The Immorality of God - Slavery in the Old Testament

[robvalue]

If we all agree, you me and other civilised people, that we care about human wellbeing, then we should be able to agree from this assumption that slavery is "bad". The fact that we might not have agreed on this is then irrelevant. We do agree.

In another society where they don't care about human wellbeing, or not the wellbeing of certain people, then their idea of what is "good" and "bad" is going to be different. Ours isn't objectively better, but ours is suited to our goals. Theirs would not be suited to our goals. But that's again irrelevant, because they would have different goals.

What is a "good goal" and what isn't is entirely arbitrary, but on the whole, we agree wellbeing is important. This lays a huge foundation down, and removes a lot of the arbitrary nature. Even though we never each totally agree on how to achieve it, we're pulling in the same direction. Of course, some individuals may not be. They will have their own morality, which seems alien to us. Their goals won't be our goals.