What story does history tell us? And what might that story mean for how we view our present and future? For Oxford philosophy professor William MacAskill, history reveals the human story as one beset by bigotry, foolishness, and prejudice, a tale of woe in which the powerful oppress the powerless. He gives slavery as his prime example, asking how anyone could justify owning another person, much less embracing it as a societal norm across the planet for millennia. He then turns the focus on the present, listing a litany of social justice policies we must pursue to avoid a similar fate when our present becomes history.

Yet MacAskill’s approach is an inadequate lens for understanding our past, the insufficiency of which extends to how he discusses our present and future. MacAskill’s view obscures the full truth about history and thereby miseducates the present about how to view its own obligations.