The modern view of slavery is that it is immoral, and further that the
idea of one person owning another is abhorrent and repulsive.
Okay, this is a relatively recent improvement in human moral standards,
although thoughtful people through history have had qualms about it, and
slavers have never been in the pinnacles of society.
Has what is "moral" changed? The best answer I think is that slavery
has been wrong all along. It violates the most ancient and basic
teachings of compassion and freedom and love. Any rational approach to
ethical deduction comes to that conclusion quite easily.
So what changed? I would say that what changed is that the apologists
for it finally lost the argument, probably because slavery became an
economic burden where it had not been before.
What is right and what is wrong stay right and wrong, but human cultural
views can change -- a lesson that we cannot depend on our culture to
tell us and must work out our ethics for ourselves.
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