Slavery and evil

[JackGiantkiller]

Wingsandsword: Thank you. A very well constructed answer, and informative.
Anybody else?

Crothian: Nail on the head. I just want to see where people and their campaigns fall in the spectrum of POV.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

If slavery is evil, then are slaveowners evil?

 

[Crothian]

Crothian: Nail on the head. I just want to see where people and their campaigns fall in the spectrum of POV.

It took a few points, but I understand now. Sorry, I get a little hard headed in understanding when I'm hip deep in reviews like tonight.

IMC slavery is is evil. But I have forms like endentured servants and prison work groups that are lesser forms of slavery and not seen as evil.

 

[Starglim]

If slavery is evil, then are slaveowners evil?

Those who pay for and support evil acts have done evil, yes.

As with other actions it depends on the balance of their way of life whether they are officially Evil in alignment.

edit: wingsandsword got in earlier with a better answer than mine.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

Slavery is evil in *most* of my campaigns, but not all. My Egyptian campaign, for instance, has a totally different perspective. And there are campaigns in which I have played or run where the nature of slavery was *good*...not your run of the mill type, of course.

 

[fusangite]

Jack, thanks for wandering into the other thread. Today I was starting to wonder if I was on glue or something before you turned up.

Back to the topic at hand: of course, as you may have noticed, I do not use alignment in all its transcultural transhistorical glory; in my games, alignment is moored to society. As a result, slavery is often a morally neutral thing. However, the slavery in my worlds is never modeled on the antebellum chattel slavery of the American South.

Models of slavery I find more interesting and worthwhile are the Roman system and its successors, in which slaves have rights, can file suit, can purchase manumission, etc. Slavery in these systems was much more sustainable than our common images of slavery from American history and did confer some genuine social advantages. And there were a lot more different levels and types of slaves in the Spanish, Portuguese, Roman and Carolingian systems (an interesting hybrid of Germanic and Latin slavery). I've also thought of doing a medieval collectivist slavic serfdom with its internal self-government structures but have not got around to it.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

No, you aren't sniffing glue. Although you may be dizzy from having to repeat yourself and making no headway.

On topic:Very true. Slavery seems (IMO) to be more evil when tied to the notion that slaves aren't human...ie, when it is only applied to a specific race, not to possibly deservibng criminals or war captives.

There's always slaves as rulers (ie Mamluks).

My big thought here is this: if slavery as practiced in this country was evil, and people who supported it were thereby evil...doesn't that mean that the U.S. was founded bya CE conspiracy of sinister rebels? (This isn't far from how the Loyalists of the time portrayed them..and slavery was illegal in mainlaind Britain long beofre it became so here.) Just a humorous thought. To me. But I'm twisted...anyway, back to the discussion at hand.

 

[Umbran]

Hm. Well, there's some false logic in the "the majority of human historical figures are evil by D&D's standards", insofar as D&D's standards simply don't apply to real people. Nobody in history has ever been subject to a Detect Evil spell, so the point is largely meaningless. D&D "evil" does not exist in the real world.

But let us consider...

Slavery is the act of making sentient creatures into property, the literal ownership of another person. The PHB says, "'Evil' implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others." Can't get much more oppressive than outright ownership.

So, slavery is evil, yeah. However, we must remember that a character's alignment is a long-term average of actions. An alignment isn't determined by only one thing the person does - each and every act has a chance to weigh in. So, the slaveowner committs some evil in ownership of another sentient. If that slaveowner is also kind, benevolent, charitable and all to his slaves and everyone else, then he or she will not necessarily be Evil overall. Even Good aligned people can occasionally commit an act that harms others without suddenly becoming Evil.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

A very good point, Umbran. The notion just tickled my funny bone. As i said, I'm...odd. So...your answer true for all campaigns you run? Or just some?

 

[Afrodyte]

The American system of slavery was based on numerous evil practices and cannot be justified, but beyond civics classes in primary school, it's not so clear that that can be extended to every slave system throughout history.

American slavery was called the peculiar institution for several reasons, and all of them are more or less in line with what D&D describes as evil. Being denied liberty can be good (imprisonment for dangerous criminals), evil (kidnapping and selling people), or neutral (indentured servitude) depending upon the circumstances, so that part won't be considered at the moment. However, treating human beings as livestock, as American slavery did, is certainly not amongst the things associated with good. Besides this, the status of slaves in the Americas status perpetual and hereditary; death was more likely than freedom, and slaves couldn't expect their children to fare better than themselves. There was no moral rationale or matter of domestic security that justified it; bigotry and greed are the roots of the practice, and Africans were simply convenient victims because they could not blend in like Europeans or run away as successfully as Native Americans.

This is completely different from other systems of slavery where the condition was as a result of being captured in war, committing a crime, or needing to settle debts. Even then, for the most part slaves were treated humanely. Some were even given wages for their labor, which could be used to buy their freedom. No one really assumed ownership of a slave's family members unless they too were captured or were part of a financial agreement. I'm not saying "hey diddley-dee, a slave's life is for me," but I do believe that American slavery is particularly unique when it comes to understanding the moral quality of slavery. The evil of slavery, even in D&D terms, was not in that people were mistreated (although that certainly was true), but that it was a machine was based upon and operated by the continual dehumanization of a people. This is the root of what evil is as far as D&D is concerned.