Should we judge people of past eras for moral failings?

Whether it's to do with governments or organisations apologising for misdemeaners of previous eras, or debates about the moral record of  churches or other relgious organisations (for example -is God immoral to have got Mary pregnant at age 13 -if that particular speculation were to be correct?). So this article has a number of things worth thinking about. First up commenting on the idea that we can't judge people of other cultures or times:

 The philosopher Miranda Fricker is not a moral relativist, but she thinks the test for blameworthiness is whether the person could have known any different. "The proper standards by which to judge people are the best standards that were available to them at the time".BBC News - Should we judge people of past eras for moral failings?

 Now I think there's something to that, but on the face of it, it doesn't get us out of the hole. 'Best standards available' sounds fair enough but is actually a hostage to interpretation of 'best'. Who defines best? Is that not simply re-immersing us in the problem we started off with? - Best standards in 1700's in Europe seemed to be that slave-holding was fine provided they were treated well. There were people arguing slavery was simply wrong, but how were people of that age to know that we, their descendants, would consider that the 'best' position? After all, it was considered that the humane slavery argued for was a civilising institution for primitive people whose lives were being improved by being slaves. A position not dissimilar from the arguments for apartheid, interestingly. It's obvious to us now what the best standards were/are but I'm not convinced that it is obvious within the situation. As the article says at the end:

just as we judge Kant's century, and identify its moral defects, so it is inevitable that the people of the 23rd Century will detect flaws in ours, the 21st.
What might these flaws be? Our treatment of the environment? Our tolerance of poverty?
... the way that we, in the early part of the 21st Century, still treat animals.

 There's a really helpful perspective discussed in the article involving distinguishing between blame and responsibility using an idea called 'moral luck'.

20th Century British philosopher, Bernard Williams, tried to tease apart a distinction between blame and responsibility. He did so by writing about what he called "moral luck".

Take the following example. Imagine that while a lorry driver is on the road a child suddenly runs out in front of him. Through tragic bad luck the child is hit by the vehicle and dies.

The man is blameless, for the accident has happened through no fault of his. In this sense he has nothing to reproach himself for, and has done nothing wrong. And yet, writes Williams, surely this man is now enmeshed in a set of moral responsibilities that, for example, a bystander, who is equally blameless, is not. It makes a moral difference that it was him at the wheel. As the driver, he might have an obligation to meet the parents or attend the funeral

 This in turn helps us to think about whether and how corporate entities might be blameworthy or responsible and, in a sense, whether they can let alone should apologise for past wrongs. So ...

[Australian] Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who finally made the formal apology on behalf of the state in 2008, against the wishes of a significant minority of the Australian people. Here is an example where, arguably, the current state might be blameless, yet somehow responsible

 It seems to be an emerging consensus that institutions and organisations can be held responsible as corporates even if the individuals involved are now different.

"It seems to me to be a measure of civilisation that our institutions have full accountability, in much the way that individuals do," says Fricker. "An apology is an incredibly important act that our institutions should increasingly become capable of - people who have been wronged by the state are owed an apology by the state, even if the individuals in government are different from those at the time."

 What needs to be done beyond this, of course, is to weigh up the responsibility and blameworthiness of individuals concerned. How far are some people caught up in corporate wrongdoing blameworthy or responsible. Are they more like the lorry-driver mentioned above or a drunk-driver or even some other position on a scale of blame and responsibility.