eal or full voluntariness as to be, essentially, nonvoluntary. They would be compelled by imposed social conditions, hence unfree and unfair.True, a perfectly voluntary agreement is one between parties who are equally in possession of the relevant facts, who have equally unclouded judgement, and who are equal in freedom, power and status. Slavery agreements fall short of this ideal. They would not be agreements between parties initially equal in resources and power. The slave option would appeal mostly to the poor and marginalised members of our societies, and slave-ownership would only be possible for the economically comfortable and secure, so that potential slaves and slave-owners would usually be occupants of highly unequal socio-economic positions. An agreement to slavery would be an agreement by the poor to accept a ‘lesser evil’ from the rich. However it doesn’t follow from the fact that slavery agreements would be less than ideally voluntary that they cannot be sufficiently voluntary to warrant respect as morally and legally binding commitments. It cannot be the case that any decision falling short of perfect voluntariness must be made under duress - any more than anything falling short of the perfectly circular must be non-circular. Political arrangements that are not perfectly democratic may nevertheless warrant acceptance as democratically legitimate. So, too, individual choices that are some degrees short of perfect voluntariness may still be voluntary enough to be accepted as autonomous commitments.In the real social world, hardly any of the agreements and bargains we accept as voluntary are made between parties in perfectly equal socio-economic positions. This is especially true, despite the efforts of unions, of agreements between wage-workers and large corporate employers. A decision to enter slavery need be no different in kind, at least on the score of unequal powers, from a decision to accept low-pai...
