Slavery and Human Progress

Based on the book, Slavery and Human Progress, the response of Slavery in Medieval and early modern thought as postulated in chapter four is more theoretical and more concrete as it disappeared from the European community. This comes as a result that early Christians linked slavery with the original doctrine of sins. Davis and John (34) suggested that slavery is a segment of nature’s trend of administration, but as well they claimed that slavery was against nature.

Early Christianity together with canonist held in the medieval period that slaves were supposed to be manumitted and be born again. Not only was slavery justified when exercised to Moors or other infidels but also the church went ahead to punish the enslavement of Christians. According to the authors’ understanding, slaves were not denied some rights such as having sexual relations with other slaves. But on the matters of marriage, it was supposed to be a contract.

A huge paradox emerged between the ideal of freedom and mercantilist enslavement policies. The argument on slavery was that it was not meant to be sanctioned by natural law, but rather slavery is veered towards necessity as authorizing concepts. Davis and John (36) defends the rights masters have over their slaves by believing that slaves have the rights to bolt out from the cruel masters.

Davis and John (47) justify that slavery is inevitable in systems of power relations. However, the authors argue that mixing labor with nature leads to property rights, although his prospects did not arrive in the abolitionism phenomenon. Slavery existed apart even from social contract theory. No legal basis prevented slaves to revolts from their bureaucratic masters. Therefore, the concept of abolitionism did not get its firm root to comport with the natural law of slavery.

 

Work Cited

Davis, David Brion, and John T. Noonan. “Slavery and human progress.” (1986). Print. p. 32-51

 

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