2min chapter

Zealots at the Gate cover image

Moral Progress and the Problem of Slavery

Zealots at the Gate

CHAPTER

The Moral Evil of Slavery

"The moral problem of slavery isn't just something that let's say Christians or Muslims or Jews have had to wrestle with," he says. "It's actually strongly influenced how people come to view their scripture, right? So it's our more, you know, imagine you go into a cocktail party today and you're like, oh yeah, I think slavery is fine."

00:00
Speaker 1
This is not an American problem. This is basically an everybody problem. And actually for a lot of communities and traditions, it was actually slavery that forced this as well, right? It's not the issue, the moral problem of slavery isn't just something that let's say Christians or Muslims or Jews have had to wrestle with. It's actually strongly influenced how people come to view their scripture, right? So it's our, our more, you know, imagine you go into a cocktail party today and you're like, oh yeah, I think slavery is fine. I mean, imagine what would happen. You know, imagine the reaction. The moral evil, the profound trans-historical moral evil of slavery is a fixed point in our discourse. It's maybe like one of the few things that you can't question, right? So Holocaust is bad, slavery is bad. Like that's, you know, maybe two things that just no one can disagree on and remain kind of a person in good standing in our society and in the kind of global Western society more broadly. On the other hand, there's no, I don't know of any religious or philosophical tradition that prior to, let's be, let's be generous. Let's say 1700, but really probably more 1800, but let's say 1700, okay? Prior to the, your 1700 of our common era, common era was not totally comfortable with religious slavery, didn't endorse it or defend it or consider it natural or tolerate it, right? So all of like the human heritage prior to 1700 is essentially morally unacceptable according to our standards today. And this is a, you know, it's sort of mind boggling that people don't have to confront this all the time. And they tend to get very upset when they are confronted with it.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode