“Modern slavery,” a term used to describe severe forms of labor exploitation, is beginning to spark growing interest within business and society research. As a novel phenomenon, it offers potential for innovative theoretical and empirical pathways to a range of business and management research questions. And yet, development into what we might call a “field” of modern slavery research in business and management remains significantly, and disappointingly, underdeveloped. To explore this, we elaborate on the developments to date, the (...) potential drawbacks, and the possible future deviations that might evolve within six subdisciplinary areas of business and management. We also examine the value that nonmanagement disciplines can bring to research on modern slavery and business, examining the connections, critiques, and catalysts evident in research from political science, law, and history. These, we suggest, offer significant potential for building toward a more substantial subfield of research. (shrink)

The idea of wage slavery is often regarded with suspicion even among critics of capitalism. Sceptics note the dubious racial politics associated with its use, while recording many differences between the condition of waged workers and chattel slaves. However, these objections are more plausible on some conceptions of wage slavery than others. I look to the history of political thought to recover and reformulate a more defensible account, drawing on a neo-Roman understanding of slavery as subjection to (...) another’s will (rather than as ownership or social death). I demonstrate not only that a neo-Roman vocabulary was taken up by abolitionists, but recount how radical republicans used it to criticise the wage relation and call for the socialisation of property. This neo-Roman approach is shown to represent a break with more paternalistic appeals to wage slavery made by Tory radicals and Southern apologists for chattel slavery. However, in order to avoid cheapening the accusation of wage slavery, I argue that it only obtains when a worker’s ability to meet their most vital material needs is dependent on the will of employers. Thus, wage slavery becomes an extreme form of economic unfreedom, which does not encompass every case of worker domination. (shrink)

Exploring the economic, cultural and political role of slavery in different societies, this volume includes selections from historians, economists and contemporaries - from those enslaved as well as from free members of slave owning societies.

In spite of some revisionist attempts to rationalise slavery as just another form of trade between interested parties, there is an overwhelming conviction that it represented an age of man’s highest inhumanity to fellow man. Accordingly, calls have been loud and persistent as to the need for reparation which though will never compensate for actual loss, nevertheless has the possibility of symbolising penitence and serve as cushion for some of the debilitating damages done. This paper examines the moral basis (...) of the call for reparation. In agreeing with the moral validity of the claims, the paper probes further in a realistic manner and argue that African states in their present situation cannot make a serious case for reparation. The paper argues further that for African states to position themselves for genuine reparation struggles in this age of political realism, urgent steps must be taken to ensure the useful and productive deployment of available resources in Africa and remove the continent from its appendage status with the west. The paper concludes that only when African states are able to break the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment, freeing themselves from external manipulations can a credible and rewarding case for reparation be made. Keywords : Reparation, Slavery, Realism, Africa, Leadership. (shrink)

Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries explores philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that are central to early modern discussions of slavery. Jorati explores a topic that is widely neglected by historians of philosophy: debates about the morality of slavery in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century America and Europe. Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries explores philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that are central to early modern discussions of (...) class='Hi'>slavery. It is a companion volume to Jorati's Slavery and Race: Philosophy Debates in the Eighteenth Century (OUP 2023). (shrink)

The permissibility of actions depends upon facts about the flourishing and separateness of persons. Persons differ from other creatures in having the task of discovering for themselves, by conjecture and refutation, what sort of life will fulfil them. Compulsory slavery impermissibly prevents some persons from pursuing this task. However, many people may conjecture that they are natural slaves. Some of these conjectures may turn out to be correct. In consequence, voluntary slavery, in which one person welcomes the duty (...) to fulfil all the commands of another, is permissible. Life-long voluntary slavery contracts are impermissible because of human fallibility; but fixed-term slavery contracts should be legally enforceable. Each person has the temporarily alienable moral right to direct her own life. (shrink)

Discussions about the morality of slavery are a central part of the history of early modern philosophy. This book explores the philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that occur in eighteenth-century debates about slavery, with a particular focus on the role that race plays in these debates. This exploration reveals how closely Blackness and slavery had come to be associated and how common it was to believe that Black people are natural slaves, or naturally destined for slavery. (...) The book examines not just well-known authors like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also less widely studied philosophers like Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Lemuel Haynes, and Olympe de Gouges. By presenting philosophically important aspects of debates about slavery in eighteenth-century North America and Europe, the book aims to be a valuable resource for scholars, instructors, and students who are curious about a topic that historians of philosophy have so far neglected. (shrink)

This paper argues that Aristotle challenges the view of Athenian democrats that all rule is master rule – the imposition of the will of the powerful on the powerless – by arguing that the politeuma, or government, should be identical with the politeia, understood both as the constitution and the collectivity of citizens. I examine Aristotle’s analysis and response to democrats’ skepticism of the law that the constitution embodies. Aristotle argues that democrats think law limits license even when the source (...) of law is the people themselves. The view of citizens as the source of law coupled with the view of the law as a commitment to collective determinations regarding the end makes law salvation rather than slavery. (shrink)

Slavery has long stood as a mirror image to the conception of a free person in republican theory. This essay contends that slavery deserves this central status in a theory of freedom, but a more thorough examination of slavery in theory and in practice will reveal additional insights about freedom previously unacknowledged by republicans. Slavery combines imperium (state domination) and dominium (private domination) in a way that both destroys freedom today and diminishes opportunities to achieve freedom (...) tomorrow. Dominium and imperium working together are a greater affront to freedom than either working alone. However, an examination of slavery in practice, focusing on the experiences of American slaves, demonstrates that republicanisms’ acknowledged strategies for freedom-seeking, acquiring insulation from domination through law and through norms, do not encompass the full range of options. Slaves also seek freedom through physical absence, economic activity, and culture. The account of slavery and freedom developed here suggests republican accounts of freedom should either give up their focus on thresholds of freedom, or consider the possibility of a plural conception of freedom that extends beyond just freedom as non-domination to include freedom as collective world-making, or both. (shrink)

Hegel's lord-bondsman dialectic has been of especially great interest to progressive and radical Hegelians—broadly speaking, politically left-leaning interpreters of Hegel who object to certain social hierarchies and demand their abolition. They read Hegel as giving an account of how ‘lordship’ over others is an inherently unstable and unsatisfying social formation, even for its supposed beneficiaries. Marxists, feminists and post-colonial theorists have all found inspiration in Hegel's analysis of the lord and bondsman by applying it to concrete relations of oppression, such (...) as capitalism, patriarchy, or racism. In contrast, recent scholarship on Hegel's views on race and colonialism has cast doubt on whether his systematic political philosophy and philosophy of history can be of similar use to progressives. Hegel was undeniably a Eurocentric thinker, but philosophers like Robert Bernasconi and Alison Stone have convincingly shown that he was also a racist and a defender of colonialism. Crucially, however, few of the scholars who write on Hegel's pro-colonialism have analysed this feature of Hegel's thought in connection with the lord-bondsman dialectic. In this article, I argue for two connected theses. First, I argue that contrary to the hopes of some progressive defenders of Hegel, we cannot easily separate the lord-bondsman dialectic from Hegel's pro-colonialism. This is because Hegel himself appealed to the lord-bondsman dialectic to argue that colonial slavery educated its victims, and could therefore be temporarily justified. Second, I argue that this pro-colonial reading of the dialectic, though largely ignored by contemporary interpreters, was in fact recognized and embraced by a group of Hegelians in North America known as the St Louis Hegelians. They used the lord-bondsman dialectic as a basis for a qualified defence of pre-Civil War American slavery. (shrink)

Although Thomas Hobbes’s critics have often accused him of espousing a form of extreme subjection that differs only in name from outright slavery, Hobbes’s own striking views about slavery have attracted little notice. For Hobbes repeatedly insists that slaves, uniquely among the populace, maintain an unlimited right of resistance by force. But how seriously should we take this doctrine, particularly in the context of the rapidly expanding Atlantic slave trade of Hobbes’s time? While there are several reasons to (...) doubt whether Hobbes’s arguments here should be taken at face value, the most serious stems from the highly restricted definition that he gives to the term “slave,” one that would seem to make his acceptance of slave resistance entirely hollow in practice. Yet a closer examination of Hobbes’s theory indicates that his understanding of slavery is less narrow than it might initially appear—and thus that his argument carries a genuine political bite. (shrink)

Examining the literature of slavery and race before the Civil War, Maurice Lee demonstrates for the first time exactly how the slavery crisis became a crisis of philosophy that exposed the breakdown of national consensus and the limits of rational authority. Poe, Stowe, Douglass, Melville, and Emerson were among the antebellum authors who tried - and failed - to find rational solutions to the slavery conflict. Unable to mediate the slavery controversy as the nation moved toward (...) war, their writings form an uneasy transition between the confident rationalism of the American Enlightenment and the more skeptical thought of the pragmatists. Lee draws on antebellum moral philosophy, political theory, and metaphysics, bringing a fresh perspective to the literature of slavery - one that synthesizes cultural studies and intellectual history to argue that romantic, sentimental, and black Atlantic writers all struggled with modernity when facing the slavery crisis. (shrink)

Although NGOs around the globe are hard at work on a number of issues, not much has been written about hierodulic slavery. Recent evidence on slavery, in general, indicates that Mauritania, for example, still has a number of individuals serving as slaves in situations where, according to local custom, a hereditary basis for the practice is instantiated. But hierodulic slavery—or slavery based on religious tradition and frequently tied to temple worship—is comparatively uncommon, and probably most prevalent (...) in certain South Asian societies. Although this type of servitude can have an enormously detrimental effect on young individuals, serious work on this issue is only now beginning. Some... (shrink)

At a time when many institutions of higher learning are reflecting on their past complicity with chattel slavery, either in terms of the sources of their funding or their use of slave labor, philosophy as an academic discipline has been largely silent about its own complicity. Questions surrounding the legitimacy and practice of slavery were a regular part of moral philosophy courses at universities from the sixteenth century until its abolition. However, the discussions of slavery found in (...) the dominant textbooks tended to be deeply conservative judged even by the standards of those times. This partly explains why after emancipation the many moral questions posed by slavery are barely mentioned in survey histories of ethics or of political philosophy today: this is a context in which academic philosophy does not show itself to its best advantage. The present article explores what academic philosophers need to do to redress the discipline's past failures, including its virtual silence about slavery since the Civil War. Given today's political environment, academic philosophers need to reflect on how the discipline in its institutional form functions within a system governed by the legacy of slavery and its aftermath. (shrink)

Slavery and Empire in Central Asia By EdenJeff, ix + 227 pp. Price HB £75.00. EAN 978–1108470513.

The critical reception of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus Tales has often interpreted these animal fables as allegories of American slavery. Such an approach, however, risks what Steve Baker calls the ‘denial of the animal’, which displaces animal signifiers onto human signifieds. Through readings of ‘The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story’ and ‘How the Birds Talk’, I ask what it might mean to take seriously the numerous historical, political and philosophical questions posed by the animal ‘form’ that these characters assume, including (...) Heidegger's ontological differentiation between thing, animal and human, and Derrida's displacement of the conventional Cartesian distinction between animal reaction and human response. I argue that the racist equation of blacks with mimicry relies precisely on this dubious opposition. Remus's stories thus challenge our understandings of both race and language by showing how repetition and mimicry condition every ‘human’ response. (shrink)

In the 1780s through the end of 1790s, Kant made various references to slavery (in its different forms) and the transatlantic slave trade in the context of his political philosophy or philosophy of right; he thereby had opportunities to speak in favor of abolitionism, which was gaining momentum in parts of Europe, or at least to articulate a normative critique of the race-based chattel slavery or Atlantic slavery and the associated slave trade qua (legalized) INSTITUTIONS; but he (...) did neither. Why? In raising and seeking an answer to this question, I am not interested in what Kant’s normative silence about the institutions of Atlantic slavery and slave trade may tell us about him as a person (for example, whether he was blinded by his own racist prejudices or whether he was affected by some kind of cognitive dissonance). Rather, I will focus on what it may tell us about certain limitations of his political philosophy, limitations that might have made it THEORETICALLY DIFFICULT for him to figure out exactly what to DO about those institutions as entrenched political realities. (shrink)

According to an oft-repeated narrative, while Kant maintained racist views through the 1780s, he changed his mind in the 1790s. Pauline Kleingeld introduced this narrative based on passages from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals and “Toward Perpetual Peace”. On her reading, Kant categorically condemned chattel slavery in those texts, which meant that he became more racially egalitarian. But the passages involving slavery, once contextualized, either do not concern modern, race-based chattel slavery or at best suggest that Kant mentioned (...) it as a cautionary tale for labor practices in Europe. Overall, Kant never explicitly considered chattel slavery as a moral problem to be addressed on its own. Rather, he treated it primarily in terms of its function in human history. If he ended up expressing some qualms about its practices, it was likely because they threatened to deepen intra-European conflicts and undermine the prospect of perpetual peace. The humanity of the enslaved “Negroes” was never part of the reasoning. This was not a casual oversight on Kant’s part. It reflects the complexity of his philosophical system: everything he did or did not say about chattel slavery begins to make sense once we connect his philosophy of history and his depiction of “Negroes” as natural slaves. (shrink)

In 1978 and 1979, while a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, Orlando Patterson engaged in a number of conversations about slavery with Cambridge ancient historian M. I. Finley. Both men were at the time writing influential books on slavery that would mark important benchmarks in their careers and defined two approaches to the study of slavery, one fading in significance, the other introducing a comparative approach to the institution more focused on dynamics of power and social alienation. (...) At the end of 1978, Finley delivered at the Collège de France four lectures that summarized his thinking on the topic over more than thirty years; two years later they appeared in print under the title Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology. In 1982 Patterson published Slavery and Social Death, a ground-breaking study that to this day remains unparalleled in its attempt to establish a globally valid definition of slavery applicable to some sixty-six slave-owning societies across three millennia. This article explores the intersection of these two works, the intellectual currents of the times in which they were produced, and the influence each exerted on the study of slavery in subsequent decades, as models and paradigms of two approaches to understanding the significance of the institution. (shrink)

Plantation slavery in the New World, in particular its relationship to the emergence of capitalism in Europe and North America, has long been a subject of debate and discussion among historians and social scientists. While there are literally thousands of monographs studying various aspects of chattel slavery in the US South, the Caribbean and Brazil, only a handful of works attempt to provide a synthetic account of its rise and decline from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Few scholars, (...) on the Left or Right, have made as profound a contribution to such a history as Robin Blackburn. Blackburn’s latest work, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights, does not simply summarise and update his earlier work, but extends his analysis to the rise and decline of ‘second slavery’ in nineteenth-century Cuba, Brazil and the US South. The American Crucible provides a multi-causal explanation of the origins and abolition of New World plantation slavery, examining the complex interactions between the rise of capitalism, political crises in the metropolitan countries, the transformation of popular and elite attitudes toward slavery, and the struggles of the slaves themselves. However, Blackburn’s inability to grapple with the specific structure and dynamics of capitalist and slave social-property relations, and their changing historical relationship, weakens key elements of his analysis. (shrink)

This chapter aims to present some of the highlights of the early modern debate about slavery. We will start by exploring theoretical debates about slavery by nature. As we will see, several authors view natural slavery as incompatible with widely held doctrines about human equality and natural liberty. Yet we will also see that many early modern authors are sympathetic to natural slavery—perhaps surprisingly so. Moreover, we will see that even in texts that are not explicitly (...) about transatlantic slavery, natural slavery is often tied to race. Next, we turn to theoretical debates about circumstantial slavery. We will see that most early modern authors accept at least some instances of this type of justification. It is only in the mid-eighteenth century that some prominent philosophers reject circumstantial slavery categorically, though there are earlier philosophers who argue against some forms of it while accepting others. Finally, we will examine the portion of the debate that is explicitly about transatlantic slavery. As one would expect, racial natural slavery plays a major role in this debate. What is surprising, however, is that race enters the debate earlier than one might think. As early as the 1680s, when theories of race were still in their infancy, critics of transatlantic slavery argue that racial bias fuels transatlantic slavery and that proponents of slavery view Black people as subhuman and as natural slaves. (shrink)

Many antislavery authors in the eighteenth century contend that enslavement degrades the human mind and causes enslaved people to exhibit inferior moral or intellectual traits. They often use this contention to combat the racist claim that Black people are naturally inferior to Whites and that this natural inferiority justifies enslavement, insisting instead that the disparity is simply an effect of enslavement. After examining this argumentative strategy and what makes it appealing, this paper investigates several ways in which it is problematic. (...) First, this strategy was sometimes used to oppose the immediate abolition of slavery: some eighteenth-century authors argue that many enslaved people have become incapable of living good lives outside of slavery and that immediate emancipation would therefore be detrimental for them and for society. Moreover, this strategy may further marginalize and demonize an already oppressed group and it sometimes blames, or seems to blame, enslaved people for their condition. The paper ends with some reflections on whether the strategy can nevertheless be useful for antislavery purposes. (shrink)

Despite the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, slavery is not confined to the past. Many forms of slavery exist worldwide today, as highlighted by increased recent awareness of trafficking. International, and some national, legislation to combat contemporary slavery and trafficking exists, yet these practices continue. As important as legislation is its effective and sensitive implementation. With trafficking, we need to recognise the complexities of forced labour within a global context and move policy beyond its current restricted (...) and potentially harmful focus on immigration. This includes providing support for those leaving forced labour and generating a thorough understanding of causal factors in order to reduce future vulnerability. (shrink)

Critics have charged that John Stuart Mill''s discussion as of paternalism in On Liberty is internally inconsistent, noting, for example, the numerous instances in which Mill explicitly endorses examples of paternalistic coercion. Similarly, commentators have noted an apparent contradiction between Mill''s political liberalism – according to which the state should be neutral among competing conceptions of the good – and Mill''s condemnation of non-autonomous ways of life, such as that of a servile wife. More generally, critics have argued that while (...) Mill professes an allegiance to utilitarianism, he actually abandons it in favor of a view that values personal autonomy as the greatest intrinsic good. This paper presents an interpretation of Mill that provides a viable and consistent treatment of paternalism, thereby refuting each of the aforementioned critiques. Mill''s views, it argues, are consistently utilitarian. Moreover, the interpretation accounts for all of Mill''s departures from his otherwise blanket prohibition of paternalistic legislation. In particular, it explains his most notorious example, the condemnation of voluntary contracts for slavery. The interpretation emphasizes Mill''s conceptual linkage between autonomy and utility, noting his implicit use of at least three different senses of the notion of autonomy. (shrink)

The article sets forth Ronald Dworkin’s efforts to avert the slavery of the talented within his theory of equality, so that they are not forced to work full-time at one type of job, but then criticises Dworkin for failing to apply similar concerns to not so talented workers. It argues that he overlooks the problem of the slavery of the not so talented that results from the tough rules he proposes for dealing with insurance payouts. Finally, it tries (...) to show how this unfairness can be avoided with a better interpretation of the likely outcome of his hypothetical insurance experiment given a better understanding of the motivations of parties operating within that experiment. (shrink)

The modern slavery literature engages with history in an extremely limited fashion. Our paper demonstrates to the utility of historical research to modern slavery researchers by explaining the rise and fall of the ethics-driven market category of “free-grown sugar” in nineteenth-century Britain. In the first decades of the century, the market category of “free-grown sugar” enabled consumers who were opposed to slavery to pay a premium for a more ethical product. After circa 1840, this market category disappeared, (...) even though considerable quantities of slave-grown sugar continued to arrive into the UK. We explain the disappearance of the market category. Our paper contributes to the on-going debates about slavery in management by historicizing and thus problematizing the concept of “slavery”. The paper challenges those modern slavery scholars who argue that lack of consumer knowledge about product provenance is the main barrier to the elimination of slavery from today’s international supply chains. The historical research presented in this paper suggests that consumer indifference, rather than simply ignorance, may be the more fundamental problem. The paper challenges the optimistic historical metanarrative that pervades much of the research on ethical consumption. It highlights the fragility of ethics-driven market categories, offering lessons for researchers and practitioners seeking to tackle modern slavery. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethics of the Australian business community’s responses to the phenomenon of modern slavery. Engaging a critical discourse approach, we draw upon a data set of submissions by businesses and business representatives to the Australian government’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade ‘Parliamentary Inquiry into Establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia’—which preceded the signing into law of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018—to examine the business community’s discursive construction in their submissions (...) of the ethical–political concept of freedom. The paper shows how the concept of freedom was employed by Australian business in a manner that privileged their own subject status and advocated for legislation with minimal burden. Relating this contemporary case to a longer historical context, we show how Australian business responses towards modern slavery map onto liberal and neoliberal ethics in which the freedom of the propertied takes precedent over that of the property-less. Further, we show discursive similarities in the arguments presented by modern Australian businesses and certain historical efforts by members of the business community to privilege commercial freedoms in responses to 18th and 19th Century abolitionist movements. Overall, our research makes two important contributions: first, it highlights the value of a critical discourse lens in business ethics research to show how business and other stakeholders in the field construct and shape their own and other’s ethically-laden understanding of reality; and second, it presents a case for considerable scepticism about the motivation of business to employ the freedoms made available to it under neo/liberal discourse to confront a key human rights challenge. (shrink)

Seventeenth-century natural-law philosophers participated in colonizing and slave-trading companies, yet they discussed slavery as an abstraction. This dispassionate approach is commonly explained with the “distance thesis” that the practice of slavery was at some remove from Northwest Europe. I contest the thesis, with a specific focus on pre-Restoration English discourse and Hobbes's political theory. By laying out the salient context — English experience of Barbary-coast slavery and an inherited neo-Roman intellectual frame — I argue, first, that (...) class='Hi'>slavery was hardly a distant phenomenon and, second, that Hobbes's discussion of slavery expressed ideas familiar in ordinary discourse. The conclusion contrasts the English neo-Roman outlook with Spanish neo-Aristotelianism. (shrink)

Torture has become the subject of intense debate in recent years. One facet of that debate is whether there are any circumstances during which it might be an appropriate response by a respectable government. One might wonder precisely why torture receives so much more attention than, say, the "collateral damage" that is an inevitable aspect of contemporary warfare. But the debate also involves what counts as "torture," as distinguished from "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" methods of interrogation or even "coercive but (...) acceptable" methods. This article argues that we sometimes overemphasize the significance of particular acts — i.e., x either is or is not torture — as against the importance of the phenomenology of torture, which involves creating a structure of complete domination and, therefore, complete vulnerability. This is similar to the phoenomenology of slavery. Indeed, in this 150th year since the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case, it is important to contemplate the full meaning of Chief Justice Taney's declaration that blacks had "no rights" that whites were "bound to respect." Can a liberal political order ever carve out a set of persons — such as suspected terrorists — who indeed have "no rights" that the state is obligated to respect? If the answer is no, then what are the implications for the process by which the United States, presumably a liberal political order, conducts interrogations even of those suspected of being "the worst of the worst"? (shrink)

The work of Cox, Bales, Dingwaney, and others is cited in an effort to construct an argument about the special rights violations of contemporary slavery. It is contended that two forms, debt bondage and sexual slavery, are related and bear close examination.

This chapter focuses on the question of what, if anything, early modern philosophers have to say about the special status of human beings and its implications for the right to freedom. As we will see, they have quite a lot to say about it. I will concentrate on the question of whether, for these early modern authors, the special status of human beings makes it illegitimate for one human being to dominate other human beings completely, or to literally and fully (...) own them. In other words, I focus on whether, according to at least some early modern thinkers, human beings can possess the same rights over other human beings as one was thought to have over the brute animals and inanimate objects that one fully owns. (shrink)

In the year 2000, there were some 27 million slaves in the world. This book brings into focus the reality of contemporary slavery with vivid examples drawn from cases ranging from the Sudan and India to France and the United States. Weaving statistical and narrative information, this volume explores the causes of the practice and sketches the organizations that exist to battle it.

My goal in this paper is to shed light on how moral progress actually occurs. I begin by restating a conception of moral progress that I set out in previous work, the “Naïve Conception,” and explain how it comports with various normative and metaethical views. I go on to develop an index of moral progress and show how judgments about moral progress can be made. I then discuss an example of moral progress from the past—the British abolition of the Atlantic (...) slave trade—with a view to what can be learned from this for a contemporary struggle for moral progress: the movement to decarbonize the global economy. I close with some thoughts about how moral progress actually occurs. (shrink)

For a number of years, in the not too distant past, there was a lively debate between Plato's defenders and critics over the question of whether his Republic contained slaves. However, since the appearance of an article by Gregory Vlastos1 some twenty years ago, it seems to have been generally felt that the issue has been resolved, and the controversy has died down. Vlastos argued that the evidence admits of no doubt - Plato included slaves in his ideal state. In (...) this paper, I wish to have the case reopened, and to revive interest in what I believe should continue to be a matter of debate. In opposition to what has become the standard view, I am inclined to think, on balance, that his Republic could not contain slaves. Vlastos begins by reminding us that, on those occasions when Plato wants to propose a radical change from existing institutions, he argues for such a change. If he had intended to abolish slavery from his ideal society, this would have been a radical change, and we should have expected him to indicate clearly such an intention, and to justify it. Since no justification is forthcoming, we may presume that no change is envisaged. This line of argument I shall call the presumptive argument. One version of it is mentioned by R. B. Levinson,2 namely that the rough and dirty work, carried on behind the scene by slaves, will take place as usual, and the continuance of slavery is assumed without question. (shrink)

A deep dive into the influences of Hegelian thought on the work of revolutionary and postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon Hegel is most often mentioned – and not without good reason – as one of the paradigmatic exponents of Eurocentrism and racism in Western philosophy. But his thought also played a crucial and formative role in the work of one of the iconic thinkers of the ‘decolonial turn’, Frantz Fanon. This would be inexplicable if it were not for the much-quoted ‘lord-bondsman’ (...) dialectic – frequently referred to as the ‘master-slave dialectic’ – described in Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit. Fanon takes up this dialectic negatively in contexts of violence-riven (post-)slavery and colonialism; yet in works such as Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth he upholds a Hegelian-inspired vision of freedom. The essays in this collection offer close readings of Hegel’s text, and of responses to it in the work of twentieth-century philosophers, that highlight the entangled history of the translations, transpositions and transformations of Hegel in the work of Fanon, and more generally in colonial, postcolonial and decolonial contexts. (shrink)

In this paper I examine O'Neill's argument (from Constructions of Reason) for the inconsistency of the universalized maxim of slavery. Although I agree that the universalized maxim of slavery entails a contradiction, her argument is a bit quick and leaves room for some potentially damaging objections. I intend to show that each of these objections can ultimately be met by expanding O'Neill's argument to include a more detailed treatment of the enslavement relation and its maxim. In so doing (...) I hope to provide a conclusive argument for the claim that the maxim of slavery cannot be conceived as a universal law. (shrink)

The slavery contract is not a rights violation since the right not to be enslaved and the right not to give out a benefit are waivable and the conjunction of their voluntary waiver is not itself a rights violation. The case for the contract being pejoratively exploitative is not clear. Hence given the general presumption in favor of liberty of contract, such a transaction ought to be permitted. The contract is also not invalid on the grounds that the wrongdoer’s (...) consent to it necessarily reflects involuntariness or irrationality or on the grounds that it is logically impossible for the wrongdoer to satisfy the contract. Allowing such contracts may not have desirable consequences, but for the liberal this by itself is not a sufficient reason against allowing them. One case where the slavery contract might be relevant is where a victim’s agent or the state agrees to waive its claim to harsh punishment in return for the offender agreeing to be enslaved. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: I II III Acknowledgement.

What should we do with statues and place‐names memorializing people who committed human‐rights abuses linked to slavery and postslavery racism? In this article, I draw on UN principles of transitional justice to address this question. I propose that a successful approach should meet principles of transitional justice recognized by the United Nations, including affirming rights to justice, truth, reparations, and guarantees of nonrecurrence of human rights violations. I discuss four strategies for handling contested heritage, examining strengths and weaknesses of (...) each strategy. Examples from Bristol, England, highlight common challenges and positive lessons. (shrink)

This chapter reviews the historical evidence concerning the development of slavery in eastern Africa, the various forms found in societies on the coast and in the interior, the social and cultural consequences of enslavement, and its ultimate abolition. It then looks at the known and potential archaeological traces of the trajectories of these different systems of slavery, with particular reference to the area along the middle and lower Pangani River, Tanzania. The chapter concludes with a consideration of whether (...) or not it would be possible to discern slavery from the surviving archaeological remains alone, and the implications of this answer for future archaeological investigations of slavery elsewhere in the region. (shrink)

Leading archaeologists and historians provide new studies of slavery, slave resistance and the economic, environmental and political consequences of slave trading in Africa, from the first millennium AD through to the nineteenth century.

The purpose of this article is to problematise a particular social transparency and disclosure regulation in the UK, that transcend national boundaries in order to control slavery in supply chains operating in the developing world. Drawing on notions from the regulatory and sociology literature, i.e. transparency and normativity, and by interviewing anti-slavery activists and experts, this study explores the limitations of the disclosure and transparency requirements of the UK Modern Slavery Act and, more specifically, how anti-slavery (...) activists experience and interpret the new regulations and the regulators’ implementation of the regulation. This research found limited confidence among anti-slavery activists regarding the Act’s call for transparency in relation to the elimination of slavery from global supply chains. The research also found that the limits of the transparency provisions within the Act appear to hinder the attainment of normativity. This study provides new and unique insights into the critical role that social activists play in exposing the lack of corporate transparency and failures of responsibility to protect workers within global supply chains. (shrink)

DOES SLAVERY EXIST BY NATURE as some throughout history have been taken to believe? Or is slavery merely conventional, sanctioned by the opinions and practices of diverse communities? Is it a punishment for sinfulness or proscribed by the natural law? Can one sell oneself into slavery as the result of a free exchange, or is slavery prohibited by virtue of the natural rights of the individual? Is slavery a necessary moment in the struggle of human (...) beings to attain mutual recognition and respect? Or have modern institutions like the market economy and the state created new and potentially more ominous forms of oppression? (shrink)

This paper traces the evolution of a coherent feminist genre in written historical texts during and after slavery, and in relation to contemporary feminist writing in the West Indies. The paper problematizes the category ‘woman’ during slavery, arguing that femininity was itself deeply differentiated by class and race, thus leading to historical disunity in the notion of feminine identity during slavery. This gender neutrality has not been sufficiently appreciated in contemporary feminist thought leading to liberal feminist politics (...) in the region. This has proved counter productive in the attempts of Caribbean feminist theorizing to provide alternative understandings of the construction of the nation-state as it emerged out of slavery and the role of women themselves in the shaping of modern Caribbean society. (shrink)

Facsimile of 1943 Edition. In this work Berdyaev outlines his philosophical journey and describes the influences which brought him to his intellectual position. In his view, the only way of escape from the many forms of slavery--spiritual, economic, political--which shackle and impoverish the spirit lies in the fuller realization of personality, as he defines it. Berdyaev essentially embraced a religious view of man in the world and his work played a large part in the renaissance of religious and philosophical (...) thought in Russian intellectual life early in the 20th century. In 1922 he and other intellectuals were expelled from the USSR. In the end he advocated for a "personal transvaluation of values.". (shrink)

Using the writings of slaves and former slaves, as well as commentaries on slavery, Between Slavery and Freedom explores the American slave experience to gain a better understanding of six moral and political concepts—oppression, paternalism, resistance, political obligation, citizenship, and forgiveness. The authors use analytical philosophy as well as other disciplines to gain insight into the thinking of a group of people prevented from participating in the social/political discourse of their times. Between Slavery and Freedom rejects the (...) notion that philosophers need not consider individual experience because philosophy is "impartial" and "universal." A philosopher should also take account of matters that are essentially perspectival, such as the slave experience. McGary and Lawson demonstrate the contribution of all human experience, including slave experiences, to the quest for human knowledge and understanding. (shrink)