Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
So why excuse him for not letting his slaves go earlier in his life? If he was above the social norms, then there really was no compelling reason for him to keep slaves other than being a bad person in that aspect of his life.
Ohh, I see where we disagree now. See below.


That's my point exactly! The circumstances of their life don't excuse them! I made that statement to highlight the error in trying to incorporate the social constraints of the time in our judgement.
Circumstances don't excuse everything, that doesn't mean they can't excuse some things (if we must talk in terms of excuses).


Maybe I am dumb, but I am not seeing it. I will reread everything again though.
Nah, forget about it, I don't even remember.


But I am not trying to argue this from that strict of a dichotomy. The example I picked (slavery) is merely more black and white than say lying is. I am not arguing from Judeo-Christian moral philosophy, I will let Rhy and PVC do that. I am starting from my own axioms based mainly off of empathy, not God. I would still point to Washington as an admirable person within a certain sphere of subjects. I don't think we should even be thinking of who is most admirable or excellent overall as a person, because such general comparisons are always dumb when the broad strokes don't help anymore (AKA when you are not comparing Stalin to Washington).
Why empathy? That's where I think you're wrong. I think you'll find that emphasizing compassion and empathy goes straight back to religious roots. Most atheists talk about morals in a way that makes much more sense for religious people, shows how much of a ripple effect there is...

Is it arrogant to say I am a better man than a murderer because I have never killed an innocent man?

What I would say as my complete answer Sasaki, is that when it comes to recognizing and empathizing with other human beings of different skin colors, yes we are definitely better people than Washington. When it comes to leading an army? Or a country? Probably not.

Is that really such a mislead way of thinking?
The question is, why on earth would having tons of empathy (as opposed to above average empathy) for black people be mentioned in the same paragraph with founding and leading a country in the way that Washington did? He was an amateur soldier made supreme commander and didn't lose...he could possibly have taken an autocratic attitude but carefully limited himself. Compare him to Napoleon. If hypothetically Napoleon had ended slavery (ignore that he actually re-instated it...) would you put him over Washington, or even near Washington? Also it's quite possible that if he had freed his slaves early he would never have done the things he did. Same for Nixon and his anti-gay comments--they are only worth mentioning if in your mind they work as a kind of "trump card" where even a 2 beats out a king. I think there's a particular mental process for that kind of judgment, linked to our mental process regarding "clean/unclean". One drop of something nasty is enough to get you to wash your hands, one drop of something seen as a "moral taint" is enough to stain the entire person. But really that borders on superstition.

By the way, what do you think of "feminist history" where they go back and make a big fuss about various philosophers and their misogynist views?