Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Two-Collar Conflict
- 2 Our Better Angels Have Broken Wings
- 3 Responsibility for Innocence Lost
- 4 Virtuous Responses to Moral Evil
- 5 Assessing Attempts at Moral Originality
- 6 Public and Private Honor, Shame, and the Appraising Audience
- 7 Torture
- 8 Community and Worthwhile Living in Second Life
- 9 Of Merels and Morals
- 10 Inference Gaps in Moral Assessment
- 11 Blaming Whole Populations
- 12 The Moral Challenge of Collective Memories
- 13 Corporate Responsibility and Punishment Redux
- 14 Mission Creep
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Inference Gaps in Moral Assessment
Individuals, Organizations, and Institutions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Two-Collar Conflict
- 2 Our Better Angels Have Broken Wings
- 3 Responsibility for Innocence Lost
- 4 Virtuous Responses to Moral Evil
- 5 Assessing Attempts at Moral Originality
- 6 Public and Private Honor, Shame, and the Appraising Audience
- 7 Torture
- 8 Community and Worthwhile Living in Second Life
- 9 Of Merels and Morals
- 10 Inference Gaps in Moral Assessment
- 11 Blaming Whole Populations
- 12 The Moral Challenge of Collective Memories
- 13 Corporate Responsibility and Punishment Redux
- 14 Mission Creep
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson acknowledges that slavery is a moral wrong and at odds with the principles he so eloquently laid down in the Declaration and with respect to which the American Revolution was motivated. He proposed legislation to abolish the slave trade and the extension of slavery into the Western territories, legislation that failed by a single vote. Throughout his entire adult life, Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves on his two plantations, and he freed only a very few. There appears to be little doubt that Jefferson was a racist, as a sampling of comments he wrote in the Notes on the State of Virginia attests. He nonetheless identified the enslavement of Blacks as immoral, although he regarded Blacks as unfit by nature to participate in the American social experiment.
It is tempting to think that Jefferson is the epitome of hypocrisy, and we would think that because we likely hold the view that from a slave owner's assenting to the judgment that “the institution of slavery is immoral and should be abolished,” some course or courses of action follow on the part of that slave owner with respect to his/her slaves, namely, that he/she should free them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War and Moral Dissonance , pp. 208 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010