Humanism and History as Ethics of Institutions: A Reflection on Linda Woodhead, Truth, and Institutions

This paper builds on Linda Woodhead’s discussion of institutions and truth-telling and suggests how we might make progress towards more ethical institutions. Much of the literature on the ethics of institutions focuses on institutions like banks, churches, hospitals, universities, or even political entities. This is also Woodhead’s focus. But another understanding of institutions is something akin to “an established law, practice, or custom”; namely, a tradition. How these two senses of institutions might relate and inform each other regarding justice and facilitating truth-telling is largely ignored. Drawing out this distinction helps reposition ourselves with regard to the starting point of the ethics of institutions and provides a backdoor into our understanding of formal institutions. Taking this as my starting point along with Woodhead’s discussion of truth and institutions, in this paper, I explore this backdoor further. I do this by drawing on the work of Edward Said and showing that the ethics of institutions is the realm of the humanist, but more specifically, the historian.