Principles of Compensation
(Malik Speaking)

 
 
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You're ignoring the fact that these situations often arise because someone benefits from discrimination. The narrow principle of compensation limits our ability to compensate but it allows the people who benefited (directly or indirectly) to keep their benefits.

When blacks were kept out of the skilled trades, for example, it reserved good jobs for white men and their sons. Now, according to the narrow principle, we can't compensate the blacks who were discriminated against because they're gone. But you are allowing people to keep the benefits that resulted from that discrimination. That's still a moral problem to be dealt with because those benefits derived partly from an injustice.


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