Dr. T. Govier (Canada)
Responding to Wrongdoing (Moral Mistakes)

Broadly speaking we can distinguish three different types of contexts in which serious moral mistakes have been committed. The first type of context is (a) that of colonial settlement . This sort of situation is exemplified in Canada, Australia, the United States, and South Africa. European settlers move into a territory formerly occupied by indigenous persons. In the process of colonization, indigenous persons have been victims of racial discrimination, compulsory re-location, cultural denigration, coercive assimilation policies, and physical and sexual assault. The second type of context is (b) that of civil wars , exemplified recently in Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Peru, and the Balkan states of the former Yugoslavia. In these situations, where two or more factions fight within a nation state, people on all sides of a violent civil conflict have suffered such abuses as sexual assault, violence, imprisonment, torture, and loss of homes and property. The third context is (c) that of the aftermath of a severely oppressive government . This situation is found in Latin American countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile, and in east-central Europe and Russia. Persons may have been sent to prison or extremely harsh work camps for a perceived illegality; they may have suffered confiscation of property, religious discrimination, forced relocation, inappropriate psychiatric treatment, abuse, beating, torture, maiming or death.

When such serious moral mistakes have been committed, there is no way to undo them. In other words, after the fact, no one can cause the events not to happen. They did happen; facts about these events are facts of a nation's past and facts about the lives and experiences of individuals within the nation. People can interpret the facts in different ways, and they can seek to understand and evaluate those facts from different perspectives. But they cannot make the events go away. Nor can they fix the effects of these acts.

Although we cannot reenact the past in order to fix it, questions nevertheless arise as to what we can do in such contexts as (a), (b), and (c). We may wish to think of righting a wrong, or fixing a moral mistake. For wrongs involving property, this fixing may seem possible. For example, if land has been taken away under an unfair treaty, that land could be given back. But for many moral mistakes, there is no realistic possibility of fixing them. Lost opportunities cannot be restored. Memories of hard treatment cannot simply be erased. A childhood of sexual abuse in a racist context cannot be restored. Nor can a dead husband or child cannot be brought to life.

Although no society or state can alter the events of the past or literally fix past mistakes, ignoring these moral facts in the aftermath is rarely wise. Mistakes that receive no attention are likely to be repeated, and victims who are ignored are likely to harbor unhealthy grievances. Ways in which societies have tried to respond include criminal trials of major perpetrators, truth commissions, community justice processes, public apologies, and programs of compensation and rehabilitation. Moral values implied in these processes range from retribution, punishment and justice to truth, restoration, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

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