Vacancy

• MA/MSc degree in philosophy; interest in, and ideally some familiarity with sociology
• Interest in the topic of social cohesion and in collaborating in a broad research consortium with academic and non-academic stakeholders
• Strong interest in interdisciplinary research, including analytical and theoretical dimensions
• Professional competence in English 
• Strong academic record in contemporary analytics, ethics, PPE, or political philosophy, as evidenced by grade transcripts and relevant coursework
• Eagerness to integrate theories and research findings from two fields (philosophy and sociology) in the research project
• Affinity with and/or training in the field of sociology and/or quantitative data analyses is considered a bonus
• We look for team players who want to play an active role in an inter- and transdisciplinary research community and training programme

This project investigates how societies can address structural injustice without undermining social cohesion, integrating philosophical theories of responsibility with sociological and economic analyses of social structure. Structural injustice theorists, such as Iris Marion Young and Sally Haslanger, argue that injustices arise not from identifiable wrongdoing but from systems of norms, rules and resource distributions that systematically expose certain groups to domination and deprivation. These structural injustices shape social relationships, trust and solidarity, often fracturing social cohesion. At the same time, recognizing structural injustice can also foster cross-group solidarity and collective action.

The project aims to develop an interdisciplinary framework for 1) identifying who bears forward-looking responsibilities for addressing structural injustices, 2) determining how to hold individuals accountable in ways that do not erode social cohesion and 3) empirically examining how different responsibility assignments affect cooperation within unequal social networks. Through primarily normative analyses, which are supplemented by experimental methods, the project will produce a conceptual and empirical foundation for designing responsibility practices that help repair injustice without breaking social bonds.

Rationale and Research Gap

The project explores the intersections between structural injustice, as conceptualized by Iris Marion Young and Sally Haslanger, and social cohesion. Structural injustice theorists argue that societal structures – networks of rules, norms and resources – systematically expose certain groups to domination and deprivation, even though injustices arise cumulatively from morally permissible actions by individuals and institutions. Young argues that responsibility for addressing structural injustice lies with all who contribute to the structural conditions.

Structural injustice profoundly shapes social relationships, affecting who feels connected or excluded and influencing trust and solidarity across groups. Marginalized groups often experience exclusion that erodes cohesion, while privileged groups may internalize narratives that justify inequality. Yet awareness of injustice can also foster solidarity, enabling alliances across social groups and motivating collective action. A crucial insight from Young and Haslanger is that forward-looking responsibility must be sensitive to differences in privilege, power and capacity for collective action, making responsibility assignments inherently tied to social structure.

The project examines additional complexities:

• Responsibility assignments to address injustice may inadvertently erode social cohesion by provoking backlash.
• Accountability practices regarding such responsibility assignments may alienate individuals, reducing willingness to cooperate.
• Existing levels of cohesion may determine whether such responsibility assignments promote cooperation or fragmentation.

Research Questions

The project investigates three linked questions:

1. On what normative grounds are responsibility assignments justified in the context of structural injustice?
2. How should individuals who fail to take responsibility be held accountable in ways that promote, rather than erode, social cohesion?
3. Under what social and economic conditions do responsibility assignments foster cooperation?

Advancement of Current Understanding

The project contributes a normative framework that integrates philosophical and sociological approaches to responsibility and social cohesion. Furthermore, it offers an empirical test of how responsibility assignments function within unequal social networks.

Scope and Project Deliverables

The project will deliver:

• A moral framework analysing how responsibility assignments ought to balance justice and cohesion.

A set of network-structured experiments testing key predictions about responsibility, cooperation and inequality.

Philosophy

The project combines normative ethics and political philosophy with targeted empirical work to investigate responsibility and accountability in contexts of structural injustice.

The core component is a philosophical analysis of forward-looking responsibility and accountability under conditions of unequal power and privilege. Drawing on theories of structural injustice developed by Iris Marion Young, Sally Haslanger and David Estlund, the project reconstructs and evaluates competing accounts of who ought to bear responsibility for unjust social structures and on what grounds. Particular attention is given to how considerations of power, privilege and collective capacity figure in justifying responsibility assignments and to the moral tension between holding agents accountable and sustaining social cohesion. These arguments are then applied to paradigmatic cases of structural injustice, such as housing and migration, to examine how different responsibility attributions and accountability practices may either support cooperation across groups or contribute to backlash and fragmentation.

Sociology

The empirical component is designed to support and refine this normative framework. We will translate the normative analysis into an empirically testable framework. Key elements of the philosophical analysis are translated into a small programme of network-structured economic games that reflect inequalities in power and opportunity and vary in how responsibility and accountability are presented. By comparing more cohesive and more fragmented social settings, the experiments examine when responsibility practices encourage cooperation and when they risk alienation or resistance. The purpose of this work is to provide evidence that informs the normative analysis and clarifies the social conditions under which justice-oriented responsibility practices are most likely to foster social cohesion. If the PhD candidate has suitable expertise, the normative framework will be formalized into a computational network model to stimulate broader structural dynamics. However, the experimental programme is fully implementable without this step, ensuring feasibility regardless of the PhD candidate’s specific background.

Young, Iris Marion. (2011). Responsibility for justice. Oxford University Press.

Estlund, David. (2024). What’s unjust about structural injustice? Ethics 134(3), 333–359.