Moral substitution reimagined

Abstract

In this paper, we suggest that those asking contemporary moral questions involving the punishment of groups, such as the justice of requiring corporations to make recompense for past wrongs or whether one race ought to make reparation payments to another, would find it fruitful to consider an older response to the question of moral substitution. We argue that Anselm of Canterbury’s theory of substitutionary atonement offers some surprising insights into the conditions under which one moral agent making recompense for another’s wrong is morally permissible. Anselm’s consideration of the problem may yield new insights for contemporary theories addressing moral substitution.