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The dead do not have such an opportunity, and so to waste anger chastising them is pointless. We are right to lament the iniquities of the past, but to blame individuals for things they did in less enlightened times using the standards of today is too harsh.--Julian Baggini "Why sexist and racist philosophers might still be admirable" @Aeon.
My friend, Martin Lenz, offers a nuanced response to Baggini (worth reading here). My interest in joining the debate is because Baggini's piece exhibits a characteristic vice of what I call 'modern historicism.'* It is an unusual version of historicism, because it is built on the (embrace and) reality of moral progress. My regular readers know I am somewhat skeptical about such claims to moral progress, but today I stipulate, for the sake of argument, that it is true.
Modern historicism is, in fact, committed to three claims. First, our minds, even the "greatest" among us, are "socially conditioned." Second, while we, too, will make socially conditioned moral mistakes, we are the products of moral progress or "Enlightenment." In fact, for Baggini -- and this is an appealing feature of his version of historicism --"changing society requires making people see that it is possible to overcome the prejudices they were brought up with." And this points to the fact that, third, some mechanism of historical change, even improvement, is required. To the best of my knowledge Baggini has not explained this mechanism, although it is surely tempting -- to those lovers of genius -- to see the philosophical "greats" as key vectors in this mechanism, while -- to lovers of impersonal forces of history -- this mechanism happens, as it were, behind our backs (to deploy a phrase I heard Jacob T. Levy use recently).
Now, Baggini is not silly (his piece is full of astute observations) and modern historicism is quite plausible. It fits with the more general caution against anachronism something defended by most historians and prudential folk. (Regular readers know I tend to endorse the methodological use of anachronism in various contexts (recall, for example, here; here; and here.))
Even so, the modern historicist, not unlike her nineteenth century predecessor,+ mistakenly and often tacitly assumes that previous cultures are organic wholes with a great deal of intellectual uniformity. (And this assumptions infects the way the first claim is understood or taken up.) And so it is likely to overlook that the moral mistakes even sins of the past often were contested in historical context.
In my book on Adam Smith, I explained that Hume's embrace of racial hierarchy in his anthropology (recall this post on "Of national Characters") was the target of extended criticism of Adam Smith. (I also showed that it was so understood by early nineteenth century readers.) Even so, my argument requires close reading. But for the present purposes that won't be necessary. For, Hume's racism was explicitly and polemically criticized by James Beattie in his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770). The relevant passage was not obscure because it got excerpted and republished in "The Gentleman's Magazine" (1771); see here. What's especially notable of Beattie's argument is that it accepts Hume's account of history and draws on empirical evidence to offer an immanent critique of Hume.++
Beattie has a bad reputation -- in a letter to his publisher, Hume called him a "silly bigoted fellow" -- and Kant famously claimed that “I should think that Hume might fairly have laid as much claim to common sense as Beattie, and in addition to a critical reason (such as the latter did not possess).”** I am the first to grant that Beattie is not as good a philosopher as Kant or Hume. But it's worth noticing that a historical memory that effaces Beattie's criticism of Hume's racism makes possible an objectionable form of modern historicism.
This form of modern historicism is objectionable not just because it effaces the morally astute critics of our canonical thinkers, and so thereby re-enacts a historical injustice (recall here; here; and here), but also because it ends up teaching not just a false picture of history, but also offers a false picture of the impossibility of independent thought, against the grain, of one's own times. For, it is a useful regulative historical ideal to accept as historical principle that every idea worth contesting will be contested in context. Of course, the principle is likely to have exceptions (and some other time I'll discuss how to understand the exceptions to the contrary).
The previous paragraphs understates the situation. It's quite possible that Hume's prejudicial embrace of racial hierarchy was not the norm in the eighteenth century, and only became so during the (even more imperialist) nineteenth century when it received the imprimatur of science. So, yes, while it is true that we are often socially conditioned by our environment, and that we are likely to develop moral mistakes because of it, modern historicism encourages us to believe a mythic history that ends up discouraging being on the look-out for the moral mistakes of the past, and present.
*To use this language suggests historicism also has salutary virtues. But that's not my present concern.
+Yes, this sentence has the character of a liar-sentence.
**I checked the internet encyclopedia of philosophy entry on Beattie to refresh my memory on these matters.
++See also James Harris's footnote in his excellent biography.
I also mention Beattie's criticism of Hume in my Reflecting Subjects. Note too that Beattie was friends with Elizabeth Montagu who held meetings of the Bluestockings at her home. I believe it was through Montagu that Beattie had his portrait painted by Reynolds; and there's an interesting contrast between Reynolds and Ramsay as portrait painters.
Posted by: Jackie Taylor | 12/03/2018 at 12:02 AM
Yes, your footnote calling attention to the literature on the Reynolds portrait is very much worth developing. The connection with Montagu has not impressed itself before on me. Thank you!
Posted by: Eric Schliesser | 12/03/2018 at 12:08 PM