Some claim that a commitment to egalitarianism is in tension with support for reparations for historical injustice. This tension appears to arise insofar as egalitarianism is a forward-looking approach to justice: an approach that tells us what kind of world we should aim to build, where that world is not defined in terms of the decisions or actions of previous generations. Some have claimed that egalitarianism thereby renders reparations redundant (what I will refer to as the redundancy thesis). One popular option for egalitarians who aim to reject this thesis is to insist that historical injustices demand reparations when they have caused present-day inequality (the causal approach). A promising alternative, skilfully defended by Alasia Nuti in Injustice and the Reproduction of History, is to argue that historical injustices stand in need of repair when they are reproduced into the present-day, such that some past and present injustices are in fact the same injustice. In this paper, I assess these egalitarian responses to the redundancy thesis. I find that Nuti’s account is equipped to reject this thesis, but that the same lines of reply can be adopted by proponents of the causal approach. I suggest that both approaches therefore be viewed as potential ways to conceptualise the relationship between historical injustice and our present normative circumstances; and that in choosing between them, we should understand ourselves to be engaged in an ameliorative project – a project that is guided by, and designed to help us to achieve, our legitimate purposes.

一些人声称，对平等主义的承诺与对历史不公正的赔偿的支持处于紧张状态。就平等主义是一种前瞻性的正义方法而言，这种紧张似乎出现了：这种方法告诉我们应该建立什么样的世界，而那个世界不是根据前几代人的决定或行动来定义的。一些人声称，平等主义因此使赔偿变得多余（我将其称为冗余论点）。对于旨在拒绝这一论点的平等主义者来说，一种流行的选择是坚持认为历史不公正在造成当今不平等时需要赔偿（因果方法）。一个有前途的替代方案，由 Alasia Nuti 在不公正和历史的再现中巧妙地捍卫, 是论证历史的不公正在再现到今天时需要修复，以至于过去和现在的一些不公正实际上是同一种不公正。在本文中，我评估了这些对冗余论点的平等主义回应。我发现 Nuti 的帐户可以拒绝这个论点，但因果方法的支持者可以采用相同的回答。因此，我建议将这两种方法都视为将历史不公正与我们目前的规范环境之间的关系概念化的潜在方式；并且在它们之间做出选择时，我们应该了解自己参与了一个改善项目——一个以帮助我们实现合法目的为指导并旨在帮助我们实现合法目的的项目。