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Iris Marion Young was a political philosopher and feminist theorist who through her essays transformed feminist theory and responsibility by focusing on structural injustice and collective responsibility. Across her career, Young took phenomenological insight and combined it with a concern for structural inequality, crafting a feminist philosophy which was theoretical but also actionable. In “Responsibility and Global Labor Justice,” Young illustrates this model through the example of sweatshop labor. Consumers in affluent countries, she argues, cannot claim disconnection from the exploitation of workers abroad, since global production chains tie their purchasing habits to those conditions (Young 367–68). Responsibility therefore extends beyond borders: “We are responsible not because we caused the injustice, but because we participate in the processes that produce it” (Young 375). Political responsibility, for Young, is collective yet differentiated, though the degree of responsibility corresponds to one’s power and privilege within structural relations. In her works, Young conceptualized responsibility as a shared political relationship, described as “In this perspective, responsibility is both individual and collective. It should be carried out through political action and have a forward-looking perspective…” (Aubert et al. 105). Young’s model of responsibility lies more in the power one has and how they contribute to these systems, compared to what one does. As Aubert, Garrau, and Guérard de Latour explain, Young’s model “does not set aside but rather reworks the notion of individual responsibility in the context of global injustices” (Aubert, Garrau, and Guérard de Latour 105). Responsibility, in her view, is not a matter of guilt but of participation, by acknowledging one’s role in sustaining unjust structures and acting with others to transform them (Young 375). Young’s theory redefines what it means to be responsible in a globalized world, shifting the focus from blame to active participation. ​​

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Works Cited

Aubert, Isabelle, et al. “Iris Marion Young and Responsibility.” Critical Horizons, vol. 20, no. 2, 2019, pp. 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2019.1596200.Young, Iris Marion. Responsibility for Justice. Foreword by Martha C. Nussbaum, Oxford University Press, 2011. Oxford Academic, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392388.001.0001.Young, Iris Marion. “Responsibility and Global Labor Justice.” The Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 4, 2004, pp. 365–388.