Buying goods from slave labor

[MMMark]

Saturday, July 14, 2012 18:15 EDT
.post #221
[url=Buying goods from slave labor - #15 by SirTenenbaum]

@SirTenenbaum

[/url]If it is immoral/unethical for B to coerce A into producing the cotton, is it moral/ethical for C to purchase cotton from B if B coerced A into producing the cotton? (C knows that B coerced A into producing the cotton.)

Okay, thanks for answering my question.

Your answer is “case 1,” which means I’d now like you to show:

1. How and why the two categories of slavery (i.e. “real” and “other”) created by this point are meaningfully different, and more specifically,

2. Why the question is only asked with respect to one category, and not the other.

If you won’t do this, then the best answer I can muster is not an absolute “yes” or “no,” but rather a conditional answer. Here it is:

It is just as moral/ethical (or immoral/unethical)

for C to purchase cotton from B if B coerced A into producing the cotton (C knows that B coerced A into producing the cotton)

as for C to purchase cotton*

*cotton, income from the production of which was taxed,
namely, all cotton,
so just “cotton.”