House elves and some spoilers for Swordspoint WAS: realistic solutions

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 180821

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> The point is, I don't want to crawl inside of canon and come up with 
> a solution. I'm making a more meta argument. I agree that your 
> argument that it's not bad slavery or isn't slavery because they like 
> it and Carol's argument that it's more humane to keep them owned 
> because they can't live any other way are perfectly logical 
> conclusions to draw from the series. I think that's what the series 
> seems to be saying too. I just don't think that's an anti-slavery 
> argument. 

Pippin:
Harry being okay with owning Kreacher is no more a pro-slavery
argument than burning a book to keep a child from freezing to death
is an argument against literacy, or a plane crash victim eating human
flesh is an argument for cannibalism. At the end of the book, 
Kreacher's slavery is not providing any marginal benefit to Harry beyond the 
few sickles that he saves by not paying him, since if  Kreacher could 
be freed without trauma he would gladly work for Harry anyway. 

There are, as you say, benefits to wizards owning slaves in general. But if
Harry fairly weighs the benefits to wizards of owning slaves against
the costs, he will come smack up against the death of Sirius. I still don't see
how any number of free meals would make him think it was worth it. It
doesn't matter that he himself may never make the mistakes that Sirius
made, it only matters that other wizards might.  I can't see how this 
is a  pro-slavery argument.

Unless what you're saying is that any cost benefit analysis of slavery is
wrong because it implies that slavery would be okay if the benefits 
exceeded the costs? But that's shutting off a  line of argument 
that might persuade people who already think that they benefit from
slavery  for the sake of fostering a morally pure stance among those
who already oppose it. Seems cock-eyed to me, especially if you're
aim is to educate those who oppose something  about how to convince
those who aren't so enlightened as yet.

Pippin