How Is Slavery A Clearly Immoral Law, Widely Accepted In The Past?
1. In order for Mrs. Auld to be an effective slave owner, she had to treat Douglass like a slave. In order for her to treat him like a slave, she neglected to recognize his humanity. As strange as it sounds, Douglass implied that slave owners would feel guiltier if they treated slaves well. This is because treating them well would have required acknowledging that they were human; if slave owners had recognized the humanity of slaves it would have been difficult for them to stomach the institution of slavery. Douglass points out the digression of Mrs. Auld’s ethical treatment towards him, and believes that her increasing cruelty is a type of coping mechanism. This means that in order for her to hold the irresponsible power of slave ownership
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The laws in Douglass’s time were immoral because they dehumanized, oppressed, and abused people. They denied basic human rights to a group of people and therefore permitted actions that morality does not. These laws were created in attempt to maintain slavery. Today, it is obvious to any healthy minded American that slavery is immoral. As long as that truth remains apparent to the majority of people, slavery cannot and will not exist as an institution in the same way that it did before. So the question that surfaces is: “How was slavery, a clearly immoral law, widely accepted in the past?” Slavery is partially explained by the fact that it was based on a misconception. That misconception was that one race of people was inferior to another, which we now know to be completely untrue. Another reason that slavery was able to exist was that many of those who recognized the wrongness of it either did not or could not do anything to stop it. A modern example of this happening is the case of pollution. We are aware that it is wrong, detrimental to the environment, and maintained by human beings such as ourselves. However, we passively accept it by claiming our own insignificance to the matter; and so, like the slave owners, we sleep better at night by assuring ourselves and each other: “we could not stop it if we
The laws in Douglass’s time were immoral because they dehumanized, oppressed, and abused people. They denied basic human rights to a group of people and therefore permitted actions that morality does not. These laws were created in attempt to maintain slavery. Today, it is obvious to any healthy minded American that slavery is immoral. As long as that truth remains apparent to the majority of people, slavery cannot and will not exist as an institution in the same way that it did before. So the question that surfaces is: “How was slavery, a clearly immoral law, widely accepted in the past?” Slavery is partially explained by the fact that it was based on a misconception. That misconception was that one race of people was inferior to another, which we now know to be completely untrue. Another reason that slavery was able to exist was that many of those who recognized the wrongness of it either did not or could not do anything to stop it. A modern example of this happening is the case of pollution. We are aware that it is wrong, detrimental to the environment, and maintained by human beings such as ourselves. However, we passively accept it by claiming our own insignificance to the matter; and so, like the slave owners, we sleep better at night by assuring ourselves and each other: “we could not stop it if we