Care versus Justice: Odera Oruka and the Quest for Global Justice Notes

Bio-Bibliographical Context and the Core Thesis of D.A. Masolo

• Original Paper Presentation: A shorter version of this essay, titled "Caring as a Virtue: Remembering Henry Odera Oruka," was first read at the Fourth European Conference on African Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden, in June 2011.

• Publication History: Published in Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK), New Series, Vol. 4, No. 2, December 2012 (pp. 23-49).

• Subject Focus: The Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka ($1944 - 1995$), who proposed a moral approach to human conflicts called "taking suffering seriously."

• Central Argument: Oruka sought to raise the ethics of care to the level of global justice, connecting his well-known positions (like Sage Philosophy) with less known ones to provide a definitive critique of contemporary distributive principles.

The Contemporary Global Crisis and Responsibility

• Technological Paradox: Developments in communication science and technology have shrunken the world, facilitating migration and transforming the concepts of "home" and "neighbor."

• Stagnant Distribution: While global physical distances have closed, distributive principles for social justice have not been modified to reflect our proximity to once-distant populations.

• Contradictory Realities: The world exhibits advanced medical science alongside worsening global poverty, disease, conflict, and suffering. Masolo notes that "old ideas" of justice prevent thinkers from addressing these fragmentations.

Divergent Conceptions of Community: Aristotle and the Western Tradition

• The Question of Relation: Does relating to others add to one's attainment of $eudaimonia$ (achieving one's potential)? Aristotle (Ethics, X, 7, $1177a11$) suggests that happiness involves "living well" or "doing well."

• Aristotelian $Philia$ (Friendship): Aristotle viewed community ($philia$) as connecting members of a trade union, club, or senior common room (Ethics, VIII, 9).

• Detached Community: Aristotle's view of community was often a "composite sense of detached individuals" who share institutional services (post office, police station) but do not necessarily share personal care or sympathy (e.g., asking for salt).

• The Individual Writ Large: Aristotle Likened society to bodily limbs ($Aristotle 1941, pp. 1081-3$, Bk. IX, Ch. 4, $1166a-b$), where each part functions for its own sake to contribute to the whole's active health.

• Three Species of Friendship:

  • Relationships based on mutual advantage.

  • Relationships based on mutual acknowledgment.

  • Relationships based on mutual admiration ($Aristotle 1941, pp. 997-8$, Bk. IV: Ch. 6, $1126b$ $12-1127a$ $13$).

• The Benefactor's Motivation: Aristotle claimed benefactors do not wish well to beneficiaries for their own sake, but rather to gain pleasure or social standing from the acknowledgment of their progeny. The benefactor "likes his/her product more than the product likes its producer" ($Aristotle 1941, p. 1085, Bk. IX: Ch. 7, 1168a 2-10$).

Kantian Autonomy and the Individualist Theory

• Foundation of Morals: The works of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls ($1973$) emphasize individual autonomy, liberty, and self-respect.

• A Priori Duty: Kant argued that doing what is right must be independent of practical consequences. The well-being of the beneficiary is not the object of the action; the action is driven by the metaphysical constitution of reason itself.

• Reductionist Metaphysics: Individualism asserts humans are reducible to basic parts that stand alone; autonomy is the goal and foundation of life.

• Impartiality Argument: Individualists argue that since people are unlikely to focus on the welfare of strangers, such expectations cannot be morally significant.

Odera Oruka and the Communitarian Moral Obligation

• Care vs. Justice: While many works of charity exist, Oruka argued they lack the sense of "duty" that justice entails. He viewed the eradication of poverty as a moral obligation consistent with the principle of justice, rather than an occasional act of generosity.

• The Risk of Dependency: Like Aristotle, Oruka feared that empathy-based giving turns the beneficiary into an "appendage" of the benefactor. He noted that richer nations strive to sustain this gap to maintain their status as "benefactors."

• Erosion of Dignity: Oruka worried the poor in Africa would turn into "modern slaves" to their own kin or fellow citizens due to socio-economic elitism.

Oruka’s Critique of John Rawls

• The Egalitarian Formula: Oruka argues that Rawls’s theory is a "subtle defense of Welfare-Capitalism" ($Oruka 1980, 77$).

• Capitalist Influence: Rawls’s A Theory of Justice written as a defense of the capitalist system, prioritizing inviolable liberty above all.

• Liberty in Poverty: Masolo references the historical incident of $1958$ where Ahmed Sèkou Touré of Guinea told Charles de Gaule, "My people… prefer liberty in poverty to riches in bondage."

  • Rawls would agree on the primacy of liberty but repudiate the socialist conditions Sèkou Touré envisioned.

• The Difference Principle: Rawls argues that some can have more if it improves the situation of those who have less ($Rawls 1973, 94$). Oruka counters that this allows for "liberty in poverty" where the poor's share is only what they could get in a free market, which might be below human dignity.

• Society of Unbalanced or Wild Justice (SUWJ): Oruka’s hypothetical society where the free market allows a small minority ($1\%$) to embody freedom while the majority experiences exclusionary deprivation.

Identity, Communalism, and Sage Philosophy

• Paul Mbuya Akoko Interaction: Oruka’s conversations with the sage Paul Mbuya Akoko ($Oruka ed. 1990, 141-3$) clarify that communalism is not "sharing everything" but recognizing individuals are part of an "organic order."

• Debt to Others: The organic theory of selfhood suggests that an individual's qualities (intelligence, skills in orature) only exist and have value in the context of the community's judgment.

• The Ethical Minimum: Mbuya Akoko argues that a community must provide material provisions (food, clothing, shelter) and social values (the ability to marry and raise a family) to ensure all members can become responsible citizens.

• Distributive Justice in Luo Culture: A.B.C. Ocholla-Ayayo ($1976$) described a system based on lineage seniority where everyone has a right to primary resources. If an individual enjoys extraneous advantages, they are expected to lift their needy kin.

The Global Perspective and Neoliberalism

• Rise of Neoliberalism: David Harvey ($2005$) identifies the period between $1978$ and $1980$ as a revolutionary turning point with the rise of Deng Xiaoping ($1978$), Margaret Thatcher ($1979$), Paul Volcker ($1979$), and Ronald Reagan ($1980$).

• Deregulation: These leaders moved toward privatization and the withdrawal of the state from social provision, emphasizing marketplace competition over collective responsibility.

• Oruka’s Global Distributive System: Oruka challenged permanent claims over natural resources based on territorial boundaries. He argued that since resource discoveries are historical accidents of migration, those resources should be shared globally through a format of compensation and distribution.

Perspectives on Global Caring

• Cosmopolitanism: Martha Nussbaum ($2002$) argues against patriotism (the "membership of specific nations"), suggesting it facilitates relativism and blocks intervention in global ills like Rwanda.

• Cultural Nationalism: Kwame Anthony Appiah ($2002$) argues that patriotism should be defended and intervention only warranted if individuals are being violently targeted.

• Oruka’s Interventionism: Oruka found liberalism unacceptable for its apathy toward human conditions where no "deliberate harm" is occurring, but suffering is pervasive. He viewed justice as a moral norm aiming at uplifting others toward a common human good.

Key Academic References and Concepts

• Sage Philosophy: Oruka’s method of interviewing indigenous thinkers to document philosophical reflection.

• Sympathetic Impartiality: Kwasi Wiredu’s ($1996$) principle for formulating moral norms based on relational ideals.

• Communicative Action: Jürgen Habermas’s ($1984$) theory that moral sensitivity is an acquired, culturally conditioned process.

• Kleptocracy: Oruka critiqued politically-driven corruption that destroys the interests of those without a public platform, as seen in his works Punishment and Terrorism in Africa ($1976$) and Oginga Odinga: His Philosophy and Beliefs ($1992$).