Moral judgments
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Avoiding presentism
Presentism is also a factor in the problematic question of history and moral judgments. Among historians, the orthodox view may be that reading modern notions of morality into the past is to commit the error of presentism. To avoid this, historians restrict themselves to describing what happened and attempt to refrain from using language that passes judgment. For example, when writing history about slavery in an era when the practice was widely accepted, letting that fact influence judgment about a group or individual would be presentist and thus should be avoided.[ citation needed ]
Critics respond that avoidance of presentism on issues such as slavery amounts to endorsement of the views of dominant groups, in this case, slaveholders, as against those who opposed them at the time. History professor Steven F. Lawson argues:
For example, with respect to slavery and race, historians, influenced by the present, have uncovered new data by raising new questions about racial issues. They have discovered, for instance, points of view and behavior among the enslaved that contradict older histories told primarily from the perspective of slaveholders. In addition to the various forms of resistance embraced by enslaved peoples, opponents of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, including Quakers and abolitionists, objected on moral grounds to the enslavement of Africans. [5]
Critiques of moral neutrality
Critics further respond that to avoid moral judgments is to practice moral relativism. Some religious historians, including William of Ockham, Robert Merrihew Adams, and Philip L. Quinn, argue that morality is timeless, having been established by God; they say it is not anachronistic to apply timeless standards to the past. (In this view, while mores may change, morality does not.)[ citation needed ]
Others argue that application of religious standards has varied over time as well. Augustine of Hippo, for example, holds that there exist timeless moral principles, but contends that certain practices (such as polygamy) were acceptable in the past because they were customary but now are neither customary nor acceptable. [6]
Fischer, for his part, writes that while historians might not always manage to avoid the fallacy completely, they should at least try to be aware of their biases and write history in such a way that they do not create a distorted depiction of the past. [2]
James H. Sweet wrote an article [7] [a] observing a "trend towards presentism" in contemporary historical scholarship and critiquing The 1619 Project. Sweet's article sparked much commotion. Dominic Green, among other conservatives, drew on Sweet's arguments to depict "the woke mob" growing in influence in historical scholarship, while condemning Sweet for allegedly giving in to the "woke mob" [8] [9] when Sweet apologized. (Sweet eventually apologized for what he called "my ham-fisted attempt at provocation", [7] [10] [11] writing, "my provocation completely missed the mark". [7] [10] ) John Quiggin wrote, "when academic opponents of wokeism/presentism say that current moral standards are being imposed on the past, what they mean is that racist views that are now deprecated were once dominant, and vice versa. [...] / The real issue isn’t to do with time, it’s whether any moral standards at all apply to history. Rather than saying that (for example) Pol Pot was a man of his times and exempt from contemporary judgements, they should just say that it’s not their job to decide whether genocide is good or bad, just to report the facts. That’s a position [...] that, if accepted, will accelerate the demise of history as an academic [discipline]". [12] Writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education , historian David A. Bell responded to the debate in an article entitled "Two Cheers for Presentism". [13] Responding to Bell, Joan Wallach Scott observed a "moment of unprecedented attacks on the teaching of history", which "Bell misses". Nonetheless, she observed issues in not just overt defenses of presentism but also the opponents to presentism, while also fundamentally taking issue with "the recent debates on presentism" themselves. Scott wrote, "[w]hile we can all cite disturbing examples of students and faculty on the left seeking to censor what can be taught or even spoken, the concerted attack from the right — in the ultimate form of state laws prohibiting the teaching of so-called critical race theory, the 1619 Project, gender and sexuality, and other topics — are much more dangerous to [...] the practice of history". [11] Historian Keisha N. Blain responded to the debates: "Black historians have long recognized the role of the present in shaping our narratives of the past. We have never had the luxury of writing about the past as though it were divorced from present concerns." [8]
