Apology and Compensation

This two-day workshop brings together scholars working on compensation and apologies to advance our understanding of what morality requires after war ends.
Conflict pervades human life. In personal relationships and criminal activity, in armed conflict and war, in oppressive and unjust states, people wrong their fellow human beings. After conflict amends must be made. Amends for the harms and wrongs of conflict can take many forms, most commonly apologies and compensation. But when, if ever, are apologies and compensation required or expected? Who ought to apologise? Do people have a right to an apology? Does a sincere apology require a change in character? Who ought to be compensated? What kind of suffering should be compensated and by whom? What grounds claims to compensation? Though particularly relevant to post-conflict situations, questions surrounding amends for harms and wrongs have received comparatively little attention within the ethics of war. This two-day workshop brings together scholars working on compensation and apologies to advance our understanding of what morality requires after war ends.
 

Schedule

14 September

10.00–11.00 Benjamin Matheson (Stockholm) “Apologising for Atrocities”

Commentator: William Bülow (Stockholm)

11–15-12.15 Elinor Mason (Edinburgh) “Ambivalence and Ambiguity in Apologies”

Commentator: Andreas Carlsson (Oslo)

12.15–14.00 Lunch

14.00–15.00 Per Milam (Twente) “National Apology”

Commentator: Maria Seim (Oslo)

15.15–16.15 Lisa Hecht (Stockholm) “Compensating Justified Harm to the Innocent”.

Commentator: Julia Mosquera (IFFS)

16.15–16.45 Refreshment Break

16.45–17.45 Jennifer Page (Zurich) “Democratic Theory Errs in Neglecting Reparations—And How”.

Commentator: Katharina Berndt Rasmussen (IFFS)

15 September

09.00–10.00 Christopher Bennett (Sheffield) “How Saying Sorry Can Restore Relationships After Wrongdoing: Is Apology a Normative Power?”

Commentator: Sofia Jeppsson (Umeå)

10.15–11.15 Jimmy Goodrich (Rutgers/Stockholm) “Liability and the Grounds of Reparations”.

Commentator: TBA

11.15–11.45 Refreshment Break

11.45–12.45  Adam Slavny (Warwick) “Wrongdoing and Corrective Action”.

Commentator: Mattias Gunnemyr (Lund)

To read paper abstracts, click here.

If you would like to attend, please contact benjamin.​matheson@​philosophy.​su.​se

This event is funded by the Society of Applied Philosophy and the Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace.