Applying the dialogical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer to the debate between the Western individualistic framework of human rights and African ubuntu cultures presupposes that a dialogue is possible. This means that that dialogue can follow the conditions set by the Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. The dialogical hermeneutics of Gadamer has one goal and three basic conditions. The goal is to seek a common ground or seek an agreement on a particular subject matter. The subject matter of the debate is the clash of frameworks for the formulation of human rights norms. The subject matter of the dialogue should constitute the only element to guide the discussion. The common quest for truth on the subject matter should be the sole guideline.
Beside the goal of the debate there are three conditions for such an application. The first condition is the admission of prejudices. To enter a Gadamerian dialogue, the partners in dialogue should first be aware of their prejudices so that they may not interfere in understanding the other. Applying this condition means explaining the prejudices of both the Western and African ubuntu frameworks. The second condition is the openness to the other and the disposition to accept the point of view of the other and the worthiness of his or her position. In this debate this condition would mean the openness from an individualistic perspective to acknowledge as worthy of consideration an ubuntu communitarian approach on the one hand, and on the other hand the openness from an ubuntu communitarian perspective to consider an individualistic framework. Finally the third condition is the agreement in terms of a fusion of horizons between the two frameworks or world views.
1. - Addressing prejudices
1.1. - Western prejudice: Cultural imperialism
The West has a history and an ideology of domination known today as cultural imperialism. The philosopher Iris Marion Young defines cultural imperialism as involving “the universalization of a dominant group’s experience and culture, and its establishment as the norm.” A dominant group tends to consider its own values, goals, and beliefs as universal. It tends to universalize its experience and project it as representing the whole world. In this perspective colonization was justified as a mission of civilization. According to the West, it aimed at bringing civilization to primitive people who lacked it. Colonization had the effect of expanding or universalizing the Western culture at the expense of other cultures considered as non-cultures, non-civilizations.
Many people would argue that the claim to the universality of human rights based on a Western philosophical framework is not neutral; it is rather part of cultural imperialism of the West imposing its cultural, political, and economical world views as universal and applicable to the whole humanity. Whether this claim is true or not, the socio-political data of international relations show that human rights have been used as an instrument of domination by many Western countries. Chomsky and Herman, for instance, have documented a wide range of human rights violations in terms of imperialism of the government of United States of America. Human rights are used as alibi to remove or to install regimes into power in the Third World countries. After observing this international use of human rights concept, Issa Shivji concludes that, “The championing of human rights by the US has thus gone hand in hand with their violation. It follows that the human rights ideology has played the role of legitimising or at least disguising, a contrary practice of imperialist powers.”
Consequently, the claim to universality from the West is a prejudice in the sense of Gadamer. Entering into a Gadamerian perspective of dialogue for the West starts with the acknowledgement of its tendency to imperialism and domination of other cultures. Breaking this tendency of taking as universal its experience is the first condition for the West to enter a Gadamerian intercultural dialogue.
1.2. - African prejudice: Ethnocentrism
Africans have reacted against the imperialism of the West through the statement of their cultural particularity. This move is known as cultural relativism. Part of cultural relativism is the affirmation of ethnocentrism which is a tendency to put one’s own group as the center of reality. Ethnocentrism is a prejudice in the sense of Gadamer because it considers its own situatedness as an unmovable boundary. Since it can distort the perception of others, it is the prejudice African ubuntu cultures should be aware of before starting the dialogue.
2. – Difference of horizons
2.1. - Western horizon
The philosophy of the natural rights as used in the human rights debate is deeply individualistic. This emphasis on the individual has a lot to do with the rising of aristocracy in the European modern times. Shivji rightly observes that it is
“In the hands of the seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophers, the natural law tradition and its concomitant natural rights theories translated themselves into political liberalism whose center-piece is the theory of individualism. In Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau the autonomous individual in pursuit of his survival and happiness enters into the erstwhile social contract now to escape from the brutish nature to establish order (Hobbes), or to install a limited government (Locke) or, as in Rousseau, to constitute the General Will without, in any case, divesting himself of his natural rights. Indeed, by now the ubiquitous individual is the sole possessor of natural rights of life, liberty and property; a free, autonomous contractarian.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French Aristocrat who studied democracy in America, defines individualism as “a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures; and draw apart with his family and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.” For the protection of their wealth, aristocrats had to sever themselves from community and stand alone or in very restricted circles. The development of natural rights in the West which will then become human rights was shaped within the framework or horizon of individualism.
2.2. - African horizon
“African communalism” describes the African horizon. It refers to African anthropology which focuses on an ubuntu communitarian understanding of humanity and the human person. This anthropology dominates the cultures of Africa South of Sahara. For instance the Congolese saying “One man becomes the curse of a hundred” is found in one way or another in many African societies in the South of Sahara. It is rendered in Swahili language by: “Mtu ni watu” which is translated by “a person is persons,” that is, a person exists only as part of a group of persons. Xhosa language in South Africa also has a similar proverb: Umntu ngumntu ngabantu, which is translated by a person is a person by means of other persons, that is, “we find our humanity in community.” Considering such an importance of community, John Mbiti, a Kenyan scholar, paraphrasing Renẻ Descartes says: “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.”
Two concepts are now well known to describe this communalism: “Bisoitẻ” and “Ubuntu.” The concept of “Bisoitẻ” was first used by the Congolese philosopher Tshiamalenga Ntumba. The word Bisoitẻ comes from the Lingala word “Biso” meaning “We” or “Us.” This concept basically emphasizes the priority of the “we-ness” in African cultures. The word Ubuntu, as already explained, describes the opposite of individualism because it “has to do with solidarity, with mutual responsibility, with taking care of every member of the group, with respect, equal dignity, social concern – in short : with involving and sharing.” For Africans, the community has an ontological primacy. There is an ontological interdependence between human persons and the community. The human person receives his/her identity (in terms of education, and values) from the community, while the community provides the individual with a sense of material and physical security on the one hand and metaphysical security on the other hand. The community is the place for the total well-being or complete realization of the nature of the individual person.
The concepts Bisoitẻ and Ubuntu define an approach to life which values community, social solidarity, and responsibility which constitute the horizon from which human rights are understood and framed in an African context.
3. - Fusion of horizons: toward the reconceptualization of human rights framework
3.1. - On the possibility of an agreement
The ultimate stage of the dialogue is the fusion of horizons. The main question is whether such fusion is possible in the dialogue between ubuntu and individualistic framework of human rights. At this stage, as it is clear that in both side it is the well-being of the human person which is sought, the divide is based on a perspective or a framework from which norms defending that well-being can be formulated. The truth claim behind the notion of human rights is the defense of human well-being. Even though there can be disagreements on the content of the notion of well-being, still it refers to a certain common understanding of the flourishing of human beings as individuals and as groups. The possibility of the fusion of horizons is based on the openness, in dialogue, to moral resources and truth claims defending human flourishing in both cultural and anthropological traditions. Such moral resources and truth claims are related to the value of humanity found in all cultural traditions. Even if the approach may differ and even though it may take various expressions such as human rights, human dignity, human life, peace, justice, happiness, etc, the value of humanity constitutes a common ground for all cultural traditions. In both individualistic and ubuntu communitarian settings the only thing which is at stake is the value of humanity. Human rights in both settings defend and protect the value of humanity. In an individualistic perspective, the fear of the infringement of the others leads people to retire in small cycles in order to protect themselves and their possessions. In an ubuntu communitarian setting such protection of humanity is achieved with the help of the group or the community. If the deepest aspirations of human being are the same regardless of cultural situation, therefore, there exists a common ground were an agreement of human flourishing is possible. Such common ground can constitute a shared framework were human rights norms can be formulated.
3.2. - The reconceptualization of human rights framework
A fusion of horizons or agreement between individualistic and ubuntu communitarian framework would underscore two main aspects. First, it would underline the common ground between the basic values, or basic truth claims, defended by an individualistic perspective of human rights and the truth claim constitutive of the African ubuntu standpoint.
Partners in this intercultural dialogue realize that both the individualistic and ubuntu communitarianism can become together a framework of rights. It should be noted that bringing these world view together does not go without at least certain changes. It brings new perspectives of individualism and communitarianism. For instance the idea of individualism will affect the consideration of community in such a way that individualism here takes the outlook of what Anthony Appiah calls methodological individualism in opposition to substantive individualism. For Appiah, methodological individualism about rights “is the view that we should defend rights by showing what they do for individuals - social individuals, to be sure, living in families and communities, usually, but still individuals.” The fusion of horizons in this dialogue would exclude what Appiah calls substantive individualism, that is, “the view that rights must always attach to individuals: that human rights, as framed in our conventions and in law, should always be the rights of persons not of groups.” In the same way, the view of community should accommodate the acknowledgement of the respect of individuals as having intrinsic value in themselves regardless of their belonging to a community.
The consideration of a “methodological individualism” coupled with the ubuntu communitarian view of human flourishing, is a crucial achievement inasmuch as any theory of rights refers to a correlation between rights and duties. This achievement is vital for at least two reasons. The first reason is that, such an achievement constitutes a bridge between individualistic and communitarian cultural traditions. The second is that it solves the problem of the correlation between rights and duties, also called the coherence problem raised by the affirmation of human rights. Armatya Sen explains this correlation as follows: “If person A has a right to some x, then there has to be some agency, say B, that has a duty to provide A with x. If no such duty is recognized, then the alleged rights, in this view, cannot but be hollow.” The person A is a particular individual. Yet B can be either another individual or the community to which person A belongs. This means that the theory at which partners in dialogue arrive to, considers at the same time the rights of the individual and duties of other individuals or the community to provide individuals with their rights. Consequently, the framework attained at the fusion of horizons is at the same time communitarian and methodological individualistic. In such a framework, the intrinsic value of individuals is recognized and protected as well as the community as constitutive of human flourishing.
The new framework is a common ground for protecting both the rights of individuals and the community. On the one hand the recognition of the individual as different from the community leads to frame rights such as the rights to basic needs of life, security, and worthy standards of living; the rights to freedom of expression, religious freedom, political freedom, and freedom of movement. On the other hand, the consideration of the community would lead to rights related to the communitarian worldview such as the right to family or kinship relationships, the right to associations, the right to citizenship, the right to self-determination for a State, and the right to organize as well as specific rights such as the right to a safe environment, the right to common welfare of humankind, and the like. Consequently, the new framework attained in dialogue illuminates the thread connecting the three generations of human rights. The first generation insists on civil-political rights and liberties. The second generation focuses on social and economic rights to certain social goods as well as the rights of people to self-determination. The third generation concerns what is constitutive of the community such as peace, collective security, solidarity, development, and a safe environment. This thread is the ground for articulating together the three generations of human rights. Such an articulation is necessary for the mitigation of the tension between the universal and the particular, the global and the local.
