Structural Injustice and Political Responsibility

• In Event: Responding to Structural Injustice

Abstract

Dominant models of responsibility stress the singular agent, whether individual or collective, whose actions (or omissions) clearly connect to a particular outcome. Yet many of the challenges we face today—including racial injustice, climate change, and the demonization of immigrants—are not well described by such a model. Moreover, the failure to think clearly about such matters has real world consequences, as persistent inaction leaves the present systems intact and the injustices they produce unaddressed. The question, then, is this: how can we make sense of our own responsibilities for structural injustices which exceed our intentional control, but which are nevertheless reproduced by and through us? What would living up to these responsibilities in a meaningful way entail?
As Iris Marion Young has demonstrated, the conversation about responsibility for justice is incomplete without taking the power of structures into account. But what does this mean for the actual practice of responsibility with regard to such vast problems? Taking Young’s work as a point of departure, this paper builds on her insights to argue for a specifically political approach to responsibilities arising from the structure of collective life. Rather than stressing liability or social connection, I begin with the question of responsiveness. Looking to those who are already engaged in efforts to address systemic injustices and undo them at the roots, I develop a model of responsibility that better reflects the logic driving those who are actually responding to these challenges in a more systemic way.

Author

• Rachel Nusbaum, Brown University