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Document Details :

Title: Collectivism and the Question of Justice
Author(s): OKEJA, Uchenna
Journal: Ethical Perspectives
Volume: 27    Issue: 1   Date: 2020   
Pages: 93-115
DOI: 10.2143/EP.27.1.3288830

Abstract :
The question I address here pertains to whether a community-oriented ethics necessarily implies endorsement of a collectivist approach to justice. I explore this question in response to theories that conceive of African ethics as fundamentally community-oriented. The argument I defend is that a collectivist approach to justice is not a necessary consequence of a community-oriented ethics. To make this case, I draw on ideas distilled from Ubuntu and personhood. The aim is to show that it is implausible to infer from the core assumption of a community-oriented ethics – that the community has primacy over the individual – that a particular approach to justice is a necessary consequence of this model of ethics. Such an inference is mistaken and is set aside in this article to articulate an approach to justice that is consistent with a community-oriented ethics. The proposal I advance is that pluralism should inform imagination of justice in the context of a community-oriented ethics.

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