reparations
Quick Summary
Reparations are measures taken to acknowledge, repair, or compensate for the lasting effects of grave injustices, such as slavery, human rights abuses, or war. These can include financial payments, land grants, policy changes, or official apologies.1
Forms of reparations include:
* Restitution: Restoring victims to their original situation.1
* Compensation: Providing payment for economic damages and moral harm.1
* Rehabilitation: Offering medical, psychological, legal, and social services.1
* Satisfaction: Ensuring cessation of violations, truth-seeking, public apologies, and memorials.1
Governments have a precedent for paying reparations. Examples include payments to Japanese Americans interned during WWII, victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and descendants of those forcibly sterilized by the state. Germany has paid reparations to victims of the Nazis, and South Africa has compensated victims of apartheid. Cities like Evanston, Illinois, have also implemented reparations programs, funded through taxes. The concept of reparations is complex and debated, with differing views on who should benefit and how they should be funded.234
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- historical injustice
Claims to material reparations for historical injustices are typically based on the nature of the lasting impact, and claims to symbolic restitution are often grounded on the moral quality of the wrongs committed. This article considers the theoretical underpinnings of arguments about reparations, responsibility for past injustices, and…
Read MoreClaims to material reparations for historical injustices are typically based on the nature of the lasting impact, and claims to symbolic restitution are often grounded on the moral quality of the wrongs committed. This article considers the theoretical underpinnings of arguments about reparations, responsibility for past injustices, and…
Read More - historical injusticeThe lasting impact of historical injustices
…give rise to claims to reparations today if such claims can be understood to presuppose an indefensible interpretation of property entitlements. The American philosophers David Lyons and Jeremy Waldron argued against the claim that once we acquire entitlements, they continue until we transfer or relinquish them. They dismissed that claim…
Read More…give rise to claims to reparations today if such claims can be understood to presuppose an indefensible interpretation of property entitlements. The American philosophers David Lyons and Jeremy Waldron argued against the claim that once we acquire entitlements, they continue until we transfer or relinquish them. They dismissed that claim…
Read More - historical injusticeThe moral status of past victims
Commemorative acts of symbolic reparation—for example, a day of remembrance—can be understood as aiming to fulfill that duty toward dead victims of injustice.
Read MoreCommemorative acts of symbolic reparation—for example, a day of remembrance—can be understood as aiming to fulfill that duty toward dead victims of injustice.
Read More - historical injusticeThe moral status of past victims
…carrying out its policies of reparation.
Read More…carrying out its policies of reparation.
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