Young on Responsibility and Structural Injustice

Our aim in this essay is to critically examine Iris Young’s arguments in her important posthumously published book against what she calls the liability model for attributing responsibility, as well as the arguments that she marshals in support of what she calls the social connection model of political responsibility. We contend that her arguments against the liability model of conceiving responsibility are not convincing, and that her alternative to it is vulnerable to damaging objections