A thought experiment
In this time of vibrant political debate
in the US, I am frequently confronted by the notion of the social
contract. I find this idea
very challenging; both to accept or to refute. So I created a thought experiment
that sums up the issue for me...
Let us hypothesize for a moment that you are a slave. In your captivity, you are permitted to procreate. Your owner proposes the following:
"I will buy your unborn child in exchange for an extra meal for you and your spouse each day."
There are two questions: 1) what is the moral quality of accepting or rejecting such an offer?; and 2) is your child bound by your agreement if you accept?
Discuss.
Let us hypothesize for a moment that you are a slave. In your captivity, you are permitted to procreate. Your owner proposes the following:
"I will buy your unborn child in exchange for an extra meal for you and your spouse each day."
There are two questions: 1) what is the moral quality of accepting or rejecting such an offer?; and 2) is your child bound by your agreement if you accept?
Discuss.
Comments
Laws are in this world a mirror of the (almost) current moral, or at least that's the idea. In your hypothetic world, where slavery is common, the owner must be a rather nice guy. He owns the child anyway. Why should he ask before he takes it away?
Answer to question 2: As a slave you can not accept the agreement anyway, therefore the the child is not bound to the agreement, because the agreement does not exist.
Answer to question 1: Since slaves are not part of the moral, which is something only for persons and a slave is not a person and therefore do not have a moral, the question can not be answered.
Things like that happen were slavery exists or existed. You will find in your history books, that some parents were happy with such a situation, because their child would be better of. In other cases not.
Posted by christian tillmanns At 04:57:43 AM On 12/12/2011 |
1) While it isn't moral by our current standards, in your hypothetical world it is as slavery is an accepted practice.
2) Yes the child is bound by it simply because the laws of that world permit the buying and selling of slaves and the child has been legally sold into slavery.
However, your question appears to be an allegory of the current situation where this generation is borrowing against what a future generation is capable of producing rather than restrict themselves on what is available to them now.
It isn't moral, it really shouldn't be like this.
but yes future generations are bound by it because they have to deal with the situation that they find themselves in.
Sadly nature, human or otherwise, tends towards "more is better" even when intellectually we know it isn't.
Posted by Phil At 04:42:39 AM On 12/14/2011 |