[fusion event]The House Elf Problem

This discussion is of a category of moral questions, related to the autonomy and value of servant species. It was inspired by a question on philosophy stack exchange about House Elves in Harry Potter, but is a broader question, which applies to our domestication of animals, creation of AI, and possible genetic engineering. House Elves: In the Harry Potter story series, there is a race of creatures who are totally self-effacing, and want to do dirty clean-up work around a house. They work for free, and are very happy doing so. They can be “freed” by being given an article of clothing, but this leads to great distress among house elves, who see this as banishment. House elves, therefore, are happy slaves. Here was the original stack exchange question: ethics - Technical terms for 'House Elf Problem' - Philosophy Stack Exchange We humans have turned domestic animals into slaves through breeding for docility, and cooperation. Dogs accept humans as their pack leaders, and are happiest when given jobs (herding sheep, retrieving killed ducks, attacking rats, etc). I don’t know how happy horses and draft animals are to carry or pull stuff. Chickens and cows don’t actually do “work” for us, but they are pretty happy with pre-factory farm life. Are house elves a moral evil? Is animal domestication a moral evil? Could the answer be that domestication isn’t an evil (or not the primary evil), but how we treat the domestic animals might be? For reference, here is a video that presumes that cows are NOT happy as slaves in grassy fields: Brother, I am troubled - YouTube I am not convinced the creators of the video actually know cows … We may face these same moral questions in a more dramatic form, if our AI ever develops selfhood. Additionally, House Elves may, with genetic engineering, become more than a plot artifact. How do AI…