In this series of posts* I will attempt to give an overview or summary of the argumentative architecture of Dussel’s immense Ethics of Liberation in the Age of Globalization and Exclusion —all citations will come from the English version by Duke University Press, published in 2013. The purpose of this task is twofold: on the hand I aim to better understand his Ethics and with it see what is most pressing to me about it (what I find most useful, most difficult, and most problematic), and, on the other hand, I hope this serves others who are unfamiliar with Dussel’s work as a helpful introduction. Hence, the language used throughout these post will be more general whenever possible to make Dussel more accessible to wider audiences. I will try to proceed in the same order as Dussel does, although some things may not necessarily be expressed in such a manner if it is deemed easier to understand in a different way. Finally, take the information contained within as a perspective and interpretation on Dussel’s thought and not the sole or correct perspective/interpretation. 

Let me start by giving a general picture of the Ethics of Liberation. The book is separated into two main sections. First, the foundations of ethics, and second, the critical ethics. The first part is interested in the positive aspect of ethics. That is, in the first part Dussel is interested in what may be understood broadly as what is good and how one can come to understand it, both descriptively and normatively. As such, the first part is concerned with questions such as: what is an ethical act? How do we, as subjects in a community, decide if an act is valid? And, lastly, how do we decide if an act is feasible? The answer to these three questions together is the good, as you will see. In contrast, the second part of the book is concerned with the real (as in existent in life) negative moments of ethics. Primarily this is the existence of victims. It is not the same to ask, “what is right?” than to ask “what is wrong?”. Of course one can deduce the wrong from the right and vice-versa, but this is not always the case. If I say that to hit someone unprovoked is wrong, this does not mean that any provocation can result in a punch. Likewise, if I say that being kind is right, that does not mean that being unkind is wrong, we may well have good reasons for not being kind. Importantly, in the two sections, Dussel will refer to three distinct ethical dimensions, the (1) negation or affirmation of life, (2) the discursive validity, and (3) the feasibility. Let us start with the first section. The first section is divided into three chapters: (1) The Material Moment of Ethics, (2) Formal Morality, and (3) Ethical Feasibility and the “Goodness Claim”. Let us go in such order. This first post will concern the first chapter.

The Material Moment of Ethics, according to Dussel, refers to “the content of ethics”.¹ Before going into the substance of the chapter, let me clarify what Dussel means by content. The content of ethics here is material, but this is not merely the physical. Dussel derives the concept of the material from Marx but not from rigid Marxist interpretations of materialism —such as Marxism-Leninism or Trotskyism. As Dussel notes, “[t]he German ‘Material’ (with ‘a’) means ‘material’, as ‘content’ (Inhalt), which is opposed to ‘formal’ ”, and thus not opposite to the mental or spiritual. In an earlier work, that Dussel cites, he gives a clearer definition of how to understand this material (with ‘a’):

[Material] will not be in this case ‘matter’ of work (in a Marxist ‘materialism’ that is always productive and not cosmological), rather ‘matter’ of enjoyment, of satisfaction (as ‘content [Inhalt]’ of necessity; meaning even more essential and fundamental of the ‘materialism’ of enjoyment, joy [alegría], and happiness [felicidad] of a frequently unknown Marx).²

Importantly, Dussel here is discussing Marx’s Grundrisse and specifying what production is (in general and in particular) and how that relates to matter. As Dussel notes, “the subject”, that is, a human, “is primarily a subject ‘of necessity’, or subjectivity-in-need”.³ We always need food, we always need shelter, we always need water, and so on; such is the meaning of subjectivity-in-need. Importantly, since not everything is at hand we have to produce. We produce clothes, we produce food, we make homes. Matter is thus what we use to satisfy our needs, and although this may be physical (like a fruit or a house) it need not be so. The life of the human being is physical-biological, historical-cultural, ethical-aesthetic, and even mystical-spiritual, always within a communitarian horizon.⁴ As such, the material is also that which allows us to fulfill our needs in these other non-physical dimensions, like religion, art, games, culture, etc. 

Having established the material as content let us resume. Dussel starts by stating that “[t]his is an ethics of life; that is to say, human life is the content of this ethics”.⁵ As such, Dussel’s main concern is the human, and everything else may only be thought of by how we relate to it. Such a position may correctly be labelled anthropocentric; see for example a previous post of mine in which I problematize such anthropocentrism, here. Problems aside, keep in mind the subject of interest for Dussel, which is the human.  

In this first chapter, Dussel develops his first criterion and his first principle, both of which are material (remember the meaning of material here). A criterion is basically a guideline that indicates whether an act is correct or not, while the principle refers to how exactly to act. Think of the criterion as answering the “what” question, while the principle asking the “how” —they are, however, closely related. Or, think of the criterion as being descriptive while the principle being obligation-bound. Specifically, Dussel is here interested with a universal criterion and a universal principle. That is, a criterion/principle that can be applied everywhere. Utilitarians, for example, argue that one can judge an act based on the happiness it causes via the utility principle: “an action is approve[d] or disapprove[d] […] according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.” As such, judging based on the increase/decrease of happiness can be carried out everywhere. Dussel, however, argues that the utility principle (and utilitarianism at large) is deficient in several respects. First, on the question of what happiness means, “whether the concept is corporeal or mental, egoistic or communitarian”.⁶ Second, because of the “empirical impossibility” of  a quantitative calculus of happiness ibid. Third, because of the conflict between individual happiness versus collective happiness ibid. Fourth, and lastly, because (according to Dussel) “happiness, which is the end that the calculus of instrumental reason aims at, is reached through consumption”.⁷ Consumption, being the hallmark of capitalist society, is only a particular mode of production at a specific time. Hence, it cannot be a universal marker. Understood comprehensively, a universal principle needs to be not only applied everywhere but at any time, both past and future. Thus, while the utilitarian principle may appear universal and even material, it falls short.

It may well be thought of by now that arriving at a universal principle is perhaps impossible. What we now deem good or correct is not the same as in the past, and even in the present, different cultures and countries have different modes of understanding what is right. Dussel, however, does not support such an argument. Before getting ahead of myself, let us look at one such critique on the impossibility of universalism, concretely, the communitarian ethics of Macintyre, Taylor, and Walzer. Although vast in forms and with considerable differences between them, there are some similarities between the communitarians that one can point out. As Benhabib argues: “communitarians argue that the liberal conception of historical progress is illusory and that history has brought with it irreversible losses”.⁸ Specifically, communitarians seek to recover from the past (in many cases from Aristotle) a “history, the concrete good of a given culture, and the different spheres of justice, within which the authentically ethical good ought to be situated in accordance with its content”.⁹ However, in doing so, they end up “affirming the incommensurability of  each ‘lifeworld’ (Lebenswelt)” because they argue that “no rational debate between, rather than within, traditions can occur”.¹⁰ That is, according to Dussel, communitarians seek to revive from past cultures certain positive values or virtues, but it is up to each community to judge themselves such values. For example, if the current Mexican society is morally corrupt, it should look into its pre-Hispanic morality to seek a virtue worth redeeming, but only they can judge it. Hence, while material in that communitarians seek to respect the concrete cultural history, they deny universalizability. Being that for Dussel the material is always universal, as it is a way of being human, present in all and always, it is not possible to deny universalizability. What is the role of each culture for Dussel then? Is there no difference between cultures? Are we to judge cultures based on the current standards of morality? I will return to these questions.

What then is the universal material criterion for Dussel? Which criterion can be applied to all people at all times, in all places and refers to the human as a subject-in-need? 

The universal material criterion states:

The one who acts human has as content in the act, always and necessarily, some mediation for the self-responsible production, reproduction, and development of the life of each human subject in a community of life, as the material fulfillment of the needs of his or her [their] cultural corporeality (the first among them being the desire of the other human subject), having as ultimate referent all of humanity.¹¹

Let us unpack such dense criterion. First, who is someone who acts humanly? Remember that for Dussel, from his reading on Marx, the human is always a subject-in-need. The orientation towards needs is based on life itself. Needs are a deficit in necessary conditions for life, like food. If we do not eat we die, hunger is thus a need based on a lack of food. As humans we deny such needs by being productive. We make crops which ensure that we have food to survive. But, you may ask, don’t animals also have needs? Animals also have to eat, also have to sleep, and, if we are comprehensive, they may need non-physical needs like play and affection. The difference lies in Dussel’s conception of human cognition, that is, how we acquire knowledge, through experience and the senses. According to Dussel:

The most complex functions of the human brain (the secondary emotions, happiness, conceptual categorization, linguistic competence, and self-consciousness that allow the autonomy, freedom, and responsibility of the historical and ethical-cultural subject) subsume the mere physical-vital functions of the less developed brains of prehuman animals.¹² 

This goes to say that while both humans and non-human animals feel hunger as a material need, the way in which such need is interacted with is not the same for both beings. The human is aware that not eating entails death since it is self-conscious about what such feeling means. While the animal is aware of hunger as a physical state (growling stomach, mouth watering, fatigue), it is not aware that not eating will result in their death. Humans thus have a reflexive attitude to needs. As such, the criterion states that, from understanding the human as a subject-in-need that knows the consequences of not fulfilling such needs, one acts in such a way to allow for the production, reproduction, and development of human life. Minimally this means that whoever acts humanly acts in such a way as to negate needs. This is the case everywhere and at all times. 

Second, what exactly does Dussel mean by production, reproduction and development of human life? Dussel refers “not only to vegetative or animalistic aspects, but also to the ‘superior’ aspect of the mental functions and the development of human life and culture”.¹³ As such, production entails the process of making material conditions that allow for humans to exist, like labor and agriculture, but also developing culture, producing art, etc. Reproduction entails the continuation of human life not only in the sense of making new humans, but allowing for humans to reproduce their mental and physiological processes like eating, sleeping, resting or playing and dancing. While development entails the processes which constitute progress in human life, for example, learning, experiencing new phenomena, or commonly referred to as ‘human growth’. 

Third, the criterion applies to “each human subject in a community of life, as the material fulfillment of the needs of his or her [their] cultural corporeality […], having as ultimate referent all of humanity”.¹⁴ As such, it is not an individualized criterion because this would not be possible. Humans always are a subject who acts intersubjectively; we exist in a community that precedes us, or as Heidegger would state, we are thrown into a pre-existing reality. Moreover, we always need others in order to exist. A single human would not be able to exist by themself for we have division of labor. Society is thus a complex web of interdependencies. I do a certain activity which allows for an Other to survive and simultaneously do another activity which allows me to survive. For example, a crop grower is able to grow food for a community but he is only able to do so if other people are working in maintaining the city clean, or administering resources, or seeking knowledge. Even if we think of a human who leaves society and attempts to live alone, such human will always carry with them the human past. For, as Kropotkin argues, “[t]here is not even a thought, or an invention, which is not common property, born of the past and the present”.¹⁵ We know how to raise crops, we know how to sanitize water, how to tame animals, because previous generations of communities (!) handed down that knowledge. For a person to truly live by themself, they would need to be abandoned at birth in an untouched place. It is obvious that death would be the only consequence for we are born dependent on our parents as a first intersubjective interaction. Even more so, given that to reproduce a human, at least two humans are needed, the bare existence of a human is already the result of intersubjectivity. 

In sum, the universal material criterion stipulates the possibility of life. In order not to expand myself in word-count, I will refer to the entirety of the criterion as the unfolding of human life or unfolding, hence, whenever that is used, recall that it means the intersubjective production, reproduction, and development of human life –and also note that this concept is mine and not used by Dussel. Now, returning to the questions posed before:  What is the role of each culture for Dussel then? Is there no difference between cultures? Are we to judge cultures based on the current standards of morality? One can answer as follows: “Every norm, action, microstructure, institution, or cultural ethical life always and necessarily has as its ultimate content some moment of the [unfolding of human life]”.¹⁶ That is, while cultures have been constructed in multiple different ways, both in terms of their beliefs but also in their institutions, one thing cannot be denied: if a community, culture, society, state, etc., wishes to continue to exist, they must, to some extent, allow for the unfolding of human life. Some cultures, communities, societies, states, are more efficient in doing so; some are more repressive, and only allow for some specific people to unfold –for example in Jim Crow America, only the white. Albeit, the way a group of people organize themselves will always be oriented towards their continuing existence. Different cultures are thus only different ways of assuring the unfolding of life. Such a criterion is universal because no matter where or when, since humans are aware of their death, and since they work in groups, they work towards survival. From the earliest forms of humanity to the most recent, such is the way of being human. 

From the criterion, which was the description of a good act, by way of grounding (fundamentación), we now turn to the principle, which sets ethical obligations. Here Dussel walks along the long history of the naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy states that it is not possible to derive a normative judgment (what is to be done), from a descriptive judgement (what is). For example, it is not possible to say “I have to walk” from the sentence “humans walk”. How does Dussel not fall in this fallacy? If Dussel asserts that humans always act in such a way to allow the unfolding, how do we arrive to an ought? According to Dussel, because we are conscious and self-conscious, we are responsible for ourselves, and, since we are communitarian, we are responsible for others. That is, “every descriptive statement [for example eating] of constitutive moments of the human living reality as human always includes, necessarily […] and from its origin a responsible self-reflection that ‘gives’ its own life to the demand, the obligation to conserve it”.¹⁷  We are, according to Dussel, not only aware of being alive (and of the finitude of life) but also responsible to ourselves not to die. Such responsibility is “imposed on the will itself […] by its self-reflexive constitution”.¹⁸ Think, for example, of suicide. No one can claim that suicide is valid without giving ethical reasons for it (e.g. being depressed, having a terminal illness, providing a greater good). Or, as Dussel argues elsewhere, “life is the mode of their [human] reality; it is the absolute condition of the existence of the human being”.¹⁹ As such, from the fact that we are human, and thus our actions are always directed to the unfolding of life, one can arrive at a normative principle.** Dussel argues that the passage from the descriptive human life to the normative happens through the use of “practical-material reason”.²⁰ Practical-material reason is the use of our mental faculties to judge practical phenomena (that is normative or ethical) which are also always material. Alas, the universal material-ethical principle states the following: 

The one who acts ethically ought (as an obligation) to [unfold] self-responsibly the concrete life of each human subject, in a community of life, and inevitably out of a cultural and historical ‘good life’ […] that is shared instinctually and solidaristically, having as ultimate reference all of humanity.²¹ 

We can clearly see how the criterion established that the human act is the unfolding of life of all, while the principle establishes that we ought to unfold the lives of each human subject. One can, then, judge cultures, nations, communities, by the way in which they realize the unfolding of life. We need to, as an ethical obligation, ensure that the life of all can be unfolded. That is, according to Dussel, we have an ethical obligation to make sure everyone can produce, reproduce, and develop their lives. Such unfolding is only possible through a cultural and historical good life since we are always at a certain moment in place and within a certain culture that we share. Note that for Dussel fulfilling the material-ethical principle does not entail the act is good. Rather, if one acts according to such principle one would act with practical truth. Their act would have a practical-truthness claim. We will see later what makes an act good, which, for Dussel, is a more complex process. 

Comprehensively, the first chapter is concerned with an overview of what the human is and what are the ethical consequences of being human. As mentioned, Dussel establishes that whoever acts humanly has as their way of being always and necessarily an orientation towards the unfolding. Recall that unfolding is how I refer to the complex process of production, reproduction, and development of life in a community. Moreover, since we are self-responsible, the way of being human is not merely descriptive, but is also always ethical. We have a duty to ensure the unfolding of life everywhere, and this is a universal ethical principle which allows us to assess across cultures, across different geographical spaces, and across time. 

In the following post, we will deal with the second chapter which focuses on how this ethical principle comes to be accepted by all, or, in other words, the procedural aspect of this principle which is of content. 

*Hopefully only six posts will be needed, one per chapter. 

** I find Dussel’s argumentation against the naturalistic fallacy somewhat reductive although satisfactory. That is, I think he has some correct interpretations regarding how we are not falling into it, but he does not explain precisely the ‘road’ from self-consciousness to responsibility. Dussel argues that since we are self-conscious we are responsible because we are aware of our actions and their consequences. I do not see how from that it follows that we are responsible for our lives given that our existence was not enacted by our action, but an action of others (our parents). In that case, what he could argue is that our parents and previous generations are responsible for us. 

1. Dussel, E. (2013). Ethics of Liberation in the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. Duke University Press: Durham, p. 435 ↩︎
2. Dussel, E. (1985). La Producción Teórica de Marx: un comentario a los Grundrisse. Siglo XXI Editores: Nezahualcóyotl, p. 35-36 ↩︎
3. Dussel, E. (2013). Op. Cit. p. 35 ↩︎
4. Idem, p. 434. ↩︎
5. Idem, p. 55. ↩︎
6. Idem, p. 73. ↩︎
7. Idem, p. 74. ↩︎
8. Benhabib, S. (1989). Situating the Self: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Polity Press: Cambridge, p. 69. ↩︎
9. Dussel, E. (2013). Op. Cit. p. 77. ↩︎
10. Idem, p. 78. ↩︎
11. Idem, p. 95. ↩︎
12. Idem, p. 67. ↩︎
13. Idem, p. 438. ↩︎
14. Idem, p. 95. ↩︎
15. Kropotkin, P. (2015). The Conquest of Bread. Penguin Classics: UK, p. 13 ↩︎
16. Dussel, E. (2013). Op. Cit. p. 56. ↩︎
17. Idem, p. 101. ↩︎
18. Idem, p. 102. ↩︎
19. Dussel, E. (2021). Filosofía de la Liberación. Akal/Inter Press: Ciudad de México, p. 330. ↩︎
20. Dussel, E. (2013). Op. Cit. p. 103. ↩︎
21. Idem, p. 104. ↩︎