order to warm their hands at what they saw was a holy bonfire. Did pagans commit Human sacrifice? Almost certainly in prehistoric Europe. Definitely in predynastic Egypt Yes, the Romans wrote blood-soaked accounts of how they cleansed their territory of those nasty druids - but those accounts have to be taken under advisement and with a lot of caution. The fact is that thousands of innocent victims were sacrificed to the flames of prejudice by a semi-literate European Christendom. We still need to apologise for that.

[Robbie]

My inclincation is to agree with you anchorman (& i posted previously about Molech), but await Sassy's response.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Does time mean owning people was OK?

Strange article - effectively, "according to my 21st century morality what this 19th century President did was morally wrong". Well yes, according to contemporary morality it was. In his day though, presumably President Jackson was considered a moral exemplar on this issue. Hitler by contrast was widely considered a moral monster in his own time time albeit not according to Nazi doctrine specifically, so it's a poor analogy.   

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Strange article - effectively, "according to my 21st century morality what this 19th century President did was morally wrong". Well yes, according to contemporary morality it was. In his day though, presumably President Jackson was considered a moral exemplar on this issue. Hitler by contrast was widely considered a moral monster in his time time albeit not according to Nazi doctrine specifically, so it's a poor analogy.

Except as it points out there were prior Presidents who choose not to have slavea because of moral objections. Surely your approach is an ad populum? And yes I'm aware that we are not talking truths here but the effect of establishing that what is agreed is what is moral means that any argument to change morality is immoral.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Except as it points out there were prior Presidents who choose not to have slavea because of moral objections. Surely your approach is an ad populum? And yes I'm aware that we are not talking truths here but the effect of establishing that what is agreed is what is moral means that any argument to change morality is immoral.

I think to a large extent that the moral Zeitgeist is an ad pop, yes - how could it be otherwise? I'm not particularly familiar with Andrew Jackson, but as I understand it he was President at a time when slave ownership was a commonplace and largely morally acceptable. That others before him objected is interesting, but he doesn't seem to have been swimming against his contemporary moral tide to any great extent. Possibly (to pick up Sriram's point) those predecessors are the equivalents of today's vegetarians - outliers who point the way to a future wide scale moral shift?   

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

I think to a large extent that the moral Zeitgeist is an ad pop, yes - how could it be otherwise? I'm not particularly familiar with Andrew Jackson, but as I understand it he was President at a time when slave ownership was a commonplace and largely morally acceptable. That others before him objected is interesting, but he doesn't seem to have been swimming against his contemporary moral tide to any great extent. Possibly (to pick up Sriram's point) those predecessors are the equivalents of today's vegetarians - outliers who point the way to a future wide scale moral shift?

He was about when the campaign to abolish slavery was happening in the UK, so while commonplace, the alternative was also well known. Anf as the article covers his was not a 'benign' ownership. Further if we say it's not correct to judge actions based on historical zeitgeists, then much of your position on religion being bad is undermined as anything historical was just the zeitgeist. Worse, it is surely, correct to extend this from historic positions to cultural zeitgeists.

There seems a danger here, that in seeking to 'understand' we fall into a trap of going nuclear on morality.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

He was about when the campaign to abolish slavery was happening in the UK, so while commonplace, the alternative was also well known.

Well known perhaps, but not the Zeitgeist by any means. Again, the carnivore/vegetarian analogy comes to mind - I eat meat and I'm about when others don't. Does that make me immoral? 

Anf as the article covers his was not a 'benign' ownership.

Which is a tougher call. Even if the principle “slavery is wrong” had yet to gain traction, cruelty would presumably have been less acceptable. As I understand it, that’s basically the biblical approach – “slavery is fine, but treat them reasonably”.

Further if we say it's not correct to judge actions based on historical zeitgeists, then much of your position on religion being bad is undermined as anything historical was just the zeitgeist.

It’s not quite that. You can “judge” historical actions according to the contemporary morality (ie, whether or not the person was an outlier in his time), but applying contemporary morality to historic behaviours is a mistake.

Of course “bad” is itself a moral judgment. I happen to think that lots of people dying now because of a prohibition on contraception is morally bad, just as by my standards lots of people being slaughtered in religious crusades was morally bad. The difference though is that crusaders were consistent with their moral Zeitgeist whereas (arguably at least) the RCs are not. Whether there are enough catholics who believe a contraception ban to be morally good to constitute a Zeitgeist is another matter though. 
 

Worse…

Worse than what?

…it is surely, correct to extend this from historic positions to cultural zeitgeists.

Not sure of your point here?
 

There seems a danger here, that in seeking to 'understand' we fall into a trap of going nuclear on morality.

Going nuclear is the position that, as your truths rest on axioms and so do mine, we’re even-stevens. Morality seems to me to be a mix of instinct and reason, but as a practical matter the Zetgeist means we treat outliers – murderers for example – as wrong rather than afford them equal moral status. 

[Nearly Sane]

Just to note I don't have time to do bluehillside's most excellent post justice now but I shall return

[Nearly Sane]

NS

I've noticed you're quite partial to one or tu quoque's recently. Is it something new you're exploring?

No, it just seems as if people use them more frequently

[Nearly Sane]

(lots of excellent stuff cut out to save time)


Going nuclear is the position that, as your truths rest on axioms and so do mine, we’re even-stevens. Morality seems to me to be a mix of instinct and reason, but as a practical matter the Zetgeist means we treat outliers – murderers for example – as wrong rather than afford them equal moral status.

But that then is merely descriptive, and just because you happen to agree with a majority at any one time means we are back at an ad pop. Essentially to me, your position seems to be that whatever is allowed is allowed. You are not really making any prescriptive judgement just saying that whatever happens is fine. That's why I see it ad an example of going nuclear, and in such a way that any attempt at a moral argument is rendered meaningless because it can only be descriptive.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

But that then is merely descriptive, and just because you happen to agree with a majority at any one time means we are back at an ad pop.

I don’t understand your “but” and "merely" here, but more or less yes. Note though that an ad pop for claim of fact is a different matter from an ad pop for a claim of judgment. I see morality as akin to aesthetics for this purpose (or perhaps even as a branch of it) – the fashion for Victorian paintings for example has waxed and waned and waxed again over time with no absolute rule for artistic merit.

Just to develop that for a minute, the analogy is actually quite a close one I think – we intuit artistic merit to some degree (the golden ratio for example) and we reason our way to it too. I see the same thing with morality – some thing just “feel” right or wrong, but we’re also susceptible to argument.       

Essentially to me, your position seems to be that whatever is allowed is allowed. You are not really making any prescriptive judgement just saying that whatever happens is fine.

“Fine” is wrong – I may well think that the prevailing morality is anything but fine, but again essentially yes. On what basis could I make a prescriptive judgment about morality even if I was inclined to do so? How for example would I know that my moral position on a given question today was any more “correct” than the moral position of a 17th century slave owner?

That's why I see it ad an example of going nuclear, and in such a way that any attempt at a moral argument is rendered meaningless because it can only be descriptive.

No, it’s only those things if you also claim certainty. Stick with, “this is the moral landscape I would like to occupy and that I think you’d like to occupy too and here's why” and you have a basis to argue your corner perfectly well. That it may be that more people than not agree with you (about murder for example) is an observation of fact about numbers, but not about the correctness of the Zeitgeist.

[Nearly Sane]

If morality is a matter of personal taste,how do you make any rational argument for a position. If I like Marmite and someone doesn't there is no rational discussion about it.

[Walter]

No, it just seems as if people use them more frequently

have you had many yourself?

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

If morality is a matter of personal taste,how do you make any rational argument for a position. If I like Marmite and someone doesn't there is no rational discussion about it.

Easily. I might for example say something like, "a society that practices equality of treatment and opportunity will tend to be interact more harmoniously and therefore as members of it my and your interests will be best served if we support measures to that effect". I make no claim there to an absolute truth, and my audience might in any case just say, "to hell with that, I'm in it for all I can get" but that's all I have. That's my argument.