“Ihsanic” Philosophy as an Alternative to Social Justice

Abstract

This chapter argues that Rawlsian social justice fails to ensure property rights for Indigenous people in the Bangladesh context. Explaining from an Indigenous standpoint paradigm (IRP) in bioprospecting (commercial use of plant materials) research among the Rakhain community, the authors conclude that non-Western utilitarian justice rather Ihsan (good deed for good deed, good acts for good acts) is a probable solution for minimizing the majority-minority tensions, establishing the rights of marginal people, and reaching SDGs in subsequent decades. Despite a rural, remote, and minority context, the appeal remains global as the bioprospecting is neither a national nor regional but a historical and global phenomenon and needs immediate policy, either attention or action or both.