There has been a lot of political controversy in recent years about the question of whether it is appropriate to judge historical figures by “contemporary standards.” This controversy often particularly flares up surrounding figures who are traditionally seen as “heroes” of United States history and yet actually committed horrific crimes, such Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.
I think that the issue is a lot more complicated than most people realize and I think that, in most cases, it is extremely misleading to frame the debate in terms of judging historical figures by “contemporary standards” because this implies that people during the period in question had no way of knowing that the things they were doing were wrong, when, in fact, we know there were people at the time who did know that these things were wrong.
Blame and history
In some cases, I think that people who talk about not judging historical figures by “contemporary standards” sort of have a point. Let’s use slavery in ancient Greece as an example. As we presumably all know, slavery was widespread in the ancient Mediterranean world, including among the ancient Greeks.
It was widely acknowledged among the ancient Greeks that slavery was unpleasant and that being enslaved was not something to be desired in any way. Nonetheless, as far as we can tell from the surviving sources, the ancient Greeks seem to have pretty much universally accepted the existence of slavery as inevitable.
Indeed, although enslaved people themselves certainly did not like being enslaved personally, as far as we can tell from the few surviving sources written by actual enslaved people, they don’t generally seem to have considered the possibility that a society could exist without slavery.
As I discuss in this article I wrote about abolitionism in the ancient world, as far as I am presently aware, there is not a single surviving ancient Greek text that records anyone as having ever seriously proposed a realistic plan to abolish slavery in the Greek world. I think the closest we find to a serious attack on the morality of slavery as an institution probably comes from the unnamed people mentioned in this passage from Aristotle’s Politics 1.1253b, which has been translated here by H. Rackham:
“For some thinkers hold the function of the master to be a definite science, and moreover think that household management, mastership, statesmanship and monarchy are the same thing, as we said at the beginning of the treatise; others however maintain that for one man to be another man’s master is contrary to nature, because it is only convention that makes the one a slave and the other a freeman and there is no difference between them by nature, and that therefore it is unjust, for it is based on force.”
Notice that, as far as Aristotle tells us, even the people he is speaking about here do not seem to have had any kind of realistic plans for abolishing slavery. Aristotle merely tells us that these people thought that slavery was “contrary to nature” and “unjust,” which is hardly a compelling argument for abolition. Furthermore, this is the only text I am aware of in which such people are mentioned, which seems to indicate that these people who believed slavery was institutionally wrong were a tiny minority.
Based on this evidence, I think it would be completely unfair to judge any individual person in ancient Greece as a horrible human being for not openly advocating the abolition of slavery. For instance, it would be completely unfair to denounce, say, Socrates as the most disgusting, morally reprehensible human being ever to live because he did not advocate the abolition of slavery. Quite simply, the idea of abolishing slavery was not really in circulation back then, at least as far as we can tell from the surviving sources.
ABOVE: Roman marble copy of a late fourth-century BC Greek bust of Aristotle by the sculptor Lysippos.
A philosophical question about morals and society
It would be unfair for us to blame specific historical individuals for not supporting progressive causes that no one else at the time that we know of was even proposing. Nevertheless, it would also be wrong to say, “Well, slavery was ok in ancient Greece because, you know, morals were different back then and slavery was acceptable.” If we say this, then we endorsing a form of moral relativism that can take us to some seriously dark, disturbing places.
If morality is dictated solely by society and whatever society says is just must therefore be just, this would mean that, if most people suddenly decided—for no apparent reason—that raping and murdering people was morally good and that not raping and murdering people was evil, then it would actually become morally good to rape and murder people and anyone who did not rape and murder anyone would be not only considered wicked, but actually wicked. Clearly, this is an absurd conclusion.
The idea that morality is determined solely by social consensus not only holds bizarre and disturbing implications; it is also an inherently anti-progressive idea. If morality is not determined by any kind of logic or reason and is solely determined by what society says is moral, then all that matters for moral behavior is conformity; if you conform to what society says, then you are automatically moral and, if you go against the social currents, you are automatically immoral. By this measure, nearly every social reformer who ever lived would be considered immoral for going against the norms of their time. This is, of course, ridiculous as well.
The inescapable conclusion is that morality is not dictated by what society tells us. Morals must come from some form of reason, not from mere social consensus. If slavery is truly morally wrong today, then it must be objectively morally wrong and, if it is objectively morally wrong, then it has always been objectively morally wrong. I therefore think we can say that anyone in ancient Greece who owned slaves (which would include basically any free adult citizen who was middle-class or above) was doing something immoral by owning slaves.
ABOVE: Attic black-figure neck amphora by the Antimenes Painter dating to between c. 530 and c. 510 BC depicting people (probably slaves) gathering olives
When the standards of the past are not quite so different from those of the present
Unfortunately, the idea of not judging historical figures by “contemporary standards” tends to get abused a lot by conservatives looking to exonerate traditional heroes of their crimes and hypocrisies. The views of the American “Founding Father” Thomas Jefferson (lived 1743 – 1826) on the issue of slavery are an excellent example of this.
As I discuss in this article I originally published in April 2017 about the Founding Fathers’ views on slavery, Thomas Jefferson was a complete hypocrite on the issue of slavery. In his writings, he deplored slavery as a “moral depravity,” an “abominable crime,” and a “hideous blot.” He even called it the biggest threat to the young American republic. In spite of all this, though, Jefferson owned slaves for his entire adult life and only ever set a few of them free. He also harbored deeply racist views towards black people, regarding them as inferior beings.
Conservatives frequently object that we cannot condemn Jefferson for owning slaves because owning slaves was totally acceptable back then and everyone else owned slaves. This argument, however, falls totally flat. For one thing, it ignores the thoughts of the enslaved people themselves. They certainly were not happy about being enslaved.
Furthermore, this argument also ignores the many free people in Jefferson’s lifetime who did not own slaves. Notably, Jefferson’s colleague John Adams (lived 1735 – 1826) never owned a single enslaved person in his life and was quite proud of this fact.
Additionally, unlike in ancient Greece, there really was a growing abolition movement at the time when Jefferson was alive. Although it was seen as extremely radical at first, abolitionism was nonetheless a significant social movement that Jefferson was certainly aware of.
Abolitionism in North America actually predates the founding of the United States. The highly influential article “African Slavery in America,” arguing in favor of the complete abolition of slavery in North America, was published anonymously in March 1775—over a full year before the Declaration of Independence was signed. The author of the article is often said to have been the radical, left-wing writer Thomas Paine (lived 1737 – 1809), although its appeals to religious sentiments make me doubt it was really written by Paine.
Indeed, although Jefferson was opposed to the idea of the immediate abolition of slavery, even he himself apparently had some degree of sympathy towards the idea of gradual emancipation, although he also believed that emancipated slaves needed to be removed from the country to prevent them from “staining the blood” of the supposedly superior white race.
ABOVE: Portrait of the radical, left-wing writer Thomas Paine, who is often said to have been the author of the anonymous article “African Slavery in America,” an influential anti-slavery tract published in March 1775
Even if Jefferson was incapable of seeing his own hypocrisy on his own, there were other people who were keen on pointing it out to him while he was still alive. On 19 August 1791, the prominent black abolitionist writer Benjamin Banneker (lived 1731 – 1806) wrote a marvelously eloquent letter to Thomas Jefferson pointing out to him his own blatant hypocrisy over slavery.
In the letter, Banneker even quotes back Jefferson’s own words from the Declaration of Independence, in which he had written “We hold these truths to be Self evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness.” Banneker then proceeds to indict Jefferson of hypocrisy, writing:
“Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the Same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.”
Here Banneker is saying basically the exact same things about Thomas Jefferson that Jefferson’s critics are still saying about him today; the only difference is that Banneker wrote this in a letter addressed directly to Jefferson himself. Unfortunately, Banneker’s letter, though very eloquent, had no substantial affect on Jefferson as far as we can tell. Jefferson wrote a brief reply stating in vague, nuanced terms that he was sympathetic to Banneker’s cause. This response never translated into any sort of action.
When we condemn Jefferson for his hypocrisy over slavery, we are not judging him anachronistically by “the standards of our own time”; we are judging him by the standard of his own time. Even some of his contemporaries could see that Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owning hypocrite. Does this make Jefferson the worst human being ever to live? No. Probably not. It does, however, show that he was a very flawed man.
ABOVE: Portrait of Benjamin Banneker printed in a 1795 edition of his Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac from Baltimore. Banneker wrote an impassioned letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1791 pointing out his hypocrisy over slavery. Jefferson was apparently unmoved.
Conclusion
We cannot indict specific historical figures as uniquely monstrous for not supporting social causes that either did not exist or were not prominent at the times when they were alive. Nonetheless, if a historical figure did something immoral, then we can say that their actions were immoral. If someone owned slaves, then we can rightly characterize their ownership of slaves as immoral.
If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy some other articles I have written about the big questions of history. For instance, you may enjoy this article I published in January 2019 about the popular perception that “History is written by the victors.” You may also enjoy this article I published in October 2019 debunking the so-called “Great Man Hypothesis,” which holds that history is primarily shaped by the deeds of so-called “Great Men.”
Re “If morality is dictated solely by society and whatever society says is just must therefore be just, this would mean that, if most people suddenly decided—for no apparent reason—that raping and murdering people was morally good and that not raping and murdering people was evil, then it would actually become morally good to rape and murder people and anyone who did not rape and murder anyone would be considered wicked. Clearly, this is an absurd conclusion …”
Yes this is an absurd conclusion because the premise is absurd. So, you think that it is even in the realm of the possible that a polity of people, all of whom have mothers and other female relatives, would legalize sexual rape? This is absolutely beyond the pale. Any conclusion you might draw from this unlikeliest of premises is bound to be absurd.
You also ignore the many, many times in which societies ahve decide what is to be moral and what is not, for example slavery. Civilization was built upon slavery. (I saw an estimate that 50% of all human beings in the year 1800 existed in some sort of slavery (chattel slavery, indentured servitude, serfdom, etc.).) In other words, it was normal. It is no longer. It has been outlawed, made immoral by the will of societies around the globe. This was not the result of religious influences. All of the world’s major were created when slavery was “normal.” had they not approved slavery, how long do you think they would have lasted. How likely would a major slave state, such as Rome, have adopted Christianity and provided the state power to expand it fantastically id Christianity had labeled slavery as immoral. It did not, it does not, and that contributed to the “rise” of Christianity more than any other aspect of that religion.
Of course the premise is absurd. The example you have quoted here is a deliberate reductio ad absurdum. A reductio ad absurdum is a form of argument in which a person takes an viewpoint to its logical extreme to show that the viewpoint itself is untenable. Obviously, I don’t actually think that anything like the scenario I describe would ever actually happen. I don’t think people are actually going to suddenly decide rape and murder are good. I was, however, trying to use this example to make a philosophical point.
My point here is that true morality must be rooted in some kind of objective logic or reasoning, not in mere social consensus. If morality were determined purely by social consensus and not by any form of reason, then that would mean the definition of behaving morally would be nothing more than conforming to the norms of the society in which a person happens to live. It would mean that anyone who does not conform to social norms is immoral, even if the norms themselves are obviously immoral to any thinking person. Just because slavery was once considered normal does not mean that was actually moral. It is possible for the norms of a society to be immoral.
I am not sure why you are talking about religion and Christianity here, since I never even used the word “Christianity” in this article. Nonetheless, what you are presenting here is very much an oversimplified view. There has never been a single, universally agreed-upon Christian teaching on the subject of slavery. Christian views on slavery have pretty much always been mixed. Going as far back as antiquity, there were some Christians who regarded slavery as immoral and an abomination and others who regarded it as perfectly fine and totally unobjectionable. I mention this early division a little bit in my article on abolitionism that I wrote back in October.
In the United States during the early part of the nineteenth century leading up to the Civil War, Christianity was used both by defenders of slavery and by opponents of slavery. Religious arguments dominated the rhetoric of both sides. If you read abolitionist writings from that period, such as William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or the writings of Frederick Douglass, they are full of references to and appeals to various Christian teachings. At the same time, however, defenders of slavery also appealed to Christian teaching to justify slavery. Today, in the twenty-first century, there are very few Christians in the western world who believe that slavery is moral in any sense.
There were clearly people at the time who saw through the American hypocrisy. Irish poet Tom Moore:
Thomas Moore
from ‘Poems Relating to America’ (~1840)
https://books.google.com/books?id=acBUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=“the+brute+made+ruler”
Oh! Freedom, Freedom, how I hate thy cant!
Not Eastern bombast, not the savage rant
Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all
From Roman Nero down to Russian Paul,
Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base,
As the rank jargon of that fractious race,
Who, poor of heart and prodigal of words,
Formed to be slaves, yet struggling to be lords,
Strut forth, as patriots, from their negro-marts,
And shout for rights, with rapine in their hearts.
Who can, with patience, for a moment see
The medley mass of pride and misery,
Of whips and charters, manacles and rights,
Of slaving blacks and democratic whites,
And all the piebald polity that reigns
In free confusion o’er Columbia’s plains?
To think that man, thou just and gentle God!
Should stand before thee with a tyrant’s rod
O’er creatures like himself, with souls from thee,
Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty;
Away, away – I’d rather hold my neck
By doubtful tenure from a sultan’s beck,
In climes, where liberty has scarce been named,
Nor any right but that of ruling claimed,
Than thus to live, where bastard Freedom waves
Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves;
Where – motley laws admitting no degree
Betwixt the vilely slaved and madly free –
Alike the bondage and the license suit
The brute made ruler and the man made brute.
Excellent comment.
An ancient Greek slave owner living according to the morals of his day was moral in the terms of his time. Very few thought slavery was wrong. Indeed, some will have seen slavery as better than its alternative – death – for the slaves, many of whom were captured in war. Slavery became immoral sometime in the eighteenth century, oddly arriving at the time when uneducated workforces were ceasing to be viable because of the nascent agrarian and industrial revolutions. It is not obectively immoral – but it is objectionable to most people, now. One of the reasons the South was bankrupted by the US Civil War is that the plantations were in debt for their slaves, who were generally an unskilled workforce at the point when mechanization, requiring skilled, literate labour, was coming in. Slavery would probably have died out anyway as being uneconomic. Wage labourers do not have to be looked after when they are unproductive, either, which (I understand) slaves did unless the owner wanted to be socially ostracized.
On the other hand, rape and murder, both being crimes of property, have always been objected to – which is why most societies outlaw both of them and punish them heavily either by physical or financial penalties. When a place is invaded the women were/are raped to show the defenders they are no longer in possession of their property. It is now a war crime (deservedly so) being a weapon of war.