Reparations to Individuals or Groups?

James Nickel bases his latest argument for reparations to groups upon a distinction between the justifying and administrative basis for a program of reparations. I have argued against compensatory hiring for groups elsewhere, ¹ but had not considered there this most recent argument. Its novelty lies in the shift from abstract or ideal principles of compensatory justice to the necessity in practice of balancing claims so as to maximize (imperfect) justice. The justification for favored treatment for groups, according to Nickel, derives from the administrative feasibility of such a program by comparison with the high cost and impracticality of administering compensatory justice in this area on an individual basis. Thus while there is only a high correlation between being black, for example, and having been discriminated against and so deserving compensation (justifying basis), so that preferential treatment for the group will occasionally result in undeserved benefits for individuals, the balance of justice in practice favors such treatment. The viable alternatives seem to be either award of deserved compensation in the great majority of cases and occasional undeserved benefit and hence injustice to white job applicants, or compensation on an individual basis, which would require demonstration of past injustice in court or before a special administrative body, so that the cost and difficulty of the operation would result in far fewer awards of deserved reparation. It is better, the argument holds, to have compensation which is only almost always deserved than a program which in practice would amount to almost no compensation at all, so that a policy which would not be accepted in 28an ideally just world (a world which became ideally just after compensation was paid) becomes best in the present situation.