Abstract

David Estlund argues that theories of structural injustice have to show how victims can have warranted grievances, generally expressed through reactive attitudes. But he argues that no social structure can by itself be the target of warranted grievance. We argue that warrant for reactive attitudes is an inappropriate standard to hold theories of structural injustice to, because reactive attitudes are tightly connected to the mental states that motivate actions. This connection entails that reactive attitudes presuppose that agents are the perpetrators of injustice. But the point of the idea of structural injustice is that this presupposition is often unwarranted.