Dissertation
Chapter 1: “Reparation and the Normative Significance of Benefiting from Injustice.” It is widely believed that benefiting from injustice is normatively relevant to the case for reparation for historic racism. For example, many people object to reparation on the grounds that no present-day citizens are at fault for historic wrongs. Reparationists often respond by pointing out that present-day citizens benefit from these historic wrongs in myriad ways. Additionally, it is argued that benefiting supplies independent justification for a duty to repair. Among philosophers, a popular argument of this sort leans on the Beneficiary Pays Principle (BPP) according to which involuntarily benefiting from injustice provides beneficiaries with pro tanto remedial responsibilities to victims. While BPP has many virtues, its limitations as a defense of reparation have not been appreciated. First, BPP is unavailing as a response to the objection that reparation involves the wrongful imposition of burdens on present-day citizens. Second, BPP faces various challenges in establishing an independent argument for federal reparation. Given BPP's limitations, a different theory about the normative significance of benefiting from injustice is needed to explain this connection. This paper introduces a theory capable of achieving this goal. I outline a few standards the theory must meet in order to succeed on behalf of reparationists.
Chapter 2:“Egalitarianism and Reparation.” Reparative justice is often taken as an important dimension of justice. In a world marred by historic and present-day wrongs, we have duties to implement repair. However, it has been argued that forward-looking egalitarian justice renders reparative justice redundant (the redundancy thesis). If it's justice we're after, it would suffice to consider the demands of egalitarian justice. In this chapter, I offer a novel argument against the redundancy thesis. Apart implementing the demands of reparative justice in response to grievous group-targeted wrongs, such as racism, we will fall short of the demands of equality. The claim is not that egalitarian aims makes reparation contingently valuable. Rather, reparation is an indispensable mode of achieving egalitarian aims in the face of certain injustices. This view improves upon extant objections to the redundancy thesis—objections which tacitly grant that forward-looking egalitarian justice is sufficient to secure everything that matters from the point of view of equality.
Chapter 3: “American Whitelash, Reparation, and Working Class Struggle.” A common argument among Leftists is that racial redress, however morally justified, is not politically feasible in our current non-ideal circumstances. Among other problems, racial redress faces the problem of whitelash—political lashback from white Americans. To get as much justice and equality as possible, therefore, a pragmatic response is in order. To wit, progressive platforms should organize around race-neutral, big-tent policies that advance working class struggle. This position—known as Left Universalism—is not irrelevant to racial inequality. As Derrick Darby argues, “[W]e need to pitch a much bigger tent if substantive progress is our goal. And the reason is obvious: the substantive things blacks want for themselves are also things that other marginalized populations want too, and to get them we must unite to fight.” Additionally, Leftists sometimes argue that reparation is not especially useful for working class struggle since it doesn’t appear to tackle the problem of labor exploitation within a capitalist system. Rather, it re-enfranchises people within the capitalist system. This chapter achieves two things. First, combining insights from Christopher Lebron and Charles Mills, I argue that a society which foregoes racial redress on account of whitelash re-inscribes inequality of normative concern into the social contract. By consistently denying the legitimate reparative demands of Black Americans and other aggrieved racial groups—on the basis of illegitimate white resistance—our political institutions express a commitment to elevating white demands in the scheme of normative concern. The Left Universalist’s forward-looking distributive ideals will not cancel this derogation of equality. Second, I explore ways of making reparation better fit for working class struggle and thereby more closely aligned with the anti-capitalist aims of Leftism.
