Moral judgment in history education and historical positionality as a moral evaluator

This article presents a critical analysis of moral judgment in history education using the case of Cecil Rhodes as an example. For this purpose, I first examine the arguments for and against passing judgment on past actions given by historians, historical philosophers, and history education researchers. Second, I take a close look at the ways students approach moral issues in history and identify the shortcomings in these approaches. Then, I propose three cognitive acts students must perform to fully understand their historical positionality as a moral evaluator: (1) distinguishing between moral values and factual beliefs, (2) examining the consensual statuses of moral values and factual beliefs, and (3) evaluating the reliability of one’s own belief-forming processes. These cognitive acts, though mentioned in the literature in various contexts, have not been systematically analyzed in relation to moral judgment in history education. In the end, I argue that by performing such acts, students will be able to triangulate their position as a moral evaluator relative to the historical actor and his or her contemporaries and understand the epistemic status of their moral judgment.