Varieties of Social Necessity

Some have argued that certain claims about the natural world, e.g., the laws of nature, are not metaphysically necessary, but they are necessary in some more restricted, natural sense. In this paper, I give preliminary arguments for the existence of social necessities, i.e., claims about social reality that are necessary. I then argue that many social necessities are not metaphysically necessary and cannot be explained in terms of metaphysical necessity. Thus, there is a kind of modality distinct from metaphysical modality, i.e., social modality. In turn, this has important methodological upshots. Questions about what is socially possible are best raised and resolved from the perspective and interests of social inquirers trying to understand historical and causal specificities of the actual world. Moreover, the arguments I give raise pressing questions about modal injustice, i.e., how a person or group can be harmed in virtue of what social possibilities exist for them.