Relations of Inferiority and Structural Domination

Abstract

This paper challenges the sharp opposition Niko Kolodny draws between relations of inferiority and neo-republican domination in his book The Pecking Order: Social Hierarchy as a Philosophical Problem (2023). I argue that if we adopt a structural account of domination, such as that proposed by Dorothea Gädeke (2020), some of Kolodny’s objections to neo-republicanism lose their force. Gädeke’s framework provides a way of articulating domination as neither “Will Universal” nor “Possibilist”, since, in her view, the mere fact that any other person can interfere with you at any time and at will does not in itself constitute an instance of domination, unless it is based on a structural (robust) asymmetry of power. While this suggests a significant overlap between relations of inferiority and neo-republican domination, an important distinction remains: Gädeke’s structural domination is more apt in capturing claims against inferiority in the absence of an identifiable superior individual, what she calls instances of systematic disempowerment, which are crucial to understanding the wrongness of power asymmetries.