Abstract

This paper does not argue that particular institutions are unjust. It argues that the concept of moral justification itself presupposes conditions that some institutional structures negate. I develop an analysis of justification as a relational normative practice that requires addressees capable of standing in the space of reasons. I distinguish instrumental coercion, which is counterfactually dispensable relative to an institution's aims, from constitutive coercion, which is a necessary condition of ordinary institutional functioning. I introduce the concept of non-refusable harm—harm whose avoidance would require the agent to incur loss sufficient to destroy the conditions of agency—and argue that where refusal predictably results in such destruction, the addressee is removed from the normative relation that justification requires. The central thesis concerns the grammar of justification: without normative addressability, the concept of justification loses application. Institutional structures whose ordinary functioning depends on the standing possibility of imposing non-refusable harm therefore operate outside the domain in which justificatory discourse retains meaning. Policing serves as an illustrative case of a broader structural problem concerning institutional reliance on agency-destroying threats. The argument identifies a structural boundary of justification; whether existing institutions can be redesigned to avoid crossing it is an open question.