Political Justice and the Capability for Responsibility

Iris Marion Young's social connection model of responsibility faces one difficulty when dealing with a non-ideal case where actors, especially victims, lack what I call capability for responsibility. Without taking this problem into consideration, Young's model could be criticized for blaming the victim for not taking their responsibility for political Justice. In this paper, I address this question by examining a case study taken from Japan where society is deeply structured in a mode that oppresses women. The first sections point out that Young's model overlooks the importance of agents for political justice while trying not to blame anyone. In the second sections I will introduce the idea of the capability for responsibility to connect the analytical part and the prescriptive part of her model as a theory of justice, arguing that actors' engagement in self-examination through collective action is necessary for the enhancement of their capability for responsibility.