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In the “The Morality of Reparation,” Bernard R. Boxill argues that white Americans owe Black Americans reparation for the injustices of slavery inflicted on the ancestors of the latter by the ancestors of the former. Boxill begins to make his case by considering three relatively simple scenarios in which reparation is morally required. In the first, Dick steals Tom’s bicycle. Clearly, Dick owes Tom the bicycle, and a concession of error, in reparation. In the second scenario, Dick gives Harry the bicycle after stealing it from Tom. Once again, reparation is clearly in order: although Harry himself may be blameless, he must acknowledge the bicycle as Tom’s rightful possession and return it to him. The final scenario is like the second except that Tom dies and leaves ownership of his bicycle to his son Jim. As in the previous scenario, Harry must return the bicycle to its rightful owner, which in this case is Jim.
According to Boxill, if reparation is due to Jim in the final scenario, so too is reparation due to Black Americans. After all, slaves had the wealth produced by their labor stolen by slave masters, who then passed that wealth on to their descendants. And because Boxill presumes slaves to have conferred the rights to the products of their labor to their own descendants, those descendants—present day Black Americans—are the rightful owners of the wealth generated by slave labor and therefore those who currently possess it—present day white Americans—must return it to them. Boxill is clear that it is the white community as a whole—rather than simply direct descendants of slave owners—that must bear the cost of reparation, since the entire white community has benefited from slavery, and it is the white community as a whole that prevents present-day Black Americans from exercising their right of ownership.
On Boxill’s view, both the white community, considered as a collective entity like a company or corporation, and each individual white American owe reparation to the Black community. Boxill realizes some may object to the latter point by claiming that present-day white Americans are not morally culpable for the injustices of slavery. Boxill responds that whether an individual is morally required to make reparation does not depend on or imply blameworthiness or culpability (as the figure of Harry shows in Boxill’s scenarios). Boxill also defends his conception of the white community as akin to a company or corporation by pointing out how the white community has distinct interests opposed to other social groups and frequently takes action to protect and enhance those interests.