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Reparations, Responsibility, and Formalism : A Reply to Carnes

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Abstract

In a recent paper, Thomas Carnes develops a novel argument for reparations for historical injustices. This Reply shows that Carnes succeeds only at the cost of invoking an implausible formalism. The Reply also presents in brief a simpler argument for reparations.

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Notes

  1. Carnes 2019.

  2. I acknowledge that one could mount a case against reparations, relying on something far weaker than Premise (1). Instead, one could rely on the following claim: one must be causally responsible for an historic wrong in order to bear a duty to compensate for it. Combining this claim with (2) would offer a new version of the HRO, something we might call HRO*. Of course, Carnes does not discuss HRO*, and it would go beyond responding to Carnes for this Reply to engage with HRO*.

  3. Here I draw on Anderson 2010 (p. 74).

  4. I only consider these two alternatives, but my analysis for other possible alternatives (e.g. issuing bonds, chartering a state-run business, raising money through fines or civil forfeitures, increasing the cost of various state products or services) will be much the same.

  5. Formalism is a term used a variety of ways. See Schauer 1988 for an understanding close to that on offer here.

  6. Functionalism is also used in many ways. Cohen (1935 p. 826) offers a slogan that best captures what I have in mind: “A thing is what it does.”

References

  • Anderson, E. (2010). The imperative of integration. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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  • Carnes, T. (2019). Historical injustice, collective agency, and compensatory duties. Southwest Philosophy Review, 35(1), 79–89.

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  • Cohen, F. S. (1935). Transcendental nonsense and the functional approach. Columbia Law Review, 35(6), 809–849.

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  • Schauer, F. (1988). Formalism. Yale Law Journal, 97(4), 509–548.

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  1. Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University, 150 S. College Street, Carlisle, PA, 17013, USA

    Raff Donelson

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  1. Raff Donelson
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Correspondence to Raff Donelson.

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Donelson, R. Reparations, Responsibility, and Formalism : A Reply to Carnes. Philosophia 49, 643–649 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00237-y

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