Timothy Waligore
Timothy Waligore is currently Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies Program Director at Pace University in New York. His research focuses on resolving claims based on historical injustice, global justice, and multicultural citizenship. His research interests include indigenous peoples, Immanuel Kant, reparations, liberalism and critical race theory, environmental justice, and international political theory. He is also a frequent Guest Professor during the summer at the University of Graz in Austria, where he also co-leads (with Professor Lukas Meyer) a project on the rectification and supersession of historical injustice, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2008, writing his dissertation on "Cosmopolitan Right and Historical Wrong: Kantian Theory and Reparations for Indigenous Peoples." Prior to coming to Pace, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research Group on Constitutional Studies and Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique at McGill University. He has also been the Democracy and Diversity postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University, as well as a postdoctoral fellow at the Justitia Amplificata ("Rethinking Justice - Applied and Global") Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Frankfurt in Germany.
He has published in 'Political Theory,' 'Politics, Philosophy & Economics,' 'Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric,' 'Moral Philosophy and Politics,' 'Public Reason: Journal of Moral and Political Philosophy,' 'Analyze & Kritik,' 'The Nation,' and 'The New Republic.' His co-edited book, Domination and Global Political Justice, was published by Routledge in 2005 (co-edited with Barbara Buckinx and Jonathan Trejo-Mathys). He has previously taught at McGill University, Queen's University in Ontario, Smith College, Columbia University, and York College in the City University of New York.
Address: tpw2001 -at- gmail -dot- com
Please email rather than sending a message through academia.edu
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2008, writing his dissertation on "Cosmopolitan Right and Historical Wrong: Kantian Theory and Reparations for Indigenous Peoples." Prior to coming to Pace, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research Group on Constitutional Studies and Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique at McGill University. He has also been the Democracy and Diversity postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University, as well as a postdoctoral fellow at the Justitia Amplificata ("Rethinking Justice - Applied and Global") Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Frankfurt in Germany.
He has published in 'Political Theory,' 'Politics, Philosophy & Economics,' 'Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric,' 'Moral Philosophy and Politics,' 'Public Reason: Journal of Moral and Political Philosophy,' 'Analyze & Kritik,' 'The Nation,' and 'The New Republic.' His co-edited book, Domination and Global Political Justice, was published by Routledge in 2005 (co-edited with Barbara Buckinx and Jonathan Trejo-Mathys). He has previously taught at McGill University, Queen's University in Ontario, Smith College, Columbia University, and York College in the City University of New York.
Address: tpw2001 -at- gmail -dot- com
Please email rather than sending a message through academia.edu
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Papers by Timothy Waligore
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fcri20/25/3?nav=tocList
1. Superseding historical injustice? New critical assessments
Lukas H. Meyer & Timothy Waligore
2. Colonialism and rights supersession: a Kant-inspired perspective
Julio Montero
3. Superseding structural linguistic injustice? Language revitalization and historically-sensitive dignity-based claims
Seung Hyun Song
4. The supersession thesis, climate change, and the rights of future people
Santiago Truccone-Borgogno
5. Group agency and the challenges of repairing historical injustice
Jeff Spinner-Halev
6. Supersession, non-ideal theory, and dominant distributive principles
Burke A. Hendrix
7. Indigenous governance now: settler colonial injustice is not historically past
Esme G. Murdock
8. The supersession of Indigenous understandings of justice and morals
Gordon Christie
9. Supersession: A reply
Jeremy Waldron
Abstract:
This article analyzes and criticizes the temporal orientation of Catherine Lu's theory of colonial redress in Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics. Lu argues that colonial historic injustice can, with few exceptions, justify special reparative measures only if these past injustices still contribute to structural injustice in contemporary social relations. Focusing on Indigenous peoples, I argue that the structural injustice approach can and should incorporate further backward-looking elements. First, I examine how Lu's account has backward-looking elements not present in other structural injustice accounts. Second, I suggest how the structural injustice approach could include additional backward-looking features. I presuppose here, with Lu, that all agents connected to an unjust social structure have a forward-looking political responsibility to reform this structure, regardless of their relation (or lack thereof) to victims or perpetrators of historic injustice. However, I suggest that agents with connections to historic injustice can occupy a social position that makes them differently situated than other agents within that same structure, leading to differences in how these agents should discharge their forward-looking responsibility and differentiated liability for failure to do so. Third, I argue that Lu obscures the importance of rectifying material dispossession. Reparations, pace Lu, can be justified beyond a minimum threshold of disadvantage. Theorists of settler colonialism and Indigenous scholars show how the dispossession of Indigenous land can be seen as a structure that has not yet ended. I conclude by arguing that rectification can be a precondition for genuine reconciliation.
Here is the link to the issue, which has several pieces on Lu's book:
https://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/index.php/gjn
Here is a link to my article:
https://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/index.php/gjn/article/view/216
English Abstract of Book Chapter:
In the wake of historical injustice, what should be done after significant changes in circumstances? In this article, we analyze this question through the lens of the supersession thesis. This thesis, named by Jeremy Waldron, states that historical injustice may be superseded, such that what justice requires can be altered due to changing circumstances. We explain different ways the supersession thesis may be conceived, and distinguish between partial supersession and full supersession, and between supersession for-the-time-being and final supersession. We also emphasize the importance of symbolic reparations. The chapter also compares four different ways to respond to past injustice claims after much time has passed. The first approach includes many egalitarian or egalitarian-leaning theories of distributive justice, which are generally not favorable to reparations. The second approach to historical injustice argues that backward-looking duties (such as honoring existing promises, respecting historical entitlements, or resettling peoples based on their prior occupancy of lands) have significant normative importance independent of prospective distributive justice. A third approach to historical injustice is concerned with group structural disadvantages that reproduce themselves through time and which persist today. In a fourth approach, we attempt to combine elements from each of these approaches into an integrated approach to historical injustice, invoking the supersession thesis as a model.
Citation: Lukas Meyer and Timothy Waligore, "Die Aufhebungsthese. Grundlinien einer Theorie des gerechten Umgangs mit historischem Unrecht" [The Supersession Thesis: Principles for a Theory for Justly Dealing with Historical Injustice], in Zeit-eine normative Ressource? [Time-A Normative Resource?], edited by Frank Dietrich, Johannes Müller-Salo and Reinold Schmücker (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 2018).
For a discussion of these ideas in English, see the authors’ grant proposal for a project on “Superseding Historical Injustice and Changed Circumstances,” successfully submitted to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in 2016.
The downloadable .pdf includes the Spanish and English version. The Spanish version (published in the journal Prometeica Revista de Filosofía y Ciencias) appears first, followed by the original English version.
Citation:
Timothy Waligore. “Pueblos indígenas, injusticias históricas y presentes : entrevista a Timothy Waligore” [”Indigenous Peoples, Historical and Present Injustices: Interview with Timothy Waligore"]. By Santiago Truccone Borgogno. Translated by Romina Frontalini Rekers. Prometeica Revista de Filosofía y Ciencias. Núm. 18 (2019): 83-85.
This is the penultimate version of a piece that was published as: Timothy Waligore, "Rawls, Self-Respect, and Assurance: How Past Injustice Changes What Publicly Counts as Justice," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2016): 42-66. An earlier, slightly longer version of this piece is elsewhere on this webpage.
(penultimate version)
A paperback version of the entire book is available for purchase (ISBN: 9780367144135).
The book is now available for purchase in paperback. The frontmatter of the book is included here. The first chapter is posted elsewhere on this webpage. Many libraries have the entire book in electronic form. Look for the Taylor & Francis database for e-books. (Routledge is an imprint.)
The book is dedicated to the memory of our co-editor, Jonathan Trejo-Mathys.
This paper uses and adapts John Rawls’ writings on justice in order to argue that past injustice can change what publicly counts as justice today. This differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backwards-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’ own concern for what he calls the ‘social bases of self-respect’ may require the public endorsement of different principles of justice or a different specification of justice. Rawls’ difference principle focuses on the worst-off group defined in terms of class. A historicized difference principle is concerned with the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups. This assures group members that they receive fair treatment. It disincentivizes attempts to manipulate justice to a group’s advantage. Similarly, Rawls thinks providing one package of basic liberties to all citizens signals respect. However, indigenous peoples have often been forcibly coerced into being individual citizens. Given this history of disrespect, signaling respect could require recognizing indigenous self-government rights. Assurance requires respecting indigenous peoples as peoples, as in Rawls’ law of peoples, and disincentivizing attempts to make them into mere citizens. What counts as justice can change through past injustice, guided by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance.
I offer three criticisms of Zanetti's claims regarding the nature of moral compromise. First, Zanetti ignores how some parties may not have reason to seek social peace at all. Zanetti’s claim that there is consensus on the aim of social peace can involve idealising away from disagreement in a manner that Zanetti accuses Rawls of. Second, even if there is consensus on the aim of seeking social peace, this leaves open the possibility of disagreement about which society different people should belong to. This idealises away from real world conflict concerning borders. Indeed, Zanetti does not mention that her ‘central example’ of moral disagreement, the German Abortion compromise, was enacted in the wake of German reunification. Third, there are at least two things that can be called the ‘German Abortion compromise.’ The compromise that Zanetti speaks of was imposed by the German Federal Constitutional Court. The court declared unconstitutional a law passed in 1992 that had been negotiated in parliament. Zanetti does not dwell on this lack of democratic credentials. Even the substance of the court-imposed solution is itself a dubious example of a moral compromise between parties based on what is acceptable to their reason.
I ask what contexts we ought to reflect upon and form considered judgments about, and how this transforms our resulting theories of justice. I further argue that this approach may justify the differential treatment of indigenous peoples by asking us to reflect upon how treating indigenous peoples as individual citizens assumes that they unproblematically exist as citizens in the context of domestic distributive justice. I argue that we ought not send a signal that our system of justice would not have wanted to discourage past injustices involved in colonialism. This makes it relevant for us to consider the possible "past incentive effects" of our current theories of justice, where we reflect on what actions these systems might have encouraged had past people known what system of justice present peoples commit themselves to now. One way to address this now is for us to now adopt a system of principles that treats indigenous peoples as peoples, rather than simply as individual citizens.
In section I, I outline three strands of my cross-contextual approach, which deals with (1) the problem of context-transition, (2) the demand for cross-context consistency, (3) the range of reflection in specifically contextualist theorizing. The last strand relies upon or fits most naturally with the idea that justice is fundamentally dependent on context, as opposed to the idea that justice should be valid for all possible worlds or contexts. However, the first two strands do not depend necessarily depend on such a commitment. Still, the entire force of my argument depends upon combining these strands into a larger argument. I distinguish the strands so that the force of my larger argument can be understood and appreciated. Ultimately, the argument will be that when faced with the problem of context-transition, we need a set of principles that are consistent between a range of contexts that includes at least those past contexts where the injustice occurred. I argue that not including dead victims of historical injustice into our system of principles wrongs the dead. This means we ought to reflect upon cases in past contexts and bring judgments about these cases into a new reflective equilibrium. Indeed, reflecting on additional contexts might lead to new judgments, which a theory has to find a way to fit coherently together at the level of general principles. This new theory might justify an alternative set of principles for reparations.
In section II, I try to illustrate my cross-contextual approach by arguing that Will Kymlicka's distinction between national minorities and immigrants can be defended better in a cross-contextual framework. I develop Will Kymlicka's brief suggestion that we ought not to impose a system that creates perverse incentives for states to make cultures vulnerable; we create such incentives when we impose a system of norms holding that vulnerable cultures ought to be fully assimilated into the majority culture, regardless of the historical source of that vulnerability. We should test a system of norms or principles by reflecting on whether it would have encouraged past wrongs, had the system held in past contexts. Further, we ought to avoid endorsing a system of principles that rewards the destruction of contexts by agents who act with the hope of their group benefiting from a changed system of norms.
Section III continues my analysis by focusing on arguments about authoritative disrespect. I use a Scanlonian perspective, focusing specifically on wrongs rather than simply harms. I adopt for my own use the arguments of Rahul Kumar and David Silver to argue that official disrespect can be done to non-citizens as well as citizens. Past systems of principles often treated indigenous peoples in a way that did not fairly treat them as fellow “citizens of the world.” It matters that indigenous peoples were done a wrong in a past context where treating them as citizens of the state was not the appropriate response. Our political community or state stands in special relation to those dead whom our state wronged in the past, whether we should think of them as unproblematically being citizens of the state of not. We cannot signal regret now simply by treating them as individual citizens. We ought to have a system of principles that condemns past events as unjust, and takes past-incentive effects into account. If for no other reason, we should do this in order to assure the descendents or successors of the victims of historical injustice that we have committed ourselves to abiding by a system of just principles in the future.
Teaching Documents by Timothy Waligore
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fcri20/25/3?nav=tocList
1. Superseding historical injustice? New critical assessments
Lukas H. Meyer & Timothy Waligore
2. Colonialism and rights supersession: a Kant-inspired perspective
Julio Montero
3. Superseding structural linguistic injustice? Language revitalization and historically-sensitive dignity-based claims
Seung Hyun Song
4. The supersession thesis, climate change, and the rights of future people
Santiago Truccone-Borgogno
5. Group agency and the challenges of repairing historical injustice
Jeff Spinner-Halev
6. Supersession, non-ideal theory, and dominant distributive principles
Burke A. Hendrix
7. Indigenous governance now: settler colonial injustice is not historically past
Esme G. Murdock
8. The supersession of Indigenous understandings of justice and morals
Gordon Christie
9. Supersession: A reply
Jeremy Waldron
Abstract:
This article analyzes and criticizes the temporal orientation of Catherine Lu's theory of colonial redress in Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics. Lu argues that colonial historic injustice can, with few exceptions, justify special reparative measures only if these past injustices still contribute to structural injustice in contemporary social relations. Focusing on Indigenous peoples, I argue that the structural injustice approach can and should incorporate further backward-looking elements. First, I examine how Lu's account has backward-looking elements not present in other structural injustice accounts. Second, I suggest how the structural injustice approach could include additional backward-looking features. I presuppose here, with Lu, that all agents connected to an unjust social structure have a forward-looking political responsibility to reform this structure, regardless of their relation (or lack thereof) to victims or perpetrators of historic injustice. However, I suggest that agents with connections to historic injustice can occupy a social position that makes them differently situated than other agents within that same structure, leading to differences in how these agents should discharge their forward-looking responsibility and differentiated liability for failure to do so. Third, I argue that Lu obscures the importance of rectifying material dispossession. Reparations, pace Lu, can be justified beyond a minimum threshold of disadvantage. Theorists of settler colonialism and Indigenous scholars show how the dispossession of Indigenous land can be seen as a structure that has not yet ended. I conclude by arguing that rectification can be a precondition for genuine reconciliation.
Here is the link to the issue, which has several pieces on Lu's book:
https://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/index.php/gjn
Here is a link to my article:
https://www.theglobaljusticenetwork.org/index.php/gjn/article/view/216
English Abstract of Book Chapter:
In the wake of historical injustice, what should be done after significant changes in circumstances? In this article, we analyze this question through the lens of the supersession thesis. This thesis, named by Jeremy Waldron, states that historical injustice may be superseded, such that what justice requires can be altered due to changing circumstances. We explain different ways the supersession thesis may be conceived, and distinguish between partial supersession and full supersession, and between supersession for-the-time-being and final supersession. We also emphasize the importance of symbolic reparations. The chapter also compares four different ways to respond to past injustice claims after much time has passed. The first approach includes many egalitarian or egalitarian-leaning theories of distributive justice, which are generally not favorable to reparations. The second approach to historical injustice argues that backward-looking duties (such as honoring existing promises, respecting historical entitlements, or resettling peoples based on their prior occupancy of lands) have significant normative importance independent of prospective distributive justice. A third approach to historical injustice is concerned with group structural disadvantages that reproduce themselves through time and which persist today. In a fourth approach, we attempt to combine elements from each of these approaches into an integrated approach to historical injustice, invoking the supersession thesis as a model.
Citation: Lukas Meyer and Timothy Waligore, "Die Aufhebungsthese. Grundlinien einer Theorie des gerechten Umgangs mit historischem Unrecht" [The Supersession Thesis: Principles for a Theory for Justly Dealing with Historical Injustice], in Zeit-eine normative Ressource? [Time-A Normative Resource?], edited by Frank Dietrich, Johannes Müller-Salo and Reinold Schmücker (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 2018).
For a discussion of these ideas in English, see the authors’ grant proposal for a project on “Superseding Historical Injustice and Changed Circumstances,” successfully submitted to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in 2016.
The downloadable .pdf includes the Spanish and English version. The Spanish version (published in the journal Prometeica Revista de Filosofía y Ciencias) appears first, followed by the original English version.
Citation:
Timothy Waligore. “Pueblos indígenas, injusticias históricas y presentes : entrevista a Timothy Waligore” [”Indigenous Peoples, Historical and Present Injustices: Interview with Timothy Waligore"]. By Santiago Truccone Borgogno. Translated by Romina Frontalini Rekers. Prometeica Revista de Filosofía y Ciencias. Núm. 18 (2019): 83-85.
This is the penultimate version of a piece that was published as: Timothy Waligore, "Rawls, Self-Respect, and Assurance: How Past Injustice Changes What Publicly Counts as Justice," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2016): 42-66. An earlier, slightly longer version of this piece is elsewhere on this webpage.
(penultimate version)
A paperback version of the entire book is available for purchase (ISBN: 9780367144135).
The book is now available for purchase in paperback. The frontmatter of the book is included here. The first chapter is posted elsewhere on this webpage. Many libraries have the entire book in electronic form. Look for the Taylor & Francis database for e-books. (Routledge is an imprint.)
The book is dedicated to the memory of our co-editor, Jonathan Trejo-Mathys.
This paper uses and adapts John Rawls’ writings on justice in order to argue that past injustice can change what publicly counts as justice today. This differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backwards-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’ own concern for what he calls the ‘social bases of self-respect’ may require the public endorsement of different principles of justice or a different specification of justice. Rawls’ difference principle focuses on the worst-off group defined in terms of class. A historicized difference principle is concerned with the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups. This assures group members that they receive fair treatment. It disincentivizes attempts to manipulate justice to a group’s advantage. Similarly, Rawls thinks providing one package of basic liberties to all citizens signals respect. However, indigenous peoples have often been forcibly coerced into being individual citizens. Given this history of disrespect, signaling respect could require recognizing indigenous self-government rights. Assurance requires respecting indigenous peoples as peoples, as in Rawls’ law of peoples, and disincentivizing attempts to make them into mere citizens. What counts as justice can change through past injustice, guided by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance.
I offer three criticisms of Zanetti's claims regarding the nature of moral compromise. First, Zanetti ignores how some parties may not have reason to seek social peace at all. Zanetti’s claim that there is consensus on the aim of social peace can involve idealising away from disagreement in a manner that Zanetti accuses Rawls of. Second, even if there is consensus on the aim of seeking social peace, this leaves open the possibility of disagreement about which society different people should belong to. This idealises away from real world conflict concerning borders. Indeed, Zanetti does not mention that her ‘central example’ of moral disagreement, the German Abortion compromise, was enacted in the wake of German reunification. Third, there are at least two things that can be called the ‘German Abortion compromise.’ The compromise that Zanetti speaks of was imposed by the German Federal Constitutional Court. The court declared unconstitutional a law passed in 1992 that had been negotiated in parliament. Zanetti does not dwell on this lack of democratic credentials. Even the substance of the court-imposed solution is itself a dubious example of a moral compromise between parties based on what is acceptable to their reason.
I ask what contexts we ought to reflect upon and form considered judgments about, and how this transforms our resulting theories of justice. I further argue that this approach may justify the differential treatment of indigenous peoples by asking us to reflect upon how treating indigenous peoples as individual citizens assumes that they unproblematically exist as citizens in the context of domestic distributive justice. I argue that we ought not send a signal that our system of justice would not have wanted to discourage past injustices involved in colonialism. This makes it relevant for us to consider the possible "past incentive effects" of our current theories of justice, where we reflect on what actions these systems might have encouraged had past people known what system of justice present peoples commit themselves to now. One way to address this now is for us to now adopt a system of principles that treats indigenous peoples as peoples, rather than simply as individual citizens.
In section I, I outline three strands of my cross-contextual approach, which deals with (1) the problem of context-transition, (2) the demand for cross-context consistency, (3) the range of reflection in specifically contextualist theorizing. The last strand relies upon or fits most naturally with the idea that justice is fundamentally dependent on context, as opposed to the idea that justice should be valid for all possible worlds or contexts. However, the first two strands do not depend necessarily depend on such a commitment. Still, the entire force of my argument depends upon combining these strands into a larger argument. I distinguish the strands so that the force of my larger argument can be understood and appreciated. Ultimately, the argument will be that when faced with the problem of context-transition, we need a set of principles that are consistent between a range of contexts that includes at least those past contexts where the injustice occurred. I argue that not including dead victims of historical injustice into our system of principles wrongs the dead. This means we ought to reflect upon cases in past contexts and bring judgments about these cases into a new reflective equilibrium. Indeed, reflecting on additional contexts might lead to new judgments, which a theory has to find a way to fit coherently together at the level of general principles. This new theory might justify an alternative set of principles for reparations.
In section II, I try to illustrate my cross-contextual approach by arguing that Will Kymlicka's distinction between national minorities and immigrants can be defended better in a cross-contextual framework. I develop Will Kymlicka's brief suggestion that we ought not to impose a system that creates perverse incentives for states to make cultures vulnerable; we create such incentives when we impose a system of norms holding that vulnerable cultures ought to be fully assimilated into the majority culture, regardless of the historical source of that vulnerability. We should test a system of norms or principles by reflecting on whether it would have encouraged past wrongs, had the system held in past contexts. Further, we ought to avoid endorsing a system of principles that rewards the destruction of contexts by agents who act with the hope of their group benefiting from a changed system of norms.
Section III continues my analysis by focusing on arguments about authoritative disrespect. I use a Scanlonian perspective, focusing specifically on wrongs rather than simply harms. I adopt for my own use the arguments of Rahul Kumar and David Silver to argue that official disrespect can be done to non-citizens as well as citizens. Past systems of principles often treated indigenous peoples in a way that did not fairly treat them as fellow “citizens of the world.” It matters that indigenous peoples were done a wrong in a past context where treating them as citizens of the state was not the appropriate response. Our political community or state stands in special relation to those dead whom our state wronged in the past, whether we should think of them as unproblematically being citizens of the state of not. We cannot signal regret now simply by treating them as individual citizens. We ought to have a system of principles that condemns past events as unjust, and takes past-incentive effects into account. If for no other reason, we should do this in order to assure the descendents or successors of the victims of historical injustice that we have committed ourselves to abiding by a system of just principles in the future.
It does not include classes taught 2010 onwards at Queen's University, the University of Graz, McGill University, or (my current institution) Pace University.