Hello
- this is my personal web page.
New for 2025: I reviewed Michael Banner’s Britain’s Slavery
Debt: Reparations Now! in the Times Literary Supplement 10/1/25, available here.
Follow up letters can be found (deep breath) here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here
and, here.
Balliol Society
Lecture: Reparations
and Historic Injustice.
Podcast from
Philosophy 24/7: Should we pay
reparations for wrongs committed in the past?
BIO
I am a
political theorist at the University of Oxford, where I am Associate Professor
in Political Theory in the Department
of Politics and International Relations, and Fellow and Tutor in
Political Theory at Balliol
College. I’m co-director of the Centre
for the Study of Social Justice (CSSJ). This
is my Oxford webpage. This
is my PhilPapers profile. This is my
academia.edu profile.
I
started my current job in 2013, and have acted as Course Director for the
M.Phil. in Political Theory (2013-16), Tutor for Undergraduate Admissions at
Balliol (2014-16), Vice-Master (Academic) of Balliol (2016-2020), Oxford PPE
Admissions Coordinator (2017-2020), Chair of the Sub-Faculty in Politics and
International Relations (2021-2), and Director of Graduate Studies in Politics
(2022-24).
From
2009 to 2013, I was Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Bristol.
Before that, I spent five years as Fellow and
Tutor in Politics at Oriel College in Oxford, and was a Post-Doctoral Research
Fellow in Social and Political Thought in the Department of Politics and IR. I
spent three years as Research Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Keble College,
Oxford, and was both a graduate and undergraduate student at Wadham College,
Oxford, where I did a D.Phil. and an M.Phil. in Politics, and a B.A. in
Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and was President of Wadham College
Students’ Union. I was previously an Associate Editor, and am now a member of
the Editorial Board, of the journal Contemporary Political
Theory, and am a member of the Editorial Board of the Intergenerational
Justice Review.
In 2020 I acted as an
expert witness in a High Court case between Abdul Hakeem Muhammad and others
(Claimants) and the London Borough of Lambeth and the Commissioner of Police of
the Metropolis (Defendants), for which I wrote a report on the question, “Whether and to
what extent reparations, including the historical and ongoing effects of the
transatlantic slave trade, is an important topic for current political and
social discourse and campaigning”. The case was settled in 2021 - further
details here,
here,
here,
and here,
I
mostly teach contemporary political theory. My research has included work on
reparations, with particular reference to historical injustice and
international politics; colonialism and decolonization; egalitarianism; the
ethics of cultural property; environmental ethics; judicial politics,
constitutionalism, and the philosophy of law; and vegetarianism and the ethics
of parenting.
I won
the Outstanding
Graduate Supervisor Award for the Social Sciences at the 2018 Oxford SU
Student Led Teaching Awards.
I once
appeared on the Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 talking about luck and inequality:
details on how to hear it are here.
I also feature in this BBC article by David Edmonds: “How do you decide when
a statue must fall?”
My
email address is daniel.butt@politics.ox.ac.uk.
PUBLICATIONS
If you are unable to access any of the publications
listed here do please get in
touch – I’d be happy to send you a copy.
BOOK
Rectifying
International Injustice: Principles of Compensation and Restitution Between
Nations (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009). The full text is available online here via Oxford Academic. It should be accessible
on most University networks. It has been reviewed in International Affairs
85, 5 (2009), accessible here,
Political Studies Review 8, 2 (2010),
accessible here,
Global Justice: Theory Practice
Rhetoric 3 (2010), accessible here,
and Ethical Perspectives 19,1 (2012), accessible here. An abstract and a
summary of each chapter of the book are at the bottom of this page.
EDITED BOOK
(with Sarah Fine
and Zofia Stemplowska) Political
Philosophy, Here and Now: Essays in Honour of David Miller (Oxford
University Press, 2022) – available
via Oxford Academic
ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
“Immoderate Integrationism:
History and Climate Justice”, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics,
forthcoming.
“Theories of Justice”, in John
Linarelli (ed), Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of
Legal Theory and Philosophy (Edward Elgar, forthcoming).
(with Zofia Stemplowska) “Global
justice and distributional conflicts over resources”, in Espen Storli,
Madeleine Dungy, and Audrey Gerrard (eds.), Routledge Handbook on the
Economic History of Natural Resources (Routledge forthcoming).
“The ethical implications of
benefiting from injustice”, in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), Ethics
in Practice: An Anthology (6th edition)
(Wiley Blackwell, 2025).
"Contemporary
Rights and Duties of Apology for Historic Injustice", Reason Papers 44,2 (2024),
199-211 pdf
“Empire,
ownership, and the Elgin Marbles: who should own the past?” IAI News (08 December 2023)
“Settling
claims for reparations”, Journal of Race,
Gender, and Ethnicity 11,7 (2022), 60-79 pdf
(with Zofia Stemplowska) "No country for
strangers", in Butt, Fine, and Stemplowska (eds.), Political
Philosophy, Here and Now: Essays in Honour of David Miller (Oxford
University Press, 2022)
"Corrupting
the youth: should parents feed their children meat?", Ethical
Theory and Moral Practice 24 (2021), 981-997.
“What structural injustice theory leaves
out", Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24 (2021)
1161-1175.
"Judicial
independence and transformative constitutionalism: squaring the
circle of legitimacy" in D. J. Galligan (ed.), The
Courts and the People: Friend or Foe? (Hart, 2021) pdf
(with Matthew
Butt) “The
mathematics of juries”, Counsel, April 2021.
“The ethical
implications of benefiting from injustice”, in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), Ethics
in Practice: An Anthology (5th edition)
(Wiley Blackwell, 2020).
“Restitution
post bellum: property, inheritance, and corrective justice”, Journal
of Applied Philosophy 36,3 (2019), 357-365 pdf
“Decolonising
universities: the second wave”, Common Ground 2
(2019), 16-19.
“Justice postcoloniale” [Postcolonial justice], in Patrick Savidan
(ed.), Dictionnaire
des inégalités et de la justice sociale (Presses universitaires de France, 2018) (in French) – (English pdf here).
“Historical
emissions: does ignorance matter?”, in Lukas Meyer
and Pranay Sanklecha (eds.), Historical Emissions and
Climate Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2017) pdf
“Law, governance and the ecological ethos”, in
Stephen Gardiner and Allen Thompson (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics (Oxford
University Press, 2016) pdf
“Microfinance, non-ideal theory, and global distributive justice”,
in Luis Cabrera and Tom Sorell (eds.) The
Ethics of Microfinance (Cambridge
University Press, 2015) pdf
“Historical
justice in post-colonial contexts: repairing historical wrongs and the end of
Empire”, in Janna Thompson and Klaus Neumann (eds.) Historical Justice
and Memory (University of Wisconsin Press, 2015) pdf
“’A doctrine quite new and altogether untenable’:
defending the beneficiary pays principle”, Journal of
Applied Philosophy 31,4 (2014), 336-348 pdf
“Reparative justice: the debate over inherited inequities”, in
Rupert Jones-Parry and Andrew Robertson (eds.), The Commonwealth Yearbook 2014 (Cambridge:
Commonwealth Secretariat, 2014) pdf
"‘The Polluter Pays’: Backward-looking principles of
intergenerational Justice and the environment" in Jean-Christophe Merle
(ed.), Spheres of Global Justice, (Dortrecht: Springer, 2013) pdf
“Inheriting
rights to reparation: compensatory justice and the passage of time”, Ethical
Perspectives 20, 2 (2013), 245-269 pdf
“Historic injustice and the inheritance of rights and duties in East Asia”, in
Jun-Hyeok Kwak and Melissa Nobles (eds.) Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in
East Asia(Routledge, 2013) pdf
“Colonialism and postcolonialism”, in Hugh
LaFollette (ed.) The International Encyclopedia
of Ethics (Blackwell, 2013), pp. 892-8 pdf
“Repairing historical wrongs and the end of empire”, Social
& Legal Studies 21,2 (2012), 227-242 pdf
“Option luck, gambling, and fairness”, Ethical
Perspectives 19,3 (2012), 417-443 pdf
“Global equality of opportunity as an institutional standard of
distributive justice”, in Chios Carmody, Frank J. Garcia, and John
Linarelli (eds.), Global Justice and International Economic Law:
Opportunities and Prospects, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
pp. 44-67 pdf
(with Stuart
White and Martin O’Neill) “Liberalism and trade unionism”, International
Union Rights, 18 (2012)
“배상 요구와 의무의 상속성:‘위안부’여성들의 후손에 대한 배상” (Inheriting compensatory
claims and duties: reparations to the descendants of “comfort women”), Journal
of Asiatic Studies, 53 (2010), 40-70 (in Korean – translation by Sun Young Lee) pdf
“‘Victors’
justice’? Historic injustice and the legitimacy of international law”, in Lukas
H. Meyer (ed) Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 163-185 pdf
"On
benefiting from injustice", Canadian Journal
of Philosophy 37 (2007),
129-152 pdf
- Reprinted in Lukas Meyer (ed.) Intergenerational Justice (Ashgate,
2012).
"Nations,
overlapping generations and historic injustice", American
Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2006), 357-67 pdf
OTHER PAPERS
“Codrington and Reparations”, Paper for Conference on “Addressing the History of Slavery: The Case of
Christopher Codrington”, 8 October 2016, All Souls College, Oxford
PODCASTS AND LECTURES
Balliol Society 2022 Lecture: Reparations and Historic
Injustice
Philosophy 24/7: Should we pay
reparations for wrongs committed in the past?
Does
Inequality Matter? Social Justice and Political Theory (September
2016)
Reparations and the
End of Empire (November 2013)
REPORTS AND POLICY
BRIEFS
The
following reports were written for the Foundation
for Law, Justice and Society in Oxford, in my previous capacity as
Director of their programme on “Courts and the Making
of Public Policy”.
The Capacity of Courts
to Handle Complexity (2009)
Adjudicating
Socio-Economic Rights (2008)
Transformative
Constitutionalism and Socio-Economic Rights (2008)
In Times of Crisis, Can
We Trust the Courts? (2008)
If the Public Would Be
Outraged by their Rulings, Should Judges Care? (2007)
The Courts and Social
Policy in the United States (2007)
Report:
Democracy, the Courts, and the Making of Public Policy (2006)
Policy Brief:
Democracy, the Courts, and the Making of Public Policy
(2006)
MORE ON RECTIFYING INTERNATIONAL INJUSTICE
Rectifying
International Injustice: Principles of Compensation and Restitution Between
Nations
Daniel
Butt
Book
Abstract
The
history of international relations is characterized by widespread injustice.
What implications does this have for those living in the present? Should
contemporary states pay reparations to the descendants of the victims of
historic wrongdoing? Many writers have dismissed the moral urgency of
rectificatory justice in a domestic context, as a result of their
forward-looking accounts of distributive justice. Rectifying International
Injustice argues that historical international injustice raises a series of
distinct theoretical problems, as a result of the popularity of
backward-looking accounts of distributive justice in an international context.
It lays out three morally relevant forms of connection with the past, based in
ideas of benefit, entitlement and responsibility. Those living in the present
may have obligations to pay compensation insofar as they are benefiting, and
others are suffering, as a result of the effects of historic injustice. They
may be in possession of property which does not rightly belong to them, but to
which others have inherited entitlements. Finally, they may be members of
political communities which bear collective responsibility for an ongoing
failure to rectify historic injustice. Rectifying International Injustice
considers each of these three linkages with the past in detail. It examines the
complicated relationship between rectificatory justice and distributive
justice, assesses the appropriateness of judging the past by contemporary moral
standards, and argues that many of those who resist cosmopolitan demands for
the global redistribution of resources have failed to appreciate the extent to
which past wrongdoing undermines the legitimacy of contemporary resource
holdings.
Book
keywords: historic injustice,
international relations, reparations, compensation, distributive justice,
rectificatory justice, benefit, entitlement, property, responsibility
Chapter
1: Introduction
This
chapter outlines the empirical context of the debate over reparations for
historic international injustice, with particular reference to colonialism and
the slave trade. It characterises the argument of the
book as a specific type of non-ideal theory, and
explains the book’s commitment to a particular kind of practicality, whereby
its arguments can be employed by real world political actors. It outlines an
approach to international justice labelled “international libertarianism”,
advocated by writers including John Rawls, David Miller, Michael Walzer and
Thomas Nagel, which is analogous to domestic libertarianism in terms of its
commitment to respect for sovereignty, self-ownership and the minimal state.
This is distinguished from alternative accounts of international justice such
as cosmopolitanism and realism. The book’s focus on rectificatory duties,
rather than rights, is explained, and the terminological relation between terms
such as restitution and compensation, and nation and state, is
explicated.
Keywords:
colonialism, slave trade, non-ideal theory, practicality, Rawls, Walzer,
international libertarianism, sovereignty, self-ownership, minimal state
Chapter
2: Why Worry about Historic Injustice?
This
chapter outlines a number of critical responses to the
project of seeking to rectify historic injustice, and
explains why largely they do not apply to international libertarian accounts of
international justice. It distinguishes between backward-looking and
forward-looking accounts of distributive justice in both ideal and non-ideal theory, and looks at how both accounts relate to ideas of
rectificatory justice. If one advocates a forward-looking account of
distributive justice, and so advocates a redistribution of resources with each
new generation, then the rectificatory project will seem to be of little
importance. However, this nonchalance in the face of historic injustice is
unsustainable if one advocates backward-looking principles. Since international
libertarians resist cosmopolitan calls for a generational redistribution of
resources across political boundaries, they must carefully
scrutinize the provenance of modern day
distributions.
Keywords:
historic injustice, rectification, non-ideal theory, international justice,
distributive justice, backward-looking, forward-looking, redistribution,
cosmopolitan, generation
Chapter
3: International Libertarianism
This
chapter lays out the account of justice between nations – international
libertarianism – which the book uses to assess present day obligations arising
from historic injustice. The first section outlines international
libertarianism as a backward-looking account of international distributive
justice, in contrast with forward-looking redistributive cosmopolitanism. The
second section differentiates international libertarianism from prescriptive
realism, by giving details of the principles of just international interaction
which international libertarians believe should govern relations between
different communities. These combine a respect for national self-determination
with a prohibition on self-interested aggression. The third section considers
the propriety of using these principles to judge historic international
interaction, in the light of historically different beliefs about morality and
the relatively recent development of international law. It concludes by
considering the claim that historic departures from the principles might be
seen as having been justified by necessity, and
considers the duties of compensation which would result from such
actions.
Keywords:
international libertarianism, distributive justice, backward-looking,
forward-looking, realism, self-determination, aggression, international law,
necessity, compensation
Chapter
4: Compensation for Historic International Injustice
This
chapter examines claims that compensation should be paid as a result of the
lasting harm and benefit caused by historic injustice. It argues that present
day parties who have benefited from the automatic effects of past wrongdoing
may possess compensatory duties if others are still disadvantaged, insofar as
the victims and beneficiaries are not in a state of moral equilibrium. It
argues that any claims relating to compensation must make reference to some
account of counterfactual reasoning in order to assess the degree of harm which
has been suffered. The question of identifying the morally relevant
counterfactual is something which has been frequently misunderstood,
particularly in relation to exploitation. Having considered, and dismissed,
objections stemming from the “non-identity problem”, the chapter concludes by
putting forward a substantive defence of the claim
that benefiting from injustice can give rise to rectificatory duties, even when
the receipt of benefit is involuntary.
Keywords:
historic injustice, compensation, harm, benefit, moral equilibrium,
counterfactual, exploitation, non-identity problem, involuntary,
rectificatory
Chapter
5: Restitution and Inheritance
This
chapter focuses on the claim that present day parties have inherited
entitlements to property which, owing to historic injustice, is currently in
the possession of others. Those who advocate restitution as a response to
wrongdoing argue that such property should be returned to the heirs of the
historical victims. This inheritance-based model has often been rejected at a
domestic level by theorists who reject the justifiability of inheritance. This
response, however, is not available to international libertarians, who endorse
backward-looking accounts of distributive justice. The chapter examines Jeremy
Waldron’s claim that property rights lapse in the absence of sustained possession, and holds that this need not be accepted if one
sees international libertarianism as based on historical entitlement. The
chapter proceeds to challenge Janna Thompson’s claim that the inheritance model
is flawed as a result of its indeterminacy, maintaining that it need not rest
upon counterfactual reasoning.
Keywords:
historic injustice, restitution, property, justifiability, inheritance,
international libertarianism, distributive justice, historical entitlement,
indeterminacy, counterfactual
Chapter
6: Nations, Overlapping Generations, and Historic Injustice
This
chapter considers the question of the responsibility that present day
generations bear as a result of the actions of their ancestors. Is it morally
significant that we share a national identity with those responsible for the
perpetration of historic injustice? The chapter argues that we can be guilty of
wrongdoing stemming from past wrongdoing if we are members of nations that are
responsible for an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. This rests
upon three claims: that the failure to fulfil rectificatory duties is unjust;
that nations can bear collective responsibility for the actions of their
leaders; and that nations are comprised of overlapping generations rather than
successive generations. The claim that present day parties should apologise for historic injustice is then considered, and it
is argued that such an apology is best understood in relation to an ongoing
failure to fulfil rectificatory duties.
Keywords:
historic injustice, ancestors, responsibility, nations, national identity,
collective responsibility, leaders, overlapping generations, successive
generations, apology
Conclusion
The
conclusion of the book reviews the three forms of morally relevant forms of
connection with historic injustice, based on benefit, on the inheritance of
entitlement, and on an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. These
are presented as complementary but distinct bases for modern day rectificatory
duties. It is claimed that taken together, these mean that those who advocate
international libertarianism may have to accept the existence of demanding
rectificatory duties, which may, in the short run, coincide with the demands of
redistributive cosmopolitanism. Though present day
individuals and groups may dislike the idea that they can acquire rectificatory
duties in an involuntary fashion, without bearing moral responsibility for the
original wrongdoing, they nonetheless act wrongly if they do not seek to
rectify historic international injustice.
Keywords:
historic injustice, benefit, inheritance, entitlement, international
libertarianism, cosmopolitanism, involuntary, moral responsibility,
international injustice