Flawed Heroes and Historical Moral Culpability
There has been extensive debate concerning past wrongdoers whose culpability is potentially mitigated by being raised in ethically flawed societies: Rosen’s "Hittite lord", Fricker’s "traditional schoolmaster" and Wolf’s "male chauvinists", for example. I argue that the...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2025, Volume: 28, Issue: 4, Pages: 465-484 |
| Further subjects: | B
Difficulty
B Blame B Culpability B Moral ignorance B Abraham Lincoln |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | There has been extensive debate concerning past wrongdoers whose culpability is potentially mitigated by being raised in ethically flawed societies: Rosen’s "Hittite lord", Fricker’s "traditional schoolmaster" and Wolf’s "male chauvinists", for example. I argue that the most morally and philosophically significant such cases have been overlooked or misunderstood. To show this, I introduce "flawed heroes": the example I use is Abraham Lincoln on slavery and race. Raised in societies with ethical views far from our own, such figures are now regarded as heroes because of their moral leadership; they are now regarded as flawed because their views remained deeply misguided. I begin by sketching the existing debate and introducing the contrasting category of a man or woman ‘of their time’ (§1). I next define and motivate the "flawed hero" case, and I outline Lincoln’s position (§2). I then examine whether, how and why any blame attached to him might be mitigated on a quality of will model (§3) and on a control model (§4). These results demonstrate the complex relations between historical culpability and differing theories of responsibility, and they give a sharper understanding of this crucial set of cases. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-025-10506-y |
