/philosophy/ - Philosophy

Says it's the product of its time.

Rather, what does that say about slavery?

It says that morality isn't deducted from philosophy, that philosophy is the aesthetic part of morality.

>>1596

>everything i don't like is slavery

And you deride lolbertarians...

>>1596

People working to support themselves isnt slavery.

>>1600

name one slave who didn't work to support himself

p.s. lol u cant

>>1601

Name one living being that doesn't exert energy in some way to support itself. I guess being alive is slavery. Woe is us.

>>1602

in a sense it is. slavery and freedom are a spectrum. migrant fruit-pickers fall closer to the slave side of the spectrum.

>>1603

>slavery and freedom are a spectrum.

They aren't. You claim it is so that you can use an emotionally charged word.

>>1603

A spectrum? That makes absolutely no sense. Either you are enslaved or you are not. Working harder than someone else because you have skills in lower demand is not the same as being owned by someone else.

>>1608

>instead of explaining my position I'll just throw around ad hominems.

Yep. Totally.

>>1609

throw around ad homonems.

What does my sexuality have to do with any of this? Maybe all the straight people should be enslaved by the homosexuals, then finally wars of masculine conquest could end.

>>1609

it's not an ad hominem, you fucking retard

>>1608

>they are. you claim they aren't so you don't have to face reality.

That reality depends on how freedom is seen, and it can be seen in multiple ways by the same person. It might be seen as having equal rights before the law, being free of responsibilities, being free of movement, being free of desires. To call freedom a one dimensional axiom with some being "more slaves" does not reflect the reality of how freedom is experienced and defined and the historic and present state of slavery, it is clever manipulation using emotionally charged words taken out of their context.

I could do the same with pedophilia, in which I can call a man who is attracted to 25 year old women a pedophile. When he objects to this, I could claim that pedophilia is a scale.

>>1613

pedophilia is a scale

>>1614

This can also be used by pedophilia apologists. That's something I forgot to ad, that this form of manipulation can be used both ways.

>>1615

irrelevant

>>1612

Whatever helps you sleep at night bud.

>>1587

Slavery was not actively embraced by many philosophers, though, and people as relevant as Plato have cast doubt upon its legitimacy. But it was, indeed, considered a fact of life that there are slaves (as with war, hunger, deceit, etc), and philosophy had and still has huge difficulties bridging the gap between normative claims and actual practical realisation thereof. So you're right - what does it say of philosophy that there always seems to be a part of "reality" that is taken for granted and, perhaps, ehen HAS to be taken for granted?

Ironically, this is exactly what the discussion in this thread illustrates perfectly. The existence of "wage slaves" (to deliberately use that term) is commonly known, yet it stands within a concept of freedom of choice and individual autonomy that makes no distinction between the unpressed flicking through the job market and the poor man forced to accept the first flicker of monetary promise in order to support his or her existence. How "free" these decisions really are is a debatable question, and while the term "slavery" is historically not fully appropriate, neither is it appropriate to dismiss the issue entirely - both stances present in this thread. There is a fluidity of the terms here, and both fronts are confronted with the problem of condemning one side of the spectrum by using the language derived from the other (i.e. wage slaves are not free, thus employment is unfree [for some] vs. employment is free, thus wage slaves are free [to not work and die]).

What is philosophy to do, indeed?

>>1622

You're misrepresenting the positions in the thread. The point is, in my view, that when you're working the choice isn't and shouldn't be "not work and die" or be a "wage slave" that mentality is self imposed and the "slavery" is too. There is no reason why an individual should be unable to develop skills that allow them to advance careerwise. Unless they are an illegal immigrant there is nothing stopping them from Looking for better employment perpetually.

>>1643

I would like to agree with you, but simple probability opposes it. Simply not everyone CAN advance careerwise, no matter how hard they try. There's a need for those who churn the hamster wheel without gaining much, if anything, from it. There's a need for the uneducated. This is all made necessary because we all need to generate money somehow. We can't do that by doing what we like, and many of us are explicitly made to do things we don't like. You can call it freedom when someone manages to escape a dead-end job, but that doesn't justify that there is a dead-end job in the first place and that it's essetially luck that gets you out of it. The only way to maybe justify this is by arguing that when people die, everyone can "move up" somehow and the vacancies are filled by the next bunch (as opposed to there being discrepencies within the same generation). But that hardly makes the possibilities more fair, and considering exponential growth (paired with automatisation of labour) it isn't much of a solution any way.

What you are saying is that everyone can be happy careerwise and that, if they aren't, it's their own fault. That seems to me a very reductionistic view that ignores serious problems. I'll grant you that it's possible to make oneself somewhat happy though, if only in a fatalistic sense. But this is more of a coping mechanism than the sign of a free society. Most people I know are 'happy' in this sense, and more than half of them are clinging on to the notion that they might be the ones to get promoted or accepted for a better job, instead of all other equally qualified and equally searching individuals. This is not slavery, but I really wouldn't call this freedom.

Didn't mean to misrepresent though. I just encounter many who seem to hold the notion that the economy and the job market is fair, and I fail to see how anyone could state that earnestly. Just because people are made to comply doesn't mean the system is any good. A system that keeps its wheels turning by having the cogs delude themselves into thinking they can be the best wheel they can is ingenious in its efficiency, though. Doubtlessly why captialism thrives in spite of all its grossly apparent flaws.

>>1644

I think in terms of being able to change jobs it's clear that the more time you have the better. If we were immortal I think it would be possible for everyone to eventually acquire the skills for career mobility if they had the enthusiasm to. Unfortunately, being alive isn't fair. For anything. I don't think that fact means that the very act of living is akin to slavery.

>>1646

>Unfortunately, being alive isn't fair.

This is true, but not an argument. Especially not if we foster artificial squabbles like income. Remember that humans have a substantial part of their surroundings under control. Treating things like economic crashes like natural desasters - which is done constantly - may subvert but not change that fact.

Personally, I'd prefer a society where everyone can do essentially anything (within limits of lawful social conduct) without being forced to do something due to existential needs. Any argument for freedom in today's world would become a lot easier to make if that particular (and sadly institutionalised) notion were abandoned. But it won't, because we profit from those who are forced to labour. Calling that anything close to freedom is blatantly false, and I don't think the argument that you may potentially only be unfree in this sense for a limited time (being replaced by someone else then) is one that can excuse the use of the word 'freedom' in this sense.

And to clarify; whether life itself is akin to slavery is a different though also interesting question. I'm strictly talking about institutions that enslave. What we have now may not be akin to the historic slavery, but it is assuredly not in the realm of freedom that we like to say or pretend that it is. Next question would be; can we change that?

>>1650

I don't understand your point. What is the alternative to a free market? None that I can see. There is no alternative that is better than capitalism. It isn't mere correlation that when a market is opened to unhindered competiton the standard of living progresses by leaps and bounds. I don't see how tribalism, feudalism, or any other previous human system could be called better by any stretch of the imagination.

You come off, to me, as treating the human condition being separated in a vacuum independent of environmental and social factors. Comparing to any other period on Earth the points where we have had the most free markets is when we were the most free as individuals.

>>1653

>I don't understand your point.

I'm sorry, I'll try to be more explicit. For one, I think I would concede that we are currently, in general, the most free that we have been, so I'm not advocating to 'return' to any past system other than capitalism. However, it is also the case that an institution that values individual freedom would not necessarily gravitate towards and end up adapting capitalism. As you say, capitalism is a means of improving living standards one social class at a time (though, as I'm sure you can't deny, this 'trickle-down' process is neither linear nor necessary). It is efficient in this way. But it doesn't constitute freedom, and saying that "life isn't fair" when actually referring to an institution - even if it happens to be "the best we have" - is defeatist without good cause.

I do not have an alternate suggestion, but I do know what factor would have to be changed in order to facilitate the argument that people in a (capitalistic) society are free - we would have to get rid of reliance on existential necessity to keep the wheels going. A system where people are forced to do stuff only if they are interested in what they get by doing that stuff. "Living" doesn't count. I don't want to support any business just so I can eat, because there's no necessary connection between the two. Keeping it this way results in situations where you support something you don't want to support, in order to support something you pretty much have no choice but wanting to support, i.e. your own existence (this is where use of the term 'slavery' becomes tempting). Calling this freedom is not playing fair, even if there's a chance to 'get out'. Like slaves being (potentially) able to earn their own price back, that doesn't change their status as slaves.

Remove existential necessity out of the equation and the notion of freedom becomes more palpable and easier to defend.

I hope that was a bit clearer. I don't think the human condition is in a vacuum, but I would maintain that societies could be and should be capable of reducing negative external factors, both environmental and social, to a minimum.

>>1672

Well if your point is that people shouldn't have to work to support themselves then I disagree wholeheartedly with it.

If you aren't working for a business you're working for yourself, both cases are still work. Arguably working for yourself is harder. The only alternative is redistribution of wealth, which is inherently wrong and unsustainable. There is no worthwhile alternative to having people work in order to survive. That is what being alive is.

>>1676

I fail to see in what way having to grow or hunt your own food is preferrable to holding gainful employment. Because you dont have to share the fruits of thw labour in any way? I legitimately dont understand the mindset.

I think that condemning slavery stems merely from a paradigm shift. Work has been defined in another way by Aristotle and Plato, who saw it as degrading. Even engineers were considered as simple workers at that time, because contemplative life was the ideal type of life, and active life was highly mundane.

From that results the logical status of manual workers, who didn't live the ideal type of life, and as such couldn't take part in the political life of the City. Hence the slaves.

>>1675

That is not what I said. At least not exactly. I refer strictly to the instrumentalisation of existential necessity and nothing else. There is a difference between 'supporting' ones basic functions (and, to a degree, societal duties) and 'supporting' personal luxuries, be it an above average sized family, house, or any posession that doesn't serve the preservation of basic functions. Because the prior is most assuredly not based on deliberation, using it as a means to further any end besides the fulfillment of basic funtions is problematic. And as >>1676 explains much better than I did, this is exactly what happens. In order to support ones own basic needs, one must also support a wide array of other things that one might not want to support or even want to actively work against. The latter is made impossible, unless one forfeits the fulfilment of ones basic needs - but this is hardly an option that would warrant calling the other choice one that is 'freely' made.

So yes, if we could have a societey where all basic needs are either directly guaranteed by the regulating authority or at least directly available to all people according to the degree of their need, then I would go for that over what we have now any day (some 'socialist' states support the poor in a similar way, but this is not what I speak of since the poor are never considered irredeemable and are expected to eventually care for themselves). Those who are lazy or uninterested in luxuries will settle at this minimum, but in no way does this imply that society as we know it will collapse completely. The primary thing that would change is that people would always be masters of their own existence. Presevation of basic needs won't be a tool in the arsenal of the powerful in order to utilise others (for their benefit) anymore. Then, it seems to me, we can have a debate about whether or not we have freedom. Right now, we clearly don't, and it's not a natural but an institutionalised unfreedom, making it even more apparent.

>>1678

It is preferable because you gain what you want and nothing more or less. You want something, then you also want the means to obtain it. This can be abused by adding a multitude of steps between the desire and the person desiring it. So abusing the necessity for food, one can change the direct chain of

>hunger -> bake bread -> eat

to something like

>hunger -> work for a company -> support the plans of the leadership of said company -> support the notion of a competitive economy as a whole -> bake/buy bread -> eat.

There is a difference, and it's not insignificant. You may be lucky and find none of the additional steps disagreeable to you. But they can be disagreeable to some, and because they are not necessarily tied to the need they ultimately satisfy (a company's business plans have nothing to do with eating bread) as well as utilise existential necessity as motivator (hunger), having people act in this way is manipulatory, not free. And no, not everyone can simply 'bake bread'. The key component of our economy is money. That is the step between every desire and its fulfillment. And the generation of money (unless you are wealthy or people give it to you) works through supporting the entirety of the system.

I feel like I'm still not clear enough, but I hope you can sense the gist of the argument. Sorry for not being able to be more concise. I'm unfortunately not a native speaker, so that may be part of the issue.

>>1693

>inequalities

>demerit

is a good thing for me, a well to do consumer. muh cheap labor

>>1694

Asshole capitalist

slavery is not evil was merely a product of the human hierarchy

in the old days man was for the most part apathetic to others it could be argued this was better than our emotional state today but they saw everyone below them on the hierarchy to be less and all above to be more it was not evil is only was

plus we still have slavery today you just can't see it in both the third world and in a way in the first world

>>1706

is your cheap labor too

I think its worth considering slavery as a valid institution, especially considering the time. Even today, how many people would sell themselves into a good slave situation (i.e., a reputable owner/owning corporation) in order to escape a worse situation?

>>1676

Well put post, anon.

>>1676

>Compare this to a condition which many serfs enjoyed under feudalism, and which free people even enjoyed through early modernity. It was typical throughout Europe for there to be common areas which were either cleared and fit for some farming, or wild areas of nature which sustained themselves (America's analogy would be the frontier). Whether you labored as a tenet on a manor or held your own cottage industry, you nonetheless could probably access these commons.

It was indeed possible for people to live of the land, but homelessness and living of edible plants and whatever else you might scavenge is still possible today.

In medieval Europe, the forests were the hunting grounds of the nobility, they weren't commons and hunting in them was seen as poaching.

>This is not a redistribution of someone else's earnings. This is a guarantee that you will be able to earn for yourself without the manner of earning being determined by anyone but yourself. A laborer in a market system works to survive in a market the same way that a serf works to survive on manor, or slave works to survive in his master's system. though each have varying levels of misery, they all share the trait in that the lowest person doesn't simply provide for himself, but navigates an external labyrinth in which social rules are the walls, property is the bricks and others' ambitions are the mortar.

It's not a guarantee. You could starve, get ill, be wounded or otherwise fail. Such people do also still rely on an external market, since they cannot make all they use themselves. They still need tools and clothes.

>If freedom is working for yourself and as yourself, then a market is not pure freedom.

Living as a solitary hunter-gatherer might be freedom, but it's not preferable for the vast majority of people, hence they choose to work.

>>1600

Name one place on Planet Earth you are allowed to live without money. Unless you are born into the amazon you need money. Shit. Even if I bought a house in the united states and paid it off I'd still have to pay property tax. If I was homeless I'd get arrested for vagrancy, loitering, and trespassing. If you have to work for a living your freedom is severely impeded and you are a slave. Please note that i do not make the logical jump that wealth needs to be redistributed, or that anyone owes me anything. It is just one of those facts of reality.

>>1923

Money is a placeholder for the goods or services generated incredibly niche skills that not everyone has a need for. Whether you're working for money or working to till a field and sow seeds which you subsequently grow it's all one in the same. Crying about it because you're antisocial and wish you could live in a vacuum separate from the rest of humanity doesn't mesh with the fact that working to support yourself isn't slavery.

>>1587

Buddhist doctrine (a la Buddha) forbade trade in living beings.

That's all I'm aware of though. In practice, many Buddhist countries/cultures still practiced slavery.

Schopenhauer was openly against the slavery of blacks in America.

>>2681

That shows how little Schopenhauer is worth.

>>2686

because that worked out so well in the long run right?

>>1925

See the second response in >>1691. Direct satiation is much more free than indirect and institutionally enforced satiation no matter whether you want to call the latter a slave-like state or not

>>1691

Your example of "hunger, bake bread, eat" is really disingenuous. Am i to assume that the person doing this cleared the land alone, harvested the grass seeds alone, collected the water alone, fabricated the tools necessary to reap the harvest. Then went on to construct the oven and all the necessary ingredients to make bread including somehow finding and raising chickens all by themselves? That's ridiculous.

As I stated before, whether you like it it not you're a part of society and the only thing work allows you to do us generate wealth with a narrower skill set than is required than "simply" baking bread in the woods alone. Technically you're even less of a slave because more of your time is free and you do less work for a far higher quality of life than if you did all this alone.

>>1691

Free through guarantees given by a regulating authority

>>1587

Says nothing about the philosophers themselves, but how morals and values had infiltrated philosophy and changed it from a concept based on reason and logical thinking to one in which if you do not appeal to the general moral code of your peers, you will be disregarded.

Slavery from an economic and political standpoint is one of the most effective ways to rapidly establish and sustain a country. Housing is cheap, clothing is cheap, feeding them costs pennies, and the result is profits that reach beyond the cost in which to sustain the slaves. The reason in which why countries such as the former Roman republic, the USA, and the former USSR flourished within decades and became economic, political, and militaristic superpowers is solely due to usage of free or extremely low paying labor.

As a philosophical concept, the pros of slavery outweigh the cons, and it is a reason why older philosophers have no objections to such an inhumane practices. Now that philosophy has become a joke and the moral question is now a requirement in determining the legitamacy of a theory, such viewpoints have changed to fit the moral ideals of whiny little bitches who want the world to be a place in which no suffering occurs.

>>3616

I think you greatly overestimate the economic power of slavery. For every successful country that practiced slavery, there's a bunch of unsuccesful ones: the Ottoman Empire, the whole of Latin America, the West African kingdoms, etc.

Neither the Roman republic, nor the USA flourish "within decades". Both did some three hundred years of nation-building before they became relevant at all.

In fact, I think you might be wrong on almost every count. Have you considered that before writing your post?

>>3616

>morals and values had infiltrated philosophy and changed it from a concept based on reason and logical thinking to one in which if you do not appeal to the general moral code of your peers, you will be disregarded

When did this change happen? I'm highly curious about this age when philosophers existed in a vacuum of Logic and Reason™.

>>3618

>>3620

Doesn't evidence show that the economy flourished after slavery was abolished in the USA? And in the USA, wasn't it pretty much the too few percent that owned slaves anyway? It wasn't common enough to give full credit to slavery even if the USA was flourishing. Truth of the matter is the USA at its start was more free than any place on earth and that's when it gained most of its power

>>1591

underrated comment

>>3543

Haven't you heard that hunter gatherers worked less and had more free time before the industrial revolution forced people into 14 hour work days or the modern 8 hour ones? Society has evolved to expect more labor of most of us so the top who inherit it can play with toys at their leisure.

>>2677

There is nothing wrong with spooks

>>3654

how many horses have you seen enslaved by another horse?

>>3654

>why shouldn't we do things if we do them

Why are stormfags always so nigger-tier in their philosophical comprehension?

>>3657

i am reminded of sherlock holmes

>It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts

>>3657

>/leftypol/ bait

no