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Reckoning with Past Wrongs: A Normative Framework.

Crocker, David A
June 4, 2015

Source: (2003) In Carol A.L. Prager and Trudy Govier, Dilemmas of Reconciliation: Cases and Concepts. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Pp. 39-63.

In the present essay I employ these eight goals to identify and clarify the variety of ethical issues that emerge in reckoning with past wrongs, widespread agreements about resolving each issue, leading options for more robust solutions or each issue, and ways to weigh or trade off the norms when they conflict. My aim is both to show that there are crucial moral aspects in reckoning with the past and to clarify, criticize, revise, apply, and diffuse eight moral norms. The goals that I propose are not a recipe or “one-size-fits-all” blueprint but rather a framework for exploration by which societies confronting past atrocities can decide – through cross-cultural and critical dialogue – what is most important to accomplish and what are the morally best ways to do so. (excerpt)

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