Reparations for slavery have become a reinvigorated topic for public
debate over the last decade. Most theorizing about reparations treats
it as a social justice project—either rooted in reconciliatory
justice focused on making amends in the present, or they focus on the
past, emphasizing restitution for historical wrongs. Olúfemi O.
Táíwò argues that neither approach is optimal, and advances a
different case for reparations—one rooted in a hopeful future that
tackles the issue of climate change head on, with distributive
justice at its core. This view, which he calls the "constructive"
view of reparations, argues that reparations should be seen as a
future-oriented project engaged in building a better social order;
and that the costs of building a more equitable world should be
distributed more to those who have inherited the moral liabilities of
past injustices.
This approach to reparations, as Táíwò
shows, has deep and surprising roots in the thought of Black
political thinkers such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr, and
Nkechi Taifa, as well as mainstream political philosophers like John
Rawls, Charles Mills, and Elizabeth Anderson. Táíwò's project has
wide implications for our views of justice, racism, the legacy of
colonialism, and climate change policy.
