Colonialism, injustices of the past, and the hole in Nine

ABSTRACT

In ‘Colonialism, territory and pre-existing obligations,’ Cara Nine argues that Lea Ypi’s account of the wrongness of colonialism has a hole in it: Ypi leaves open the possibility of justified settler colonialism. Nine suggests that we can patch this hole by attaching value to existing political associations. But Nine’s solution has its own hole. Many political associations exist due to settler colonialism, and thus if we endorse the value of these associations we seem to endorse colonialism. In response, we could say that past colonial injustices have been remediated or superseded. Or, we could leave the hole open: colonialism is sometimes justified. I argue that, surprisingly, the second option is likely preferable, because it does not require us to say that the injustices of colonialism are gone, and because it points towards a better theory of colonialism’s wrongness than Ypi’s: cosmopolitan instrumentalism, according to which colonialism is wrong only when it is unjust according to one’s overall theory of cosmopolitan justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Colonialism
• territory
• Ypi
• association
• cosmopolitan instrumentalism

Acknowledgments

My thanks to an anonymous editor for this journal whose comments greatly improved this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Nine’s account of how existing relationships and their attendant obligations are impinged upon by newcomers is more detailed and subtle than described here, but the details are not apposite for present purposes.

2. This is an example of a larger issue that applies to many theories of colonialism. See (Weltman, Manuscript a).

3. I thank an anonymous reviewer for helping me clarify this point and the discussion of supersession more generally.

4. For a critical discussion of Moore see Timothy Waligore (Waligore, 2017). For a critical discussion of Stilz see A. John Simmons (2015, pp. 165–71, 2016, pp. 135–36).

5. I think one ought to reject it, for a variety of reasons. There is much debate over supersession beyond what I can cover here. For some objections to supersession, see (Catala, 2018; Lefkowitz, 2015; Reibold, 2019; Sanderson, 2011). Reibold’s alternative solution fits into the category of other remedial solutions I discuss below.

6. See also (Nine, 2012b, p. 176). Tamar Meisels offers a criticism of Nine’s argument (2009, pp. 78–86). Meisel’s concerns about sharing sovereignty echo the worry Nine raises for Ypi, discussed immediately below (2009, p. 85). I think Nine can simply deny that Meisel’s incredulity is any objection to Nine’s conclusion.

7. It is not entirely clear if Nine herself endorses this view, or if she merely endorses this response on the part of someone who wants to save a modified version of supersession. If Nine rejects this view then presumably she does not think supersession can be saved even with this modification.

8. For another defense of the view that colonialism is not per se wrong (although she backs away from the suggestion at the very end), see Laura Valentini (2015).

9. Nine defends something like this exception with respect to groups whose territory becomes uninhabitable due to climate change (Nine, 2010).

10. Insofar as there is some remedial procedure Nine could endorse which would remedy past colonialism, I am inclined to think very few societies have accomplished this procedure, and thus in principle most post-colonial societies would lack the value necessary to explain what makes colonialism wrong. Thus a backwards-looking theory is probably not a good basis on which to build an anti-colonial project. We should instead prefer the sort of forward-looking procedure I defend below in section 3, which can explain why it would be wrong to colonize (say) Brazil even though Brazil has not remedied past colonialism.

11. See for instance, (Nine 2012a, 2012, 2018).

12. We can actually pursue a theory like this. Altman and Wellman’s theory is basically this: its fundamental grounding is the intuition that colonialism and other violations of self-determination (most notably annexation) are wrong, and from there they derive their theory (Altman & Wellman, 2009, pp. 12–16). If one adopts Altman and Wellman’s theory, one never gets as far as endorsing Ypi, let alone Nine’s modification.

13. Fabre’s own response to the colonialism charge mostly amounts to arguing that the actions she defends are not unjust in the way colonialism was unjust, which is exactly the sort of argument the cosmopolitan instrumentalist should give (Fabre, 2016, pp. 237–44). Her response differs in a few very minor (mostly terminological) ways from mine.

14. Recall that annexation is the other example besides colonialism which Altman and Wellman use to construct their theory (Altman & Wellman, 2009, pp. 12–16). Wellman rejects while Fabre endorses supersession, which is interesting to note in the context of this discussion, although it doesn’t affect my argument (Wellman, 2019; Fabre, 2019, p. 397).

15. Altman and Wellman have to endorse a very permissive theory of secession and extensive leeway for states to block immigration, including immigration from refugees, all of which strikes many as implausible (Altman and Wellman ch. 3, ch. 7).

16. For a fuller defense of this approach, see (Weltman, 2019, p. 82, Manuscript a, Manuscript b, Manuscript c)

17. For another forward-looking approach, see Kim Angell (2017). Angell’s account is built on a different foundation than Beitz’s. Waldron’s endorsement of supersession is in service of defending a forward-looking approach, so he can be happy with this conclusion even if does not agree with the route we’ve taken to it (Waldron, 1992, p. 27).

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Daniel Weltman

Daniel Weltman is an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at Ashoka University, India. His research is in political philosophy on topics like secession, territory, self-determination, and immigration. His article ‘Territorial Exclusion: An Argument against Closed Borders’ is forthcoming in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.