Second draft, new version, Dec. 4, 1994 Allen Buchanan ETHICAL RELATIVISM AND RETROSPECTIVE MORAL JUDGMENT I. The Problem of Retrospective Moral Judgment and Its Practical Importance Contemplation of historical events, actions, and agents can evoke wonder, admiration, sympathy, or horror. Sometimes it stimulates moral judgment: We may praise or condemn persons or institutions. We may also conclude that individuals were wronged, and that the wrongs they suffered call for redress or compensation. In spite of our tendency to make moral judgments about the past, some of us feel uneasiness about some or all retrospective moral judgments. They may be especially reluctant to cast moral blame on particular individuals in the past. Sometimes, this reluctance to blame agencies is accompanied by a willingness to judge the agents' actions as being morally wrong, and even to conclude that the rights of the individuals upon who those actions were performed were violated. Yet it is not altogether clear that this combination of responses is coherent and defensible. How can we say that someone did something wrong, and in so doing violated someone else's rights, but deny that the person is blameworthy? If, in order to avoid blaming individuals in the past, we deny that they did wrong, it is hard to see how we can make sense of the idea of moral progress--of the notion that there has been a moral improvement. And if, in order to avoid blaming individuals we must deny that persons' rights were violated by actions we would now 1 regard as rights-violating, it appears that we thereby devalue or deny the plight of those persons, failing to take their rights and hence and persons themselves, seriously. The question of the scope and limits of retrospective moral judgment is not a mere theoretical puzzle for moral philosophers. It is an eminently practical question, since how we answer it has direct and profound implications for what we ought to do now. Most obviously, the position on the scope and limits of retrospective moral judgment we adopt will determine whether we should honor claims which persons now make for compensation for historical injustices allegedly perpetrated against themselves or their ancestors. Similarly, whether we should punish or penalize agents for actions they performed long ago will depend upon how we understand the proper scope and limits of retrospective moral judgment. More specifically, we must know whether there is any special circumstance due to the historical context in which they acted which should mitigate whatever punishment or penalty would be appropriate, given their culpability. In a sense, however, something even larger is at stake in the debate over retrospective moral judgment: the possibility of moral progress. The idea of moral progress only makes sense if it is possible, not only to make moral judgments about the past, but to make them by appealing to some of the same moral standards that we apply to the present. Unless we can in some sense apply the same moral yardstick to the past and the present, we cannot meaningfully say either that there 2 has been moral progress or that there has not. For example, unless some retrospective moral judgments are valid, we cannot say that the abolition of slavery is a case of moral progress. For unless we can say that slavery in the antebellum South was wrong, we cannot say that the abolition of slavery was a moral improvement. And unless we can say that the practice of slavery violated human rights we cannot say that its abolition was a victory for the cause of human rights. Recent revelations of the extent and character of radiation experiments on human beings conducted by agencies of the U.S. Government in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960, and 1970s provide a concrete focus for the problem of retrospective moral judgment. On the one hand, these revelations have evoked moral condemnations of some of the actions involved, and may eventually lead to the conclusion that the rights of some experimental subjects were violated. On the other hand, in some quarters there has been a reluctance to make some or any moral assessments of these past events. For example, an article in Science Trends describing the injection of plutonium into 18 nonconsenting men, women, and children during the Manhattan Project conclusion that "Whether [this action]...can be equated with Nazi Wartime experiments is today considered moot."[cite] This last sentence expresses a marked, but not uncommon ambivalence about retrospective moral judgments. The statement implies we all know that the Nazi experiments were wrong, but at the same time suggests that it is inappropriate or pointless today to apply to the radiation experiments of a few decades ago the same 3 standards by which we judge the Nazi experiments to be wrong. Yet, as we have already seen, a great deal depends upon whether we can make moral judgements about the radiation experiments and what sort of judgements we can make. In particular, if the radiation experiments were in some respects the Nazi experiments- -in particular if they involved violations of individuals' rights--then compensation may be owed to those whose rights were violated. And if, in the case of the radiation experiments, as in the case of the Nazi experiments (at least until quite recently), there are identifiable and still living individuals who are culpable for those rights-violations, then it is appropriate to consider whether they ought to be held accountable and if so, in what way. As we analyze the question of retrospective moral judgement more deeply, we will find that the question is not whether any retrospective moral judgements are valid, but rather which sorts of retrospective moral judgements,under which circumstances, are valid. The different sorts of moral judgements we might make about the past include these: 1. judgements about the wrongness of actions and policies("U.S. policy toward Japanese-Americans during World War Two was unjust") 2. judgements about the moral quality of institutions ("The political system instituted by the Nationalist Party in South Africa in 1948 was unjust" or "Oxford University discriminated against women until well into the 20th Century") 4 3. judgments about the violations of individuals' rights ("The U.S. government, as well as white private individuals violated the rights of Native americans by unjustly taking their lands") 4. judgments about the culpability of individual agents ("Dr. Mengele was culpable in the deaths of thousands of innocent people") 5. judgments of collective culpability ("The German medical professional was guilty of aiding and abetting Nazi genocide") 6. judgments about the entitlement of individuals or groups to compensation as a matter of justice, for violations of their rights ("Holocaust survivors have a valid claim to compensation from the German government") 7. judgments about whether the punishment or penalties that would ordinarily be appropriate for agents who committed wrongs should be mitigated or foregone, due to features of the historical context. ("Dr. Jones was guilty of exploiting the vulnerability of mentally compromised patients by performing questionable experiments on them, but given the pervasiveness of such discrimination at the time, he should not be punished or penalized as severely someone doing the same things now should") 8. judgments about the character of persons who perform certain actions. ("Hitler was a vicious person with no respect for human life" or "Jones acted wrongly in this 5 case, but we was not a bad or evil person") II. Alternative Views of the Scope and Limits of Retrospective Moral Judgment There are a number of possible positions that might be taken concerning which of the forgoing eight types of moral judgment can be validly made about the past. We can begin with the most obvious alternatives. Each succeeding position in the list below allows a broader range of types of moral judgments about the past. The first alternative on the list is the limiting case: the complete suspension of moral judgment of all sorts. A. Extreme Historical Ethical Relativism. All eight types of moral judgment are strictly historically relative. If an action (or institution, or policy) was ethically permissible according to the dominant ethical view at the time, then it is not subject to any moral censure by us. Similarly, if an action was not a rights-violation according to the dominant ethical view of the time, then it was not a rights-violation, even if we would correctly regard the same action, were it performed today, as a rights-violation. It is incorrect to blame agents acting in the past, even if there behavior was identical which, if performed by one of our contemporaries would warrant the most extreme condemnation, so long as the dominant ethical view at the time did not forbid the action. If a past agent's action is consonant with the dominant ethical view of his time, then he should not be punished or penalized, even if it would be correct to punish or 6 penalize a person who performed the same actions today. So long as his action was permitted by the dominant ethical view of his time, a past agent's action is no basis for judging him to be of bad moral character, even if we would correctly regard one of our contemporaries who performed the same action, as an evil person. B. Moderate Historical Ethical Relativism--Separating the Wrongness of Actions From the Culpability of Agents. It is correct to judge action sin the past as morally wrong if they violate what we now believe to be sound moral standards, even if those standards were not know or not dominant at that time. However, it is sometimes inappropriate to judge the agents who performed them to be culpable for these actions (if, for instance, the dominant ethical view of that period did not forbid the action and the agents who acted wrongly had no significant opportunity to consider criticisms of the dominant ethical view). C. Moderate Ethical Universalism: Historical Differences Can Mitigate the Implications of Culpability Concerning Punishment, Penalties, and Character. (As in the Moderate Ethical Relativist view, (B) above) Appreciation of the cultural context can make it appropriate to judge actions wrong and to conclude that rights were violated, and yet to not hold agents culpable. Further, even when it is correct to judge past actions wrong, to conclude that compensation or redress is owed to those whose rights were violated by those actions, and to judge that the agents who performed them to be culpable, features of the historical context can make it appropriate to waive or reduce punishments or penalties that would 7 be proper if one of our contemporaries were similarly culpable. Similarly, an appreciation of the historical context in which an agent acted may make it appropriate to be more lenient in our assessment of his character that we would if one of our contemporaries were culpable for the same action. D. Extreme Ethical Universalism. All types of moral judgements may be applied retrospectively. If we would correctly judge an action to be wrong now, then the same action if performed in the past was also wrong. If an action if performed now would violate rights, then the same action performed in the past violated rights. If a person who is treated in a certain way now would be entitled to compensation or redress (for a violation of his rights), then a person in the past who was treated similarly would have a valid claim for compensation of redress. If a person who performed an action now would be culpable, then an agent in the past who performed the same action was culpable. if a person who now commits a violation of someone's rights deserves a punishment or penalty, then a past agent who perpetrated a similar rights-violation deserved (or, if he is still living, deserves) the same punishment or penalty. If certain behavior indicates that the person whose behavior it is has a bad moral character, then the same behavior performed by an agent in the past has the same implication for his character. III. Temporal Distance in Itself Makes No Moral Difference (Historical Ethical Relativism Reduces to Culture Ethical Relativism) 8 It is important to emphasize that there really is no distinct problem about retrospective moral judgment as such. There is simply no conceivable reason why the mere passage of time should invalidate moral judgments of nay sort. The fact that it has now been almost 50 years since Hitler attempted to exterminate the Jews in no way diminishes the wrongness of his actions, nor his culpability for them, nor the fact that were he still alive he ought to be punished for what he did, nor the fact that Hitler was a morally despicable human being. The validity of these moral judgments will not be affected by the passing of another fifty years, nor a hundred, nor a thousand years. If there is some reason for withholding or hedging retrospective moral judgments, then, it must lie elsewhere than in mere temporal distance. It must be something about the cultural or social context in which the past actions occurred. What could this be? The position referred to above as Extreme Cultural Relativism does provide an answer to this question--through as we will see, not a satisfying one. According to this position the validity of all moral judgments, regardless of the temporal location of their subjects, are culture-relative: There are no cross-culturally valid moral judgments. Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism entails, then, that retrospective moral judgements are invalid if they are applied across cultural boundaries. If the culture of a past society (or of another contemporary culture) differs from our own, the our moral judgements are not valid 9 when applied to the actions, institutions, agents, or characters of individuals within that culture. The idea is that moral judgments across cultural boundaries are invalid because moral judgments can only be justified by reference to a set of shared values and shared values are only found within a particular culture. One culture differs from another in virtue of lacking the relevant values contained in the other culture, namely those that support the moral judgments in question. Understood in this way, Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism does explain why some retrospective moral judgements are invalid. If the past society about whom the judgments are made lacked the values that, in our culture, support our judgements, then our judgments are inapplicable to it. As we shall see, there is a grain of truth in Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism, and this grain of truth does imply some limitations on some sorts of retrospective moral judgements, in certain circumstances. Nevertheless, it is crucial to appreciate that this way of explaining the notion that there are restrictions on the validity of retrospective moral judgments comes at an exorbitant price: namely, the denial that there is such a thing as human rights. Human rights, by definition, are rights possessed by all human beings as such, simply by virtue of their humanity (or, perhaps, personhood), regardless of differences in their cultures and regardless of when they live. So, if there are any human rights at all, Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism is false. And 10 if Exterme Cultural Ethical Relativism is false, then the mere fact that a past culture included values that are different from those of our present culture does not show that our moral judgments about what went on in that past culture are invalid. So, if there is a basis for the notion that at least some types of retrospective moral judgments are sometimes invalid, it must be found elsewhere than in the doctrine of Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism-- unless we are prepared, not only to deny that some things that are said to be human rights are human rights, but that there are no human rights. Because it entails the denial that there are any human rights embracing Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism not only invalidates retrospective moral judgments that span cultures; it also requires us to say that some of the most basic moral judgments we make about our own contemporaries are invalid. for example, if we embrace Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism we are barred from saying, not only that agents in the past such as Hitler violated human rights, but also that there are human rights violations occurring anywhere in the world today. We could not condemn any agents, in the past or in the present, for violating human rights, if there cultures did not recognize the actions in question as wrong. Nor could we say anyone in the world today is a victim of human rights abuses, nor that anyone is entitled to redress or compensation for having her human rights violated. No attempt will be made here to defend the belief that there are human rights. No effort will be made to mount an explicit refutation of Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism. Instead, we 11 will simply proceed on the relatively uncontroversial assumption that there are human rights and that the position worth examining concerning retrospective moral judgements is based on something other than Extreme Ethical Cultural Relativism. The question, then, is whether there is something other than mere temporal distance and mere cultural difference that poses an obstacle to the validity of some sorts of retrospective moral judgments, under some circumstances. III. Excuses and Mitigating Factors: Nonculpable Factual and Moral Ignorance The kernel of truth in the claim that cultural differences can invalidate moral judgments, and the basis for doubting the validity of some retrospective moral judgements about agents, actions, and institutions is this: Sometimes cultural factors can make an individual unable to discern what he or she ought to do, or mitigate the blame we should place on the individual for failing to do what he or she should have done, and in some cases these cultural factors were at work in the past but no longer exist in the present, due to changes in culture over time. Now there are at least two ways in which the limitations of one's culture can impair one's ability to do what one ought to do. First, morally relevant factual information may simply not be available in one's culture. Second, one may, like other members of culture, be morally ignorant--because of features of one's enculturated beliefs and conceptual framework, one may be unable to 12 unable to discern what one's duty is because one is unable to make certain moral distinctions or to recognize certain individuals as having a certain moral status. More specifically, on's enculturated believes and moral conceptual framework may lead one to fail to recognize that certain classes of individuals have rights or to underestimate the extent of the rights that persons have. To illustrate the view that culturally-induced factual ignorance can invalidate certain sorts of moral judgments, consider these examples. First, a medieval priest might violate one of his flock's right not to be tortured or battered because he believes, according to the dominant beliefs of his culture, that the person's according to the dominant beliefs of his culture, that the person's well-being will be restored only if the demons possessing him are driven out by the infliction of severe pain. Or, to take an example closer to our concerns here, a scientist in the 1940s who was sincerely trying to observe the very standards for ethical experimentation that we now endorse may have performed an experiment that should not have been performed because he erroneously believed, as did most of his contemporaries in the scientific community of that day, that the experiment, though non-therapeutic, involved minimal risk when in fact the risk was very great. In either of these cases we might reasonably conclude that although wrong actions were performed, those who performed the actions were not morally culpable, or at least not culpable in the same way or to the same extent that they would have been had they performed the same actions while not being subject to culturally-induced ignorance of the facts. 13 If we also conclude not only that the actions were wrong, but that those who were harmed by them were wronged--suffered violations of their rights-- then we are faced with a choice as to our moral judgment concerning the agents who inflicted the harm that consisted the wronging. We can either (1) deny that the agents failed to do their duty, while maintaining that nonetheless they did something while violated someone's rights; or we can (2) say that they failed to do their duty but that their culturally-induced factual ignorance mitigates their culpability for not having done their duty. The drawback to the first way of describing the situations is that it pries apart what is ordinarily thought to be the inseparability of rights and duties. Rights are usually though of as having two aspects: an entitlement on the part of the right-holder to be treated in certain ways and a duty incumbent on others to treat the right-holder in those ways (or to help bear the costs of a collective arrangement that ensures that the individual be treated in those ways). [note: this applies to claim rights--which are what is at issue in this discussion] According to the usual way of understanding what rights are, then, the first option must be rejected. If we appeal to culturally-induced factual ignorance as undercutting the individual's duty, then we must also concede that there was no violation of a right. At most we can say that something wrong as done. We cannot say that anyone was wronged. Nor can we say that anyone was culpable for having violated or failed to fulfil a duty. This characterization of the culturally- 14 induced factual ignorance cases doe snot collapse into Extreme Ethical Relativism of any sort. It acknowledges that the actions were wrong, but it does not regard the agents as culpable. However, it does preclude us from saying that being battered and tortured, in a society that believed in the necessity of violent exorcism, was a violation of human rights. And hence, since human rights are rights that accrue to human beings regardless of what their culture is like, it commits us to saying that there is no human right to be free of being battered and tortured. Furthermore, the first characterization of the risky experiment case commits us to saying that the individual's rights were not violated even though we believe that they would be violated if the very same risk were present and the experimenter had not underestimated it. This seems odd because whether or not the individual's rights were violated would seem to depend upon how she was treated--more specifically upon whether she was treated as she should have been. And this in turn seems to depend upon what the proper rules are for experimentation on human subjects, not upon whether someone engaged in experimentation on human subjects, not upon whether someone engaged in experimentation happens to be well-informed about the degree of risk involved. Thus, even if it seems correct not to blame the agents, it seems unjust not to acknowledge that the person who has ben tortured or the person who has been subjected it a very risky experiment without prospect of therapeutic benefit has not been wronged. To deny that they have been wrong is to not take their rights, and hence the persons themselves, seriously. 15 The second way of understanding the two cases is based on the idea that one can have a duty, but fail to do it because one's culturally-included beliefs prevented one from seeing what one's duty was, and hence not be culpable for failing to have done one's duty. This second characterization of the cases, then, enables us to preserve the correlativity of rights and duties, and to say that persons' rights were violated, but at the cost of saying--what may seem odd to some--that someone did not do his duty, but was not culpable (or blameworthy) for not having done it. In other words, the second characterization takes the position that there can be nonculpable failures to fulfill duties. What both characterizations (1) and (2) have in common is the view that culturally-induced factual ignorance can exculpate agents who perform what we regard as wrong actions. (Whether the actions were performed in the past or the present is entirely irrelevant--what matters is whether the wrong action resulted from culturally-induced factual ignorance that prevented the agent from discerning her duty). There is this crucial difference, however: The first characterization acknowledges the exculpating role of culturally-induced ignorance only by undercutting the individuals' claims to having had their rights violated--and hence also undercuts any claims to compensation or redress as a response to the violation of rights. The second alternative allows us to separate the wrongness of the act from the agent and to exculpate the agent without denying that the individuals' rights were violated and hence without undercutting their claims for compensation or redress. 16 One further feature of the second characterization worth emphasizing is this: Once we acknowledge the possibility of nonculpable failures to perform duties, we can consider the possibility that though the person whose right was violated is owed compensation, it should not be the person who failed to perform the duty who should bear all or even part of the burden of compensating the person whose rights ere violated. In other words, if the person is not culpable for his failure to perform his duty, then the fact that he is not culpable may remove or diminish what would otherwise be his liability for compensating the victim of the rights-violations. It might be more appropriate, for example, for society as a whole to provide compensation. Of the two alternatives, the second seems superior for three reasons. First, the idea of nonculpable failures to perform duties is neither novel nor incoherent. It is recognized in the law, for example, when it is said that though an individual had a duty to yield the right-of-way, his failure to do so was nonculpable because he suffered a stroke and lost consciousness as he was entering the intersection. Second, if nonculpable failures to perform duties are admitted, we avoid a serious problem which the first alternative faces--the abandonment of the ordinary understanding of a right, as including correlative duties. Third, the second alternative avoids the other disturbing implication of the first: We are not forced to deny that the individuals were treated in ways they were entitled not to be treated. We can acknowledge that they were wronged, yet still conclude that the agents were not culpable for doing what violated their rights. If, as seems correct, we accept the second characterization of the culturally-induced factual ignorance cases, it appears that we can give appropriate weight to the notion the distinctive features of an earlier era can sometimes exculpate agent, while avoiding a collapse into any version of Extreme Ethical Relativism and without denying that it makes sense to attribute rights to individuals in the past. We can deny that the actions were wrong and that those upon whom they were performed were wronged. Such a conclusion would be warranted, however, only if we can make another assumption: That the culturally-induced ignorance that results in actions that violated individual's right was nonculpable ignorance. The necessity for this qualification becomes clear if we consider cases of factual ignorance that are not culturally-induced. Suppose, for example, that the experimenter in our second example had underestimated the risk to the subject, not as a result of the application of actual beliefs that were widely accepted in the scientific community at the time, but as a result of his own failure to read the relevant literature which was readily available and which informed the opinion of the scientific community as a whole at the time. The fact that he committed a wrong action as a result of factual ignorance in no way exculpates him, if his ignorance itself is culpable. Thus, we must consider the possibility that culturally-induced ignorance, like other ignorance, may in some instances be culpable ignorance. 18 So far we have only considered the implications of culturally-induced factual ignorance for retrospective moral judgment. It is equally, if not more important, to explore the possibility of culturally-induced moral ignorance--the failure to make relevant moral distinctions or to recognize the moral status of certain individuals, or to recognize the full ranges of rights individuals have, as a result of having defective culturally- induced beliefs or conceptual frameworks. In some case, the dominant culture may instill a moral ignorance so profound that we may speak of cultural moral blindness. We can perhaps imagine, for example, a society in which the processes of enculturation fail to teach most of all individuals that it is wrong to exploit other persons, or that it is wrong to kill others in response to trivial verbal insult, or that it is wrong just to kill a person for sport. Such cultures may have existed, though it is far from clear that they have actually existed, at least for extended periods of time. In many societies, of course, persons learn that these acts are wrong but nonetheless sometimes perform them anyway. But this is not cultural moral blindness. Rather, it is simply the failure to do what one knows is right and what one's cultural beliefs, when consistently and impartially applied to particular circumstances, recognize to be right. It is much easier to imagine a more limited sort of cultural moral blindness--and one of which, sadly, history provides a number of examples. In some societies the dominant culture may recognize 19 recognize that it is wrong to exploit persons, or to kill persons wantonly or for trivial reasons, but fail to recognize certain individuals as being persons, and hence as bearers of the rights that persons have. At least some of those committee to the ideology of slavery in the antebellum American South may have been morally blind in just this way and their culture may have induced this moral blindness. Because of deeply engrained cultural beliefs, they did not recognize Blacks as being persons. And because they did not, they did not see Black slavery as violating the rights of persons. Even if this much is admitted, however, two questions must be carefully distinguished before we draw any conclusions about limitations on retrospective moral judgments concerning slavery. first, even if it were true that some advocates of slavery did not recognize Blacks as persons, is also true that they could not and should not have so recognized them? In other words, was their moral blindness remediable, and were they culpable for not remedying it? Whether or not a person's culturally-induced moral blindness is something for which he is culpable depends chiefly upon whether the individual had access to corrective beliefs and whether, if so, he failed to avail himself of them. In cultures that are extremely closed and repressive, the beliefs and forms of moral argumentation needed to correct culturally-induced moral blindness may not be available. Thus, if the Third Reich had lasted a thousand years, as Hitler proclaimed it would, or even another generation, it might have become virtually impossible for most individuals growing up in that 20 twisted society to be capable of seriously entertaining the beliefs and principles needed to remedy the Nazi's failure to regard Jews as persons. It is very doubtful, however, that the culture of the antebellum South was so closed and repressive as to eliminate opportunities for challenging the truth of the belief in the inferiority of Blacks and hence to preclude the possibility of remedying this culturally-induced blindness. There were, in fact vigorous public debates about the morality of slavery, and antislavery tracts circulated throughout the South. Even more clearly, it would be false to say that in contemporary American society, the fact that sexist beliefs in our own society are culturally-induced shows that individuals are not responsible for changing their beliefs. At present the culture of sexism is not so thorough and impenetrable to criticism that it is wrong to hold sexists responsible for their discriminatory actions. Thus if a person stubbornly clings to his belief that women are inferior by willfully disregarding evidence to the contrary and by turning a deft ear to those who attempt to disabuse him of his errors, then he is blameworthy for the bad treatment of women that is the result of his beliefs in their inferiority. Even if he is psychologically incapable of treating women as equals so long as he holds those beliefs, he is still culpable for his discriminatory behavior, if he could have and should have changed his beliefs. While it is certainly true that there are strong elements of sexism in contemporary American culture that encourage 21 discrimination against women, it does not follow from this that growing up in our culture excuses discriminatory behavior or makes it inappropriate to blame individual for it. Cultural attitudes toward women in our society do not form a seamless web and they are not impermeable to forces that challenge them. Residual and still potent sexist elements exist alongside a growing public acknowledgement of the equality of women and men. As egalitarian attitudes and beliefs become more pervasive and as opportunities for subjecting sexists beliefs to criticism increase, it becomes less and less plausible to excuse sexist behavior on the grounds that it is culturally-induced. So the fact that moral ignorance is culturally-induced does not entail that it is nonculpable, nor does it render an agent blameless for the actions that result from that ignorance. What matters is not whether the erroneous beliefs that constitute moral blindness were instilled by the individual's culture. What matters is whether he can be held responsible for maintaining those beliefs. Where opportunities for curing one's culturally- induced blindness exist, one may rightly be held responsible for it and for the actions that issues from it. Furthermore, it is worth noting that persons who maintain their culturally-induced moral ignorance in the face of opportunities for correcting it typically do so by practicing the vices of self-deception-- partiality to one's own opinions and interests, a wilful rejection of facts that one finds inconvenient or disturbing, an inflated sense of one's own self worth, and a lack of sensitivity to the predicament of others. 22 Accordingly, a person;s culturally-induced moral blindness only exculpates his actions if he could not reasonably be expected to remedy it, due to the lack of opportunities for criticism and corrective beliefs. But even then, as in the case of nonculpable culturally-induced factual ignorance, this would do nothing to show that his actions were not wrong, nor that they violated others' rights, nor that there was no legitimate basis for claims to redress or compensation. Nonculpable culturally- induced moral blindness invalidates only judgments of agent- culpability. it does not wipe the moral slate clean of all other types of moral judgments. IV. The Significance of Cultural Context for Judgments of Character As the example of sexism in contemporary American society suggests, during periods of cultural change there may be a blurring of the line between nonculpable and culpable culturally- induced moral ignorance. It may be appropriate to reflect our awareness of the process of cultural change by being less blaming of individuals who engaged in sexists behavior a decade or more ago that of those who do so today, without fully exculpating the former. In other words, we may recognize that agents in the past are blameworthy for violating others' rights (as a result of culturally-induced beliefs which they should not have maintained) and yet still correctly believe that it is appropriate to judge their characters less harshly than we would those of our contemporaries, if the latter committed the same wrongs. For example, we would be more scathing 23 in our condemnation of a person in our society in 1994 who held another as a slave then we would of a person who grew up in the antebellum South--even though we would hold both culpable for violating human rights. While we would most likely regard the former as an extraordinarily evil person, we might conclude that the latter, inspite of his grave moral defect regarding the status of Blacks, was not really evil, or at least not nearly so thoroughly despicable. Strong and pervasive cultural support for wrongdoing, then, can mitigate negative assessments of character, without invalidating judgments of culpability. For the same reasons, a sensitive appreciation of the cultural context of past events may lead us to temper or waive entirely the imposition of penalties or punishments on those who acted wrongly in the past, even in cases in which they failed to do their duty and violated the rights of others. WE might conclude, for example, that those who performed the actions that violated others' rights were so strongly supported in their actions by deep cultural forces that the society as a whole, rather than the particular individuals themselves, ought to bear the costs of compensating those whose rights were violated. Once again we see the importance of distinguishing among different sorts of retrospective judgments, and of avoiding a blanket pronouncement that either all or none are valid. V. Retrospective Moral Judgment and Differences in the Applicability of Exceptions to Valid Moral Principles 24 Before concluding our investigation of the limits of retrospective moral judgment we should consider one other, quite different, source of the reluctance to pass moral judgment on persons existing in the past. In its simplest formulation, this justification for suspending moral judgment has nothing to do with temporal remoteness. It is simply the familiar idea that valid moral principles often have "exception clauses" and that whether or not the exception clauses are applicable may depend upon the historical context. Thus, for example, we may believe that it is permissible to do certain things in the name of national security in wartime or during some other dire emergency, that would otherwise be impermissible. Since circumstances change over time, the conditions referred to in the exception- clause may have existed earlier but no longer exist. Hence, without any concession to the Extreme Historical Relativist position, or to any version of Ethical Relativism for that matter, we may sometimes conclude that what would be impermissible now was permissible at some earlier time. This source of reluctance to make retrospective moral judgments gains force if we also believe that, due to the cultural milieu of an earlier period, conscientious agents at the time might have been very likely to make unwitting mistakes in judging that the exceptional conditions were in fact present. For example, we might suspect that at the most intense period of the Cold War, when a nuclear "exchange" between the Soviet Union and the United States was thought to be a very serious possibility, even reasonable and conscientious people may have 25 been likely to conclude that the situation fit the description of a dire emergency or a virtual war and hence that some actions were permissible that would not otherwise be. Here also it is important to distinguish between judgments about whether wrong actions were performed and whether rights were violated, on the one hand, and whether those who performed the actions or violated the rights were culpable or fully culpable, on the other. We might, for example, say that the pervasive anxieties of the Cold War sometimes led people to perform wrong actions and even to violate individuals' rights, while nevertheless mitigating or even suspending judgments that these individual were morally culpable or that they were of vicious character. Indeed we may conclude that one of the tragedies of the Cold War was that decent and even exemplary people were led to do much wrong. In some instances, however, we might conclude, after a careful review of the historical facts, that some individuals not only did the wrong thing, as a result of their fears of nuclear was or of communist take-overs, but that even within the cultural milieu of their era they committed wrongs by abusing the exceptions built into valid moral principles. V. The Moral Appraisal of Past Institutions The institutions within which individuals interact can either enhance or impede their ability to act ethically. When institutions suffer defects that impede ethical conduct, or even 26 strongly encourage unethical conduct, this too may mitigate the blame which would otherwise attach to particular individuals. This is only the case, however, if involvement in the defective institution was unavoidable, given the legitimate needs and interests the individual is pursing, and if the individual cannot be faulted for not attempting to change the institution so as to remedy its defects. In other words, there are limits on the extent to which defective institutions can mitigate blame. Moreover, while the defective character of an institution may plausibly be cited as a reason for softening judgments of individual culpability, this is quite compatible with judging that the individuals in question violated others' rights, and with concluding that those whose rights were violated are owed compensation or some form of redress. Again, as we saw earlier, it is important to distinguish between judgments of individual culpability, and other moral appraisals, including judgments about the institutions within which individuals operate. Thus there may be cases in which individuals were so constrained by defective institutions that it would be wrong to hold them individually responsible for wrongs they committed and certainly excessive to make them personally accountable for compensating those they wronged. Nevertheless, special blame may rightly be attached to those who were in a position to correct defective institutions but failed to do so. Persons who had the legal authority and political influence to make the institutions in which they held leadership positions more conductive to ethical conduct but failed to do so are 27 appropriate objects for special opprobrium and in some cases should be held personally responsible for the ensuing wrongs. The main point, however, is that the nature of the institutional context in which individuals operated can make a difference as to which sorts of retrospective moral judgments are valid, without invalidating all retrospective judgments. VI. Conclusions The main points of our investigation of retrospective moral judgment, without rehearsing the arguments given to support them, can be formulated briefly as follows. (1) The mere passage of time clearly doe snot in any way alter the validity of moral judgments. Whatever is problematic about retrospective moral judgments must have to do with assumed differences in the cultural context of actions. (2) Unless one accepts Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism there is no reason to believe that the fact that earlier actions occurred in a different cultural context in itself renders retrospective moral judgments invalid. (3) Accepting Extreme Cultural Ethical Relativism means denying that there are any human rights, since human rights by definition accrue to individuals simply by virtue of their humanity, independently of the cultural context or period of history in which they happen to live. (4) What may be called culturally-induced ignorance, either of the facts or of the moral features of a situation, 28 may lead individuals to perform wrong actions. If their culturally-induced blindness is nonculpable, agents who perform those wrong actions may be morally blameless for their acts, even though their acts constitute failures to do their duty and are violations of others' rights. (5) In such cases of nonculpable cultural blindness that leads to wrong action, it is better to describe the situation as one in which there was a nonculpable failure to perform a duty that they gent had, rather than to deny that he had duty. to deny that the individual had a duty is either to abandon the correlatively of rights and duties and thereby jettison the usual concept of a right or to deny that the wrong constituted the violation of a right, thereby undercutting any claims for compensation or redress. (6) It is important to distinguish between several different sorts of judgments we may make about the past: judgments of the wrongness of acts, judgments of the culpability of agents, judgments about the violation of rights and the legitimacy of claims for redress and compensation, punishment and penalties, and judgments about the character of agents. (7) A proper appreciation of the different cultural context in which past actions occurred can lead to suspending or mitigating judgments of individual culpability or to softening what would otherwise be harsh judgments of 29 character based on the wrongs the individual committed, without denying either the wrongness of past actions, the failure of agents in the past to do their duties, or the fact that individuals' rights were violated and that compensation or redress is owed to them. (8) In some cases f air consideration of the cultural context of past events may lead to the conclusion that those individuals who violated others' rights should not bear all or even any of the costs of compensating those whose rights were violated. Similarly, appreciation of the cultural context may speak in favor of mitigating or waiving punishment or penalties that would otherwise be appropriate, without denying that wrong actions were done, that rights were violated, or that agents were culpable. (9) A sensitive understanding of the cultural context of past actions may lead us to the conclusion that even if agents mistakenly applied sound moral rules, for example, by erroneously thinking that certain valid exceptions were present that rendered permissible otherwise impermissible acts, this mistake was less blameworthy than it would have been in other circumstances. But, again, mitigating our judgments of the culpability of the agents does not imply that their actions were not wrong, nor that they did not fail to perform their duties, nor that they did 30 not violate anyone's rights, nor that no one is entitled to compensation or redress. (10) In some cases the fact that institutions were defective can mitigate individual blameworthiness. However, those who were in a position to remedy institutional defects that encouraged wrong-doing, but failed to do so, may be subject to especially strong judgments of culpability. 31