Comment by JaumeGreen
16 days ago
200 years ago slavery was more extended and accepted than today. 50 years ago paedophilia, rape, and other kinds of sex related abuses where more accepted than today. 30 years ago erotic content was more accepted in Europe than today, and violence was less accepted than today.
Morality changes, what is right and wrong changes.
This is accepting reality.
After all they could fix a set of moral standards and just change the set when they wanted. Nothing could stop them. This text is more honest than the alternative.
"Slavery was right 200 years ago and is only wrong today because we've decided it's wrong" is a pretty bold stance to take.
Not "slavery was right 200 years ago" but "slavery wasn't considered as immoral as today 200 years ago". Very different stake.
By definition if you're using the word "considered" you're making some claim that slavery is objectively bad. You can't simultaneously say that morality changes, that what is right and wrong changes, and then say "slavery though is bad objectively it's just people in the 1700s didn't consider it as bad as it is."
Don't you see how that seems at best incredibly inconsistent, and at worst intentionally disingenuous? (For the record I think 99% of people when they use a point like this just haven't spent enough time thinking through the implications of what it means)
3 replies →
The text is more convenient that the alternative.
But surely now we have the absolute knowledge of what is true and good! /s
Slavery was wrong 200 years ago; it is still wrong today. What changed is that the wrongness of slavery became more widely known.