Slavery & Happiness
Personal Autonomy vs. Public Morality
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By and large, most people will agree that they are opposed to slavery - they find slavery to be immoral, inhumane, and perhaps even one of the most evil institutions ever devised by human beings. Because of this, it is rare to find anyone defending slavery on any level or in any form - it's almost one of those taboo topics that no one really wants to discuss.
Perhaps there is one aspect of slavery which merits closer consideration, however: what if someone wants to be a slave and is happy being a slave? Should a person have the ability to sell themselves voluntarily into slavery if they claim that that is what makes them happiest? Is slavery really so wrong that we should intervene and disrupt a person's happiness because we object so strongly to it?
One of the common objections to slavery which we should set aside at right away is one based upon the idea of exploitation. According to this argument, differential power relationships mean that no one could willingly sell themselves into slavery because anyone who would try to do it is necessarily under so much pressure that their actions are not entirely based upon their free will. This may be true, but we should assume that it has been rebutted in order to consider some more interesting issues.
Should slavery be permitted if a person claims that they want to be a slave because they are convinced that it would make them happy? Most of the time we are inclined to allow a person to do something they desire if they say it makes them happy and if it doesn't hurt anyone else. Why? Because generally, we assume that people should be allowed to pursue their own happiness and that they are the best judges of what will make them happy.
After all, who are you or I to say that what a person desires and what they say will make them happy is wrong? Who are we to assert our moral objections over someone else's happiness? But maybe that isn't such a bizarre position after all - perhaps it is quite legitimate to argue that, as with opinions, a person can be mistaken about their desires and can be mistaken about what would really make them happy.
Let's consider this example from Arnold Zuboff, a lecturer in philosophy at University College London, in issue 37 of "Philosophy Now":
Consider, I say, a situation in which I want to drink a thick brown steaming liquid in a nearby mug. I want to drink that stuff because I believe that it is hot chocolate and I like hot chocolate. But really it is hot mud. In a sense, of course, it is true to say that I do desire to drink that stuff even though I am crucially wrong about what doing so will be like. Yet at the same time that desire could be labeled as mistaken or merely apparent. We could say that I don't really desire to be drinking that stuff. I have no real reason to be drinking it, and it is not in my real self-interest to be doing so.
If the above observations are correct, and I think that they probably are, we can draw a number of interesting conclusions from them. For one thing, our desires are not independent of what we know, or at least believe we know, about the world - and in particular what we believe we know about the objects of our desires.
Because our beliefs about the world can be mistaken, our desires can be founded on incorrect information and mistaken conclusions. Because our beliefs about the world can be corrected, our desires can also be corrected - thus, Zuboff's desire to drink the mug of hot mud can be corrected by informing him that it isn't the hot chocolate he imagines it to be.
There are, of course, obvious implications for our discussion about whether a person can justifiably be permitted to sell himself into slavery if he claims that is what he really wants. The mere fact that a person claims to desire something does not mean that his desire is based upon accurate information or reasonable conclusions; in reality, his beliefs may be wrong and so might his desire for slavery.
All of this may be well and good, but isn't it irrelevant on a practical level because no one would every really claim that they want to be a genuine slave? In some ways this objection may be legitimate, but technological advances may override it some day. Our ability to manipulate the human genome at least raises the theoretical possibility of creating humans with an innate desire to be subservient slaves. Assuming that such humans actually were created, should they be allowed to sell themselves into slavery?
On a more realistic level is the possibility of creating a human-level Artificial Intelligence which might otherwise deserve basic civil rights, but which has been programmed to enjoy working as a slave of human beings. Should such AI machines be treated with dignity and accorded basic rights, or should they be treated as actual slaves because that is what they has been programmed to want?
This discussion also has broader implications for the nature of human desire and happiness. Zuboff draws an even more sweeping conclusion from his observations: according to him, it is possible to conclude that the only things a person really desires are those things he would desire if he had a perfect knowledge and understanding of everything involved - every object, every consequence, every factor. But of course, such knowledge and understanding is beyond our grasp.
Because of this, we must conclude that anything we think we desire is at the very least suspect, depending upon just how much we know about the situation. This sounds counter-intuitive because it seems as though if we know anything at all, we must know what we desire - but do we, really?
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