One difficult problem in moral philosophy is determining how our moral theory ought to approach partiality and impartiality. Crudely put, the problem is this: we have reasons to act partially towards those dear to us, and we might even have special duties to towards them, but we also have a deep intuition that morality ought to be impartial. How do we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory thoughts in our moral theory?

A branching debate is between partiality and global justice. What are our obligations to those in the global community? Is it unjust to be partial to locals over those far away? Is this proximal partiality permissible?

Another branch of the debate grapples with our obligations to future persons. Should our policies treat individuals in the present and potential individuals in the future with the same amount of concern? Is it unjust to be partial towards individuals in the present over those in the future?

A topic that has not been explored in any depth is our obligations to those in the past, and our partial treatment to those in the present. If injustices have been committed, then we have a duty of restitution. However, we tend to be partial towards the “winners” of history. For instance, our duties to natives have been partial towards the contingencies of history – a duty of restitution would return the land, but the duty has been discharged haphazardly. The possible issue here is that it does not match our intuitions. Imagine, for instance, I steal a lottery ticket from you and win one million dollars; here, my impartial duty of restitution would be to give you the full sum of the winnings, and it would not be sufficient to repay you for the cost of the lottery ticket or any partial sum of the winnings. “Partiality,” in this sense, refers to the way the impartial duty of restitution is changed by our partiality towards the “winners” of history.

Does impartial morality demand that we act synchronically? Is diachronic partiality permissible? In this paper, I explicate the issue of diachronic partiality through surveying historical examples of injustices and subsequent responsive actions. I then explore how the literature in partiality and global justice, and partiality and environment ethics, might inform the discussion of partiality and history. I finally begin to sketch an argument which suggests that history partiality, though deeply ingrained into our psychology, is unjust. Note: my main aim is to suggest another avenue the partialist-impartialist debate seems to be important in ethical theory.