I don't want to put words in your mouth, but, are you 'implicitly' saying that slavery being right or wrong is a matter of 'cultural interpretation'? Or mostly a matter of 'interpretation'?
Look, I'm not arguing for moral relativity, which is basically what you're asking. But I am trying to indicate that morality - even if it is soundly objective - is nevertheless interpreted differently, by different cultures and different people. When you think on it, morality, fundamentally, has as much to do with "right" and "wrong" as it does with "in group" and "out group." In many ways, the concepts are inseparable. Murder (killing a member of the in-group) is always wrong. What changes is who the "in group" is, and who the "out group" is. And likewise for slavery. Nowadays, progressive types make "in group" all of humanity, mostly.. but we reserve the right to kill members of the out-group, with that out-group being defined as those that attack us first. Killing in self-defense is OK, because we're killing a member of the out group: i.e. those that resort to violence first. A deeply pacifistic person might disagree, and not fight back even in self-defense on moral grounds. Their in-group is even larger than yours.
Could they still do so? Yes, at a cost. Fuck, for that matter, the slave could refuse to do his work and not BE a slave too. There would be a cost: beatings, or death. But he has the CHOICE, right? THAT is your free will?
So you don't know what free will means, and you are confusing free will with political freedom.
Nonsense. You are the one that brought up slavery, and asked me if I thought the slaves WANTED to be slaves. Of course not. But, now we have you saying this:
Indeed the slave had free will and could CHOOSE to disobey. What he didn't have was POLITICAL FREEDOM.
So let me ask you. IF slaves could choose to disobey, why didn't they rebel? Why wasn't there widespread slave rebellion? And if this really was a choice, then they CHOSE not to rebel, and one might argue that they wanted to be slaves. Indeed, even after they were FREED, many slaves stayed with their former masters, and worked as paid laborers. That's a fact. So they certainly wanted to be there, probably even AS SLAVES. Why was it the Abolishionist movement among whites that got the ball rolling on getting rid of slavery? What is your take on that? My take is that the slaves didn't fucking KNOW any other life. Slavery is all they knew. Period. It's not that they WANTED to be slaves. Most couldn't fucking THINK about rebelling, or disobeying, because there was NEVER an example in their lives of anyone really doing so. Even as freed men, they stayed on the same plantation .. for the same reason that many free people today never leave their small little home towns: FEAR. It CONTROLS the mind and the thoughts. A few very strong minded souls could do so, of course, and had the heart to take the beatings as a badge of honor, of sorts. A very few, were free from fear. But to their fellow slave onlookers? They would appear insane. I hate to break it to you, friend. But you don't have free will. Not quite like you want, at any rate. You're free, yes. But you're constrained. Controlled. By what you know, and what you fear. The more you know, and the less you fear, the freer you can think. But for the uneducated masses, and the slaves of the world.. things aren't exactly as simple as you'd like them to be.
If I point a gun at you and say your money or your life, you are free to decide for yourself what you want.
LOL. Oh my, what an armchair warrior. I'd love to get you around a few of the folks I know. They'd be able to prove to you that in those moments, you're not thinking or deciding SHIT except, at best, how to keep your bladder in check. You'll be handing over your wallet before you even fully understand whats going on.
Sure, from a hard-assed use of the terminology "free will" and an inflexible way of looking at it, that can be claimed.
You mean, from a correct usage of the terminolgy and sticking to logical thinking.
Frankly, from that last comment of yours. It seems to me more that your "logical thinking" is really code for "woefully sheltered." You talk about what, or how you'll think and decide if you look down the barrel of gun? Give me a break. Brother, I'll bet you've never been in a REAL fight, let alone one that had it escalated to weapons. The simplifying assumptions your "logic" requires go out the fucking window when 9 little millimeters appear about 3 meters wide.
You can compare us humans to our primate relatives or to our dogs and cats relatives or any other relatives. Ultimately the whole animal kingdom is related. Or, you can go even farther to plants. And? You can find similarities and differences. But you can't make a political philosophy out of the similarities.
It's better than making a political philosophy based on some nonsense about metaphysical free will that, if it exists, only does so for the pampered ivory tower types who.. yes, get to CHOOSE because they have never suffered. But for real life, when you get beaten as a slave all day, it AFFECTS YOUR THOUGHTS. When you work a dreary ass job, barely get enough sleep, having your very dreams filled up with visions of monotonous days at work.. it AFFECTS YOUR MIND. And when life and death are on the line, when hormones and adrenaline dump, YOU DON'T FUCKING THINK. That's real life. And it works more according to the laws of biology, and the fucking animal kingdom, than your metaphysical abstractions. I clipped the rest, because we're going no where. I think its obvious that we come from very different worlds, and perspectives. We're not gonna find common ground on most of this stuff, and we could go in circles on the differences forever, so I'm content to leave it here. I'd rather focus on commonalities, such as they are. If there is something particular that you'd really like me to addres, I will, however.