  Three main objections have been urged against the harm argument against U.S. reparations to blacks. First, that although the transgressions of slavery harmed the slaves, and present-day U.S. blacks do suffer from many disadvantages, these disadvantages may not be the result of the transgressions of slavery; they could easily be the result of vast economic and political changes that have occurred since slavery ended. The present harms may not be the “automatic effects of slavery” (Sher 1981: 7). Second, that even if present day U.S. blacks have been harmed by the slaveholders’ transgressions against their ancestors, and have rights to reparations against these slaveholders, such rights can only be pressed against the slaveholders who are now all dead. Third that if present-day U.S. blacks demand reparations for the harms that the transgressions of slavery caused them, then since reparation implies compensation, they demand to be made no worse off than they would have been had the transgressions of slavery never occurred. But if these transgressions had never occurred present-day U.S. blacks would not exist. Consequently, the harm argument is incoherent (Morris 1984, Levin 1980).