Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T13:22:30.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Idea of Moral Duties to History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Saul Smilansky
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

History is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

I argue that there are duties that can be called ‘Moral duties due to history’ or, in short, ‘Duties to History’ (DTH). My claim is not the familiar thought that we need to learn from history on how to live better in the present and going forward, but that history itself creates moral duties. In addition to those obligations we currently recognise in response to the present and the future, there also exist special obligations in response to the past. If convincing, this means that our lives ought to be guided, in part, not only by our obligations to the living but by our DTH. This is a surprising result, with significant and sometimes perplexing implications. My focus is on the obligations of individuals in the light of history rather than on collective duties.

I argue that there are duties that can be called ‘Moral duties due to history’ or, in short, ‘Duties to History’ (DTH). My claim is not the familiar thought that we need to learn from history on how to live better in the present and going forward, but that history itself creates moral duties. In addition to those obligations we currently recognise in response to the present and the future, there also exist special obligations in response to the past; such as obligations to good people in the past, but going beyond them. If convincing, this means that our lives ought to be guided, in part, not only by our obligations to the living but by our DTH. This is a surprising result, with significant and sometimes perplexing implications. My focus is on the obligations of individuals in the light of history rather than on collective duties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 96 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 155 - 179
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benatar, David, Better Never To Have Been (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callahan, John, ‘On harming the dead’ Ethics 97 (1987), 341–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fackenheim, Emil L., To Mend the World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel, Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Heyd, David, Genethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Kahane, Guy, ‘History and persons’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (2019), 162–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahane, Guy, ‘The significance of the past’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Margalit, Avishai, The Ethics of Memory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas, ‘Death’, in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Parfit, Derek, On What Matters Vol.II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).Google Scholar
Partridge, Ernest, ‘Posthumous interests and posthumous respect’ Ethics 81 (1981), 243–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitcher, George, ‘The misfortunes of the dead’ American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984), 183–188.Google Scholar
Ridge, Michael, ‘Giving the dead their due’ Ethics 114 (2003), 38–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, R.M., Paradoxes (3rd edition; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel, Why Worry about Future Generations? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sher, George, ‘Ancient wrongs and modern rights’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981), 3–17.Google Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Is there a moral obligation to have children?’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 12 (1995), 41–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Should I be grateful to you for not harming me?’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42 (1997), 585–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul. ‘Reactive-contributions and their significance’, Public Affairs Quarterly 17 (2003), 349–357.Google Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Fortunate misfortune’, in 10 Moral Paradoxes (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007a).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘On not being sorry about the morally bad’, in 10 Moral Paradoxes (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007b).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘If knowledge is good, we are always born too early’, Journal of Value Inquiry 44 (2010), 55–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘On the common lament, that a person cannot make much difference in this world’, Philosophy 87 (2012), 109–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Free will as a case of ‘Crazy Ethics’’, in Caruso, Gregg, ed., Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Lexington Books, 2013a).Google Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Morally, should we prefer never to have existed?’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (2013b), 655–666.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Why moral paradoxes matter: ‘Teflon Immorality’ and the perversity of life’, Philosophical Studies, 165 (2013c), 229–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘A difficulty concerning compensation’, Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (2013d), 329–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Gratitude: the dark side’, in Carr, David, ed., Perspectives on Gratitude (New York: Routledge, 2016).Google Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘The nonidentity problem: united and unconquered’, in Matthew Liao, S. and O'Neil, Colin, eds., Current Controversies in Bioethics (New York: Routledge, 2017).Google Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Punishing the dead’, Journal of Value Inquiry 52 (2018), 169–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘The good, the bad, and the nonidentity problem: reflections on Jewish history’, in Lebens, Sam, Rabinowitz, Dani and Segal, Aaron, eds., Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019a).Google Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘A Hostage situation’, Journal of Philosophy 116 (2019b), 447–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘The moral evaluation of past tragedies: a new puzzle’, Journal of Moral Philosophy, 17 (2020a), 188–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smilansky, Saul, ‘Should we sacrifice the utilitarians first?’, Philosophical Quarterly 70 (2020b), 850–867.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David Velleman, J., ‘Well-being and time’, in The Possibility of Practical Reason (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000).Google Scholar
David Velleman, J., ‘The self as narrator’, in Christman, John and Anderson, Joel, eds., Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Jay Wallace, R.,. The View from Here (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, Rivka, The Risk of a Lifetime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).Google Scholar