Agency under Structural Constraints in Social Systems

Abstract

In Chapter 3, ‘Agency under Structural Constraints in Social Systems’, Sally Haslanger asks where individuals’ agency is located in complex social systems that produce injustice. This leads her to develop a detailed account of social systems, incorporating the relationship between individuals, culture, and material conditions so that we might better understand how structural injustices manifest. She draws on William Sewell’s understanding of social structures and locates the possibility for change in the ability of agents to transpose schemas to different resources or situations. Haslanger stresses the stability of social structures, including unjust structures. She describes the complex set of shared cultural resources for understanding and relating to the world as a ‘cultural techne’ that mediates social practices consisting of patterns of learned behaviour that allow us to coordinate with others. Haslanger argues that an unjust social practice organizes or distributes resources in an unjust way or fails to provide an adequate cultural framework to interpret what is valuable. She explains that agents continue to reproduce these social structures for three reasons: because action that conforms to social practices is intelligible to others; because social practices distribute power and the ability to maintain structures; and because the material conditions can be very difficult to change. Haslanger considers how unjust structures are remarkably stable, because agents have strong incentives to cooperate with the existing social structure, even when disadvantageous.