The recent letters sparked by George Williams’ pointed question, Has any of us benefited from slavery? And if so, shouldn’t we consider restitution to those who have suffered from it? have avoided the real question.

We are presented with a false dilemma:Either everyone alive is morally responsible for the crimes of all his ancestors or no one is morally responsible to anyone today whose life has been unfairly compromised by the injustices of the past. At one extreme, we end up holding that children pay for crimes of ever more distant ancestors until we enter the mists of prehistory. The fact remains we are all related, so at least we should all atone for the crimes of humanity as a whole.

The other extreme would make everyone alive free of any moral obligation to redress the injustices of the past which we have inherited. What do I owe to a victim of history? Aren’t we at least responsible for providing a more humane and fair future for our children?

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There is an alternative position to these extremes. I may not be guilty of crimes others commit. But I do have a responsibility to make the world more just. I do not have to atone for history, but I should have compassion for its victims and their children who are alive today.

To change Mr. Wilson’s example, it is not as if someone injured you and then owes you restitution. It is as if you are in an accident where you are a passenger. No matter which driver’s fault it was, your obligation is to help those who are injured. The people who stand there blaming each other and denying responsibility while others lie in pain or bleed to death are the guilty ones. The drivers of that car are the past generations. They are dead. We are the survivors standing amid the wreckage of history.

We owe victims compassion; we owe each other justice; we owe our children the responsibility to make this world worth inheriting.