Three Challenges to Accounts of Structural Domination

The proposed paper defends the view that the normative ideals of social justice and non-domination are strongly connected in that practices of domination constitute the paradigm case of social injustice. In order to support this claim, it develops a particular – structural as well as Kant-inspired – understanding of domination. In doing so it provides a novel explanation as to why domination is an inherently structural wrong and hence needs to be corrected with regard to the level of entire systems of social rules. This suggests a much stronger link between the structural wrong of domination and an institutional ideal of justice than alternative suggestions with regard to those practices “grounding” justice can deliver. Alternative grounds of justice suggested in the literature often cannot explain the connection between wrongs expounding an interactional or bilateral character – such as coercion – or practices benefiting only a particular group of people – such as societal forms of cooperation – and an all encompassing ideal of social justice. By showing in which way domination must necessarily be understood as a structural wrong – even in its agential version – this paper aims to provide such a missing argumentative link. There are three main challenges such demands for structural extensions of the domination-paradigm face, which are often cited as reasons for their rejection by proponents of the agential view. The proposed paper will develop and discuss all three challenges to a structural account of domination: Firstly it remains to be explained how structural domination and agential domination are linked to each other. If structural domination is somehow paramount, what exactly is it that individuals “do” with regard to it or in order to dominate in an agential fashion? Secondly, many have found that demands for structural extensions of the agential paradigm run into serious problems with regard to non-individualistic notions of agency. In saying that it is structures and not persons who dominate, it seems as if we are ascribing agency to structures instead of persons. Thirdly, and related to both other challenges is the challenge from responsibility attribution: We are used to attribute moral forms of responsibilities only to agents who acted, hence who have done something. Any successful account of structural domination needs to provide answers to these pressing challenges, in order to be convincing. The proposed paper aims to develop a Kantian approach to structural domination, which is in a position to address all three challenges convincingly and to thereby strengthen the link between issues of domination and justice.