My recent musings have taken me into wondering how to evaluate periods of history and cultures as “good” or “bad” (in the moral sense and, admittedly, grossly simplifying with a binary classification). I keep running into a number of difficulties which I think are not solvable, suggesting that one should reserve moral judgement of historical time periods. Unlike previous blog posts, these thoughts will be posed as questions rather than as statements because I think that better illustrates my thinking.

Question 1: Given that we cannot know (can we even make reasonable guesses?) what would have happened differently in the past if some events didn’t happen, or if some nonevents did, then how can we know that an event/nonevent was preferable (by what standards?) than any of the alternatives? Plenty of plotlines for time-travel movies illustrate this problem well.

Question 2: We do not have perfect knowledge of what happened in the past so how can we appraise it fairly based on incomplete information? This isn’t just a rhetorical question – beliefs about the past affect present actions which determine future outcomes.

Question 3: Records of the past will be loaded with framings and connotations. How can we ensure that our judgements are not unduly influenced by these? I’ve explored a similar point before with media and public relations in https://thethoughtjumble.home.blog/2019/06/26/the-media-is-necessarily-flawed/ and https://thethoughtjumble.home.blog/2019/06/08/the-trick-of-framing/.

Question 4: Given that moral norms have changed and even reversed over time, it is possible that someone who was heavily praised according to the standards of the time will now be heavily criticised according to our standards. Is it possible that moral norms change again so that the person’s standing is yet again reappraised? Why should we favour our present moral thinking over that of previous time periods while knowing that future generations will probably favour their moral thinking over our own? They will likely call their views “obvious” and look back at us as an evil sadistic generation, just as alot of us look back at history with condemnation rather than dispassionate recognition that it happened.