Discusses the idea of awarding compensation to the descendants of victims of wrongs that occurred more than a generation ago. Propositions of transgenerational compensation are based on the premise that the compensation makes current descendants as well off as they would be if the wrong had not been done. Attention is given to the claim of opponents that many descendants of the original victims would not have existed if the wrongs had not been done. Two versions of the problem are pointed out and two earlier proposed solutions are critiqued. It is argued that it’s impossible to acquire enough knowledge to know exactly how much any individual is owed. Therefore, an alternative technical approach is suggested that implies that “current descendants of the original victims are owed compensation for later wrongs that are non-contingently connected to the original wrongs.” This approach reveals the normative structure of a coherent ideal of transgenerational compensation and recognizes the practical implications of unknowable aspects of the counterfactuals upon which the ideal is based.
