What Is One Thing You Know For Certain And How Can You Justify It?

Main argument: slavery is typically evil

It is virtually agreed by everyone that slavery is inhumane and wrong despite its defense by a few people. Slavery is where people are handled and treated as items to be traded, and forced to work beyond their capacity (Manning, 2004). It is important to express how and why slavery is wrong. The main knowledge question is that ‘what are the negative consequences of slavery?’.

 

Despite the fact that slavery was being regarded natural in the ancient days, it was necessary to abolish it due to the negative observations of the act. The negative impacts of slavery are being obtained after analyzing the rights that every human must possess by virtue of being a human being (Manning, 2004). This act of slavery instead opposes these rights making the lives of other people hard and less enjoyable. Being a beneficiary of this act, one could also put oneself in the shoes of the sufferer in order to feel the pain of the act.

 

The negative consequences of slavery was felt by slaves first of which was the denial of a voice to defend themselves. Human beings are all equal and they must all have a right to speak out what affects them. However, this right was denied all slaves and they could not express their pain to any authority regarding their suffering. Slaves were meant to work in the fields sunup to sundown and having food which was not suitable for human beings including rough and poor sheltering (Manning, 2004). This condition affects the health of any human being for example working beyond one’s capacity reduces one’s life span and the poor feeding affects one’s growth life and the general functionality of the body. The slave women suffered rape and sexual abuse by the fact that they were used as mere properties. Slaves suffered punishments like beating, whipping, mutilation and imprisonment. Such punishments were to assert dominance over their servants. Pregnant women were beaten regardless of the dangers associated to them. Slaves were forced to change from their original names to their masters’ names leaving them without their individual identity as human beings but under the identity of their masters just as properties (Manning, 2004). The impact of slavery in the later days led to the rising of rebellions formed by slaves agitating slavery abolition. In general, slavery was associated with malpractices which involved mistreatment of other human beings basing on their status which was abuse of human rights. Every human being has a right to live a free life with freedom of speech. All human beings have a right to safe health including shelter and this was deprived to slaves. Other rights include freedom from torture, execution and imprisonment. It therefore implies that treatment of slaves opposed the rights of human.

 

However, slavery has a second area of knowledge that expresses its positive implication to those who carried the activity. They believed that all people must not be equal hence creating the gap between the master and the servant and the distinct relationship between the two. Therefore it is regarded as a natural order of universe for some people to be slaves (Inikori, 1992). It is believed that people differ thus we should expect those who are superior in any aspect of life for example in intelligence, knowledge, technology will appear masters of those below them in this regard. Slaves are regarded as inferior beings therefore treating them with cruelty is not a matter of concern and their suffering is regarded ethically acceptable just like the suffering of animals. It is also claimed that slavery is good to slaves meaning slaves are always happier when their lives are being run by their masters (Inikori, 1992). The importance of slaves to certain industries strengthened the positive implication of slavery where a number of industries depended on slave labor to operate. Therefore treating it as evil would be so disastrous to such industries. It was also claimed that it is important for common people to be slaves than leaving them to be free. This is because such common people when left free, they can get involved in some crimes in the society.

Conclusion

However, the main argument states that slavery is atypical evil practice because it creates a big gap between the higher class of people and the lower class. Whereby the upper class treats their servants with little attention of the rights they are entitled to by virtue of being human beings. This therefore makes slaves to be treated with cruelty, denying them a voice to air out their personal feelings, denying them rights to a better and proper life for example their style of living has to be different from that of their masters in terms of feeding, clothing, sheltering and in other aspects of life. Therefore, basing on these grounds, my argument is strongly supported that slavery is an evil practice because of how other people are denied their natural rights.

 

References

Inikori, J. E. (1992). The Atlantic slave trade: Effects on economies, societies, and peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Durham [u.a.: Duke Univ. Press.

Manning, P. (2004). Slavery, colonialism and economic growth in Dahomey, 1640-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.