Slavery, human dignity and human rights

Abstract

Slavery continues to be practiced in many parts of the world: not only chattel slavery but also indirect varieties (enforced child labour, prostitution, debt enslavement, etc.). Secular organisations opposed to these practices seek to provide a suitable philosophical counter to those supporting or tolerating the evils. The present paper considers natural law and neo-Kantian arguments and finds them wanting. It then looks at biblical principles and the history of the abolition of the slave trade in England and the emancipation movement in the United States (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). From this ideological and historical survey, an attempt is made to discover why Enlightenment principles, as exemplified by the French philosophes, Thomas Jefferson, and other Revolutionaries, failed to impact, whilst evangelical Christians (Granville Sharp, John Newton, Wilberforce, et al.) succeeded in their hard-won crusade to outlaw slavery. By way of conclusion, a parallel is drawn with the contemporary right-to-life movement and jurisprudent Ronald Dworkin’s position on abortion.