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On Morality and Law

Posted by Pax on 07/19/19
The decree about now-former Princess Fatima Thrax causes quite a bit of fuss; the /scandal/! The /drama/! It's no wonder that gossips across the Compact can't help but murmur about the entire business. But it causes a stir in other ways, too: in particular among lawyers, and anyone who fancies themselves as having a good interpretation of Compact Law.

Quite a few step forward to point out that the details of the situation aren't clear, and the question as to whether or not Fatima actually broke Compact law is murky at best.

If she actively exchanged humans in her care for financial or other recompense, then the legality is clear: Compact law states that no one may engage in slavery. But not acting to free people who aren't Compact citizens, who have been taken as slaves by another foreign power? That does not legally qualify as engaging in slavery, not under Compact law.

Some allow that, of course, there's the /moral/ aspect to it, and argue that this is why the Faith and Prince Victus acted; that if they knew Fatima was /legally/ in the wrong, she might well have been exiled or executed instead.

Some of the more liberal-minded sorts (more than a few of them hailing from Deepwood's lands) feel that Prince Victus and Legate Aureth reacted too extremely, and ask if those two would have approved if Cardia or Jadairal chose to interfere with Compact soliers raiding an Abandoned settlement? And if not, why should Fatima and Compact forces have been expected to interfere in matters between Eurus and the Abandoned? After all, they argue, both are situations where the foreign power would be /morally/ in the right.

(Of course, these people tend to be trying to make the point not that Fatima's punishment was unjustified, but that it would serve the Compact right if one of the other foreign powers chose to interfere with what they view as the /Compact's/ immoral actions, just the same way some people are suggesting Fatima should've interfered with Eurus' immoral actions.)

And then there are the more traditionalist sorts, especially among the peers of the realm. Some think that taking Abandoned in as prodigals is just cradling the viper to your bosom; that the duty of keeping Compact citizens safe means that the truly loyal thing to do is to kill the Abandoned before they become a greater threat, and that letting them inside the walls is at best not considering the safety of those they're meant to protect. And the very idea of spending /Compact/ lives to intervene in a dispute between Abandoned and Eurusi strikes those traditionalists as bordering on treasonous.

It makes for a spirited -- sometimes heated -- topic of debate. Among the debate, however, one thing is certain: no one questions Victus' dedication to ending thralldom any longer. His credentials as an abolitionist are now firmly cemented.