And how do we define "free persons"? Do we define a man who committed murder and was captured as a "free person", and condemn anybody who "enslaves" this man?
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If that is the case, then no form of legal slavery is actually slavery, as slaves, by definition, no longer have the right to freedom if they have been legally declared a slave.Under that logic, then there's no such thing as stealing because as soon as I take your property and declare it mine, I legally own it. Under your logic, all I have to do is walk around town and declare anyone I see, my slave and the law says I now own them. Perhaps you might want to rethink that.
It doesn't matter whether these people are slaves because they are criminals, because they owed big debts, or because they were taken captive in battle. If the legal system says they lose their right to freedom because of that, its all the same.No, it's not all the same. Losing one's liberties because you violate laws of the state/community is not tantamount to losing your liberty because someone takes it from you. Trying to equate the two is a non-starter.
The fact that our legal system incorporates some of those and doesn't incorporate others is irrelevant to whether of not it is slavery.That's incorrect. Our legal system is based on laws decided by the people. Incarceration is a penalty for crimes that has been instituted by a nation. No private individual can legally incarcerate another individual.
Your attempts to re-characterize imprisonment for crimes as tantamount to slavery are not valid. Just because there are similar elements, i.e. forced to do labor against one's will, does not mean one is the same as the other.
I am not sure if we are arguing philosophies or definitions here, so I will make this clear.
My definition of a slave is someone who has had their rights stripped from them and forced to do acts they would not willingly do as a result of those loss of rights. By that definition, all of my arguments are completely logical because why one loses those rights does not change the definition. I am making no moral judgment regarding this. I am simply making a statement of fact.
It seems that you would like to put a rider on that definition that says "they aren't slaves if they had their rights taken away for the right reasons." To me, that is just semantic dishonesty.
I don't believe I am confusing the issue. Rather, I believe I am pointing out that there is a middle ground between "murderers and rapists" on one side and "innocent people kidnapped" on the other.Your response doesn't make sense. Nations don't legally buy and sell prisoners. Yes, our government uses criminal labor to perform work and recoup the cost of incarcerating the individuals. This isn't even in the same universe as pirates who ravish a coastline taking people from their homes and selling them on the street.
The "criminals as slaves" is a nonstarter.
So you seem to be arguing that there are some types of slaves who deserve to be slaves? When you go to the market to resupply your slaves, how do you know who was innocently taken and who was not?
That's the advantage of this being a game, though: You set the tone. You can waive reality and say "All those goblins you killed were pure evil" or "You were able to only buy slaves who'd committed crimes". You sometimes suspend your disbelief a bit extra to avoid making other players uncomfortable, just like you do when your PC really wants to resort to PvP but can't.
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From the Core Rulebook, p.166 (emphasis mine):
Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
(...)
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.
For my money, it's pretty clear where "keeping someone against their will to carry your stuff for no pay" falls, regardless of what got them into the "slave" category in the first place.
Either: the slave is there because they deserve it, in which case, what makes you decide to be a part of the penal system? Or, the slave doesn't deserve to be there, in which case, you are just as bad as the folks who dragged them screaming away from their family.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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How one loses the right 100% changes the definition. Murder requires an intent. Without the intent to kill someone, you cannot commit murder. Intent and context are the fundamental basis of morality and legality. Trying to argue otherwise is semantic dishonesty.
Baloney. Charm person and suggestion interfere with a victim's intentions, but I'll bet that few kingdoms would accept 'I knew what I was doing, but I chose to do so because I was influenced by a spell' as a convincing defense if you try to kill the monarch.
N N 595, many posters here have asserted that you're applying the wrong ethics to the situation. You're getting hung up on real-world, ripped-from-the-headlines news in the middle of a discussion about Golarion.
Everything a Pathfinder does, starting with the fundamental "breaking and entering", "theft", and "killing people without so much as a trial" would be criminal in 1st-Century society.
We've said this. You've read it. I'm presuming that you're not just trolling for the pleasure of it.
So, what's the sticking point here? Why do you think it's just fine for a Pathfinder agent to get the drop on an Aspis Consortium agent and gack her without calling in the local city guard and demanding a trial for her; but you don't approve of far more benign issues like indentured servatude or serfdom?
One direct question, and I'd like an answer: how is it that Sarenrae approves of slavery in Qadira?
From the Core Rulebook, p.166 (emphasis mine):
For my money, it's pretty clear where "keeping someone against their will to carry your stuff for no pay" falls, regardless of what got them into the "slave" category in the first place.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.
Maybe you should look at the rest of that quote. It also implies "hurting" and "killing" others. So either it does matter what the victims did to deserve it, or all adventurers are, indeed, "murderhobos".
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My definition of a slave is someone who has had their rights stripped from them and forced to do acts they would not willingly do as a result of those loss of rights. By that definition, all of my arguments are completely logical because why one loses those rights does not change the definition.How one loses the right 100% changes the definition.
Like I said, it seems you want to put a rider on that definition that makes it conditional, perhaps under the misguided notion that I am trying to claim that our justice system is evil. I am not. I am simply stating a definition.
What definition are you using?
Murder requires an intent. Without the intent to kill someone, you cannot commit murder.
Your arguments come off as sounding like someone claiming that just because someone wasn't murdered then they can't possibly be dead.
Intent and context are the fundamental basis of morality and legality. Trying to argue otherwise is semantic dishonesty.
And if I were arguing morality and legality you would be right. But I am not. I am arguing definition.
Your argument seems to be: "All slavery is evil. Ergo, if we do not consider something evil in our society, it cannot be slavery, regardless of the end result."
The flaw in this argument is it's base assumption.
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Maybe you should look at the rest of that quote. It also implies "hurting" and "killing" others. So either it does matter what the victims did to deserve it, or all adventurers are, indeed, "murderhobos".From the Core Rulebook, p.166 (emphasis mine):
For my money, it's pretty clear where "keeping someone against their will to carry your stuff for no pay" falls, regardless of what got them into the "slave" category in the first place.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.
It would also mean that ALL penal systems are evil.
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You seem to be confused.
I'm curious where you think I'm confused?
Just because the modern world has essentially abolished all forms of slavery as legal and declared freedom an inalienable right, most specifically in the USA, does not mean that in a non real world context that freedom is an inalienable right.
Just because evil men/women convince folks of the merits of an evil act and integrate it into mainstream society does not a right act make. Evil people throughout history have justified the oppression of millions/billions to preserve THEIR status.
Throughout history there has always been a struggle for freedom, to cast off the yoke of oppression. The earliest modern incarnation that I can recall off the top of my head was the Magna Carta in the early 1200's. It wasn't until the late 1700's (IIRC) that the ideas of liberty and personal freedom gained enough traction with the people that governments throughout the world had no choice but to enumerate it into law. It took longer to implement in some cases like America (and not fully realized given our current system, which is another nest of wasps), but the struggle goes on.
Stop imposing real world morality into this fantasy game and world.
Quite the statement considering the world of Golarion was built by injecting REAL WORLD cultures into the setting in roughly geographically consistent analogues.
What basis should I base fantasy morality on then if not the real world equivalents? Every fantasy culture is an amalgamation of real world systems...
There have been many cultures in our real world history where freedom was not inalienable.
True, but why? Who convinced the people that they should accept such a state for their fellow man?
The feudal system essentially used the common folk or peasants as serfs. Born a serf, almost always remain a serf. Born into servitude to your lord. The lord had duties to protect his people.
True, but were the people really given a choice? Did they have weapons, armor, training to oppose their "lords"? The self appointed aristocracy were experts at divide and conquer, convincing their serfs/slaves that their way was right and just...
It was the social contract of that day and age.
An uneducated public can be convinced of anything that goes against their best interests.
But that was no less slavery than the reprehensible slavery of America in the 1800's.
Agreed.
But feudalism wasn't evil.
To expand the comment regarding social contracts, as a system feudalism is not in and of itself evil, I agree. Although, I would argue that it promotes the idea that some people are just better than others (caste system). The evil comes in when the aristocracy and their enforcers become abusive of those they are supposed to be protecting. When they see themselves as somehow better than those they rely on for their livelihood, seeing the public as their property/chattel.
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Bringing it back to how PFS should deal with it, I think we can all agree that this is a sensitive topic that quite a few people are going to be uncomfortable about for various reasons. The same thing can be said about many facets of Golarion. In the end it is up to the individual groups to be adult about things and decide for themselves which elements they want to include in their game. There are any number of adult subjects that would be inappropriate for public games, or at games that include players who would be made uncomfortable by it. I would not describe a battle in vivid detail in front of someone with PTSD. Nor would I describe how Zarta Dralneen gets her jollies in front of younger audiences. We are perfectly capable of self regulating ourselves to a level of play appropriate for our location and table makeup.
This means that many riske' subjects can be included in the world for flavor. Players are welcome to explore the subjects or hand-wave them as they desire. Since each group has the ability to filter out that which is in appropriate for them, it allows us to experience a world enriched with complexities without leaving anyone's comfort zone.
If a player is doing something to make someone else uncomfortable, then the Most Important Rule applies. Meanwhile, we can all have a good time playing the game.
So the real problem goes beyond the "pathworkiness' as you've correctly identified. it results from the existence truths in PF about existence that don't exist in our world and that humanity never had to deal with. To be more specific, Ancient Rome could not Detect Evil. Nor could one Detect Lies or Discern Thoughts. The existence of these tools would so dramatically change our society, it's impossible to fathom. But PF ignores that fact and tries to superimpose humanities cultural background on top of tools that would invariably alter society at its very core.
I am not convinced this is true. For one thing, there are institutions that do promote the idea that good and evil are every bit as objective as a set of objective measurements like detect evil would reveal. You, in fact, seem to believe that about slavery. So the main difference is clarity and discoverability.
The other issue I see is that even with full clarity of good and evil, we're faced with the question of whether everyone wants to be good or not. I think your analysis implies everyone would. But I don't think that's the case. For example, Emperor Constantine reportedly refused to be baptized while performing his duties as emperor because his job was to sin - not be absolved of or avoid sinning. His job was to do the dirty work necessary in ruling the Roman Empire.
It might just as well be that the clarity provided by an objective measurement will simply get people to be more clear about the sides they pick and rationales for doing so. Owning slaves wouldn't be put in terms of being "good" as it was often once Christian leaders started providing a moral screen for it. Rather, it would be put in terms of being appropriate, right, or necessary based on society's natural hierarchy with the proponents embracing the term "evil" that they were labeled with. It could become more of a source of outright allegiance - "Yup. I'm on Team Evil. How about you?"
Throughout history there has always been a struggle for freedom, to cast off the yoke of oppression. The earliest modern incarnation that I can recall off the top of my head was the Magna Carta in the early 1200's. It wasn't until the late 1700's (IIRC) that the ideas of liberty and personal freedom gained enough traction with the people that governments throughout the world had no choice but to enumerate it into law. It took longer to implement in some cases like America (and not fully realized given our current system, which is another nest of wasps), but the struggle goes on.<snip>
True, but why? Who convinced the people that they should accept such a state for their fellow man?
<snip>
True, but were the people really given a choice? Did they have weapons, armor, training to oppose their "lords"? The self appointed aristocracy were experts at divide and conquer, convincing their serfs/slaves that their way was right and just...
<snip>
An uneducated public can be convinced of anything that goes against their best interests.
All argued from a point of view well and truly steeped in the traditions of philosophical liberalism - but what if it's all wrong? What if the body politic and the collective really are more important than the individual and his or her liberty? What if the philosophical worm turns and the pernicious divisiveness of liberty is finally put in its place via an unassailable philosophical argument? Then all of that time, money, and all the lives wasted in the struggle for freedom and liberty will be seen as a great evil.
I know that it's hard to see this as particularly likely given how much of the liberalism kool aid we've all drunk (after all, when properly followed, it's self-correcting!) - but then I imagine the current state of affairs was inconceivable in feudal Japan or in dynastic Egypt or pre-Columbian Peru or even ancient Rome. To our eyes, these and other societies with their slaveries, thralls, untouchables, social hierarchies, and brutal indifference look pretty evil but our observations aren't exactly objective and may themselves be overthrown in turn.
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How one loses the right 100% changes the definition. Murder requires an intent. Without the intent to kill someone, you cannot commit murder. Intent and context are the fundamental basis of morality and legality. Trying to argue otherwise is semantic dishonesty.Baloney. Charm person and suggestion interfere with a victim's intentions, but I'll bet that few kingdoms would accept 'I knew what I was doing, but I chose to do so because I was influenced by a spell' as a convincing defense if you try to kill the monarch.
N N 595, many posters here have asserted that you're applying the wrong ethics to the situation. You're getting hung up on real-world, ripped-from-the-headlines news in the middle of a discussion about Golarion.
Everything a Pathfinder does, starting with the fundamental "breaking and entering", "theft", and "killing people without so much as a trial" would be criminal in 1st-Century society.
We've said this. You've read it. I'm presuming that you're not just trolling for the pleasure of it.
So, what's the sticking point here? Why do you think it's just fine for a Pathfinder agent to get the drop on an Aspis Consortium agent and gack her without calling in the local city guard and demanding a trial for her; but you don't approve of far more benign issues like indentured servatude or serfdom?
One direct question, and I'd like an answer: how is it that Sarenrae approves of slavery in Qadira?
Personally, I think that's an abhorrent bit of fluff myself. That's MY answer.
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Note that slavery is, in fact, not illegal in every country on earth right now. There are countries in both Africa and South America that not only condone, but actively engage in slavery in many different forms. But see, this is beside the point. Golarion is not earth. Their sense of morality is not our sense of morality. Cheliax, a kingdom essentially run by devils, is perfectly fine with slavery. Is the country evil? Certainly but I'd wager there are some individuals living therein that do own slaves without being of evil alignment. Quite a few places in Golarion have zero qualms with slavery, and outsiders trying to force a change from this would pretty much qualify as engaging in "unlawful" activity. That covers one side of the alignment scale but what of evil? There are slave owners on Golarion that aren't evil. Indeed, I would almost be willing to bet there are some slave owners of the good alignment floating around.
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Slavery is officially illegal in all countries, but there are still an estimated 20 million to 30 million slaves worldwide.[3][4] Mauritania was the last jurisdiction to officially outlaw slavery (in 1981/2007), but about 10% to 20% of its population is estimated to live in slavery.[5][6]Slavery is officially illegal.
Wikipedia is always right. All sarcasm aside, however, there are some countries in such dire straits that it's all but impossible to figure out what politics are going on there. Many of those countries still pretty freely use slaves, although I'd wager they don't go flaunting it to other countries. That would bring them a lot more problems than they actually want. I suppose it's less to say it's "legal" and more to say the governments are fine with it, which ultimately equates to the same thing.
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Show me a country where slavery is officially legal. Even if you can show me in the nation's constitution that slavery is legal, we're talking one maybe two countries out of 190+ countries. Not exactly some endorsement that slavery is still a moral act.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to go saying slavery is in any shape, way, or form morally right. I'm simply pointing out that our morals don't really work that well when applied to Golarion. Golarion is probably still in the "committing genocide on theoretically evil people makes it okay" phase, for example. A lot of things go on there that our modern societies would find unconscionable and they are for whatever reason perfectly fine with it, just as we were fine with some very messed up things in centuries long past. I won't tell you not to be bothered bit, however. If it really bothers you then it really bothers you, and I'd encourage you to do what you need to do in order to assuage that.
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The feudal system essentially used the common folk or peasants as serfs. Born a serf, almost always remain a serf. Born into servitude to your lord. The lord had duties to protect his people.But feudalism wasn't evil.To expand the comment regarding social contracts, as a system feudalism is not in and of itself evil, I agree. Although, I would argue that it promotes the idea that some people are just better than others (caste system). The evil comes in when the aristocracy and their enforcers become abusive of those they are supposed to be protecting. When they see themselves as somehow better than those they rely on for their livelihood, seeing the public as their property/chattel.
But see, by your own admission, there are some forms of slavery that are not evil.
you agreed that Feudalism itself is not evil.
you agreed that Feudalism is a form of slavery.
Ergo, not all slavery is evil.
By your very comment above, it requires a moral depravity of the slave's owners (or lords in the case of a Feudal system) in actions perpetrated against the slaves in a harmful way, that would be the evil act.
In Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series of books, the Aiel practiced a system of honor called Ji'eh Toh, where if one Aiel was defeated by another in combat (and other various complicated things that weren't fully defined in the books), and the defeated was taken alive, then the Aiel would be honor bound to serve the victor as a servant for a year and a day. This is slavery. And yet, the Aiel protected their gai'shan (Ji'eh Toh honor-bound slaves) as they would their children (defenseless). An honorable gai'shan was in themselves to be respected and honored for having honor. This was no less a form of slavery than anything else discussed here. But I think anyone would be hard pressed to declare this evil.
Indentured Servitude of the early USA, where Irish would promise to work for someone for a period of time if they paid their way to America and gave them a job and a place to live (food for their family.) In many cases, the "masters" of these indentured servants treated them worse than some of the slave owners of the south. These people were not always forced into indentured servitude (although some were), and often gave up their freedom willingly for the chance to have the American dream. So this counters the argument that all slavery is against ones will. And yet, the "masters" of these indentured servants could be evil, depending on how they treated their charges.
These are three exceptional examples of how forms of slavery have a context that is not evil.
Therefore, the paradigm of slavery is not an evil institution in and of itself. It requires a dynamic of relationship between the master and the enslaved in where the master is morally reprehensible in actions perpetrated toward the slave.
To assume that this morally reprehensible relationship is the only one that can exist between master and slave, shows the ignorance of different cultures and world history. It shows that you are closed minded and myopic in seeing only one form of slavery, the one most closely and emotionally charged in our hearts as Americans some 200 years ago.
And if you continue to use that as your only example for why slavery as an institution is evil, then you are not arguing in good faith.
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Slavery is officially illegal in all countries, but there are still an estimated 20 million to 30 million slaves worldwide.[3][4] Mauritania was the last jurisdiction to officially outlaw slavery (in 1981/2007), but about 10% to 20% of its population is estimated to live in slavery.[5][6]Slavery is officially illegal.
illegal =/= evil
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illegal =/= evilSlavery is officially illegal in all countries, but there are still an estimated 20 million to 30 million slaves worldwide.[3][4] Mauritania was the last jurisdiction to officially outlaw slavery (in 1981/2007), but about 10% to 20% of its population is estimated to live in slavery.[5][6]Slavery is officially illegal.
That too. Lots of things in Golarion are illegal that don't qualify as evil. Hell, Cheliax straight banned the worship of certain good deities, I believe.
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I'm not arguing that point. I just find this discussion rather disturbing. Most of my PCs in homebrew certainly have a tendency to murder slavers without a second thought. If I played in a homebrew game in Golarion, most of my PCs would be trying to burn Cheliax to the ground. This behaviour is obviously prohibited in PFS. Although I would be tempted to not save a Cheliax PC from death with my Silver Crusade cleric. I may not be able to PvP them, but I don't have to take action to help them, either.
Actually, a chaotic good cleric might actually do this, since they can more easily disdain the rules of "explore, report, cooperate".
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I'm not arguing that point. I just find this discussion rather disturbing. Most of my PCs in homebrew certainly have a tendency to murder slavers without a second thought. If I played in a homebrew game in Golarion, most of my PCs would be trying to burn Cheliax to the ground. This behaviour is obviously prohibited in PFS. Although I would be tempted to not save a Cheliax PC from death with my Silver Crusade cleric. I may not be able to PvP them, but I don't have to take action to help them, either.
Actually, a chaotic good cleric might actually do this, since they can more easily disdain the rules of "explore, report, cooperate".
So some of your characters would knowingly let a pseudo-familiar PC, one that probably has done no real wrong to the party, die simply because they happened to be loyal to their country of origin? Sounds like the kind of character that should never have joined the society in the first place. Needing to suck it up and work with theoretically incompatible PCs kind of goes with the territory of joining it up, I'd think. Not to mention the fact that intentionally letting your ally, presumably an innocent person, die in that particular circumstance is probably going to qualify as an evil act. ... A very, very evil act that may warrant some sort of alignment shift, depending on your GM.
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Letting an evil person die is itself evil? How is that any different than cutting down Aspis Consortium mooks? The problem is that everything is relative.
I don't have any chaotic good clerics, so I could never actually justify this, and none of the others have any healing capacity. I mean I guess my magus could not haste such targets, but he's not that much of a goody-goody.
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Although I would be tempted to not save a Cheliax PC from death with my Silver Crusade cleric. I may not be able to PvP them, but I don't have to take action to help them, either.
I hope you would at least make an out of character statement of this intent before the game begins, so that the player in question can choose to walk away. Pulling this unanounced in the heat of battle would be a pretty mean thing to do.
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Letting an evil person die is itself evil? How is that any different than cutting down Aspis Consortium mooks? The problem is that everything is relative.
I don't have any chaotic good clerics, so I could never actually justify this, and none of the others have any healing capacity. I mean I guess my magus could not haste such targets, but he's not that much of a goody-goody.
Just being from Cheliax doesn't make someone evil. Plenty of good people live there as well, and I'd imagine many of them are still loyal to their country. In any case, as stated by the above poster, I hope you would at least warn the Cheliax faction member that you would be administering the screws to their backside.
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I find it interesting that PFS players are so used to the no-PvP thing that even passive PvP is viewed as verboten. It's an idea more borne out of my frustration with some of the fluff in Golarion and the existence of Cheliax in general than something I would actually do. I have been actually the closest to taking the course of action with druid ACs, just to give the rest of the party a chance to do something.
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...as a system feudalism is not in and of itself evil, I agree. Although, I would argue that it promotes the idea that some people are just better than others (caste system). The evil comes in when the aristocracy and their enforcers become abusive of those they are supposed to be protecting. When they see themselves as somehow better than those they rely on for their livelihood, seeing the public as their property/chattel.
But see, by your own admission, there are some forms of slavery that are not evil.
Did you not read the rest of the statement? You are taking the statement out of context to prove your point. Since man devised that system to enslave, not exist in a symbiotic relationship, it becomes evil! With a sufficiently benevolent ruler, feudalism could be made to work. With a sufficiently benevolent ruler would there be a state of slavery? I don't think so only IF the relationship is truly symbiotic. None exists however, due to human nature.
America has shown that even liberty friendly governments can and do get it wrong. How else could a system based on personal liberty and economic freedom and independence be subverted towards an evil end? Only through corruptible human nature. Does it then follow that we have to discard the system because jerks have subverted the system for their personal gain?
you agreed that Feudalism itself is not evil.
you agreed that Feudalism is a form of slavery.
Ergo, not all slavery is evil.
By your very comment above, it requires a moral depravity of the slave's owners (or lords in the case of a Feudal system) in actions perpetrated against the slaves in a harmful way, that would be the evil act.
You are twisting intent to make it say what you want and you know it...
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No. They are not property of the state/city/federal government. They don't get listed as assets on a ledger and they cannot be bought and sold.So the ability to buy & sell someone is what defines someone as a slave?It is part of what defines something as property.
So then it is possible to be property without someone being able to buy and sell you?
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Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, alter, share, redefine, rent, mortgage, pawn, sell, exchange, transfer, give away or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things,[1][2][3] as well as perhaps to abandon it; whereas regardless of the nature of the property, the owner thereof has the right to properly use it (as a durable, mean or factor, or whatever), or at the very least exclusively keep it.
So if I kidnap someone and force them into unpaid servitude, so long as I don't consume, alter, share, redefine, rent, mortgage, pawn, sell, exchange, transfer, give away or destroy them, then they aren't property and thus are not slaves?
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One direct question, and I'd like an answer: how is it that Sarenrae approves of slavery in Qadira?
From the section on Sarenrae in Faiths of Purity:
"Though slavery might exist in your culture, it is an abomination to you, and you might work tirelessly to destroy the institution."There's your answer: she doesn't.
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Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, alter, share, redefine, rent, mortgage, pawn, sell, exchange, transfer, give away or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things,[1][2][3] as well as perhaps to abandon it; whereas regardless of the nature of the property, the owner thereof has the right to properly use it (as a durable, mean or factor, or whatever), or at the very least exclusively keep it.I'm going to cut this short. You're trying to use semantics to argue that inmates are slaves. They aren't. If you want to convince yourself that they are, that's your prerogative.
And you are trying to use semantics to argue that inmates aren't slaves even when the end result is the same. A rose by any other name...
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The end result of my running you down in a crosswalk intentionally and accidentally are the same.
We're not getting into wishful thinking here, now are we. ;-)
Under your logic, they should be adjudicated the same.
Who said anything about adjudication? At no point have I said that just enslavement by the state for convicted criminals was immoral or evil. I simply stated that is was slavery. And since it is slavery, and it is not considered evil, then it is possible to have slavery that isn't evil.
To borrow one of your earlier analogies, you are equating slavery with murder in that intent is what defines it. I am equating slavery with killing in that effect is what defines it. Murder is always evil, but killing isn't.