Few of us have likely heard of the Chagossians. In the 1960s and ’70s, they were forcibly evicted from their Indian Ocean islands because the United States wanted them for a military base, which remains in operation. 

Today, we write about an effort to allow them to return home and the challenges involved. The issue affects 10,000 people directly – but all of us indirectly. Most societies have some version of the golden rule. Is that moral rule a law of convenience? Are there conditions when it does not apply? These questions usually do not have simple answers. But how we answer them is perhaps one of our surest markers of the progress of the human race.