[lbo-talk] Morals, Politics & Civilized Discourse?

[Carrol Cox]

There is no transhistorical basis for the condemnation of slavery, and
moral condemnations of Roman or Greek slavery have no basis. (It is
worthwhile noting that even ancient slaves, apparently, did not condemn
slavery as such but only resisted their _own_ slavery.) By the
18th-century thought on what it _meant_ to be human (rather than, for
example, a "talking instrument")had changed in the context of new social
relations, and the instituion of slavery could be condemned out-of-hand,
its continued existence being legitimate grounds for war, and a war,
moreover, in which the demand for unconditional surrender was the only
rational strategy. 

Note that on this list there are sharp divisions as to what constitutes
a human being; that is the context for debates over abortion.
"Humanness," what it means to be human, is therefore socially
constructed, not "given" as a transhistorical metaphysical fact. Acts
and institutions which violate the historically established concept of
wht it is to be human provoke anger and revulsion. Attempts to block
conversation through deliberately false statements of the positions of
others also provoke anger and revulstion. That is history, not an
abstract principle holding in abstraction from time and space.

Capitalism is history, not an evil plot. But even within capitalism
social practice eventuates in the establishment of allowable and not
allowable economic activities. Again, no abstract principle of Justice
or Rationality need, only the historical fact. Hence no abstract
morality or moral judgment is needed for Ian's argument that systematic
malfeasance needs to be crushed.

Carrol

Carrol.