I can not say that something that was morally acceptable at the time of someone else's life was, in fact, wrong with anything other than the caveat that I think it was.
Hitler killing millions of people (okay, Hitler CAUSING millions of people to be killed) is wrong at any time because murder is pretty generally always wrong. George Washington owning slaves, Muhammed having multiple wives, Confucius supporting foot binding and the mistreatment of women - wrong, but I can't condemn them as thinkers for their personal life. What they did for me is think. What they did in their own lives - I can find it wrong, but I can't assume that they did, and if they weren't acting out of the boundaries of their own laws and mores, then there is nothing other than the wish to revise history to allow us to condemn them. That doesn't mean I like it, but it does mean that I can't say that they were wrong. Our morality changes as we change, and things that were acceptable ten years - or ten thousand - ago may not be now - doesn't mean that I can demand that everyone who lived hundreds of years ago have my, advanced for their thinking, morality.
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Date: 2006-08-29 04:13 pm (UTC)I can not say that something that was morally acceptable at the time of someone else's life was, in fact, wrong with anything other than the caveat that I think it was.
Hitler killing millions of people (okay, Hitler CAUSING millions of people to be killed) is wrong at any time because murder is pretty generally always wrong. George Washington owning slaves, Muhammed having multiple wives, Confucius supporting foot binding and the mistreatment of women - wrong, but I can't condemn them as thinkers for their personal life. What they did for me is think. What they did in their own lives - I can find it wrong, but I can't assume that they did, and if they weren't acting out of the boundaries of their own laws and mores, then there is nothing other than the wish to revise history to allow us to condemn them. That doesn't mean I like it, but it does mean that I can't say that they were wrong. Our morality changes as we change, and things that were acceptable ten years - or ten thousand - ago may not be now - doesn't mean that I can demand that everyone who lived hundreds of years ago have my, advanced for their thinking, morality.