Few debates in historical theory generate as much heat as the question of moral judgment. When a historian condemns Thomas Jefferson for slaveholding or praises Bartolomé de las Casas for defending indigenous peoples, are they illuminating the past or merely projecting contemporary concerns backward? The accusation of presentism—anachronistically imposing present values on past actors—has become one of the most common criticisms in professional historical discourse, deployed against popular histories and scholarly works alike.

Yet the matter proves more philosophically complex than either side typically acknowledges. The presentism critique rests on assumptions about historical understanding, moral relativism, and the purpose of historical inquiry that themselves require examination. Meanwhile, those who defend moral judgment often underestimate the epistemological challenges their position entails. What appears to be a simple methodological dispute conceals fundamental questions about the nature of historical knowledge and its relationship to ethical reasoning.

This analysis examines the presentism debate not to reach a comfortable resolution, but to clarify what is actually at stake. The question is not whether historians do make moral judgments—they manifestly do, often while denying it—but whether they should, and under what conditions such judgments can be intellectually defensible. The answer, I shall argue, requires neither wholesale contextualism nor unreflective moral imposition, but a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between historical explanation and ethical evaluation.

The case against presentism draws on venerable principles in historical methodology. Since the nineteenth century, historians have insisted that understanding the past requires imaginative reconstruction of historical contexts—what R.G. Collingwood called the re-enactment of past thought. To understand why historical actors made certain choices, we must grasp the conceptual universe they inhabited: the beliefs they held, the options they perceived, the constraints they faced. Judging them by standards they could not possibly have known violates this fundamental hermeneutic principle.

The critique has particular force regarding moral concepts themselves. Our contemporary notions of human rights, individual autonomy, and universal dignity are historically specific products, emerging from particular philosophical and political developments. To condemn an ancient Roman paterfamilias for exercising power over his household according to norms his entire society accepted is to demand that he transcend his cultural moment in ways we ourselves cannot. The presentist judge implicitly claims a moral Archimedean point that does not exist.

Practically, presentism produces bad history. It substitutes moral satisfaction for genuine understanding, reducing complex historical actors to heroes and villains in narratives serving present purposes. When we condemn historical figures for failing to meet our standards, we lose the opportunity to understand why intelligent, often well-intentioned people accepted practices we now find abhorrent. That understanding—uncomfortable as it may be—is precisely what makes historical inquiry valuable.

The historian Herbert Butterfield's critique of Whig history remains relevant here. Interpreting the past as a progressive march toward present values distorts historical understanding by imposing teleological frameworks alien to historical actors themselves. The past becomes merely a prelude to us rather than a world with its own integrity. Moral judgment, on this view, is not merely inappropriate but epistemologically destructive—it prevents us from seeing the past on its own terms.

Furthermore, the selectivity of moral judgment reveals its contemporary rather than historical character. We judge slaveholders harshly while ignoring other practices—meat consumption, carbon emissions, global inequality—that future generations may condemn equally. This selectivity suggests that moral judgment tells us more about present anxieties than past realities, making it a form of cultural narcissism masquerading as ethical seriousness.

Takeaway

The presentism critique warns that imposing contemporary moral standards on historical actors prevents genuine historical understanding by demanding they transcend their cultural moment in ways we ourselves cannot, producing moralistic narratives rather than explanatory history.

The anti-presentist position, however rigorous it appears, faces serious objections. First, the demand for value-neutral historical understanding may be incoherent. The selection of research topics, the framing of questions, the emphasis given to different aspects of historical experience—all involve evaluative judgments that cannot be eliminated from historical practice. The historian who refuses to morally evaluate slaveholding still decides that slavery is worth studying, that enslaved persons' experiences matter, that certain sources deserve attention. These are not value-free choices.

Second, strict contextualism slides toward moral relativism with troubling implications. If we cannot judge historical actors by any standards except those of their own society, we lose the capacity to distinguish between societies at all. The Nazi who followed prevailing norms in 1930s Germany becomes as morally unassailable as the German who resisted—both were simply products of their context. This conclusion strikes most historians as absurd, yet it follows logically from thoroughgoing anti-presentism.

Third, the presentism critique often exaggerates moral consensus within historical societies. There were abolitionists in slaveholding societies, critics of colonial violence within imperial powers, defenders of indigenous rights during conquests. Historical actors had access to moral resources they chose not to employ. Contextualizing Jefferson's slaveholding must acknowledge that he knew the arguments against slavery—he made some of them himself—yet chose to continue the practice. This is not anachronistic judgment but engagement with his own moral universe.

Fourth, historians inevitably serve contemporary audiences and cannot pretend otherwise. Historical writing that refuses moral evaluation implicitly suggests the past has no ethical relevance—a position few historians actually hold. The choice is not between judgment and neutrality but between explicit and concealed evaluation. Historians who claim moral neutrality while implicitly approving certain historical developments through celebratory framing are arguably less honest than those who state their evaluations openly.

Finally, the victims of historical injustice deserve acknowledgment. The historian who contextualizes slaveholding without moral evaluation effectively silences the enslaved, treating their suffering as merely a historical datum rather than an offense against human dignity. This neutrality is itself a moral position—one that privileges the comfort of scholarly detachment over solidarity with the oppressed. For historians committed to recovering marginalized voices, such neutrality appears not objective but complicit.

Takeaway

Refusing to morally evaluate the past is itself a moral stance with consequences: it implies moral relativism, ignores dissenting voices within historical societies, and effectively silences victims of historical injustice by treating their suffering as merely data rather than offense.

The dichotomy between presentist judgment and contextualist neutrality is false. A more sophisticated position recognizes that historical understanding and moral evaluation are distinct but compatible operations. We can—indeed must—first understand historical actors in their context before we evaluate them. The sequence matters: judgment that precedes understanding is mere prejudice, but understanding that refuses judgment is moral abdication.

This approach distinguishes between explanation and justification. Explaining why historical actors held certain beliefs and performed certain actions does not justify those beliefs and actions. Understanding the worldview that made Atlantic slavery seem natural to many Europeans does not make slavery acceptable. The historian can fully reconstruct the reasoning that led to atrocity while still recognizing it as atrocity. These are not contradictory but complementary intellectual operations.

The framework also requires specifying what we are judging. We might distinguish between evaluating historical practices (slavery was an unjust system), individual culpability (this slaveholder bears particular responsibility), and moral progress (contemporary standards represent genuine ethical advance). Each type of judgment involves different considerations and different degrees of confidence. We can condemn practices more confidently than individuals, and individuals who had access to dissenting views more than those who did not.

Critical here is the concept of available moral resources. Historical actors who violated norms available within their own cultural horizon—the slaveholder who knew abolitionist arguments, the colonizer who read Las Casas—bear greater responsibility than those for whom alternatives were genuinely inconceivable. This approach neither imposes alien standards nor accepts that mere prevalence justifies practices. It asks what moral knowledge was accessible and whether historical actors engaged with it seriously.

This middle ground serves historical inquiry better than either extreme. It preserves the contextualist insight that understanding requires imaginative reconstruction while acknowledging that historical study has moral stakes. It allows historians to evaluate the past without flattening its complexity or reducing it to contemporary concerns. Most importantly, it recognizes that the past remains genuinely other—different from us in ways that should challenge our assumptions—while insisting that this otherness does not place it beyond ethical reflection.

Takeaway

Genuine historical judgment proceeds in sequence: first understand historical actors within their context, then evaluate them based on the moral resources available to them—neither imposing alien standards nor accepting that mere prevalence justifies practices.

The presentism debate ultimately concerns the purpose of historical inquiry. If history aims solely at understanding the past in its own terms, moral judgment appears as distortion. If history serves contemporary moral education, judgment becomes obligatory. The position developed here suggests both purposes are legitimate and need not conflict—provided we maintain clarity about what we are doing and when.

Historians should resist both the temptation to judge before understanding and the comforting pretense that understanding precludes judgment. The past deserves the respect of serious engagement, which includes taking seriously both the contexts that shaped historical actors and the consequences of their actions. This is harder than either simple condemnation or simple contextualization, but intellectual difficulty is not an argument against a position.

The question 'Should we judge the past?' finally admits no single answer. Which judgments, when in the interpretive process, and with what qualifications—these are the questions that matter. Answering them requires neither abandoning moral seriousness nor sacrificing historical rigor, but integrating both in the service of genuine understanding.