a2 Slavery as a Means to Moral Obligation

CON: A2: SLAVERY AS A MEANS TO A MORAL OBLIGATION: Steven Darwall of Yale University contends. For a bipolar obligation to exist some action must wrong an obligee; it must constitute a wronging and not just a wrong period. What this means is that in order for slavery to constitute a bipolar obligation the one who is obligated to do something, must be specifically tied to the wronging that warrants this response of reparation. Further: The Foundation for Economic Education explains: Why , then, should the descendants of these groups, let alone first- generation Americans, be financially liable to blacks as a group? In the American legal system, damages hinge on the principle of cause and effect — one pays for the damage one causes. In the case of slavery, there is no culpable person alive to pay for the crime. Perhaps the most important error made by those who argue for reparations is not economic at all but philosophical. The idea of achieving justice by taking money from one group to pay another for an act that was neither committed nor suffered by the parties is a collectivist affront to the American ideal of individualism. People are not interchangeable pawns but individuals responsible for their own actions. Slaves and slave owners are dead, and we cannot bring them back. Contextually, those who committed the atrocities of slavery are gone, also, those who were directly affected by these atrocities are also gone. These two groups are the ones binded together by the bipolar obligation to reparation for slavery, not those alive today.

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This is an answer to slavery as a means to moral obligation.

Transcript of a2 Slavery as a Means to Moral Obligation

Page 1: a2 Slavery as a Means to Moral Obligation

CON:

A2: SLAVERY AS A MEANS TO A MORAL OBLIGATION:

Steven Darwall of Yale University contends.

For a bipolar obligation to exist some action must wrong an obligee; it must constitute a wronging and not just a wrong period.

What this means is that in order for slavery to constitute a bipolar obligation the one who is obligated to do something, must be specifically tied to the wronging that warrants this response of reparation.

Further:

The Foundation for Economic Education explains:

Why, then, should the descendants of these groups, let alone first-generation Americans, be financially liable to blacks as a group? In the American legal system, damages hinge on the principle of cause and effect — one pays for the damage one causes. In the case of slavery, there is no culpable person alive to pay for the crime.

Perhaps the most important error made by those who argue for reparations is not economic at all but philosophical. The idea of achieving justice by taking money from one group to pay another for an act that was neither committed nor suffered by the parties is a collectivist affront to the American ideal of individualism. People are not interchangeable pawns but individuals responsible for their own actions. Slaves and slave owners are dead, and we cannot bring them back.

Contextually, those who committed the atrocities of slavery are gone, also, those who were directly affected by these atrocities are also gone. These two groups are the ones binded together by the bipolar obligation to reparation for slavery, not those alive today.