Structural Injustice as Emergent Disorder

Abstract Structural injustice remains a puzzling concept despite its increasing prominence. I distill recent theoretical challenges into a dilemma: either structural injustice lacks the normative credentials of injustice given that wrongdoing is inessential, or it is redundant given existing theories that trace injustice to culpable state and other institutional failures. I then develop a novel account of structural injustice, the Complexity View, that unravels this dilemma. The emergent properties of human actions in a complex society explain what is “structural” about structural injustice, specifically how it can arise without (culpable) wrongdoing. Structural injustice is unjust because it is wrong to contribute to social processes that cause harm and to passively accept preventable forms of vulnerability and deprivation as tragic misfortunes. But this account of structural injustice has a sobering implication: while complexity explains what distinguishes structural injustice from other wrongs, it also sets significant epistemic limits on social reform.