Work

When and Why Is Social Kind Membership Morally Wrong? On the Moral Foundations of Ontic Injustice

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This paper argues that Katharine Jenkins’s theory of ontic injustice lacks a fully satisfactory conceptual and moral foundation. Specifically, it fails to provide a compelling account of when and why social kind membership constitutes a moral wrong. I first critique the tension in Jenkins’s framework between an implicit commitment to moral essentialism and an overly positivist ontology of social kinds. I then advocate for moderate practice idealism, which employs counterfactual constitutive standards to better distinguish between just and unjust social kinds. Next, I analyze Jenkins’s account of the wrong-making features of ontic injustice, reconstructing it into three distinct approaches: the expressive harm account, the respect-based account, and the improvement-claim account. While each offers valuable insights, I argue that none provides a sufficiently robust moral foundation of ontic injustice.

Source: Moral Philosophy and Politics

DOI: 10.1515/mopp-2024-0017

Author: Hauke Behrendt

Institution: University of Stuttgart

Language: English

Topic: Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,712