[j_baker]

There's the rub though. How do you respect others' rights? Would enslaving 10 people to set 100 free not be respecting others' rights (at least in the long term)? Now you can argue whether or not that's the right way to respect others' rights, but it's respecting the rights of others nonetheless.

[iwwr]

Rights are characters of the individual, even if the individual lives in a social context. So those 10 have as much rights as those 100. Sacrificing the few for the sake of the many means you yourself are never justifiably safe, you can always be in the minority.

[j_baker]

Sure. But you have to sacrifice someone's rights, don't you? By not enslaving those 10 people, you're sacrificing the rights of those 100 people. And while that doesn't mean that you're ever safe, it does guarantee that you have the highest chance of being safe.

[iwwr]

When you are acting like that, you are not sacrificing other people's rights, but your own. That is, you are opening yourself up for rightful retaliation from the victims, or whoever might want to champion their cause (friends, families etc). You may be able to physically defend yourself, but you won't have moral grounds to plead your case. In other words, if you act like an animal, you can be treated as such.