Presentation by Prof. Rukooko and Dr. Schwenke in San Diego in April 2012

1. A Threshold of Moral Tolerance
Accommodating LGBT Human Rights
in Contemporary Uganda
April 2012
Chloe Schwenke, Ph.D
&
Prof. A. Byaruhanga Rukooko

2. The Goal: Human Flourishing/Well-being
• Successful execution of a rational plan of life,
by which the person determines the good for
himself or herself.
• John Rawls
• “That human persons are flourishing means
that their lives are good, or worthwhile, in the
broadest sense.”
• Thomas Pogge

3. Moral Vocabulary?
• Myth of value-neutrality
• “Us” and “Them”
– North and South
– experts/managers and “beneficiaries”
• Ethics as rules vs. ethics as principled
motivation
• Ethical thinking, ethical discernment
– Ethical justification
• Development

4. “Development”
• More than “democracy”
• What it isn’t
– Goulet’s “triple curse” of underdevelopment
• Poverty
• Powerlessness
• Hopelessness
• The translation of economic opportunities into social
opportunities
• Stability and peace
• Democracy and participation
• Justice, human freedoms/human rights

5. Why “Morality”?
• An important way of thinking about
development ~ moving beyond Codes of
Conduct or disclosure rules
• Qualitative focus to “development” ~ pursued
through discernment and moral intuition
– Development for what? For whom?
– Development meaning what? Who defines this?
– How much is enough? Who gets to decide?
– Who is responsible for development? Why?
– What about trade-offs? And the losers?

6. Human Dignity ?
• What to do in societies seemingly hostile to
the concept of human dignity?
– Severe and worsening poverty
– Deprivation of opportunities
– Loss of hope, limited options
– Loss of “voice”, lack of power
– Dehumanization, extreme violence, SGBV
• Is respecting universal human dignity an
important goal of development that ought to
be prioritized by USAID?
– Merely rhetoric?

7. Common Good Goals: Stability, Safety and Security
• Conditions of stability, order, predictability,
and freedom from bodily harm
• Healthy environment ~ to live within a country
without becoming ill, or dying early
• Economic security
– Access to employment and/or other forms of
welfare
• Rule of law and defense institutions that
ensure safety ~ police, judiciary, military

8. Participation & Voice ~ Who Governs? Why? How?
• Power, wealth, and “voice” concentrated at
the center ~ national governments & elites
– Weak or no accountability to non-elites, women,
marginalized groups
• Governments generally fail to:
– Offer and sustain vision-driven leadership
– Demonstrate a public service ethos
– Manage equitable distribution
– Facilitate local participation
– Listen to non-elite citizens

9. Participation and Inclusion ~ 1
• In conditions of scarcity, who ought to decide:
– What “good” development and “good” governance
mean
– What the obligations of good governance impose,
and when they must be met
– What should be done when “good governance”
values clash with other values
• Where’s the balance?
– Popular participation in governance vs.
representative democratic institutions of
government vs. elite control
– Hijacking or manipulating public participation

10. Participation and Inclusion ~ 2
• Is meaningful popular participation in
decision-making a realistic expectation?
– expensive, prolonged, subject to failure
– who identifies the “stakeholders”? on what basis?
who is excluded? why? with what mandate?
• Does donor-facilitated “stakeholder
participation” reflect accurate demographic
and power realities?

11. Moral Visibility
• Illustrative moral and ethical dimensions:
– freedoms and opportunities ~ who enjoys?
– land ownership & access rights ~ who controls?
– environmental/ecological integrity ~ who profits?
– inequitable distribution ~ “trickle down”
– rights of vulnerable & marginalized minorities
– democracy, deliberation, and participation
– gender equality and women’s empowerment
– reducing corruption and promoting integrity
– mitigating/preventing violent conflict
– caring about people and the environment
– modeling public service

12. Ideals ~ 1
• Social justice
– Fair, even-handed treatment of all individuals and
groups within a society
– Prerequisite for the achievement of human
flourishing
• Rasmussen
• Care
– The “caring relationship” between self and others
• Gilligan

13. Ideals ~ 2
• Distributive justice
– On what basis should social institutions distribute
burdens and benefits? Enforced how?
• John Rawls
• Civic virtue, integrity, transformative
leadership, “followership”
• Aristotle
• Joanne Ciulla
• Human rights and freedoms
• Amartya Sen

14. Reality Check
• “Survival takes priority over dignity”
– Margalit
• Political leadership in the South is often top-
down or even autocratic
– Neither accountable nor inclusive
– Seldom issues-driven
• Power prevails over principles
– Low public expectations of integrity
– Thin view of the “public good”, weak social capital
– Large segments of the population (women) lack
voice

15. Development … For What?
• Ideals of human and social well-being
• The “decent society” ~ honor in equal
measure = universal human dignity
– Margalit
• Respecting what is “truly human”
– Rousseau, Kant, Nussbaum, Sen
• Achieving freedom and human agency
– Sen, Crocker

16. OBJECTIONS AND
RESPONSES
core methodology of normative analysis

17. Five Objections
1) Moral issues are largely arbitrary and subjective in
nature, changing in scope and intensity
2) Seeking common ground on moral concerns risks
upsetting the status quo
3) The quality of a moral dialogue on substantive issues
depends upon uncommon tolerance, reflection,
mutual respect, and a deliberative ethos ~ rare in
governance processes
4) Moral values and systems are largely unreliable in
policy making ~ universalism vs. relativism
5) Moral values are extremely difficult to measure,
monitor and evaluate

18. Response to #1
moral issues are largely arbitrary and subjective
in nature, changing in scope and intensity
•Morality is not arbitrary
– persuasively justified and rational
– ethics is the systematic and critical study of moral
beliefs, values and concerns
•In ethics, our values and beliefs are organized
into various (and to some extent, competing)
systems, each of which exhibits coherence and
matches our considered judgments and deeply
felt beliefs

19. Response to #2
seeking common ground on moral concerns
risks upsetting the status quo
•Yes ~ attending to moral concerns risks
upsetting the status quo by thoughtfully
challenging the existing economic and power
relationships within any given society
•The existence of widespread poverty,
corruption, injustice, and the lack of universal
respect for human dignity demand such a
challenge

20. Response to #3
the quality of a moral dialogue on substantive
issues depends upon uncommon tolerance,
reflection, mutual respect, and a deliberative
ethos
•If this claim were accepted, it would be difficult
to imagine a society’s moral progress over time
•Leadership of morally virtuous persons is not a
necessary condition to progress
•The application of an ethical framework to the
participatory process may facilitate a moral
dialogue of substance and quality

21. Response to #4
moral values and systems are largely unreliable
in policy making
•Certain values are universal and fundamental
to human nature
– e.g. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
•Local culture, tradition, and context ought to
significantly influence and shape the
implementation of development initiatives
– provided they are responsive to universal values

22. Response to #5
moral values are extremely difficult to measure,
monitor and evaluate
•Empirical data says much about progress in
achieving morally desirable goals
– birth weight of babies ~ a good proxy for
measuring shortcomings in quality of life and the
need for better nutrition and health care
•Qualitative factors are subject to meaningful
evaluation through a variety of techniques, from
focus groups to surveys
– the experience of poverty, the enjoyment of basic
freedoms and opportunities, and the prevalence of
respect for human dignity