transplant surgery and medical experimentation. A shortage of transplant organs would no longer be a problem. Owners would even be able to lease the bodies of slaves for medical experimentation while they were still alive (subject to broad safety conditions established by industry regulators). Advances in medical knowledge would consequently accelerate. Slave-owners could also own the DNA of their slaves, so that they could patent and make available on the market any advantageous genetic sequences they were discovered to possess (such as those that provide protection from serious diseases).In summary, the reintroduction of slavery would have far-reaching benefits. It would benefit everyone - slaves, slave-owners, and other free citizens. It would not be a return to barbarism, as many might unreflectively think, but rather a higher stage in the development of liberal values and liberal societies. Voluntary slavery would actually enhance individual liberty by widening the range of freedom of choice to include the options of both slavery and slave-ownership.Refutation of Objections. 1. Slavery is immoral because it denies freedom to the slaves.Sure, earlier forms of slavery were wrong for precisely this reason. Slavery was forced labour. Slaves were initially captured and coerced into slavery, and were retained in servitude by force and violence. Under the present proposal, however, the initial choice to become a slave is a free choice by an autonomous agent in a liberal society. A system of voluntary slavery would actually provide people with a new opportunity and hence a new freedom that they presently do not have. So, in relation to life choices, voluntary slavery does not deny autonomy to would-be slaves but rather respects and enlarges their freedom.Of course, following the initial choice, slaves would be entirely unfree. While they would have some rights to adequate maintenance they would have no rights at all to self-determination. ...
