The thesis of this essay is that equal opportunity (EO) "strictly dominates" (in the game-theoretic sense) reparations. That is, (1) all the ways reparations would make our world more just would also be achieved under EO; (2) EO would make our world more just in ways reparations cannot; and (3) reparations would create injustices which EO would avoid. Further, (4) EO has important practical advantages over reparations. These include economic efficiency, feasibility, and long-term impact. Supporters of reparations should abandon that (...) ideal to support equal opportunity instead. (shrink)

This paper focuses on demands for reparations for colonial slavery and their public reception in France. It argues that this bottom-up, context-sensitive approach to theorising reparations enables us to formulate a critical republican theory of international racial justice. It contrasts the critical republican perspective on reparations with a nation-state centred approach in which reparations activists are accused of threatening the French republic’s sense of homogeneity and unity, thus undermining the national narrative on the French identity. It also rejects the liberal (...) egalitarian perspective, which itself rejects reparations in favour of focusing on present disadvantages. In so doing, this paper illustrates how the notion of non-domination offers a superior way of conceptualising global racial injustices compared to more traditional distributive outlooks. (shrink)