There is now increasing of the intergenerational effects of trauma including effects on the genes.

Epigenetics.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190326-what-is-epigenetics

It may be another impossible moral calculation. But in terms of, par example, who is responsible for slavery, colonialism and the World wars the answer is not us who were not born then. — Andrew4Handel

I don't support payment of reparations for past behavior. It's not the injustice of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that need to be addressed. It's the ongoing unfairness and privilege that remain today.

I see at least two related issues here. One is the idea of "the sins of the father". The other is societal responsibility and reparation.

Inherited sin is used in the sense of the consequences of the acts of one's ancestors, and in Paul's sense that we are born in sin. The former is also used in the sense of "like father like son" or "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

Reparation raises questions such as what is the goal of reparation, who is to be compensated, and how is it to be done?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/slavery-reparations-evanston-san-francisco-sheila-jackson-lee-b2272142.html

"Louis Weathers didn’t know what to think when he heard he was going to receive reparations for slavery.

He had listened to people talking about reparations — people such as Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton — during the two decades he’d lived in Washington DC. But it was always couched as a demand, or an aspiration: something that might happen in a far-off place or a far-off time, not one still so wounded by the impact of America’s “original sin”."

"Weathers’ mother, when pregnant, was forced to travel to a neighboring town to give birth because the hospitals where she lived would not accept African Americans."

"Weathers, a military veteran who served in the Korean War, was among the very first people to receive a reparations payment, more than 500 years after the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and 156 years after slavery’s formal abolition in the United States. He was eligible to receive one because of where he lived. In 2019, the city of Evanston, Illinois, established a committee to fund and administer reparations to those of its 70,000 residents who met certain criteria.

To apply, the Black Evanstonians had to fit one of three categories. They could either be residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969, referred to as “ancestors”; or direct descendants of a Black resident from 1919 to 1969; or else they could submit evidence that they had suffered housing discrimination due to the city’s policies after 1969. There was a requirement that the money be used to help pay for housing costs."

I don't support payment of reparations for past behavior. It's not the injustice of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that need to be addressed. It's the ongoing unfairness and privilege that remain today. — T Clark

The current situation is a result of past actions such as redlining in the USA and inherited privilege.

As well as false notions of just dessert, false notions such as that life is fair (The just world hypothesis), The fundamental attribution error. Failure to replace the current system with anything since the disasters of communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

I am mixed race my dad was Afro Caribbean and My mother is Welsh and some of my ancestors may have been slave owners.
My mother's mother initially disowned her for marrying a black man but then they reconciled a few years later.

I was also bullied as a child but seemingly unrelated to race or sexuality probably influenced by autistic traits.

I have a sense of having been a victim in some respects although more privileged than some. I grew up in a religious cult with the original sin narrative.

You can respond by nihilism and feeling fatalistic about your inheritance or fighting back against unjust social structures. To some extent I have been apathetic.

It's the ongoing unfairness and privilege that remain today. — T Clark

I agree, but how long is "the present"? I consider at least the last 125 years to constitute our material "present". The modern age of technology, industry, science, and the arts began in the late 19th century.

For some people, the cultural and social "present" is the last 15 minutes; for others it stretches back decades or centuries. For those with a long-term present, American slavery is part of their present. The dispossession of the Western Hemisphere of the native people is a "present moment" to some.

Replacing capitalism with socialism could, might, be one way of getting at ongoing and past injustices. Setting aside what will be a small share of the total wealth of the country (whichever country/county/city is thinking about reparations) will leave the inherited system intact. The cash will not necessarily have that large a benefit. People who have their act together will benefit from a $50,000 check. People whose lives are messed up won't be able to benefit so much.

Some white people in liberal neighborhoods are quite enthusiastic about having legally invalid race covenants removed from their property titles. Big deal! It's just so much virtue signaling. The white owners have no intentions of sacrificing their home equity (which some minorities claim was earned at their expense).

If collective guilt is invalid, so is collective innocence and virtue. Sorting out the deserving and undeserving would be a classic counterproductive approach.

inherited privilege — Andrew4Handel

Of course we inherit all sorts of biological traits, but privilege isn't one of them. What gives a person privilege is money. If I take away every last dime belonging to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or Bill Gates (pick your favorite billionaire) and leave them flat out impoverished on the street, they won't have many privileges. Come to think of it, why don't we do just that?

You were systemically disadvantaged in a number of ways: by class, race, religion, psychology, and social traits. Maybe sexual orientation? Cut race out and most Americans have been disadvantaged on the same basis. Most Americans? Most Americans are working class, and the working class has been systematically exploited since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.

Did the U.S. ever pay reparations to Vietnam? Or one of the many countries it destroyed during its crusade in the Middle-East?

Am I doing it wrong?

Did the U.S. ever pay reparations to Vietnam? Or one of the many countries it destroyed during its crusade in the Middle-East?

Am I doing it wrong? — Tzeentch

If someone feels a wrong doing has been done and wants financial compensation they would have to make a case for it.

But who should pay? The American tax payer?

Ideally we could work out who had done wrong to whom and redistribute stolen resources or repair reduced capacity. But that is idealistic. And people will debate who was in the wrong. Wars tend to contain controversies.

My concern here is inherited blame. Should your wealth be confiscated to recompense someone else?

If you want my opinion, a person shouldn't be punished for a crime they didn't commit.

Cut race out and most Americans have been disadvantaged on the same basis. — BC

Privilege is advantage and who you're parents are determines what advantages you inherit especially inheriting money.

It does seem to be a minority of society that are the main exploiters and people who accumulate wealth but the rest of society can help enable this and have trickle down benefits. It is an ongoing struggle.

I live In Bristol England that benefitted extensively from slavery being a prominent slave trading port.
They only got rid of the prominent statue of Edward Colston a slave owner during the pandemic and BLM protests following George Floyds murder.

I grew up seeing the statue regularly and it was seen as unproblematic and I being mixed race didn't respond negatively to it. The poor in Bristol also benefitted from Colston's wealth to some extent as he was a major benefactor to the city.

But the persistence of the staute to me indicates a failure to come to terms with the ethical ramifications and implications of the cities history. This was a relatively very recent event. The city can be smug now despite entrenched inequality.

↪Andrew4Handel If you want my opinion, a person shouldn't be punished for a crime they didn't commit. — Tzeentch

But should they benefit from a crime someone else committed?

Morally speaking, probably not. However, I'd say a direct link between the benefit and the crime should be present for it to be immoral.

Should your wealth be confiscated to recompense someone else? — Andrew4Handel

Were we to have a fair economic system, then a good share of the wealth the 1% has accumulated in just the last 40 years -- at the expense of the large majority of workers -- would, yes, be confiscated. Ripped right out of their greedy hands.

So, that's why it's the system that needs to be changed -- not just fleecing a few people. I have no problem with fleecing the 1%; I don't want them recovering their unfair share.

Morally speaking, probably not. However, I'd say a direct link between the benefit and the crime should be present for it to be immoral. — Tzeentch

Establishing criminality in the case of legally authorized activity is difficult. Responsibility, sure. Guilt not so much.

Here's a more contemporary example.

The Roosevelt Administration sent a large package of New Deal legislation to Congress. Southern Democratic congressmen (the 'solid south') imposed, or attempted to impose, a heavy racial bias on the implementation of the legislation. For example, they attempted to exclude blacks from Social Security -- and were, to some extent, successful. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was prevented from funding mixed-race housing (integrated housing, in other words). The FHA planned, and largely underwrote the huge expansion of all-white suburbs by directing banks to write mortgages for whites, and not blacks. Public housing was prescribed for blacks.

Public housing wasn't in itself a bad thing. In many cases the public housing buildings were of very good quality. There was a substantial population of people in cities who needed good rental housing, and the FHA programs met much of that need. Unfortunately, other urban processes were at work. As whites opted for the new suburbs, a good share of their city property was bought up for rental purposes, and high rates of rent were charged the blacks who rented them. The rates that blacks were paying were high enough that they could have afforded to buy property, there or in the suburbs, and they been allowed to do so.

Another problem of the public housing is that the cities were handed the responsibility of maintaining the federally-built public housing. A good many cities neglected the property and it deteriorated. Where cities did maintain the property, the housing is still in good condition. They may not be choice rental units, but they are at least fairly good.

Over time, public housing authorities changed the demographics of the public housing units -- shifting away from small working families and the elderly, to welfare families with several children apiece. As the children grew from toddlers to teen agers, the number of people (and teens, particularly) in the public housing units passed the critical density point, after which social chaos results. Social chaos plus neglected maintenance produced a fast downward spiral, and before long the public housing units were ruined.

In Chicago, and other cities where neglect and density produced disaster, the public housing units have been mostly demolished. What happened to the residents? Section 8 housing, presumably, and that is spread over a wide area. Nobody knows for sure what happened to all the former tenants.

Cabrini Green, very inconveniently located close to the Magnificent Mile high end shopping strip (North Michigan Ave.) has been torn down and new units of low-rise middle-income housing has replaced it. Well thank heavens for that! I mean, who wants to come out of Neiman Marcus and get panhandled (or worse? Give the poor folks in the upper class a break.

It isn't the case that the residents of public housing had no moral agency in wrecking their homes. Some of them engaged in criminal predation while others resisted the criminals. Unfortunately, the criminals won.

Can we count the millions spent (billions in current dollars) as reparations?

I agree, but how long is "the present"? — BC

The present means now. Right here...no wait, now. No, now.... If there are people who are still living with injustice while others have unearned privilege, which you and I agree there are, those are the people for whom it should be made right. Not because of what happened 400 or 200 or 100 or 50 years ago, but because of what is happening now.

I find it somewhat questionable when people come forward perhaps 50 years after being fondled, seduced, or raped and file criminal charges or sue the church, the actor, the school, or... somebody for damages.

On the other hand, the successors of Hooker Chemical were brought into court to take responsibility for Love Canal in Niagara, New York. Founded 1903, Hooker was absorbed by Occidental Petroleum in 1968. You remember, but for those who don't, Love Canal was Hooker's toxic waste dump. Later housing was built in close proximity to the leaking barrels. The company became notorious in the 1960s, when residents near its chemical waste site, Love Canal, reported extraordinarily high incidences of leukemia, birth defects, and other injuries.

Tort law seems to tolerate a long gap between event and consequence.

The FHA was established in 1935. Its policies shaped housing discrimination into the present moment. There's an 88 year gap between the FDR's signature and the very small number of blacks living in Boston's better suburbs. The injustice is that that certain types of people were unequivocally prohibited from benefiting from accumulating equity as the values of suburban properties rose.

Is this a past injustice or a current injustice?

Tort law seems to tolerate a long gap between event and consequence...

...Is this a past injustice or a current injustice? — BC

Civil suits are not the same as reparations, which was what I was talking about. If a specific person was harmed in a specific way by other specific people, they can, subject to state and federal law, sue them. I don't see how that is inconsistent with the position I have taken.

Civil suits are not the same as reparations — T Clark

Granted.

Good arguments can be made for and against reparations. I have lots of doubts about reparations because there are philosophical and practical difficulties. Who is guilty? How far back does victimhood go? Who will be charged for the genocide of the native people? What constitutes reparation?

Germany was already subject to intense moral judgement before WWII was over. A criminal investigation commenced, charges were brought, and some reparations programs were instituted. We are now decades and centuries past the beginning of the British colonies and the several kinds of bad things that followed.

From whom is a problem; the flip side is to whom. And what exactly, and how much?

Some say that the billions spent on various forms of benefit programs (including all the rental housing that the federal government built) constitutes a substantial reparation.

I have lots of doubts about reparations because there are philosophical and practical difficulties. — BC

I'm agin um. They'll make things worse. Maybe even I'd resent people getting money just because of race or some other arbitrary criteria. Plenty of rich people would get reparations. Many poor people wouldn't. There'll be all sorts of fraud. Bad idea.

Bad idea — T Clark

Alright, it's settled. Put a notice in The Boston Globe informing hopeful recipients that they are officially shit out of luck.

Look to the future, not the past, pave the roads for all to achieve what they are capable of. I never complained about the idea of affirmative action, only in its interpretations and practice at times.

Past errors ...
1. Must be apologized for
2. Should not be repeated

There are so many clear cut cases where it's practically undeniable the U.S. government owes people compensation. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. - countries that were invaded and thoroughly wrecked, with no justification.

If people were interested in justice via reparations, how come we never hear about those? Mind you, the victims of these events have never even been in a position to bring their case infront of a court.

These things make me skeptical. What are these reparations discussions really about?

It's not crime and punishment, otherwise it would be discussed infront of a court instead.

Genuine justice? Well, if that were the case why do we see a selective interest for vague, grey area cases and the blatant, undeniable injustice is simply ignored?

Is justice only interesting when one can profit from it?

Alright, it's settled. Put a notice in The Boston Globe informing hopeful recipients that they are officially shit out of luck. — BC

Thank you for this vote of confidence.

There are so many clear cut cases where it's practically undeniable the U.S. government owes people compensation. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc — Tzeentch

Is any case clear cut?

Do you think throwing money at the aforementioned countries will benefit them.

Those three cases you mentioned are controversial. So I don't know why you believe them to be clear cut. Iraq was a dictatorship where Sadam invaded his neighbours Kuwait and Iran and gassed the Kurds.
Afghanistan had an ongoing civil war and the Taliban were in control harbouring al qaeda and oppressing all the women and most of the other people.

North Vietnam illegally invaded South Vietnam to impose communism.

When you say the USA owes compensation do you mean everyone who lives in the USA? The Tax payer? Future tax payers and their descendants?

Taking wealth of people would be penalising them so we would need to target the right people.

I am mainly concerned with the question of whether someone's descendant can inherit guilt. It is a common theme in religion with the original sin and in the Notion of Karma.

I was bought up being told that I was inherently sinful and deserving of hell. And there is the doctrine of total depravity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity

But it doesn't necessarily make sense.

But some times the continued presence of malicious human behaviour through history can make you support a notion of original sin. Are we born with innate antisocial traits?

Do you think throwing money at the aforementioned countries will benefit them. — Andrew4Handel

I don't think throwing money at anyone would necessarily benefit them.

I'm not really sold on the idea of reparations, in case that wasn't clear from my comments.

But you've made clear this isn't what you intended to discuss, so lets move on.

I am mainly concerned with the question of whether someone's descendant can inherit guilt. — Andrew4Handel

I believe a key ingredient for an immoral deed is the desire to cause harm intentionally.

There's a different category of behavior in which one causes harm unintentionally. In that case ignorance is the key ingredient. I believe such behavior to be fundamentally different from immoral behavior.

But in the proposed case of inherited guilt, there is no harm caused by the moral agent, nor any intention to do so.


Is there another definition of immoral behavior (or behavior that leads to guilt) under which inherited guilt would make sense? Without such a definition I don't believe inherited guilt will make much sense.


On the topic of man being inherently sinful or original sin, I think that could be understood more along the lines of the Buddhist concept of "Dukkha", which in simplified terms means that man finds himself in a natural state of dissatisfaction and want, and the drive to satisfy want leads to behavior problematic to both the individual and their surroundings.

As these things go, the arguments for Social Justice become unintelligible when they are premised on methodological collectivism. It involves positing purely imaginary connections between disparate individuals over vast amounts of time and space. These connections, often derived from superficial facts, serve as a sort of mental framework. With it we can skip the seemingly impossible task of rectifying actual injustices and just let it all permeate, willy nilly, through these imaginary connections. Now we can believe people are the perpetrators or victims of crimes committed long before they were born, and other absurdities. But we fail to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving, and so there is nothing just about it.

If the goal of justice is to give people what they are due, it utterly fails in this regard. So we can suspect that rectifying past injustices isn’t the goal, but to seek a sort of public penance through which its advocates can receive absolution.