(2) Much of the argument here about the impropriety of using moral categories in an explabatory way depends on a crude and unexamined positivism that treats moral talk as something like mere expression of pro or con attitudes that does not do any explanatory work. It is surprising to hear this from a vunch of self-styled Marxists, whose ideology teaches us to reject crude fact-value distinctions. I see no reason why moral talk should not be treated realistically and according explanatory status. From this point of view, Stalin's wickedness, that ism the qualities that made him wicked, are both explantory of his conduct and objects at the same time of moral evaluation, and explanatory in just the way that they are subject to evaluation. Thus his cruelty, domineering and deceptive nature explains a lot of his evil behavior, and it is hard to say that "cruelty" is a category that one could empty of moral evaluation. "OK, he was cruel, but that is neither good nor bad." Yeah, right.
Obviously I am not suggesting that we abandon materialist explanation in history. But what tue, such explanatiuon is not complete. ANd even such explanation is morally loaded, if we treat the category of exploitation as fundamental to it, as was done by a certain 19th century German emigre writer . . . .
jks
jks
--- Brian Siano <siano at mail.med.upenn.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 22:17:08 -0400, Jim Farmelant
> <farmelantj at juno.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I wonder if you find E.H. Carr's version of the
> argument
> > ridiculous as well?
> >
> > "And if anyone cavils at the statement that it is
> not our
> > business to pass judgement on Hitler or Stalin -
> or,
> > if you like, on Senator McCarthy - this is because
> they
> > were the contemporaries of many of us, because
> > hundreds of thousands of those who suffered
> directly
> > or indirectly from their actions are still alive,
> and because,
> > precisely for those reasons, it is difficult for
> us to
> > approach them as historians and to divest
> ourselves
> > of other capacities which might justify us in
> passing
> > judgement on their deeds: this is one of the
> > embarrassments - I would say, the principle
> > embarrassment - of the contemporary historian.
> > But what profit does anyone find today in
> denouncing
> > the sins of Charlemagne or of Napoleon?"
>
> Actually, yes, I do find this ridiculous. For one
> thing, Carr is addressing
> the work of historians-- and not the exercise of
> moral judgement by
> ordinary people. Second, if an historian wishes to
> evaluate a person or an
> event as "evil," then that is his or her perogative;
> and if the reader
> wishes to separate his moral observations from his
> historical analysis,
> that is _their_ perogative.
>
> Givem Carr's comments, one can't help but find him a
> little ridiculous. His
> "principal embarassment" (yes, it's "principal,"
> meaning primary, not
> "principle") is that he must somehow examine history
> while refusing to give
> it any degree of moral imperative. If Carr truly
> followed this approach, he
> must have found his subject withering away before
> him, all the spectacle
> and horror and outrage dissolving in a kind of
> "well, they were only doing
> what their societies wanted them to do..." Sort of
> takes the pizzazz out of
> the pageant of history, doesn't it? (And it takes
> away the incentive to
> fight injustice-- after all, if our leaders are
> merely following cultural
> or institutional dictates, then we cannot hold them
> responsible, nor can we
> punish them in good conscience.)
>
> As for denouncing the sins of Charlemagne or
> Napoleon, I can't say there's
> much benefit... but denounce the sins of Joseph
> Stalin, and there'll be
> morons crawling out of the woodwork to nitpick you
> unto infinity.
>
>
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