Abstract
In this chapter, I contextualize slavery’s wrongness by considering whether certain forms of servitude that overlap slavery should count as slavery. I argue in favour of the League of Nations’ definition of slavery, which aimed to broaden the Enlightenment concept with a focus on power relations sometimes involved in overlapping cases of servitude. I resist endorsing the legal enforcement of slavery contracts when such agreements grant employers an absolute power of life or death over labourers. Given that overlapping cases of servitude do not count as slavery unless they satisfy this particular condition, it is misguided to include all overlapping cases we find morally objectionable, for this stipulation does not preclude a condemnation of unjust cases of servitude that do not count as slavery.
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Lott, T. (2018). Contextualizing Slavery’s Wrongness. In: Brace, L., O'Connell Davidson, J. (eds) Revisiting Slavery and Antislavery. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90623-2_2
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