4. Individual and Community in Contemporary African Thought
4.3. On the Equal Moral Standing of Community and Individual
Second, Gyekye couldn’t make the relevant assumption because it is simply wrong.
Actually, these conflicts do exist.88 Turner, for instance, has noted that what is at stake in this individual-community controversy is ‘a basic clash of styles of thoughts, the one liberal and individualist the other “communitarian” and “holist”’ (1968:32). In the next section, I discuss a contemporary issue that shows up the conflict; in the meantime, I submit that insisting otherwise either conceals the real problem or implies that the individual- community controversy is either based on a misunderstanding or a blatant lie, part of which ridicules the entire oeuvre of philosophical endeavour geared at addressing this rather obdurate problem in philosophy. This is hard to believe!
community’; ‘...the common good ... cannot––should not––result in the willful subversion of individual rights; and ‘...at both the theoretical (conceptual) and practical levels, communitarianism cannot set its face against individual rights’ (1997:63, 64).
On top of this, Gyekye’s two-fundamental-value system has implications for his political philosophy. Metz has described Gyekye’s political philosophy as deeming as appropriate
‘a state that determines policy by consensus-oriented democracy, protects substantial liberties, and distributes opportunities and wealth according to a market in the first instance but redistributes funds, via taxation, as necessary to meet needs’ (2012b:64).89 For Gyekye, who explicitly balks at a democratic system characterized by majoritarianism, a consensus- based polity would acknowledge ‘the intrinsic worth … and the moral (natural) rights of the individual’ and simultaneously advocate ‘the politics of the common good’ being
‘concerned with the communal welfare…’ (1997:69, 70). And all these in the spirit of a moderate communitarianism, which ‘gives accommodation to communal values as well as to values of individuality’ (76).
The aim here is not to provide a comprehensive account of Gyekye’s system but simply to show the implications of his metaphysics of the relationship between individual and community on his moral-political philosophy. And clearly, Gyekye takes care to point out that we need not distinguish between individual rights and communal good, in terms of which is basic. Problems arise, however, when these two presumably fundamental goods conflict. In such cases, it appears that we must apply deliberative judgment in adjudicating
89For critical commentaries on the politics of consensus see Eze (1997), Eze (2009), Fayemi (2010) and Matolino (2013).
between them. Without such adjudication and consequent ranking of these values, a moral agent, it seems, would be at a loss on how to act. Thus, the real burden for any moral or political philosophy in contemporary Africa concerns how it negotiates and resolves the conflicts generated by the seemingly equally legitimate demands of community and individual pulling in opposite directions. Let us call this the adequacy criterion––the idea that part of what it means for a theory to be adequate is that it is as likely as its rivals to resolve potential moral-political dilemmas. My suspicion is that Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism is severely deprived in this regard.
Consider the issue of the rights of gays and lesbians living in many contemporary African communities with a well-defined conception of what constitutes the good, including acceptable sexual options that are consistent with certain highly prized collective values.
Such values spring from a recognition of the place and role of the family, and important kinship relations, in forging a sense of group membership.90 Thad Metz, drawing on the centrality of such relations and the associated values, has articulated what he deems a basic moral intuition shared by Sub-Saharan Africans quite generally. In his view ‘Many African people think there is some strong moral reason to extend familial relationships by finding a (heterosexual) spouse and having children. ...’ He goes on to explain that this goes beyond the simple obligation to care for one’s children or remain faithful to one’s spouse; it is ‘the stronger claim that one has some obligation to wed and procreate in the first place ...’
(Metz 2007:327–328). The point is that the idea of a collective good incorporates
90See Cobbah (1987:318, 320 and 321).
preferences and values closely aligned with and propagative of family and kinship relations. In particular, it includes a clear preference for heterosexuality.
Although homosexual propensities are often put down to colonialism and other Western devices, it is also important to note as Philips does in his excellent review of the book, Boy Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities by Murray and Roscoe, that ‘rejections of same-sex relations in African cultures can … be explained by a preoccupation with procreation and the reproduction of kinship …’ (Philips 2001:199).
Elsewhere, Bristow (1996:247) observes that ‘same-sex desire can be threatening to those institutions … such as family … that assume that heterosexuality is a natural, as opposed to cultural phenomenon’.91 By publicly questioning the consensus and the idea of the common good that legitimizes the ‘naturalness’ of heterosexual relations, and traditional notions of family, the open acknowledgment and practice of homosexuality threatens the very basis of a communitarian ethic. Thus, it is not at all surprising that homosexuality is one of the most intensely disputed and divisive issues in contemporary Africa and one that clearly pits the demand for individual liberties against a well-defined and substantive conception of communal good. The issue of homosexuality and the associated homophobia increasingly figures within everyday private and public commentaries, attitudes and behaviours, cultural reactions as well as popular political opinions.92
91In places where homosexuality it was tolerated, it was only to the extent it was subordinated to heterosexuality. See Anderson (2007:129) and Philips (2001:197).
92See Reddy (2001) for a catalogue of state and non-state opposition to homosexuality, in particular the rights of gays and lesbians, in contemporary in Africa.
How might a moral agent or a consensus-based state working on the assumptions of a Gyekye-inspired moral-political philosophy cope with the question of the rights of gays and lesbians in contemporary Africa where a robust conception of the common good demands equal regard? It doesn’t seem that equally recognizing the rights of gays and lesbians, on the one hand, and the specific obligation to procreate, which is born out of a conception of the collective good, on the other, would provide any real guidance to moral agents and legislators. Nor is it entirely clear what a politics of consensus would amount to on such a deeply divisive matter. In either case, a moral agent or legislator could not rely on the principle of equal regard; acting would ultimately presuppose some kind of ordering of values and subsequent tradeoff, which is contrary to the principle of equal regard. Since the injunction to equally regard individual rights and communal good cannot provide any real guidance, then the moral-political theory may be said to be inadequate given the adequacy criterion.
It seems to me that the only realistic option available to someone who wants to be guided by Gyekye’s principle is resorting to some form of casuistry. This would imply that in some cases individual rights could legitimately trump collective good, while in others the reverse would apply. Indeed, this insight is inferred directly from Gyekye’s own remarks. In one place, he suggests that under certain conditions, ‘the common good of the society justifiably trumps individual rights.’ But since his version of communitarianism implies not
‘privileging’ one over the other or that the ‘claims of individuality and community ought to be equally morally acknowledged’ (1997:66, 67, emphasis added), we may read him as claiming that there are also possible scenarios in which individual rights may legitimately
trump communal good, for what would equal moral regard amount to if this were not the case? This last inference is drawn directly from Gyekye’s work. In his very brief commentary on the rights of gays and lesbians in contemporary Africa, Gyekye portrays his moderate communitarianism as eliciting powerful moral reasons for upholding the rights of such persons over the collective (1997: 65). Thus, it appears that on a case by case assessment, moderate communitarianism would provide different moral reasons sometimes in favour of upholding individual rights and at other times in favour of communal good.
This approach seems to ensure that its promise to equally regard both basic goods is met, albeit in a manner that seems arbitrary.
I have argued elsewhere that there are costs to this approach, including especially that it requires simultaneously appealing to mutually exclusive principles.93 Here, I propose a different reason why relying on a case by case assessment doesn’t bode well for Gyekye’s two-value system.
This approach would rely on additional information about the circumstances of each case in deciding which of individual rights or communal good is to be prioritized in situations of conflict. An additional circumstantial reason may include considerations about the utility of upholding a certain right. That is, whether protecting some right has any utility at all. If the circumstances of the case do not attach additional value to protecting such rights it may well be overridden in favour of communal good. Conversely, if the protection of some collective good in favour of some individual in a particular circumstance would not
93See Oyowe (2013c)
promote overall utility, it may well be suspended. However, the idea that what determines whether some individual right or collective good should be upheld depends on considerations of utility or the circumstances of the case has three undesirable implications.
First, it shows that the protection of rights or the collective good is only valuable as a means to some further circumstantially determined end. That is to say, on a case by case approach whether some right or collective good should be upheld turns on the circumstances of the case being examined. This is not particularly desirable for the moderate communitarian who seeks to regard the protection of individual rights and communal good as equally distinct moral ends. Second, because this approach must distinguish between individual rights and collective good on a case by case basis, the problem is that the criteria for discriminating between the two cannot be the moderate communitarian principle of equal regard which doesn’t permit such discriminations. Third, and relatedly, this case by case approach implies that the principle of equally regarding individual rights and communal good is not independently plausible. Its plausibility rests ultimately on the circumstances of the particular cases. This result is quite worrying because it suggests that the moderate communitarian cannot insist on the principle of equal regard. What she can claim is that we may either regard individual right or communal good as basic depending on the circumstances of the case. To the extent that this latter principle involves distinguishing between the two in terms of which is basic, to that extent it involves a significant shift from the original principle that eschews such ordering of values.
By way of concluding this section, I note that two contemporary African philosophers, Bernard Matolino (2009) and J.O. Famakinwa (2010) have argued quite compellingly that Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism fails to convince because it ultimately slides into the unrestricted one he analyzed and rejected. The basis for this claim is in part that Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism doesn’t really place individual rights on a par with communal good as it promised to do. Under pressure to adjudicate between demands of individuality and community, Gyekye’s so-called moderate communitarianism would assert the primacy of the community over the individual (rights). While I am persuaded by the force of the foregoing argument, I believe there is more to be said against Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism besides that it buckles under the pressure of application. At any rate, I interpret my own position as the claim that what moderate communitarianism claims in principle––equal moral standing for individual and community––couldn’t possibly provide any real guidance on related moral or political conflicts and that the only sense in which its injunction can be made intelligible involves something quite contrary to the spirit of moderate communitarianism.