Does the positive side of tribalism/racism outshine the negative side?

[The Grand Nudger]

So, here's another good one. We note that the abrahamic religions all endorse and legitimize slavery - and we see that as a failure from great authority. Consider that every abrahamic religion was born into a society of slavery, and none of them were the dominant cultural power from the moment of their birth.

Railing against slavery, then, may have very likely consigned their new faiths to obscurity. The instrumental good, here, was to endorse slavery - to go along to get along...but we can see by the mere existence of provisions against slavery in those same ideologies (often contained to benefiting the in-group exclusively) that they thought there was some moral problem with slavery.

As far as my own universe, no? This isn't an endorsement of the process, it's the observation that we engage in it. We like stories more than we like lectures...so if you want alot of people to learn something (true or false), and you can put it in a story, you do that. This is what makes fantasy an instrumental good. It's good-for smuggling boring truths into packets of exciting and engaging lies.

[Silver]

I admit that Jews have risen far above and beyond as far as humanity is concerned. That was never the issue.

As far as christianity is concerned, we have a group of people who were supposedly oppressed and then decided to oppress everyone else. If that's not love, what is?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yet another great example. Charitably, christianity is good and set out to do good and...somehow....did the other thing. This not only validates our concern for instrumental goods weight over moral evil - it reaffirms that core truth of christianity we discussed earlier and describes the power of fantasy. That there's something about us that will make evil compelling. That truth, spread by virtue of it's being packaged with exciting and engaging lies.

The snake downright eats it's tail on this one, and that might be on account of how these fantasies, ideologies, and questions are just an elaborate way of sniffing our own asses.

[Silver]

Taking a step back, going along to get along is a mere cop out for the temporary power and prestige offered when the conscience should surely be rallying against it.

Thankfully, we have a few people who are brave enough to go against the status quo in order to do what is right, but the battles fought to do what is right should not be necessary.

[The Grand Nudger]

An instrumental good can be and very often is a moral evil. That's the essence of the OP q.

We're compromised, but not completely incapable. In the same way that we can acknowledge an instance in which we have knowingly and willingly done a bad thing for some desired end, we can decide that the instrumental good would certainly work...but carrying it out would be unacceptable.

We could eradicate hereditary disease by eradicating the populations which carry it. We can solve our labor problems through slavery. Only after satisfying ourselves of somethings efficacy and necessity do we know what we're weighing against it's moral nature. Both of the above fail by necessity, and personally...I don't think that they get to stage three if they've already failed at stage two. The final analysis is entirely one sided. The moral weight of evil is at least present, and often immense.....the instrumental weight is zero. They may work, but other things do the same job without the moral baggage, and the entire point of the comparison is to help us pick the least bad option, at least.

A compromised agency navigating exclusively sub-optimal decision fields.

[Silver]

There weren't any labor issues. There were lazy white people who wanted slaves to do everything for them. Just as today there are lazy, greedy corporations who want the working poor to do everything for them.

Ironically, we're facing the same backward issue today with immigrants who are working the jobs that whites don't want while the whites complain about there being no jobs.

[The Grand Nudger]

There were labor issues aplenty. A single unworked acre is a labor issue. We've improved on that count, since then...and we could have always done what we do today. Pay labor. We still have moral issues to resolve in this context, but not the moral issue of chattel slavery. We contend that wages are clearly superior in the moral context, and we've come to realize that they're superior in the instrumental context as well.

We didn't get rid of slavery because it didn't address any problem or because there was no problem to address, we got rid of it because addressing that problem in that way lead to more trouble than it could have ever been worth...and we found a better way to achieve the desired end.

[Greatest I am]

Slavery is not now nor has it ever been welfare. 

Why do you think the the older religions not speak out against slavery?

There were many poor and hungry. What safety net did they have other than stealing or starving?

Regards
DL

---

Slavery has only ever been one thing: owning another person as though s/he was property.

Nonsensical apologetic gibberish aside, christianity condoned slavery. As is the norm for christianity, it only ever grudgingly changes its mind on something when the majority decides against it.

Same question I just asked above.

Regards
DL

[Sal]

"The ends justify the means" has only ever been tentatively true. I.e. someone lying to cover for themselves or someone else to avoid harm (the usual situational example of an abusive husband looking for their wife at a friends house and the friend lying to the husband about their whereabouts springs to mind, and the very real examples of people lying to the Gestapo covering for hidden Jews during Nazy Germany). I think this is similarly true tribalism/racism. It becomes skewed, easily, when considering the short pathway between tribalism and 'othering' people, dehumanizing them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, a correction and a potential explanation. Older religions™ do speak out against slavery, even while they endorse slavery, just like the abrahamics. As for why it became an issue of record all over the world before or by the axial age - look to the changing circumstances of human society.

They needed alot more people than they'd ever needed before, and they needed that increased labor for an existential requirement of their civilization. I don't know what the potential issues with a brain transfer are because we don't have much experience with brain transfers, so you aren't going to find me waxing on about the moral issues of brain transfers. Rest assured, however, that it will become a hot topic as soon as we get more experience with it. The same was likely true of slavery. It's a relatively new development for us and an aberrant but powerful current in culture.

Slaves weren't fed, they fed their masters and themselves. That's not welfare...that's theft.