Edit: This is old material. It may be out of date.
I'm talking about the fictional race of House Elves from the Harry Potter universe first written about by J. K. Rowling and then uplifted in a grand act of fan-fiction by Elizer Yudkowsky. Unless severely mistreated they enjoy servitude to their masters (or more accurately the current residents of the homes they are binded to), this is also enforced by magical means since they must follow the letter if not the spirit of their master's direct order.
Overall treating House Elves the way they would like to be treated appears more or less sensible and don't feel like debating this if people don't disagree. Changing agents without their consent or knowledge seems obviously wrong, so turning someone into a servant creatures seem intuitively wrong. I can also understand that many people would mind their descendants being modified in such a fashion, perhaps their dis-utility is enough to offset the utility of their modified descendants. However how true is this of distant descendants that only share passing resemblance? I think a helpful reminder of scale might be our own self domestication.
Assuming one created elf like creatures ex nihilo, not as slightly modified versions of a existing species why would one not want to bring a mind into existence that would value its own existence and benefits you, as long as the act of creation or their existence in itself does not represents huge enough dis-utility? This seems somewhat related to the argument Robin Hanson once made that any creatures that can pay for their own existance and would value their own existance should be created.
I didn't mention this in the many HP fan fiction threads because I want a more general debate on the treatment and creation of such a class of agents.
Edit: Clearly if the species or class contains exceptions there should be ways for them to pursue their differing values.
I know I'm not the best at doing the background research, so I'm not saying this to criticize, but:
Hasn't this issue been discussed in the philosophical literature long before there were House Elves in Harry Potter, or even HHG2G? I'm pretty sure it has, and it goes by a standard name, but I don't know what that name is.
For my part, I don't see anything wrong with creating House Elves as you've described (making them from something that's not an existing species). If they really have a conscious experience that enjoys serving someone, then it's anthromorphism on our part to view them as somehow oppressed -- resenting oppression simply isn't a feeling they would have; they weren't constructed through an evolutionary history involving dominance contests.
I do, however, doubt that they could replicate human servants: for a House Elf to actually understand what you're ordering it to do requires interpretive assumptions that we would naturally make when giving commands. Are these interpretive assumptions so fundamental to our psychology that House Elves would have to resent their status in order to understand commands as well as a human servant?
Aristotle thought that some people were naturally slaves, and it's hard to overestimate the historical importance of Aristotle on philosophy. See http://www.suite101.com/content/aristotle-on-slavery--some-people-are-slaves-by-nature-a252374
More recently, George Orwell wrote about the waiters in the Parisian restaurant where he was a dishwasher:
...never be sorry for a waiter. Sometimes when you sit in a restaurant, still stuffing yourself half an hour after closing time, you feel that the tired waiter at your side must surely be despising you. But he i... (read more)