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CHAPTER
9
IS THERE A DIFFERENCE
THAT MAKES A
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
UBUNTU AND DIGNITY?
Drucilla Cornell*
1 Introduction
In South Africa, both legal and philosophical scholarship frequently
draws important contrasts between dignity and ubuntu. In this essay I want
to challenge some of the assumptions that underlie these sharp contrasts.
I will also argue, however, that there is a difference that makes a difference
between ubuntu and dignity, and that this difference is important in the
continuing struggle for a truly ‘NEW South Africa’, particularly in efforts to
challenge the neoliberal policies of the African National Congress undertaken
on a daily basis by on-the-ground movements. Legally, ubuntu is important,
as would be expected, in the arena of socio-economic rights – but not just there.
Both ubuntu and dignity have been deployed in the battle to maintain an
‘outside’ to the capitalisation of all human relationships. I will argue that
ubuntu, rather than dignity, may well serve as the more adequate opposition to
the drive to turn all human relationships into commodities and cash them out
for their value in the marketplace.
Think for example of the Dikoko decision 1 discussed at some length in
‘Recognition of ubuntu’. 2 There, Justices Sachs and Mokgoro both rely on
ubuntu to argue that what was at stake in the violation of reputation was not
money but rather the reconciliation of the individuals involved – and indeed,
that the long accepted idea that money is the appropriate award for personal
injury actually exacerbated the damage to the relationships between the
parties to the lawsuit.
* Professor of Political Science, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Comparative Literature,
Rutgers University, New York, USA. Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria.
Visiting Professor, Birkbeck College, University of London.
1 Dikoko v Mokhatla 2006 6 SA 235 (CC).
2
D Cornell ‘Recognition of ubuntu’ in D Cornell & N Muvangua (eds) Ubuntu and the law:
African ideals and postapartheid jurisprudence (2011).
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