He was a sign of his times.

[Flemming]

The people in Joseph Smith's day judged him by the standards of Joseph Smith's day AND KILLED HIM.

Counterpoint: not all who are killed via vigilante acts are killed justly.

[Physics Guy]

Absolutely. Smith's crimes should not have been capital crimes. He was murdered.

But that's presentism. I'm judging Smith's lynchers by twenty-first century moral standards. In the society of Smith's place and time, his contemporaries were so outraged by what they believed he had done, with his sexual predation and dictatorial rule, that they thought he needed killing.

You either play the presentism card or you don't. You can't have it both ways, and you can't object to presentism for Smith while endorsing it for his lynchers.

If some moral standards are objective and eternal, then Smith was a loathsome sexual predator. If only contemporary moral judgements count, then Smith was still a loathsome sexual predator. This is Shades's point.

[Flemming]

Absolutely. Smith's crimes should not have been capital crimes. He was murdered.

But that's presentism. I'm judging Smith's lynchers by twenty-first century moral standards. In the society of Smith's place and time, his contemporaries were so outraged by what they believed he had done, with his sexual predation and dictatorial rule, that they thought he needed killing.

You either play the presentism card or you don't. You can't have it both ways, and you can't object to presentism for Smith while endorsing it for his lynchers.

If some moral standards are objective and eternal, then Smith was a loathsome sexual predator. If only contemporary moral judgements count, then Smith was still a loathsome sexual predator. This is Shades's point.

I propose that you can have it both ways. There is a lot of nuance when dealing with history. While I agree that killing people is almost always wrong, throughout time and place, there are things we must understand about the past that mean our modern standards wouldn’t have worked. I’m thinking of the average human lifespan in the 19th century for example, or approaches to disease without modern technology or medicine. (We wouldn’t confine someone to a consumption ward in the modern day, that would be like imprisoning them, right?)

[honorentheos]

Absolutely. Smith's crimes should not have been capital crimes. He was murdered.

But that's presentism. I'm judging Smith's lynchers by twenty-first century moral standards. In the society of Smith's place and time, his contemporaries were so outraged by what they believed he had done, with his sexual predation and dictatorial rule, that they thought he needed killing.

You either play the presentism card or you don't. You can't have it both ways, and you can't object to presentism for Smith while endorsing it for his lynchers.

If some moral standards are objective and eternal, then Smith was a loathsome sexual predator. If only contemporary moral judgements count, then Smith was still a loathsome sexual predator. This is Shades's point.

I propose that you can have it both ways. There is a lot of nuance when dealing with history. While I agree that killing people is almost always wrong, throughout time and place, there are things we must understand about the past that mean our modern standards wouldn’t have worked. I’m thinking of the average human lifespan in the 19th century for example, or approaches to disease without modern technology or medicine. (We wouldn’t confine someone to a consumption ward in the modern day, that would be like imprisoning them, right?)

So which of Smith's behaviors do you believe are misjudged by modern standards?

[Physics Guy]

Technological change in how we are able to cure or kill is not change in the moral principles of whether we should cure or kill.

[yellowstone123]

My barber recently retired. He had lots of stories. One was that due to a rabbit population being out of control, and eating the crops how he and his friends brought their .22 rifles to school in the morning and a put them in their locker. At lunch they went hunting. This was early 1970s.

[huckelberry]

My barber recently retired. He had lots of stories. One was that due to a rabbit population being out of control, and eating the crops how he and his friends brought their .22 rifles to school in the morning and a put them in their locker. At lunch they went hunting. This was early 1970s.

Perhaps he went to a one room schoolhouse out in the country. Otherwise in town the neighbors and police would not be happy with kids shooting up the neighborhood even if there were too many rabbits. If they had cars to go out hunting for lunch the guns would stay in the car.

Perhaps this is a baloney story expressing contempt for any kind of gun control.

[honorentheos]

My barber recently retired. He had lots of stories. One was that due to a rabbit population being out of control, and eating the crops how he and his friends brought their .22 rifles to school in the morning and a put them in their locker. At lunch they went hunting. This was early 1970s.

Perhaps he went to a one room schoolhouse out in the country. Otherwise in town the neighbors and police would not be happy with kids shooting up the neighborhood even if there were too many rabbits. If they had cars to go out hunting for lunch the guns would stay in the car.

Perhaps this is a baloney story expressing contempt for any kind of gun control.

Perhaps. But even when I went to high school in Cache Valley Utah in the early 90s folks kept shotguns and the like on racks in their trucks in the school parking lot with no one being concerned. School shooters weren't the kinds of problems we worried about. Guns were not allowed out of the vehicles, but I always assumed it was more out of concern for an accidental discharge or poor judgment than intention to do violence.

All that to say I don't find the story unrealistic.

[huckelberry]

Perhaps he went to a one room schoolhouse out in the country. Otherwise in town the neighbors and police would not be happy with kids shooting up the neighborhood even if there were too many rabbits. If they had cars to go out hunting for lunch the guns would stay in the car.

Perhaps this is a baloney story expressing contempt for any kind of gun control.

Perhaps. But even when I went to high school in Cache Valley Utah in the early 90s folks kept shotguns and the like on racks in their trucks in the school parking lot with no one being concerned. School shooters weren't the kinds of problems we worried about. Guns were not allowed out of the vehicles, but I always assumed it was more out of concern for an accidental discharge or poor judgment than intention to do violence.

All that to say I don't find the story unrealistic.

honorentheos, After I posted the above the thought crossed my mind that perhaps the story was just meant to emphasize the large change in what people might fear at school. In the time of the story school shootings were so unthinkable that people did not worry about that danger.
My comment did include the possibility that guns were kept in a vehicle. The idea of stashing them in the locker struck me as farfetched.

[yellowstone123]

I had access to a small armory in my Southern California home. I was picked on quite a bit at church and school. Never once did I think of settling the score with a gun. Times change. Computers were introduced along with Grandtheft Auto and Counterstrike 1.6. I loved Counterstike but it never entered my mind to settle the score. But today’s news focuses on bad and extreme evil and the shootings began to pick up.