@Merilirem: "Please remember that its not always the ruler that has the final say on such deep rooted societal matters. Not every ruler is an absolute one after all."
True, true, but that ruler should at least yield some power. If she/he at least would at least do something or even just try to loosen those shackles a bit, that'd be alright in my book.
"Also that wouldn't really do much. Its not helping the slaves or anything. You would just be attacking someone in a society which deems slavery acceptable."
Also true, but my Idea wasn't primarily about helping, but punishing. And I have to say...
"attacking someone in a society which deems slavery acceptable", is something I do not really deem as wrong. You see: Doing such a thing is a practice, which fades in and out of my culture's perception of moral. (As judges tend to throw human traffickers and people, who knew about it and didn't do anything, even though they could, into jail, I say it's "in" right now. XD)
"Its just the natural course of things. Slavery being legal does not make the entire kingdom or the ruler of it evil or to blame."
I know, what you want to say, but I can't find it within me to concur. Rape and Murder are also the natural course of things by this logic. So are plagues and fire disasters. Yet still mankind strives to prevent them from happening. And about that evil and blaming thing: In my eyes they are and I do.
"Its like stringing up someone for sleeping with another mans wife. He never agreed to anything and its your wife who is at fault, not him."
Death penalty is a bit harsh, but if he is guilty together with her depends. In case that wife didn't just cheat on her husband, but also cheated that guy out of the truth of already being married, of course he wouldn't be to blame. Neither would a woman to be blamed, if a cheating husband did also lie to her. But if my wife would cheat on me, it's her off into slavery.
"Putting your own morality over others is itself more harmful than slavery."
That I don't give too much about not hurting the moral values of others, if those morals involve treatments, that my society deems as unnecessarily cruel or unacceptable (like slavery, because it is far to easy to abuse, for one reason), I believe my previous statements made that point of view on that rather clear. I just can't see a not insanely twisted scenario, in which pushing morals against slavery would be worse, than slavery itself.
"Just think of all the people who believe in prisons with punishment. All the people who believe in punishing people. Thats commonly accepted as ok despite massive amounts of logic and evidence saying its just sadism to satisfy peoples base desires." Prisons are for punishment of people, who committed crimes willingly and might even be considered a danger for society. (Unintended crimes, e.g. physical injury resulting from negligence, might be debatable) I'm a strong advocator of rehabilitation and advanced education for criminals, who want them. (As you are from the looks.) By all means, provide those! But people are also repulsed by the thought of being punished. That in some way also natural course of things. Sadly or maybe gladly, threatening people to take their freedom away, if they harm others, does work to a certain degree on and helps out decent people in their weak hours, when they can't think straight in those moments, to keep their act together. But see it this way around: People, who don't feel threatened by the prospect of being robed off their freedom and enjoy harming others, for those fiends, it really doesn't make a difference if there are prisons or not. In the veeeery most cases, I imagine, it also doesn't make any difference, if there is rehabilitation or not. But prisons at least keep them away from their prey.
And yes, sadly prisons are also there to keep the public morals as high as possible in hindsight of crimes, as it satisfies a general instinctual and primitive sense of justice of the people. That much is very true.
Sorry. That post got far to long. I just wanted to provide a satisfying answer to your post to you.