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Chapter 7 - Interactional Equality

from Part II - Vulnerability, Relational Equality, and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2026

Costanza Porro
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
Christine Straehle
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg and University of Ottawa
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Summary

This paper shows that Elizabeth Anderson’s account of relational egalitarianism offers inadequate resources to combat interactional injustice, that is, the injustices in modes of social interaction that reinforce positions of unequal status and social vulnerability. The paper reviews Anderson’s argument that social integration is key to remedying specific kinds of unjust inequalities before exploring examples of interactional injustice for which integration – as Anderson specifies it – is an inadequate solution because the victims are already highly integrated, such as fat people. The paper argues that a policy-focused account such as Anderson’s misses the fact that interactional injustices are often the cumulative result of many individual people making individually legitimate choices to control their own interactional lives, choices which collectively subordinate, marginalise, or ostracise other people. In order to remedy interactional injustices, we must attend not only to government policies as Anderson does, but also to our personal responsibility for our choices and their collective impact.

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