Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 3, March 2022.

ABSTRACT The current COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have a strong negative impact on African countries. This is due to the fact that poverty has reduced the ability of these countries to implement health measures that are necessary to address the pandemic. In this article, I contend that colonialism has a role to play in this reduced ability to respond to the current crisis. Hence I argue that Ubuntu ethics imposes responsibility on European governments to aid Africans during this period.

In the Western theist tradition, the conception of a person tends to be understood as an intrinsic property. Hence, the classification of someone as a person does not depend on relational aspects of that person. From this, Western theists often understand that their conception of God as a person does not clash with the idea of immutability. In this article, I challenge the idea that being a person and being immutable are compatible properties by using Afro-communitarian philosophy and, more specifically (...) Afro-communitarian metaphysics of personhood. Afro-communitarian metaphysics is fundamentally relational, i.e. it understands that most properties of the world depend on the existence of other entities. More precisely, personhood is a property that depends on the existence of relatable beings. But if this is true, then it is not possible to hold that an entity that has the property of personhood also has the property of immutability. More specifically, an entity that is a person has to change due to the fact that personhood is a relational property. This is because it is a necessary condition for being a person that one relates to others, i.e. one only becomes a person when this relation occurs. Hence, the process of becoming a person requires a moment before the relation with another and one after; thereby, the feature of being a person requires the feature of change. With respect to the Christian conception of God, what this implies is that if theist philosophers wish to understand Him as a person, they have to also accept that God is not immutable. For if other beings besides Him are not eternal, then it is only possible that He can be a person when these other beings first started existing. This is the case because the kind of relationality needed to be a person is not simply to relate to something (like emptiness), but to do something that makes Him addressable (which requires that the thing He relates to has the capacity to address Him). This means there are two moments of existence where He has distinct properties and, therefore, is mutable. (shrink)

Most Anglophone just war theory has been written from the point of view of Western philosophy. Nevertheless, other philosophical traditions outside the West have also produced sophisticated and innovative ideas about the morality of war, although they have been largely neglected. In this article, I overview for the first time the literature regarding jus ad bellum in contemporary African thought and contend that there are four kinds of arguments regarding the justification to initiate a war. Namely, these are arguments that (...) justify resourcing war on consequentialist grounds; therapy rationales; rebutting wrong justifications; and arguments based on consensus and negotiation. (shrink)

In recent years, different places in the world have witnessed demands for the decolonization of education. Nevertheless, it is not completely clear how this ought to be carried out. There are various factors that influence what such decolonization may entail, including the geographical place for decolonization and the discipline being decolonized. This requires a specific analysis of each context. In this article, I wish to make a proposal for how to carry out the decolonization of philosophy teaching at the university (...) level in the African context, with a special focus on South Africa. I propose that more African philosophy be included in the curricula, as well as the integration of teaching and assessing methods that reflect African culture. Further, I argue that those seeking for decolonization ought to try to pursue it incrementally, given that it is the best strategy to achieve decolonization. (shrink)

Carrying out research on brains is important for medical advances in various diseases. However, such research ought not be carried out on human brains because the benefits do not outweigh the potential risks. A possible alternative is the use of brain surrogates. Nevertheless, some scholars who uphold a threshold account of moral status suggest the possibility that, with technological advances in the near future, more advanced brain surrogates will have very similar features to humans. This may suffice for these having (...) the same moral status as humans, and as a result, the situation may have implications for brain research, indeed, leading to the implication that this ought also not to be carried out upon brain surrogates. In this article, we present a relational approach to moral status which upholds that brain surrogates do not have the same moral status as human beings. Hence, brain research ought not be rejected on the grounds of equality of moral status between humans and brain surrogates. (shrink)

Animal advocates world-wide have been accused of campaigns immured in racism. Some authors have argued that for animal advocates to avoid this accusation they should simultaneously engage with racial discrimination issues when advocating for animal welfare/rights. This prescription has been mostly explored in the context of the Global North and by looking at Western normative theory. In this article I address this issue but by looking at the context of South Africa and analysing the prescriptions from an Afro-communitarian ethic. I (...) conclude that this ethic prescribes that there is a positive duty to engage in racial discrimination issues and, if one does not do so, a violation of some negative duties occurs. (shrink)

The question of what an African ecofeminist environmental ethical view ought to look like remains unanswered in much of philosophical writing on African environmental ethics. I consider wha...

Ubuntu has been described as an African moral philosophy that finds actions grounded on good will to be right if they promote shared identity. I contend that freedom of expression is consistent with ubuntu. Freedom of expression enables people to be the most they can be, enabling the establishment of communities in which people can live together harmoniously. With reference to the violent South African society, the study examines broadcast media violence that may harm children to draw new insights concerning (...) the moral philosophy of ubuntu, media practice, and media literacy. (shrink)

This article critically addresses the view that ubuntu values limiting freedom of expression to what elders find agreeable. I present a heterogeneous argument in favor of an attractive conception of ubuntu that values individuals by investing in the worth of community. I assume that socioeconomic development is directly related to the extent to which people are granted freedom of expression. The point is that freedom of expression enables everyone to be respected and governed in ways that are associated with the (...) establishment of communities where everyone can be the most they can be. (shrink)

Some communitarians about personhood hold that human communities are metaphysically antecedent to individual persons, and that personhood comes in degrees, and that one becomes a person through ethical maturation within a community. I offer a new communitarianism that also endorses those claims. It is based partly on certain African accounts of the person—primarily Menkiti’s account—and partly on Mark Johnston’s extraordinary argument that extremely good persons are literally at one with the human community itself. The theory’s concept of the person is (...) a novel understanding of the social self. I argue that the account helps to solve three puzzles to do with communitarian conceptions of personhood. One puzzle is about understanding the individual person as an individual. Another relates to the alleged metaphysical priority of communities over persons. And a third is a problem for the view that personhood is graded. (shrink)

Although many bioethicists have given attention to the special health issues of Africa and to the ethics of research on the continent, only a handful have considered these issues through the lens of African moral thought. The question has been for the most part neglected as to what a distinctively African moral perspective would be for the analysis and teaching of bioethics issues. To address the oversight, the authors of this paper describe embarking on a project aimed at incorporating African (...) moral perspective, values and philosophy into a teaching curriculum. The authors clarify the rationale for the project and discuss the strategies employed in Africanizing the bioethics curriculum. (shrink)

Given the importance of being able to account for moral obligations towards future generations, especially in the light of the problem of global climate change, I argue that there are under-appreciated notions in African thought that are able to significantly contribute to the on-going discourse with respect to inter-generational moral obligations. I identify two related African notions, both springing from the prominent belief that ancestors who have died ? but continue to have a presence ? are entitled to respect, which (...) upon secular refinement are promising in terms of grounding a claim that we do have moral obligations to future generations. These conceptions are that the environment is a communal resource, shared across generations, and that the present generation should express gratitude to its predecessors for preserving the environment on its behalf, by emulating its predecessors and preserving the environment for future generations. I argue that these two conceptions present plausible grounds for thinking that we have moral obligations to posterity, partly because they go some way towards overcoming some of the theoretical concerns generally associated with the notion of moral obligations towards unidentifiable, contingent future persons. (shrink)

African perspectives on personhood and personal identity and their relation to those of the West have become far more central in mainstream Western discussion than they once were. Not only are African traditional views with their emphasis on the importance of community and social relations more widely discussed, but that emphasis has also received much wider acceptance and gained more influence among Western philosophers. Despite this convergence, there is at least one striking way in which the discussions remain apart and (...) that is on a point of method. The Western discussion makes widespread use of thought experiments. In the African discussion, they are almost entirely absent. In this article, we put forward a possible explanation for the method of thought experiment being avoided that is based on considerations stemming from John Mbiti’s account of the traditional African view of time. These considerations find an echo in criticism offered of the method in the Western debate. We consider whether a response to both trains of thought can be found that can further bring the Western and African philosophical traditions into fruitful dialogue. (shrink)

In this article I aim to make progress towards the philosophical goal of ascertaining what, if anything, all mental illnesses have in common, attempting to unify a large sub-set of them that have a relational or interpersonal dimension. One major claim is that, if we want a promising theory of mental illness, we must go beyond the dominant western accounts of mental illness/health, which focus on traits intrinsic to a person such as pain/pleasure, lethargy/liveliness, fragmentation/integration, and falsehood/authenticity. A second major (...) claim is that the relational facets of mental illness are plausibly understood theoretically in terms of a person’s inability to identify with others or to exhibit solidarity with them, relational values that are salient in the African philosophical tradition. I show that these two extrinsic properties well explain several intuitive instances of mental illness, including, amongst several others, being abusive, psychopathic, narcissistic, histrionic, paranoid, and phobic. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an original account of meaning in life, which I call the passionate yearning theory. Within the framework of the passionate yearning theory, meaning is understood as the intrinsically derived yearning, and passionate striving, for something that possesses some plausible objective claim to truth or facticity, which makes it worth pursuing for its own sake. To properly delineate the view, I present the various criteria that serve as the foundation for the passionate yearning view. These include (...) the truth/facticity criterion, the lack of immorality, intrinsic subjectivity, passion, yearning and striving. I then show how these criteria coalesce into the passionate yearning theory and how exactly the theory works. Finally, I motivate the passionate yearning theory by addressing some possible criticisms and objections that can be raised against the view and also differentiate it from similar competing views. (shrink)

In African society today, ubuntu as a notion of African humanism has been, and still is, subject to critical discussion. In African literature, philosophy, ethics, anthropology and theology, ubuntu plays a vast role and scholars in Africa and globally find the notion highly debated. The concept of identity development on the African continent has been written about broadly. This article unpacks the ubuntu philosophies of Augustine Shutte, Kwame Gyekye and John Mbiti. The views of these scholars will be contrasted to (...) critically engage the conceivable commonalities for identity development through cultures. The question addressed herein is: What are the similarities and dissimilarities of ubuntu as a cornerstone for identity development in modern Africa? This article also examines the divergent definition and historical development of ubuntu culture, ubuntu philosophy of identity development, environmental development and various thinkers’ understanding of this African worldview in current Africa and further afield. Contribution: This research contributes to African theological ethics of the new landscape identity and explores the ubuntu worldviews as a developmental process of identities across cultures. Since identity development across cultures is highly dynamic, the hermeneutical interpretation of the principles of ubuntu is crucial. (shrink)

Bioethics has now become a burgeoning interdisciplinary field of scholarly investigation which has in the past decades migrated from bedside consultations to public policy debates and wider cultural and social consultations that privilege all discourse about everyday life issues. It has made exponential progress in addressing moral issues in science, technology and medicine in the world. In spite of this progress, core bioethics issues, approaches and values are still exclusively Western dominated and largely foreign to most African societies. Although medical (...) ethics has existed since the time of Hippocrates, in Africa, there is a noted sluggish growth and low prestige of ethics education as bioethics is not taught in most higher educational systems of learning, low understanding of its processes as researchers manifest a general lack of appreciation for bioethics and general ignorance characterize those involved in research about ethical practices. This is unfortunate, considering that various research that aim at finding solutions to the multiple problems affecting African societies and the need to address and assess these problems in ethical terms are of crucial importance to Africans. In this work, I argue that Africa lacks human, institutional, infrastructural capacities and a real African authenticity in bioethics. Additionally, African views on bioethics are neither sufficiently developed nor heard. Africans need to confront these current challenges of bioethics to their lives and communities and to develop African conceptions to incorporate African specificities and approaches. (shrink)

In this paper I present a critique of some aspects of Thad Metz’s attempt to develop an African moral theory grounded on the value of ubuntu. I question the sense in which this theory is African, as well as his attempt to ground human rights on his single value theory of ubuntu. In a number of publications Thad Metz has given a clear, analytic account of what ubuntu is. Metz’s work on ubuntu does two things: 1) explains the content of (...) ubuntu: what the value/virtue is; 2) presents a moral theory according to which appealing to ubuntu as a basic value enables us to explain what makes all actions right or wrong. He calls this an African moral theory. It is the second part I am skeptical about. He makes it plausible that ubuntu is an important value. And he shows how we can give it some clear content. However, I argue that he does not make plausible a single-value ethical theory based on ubuntu; it is not plausible as an ethical theory, and it is not plausible that such a theory is African in any significant sense. (shrink)

In view of the limited consideration for Afrocentric perspectives in organisational ethics literature, we examine Employee-Centred Corporate Social Responsibility from the perspective of Afrocentric employees’ social expectations. We posit that Afrocentric employees’ social expectations and the organisational practices for addressing these expectations differ from conventional conceptualisation. By focusing specifically upon the psychological attributes evolving from the fulfilment of employees’ social expectations, we argue that Afrocentric socio-cultural factors could influence perceived organisational support and perceived employee cynicism. We further draw upon social (...) exchange theory to explore rational reciprocity evolving from the fulfilment and breach of employees’ social expectations at work. Contrary to the rational norm of reciprocity, we identify a reciprocity norm within which the breach of employees’ social expectations could in fact engender positive reciprocity rooted in esan reciprocity ideology—an ideology that emerged from the ethical tradition of the Yoruba people from Nigeria, West Africa. Overall, our paper elucidates the implications of Afrocentric peculiarities for employees’ social exchange within the African workplace, thus extending the present understanding in this regard. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the relationship between love and social justice activism, focusing in particular on ways in which activists rely on either the union account of love (to argue that when one person is oppressed everyone is oppressed), the sentimentalist account of love (to argue that overcoming injustice is fundamentally about how we feel about one another), or love as fate (to argue that it is in love’s nature to triumph over hatred and injustice). All three accounts, while understandable and (...) attractive, are seriously problematic, as they tend either to obscure important differences in the ways that various groups are socially situated or to enable inaction by trusting that justice is inevitable. Alternative, deeper interpretations of each account (and their relationships to activism) are explored. (shrink)

The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglected by scholars around the globe, particularly those working (...) in the West or Northern Hemisphere. It accomplishes this primarily by bringing it into conversation with topics in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The most popular defense of altruism has come from ethicists, mostly Western ethicists, who argue that for an action to hold any justification as it pertains to altruistic commitments, such an altruistic action must stem from the agent’s internal states such as beliefs, practical reasoning, desires, or deliberative attitudes. I refer to this as the internalist justification for altruism. On this internalist approach, the mere recognition of others—which I shall refer to as an externalist justification—albeit necessary for an agent who (...) wants to perform an altruistic act, is insufficient in accounting for the agent’s altruism. This paper offers an African model of communitarian ethics (ACE) under which the externalist justification for altruism is satisfied. I argue that at its core, ACE holds a normative conception of community and personhood that accounts for a sufficient externalist justification for altruism, which proponents of internal altruism have argued is insufficient. (shrink)

I seek to advance enquiry into the philosophical question of in virtue of what human beings have a dignity of the sort that grounds human rights. I first draw on values salient in sub-Saharan African moral thought to construct two theoretically promising conceptions of human dignity, one grounded on vitality, or liveliness, and the other on our communal nature. I then argue that the vitality conception cannot account for several human rights that we intuitively have, while the community conception can (...) do so. I conclude that, of plausible theories of human dignity with an African pedigree, the field ought to favour a community-based view and critically compare it in future work with the Kantian, autonomy-based view that dominates Western thinking about dignity. (shrink)

I examine the standard view of dignity in Western literature and Metz’s African community view of dignity as a capacity for communal harmonious living. I argue that moral dignity is not just having a capacity for harmonious communal living, but the moral use of such capacity for the promotion of love, friendship, positive identity and active solidarity, which involves normatively prescriptive and evaluative elements. Thus, a plausible African communal conception of moral dignity, which is founded on a moral conception of (...) personhood and community, involves a combination of capacity and agency that is conceptually tied to communal responsibility and respect for self and others. This indicates that human capacities do not have an inherent moral worth. Capacities are instrumentally good and their worth depends on how they are used to promote the moral good of communal well-being, on which individual well-being or dignity depends. This view captures the various use-senses of dignity, addresses many of the problems with many of the analyses of dignity in the literature, and also indicates its relevance. (shrink)

A reprint in English of 'Confucianism and African Conceptions of Value, Reality and Knowledge' (International Social Science Journal, Chinese Edition, 2016).

This chapter explores prominent respects in which humility figures into ubuntu, the southern African (and specifically Nguni) term for humanness often used to capture moral philosophies and cultures indigenous to the sub-Saharan region. The chapter considers respects in which humility is prescribed by ubuntu, understood not just as a relational normative ethic, but also as a moral epistemology. Focusing specifically on philosophical ideas published in academic fora over the past 50 years or so, the chapter contends that, although the concept (...) of humility has not often been explicitly invoked in them to make sense of African normative ethics and moral epistemology, it is a useful lens through which to view key facets of these literate philosophies. In many ways, by ubuntu we are to be humble in respect of what an individual should claim from others, how she should appraise her own virtue, and what she may claim to know about morality (although no suggestion is made that it is some kind of ‘master virtue’ for the tradition). (shrink)

Forgiveness has enjoyed intense scholarly interest since the 1980s. I provide a historical overview, then identify themes in the literature, with an emphasis on those relevant to the moral psychology of forgiveness in the twenty-first century. I conclude with some attention to dual-process theories of moral reasoning in order to suggest that key debates in forgiveness are not at odds so much as they may be aligned with the different moral aims of moral and mental processes that differ in kind. (...) I argue for the view that the moral aims of forgiveness are multiple, following scholars who maintain a multidimensional account of forgiveness with a focus on the functions of forgiveness in relationships and the importance of forgiveness to its practitioners rather than a unified definition or justification that applies to all moral occasions. (shrink)

Reprint of an article that initially appeared in _Ethical Theory and Moral Practice_ (2012).

Steve Biko is one of the most important liberation activists of his time. Yet, his theoretical contribution is not well understood or appreciated. This article reconstructs Biko’s political ideas and introduces a new integrated reading and interpretation of his writings, speeches, and recorded interviews. It argues that Biko’s Black consciousness ideal should not only be read as engaging an activist movement or programme but, also, as encompassing an original theoretical framework grounded in a communalist ethos of Biko’s own conceptual development. (...) It argues that Biko’s Black consciousness ideal sought to relate racialised oppression to a historically centred communalist solution framed by two interlocking structural elements—rightful power and free community. The article argues that only by a theoretical and normative consideration of these elements, on Biko’s own conceptual terms, do we get a coherent understanding of Biko’s distinctive view of free postcolonial society. (shrink)

There has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the (...) normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio‐cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether, and to what extent, the African ethic of Ubuntu can contribute to ethical thinking in general and provide an alternative to stakeholder theory specifically. The conception of Ubuntu that is employed to further the analysis is Thaddeus Metz’s Ubuntu principle of right action, which focuses on promoting harmonious social relations premised on a shared identity and solidarity amongst people. This principle is used to develop an Ubuntu heuristic for organisational decision-making, which serves as the basis for (...) a relationholder theory. It is argued that this relationholder theory can overcome the weaknesses identified with a libertarian account of stakeholder theory, as well as serve as a profitable framework for determining both the purpose of the firm, and the responsibilities that management has towards those parties who affect, and who are affected by, the firm. (shrink)

The African philosophy of Ubuntu is typically characterised as a communitarian philosophy that emphasises virtues such as compassion, tolerance and harmony. In recent years there has been growing interest in this philosophy, and in how it can be applied to a variety of disciplines and issues. Several authors have provided useful introductions of Ubuntu in the field of business ethics and suggested theoretical ways in which it could be applied. The purpose of this paper is to extend this discussion by (...) providing a more critical analysis of Ubuntu and business ethics with the aim of clarifying the role that Ubuntu can play, and providing guidance for further research in this area. The analysis consists of three sections. In the first, certain problems are identified within the existing literature. This is followed by a consideration of alternative perspectives and interpretations of Ubuntu. The last section, following from the first two, identifies specific areas requiring further research, both empirical and non-empirical, as well as ways in which Ubuntu could be fruitfully applied. (shrink)

It has become increasingly common to point out that African morality is under-represented in ethical theorizing. However, it is less common to find arguments that this under-representation is unjustified. This latter claim tends to be simply assumed. In this paper I draw together arguments for this claim. In doing so, I make the case that the relative lack of attention paid to African moral ideas conflicts with epistemic and ethical values. In order to correct these shortcomings, moral theorists, broadly construed (...) as including descriptive and normative disciplines, have a duty to engage with and actively explore African moral ideas. I claim that Moral Foundations Theory is well suited to a descriptive exploratory project, and could provide a significant contribution to normative, African-derived moral theories that could be epistemically and ethically superior to their Western counterparts. (shrink)

As a site of colonial conquest, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced colonialism’s historic and continuing harms. One of the aspects of this harm is epistemic. In the analytic philosophical tradition, this harm can partly be theorised in line with the literature on epistemic injustice, although it does not fit squarely. I show this by arguing for what can be understood as a colonial state’s specific manifestation of epistemic injustice. This manifestation takes into account the historical context of colonisation and the continuing (...) coloniality of sub-Saharan African countries. From this, I argue for an approach to remediating this epistemic injustice that relies on the fair-minded pursuit of knowledge. This approach, I briefly argue, gains valuable insights from African epistemological traditions and can be beneficial to other epistemic injustice instances that result specifically from historical cases of oppression. (shrink)

Instances of epistemic injustice elicit resistance, anger, despair, frustration or cognate emotional responses from their victims. This sort of response to the epistemic injustices that accompanied historical systems of oppression such as colonialism, for example, is normal. However, if their victims have internalised these oppressive situations, we could get the counterintuitive response of appreciation. In this paper, I argue for the phenomenon of appreciative silencing to make sense of instances like this. This is a form of epistemic silencing that happens (...) when the accepted hegemonic intuitions of the oppressed are formed/influenced by the ideologies of the oppressors over time. Here, we have a resilient, oppressive and hegemonic epistemic system. Put together, it creates a variant of epistemic injustice and silencing that is obscure since its victims are neither resistant nor aware of the injustice they face but are appreciative. (shrink)

COVID-19 is a very complex pandemic. It has affected individuals, different countries and regions of the world equally in some senses and differently in other senses. While sub-Saharan Africa has weathered a range of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, the manner in which the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved necessitates some observations, remarks and conclusions from our own situated observation point. Compared to previous epidemics/pandemics, many African countries have displayed a sense of solidarity in the face of COVID-19 that (...) convincingly demonstrates that an Ubuntu ethic is viable and globalizable. The African continent seems, at last, to have realized that ethics dumping must be avoided and has made strides in defining its COVID-19 research agenda and strengthening its epidemic response for both public health and health research. More needs to be done in terms of public engagement, funding and technical support for research on potential therapies/candidate vaccines that are a product of scientific studies on the continent. (shrink)

The response to feeding needs in advanced dementia patients is a subject of ethical inquiry. Advanced dementia is the debilitating result of a range of neurodegenerative diseases. As this terminal illness progresses, patients develop mild to severe dysphagia that can make swallowing difficult. Of the two available options, artificial tube feeding or oral hand feeding, an estimated one-third of these patients will receive artificial tube feeding. However, observational studies have failed to validate the clinical benefits of tube feeding. Ethics of (...) care, the feminist philosophical perspective, and Ubuntu philosophy offer arguments for the choice of oral hand-feeding as a preferrable first option by caregivers as far as possible. These moral theories acknowledge that human beings can be dependent for long periods, mostly early and later years of life. Both views reflect an approach that draws people into a system of interdependent caring relationships. They encourage hand feeding as a way of exhibiting solidarity and respecting human dignity even at the end of life. (shrink)

This article introduces readers to the special issue on Selected Issues in the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. In this paper, I make a case for a wider outlook on the ethics of AI. So far, much of the engagements with the subject have come from Euro-American scholars with obvious influences from Western epistemic traditions. I demonstrate that socio-cultural features influence our conceptions of ethics and in this case the ethics of AI. The goal of this special issue is to entertain (...) more diverse views, particularly those from Africa; it brings together six articles addressing pertinent issues in the ethics of AI. These articles address topics around artificial moral agency, patiency, personhood, social robotics, and the principle of explicability. These works offer unique contributions for and from an African perspective. I contend that a wider engagement with the ethics of AI is worthwhile as we anticipate a global deployment of artificial intelligence systems. (shrink)

Public health decisions made by the state involve considerable disagreements on the course of actions, uncertainties, and compromises that arise from moral tensions between the demands of civil liberties and the goals of public health. With such complex decisions, it can be extremely difficult to arrive at and justify the best option. In this article, we propose an ethical decision-making framework based on the philosophy of Ubuntu and argue that in sub-Saharan African settings, this approach provides attractive alternative conventions of (...) moral decision-making and a useful language for understanding moral reasoning and ethics. Through its emphasis on humanity, compassion, and social responsibility, Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) has the potential to facilitate solutions to and avert conflicts between individual rights and public health. The use of Ubuntu shifts the moral reasoning and ethics of decision-making from a field of philosophy shaped by the global north, to the everyday values, decision-making, and consequent practices of people in much of Africa. Using examples of Ebola, pandemic influenza, and tuberculosis, we illustrate how Ubuntu can be applied to tackle conflicting ethical problems in public health and medicine. (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)

One of the key ethical and political issues in South Africa today is the decolonization of education. In 2015, a movement called Rhodes Must Fall was born in South Africa precisely with the purpose of engaging in activism to promote this decolonization. The Rhodes Must Fall movement to further this purpose engaged in some violent protests. The objective of this article is to assess whether South Africans are justified to believe that these protests can or cannot be morally justified from (...) the perspective of Ubuntu. To explore this question, I assess the morality of the actions using a consequentialist interpretation of African values. I contend that the symbolic violent protests of the Rhodes Must Fall movement were morally justified, whereas its indiscriminate violent protests were not. Hence, I do not myself mean to defend the position they are morally justified; instead, I wish to show that it is a moral implication of African values. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant challenges to healthcare systems worldwide, and in Africa, given the lack of resources, they are likely to be even more acute. The usefulness of Traditional African Healers in helping to mitigate the effects of pandemic has been neglected. We argue from an ethical perspective that these healers can and should have an important role in informing and guiding local communities in Africa on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Particularly, we argue not only (...) that much of the philosophy underlying Traditional African Medicine is adequate and compatible with preventive measures for COVID-19, but also that Traditional African Healers have some unique cultural capital for influencing and enforcing such preventive measures. The paper therefore suggests that not only given the cultural context of Africa where Traditional African Healers have a special role, but also because of the normative strength of the Afro-communitarian philosophy that informs it, there are good ethical reasons to endorse policies that involve Traditional Healers in the fight against COVID-19. We also maintain that concerns about Traditional African Healers objectionably violating patient confidentiality or being paternalistic are much weaker in the face of COVID-19. (shrink)