Tag Archives: judgement

In early February 1945, as the Second World War was coming to an end, Allied forces conducted one of their biggest and most deadly bombing missions unleashing more than 3,900 tons of explosives upon the city of Dresden. It is now believed that this killed somewhere in the region of 20,000-40,000 civilians and is regarded as a war crime by many contemporary historians.

The bombing has been a source of huge controversy ever since. With regards to an incident such as this, can the historian play a role in judging the morality of such an issue? The historian can certainly uncover facts, find what alternatives were available and judge the effectiveness of military strategies. However, in many ways these exist as absolute facts, to be discovered.

Many historians now believe that had Hitler targeted RAF airfields during WW2, instead of bombing carpet bombing civilian areas, Nazi Germany would have won the Battle of Britian and then the world war itself. This is an argument that can be made clearly and convincingly. If the evidence is strong enough, there is no reason a whole audience could not be persuaded to it’s conclusion.

However, when the historian tries to make arguments with regards to morality, it is not something that can be demonstrated through facts and evidence alone. In his excellent book “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins explores a concept which he calls, the moral zeitgeist. He uses this term to describe the shift in moral attitudes that has occurred throughout civilization. There was a time in the UK where a majority of the population would have thought slavery morally acceptable, now it is morally repulsive to our society. Anyone holding that view would be ostracized from respectable circles.

As with slavery, the moral Zeitgeist has progressed with regards to warfare too. During the Vietnam war, the conduct of the US forces in creating huge ‘free fire’ zones and their massive bombing campaigns led to massive public outcry throughout the world. The carpet bombing tactics that were used in WW2 were no longer acceptable to a public who could see the damage their military was doing on the news.

The role the media has played in bringing the average citizen face to face with the destruction his military have caused is probably one of the most important factors that help progress Dawkin’s moral zeitgeist.

Many British people alive today would not doubt cite Winston Churchill as one of the greatest Britians to have lived. However Winston Churchill also ran a government that maintained the illegality of homosexuality, driving many homosexuals to suicide rather than face mandatory hormone injections or a prison sentence.

Clearly then, morality has shifted with the times. What use then can a historian be if he/she aims to make moral judgements for a time when the public morality was so vastly different than it is today? Surely that is an area of study that be better addressed by philosophers.

In some areas of historic study, such as the Rwandan genocide, moral judgments are clear and do not need to be explained. The historian can provide a far better service by exploring the colonial history of Africa and the fatal legacies this left for Rwandan society.

However, while it may not be the Historians role to make moral judgements, the historian can certainly explore the morality of individuals in history.

A prime example of this would be Christopher Hitchens with regards to his book, ‘The Trial of Henry Kissenger’.  In the book Hitchens argues that Henry Kissinger is guilty of war crimes through his actions in organizing the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war to give an example. Hitchens uncovers the lies and deceit Kissinger was involved in as he tried to keep news of the Cambodian bombing campaigns secret from both Congress and the national press.

Hitchens uses international law and historical inquiry to condemn his subject and this is probably the best a historian can hope to achieve if they wish to condemn their subject.

However, there is perhaps an alternative to this code of historical conduct if one abandons the concept of a ‘moral zeitgeist’ and instead seeks to establish a firm set of moral principles and apply these to the modern day as well as throughout history. However, this course of action naturally leads to the condemnation of so many historical figures modern popular opinion looks back at with reverence and admiration.

The great American president George Washington is hailed by many Americans as one of their greatest presidents. But he was also a slave-owner and so felt a great number of modern day black Americans were sub-human and not deserving of the same rights as their fellow man.

However, a pro-slavery ideology was not universal in America at the time of Washington’s presidency, and so the historian can condemn Washington for his non-progressive stance and perhaps find him partially responsible for what would later lead to the American civil war.

Interestingly, when exploring the popular consciousness of persons in the past, the historian must be aware of the lack of knowledge we have today. If a person grows up in a society, with very little exposure to people of another race and the popular opinion of the time holds them as intellectually inferior, can we condemn a person for subscribing to that viewpoint knowing they were perhaps merely a victim of their ignorance?

If it was discovered a hundred years from now that chickens were concious beings who could feel pain as much as any human can, we would look back at the factory farms of today with utter moral repulsion. Philosophers and intellectuals would hold sincere regrets and perhaps hold outrage at the actions of our society against chickens today, but would it be fair for them to hold us as immoral people?

Would it be fair for the historian when writing a biography of Barack Obama to say, “He was an evil man who ate murdered chicken for tea several times a month”. Clearly, to the modern day reader, this seems unfair, even to the point of absurdity.

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