Very well, let's imagine for a moment human rights and sentient rights are interchangeable.


1) Yes, we agree that being human means that we use tools to shape the world, that we have a complex social life, that we can communicate, that we reason, etc...

2) House elves share those characteristics, yes. Mostly, anyways.


3) Let's give the House elves the right to self determination then. What next?

It's still not our job to educate them, but let's move past that and say we educate their young -because of the supposed brainwashing- to be more free-thinking. Can you be 100% certain that a majority will like freedom?


We are talking about creatures that do not exist, we have no valid data on them. I prefer to err on the side of caution.

We can ensure their happiness by guaranteeing House elves decent treatment.

I would fight it. Because muh freedoms.

Yes, god fucking dammit. *tears out hair*

 

You ignored the part about your descendants, of whether you'd be okay with them being treated as slaves and being okay with it.

Who's to say House Elves didn't also fight for their freedoms, and lost? Again and again?

 

And you ignored the part where I pointed out that Dobby pawned Lucius at the end of second year, so I can't see it being an easy fight for the wizards.

 

Replies to CJC

(Made big so he doesn't miss it when he returns in 3 hours)

Grimmauld Place is very much not a manor. It's a terraced London town house, extremely valuable in its own right of course, and quite large (if narrow). But it's a completely different type of building with a different social implication.

It's a simply product of their population size. Wizarding Britain has a population of, what, 10,000 at most? And they have an almost completely closed economy. Almost all the businesses are sole traders and partnerships. There's no complex financial sector to leverage assets, as demonstrated by the Ministry of Magic borrowing from private individuals.

Basically, the wizarding economy just doesn't have the monetary base for wealth being counted in billions.

The word "significant" was used deliberately to exclude minor advantages. I was thinking of powers like the ability to duel people to death without punishment, absurd defamation laws, etc.

Sorry, I should clarify: any excessive use of legal force by individuals. The Ministry of Magic, of course, has legal force aplenty, though even there writers should beware the "Oh, you thought I would come quietly?" factor.

Already addressed this several times so I'm going to put it in obnoxiously large text.

CONVINCE.

The cliché stated is not "girls want to have sex with Harry", nor "Harry doesn't want to have sex with girls". It's all about conversations taking place in which, through the provision of rational arguments, a girl persuades Harry that he should have sex with her, using reasoning to overcome his "noble" nature. The conversation normally goes something like this:

Literally hundreds of fics out there which have a version of that conversation.

This, basically. Yes, 7 inch penises exist and aren't overly rare. The point is, however, that by giving Harry one and mentioning it, the author shows that the smut is going to be an awfully written porn-like power fantasy, rather than realistic sex. Thus immediate exit.

... at what point did this post seem like it was anything other than personal preference?

 

Then I would bite my own tongue, choke on my blood, die, and not have descendants. There you go, problem solved.

edit : And seeing how Dobby manhandled Lucius, it wouldn't have been too easy. We've never heard of House elf rebellions. We've heard of Goblin rebellions however, and they don't have magic like wizards or House elves.

 

You're basing the combat effectiveness of house elves on one small incident where one of the participants wasn't even attacking the other.

 

That and they participated in the Battle of Hogwarts.

 

That Dobby vs Lucius thing gets thrown around a lot. Yeah, Lucius is surprised by his House Elf throwing him across the room. The very same Elf that would normally beat himself to death for even thinking ill of his master.

So?

This surprises you?

 

What other incidences are there in canon other than that and the Battle of Hogwarts?

 

The fact is they don't.

 

Er, no, we didn't discover that. It was your utilitarian statement. I explicitly stated that I disagree with the utilitarian standpoint. The House Elves' happiness is not the only factor relevant to the discussion, as there exists the absolute right to self-determination of all sentient beings. I have stated that repeatedly.

If you don't believe in the absolute right of sentient beings to self-determination, fine. But that seems to force you to accept that humans can be slaves too, if it maximised utility. The only way to avoid it is to draw an arbitrary distinction between humans and all other types of sentient being.

That doesn't follow at all. If a human applies duress to a House Elf (via social conditioning) to prevent it from being able to express a desire for its rights to be recognised, then that does not show that House-Elves do not need rights.

Humans have a moral responsibility to recognise the right of others to self-determination; as such they have a moral responsibility to withdraw their duress from House Elves. House Elves being unable to say that they want this to occur does not change things, because they're under duress to say so.

Moral responsibilities do not exist conditional on being expressed. If I gag a murder victim such that they can never say "I don't want to be murdered" it doesn't make the murder okay. House Elves do not have to say "I want to be able to make a free decision as to if I want to serve or not" for a moral obligation to apply to humans to allow them that free decision.

 

Has anyone written a story about Harry befriending an orphan House Elf, one that's free of any influence from parents or the Magical World?

Would be kinda cool.

It'd have to happen pre Hogwarts obv.

 

Taure, you say that humans have a moral responsibility to recognise the right of others to self-determination.

Lets say (for arguments sake) that house elves have been brainwashed. Ok, so that's happened but that happened generations ago, nearly all house elves now believe they should be servants. When asked by Hermione if they wanted to be freed, they categorically said no, so by your own argument you should observe the house elves own self-determination that they want to be servants.

 

The brainwashing did not "happen generations ago", it is an ongoing process.

I have already provided argumentation as to the inability of House Elves in their current situation to consent to slavery via the principles established by our recognition of the inability for underage people to consent to sex. When a House Elf says "I want to be a slave" it is not a free, informed and independent self-determination.

You know very well that I have provided that argument, so I do have to wonder as to your motivation for saying this again.

 

A servant isn't the same thing as a slave. A House-Elf can be free and also be a servant.

Also, didn't Hermione try to 'free' the House Elves by getting them fired? Or tricking them into firing themselves? Were they ever offered freedom while still retaining their employment?

 

Dobby, the only free elf, decides in the end that he wants to be a servant.

 

You missed his point completely. When a group has been exploited for as long as the house elves seem to have, they have literally forgotten that there can be a better way to live and it falls to the wizards to show them that they can have it. That's what Taure was trying to say.

 

I think, since we're quite clearly going in circles, I'm going to call it a day here. At least with regards to the House Elf debate.

Wait, a new argument!

I wondered when someone was going to use this argument. Fortunately I thought of it yesterday and have already considered a counter

To formulate Corvus' argument more explicitly, I see it as this:

"If House Elves are under duress such that they can't consent to slavery, surely Dobby was under the same duress, and therefore could not consent to freedom? But since Dobby could consent to freedom, therefore there is no duress."

The counter-argument:

Examine the exact factors of the duress House Elves are under.

1. They do not understand what life would be like if they were free. They express fear that they would not be able to work, for example.

2. They do not understand the disadvantages of slavery (e.g. a lack of freedom of expression). It's all they've ever known, with no contrast, so they do not see the elements of slavery they would look back on with distaste, post-freedom. As far as they know, those elements of life are just that: inevitable parts of life you just have to accept.

3. They are conditioned by their parents and peers to associate freedom with shame.

4. Society exerts intimidation on those who would express a preference for freedom (consider the way the other House Elves treat Dobby, who is treated as crazy).

In short, the duress has directionality. It pushes House Elves towards accepting slavery and away from desiring freedom. Therefore, to express a preference for slavery is in line with the duress, and thus it is impossible to determine if it's the House Elf or the duress speaking. To express a preference for freedom, on the other hand, is already against the duress, and therefore we know that it is not the duress speaking, which means it must be the Elf.

 

But house elves are not children. They're either intelligent enough to make their own decisions or they have to be told how to live and how to think. You are treating them as the second and yet you're arguing that they're equal to humans who are on average the first.