Toward a decolonial global ethics

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that decolonial theory can offer a distinctive and valuable ethical lens. Decolonial perspectives give rise to an ethics that is fundamentally global but distinct from, and critical of, moral cosmopolitanism. Decolonial ethics shares with cosmopolitanism a refusal to circumscribe normative commitments on the basis of existing political and cultural boundaries. It differs from cosmopolitanism, though, by virtue of its rejection of the individualism and universalism of cosmopolitan thought. Where cosmopolitan approaches tend to articulate abstract principles developed from within a particular Western tradition, decolonial approaches reject abstract global designs in favour of inter-cultural dialogue amongst multiple people(s), including peoples who deem collective and non-human entities to be of fundamental moral importance. In addition, decolonial global ethics rejects universality in favour of ‘pluriversality’.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonial
• global ethics
• cosmopolitanism
• pluriverse
• colonialism

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Dr Michael Neu for his careful and constructive reading of a previous draft. Thanks also to the editors of Journal of Global Ethics and the anonymous referees for their excellent suggestions. All remaining errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Deveaux and Walker’s (2013, 112) special issue of the Journal of Global Ethics also ‘challenges a central assumption of much mainstream theorizing about global justice, namely, that relations of justice chiefly concern individuals, and should aim to ensure fairness or equity between essentially separate individuals’. They call for a global ethics that is conscious of the legacy of colonialism and that ‘endeavors to imagine and reconceive justice using new perspectives, and asking different questions’. Decolonial global ethics contributes to this project of challenging individualism and drawing on new perspectives.

2 Buen Vivir sometimes refers to a set of state programs and discourses, integrated into the constitutions of and activity of the state in Bolivia and Ecuador, and sometimes to indigenous worldviews and philosophies (see Waldmüller 2014). To make clear that I am referring to the indigenous worldview, I henceforth use the term Sumak Kawsay.

3 Postcolonial feminist scholarship (i.e. Mohanty 1984, 335; 351) develops a related critique of the ‘ethnocentric universality’ of some Western feminist scholarship, claiming that it does not allow ‘third world women’ to ‘rise above their generality and their “object” status’.

4 Leaving open the question of what is of fundamental moral concern, and of who can participate in inter-cultural dialogue, is important as a means of maintaining the disruptive potential of decolonial ethics. Odysseos (2017, 3) argues against moves to formalise decolonial ethics. Instead of ‘“translating” these important attempts at decolonial ethics into our familiar ethical theories’, Odysseos says, we should ‘retain decolonial thought’s disruption of prevalent figurations, languages and ways of thinking about “ethics”’. By leaving open the question of what is of fundamental moral significance and placing a central emphasis on pluriversal dialogue, decolonial ethics remains open and disruptive, even as it is put into a more formal ethical register.

5 See, i.e., Santos, Nunes, and Meneses 2007. For an account of the differences between decolonial inter-cultural dialogue and Habermasian discourse ethics (see Dussel 2013, 121–140 and Conway and Singh 2009).

6 My focus, here, is on the tensions within decolonial thought that stem from the dual aspect of the idea of pluriversality. There is insufficient space to address important tensions across decolonial and postcolonial thought. Postcolonial critics of decolonial thought claim that it too talks about the “poor”, the “victims” and “Western” ideas, practices and thought in homogeneous terms, and hence fails to do justice to the internal differences within these broad categories. See Cheah (2006). For a decolonial response, see Alcoff (2012).

7 I leave open context-specific questions concerning when and how such dialogue amongst the oppressed should open out to broader dialogue.