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Outline of an Alternative Research Agenda on Disability Justice

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An African Path to Disability Justice

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 78))

Abstract

This chapter outlines the central research question, justifications and main argument of the book. It introduces and defines the concept of disability justice and highlights how it is a neglected subject in the literature on African philosophy and African legal philosophy. After introducing the conventional lines along which the debate on disability justice proceeds in the literature on human rights and legal and political philosophy, the chapter outlines the problems that have given rise to the argument of this book resulting from African philosophy: the omission of people with disabilities from the literature on persons and community. This not only clarifies why African philosophy provides an appropriate context in which to explore these issues, but also justifies why the question of disability justice should be addressed through an African legal philosophy, even though questions about its meaning and existence remain unsettled. The chapter concludes by outlining the argument of the book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force on 3rd May 2008.

  2. 2.

    My focus is on the literature on human rights and social change, which treats change largely as an external product of the norms of the international human rights system and its institutions. In doing so, the literature does not pay sufficient attention to internal factors in obstructing or contributing to social change.

  3. 3.

    There are some references to disability in the literature, but there is no comprehensive treatment of the subject, see: Imafidon (2019), Manzini (2018), Metz (2018), Maybee (2017), Bujo (2001), and Tangwa (2000). Imafidon (2019) arguably provides the most important and comprehensive treatment of albinism  to date from an African philosophical persective. His contribution can be used to  reinforce my scepticism about  being able to modify metaphysical conceptions of community and personhood. Manzini (2018) offers a critique of Menkiti’s conception of personhood and African communitarianism for being ableist, gendered and anti-queer. The subject receives more detailed treatment in Maybee’s (2017, pp. 311) work than the others, who relies on the significance of the body in certain strands of African philosophy as a critique of the social model of disability . In an analogy for his conception of distributive justice, Metz (2018, pp. 19–20) refers to a child with a physical disability while Bujo (2001, p. 91) uses a fairytale of a hen with a disability to underscore the moral educational value of the oral African philosophical tradition. Tangwa (2000, p. 42) refers to mentally impaired persons in relation to his conception of personhood, which I discuss in more detail below.

  4. 4.

    Word substitution is the author’s own.

  5. 5.

    Metz argues that the relational conception of community is more widespread than acknowledged in the literature.

  6. 6.

    See, for example, The Banjul Charter, Article 29(2).

  7. 7.

    2005 (1) BCLR 1 (CC) and 2004 (1) BCLR 27 (C).

  8. 8.

    I return to the question of altruism below to show how it can be used to offer a more inclusive account of community.

  9. 9.

    Cornell’s argument is similar to Putman’s (2000) idea of generalised obligations.

  10. 10.

    It is helpful to note that the work on African relational environmentalism (Bujo 2001, pp. 22–23; Tangwa 2004, pp. 387–395; Behrens 2010, pp. 470–480, 2013b, pp. 55–72) may also be a way to better understand the nature of our obligations to people with disabilities, since it refers to non-reciprocal obligations to the environment, future generations and animals. However, because they tend to, but not always arise from metaphysical doctrines (Menkiti 2004a) or the ancestral realm, which I am generally trying to avoid as well as the conclusion that the only way to extend obligations to people with disabilities is by treating them as equivalent to the environment or animals.

  11. 11.

    A similar conception of person is provided by Bujo’s (2001, p. 98) work on African ethics, which argues that unborn children are recognised as persons at an early stage of development .

  12. 12.

    One problem with it (as with other African conceptions of personhood and community) is that it is very often defined metaphysically. The possibility of relying on this conception of personhood in grounding a legal philosophy of disability justice will depend on the ability to abstract, generalise and separate it from its metaphysical origins as well as translate it into modern legal and political frameworks.

  13. 13.

    The relationship between African legal philosophy and African moral philosophy, especially why law is nourished by and fundamental to nurturing the ethical and moral character of individuals is discussed in Sect. 5.2.3 of Chap. 5 and Sect. 6.4 of Chap. 6.

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    Oche Onazi

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Onazi, O. (2020). Outline of an Alternative Research Agenda on Disability Justice. In: An African Path to Disability Justice. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35850-1_2

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