Abstract

The historical inaccuracy of ‘Different ages, different ethics’ may best be shown by examination of actual examples of ethical systems from the past. One such example, taken from fifteenth-century Italy, is a highly practical catalogue of social offences, together with recommendations on the ‘restitutions’ that ought to be made following their commission, composed by Antonio Pierozzi, better known as St Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence (1389–1459). Although Antoninus writes from the perspective of an orthodox Christian prelate, most of the forms of wrongdoing he discusses in De Restitutionibus can be described as offences against sociability, his sternest reprimands being directed against acts or practices which disrupt community life by causing harm to individuals or subverting social relationships. While generalisations can never be proved by appeal to a single instance, this example should assist in releasing the grip of the idea that the concerns of past people were always, as Williams puts it, ‘too distant from our own’ for their ethical ideas and our own to march in tandem. It is to be noted especially how similar many principles of this scheme are to principles that are still widely accepted today, notwithstanding some inevitable differences in application or emphasis.