Aristotle’s notion of proportional equality: A contribution to resolving socio-political discrepancies in Tanzania

Abstract

Like other countries Tanzania makes effort to advocate and to enforce equality among citizens. Such effort is backed by the Constitution of the United Republic
of Tanzania which states that all persons are equal before the law and that have a right to equal protection by law. Despite this Constitutional stipulation of equality Tanzanians in their socio-political lives experience instances of equality-discrepancy which are justified by culture, policies and law. It is against the background of such discrepancies that in this paper we seek to understand what kind of equality is cherished in the context of Tanzania. We bring onboard Aristotle’s concept of Proportional Equality as a guide to understand what is meant by equality of all persons in the Tanzanian context. With the help of Aristotle’s concept of Proportional Equality our discussion helps sort out such discrepancies by affirming that in its cultural frameworks, policies and legal systems Tanzania differentiates between mathematical equality and proportional equality, and between equality of the means and equality of the end. It is on such grounds, we maintain that in the Tanzanian context equality should be interpreted as equality of the end rather than confining it to the equality of the means, and that proportional equality takes preference over mathematical equality.