Who? Whom? Reparations and the problem of agency

• Main Author: KUKATHAS, Chandran
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2006
• Subjects: Models and Methods
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2928; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4185/viewcontent/Kukathas_2006_Journal_of_Social_Philosophy__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

If a person is wronged, whether by a physical violation of his person or by having his property unjustly taken, or even by the besmirching of his reputation, he is, most people agree, entitled to some form of compensation or restitution from the person or persons responsible for the wrong. What form the reparation should take, and how great it should be, are sometimes difficult problems, but this does not change the fact that something is owed and someone must be held to account. If a restaurant goes bust because a supplier fails to fulfill his commitments and a newspaper publishes false reports of the restaurant's allegedly unethical practices, the business owner can seek compensation from those responsible for the harm he has suffered. The fact that apportioning responsibility will not be easy makes no difference: the law must try to find an answer that rectifies the injustice. Similarly, it can be argued, the harm suffered by the descendants of victims of unredressed injustices of the past cries out no less urgently for attention. Many people today suffer as a consequence of wrongs committed in the past, and they too, some say, are entitled to some form of restitution. The fact that matters are complex is no reason for them to give up their claims, or for others to give up on the task finding answers to the question of who owes what to whom.