CitizenCane
Posts: 349
Joined: 3/11/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: mistoferin In the situation you described it doesn't sound like the slave ever actually gave consent. Maybe you didn't share that part? Regardless, consent is only good up to the moment of withdrawal of consent. People like to talk about blanket consent which is only given once, the truth is though that it's a fantasy. Human beings have the right to withdraw consent. Some may "feel" as though they can't, and I can certainly understand that...but they really can and anyone who pushes past the point that consent is withdrawn is guilty of coercion. In some kind of general, abstract moral/ethical sense, I approve of this sentiment, but in practice it's not true. I enter into contracts all the time, and I can't withdraw my consent whenever I choose. If you join the army, you can't withdraw your consent whenever you choose. Even in situations where there is no legal contract and no prospect of enforcement, the same ethical issues that suggest that a person should be free to withdraw consent suggest that- oh my- they shouldn't. That is to say, that the withdrawal of consent is an action, and if unilateral, it's a unilateral action impacting another person, which puts it into the same class as any other unilateral action affecting other people. People may or may not have the ability to withdraw consent under various circumstances, but having the ability is not the same as having some kind of ethical 'right' to do so. Our current legal system certainly does not support any contracts of consensual slavery, so there is no question of enforcement, but the ethical issue remains. In the example cited, it's not clear that there was any consent or that the relationship agreed to was one of 'anything the Master wants', and it would appear that the Master in this situation was attempting to compel compliance with something the slave had never consented to. That's an ethical violation, in my book. In other circumstances, though, I believe that people do ethically acquire the burden of maintaining their consent, often even in situations where the details have not been specified.
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