Imagine the following, not wholly unrealistic, scenario: a small unjust war was waged by a democratic and all-thing-considered just state. The soldiers of the unjust side, however, reasonably believed the war to be just and, therefore, are not blameworthy for voluntarily signing up. The unjust side must now pay reparations. How should these reparative costs be distributed amongst the citizens of the war-waging state? If we follow the popular prescription that it is fair when the individuals who are most (agent) responsible for creating a cost bear the greatest share of it, then ordinary soldiers should bear a greater share of reparation costs than ordinary citizens. But this seems excessively harsh and is radically at odds with current practice. We would normally think that whether a person was an ordinary solider or not is irrelevant to what share of reparation costs she should bear (that is, we would normally favour what I shall call an equal distribution between ordinary soldiers and ordinary citizens). In this paper I review reciprocity-based and solidarity-based justifications in favour of an equal distribution of the reparation costs. I find that solidarity and reciprocity both justify a more equal distribution of costs than the popular responsibility tracking prescription does. But neither reciprocity nor solidarity renders the soldiers’ greater degree of responsibly for the unjust war irrelevant to the reparation costs they should pay. That is, neither of these justifications supports a fully equal distribution.
