I wish to thank Mara Marin for her incisive comments on my book, and the editors of Perspectives on Politics for sponsoring this exchange.

Following a generous overview of A Moral Theory of Solidarity, Marin introduces five related concerns: 1) On my object-neutral view, it is possible to be in solidarity with the powerful. 2) Notwithstanding my insistence on deference, individual judgment comes in “through a back door,” when one selects among potential groups to join. 3) By foregrounding the “predicament of the outsider,” I distort the situation of insiders, particularly those on the bottom of the movement’s power structure, who have no obligation to defer. 4) My account is restricted to action as opposed to other modes of political engagement in a democracy. And worst, 5) I assume “that the oppressed group speaks with one voice, thus making disagreement and difference inside the group irrelevant,” which “marginalizes the group’s most vulnerable” by “treating them as lacking the capacity of judgment.”

I am grateful to Marin for isolating some of the most important questions at stake here. Nonetheless, I think the book has the resources to respond on each point. Objection #1 reflects a conceptual disagreement: Marin thinks that solidarity by definition orients toward the powerless, whereas I treat it as object neutral; that is, on my view, saying “I am in solidarity with X” does not entail anything about X’s relative power. Consider North Americans who claim “solidarity with Israel” against Palestinians in Gaza. Marin thinks that such people are conceptually confused. I disagree; the question is not whether they can be in solidarity but whether they should.

Objection #3 presupposes that “worst-off” and “privileged” are, as it were, rigid designators. I admit that the book foregrounds the experience of the “joiner” who is, given the structural deference I defend, by definition better-off than the “caller.” But there is no such thing as the across-the-board “most oppressed,” a “universal caller” who is always on the bottom. Rather, relative disadvantage is always context specific, and so there is no necessity that today’s joiner is more privileged simpliciter than today’s caller; roles might reverse tomorrow.

In response to objections #4 and #5, I offer the book’s numerous discussions of dialogue and internal group dynamics. The book emphasizes deference, but it neither rules out nor ignores dialogue and extended relationships within and across group boundaries. Indeed, these play essential roles in explicating the concept and limits of deference (pp. 86–88, 95–102) and the justification (pp. 130–33) and limits (pp. 135–39) of solidarity. And I note that the process of finding the worst-off can be iterated, that “within the group of disadvantaged there can be those who are silenced or subject to coercion, intimidation, and so on. The skill of looking and listening for the voices of those on the bottom can thus be practiced within social movement organizations, too, with special efforts made to ensure that societal advantage does not get reproduced, and to counteract it when it does. . . . [W]e should inform those on the bottom that we recognize their situation and ask them how, if at all, they want to address it” (p. 115).

Finally, regarding objection #2, the selection of groups with which to be in solidarity is not simply a matter of whom the joiner “picks.” On the individual level, I catalog some selection mechanisms that can guide choice to avoid prejudice and bias (p. 154 ff). But more generally, the book calls for an organized and galvanized progressive movement (p. 148); only by working with such an organization can we effectively live for justice.

Mara Marin has raised some of the most fundamental issues in A Moral Theory of Solidarity, and I hope here to have shown that the book can respond to these concerns in support of solidarity as moral duty of equity.