> if I rob a bank at gunpoint and then give the money to my children, the bank can recover that money despite it having passed out of my hands. It would help t

> if I rob a bank at gunpoint and then give the money to my children, the bank can recover that money despite it having passed out of my hands. It would help to have an expert legal opinion, but I don't believe this is true, particularly if the sum has been spent (as any and all ill-gotten gains from slavery would be). In civil suits, you can't replevy cash as such. The question of replevin becomes moot should the item in question no longer exist as an entity, i.e. if it is destroyed, or in the case of a bag of money, for instance, if the money has been spent. For this reason, the item is normally seized by the court when the action is filed and held until the decision is reached to prevent the waste of a legal action over a nonexistent object and, further, to ensure that the item in question is not destroyed, spent, etc., during the action. [0] > To improve the situation for B's descendants, even at the possible cost of worsening the situation for A's descendants, is just: as long as it does not make A's descendants any worse off than they should have been had the crime never occurred, it is not a harm to them to take away a gain they should have never had. I find this to be a terrifying prospect, particularly if it is applied consistently (and why wouldn't it be, if it is indeed just). Great ills have (and presumably will be perpetrated) under such justifications. There are far too many to list, so here are just a few hypotheticals: Title to lands in the Middle East (is X justified to seize it from Y as if it never changed hands?). In the case of the some 16 million odd descendants of Genghis Khan, how do you even begin to undo an empire?. Did they benefit from their status or did they suffer as children borne out of rape (or whatever the case may be)? Do we also attempt to undo past injustices when they result in far greater benefit to the descendants of victims than would have been received in the absence of victimization (e.g. descendants of American slaves enjoying a significantly higher standard of living versus had they been born, or not born as the case may be, in Africa)? Many of these reparation scenarios, (specifically if they effectively "take away a gain they should have never had"), resign people to death. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replevin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replevin