Historians and Their Duties

Author(s): Jonathan Gorman

Source: History and Theory , Dec., 2004, Vol. 43, No. 4, Theme Issue 43: Historians and
Ethics (Dec., 2004), pp. 103-117
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University

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History and Theory, Theme Issue 43 (December 2004), 103-117 ? Wesleyan University 2004 ISSN: 0018-2656

HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES

JONATHAN GORMAN

ABSTRACT

We need to specify what ethical responsibility historians, as historians, owe, and to

We should distinguish between natural duties and (non-natural) obligations, and rec
that historians' ethical responsibility is of the latter kind. We can discover this res
bility by using the concept of "accountability". Historical knowledge is ce
Historians' central ethical responsibility is that they ought to tell the objective trut
is not a duty shared with everybody, for the right to truth varies with the audience
a historian is essentially a matter of searching for historical knowledge as part of a
gation voluntarily undertaken to give truth to those who have a right to it. On a demo
understanding, people need and are entitled to an objective understanding of the h
cal processes in which they live. Factual knowledge and judgments of value are
required, whatever philosophical view we might have of the possibility of a principl
tinction between them. Historians owe historical truth not only to the living but t
dead. Historians should judge when that is called for, but they should not distort h
cal facts. The rejection of postmodernism's moralism does not free historians from
duties. Historians and moral philosophers alike are able to make dispassionate moral
ments, but those who feel untrained should be educated in moral understanding. We
ensure the moral and social responsibility of historical knowledge. As philosophers
tory, we need a rational reconstruction of moral judgments in history to help with

"Do historians as historians have an ethical responsibility, and if so to wh

There are many ethical matters with which historians have had, and still ha
deal: should I, a historian, ensure that my knowledge and understanding
politically neutral? Should I, a historian, accept an invitation to be an "exper
ness" in legal proceedings? One could continue to list questions like these
it is fully apparent that we have a multiplicity of different issues facing a
plicity of different historians. One possibility is that each raises its own dif
ties and has to be addressed separately by those concerned.
Yet the question posed by History and Theory cannot easily be read as co
ing such an indefinitely wide range of ethical matters. While historians
doubt involved in many such matters, that could be so merely because w
trarily select just that range of ethical problems with which historians happ
chance to be involved. Rather, we seek to know whether historians have an
ical responsibility as historians: we seek to recognize those ethical problem
arise as they do because historians are essentially involved. While there c

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104 JONATHAN GORMAN

no doubt that historians face ethical problems, it i

anything that counts as a moral problem conceive
torians as historians. It is not obvious that the e
face have anything in common.
The question "do historians as historians have an
so to whom?" might, therefore, elicit the answer
expressed with a level of exactness that shows tha
Like the words "right" and "duty," "responsibility
need to specify who owes what, what is owed, an
question should be modified accordingly. What a
bilities, as historians? And to whom are they owe
I like historians; they fascinate me; I can sit and
should we determine our moral questions by ask
think about them? "Historians are simply not tra
or findings of guilt and innocence; they have no
Richard J. Evans.2 Suppose we turn to moral phil

Ethics missionaries are driven by the assumption that i

ter of developing our conceptual understanding and an
to be that if up-and-coming accountants just knew a li
would know better than to falsify their reports so as
stock. But sheer ignorance is seldom the moral proble
needed. Take it from Kierkegaard: The moral challenge
edge that we already have.3

Is this correct? When we fail to do our duty, w

knowledge can only be grounded in reason, and
whose essential self is rational, so that only those
knowledge. Those who are mastered by reason ar
All knowledge is covered by this, and that neces
edge. Thus persons who are mastered by reason
edge. Such knowledge is essential to them, to th
tion; therefore, they act rightly. Those who fail t
their desires rather than reason, but desire canno
as experience-of which desire is a part-cannot
Acting wrongly is a failure of knowledge: peopl
not know the right thing to do. Everyone always do
what philosophers think is best is best, since ph
one knowingly does wrong. Human moral failing
Yet contrast this with a second approach, derive
on the matter. Here the idea is that people know wh
times want to do something different. Human m
The moral challenge may be "simply to abide by t

1. With apologies to Jerome K. Jerome.

2. Richard J. Evans, "History, Memory, and the Law: the Hi
and Theory 41 (2002), 330.
3. Gordon Marino, "Before Teaching Ethics, Stop Kidding
(February 20, 2004), http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i24/24b0

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 105

have," but it is not that simple. Even philosophers might not want
know they should. Dare philosophers admit to some weakness o
They may admit it, but they are not giving up much. After all, a
still know, as philosophers, what is right, even if they are not very
accordingly. Philosophers may want essays like this to make a di
torians. Philosophers, supposedly with moral knowledge, perhap
historians what to do, try to change their minds, try to make them
comfortable practices are wrong. They can use the authorit
Aristotle for this, together with the latest morally safe modern
insisting on the extremes of political correctness. Philosophers w
peace of mind."4 Yet most modern philosophers will feel morally
with these thoughts. They think it is the duties of philosophers t
atic here, not the duties of historians. But perhaps they are the s
is philosophy teaching by examples, why should there be a
Historians, perhaps, are philosophers too. They ought already to
ought to do.
Whether shared or otherwise, whether acted on or otherwise, just how suffi-
cient or advanced is our moral knowledge? It is natural to think that philosophy
does not progress. One reason for this is that Western philosophers seem to con-
tinue to haggle over the answers to the old questions derived from Socrates, with-
out getting anywhere. Yet there is at least one error in this thought, namely, that
many philosophical questions are not perennial. It may seem that there are some
foundation issues (such as, for example, the Socratic issue whether we should
conceive reality in realist or idealist ways), but as the argument moves on-I will
not say "progresses," since that begs the question-it is apparent that we may not
have an issue here at all, let alone a perennial issue. Questions that we once
thought were metaphysical may turn out to be epistemological, or dissolve given
the proper understanding of language use. Our philosophy of language turns out
to be essentially connected to the philosophy of mind, and on (or back? Only
sometimes) we go.
A lot of this material is difficult, certainly for the novice student. By contrast,
those of us who have taken courses in moral philosophy may recall as under-
graduate students having turned with relief to that subject, where at least the
questions are clear, if not the answers. What is justice? How ought I to live my
life? What is the right thing to do? Are such questions perennial? Perhaps not;
the concept of a "human right," for example, using which we might well choose
to frame many moral puzzlements today, is-as we understand that concept-
comparatively recent. It is difficult to find such a notion in Greek moral thought.5
But however that may be, moral issues are practical issues, raising everyday
problems in our own present world. Clear questions, then; all we need are the
answers. And we have plenty! That sets a new problem of which to select, which

4. Derived from Carlin Romano, "Can Philosophers Help Handle Terror?," Inquirer review of
Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jiirgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press), posted February 8 2004 on http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer.
5. See Jonathan Gorman, Rights and Reason (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003),
chapter 2.

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106 JONATHAN GORMAN

I will not address here. Note, however, that havi

tions, even where those answers conflict, is not
ical failure. That there is a plurality of fundamen
to understand morality. Isaiah Berlin thought it
different moral answers into a single moral point
ism is a position that many modem moral philoso
Yet we don't teach that conclusion to our st
because it may be wrong, but because they will
that "totalitarian" moral theories bring. They cut t
example, which in an elementary version sets as t
that an act is right only insofar as it tends to lead
greatest number. Nothing else counts as the b
according to this principle. It directs our attent
alone are the proper bearers of moral characteris
nate. We may wish to speak of a person's good ch
"character" in terms of the actions performed.
justice, but that too must be re-understood in ter
so directed our attention, this utilitarian princip
as the appropriate moral terminology. This is th
"ought," "duty," and so on are secondary, either
or discarded as misleading or otherwise mor
Utilitarianism then tells us how to assess when a
only its consequences count; it then tells us how
Only at this point do we get the student's typical m
ity: "the greatest happiness of the greatest num
important bit.
The complex philosophy underlying Kant's dut
cannot be expressed in such brief summary with
is clear and even useful: "Nothing," Kant says, "c
world, or even out of it, which can be called go
a Good Will. ... A good will is good not because o
not by its aptness for the attainment of some pr
of the volition, that is, it is good in itself."'7 The
cise is governed by reason, which requires cons
the universalized version of that principle on w
goodness, but even that is not quite enough, for th
versal consistency as an aim, and not merely acc
order that an action should be morally good, it i
the moral law, but it must also be donefor the sake
formity is only very contingent and uncertain."8 U
is not our actions that are the primary bearers of

6. Berlin's position involves both factual and moral pluralis

Historians," History and Theory 41 (2002), 277-300.
7. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaph
Kingsmill Abbott, 10th ed. (London: Longmans, 1962), 10-1
8. Kant, Fundamental Principles, 5. My stress on "for the s

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 107

We have to act from duty, and duty is to be understood

the moral law itself. It is this that makes the mora
imperative, rather than an imperative that is "hypothe
upon variable empirical matters. These must be excluded
law, being respect for its own sake and so excluding all
so all empirical elements, can only be respect for the pu
of such laws: "the basis of obligation must . .. be sough
the conceptions of pure reason."9 Thus the good will act
general conception of such laws. So respect for the
respect for the universality of its application: "I am nev
so that I could also will that my maxim should become
other words, "the [categorical] imperative of duty may
if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy
Nature."" Where, for the utilitarian, the rightness of a
the associated intention) can vary with changing circum
ing consequences, for Kant our duties are as fixed and co
tingency as reason itself. Where does my duty lie? The
is absolute.

Having turned to moral philosophy, we have found influential approaches to

ethical problems in two major theories. They are general in their application. They
are exhaustive. What more could historians want when it comes to determining
their ethical responsibilities? But perhaps these ethical theories are not practical
enough. After all, having been given from the utilitarians and from Kant a couple
of core moral values, there remains the question which to use in a particular con-
text. Here we can observe Vincent Barry's suggestion as to how this question can
be dealt with in business ethics: "A sound and meaningful basis for discussing
moral issues in business is one that defines 'right' and 'wrong', 'moral' and
'immoral', in terms acceptable to individuals of diverse moral viewpoints."'12 That
sounds fair enough. And what is common to these diverse viewpoints? "Professor
of Philosophy Vincent Ryan Ruggiero suggests three common concerns. . . . A
useful definition of 'right' and 'wrong' in a business context will reflect these con-
siderations: the obligations that derive from business relationships, the ideals
involved, and the effects or consequences of the action in question."'3 This, Barry
concludes, gives us a two-step moral decision-making process: (1) identify the
important considerations involved (obligations, ideals, and effects), and (2) decide
where the emphasis should lie. "In general, when obligations conflict, we should
choose the greater; when ideals conflict we should choose the higher; when
effects are mixed we should choose the action which likely will produce the most
good or the least evil."'4 Here we have a writer consuming outputs from moral
philosophy and turning it into a set of "practical" instructions.

9. Ibid., 4.
10 Ibid., 21.
11. Ibid., 46.
12. Vincent Barry, Moral Issues in Business, 2nd ed. (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1983), 57.
13. Ibid., 58.
14. Ibid., 61.

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108 JONATHAN GORMAN

Is this baby ethics what we want for history?

is irrelevant to ethics for historians. But the
generalizable to history-that is associated with
be such a thing as business ethics. Kant says th
as a business executive, the alternative of admi
ing, some confidential business information w
dence in the business, the withdrawal of prom
thousands? Is the ordinary obligation not to l
executive? We can see the same issue outside
moral situation of a general who proposes to
campaign, knowing that many will die? And wh
ple, discovers some historical truth about who
ist atrocity in Belfast or Dublin, knowing that
likely to inflame a current delicate political situa
surely cause loss of life? It seems understanda
that taking high office-in other words, ad
actions can have an impact on many people (a
that position)-is to adopt a position with resp
apply. The title of the philosopher F. H. Br
Duties"15 is perhaps enough to make the point:
station? One morality for chief executives an
ordinary person I can't morally do this, but a
ordinary person I can't morally do this, but as
had better not be too quick to distance ourselv
ness were somehow entitled to be bracketed of
down that route lies the idea that different p
worlds. As business people or historians, we
world. If Barry is right to give us his two-step
identifying and weighing obligations, ideals, a
to historians too. But if this is so, we have sti
ity for historians as historians.
Company directors and generals do have duti
duties that those who are not company direct
Rawls helpfully distinguishes between "natura
tions.16 "Natural" duties are those that apply t
who accept public office or, for that matter,
obligations that are associated with those posit
ural obligations typically arise as a result of
One of the things that Rawls's theory of justic
erning such institutions in order for the relev

15. F. H. Bradley, "My Station and Its Duties," in Ethical

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), chapter 5. It is th
16. I put "natural" in quotation marks here because, on
naturally "given" (as, say, Locke's natural rights are giv
thetical fair decision situation. The contrast with "non-na
present purpose. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxfor

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 109

voluntarily assumed. I have non-natural obligations to my

not have the same obligations towards yours. That does no
obligations towards yours. For example, they have a right
and in virtue of that I have a "natural" obligation not to k
have an obligation, "natural" or non-natural, to teach them
will have the same "natural" duties as everybody else has
sarily mean that "natural" duties will always override no
Think of a judge, who has a non-natural obligation to appl
may be its conflict with moral demands, demands that a
Moral demands are not always consistent. We can rely on
duties, or go back to Kant or the utilitarians or the other
ed to. Using Rawls's distinction, perhaps historians do, af
non-natural duties in virtue of their profession.
One of the ways in which we can make sense of ethical i
and standards in modem democratic societies is by way of
ability. We need not, by imposing some totalitarian standa
have aims and purposes that are set by government. F
means that people do not have to join one institution rat
more than that they must marry one person rather than a
voluntarily enter a position or an institution they do tak
associated duties. We can hold them accountable by asking
voluntarily undertaken, and then evaluating how well th
one way of trying to isolate the ethical responsibilities pe
ask what it is that historians are supposed to do. While thi
material using which we might assess how well they do it,
cern is with the goals themselves. What are historians for
Why teach it?
What would you say to a student who is doubtful whethe
examination of universities' websites across the world sh
that offer any justification for the subject. The following
master seems to be as good as anything any university can
history is for: "History is essential in helping us all to un
nation in which we live today: what E. H. Carr described
logue between the present and the past'. Equally, compreh
educate us so that future generations might not repeat the
cessors."17 Across the world, history is typically taught p
expense, and public accountability-once completely ab
oped widely. To find out what history degrees are supposed
the UK's Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency's "b
subject.1" Such benchmarks describe the nature and char

17. Letter from James Rich, Bolton School Boys' Division, The Tim
section, May 18, 2004.
18. This benchmark statement may be accessed at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/
ours.htm (last accessed September 17, 2004) and is ? The Quality Ass
Education 2000. Quotations that follow are from this document. It was p
ject benchmarking group, whose members were: Dr. M. Arnot; Pr
Professor C. Clark (Warwick); Professor M. Daunton (Churchill Colleg

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110 JONATHAN GORMAN

programs in a specific subject, and are produced

ognize "that there are many different suitable an
and making available the great richness and dive
common core of purpose and skills.19 Public acc
ing how well university history teachers do wh
doing in this regard. It is a paradigm case of R
natural obligations.
I take from the 8,500-word "benchmark" docu
that are relevant to the present inquiry; much of
ifying particular skills.

We take it as self-evident that knowledge and under

incalculable value both to the individual and to society
education in History is to enable this to be acquired.
We stress the importance of historical knowledge.
[History's] subject matter, distinguishing it from ot
consists of the attempts of human beings in the past
ceptually, individually and collectively, while the o
widen students' experience and develop qualities of p
History provides a distinctive education by providin
of the development of differing values, systems and s
cal yet tolerant personal attitudes.
Important abilities and qualities of mind are acquired t
are particularly valuable for the graduate as citizen an
occupations and careers. Some of these qualities and ab
imparted by most degree programmes in the Humani
level study in History also instils ways of thinking w
while being no less transferable. These include a res
dence, a greater awareness of the historical processe
deeper understanding of the varied traditions current

In summary, historical knowledge is central. T

beings' attempts to organize life. This knowled
I take "incalculable" to have the positive associat
less": it's beneficial, but we can't measure it; w
it; which means we can't justify it. Finally, hist
for historical context and evidence and awaren
of historical processes and varied traditions occu
Here are other ways of expressing the central
should measure out my facts, so that all who r
events with clarity. ... My job as an historian is t
of history lies in its capacity for advancing th

Dickinson (Edinburgh); Dr. Susan Doran (St. Mary's Coll

(Bristol); Professor D. Eastwood (Swansea); Professor E. Ev
(Chair); Professor A. Jones (Aberystwyth); Mr. R. Lloyd-Jon
(Glasgow Caledonian); Professor A. Porter (King's Co
(Huddersfield); Professor J. Tosh (North London).
19. It does this well, although a reference to history as "an
committed to a particular philosophy of history. The benchm
20. lain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost (London: V

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 111

truth? Mighty above all things, it resides in the small piec

the record."21 Now you, historian, know what your duty i
it. So that, apparently, is it; tell the truth and you have do
Central to the benchmark statement is the view that his
cerned to produce historical knowledge. Historians' centra
is then that they ought to tell the truth. But so should w
duty shared with everybody? If so, it is not plausible to sup
on historians as historians.

It is true that, on the whole, people ought not to lie. But there are problem
cases. Philosopher Stuart Hampshire, towards the end of the Second World War,
had to "interrogate a French traitor (imprisoned by the Free French), who refused
to cooperate unless he was allowed to live. Should Hampshire, knowing the man
was condemned to die, promise him a reprieve, which he was in no position to
give, or truthfully refuse it, thereby jeopardising the lives of Resistance fight-
ers?"22 When a terrorist asked a child at his Belfast front door for his father,
should the child have told him? And cannot I tell even a white lie to keep some-
thing confidential?
What is a lie? Is it the making of a false statement? Hardly that, for a child who
gets his sums wrong would then be lying every time. The wrongness may have
to do with deception rather than falsehood, but cannot the crossword-puzzle set-
ter or the mystery thriller writer rightly seek to deceive the reader? It is far more
helpful to understand lying in terms of offending against those who have a right
to the truth. My medical condition is confidential; you do not have a right to the
truth about it. Nor does the terrorist have the right to hear the truth about my
father's whereabouts. Stuart Hampshire's decision "lay heavy on his con-
science"23 (and we do not know what his decision was), but his calculation might
have been eased had he reflected that the traitor plausibly had no right to have
the truth from him. I do not owe the truth to everyone. Lying may only be prima
facie a wrong, and its wrongness defeasible in contexts like these.
Let us now look with greater care at the question central to this essay: "do his-
torians as historians have an ethical responsibility, and if so, what, and if so, to
whom?" The present answer is that they have a responsibility to tell the truth.
"Truth" here should not be understood in a narrow sense as "statement truth," for
we know that we can mislead by inappropriate selection of such truths.24 Truth
should be understood as "the" truth about something.25 An objection to this
answer is that the responsibility to tell the truth is shared by everyone, and is
therefore not incumbent on historians as historians. But this objection is
unsound. True, I cannot lie about my father's whereabouts if asked in a court of
law, but I may lie to a terrorist. The wrongness varies with the audience, just as
the right to truth varies with the audience. Historians as historians have a respon-

21. Oscar Handlin, Truth in History (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1979), 405.
22. Jane O'Grady, Obituary of Sir Stuart Hampshire, The Guardian (June 16, 2004).
23. Ibid.

24. See J. L. Gorman, "Objectivity and Truth in History," in History and Theory: Contemporary
Readings, ed. Brian Fay, Philip Pomper, and Richard T. Vann (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 320-341.
25. In a court case the demand is typically for "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

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 112 JONATHAN GORMAN

sibility to an audience that others do not hav

whom? If we follow the quotation given abov
ing himself as a historian, "I should measur
can discern the pattern of events with clarit
as historians owe historical truth to everyo
audience. Despite the generality of the au
between what people do as private individual
be completely clear in this context. As a priv
my age secret and even to lie about it to tho
edge. Yet if, as a historian, I write a history
a relevant fact required for the objectivity o
truth to all and sundry. When I publish as a hi
to my readers. Readers of works of history
tation that they will receive historical truth
ports to provide it. This gives the readers a m
that truth.

Yet what is the historical truth for? As the

tions to their audiences are equivalent in mo
offers some passing entertainment, and his
that of a liquor seller who passes off a blend
not historical truth in some way better than t
evant to a market in mere tastes? After all
and perhaps there really are some-who offe
like truth more than others. So long as read
seems that historians and anti-historians app
standing. Is there anything that justifies th
beyond the requirements of the market place
sake" is a comfortable and common respons
historical knowledge is not self-evidently v
question.
The authors of the history benchmark took the value of historical knowledge
to be self-evident. We need some approach that warrants that value to us, people
in the present, even if we need this warrant only in our capacity as taxpayers.
Although the benchmark reference to "awareness of historical processes unfold-
ing in our own time" is weak, it does mention the connection to the present that
we need. What is the good of historians if they do not make a difference to us?
J. H. Plumb would have agreed:

Each one of us is an historical being, held in a pattern created by Time, and to be uncon-
scious of our historical selves is fraught with dangers .... The majority of men and women
... realize that they are a part of an historical process that has changed over the centuries.

?. They need an historical past, objective and true. The historian cannot be free from
either moral or political judgements ... , but he can do his best to form both in the light
of history . . . Any process which increases man's awareness of himself, that strengthens
his chance of controlling himself and his environment, is well worth pursuing.27

26. Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost, 561, my stress on "all who read."
27. J. H. Plumb, The Death of the Past (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1973), 16, 15.

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 113

"The study of history had a calling beyond the semina

Tristram Hunt, reflecting on Plumb, but "academic histor
the emotional pull of the past without replacing it with any
making."28
This seems to be the tenor also of the European Science Foundation's new and
wealthy research program, "Representations of the Past: The Writing of National
Histories in Europe," which has the following introduction:

National history is central to national identity. A sustained and systematic study of the
construction, erosion and reconstruction of national histories across a wide variety of
European states is a highly topical and extremely relevant exercise for two reasons: first-
ly, because of the long and successful history of the national paradigm in history-writing;
and, secondly, because of its re-emergence as a powerful political tool in the 1990s in the
context of the accelerating processes of Europeanization and globalization. National his-
tories form an important part of the collective memory of the peoples of Europe. National
bonds have been, and continue to be, among the strongest bonds of loyalty. A genuinely
trans-national and comparative investigation into the structures and workings of national
histories will play an important part both in understanding the diversity of national histo-
ries in Europe and preparing the way for further dialogue and understanding among
European nation-states.29

A sustained, systematic, transnational, and comparative investigation of

national histories is one thing; linking the project by way of the idea of "the
strongest bonds of loyalty" to increasing European dialogue and understanding
is a political hope that seems quite independent of that history. What Hunt called
"the emotional pull of the past" was a living thing for Plumb, but something to
be created for European planners. Such an emotional pull may come again, but
it is plainly something that varies in its existence over historical and contempo-
rary time and place. History--certainly history conceived as mere knowledge-
perhaps ought to be independent of such political uses. Yet the historical aware-
ness that we need for what Plumb called the self-awareness and capacity to con-
trol our lives places historical knowledge at the center of our moral and political
concerns. Historical knowledge with its varying emotional pull plausibly cannot
be independent of morality and politics. UNESCO is developing a Strategy on
Philosophy, which it sees as analyzing and understanding key concepts of justice,
liberty, and peace, so enabling the establishment of intellectual and moral soli-
darity, for "it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be con-
structed."30 Worthy aims, and perhaps shared with history, but they are political
aims. One might hope that philosophy-as opposed to particular philosophies-
would not be associated with any political agenda, however meritorious; and yet
that puts philosophy outside our present moral world. Apart from being morally
implausible, it removes the justification for doing philosophy at all. A parallel
point may be made for history.

28. Tristram Hunt, "Professor Plumb and the Victory of Reason," referring to Niall Ferguson's
introduction to a reissue of Plumb's The Death of the Past, The Times (London), Review ideas sec-
tion, January 17 2004.
29. Accessed June 1, 2004 from:
http://www.esf.org/esfarticle.php?section=2&domain=4&activity= 1 &language=O&article=363
30. Quoted by the First Draft Strategy (June 2003) from the Preamble of the Constitution of
UNESCO of 1945.

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114 JONATHAN GORMAN

There is a practical danger in this. Richard J

our appropriation and representation of the so
or estimation of these political and legal cons
acting as historians."31 Evans is right: we mus
representation of the sources to be framed by
that would offend against the duty to give his
with current morality and politics, in principl
tion both ways: Evans quotes from Alan Ders
opinion, is-though succinct-as good as it gets
want the government to tell me that it [the H
want any government to tell me that it didn't
cal or even moral impact on historical truth as
torians' duty as historians.
But historical truth nevertheless has to be r
readers. To take a minimal but central feature
able should history be? If historical knowledge
it need not connect to our present lives, wha
history in, say, Latin rather than the vernacu
resolved. Just as the political world took its firs
senting religious texts in the language of ord
standing is and has to be an essential part of pr
individual and social. Historical knowledge is
and representation of the sources."
Here is a "postmodern" view:

Perhaps because I never wanted to be a historian but

had a single heritage to embrace, I became as a sch
and decentering spirit of postmodernism. Or perh
career that led me in that direction. Whatever th
three-plus decades of a scholarly career which begin
Left in traditional story form and ends up promoti
raphy, and history on film as viable alternative mo
meaningful to us in the present.33

Whether we are "postmodern" or not, the wo

ingful to us is a proper worry. Even if we thi
senting" the past, as photographs were once im
out lying," it does not just "represent" the pas
audience, and there is a moral to-and-fro here
that gives point to historical truth, which m
pendent of that moral to-and-fro. Readability re
the author, and what the historian may imagin
nevertheless make a moral or emotional impa
ought not to be ignorant of the likely relation
31. Evans, "History, Memory, and the Law," 344.
32. Ibid., 342, quoting Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of
the Trials of the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yal
33. "Abstract" introducing Robert A. Rosenstone, "Con
Rethinking History 8 (2004), 149.

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 115

the reader's overall understanding, which inevitably inclu

contemporary moral and political realm. Being a historian
of searching for historical knowledge as part of an obligati
taken to give truth to those who have a right to it. Factua
ments of value are both required, whatever philosophical v
the possibility of a principled distinction between them.
Importantly, historians owe historical truth not only to
dead. Everyone wants to be thought well of when they di
remember. It is probable that, if we were to apply the rele
ment in Rawls's Theory of Justice, we would find that, in
ural" rights and duties under a "veil of ignorance,"34 we
for the dead, if only as part of our duty to do justice betw
dead have a (certainly defeasible) right to be well thought
dead was seen by Vico as a universal feature of human soc
people is to treat them as worthy of moral evaluation. Hist
away from their role in bringing the necessary historical
moral judgment. Veronica Wedgwood had no difficulty wit

It is therefore for the theory behind the King's actions and behi
must ultimately be judged, rather than for the intrinsic merits of t
It is one of the paradoxes of history that the just men may somet
the unjust cause while the self-interested may occasionally stumb
course.35

Black is black to Miss Mangnall and white is white, the colour being irrevocably deter-
mined on the highest moral principles. Her prejudices, which are many and unconcealed,
arise from high-mindedness, if a little also from ignorance. Believing what she did of the
Hierarchy, the Inquisition and the Mendicant Orders-which 'prevented the dawning light
of the thirteenth century from penetrating the regions of darkness'-how could she think
well of the Church of Rome? She had none of that unnerving impartiality which in more
recent handbooks clouds the youthful mind with doubt.36

"Unnerving impartiality" here does not imply that the historian should be partial
or biased, but that the historian should judge when that is called for. This is to
show respect, and has nothing to do with distorting historical facts.
Politicians typically want to wait for history to judge them, but only historians
can do this. Why are historians so well placed to make moral judgments? There
seem to be two important bases: emotional distance,37 and hindsight knowledge
of consequences later to the situation being judged. Historians should not turn
away from this privileged position. Against this approach, Richard J. Evans says,

The very term "Holocaust," with its heavy baggage of religious and mystical significance,
is an invitation to engage in moral judgment rather than in explanation. This re-moraliza-

34. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 136.

35. Veronica Wedgwood, "Strafford," in The Collected Essays of C. V Wedgwood (London:
Fontana, 1987), 117.
36. Veronica Wedgwood, "Miss Mangnall of the Questions," in Collected Essays, 93.
37. "I feel less angry about the [Maryland, 2002] snipers than I did a year ago, much less upset
about O. J. Simpson than I did ten years ago. And I feel positively benign about Bluebeard the
Pirate." F. H. Buckley, "Are Emotions Moral?," The New Criterion (January 22, 2004),
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/22/jan04/emotion.htm (accessed September 17, 2004).

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116 JONATHAN GORMAN

tion of history is not unconnected with the view of som

ry cannot deliver dependable factual knowledge or emp
explanations, it should become the only thing it is ca
moral rhetoric.38

Some postmodernists indeed have such a view. Bu

ans' rejection of such a view to free them from
postmodern view, then we are rejecting the view
dependable factual knowledge or empirically gro
tions," and we believe instead that it can. But if w
we are also rejecting the conclusion, which is the vi
of its epistemological failing, be "a form of mora
by analogy with the situation for historical truth
moral knowledge or convincing moral justificati
objective moral understanding is philosophically
for granted the postmodern position on this, as E
To give a fuller version of my earlier quotation
are, or should be, engaged in, is explanation and i
ment. Historians are simply not trained to make
guilt and innocence; they have no expertise in th
with moral judgments rather than legal ones, and
to the lawyers. Morality, by contrast, governs us
Evans on this is that historians should be trained
does not mean that historians are as morally igno
there is some fixed set of morally right answers. T
ory that historians need to apply, but there is n
way for historians to reflect on and carry out their
cation. Indeed, it is a traditional feature of great
tional. Moral understanding is by no means the p
Historians and philosophers alike, as human being
judgments. We need to take care with them, for
judge, while we are also involved in educating the
losophy of history, the familiar philosophical co
edge with scientific knowledge is not the only tas
the moral and social responsibility of science, so
the moral and social responsibility of historical
of history, we need a rational reconstruction of
help with this.
Says Evans, we need to "reassert history's prima
understanding the past rather than judging it."40
conflict. I argue in favor of moral judgment, and
be on historians' agenda. Evans in fact is more f
appear. With respect to his The Coming of th
Ascherson comments, "In his preface, Richard E

38. Evans, "History, Memory, and the Law," 344.

39. Ibid., 330.
40. Ibid., 345.

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 HISTORIANS AND THEIR DUTIES 117

statistic. The standard bibliography of works on the Naz

than 37,000 entries in the year 2000, having increased f
1995." Why, Ascherson asked, is so much of it being
explains in his preface, he considers many previous Thir
contaminated by the rage or horror of their authors. This
sional conscience: 'It seems to me inappropriate for a wor
in the luxury of moral judgment. For one thing, it is unh
is arrogant and presumptuous'." Ascherson dryly observ
apparently in for a unique experience: a value-free histo
would be drab indeed. Luckily, it works out differently. T
of moralising outbursts, but coming from contemporary
from Evans himself."'41
Either Ascherson or Evans or both are confusing feeling
moralizing outbursts, with dispassionate moral judgmen
not escape the need to make our own moral judgments ev
standards of past witnesses to judge actions. It is ind
whether, in judging the past, we should use the morality
with the events or our own moral standards. But that choi
witnesses. Independently of the detail of each of these app
choice that we, as historians, face now.

Queen's University of Belfast

Northern Ireland

41. Neal Ascherson commenting on Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (New York
and London: Penguin/Allen Lane 2003) in "Still Spellbound by the Nazis," The Observer Review
(November 30, 2003), 15.

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