The Ethics of Developing Social Structural Explanations of Injustice

This paper focuses on social structural explanations of injustice and the ontological commitments of theorists who develop them. I first show that theorists can develop structural explanations and social position concepts without committing to a critical social ontology of oppression or to a view of race and gender as constitutively socially constructed kinds. I also develop a pluralist account of social position concepts that can accommodate the full range of social ontological commitments that theorists may hold. Then, I argue that structural explanations of injustice developed from a position of oppression agnosticism are morally and epistemically problematic. They carry a high risk of perpetrating identity-based hermeneutical injustice, and perpetuate an understanding of structural intersectionality that has been widely problematised. Even ethically motivated oppression agnosticism, as an attempt to respond to one’s situated ignorance and to practice epistemic humility, is therefore problematic.