Taking the Right Seriously: America's Moral Responsibility for Effects of Past Racial Discrimination

This essay argues that American society is morally responsible for the social and economic disadvantages disproportionately experienced by black Americans to the extent such conditions result from past societal discrimination against blacks. Although much has been written on the subject, especially in the context of affirmative action and reparations, the literature tends to be dominated by extreme positions incapable of taking competing claims seriously. Moreover, the arguments advanced often conflate concepts that should be kept distinct, such as the difference between causation and responsibility, between collective and personal responsibility, and between the question whether responsibility exists and how such responsibility should be fulfilled. The essay attempts to clarify some of this confusion and to engage in a constructive analysis that takes competing arguments seriously. To this end, I rely on principles endorsed by conservatives opposed to affirmative action and other forms of reparation. What taking "the right" seriously reveals are two moral principles that support as much as negate a societal obligation to remedy past discrimination. The first principle is that racial discrimination is unjust. The second principle is one of corrective justice, that one who wrongfully harms another is obligated to make amends. Applied to state-sponsored racial preferences, these principles support the argument that the state is obligated to make amends to the victims of such preferences. These principles, however, also have implications for America's responsibility for past societal discrimination against blacks. To the extent society participated in wrongful discrimination, then society is arguably obligated, as a matter of corrective justice, to make amends to its black victims. A potential moral conflict thus arises between society's obligation to refrain from "reverse" racial discrimination and its obligation to remedy past discrimination. The moral case against affirmative action, that is, also supports a moral case in its favor. The essay takes up the principal objections against a societal obligation to remedy past discrimination. Questions addressed include whether America as a whole is responsible for discrimination practiced by some states and individuals, whether it is fair to hold current society responsible for discrimination by past society, and whether blacks today are fairly described as "victims" of past discrimination in light of the passage of time and the extent to which black disadvantage has arguably been perpetuated by black people's choices. To facilitate a constructive discourse, my analysis draws on principles accepted by opponents of affirmative action or by American society generally. Useful sources of such principles include well-settled doctrines of law that incorporate principles of corrective justice. In citing principles embodied in legal doctrines, however, I do not claim that our nation is legally obligated to remedy past societal discrimination. My objective is to defend the plausibility of a moral obligation that America should voluntarily assume. I look to legal doctrines for "rules of reason" with which to gain some clarity and insight, and which may suggest some useful lines of inquiry in assessing America's responsibility for the lingering effects of racial injustice.