Judging History (branch off from election thread)

[a completely inoffensive name]

Ok, making this thread/post to make my replies in and for mods to dump earlier replies in.

Circumstances don't excuse everything, that doesn't mean they can't excuse some things (if we must talk in terms of excuses).

What would be some examples?

Why empathy? That's where I think you're wrong. I think you'll find that emphasizing compassion and empathy goes straight back to religious roots. Most atheists talk about morals in a way that makes much more sense for religious people, shows how much of a ripple effect there is...

Well...what do you base your moral axioms off of?

The question is, why on earth would having tons of empathy (as opposed to above average empathy)

>:[ Owning slaves is not above average empathy, even if he gave them cold drinks and kept the families together.

for black people be mentioned in the same paragraph with founding and leading a country in the way that Washington did? He was an amateur soldier made supreme commander and didn't lose...he could possibly have taken an autocratic attitude but carefully limited himself. Compare him to Napoleon. If hypothetically Napoleon had ended slavery (ignore that he actually re-instated it...) would you put him over Washington, or even near Washington? Also it's quite possible that if he had freed his slaves early he would never have done the things he did. Same for Nixon and his anti-gay comments--they are only worth mentioning if in your mind they work as a kind of "trump card" where even a 2 beats out a king. I think there's a particular mental process for that kind of judgment, linked to our mental process regarding "clean/unclean". One drop of something nasty is enough to get you to wash your hands, one drop of something seen as a "moral taint" is enough to stain the entire person. But really that borders on superstition.

You must have missed where I said earlier that I completely reject comparing two different people on a general "overall" basis. If we are to compare two people, compare them only on a specific subject or aspect of their lives. it is silly to try and weigh different vices and make an argument about whether or not Washington is worse for his slave owning than Napoleon for his empire building or Nixon for his anti-gay comments. I don't deal with any of that in first place so it's a non issue for me.

By the way, what do you think of "feminist history" where they go back and make a big fuss about various philosophers and their misogynist views?

Well, if the thoughts were truly misogynistic, then there is something to be said about that. If it is unrelated to their field of philosophy, then it shouldn't alter our view of their ideas just as Washington's view of slavery says nothing about his character as Commander in Chief. If they are making a big fuss out of nothing or are assigning an interpretation that the philosopher obviously never intended, then it is just silly and not worth paying attention to.

Two thoughts:

1. Wikipedia is concise and useful, but not definitive. I linked to it not to prove a point but to provide background.
2. If "forced to work" is a necessary condition for slavery, how do we classify documented cases of harem slaves who were never used by their owners? By your definition, they were not slaves, because they never did their work. By my definition they are (correctly) classified as slaves; by yours they are not.

Nah, I think my definition is both shorter and more accurate: slavery is becoming someone else's property. Period. Work (willing or otherwise), how you arrived in the condition, all of that was irrelevant to your ultimate status. Slave was slave, free was free.

You are being silly with your interpretation of "forced to work" in order to try and cast that condition in a bad light. "Forced to work" really means "you have to work whenever told at any moment" not "at some point you were forced to have done some labor". So yes, harem slaves that were never used still were slaves because if they were used at any point, they were forced to oblige against their will.

We are all someone else's property in many situations throughout life. I doubt anyone would ever call themselves a slave at any point though....