Declaration

I, Maeve McKeown confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. What responsibilities do individuals have in relation to global injustice? Iris Young argues that all agents “connected ” to global structural injustice bear political responsibility, rather than moral responsibility; the difference being that political responsibility is non-blameworthy, shared and forward-looking, whereas moral responsibility entails blameworthiness, isolates particular agents for censure and is backward-looking. Thus, individuals are not guilty of wrongdoing but they bear responsibility for global injustice. Young’s argument is intuitively appealing and influential, however it is underdeveloped. In this thesis, I aim to develop Young’s account into a coherent theory of individuals ’ responsibilities for global injustice, by reconstructing her core insights and critically developing the aspects that lack clarity and coherence