Thanks for the article, pretty interesting and really clearly written.
Minor aside, I found it interesting that (IIRC) this wrinkle of the history of abolition in Britian was not mention in William MacAskill’s What We Owe The Future, where he goes into some more detail on the history of abolition in UK.
However, for a long time the slave trade lobbiest managed to defeat the abolitionists bills. It was not until the war with France and Napoleon’s attempt to strike back against a slave uprise in Saint-Domingue, that the british nationalistic ideals prevailed and the public finally called for a ban on the exportation of slaves. This bill got passed because the war with France made the slave trade economically risky and the public did not want to be associated with french morals.
Might be that the relevance of the conflict with France is rated as less important by other scholars?
Thank you Max, and good point! While we did try to use the state-of-the-art evidence in this piece I think I’ll defer to Will’s research team on that one—his take is probably closer to the current consensus among the relevant experts
Thanks for the article, pretty interesting and really clearly written.
Minor aside, I found it interesting that (IIRC) this wrinkle of the history of abolition in Britian was not mention in William MacAskill’s What We Owe The Future, where he goes into some more detail on the history of abolition in UK.
Might be that the relevance of the conflict with France is rated as less important by other scholars?
Thank you Max, and good point! While we did try to use the state-of-the-art evidence in this piece I think I’ll defer to Will’s research team on that one—his take is probably closer to the current consensus among the relevant experts