Social Justice as a Collective Endeavor

A distinctly African perspective on social ethics and its contribution to the justification of social responsibility explored Prof. Emer. Joseph Balatedi Radinkudikae Gaie (University of Botswana) as part of the lecture series ‘Ethical and Religious Foundations of the Welfare State’. In his presentation, held on 13 March 2026, he focused in particular on the philosophy of Botho (also known as Ubuntu in other African languages). The central question was how Botho ethics might serve as a moral foundation for societal institutions with social objectives and what consequences this has for welfare state systems.

Botho is described as a comprehensive understanding of “being human” that possesses both a metaphysical and an ethical dimension. According to Prof. Gaie, the core idea is that a person does not exist in isolation but is always in relationship with other people. This is expressed in the fundamental principle “motho ke motho ka batho”: A person is a person through other people. This induces a relational view of humanity: individuals come into being through others (causality), develop through others and thanks to others (instrumentality), and exist permanently only with others (conjugation). Being human is thus a process of becoming within social communities.

Against this backdrop, a socio-ethical system can be developed from Botho philosophy that clearly distinguishes between right and wrong. Morally right is behaviour that acknowledges and fosters one’s own connection to other people; what is morally wrong is to deny this connection. Prof. Gaie cited theft as an example: it is considered immoral because, through the act, the perpetrator disregards his or her own social relationship with the victim and the community. Botho ethics highlights truthfulness, compassion, and mutual care as central values. Consequently, “being human” also means taking responsibility for the well-being of others.

This ethical foundation has direct implications for the understanding of social responsibility. From the Botho perspective, the well-being of the community is inextricably linked to that of the individual. Poverty is therefore identified not merely as an individual problem, but as a moral deficit of society as a whole. People can only be prosperous if their wealth is recognised and respected by their fellow human beings. For even the prosperous depend on others and cannot fulfil themselves as “persons” in the Botho sense as long as other members of the community are suffering. This gives rise to a moral obligation to redistribute one’s wealth and support those in need.

Further examples from African tradition, such as the practices of “molaletsa” (joint efforts and assistance with work) and “majako” (cooperative agriculture), illustrate that such support is, however, always linked to active participation on both sides. Thus, aid is not to be received passively but is embedded in social relationships based on reciprocity. This is intended to prevent unilateral dependency. At the same time, the (sense of) community is strengthened. This relational view of being human in Botho ethics also implies that those in need are aware of and acknowledge their fundamental dependence on the community and their fellow human beings. It follows, in turn, that aid received in times of need—including in the form of state social benefits—must not be passively accepted; rather, there is a duty to supplement the support received through self-help on the one hand, and to give something back through participation within the community on the other.

In contrast to modern welfare states, which generally rely on institutionalised state aid, traditional Botho-oriented social welfare in the period before the European colonisation of Africa was based on communal and reciprocal practices. Examples of this included systems such as “mafisa,” in which wealthier individuals lent livestock to poorer persons. The latter benefited economically from this while simultaneously assuming responsibility for the property of others. Such practices are not to be viewed merely as one-sided charity, but as an expression of mutually beneficial relationships that promote dignity, personal responsibility, and social integration. Thus, according to Gaie, one can derive guidelines from the principles of Botho ethics that provide a moral foundation for human action even in modern societies. Especially with regard to state action, including lawmaking, Botho can make a significant contribution to ethical evaluation.

Prof. Gaie emphasised that this model differed from modern social welfare systems in that, in the latter, benefits were sometimes granted without direct reciprocity. Such systems carried the risk of weakening individual responsibility. From the Botho perspective, however, the individual remains both a recipient and a provider of support and bears responsibility for his or her own development as well as that of the community.

Botho ethics and the welfare state thus have the common goal of realising social responsibility in society; nevertheless, they differ in their foundations: The welfare state traditionally operates through structures and rights centred on the individual, while Botho is based on moral obligations and interpersonal relationships against the backdrop of a relational and community-centred view of humanity.

In his closing remarks and during the concluding discussion, Prof. Gaie emphasised that Botho ethics certainly provided a strong ethical justification for the welfare state as such, yet represented a different understanding of social support than that of modern Western welfare states. Botho emphasises interdependence, active participation, and the moral responsibility of all members of society. From this perspective, social justice is not merely a task of the state, but a communal project realised through people’s everyday actions.