Abstract
Some claim that a commitment to egalitarianism is in tension with support for reparations for historical injustice. This tension appears to arise insofar as egalitarianism is a forward-looking approach to justice: an approach that tells us what kind of world we should aim to build, where that world is not defined in terms of the decisions or actions of previous generations. Some have claimed that egalitarianism thereby renders reparations redundant (what I will refer to as the redundancy thesis). One popular option for egalitarians who aim to reject this thesis is to insist that historical injustices demand reparations when they have caused present-day inequality (the causal approach). A promising alternative, skilfully defended by Alasia Nuti in Injustice and the Reproduction of History, is to argue that historical injustices stand in need of repair when they are reproduced into the present-day, such that some past and present injustices are in fact the same injustice. In this paper, I assess these egalitarian responses to the redundancy thesis. I find that Nuti’s account is equipped to reject this thesis, but that the same lines of reply can be adopted by proponents of the causal approach. I suggest that both approaches therefore be viewed as potential ways to conceptualise the relationship between historical injustice and our present normative circumstances; and that in choosing between them, we should understand ourselves to be engaged in an ameliorative project – a project that is guided by, and designed to help us to achieve, our legitimate purposes.
Highlights
The British Slave Abolition Act of 1833, which came into force in August 1834, formally abolished slavery in Britain’s Caribbean, Mauritius, and Cape colonies
The discussion in this paper proceeds at a fairly abstract level, talking of egalitarianism, reparations, and historical injustice in a general sense, and rarely getting into the specifics of such theories, claims, or injustices. This is because I am concerned, not with the question whether those who adopt a particular theory of egalitarianism can consistently support a certain method of reparation for a specific historical injustice; but rather with whether there is some form that egalitarianism can take, that would leave room for reparative justice to do independent normative work
For reasons such as those outlined in the previous section, though Nuti does not go so far as to claim that the causal approach is incapable of undermining the redundancy thesis, she does conclude that “as they stand, accounts focusing on the necessity of repairing the unjust past because of its effects on present inequalities do not offer an interpretation of the relation between past and present injustices that is sufficiently compelling” to reject it (2019, 19)
Summary
The British Slave Abolition Act of 1833, which came into force in August 1834, formally abolished slavery in Britain’s Caribbean, Mauritius, and Cape colonies. A promising alternative, skilfully defended by Nuti in Injustice and the Reproduction of History, is to argue that historical injustices demand reparation when they are reproduced into the present-day, such that some past and present injustices are “the same injustice” (2019, 45) Both approaches may appear to have the potential to explain the necessity of reparations, without engendering a problematic conflict with the forward-looking demands of egalitarianism. The discussion in this paper proceeds at a fairly abstract level, talking of egalitarianism, reparations, and historical injustice in a general sense, and rarely getting into the specifics of such theories, claims, or injustices This is because I am concerned, not with the question whether those who adopt a particular theory of egalitarianism can consistently support a certain method of reparation for a specific historical injustice; but rather with whether there is some form that egalitarianism can take, that would leave room for reparative justice to do independent normative work. I understand egalitarianism to be defined by a central claim that justice demands the creation of a world that is more equal in certain respects – where such equality might be understood in distributive terms, or relational terms. The forms that reparations may take are as varied as the many historical injustices that our world has been characterised by, and those who are not owed such reparation cannot determine what it must consist in
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