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How moral is choosing to remain an slave?

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Hi guys:

Reading Tara Smith's "Viable Values", about how values are objective and relational, I thought in presenting this problem to you.

Mr Smith owns three slaves. In his country, a slave that flees will be hunted, tortured or killed.

Mr Smith's slaves' work is to reap tomatoes.

  • Slave A hates tomato reaping. He is making plans to escape, cross the border into a free country, go to school and become an architect. He is willing to brave hunting, torture or death.
  • Slave B enjoys tomato reaping. "If I were a free man", he says to himself, "I would have my own tomato farm and harvest my tomatoes myself". He thinks the master is a reasonably good man. Mr Smith never beats his slaves, never yells to them, never asks for efforts beyond slave's capacity, takes care of them when they are sick, and seems to be a good father and husband with his family. Slave B thinks that despite his dreams for a farm of his own, he would not risk his life by trying to flee. He better keeps his life doing what he likes to do the most: reaping tomatoes, and having fun the rest of the day.
  • Slave C enjoys tomato reaping but not too much and not always. He is considered a "difficult" slave. Slave C likes to avoid working from time to time and go swiming, and teaching himself to read through an old book he happened to find abandoned. When the master discovers he is not working, the master would ask him to work extra hours, or would make him skip dinner, or any other sort of mild punishment. Slave C does not plan to escape. He thinks his life is bearable: he can stop doing what he dislikes (at times), do what he likes more, and then bear the mild punishments. He thinks, in short, he can excercise certain degree of liberty, rebellion, without risking his life.

By not planning to escape and risk their lives, are Slaves B and C not living qua man? Are they forsaking a flourishing life? Are they, then, immoral?

Would Slave A be right in judging Slave C's attitude to life as "fence-sitting"?

Would Slave A be right in judging Slave B's attitude to life as "servile"?

Edited by Hotu Matua
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I think I would want more context. How old are the slaves? Do they have a chance of being free without running away? Things like that.

However, you seem to suggest that slave B and C are rationalizing their inaction rather than making a rational evaluation of the situation. In that sense they would be immoral, because they're evading reality. I would not suggest the choice to remain a slave alone would make any of them immoral.

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You don't "owe it" to some abstract principle to escape slavery if the risks are great. Objectivism does not tell you that you must make yourself a martyr. It does, however, inform you that you ARE risking your life/happiness in the long term whether you like it or not when you choose to remain a slave. The enforced mental passivity of slavery is a deadly risk. What happens if you contract a disease and need a doctor, but your slave-master deems that it's easier to let you die? What happens if you fall in love with a woman but are not allowed to be with her?

Your state as a slave is an enemy to all of your present and future values. This is why you should do what you can to escape that state even if the work itself doesn't bother you much. But if you really can't do very much (the attempt to escape will be an even bigger threat to all your present and future values), all you can do is endure.

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Morality ends at the point of a gun. None of the slaves are slaves because of their own free choice, they are being threatened with death. Under these conditions whatever they choose to do would be right thing to do.

Bingo. We have a winner. I might try to improve the last sentence with "Under these conditions whatever they do moral judgement does not apply", but, then, I might not :-).

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Morality ends at the point of a gun. None of the slaves are slaves because of their own free choice, they are being threatened with death. Under these conditions whatever they choose to do would be right thing to do.

I am not so sure that whatever they choose, under these conditions, would be right.

I am trying to understand what is the life that Objectivism considers the standard of morality. Is is biological life? Is it life as a slave? Or is it life as a free rational man?

A heroe is a person that risks his biological life in the pursuit of a higher value, namely the free, rational, floursihing, rewarding life he wants for himself. The one he has envisioned for himself. His "life project", we could say.

My question then is, given the circumstance of having to risk your life for a higher value, are heroes "more" moral than non-heroes? Are heroes moral while non-heroes are immoral? Are both heroes and non-heroes moral?

Why should citizens risk their biological life in an open rebellion against a fascist government?

Those choosing not to rebel, and choosing to keep themselves biologically alive, should be despised as "cowards" by their fellowmen who are fighting?

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How is risking your life part of the definition of being a hero? A hero is someone who achieves deeds of great value and great difficulty, not someone who risks their life. And "biological life" is a redundancy. There is no other type of life.

Living as a free rational man is necessary in the long term, so it is what we all must strive for if we want to continue to live. However, throughout history people have been trapped in situations they could not escape under their own power where ALL of their options were bad. Choosing one bad option instead of another comes down to personal preference and optional values. Slavery may be less onerous to some than to others, although *ultimately* it has bad results for EVERYONE. It depends on how difficult it is to escape, whether you, personally, have the kind of skills/health/abilities that would enable an escape (a woman crippled in one leg would not be in nearly as effective a position as a healthy young man), what you can expect if you escape, etc.

Objectivism doesn't present you with commandments along the lines of "thou shalt escape from slavery". What it tells you is provide you with general principles. Applying those principles to your particular situation will ALWAYS require you to think on YOUR life and YOUR values and YOUR circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all in this realm. You must learn to distinguish between the principle and the application.

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Thank you very much, Megan.

Yes, I was confusing a heroe with a martyr.

I suppose this comes from my mystical Catholic background, and also Mexican history.

For Catholics, all martyrs are heroes. You know, Christ himself becomes the paradigm of the martyr-heroe.

And in Mexican history, all heroes are martyrs. I mean, Mexican heroes are those who are defeated, tortured, shot, executed.

Well, in Atlas Shrugged, John Galt is also tortured... although he is not regarded a heroe because of torture: he is already a heroe, beacuse of his amazing deeds, before going to torture.

I believe I understand now. When all options are bad, we have to resort to the less bad according to our particular life project.

But then just let me know if I'm interpreting this right:

I live in Nazi Germany, and I am expected to denounce Jews to the police so that they can be taken to Auschwitz. If I don't do it I will face prison or even death.

Since all options are bad (I either loose my freedom and life or make Jews lose their freedom and life), an external observer could not determine if I am doing right or wrong if I

  • hide Jews, help them out and risk my life (like Ana Frank's friends or Oskar Schindler)
  • keep a low profile and act as if I didn't know Jews exist (like maybe most Germans did)
  • denounce Jews to the police (like some Germans did)

An external observer cannot make a judgement since he does not know my life project, and the details or pecularities of my circunstances (family, physical and mental health, plans for the future, ability to really help Jews and get away with it, etc.).

Still, this doesn't mean that moral is subjective. It just means that no external observer could have enough information as to make a judgement. But for myself, I should think what are the pros and cons of my actions and decide accordingly, rationally, and picking the best choice that fits my long-term fulfillment.

Am I right?

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Am I right?

Yes, absolutely. Just remember that choosing rationally doesn't mean total subjectivity and you *should* have rational values like "freedom" in your hierarchy--it's just that keeping your family alive may be more important to you than, say, saving a family of relative strangers, even though you would save both if you could.

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