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States' culpability through time.

Some contemporary states are morally culpable for historically distant wrongs. But which states for which wrongs? The answer is not obvious, due to secessions, unions, and the formation of new states in the time since the wrongs occurred. This paper develops a framework for answering the question. T...

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Published in:Philosophical Studies Vol. 181; no. 5; pp. 1345 - 1369
Main Author: Collins, Stephanie
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature May2024
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: May2024
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        au: Collins, Stephanie
        affil: Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
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      keyword:
        Collective agency
        Collective responsibility
        Historical injustice
        Persistence
      ab: Some contemporary states are morally culpable for historically distant wrongs. But which states for which wrongs? The answer is not obvious, due to secessions, unions, and the formation of new states in the time since the wrongs occurred. This paper develops a framework for answering the question. The argument begins by outlining a picture of states’ agency on which states’ culpability is distinct from the culpability of states’ members. It then outlines, and rejects, a plausible-seeming answer to our question: that culpability transmits from a past state’s action to a present state just if the two states share a numerical identity, for example as determined by international law. I advocate a different answer: culpability transmits from a past action to a present state to the extent that the present state ‘descends from’ the aspects of the past state that underpinned the past action. One potential upshot is that some present-day settler-colonies (such as Australia) are culpable for the centuries-ago invasion of their lands by European powers—even though these states did not perform these invasions and indeed did not exist at the time.
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    language: English
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          year: 2024
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