This chapter argues for a notion of reparative justice: when persons participate in an injustice, they may incur reparative obligations. Reparative obligations will take different forms depending on the nature of the injustice and a person's relation to it. When the injustice in question is a crime, reparative obligations could be a basis for criminal punishment. Under this rationale, it would be important that the punishment serve a productive social purpose, such as deterrence or the codification of relevant social norms, or the reparative aim is not accomplished. Other reparative aims could include truth telling, repudiation of wrongs done, restitution or aid to victims, community service, and institutional reform. Obligations to promote reparative aims need not presuppose criminal liability. When the burdens of reparative justice are less onerous than criminal punishment, they may be underwritten by weaker notions of fault than what is required by criminal law. An aim of this chapter is to develop a notion of reparative justice that could include, but is broader than, criminal justice. This renders a reparative approach a fitting response to the various forms collective wrongdoing might take.

I am led to the topic of reparative justice from skeptical worries about the nature of individual responsibility. Our understanding of human psychology should lead us to be skeptical about notions of freedom that individual culpability requires. We are shaped by environment, genetics, and experience in a way that affects what we perceive as reasons and narrows the horizon of possibilities for action.