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Slaves and Citizens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Stephen R. L. Clark
Stephen R. L. Clark
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

R. M. Hare has argued1 that there are conceivable (though unlikely) circumstances in which it would be right not to abolish the institution of slavery: in the imaginary land of Juba established slave-plantations are managed by a benevolent elite for the good of all, no ‘cruel or unusual ’ punishments are in use, and citizens of the neighbouring island of Camaica, ‘free ’but impoverished, regularly seek to become slaves. Hare adds that it is unlikely, given human nature, that ‘masters ’would treat ‘slaves ’humanely, and avoid a gradual corruption of their moral consciousness which would cancel out any possible advantages of the system. Slavery is wrong, he argues, not because it violates ‘fundamental human rights’, but I because it would in practice generally increase misery.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 60 , Issue 231 , January 1985 , pp. 27 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1985

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References

1 R. M., Hare, ‘What is Wrong with Slavery’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 8 (1978–1979), 103: Hare understands slavery as a legal condition such, that the victim's ‘rights’, if any, are defined solely by laws she has no part in making, and such that she has herself no right of appeal against her ‘owner’. The Camaican regime, in his account, is the product of inefficient government rather than anarchist principle.Google Scholar

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