1. How can history help us live in the present?
The Ethical Dimension
How can history help us live in the present?

2. Ethical Dimension
Ethical dimension of historical thinking helps to imbue the study of history with meaning
The problem: impossible to read about past wrongs without making ethical judgments about both the perpetrators and their opponents
We must walk a very fine line…here is an example of an ethical dilemma involving the issue of slavery in the USA:

3. Ethical Dimension
“historians still debate exactly how many Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic during the next four centuries (until the 19th century). A comprehensive database compiled in the late 1990’s puts the figure at just over 11 million. Of those, fewer than 9.6 million survived the so called middle passage across the Atlantic, due to the inhuman conditions in which they were transported, and the violent suppression of any on-board resistance. Many people who were enslaved in the African interior also died on the long journey to the coast”
- Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade- Dr. Hakim Adi 2001

4. Ethical Dimension
“Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith…The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith”
- Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee- J. Steven Wilkins 1997

5. The Atomic Bomb- Yalta
February War In Europe is almost over- Allies have surrounded Germany
The Major Powers (Great Britain- Churchill, USA- FDR and USSR- Stalin) met to discuss some important decisions for post-war Europe
Major Decisions:
Germany was to be demilitarized
Nazi Party disbanded and members arrested* and possibly held liable
Germany was to be occupied in 4 zones (France, Britain, USA and USSR)
Poland would be restored as a country
USSR would declare war on Japan
Create a new International Organization (United Nations)

6. The Atomic Bomb- Potsdam
April FDR dies and is replaced by Harry S. Truman (openly hated Communism)
July Churchill loses an election as is replaced by Richard Attlee
May 7 VE Day- War in Japan continues
July 1945 the major powers again meet, this time at Potsdam
Major Decisions
Germany would still be divided, including Berlin
Nazi Leaders would be tried in an international court
UN was established
Truman demanded that Stalin leave the countries his forces had liberated
Stalin was not told about the development of the A-Bomb (but he knew through his spies)
The seed had been planted of anger, hatred and mistrust between the USA and USSR

7. The A-Bomb- WHY?

8. Perspective “Evil” and “Good”
We already make ethical judgments on people, events and developments in history, but we may not be fit to do so
Does perspective change our opinion- does being victorious effect the lens in which we judge?
The past is a foreign country- we must try and study without making ethical judgements- we must of course learn form the Holocaust and the A-bomb but we cant let our moral cloud our views of a subject- judging the past fairly is the ultimate goal
Can there be indicators of guilt then?