Sins of the Founding Fathers

• Autores: Eric Smaw
• Localización: Archiv für Rechts-und Sozialphilosophie, ARSP, ISSN 0001-2343, Vol. 103, Nº 3, 2017, págs. 389-409
• Idioma: alemán
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• Resumen

  • In this paper, I offer substantial philosophical and pragmatic analyses of slavery, apprenticeships, and segregation in the United States and British West Indies. I do so to illustrate the extent to which American and British philosophy, politics, law, and economics were entwined with the oppression of African-Americans and African-Caribbeans. I argue that, as the institution of slavery collapsed and abolitionists began calling for reparations, judges and politicians ignored the claims of abolitionists and thereby perverted justice. As a result, we now have the debts of slavery, apprenticeships, and segregation to settle. I conclude that as long as we fail to settle these debts we are complicit in allowing their perversions of justice to continue. For this reason, I argue in favor of granting reparations to African-Americans and African-Caribbeans.