Slavery and evil

[John Morrow]

Many of the fantastical items in Eberron are powered by 'bound' elementals. Elementals are sentient beings.

Hmmm. That seems to be correct. Elementals seem to have an Int of at least 4. The cut-off for Animals is 2. This also raises some interesting questions about the Summon Monster spells and the Pokemon-like combat that occurs as a result of it...

Huxley's Brave New World also comes to mind...

A "Free the Elementals" movement could be interesting, too....

 

[JackGiantkiller]

Its interesting to note that the most recent Campaign Setting from WOTC condones slavery in almost every single country. Thats right in Eberron slavery is a way of life and even the good guys accept this.

Many of the fantastical items in Eberron are powered by 'bound' elementals. Elementals are sentient beings.

not to mention the plight of the city goblin. *But*...Eberron is not an absolute/objective alignment setting.

There have been a lot of good responses. Thanks, everybody.

 

[painandgreed]

In D&D, "'Evil' implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. . . . . Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit." So, in D&D, slavery is Evil. I just don't understand the difficulty people have with understanding this.

Because you can have slavery without "hurting, oppressing, and killing" depending on how you define slavery. Even in oppression, it infers a cruel or unjust use of power. If it was not cruel or unjust then it would not nessisarily be evil such as in many of the cases that people are bringing up.

 

[Quasqueton]

Because you can have slavery without "hurting, oppressing, and killing" depending on how you define slavery. Even in oppression, it infers a cruel or unjust use of power. If it was not cruel or unjust then it would not nessisarily be evil such as in many of the cases that people are bringing up.

What? Slavery is not oppressive? Huh? There is a kind and happy slavery?

I stand flabbergasted. You folks can find a twist and exception to even the simplist definition.

Quasqueton

 

[painandgreed]

What? Slavery is not oppressive? Huh? There is a kind and happy slavery?

Marriage.

Edited to add:
Of course, that is ambiguous according to time, place and social conditions for the marriage customs of which you are speaking of.

 

[Amaroq]

I've been very entertained by this discussion, since I've been attempting to address exactly this point in my next campaign setting.

To funsangite's point, about playing in a pre-modern mindset, I'm explicitly touching on the concepts of 'equality', 'freedom', 'vote', and 'slavery' in the set-up / first session, and reminding the players how their characters world-views are different from their own on those American ideals.

The thing which stands out in reading this debate is that some definitions are missing.

I keep hearing 'slavery is evil', but when I read the posts more closely, I find that even those people writing it are posting things like

That somehow taking away another person's freedom and declaring them your property is not utterly and completely evil.

And sure, I think the people on the 'slavery can be neutral' side would agree with that: forcibly taking away somebody's freedom and declaring them my property is clearly an evil act. The paladin doesn't march into the enemy camp, defeat their leader, and claim 'Now you all are my chattels, and must do my bidding.'

The flip side, those who are arguing 'neutral' can argue that there are models of slavery in which the slave is not forced into slavery; has rights and the possibility of freedom at some point; etc.

This comes down to 'how do you define slavery', and 'how do you define oppression'; I think that it is possible (and in fact, has been done in these six pages) to imagine a definition of 'slavery' and a definition of 'oppression' in which 'slavery' does not map to 'oppression', and furthermore doesn't give the 'slave' one-hundred-percent 'free will'. I haven't seen anybody argue that slavery as practiced in the American South wasn't an evil institution; just that it is possible to imagine a non-evil institution which meets a definition of 'slavery'.

For some fictional reading material which touches on a slavery institution in a fantasy setting, I reccommend Alanna Morland's works, Leopard Lord and Shackle and Sword; there are some interesting examinations of master/slave relationships in a world which includes the moral absolutism of good and evil.

Lastly, in my campaign (personally!) my intent is to depict a feudal / heriarchal system with a prevalent good/evil moral absolutism. In this system those higher on the social scale may be perceived to have more 'rights' but are also coupled with more 'obligations'; for an example touching on slavery, your 'good' paladin would not be shocked to discover household servants in the manor of some lord; however, if the lord were mistreating them in any way (failing to uphold a number of social contracts: food, shelter, justice, compassion), the paladin would be convinced that she had seen an evil act. I'm imagining 'entry to slavery' via some of the discussed neutral means: voluntarily entering into an indentured servitude contract; accepting a (limited) period of servitude as an alternative to other less desirable punishments for a crime. I'm struggling somewhat with the details of 'bonded servitude', but am imagining a system in which prisoners of war are typically ransomed by their families (if wealthy enough) or lord (as part of a peace settlement), but that entering a period of 'bonded servitude' exists as a means for prisoners not otherwise ransomed to earn their freedom.

Is it 'good'? No; however, I'm envisioning it as a 'neutral' establishment with the potential for abuse. I don't want my players to feel that their characters need to overthrow the 'evil oppressive monarchy system' to bring an enlightened democracy to all of the world's peoples, nor do they need to go through a five-year-long war to emancipate all of the enslaved peoples of their civilization... but it leaves me plenty of room to for them to encounter a culture which treats slavery oppressively, denying the slaves the rights which they expect slaves have and in which the slave-holders are ignoring their duties to their slaves, and to paint that culture as evil beyond compromise.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

You have forcibly introduced the head of the nail to a concept i like to call, "Wham! This is a hammer."

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Obviously. So...each campaign makes a differing, relative moral judgment about whether specific acts are good or evil...and this is then taken as the moral absolute standard *for that campaign*?

On Earth, I think we all agree that slavery is evil.

Now, in fantasy, I think this can be a very "it depends" kind of question. It can even differ within campaign settings, so I think it's best left up to the judgement of the DM and his/her players. Sort of like the old "can a paladin slay baby orcs and still be good?"

For example, there are two very evil nations in our Kingdoms of Kalamar setting (Slen, and Pel Brolenon) that practice slavery. There's little question that almost everyone in this nation is evil, except for the slaves and underlings.

However, slavery is also practiced (to a lesser degree) in the "standard" nations. Most slavers here would still probably be evil, but you might have exceptions.

Then you have some more primitive tribes where slavery is a punishment you must endure if you are defeated in battle. They view it as their own weakness that they are slaves, and not the fault of the slavers.

So, to sum up, I'd say the alignment of the slaver depends on how they treat their slaves, and how slaves are viewed in the culture. So it can vary from place to place.

 

[fusangite]

How did this thread get back onto the question of whether slavery is evil if one follows the letter of the rules. Surely we can all agree that if one doesn't modify the alignment rules, slavery is evil. I assumed that we were talking about whether slavery is evil under whatever modifications to the alignment rules we have been forced to make in order to actually have game worlds inhabited by non-modern people and non-modern cultures. Was I wrong?

 

[Iron Sheep]

So I misunderstood when you agreed that Charm Person was not inherently evil, or when you put forward manacles as an example of how silly the "oppression = evil" argument is? I think perhaps any misunderstanding is more likely to be due to your confusion as to what you're arguing.

Apparently, sir, you did misunderstand my point about shackles.

The analogy with shackles was intended to illustrate that your example about charm person being Evil was as ridiculous as claiming that shackles are Evil. Where Evil lies is not in the tool*, but in the use a person puts to it. This is wholly within the rules as written.

Since you seem to be done with the conversation, I'm simply noting this for the record.

Corran

* Excepting such things as Evil intelligent weapons or similar.