Madison Powers is Francis J. McNamara Jr Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University. His current research focus is on environmental justice, especially issues of natural resource ownership and use, human rights, global supply chains, and global development.
Ruth Faden is the founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, its Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics. Dr. Faden's current research focuses on structural injustice theory, and on justice challenges in food and agriculture, health systems, and biomedical science.

• Preface


• Chapter 1: Introduction


• 1.1 Structural Injustice


• 1.2 Plan of the Chapters


• Chapter 2: Well-Being


• 2.1. The place of well-being in our theory


• 2.2. The Socratic and structural dependence arguments


• 2.3. The core elements


• 2.4. A decent human life


• 2.5. An alternative to universal endorsement approaches to justification


• 2.6. Three implications of the roles of our conception of well-being


• Chapter 3: What justice is


• 3.1. Moral importance and stringency


• 3.2. Claimability and specificity


• 3.3. Rightful enforceability


• 3.4. Unfairness norms


• Chapter 4: what structural injustice is


• 4.1. Significant impacts, structural components, and social groups


• 4.2. Social structural components and their systematic influence


• 4.3. Power, advantage, and social position


• 4.4. Background assumptions


• Chapter 5: Well-being ad human rights


• 5.1. The function of rights


• 5.2. Dignity and well-being interests


• 5.3. The social functions of human rights


• 5.4. Counterpart duties and general responsibilities: a pragmatic approach


• Chapter 6: The Responsibility of States


• 6.1. The normative uniqueness of state agency and its implications


• 6.2. The Strong Statist Challenge


• 6.3. National self-determination arguments


• 6.4. The Principle of Interstate Reciprocity


• 6.5. The power of non-State institutions in the current global order


• Chapter 7: Real-World Examples


• 7.1. National sacrifice zones: from Appalachia to Warren County


• 7.2. The globalization of sacrifice zones


• 7.3. Segregated cities: "two societies,... separate and unequal"


• 7.4. Urban 'slums': the proliferation of informal human settlements


• Chapter 8: Resistance to injustice: activism and social movements


• 8.1. Individual responsibility in a nearly just society


• 8.2. Means and goals of resistance in less ideal circumstances


• 8.3. Targets of resistance: contributors and beneficiaries


• 8.4. Conclusion: well-being and social movements


• Bibliography

Structural Injustice advances a theory of what structural injustice is and how it works. Madison Powers and Ruth Faden present both a philosophically powerful, integrated theory about human rights violations and structural unfairness, alongside practical insights into how to improve them.