But as a side note, if there was a mystical amulet in the tomb which could remove all sympathies for slavery from a person’s mind—don’t you think we would use it on them?
I don’t know which way the decision would fall, but I definitely don’t think the answer would be an immediate and unambiguous “yes”; effective, involuntary modification of people’s ethics isn’t something our culture has ever had to deal with in reality, and when it’s come up in fiction (e.g. Nineteen Eighty-Four) it’s usually been treated negatively. We’re comfortable with encouraging endogenous ethical change by way of perspective or incentives (carrot and stick both), but that’s not quite the same thing.
You could make a consequential case for it, of course.
You could make a consequential case for it, of course
Certainly true, and disturbing, especially for those of us who feel that consequentialism is in some way “correct”. Since far-future people are virtually guaranteed to have radically different values than us, and likely would have the ability to directly modify our (to them frighteningly evil) values, wouldn’t we (per murder-Gandhi) want to spread a deontological system that forbids tampering with other people’s values, even if we feel that in general consequentialism based on our current society’s values is more morally beneficial? That is, would we prefer for some small spark of our moral system to survive into the distant future, at the expense of it being lost in the here and now?
Hmm. Interesting question, but I’d say no; a forced conversion can’t affect a person’s actual convictions, only their ritual performance and other aspects of outward behavior. That might over time lead to changes in convictions, but that would be more analogous to our slave-owners upthread being exposed to modern society and learning in good after-school special form that slavery is bad, mmkay?
But as a side note, if there was a mystical amulet in the tomb which could remove all sympathies for slavery from a person’s mind—don’t you think we would use it on them?
I don’t know which way the decision would fall, but I definitely don’t think the answer would be an immediate and unambiguous “yes”; effective, involuntary modification of people’s ethics isn’t something our culture has ever had to deal with in reality, and when it’s come up in fiction (e.g. Nineteen Eighty-Four) it’s usually been treated negatively. We’re comfortable with encouraging endogenous ethical change by way of perspective or incentives (carrot and stick both), but that’s not quite the same thing.
You could make a consequential case for it, of course.
Certainly true, and disturbing, especially for those of us who feel that consequentialism is in some way “correct”. Since far-future people are virtually guaranteed to have radically different values than us, and likely would have the ability to directly modify our (to them frighteningly evil) values, wouldn’t we (per murder-Gandhi) want to spread a deontological system that forbids tampering with other people’s values, even if we feel that in general consequentialism based on our current society’s values is more morally beneficial? That is, would we prefer for some small spark of our moral system to survive into the distant future, at the expense of it being lost in the here and now?
Don’t forced religious conversions (especially mass ones) qualify?
Hmm. Interesting question, but I’d say no; a forced conversion can’t affect a person’s actual convictions, only their ritual performance and other aspects of outward behavior. That might over time lead to changes in convictions, but that would be more analogous to our slave-owners upthread being exposed to modern society and learning in good after-school special form that slavery is bad, mmkay?