Quoted for truth.

This forum needs a "like" button for posts like these.

No. They have either caused harm to innocent people or are attempting to in one form or another and should pay for it. Detainment puts a drain on the resources of those that would maintain a detention center and could cause those held to be forced to live in unhealthy squalor for the time they are held. To prevent this they should work to help pay for their own time of incarceration and to assist in reinforcing their punishment.

But don't you own a slave so that he/she can be productive for you? I wouldn't own one that just laid around all day doing nothing.

I get your point, but there are some similarities between slavery and prison. Note I certainly don't lean towards the 'hipsters' POV on much. Not to make some straw man arguments there are situations where a slave is better off than a free man and times in history where people willfully became slaves as it was better than fending for themselves.

However, if we are just talking about capturing an 'evil' person here, let's define evil. Evil can't be just someone who breaks the law since many societies themselves were evil and enslaved those that didn't obey their laws. So how about we just look at those that harm or cause harm to others for no good reason. Well damn, now I have to define what a good reason is. Let me just get back to you on this.

In the mean time just enslave those that you consider evil so at least their being useful to those you are in agreement with.

I understand why some could compare the two, but prison is more about punishing wrongdoing whereas slavery is a means to break people and or use people to not have to pay. Plenty of prisons pay dirt cheap for the prisoners who do labour, but I don't know all the details on that stuff. But Prison is usually deserved (Barring cases of injustice in the legal system) whereas there's no excuse for putting people into slavery.

Answering the OP's original question is simple enough: no, slavery is not a just course of action for dealing with raiders. See all the "two wrongs don't make a right" posts written previously.

However, the real question the OP is asking, namely, "How would a good-karma individual or group best bring justice to a post-apocalyptic wasteland?" is a much harder question to answer. In the confines of previous Fallouts (and probably also with Fallout 4), this question is conveniently sidestepped by limiting your interactions with bad-karma characters as kill or be killed. When you run into a band of raiders they will always attack without provocation, and will always fight to the death; there's no option in their AI for surrender or bargaining or anything like that.

But what if there was? What if, when you rolled up on a raider camp with fiery justice and started lopping off heads, raiders were able to cry out "we give up! mercy!" and drop their weapons. What then? Well, again, in game you don't have any way to interact with them other than killing them. But what if you did? What if you could exact justice in any way you could think up? What would be the best solution?

Personally, I don't think the death penalty is the best choice here, though admittedly the harsh realities of the wasteland make it a much greater necessity than it is in our world. Killing the raiders gives some measure of justice, while definitively ending their ability to cause further harm. Incarceration isn't really an option in a post-apocalyptic world; you could maybe imprison one, maybe two individuals if you had the support of a stabilized town, but there's little chance of being able to imprison a whole band of raiders for any length of time.

While it's very draconian, and I would never advocate for this sort of thing in our world, I think the best justice you could give to raiders in a post-apocalyptic scenario would be justice that renders them impotent in their ability to commit further violence, while not out-right killing them. Taking off fingers or a foot is horrible to consider, but would probably be your best option considering the highly limited resources at your disposal and an unwillingness to outright take their life.

Simply cripple the ones who ask for mercy. The chances of them causing trouble again drops considerably. You spare their life while saving the lives of future raider victims.

What is the alternative? Why are we enslaving them? Are we just going out and rounding them up just to make slaves? Have they committed a crime against us or the community?

If you mean just going and gathering them from the wastes to enslave, then no I don't think that is cool or moral. If on the other hand they have committed a crime against me or mine, then I see nothing wrong with enslaving or indentured servitude for a period of time. I plan to use this if an option in Fallout 4 in my settlement.

oh i'd SO like to discuss this, but that'd get so off topic i won't even try...

just for a headline version: i definitely DO believe that it's possible to derive something like a basic ethic codex from observation of nature and conclusion.

only one thing really is subjective: you can either believe there is no such thing as good or evil OR believe there is etc, in this case, see above (hence i could go with "there is no evil", but not with "evil is subjective")

Good point here is if not slavery then what? I doubt that in the wasteland someone is going to use resources to build and maintain a modern prison facility. The options really are, DEATH, or you become a useful slave. Perhaps with time they can earn trust and their freedom, but initially that is really the only options.

The thing is, the reality of being a slave in the wasteland means if your a female you will be used for six, if your a male the intense labor will most likely end in a painful death by exhaustion(heck, both sixes might get the same, sends a shiver down my spine).

I think picturing a captured slave in fallout as having a low intensity day working some field before retiring for food and a good nights sleep is inaccurate. it will be abuse and suffering, death is a more human alternative if imprisonment with ethical guards is not an option.

Lots of posts went away. Lets keep this on the original topic please.

so its bad if you in slave someone for doing wrong(aka comunity service). but its okay to just blow there brains out. the way i see it in slaving them is giving them a second chance to do good just with a firm hand

No offense, but you are insane if you think slavery is just community service.

I think they're saying doing community service is wrong.

"doing wrong (aka comunity [sic] service)."

tell me the diffrence. you are forced to do work that you are not paid for.

What are you on about? What do you think community service is?

No one is made to do community service unless they have committed a crime against said community. Other options are fines or prison sentences. It's the way society makes criminals pay for their crimes against their community. Slavery is something completely different and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence.

so you force someone to work for the community they have done wrong to. so you remove there free will thats what im saying if say bandits attack my settlment i should have the choice to force them to work to improve it. in your words " community service". do i belive its right to force people to work for you that have done no wrong? no

How deep does this rabbit hole of madness go?

People doing community service as penance for crimes still own property, still have rights, and still have free will. You do realize that, right?

Facepalm*

I swear...the people one these forums sometimes..

Community service is a service to your community. You do not get your rights taken away, you do not have an owner who can force you to do things. In fact, community service is an entirely optional way of repaying the community for your crimes, you can instead choose to go to prison or pay a fine. Slavery is is no way similar other than "they both require work"

You are forced to do work you are not paid for to pay restitution for crimes you committed. You serve your sentence and are freed. Community service.

You are forced to do work you are not paid for, I can whip/beat you with no repercussions, I can chain you to a post out in the elements, I can force you to work for 20 hours a day, I decide whether you get fed, what you get fed, how much you get fed, whether you get any medical assistance/care, and I decide if you ever earn "freedom". Slavery.

How many people/resources/material will you spend on "community service", guarding and making sure the inmates are working? What exactly is going to stop them from coming back after you end their "community service" and raiding the [now prosperous thanks to the "community service] work they did?

I'd shoot them. No guarding them, no feeding them, no worry about them coming back for any reason.

This is where I would say that just owning a slave is not evil. Treating a slave like an animal is evil. Many people throughout history were much better off as slaves and wouldn't want to be free ... it all depended on the owner, and what options they would have had if they were free.

As far as them coming after you later. Well that may depend again on how you treated them. During WW2 we have many German prisoners used as workhands on the farms where I grew up ... they were slaves basically to the farmers and kept under armed watch. They had to work and they would have been shot if they had tried to escape. After the war several came back to say thanks to those farmers that kept them and fed them during their incarceration there. You could say they were just prisoners ... who were forced to work ... or be shot??

I think that davidpro10 is not erroneously assuming that having the legal status of property means having no legal rights. Laws protect our pets from inhumane treatment despite our pets being recognized as property. There is nothing inherent to slavery to prevent similar protections being granted to persons.

The fact that this is even a valid question says quite a bit about current standards of morality (even if it's just a video game).

Wow some of the posts in here are a lil on the crazy end. Identifying someone as property IS inherently bad, it doesnt matter how you treat them, that has zero bearing on anything.

Only on the internet will you find people saying stuff like this. Slaverys not bad, just treat your property good! derp. I mean, you wouldnt beat your computer amirigh guys?!!!?!?!?