TRUTH TELLING AS REPARATIONS

Abstract: International instruments now defend a “right to the truth” for victims of political repression and violence and include truth telling about human rights violations as a kind of reparation as well as a form of redress. While truth telling about violations is obviously a condition of redress or repair for violations, it may not be clear how truth telling itself is a kind of reparations. By showing that concerted truth telling can satisfy four features of suitable reparations vehicles, I defend the idea that politically implemented modes of truth telling to, for, and by those who are victims of gross violation and injustice may with good reason be counted as a kind of reparations. Understanding the doubly symbolic character of reparations, however, makes clearer why truth telling is unlikely to be sufficient reparation for serious wrongs and is likely to be sensitive to the larger context of reparative activity and its social, political, and historical background.     

Who Do We Treat First When Resources Are Scarce?

In a health service with limited resources we must make decisions about who to treat first. In this paper I develop a version of the restoration argument according to which those whose need for resources is a consequence of their voluntary choices should receive lower priority when it comes to health care. I then consider three possible problems for this argument based on those that have been raised against other theories of this type: that we don't know in a particular case that the illness is self‐inflicted, that it seems that all illness is self‐inflicted in the sense used in my argument, and finally that this type of approach incorporates an unacceptable moralising element if it is to avoid giving those like fire‐fighters a lower priority for treatment. I argue that the position outlined here has the resources to respond to each of these objections.     

Addiction and Self‐Deception: A Method for Self‐Control?

Neil Levy argues that while addicts who believe they are not addicts are self‐deceived, addicts who believe they are addicts are just as self‐deceived. Such persons accept a false belief that their addictive behaviour involves a loss of control. This paper examines two implications of Levy's discussion: that accurate self‐knowledge may be particularly difficult for addicts; and that an addict's self‐deceived belief that they cannot control themselves may aid their attempts at self‐control. I argue that the self‐deceived beliefs of addicts in denial and of self‐described addicts differ in kind. Unlike the self‐deception of an addict in denial, that of the self‐described addict allows them to acknowledge their behaviour. As such, it may aid an addict to develop more self‐control. A paradoxical implication is that this self‐deception may allow an addict more self‐knowledge.