Lonmei and the Reimagining of Contractualism — Epoche C1
In contemporary normative ethics — the branch of philosophy that asks which principles make actions right or wrong, as opposed to describing what people happen to believe — the chasm separating contractualism from consequentialism, particularly utilitarianism, is often presented as an unbridgeable divide. The terms deserve unpacking before the divide can be assessed. Consequentialism holds that the rightness of an act is fixed entirely by its outcomes; utilitarianism, its oldest and best-known form, developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, holds specifically that the right act or institution is the one that maximises aggregate well-being — 'the greatest good for the greatest number'. Contractualism, by contrast, grounds rightness not in outcomes but in agreement: a principle is justified if the people bound by it could, under suitably fair conditions, accept it. Since John Rawls' seminal A Theory of Justice (1971), this family of views has largely been understood through a deontological lens — 'deontological' meaning duty-based, from the Greek deon , holding that certain acts are required or forbidden in themselves, regardless of their outcomes. Rawls asked which principles of justice parties would choose in an 'original position' behind a 'veil of ignorance': a thought experiment in which the choosers know the general facts of social life but not their own place in society — not their wealth, talents, religion or even their generation — so that self-interest is forced to do the work of impartiality. His famous charge against utilitarianism was that, by summing welfare across individuals, it 'does not take seriously the distinction between persons': it permits sacrificing one person's vital interests whenever the arithmetic of the total comes out favourably. The later, stricter use of the word 'contractualism' belongs to T. M. Scanlon, whose What We Owe to Each Other (1998) holds that an act is wrong if any principle permitting it could be reasonably rejected by someone affected. On both versions, certain principles are right independently of whether they maximise the total good. However, an exploration of the 'Lonmei' practice among the Meitei people — the majority community of the Imphal valley in Manipur, a state in the northeastern corner of India — suggests a more nuanced understanding may be warranted, one that could bridge this theoretical gap. Lonmei, as documented in the regional literature on Manipur's customary institutions, is at its heart a traditional system of mutual aid and reciprocal labour. Imagine a village elder, perhaps a farmer whose rice paddies have been devastated by an unseasonal flood. In many societies, this might necessitate an appeal to external aid or a struggle for individual recovery. In a Meitei village, however, the process unfolds differently, guided by the intricate threads of Lonmei. The Lonmei Process: A Steps-Based Analysis Initial Need Recognition: A community member faces a significant challenge – a damaged harvest, a house requiring repair, or a family celebration necessitating substantial preparation. Community Consultation: The individual, or their immediate family, communicates this need within their social network. This is not a formal request for charity but an implicit call to the established Lonmei network. Collective Mobilisation: Other community members, often without explicit solicitation, offer their labour, resources, or expertise. This is not driven by a formal contract but by an ingrained understanding of reciprocal obligation. Execution of Aid: The collective effort is then directed towards addressing the need. For our elder farmer, neighbours might arrive with their tools and help replant seedlings, repair embankments, or contribute surplus grain. Future Reciprocity: Crucially, there is an expectation, though not legally enforceable, that the recipient will, in turn, offer similar aid when another community member faces a crisis. This is the 'return' in mutual aid. Locating Lonmei: The Anthropology of Reciprocity Before drawing philosophical conclusions from a single practice, it is worth establishing that Lonmei is not an isolated curiosity but a local instance of one of the best-documented institutional forms in the ethnographic record. Marcel Mauss's classic essay The Gift (1925), synthesising fieldwork from Polynesia, Melanesia and the American Northwest, argued that in societies without formal markets and states, gifts are never 'free': every gift generates three linked obligations — to give, to receive, and to reciprocate — and these circulating obligations are what hold the society together. Marshall Sahlins, in Stone Age Economics (1972), refined this into a spectrum. In balanced reciprocity , the return is expected promptly and in equivalent measure, as in barter. In generalised reciprocity , no account is kept and no deadline set: one gives when another is in need, and expects the network — not necessarily the same individual — to give back when one's own need comes. Lonmei, on the description above, is a system of generalised reciprocity: the flooded farmer's helpers do not invoice him; they acquire a diffuse claim on the village's future assistance. Comparable institutions of reciprocal agricultural labour are recorded on every inhabited continent, which is precisely why the philosophical lesson drawn below is not parochial. Why the Expectation Holds Without a Contract The fifth step above contains the puzzle a sceptic will press: the expectation of return is 'not legally enforceable'. Why does anyone honour it? The modern theory of repeated games supplies a precise answer, and it is worth a short bridge because it grounds what would otherwise be a hopeful assertion. In the one-shot prisoner's dilemma — the standard model of a situation where each party does better by defecting whatever the other does, yet mutual defection leaves both worse off than mutual cooperation — helping is irrational for a pure egoist