墾殖殖民為何不正義？——政治宰制、惡劣治理或土地掠奪

Why Is Settler Colonialism Unjust?: Political Domination, Bad Governance or Territorial Appropriation

殖民為何不正義？有無核心且必然的道德錯誤？這個問題所以重要，在於它指向解殖如何可能；並影響對政治體制正義與否的判斷。本文討論三個有關殖民不義的政治哲學立場交鋒政治宰制；惡劣治理；土地掠奪，並以墾殖研究的取徑評估這場辯論。墾殖研究強調墾殖（settler colonialism）不同於殖民（colonialism），在於其「清除邏輯」（logic of elimination）。殖民致力於鞏固殖民與被殖民的階差二分；墾殖則根本消泯原住民族的存在，故最成功的墾殖社會不再有殖民與被殖民的二分，墾殖者不再是外來而自居本土。本文主張，政治宰制論較好地解釋了墾殖研究所關注的不義，惡劣治理與土地掠奪對政治宰制論的批評不完全成功，但政治宰制論卻也再現了墾殖對於原住民族主權的全然否定，這對臺灣作為墾殖社會的潛在意義是，「解墾殖」需要有回復被墾殖者主權與安放其歷史經驗的理論框架。

Does colonialism involve an inherent moral wrong? Or, put differently, why is colonialism unjust? This question has become one of the most vigorously debated issues in contemporary political philosophy. The debate is significant because it shapes how we understand the possibility of decolonisation and informs our judgements about the justice of political communities. In this paper, I examine three leading accounts of the injustice of colonialism and evaluate them from the perspective of settler colonialism studies.
The three positions under consideration are: (1) Lia Ypi’s theory of political domination, which argues that the fundamental wrong of colonisation lies in the imposition of an unequal and non-reciprocal political order; (2) Laura Valentini’s theory of bad governance, which maintains that colonialism has no intrinsic moral wrong and that the harms associated with it are merely the result of defective governance; and (3) Margaret Moore’s theory of territorial appropriation, which contends that the central wrong of colonialism consists in the wrongful occupation of Indigenous lands. Ypi challenges traditional theories of territorial rights and nationalism as adequate explanations of colonial injustice, while Valentini and Moore, in turn, criticise Ypi’s account of political domination.
Settler colonialism studies emphasise that settler colonialism differs from traditional colonialism in its commitment to what has been described as the‘logic of elimination’. Whereas traditional colonialism often preserves a structural distinction between coloniser and colonised, settler colonialism aims at the erasure of Indigenous peoples as distinct political communities. Consequently, the most successful settler colonial societies efface divisions between coloniser and colonised: settlers no longer perceive themselves as outsiders but instead as natives.
This paper argues that Ypi offers the most compelling account of the injustice of colonialism and that the criticisms advanced by Valentini and Moore are not fully persuasive. However, perhaps paradoxically, Ypi’s theory of political domination also illuminates how settler colonialism can deny Indigenous sovereignty through the establishment of an equal and reciprocal constitutional order. In this sense, a formally egalitarian political structure may still constitute a successful settler colonial society. Decolonisation, therefore, does not necessarily entail de-settler-colonisation. Rather, de-settler-colonisation requires a political and theoretical framework capable of restoring Indigenous sovereignty and reckoning with the historical experience of its dispossession.