In the context of redressing wrongs of the past, the importance of acknowledgement is often urged. It figures significantly, for instance, in the final report of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in the 1996 Canadian Royal Commiss ion Report on Aboriginal Peoples. In both documents a central theme is that acknowledging wrongs of the past is a key first step towards healing and reconciliation. Several recent statements about public apology also urge that moral apologies are signif icant because (...) of the ways in which they acknowledge wrongdoing and responsibility. However, there seem to be few explanations of what, exactly, acknowledgement amounts to and why one would expect it to be an important stage in the healing of victims or in the reconciliation between victim and perpetrator groups. I suggest that ackno wledgement is a kind of spelling out, or articulation, of something that we already know or are in a position to know. When we acknowledge something we avow or accept it as something attached to ourselves. I distinguish between granted acknowledgement, received acknowledgement, and self-acknowledgement. Often acknowledgement is partial and compromised, a situation which may be confusing and harmful to those who have been wronged. I propose explanations as to why the acknowledgement that they are worth y human beings who were wronged and deserved better tends to be profoundly important to groups such as Blacks in South Africa and native peoples in Canada. I also address difficulties which we face when we are pressed to acknowledge injustice and wrongdo ing which we would rather not accept as part of our social history. (shrink)

The literature in ethics is filled with theories of what makes an action wrong, what makes an actor responsible and blamable for his wrongful actions and what we are justified in doing to wrongdoers (e.g., may we punish them? must we forgive them?). However, there is relatively little discussion of what wrongdoers themselves must do in the aftermath of their wrongful acts. This essay attempts to remedy that problem by critically evaluating some competing accounts of the moral obligations of wrongdoers. (...) It argues for a conception of atonement that highlights the value of reconciliation, as opposed to repentance or self-punishment. (shrink)

White supremacy is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today. You will not find this term in introductory, or even advanced, texts in political theory. A standard undergraduate philosophy course will start off with plato and Aristotle, perhaps say something about Augustine, Aquinas, and Machiavelli, move on to Hobbes, Locke, Mill, and Marx, and then wind up with Rawls and Nozick. It will introduce you to notions of aristocracy, democracy, absolutism, liberalism, representative government, (...) socialism, welfare capitalism, andlibertarianism. But though it covers more than two thousand years of Western political thought and runs the ostensible gamut of political systems, there will be no mention of the basic political system that has shaped the world for the past several hundred years. And this omission is not accidental. Rather, it reflects the fact that standard textbooks and courses have for the most part been written and designed by whites, who take their racial privilege so much for granted that they do not even see it as political, as a form of domination. Ironically, the most important political system of recent global history-the system of domination by which white people have historically ruled over and, in certain important ways, continue to rule over nonwhite people-is not seen as a political system at all. It is just taken for granted; it is the background against which other systems, which we are to see as political are highlighted. This book is an attempt to redirect your vision, to make you see what, in a sense, has been there all along. (shrink)

Moral Repair examines the ethics and moral psychology of responses to wrongdoing. Explaining the emotional bonds and normative expectations that keep human beings responsive to moral standards and responsible to each other, Margaret Urban Walker uses realistic examples of both personal betrayal and political violence to analyze how moral bonds are damaged by serious wrongs and what must be done to repair the damage. Focusing on victims of wrong, their right to validation, and their sense of justice, Walker presents a (...) unified and detailed philosophical account of hope, trust, resentment, forgiveness, and making amends - the emotions and practices that sustain moral relations. Moral Repair joins a multidisciplinary literature concerned with transitional and restorative justice, reparations, and restoring individual dignity and mutual trust in the wake of serious wrongs. (shrink)