Levi Coffin's Abolition Crusade: A Narrative of Moral Disagreement and Ethical practice

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2013
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Haverford College. Department of Religion
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Abstract
This project uses a historical narrative to examine the moral disagreement raised against the Religious Society of Friends during a slaveholding republic. Levi Coffin, a Quaker abolitionist, pioneered an antislavery sentiment not supported by many Quaker meetings of [sic] worship including his very own Indiana Yearly Meeting. Therefore, the sentiment of the Society of Friends and the Indiana Yearly Meeting demonstrated how religious groups—in this case Quakerism—would elect to take a passive approach in the face of violent state-sanctioned force to produce a culture that was morally blind to the cruelty of slavery and its extinction. In my discussion of Levi Coffin's historical narrative, I will turn to Moody-Adams and other contemporary thinkers to understand moral disagreement through culture. This thesis will understand Levi Coffin's life story in order to characterize the features of a moral disagreement. I argue that a moral disagreement has three recurring elements within them. First, such disagreements involve cultures that are not impenetrable walls. Second, one's narrative does not limit one's ability to transcend a sentiment produced by a culture. Finally, all cultures and questions have within it people who are not determined by their institutions. Finally, this thesis, in putting Coffin's historical narrative in conversation with the contemporary world, will concentrate on the moral disagreement of Levi Coffin within his narrative and how he went about dealing with his disagreement. Historically, scholars have examined Coffin's life in the framework of slavery but the role of his moral disagreement with slavery is rarely discussed. The analysis of Levi Coffin's moral character will show us that we all have the ability to raise moral disagreements and transcend the thinking of a culture we are affiliated with.
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