>>> jkschw at hotmail.com 07/23/01 10:47AM >>>
No, it's just a fact that strong arguments do not trump intuitions. Absolutely nothing could persuade me that slavery is better than freedom, even though this is remarkably difficult to show. It's idle to say that this is not as it should be; you just have to live with it. Moral argument only changes people's minds incrementally and at the margins. People adjust, tighten up, and systematize their intuitions; the results of many small changes may be a big one, but there is no reason to think that moral philosophers have been effective prophets. On historical materialist grounds, why would you expect them to be? Social being determines thought, and much less vice versa. And no, most intuitions are, I think, unargued. The grounds I ahve to thinking that slavery is worse than freedom are much weaker than the conclusion.
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CB: Yes, the vast majority of people are not like Frederick Douglass ,and don't get to experience both.
Also, doesn't the question become much more clear if put, "would a system of slavery be better than one of freedom if you were a slave ? If you were free ?"