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Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice

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Janna Thompson provides a sophisticated and parsimonious theory of reparative justice. This is situated in relation to a more extensive theory of justice, according to which reparative claims based on past injustices must be balanced against claims of equity based on present circumstances. Taking the reparative claims of indigenous peoples and black Americans as paradigmatic examples, the author examines: why historical obligations and entitlements exist; what we are obliged to do about past wrongs, and; when claims for reparation are superseded by historical change. The answers to all of these questions are carefully developed from a central argument. Namely, that `our life-time transcending concerns as citizens, members of families or individuals give us a moral reason for maintaining a practice of keeping the commitments of our predecessors and repairing the wrongs they have done'. As such, our past-referring obligations and entitlements are derived from our future-oriented moral expectations.

This `diachronic' theory of justice, which emphasises the moral significance of transgenerational relationships, furnishes a persuasive account of why citizens have a collective responsibility for wrongs perpetrated by their predecessors. At the same time, it avoids some of the difficulties that other approaches lead to: it does not presuppose a duty to the dead; it does not require that we feel shame for wrongs perpetrated by our ancestors, and; it does not make responsibility depend on ancestry. Moreover, it draws out the historical dimension of Rawls' theory of justice, which allows us to differentiate more adequately particular claims for reparation based on past wrongs from universal claims to redress present inequalities. As a study in analytic moral philosophy, which is nonetheless sensitive to the political dilemmas that surround claims for reparation, the book makes a timely and original contribution to contemporary debates about multiculturalism, distributive justice, reconciliation and transitional justice.

Reparations will never make up for the past..what it will do is create an ugly world of charges and counter-charges! Will Black Americans blame to blame their fellow Africans, as well as Arab slave traders for creating a culture of slavery (remember that slavery is an African tradition). Will the families of White-Americans sue the families of Blacks for the crimes perpatrated on them? Reaprations will not solve anything, wont make test scores go up or create so-caled equality. In fact reparations will increase racism and I, for one, will join that ism...