In this paper, I argue that Ubuntu can be construed as a strict form of cosmopolitan moral and political theory. The implication of this is that the duty or obligation that humans owe other humans arises in virtue of humanity or the notion of human-ness. That is, one is a person insofar as he or she forms humane relations and it is this particular way of beingness that makes every person both an object and subject of duty. On this cosmopolitan (...) interpretation of Ubuntu, I therefore, argue that Ubuntu would support the principle of natural resource redistribution according to which all humans fall within the scope of justice and the principles of distributive justice. If this is right, then Ubuntu’s cosmopolitanism has something to contribute generally to cosmopolitanism, as an account of global justice. (shrink)

African (Bantu) philosophy conceptualizes morality through ubuntu, which emphasizes the role of community in producing moral agents. This community is characterized by practices that respond to and value interdependence, such as care, cooperation, and respect for elders and ancestral knowledge. While there have been attributions of morality to nonhuman animals in the interdisciplinary animal morality debate, this debate has focused on Western concepts. We argue that the ubuntu conception of morality as a communal practice applies to some nonhuman animals. African (...) elephant communities are highly cooperative and structured around elders; they alloparent, protect their communities, mourn their dead, and pass on cultural knowledge between generations. Identifying these as important moral practices, ubuntu provides a theoretical framework to expand our ethical concern for elephants to their communities. In practice, this will deepen our understanding of the wrongness of atrocities like culling for population management or trophy hunting. (shrink)

In this paper, I address human-induced environmental ills we face using an ubuntu-inspired ethical lens. I follow ubuntu scholars to stress the significance for moral agents to embody virtues. Virtue development is essential to carry out obligations and address human impacts on the environment. Thaddeus Metz, in particular, has drawn attention to how embodying ubuntu virtues of humility and friendliness can prompt moral agents to be other-regarding. The view I developed in this paper differs from his ubuntu-inspired account in at (...) least two significant ways. First, humans cannot be in harmonious relationships with some species such as Black Mambas, Hyenas and sea urchins even if they can interact. Second, we must acknowledge the consequentialist dimension of ubuntu ethics and prioritise the different aspects of ubuntu ‘mixed’ ethics, ranking them to offer possibilities for a more realistic recommendation to change our moral life. This paper demonstrates that the three dimensions of ubuntu ‘mixed’ ethics are fundamental because we need to think about moral consequences, right action and our virtue in accounting for our actions. (shrink)

This article is a critique of Thaddeus Metz’s modal relational approach to moral status in African ethics. According to moral relationalism, a being has moral status if it exhibits the capacity for communal relationship as either a subject or an object. While Metz defends a prima facie plausibility of MR as an African account of moral status, this article provides a fresh perspective to the debate on moral status in environmental and ethical discourse. It raises two objections against MR: the (...) capability criterion inherent in MR is not only exogenous to African thought but also undermines the viability of MR; and MR cannot account for the standing of species populations. Both objections have severe implications for biodiversity conservation efforts in Africa and beyond. (shrink)

In this article, I offer concrete suggestions about which topics, texts, positions, arguments and authors from the African philosophical tradition one could usefully put into conversation with ones from the Western, especially the Anglo-American. In particular, I focus on materials that would make for revealing and productive contrasts between the two traditions. My aim is not to argue that one should teach by creating critical dialogue between African and Western philosophers, but rather is to provide strategic advice, supposing that is (...) a sensible goal to adopt. (shrink)

Our aims are to articulate some core philosophical positions characteristic of Traditional African Religion and to argue that they merit consideration as monotheist rivals to standard interpretations of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. In particular, we address the topics of how God’s nature is conceived, how God’s will is meant to bear on human decision making, where one continues to exist upon the death of one’s body, and how long one is able to exist without a body. For each of these topics, (...) we note how Traditional African Religion posits claims that clash with mainstream Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and that, being prima facie plausible, indicate the need for systematic cross-cultural philosophical debate. (shrink)

Up to now, a very large majority of work in the religious philosophy of life’s meaning has presumed a conception of God that is Abrahamic. In contrast, in this essay I critically discuss some of the desirable and undesirable facets of Traditional African Religion’s salient conceptions of God as they bear on meaning in life. Given an interest in a maximally meaningful life, and supposing meaning would come from fulfiling God’s purpose for us, would it be reasonable to prefer God (...) as characteristically conceived by African philosophers of religion to exist instead of the Abrahamic conception of God? At this stage of enquiry, I answer that, in respect of the range of people to whom God’s purpose would apply, a more African view of God would plausibly offer a greater meaning, but that, concerning what the content of God’s purpose would be, the Abrahamic view appears to offer a greater one. I conclude by reflecting on this mixed verdict and by suggesting respects in which non-purposive facets of the African and Abrahamic conceptions of God could also have implications for life’s meaning. (shrink)

In this article, I expound and assess two theories of meaning in life informed by the indigenous sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. According to one principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes community with other human persons. According to the other principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes vitality in oneself and others. I argue that, at least upon some refinement, both of these African conceptions of meaning merit global consideration from philosophers, but that the (...) vitality approach is more promising than the community one for capturing a wider array of intuitions about what confers meaning on a life. I further argue, however, that there are objections that apply with comparable force to both theories; neither one does a good job of entailing that and explaining why certain types of reason and progress can make a life more meaningful. Although these objections are characteristic of a ‘modern’ western outlook, I maintain that they are difficult for contemporary African philosophers to ignore and consider some ways they might respond to the objections. (shrink)

In this brief reply to the essays by Edwin Etieyibo, Thad Metz, and Elisa Galgut, I argue that African morality is neither biocentric nor ecocentric in the sense of accepting that “there is no significant moral difference between animal and human slaughter and rituals,” and that African modal relationalism is problematic in both its empirical assumptions and its normative counsel. I concede that anthropocentrism, whether this involves the view that only human beings merit moral treatment or the view that any (...) human is necessarily superior to or more significant morally than any other animal, is not essential to African morality. There exist several resources in African philosophical thinking for deriving a nonanthropocentric and nonspeciesist ethical orientation. The task, however, is a formidable one that requires imagination as well as intellectual consistency and honesty. (shrink)

There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial (...) allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality. (shrink)