Cooperation and reciprocity

The degree to which one accords others equal moral status determines their degree of participation, seen in how people cooperate with others to facilitate participation. People cooperate not only for their own well-being, but for the well-being of others. They cooperate to “uphold social norms, and behave ethically for its own sake” (Bowles & Gintis, 2011, p. 3). Bowles and Gintis (2011) showed that there is evidence that there are evolutionary and biological explanations for this behaviour. Cooperation is of great benefit to those who practise it. However, it is not about only self-motivation to cooperate. Social institutions are designed in many ways to reward cooperation and so people who may wish not to cooperate do so because of the rewards and the penalties that society offers (Bowles & Gintis, 2011). Cooperation takes different forms, and there are degrees of cooperation. As Becker (2005, p. 19) wrote, most situations in which one participates are with a “tough crowd” in which bargaining is a necessity. In pliant and well balanced societies or social situations, where there is little tension, the common good and the individuals’ needs are well balanced (Becker, 2005). People are more likely to cooperate if they know that their partners in social

interactions have cooperated; and they are more likely to cooperate if their will to cooperate is communicated through to their interaction partners (Bowles & Gintis, 2011; Lister, 2011). Hence, the principle of cooperation becomes a defining principle of participation. People participate in the presence of others, and in order for participation to occur, there has to be a degree of reciprocity, of mutual action, and inevitably, of mutual influence. Most humans have an intrinsic understanding of what it is to be just and fair, and share with others an

52 understanding of what constitutes the common good (Becker, 2005). This is the fundamental philosophy underlying the concept of the “norm of reciprocity” first identified by Gouldner (1960) who proposed that the norm of reciprocity means that people are responsive to others in terms of reciprocating what they are given, in all cultures and societies. Reciprocity is viewed as a glue that binds society (Zhang & Epley, 2009, cited by Pound, 2011, p. 198). The fact that reciprocity is a norm, that it is universal, does not imply that it is fixed; on the contrary, Gouldner (1960) argued, reciprocity can be enacted in any number of ways. For example, he cited the example of a society in which, when a person pays for a doctor’s bill on behalf of a friend, it may be expected that that person repays the debt by securing the friend’s son employment in the local government. Hence, what is considered moral and right in one society might not apply in another, as stated by Becker (2005, p. 18),

Every society of record has an elaborate set of social practices that amounts to a pretheoretical conception of reciprocity, that such pretheoretical conceptions differ significantly from each other, and that they are everywhere regarded as defining something fundamental to human life.

2.7 Recognition

Cooperation and reciprocity depend on the recognition of others. Recognition as a theoretical term has taken on many forms. Honneth (2007) showed that no matter how it is used, it usually designates “a form of interaction with which persons respond to valuable

characteristics of persons or groups” (van den Brink & Owen, 2007, p. 30). Fraser’s (2003) status model of recognition proposed that to be misrecognised does not result in lack of the development of self-realisation and so for her, impaired subjectivity is not a result of being depreciated by others. Rather, in her model, misrecognition arises when institutions are structured to according to norms that prevent participatory parity. Hence the aim of reclaiming social justice is to remove cultural, institutional barriers to recognition and to create opportunities for participatory parity, and not to “repair psychical damage” (Fraser, 2003, p. 30). She wrote that if we do focus on identity, then we reify that difference, and that this also leads to the displacement of redistribution politics.

In contrast to Fraser, Honneth (2003) suggested that social recognition is, at its core, an issue of personal identity. Honneth based his work on the theories of Hegel who had proposed that the way in which people function in the world is in relation to others. This interpretation of human agency is in contrast to the work of some who have as the basis the idea that conflict is the natural effect of the natural characteristic of people to be self-interested. Honneth

53 wrote that one’s development and formation as a subject and as an agent depends on one’s responsiveness to others. His basic ideas were that one needs to care for needs and emotions; respect moral and legal dignity; and have esteem for one’s social achievements (van den Brink & Owen, 2007). This mutuality is the starting point of Honneth’s theory of reciprocity. An important point is that recognition, as per Honneth’s theory, is a moral issue in that members of society have a moral claim to be protected as subjects under social conditions under which they can create, form and maintain their identities as moral subjects and agents (van den Brink & Owen, 2007)

Honneth based his work on the acknowledgement of three forms of social behaviour that constitute recognition. They are love, respect and esteem. In his theory, when an individual loves another, he or she shows care for the well-being and happiness of that person. The result of this love is that the person develops self-confidence. When an individual respects another, he or she respects that that person has authority over oneself, which means then that that person signifies something important. This leads to the development of self-respect. Thirdly, when an individual holds another in esteem, it means that he or she sees the other person as having value, which results in a person living with self-esteem. Hence, recognition is central to the development of these three characteristics of identity.

An individual’s identity as a moral agent and subject develops as a result of being dependent upon the responsivity of others (Honneth, 2007). A person can develop his or her identity if others respond to the need for care in terms of one’s needs and emotions, respect for one’s dignity, and esteem for one’s inclusion in society. Participation in interactions with others provides the opportunities for identity development, and so any form of social interaction that does not offer these forms of recognition results in damage to identity. Honneth (2003) stated, “for only by participating in interactions whose normative preconditions include reciprocal orientation to specific principles of recognition can individuals experience the enduring value of their specific capacities for others” (p. 143).

Honneth’s work has been tested out in its relation disability issues in a few publications (Danermark & Gellerstedt, 2004; Danermark & Möller, 2008; Yilmaz, Josephsson, Danermark, & Ivarsson, 2009), which have demonstrated that there is indeed a significant role to be played by these normative defining principles. One example is in Danermark and Möller’s (2008) descriptions of the applicability of this approach to deafblind individuals in which they showed how being deafblind limits participation because of the three levels of

54 misrecognition. Honneth’s work was expanded by Ikäheimo (2010b, 2012; Ikäheimo & Laitinen, 2007) who developed a model of social inclusion based on principles of

recognition. He used the model to explain the lack of inclusion of disabled people in society (Ikäheimo, 2010b).

Ikäheimo suggested that social inclusion can be viewed as a case of “A including B in C in manner D with the status E” (2010a, pp. 85, italics his). A and B are always assumed to be individuals or groups of people. C is always considered social life. D is categorised as three ways of inclusion in social life. The technical (D1) includes the material facilities that help people to participate such as AAC equipment, wheelchairs, ramps, and cell phones. The institutional dimension (D2) includes the rights that society accords people such as one’s right to life or right to communicate. The third dimension is the interpersonal (D3), which means social inclusion in “concrete events and contexts of interaction through the attitudes or attention of concrete others who are also partakers in them” (2010b, p. 85).

E refers to the status that one is accorded by others. Ikäheimo’s (2010) premise is that the lack of status accorded to disabled people is the key problematic in the social exclusion, segregation, isolation and marginalisation that they experience. For him, the lack of

recognition of disabled people as persons (as opposed to humans) is the reason why disabled people are socially excluded and hence restricted in their participation in life’s activities. Therefore, according to his theory of recognition, the key issue is whether an individual is accorded the status of personhood by the people with whom he or she interacts.

In more specific terms, Ikäheimo referred to the concept of “interpersonal personhood”, referring to the definition of personhood within social interactions. He differentiated between two ways in which people are seen as persons (as opposed to non-persons). The first way is by means of attributing psychological attributes to the person. These attributes are then “person-making attributes”. An individual may see a human as a person, for example, if that human is able to think; can converse; or can negotiate the world.

The second way that humans are given personhood by others is in terms of their status. Here, B awards A a moral status of personhood that non-persons do not have. Status is awarded on two levels. On the first level, the institutional level, persons are awarded deontic status, such as the right to live, the right to food, or the right to communicate. The second level, the

55 interpersonal level, is being seen by others in terms of “person-making significances” that distinguish A as a person as opposed to a non-person.

Hence, Ikäheimo’s position is that recognition is taking someone on as a person, and there are three specific terms of this “personifying attitude” or “recognitive attitudes”. These are

respect, love and contributive valuing.

(i) Respect: When an individual respects a person, he or she sees that individual as a person. However, respect is more than simply seeing a human as a person – it implies that an individual sees the partner in his or her interaction as having authority over him/herself. This is a critical issue because when an interactive partner has authority over oneself, then one is engaging with a person who has significance for one, and not simply a person. When A and B have authority over one another, there is “co-authorisation” and mutual respect. This is the basis of the dialogic nature of recognition proposed by Honneth in which there is no such thing as one-sided recognition (van den Brink & Owen, 2007). Building on Buber, Honneth and others, Ikäheimo (2010) proposed that not only does B award A moral status, but A awards B moral status as well, so that together they build the “we”, or a moral community. Interaction is thus dialogic. The premise, then, is that a person becomes a person in interaction with another.

(ii) Love: Love is a term that is used to denote the care that an interactive partner has for the partner’s happiness or good life. Happiness is defined by Ikäheimo (2010a, p. 13) as “nothing else than valuing something and thereby wishing what one values to flourish. When one experiences what one values flourishing, one is happy or leads a subjectively good or flourishing life”. However, mutuality is very important in Honneth’s theory. Love works to establish the moral community which is made stronger if love is mutual. Having a standing in the shared world comes from others seeing one’s happiness as important. But not only are persons, as persons, concerned about their own lives. They can be, and usually are,

concerned about the lives of at least some other persons as well. In caring about the happiness of another person one values and wishes those things that he or she values to flourish. Valuing things, and thereby wishing that they flourish, simply because they are constitutive of another person‘s happiness, or in other words for

56 his or her sake, is one of the basic senses of what is meant by loving someone (Ikäheimo, 2010a).

(iii) Contributive valuing: Contributive valuing is the term of recognition that is used to denote the perception of others that one has a contribution to make that is valued. “Arguably, you feel gra titude towards someone if you believe that she/he contributes positively to something you value and if you value her/him

contributively (or as a contributor)” (Ikäheimo, 2010b, p. 81). Honneth’s original description of contributively valuing was stated in slightly different terms.

Honneth spoke of the experience of being socially esteemed as leading to a feeling of self-confidence that “one’s achievements or abilities will be recognised as ‘valuable’ by other members of society. . . . To the extent to which every member of society is in a position to esteem himself or herself, one can speak of a state of societal solidarity” (Honneth, cited by van den Brink & Owen, 2007, p. 14). One of the important notions associated with contributive valuing is that people in interaction with one another do not passively accept one another as of value, but in order to do so, they show concern for individual traits and abilities of one another (van den Brink & Owen, 2007).

The unifying characteristic of the three recognitive attitudes is that they are appropriate responses to claims of psychological personhood.