Thom Hartmann points out that the legal and economic realities of the time were against Jefferson as well. It wasn’t possible to just say, “Okay, y’all are free. Go on out and live a good life.” The state had to be paid for the slave’s warrant of freedom, and even legally freed slaves faced a number challenges that made it likely they would be turned into slaves by some other landowner, especially if they lacked the financial resources to hire a lawyer.

@Portland Mark: Good point.

In any case, I’d always head that Jefferson’s excuse for not freeing his slaves was that they weren’t “ready for it,” as he believed that a newly-freed, uneducated, cultureless, propertyless people would have no sense of community and no real chance of “making it” and would become a perpetually poor and criminally-inclined underclass.

I mean, it’s like I say: “Fluffy Bunnies never defeated Godzilla. If you must defend yourself from Dragons, it’s good to have at least one Dragon on your side. I aim to breathe some fire.”

On topic tho, I kind of object to Chimpy being compared to the Librarian: that lovable ape is usually the most competent character in any book he appears in. Except when compared to Granny Weatherwax, of course.

I’d like to point out that white women were also regarded as being the property of their husbands. Okay, granted, they couldn’t be sold, but they still had no rights to their own bodies. Kind of like in Afghanistan today.

Wow, how did I get roped into the kinky talk? >> People’s breast lol

Pretty much boils down to people believing in an easy route out and then defending it with the same strength that should be used to finding a better way.

So the idea is rather moot but people never get it. A society of cannibals would find it well and good or at least morally neutral to eat another human whereas my personal morals find it repellant to an extreme. However, ethically meat is meat, it is the matter of how you obtain said meat. Ethically, there wouldn’t be a problem with eating a passed on relative as long as you didn’t bring about their demise since they cannot be harmed after their death and if there was an expectation of said consumption after their demise.

So from the beginning, you are opposing something that doesn’t really exist, the concept of objective morals when morals are subjective by nature.

Bad wording in that sentence on my part, I meant “they really think they are a good guy” not “they think they are a really good guy”. Inflated self-opinion is not normally a helpful trait when trying to act morally.

This is basically pared-down virtue ethics, with a modern slant allowing for a personal definition of virtue. It realy gets me down that people assume that right and wrong don’t matter if you can pick them yourself. Surely the personal stake makes it matter more?

I’ve always found the idea of objective values kind of pointless, which is why I lean on the value we can place on our own subjective ideas. Whether or not there is some perfect, objective idea of right and wrong out there, you’ll only have your own flawed percepton of it to work with anyway. Better to trust your own judgement, and work to improve that judgement so that it is deserving of trust.

I simply worry about my family and friends. I have empathy for others but I can’t say that I go completely out of my way to help others, which I would find to be a way to be a “really good guy.”

As for infliction of philosophy, you will find that my mind makes me a willing masochist for such torture, carry on.

So, after the long-winded diatribe, I have to give a weak ‘I don’t know’. Yeah, I studied philosophy, and enjoyed it a bit too much. It became my duty to inflict it on the innocent.

*more biting ensues*