Principles put to the test

It is extremely rare to read in a philosopher an admission such as that which Alain Renaut confides to his readers: wanting to start from general principles of justice to account for reality is an impasse in which, he writes, “ I lost ten years of my thinking » (p. 41). The specialist in Kant and theorists of justice considers that it is now necessary to think about the world from situations of extreme injustice, according to the program of an applied philosophy for which the work offers the guidelines. This change is major, but it will only surprise you with its brutality. Indeed, Alain Renaut’s last books contained this refounding project. In Is a just world possible? ?he had vigorously stigmatized moral partiality, that is to say the primary concern for the well-being of our fellow citizens, to underline the indecency of keeping the poor of the world away from our concern for justice. But if the echo of the debates analyzed in this 2013 book remains present, the nature of the argument here is very different.

Philosophize differently

It is no longer appropriate, in fact, to adopt a deductive approach which, from normative principles, would reach reality, by the addition of empirical elements, but to start from experience “ gaps in poverty, violence and risk which place at an infinite distance from each other the places of a supposedly unified world and the conditions of life and death which reign there » (p. 45). If we accept this path, we will find, according to the author, the principles neither at the beginning of philosophical activity nor even at its end. It is easy to imagine the force of the epistemological rupture envisaged.

Renaut undoubtedly gives himself the means since his manifesto is largely the product of two trips to the regions of the extreme and the unjustifiable, Haiti and Yaoundé. Its long chapter 2, “ Philosophizing in Port-au-Prince ”, is an exercise in humility that commands admiration. He who, in many respects, embodies academic philosophy, pleads, with conviction, for his discipline to open up (“ without fear or disdain », he specifies) to the contribution of the social sciences. And it is certainly this openness which gives the categories proposed to identify the injustices of the world their self-evident character. L’unjustifiable first, who is not the unjust: A. Renaut in fact redefines unjust inequality by unjustifiability, that is to say by what cannot be justified at the end of an argumentative discussion “ thinkable » (p. 64). Therefore, for a society to be just, “ it is necessary and sufficient that it manages to exclude the inequalities that its members or the majority, or even almost all of its members, represent as unjustifiable » (p. 66). This category therefore remains quite procedural and must, therefore, be completed. By theindecencywhich Avishai Margalit defines as humiliation or subalternization of the other, but here enriched by the consideration ofextreme “ which goes beyond or exceeds it by accomplishing it or by explaining its practical significance » (p. 71). The existence of inequalities so unjust that we could not imagine them if we did not encounter them is therefore revealed.

We are now able to grasp the important distinction between life and survival: it is “ to an almost transcendental condition of human experience (…), to a condition which is almost part of its conditions of thinkability » (p. 77). Philosophy cannot carry out this approach to the extreme without the disciplines which, through their objects, have already found themselves confronted with it. And, if we think of economics, sociology and psychology, we must also think of medicine, particularly the part of it which is devoted to extreme clinics, or, more precisely , to situations characterized by extreme poverty, extreme dependence and extreme vulnerability. In these situations, the determining element is of an ethical nature since the status of a person is called into question by the person who experiences them, but also, sometimes, by the person who is confronted with them (not that we doubt that we are dealing with a person human, but because we ask ourselves “ how humanity is capable of being a stakeholder in such situations, either as a victim of extremization, or as its actor or vector », p. 83). A. Renaut, in language as suggestive as it is clear, writes that these extreme situations call for “ the consideration of the limits beyond which the shift into the inhuman would constitute a risk which, by threatening these beings, threatens us » (p. 85).

Cinema as political philosophy

Cinema allows us to better perceive these limits, particularly that of Haitian director Raoul Peck. The contribution of the seventh art to thinking about the extreme has also led the author to engage in research (with Marie-Pauline Chartron) whose first publication is programmatic: cinema as political philosophy. And it is true that, as Simone de Beauvoir pointed out, “ faces often say more than voices “. Thinking with films is obviously not because they allow us to better visualize horror and injustice, but because the images appear “ life itself, the very movement of life, more than can, whatever its depth, the written account and even the photographic images » (pp. 99-100). It also puts the scope of discursivity into perspective, which is no small thing for a philosopher.

It is therefore a question, by confronting the particularizations of the extreme, of abandoning the position of overhang that philosophy favors, and of asking ourselves what is the priority to equalize. The questioning is conducted from three dimensions of the experience lived in Port-au-Prince and Yaoundé, that of indignation at the real conditions of individual existence, that of the opacity and complexity of data and, finally, that of the questioning of general theories of justice, in particular by the refutation of the idea of ​​a principle which would impose itself whatever the circumstances, even that of general prioritization of the increase in well-being of the worst off. Instead, A. Renaut suggests giving priority to action content.

Thus, in the emergency created by the earthquake in Haiti, the priority, as Raoul Peck shows in Deadly assistanceis not, contrary to our intuitions, medical intervention and humanitarian aid, but the removal of rubble and waste. However, this was not immediately identified (A. Renaut examines the reasons, p. 134-142). Generally speaking, R. Peck’s films are a charge against the ideology of development and humanitarian aid, a charge which the author supports. For the priority given to the provision of funds, another order should have been substituted which, from the evacuation of rubble to the construction of a rule of law, including the rehousing of people gathered in camps and the combat against violence, would have provided the possibility of a future. This prioritization accepts, of course, to be supported by universally available values, that is to say irreducible to the context. We will think here of dignity (one might have expected the thought of Ronald Dworkin to be evoked), of decency, the normative force of which transcends cultural affiliations. It is valuable to note the author’s attachment, far from any concession to contextualism and relativism, to what he calls “ a form of normative objectivism, or, if you prefer, practical rationalism » (p. 167). The epistemological turn of his reflection therefore in no way prevents him from recognizing the importance of “ normative benchmarks accumulated by the community of philosophers who have reflected on the just and the unjust » (p. 168). And, among these philosophers, A. Renaut cites, with empathy, in addition to A. Margalit, A. Sen, T. Pogge or A. Honneth.

Multidimensionality of extreme poverty

Nevertheless, let us repeat, formal normativism, while it contributes to limiting harmful abuses, leaves it beyond its reach “ certain spheres of injustice as essential as that of extreme poverty » (p. 172). The conceptualization proposed by A. Renaut significantly broadens the understanding of this. Indeed, while numerous statistics show a global decline in poverty (but it is, for the most part, located in South and East Asia, while sub-Saharan Africa does not benefit from it), the recourse to instruments, such as the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), allows us to grasp the multidimensional nature of extreme poverty. It is therefore misleading to understand it only in monetary terms. Sabina Alkire proposes a striking term: dismissal, a term which has the advantage of suggesting the moral aspect of deprivations. For A. Renaut, this terminological change covers “ a change of approach in the very quantification of the human and the inhuman, opening, at their border, onto another possible quantification, less partial and ultimately partial, of what I designate by the extreme » (pp. 193-194). We thus become sensitive to other aspects of deprivation than just monetary deprivation. L’OPHI retains ten indicators of poverty: in the field of education (for two of them), in that of health (also two), in that of the household’s relationship with “ standards of living » (examples: access to electricity, drinking water, etc.), cumulative deprivations which shed light on what the experience of extreme poverty is.

This multidimensional representation shows the illusion of considering the objective of halving extreme poverty to have been achieved. On the contrary, we perceive its continuation, even its worsening. Also the notion of dismissal, which, beyond monetary poverty or even fears and humiliations, evokes “ the total or partial loss of titles to be used to function as a person » (p. 226), is it infinitely precious. We will not be surprised by the importance given to it by an author who concluded his previous book with an exhortation to “ articulate a certain number of dimensions of well-being which would be better able to reveal the degree of achievement, in each country, of the conditions of a just world than only considerations of income and life expectancy allow and access to minimal education “.

Should we, because contemporary theories of justice show themselves incapable of thinking about extreme situations (A. Renaut does not forget, among them, genocidal massacres), give up philosophizing from principles and be content with make “ heuristic parameters for determining and evaluating possible and desirable objectives » (p. 247) ? We let the reader decide, but the passage through the refutation of A’s approach. Renaut will become a compulsory exercise.