African Ethics: A Guide to Key Ideas 9781350191785, 9781350191815, 9781350191792

Table of contents :
Cover
Halftitle page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction African Ethics: What It Is and Its Importance Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues
Introduction
Decolonization of inquiry
What is African ethics?
A short history of African ethics
Outline of the volume
Bibliography
1 Sources of Moral Justification in African Ethics Jonathan O. Chimakonam
Introduction
Some moral beliefs in African traditional thought
Two attempts at a theory of right action: Thaddeus Metz vs Amara Esther Chimakonam
Two other sources of moral justifi cation
Innocent Asouzu (complementary ethical reflection)
Conclusion
Funding Acknowledgements
Notes
References
2 African Proverbs Edwin Etieyibo
Introduction
Nature, substance and function of proverbs
African proverbs and ethics or morality
Proverbs and thematic categories
Communalistic African ethics and characteristics of African ethics
Some objections and responses
Conclusion
Notes
References
3 Innocent Asouzu’s Complementary Ethics Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya
Introduction
Background to complementary reflection
The fundamental principles, imperative and criterion of complementary reflection
The method of complementary reflection
An exposition of complementary ethics
Conclusion
Funding Acknowledgements
Notes
References
4 Basic Intuitions in African Ethics Patrick Giddy
Introduction
Universality through an inclusivity sourced in the moral order
Human nature and its telos both a fact and a value
Ethics as recognizing autonomy versus ethics as building community
Human agency as developed through the ‘other’
Resistance to global neocolonialism
References
5 African Views of Moral Status Cornelius Ewuoso
Introduction/defi nition
Moral status in dominant (Western) and African philosophy
Dominant conceptions of moral status in African relational philosophy
Concluding remarks
Bibliography
6 Influences of Religions on African Ethics Insights from African Indigenous Religions, Christianity and Islam SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai
Introduction
African pragmatic ethics: Insights from African Indigenous Religions
Influences of Christian moral thought on African ethics
Conclusion
References
7 A Personhood-Based Theory of Right Action Amara Esther Chimakonam
Introduction
African moral beliefs vs systems of African ethics: A conversation with Menkiti on his account of the normative conception of personhood
Theories of right action in African ethics
Towards a personhood-based theory of right action6
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
8 Complementary Ethical Reflection in Ibuanyidanda Philosophy Innocent I. Asouzu
Complementary ethical reflection
Nature of ethical awareness
Nature of authentic human action: The joy of being – jide ka iji
Acknowledgements
References
9 The Common Good in Complementary Ethical Reflection Innocent I. Asouzu
The common good
The common good as basic anthropological constant
Common good in tension-laden existential situations
The idea of common good and overcoming existential tension
The idea of common good and authentic existence
Common good and truth and authenticity criterion
Acknowledgements
References
10 Underlying Moral Justification of Baraza and Indaba Dialogic Institutions in African Social Ethics and Philosophy Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala
Introduction
Ethical background
Concept definitions and delimitations
Moral justification of Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
11 The Virtues of African Ethics Thaddeus Metz
Introduction
The traditionally African and the classically Greek
Community as the ground of virtue
Vitality as the ground of virtue8
The vices of African ethics
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
12 Ujamaa and African Ethics Isaiah Negedu
Introduction
Understanding ujamaa and African sociopolitical philosophy
The possibility of a meeting point between ujamaa and African ethics (can ujamaa accommodate African ethics?)
Conclusion
Notes
References
13 Ancient Egyptian Ethics’ Origin of the African Renaissance Concept Simphiwe Sesanti
Background and introduction
Defining and contextualizing ancient Egyptians’ ethics
The Supreme Being as a source of ethics
The ancestors as a source of ethics: The logic
Libation: An act honouring the Supreme Being, the ancestors, and preserving family ties
The heart and the tongue as crucial factors in the exercise of Maat
Social implications: Family as a source of ethics
Political implications: Ethical leadership
Concluding remarks
References
14 The Partialist Leaning and Impartialist Aspiration of Traditional African Ethics Ada Agada
Introduction
African Ethics, partiality and impartiality
The partialist structure of traditional African ethics
The impartialist aspiration of African ethics
Conclusion
Notes
References
15 Yorùbá Ethics Babalola Joseph Balogun
Introduction
The seven pillars of the Yorùbá ethical system
Humanism
Communality
Religiosity
Existentiality
Rationality
Reciprocity
Character-based
The roles of the gods and their deputies
Ifá and ethical visions
Yorùbá ethics in contemporary times
Conclusion
Notes
References
16 The African Ethics of Ukama Munamato Chemhuru
Introduction
Understanding ukama
Ukama and unhu/ubuntu: Distinguishing the two
The holistic character of ukama ethics
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
17 African Feminism and Africana Womanism Joyline Gwara
Introduction
Black feminism/womanism
Themes in black feminism
Africana womanism
Characteristics of Africana womanism
Looking through the lens of black feminism, womanism and Africana womanism
Conclusion
References
18 African Business Ethics Past Contributions and Future Challenges and Possibilities Minka Woermann
Introduction
A1: Business environments in sub-Saharan Africa should reflect the values of ubuntu
A2: Ubuntu can contribute significantly to the development of business ethics
The ubuntu challenge to Western- based theories
The future of African business ethics
Notes
References
19 Key Perspectives on Medical Ethics in Africa Gerald M. Ssebunnya
Introduction
Indigenous medical ethics in African traditional healing
The role of the traditional healer in Africa today
The erosion of Hippocratic medical ethics
Medical ethics in Africa today: The trajectory of principlism
Medical ethics education in Africa
Conclusion
References
20 African Just War Theory Theoretical Impetus and Contemporary Trajectory Ronald Olufemi Badru
Introduction
About conceptual issues
The Western theoretical impetus to just war theorizing in African philosophy
The evolutionary trends in just war thinking in African philosophy
Philosophers on Africa and just war thinking and practice from African philosophy
Summary and conclusion
References
21 Animals and the Environment Kai Horsthemke
Ethics and religion on the African continent
Traditional African perceptions and current practices: The hierarchy of beings, taboos and totemism
Ubuntu/botho/hunhu, ukama, ohanife and African environmentalism
Environmental justice, biocentrism and ecocentrism
A ‘truly African paradigm of knowledge’?
Towards a non-anthropocentric African ethic?
References
22 African Distributive Justice Christopher Simon Wareham
The subject matter of distributive justice
To what ends should we distribute?
Who is to benefit from distributive decisions?
How should we arrive at distributive decisions?
Conclusion
Notes
References
23 Reconciliation and Retribution in the Context of Africa Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji and Mojalefa Koenane
Introduction
Retribution and reconciliation
Concluding remarks
References
24 Human Rights in Modern African Philosophy Katrin Flikschuh
The historical ascendance of human rights
Human rights and human persons
Human rights and African statehood
Conclusion
Notes
References
25 Euthanasia in African Ethics Simon M. Makwinja
Introduction
The concept of euthanasia
The African value system
Personhood in the African value system
Euthanasia in African ethics
Conclusion
References
26 Assessing Same-sex Relations from an African Communitarian Perspective Dennis Masaka
Introduction
‘African-ness’ of same-sex relations
Communitarian thinking and individual rights
Same-sex relations in a communitarian context
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
27 African Ethics for Psychotherapy A Contemporary Discussion Gideon A. J. van Dyk
Introduction
Erosion of African ethics
Ubuntu, the foundation of African ethics
African ethics is distinctive
African ethics for psychotherapy links to professional ethics for Africa
Ubuntu therapy: An illustration of an integrated psychotherapeutic model for contemporary Africa
Conclusion
References
28 Ethics and African Philosophy of Education Moeketsi Letseka
Introduction
Clarification of terms and concepts
African philosophy of education and indigenous African education
Conclusion
References
29 Digital Communalism Towards a Social Media Ethics from an African Perspective Maduka Enyimba and Aribiah Attoe
Introduction
Digitalization: Ethical problems
Digital communalism: What it is
Employing digital communalism
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

African Ethics

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Also Available from Bloomsbury African Philosophy: Emancipation and Practice, Pascah Mungwini African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition: The Space of Thought, Bruce B. Janz Sorcery, Totem, and Jihad in African Philosophy, Christopher Wise

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African Ethics A Guide to Key Ideas Edited by Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues

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BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2023 Copyright © Jonathan O. Chimakonam, Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues, and Contributors, 2023 Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design by Charlotte Daniels Cover image: Woman holding a beaded globe with Africa showing (© David Malan / Getty Images) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN:

HB: 978-1-3501-9178-5 ePDF: 978-1-3501-9179-2 eBook: 978-1-3501-9180-8

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

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To the Anonymous Traditional African Philosophers of the Complementary System of Thought; of which Innocent Izuchukwu Asouzu (of the Calabar School) is their finest incarnation. This is a special dedication to mark Asouzu’s official retirement and celebrate his illustrious career as an inimitable thinker and the Allfather of African philosophy. —Jonathan O. Chimakonam To my late grandparents Otília Banza and Manuel Cordeiro —Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues

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Contents List of Contributors Preface Acknowledgements

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Introduction. African Ethics: What It Is and Its Importance Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues Sources of Moral Justification in African Ethics Jonathan O. Chimakonam African Proverbs Edwin Etieyibo Innocent Asouzu’s Complementary Ethics Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya Basic Intuitions in African Ethics Patrick Giddy African Views on Moral Status Cornelius Ewuoso Influences of Religions on African Ethics: Insights from African Indigenous Religions, Christianity and Islam SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai A Personhood-Based Theory of Right Action Amara Esther Chimakonam Complementary Ethical Reflection in Ibuanyidanda Philosophy Innocent I. Asouzu The Common Good in Complementary Ethical Reflection Innocent I. Asouzu Underlying Moral Justification of Baraza and Indaba Dialogic Institutions in African Social Ethics and Philosophy: A Literary Research Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala The Virtues of African Ethics Thaddeus Metz Ujamaa and African Ethics Isaiah Negedu Ancient Egyptian Ethics’ Origin of the African Renaissance Concept Simphiwe Sesanti The Partialist Leaning and Impartialist Aspiration of Traditional African Ethics Ada Agada Yorùbá Ethics Babaloa Joseph Balogun The African Ethics of Ukama Munamato Chemhuru African Feminism and Africana Womanism Joyline Gwara

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1 9 31 51 69 81

91 103 121 141

159 185 197 209 223 237 253 267 vii

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Contents

18 African Business Ethics: Past Contributions and Future Challenges and Possibilities Minka Woermann 19 Key Perspectives on Medical Ethics in Africa Gerald M. Ssebunnya 20 African Just War Theory: Theoretical Impetus and Contemporary Trajectory Ronald Olufemi Badru 21 Animals and the Environment Kai Horthemke 22 African Distributive Justice Christopher Simon Wareham 23 Reconciliation and Retribution in the Context of Africa Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji and Mojalefa Koenane 24 Human Rights in Modern African Philosophy Katrin Flikcshuh 25 Euthanasia in African Ethics Simon M. Makwinja 26 Assessing Same-sex Relations from an African Communitarian Perspective Dennis Masaka 27 African Ethics for Psychotherapy: A Contemporary Discussion Gideon A. J. van Dyk 28 Ethics and African Philosophy of Education Moetketsi Letseka 29 Digital Communalism: Towards a Social Media Ethics from an African Perspective Maduka Enyimba and Aribiah Attoe

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Index

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279 295 311 325 337 351 369 383 401 417 427

List of Contributors 1. Ada Agada The Conversational School of Philosophy 2. Amara Esther Chimakonam University of Johannesburg and The Conversational School of Philosophy 3. Aribiah Attoe University of the Witwatersrand and The Conversational School of Philosophy 4. Ronald Olufemi Badru Lead City University, Ibadan 5. Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala Durban University of Technology 6. Christopher Simon Wareham University of the Witwatersrand 7. Cornelius Ewuoso University of the Witwatersrand 8. Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji Adekunle Ajasin University 9. Dennis Masaka Great Zimbabwe University

12. Innocent I. Asouzu University of Calabar 13. Isaiah Negedu Federal University of Lafia and The Conversational School of Philosophy 14. Patrick Giddy University of KwaZulu-Natal 15. Jonathan O. Chimakonam University of Pretoria, University of Calabar and The Conversational School of Philosophy 16. Babalola Joseph Balogun Obafemi Awolowo University 17. Joyline Gwara  University of Zimbabwe and The Conversational School of Philosophy 18. Kai Horsthemke KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany 19. Katrin Flikcshuh London School of Economics

10. Edwin Etieyibo University of the Witswatersrand

20. L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya University of Pretoria and The Conversational School of Philosophy

11. Gerald M. Ssebunnya Padre Pio Medical Centre Department of Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine

21. Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues Hunan University ix

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List of Contributors

22. Maduka Enyimba University of Calabar and The Conversational School of Philosophy 23. Minka Woermann Stellenbosch University 24. Moetketsi Letseka University of South Africa 25. Mojalefa Koenane University of South Africa 26. Munamato Chemhuru Great Zimbabwe University

27. Simphiwe Sesanti University of the Western Cape 28. Simon M. Makwinja University of Malawi 29. SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai University of Portland 30. Thaddeus Metz University of Pretoria 31. Gideon A. J. van Dyk Stellenbosch University

Preface In Africa, the publication of academic research essays that are culturally inspired became the norm from the 1950s when colonialism began to shrink. In the case of philosophy, academics have been trying, in their syllabuses and academic research, to include perspectives from outside the West, like Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Nigerian philosopher, T. Uzodinma Nwala of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, being the first to develop and teach courses in African philosophy on the planet in 1972 (Konye 2022). African philosophy and, in particular, African ethics, has been undoubtedly an incredibly valuable and popular topic scholars have been engaging with. This volume aims to be a guidebook for academics, students and researchers for referencing, teaching and studying in African ethics. It is the first encyclopedia-like volume dedicated exclusively to African ethics. Particularly, it will offer a historical overview of African ethics, along with its key concepts and current debates in ethics in the African intellectual community. In other words, the chapters in this volume aim at providing a conceptually clear introductory understanding of African ethics by summarizing important developments in different areas of African ethics such as meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. While there are a few books that have offered an introductory understanding of African ethics, this volume offers the first concept and debate guide focused on African ethics that covers broad areas of ethics in an authoritative way. It aims to cover five fields of ethics in African philosophy, namely meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, methodology and history. It has become urgent to produce a book of this nature following the lacunae widely reported in extant literature. The discipline of African philosophy is witnessing a period of massive growth. New centers of original thinking like the Calabar School and its offspring, the Conversational School of Philosophy have ignited new fires of creative thinking in the discipline. Specifically, a lot is known about ethics in Western and Eastern philosophies but not so for ethics in African philosophy. Researchers in African ethics now want to break new ground and explore underexplored ethical ideas like those found in African philosophy. This book makes authoritative presentation of ethical ideas in African philosophy. Themes such as ubuntu, personhood, Afro-communitarianism, Egbe bere Ugo bere (EBUB), complementarity, uze-ezumezu, relationality etc. feature prominently in the discussions of several chapters. Teachers and students of philosophy desire more than ever to teach and learn new perspectives. This book derives from a motivation to fulfil serious academic and research needs and, above all else, to advance the cause of human knowledge in the field of African ethics. This project has become especially necessary due to certain obvious changes in the field of philosophy generally in the last decade, particularly in intercultural philosophy and southern traditions where enormous interest has developed. There is also a gap in xi

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the literature in different parts of philosophy, specifically the perspectives from other traditions. This volume is an attempt to fill such a gap in the field of ethics from the African philosophy perspective. We recommend the volume for scholars in African philosophy, African studies and philosophy generally. We call for a much more rubust conversation to ensue from this book so as to break further ground in the discipline of African ethics. Let the conversation begin! Jonathan O. Chimakonam, University of Pretoria and University of Calabar Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Hunan University November 2021

Bibliography Konye, N. 2022. ‘African Philosophy: The Twentieth Century Rhetorics of Identity’. In Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy, eds. J. Chimakonam, E. Etieyibo & I. Odimegwu, 333-48. Cham: Springer Nature.

Acknowledgements We acknowledge our contributors for painstakingly producing exciting chapters for this volume. Also, we acknowledge the efforts of Liza Thompson and Lucy Russell at Bloomsbury Academic, and the entire team at Bloomsbury who worked on this project from start to finish. Jonathan further wishes to acknowledge that ‘this work is based on the research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Numbers 132057)’. Opinions expressed in this research are those of the author(s); the NRF accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard. Luís further wishes to thank his mother and brother, Catarina and Ricardo, for their incredible love and support. He also wishes to thank his godparents, Paco and Simone.  Special thanks go to Yuxiang Dai for always giving him courage to keep going in the face of life’s vicissitudes. His research has been funded by Hunan University’s Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, fund number 531118010426. ᵜ ᮷ਇ⒆ইབྷᆖĀѝཞ 儈ṑสᵜ、⹄ъ࣑䍩āу亩䍴䠁䍴ࣙ(531118010426). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations. Chapters 8 and 9 were first published in The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and beyond African Philosophy, by Innocent I. Asouzu (Calabar: University of Calabar Press, 2004), 354–80. They are reprinted here with the permission of the author who is the copyright holder. We are grateful to the author. Chapter 11 was first published in The Handbook of Virtue Ethics, edited by Stan Van Hooft (Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing, 2014), 276–84. It is reprinted here with copyright permission of the publishers, Informa UK Limited. We are grateful to both publisher and author.

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Introduction African Ethics: What It Is and Its Importance Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues

Introduction To do African philosophy is an act of defiance. Looking at the history of Western philosophy, it has been routinely the case that, when Africans engaged in intellectual work, they have been mocked and diminished. In fact, the writings of prominent philosophers, such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant, contain negative remarks about Africans (Parris 2015). Taking this on board, this book becomes an act of defiance: it includes many African voices and looks at African philosophy and, more specifically, at African ethics as a place for thinking about solutions to moral problems. Situating African ethics in this way is an act of defiance (Parris 2015; Tabensky 2008; Mbembe 2017). Although African ethics has been largely excluded from moral inquiries in the West, the truth is that this exclusion is a methodological flaw even according to the so-called mainstream methods of ethics. First, some of the most prominent ethical methodologies include intuitions as some form of moral evidence. In the case of reflective equilibrium, intuitions are the framework with which a moral theory should match (Rawls 1999). From an intuitionist perspective, these are what ultimately confirm the truth or falsity of a moral view (Sidgwick and Rawls 1981). In any case, both methodologies require that the larger the number of people to hold a certain set of intuitions, the more likely the moral theory is true. Given that Africans encompass a large population, excluding African ethical intuitions implies ignoring either significant evidence for supporting a theory or reasons to reject it. Secondly, from a Millian perspective, the more theories we consider and discuss, the more likely it is that one achieves moral truths (Mill 2015). Taking this on board, the exclusion of African ethical perspectives is a serious flaw, even according to the standards of Western ethical theories. Turning to more robust logical arguments, we can think of the marginalization of African ethics by the so-called mainstream as something that amounts to ‘methodological deficiency’ in ethics. Every shred of moral knowledge is no more than a perspective. In matters of ethics, there can be no supreme council! One perspective, then, cannot possibly be the only perspective. The elevation of one perspective to the so-called mainstream, or what Meinrad Hebga (1958) and Innocent Asouzu (2007) 1

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mock as the dogma of ‘absolute standard’ and ‘absolute instance’, respectively, represents a form of ‘theoretic barricade’ against other perspectives to ethics. This barricade, which is a manifestation of a negative ‘cultural politics’, as Richard Rorty (2007) describes it, is bad for everyone, whether mainstream or the margins, and ultimately bad for the discipline of ethics. Methodological deficiency is, perhaps, the worst that can be said of a discipline. It is one thing for the frontiers of knowledge yet to make considerable extensions, and another thing entirely to build walls to prevent the admission of extensions. The ongoing practice in which the self-anointed mainstream of ethics consciously muscles away other moral perspectives into what Jacques Derrida (1982) describes as the ‘margins of philosophy’ ultimately amounts to a lopsided theory of ethics that becomes methodologically deficient as a result of a lot of omissions. Since ethics is the theory of right and wrong conducts, it is, and will always be, better to err in excess than in deficit. Therefore, the inquiry into the normative grounds of human conducts, as presently constituted, ought to be conducted.

Decolonization of inquiry One way to interrogate the practices that derail inquiries in ethics would be the path of decolonization. Decoloniality researchers trace various forms of epistemic marginalization to ‘coloniality of knowledge’. This is a practice built on the supposition that only one culture and people (the colonial West) possess the power to determine knowledge production, regulation and dissemination (Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya 2021). This emerged out of the European colonial conquest of other lands that led to the formation and imposition of European modernity (Dussel 1993; Quijano 2000; Mignolo 2000; Grosfoguel 2007; Maldonado-Torres 2007). Therefore, the decolonization of ethics serves the purposes of methodological balance that has been lacking, nondiscrimination and epistemic justice, and improving how ethical research is carried out today (Wareham 2017; Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya 2021). Decolonialists argue that principal tropes of European modernity such as coloniality of power, coloniality of being and coloniality of knowledge, stand in the way of a balanced, comprehensive and rigorous global episteme. In a world of many diversities, one straw lens is simply not enough. The pursuit of the ultimates of philosophy can only be better done through complementarity of visions. Decoloniality then decries any attempt to universalize one cultural particular as the ‘ultimate veracious buttress’ (Serequeberhan 1991). According to Aimé Césaire (2010), the ‘truly universal’ is one borne out of various particulars. There is no such thing as one authentic approach to ethics as the picture from the so-called mainstream attempts to portray. What we have are different approaches representing various cultural contributions. Innocent Asouzu (2004) looks at the scenario as one that shows a need for complementation of views. Logically, there is a need to sort out the potential pitfalls. Mainstreamists hoist the flag of Western philosophy, declare it the standard and the model, and lean on the classical two-valued logic to residualize the rest. Scholars have already dismissed the impregnability of the laws of two-valued logic (Korner 1967; Chimakonam 2019). If one accepts the supremacy of that logic, then a crisis of thought is engendered. On

Introduction

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the one hand, there is the awareness that veritable normative theorizing is not exhausted in the approach of the West, but, on the other, inconsistencies and contradictions would arise from any attempt to unveil other ethical formations that differ from the norm. Thus, a true decolonial programme necessarily should begin with the logic of coloniality. The two-valued logic provides the framework for the elevation of one cultural particular and the residualization of the rest. It is the backbone of binary opposition that halves the world and, specifically, knowledge into superior and inferior, standard and non-standard, theory and worldview, ethics and qualified ethics or moral beliefs, etc. If one dismantles this straitjacketed, bivalent and divisive logic, the lopsidedness that endorses one cultural particular while delegitimizing others would suddenly disappear. Bourgeoning disciplines like African ethics will immediately be seen in a proper light as one of the ethical approaches that make up the world episteme. The question would then cease to be, Is African ethics legitimate?, but would become, what can African ethics contribute to the discourse?

What is African ethics? The question of what constitutes African ethics is itself controversial in at least two ways. First, not everyone agrees on what constitutes ‘African’; secondly, there is a wide disagreement on the meaning of what counts as philosophy and, therefore, also what counts as one of its subdisciplines – ethics. Regarding what constitutes ‘African’, there are, in general terms, two main perspectives. On the one hand, philosophers like Paulin Hountondji (1996) consider that ‘African’ refers only to those works produced by someone who comes from a specific ethnic origin. Peter Bodunrin (1991) and Kwasi Wiredu (1980) share similar views, except for the simplicity of Hountondji’s position. The latter two would play down the ethnic identity and opinion of the author in favour of critical rigour. This African origin view espoused by Hountondji tends to defend the notion that only those who hail from Africa can produce African philosophy. The reason why he defends this perspective is likely that the predicate ‘African’ refers to a specific subjectivity. Other philosophers, like Odera Oruka (1975), Sophie Oluwole (1989), Bruce Janz (2009) and Jennifer Lisa Vest (2009), consider that the term ‘African’ ought to be used to refer to concepts that hail from Africa. Thaddeus Metz (2007a) would delineate this geography as strictly Africa south of the Sahara. According to the conceptual view, the author’s identity is less relevant, and what matters the most is whether the conceptual framework comes from Africa and that the author is versed in African intellectual history. So, for example, if a philosopher engages with the concept of ubuntu and develops a philosophy according to this concept, then this philosopher is producing African philosophy. This approach is also popular among pan-Africans; for example, Mário Pinto de Andrade and Pepetela, two important names of Angolan liberation, understood the terms ‘African’, and ‘Angolan’ as something related to a state of mind and a conceptual framework (Andrade 1997; Tenreiro and Andrade 1982; Pepetela 1996). Debates on the meaning of philosophy are common in philosophical circles. Like the previous debate, there are two main positions on what constitutes philosophy

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(Williamson 2007). On the one hand, philosophers like Kwasi Wiredu (1980) and Peter Bodunrin (1991) consider that only systematic and analytical studies of what is agreed to be a philosophical question by the relevant community can be considered philosophy. Ethics, according to this perspective, is a systematic and analytical study of normative problems. Contrastingly, a more open view is the perspective that philosophy refers to any kind of world wisdom and therefore can include different traditions and approaches (Laude 2019: 14). Many philosophers today hold the first perspective, but somehow with a degree of contradiction and bias. Presocratics, for example, are usually considered philosophers, but what they did is far from being considered systematic study, whereas other forms of wisdom that hail from outside the Global North are not. This volume holds open views in both debates: it understands the term ‘African’ to refer to the conceptual approach teased out of common threads in the thought systems of various cultures in Africa and philosophy as including different kinds of world wisdom. There are schools of thought, such as the traditionalist and the conversationalist, which would restrict the predicate ‘African’ to Africa south of the Sahara and others, or the Egyptologist and the universalist, who would extend it to include Arab North Africa. We would not debate this controversy here. But our position is that African ethics is the study of the principles of right conduct from the African philosophical perspective.

A short history of African ethics If we grant the claims of the Egyptologists and universalists, we will trace the history of African ethics at least back to ancient Egyptian philosophy. At the time of ancient Egypt, those producing ethical works were mostly the elites: priests, officials and so forth. Ptahhotep is an example of an ethicist in ancient Egyptian philosophy. He lived during the reign of Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi in the Fifth Dynasty and wrote a treatise that defended consequentialist ethics. Although there are written sources from ancient Egypt, there has been a significant gap between this period and the moment when written African sources appear again (Ashby 2005). Added to the above are the ideas of St Augustine of Hippo and Anton Amo, who practised in Germany. The problem with this dating is that we would have to demonstrate the connection and the methodological similarity between philosophy in ancient Egypt and contemporary African philosophy. The cultural inspiration and background are totally different. To avoid too much speculation and possible imposition of ideas, we would discuss the history of African ethics practised in much of Africa south of the Sahara. To do this, there are two major epochs; the age of the anonymous African philosophers and the age of the systematic thinkers (Asouzu 2004; Chimakonam 2015). Both Asouzu and Chimakonam draw attention to the two epochs above, divided by the interruption of colonialism. The first being a world view corpus produced by unknown African philosophic sages and typically referred to as ‘ethnophilosophy’. The second being systematic ideas produced by known individuals. Several African philosophers today have attempted to excavate, discuss and interpret various kinds of philosophic wisdom. Some very good examples include Wiredu on the

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Akan concept of truth (1985); Ifeanyi Menkiti on the African notion of personhood (1984); T. Uzodinma Nwala on Igbo philosophy (1985), and several others. Asouzu (2004) explains that much of what is reported or accounted for by these philosophers are the views of ancient African anonymous philosophers. Immediately succeeding these views are what has come to light as the views of some Ethiopian philosophers such as Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat (Kiros 1996). More discoveries of long-forgotten manuscripts by other African philosophers that predated colonialism are being made, and we cannot track all without digressing too much. The point is that several of these views and philosophers discussed ideas that fall within the domain of ethics and range from treatises on human nature and conduct to moral bearings on traditional norms and practices. However, the age of systematic thinking brought with it a lot of ethical ideas produced by different African philosophers largely in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We would divide some of the notable contributions into two categories: the hermeneutical and the theoretical. In the first group are African philosophers such as John Mbiti (1969), Menkiti (1984), Wiredu (1985), Kwame Gyekye (1992), Innocent Onyewuenyi (1996), Mogobe Ramose (2003) and Murove (2007), who excavated, discussed and interpreted ethical ideas in their various cultures and world views. In the second category are Asouzu (2004), Thaddeus Metz (2007a and 2007b), Amara Chimakonam (2021) and a few others, who have produced theories of right actions. Whereas Asouzu teased his out of the communalist world view, Metz produced his theory from the ubuntu world view, and Amara Chimakonam teased hers out of the personhood worldview. One main difference between the two categories is that whereas the first produced an account of ethical norms in various African cultures such as ubuntu, ukama, uwunna, personhood and communalism, the second is ethical theories produced by various authors as their own individual reflection. These world view narratives and ethical theories are discussed extensively in the chapters of this book.

Outline of the volume This book covers topics in meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. The first ten chapters concern questions of ethical methodology: how usually ethical systems and beliefs are justified in the African context. The first chapter by Jonathan O. Chimakonam starts with a discussion of what sources of moral justification are usually encountered in African philosophical literature. Then, Edwin Etieyibo, in Chapter 2, turns to a specific form of source of moral justification: African proverbs. Chapter 3, authored by Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya, focuses on one method of ethical thinking, which is complementary reflection. Patrick Giddy in Chapter 4 explains what the role of intuitions in African ethics is, and also outlines some important ethical intuitions in Africa. In Chapter 5, Cornel Ewuoso discusses the African views on moral status. SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai, in Chapter 6, makes a link between African ethics and religion: namely, he explains how religions have been a key influence on African ethical systems. In Chapter 7, Amara Esther Chimakonam discusses the notion of personhood and furthers her personhood-based theory of

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right action as a novel attempt to build more systems in African ethics. Innocent Asouzu, in Chapters 8 and 9, provides an exposition of traditional African understanding of some key concepts in ethics before formulating his theory of ethics of complementary reflection. Chris Kiyala, in Chapter 10, gives an overview of Baraza and Indaba as methods of moral justification in the African context. Chapters 11–16 turn to normative ethical topics. Thaddeus Metz, in Chapter 11, outlines African virtue ethics. Then, in Chapter 12, Isaiah Negedu explains ujamaa as an ethical concept. Simphiwe Sesanti in Chapter 13 links African ethics with its foundations in Kemet. Ada Agada discusses the partiality and impartiality aspects of African ethics in Chapter 14. Joseph Balogun, in Chapter 15, engages the key concepts of Yorùbá ethics. In Chapter 16, Munamoto Chemhuru discusses the Southern African concept of ukama. The remaining chapters (17–29) are concerned with applied ethics. In Chapter 17, Joyline Gwara gives an account of how African feminism/womanism has developed. Minka Woermann, in Chapter 18, offers an overview of the main debates on African business ethics. In the next chapter, Gerald M. Ssebunnya provides the main views on questions regarding medical ethics. Badru Olufemi analyses the discussions around the ethics of war in Africa. Kai Horthemke describes current conversations with respect to animals and the environment. Christopher Wareham, in Chapter 22, examines the core ideas in African distributive justice. Mojalefa Koenane and Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji provide an analysis of the concepts of reconciliation and punishment in the African context. In Chapter 24, Katrin Flikcshuh makes a link between human rights and some ideas in African philosophy. Chapter 25 by Simon Makwinja is a discussion of the debates of euthanasia in the African context. In the chapter after that, Dennis Masaka clarifies the discussions on sexuality in the African philosophical circle. Chapter 27 by Van Dyk is focused on ethical questions in psychotherapy. Moetketsi Letseka, in the penultimate chapter, overviews the ethical questions raised in African philosophy of education. The final chapter by Maduka Enyimba and Aribiah Attoe discusses the African ethical perspectives on digital communalism. Finally, other major themes, such as ubuntu, personhood, Afro-communitarianism and EBUB, feature prominently in the discussions in several chapters, making the book broad in its coverage. This volume, no doubt, is a rich collection of essays that discuss, articulate and systematize various ideas and concepts in the growing field of African ethics. It represents a major contribution to ethics broadly conceived from the African philosophical tradition. Contributors include established and emerging scholars in African philosophy, African and non-African practitioners, as well as people of different gender groups. We invite the reader to an intellectual feast that once again demonstrates that the epistemologies of the South have, indeed, come of age.

Bibliography Andrade, Mário de. 1997. Origens do nacionalismo africano: Continuidade e raptura nos movimentos unitários emergentes da luta contra a dominação colonial portuguesa, 1911–1961. Lisbon: Publicaçãoes Dom Quixote.

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Ashby, Muata. 2005. Introduction to Maat Philosophy: Ancient Egyptian Ethics & Metaphysics, 3rd ed. Sema Institute. Asouzu, Innocent. I. 2004. The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and Beyond African Philosophy. Calabar: University of Calabar. Bodunrin, Peter. 1991. ‘The question of African philosophy’. In African Philosophy: The Essential Readings, ed. Tsenay Serequeberhan, 63–86. New York: Paragon House. Césaire, Aimé. 1956/2010. Letter to Maurice Thorez, trans. Chike Jeffers. Social Text 28(2(103)): 145–52. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2009-072 Chimakonam, Amara. E. 2021. ‘Towards a Personhood-Based Theory of Right Action: Investigating the Covid-19 Pandemic and Religious Conspiracy Theories in Africa’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 10(2): 191–210. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ft.v10i2.12 Chimakonam, Jonathan. O. 2019. Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies. Cham: Springer. Chimakonam, Jonathan. O. 2015. ‘Dating and periodization questions in African philosophy’. In Atuolu omalu: Some unanswered questions in contemporary African philosophy, ed. Jonathan O. Chimakonam, 9–34. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Chimakonam, Jonathan O., and Uchenna L. Ogbonnaya. 2021. African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy. Cham: Palgrave. Dussel, Enrique. 1993. ‘Eurocentrism and Modernity’. boundary 2 20(3): 65–76. Grosfoguel, R. 2007. ‘The Epistemic Decolonial Turn: Beyond Political-Economy Paradigms,’ Cultural Studies 21(2/3): 203–46. Gyekye, Kwame. 1992. ‘Person and Community in Akan Thought’. In Person and Community, eds. K. Wiredu and K. Gyekye, 101–22. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Hebga, M. 1958. ‘Logic in Africa’. Philosophy Today 2(4): 222–9. Hountondji, Paulin. 1996. African philosophy: Myth and Reality, rev. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Janz, Bruce. 2009. Philosophy in an African Place. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Kiros, Teodros. 1996. ‘Claude Sumner’s Classical Ethiopian Philosophy’. Northeast African Studies, New Series, 3(2), 39–52. Korner, Stephen. 1967. ‘Laws of thought’. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards, vol. 4. New York: Macmillan. Laude, Patrick. 2019. ‘Reflections on Re-learning to be Human in a Global Age’. In Philosophy as Love of Wisdom: Its Relevance to the Contemporary Crisis of Meaning, 13–23. Michigan: CRVP. Maldonado-Torres, N. 2007. ‘On Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the Development of a Concept’. Cultural Studies 21(2–3): 240–70. Mbembe, Achille. 2017. Critique of Black Reason. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mbiti, John. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. London: Heinemann. Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 1984. ‘Person and community in African traditional thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Richard Wright, 3rd ed., 41–55. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Metz, Thaddeus. 2007a. ‘Toward an African Moral Theory’. Journal of Political Philosophy 15(3): 321–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2007.00280.x Metz, Thaddeus. 2007b. ‘Ubuntu as a Moral Theory: Reply to Four Critics’. South African Journal of Philosophy 26(4): 369–87. https://doi.org/10.4314/sajpem.v26i4.31495

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Mignolo, W. D. 2000. Local Histories/Global Designs: Essays on the Coloniality of Power, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mill, John Stuart. 2015. On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays, eds. Mark Philp and Frederick Rosen, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murove, M. F. 2007. ‘The Shona Ethic of Ukama with Reference to the Immortality of Values’. Mankind Quarterly 48(2), 179–89. doi:10.46469/mq.2007.48.2.4 Nwala, T. Uzodinma. 1985. Igbo philosophy. Lagos: Lantern Books. Oluwole, B. Sophie, ed. 1989. Readings in African Philosophy. Lagos: Masstech Publications. Onyewuenyi, Innocent, C. 1996. The African Belief in Reincarnation: A Philosophical Reappraisal. Enugu: Snaap Press. Oruka, Odera. 1975. ‘The fundamental principles in the question of African philosophy’. Second Order 4(1): 44–65. Parris, LaRose T. 2015. Being Apart: Theoretical and Existential Resistance in Africana Literature. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Pepetela. 1996. Mayombe. London: Heinemann. Quijano, Anibal. 2000. ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrismand Latin America’. Nepantla: Views from the South 1(3): 533–79. Ramose, Mogobe. B. 2003. ‘The Ethics of Ubuntu’. In The African Philosophy Reader, 2nd ed., eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 379–87. London: Routledge Rawls, J. 1999. A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rorty, Richard. 2007. Philosophy as Cultural Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Serequeberhan, Tsenay. 1991. ‘African philosophy: The point in question’. In African Philosophy: The Essential Readings, ed. Tsenay Serequeberhan, 3–28. New York: Paragon House. Sidgwick, Henry, and John Rawls. 1981. Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. Tabensky, Pedro Alexis. 2008. ‘The Postcolonial Heart of African Philosophy.’ South African Journal of Philosophy 27(4): 285–95. https://doi.org/10.4314/sajpem.v27i4.31518 Tenreiro, Francisco José, and Mário de Andrade. 1982. Poesia negra de expressão portuguesa. Lisbon: Livraria Escolar Editora. Vest, J. L. 2009. ‘Perverse and necessary dialogues in African philosophy’. Thought and Practice: Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, New Series, 1(2): 1–23. Wareham, Christopher Simon. 2017. ‘A Duty to Explore African Ethics?’ Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20(4): 857–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-017-9826-x Williamson, Timothy. 2007. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1985. ‘The Concept of Truth in Akan Language’. In Philosophy in Africa: Trends and Perspectives, ed. P. O. Bodunrin. Ilé-Ifè: University of Ifé Press. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1980. Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Sources of Moral Justification in African Ethics Jonathan O. Chimakonam

Introduction There are bits and pieces in the literature on African ethics out there. What has not largely been done is the systematic structuring of such ideas to demarcate the normative from the meta-ethical and the applied. To do the preceding requires, among other things, the separation of African ethics as a systematic study from African moral beliefs. It is common to see a conflation or outright confusion of the two. African moral beliefs are not systems. They have no discernible logical foundation, no rigorous home-grown methodologies, and their contents are not organized along the lines of the laws of any clearly formulated logic. They are mainly accounts of diverse cultural norms as they apply in various traditional societies. A good example is Munyaradzi Murove (2020: 7–30), who presents African moral beliefs as if they were systems of African ethics. Morality has different structures in both traditional and modern societies. The former takes the shape of beliefs or norms that guide behaviour in specific cultures or groups and have come down through generations. Such beliefs are usually static, unchanging and unquestionable. Most people do not know how such beliefs came to be formed and adopted by their societies. Some societies have epic stories that serve as explanations and, sometimes, as justifications for some of their beliefs. Such stories are shrouded in myths and sacredness that not only resist but discourage questioning. For this, Kwasi Wiredu describes a collection of such beliefs as an ‘ethic’ to be separated from a set of universally applicable principles called a system or theory of ‘ethics’ (2005: 45). Also, Robin Horton characterizes such a body of knowledge in traditional societies as ‘closed predicaments’ as opposed to those of a modern society which he characterizes as ‘open predicaments’ (2020: 27–8). While the former does not admit of questions and revisions, the latter does. But this sort of thing is obtainable in all traditional societies. They are not exclusive to African traditional societies. Wiredu1 (2020) makes this point succinctly in his criticism of Horton’s mismatch of traditional African thought with modern Western thought. Despite the epistemic closure that characterizes traditional societies, it is important to observe that their moral beliefs suffice for such societies where the line between individual endowments and communal values is blurred. The ideas of liberty, rights, freedom and autonomy are hardly separable from communal values. Duty in many 9

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forms is understood primarily as obligation to the community. Attainment of virtue is only possible through unquestioned adherence to the moral beliefs prescribed by society. No one dares to challenge those moral beliefs in many traditional societies, and no one in their right mind should. The trait of closed predicament is what makes it difficult for traditional societies to break away from their constraints. The difficulties involved in the transition from medieval to modern Europe is a good example. Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger (1983) paint a better picture of the often-neglected firm grip which traditions can have on society. They argue that traditions most times could be invented ideas with little or no foundations in reality. A modern society, for its part, is one in which individual endowments come to the fore in the determination of the well-being of society. Rights, autonomy and freedom are enshrined into law and protected. People may use their reason and question the norms of their society. The primacy of those individual endowments is what necessitates laws and policies. In such a society, it is realized that it is too dangerous for a society to function on the basis of beliefs. Everyone has the right to expression and can argue their way out of the jaws of moral beliefs. To ensure that the power of reason is not abused, systems of morality or ethical standards become necessary to ground the laws of society. These are systematic and well-argued structures that rationally justify its precepts. They are not mere beliefs such that no one understands their wisdom. They are systems to which any reasonable person can relate. Thus, we may ask, do we have such systems of ethics as yet in African philosophy that can serve as sources of moral justification? In this chapter, I will distinguish traditional moral beliefs from systems of African ethics, and show that the latter construes social behaviour in terms of certain principles, methodologies and logic. I will not claim to exhaust all of the existing moral beliefs and systems in African philosophy in my discussions. I can only claim to focus on the prominent ones. I will discuss ubuntu, personhood, EBUB (egbe bere ugo bere) and ukama, as traditional moral beliefs. I will demonstrate how some scholars like Thaddeus Metz and Amara Esther Chimakonam have attempted to revise and elevate these beliefs to a prescriptive level. Along with the preceding, I will also discuss the systems of complementary ethics and the ethics of uze-ezumezu as sources of moral justification in African ethics. I will anticipate and address some possible objections.

Some moral beliefs in African traditional thought In the last few decades, many African scholars have celebrated ideas such as ubuntu, personhood, EBUB and ukama as forms of indigenous African thought. Some even discuss these ideas as though they were fully systematic (see Mbiti 1970; Menkiti 1984; Murove 2020; Ramose 2002; Mangena 2016). Others take the position of systematizers (Gyekye 1992; Matolino 2014), while some attempt to apply the ideas to random topics in ethics (Ikuenobe 2006; Molefe 2017). In the field of African ethics, there appear to be three clear systematic formulations in existence, namely Innocent Asouzu (2004), Thaddeus Metz (2007a) and Amara Esther Chimakonam (2021, and another instalment to her theory contained in Chapter 7 of this collection). I will introduce a fourth, called

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uze-ezumezu, in this work. These systems share a structure that not only makes them similar but African. That structure can be captured with three basic principles: relationality, which states that social behaviours or values are necessarily relational; contextuality, which states that the moral values of behaviours or actions can only be determined within contexts; and complementarity, which states that opposed moral values are complementary rather than merely contradictory. The four systems will be discussed in the next two sections. Here, let us begin with some of the popular traditional African moral beliefs. Ubuntu. The popular catchphrase that expresses the content of ubuntu as a world-view narrative is the Nguni expression umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, which is translated as ‘a person is a person through other persons’. It is a maxim, a song and a wise saying that captures the significance of interdependence and solidarity. Some scholars have identified the root words in various Bantu languages that capture its metaphysical and ethical dimensions, such as ntu, ubu, kintu, kuntu, hantu, muntu and unhu (see Kagame 1956; Jahn 1961; Samkange and Samkange 1980; Bhengu 1996; Ramose 2002; Murove 2007). There is a close similarity and some nuances in the accounts which those scholars provided. For example, Samkange and Samkange (1980) describe ubuntu as a humanism while Ramose (2002) describes it as a humaneness.2 Both, however, are describing a world-view narrative or moral belief held by various Bantu-speaking peoples spread across central, eastern and southern Africa. At least, they did not, as claimed by Metz (2007b), and as far as extant literature indicates, attempt a theoretic systematization of ubuntu as an ethical standard. It is not enough to trace the etymology of the concept to various words in different languages and describe those words as Kagame did with hantu, kuntu, kintu and muntu; and Ramose did with ubu and ntu; or as Murove did with ukama. Representing the community voices as they did is not exactly what it means to formulate principles of ethics. As a result, we can describe them more as those who have variously given accounts of the ubuntu world-view narrative but not so much as ubuntu theorists. The expression ‘a person is a person through other persons’ is a descriptive statement about a cultural belief. None of the aforementioned ubuntu scholars has made sufficient effort at transforming it into a prescriptive statement in a theory of ethics. Mogobe Ramose (2003) left no one in doubt that he presented what he tagged ‘the ethics of ubuntu’3 as a closed predicament. Besides the fact that what Ramose did in the essay was not a systematization but largely an etymological definition of the terms in ubuntu traditional moral belief (none of which he coined himself), he made no clear attempt to reformulate ubuntu and elevate its statement above the collective voice of the community. Much of what Ramose said of ubuntu ethics are a mere reporting of what the Bantu traditional societies believe, which are a closed predicament. His inability to attempt a project that transcends what his community believes reduces what he describes as a theory to a simple descriptive account. For example, such an attempt would seek to establish whether the popular ubuntu statement or any other rendering of it as a humaneness can be formulated as an a priori synthetic or synthetic a priori proposition. At its current descriptive state, ‘a person is a person through other persons’ is not an a priori statement since its truth cannot be

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known analytically. It is also not synthetic since experience cannot verify its truth. If it is neither a priori nor synthetic, it follows that it cannot be synthetic a priori. Granted the well-known argument by critics of empiricism like W. V. O. Quine (1951), that analyticity does not offer sufficient basis for epistemology, those statements still represent a benchmark necessary for prescriptive assertions. Thus, theorists in ethics continue to rely on a priori and synthetic statements in formulating ethical principles. Suppose some of the ubuntu scholars in Africa do not wish to follow the approach discovered by theorists in the West. In that case, they are entitled to offer a different approach insofar as it transcends ethnology. That has yet to be done. For example, one would expect to see such ubuntu scholars study the nature of the ubuntu descriptive statement and attempt a rearticulation that elevates ‘a person is a person through other persons’ from mere descriptive level to a prescriptive level. In doing so, they would shoulder the intellectual obligation to discern the nature of such a statement to open it up to independent examination through whatever mode they have prescribed for it. Until this is done, Metz (2007a) remains correct in his view that there is nothing we can point at in the accounts of those scholars that shows that they had taken ubuntu narrative beyond the world-view state they found it in. This unfortunate discovery emboldened some scholars (Matolino and Kwindingwi 2013; Matolino 2015) to declare ubuntu dead and moribund for any modern deployment. They may be correct concerning the world-view expression of ubuntu discussed above, but not with regard to its systematic formulation. Thus, the conclusion that ubuntu cannot be articulated at a level beyond collective unanimity is hasty, as has been shown in the literature (Metz 2014; Chimakonam 2016; Koenane and Olatunji 2017). The failure of some ubuntu scholars to take the concept beyond its descriptive level does not mean such an industry is impossible or that ubuntu is straitjacketed. In the next section, I will discuss two examples of such a creative attempt to unpack ubuntu and other similar world-view narratives at a higher prescriptive level. Personhood. The idea of personhood, as discussed in the African philosophical literature, describes a world-view narrative shared by many cultures south of the Sahara. Embedded in Afro-communitarianism driven by the work of Menkiti and Gyekye, and sharing an affinity with the ideas of ubuntu, ukama, hunhu and umunna, personhood is nowadays discussed as an African ethical theory, system or standard. But is it? Is it an ethical theory or a moral belief? Ethical theories are not ideas we describe as such; they have to be articulated with relevant principles formulated as ‘ought’ statements resting on a discernible logic and capable of application through a coherent methodology. Some moral beliefs may also sound like ‘ought’ statements, except that they lack a strong methodological backbone and a clear logical foundation. If we question, for example, the methodological strength and logical foundation of the moral belief ‘individuals should obey communal norms to become persons’, we would notice the poverty of moral beliefs at once. But this is what personhood as a moral belief engenders. The methodological disposition for its application is weak. It trivializes all at once the significance of individual endowments and offers nothing by way of logical justification for such a course of action. It is a dogma that obeying communal norms can make individuals persons. Yet, it is upon this fatal dogma that

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Menkiti’s normative account rests. Gyekye challenged Menkiti, describing his account as ‘radical’, but ended up with a less radical dogma he describes as ‘moderate communitarianism’ (1992). Matolino further extended the life of that dogma in what he describes as ‘limited communitarianism’ (2014). They are all overestimating the moral significance of the conflict of interest between the individual and the community. Ethical principles are not about whose interests should prevail but the criterion for determining right and wrong conduct. Sort out the criterion, and you would sort out the conflict – the conflict is not a dilemma. Rather than indulge in the conflict between the individual and the community, ubuntu scholars are supposed to formulate the basic principles that will do two crucial jobs: underlie their ideas as theories of ethics and justify such theories as African. None of those African scholars who indulge in descriptions of moral beliefs have attempted the above task to the best of my knowledge. An example of such basic principles would be the three I formulated earlier, namely relationality, contextuality and complementarity. These three can ground discourse as a theory of ethics and define such a theory as African. I will demonstrate this later on when I inaugurate the theory of uze-ezumezu ethics. The above type of criterion is missing in all accounts of personhood that concern themselves with describing it as a moral belief. Interestingly, there is ample literature out there that claims to apply the ethical principle of personhood. But you cannot apply a theory that has yet to be created. In most of such literature, no clear attempt is made to articulate the principle they are applying. What is commonplace is a reiteration of the descriptive statement of the idea: that obeisance to the norms can make us persons (followers of Menkiti); or that a gentle combination of individual endowments and communal values can account for personhood (followers of Gyekye). There are also those who venture to adopt ethical precepts developed and exhausted in the West mixed with a dosage of African world-view beliefs and present the same in what they describe as the discussions or applications of the ethics of personhood (self-styled discussants of ethics of personhood). But just how these descriptive statements amount to ethical principles is unclear. However, there are now some scholars who have truly attempted a formulation of ethical principles teased out of the moral beliefs latent in personhood, ubuntu, EBUB and ukama, which will be the concern of another section. EBUB. This is an acronym for egbe bere ugo bere, which has the extension nke si ibe ya ebena, nku kwaa ya. It is an Igbo maxim in two parts that literally translates as ‘may the kite and the eagle perch’ and ‘if one says no to the other, may its wings break’. It is a figurative expression. So, the meaning of the maxim is that individuals of a different class, race, ethnic nationality, linguistic group or gender can thrive together in a space in mutual tolerance and recognition of each other’s peculiarities. Anyone who refuses to tolerate others and recognize their being should be made to taste what it feels like to be denied of agency. EBUB has been re-echoed in the literary writings of Chinua Achebe (2009), and in philosophical writings by Pantaleon Iroegbu (1995) and Jonathan Chimakonam (2018a). The latter two were attempts at providing philosophical interpretations to the maxim. For Iroegbu (1995: 270–80), EBUB is a kind of guide in the Igbo world view that requires people with different existential situations to co-exist in the world. Here, the

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values of mutual tolerance and interdependence are emphasized on the assumption that every individual needs others to succeed and thrive in the world. Iroegbu evokes this Igbo maxim to substantiate his theory of uwa ontology but did not formulate it as an ethical principle. For his part, Chimakonam (2018a: 144–5) interprets EBUB as a sort of ‘intuitive law’ in the Igbo world-view that guards against all forms of othering. He deploys it as a veritable mindset for the postmodern movement in its critique of modernity. However, like Iroegbu before him, he comes short of reformulating it as a principle of ethics. EBUB is practically manifested in the set-up of umunna (male group of a clan) and umuada (female group of a clan) in traditional Igbo society. The sort of interdependence that goes on in each of these groups and between the two groups is often highlighted as an example of EBUB moral belief. At its descriptive level, EBUB is a moral belief that has a boomerang effect. An injustice or attack on another human being is, somehow, an injustice or attack on oneself no matter how differently perceived. This is based on the assumption that the destinies of humans are intertwined. It is an assumption that needs to be interrogated en route to the formulation of an ethical principle from it. That has yet to be done in the literature. Ukama. This is a moral belief among the Shona of Zimbabwe. Etymologically, it comes from the two-part word, u-kama. According to Murove (2007: 179–80, ft 2), ‘[T]he word Ukama means relationship or an understanding of reality in terms of relatedness. Grammatically, Ukama is an adjective. As an adjective, its grammatical construction is U-kama. U- is an adjectival prefix and -kama an adjectival stem.  Taken as a stem, -kama means to milk a cow or goat.’ As Lesley Le Grange paraphrases Murove, ‘in Shona the idea of milking suggests closeness and affection’ (2011: 61; see also Murove 2009: 316). For Murove (2007: 179–89), ukama is a moral belief in the world view of the Shona, who subscribe to the relatedness of all humans, and all things in nature. This relationality is also extendable to the future (posterity) and to the past (ancestors). The underlying belief appears to be that nature and all that is in it, especially humans, are related. The harm done to one aspect can easily translate to harm for other entities in the network. Ukama is one of the extant moral beliefs in various cultures in Africa south of the Sahara. Along with ubuntu, personhood, EBUB and umunna, it describes a cultural mindset that informs the practice of togetherness, solidarity and relational disposition in specific cultures. It is a mindset or assumption that working together or sharing and supporting each other is critical for survival (ubuntu), becoming persons (personhood), thriving (EBUB, umunna), enduring or immortality of values (ukama). These assumptions that underlie these world-view ideas need to be interrogated so as to refine the ideas and reformulate them as versions of the ‘ought’ synthetic statements. Traditional African moral beliefs commonly assume that communal living or closeness automatically yields good dividends. Innocent Asouzu criticizes the assumption as a ‘super maxim’ stated as ‘the nearer the better and the safer’ (2004: 66). This is the baseless assumption that our interest is better protected when we join it with the interest of those closest to us. But not everything about these moral beliefs reported by the ‘world-view analysts’ is worthless. The idea of relationship or communion or togetherness can be rearticulated at a higher, more rigorous level as I have done earlier

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to produce the three basic principles of relationality, contextuality and complementarity. In the next section, I will discuss two attempts to reformulate the idea of relationship, which cuts across the moral beliefs discussed in this section as an ethical principle.

Two attempts at a theory of right action: Thaddeus Metz vs Amara Esther Chimakonam In his 2007a article, Thaddeus Metz formulated what he believes to be a fine statement of the principle of relational ethics that is representative of the ideas or moral beliefs found in the world view of various African cultures south of the Sahara. Fairly recently, Amara Esther Chimakonam formulated what she believes to be a theory of right action based on the accounts of similar moral beliefs in various traditional African world views. Both are attempts at relational ethics and qualify as examples of principles of African ethics, unlike the various ideas discussed in the preceding section, which are merely moral beliefs of various traditional societies. I will discuss these two efforts presently. Thaddeus Metz (ubuntu-based theory of right action). Thaddeus Metz argues that, if we are to formulate a principle of right action from the ideas latent in world-view beliefs such as ubuntu and various shades of African communitarianism, then something like the ad hoc ‘ought-statement’ below would be created: An action is right just insofar as it produces harmony and reduces discord; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails to develop community. 334

Metz submits that the above principle ‘is the most promising theoretical formulation of an African ethic to be found in the literature’ (334).4 However, he finds it inadequate on some fronts. One of those fronts he found space to discuss was that ‘it is too vague’. Metz claims that the requirement to promote harmony and avoid discord is imprecise in many respects. What, for example, does harmony mean? And what does it mean to avoid discord? As he put it, ‘I have the space in the body of this article to address only one, crucial way in which the norm is imprecise, namely, the issue of what constitutes harmony or togetherness’ (334). Thus, for him, clarity is lacking in the above formulation. Different interpretations can be given to the ideas of harmony and togetherness implied by the ad hoc formulation above.‘“Harmony” does not refer to any musical output, and “connecting people together” does not denote putting everyone in linked chains’ (334). Metz appears to suggest that because such meanings can be awarded to the ideas of harmony and togetherness, along with several others, precise formulation of the ethical principle that stems from the African notion of relationality is required. The task of enriching the ad hoc formulation above occupied Metz in the remainder of his essay. He identified three hypotheses: H1 ‘shared identity’, H2 ‘ goodwill’ or solidarity, and H3 ‘the combination of shared identity and goodwill’ into ‘harmony’. ‘The combination of the two conditions is what I deem to be the most attractive conception of harmony–or a broad sense of “love.” A loving relationship is a prima facie

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attractive moral value and is the good that, I show below, best accounts for the relatively uncontroversial intuitions’ (337). Each of the first two harbours degrees of moral pedigree, even though H2, for him, is richer than H1. Metz argues that a combination of both in H3 would yield a richer and more precise formulation of an ubuntu-based theory of African ethics conceptualized as the principle of harmony. To understand these hypotheses, let us get back to their roots. Metz sees communion or relationship or togetherness as a common thread found predominantly in the cultural world views in Africa south of the Sahara. It is this thread that unites various moral beliefs found in the area. He cites Gyekye (1992: 320) and Wiredu (1996: 64) as upholding H1 and H2, respectively. H1, for Metz, captures harmony as having a common sense of the self in which one sees itself in the ‘we’ that is mutual and targeted at some end and coordinated towards some end. Metz finds this sense inadequate because, although ‘a shared identity might ground some duties of loyalty, it is hard to see how it could be very morally important in itself ’ (335). H2, for its part, captures harmony as ‘a certain caring or supportive relationship’. According to Metz (336), goodwill is where one ‘wishes another person well (conation); believes that another person is worthy of help (cognition); aims to help another person (intention); acts so as to help another person (volition); acts for the other’s sake (motivation); and, finally, feels good upon the knowledge that another person has benefited and feels bad upon learning she has been harmed (affection)’. Metz thinks that H2 is morally more weighty than H1 even though it remains inadequate in itself. His argument is that H2 is better off with H1 when both are combined. Metz’s favoured hypothesis would then be a combination of H1 and H2 from where he finds what he believes to be a precise and rich meaning of harmony or togetherness. So, he enriches the ad hoc formulation of the ubuntu-based principle of African ethics thus: An action is right just insofar as it promotes shared identity among people grounded on goodwill; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails to do so and tends to encourage the opposites of division and ill-will. 338

We can see how Metz’s project outclasses those of the world-view analysts who merely reported their communities’ thought. Metz tapped from the same world view but interrogated it and deployed personal insight to go beyond the world-view narratives. However, there is a problem in Metz’s formulation: he separated and combined what cannot be separated or combined. What he terms ‘shared identity’ or ‘relationship of identity’ is not necessarily different from what he terms ‘goodwill’ or ‘relationship of solidarity’. He violated Occam’s principle not to multiply entities beyond necessity. There is an important feature in African thought that is so often neglected or overlooked by non-African researchers. It is the idea that two things that are neither different nor one and the same cannot be separated or combined. I might as well formulate a bind here for it to prevent future violations: The Bind: Never separate or combine two ideas that are neither different nor identical.

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Such ideas are not different, so one must not separate them, and they are not identical, so one must not combine them. They simply go together. What it means to have one is what it means to have the other. For example, a woman is a human as much as a man is a human. For many language groups in Africa, it makes no sense to define each with a separate third-person pronoun. I do not know the English word for it, but the Igbo refer to it as ‘ejima’– things that go together. In Yoruba, it is called ‘ibeji’. Both are used in the two languages to describe twins. Now, the idea of ejima among the Igbo refers to two entities that go together. They are not ontologically identical yet not different. So, you cannot separate them. The idea here is called complementation contrasted from contradiction. Once you separate complementing variables, they become contradictory, and once you combine them, they become identical. This is why the Igbo believe that when a twin dies, the other twin rarely survives. Employing ejima as a metaphor, I will attempt an explication of the bind that partly jinxed Metz’s theory. It is usually an idea that is spoken of in hushed tones – a paradox. Ama-ama amasiamasi, that which we know but cannot explain. A good example is the subject of gender. The Igbo and some languages in Africa south of the Sahara do not have third-person pronouns for males and females. It is not that the language has not developed enough to create such pronouns, but that it does not make sense to have such pronouns where males and females connote the idea of ejima. For lack of a better word, let me translate ejima as ‘proto-identity’. ‘Proto’ means the first or earliest. When it is used as a prefix to form a word it refers to the first or earliest form of something – for example, prototype. In this sense, proto-identity could refer to the earliest form of identity like the monozygotic twins that emerge from one egg out of which a blastocyst results. Before dividing the blastocyst into two embryos, you cannot really call it one thing or different things. When the children are born, the Igbo say that they are ejima. When such a reality is seen in nature’s design, like male and female, they are not treated as ontologically identical or different. They are proto-identical, an ejima that go together. The gender neutrality of male and female in some African languages points to the amazing design in nature in which males and females are mutually interdependent – a complementarity. When those who are not versed in the African cultural and intellectual life or those who are overly influenced by foreign cultures separate the ideas of male and female humans, which go together, a form of feminist theory of gender lopsidedness is born. This is the problem Metz plunged into when he separated the idea of ‘the sense of oneself as a we’ from the idea of ‘solidarity’. Typical Africans in those cultures that prize communitarian values know that to cultivate a sense of oneself as a ‘we’ is what it means to exhibit goodwill or solidarity. When the Bantu cultures of central, eastern and southern Africa say of someone that they do not have ubuntu, they mean that the individual lacks a sense of ‘we’ or collective goodwill or solidarity. Similarly, the Shona who manifests ukama towards the environment or other entities is not separating the sense of oneself as a ‘we’ from its goodwill towards nature. Such an individual acts towards nature as though it were oneself. The same goes for the Igbo who manifests EBUB or the umunna spirit. Either you have it in full, or you don’t. There are no two parts to be separated or combined. The above shows the faulty category Metz built, on

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which he mounted his principle of African ethics. The three hypotheses are a farce. H1 is not different from H2, and there is nothing like H3 because H1 and H2 cannot be separated, let alone combined. Metz’s utmost undoing was that he employed a Westerndeveloped method and two-valued logic for his study, which led him to produce a westernized theory of African ethics. This type of imposition justifies the call for decolonization of philosophy. I will reserve a thorough criticism of Metz for another essay. Despite the weaknesses in Metz’s formulation, it represents one of the standardly formulated theories of African ethics. The next section will discuss the personhood-based theory of right action formulated by Amara Esther Chimakonam. Amara Esther Chimakonam (personhood-based theory of right action). Recently, A. E. Chimakonam formulated her own theory of right action using the conversational method and based on Ezumezu trivalent logic. Like Metz, she teased her theory out of the notion of ‘relationship’ as a common thread that runs across various cultural, moral beliefs in Africa south of the Sahara. Unlike Metz, who used ubuntu as a springboard, she used the notion of personhood, specifically the variant described by Ifeanyi Menkiti. A. E. Chimakonam outlines her ‘personhood-based theory of right action’ in three principles: the main principle and two adjoining clauses. To do that, she interrogates the world-view idea of personhood chronicled by Menkiti and found it theoretically inadequate. For her, Menkiti’s account of the normative personhood is more about the moral beliefs of his culture full of descriptive statements than his own personal insight or theoretical prescriptions. As a result, she goes beyond Menkiti to articulate a personhood-based theory of right action. According to A. E. Chimakonam, talking of right and wrong action applies to humans or a human community with at least two members. This centralizes the idea of ‘relationship’ or relationality as crucial to any theory in African ethics. She argues that the actions or conducts of a lone individual who shares no relationship whatsoever with other humans cannot be evaluated as right or wrong. So, she raises a point that challenges the conventional understanding of ethics as a theory that evaluates human conduct irrespective of whether the individual acts in a community of other persons or in private. A. E. Chimakonam illustrates this with an imaginary island called the ‘island of lone existence . . . where nature makes it impossible for two individuals to co-exist at a time’. She urges us to imagine that a lone individual called Z lives on the island and, as such, has no relationship with any other human. For her, in a theory of right action teased out of the Menkitian moral belief, the conducts of Z cannot be morally evaluated. In fact, she argues, it would be meaningless and trivial to talk about right and wrong actions in such an island because Z’s actions do not affect anyone. But one can raise an objection concerning non-human members of the ecosystem. In the island of lone existence, Z may not relate with any other human, but they will definitely relate to other entities. Is the personhood-based theory of right action excluding ‘duty’ to non-humans and the consequences of human action on other entities? Or, by its emphasis on relationship, is it not excluding babies, zygotes, the mentally ill, etc., who may lack the capacity for morally weighty relationships?

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A. E. Chimakonam admits the anthropocentric leaning of her theory informed by Menkiti’s emphasis on humans as the sole subjects of duty and just actions but argues that it does not debar humans from relating with non-human entities in the environment, just not in the same sense as they would relate with other humans who possess a moral sense of right and wrong. She argues that her theory accommodates the important things about duties to animals and the larger environment in the sense that treating these aspects of the ecosystem well is part of what ‘right’ human conduct entails. This is, no doubt, a plausible argument. But some may not find it satisfactory. A. E. Chimakonam may have broken ranks with Menkiti on this point and extended her theory to non-human members of the ecosystem, if not as entities capable of exhibiting duty with consequences, at least as those capable of being targets of relationships with such duties and consequences. Yet, die-hard animal rights activists and some environmental ethicists would want to see a personhood-based theory of right action that awards rights to animals and the environment. Also, A. E. Chimakonam argues that babies, zygotes, the mentally ill, etc., who may lack the capacity for a morally weighty relationship and as such may not have attained full personhood in Menkiti’s terms, have the potency for such a capacity which is sufficient to accommodate them in her theory of right action. How this strategy is received would definitely depend on the persuasion of each philosopher. Her formulation of the main principle and the two adjoining clauses are below: Main principle: An action is right if and only if it positively contributes to the common good while adding moral excellencies to the individuals; an action is wrong if it adds moral excellencies to individuals without contributing to the common good or contributes to the common good without adding moral excellencies to the individuals. 2021: 198

In the above formulation, we observe that, unlike in Metz, what it means to have a sense of oneself as a ‘we’ is not separated from solidarity or goodwill. In addition to this, there is a clear accommodation of individual endowments. The idea of ‘relationship’ that is predominant in many cultural world-views in Africa south of the Sahara explains the personhood-based theory of right action as African in origin despite being universalizable. Besides the preceding, there are two important relational aspects of this principle: a relationship of solidarity and a relationship of difference. The latter type enables it to trump Metz’s proposal earlier discussed. Recall that we have demonstrated above how Metz violated what I call the ‘bind’ by separating and combining what cannot be separated or combined. Metz’s three hypotheses were actually one and the same. A. E. Chimakonam’s formulation demonstrates that violating the bind in supposing a difference between ‘one’s sense of we’ and ‘solidarity’ was not the only weakness in Metz’s formulation. The second is the gap left yawning where the second type of relationship should have been. In order words, since we have demonstrated above that Metz’s two types of relationships are actually one and the same – solidarity – then there is a gap where the vacuous relationship of identity once was. Metz’s formulation thus stands on one leg.

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A. E. Chimakonam’s formulation that points to two types of relationship, solidarity and difference, appears not to have that gap. One may ask, how is ‘difference’ a type of relationship and what Metz captions identity or shared identity is not? Note that my argument earlier was that, in the African lifeworld, a sense of shared identity goes together with a sense of solidarity such that they cannot be separated. What was missing in Metz’s moral equation was a sense of difference. An individual X who possesses a sense of ‘we’ is one who shows goodwill or solidarity to the collective cause. X cannot possess the former without the latter or vice versa. However, this is not the only sense of relationship an individual can have in an African moral world-view. An individual X can have a sense or a relationship of difference (a sense of oneself as an I, different from others) in which it pursues its own interest and prizes its own cause without necessarily jeopardizing the common good. Part of the personal moral properties that are promoted in a relationship of difference are endowments like freedom, autonomy, rights and identity (sense of self as an I). When individuals act in such ways that prioritize their interests, they may not be acting against the collective cause, but they are definitely not acting for the common good. Indeed, we can see a unity of egoism and altruism in A. E. Chimakonam’s theory. By ‘unity’, I mean that both the egoistic and altruistic principles are imperative for an action to be adjudged right. In her formulation, we find two distinct and important types of relationship. First, a right action is one that contributes to the common good, and second, while simultaneously adding moral excellencies to the actor. While the former captures a relationship of solidarity, the latter captures a relationship of difference. In the literature on Afro-communitarianism, where there is a split between Menkitians, on one side, who advocate the singularity of communal values, and Gyekyians, on the other, who motivate recognition of individual endowments, the tussle is about whether the individual possesses any significance at all. To further demonstrate Metz’s difficulty in understanding the African lifeworld, he began his analysis by taking sides with Gyekye, but not much in his identified two types of relationship reflects that initial stance. He landed solidly on Menkiti’s communal tyranny when one considers his formulation and the type of relationships he identified (especially in 2007a). Everything in Metz’s formulation is about the common good with little or no room for individual endowments. In the final analysis, one searches Metz’s formulation in vain for the sense of oneself as an ‘I’. A. E. Chimakonam’s formulation thus exposes the misrepresentations in Metz’s formulation. Yet, even she recognizes the challenge her formulation faces. Contextual consideration is another important trait in African thought besides ‘relationship’. Can the personhood-based theory of right action hold all of the time? A. E. Chimakonam recognizes the difficulty involved in this. In her own words, ‘[I]t is worthy to note that this personhood-based theory of right action is not absolute. In other words, it does not accord to absolute priority in contributing to the common good and adding moral excellencies to the individual; or say that one’s actions must in all cases, no matter what the consequences might be, conform to the main principle of the personhood-based theory of right action’ (2021: 201). She uses analogies to demonstrate that there could be contexts in which an action may not contribute to the common good or add moral

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excellencies to the actor, yet is intuitively right given the context. For her, it would not mean that her theory is weak but that it is not absolute. To cover for such exception-tothe-rule scenarios, she formulates two clauses: First: Communal Exception Clause An action X (for one thing) is a communal exception in a case Y if and only if there is an extreme group necessity, all things considered, to violate adding moral excellencies to the individuals in order to sacrifice to the common good for the sake of collective interest. 201 Second: Individual Exception Clause And (for another thing), an action X is an individual exception in a case Y if and only if there is an extreme personal necessity, all things considered, to violate contributing to the common good in order to add moral excellencies to the individuals for the sake of such individuals’ interest. 201

These two clauses provide cover for those contexts where exception-to-the-rule prevails. These clauses, for her, provide supporting pillars to her main principle. Arguments are definitely going to be had in the coming years on the veracity and viability of A. E. Chimakonam’s personhood-based theory of right action but suffice it to say that it offers yet another basis for moral justification in African ethics.

Two other sources of moral justification There are two other sources of moral justification in African philosophy that qualify as theories of ethics. They share a common trait with the two by Thaddeus Metz and Amara Chimakonam discussed in the preceding section as theories in African ethics, namely the notion of communion or relationship. But they also differ from the above two in that they have a springboard other than ubuntu and personhood. That springboard is EBUB and umunna, which highlight specific traits inherent in the relationships of solidarity and difference. The first theory is Innocent Asouzu’s complementary ethical reflection, while the second is the present writer’s formulation called the ethics of uze-ezumezu. Both theories highlight the traits of complementarity (from solidarity) and contextuality (from difference as the sense of oneself as an I). I will discuss Asouzu’s theory first before my new contribution.

Innocent Asouzu (complementary ethical reflection) The basic principle of Innocent Asouzu’s theory of right action, as he discusses it, can be stated as follows:

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Asouzu’s complementary ethical reflection is part of the sundry theories in his ibuanyidanda philosophy, with a methodological ambience called ‘complementary reflection’. It has metaphysical, epistemological, ethical and logical dimensions knit together by the same underlying principles. To articulate this theory, Asouzu interrogated the world-view narratives variously described as EBUB and uwunna. These are cultural moral beliefs among the Igbo that describe the norms of togetherness and solidarity using such descriptive statements as ibu anyi danda (‘no load is insurmountable to danda [a species of ant]’) (2004: 108). For Asouzu, traditional Igbo people believe that the strength of this species of ant rests on their disposition for working together. As such, they developed a social orientation modelled after the life pattern of the danda ant (108– 10). But ibu anyi danda, for Asouzu, is a descriptive statement. For it to pass for a theory, it needs to be first interrogated and then transformed into the prescriptive statement, ibuanyidanda, written as one word. The systematization of the world-view moral belief into a system of complementary ethical reflection thus became Asouzu’s personal insight and main contribution (see also chapters 3, 8 and 9 in this volume). Four such principles that are crucial to his theory broadly include integration that states that ‘anything that exists serves a missing link of reality’; progressive transformation, in that ‘all human actions are geared towards the joy of being’; the ibuanyidanda imperative that ‘allow[s] the limitations of being to be the cause of your joy’; and the truth and authenticity criterion to ‘never elevate any world immanent missing link to an absolute instance’ (2011: 105; see also 2004 and 2007). There are two components to Asouzu’s theory of right action. The first is that a right action is one that promotes the common good, and the second is that such an action must simultaneously serve as a source of joy for the actor. It implies that, if one of the conjuncts fails to hold, the basic requirement for evaluating an action to be morally right would not have been met. Like in A. E. Chimakonam’s theory, we can see a unity of egoism and altruism in Asouzu’s theory, too. The common good, for Asouzu (2004), is employed in two ways. First, as ‘the ultimate authenticating anthropological basic constant of human life. In this case, we are referring to that ultimate common foundation that gives legitimacy to all human actions’. Also, in a second way, it is employed as ‘the authenticating foundation of interpersonal relationship in society, expressible in all those socio-empirical goods and services we own in common whose upkeep is necessary for well-coordinated and contented existence’. The above indicates the significance of group interest or communal values in the African lifeworld captured by the principle of integration. The interdependence indicated in the preceding principle underlies a justification for promoting and protecting the common good. However, notwithstanding the importance of the idea of the common good, individual interest or endowments are not negated or neglected. This is what the second component of Asouzu’s theory of right action captures. Right actions are not solely the ones that promote the common good; they necessarily have to contribute to the joy of the actor. In this regard, the principle of progressive transformation prescribes

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that all right actions are those geared towards the joy of being. Besides the relationship of solidarity that common good animates, there is the relationship of difference that highlights the importance of individual interests. A right action should not spell doom or sadness for the actor. For this, Asouzu argues: ‘One of the central ideas of complementary reflection is that ethics and morality do not concern themselves solely with right and wrong actions or with good and bad conducts but primarily also with the joy and sadness of human action’ (354). Asouzu goes on to contend: ‘[I]t is therefore not enough to state that an action is good or right. Such an action must also be a source of joy for the actor’ (354). So, there are duty and consequentialist elements in Asouzu’s theory, as we saw in A. E. Chimakonam’s theory discussed in the preceding section. But one may raise an objection concerning the need for the common good if individuals can on their own reach the joy of being. Asouzu’s theory of right action considers the station of each human being in society to justify the pursuit of the common good. It is a moral duty to pursue a cause of common good because what is good should be comprehensive in the sense of being other-regarding. An action that leads to the sadness of being in another person cannot be right because it violates the truth and authenticity criterion by elevating the being in the self above the being in the other. Also, no individual is self-sufficient. Being in its disparate manifestations is limited, but Asouzu cautions that such a limitation can be the cause of joy if one realizes that it can be complemented by another just as it can complement another. The ibuanyidanda imperative thus urges that a moral agent should always and at all times allow its limitation to be the cause of its joy. This can be realized in dutifully pursuing the cause of the common good by seeking to complement and be complemented. One other objection that can be raised concerns the viability of this theory when individual interest conflicts with the common good. Asouzu and the Asouzians would have to do more to clarify some of these grey areas in their theory. Notwithstanding the objections, Asouzu’s theory represents the oldest and one of the finest formulations of African ethics.

Ethics of uze-ezumezu I want to conclude this chapter by flying a new kite. It would not be so new if one considers the foundation of the idea itself, which is the logic of Ezumezu. The present writer has formulated, revised and developed Ezumezu logic as a trivalent truth-glut system over the years (see Chimakonam 2014, 2015, 2017a, 2018b, 2019, 2020). This logic is what grounds the present theory of right action called uze-ezumezu and its methodological ambience called the conversational method. The coinage is a merger of two words, uze and ezumezu. Uze comes from the Igbo verb zee or zeere and means ‘avoid’. The noun form nzere means ‘avoidance’. For example, zeere o· ku· (‘avoid fire’), zeere po· to· po· to· (‘avoid mud’), zeere nmehie (‘avoid evil’). In a moral sense, the human capacity that aids in avoiding evil by restraining one’s actions is what the Igbo call uze, which roughly translates as ‘conscience’. Often the Igbo say onweghi uze, meaning that one has no conscience or a restraining capacity. They also ask, o· bu· n’inweghi uze? meaning ‘do you not have conscience or restraint?’ In the theory that we weave here, uze is employed not in the sense of conscience but in the sense of restraint. Here, a right

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action is construed as one that observes restraints in the pursuit of the common good and individual good. The second root word is ezumezu, an Igbo noun that means ‘comprehensively complete’ in the sense of aggregating all that is required, including opposites.5 Put together, uze-ezumezu refers to a theory of right action from the African philosophical tradition grounded in a truth-glut trivalent logic and can be methodologically driven using the conversational method.6 Its precise formulation is below: An action is right insofar as it promotes the individual good, the good of the other or both (common good); it is wrong if it fails to promote at least anyone at all.

The logical axioms that ground this ethical principle are the three supplementary laws of thought in Ezumezu logic reproduced below with some fine-tuning from the initial rendition (see Chimakonam 2019: 100): 1. Njiko.ka: An arumaristic proposition is true if and only if it is true in Relation to its opposite that is false.7 (T) Ax  ↕ [(T) Ax » (F) ~Ax], which reads that Ax is true if and only if Ax is true in Relation to Not Ax is false in another. The notation (») functions as a relationship indicator. 2. Nmeko.ka: If an arumaristic proposition is true in a given context, then it cannot be false in the same context. (T) Ax │→ ~(F) Ax, which reads that if Ax is true in a given context, then Ax cannot be false in the same context. The notation wedged-arrow functions both as a material implication and a context indicator here. 3. O· no.na-etiti: An ohakaristic proposition is both true and false in a complementary mode of thought. [(T) Ax ∧ (F) Ax] ↕ (C) (Ax ∧ ~Ax), which reads that Ax is true and Ax is false if and only if Ax and not Ax are complements.

In the above-stated laws, the first two ground the pursuit of the good of the individual and otherness while the third one grounds the pursuit of the common good. Unlike in the theories by A. E. Chimakonam and Asouzu earlier discussed, there is no ‘unity’ but complementation of egoistic and altruistic principles in the determination of right and wrong actions. What is implied is that an action can be adjudged to be right if it promotes individual good, the good of the other or the common good; or if it highlights duty or outcome. Either the egoistic or the altruistic principle, or the deontological or the consequentialist principle suffices, given the relevant context. Also, both can complement each other. We can further define our theory by the three basic principles of African thought already stated. Relationality stipulates that actions can be a relationship with the self, other or the whole. This involves the interests of the self, otherness or both. While the pursuit of individual good is self-targeting, the good of otherness is other-targeting. Any

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action that targets both the individual and otherness pursues the common good. The principle of contextuality stipulates that the determination of the moral value of any action is context-dependent because all relationships occur in contexts. If a man saves his child from a burning building while leaving behind nine others who are not his to burn, has he done something bad? Contextuality says that it depends on the context of the action. If he could only save one child and he chose his own, he has not done anything bad. But if he could save more than one or even all, but chose to save only his child, yes, he has done a bad thing. The principle of complementarity stipulates that seemingly opposed interests (self and other) or moral values (good and evil) could complement rather than merely contradict. If a woman has an option to save her husband or her father, the two are not contradictory. They are complementary. She should save both if she can. But if she could only save one, she should save anyone. Similarly, if a terrorist attempts to kill a man’s family, he has a duty to move them to safety as well as to kill the terrorist. The act of killing the terrorist might seem opposed to the act of moving his family to safety, but it is not. Both are complementary and targeted at the same outcome. By the notion of ‘good’ we do not mean something arbitrary. At the risk of an autological definition, we conceive ‘good’ as something that one is duty-bound to produce because it is believed not to yield a bad consequence for anyone directly affected by it.8 We contrast good from bad and define bad not as an unpleasant outcome but something that one is duty-bound not to produce because it is believed not to yield a good consequence for anyone directly affected by it. The terrorist in the above example is indirectly affected by the action of the man who kills him. Members of the man’s family are directly affected by the man’s action because it is for their sake that the action would be adjudged good. This is partly why Asouzu insists that the fibre of ethics should be stretched to include the joy and sadness of actors who perform or who are directly affected by the said actions. We can stretch this a little further to separate the duty to perform a right action and the consequences of such an action. There is a symmetrical relation here: duty equals consequence and vice versa, all contexts considered. The following can be deduced from the formulation stated earlier. If an action promotes the good of the other without promoting individual good, it is right. If it promotes individual good without promoting the good of the other, it is also right. And if it promotes the good of both the individual and the other (i.e. common good), it is right. Uze-ezumezu does not insist, like A. E. Chimakonam’s personhood-based theory of right action and Asouzu’s complementary theory of right action, that both the common good and the individual good must be promoted before an action could be adjudged right. Also, it betters Asouzu’s formulation, which presents the possibility of conflict between the common good and individual good. In uze-ezumezu, the individual good is embedded in the common good. They are not opposites. The opposition lies between the interests of the self and the otherness. An objection could be raised that uze-ezumezu promotes a lopsided theory of African ethics, but this would be impromptu. Uze-ezumezu is not absolutistic in its prescription, and its demands are not unnecessarily stringent. Besides the principles of relationality and complementarity, uze-ezumezu ethics also accommodates the principle of contextuality. These three principles stated earlier in the chapter are basic in an African world-viewinspired theory. In the case of uze-ezumezu, context is especially significant. There are

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contexts in which an action can promote individual good without promoting the good of the other and vice versa. But the moral gem is to have an action that promotes both, which is the common good. For example, when a man has a choice between saving his family and the rest of the community. He can only save one but not both. Suppose a band of terrorists armed with machine guns are circling a community at night. He can quietly gather his family and escape just in time before the terrorists open fire. Or, he can take some moments to alert the rest of the community, most of whom would be able to stealthily escape just in time before the terrorists open fire. We observe that more people would be saved if he took the second action, but he would lose his family. We also observe that he may be accused of selfishness if he took the first action, but he would save his family. Performing both actions (common good) might have the highest degree of moral goodness, but each of them would still be right. Uze-ezumezu prescribes that any action that at least promotes any of the goods is right, but what makes the promotion of both significant? Uze-ezumezu accommodates degrees of moral goodness. An action that promotes the individual or the good of the other alone is less in degree of moral goodness compared to one that promotes both.9 Thus, the idea of degree of moral goodness becomes my own strategy for negotiating any objection that accuses uze-ezumezu of marginality or failure to insist on a combination of individual and other-regarding goods (relationality and complementarity principles) believed to be the landing of all theories of African ethics. Uze-ezumezu, like all the theories of right action considered so far in this work, is teased out of some of the common thread that runs across various cultural world views in Africa south of the Sahara. Metz describes it as harmony or togetherness, A. E. Chimakonam and Asouzu describe it as relationship. Here, we also conceive it as relationship with two types. In keeping with what we credited to A. E. Chimakonam and Asouzu, we identify relationship of solidarity and difference. Even though neither A. E. Chimakonam nor Asouzu employed these specific terms, we were able to deduce the two types of relationships from their discussions. In uze-ezumezu, the relationship of solidarity10 drives all actions geared towards other-regarding and the common goods, while the relationship of difference drives all those geared towards the individual good. Both types of relationships are motivated at a psychological level by two fundamental desires: the desire for self-preservation and the desire for self-sufficiency. The former motivates acts that promote the individual good while the latter motivates acts that promote the common and other-regarding good. In the former, individual human beings have a strong desire to pursue those things that advance their interest while not working against the interests of others and the collective interest. Specifically, for the latter, individual human beings suffer the feeling of insufficiency and strongly desire to be self-sufficient. Since it is not something they could attain in themselves, they seek complementation through solidarity with others. The above has not exhausted the new theory of uze-ezumezu, but has provided a framework for debates and future extensions.

Conclusion In discussing theories of African ethics, it is important to always separate traditional African moral beliefs from the systems of African ethics. Those I earlier described as

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world-view analysts appear to have difficulty in negotiating the difference between the two ideas in the preceding. As a result, they settle on analysis of cultural narratives as a kind of system-building. This is, however, incorrect and myopic. Systems have three main parts: the logical/ontological foundation, the methodological structure and the doctrinal part. Principles formulated, whether in ethics or any other field, necessarily have to contain the three elements. For example, in the four proper theories of African ethics considered in the preceding two sections, the reader can easily discern their logical/ontological backgrounds, methods and, of course, the ideas/principles that constitute their doctrinal part. The same cannot be said of the traditional moral beliefs considered much earlier. One focus for future research in African ethics would be to investigate and deepen thinking on the logical and methodological requirements for thorough-going systems of African ethics. This line of inquiry would clarify the field and reduce the cases of misrepresentation.

Funding Acknowledgements Jonathan O. Chimakonam acknowledges that ‘this work is based on the research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Numbers 132057)’. Opinions expressed in this research are those of the authors; the NRF accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard.

Notes 1 2

3

4

5

At the time of the essay’s first publication in 1976, the author went by the name of J. E. Wiredu. Ramose provides a traditional account that distinguishes between ‘humanness’ and ‘humaneness’. While the former means the quality of being a human being, the latter is the practical dimension of the former (2002: 150). Ramose’s presentation fits the criterion of what Wiredu describes as an ‘ethic’ (a world-view norm) to be contrasted with ‘ethics’ as a theory (see Wiredu 2005: 45). An ethic is a set of norms that guide the behaviour of members of a specific culture or group. Ethics, for its part, deals with universal principles that guide human conduct. Ramose wants us to believe that the ethic of ubuntu as he chronicles it can be universalized, but has neither provided the logic and methodology that ground it nor rearticulated the norms of ubuntu as universally applicable principles of ethics with discernible background logic. Metz (2011) has revised and enriched this theory in another essay, especially to accommodate individual endowments. This effort has largely been unsuccessful as will be shown later. I have provided an etymological explication of this concept in Jonathan O. Chimakonam 2019: 94.

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6

This is a method formulated from the system of Ezumezu logic. It has the capacity to marshall ideas of the relational, contextual and complementary type. See Chimakonam 2017b; Egbai 2018, 2019; Chimakonam and Egbai 2016; Egbai and Chimakonam 2019a, 2019b. 7 This was earlier formulated as: ‘An arumaristic proposition is true if and only if it is true in a given context and can be false in another context; i.e. (T) Ax ↕ [(T) Ax│→ (F) Ax], which reads that Ax is true in a given context if and only if Ax is true in that context wedges that Ax is false in another. The notation wedged-arrow functions only as a context indicator here.’ The latest adjustment is the same except for being clearer and more precise with the introduction of the Relation function ‘»’. 8 Uze-ezumezu distinguishes between direct and indirect effects of moral actions. Those for whose sake a moral action could be adjudged good are directly affected by it. But those for whose sake a moral action could be adjudged bad are indirectly affected by it. 9 Uze-ezumezu also distinguishes the degrees of moral status of existents based on their relational capacities. God(s) have higher relational capacities than humans, and humans are higher in their degrees of relational capacities than animals who in turn are higher than trees that are higher than stones, etc. The higher an entity’s relational capacity, the higher its moral status. Metz (2012) has also discussed a similar idea. 10 A third type of relationship that transcends solidarity has been formulated as the relationship of creative struggle by the present writer (2019) to accommodate the struggle and creative spark that characterize binary opposition.

References Achebe, C. 2009. Things Fall Apart. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Asouzu, I. I. 2011. ‘ “Ibuanyidanda” Philosophy Essence’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religion 1(1): 79–118. Asouzu, I. I. 2007. Ibuanyidanda: New Complementary Ontology, Beyond WorldImmanentism, Ethnocentric Reduction and Imposition. London: Transaction. Asouzu, I. I. 2004. The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and beyond African Philosophy. Calabar: University of Calabar. Bhengu, M. J. 1996. Ubuntu: The Essence of Democracy. Cape Town: Novalis Press. Chimakonam, A. E. 2021. ‘Towards a Personhood-Based Theory of Right Action: Investigating the Covid-19 Pandemic and Religious Conspiracy Theories in Africa’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 10(2): 191–210. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ft.v10i2.12 Chimakonam, J. O. 2020. ‘Why Can’t There Be (An) African Logic? Clarifying the Squall for a Cultural Logic’. In Logic and African Philosophy: Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 245–56. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. Chimakonam, J. O. 2019. Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies. Cham: Springer. Chimakonam, J. O. 2018a. ‘The journey of reason in African philosophy’. In Ka-Osi-SO· Onye: African Philosophy in the Postmodern Era, eds. Jonathan. O. Chimakonam and Edwin Etieyibo, 1–20. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. Chimakonam, J. O. 2018b. ‘The Philosophy of African Logic: A Consideration of Ezumezu Paradigm’. In Philosophical perceptions on logic and order, ed. Jeremy Horne, 96–121. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

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Chimakonam, J. O. 2017a. ‘The question of African logic: Beyond apologia and polemics’. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, eds. Adeshina. Afolayan and Toyin. Falola, 106–28. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Chimakonam, J. O. 2017b. ‘Conversationalism as an emerging method of thinking in and beyond African philosophy’. Acta Academica 47(2): 11–33. Chimakonam, J. O. 2016. ‘The end of ubuntu or its beginning in Matolino-KwindingwiMetz debate: An exercise in conversational philosophy’. South African Journal of Philosophy 35(2): 224–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2016.1174921 Chimakonam, J. O. 2015. ‘The Criteria Question in Africa Philosophy: Escape from the Horns of Jingoism and Afrocentrism’. In Atuolu Omotiu: Some Unanswered Questions in Contemporary African Philosophy, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 101–24. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Chimakonam, J. O. 2014. ‘Ezumezu (African) Logic as an Algorithm for Scientific Research in Africa’. In Philosophy, Science and Human Development: International Conference Papers 2011, eds. C. N. Ogbozo and C. I. Asogwa, 58–77. Enugu: Snaap Press. Chimakonam, J. O., and U. O. Egbai. 2016. ‘The Value of Conversational Thinking in Building a Decent World: The Perspective of Postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa’. Dialogue and Universalism 44(4): 105–17. Egbai, U. O. 2018. ‘Why African Philosophers Should Build Systems: An Exercise in Conversational Thinking’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 7(1): 34–52. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ft.v7i1.2 Egbai, U. O. 2019. ‘Introduction: Conversations on the Problems of Identity, Consciousness and Mind’. In New Conversations on the Problems of Identity, Consciousness and the Mind, eds. J. O. Chimakonam, U. Egbai, S. Segun and A. Attoe, 1–10. Cham: Springer. Egbai, U. O., and J. O. Chimakonam. 2019a. ‘Why Conversational Thinking Could be an Alternative Method for Intercultural Philosophy’. Journal of Intercultural Studies 40(2): 172–89. Egbai, U. O, and J. O. Chimakonam. 2019b. ‘Protecting the rights of victims in transitional justice: An interrogation of amnesty’. African Human Rights Law Journal 19: 608–23. Gyekye, K., 1992. ‘Person and Community in Akan Thought’. In Person and Community, eds. K. Wiredu and K. Gyekye, 101–22. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983. The Invention of Tradition: Past and Present Publications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horton, Robin. 2020. ‘African Traditional Thought and Western Science’. In Logic and African Philosophy: Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 27–70. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. Ikuenobe, P. 2006. ‘The Idea of Personhood in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart’. Philosophia Africana 9(2): 117–31. Iroegbu, P. 1995. Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy. Owerri: International Universities. Jahn, J. 1961. Muntu: The New African Culture. London: Faber & Faber. Kagame, A. 1956. La philosophie bantu-rwandaise de l’être. Brussels: Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales. Koenane, M. L. J., and C. P. Olatunji. 2017. ‘Is it the end or just the beginning of ubuntu? Response to Matolino and Kwindingwi in view of Metz’s rebuttal’. South African Journal of Philosophy 36(2): 263–77. DOI: 10.1080/02580136.2016.1225188 Le Grange, L. 2011. ‘Ubuntu, Ukama and the Healing of Nature, Self and Society’. Educational Philosophy and Theory 44(S2). doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00795.x

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Mangena, F. n.d. ‘Hunhu/Ubuntu in the Traditional Thought of Southern Africa’. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www.iep.utm.edu/hunhu/ Matolino, B. 2015. ‘A response to Metz’s reply on the end of ubuntu’. South African Journal of Philosophy 32(2): 197–205. Matolino, B. 2014. Personhood in African Philosophy. Piertermaritzburg: Cluster Publications. Matolino, B., and W. Kwindingwi. 2013. ‘The end of ubuntu’. South African Journal of Philosophy 34(2): 214–25. Mbiti, J. 1970. African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Doubleday. Menkiti, I. 2004. On the Normative Conception of a Person. A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 324–31. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Menkiti, I. 1984. ‘Person and community in African traditional thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, 3rd ed., ed. Richard Wright, 41–55. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Metz, T. 2014. ‘Just the beginning for ubuntu: reply to Matolino and Kwindingwi’. South African Journal of Philosophy 33(1): 65–72. Metz, T. 2012. ‘An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15: 387–402. Metz, T. 2011. ‘Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa’. African Human Rights Law Journal 11: 532–59. Metz, T. 2007a. ‘Toward an African Moral Theory’. Journal of Political Philosophy 15: 321–41. Metz, T. 2007b. ‘Ubuntu as a Moral Theory: Reply to Four Critics’. South African Journal of Philosophy 26(4): 369–87. Molefe, M. 2017. ‘Critical comments on Afro-communitarianism: The community versus individual’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 6(1):1–22. Murove, M. F. 2020. African Politics and Ethics: Exploring New Dimensions. Cham: Palgrave. Murove, M. F. 2007. ‘The Shona Ethic of Ukama with Reference to the Immortality of Values’. Mankind Quarterly 48(2): 179–89. doi:10.46469/mq.2007.48.2.4 Murove, M. F. 2009. ‘An African Environmental Ethic Based on the Concepts of Ukama and Ubuntu’. In African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, ed. M. F. Murove, 315–32. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Odera Oruka. 1975. ‘The Fundamental Principles in the Question of African Philosophy’. Second Order 4(1). Oyowe, A. 2013. ‘Strange bedfellows: Rethinking ubuntu and human rights in South Africa’. African Human Rights Law Journal 13: 103–24. Quine, W. V. O. 1951. ‘Main Trends in Recent Philosophy: Two Dogmas of Empiricism’. The Philosophical Review 60(1): 20–43. Ramose, M. B. 2002. African Philosophy through Ubuntu. Harare: Mont Books. Ramose, M. B. 2003. ‘The ethics of Ubuntu’. In The African Philosophy Reader, 2nd ed., eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 379–87. London: Routledge. Samkange, S., and T. M. Samkange. 1980. Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe Indigenous Political Philosophy. Salisbury: Graham Publishing. Wiredu, K. 2020. ‘How Not to Compare African Traditional Thought with Western Thought’. In Logic and African Philosophy: Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 71–80. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. Wiredu, K. 2005. ‘On the Idea of a Global Ethic’. Journal of Global Ethics 1(1): 45–51. Wiredu, K. 1996. Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

2

African Proverbs Edwin Etieyibo

Introduction In this chapter, which is excavatory in nature and method, I am broadly concerned with two things. First, the nature and substance of proverbs, and secondly, how proverbs serve as a source of ethical ideas and thought in African ethics. In furtherance of my first aim, my general strategy is to examine the sense in which proverbs constitute some repertoire of a cultural world view and underlie some philosophical principles whether metaphysical or ethical. And as part of the second aim, I will be analysing a number of proverbs and isolating some substantive contents from them, i.e. how they make some ethical claims about some general principles or truth, as well as provide some advice on ethical behaviour and living in the context of African ethics or an African communalistic ethics. In excavating an African ethical world view from proverbs, or taking proverbs as a source of African moral theory, it is important to keep in mind that there was no formal writing in traditional African societies and proverbs (as an oral source), just like poems, riddles, songs, dance and music were used by indigenous Africans to store aspects of their knowledge, values and philosophy. Accordingly, this makes the excavatory or excavationist project a very valuable one in African philosophy. There are a number of options that are open to anyone who wants to demonstrate, in general, that there is philosophy or ethics in African proverbs or, in particular, that there is morality or moral nuggets in African proverbs. In his essay ‘Philosophy in African Proverbs’, Campbell Shittu Momoh (2000) identifies three such options. One option is where one looks at a collection of the proverbs of an African people, say the Urhobos, Zulus, Luos Igbos, Binis, Akans, Yorubas or Shonas, and discusses how philosophical or ethical or not these proverbs are or each proverb is. A second option, according to Momoh, is to consider some proverbs and examine them for their metaphysical, logical, moral and epistemological import and values. A third option is to examine only ‘proverbs that are in fact metaphysical principles’ (Momoh 2000: 362). It is this option (the third) that Momoh adopts in his essay. Regarding proverbs and metaphysical principles, Momoh claims that every philosophical work no matter how voluminous it is ‘has a metaphysical principle and any weltanschauung also has a metaphysical principle’ (362). Thus, he argues that 31

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proverbs present a compendious and succinct, sometimes one-line statement of a philosophical position (Momoh 2000: 362). Drawing on G. Watts Cunningham’s examples of metaphysical principles (1968: 316), Momoh directs us to the following metaphysical principles of these philosophers (Momoh 2000: 363): ● ●

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Francis Herbert Bradley: To be real is to be indissolubly one thing with sentience. John Ellis McTaggart: The only substance are selves, parts of selves and groups of selves. Willard Van Orman Quine: To be is to be the value of a variable and no entity without identity. William Abraham: What is, is, in the first place, spirit. Dagogo E. ldoniboye: What is, is spirit. Campbell Shittu Momoh: What is, is moralistic. Plato: The good is not only the author of knowledge of all things but their being and essence. George Berkeley: To be is to be perceived (esse est percipi)

In this chapter, I will be adopting the second option where I examine a handful of African proverbs in terms of their moral or ethical import or values in the context of an African communalistic ethics.

Nature, substance and function of proverbs Proverbs come in different forms but whatever forms they come in they are, in general, short and concise sayings. The short and pithy nature of proverbs make them particularly useful in oral cultures since they are ‘easy to remember’ (Moon 2005: 5; see also 2009). In this sense, one may regard proverbs as shorthand expressions of reality or parts of reality, or lived experiences, or simply as having the general and abstract form of representation and as functioning as symbols that point us to something outside of themselves and beyond. It is important for proverbs to have this generalized and abstract or symbolic form given the importance in oral cultures for conversations and discussions to be remembered. This makes proverbs useful in oral cultures and accordingly, one might say, places proverbs in the category of what Walter Ong calls formulaic expressions and mnemonic patterns in oral cultures (1982/1989). Proverbs are propositional, by which I mean that they make some claim, where the claim states some general principle or truth or provides some idea about reality or some piece of advice. Because proverbs are propositional, they are a repertoire of a cultural world view, which underlie some philosophical principles. Momoh (2000: 359–76) has argued for, and Edwin Etieyibo (2016: 21–39) has re-echoed, the importance of proverbs as an oral source in African philosophy. Both scholars have also contended that the importance of proverbs is partly because they function as the repertoire and arbiter of knowledge. And in the context of African philosophy or the philosophical enterprise in Africa, they have noted that they are a valuable vehicle for storing and carrying the philosophy of Africans. As Momoh puts it, ‘African proverbs constitute one important and strategic area where African philosophy can be extracted

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and alembicated’ (2000: 359) and ‘Proverbs represent the last authority on the communal or public aspects of a people’s beliefs or philosophy on any concept or issue’ such that ‘Traditionally one can say that what is not in a people’s proverbs does not exist, what is not in a people’s proverbs is not real’ (362).1 Using these criteria of proverbs as representing the last authority on the communal or public aspects of a people’s beliefs or philosophy on any concept or issue, and proverbs as circumscribing a people’s experiences and providing a peek or window for existence, or reality – namely what does exist or is real and what doesn’t exist or isn’t real – Momoh examines the youth question and the woman or gender question in traditional African societies (2000: 363). And he concludes with the following claims: (1) proverbs in many African societies do not reflect the view that ‘African youth is a passive, malleable and robotic element in the presence of an elder’ (363); and (2) proverbs in many African societies don’t reflect the view that ‘the woman is ‘assigned role of subordination to the man and a place of inferiority in the society’ (363). It is important for Africans and African philosophy and, in general, any oral culture that proverbs serve the function of the last authority on the communal or public aspects of a people’s beliefs or philosophy and the decider of what does or doesn’t exist or what is real and is not real. As Momoh notes, ‘The fact that there is philosophy in proverbs is of extra significance for African philosophy for the well-known reason that ancient African philosophy was not preserved in writing at least in respect of Africa south of the Sahara’ (359). Below I provide snippets of what a number of scholars have said about the significance and value of proverbs (whether in general or in the context of African cultures), their nature, importance and function: ●

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‘In order for one to learn as much as possible of some new culture, one must learn the oral forms of the culture of the people, in particular proverbs and myths.’ (Van Rheenen 1991: 44) For the Yoruba people, ‘Proverb is word’s horse, word is proverb’s horse. If a word is lost, we will use proverb to search for it.’ (Taiwo 1976: 32) ‘African proverbs used to minister in oral cultures and as a deep symbol within culture that reveals the world view of the people.’ (Moon 2005: 1; see also 2009). ‘In Igbo land, Ibo proverbs and names contain and represent not just aspects of Ibo world view, religious faith, hope and fears but also philosophical attitude to life.’ (Llogu 1974) ‘Proverbs are a compact treatise on the values of culture.’ (Seidensticker 1987: 8) ‘We learn our culture through proverbs.’ (Samovar, Porter and Stefani 1988: 39) ‘Proverbs are to the traditional African what the Bible or the Koran is to the religious leader; where the religious leader would reach for a passage in the Holy Book, the African would reach for a proverb. Proverbs are to the traditional African what a book is to a student; he studied and mastered proverbs just as a student studies his subject matter in books. Proverbs are to the traditional African elders a pedagogical instrument [to] educate the youths just as the modem formal schooling system is an educational forum for instructing the youth. Where the scholar would quote recognised authorities in his areas of specialisation, reach for beautiful and sometimes bombastic and high falutin expressions in language to

34

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African Ethics parade his erudition, the traditional African used proverbs to perform similar duties.’ (Momoh 2000: 361) ‘Beliefs that people hold about the universe and how to live in it are often found in their folk tales and their proverbs.’ (Hughes 1984: 251–2) The Yoruba relate ‘proverbs to all aspect of life, using proverbs to emphasize the words of the wise’. (Taiwo 1967: 26) ‘Oral cultures are customary in Third World societies and are proverb-oriented, and proverbs and myths are significantly helpful in understanding and interpreting animistic worldviews.’ (Van Rheenen 1991: 39) ‘In African Studies, music and proverbs have a lot in common. Through the study of proverbs of an African people and culture we can also come to know their culture and their world-views. But unlike in African music where not every adult is expected to sign and dance especially amongst the elites, every adult in order to attract respect and reverence or to retain status, dignity or even integrity in the society, is expected to know, speak and weave proverbs.’ (Momoh 2000: 360) ‘Proverbs as an important symbol system to help construct and maintain the culture’s view of reality.’ (Moon 2005: 3; see also 2009) ‘Proverbs are a vital and important mode of communicating and key to penetrating the worldview of Africans.’ (Nussbaum 1996: 98; see also Pobee 1979: 75–7) Proverbs are used by people especially the aged ‘to convey precious moral lessons, warnings and advices, since they make a greater impact on the mind than ordinary words’. (Taiwo 1967: 26) ‘Proverbs are time-tested stepping stones that reveal the soul of oral cultures.’ (Moon 2005: 1) ‘In Akan proverbs, one can see the wisdom and soul of the Akan people.’ (Nkansah-Obrempong 2002: 38) ‘Proverbs among the Ibos or in Igbo-land can be said to be the palm oil with which words are eaten and they serve or perform two important ends. First, they enable the speaker to give universal status to a special and particular incident. Second, they are used to soften the harshness of words and make them more palatable.’ (Achebe 1958) ‘The collective thought, beliefs, and values of an African people can be discerned from their proverbs.’ (Kudadjie 1996: 14) ‘Proverbs are common ways of expressing religious ideas and feelings . . . It is in proverbs that we find the remains of the oldest forms of African religious and philosophical wisdom.’ (Mbiti 1970: 86)

Because of the importance and value of proverbs to orality or in oral cultures and in traditional African societies, members of the society are expected to not only understand proverbs and their meaning but to master them. The importance of understanding and mastering proverbs is brought out in this Igbo metaproverb: ‘If you utter a proverb and your interlocutor requires you to explain it, the dowry paid on his mother must have been wasted.’ It is for this reason that Momoh (2000) speaks of proverbs as providing a ranking system in terms of knowledge and a mechanism for

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separating the ‘elder’ and ‘youth’. Regarding the former, he notes: ‘In formal modern schooling systems, primary school, secondary school or university certificates provide a scale of ranking and placement in learning, a knowledge, mastery and appropriate usage of proverbs in traditional societies also provided a scale of ranking and placement m learning. Of course, there were no formal certificates to show for that but the ranking was public knowledge and in some communities it is even formalized.’ And concerning the latter (a mechanism for separating the ‘elder’ and ‘youth’), Momoh tells us about the practice among the Uchi (Auchi) people whereby proverbs are not only used to rank people but also to place them in terms of a person who is ‘a child in proverbs’, or person who is ‘a youth in proverbs’ or a person who is ‘old in proverbs’ (361–2). Momoh writes: ‘By this ranking you can find an old man or elder who is actually placed as ‘a child’ or ‘youth’ in proverbs while there can be a young person who is generally acknowledged to be ‘old in proverbs’. But the elder who is old in proverbs and full of wisdom is the equivalent of the modem day emeritus professor’ (362).

African proverbs and ethics or morality In general, ethics and morality are different. While ethics can be defined as the systematic, critical study of morality as a concept and a source of behavioural guidance, morality can be said to be a formal system of rules of behaviour (i.e. a system of rules about how one ought to behave in society, what is right or wrong, good or bad behaviour). In general, philosophers who specialize in ethics or ethicists try to ensure that whatever it is that morality tells us to do is strongly and logically justified.2 What I want to do now is to present and analyse a number of African proverbs in terms of their ethical values or moral nuggets. In presenting and analysing these proverbs, I will not discuss each and every one of them, but I will isolate them in terms of representing certain African ethical themes regarding certain ethical claims about some general principles or truth or some advice on ethical behaviour and living. The themes under which the proverbs are discussed are: (1) dialogue, peace and communal harmony; (2) communal good, solidarity and well-being; (3) brotherhood and sisterhood (working together, communally and in unity); (4) humanism, hospitality and caring; and (5) self-discipline, sacrifice and success. It is important to point out that the proverbs may overlap and, even though each proverb is presented and discussed under each theme, it may indeed intersect with another proverb and may very well have been presented and discussed under a different theme or more than one theme. Each proverb that is presented under a particular thematic category is followed by the African ethnic group(s) and country/countries or region(s) where it originates. That proverbs are associated with a particular ethnic group and country does not mean that they are the preserve of that ethnic group or country or region; they may also be found among other African ethnic groups and countries or regions.

(1) Dialogue, peace and communal harmony ●

Let us shun and abandon bad things and talk peace. (Sheng: Kenya)

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African Ethics A deaf ear is followed by death and an ear that listens is followed by blessings. (Samburu: Kenya)

(2) Communal good, solidarity and well-being ●

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A chicken that keeps scratching the dunghill will soon find the mother’s thigh bones. (Swahili: Eastern and Central Africa) If you rattle a snake, you should be prepared to be bitten by it. (Gikuyu: Kenya) The water pot presses upon the small circular pad. (Acholi: Uganda; and Swahili)

(3) Brotherhood and sisterhood (working together, communally and in unity) ●

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Go in that direction does not mean that you go. To go means, let’s go together! (Sena: Mozambique) Your neighbour’s pain and problems are your pain and problems. (Urhobo: Nigeria) The one who milks the cow is not the same person as the one who removes (plucks out) ticks from a cow. (Gikuyu: Kenya; and Swahili) One hand does not catch a buffalo. (Ewe: Ghana; Benin, Nigeria, Togo; and Swahili) The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth. (Akan: Ghana; and Ivory Coast) Those who walk together warn each other. (Ganda: Uganda; and Swahili) The iroko tree is strong but it is not complete; man, too, is not complete. (Urhobo/ Okpe: Nigeria) It takes a whole village to raise a child. (Urhobo, Igbo and Yoruba: Nigeria) The groin pains in sympathy with the sore. (Zulu: South Africa and Swaziland) The well-being of man depends on his fellow man. (Akan: Ghana) Many hands make light work. (Haya: Tanzania; and Swahili) Alive, we live in the same house or under the same roof. Dead, we rest in the same tomb. (Malagasy: Madagascar) Brothers who get along will always defeat the enemy. (Mashi: Democratic Republic of Congo) Your friend’s mother is your mother too. (Digo, Mijikenda: Kenya) A water pot cannot survive or stand on its own without a support. (Urhobo: Nigeria) The right arm washes the left arm and the left arm washes the right arm. (Akan: Ghana) If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to get there, go with others. (Urhobo/ Okpe: Nigeria)

(4) Humanism, hospitality and caring ●

Like ants, eat little and carry the rest back to your home. (Bembe: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania; and Swahili)

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Let the guest come so that the host or hostess may benefit (get well). (Swahili) It’s better to give than to receive. (Malagasy: Madagascar; and Swahili) If the guest cries the host also cries and if the host laughs the guest also laughs. (Urhobo: Nigeria) A human being’s brother is a (or another) human being. (Akan: Ghana)

(5) Self-discipline, sacrifice and success ●

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The lead cow (the one in front) gets whipped the most. (Zulu: South Africa and Swaziland) Suffering is prior to attaining success or perfection. (Chagga: Tanzania; and Swahili) Those that make sacrifices get the reward of life but those that don’t make sacrifices don’t get the reward of life. (Urhobo: Nigeria) A person who is not disciplined cannot be cautioned. (Haya: Tanzania; and Swahili) No matter how hard it may get, a way out or eventual comfort will be provided or after hardship comes relief. (Swahili; Arabic: Egypt and other North African countries) He who sows yam must harvest yam; he who sows cassava must harvest cassava; no man sows cocoyam and harvests cassava; if this happens, it is either that the gods are annoyed or there is a civil strife up and above (heaven). (Ibibio: Nigeria) By persevering the egg walks on legs. (Oromo: Ethiopia)

These proverbs and the ethical themes that they demonstrate constitute what I will call the entire gamut of African ethics, where I take African ethics to be communalistic. By a communalistic African ethics I mean that the good is taken to be prior to the right and the community to be ontological prior to the individual.3 This is particularly visible and evident in four of the five thematic categories: dialogue, peace and communal harmony; communal good, solidarity and well-being; brotherhood and sisterhood (working together, communally and in unity); and humanism, hospitality and caring. But before I delve into the way in which some of these proverbs present us a communalistic African ethics and connect together some of the characteristics of African ethics, let me briefly discuss one proverb from each of the above five thematic categories. I do this in the next section.

Proverbs and thematic categories Proverbs on dialogue, peace and communal harmony If a community has to persist and survive, it is important that every member of the community embrace or engage in the rights sort of activities, and according eschew activities that are disharmonious and that threaten its peace. One activity that helps to do this and which works towards peace and communal harmony is dialogue that is directed not at bad things but at good things such as peaceful co-existence, as brought

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out by the proverb: ‘Let us shun and abandon bad things and talk peace.’ When we all engage in dialogue we seek to speak and listen, we want to hear others out and resolve whatever issues that there are in order to push towards peace and harmony. Or simply, we are interested in productive dialogue and conversations and as did the African philosopher Ifeanyi Menkiti we enthusiastically ask: ‘You, my colleague, my friend, my compatriot, what have I done wrong that you exclude me from the conversation?’ This expression tells us all we need to know about the importance of positive dialogue and conversations in unity and it captures the word ‘Emengini’ and which Menkiti used as a cornerstone of his now running Emengini Institute for Comparative Global Studies.4

Proverbs on communal good, solidarity and well-being The theme of dialogue, peace and communal harmony (above) is also connected to this theme of communal good, solidarity and well-being. Both themes highlight the importance of engaging in activities that are not disharmonious and that promote peace in order for the community to persist and survive. That is the point that the proverb, ‘A chicken that keeps scratching the dunghill will soon find the mother’s thigh bones’, is making. This proverb encourages everyone to seek and pursue harmony (peace and solidarity) and not bring forth things that will tear and disturb the harmony of the community such as harbouring resentment, always wanting to be right, not forgiving and been vindictive.

Proverbs on brotherhood and sisterhood (working together, communally and in unity) The theme of working together or being in unity or united or the common good that is suggested by the notion of brotherhood and sisterhood finds expressions in proverbs such as ‘The iroko tree is strong but it is not complete; man, too, is not complete (Urhobo/Okpe: Nigeria). This proverb, like many other proverbs in this category, speak to something about individuals not being self-sufficient. This proverb shows that even the iroko tree with all its priceless strength is not complete (self-sufficient). It needs rich soil, a constant stream of water and sunlight to maintain its strength, it luxuriant leaves, and to blossom. In fact, this can be said of all or most trees. The point then is that, if with all its strength the iroko tree is not self-sufficient, how much more humans who are not as strong as the iroko tree. For humans to luxuriate and flourish, like the iroko tree, they have to work together and to be in unity as brothers and sisters.

Proverbs on humanism, hospitality and caring The proverb, ‘A human being’s brother is a (or another) human being’, helps us to appreciate the fact about our common humanity where it is the case that one’s brother or relative is a human also. And this aspect of humanism is emphasized in terms of hospitality and which is brought out by the other proverb, ‘Let the guest come so that the host or hostess may benefit (get well).’ Such hospitality is rewarding because it does benefit everyone (the hosts and the guests).

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Proverbs on self-discipline, sacrifice and success The proverbs in this category emphasize a very important point about individuals and success. The point being that one must be prepared to put in the hard work and to suffer sometimes if they have to attain some rewards. So the ‘lead cow’ (the one in front) has to get ‘whipped the most’ not just because they are the lead (of course, being the lead brings with it this sort of sacrifice for others) but also because such whipping (suffering or sacrifices) are valuable for the success of both the one being whipped and the group in general (those being led). In essence the proverb discourages free-riding and promotes hard work done individually and collectively. And in the context of a communalistic African ethics one is mindful of the famous claim or point made by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, about the hospitality of hosts in African communal society or simply about the relationship between the hosts and guests in traditional African societies. He writes: Those of us who talk about the African way of life and, quite rightly, take a pride in maintaining the tradition of hospitality which is so great a part of it, might do well to remember the Swahili saying: ‘Mgeni siku mbili; siku ya tatu mpe jembe’ – or in English, ‘Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day give him a hoe!’ In actual fact, the guest was likely to ask for the hoe even before his host had to give him one – for he knew what was expected of him, and would have been ashamed to remain idle any longer. Thus, working was part and parcel, was indeed the very basis and justification of this socialist achievement of which we are so justly proud. 1987: 6

Communalistic African ethics and characteristics of African ethics In the penultimate section, I did claim that the proverbs and the ethical themes that they demonstrate constitute a communalistic African ethics, and that a communalistic African ethics prioritizes the good and the welfare and interests of the community over the right and the welfare and interests of the individual qua individual. The general ethical requirement or obligation of the themes of these proverbs with regard to a communalistic African ethics is in terms of binding oneself with others and establishing ‘humane relations with’ others (Ramose 1999/2002: 52). This binding and humane relations have been highlighted in the following quotes. The first is by Desmond Tutu, who notes in the context of his discussion of African ethics, in general and Ubuntu, in particular: ‘Harmony, friendliness, community are great goods. Social harmony is for us the summum bonum—the greatest good. Anything that subverts or undermines this sought-after good is to be avoided like the plague. Anger, resentment, lust for revenge, even success through aggressive competitiveness, are corrosive of this good’ (Tutu 1999: 35). The second quote is by Silas Modiri Molema: ‘The greatest happiness and good of the tribe was the end and aim of each member of the tribe. Now, utility forms part of the basis of perhaps all moral codes. With the Bantu, it formed the basis of morality . . . it was utilitarian’ (quoted in Gyekye 2010: 12; see also Molema 1920). And

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the last, which Tutu discussed in the context of ubuntu, is this: ‘A person with Ubuntu is available and open to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able or good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed’ (Tutu 1988: 2). The foregoing highlights the communalistic nature of African ethics or the nature of a communalistic African ethics, which has as some of its characteristics the following: personhood, humanism, common good, brotherhood (sisterhood) and social duties. In terms of personhood the idea is that, because of the ‘we’, the ‘I’ is. As for humanism, it is the welfare of humans or all of us as humans that matters and that ought to be promoted. In terms of the common good, we do not promote individual and separate goods but the good of all. This links the social characteristic of a communalistic African ethics with the humanistic characteristic where the focus is not on the individual but the community in virtue of humans being social. And for duties, the point about a communalistic African ethics is to contrast duties with rights in what I have called the ‘ethics of duty’ vs the ‘ethics of right’, where I owe you and you owe me and my duty is towards you and your welfare and your duty is towards me and my welfare (Etieyibo 2019a; 2019b; 2019c; 2020a; 2020b; 2020c.). Although the proverbs showcase a communalistic African ethics and these can be cashed out or understood in terms of certain characteristics including that of duties, communalistic African ethics can be said to be one of an ‘ethics of duty’ that has a ‘we mode of being’ ontological commitment or principle. In terms of the form of the ‘ethics of duty’, we have a world view that prioritizes duties over rights (even when both are not in conflict). The emphasis is on provisions (i.e. what one does to others or can do for others). And the notion of duties is induced by needs; as well, it is grounded on a communal-focused conception of human nature (‘a we-mode being ontology’: duties are meant to enhance dignity). And in terms of the form of the ‘ethics of right’, we have a world view that prioritizes rights over duties (even when both are not in conflict). The emphasis is on entitlements (i.e. the claim of some individuals on others or others on everyone else). The notion of rights is grounded on an individual-focused conception of human nature (‘an I-mode being ontology’: rights are protections of dignity). In his seminal and classic article, ‘Person and Community in Traditional African Thought’, first published in 1979, and which appeared later in 1984, Menkiti introduces us to the notion of an ‘ethics of duty’, as instantiated in traditional African societies. He says: [I]t becomes quite clear why African societies tend to be organized around the requirements of duty while Western societies tend to be organized around the postulation of individual rights. In the African understanding, priority is given to the duties which individuals owe to the collectivity, and their rights, whatever these may be, are seen as secondary to their exercise of their duties. In the West, on the other hand, we find a construal of things in which certain specified rights of individuals are seen as antecedent to the organization of society; with the function of government viewed, consequently, as being the protection and defense of these individual rights. 1984: 180

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It is important to note that the reference to what I call the ‘ethics of duty’ by Menkiti was done in the context of his discussion of an African notion of personhood and the relationship between the community and persons. Menkiti’s discussion of an ‘ethics of duty’ was later re-echoed by another African philosopher, Kwame Gyekye, who notes that a communitarian, although recognizing the inviolability of rights, ‘cannot be expected to be obsessed with rights’ (1997: 65), and that communitarianism is not obsessed with rights but it is obsessed with duty. Being obsessed with duty, for Gyekye, means that the communitarian ‘will expectably give priority to duties rather than rights’ (2003: 363). In his Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on ‘African Ethics’, Gyekye says: All these considerations elevate the notion of duties to a status similar to that given to the notion of rights in Western ethics. African ethics does not give short-shrift to rights as such; nevertheless, it does not give obsessional or blinkered emphasis on rights. In this morality duties trump rights, not the other way around, as it is in the moral systems of Western societies. The attitude to, or performance of, duties is induced by a consciousness of needs rather than of rights. In other words, people fulfill—and ought to fulfill—duties to others not because of the rights of these others, but because of their needs and welfare. 2010: 35

Elsewhere, Gyekye notes: ‘A morality [or ethics] of duty is one that requires each individual to demonstrate concern for the interests of others (34–5), and: ‘The ethical values of compassion, solidarity, reciprocity, cooperation, interdependence, and social well-being, which are counted among the principles of the communitarian morality, primarily impose duties on the individual with respect to the community and its members’ (35). In this ethics of duty, the goal is to look for the individual that is embedded in the we and the motto is that ‘no one must be left behind’. Some of the maxims of the ethics of duty include: ‘I am because we are’; ‘I am a person through other persons’; ‘One is a human being when one affirms the humanity of others’ (or ‘I am a human because of your humanity’); ‘I am what I am because of who we all are; and ‘We all are, therefore I am.’ Because the ethics of duty subscribe to the values and virtues of harmony, friendliness, caring, solidarity, honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, hospitality, kindness, loving, gratitude, tolerance, loyalty and consideration, we can say that it allows that (a) an individual’s ‘interests’ may be compromised in some occasions; (b) one may care for others or love them more than one cares for or loves oneself; and (c) the interests of others or the community may trump that of the individual. This is so because the ethics of duty has the following universalism (the universal law formula of an African ethics): ‘Act only on a maxim that you can at the same time will should become a universal law of human and communal flourishing’, and obliges one to nourish others as one nourishes oneself, to supports others as one supports oneself, to take the pain of others as one’s pain, their fight as one’s fight; to see one’s wealth as their wealth. One important characteristic that has come up now and then in our discussion is that of humanism. I now want to conclude this section by highlighting this characteristic

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in terms of a humanistic morality and some connection to the ethics of duty. Humanism and a humanistic morality are simply human-oriented, that is to say that a humanistic morality is an ethic that is oriented towards the interests, needs, well-being – or in Aristotelian terms flourishing – of humans or members of the human community or the community as a whole. Humanism has both descriptive and prescriptive aspects. In its descriptive aspect it asserts that human qua communal flourishing is the goal of human thought and actions. In its prescriptive aspect it asserts that an action’s moral rightness or wrongness is determined by how well they promote human qua communal flourishing. This makes African ethics broadly consequentialist and welfarist and tangentially teleological in the sense that it derives duty or moral obligation from certain outcomes that are good or desirable and as an end to be achieved, the end being human qua communal flourishing. This is in contrast to deontological ethics (divine theory, Kantian ethics) which hold that the standards for the moral rightness of an action, on the one hand, depend on a set of rules or principles and are, on the other, independent of consequences or the end to be achieved. A humanistic morality is fundamentally a social morality and stems from the idea of humans as essentially social beings, which has given rise to the communitarian or communalistic ethos in African societies. Like Aristotle, the view that a human being is essentially social or by nature a social animal means that humans are born into existing human society. As a member of the human community by nature, the individual stands in a social relationship with others; he or she is related and connected to other persons (the ‘I’ is embedded in the ‘we’), and must necessarily have relationships with them and, consequently, have some obligations or duties by virtue of such relationships. That is to say, the social relationships of humans prescribe a social ethic which takes into consideration the interests, needs and well-being of humans – this is essentially what it means to say a morality or ethic is humanistic. It is important to note that a humanistic or social ethic is different from an individualistic ethic which focuses on the flourishing of the individual and not on the flourishing of the human qua communal flourishing. In a humanistic morality, human qua communal flourishing is essentially social flourishing or the flourishing of the community and this is tied to the idea of the common good. The point is that in African ethics or a communalistic African ethics, the end towards which morally good actions aim for is human flourishing, which is communal flourishing. This is because the individual is considered a social being whose existence and flourishing depend on and are determined by the flourishing of the community as a whole. This idea of interdependence and reciprocal relationship is well expressed by the following African proverbs found in the thematic category of brotherhood and sisterhood (working together, communally and in unity). So take, for example, the following three proverbs: ‘The well-being of man depends on his fellow man’; ‘The right arm washes the left arm and the left arm washes the right arm’; and ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to get there, go with others.’ The first proverb highlights the limited nature of humans with regard to what they can possibly accomplish individually, the realization of their ends, their well-being. It highlights the importance of kindness, assistance, sympathy and compassion of others

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to an individual’s goal of flourishing. The second proverb underlies the importance of reciprocity and social cooperation. It shows that in order for you and me (both the left and right arms) to succeed in our ends we must work together. The third proverb emphasizes that being individualistic will not get us very far or to our destination. We might be able to go very fast but we may not go far or get there. In order to achieve our ends whatever these may be we must get others onboard. That is, their involvement is a necessary component of our success. I have indicated that the goal of an individual’s flourishing is tied to the flourishing of the community. This is somewhat similar to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s self-effacing thesis where the individual’s interests are roughly identical with the interests of every member of the community or the common good. In Rousseau’s Social Contract, the individuality of the individual is effaced when its particular private will is identified with the General Will.5 The point is that the basic interests of all members of the community are identical as every member desires what we might call primary communal goods such as peace, justice, security, equality, freedom and dignity. If we take the primary communal goods to be the common good because every member of the community desires them, then it be could be said that the individual good is satisfied just in case the common good is achieved. A humanistic morality and the theme of human qua communal flourishing underlie why brotherhood and sisterhood, namely the association of humans (men and women) with common aims and interests, is essential in the African world view of a communalistic African ethics. For if the basic human interests are identical, and the satisfaction of an individual’s interests follows from the satisfaction of the common interests, then humanity is bound together in some common aims, and belongs to a common membership of one universal human family. Because every human is a member of the one universal family, he or she deserves moral concern notwithstanding his or her racial, sexual or social background. When we respect individual members, we respect their humanity or the fact that they are part of the one universal family and not simply because they are my friends or members of my immediate or nuclear family members and close neighbours. Our discussion of a humanistic morality helps us to also now see why and how a communalistic African ethics is an ethics of duty. It is an ethics of duty because, being humanistic, it emphasizes human welfare and, accordingly, places emphasis on duties rather than rights. A rights-oriented ethic (as in the ethics of right) focuses on the interests and welfare of the individual and subscribes to rights in order to satisfy these interests. Conversely, a duty-oriented ethic (as in the ethics of duty) focuses on the interests and welfare of the community and subscribes to duties as a way to satisfy them. The individual qua human being is in a relational existence with others by virtue of his or her social nature, that is he or she is implicated in his or her community as a social being. Because of the natural sociality of humans, the individual is implicated in some social and moral roles in the form of obligations, commitments to other members of his or her community which the individual must fulfil. Simply put then, a communalistic African ethics takes our primary moral obligation to involve concern for the interests and welfare of others and the discharging of this obligation is the ‘universal duty’ that is placed upon each one of us as humans.

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Some objections and responses What I have done in this essay is to make a case for how we can think of proverbs (as an oral source) as vehicles for providing us some useful way of excavating African ethics or an African moral world view of a communalistic African ethics. This exercise or engagement with African proverbs invariably can be said to be one whereby one engages with the communal or public aspects of the beliefs or philosophy of Africans. This methodology, I believe, is significant given the absence of formal writing in traditional African societies, and given that proverbs served as a useful way and medium for the storage and retrieval of knowledge, beliefs, values and philosophy. What I have said about proverbs can also be said of poems, music, riddles and songs in traditional African society, as media and vehicles for storing and retrieving various aspects of an African cultural world view and philosophy. Notwithstanding this, someone may raise some objections or worries against my strategy or methodology of deriving ethics from proverbs. Here I consider two objections, which draw on and reproduce some of my comments elsewhere (Etieyibo 2016). The first objection is that there is no ethics in proverbs in general, and in African proverbs in particular, since proverbs do not in and of themselves (or are not meant to) deal with ethical issues. The objection that there is no ethics in proverbs in general, and in African proverbs in particular, is similar to the criticisms that have been raised by people like (the early) Gyekye and Peter O. Bodunrin that African proverbs have little or no philosophical value because they are not unique to Africa or cannot be used to produce a different philosophical system from that of the West.6 But for now, let me draw on what I have said elsewhere in response to the objection that there is no ethics in proverbs or African proverbs (Etieyibo 2016). I think that the motivations driving this objection may be that proverbs generally appear to be (a) descriptive rather than critical and (b) communal and not necessarily attributed to individuals. My first response to this objection is simply that the mere fact that proverbs are descriptive and communal in nature does not mean that they are not ethical. If one considers that proverbs do have an origin that extends beyond the community, then the argument that they do not constitute ethics is a bit too hasty. A second and brief response is to say that, although proverbs now have a communal dimension, they are products of particular individuals in particular societies and cultures and they now have some communal dimension simply because they have now been appropriated by the societies or communities. Another response with regard to the issue of proverbs being generally descriptive and not critical is that it depends on how one understands ‘critical’, In any case and at one level, one might claim that, insofar as proverbs present a particular world view, they are critical of alternative world views even though they are cashed out in descriptive terms (Etieyibo 2016: 17–18). A second objection is one that claims that African proverbs are contradictory. That is, one could easily point to a proverb that says something, and another proverb that says something else (i.e. contradictory). This objection can also be found in Momoh (2000: 361), where he gave a retort to John O. Donohue, who, in his paper ‘African Philosophy: The Problem of Definition’, makes the claim that African proverbs cannot contribute anything worthwhile to the study of African philosophy because ‘African

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proverbs are notoriously contradictory and often consist of no more than cynical pieces of advice on how to cheat successfully’. With regard to the supposed contradictory nature of African proverbs, Momoh’s response is simply to say that ‘it is clearly senseless to say that proverbs are contradictory in so far as they are not the intellectual output or product of one mind. Western philosophy taken as a whole is a world of contradictions. Worse than that there is not a single philosopher in the gamut of the history of Western philosophy or any other philosophy whose works has been shown not to contain strains of contradiction’ (Momoh 2000: 361). In addition to what Momoh has said, I have two things to say to the objection. First, this is an empirical claim for which we have no evidence as to whether or not this is the case (for proverbs or for many proverbs or for particular provers). Secondly, it may be the case that a proverb that is found in society A has a contrary proverb in society B, but that does not invalidate the ethical import of the proverb, since both societies could be said to view reality differently. Furthermore, the ethical status of the proverbs will not diminish even if we find two contrary proverbs in one society. Indeed, one might conclude that the existence of these contrary proverbs proves the point that proverbs, although communal, are products of particular individuals in particular societies and cultures. The point being that we have these contrary proverbs because they originate from individuals who disagree about how to capture and understand reality (Etieyibo 2016: 17–18).

Conclusion I now want to conclude by discussing something which I have overlooked in my discussion of proverbs and a communalistic African ethics. And this is the point about the possibility of a character-based African ethics. In his Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on ‘African Ethics’, Gyekye discusses the nature of a character-based African ethics. He says, partly, ‘African ethics is, thus, a character-based ethics that maintains that the quality of the individual’s character is most fundamental in our moral life . . . Good character is the essence of the African moral system, the linchpin of the moral wheel’ (2010: 8). But so far from my discussion of a communalistic African ethics and the proverbs in the five thematic categories there is no rigorous reference to character or character-based African ethics. I want to now say that, even though I didn’t discuss character in the communalistic African ethics and proverbs, character is important for this ethics. This is evident from the point that I made about the ethics of duty subscribing to the values and virtues of harmony, friendliness, caring, solidarity, honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, hospitality, kindness, loving, gratitude, tolerance, loyalty and consideration. However, this does not mean that African ethics is a character-based ethics or that communalistic African ethics is through and through a character-based African ethics in the mould typically ascribed to virtue ethics. Without doubt, the quality of the individual’s character is very fundamental in the moral life of communalistic African ethics. One has a good character when that person exhibits certain character traits like honesty, generosity, benevolence, loyalty – what

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virtues ethicists generally call cardinal virtues – where these traits are congenial and conducive to human qua communal flourishing and the maintenance of social order. Character refers to habits, which stem from a person’s deeds or actions. As with Aristotle (and other classical virtue ethicists), these habits and invariably the character traits are developed from repeated performance of particular actions. The repeated performance of the actions enables one to develop a character that is solid (i.e. its durability or stability). The stability of character that is developed following repetitive performance of virtuous actions seems to be the point that the Hausa (Nigeria) proverb is getting at when it says: ‘Character is like a line drawn on a rock; nobody can erase it.’ That is, in order for one to acquire a virtuous character or for certain morally acceptable actions to become part of one’s character or habitual to an individual, that individual must repeatedly perform them, and when one has acquired such a character one hardly loses it since it has almost now become one’s nature or a second nature or like a line that is drawn on a rock. One begins by recognizing those actions that are morally acceptable and then performs them on a regular basis. By performing the actions it leads to acquisition of a newly good habit, and repeated performance strengthens the habit and leads to the acquisition of good character or virtue. So in order for one to act in accord with the moral values, principles and rules of society one must have a good character. To this extent, moral education is very important in African societies. African societies see it as part of their duty to impart moral education to members of societies, making them aware of the moral values, principles and rules of society, with the hope that members will imbibe them. Thus, failure to follow these principles or develop a good character trait is a moral failing on the part of the individual who must take responsibility, and may be a reflection on society in terms of what it has done or didn’t do to help the individual. This helps us to appreciate the proverb, ‘It takes a whole village to raise a child’, in the third thematic category of brotherhood and sisterhood (working together, communally and in unity). In a communalistic African ethics, moral or good character or acting well is related to the notion of moral personhood insofar as only a moral person or a person that lives in accordance with the moral values, principles and rules of society can be truly considered a good or virtuous person. Only moral persons are considered the proper subject of ethics. This is because living in accordance with the moral values, principles and rules of society and the development of good character, choosing and acting repeatedly on those actions that are believed to be morally acceptable, requires conscious decisions and such decisions stem from one that has the desire to maintain social order. Thus, in this ethics, careful attempt is made to distinguish between a person from a mere human being (most especially on a normative/social conception of personhood). This view is eerily similar to Kant’s view about rational beings being the subject of morality and the distinction he draws between rational beings and human beings. In a communalistic African ethics (wedded to a normative/social conception of personhood), while a person is a human being and a member of the human community, a human being is not necessarily a person. One is a person if one exercises one’s moral capacity and makes moral judgements consistent with the moral values, principles and rules of society – that is, one participates in communal life through the discharge of one’s obligation defined by one’s station. Therefore, an individual who fails to live in

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accordance with the moral values, principles and rules of society is strictly speaking not a ‘person’ but only a human being. Children are thus only considered human beings and not as yet persons insofar as they are yet to exercise the capacity to participate in communal life through the discharge of their obligations. To wrap up. For a communalistic African ethics, the development of a good character or those character traits that contribute to our acting virtuously (acting compassionately, loyal, kindly and cooperatively) – where acting virtuously enables us to promote the common good – is important. On this view of promoting the common good, right action and conduct are evaluated by how well they promote smooth relationships, on the one hand, and uphold social structure and order, on the other. An action or conduct is good to the extent it promotes these ends and bad to the extent it detracts from the ends or runs counter to them. The point is that particular obligations arise from one’s particular station or situation in relation to others. Honesty, respect, justice, compassion and reverence as moral values can only be shown to particular persons. We have a moral obligation to be honest and just to other members of the community because it benefits the community which in turn benefits us. We ought to treat “the stranger” or guest or foreigner compassionately because he or she is a member of the universal human family. We have a duty to be respectful and show reverence to others. This means that the individual stands simultaneously in several different relationships with different members of the community: as a junior in relations to parents and elders, as a senior in relation to younger siblings, others. As a ruler to the ruled, father or mother to son or daughter, wife to husband, elder or older brother or sister to younger brother or sister, friend to friend, host to guest, and native or indigene to visitor or non-native/non-indigene (“stranger” or guest or foreigner). These bonds and relationships impose specific duties on us first and foremost as individuals in these relationships, and then general duties as members of the one universal human family. By discharging our obligations we help maintain social order and the flourishing of the common good as well as discharge our obligations by playing our part well in the relationships that we find ourselves in. This largely fulfils the fundamental moral norms and demands of the ethics of duty qua a communalistic Africans ethics, as brought out by the five thematic categories of the proverbs that have been examined in this chapter.

Notes 1 2 3

4 5 6

See The Substance of African Philosophy (1st ed., 1989), 125. Although ethics and morality are different, I will, in this chapter, follow the general practice whereby either concept or term is used interchangeably. For discussions of a communalistic African ethics see Ikuenobe (2006; and 2018: 589–604); Taiwo (2016: 81–100). For my discussions of communalistic African ethics and the ethics of duty, see Etieyibo (2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2020a, 2020b and 2020c). See Emengini.org; Thompson (2018); Etieyibo (2020d). See Rousseau (1762, bk. 1, ch. 7 § 8). See also Levine (1993). See Momoh (2000: 360) for a discussion of the nature of these criticisms and his response to them. Gyekye’s criticism is found in Gyekye (1975: 151) and Bodunrin’s in Momoh (1979: 54).

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References Achebe, Chinua. 1958. Things Fall Apart. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Cunningham, G. Watts. 1968. ‘English and American Absolute Idealism’. In A History of Philosophical Systems, ed. Vergilius Ferm. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams. Emengini.org. Emengini Institute for Comparative Global Studies, https://www.emengini. org/. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2016. ‘African Philosophy and Proverbs: The Case of Logic in Urhobo Proverbs’. Philosophia Africana 18(1): 21–39. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2019a. ‘Development in the Court of the “Ethics of Duty” and “Ethics of Rights” ’. 25th Annual Conference of the International Society for African Philosophy and Studies, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MI, 9–10 July. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2019b. ‘The South African Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Bill of Duty’. Department of Philosophy and Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, East London, 25 September. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2019c. ‘A Dialogue between the Ethics of Duty and Ethics of Rights’. Third Biennial African Philosophy World Conference (Building Africa’s Future on African Philosophy), Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, College of Humanities, University of Dar es Salaam, 28–30 October. Etieyibo, Edwin. (2020a. ‘Ujamaa and African Consensual Democracy’. 2020 Political Philosophy Summer School, Wuhan University, 1–7 August. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2020b. ‘An African Ethics of Duty and Cultural Justice and Injustice’. Inaugural Lecture, University of the Witwatersrand, 23 September. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2020c. ‘The Ethics of Duty, Black Taxes, and Cultural (in)justice in Africa in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic’. University of Zululand Faculty of Arts Online Seminar, 7 October. Etieyibo, Edwin. 2020d. ‘Menkiti as a Man of Community’. In Menkiti on Community and Becoming a Person, eds. Edwin Etieyibo and Polycarp Ikuenobe, 251–64. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Gyekye, Kwame. 1975. ‘Philosophical Relevance of Akan Proverbs’. Second Order 4(1). Gyekye, Kwame. 1997. Tradition and Modernity; Philosophical Reflection on African Experience. New York: Oxford University Press. Gyekye, Kwame. 2003. ‘Person and Community in African Thought’. In The African Philosophy Reader, eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. Gyekye, Kwame. 2010. ‘African Ethics’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/african-ethics/ Hughes, Phillip. 1984. ‘The Use of Actual Beliefs in Contextualizing Theology’. East Asian Journal of Theology 2(2): 251–2. Ikuenobe, Polycarp. 2006. Phiosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African Traditions. New York: Lexington Books. Ikuenobe, Polycarp. 2018. ‘Human Rights, Personhood, Dignity, and African Communalism’. Journal of Human Rights 17(5): 589–604. Kudadjie, Joshua N. 1996. Ga and Dangme Proverbs for Preaching and Teaching. Accra: Asempa. Levine, Andrew. 1993. The General Will: Rousseau, Marx, Communism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Llogu, Edmund. 1974. Christianity and Igbo Culture. Leiden: Brill Archive. Mbiti, John S. 1970. African Religions and Philosophy. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

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Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 1979. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Richard Wright, 2nd ed., , 157–68. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 1978. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought.’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Richard Wright, 3rd ed., 171–81. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Molema, S. Silas Modiri. 1920. The Bantu: Past and Present. Edinburgh: W. Green and Son. Momoh, Campbell Shittu. 1979. An African Conception of Being and the Traditional Problem of Freedom and Determinism. PhD Dissertation, University of Indiana, Bloomington:. Momoh, Campbell Shittu. 2000. ‘The “Logic” Question in African Philosophy’. In The Substance of African Philosophy, ed. Campbell S. Momoh, 2nd ed., 175–92. Auchi: African Philosophy Project. Momoh, Campbell Shittu. 2000. ‘The “Logic” Question in African Philosophy’. In The Substance of African Philosophy, ed. Campbell S. Momoh, 2nd ed., 359–76. Auchi: African Philosophy Project. Moon, W. Jay. 2005. Using Proverbs to Contextualize Christianity in the Builsa Culture of Ghana, West Africa. PhD Dissertation, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KT. Moon, W.. Jay 2009. African Proverbs Reveal Christianity in Culture. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Nkansah-Obrempong, James. 2002. ‘Visual Theology – the Significance of Cultural Symbols, Metaphors, and Proverbs for Theological Creativity in the African Context: A Case Study of the Akan of Ghana’. Journal of African Christian Thought 5(1). Nussbaum, Stan, ed. 1996. The Wisdom of African Proverbs CD Rom, Version 1.03. Colorado Springs: Global Mapping International. Nyerere, Julius Kambarage. 1987. ‘Ujamaa – The Basis of African Socialism’. The Journal of Pan African Studies 1(1): 4–11. This is an excerpt from Julius Kambarage Nyerere’s (1977) book, Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism, Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press. Ong, Walter J. 1982/1989. Orality and Literacy. London: Routledge. Pobee, John S. 1979. Towards an African Theology. Nashville: Abingdon. Ramose, Mogobe. 1999/2002. African Philosophy Through Ubuntu. Harare: Mond Books. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1762. Of the Social Contract, bk. 1, ch. 7 § 8. Samovar, Larry A., Richard E. Porter, and Lisa A. Stefani. 1998. ‘Communication between Cultures’. In Wadsworth Series in Communication Studies, ed. Randall Adams, 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Seidensticker, Edward G. 1987. ‘Foreword’. In Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, and Other Japanese Proverbs, ed. David Galef. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle. Taiwo, Oladele. 1967. An Introduction to West African Literature. Hong Kong: Nelson. Taiwo, Oladele. 1976. Culture and The Nigerian Novel. London: Macmillan. Táíwò, Olúfé· mi. 2016. ‘Against African Communalism’. Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 24(1): 81–100. Thompson, Elaine. 2018. ‘Poet-turned-developer Realizing Dream, Investing in Downtown Worcester’. Telegram&Gazette, 24 March and 1 April. Available online at https://www. telegram.com/news/20180324/poet-turneddeveloper-realizing-dream-investing-indowntown-worcester. Tutu, Desmond. 1988. ‘Sermon in Birmingham Cathedral’. Diocese of Birmingham: Transcript published by the Committee for Black Affairs, 21 April. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Random House. Van Rheenen, Gailyn. 1991. Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

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Innocent Asouzu’s Complementary Ethics Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya

Introduction Philosophy is both a theoretical and practical discipline. As a theoretical discipline, it involves developing theories and methods that could possibly address and explain human existential situations and actions. As a practical discipline, philosophy prescribes how humans ought to live and relate with each other, nature and other realities in the world. Before philosophy prescribes how humans ought to live and behave, it first describes how humans behave. This makes philosophy an ‘is-ought’ discipline. The idea here is that philosophy is a discipline primarily concerned with ethics – how humans live and how they ought to live. Asouzu’s complementary reflection is a philosophical system articulated from, but not restricted to, the African place. It is a system of philosophical thinking with metaphysical, logical, epistemological and ethical dimensions. Our focus in this chapter is on the ethical dimension of the theory (see chapters 8 and 9 for Asouzu’s contributions). According to Asouzu, complementary reflection ‘seeks to capture the very soul of the type of positive approach required in handling issues in the world today’ (2005: 50). It is also a philosophy that ‘seeks to outline the conditions for understanding and interpreting human life and situation with the view to providing the tools necessary for harmonious co-existence’ (2005: 50–1). The preceding implies that complementary reflection is a practical philosophy that is concerned with ethics given that 1) it acts as a normative science that explains why individuals act the way they do and prescribes how human ought to act and live and 2) it formulates principles and methods that address and explain human actions (Asouzu 2005: 44). The point is that complementary reflection is a life-philosophy that is concerned with studying human existence and actions and prescribes how difficult conditions could be overcome to achieve peaceful, harmonious co-existence in society. This chapter will concern itself with the ethical dimensions to complementary reflection. It will approach its task by first looking at what informs complementary reflection as a philosophical system under ‘background to complementary reflection’. After that, it will consider the principles, imperative and criterion formulated by Asouzu that inform his philosophical system. This will pave the way to an incision into complementarism, the method that is formulated and employed by Asouzu and other complementarists in philosophizing. It will come under the section ‘The method of 51

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complementary reflection’. Immediately after this, the focus of this chapter, which is complementary ethics, will be discussed. It is in this section that the chapter will unveil the ethical dimension to complementary reflection. In this section, the chapter will note that, for Asouzu, human actions ought not to aim at self-interest only because selfinterest, in the long run, is anti-self-interest. However, this chapter will also point out that, according to Asouzu, an action is ethical and moral if and only if it leads to the joy of being and promotes peaceful co-existence among humans and between humans and other existent realities in the world.

Background to complementary reflection Complementary reflection is a philosophical system articulated by Innocent Izuchukwu Asouzu, a Nigerian philosopher of Igbo extraction and Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Calabar. Asouzu holds that complementarity, which is the crux of his philosophy, is an idea or thought that belongs not to specific individuals, groups, people or cultures (Asouzu 2004, 2005). For him, this concept is both cultural and transcultural. It is cultural in that it is found within a given culture and transcultural in that it is also immanent in other cultures. Complementarity thus can be found in traditional African philosophical speculations. Accordingly, he states that some scholars have employed concepts (see Basden 1921; Mbiti 1969; Oguah 1984; Kamalu 1990; Kaboha 1992; Oladipo 2002; Iwe 1985; Ejizu 1985; Nasseem 1992; Iroegbu 1995; Unah 1995; Ijiomah 1996; Achebe 1998; Nnoruka 1998; Ramose 2002) that variously capture the notion of complementarity as things that can be found across African cultures. He further states that it can be found in ideas such as the Egyptian principle of Maat, the relationship between the ego and the world, collective egoism, inseparable relationship between the community and the individual, the object and subject, mutual compatibility of things, the interconnectedness of things, dualities, harmonious monism, the unified conception of reality, and ‘we are; therefore, I am’ (Asouzu 2005: 111–15). But Asouzu argues that complementarity is transcultural in that it is found in nonAfrican cultures such as Western culture, Eastern cultures, and physics. Complementarity is immanent in European (Western) culture, such as the philosophical thoughts of ancient Greek philosophers and particularly in the thoughts of Ionian philosophers concerned with the problem of the one and many, the ursuff of the universe. For instance, Empedocles’ idea of the four essential elements that constitute the universe depicts the idea of complementarity. Aristotle’s notion of the four causes also carries the idea of complementarity. Complementarity is found in Spinoza’s ‘theory of coherence’ and ‘an integrated systematic whole’ and Georg Hegel’s ‘dialectical unity-incontradiction’ and Paul Tillich’s ‘method of correlation’ (Asouzu 2005: 107–9). Concerning Eastern cultures, Asouzu asserts that complementarity is inherent in Zen logic as exposed by Sylvanus Udoidem (Udoidem 1992: 302; Asouzu 2005: 108). In physics, Asouzu demonstrates that modern quantum mechanics has, and operates with, the principle of complementarity (Asouzu 2005: 109–10). Despite the expositions above, Asouzu argues that his philosophy of complementary reflection is derived from his African culture and particularly his Igbo cultural

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background. In his words, he considers ‘the general traditional African philosophical climate of thought and more especially the traditional Igbo speculative and practical philosophical ideas as those factors that play . . . constitutive roles’ (Asouzu 2005: 105) in his philosophy. To buttress his point, Asouzu quips that ‘(f)or the Igbo the idea of complementarity is a concretely lived experience of everyday life. This idea derives from the general and fundamental human feeling of insufficiency and experience of relativity and fragmentation of historical processes’ (115). For him, this is the basis for human inclination towards community, solidarity and togetherness. They are the foundational principles underneath ideas such as co-authentication, co-existence, codependability, co-responsibility, delegation, subdelegation and subsidiarity. This buttresses the fact that humans are finite beings that are insufficient on their own and are therefore dependent on each other to live a contented life. Also, humans fear the natural and the supernatural, borne out of human finitude and the need for selfpreservation. Thus, according to Asouzu, the traditional Africans make recourse to the idea of complementarity (115). As a result, he explains that ‘self-preservation entails all the measure the individual takes to survive the challenges posed by the fragmentation of historical existence as this becomes evidence in their fundamental sense of insecurity, insufficiency and incompleteness’ (115–16). One way to ensure self-preservation in a world of conflicting interests becomes the strategy of mutual complementation. Zeroing into the Igbo context, Asouzu alludes to some Igbo aphorisms to substantiate his point that the idea of complementarity was inherent in traditional Igbo society. These include uwa ezu oke (‘the world is incomplete’) and onye ka ozuru (‘who is perfect’). Asouzu contends that these point to the fact that ‘all units are important aspects of missing links of reality’ (117). This thought is what underlies Igbo concepts such as azu bu ike, igwe bu ike, umunna bu ike (‘multitude is strength’), njiko (‘togetherness’), njiko ka (‘togetherness is better’), umunna (‘kindred’), which depicts complementarity (2004: 109). Although all these concepts and many more in the Igbo culture and linguistic world view carry the idea of complementarity, Asouzu hinges his idea of complementarity on another Igbo aphorism, ibu anyi danda (‘no load is insurmountable for Danda’). According to Asouzu, ibuanyidanda is an Igbo work song which is sung thus: Bunu bunu oo ibu anyi danda, Bunu bunu oo ibu anyi danda, Bunu bunu oo ibu anyi danda.

Meaning: Lift the load, lift the load, nothing is impossible for the ant, Lift the load, lift the load, nothing is impossible for the ant, Lift the load, lift the load, nothing is impossible for the ant. 2005: 118

This song depicts the danda, a species of ant that can surmount seemingly difficult and impossible challenges and loads due to its working in ‘a harmonious complementary

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unified manner’ (2005: 118). Asouzu asserts that this animated the daily life of the Igbo in traditional society, which was complementary as they confronted their challenges. Based on this, the clarion call for complementarity and solidarity has never ceased to sound among the Igbo in times of crisis as they believe that collective effort is required to navigate through. Asouzu also argues that ‘for the traditional Igbo, without complementarity, human life would be unbearable isolated struggles that easily leads to self-abandonment’ (118). Asouzu notes that he borrowed the word ibuanyidanda from Romanus Ohuche’s Ahiajoku lecture titled Ibu anyi danda: The Centrality of Education in Igbo Culture. In this lecture, Ohuche argued that the principle of complementarity, which he refers to as IBU ANYI DANDA in Igbo parlance, ‘has always constituted an authentic Igbo approach towards surmounting the most difficult challenges’ (2005: 118). Ohuche gave an example of how this principle of ibu anyi danda (complementarity) operated in introducing education into Igboland as he quips that ‘the spirit of “ibu anyi danda” dominated education in Igboland during the 1940s and 1950s . . . While the community in the true spirit of “ibu anyi danda” made available . . . land. . . the Missionaries recruited teachers’ (1992: 32). The point is that without the complementary efforts of the then Igbo community and missionaries, the introduction and establishing of education in Igboland could have been difficult or impossible. Although Asouzu acknowledges that his philosophy has its root in traditional African philosophical thought and, more specifically, traditional Igbo philosophical thought, he did not employ this thought as traditionalists do. What he did was to critically and creatively reconstruct the complementary philosophical climate of thought prevalent in traditional African societies. In the preceding paragraphs, it is glaring that Asouzu’s use of ibu anyi danda depicts complementarity as derived from the philosophical thoughts of anonymous traditional African philosophers. However, he only appropriated the content and not the form of this philosophical thought found in the Igbo aphorism, ibu anyi danda. Whereas Asouzu sees this aphorism as philosophical, it is as a first-order reflection. Nevertheless, he brought it into the realm of second-order reflection by employing critical rigour to engage it in his philosophical system known as ‘complementary reflection’. In this way, he avoided the error of transposition and picture-type fallacy (2005: 129–42; 2013a: 15–18; 2013b: 13). Asouzu does not hold that what applies to the ant, danda, also applies without modification to human beings, or that what is true in one context also holds in another context. He holds that context and time transform philosophical ideas (form) even when the content might be the same. Asouzu, through critical rigour, transforms ibu anyi danda or the idea of complementarity inherent in the thought of anonymous traditional Igbo and African philosophers by formulating some principles and a method for his philosophical system. It should be noted that it is even the content of the reflection of Asouzu’s complementary reflection that determined his method and system (which include his principles, imperative and criterion). A critical reflection on this section shows that Asouzu’s complementary reflection depicts ‘communitarianism’ and, therefore, can be termed a form of ‘Afrocommunitarianism’. It is an Afro-communitarian theory because it is African cultureinspired. But it is not Afro-communitarianism in the ethnic African sense (either as a

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generic Africa or a specific – the Igbo-African ethnic group). If it were in the ethnic African sense, then Asouzu’s complementary reflection would be ethnophilosophy. However, Asouzu was neither speaking for Africa nor the Igbo in a descriptive fashion. Rather, his thought is prescriptive and carried his stamp of ownership. As demonstrated above, Asouzu distances his thought from this accusation of speaking for ethnic Africa by formulating the principles, imperative, criterion and even method, which will be outlined and explicated in the next section.

The fundamental principles, imperative and criterion of complementary reflection Asouzu’s complementary reflection is predicated on his principles, imperative and criterion. There are two basic principles in Asouzu’s complementary reflection – the metaphysical and the practical variants. These are the principle of ‘integration’ or ‘harmonious complementation’ (the metaphysical variant) and the principle of ‘progressive transformation’ (the practical variant). The first principle states that ‘anything that exists serves as a missing link of reality’ (2005: 281; 2011: 44). The central thought here is that all existent realities are missing links. According to Asouzu, ‘By “missing link”, I refer to all units that constitute an entity as these are interminably related to each other in mutual complementary service’ (2013b: 21–2). Also, an entity is a missing link when it is either on its own or within a whole. A missing link is incomplete and can be completed and complemented by other entities within a whole. This implies that it must be involved in service for an entity to exist as a missing link (Edet 2011). Five postulations can be made from this principle. They include: 1) individual entities exist; 2) they do not exist in isolation; 3) they exist with one another; 4) their relationship is in mutual service to one another; and 5) they affirm the existence of one another (Ogbonnaya 2018; Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya 2021). This principle projects the idea that missing link is an indispensable attribute of existent realities. The second principle, which is the practical variant of the first principle, states that ‘all human actions are geared towards the joy of being’ (2007c: 187). This principle holds that 1) humans are active beings; 2) humans are goal-oriented beings; 3) humans’ goals are manifested in their actions; 4) human actions are driven by purpose; and 5) human actions are aimed at making life count or meaningful (Ogbonnaya 2018; Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya 2021). Since human actions lead to meaning in life, it implies that humans derive joy from their actions. Based on this principle, humans only act insofar as it can bring about joyful existence. Explaining these two principles, Asouzu notes: This means that in any given framework or system of action, all units, no matter how insignificant, enter necessarily into the definition of the system in question. To ensure that the life of the system is optimally maintained, all the units constituting it have to be considered in their insufficiency, such that a typical human action, in all given situations, is understood as geared towards the joy of all concerned. 2007c: 187

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Asouzu’s metaphysical and practical principles help in the formulation of his ibuanyidanda imperative and truth and authenticity criterion. This imperative and criterion in turn aid in the grounding of the two principles. The imperative states: ‘[A] llow the limitations of being to be the cause of your joy’ (2007b; 2011: 44). This imperative connotes that 1) beings have their limitations given that there are not selfsufficient; 2) humans have reasons to be joyful; 3) human joy is tied to the notion of being; and 4) humans derive joy from understanding and appreciating the limitations of being (Ogbonnaya 2018; Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya 2021). Asouzu posits that the limitations of being imply that ‘a constitutive characteristic of being in history’ is fragmentary which makes possible ‘the unity of being in its constitution’ (2005: 281). When one is aware that being is limited due to its fragmentary nature and that this could lead to unity among beings, one certainly comes to have that inner joy. It is in this light that Asouzu rephrased the imperative to read: ‘[A]llow all world immanent realities, in their fragmentation, to be the cause of your joy’ (2005: 281). The truth and authenticity criterion asserts: ‘[N]ever elevate any world immanent missing link to an absolute instance’ (2004: 69, 270, 317–47). This criterion points to the fact that every world-immanent reality is fragmentary and insufficient and cannot be absolute. Therefore, it can be said that 1) it is possible to absolutize an entity or missing link; 2) it is necessary to avoid this tendency; and 3) it is better to place all missing links at the same plane (Ogbonnaya 2018; Chimakonam and Ogbonnaya 2021). This gives the impression that immanent world realities can mutually complement themselves, given that they have equal ontological standing in the scheme of things.

The method of complementary reflection Complementarism is a method originally developed by Innocent Asouzu of the Calabar School,1 but which is now receiving attention from co-workers nowadays described as complementarists (see Edet 2011, 2014; Chimakonam 2014b, 2016; Ogbonnaya 2014, 2018; Agada 2015). They believe that method is key for philosophizing. This explains why Asouzu sees ‘method as the disposition’ (2007c: 140). A philosophical disposition is a mindset with which a philosopher approaches and understands reality. For Asouzu, there are two mindsets with which philosophers approach reality. These are the bifurcating and complementary mindsets. The bifurcating mindset is undergirded by disjunctive reasoning and logic, while the complementary mindset is informed by conjunctive reasoning and logic. The disjunctive and conjunctive faculties control these two forms of reasoning. The disjunctive faculty is concerned with enhancing and promoting the polarizing of reality and the world. This disjunctive faculty with its attendant logic leads the mind to see reality in the negative sense. Here, realities in their fragmentation are seen as individual entities that exist on their own. This reasoning puts strain on human relationships with one another and the world. Asouzu also notes that the conjunctive faculty and its underlying reasoning enhance human relationships with one another and the world. This is a positive sense of human reasoning wherein realities are seen as missing links. Asouzu sees these two faculties as operating in the opposite direction, leading to human ambivalence tension. In his words:

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Whereas our conjunctive faculty helps us to be more accommodating, our disjunctive reasoning tends to resist the same; and this contributes in restricting the way we relate to the world. Whereas our conjunctive faculty impels us to reach out to the world in the mode of ‘not only this but that thing’ or in the mode of ‘this as well as that thing’; our disjunctive faculty pegs or restricts us to ‘either this or that thing’. In the same way our disjunctive faculty impels us to make choices ‘either this or that’. It is in this way that both faculties share deeply in the ambivalence that characterizes our being, since both often tend to operate in near opposite directions . . . Whereas our conjunctive experience of the world seeks complementation, our disjunctive experience tends towards disharmony. 2013a: 90

Asouzu holds that disjunctive reasoning is informed by ‘ambivalence existential experiences and ihe mkpuchi anya (phenomenon of concealment)’ (2013a: 58). These mechanisms negatively influence the way humans see and relate with reality and the world. They prevent us from achieving ‘a complementary comprehensive future-related approach that can guarantee the much-needed unity of being and consciousness; something that is indispensable in the way we relate to the world generally’ (58). For Asouzu, this disjunctive reasoning leads to disharmony. Given that the disjunctive faculty works in opposition to the conjunctive reasoning, it will always create this irreconcilable tension within the human faculty of reason. Asouzu argues that there is the need to overcome this tension so that the human faculty of reason will also work within the ambience of complementarity, which conjunctive reasoning makes possible. This is because the conjunctive reasoning about reality and the experience of the world seeks complementation and harmony and abhors disharmony (90). According to Asouzu, humans can overcome the ambivalence tension that comes with disjunctive reasoning through consistent, authentic experience, which does not admit any contradiction (2004: 280, 319–29; 2005: 288; 2013a: 90–1). Asouzu argues that complementarity seeks a kind of reasoning that is nonfragmentary and aims to ensure that humans develop and have a mindset that harmonizes reality and has a comprehensive understanding of reality. He proposes that this mindset can be achieved through noetic propaedeutic rooted in existential conversation. Noetic propaedeutic, which is the pedagogy of the mind (2011: 48), means ‘a pre-education of the mind, and human reasoning to overcome the broken unity in human consciousness caused by the challenges of the tension laden human ambivalent existential situations and ihe mkpuchi anya (phenomenon of concealment)’ (49). Through this pedagogical and psychotherapeutic measure, the mind is preeducated before it approaches and studies a reality. This act is also known as the reeducating of the mind. Re-educating the mind is necessary because the mind has already been miseducated to conceive and see reality in a bifurcating, disjunctive and polarizing manner. Noetic propaedeutic is achieved through the mechanism of ‘existential conversion’. Existential conversion is that mechanism through which the human mind ‘learns to convert the transcendent categories of unity of consciousness of ibuanyidanda philosophy into practical action’ (2013a: 59). Explaining transcendent categories of

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unity of consciousness, Asouzu posits that transcendent categories of unity of consciousness (akara obi / akara mmuo) include: ‘absoluteness’, ‘comprehensiveness’, ‘fragmentation’, ‘future reference’, ‘historicity’, ‘relativity’, ‘totality’, ‘unity’, ‘universality’ and ‘world-immanent predetermination’ (59). Humans can achieve the right mindset to approach and comprehend reality and the world through noetic propaedeutic enhanced by existential conversion. Noetic propaedeutic also brings about selfconsciousness and autonomy known as ima onwe onye (‘being-in-control’) (2011). According to Asouzu, ima onwe onye is a situation wherein ‘an acting and a thinking subject is entrapped and such that finds expression in the experience of transcendent complementary categories of consciousness with missing links’ (2011: 54). Ima onwe onye is not only a thinking pattern, but also ‘an important attribute of an authentic being’ (Chimakonam 2016: 5) as it enables humans to relate well with one another and other existent realities. The right mindset is known as obioha in Igbo parlance, which translates as a ‘global mindset’ (ibuanyidanda or complementary or comprehensive totalizing mindset). This is the proper disposition that all humans need to possess and employ. With this mindset, the subject/object dichotomy is overcome, and a holistic conception of reality and the world can be achieved. This is because the distortion of reality that is brought about by disjunctive reasoning will become a thing of the past as humans will be working with a more comprehensive mindset. When humans achieve obioha, the individual has freed herself from the challenges of the tension-laden human ambivalent existential situations and ihe mkpuchi anya (‘the phenomenon of concealment’). At this point, according to Asouzu, the mind ‘has learnt how to view units as complements within a comprehensive universal setting’ (2007a: 83). Given that with a complementary mindset, reality is seen as it is, then those who possess this mindset are on the path towards achieving truth in their inquiry. This points to the fact that obioha is connected to obi/mmuo eziokwu (‘truth’), since it is a path to truth derived from a comprehensive understanding of reality. Humans achieve this as the mind becomes complementary and functions with what Asouzu refers to as ‘akara obi / akara mmuo or the transcendent categories of consciousness’ (2011: 50). Consequently, obioha is the disposition required for proper philosophizing, given that it leads to comprehensive, holistic objective truth (2007b: 149) since it sees fragments and units as missing links of reality. This disposition or mindset is a comprehensive, complementary totalizing one that does not bifurcate, polarize or elevate any aspect of reality to an absolute instance. What this mindset does is that it harmonizes and unifies realities that it sees as missing links. This disposition so discussed is known as ‘complementarism’, the method of complementary reflection. It is the appropriate way of attaining authentic, objective truth, which philosophy has as its goal. Also, it is through this method that we can have a comprehensive system known as complementary ethics. However, an objection can be raised concerning the viability of complementary reflection given its seeming opposition to bivalent logic. What would be the implication of a system where some of the classical laws of thought like contradiction and excluded middle do not hold? Asouzu’s acceptance of conjunctive reasoning and rejection of disjunctive reasoning appears to have far-reaching implications that even he does not

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seem to realize. Even though he grants that we can reason in terms of ‘not only this but that thing’, he did not quite sort out the logical complexities that arise from such an inference from bivalence to a possible trivalence captured in his ‘this as well as that thing’. As methods derive from the laws of logic, it might be necessary for Asouzu and other workers in the method of complementary reflection to provide logical principles that explain the navigation from bivalence to trivalence, or, indeed, to any other mode they choose for their theory. Also, the method of complementary reflection has a rival in the method of conversational thinking originally formulated by Jonathan Chimakonam of the same Calabar School, but co-developed by other scholars who are now described as the conversationalists (see Chimakonam 2014a, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2017a, 2017b, 2018; Chimakonam and Egbai 2016; Nweke 2015, 2016a, 2016b; Edet 2016; Egbai 2018; Egbai and Chimakonam 2019). Without meaning to compare the two methods, we can at least draw attention to the fact that both methods were inspired by the African communitarian worldview that is relational in outlook. But while complementary reflection appears to lay too much emphasis on the complementary mode, conversational thinking makes a clear distinction between the contexts of individuals involved in complementation and the complementary mode. In ethical terms, complementary reflection would insist on the fulfilment of both the common good and individual good for an action to be determined right. Conversational thinking, on the other hand, would grant either criterion as adequate (see uze-ezumezu ethics in chapter 1 of this volume). One wonders if the twist in conversational thinking exposes a form of weakness or straitjacket in complementary reflection or otherwise. This is certainly something the complementarists should consider in the future.

An exposition of complementary ethics Asouzu’s moral philosophy or complementary ethics refers to the views that foreground the ethical dimension of his thought. They are concepts and principles with practical implications. According to Asouzu, ‘for the anonymous philosophers of the complementary direction, human action finds its legitimacy within a transcendent complementary network in a way that gives a clear direction to the demands of general ethics and morality’ (2005: 182). He argues that these anonymous philosophers’ ethical and moral thoughts are devoid of excessive, unnecessary supernaturalism, given that, for them, ethics is concerned with harmony and unity among ‘all existent realities in a transcendent complementary manner’ (182). This non-religious, non-supernaturalistic conception of ethics paints the picture that continuous human existence is dependent on the inherent complementary harmony among all existent realities. Asouzu also sees this idea in the thought of Kwame Gyekye, who argues that, within traditional African ontology, ‘the pursuit or practice of moral virtue is held as intrinsic to the conception of person’ (1992: 109; Asouzu 2005: 182). By this, a person is a person if the ego or individual exhibits moral virtue and is in harmony with all existent realities. Asouzu also posits that the anonymous traditional Igbo philosopher ‘considers all forms of negative existence self-defeatist. Therefore, the traditional thinker knows no

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euphemism for falsehood’ (2005: 182). In this way, Asouzu argues that falsehood is synonymous with hatred and that it should be vehemently rejected. He notes that falsehood also means lie or something fake that translates as asi or ikpo ihe asi (‘hatred’). Hence, anything or anyone false is being hated, or anything or anybody that is hated is being false. Such a person is declared a liar and hated (akporomu gi asi). Asouzu quotes Basden, who gives special attention to this idea of asi (‘falsehood’): ‘with eyes blazing, or snakelike, peering through half-closed lids, and chin thrust forward aggressively, the Ibo instills more meaning and venom into this one word than can be conveyed by writing; he really “stings” ’ (Basden 1921: 40; Asouzu 2005: 182). On this premise, Asouzu argues that ‘for the Igbo, falsehood is a negation of the joy of being, and for this reason, it must be approached vehemently and without compromise’ (2005: 182). Furthermore, Asouzu explains that the anonymous Igbo philosophers hold that evil actions have complementary effects given that they ‘are capable of vitiating the experience of transcendent complementary unity of consciousness that binds all realities together and thereby subverting the very foundation of human existence’ (182–3). This thinking is also found in other traditional African societies besides Igbo traditional society. Asouzu contends that the average Igbo strives to live a morally good life in harmony with the world, given that her action affects all within the human society and the community of beings in the world. The individual, for Asouzu, does this by maintaining ‘a complementary balance between the ego and the world in view of the joy of being and overall contentment of individuals and society’ (183). To distort this complementary balance is to be evil and live in evil. However, to maintain this balance is to be good. This complementary ethics is derived from anonymous traditional African philosophy. It does not admit the principle of contradiction but makes for the unity of consciousness wherein there is the unity of opposites. Asouzu captures it thus: For this transcendent reflection, the distinction between good and evil is the point where harmonisation of opposites and contraries gives way to an absolute unity that knows no contradictions. This is the point where this philosopher would without hesitation subscribe to that notion ‘I am the truth, the way, and the life’ and would not call it ‘blasphemous or simply absurd’ as Achebe insinuates. 183

Asouzu argues that, for the anonymous traditional philosopher, ‘the line of demarcation between good and evil is the same line that separates being and non-being’ (183). For him, the traditional African philosopher repudiates evil and rewards goodness. In this light, Asouzu quotes Basden as saying that ‘really evil deeds are not tolerated . . . they include treason, and the breaking, removing or defiling of man’s good or property’ (Basden 1921: 39; Asouzu 2005: 183). Asouzu notes that an individual commits evil within the contexts of traditional Igbo society when the individual desacralizes ana or ani (the earth goddess). He sees this evil as alu, nso ala or nso ani. It is known in the broader sense as alulu ana or alulu ani (2003: 183). This renders the Igbo traditional ethic of the complementary frame of thought a moral philosophy connected to the earth goddess, the custodian of morality. It is pertinent to note that the ethic of

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traditional Igbo society is an ethic of shame-feeling instead of guilt-feeling. Asouzu deduced this from the thoughts of Basden and Uchendu, who, respectively, note that shame-feeling is what deters people from crimes and keeps them morally sound (Basden 1921: 38–9; Uchendu 1965; Asouzu 2005: 369). Furthermore, Asouzu argues that the experience of the joy of being (jide k’ iji) is the basis for authentic ethical and moral action. The Igbo word jide k’ iji translates as ‘hold unto the joy of being through moral action’ (2005: 184; 2013a: 71). This implies that a moral action is that action that leads to the joy of being. The idea here is in line with the principle of transformative progression, which states that ‘all human actions are geared towards the joy of being’. If an action fails to promote the joy of being, such action is termed evil and must be abhorred or rejected. However, if an action leads to the joy of being, such action is moral and must be encouraged. Asouzu makes this apparent when he asserts that through the notion of jide k’ iji ‘the mind is urged to keep firmly to the good as the foundation and aim of human action’ (2005: 184). This connotes that the joy of being and good actions do not only hold for today but are future-oriented. They are acts that should be practised in the present and in the future. This implies that Asouzu’s idea of human action is ‘future referential’ (2007a: 56, 63, 65). Asouzu highlights that this moral action is mutually experienced since the joy of being is a co-affirmed encounter. Accordingly, Asouzu argues: ‘In this mutual experience of being in joy and in the co-affirmation of this experience, the anonymous traditional Igbo philosopher seeks a permanent retention of the foundation of all human actions as full expression in a proleptic future referential manner’ (2005: 184). The point is that there ought to be unity of action, and this action must be good actions that can be practised even in the future. Hence, everyone must hold onto the joy of being (jide k’ iji) in unity. This shows that Asouzu’s complementary ethics is built on and promotes transcendent unity of consciousness in upholding moral actions. In other words, in complementary ethics, an action is right if it upholds both the common good and the individual good. It can be argued that the main tenet of Asouzu’s complementary ethics is that the joy of being (jide k’ iji) ought to be the permanent foundation for moral actions and goodness. This somehow ‘reinforces the deep complementary unity of consciousness between the ego and the world’ (184). The mind, here, is impelled to act in such a way that its action promotes the good of other beings, given that they serve as missing links of reality in line with the principle of integration. Therefore, Asouzu agrees with the anonymous Igbo philosophers that the human being is ‘the good that is’ (mma di). The thought here is that all human actions, although aimed at affecting other beings in the world positively, are primarily geared towards ‘the upholding the good of human being (mmadu) which is deserving goodness’ (2005: 184). In this existential situation, humans harness all existent ‘realities into practical complementary unity of consciousness for the good and welfare of individuals and society’ (184). This shows that, in complementary ethics, humans are duty-bound to promote their welfare. It is a high level of harmonized sense of duty that humans owe one another since mutual harmony and integration promote good actions. This is what ibuanyidanda as complementarity entails and promotes in the human society – authentic living through mutual dependence and affirmation of being through good actions.

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Asouzu expands his idea of complementary ethics in pages 361–89 of The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and beyond African Philosophy (2005 edition, reprinted in Chapters 8 and 9 of this volume). Here, he argues that ethics is not only concerned with the rightness or wrongness of action but is also about joy and sadness. For him, an action is morally evil if it results in sadness and not joy. Asouzu notes that humans most often act in such a way that their actions result in sadness. This is because humans do not understand the action they conceptualize and execute (362). Here, actors do what they will not naturally do because of the lack of comprehensiveness of their actions since they believe that their actions are the right things to take. This is caused by the ambivalence of human existential situations and tension and the phenomenon of concealment (ihe mkpuchi anya) (2013a: 11). The above scenario is instigated by actors’ instinct for self-preservation in the negative sense wherein actors think that their interests should be pursued against the ‘common good’ (2003: 79; 2005: 386). The promotion of self-interest implies that reality and the world are viewed from the purview of fragmentation and disjunctive reasoning. In this context, the ego operates only with the principle of contradiction, which is not future-oriented. What is stressed here is that human action is erected on a ‘contradictory non-complementary foundation’ (2005: 363). Anyone who insists on living in this way has made the conscious choice of non-being, which manifests self-negation. This is a contradictory existence that subsists in the negation of the ontological imperative establishing our action, which is also the negation of the joy of being and existence at the same time (363). It is a life of contradiction, given that the actor wishes to live and not live simultaneously. The life of contradiction entails that individuals live a life of ignorance and illusion as they think that they live the right kind of life since the ego negates its relative constitution and the relativity of its existence. This forces the ego into inauthentic living. The truth is that the actor’s choice is made in error, and she errs in her action culpably (2005: 364; 2011: 56). She errs in what she desires, wills and acts. This is because all these are aimed at satisfying her selfish interest, which is inauthentic interest. In this context, the actor suffers the double tragedy of being ‘culpable and a loser’ (2005: 366) due to her egoistic drive. The actor is a victim of her ambivalent interest and existence. Ambivalent existence, according to Asouzu, ‘entails an existential ignorance of erroneous proportion and consequences where a person acts in limited insights into his abilities and thereby negates the comprehensiveness, totality, and universality that give authenticity to human life’ (367). This is the highest form of ignorance that leads the actor to do bad and live in bad-will: negative, ambivalent existence (368) and makes negative choices, leading to harmful, inauthentic living. Asouzu’s complementary reflection aims to create critical awareness about the adverse human ambivalent situation and tension. This tension is due to the inability of the actor to handle the ambivalent nature of human interest in all given existential situations and the phenomenon of concealment, which can render all goodwill null and void (366). Asouzu also argues that the essence of this critical awareness is to ensure that the actor recognizes her interests for what they are and stand for,

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given that they are the motor driving her actions. This critical awareness is possible and achievable through ‘the pedagogical and psycho-therapeutic’ tool (2011: 46), known as noetic propaedeutic and its accompanying existential conversion. It is through this tool that the mind converts the ‘ontological categories of comprehensive consciousness, totality, and universality’ as well as ‘the transcendent categories of beings into existential categories’ such that ‘the mind is enabled to act within the confines if its legitimacy in habitual manner’ (2005: 366). At this point, the actor is self-conscious and must have attended self-autonomy (ima onwe onye). Here, the actor controls what happens within and around her and therefore ‘can never err culpably’ (2011: 56). The above argument points to the idea that complementary ethics leads to authentic living as humans see fragmentation in historical existence as a critical path to order. It gives direction to all missing links of reality as essential existent realities in the world. This consciousness keeps humans at peace with self, one another and other realities in the world. The point is that complementary reflection brings about the awareness that missing links of reality lead to the joy of being, which is the aim of ethical reflection and authentic human living. Authentic living stems from authentic action that is aesthetic since human action is geared towards maintaining ‘a harmonious complementary relationship against disharmony, disorder, disunity and contradiction’ (2005: 369). This is possible when humans see all missing links as limited and need to be complemented in the spirit of the imperative of complementarity – all human actions are geared towards the joy of being. Here, humans derive joy from establishing a harmonious, complementary relationship and missing links of reality. Also, complementary reflection calls the attention of actors and individuals to the reality of bad-will, stating that it does not pay. For Asouzu, what pays is goodwill. Goodwill leads to the positive side of the ambivalent human interest. According to Asouzu, there are broadly speaking two dividends: 1) it guarantees an actor’s ethical autonomy and responsibility, and 2) it guarantees that the actor chooses correctly and gets what she wants (368). What human actors want is the joy of being, which is obtained through altruistic living. Furthermore, Asouzu’s complementary reflection aims at overcoming the double tragedy inherent in making wrong choices or being on the wrong side of the ambivalence of human interests. In the opinion of Asouzu, ‘contentful conscientization’ is the way out of this negative choice and living (2003: 38–42; 2005: 368). Also, for Asouzu, complementary reflection performs two functions, namely the preventive and enlightenment functions. Concerning the preventive function, it channels and regulates potential bad conduct into authentic goals as it points actors to the fact that missing links are to be directed towards the good of the entire human person (2005: 269). It, likewise, enlightens actors that living in harmonious, complementary relationships is fundamental to authentic living (369). This portrays that egoism and antisocial action, behaviour directed against others, are self-defeatist and anti-self-interest; and that authentic living involves complementary acts and lifestyle as well as altruism. Here, one holds dearly to the relationship she shares with other missing links of reality (jide k’ iji) since it is the basis of human ethical living and the joy of being.

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Conclusion In this chapter, we have discussed complementary ethics as a set of reflections by Asouzu on certain moral concepts and scenarios. We have been able to have an insightful discourse by first highlighting its background, which laid the foundation of, and influenced, complementary reflection as a philosophical system. Also, we discussed the principles that underlie complementary reflection as a method. The preceding cleared the way for us to discuss and understand complementary ethics as an aspect of complementary reflection. The central argument in this chapter is that complementary ethics holds that human moral life is hinged on the ambivalence of human interest, which is double-sided. On the one hand, it could lead to bad-will and wrong action and then inauthentic life. This occurs when one is given to selfish interests against the common good. On the other, the projected ambivalent tension could bring about goodwill and good action, leading to authentic life. Herein, actors live in a mutually complementary relationship devoid of contradictions. This ethics is underscored by complementary thinking that is choice-guiding and action-guiding such that an actor as an autonomous being does not err culpably. Complementary ethics calls individuals to shun egoism and live an altruistic lifestyle since the joy of being, and being ethically and morally good or right, is obtainable through other realities in the world. But a host of objections have been raised against the system of complementary philosophy by critics. We will not engage with those critics here as it falls outside the scope of the chapter. However, we want to anticipate an objection to the ethical dimension of the system discussed in this chapter. One might ask why the complementary ethical reflection considers the pursuit of self-interest as morally repugnant. Although Asouzu appears to approve the pursuit of self-interest that is subsumed in the collective interest, there is a sense in which the reader can misunderstand the inherent difference. Asouzu’s argument that consistent self-interest is anti-self-interest needs clarification. Is there no way to accommodate the outright pursuit of self-interest that is not against the collective interest? These issues can be the focus of future research.

Funding Acknowledgements Jonathan O. Chimakonam acknowledges that ‘this work is based on the research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Numbers 132057)’. Opinions expressed in this research are those of the authors; the NRF accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard.

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Notes 1

This is the name of a group of philosophers from adjoining institutions in the eastern part of Nigeria who have congregated at the University of Calabar since the last decade of the twentieth century. They share a common approach to philosophizing that is relational and African culture-inspired.

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Basic Intuitions in African Ethics Patrick Giddy

Introduction In 1981 a number of South African philosophers published a collection, Basic Concepts in Philosophy, edited by Zak van Straaten at the University of Cape Town. No reference to Africa was mentioned, nor indeed to any cultural context. In the Ethics section, the basic distinction was between custom (uncritical) and reasoned-out principles that are universalizable. It went without saying that such reasoned-out ethics contrasted with any African traditional or perhaps religious view. It was the last book of its kind. Steve Biko’s (1978) proscribed writings on basic African cultural concepts were already circulating clandestinely. And in the same year, Alisdair MacIntyre published After Virtue, a demolition job on the purported universality of the reason-based ethics at issue here; rather, he showed that the ‘basic concepts’ are only basic if you go along with the unstated premises. But different premises are possible, and equally ‘rational’. The different sides to the debate argue from ‘conceptually incommensurable’ first premises, each employing ‘some quite different normative or evaluative concept from the others . . .’ (1981: 6–9). Various examples illustrated the point. In the case of abortion, an act in accordance with the rights of the mother over her own body could, contrariwise, be seen as violating the fundamental principle proscribing the taking of innocent life. Both positions would seem to be legally enforceable. The rational foundation of the first would be the trump value of individual autonomy, the rational foundation of the second would be the telos of human nature. Which is more ‘rational’? A third rational foundation could be the Kantian principle of universalizability: putting myself in the position of the individual to be aborted, I would be unable to will it in my own case. And this being the case, the debates are going to be interminable and unresolvable. So much for philosophy as reasoned-out ideas. To understand how, once the African cultural context is introduced, the perspective will shift, it is useful to compare and contrast four central debates in African ethics with the debates highlighted in the ethics section of Basic Concepts (pages 163–92). The first point of debate, as mentioned, concerns the nature of ethics, contrasting practices and precepts that are simply customary, for example, associated with traditional African culture, with universal principles. The second focus of debate concerns the fact/value 69

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distinction. No ‘ought’ conclusion can be deduced from ‘is’ statements only because the conclusion would then contain something that is not in the premises. This would apply to factual knowledge about the telos of human nature, a central element in the ubuntu idea, which does not see facts about human nature in that value-free way. The third point of debate contrasts the role of absolutes versus that of consequences in ethics. This reflects the familiar division of ethical approaches into deontological (Kantian) ethics and utilitarian or consequential ethics. Kantian ethics seeks to secure the dignity and freedom of the person in the face of what science saw as a deterministic universe where every element is subject to a calculus. But what if freedom is achieved precisely through insertion in the world outside the individual, as in the traditional African outlook (which predates the rise of modern science). There are important implications here for business ethics and professionalism in general, giving a broader framing of an ethic of rules and, indeed, of human rights. Fourthly, Basic Concepts points to the different approaches of externalism and internalism in ethics; that is to say, between seeing values as determined by the external evolutionary, biological and social environment, and seeing human behaviour as explained only by the agent’s internal ‘reasons-for-action’. The whole idea of the will and agency is problematized, being cast as something intangible and ‘ghostly’. It is also seen as ‘anthropocentric’. In the internalist view, value is said to be simply what it is from the point of view of humans: should not other beings be taken into account? But the African traditional metaphysics sees human telos in a continuum with the telos of all of beings. Being is ‘living force’, running through all nature. There is no radical discontinuity between the external and internal points of view. Again, we can see implications here for an environmental ethics influenced by an African cultural context. In what follows, each of these points will be discussed, concluding in each case with suggestions that further research might take. Finally, something must be said of what is completely left out of the picture of ethics in Basic Concepts, namely the historical context of resistance to the very existence of an authentic African culture, the struggle against political and cultural colonialism. Freedom, in the sense of autonomy, is a central theme in modern European ethics, but the communitarian emphasis found in African voices, such as that of Biko, sidelined or silenced in the past, will necessarily shift our understanding of the ethics of liberation. Contemporary African culture has its unique contribution to make here, exemplified, perhaps, in the way South Africa was able to transition from apartheid to democracy. The continuing debate around this, and the contrasts between the approaches of Desmond Tutu (1999) and that of Frantz Fanon (Pithouse 2001), needs some mention.

Universality through an inclusivity sourced in the moral order The first area of debate concerns the nature of ethics, and the distinction, as mentioned, is between custom (localized) and morality (universalizable). Ethical judgements go beyond any parochial approach, and being reasoned-out can be contrasted with religious ideas based on faith, or with custom; ethics, in other words, is secular. The

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shift in African ethics is to point to the dependence of such ‘reason’ on premises that are largely unarticulated and hence, perforce, somewhat arbitrary. The question for debate is now that of the appropriate religious and metaphysical framework for ethics, casting doubt on the secular humanist assumption, which sits uneasily with African traditional culture. The debate here concerns the possibility of a spiritual reality but not one that is seen as rivalling the ordinary framework of human reason. Bénézet Bujo remarks that ‘it is hardly conceivable the African, whose thinking is always set in a religious context, could have a morality without God’ (2009: 114). We can focus on the emphasis in African culture on respect (in Shona, tsika; in isiZulu isihlonipho). The stress is on conformity and respect more than conscience, shame more than guilt. For Swedish anthropologist Jakobsen-Widding (1997) this is remarkable, in particular as she finds, among the Manyika people of Zimbabwe, respect being rendered as ‘good manners’ or ‘the proper way to greet people’. In her own culture (egalitarian, Protestant) morality has to do with the individual conscience, with rights and obligations, but here what is important are social categories, father, elder brother, wife, mother, and so on. What is important is not at all treating others as equals, but treating everyone so as to include them. Hierarchy of power is taken for granted, but this does not imply domination: as Jakobsen-Widding discovers, for the Manyika, ‘the recognition of an inferior person’s social personhood is equally important as the recognition of someone’s superiority’ (55). The starting point is not the individual but the community. The community in a sense confers personhood on the individual. Menkiti (1979: 158) quotes John Mbiti’s well-known articulation of this notion: ‘I am because we are, and since we are, I am.’ One could pose a critical question: what if the custom is that the correct way to greet people be structurally different according to the perceived ‘race’ of the person being greeted? It is clear that custom is not an absolute: an inappropriate greeting based on prejudice (through a greeting that sidelines the person) would go against the principle here, excluding rather than including. This indicates that not only is sympathy with others needed, but also impartiality, as argued by Wiredu (1992). The whole approach framed around the value of social connectedness is underpinned by the idea of an order constituted by the fundamental power or ‘vital force’, the source of the dignity of persons and of the attitude of respect among them. Seriti (in Sesotho) and isithunzi (in isiZulu) mean literally a person’s shadow but by extension their effective influence, their power. All forces reside ultimately in God, and life is an exchange of influences among hierarchically ordered persons and powers, a matter of giving and receiving. The affirmation of this hierarchy is crucial, hence the importance of respect. The debate, then, turns on the question of the best way of re-expressing this traditional intuition in the conditions of a scientific and plural culture. Should one attempt to express it simply in terms of an exclusive humanism, shorn, as one writer puts it, of its ‘cloudy supernaturalist assumptions’ (Farland 2007: 356). This is an attitude of those more influenced by the Analytic approach to philosophy (Gyekye; Wiredu; Metz; Matolino). In objecting to any pretension to knowledge beyond empirical evidence, some African thinkers object to the project of delineating some ‘African essence’, and this could also apply to the project of African ethics. In the ‘Critique of

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Ethnophilosophy’ (Section 1B of Mosely’s collection, African Philosophy, 1995) one finds essays along these lines by Wiredu, Houtondji, Appiah, Mosely, Owomoyela and Irele. Or, contrariwise, is the religious/metaphysical framing a foundational element in the ethics, not just as a matter of fact but as a matter of logic. It cannot simply be stated that in African ethics the moral order over and above the social nexus is vital, an otherworldly reality, as Bujo seems to do, adding that God, as creator, ‘has to intervene in the moral order if the human person does not follow the laws set by him’ (2009: 114). A more extreme view is that of Sophie Oluwele, who defends the reality of witches as an integral part of the world, a supernaturalist approach that would seem to undermine normal individual responsibility. Chemhuru (quoted in Molefe 2019: 60, footnote 6) notes, more moderately, that ‘beings or existence in general and morality are closely intertwined among . . . most African communities’. Bidima, in support of a metaphysical grounding of African philosophy, mentions as sympathetic to this line of thought Tempels, Diop, Senghor, Kagame, Mbiti, Mulago and others (1995: 13). To this, one could add Magesa (1997) and Shutte (1993; 2001). Which of the two approaches, or some combination, is true cannot be decided by counting cultures in Africa, by majority vote, because all cultures are dynamic and developing, dropping some elements and incorporating others, but would have to be argued for.

Human nature and its telos both a fact and a value In accordance with the ‘is-ought’ dichotomy, values have to do with your commitments and with the principles governing this. Critics term this the ‘free-floating ought’, the moral imperative being somehow imposed from above, in a kind of fideism, Kant’s categorical imperative. Philippa Foot (1978), famously, argued that there is no such thing, and that all moral imperatives are hypothetical, not categorical: in other words, what one should do is determined in accordance with what one aims at. The African intuition, in contrast to any strict separation of ‘is’ from ‘ought’, is that morality is about the development of natural tendencies towards fuller being and more abundant life, this being at once a fact of our nature and a basic value. ‘The word ‘muntu’ includes the idea of excellence, of plenitude of force at maturation’ (Menkiti 1979: 158). The end is assumed, but this does not imply that the ethics is uncritical, simply a cultural assumption. The ethics is grounded in a metaphysics of being, being as ‘living force’, and it is the same force running through all things, and ultimately not material and deterministic but spiritual, transcending social determinations. It is important for this premodern intuition, if it is to have purchase in our own times, to be critically developed and re-expressed beyond a normative idea of culture: ‘it is the living muntu who, by divine will, is the norm of either ontological or natural law’ (Tempels, in Shutte 57). This idea is common among commentators. But importantly, the human nature being drawn upon here does not refer to some fundamental property or set of properties (say, reason) asserted of individuals in an uncritical and premodern way. For example, Achille Mbembe writes in Le Monde (15 December 2019) (my translation) that

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Western philosophers of the subject . . . start from the idea that there is something that is intrinsic to us, fixed and stable and unvaried. Creator of himself, a person gets his identity from himself, and because he has a reflexive consciousness and an interiority, he is distinct from all other living species.

In contrast, the identity of the person in African traditional thought was more dispersed. What was important was not the self as such, but the manner in which one composed and recomposed oneself, each time in relation to other living entities. In other words, personal identity was nothing other than the process of becoming, within the tissue of relationships of which each person was the living sum.

There is an important point here. The procedural approach to ethics, grounded on the is/ought distinction, takes any substantive notion of human nature, its telos, as culturally arbitrary. It amounts, as Smith put it some years ago, to ‘simply a mob forcing its commonly agreed standard on another group whose agreement they do not have’ (1994: 91). But this overlooks what is being put forward here, namely an ethic not founded on some or other normative property definitive of the person but on the norm of active participation. In the African traditional approach to ensuring that human freedom is respected and developed, the idea of freedom is not that of refusing any substantive specification of this freedom, a freedom floating free from human nature, a ‘for-itself ’ cut loose from any ‘in-itself ’, to use the existential terminology of Jean-Paul Sartre. This point will have implications for how the struggle against colonialist structures of domination is conceived. The debate, then, is not how to spell out the principles recognizing individual autonomy (the fictional discussion of persons ‘behind the veil’ in John Rawls’s political ethics). The debate is rather on the conditions for the enactment of the power of being for the other, the ideal expressed in the proverb, motho ke motho ka batho babang (Sesotho), umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (isiZulu): a person is a person through other persons. An important point would be to turn that idea into a psychological reality, specifying the requisite virtues of character. In the framing of morality in terms of an ‘ought’ abstracted from any substantive human values, the question arises as to the motivation for following this moral imperative. Of any such ought, one can always ask, Why should I? Why honour the implicit contract with others if I find I can disregard it with impunity in any particular case? In contrast, the African ethic encompasses the motivational dimension, there being no radical distinction or antithesis between the good of oneself and the good of the other. The centrality of this idea of a shared human good means society may even be seen as something like a single person. But it is important, for further research, to spell this out in terms of the actual interpersonal transactions that bring out personal growth, an idea that can be traced to Hegel’s phenomenology of intersubjective recognition, and drawn on, for example, by Augustine Shutte in various publications. This will obviate any dualist misinterpretation of the African ethic.

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Ethics as recognizing autonomy versus ethics as building community Whether deontological or consequentialist, the ‘Basic Concepts’ approach to ethics is founded on the idea of individual autonomy. In the consequentialist frame of thinking, the autonomous individual must perform a calculus on pleasures and pains in deciding on any course of action. Kant’s approach is likewise instructive: it is an attempt to rescue morality from a Newtonian deterministic world, positing persons as ends-inthemselves, of absolute not calculative value. Ethics, in Kant’s view, is absolutist, grounded in this affirmation of freedom from determination. Any calculation of consequences will be a reasoning that disrespects this freedom, source of human dignity. But the African traditional cultural framework predates the rise of science and the split between free persons and a deterministic world subject to instrumentalist attitudes. The African ethical absolute, in contrast, lies in affirming the other and responding to the other’s affirmation of oneself. It centres on building up a shared space of common values, more concerned with the achievement of community through dialogue than with the purity of one’s moral conscience or a focus on rights. The starting point of ethical reasoning is that shared norm of our common human nature. Since this norm is realized only through interpersonal transactions (the ‘mother’ through her attentiveness bringing the neonate to the beginnings of self-consciousness, for example), it is not an obstacle to our free self-determination. The focus of ethics is not, as in the European tradition, individual autonomy, but community. As Metz (2009: 343) notes, ‘like the utilitarian, the Kantian places no fundamental moral value on identifying with others. A Kantian can respect others by being distanced and not including them in any “we” ’. The African intuition is, however, that personal growth and effective freedom are brought about through other persons, and in no other way, through the building of personal community. In the context of a culture of science and its operative picture of causality, however, a further point must be made. This is that growth in personal freedom is, paradoxically, brought about in direct, and not inverse, proportion to the increase in the conditioning influence of a beneficial other. This is only plausible on the assumption of the spiritual, rather than simply material, nature of the agent’s powers. The bias of the social sciences, by contrast, by virtue of their being limited to empirical observations, is that such influence simply amounts to conditioning. In the background is the idea of an ideal of human being, the telos of human nature; if this is thought of as the possession of some properties, then we have a dualism of these properties and the actually existing desires and inclinations of the person. There would be something arbitrary about compelling the preferencing of these above the person’s inclinations. But this is not the case in the African ethical frame of thinking. The ethical task for the person is thought of as unifying the different relations constituting one’s identity. There is a duality but it is a duality of relations: relation to self (self-determination) and relation to other (dependence, manifest in our given desires and inclinations): and the first relation is achieved through the other. Shutte puts it well: the freedom ‘that

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characterizes persons as self-conscious and self-determining beings, is found to develop in direct and not inverse proportion to the degree of strictly personal dependence of persons on other persons. Put more simply: the more I am subject to a certain kind of influence of other persons, the more (and not the less) self-determining I become’ (1993: 69). This shift in emphasis from principles to community has implications for ethics in the field of business practice. The metaphysical background to the ethics is, strictly speaking, the idea of an operative spiritual dynamism, but this is not understood as opposed to materiality. In a sense, however, this can be seen as eminently practical, even utilitarian and materialistic, as Gyekye points out (in Murove 2009: 236). In a secular and commercialized global culture there is a danger here in the emphasis on the group, on kinship and family. For it could lead to a neglect of the internal, constitutive goods of the professions, legal, medical, teaching, and so on, in favour simply of success in a competitive sense, maximizing prestige rather than excellence. Apart from the internal goods of the social practice, there is always the need for institutions to frame the practice: teaching needs administration, rules for promotion and for the allocation of salaries, and so on. But in a commercialized society, these are in danger of simply overriding the internal values that are valued by society: justice in law, health in medicine, and so on. As MacIntyre argues, ‘the ideals and the creativity of the practice [and] the cooperative care for the common goods of the practice [are] always vulnerable to the competitiveness of the institution’. Without the virtues of character, ‘without justice, courage and truthfulness’, the practices could not resist the corrupting power of institutions (1981: 181). Taking the shortcut to prestige and success is taking the path of corruption. In the face of African traditional culture, at least one development expert has suggested, in the title of his book, ‘working with the grain’, cooperating with systems of patronage, rather than emphasizing principles and human rights. ‘Manichean campaigns,’ he writes, ‘to root out corruption polarize: instead of bringing people together they demonize potential allies [who] may be key parts of any effective change effort’ (Levy 2014: 94). This would seem misguided. The traditional African frame of thinking has a good standard of excellence in the growth of the person and building community, and these entail truthfulness and courage. These are part and parcel of the professions and good business practice. And such values are not equivalent to success in material terms; the latter, pursued for its own sake, would be a betrayal of the values. At the same time, one could point to the neglect, in the dominant global culture, of the basic human needs for bonding and for meaning. Individual autonomy is emphasized at the expense of these equally foundational needs. Persons enter the global society not as members of particular cultural traditions but as units of production and consumption, ‘atomised’ in the title of Michel Houellebecq’s (2001) pessimistic political novel. Here African business ethics could contribute a valuable counter view of the matter. A legalistic and contractual approach is not always the best way forward, and Mary Clark (2002, ch. 10) puts forward the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an example of building community in a typically African attitude of inclusivity rather than procedural justice.

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Human agency as developed through the ‘other’ So far as concerns the externalist/internalist debate in the standard ‘Basic Concepts’ approach, the African intuition is to see values as explained in general by the agent’s internal ‘reasons for action’ rather than simply by the sum of the conditioning biological and social forces. In the background to this debate is the so-called ‘intractable problem of free will’, ‘intractable’ because in a universe taken apart in science the assumption is that every event, including human action, has a determining cause. But the African intuition is that persons achieve freedom through their natural and social conditioning environment, and not despite this or by opposing it. The internal is enacted through the external. The ubuntu idea, that a person becomes a person through relationality, is key to the whole approach of African ethics. It complements and corrects the emphasis on individual freedom that is the nodal point of the standard textbooks in ethics. The implications are big for environmental ethics. Environmental neglect comes about from a disconnect between person and nature. If one capitulates to the idea of scientism, that only empirical science gives knowledge properly speaking, then all living beings are seen simply as functional elements in an ecosystem. In that case, fairness demands that one simply calculates and compares the quantity of suffering of persons with that of other beings. But this way of seeing things is not true of persons, nor of any living organism. The typical African traditional approach, in contrast, sees persons as part of an encompassing reality of spirit or force, of seriti or isithunzi or ukama (Shona) (Murove 2009), referred to by Bujo as the ‘moral order’ (2009: 14). To see human beings in a reductionist way as simply functional elements in an ecosystem would not resonate with African cultural thought. In a contemporary dialogue with the dominant frame of thinking in modern thought, African philosophy can find cognate ideas in the premodern Aristotelian and Thomist approach. Ndaba (1999: 177) argues that the vitalist trend in European philosophy may well partner African traditional thinking in a positive way. This is well explained by McDermott, taking cows as an example. These should not be thought of as ‘simply implementations of a function that the eco-system demands of them. Rather, they are historical facts that have just proved to be viable in that eco-system . . .’ (1989: xxviii). Nature is not there as an object for our will (anthropocentrism). Rather, nature is equally ourselves as subjects and agents. African ethics has to counter the unhelpful picture of the person as disengaged from and indifferent to the natural world. It is not the case that humans are imprisoned in their subjectivity, unable to grasp ‘what it’s like’ to be another non-human being – say, a bat, in Nagel’s (1979) famous example. Humans, through the spirit that runs through nature, can transcend their particularity. This also applies to arguments that ubuntu is simply an ethic that is that of the ‘tribe’ (Theron, in Murove 2009: 328–9). Again, one can draw on the non-dualist picture of the human spirit that is developed in the Aristotelian and Thomist philosophical tradition. In the act of choosing, it is argued, it is not my social or biological or social determinants that act on me, as the pistons of a car cause the vehicle to move forward, one part determining another. Rather, it is I myself who acts on myself. The self that I

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choose and consent to (the more generous rather than the hoarding impulse that I have to own to) is the same as the self that does the choosing and consenting. It is not one part determining another part. In reflective deliberation, I am able to take into account my biases due to my being a human (not a bat) or a Zulu (not a Spaniard), my ‘tribe’. Freedom is not achieved through independence from what is other than me, but in interdependence.

Resistance to global neocolonialism Once the European humanist tradition lost its rational grounding (hence, its universal applicability), there could be equally no appreciation of the grounding of ethics in other different cultures. If human rights was a model for the world, and originated in Europe, this could only be because of the unique circumstances of that part of the world. Other cultures, the implication was, had simply to eliminate ‘the obstacles posed by their particular cultural traits, responsible for their backwardness’ (Amin 1989: 106). Tempels made a similar observation in his pioneering study of African traditional thought; he realized his approach had to contend with a general notion of European culture as ‘an All against a Nothing’, and of the ethical educator having to clear the ground of worthless notions so as ‘to lay foundations in a bare soil’ (1959: 110). If we go back to the impact of the work of Biko, the context of acting from the principle that we are free, we find a way into moving to an expression of the traditional African ethic that has grown through the influence of the European ‘discovery’ of freedom. However, insofar as a major influence here is that of Fanon, via Sartre, we have a conflict with the traditional African idea of the person as growing through other persons. It is true that Sartre does not think of consciousness as ‘internal’, in a kind of dualism. Rather, consciousness is always ‘consciousness of ’ something other than the self, always already directed onto the world. At the same time, for Sartre, freedom ‘pour-soi’, for-itself, cannot be captured in terms of any ‘en-soi’, in-itself. This means that there can be no directionality found in the pour-soi, in the telos of our common human nature. As Fanon argued, ‘I am not a potentiality of something. I am wholly what I am’ (in More 2004: 84). This is pure Sartre, and does not allow for the normative directionality that is core to African ethical thinking. Sartre’s rejection of any such norm corresponds with a contemporary trend to see identity as ‘buffered’, only constituted by being mobilized (Taylor 2007: 457). While this approach might suit the framework of contestation that characterizes public life in the USA, it fails to bring out the unique tradition of ethical thought in the African cultural world. Ethics as resistance carries the danger that the ‘other’ is demonized. It is important to be aware of the gap (as in all cultures) between the ethical ideal and the actual practice. ‘What do you make of Western civilization?’, Gandhi was asked by a reporter. The reply expresses this gap well: ‘I think it would be a good idea,’ he answered. Realist, or even pessimist, portraits of actual ethical practice in Africa are given by V. S. Naipaul (2010) and, in a more hopeful vein, by Njabulo Ndebele (2012).

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African Views of Moral Status Cornelius Ewuoso

Introduction/definition Two conceptions of moral status are prevalent in published studies: as a threshold concept and a superlative concept. As a threshold concept, moral status is a matter of sufficiency. This is the view of scholars such as Allen Buchanan (2009) and African scholars such as Desmond Tutu (1999). When moral status is described as a threshold concept, what matters is whether an entity possesses specific characteristics. It is irrelevant whether this entity possesses such features to a higher or lesser degree. All those who have the capacity in question have a moral (equal) worth. However, as a superlative concept, it is relevant whether the agent or entity possesses the characteristic to a higher or lesser degree. The latter is the view of African scholars such as Kevin Behrens (2017) and Thaddeus Metz (2010, 2012). Also, moral status is logically distinct from two similar concepts: moral considerability and moral standing. Moral considerability is a matter of relative superiority; specifically, it (considerability) roughly implies factors – which ought to be considered in our moral calculus – that entities possess in varying degrees, which in turn fundamentally shape the degree of our obligation towards such entities. Scholars who consider moral status a superlative conception often use moral status and moral standing interchangeably. However, as a threshold concept, moral status is distinct from moral standing. Moral standing describes the entities that count (more broadly) morally, as well as entities that count morally in their own right. In this regard, not all entities with moral standing have moral status, but only those who count morally in their own right. Accurately, as a threshold concept, moral status refers to entities that are objects of direct duty. For this reason, moral status is defined as the source of an entity’s moral value; ‘the idea of something being the object of a “direct duty”, i.e., owed a duty in its own right’ (Metz 2012: 389). Ethicists have different opinions about the source of an entity’s moral worth. Kantians, for example, argue that the source of the moral worth of a human being is his/her rational capacity such that individuals with diminished rational capacity have less moral worth than autonomous individuals, while utilitarians ground an entity’s moral worth in the entity’s capacity to feel pain and pleasure. African philosophy accounts for the source of an entity’s moral value differently; precisely, it grounds it in interactions. This entry describes African 81

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views of moral status in detail. First, it contrasts African views of moral status with Western ones that the readers might be familiar with; then, it considers two dominant African views of moral status, as well as an improvement to these views.

Moral status in dominant (Western) and African philosophy Readers should note the manner an African theory of moral status is said to be ‘African’. Correctly, this is because it is grounded in values and ideas that are more prominent in sub-Saharan ethical thinking than elsewhere. As one study correctly observes: a moral theory counts as ‘African’ . . . insofar as it is informed and defended by beliefs that are common among peoples in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly beliefs that are more common there than among Western societies. A moral theory counts as ‘distinctive’ insofar as it differs from what is dominant in contemporary Anglo-American and Continental philosophy. It is of course logically possible for something to count as ‘African’ but not as ‘distinctive’ (and vice versa), given these meanings of the terms. Metz 2007: 375f.

In a dominant Western moral equality threshold conception, moral status applies equally to individuals who possess the characteristics sufficient to be called a person. The term itself ‘person’ remains a subject of considerate debate in Western philosophy, as is the case in African philosophy. However, some typical thresholds in Western philosophy include rationality, capacity to engage in complex communication, selfawareness, viability and developing a concept of self (Dennett 1988). On a moral equality threshold account, only biological human beings who meet the conditions of personhood have moral status. This, however, may be problematic in some ways. Respect-based account (such as contractualism or Kantianism) is a variant of moral equality threshold account. Respect-based account argues that entities have moral status by virtue – for example, on a broadly modern contractualist understanding – of an intrinsic capacity to engage in jointly agreed projects or mutual accountability (Scanlon 1998). Though a respect-based or individualist account does a good job at explaining the source of an entity’s moral worth, it may, however, not be very well suited to account for the differences in moral considerability since what counts – from the respect-based threshold account of moral status – is whether the entity has the capacity in question and not whether the entity excels at it. The alternative to the respect-based account is the interest-based account. An interest-based account – such as utilitarianism – advances a superlative conception that grounds an entity’s moral worth in how much good its life involves (Buchanan 2009: 360). Utilitarians, for example, argue that an entity’s status is tied to its capacity – which entities possess at varying degrees – to feel pain or experience pleasure. In principle, one can permissibly sacrifice an entity’s interest if this will maximize happiness, that is, if ‘so much good’ can be expected. The interest-based account does a better job – than the respect-based account – explaining differences in moral

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considerability. However, there are reasons to believe that this account plausibly implies the strange view that it is not entities or agents as such who have moral status, but their interests (Buchanan 2009: 360). Like many relational theories, African philosophy grounds the source of moral status not in intrinsic factors about the entity, but in relationships. Generally, there are three ways relational theories ground moral status: to the extent that one is a part of the relationship of solidarity (notably Western relational theories, particularly Ethics of Care), to the extent that one is actually part of an existing relationship of identifying and exhibiting solidarity (notably African moralized forms of relationalism), and finally, to the extent that one can be part of a relationship of identifying and exhibiting solidarity (notably African modal forms of relationalism). Relationalism is the idea that relationship or interaction has moral significance; it is core in prescribing moral duties and grounding an agent’s identity. It (relationalism) is often differentiated from individualism and holism. As Metz rightly observes: Similar to individualism, a relational account implies that moral status can inhere in things as they exist apart from their membership in groups. [Unlike individualism, a] relational theory implies that something can warrant moral consideration even if it is not a member of a group, or, more carefully, for a reason other than the fact that it is a member. Similar to holism, though, a relational account accords no moral status to organisms on the basis of their intrinsic properties. A relational theory implies that a being warrants moral consideration only if, and because, it exhibits some kind of intentional or causal property with regard to another being. 2012: 390

Unlike (Western) respect-based account – which might be familiar to many readers – that appeals solely to factors internal to the individual, a relational account of moral status holds that moral status is constituted primarily by relational properties, that is, respects in which an individual does or could interact with others. As Crossley (2005: 266) observes, ‘[relationalism holds that] these relationships and interactions are constitutive of both individuals and society . . . it is not society . . . which makes individuals, and it is not the individuals as independent beings which make society. Interaction is the primary datum, and interaction shapes both the individual and society.’ The danger with appealing solely to facts internal to an entity is that such intrinsic factors may be used to justify any action (such as stealing) as long as it makes, for example, the entity feel good (as is the case with ethical subjectivism). Some scholars (Metz 2010, 2012; Behrens 2017) contend that African relational philosophy avoids this problem, by primarily grounding morality in relationships of certain kinds. In African philosophy, the well-documented response to the sort of relationship for gaining moral status is a communal relationship. As the late South African rights activist Steve Biko once remarked in an essay: We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community of

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The Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu (2008: 333, 336) makes a similar remark. According to him, ‘[T]here can be little doubt that traditional African society was communitarian unless it be a matter of exceptions that prove the rule . . . communalism is an embodiment of the values of traditional Africa.’ ‘Every member,’ the Nigerian philosopher Segun Gbadegesin (1991: 65) also asserts, ‘is expected to consider him/ herself as integral part of the whole and to play an appropriate role towards achieving the good of all.’ Alternatively, as the American thinker Metz remarks in a study he published with a colleague, Joseph Gaie: There are two facets that arguably make an African approach distinctive. First, subSaharan morality is essentially relational in a way that other Western approaches usually are not. That is, in a typical African ethic, the only way to develop one’s humanness is to relate to others in a positive way . . . If one harms others, e.g. by being exploitive, deceptive or unfaithful, or even if one is merely indifferent to others and fails to share oneself with them, then one is said to be lacking . . . ‘Ubuntu’ [translated as humanness] . . . A second respect in which African morality characteristically differs from an Aristotelian or other Western moral philosophy concerns the way it defines a positive relationship with others, namely, in strictly communal terms. One is not to positively relate to others fundamentally by respecting individual rights grounded on consent, participating in a political sphere or maximising the general welfare, common themes in Western moral philosophy. Instead, the proper way to relate to others, for one large part of subSaharan thinking, is to seek . . . to live in harmony with them. Metz and Gaie 2010: 275

It is common among sub-Saharan Africans to think of moral status in terms of communal relationship. Hence, the famous maxims ‘a person is a person through other persons’; ‘a human is a human being only through their relationships with other humans’; and ‘I am because we are, we are, therefore, I am’ (Ewuoso and Hall 2019). These maxims have been used to support not only metaphysical and descriptive claims, but also a prescriptive claim to develop one’s personhood/humanness by prizing communal relationships. However, what exactly is implied by communal relationship? One recurrent understanding is that a communal relationship is a relationship in which individuals emotionally, cognitively and behaviourally identify with others and exhibit solidarity to one another. To identify with others generally involves thinking of oneself as part of ‘we’, developing shared goals with others as well as engaging in joint ventures with them. Exhibiting solidarity, on the other hand, involves acting for the good of others, or engaging in actions of mutual aid and in ways that are more likely to

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improve others’ life qualities. Generally, in African philosophy, a combination of identifying and exhibiting solidarity is the necessary condition for communal relationship (Ewuoso and Hall 2019). Additionally, this combination also differentiates African relationalism from other forms of relationalism like Ethics of Care. As Metz correctly observes: [African philosophy] is similar to the Ethic[s] of care, but, even here, a caring relationship would be (roughly) equivalent only to the solidarity element of community. The facet of identifying with others is more distinct, as many traditional African peoples and contemporary African ethicists deem sharing a way of life to have moral importance beyond the mere sharing of feelings, time or resources, as per the ethic of care. Moreover, even if one were to find an interpretation of care that were the same as my understanding of communal relationship, it would still be sensible to call it ‘African’ since it is much more common in African philosophy than in at least Western philosophy to think of moral properties in essentially communal-relational terms. 2012: 396

Summarily, unlike Western accounts of moral status, African relationalism prizes a combination of identifying and exhibiting solidarity with others as the necessary requirement for communal relationship, and to a degree that is not typically found in other Western relationalism. Like respect-based accounts, relationalism contends that moral status can inhere in entities. Additionally, like interestbased accounts (of which majoritarianism, utilitarianism and various environmental ethics are paradigm examples), it contends that an entity may be morally considerable to a higher or lesser degree depending on the extent to which it relates or could relate.

Dominant conceptions of moral status in African relational philosophy Nancy Jeckers (2020) believes that there are three variations of relationalism in African philosophy: relationalism, moral relationalism and modal relationalism. In Jeckers’s (2020: 38) descriptions of the preceding, these three are differentiated by 1) an entity’s capacity to relate (relationalism); 2) the entity’s capacity to relate and to the extent to which individual exercises that capacity (moral relationalism); and 3) the entity’s capacity to relate with others and its capacity to achieve morally excellent relationships (modal relationalism). Jeckers, however, does not motivate this classification (such as through mentioning names of moral relationalists and why they belong to this class), at least to a significant degree. This may be a misreading of African relationalism since a score of African theories exist (Ifeanyi Menkiti and Desmond Tutu, to name but two) who believe that moral status is grounded in existing communal relationships, rather than a capacity for the same. Thus, there are reasons – based on this evidence, and also based on the outcome

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of a systematic review (Ewuoso and Hall 2019) of the core aspects of African philosophy of ubuntu – to believe that relationalism and moral relationalism are variations of the same form of African relationalism, specifically modal relationalism. Additionally, most notable scholars of African philosophy – such as Behrens (2017) and Metz (2010, 2012) – routinely often distinguish between moralized forms of relationalism (in which individuals have moral status only if they are part of existing communal relationships, and/or to the extent that they participate) and modal relationalism (which grounds moral status in a capacity for communal relationships). These two – moralized relationalism and modal relationalism – appear to be the dominant African relationalism. Readers should observe that these two are not representative of all variations of African relationalism. The extent of communion also varies from one African relationalist to another. While some relationalists limit communion to the physical world (Ewuoso and Hall 2019), other moral relationalists view communal relationship as a continuum of a totemic system of related and interrelated entities that stretches on the horizontal line from non-human species, the broader environment to humans and on the vertical line, from a fertilized egg in the womb to living humans and dead ancestors or other spirits in the invisible world. Breems (2016: 65) and Dolamo (2014: 4) acknowledge this in the remark that in ubuntu African philosophy, ntu has continuities with other categories – the unborn, plants, animals, spirits, transcendent, supernatural forces, and so on. Forster (2010: 8) expresses this differently: ‘[T]he unity and harmony of personhood expressed in Ubuntu stretches from the world seen through the naked eye to the world of ancestors, the spirit world.’ Generally, moralized relationalism does not merely limit moral status to those who are part of the existing relevant relationship. In addition to this, it requires that individuals also relate with others on the right basis. In this way, it advances a two-fold threshold conception of moral status; entities that meet this two-fold threshold – unlike the respect-based account, which grounds the source of moral value solely in intrinsic factors – have moral status. This seems to be the view of Mnyaka Mothlhabi(2015), Menkiti (1984) and Tutu (1999), to name a few. All entities, according to these scholars, who meet these conditions count morally in their own rights. Other entities have moral standings and may be morally considerable only because of their association with entities that count morally in their own rights. All entities, based on moralized relationalism that count morally in their own right, have a higher gradient of moral considerability than those who do not count morally in their own right. The reader would be right to contend here that moralized African relationalism’s two-fold relevant property for moral status is too limiting since those who are not part of the relevant relationship, or those who are part of the relevant relationship but fail to relate on the right basis, have no moral status. Specifically, based on this account, those who are not part of the relevant relationship such as hermits, who live in isolation, lack moral status; since what matters, based on moralized relational threshold conception of moral status, is actual participation in communal relationship. This seems to be Nonceba Mabovula’s (2011: 41) view in this remark: ‘[African philosophy] expresses the idea that a person’s life is meaningful only if he or she lives in harmony [communal

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relationship] with other people because an African person is an integral part of society.’ Menkiti makes a similar point through the following remark: [W]hereas most Western views of man abstract this or that feature of the lone individual and then proceed to make it the defining or essential characteristic which entities aspiring to the description ‘man’ must have, the African view of man denies that persons can be defined by focusing on this or that physical or psychological characteristic of the lone individual [that is, solely on this feature] . . . [I]n the African view it is the community which defines the person as person, not some isolated static quality of rationality, will, or memory. 1984: 171f.

A modal relational account of moral status is an improvement to African relational theory of moral status. It adopts a superlative conception of moral status that grounds the relevant property for the same in the capacity for, rather than actual participation in existing, relationships of identifying and exhibiting solidarity with one another. The main proponents of modal relationalism include scholars like Metz. According to Metz (2012: 393), one has capacity if one can in principle, without changes to one’s nature, be part of communal relationships. Metz (2012) also distinguishes between entities that can only be subjects or objects, or have a diminished capacity to be subject of communal relationships (and thus, have partial moral status), and entities that can be both subject and object. The latter have full moral status. One way of thinking about modal relationalism is that it limits moral status to those who can either be subject or object of communal relationships; such that the higher the entity’s capacity to be subject and/or object, the greater its moral status. Based on a modal relational account, typical human adults that can be both subjects and objects of communal interactions have full moral status. Additionally, entities with full moral status tend to be older in the modal relational account. Others are instrumentally valuable, that is, their capabilities are vital for maintaining communal relationship itself, and are more morally considerable than others. Some examples are health professionals and law enforcement agents who may/not be advanced in years. Some entities do not have full moral status – but only partially – because they lack the capacity (or have a diminished capacity) to be subject of communal interactions. An entity that cannot be subject is one that cannot in principle cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally relate with others. One that cannot be an object is one that others cannot psychologically identify as part of the group or act to make its life better or worse-off (Metz 2010, 2012). Readers should note that the preceding does not imply – like moralized relationalism – that humans who have not acted rightly (or have failed to be true subjects or objects of communal relationships) lack full moral status. Instead, individuals who can be subject and object of communion have full moral status. Examples of individuals with partial moral status include infants/children, demented individuals, sociopaths, psychopaths, or individuals who suffer from conditions that render them wholly incapable or only partially capable of being psychologically driven as subjects of communal interactions. Metz (2010, 2012) believes that foetus and embryos only have

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a potential, rather than a capacity, to be subject and object since they generally lack the cognitive and emotional capacities for communal interactions at this stage. Nonetheless, some humans can think of the preceding more as part of the group and, thus, have more status (albeit partially) than animals who also have higher status than, say, plants. Those who have no moral status are entities that can neither commune or be communed with, in the relevant sense. Examples might include stones and pens. While a modal relational account of moral status is less restrictive than the moralized African relationalism, it is, nonetheless, vulnerable to a few criticisms. Motsamai Molefe (2017) has explored some criticisms at great length. Specifically, readers would be correct to observe that, based on the modal African superlative conception of moral status, those who have partial moral status are not owed duties in their own right, but because of others. Molefe (2017: 5) highlights this anthropocentrism as a significant weakness of modal relationalism. According to Molefe (2017: 5), ‘[It seems in modal relationalism] that it is not merely the (moral) ontology of animals (their possession of features that qualify them to be included in relations) that ultimately secures their moral status. In some decisive way, the moral status is pinned to the ontological property of humans – how they can be either positively or negatively affected by human beings.’ Metz (2012: 397) also acknowledges this weakness as one gleans from this remark: ‘[T]he African theory does appear to entail that severely mentally incapacitated human beings, and extreme psychopaths lack a dignity comparable to ours, for they are incapable of being subjects of a communal relationship.’ If one takes moral status as implying the ‘idea of something being . . . owed a duty in its own right’ seriously, then it is inconsistent to claim that some beings can have moral status because of how others feel about these objects of communal relationships. This would also imply that killing demented individuals who have lost capacity to relate is not necessarily morally wrong in itself. Instead, it is wrong ‘because of the way others are likely to feel about the death of the objects of their communal relationships’ (Ewuoso and Hall 2019). Thus, African relationists need to adequately justify how objects of communion can be objects of direct duty. Several African theorists have proposed revisions to address this vulnerability. For example, Kevin Behrens (2017) suggests that we take as our starting point that all entities that meet the modal relational sufficiency condition for an object of communion are persons. There are good reasons, in Behrens’s (2017) opinion, to believe that all persons are subjects of human rights in themselves, and not merely by an association. However, Behrens (2017: 131f.) differentiates between ‘persons with moral agency’ and ‘persons without moral agency’. ‘Persons with moral agency are those who can be self-determining, as well as capable of relating in appropriate ways with others. Persons without moral agency are those who may or may not be self-determining – that is, lack the capacity for reasoning or whose capacity for reasoning is severely impaired’ (Ewuoso and Hall 2019: 99). In Behrens’s (2017: 131f.) view, both persons with moral agency and without moral agency have superlative moral status, and we have different duties – similar to those specified in the Belmont Report’s principle of respect for persons – to respect the self-determining individuals while protecting those without moral agency from exploitation.

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Behrens’s proposal represents an improvement to the theory of moral status in African relational philosophy. However, the reader may query here, how is Behrens’s suggestion different from the Western respect-based account of moral status, which also appeals to the notion of personhood as the threshold for moral status? But the reader should notice the progression of moral status in the philosophical discourse on the same. In the respect-based account, the threshold for moral status is personhood such that those who lack the conditions necessary for personhood lack moral status. African philosophers do not normally require ‘personhood’ as a necessary condition for moral status. The reader should also note that personhood is a subject of considerable debate in African philosophy. A group of African philosophers exist who believe that biological birth is not a sufficient condition for being a person. In other words, one can be a human and not a person. This is the view of Masolo (2010) and Menkiti (1984). The project of becoming a person, some scholars of African relationalism point out, is an ideal towards which one strives rather than a status that one attains; it is a life-long project by relating consistently in the relevant ways. For example, Menkiti (1984: 173) once argued that ‘the African view reaches . . . for what might be described as a maximal definition of the person. As far as African societies are concerned, personhood is something at which individuals could fail, at which they could be competent or ineffective, better or worse.’ Thus, for most African relationalists, moral status is the very condition for personhood, and not the other way round. Correctly, for moralized and modal relationalism, the condition for personhood is moral status, such that those who lack (full) moral status (modal relationalism) or failed to participate in the relevant ways have also failed to achieve personhood. In addition to appealing to a superlative conception of moral status, Behrens also believes that the capacity to be an object of communion – unlike modal relationalism which requires the capacity to be both subject and object of communion – is a sufficient condition for being a person.

Concluding remarks This entry has described the key arguments, debates and conceptions of moral status in African relational philosophy. The entry has also contrasted African positions (on moral status) with Western ones that might be familiar to many readers. African relational conceptions are not without their vulnerabilities. Albeit Behrens’s (2017) explanation regarding how objects of communion can be objects of direct duties represents a significant improvement in the discourse on moral status in African relational philosophy; the nature and quality of relationships an entity can have in order to be considered capable – as objects – of communal relationships, requires further reflection. In the absence of such clarification and justification, anything – including dogs and higher functioning entities like dolphins or elephants – could be said to be a person, if they can be the object of relationship. Other questions have not been adequately addressed; an example of this is how moral status influences moral considerability. Additionally, there needs to be further discussion on what, if any, underlying ties there are between moral status and rights: human rights and animal

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rights. The moral status of each entity also requires further explanation – beyond what has been provided by relationalists – on what makes them valuable in themselves.

Bibliography Behrens, K. G. 2017. ‘A critique of the principle of “respect for autonomy”, grounded in African thought’. Developing World Bioethics 17(2). Biko, S. 1998. ‘Some African cultural concepts’. In Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. J. P. Roux. London: Routledge. Breems, B. 2016. ‘Relational Being as Icon or Communal Freedom: Southern Africa’s Ubuntu’. Journal of Sociology and Christianity. Buchanan, A. 2009. ‘Moral Status and Human Enhancement.’ Philosophy & Public Affairs 37(4): 346–81. Crossley, N. 2005. Key Concepts in Critical Theory. London: Sage. Dennett, D. 1988. ‘Conditions of Personhood’. In What Is a Person? ed. M. F. Goodman, 145–67. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press. Dolamo, R. 2014. ‘BOTHO/UBUNTU: THE HEART OF AFRICAN ETHICS’. 112. Ewuoso, C., and S. Hall. 2019. ‘Core aspects of ubuntu: A systematic review.’ South African Journal of Bioethics and Law 12(2): 93–103. Forster, D. 2010. ‘A generous ontology: identity as a process of intersubjective discovery – an African theological contribution’. HTS Theological Studies 66(1): 1–12. Gbadegesin, S. 1991. African Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities. New York: Peter Lang. Jecker, N. S. 2020. ‘African Conceptions of Age-Based Moral Standing: Anchoring Values to Regional Realities’. Hastings Cent Rep 50(2): 35–43. Mabovula, N. 2011. ‘The erosion of African communal values: a reappraisal of the African Ubuntu philosophy’. Inkanyiso: Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 3(1): 38–47. Menkiti, I. 1984. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. R. Wright, 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Metz, T. 2007. ‘Ubuntu as a Moral Theory: Reply to Four Critics’. South African Journal of Philosophy 26(4): 369–87. Metz, T. 2010. ‘An African theory of bioethics: reply to MacPherson and Macklin’. Dev World Bioeth 10(3): 158–63. Metz, T. 2012. ‘An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15(3): 387–402. Metz, T., and J. B. R. Gaie. 2010. ‘The African ethic of Ubuntu/Botho: implications for research on morality’. Journal of Moral Education 39(3): 273–90. Mnyaka, M., and M. Motlhabi. 2015. ‘The African Concept ofUbuntu/Bothoand its Socio-Moral Significance’. Black Theology 3(2): 215–37. Molefe, M. 2017. ‘A critique of Thad Metz’s African theory of moral status’. South African Journal of Philosophy 36(2): 195–205. Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Tutu, D. 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Rider Random House. Wiredu, K. 2008. ‘Social Philosophy in Postcolonial Africa: Some Preliminaries Concerning Communalism and Communitarianism’. South African Journal of Philosophy 27(4): 332–9.

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Influences of Religions on African Ethics Insights from African Indigenous Religions, Christianity and Islam SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai

Introduction If culture refers to the totality of how humans in society express themselves in the context of the sacred and/or profane, then ethics is the foundational and pragmatic value system for such a world to function accordingly. For centuries, African societies have encountered, shaped and been shaped by many religions, some of which have universalistic claims to truths, and others embrace a more pragmatic focus on tribal affiliations and realities. This entry will make a conscious attempt to explore how three religions have defined, and continue to define, the content and expressions of African ethical values. Focus will be given to African Indigenous Religions, Christianity and Islam. The intent is to show how African ethical thought is dynamic in its content and expressions. This entry is divided into three parts. The first explores the foundational role of African Indigenous Religions in shaping African ethical thought. The second looks closely at the role of Christianity in shaping expressions of African ethical values. The third sheds light on the role of Islam in shaping African societies and their respective values. The conclusion calls attention to the emerging realities in Africa and highlights areas that need further study by Africanists.

African pragmatic ethics: Insights from African Indigenous Religions The realities of African social systems and its world view necessitates the relevance of African Indigenous Religions as the starting place for speaking of an African ethical thought, scholars continue to argue. The claim has been made that the African ethical world view is inherently conditioned by the pragmatic. In other words, norms are not embraced for their own sake; rather, they are directed towards an end. Here, the end is thoroughly ecological that stresses the flourishing of all life. Life is understood in a radical 91

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manner, one that includes all beings in existence. In the words of R. S. Rattray, while describing the Ashanti world view, the universe is ‘an alive universe’ (Kalu 2001: 234). Again, African ethical consciousness originates from an intricate understanding of the cosmos. The cosmos is understood as two intricately connected spheres of the sacred and the profane. The place of their intersectionality is the locus for the negotiating dynamics that play out between the inhabitants of the different spheres, while having the community of ancestors as the preservers of the cosmological balance. Furthermore, scholars have argued that African ethical thought evokes a sense of reciprocal hospitality that is pragmatic. Ethical living evokes a relationship of give and take on the part of the spiritual beings who demand from humans a certain manner of living. On their part, humans expect some rewards and protections (Aihiokhai 2016: 153). Chinua Achebe (1969) captures this delicate balance of relationship between the spiritual beings and the community of humans in his famous work, Arrow of God. In it, Achebe tells the story of the relationship between Ezeulu, the high priest of the deity Ulu, and the fictional town of Umuaro. In his role as the medium of Ulu to the people, Ezeulu overplays his hand and demands from the community conditions that threaten their survival. Ulu, according to him, has demanded that, before the community is to harvest their crops and celebrate the New Yam Festival, he will have to consume the sacred yams from the old harvest for three months. By doing this, he and the community know that the crops in the field would rot away, thus triggering a crisis. In this story, ‘Ezeulu fails to notice the necessary balance in the relationship his people have with Ulu that is rooted in concrete gestures of hospitality. Sacrifices offered to Ulu are gestures of hospitality by the people that in return are meant to evoke a gesture of divine hospitality on the people’ (Aihiokhai 2016: 155). Reading the unfolding drama closely, one notices ‘as the elders of Umuaro point out, even Ulu has his price – it only remained for his priest to name it’ (Soyinka 1976: 89). African ethics has a transactionary dimension to it in the sense that one is not ethical for its own sake. Another key point worth noting about African ethical thought is that ethical norms are conditioned by maintaining cosmic harmony that enhances all life. Laurenti Magesa captures this well when he writes: ‘God is always there for humanity to snatch people out of danger when need be, to place them out of reach of any agent bent on destroying the fullness of life’ (1997: 45). Experiencing life in its fullness is at the heart of African ethical consciousness. Again, African ethics is conditioned by the philosophy that life is one and it is experienced simultaneously through the community–individual medium. In the words of Harvey Sindima, ‘All life – that of people, plants and animals, and the earth – originates and therefore has an intimate relationship of bondedness with divine life; all life is divine life’ (1990: 144). Again, while ethics is geared towards making accessible divine life for all beings, the locus for this drama lies in the community. Thus, African ethics is both pragmatic and communitarian at its core. One is an individual within the context of the community. The rights, duties and expectations of the individual are found within the larger framework of the community. This point is well stated by Placide Tempels in his observatory remarks on the Bantu people: ‘The Bantu cannot conceive of . . . the human person as independent being standing on his own. Every human person, every individual is as it were one link in a chain of vital forces: a living link both exercising and receiving influence, a link that

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establishes the bond with previous generations and with the forces that support his own existence. The individual is necessarily an individual adhering to the clan’ (Bujo 2001: 86). Bénézet Bujo, in his critique of Tempels’s insight to ensure that African communalism is not reduced to Western notions of ‘ethics of Being’, makes the following claim: ‘I believe, however, that it has been sufficiently demonstrated that people in Africa are able to avoid both the ethnocentric and the ontological fallacies, since they are not confined to the little world of their clan community – ultimately, they understand community as a world community in which they can encounter every single human person’ (86). The key idea here is ecological solidarity that saturates every aspect of African social life. Everything that is evokes a proximity of awareness of the reality that encounters it. Since everything is alive in African cosmology, then everything has a form of consciousness relevant for entering into a cosmic relationality with that which stands in proximity to it directly or indirectly. This said, a pushback against Bujo’s claim is this: it does not mean that the ‘world community’ is an abstract reality. In African ethical thought, the epistemological discourse of reality is fundamentally conditioned by what is experienced in the here and now. Thus, even when there is an existential and hermeneutic openness to that which is not yet encountered, meaning-making begins with the experiential through the concrete embodiment of one’s existence within one’s community. This movement towards the experiential is what grounds the ethical to the pragmatic in African thought. An African adage articulates this point very well: ‘A young man that is well travelled has more wisdom than an elder who has never left his community.’ Again, Bujo makes an observation: ‘African ethics recognizes a minimum moral code which “formally” speaking, deserves recognition in every human group, even if it is expressed variously in keeping with specific cultures and communities’ (9). What Bujo refers to as ‘a minimum moral code’ points to the awakening to one’s responsibility to live in a manner that one is able to transmit, to all one encounters, the vital force. This is at the heart of African notions of personhood that is captured in the concept of ubuntu. ‘Ubuntu is the interdependence of persons for the exercise, development, and fulfillment of their potential to be both individuals and community’ (Battle 2009: 3). Stressing the unique influence of African Indigenous Religious on African ethical thought, it is important that one returns again to Achebe’s novel, Arrow of God. Wole Soyinka calls attention to the following: ‘Who was Ezeulu to tell his deity how to fight the jealous cult of the sacred python?’ This reprimand was the summation of the priest’s inspired dialogue with Ulu and it led, naturally into dangerous byways, not all of which he could even then perceive . . . Who was Ezeulu to tell his deity how to fight the jealous cult of the Christian intruders? Indeed, he might have asked that question at the time of his decision to ‘sacrifice’ Oduche and not confine himself later within an untenable paradox. Ezeulu’s failure to do this led him into rationally extended byways that even bordered upon religious treachery. 1976: 90

A similar interrogation can be found in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s The River Between. Chege’s instruction to his son, Waiyaki, to go to the Christian mission in Siriana to ‘learn all the

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wisdom and all the secrets of the white man but with a caution not to follow his vices and while being true to his people and the ancient rites’ invokes again the question posed by Soyinka (1965: 20). Furthermore, one notices that, as Ezeulu attempts to introduce a rigid normative understanding of ethical behaviour in the communal life of the people of Umuaro, one which Soyinka rightly calls out to be a ‘cosmic control’ over the community and the deity, Ulu itself, the community of elders appeals to the pragmatic vision of the community’s approach to the ethical in relation to the divine (1976: 91). The elders utter the following words to Ezeulu on behalf of the community: ‘Umuaro is now asking you to go and eat those remaining yams today and name the day of the next harvest . . . go and eat those yams today, not tomorrow; and if Ulu says we have committed an abomination let it be on the heads of the ten of us here. You will be free because we have set you to it’ (Achebe 1969: 237–8). In this dialogue between the elders of Umuaro and Ezeulu, one notices clearly the transactionary and pragmatic approach to ethical behaviour in African ethical thought as shaped by African Indigenous Religions. Again, the telos is not ethical behaviour for its own sake; rather, it is always the flourishing of all life in the community. Even the deities must behave accordingly if they are to be given recognition by the community. Kwame Gyekye makes a radical claim that buttresses the above conclusion, though from a humanistic point of view: On what grounds are some acts (etc.) considered good? The answer is simply that each of them is supposed . . . to bring about or lead to social well-being. Within the framework of Akan social and humanistic ethics, what is morally good is generally that which promotes social welfare, solidarity, and harmony in human relationships. Moral value in the Akan system is determined in terms of its consequences for mankind and society. ‘Good’ is thus used of actions that promote human interest. The good is identical with the welfare of the society, which is expected to include the welfare of the individual . . . It is clear that this definition does not at all refer to the will or commands of God. That which is good is decreed not by a supernatural being as such, but by human beings within the framework of their experiences in living in society. 1995: 132

A similar observation has been made by scholars like Soyinka and John S. Mbiti, who stress the humanistic focus of African ethical thought. Stressing the humanistic aspect of African ethical thought does not delegitimize the claim that African ethics is simultaneously secular and religious in all its expressions. This is the grounds for cosmological equilibrium found in African ethics.

Influences of Christian moral thought on African ethics Christian moral thought is shaped fundamentally by an understanding of good and evil within the realm of revelation. In this world view, a radical dependence on the

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concept of natural law defines how the process of coming to know that which is good and evil plays out. It ought to be qualified strongly that the dependence on natural law is a Western bias that articulates a particular way of interpreting reality. Western Christianity teaches that creation itself embodies the intentionality of its creator, God, one that can be known rationally by humans who themselves are made in God’s image and likeness. Though humans cannot know the fullness of the intentionality embedded in each created reality exhaustively as the creator knows it (eternal law), humans access it through its natural expressions via reason (natural law). Ethics, in this context, is understood as always geared towards a telos, the source of all goodness, God. In his papal encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II articulates the view of ‘universality and immutability of natural law that is valid for all people of the present and the future, as for those of the past’ (1993: 53). He furthers the argument by stating that, though the human person is culturally defined, the argument of cultural progress validates the claim as well that there is something in the human person that is transcultural that allows for the human person to escape the imprisonment of cultural limitations. An assumption is made here that the human person is by nature transcultural. No effort is made to demonstrate how this is the case. Some African ethicists, like Bujo, have offered relevant critique to the above position of the pontiff. In Bujo’s words, ‘Veritatis splendor employs a Western doctrine of natural law; but the precepts deduced from this doctrine are based on human reason, which does not necessarily exclude errors’ (2001: 83). This creates a legitimate opening for African ethicists like Bujo to argue for the need for Christian ethics to be open to other approaches to articulating ethics. He has argued on this ground for the need to embrace inculturation as a legitimate path for African Christian ethics to be expressed. Even Bujo’s critique of universalistic and immutable ethics found in Western philosophy and ethics that Western Christianity has appropriated needs further critique. Bujo, like many other African Christian theologians, has taken for granted the nuanced influence of Western theological anthropology on African notions of the human person as an ethical being. He does not call into question the framework for discussing ethics. In Western-centric Christian theology, ethics is conditioned by an ontology that points to the realization of the glory of God inherent in the acting agent and the realities that participate in the ethical actions. Some legitimate questions arise that need some critical engagement: how does one reach this conclusion? Is one to assume this? If so, on what grounds? Is the starting point the experiential or the givenness of ontology? Attempts at bridging this hermeneutic gap in the discourse by African ethicists, as does Bujo, need to be critically engaged. Yes, ‘African logic does not necessarily imply that one becomes a person by means of concrete actions or achievements. The person is not defined as an ontological act by means of selfrealization, but by means of “relations.” This means that the human person in Africa is from the very beginning in a network of relationships that constitutes his inalienable dignity’ (88). But how then is one to reconcile this truth in African ethical thought with the idea of ontology inherent in natural law? How is an African pragmatic approach to ethics to be reconciled to Western-centric ontological ethics? Bujo offers a solution. He accentuates the African notion of personhood as the locus of the reconciliation. Calling out the paradoxes of Western Christian ontology and its secular post-Enlightenment

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bias for autonomy and individualism that denies personhood as an ontological quality in the biological reality called a foetus, Bujo argues that, in African thought, ‘the unborn child is already a person at the early stage of development. What Western biology calls a fetus or embryo is closely related to the community both of the living and of the dead, it is embraced by the love of the visible and invisible community. Both communities continue their life in the fetus or embryo, which bears hope for the future, not only in the biological sense of extending the clan fellowship but also as regards life in general’ (89). This is an inculturated African ethical thought process that seeks to bridge two hermeneutic traditions – ontological hermeneutics and experiential (existential) hermeneutics. But one has to ask, is this still African ethics or a hybridized African Christian ethics? The latter is a more appropriate label, though with some unresolved tensions. It is true that, in African ethical thought, all life is intricately connected and participates in the shared cosmic life force. However, human personhood is not just defined by an ontology of being; rather, personhood is relational via the concrete reality of the community. Thus, the different cycles of life initiation rituals demonstrate the recognition of the participatory role of a being in all of cosmic life. Here lies the tension, a foetus or an embryo is considered a member of the community but that reality is considered a disruption and a negative force if it fails to live through the different stages of the cycle of life. Such a being would not be seen as a person; rather, the opposite would be the case – a non-person, a negation of relationality and, consequently, a negating energy that diminishes the vital force in cosmic life. One finds this to be the case in the ways such phenomena of Ogbanje (for the Igbos of eastern Nigeria), or Abiku (for the Yorubas of West Africa) are addressed. These children who die young are considered to be malevolent beings even though Western Christian thought would ascribe them ontological personhood. Again, building on the principle of inculturation as the prism for looking at Christian theological influence on African ethical thought, it is important to look at the African relational principle called ubuntu. Africanists, influenced by Christian theology, have argued for an ontological givenness that defines the human person as an imago Dei geared towards a particular way of being ethical in the world. For example, Bujo approaches the discourse from the locus of the ontology of the rights and dignity of the individual, which is a clear influence from Western Enlightenment tradition that has defined Christian ethical discourses on the dignity of the human person (91). Qualifying this, Bujo argues the following: ‘According to the African understanding of interaction, the individual is an incomplete being who basically depends on the community. On the other hand, the community dissolves without individuals’ (1998: 73). Using African initiation rituals as an example to buttress his argument, Bujo writes: ‘The individual is no longer an “I-for-myself,” but has to become an “I-in-thecommunity-for-others.” Only in this way can the others assist the individual to become a better and more complete “I” (a personality)’ (73). Again, Bujo introduces the concepts of freedom and conscience within the discourse of the general principle of ubuntu from an Afro-Christian ethical perspective. Pushing against Western understanding of freedom and conscience that positions the individual in conflict or in a competitive relationship with the community, he defines African ethical thought on freedom and conscience as a reciprocity that protects the possibilities of the individual and the

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community to fully realizing their respective potentials (74–6). Mbiti begins the discourse within the framework of relationality using the motif of family. He argues that ‘man himself makes the individual who becomes the corporate or social man . . . Only in terms of other people does the individual become conscious of his own being, his own duties, his privileges and responsibilities towards himself and towards other people . . . The individual can only say: “I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am” ’ (1989: 106). Okot P’Bitek offers a legitimate critique of the influences of Christian theology on African ethical thought, one worth repeating here: ‘When students of African religions describe African deities as eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., they intimate that African deities have identical attributes with those of the Christian God. In other words, they suggest that Africans Hellenized their deities, but before coming into contact with Greek metaphysical thinking’ (2011: 39). Kwasi Wiredu makes a more poignant observation and critique on two fronts, namely language and religious pluralism. African ethical thought in the colonial and neocolonial context is conditioned radically by the alienation of language. As he notes, ‘[I]f you learn philosophy in a given language, that is the language in which you naturally philosophize, not just during the learning period but also, all things being equal, for life. But a language, most assuredly, is not conceptually neutral; syntax and vocabulary are apt to suggest definite modes of conceptualization’ (2011: xi). This is an observation shared by Gyekye as well (1995: 29– 30). Wiredu does not make this a fatalistic condition from which there is no escape, hence he intentionally uses the verb ‘suggest’ rather than ‘compel’ (2011: xi). In the context of religious pluralism in Africa, Wiredu asks a legitimate question: what defines the choices of the religion to follow by Africans when faced with the multiple choices religions present in the continent today? He makes a problematic claim that demands a response. Wiredu argues: [T]here are . . . definite incompatibilities between Christianity and various African religions. These are not incompatibilities that lie at the peripheries of these religions; they go to the roots. Consequently, an African who espouses Christianity on due reflection may have to admit frankly, and with stated reasons, that s/he rejects the religion indigenous to his or her culture. There is nothing wrong with this in principle. What is wrong is the apparent attempt on the part of some African Christians to have it both ways. xiv–xv

Without denying the inherent truth of his argument, it should be pointed out that the notion of ‘having it both ways’ is not a problematic; rather, it is the natural operating principle in African ethical thought to be inclusive and welcoming of all experiences. At least, this is at the heart of the relational principle of ubuntu. This is well articulated by Adebayo Adesanya who writes: ‘[T]his is not simply a coherence of fact or faith, nor of reason and traditional beliefs, nor of reason and contingent facts, but a coherence or compatibility among all disciplines’ (as cited by Asante 1998: 77). Building on this, Molefi Kete Asante makes the point that ‘the concentration of everything is so tight that to subtract one item is to paralyze the system’ (77).

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Influences of Islam on African ethical thought Unlike European Christian missionaries who maintained a sense of racial isolationism in their dealings with their African converts, Arab and Persian Muslim merchants and missionaries tended ‘to settle more permanently, usually as local aristocracies, and took local women as concubines. The blending with local blood and culture produced ArabIslamic-inspired cultures such as the Shirazi (Persian inspired), the Zeilawi (a blending of Arab, Somali and ‘Afar elements) and the Swahili, a mixture of Arab and Bantu traits’ (Azumah 2001: 26). These Arab and Persian Muslim merchants had the practice of having Islamic scholars versed in Islamic law and Islamic mysticism. The experts in Islamic mysticism, ‘the shurafã (from the Arabic, sharif – noble), who claimed descent from the Quraysh (Muhammad’s tribe), were believed to have an inherited piety and holiness, which in turn conferred on them powers of healing, telling the future, interpreting dreams and effective intercessory prayers, du’ã. They became “the most successful manufacturers of charms, and the most successful practitioners of Islamic divination and medicine” among the masses of West Africa’ (27). From the above, one can make the following claim: Islam, in Africa, underwent a hybridized form both in its theology and in its rituals as practised by the emerging Muslim brotherhoods that sprang up on the continent. Notable among these were the Qadiriyya Sufi order that was introduced to ‘Harar in East Africa from Aden in the fifteenth century by Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abdallah al-‘Aydarus’ along with Salihiyya that was ‘popular among the peasant circles in Somaliland,’ and the Jakhanke, ‘a pacifist group founded by a Mande Muslim . . . by name al-Hajj Salim Suware’ (27–8). It is worth repeating the following insights from John A. Azumah: The Jakhanke tradition is known to be highly pacifist Muslim group responsible for inculcating a sense of aversion to militancy as a means of religious and political change into a wider section of West African Muslims, especially the Mande. They are chiefly associated with the pursuance of religious study, the production of charms and amulets, travel (sometimes for commercial purposes) and agricultural cultivation through which they made their most significant and enduring impact upon the wider indigenous non-Muslim communities. 28–9

The point on hybridity is supported by Lamin Sanneh, who writes, ‘among the pagan Bambara, the phrase bisimilay (Ar. Bismillah, “in the name of Allah”) is used in sacramental invocations and magical incantations because it is believed to be a phrase of power. The word sadaqah, freewill offerings, is used for offerings to the gods. Similarly, amulets are accepted from Muslim clerics, who also transmit other aspects of the material culture of Islam, without any observable shift of allegiance away from the pagan religious culture’ (1997: 42). Sanneh makes a more nuanced observation as it pertains to reciprocal influences that occurred between African ethical thought and Islamic ethical thought: Islamic additions to the stock of African religious and cultural thought and practice ‘could be absorbed and used, and often were, without destroying the

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general fabric of traditional society. They modified the fabric, introduced new strands and colors and patterns, and provoked new forms and fashions; yet the overall effect was almost everywhere one of reinforcement and renewal, not of destruction.’ However, although Islam threatened no program of radical demythologization, it nevertheless represented something of a radical metaphysical reconstruction of the traditional worldview by furnishing the intellectual and practical apparatus for dealing with present evil and for preparing for life hereafter. Thus, Islam strengthened the existential and instrumental tendencies of traditional African religions while introducing a social and public code and a new note of urgency centered in a future eschatology, all of that promoted by Scripture and law. 31

A praying tradition defines African religious and existential thoughts (Mbiti 1975: 1). African Islam aligns itself perfectly well to this reality by its ritual praxis of pausing five times a day to dedicate the entire day and all of human actions to God as forms of sacred response to the mercy and goodness of God experienced in the world. The culmination of this ritual practice is Friday. It ‘is not a day of rest as in the Jewish and Christian traditions, but a day in which secular affairs are consecrated by a sacred pause’ (Sanneh 1997: 32). On another note, there is a verifiable influence on Sufi Islam and its practice of veneration of Sufi saints by the African cultural and religious practices of ancestor veneration (37). Pilgrimages to the burial sites of Sufi saints are encouraged because such sites are seen as sacred media charged with supernatural powers that bring about healing, blessings and success and protection. This is similar to the prayers usually offered at the ancestral shrines of Africans by their living relatives. One of the criteria for qualifying as a Sufi saint has to do with a deliberate ‘shunning of all works of violence and causing harm and to rely solely on God, the true reality, keeping in mind and being on guard about things that concern His praise’ (38). The philosophy behind the virtuous life in African Islamic Sufism is similar to that found in indigenous African ethical thought. ‘The cultivation of virtue is in fact the cultivation of society, of the company of persons.’ Consequently, the Sufi ‘saint comes to embody the spirit of society – its scarcity and plenitude, its torment and triumphs, its egalitarianism and privilege, its materialism and spirituality, its esteem for tradition and disposition toward innovation . . . The saints of Muslim Africa may combine extremes and even espouse extremism, but they do so without forsaking the world’ (101). A saint is understood to be a friend of God (wali). To embody this unique privilege of being considered a friend of God by God Itself, Islamic virtue ethics reinterprets African ethical thought on the virtuous life using the lens of Islamic sacred texts. ‘Muslim notions of the saint and sanctity are influenced by ideas of merit and reward at the hands of the elect, then ordinary people are offered through the mediation of this class of religious specialists protection from unseen forces. Holy men and holy women thus have their social function defined for them as brokers of popular religion’ (104). Sanneh makes the claim that even with the ‘gains of the puritanical Islamic reform movements which swept across the face of West Africa between about 1700 and 1900, the legacy of tolerance and flexibility bequeathed by the host African environment has

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largely survived. So too has the phenomenon of Muslim dependence on indigenous religious structures and stimuli’ (1983: 213). This might be an exaggerated claim to make, considering the fact that, while the Senegambia region continues to be a good example of what Sanneh alludes to, thanks to its rich Jakhanke Sufi tradition, the same cannot be said of other parts of West Africa like present-day Nigeria with its continuous religious conflicts among followers of Christianity, its Sunni Muslims and, sometimes, the minority Indigenous Religions. Nonetheless, Sanneh is correct in his analysis that ‘Muslim dependence on the indigenous religious structures and stimuli continue all over West Africa’ and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. A good example of this can be found in the Poro secret society in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It is common practice to induct Muslim clerics into Poro secret society. Their knowledge of magic and the sciences, especially their knowledge of Islamic Scripture, is greatly cherished as media for performing their roles in the society (235). Pre-Islamic African religious thought that understands life as a cycle beginning even before a child is born with rituals of protection that will enable the passing on of the vital force to the child that is be given birth to is itself reinterpreted by Islamic theology and praxis in places like Ghana and Togo. A Muslim diviner is usually consulted and when he proclaims that the child to be born is ‘destined to be a “Muslim,” alms are usually offered to a Muslim religious divine [saint], and then upon birth the child is given a “Muslim name” and circumcised; a Muslim prayer circle is erected in the compound and the child is made to observe Islamic dietary restrictions’ (Azumah 2001: 53). Furthermore, one also observes the reinterpretation of the cycle of life as it pertains to the recurrence of infant mortality among the Kusasi people of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso. Islamic practices in this region involve what is called ‘zamba’an, which is a ritual of excommunication from ancestral kin that the child belongs to as a way of preventing the ancestors from laying claim to the child’s life’. The child is then dedicated to a Muslim deity (saint) and given a Muslim name as the visible covenantal bond between the child and the Muslim deity (saint) whose task is to ensure that the child survives infancy. This ritual practice of ‘pegging unborn children to the Muslim deity or converting to Islam to avert a misfortune is just one of many remedies in nonMuslim African societies’ (54). It is not always the case that the child will grow up being raised a Muslim. However, the Muslim name is something that links him to a new ancestral community, that of the holy ones in African Sufi Islamic tradition.

Conclusion Globalization has dawned upon us and continues to have both its positive and negative influences on societies and cultures. Africa is not immune from this. Today, Africa experiences a rise in secularism, materialism, endemic religious and cultural clashes, and competing economic philosophies are shaping the very soul of the continent. The majority of African Muslims and African Christians uphold conservative social and moral values, as demonstrated by the results of the 2010 Pew Research survey. While religious fervour seems to be growing in Africa among those who identify as religious,

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there is a growing number as well of those who identify as agnostic or outright atheists. How is one to speak of African ethics in such a climate? Must the discourse begin from the domain of the religious, the secular, or both? On that note, it is important to state that African ethics be radically defined and critiqued using all the tools and insights found in the African intellectual heritage that is in dialogue with the rest of humanity.

References Achebe, C. 1969. Arrow of God. New York: Anchor. Aihiokhai, S. 2016. ‘Embracing the Pragmatic in African Indigenous Religions: New Perspective for Interfaith Dialogue’. In Christianity and Culture Collision: Particularities and Trends from a Global South, eds. C. Orji and J. Ogbonnaya, 151–62. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Asante, M. K. 1998. The Afrocentric Idea. Revised and Expanded Edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Azumah, J. A. 2001. The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa. A Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue. Oxford: Oneworld. Battle, M. 2009. Ubuntu. I in You and You in Me. Forward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. New York: Seabury Books. Bujo, B. 1998. The Ethical Dimension of Community. The African Model and The Dialogue between North and South. Nairobi: Paulines Africa. Bujo, B. 2001. Foundations of An African Ethic. Beyond the Universal Claims of Western Morality. New York: Crossroad. Gyekye, K. 1995. An Essay on African Philosophical Thought. The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. John Paul II. 1993. Veritatis Splendor. Available online at http://w2.vatican.va/content/ john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html Kalu, O. U. 2001. ‘The Sacred Egg: Worldview, Ecology, and Development in West Africa’. In Indigenous Traditions and Ecology, ed. J. A. Grim, 225–48. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School. Magesa, L. 1997. African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Mbiti, J. S. 1975. The Prayers of African Religion. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Mbiti, J. S. 1989. African Religions and Philosophy. 2nd ed. Johannesburg: Heinemann. P’Bitek, O. 2011. Decolonizing African Religions. A Short History of African Religions in Western Scholarship. New Introduction by Kwasi Wiredu. New York: Diasporic Africa Press. Pew Research Center Religion and Public Life. 2010. Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Available online at https://www.pewforum. org/2010/04/15/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa/ Sanneh, L. 1983. West African Christianity. The Religious Impact. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Sanneh, L. 1997. The Crown and The Turban. Muslims and West African Pluralism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sindima, H. 1990. ‘Community of Life: Ecological Theology in African Perspective’. In Liberating Life: Contemporary Approaches to Ecological Theology, eds. C. Birch et al., 137–48. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

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Soyinka, W. 1976. Myth, Literature and The African World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wa Thiong’o, N. 1965. The River Between. Johannesburg: Heinemann. Wiredu, K. 2011. ‘Introduction’. In Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religions. A Short History of African Religions in Western Scholarship. New Introduction by Kwasi Wiredu, ed. O. P’Bitek, xi–xxxvii, New York: Diasporic Africa Press.

7

A Personhood-Based Theory of Right Action Amara Esther Chimakonam

Introduction Much of the literature on Menkiti’s account of personhood has focused mainly on the relationship between individual rights and communal values (see Gyekye 1992; Wiredu 2009; Masolo 2010; Oyowe 2013; Matolino 2014; Ikuenobe 2006, 2018; Molefe 2017; 2019, 2020). To the best of my knowledge, the aspect of a theory of right action is still underexplored. Although this essay is not claiming to be the first to articulate a theory of right action from African values – Innocent Asouzu’s complementary ethical reflection (2004), Thaddeus Metz’s Towards an African Moral Theory (2007) and Jonathan O. Chimakonam’s ethics of uze-ezumezu (see Chapter 1 in this volume) are apt in this regard – it is the first to articulate such a theory from Menkiti’s account of normative personhood. In order to achieve the aim of this chapter, I will begin by philosophically conversing with Menkiti on his account of the normative conception of personhood. I will argue that the normative conception of personhood should be better viewed as an African moral belief rather than a system of African ethics. In doing this, I will separate African moral beliefs from systems of African ethics and argue that, while African moral beliefs are not systems, systems of African ethics denote theories with a well-defined logical foundation and methodological underpinnings. On the one hand, I will show that African moral beliefs are mainly world-view accounts based on the cultural norms obtainable in African traditional societies. The sources of these norms are primarily found in oral literature, such as parables, folklores, proverbs, poetry and songs. These cultural norms are often regarded as sacred, static, absolute and unquestionable, of which their strict adherence is of paramount necessity. Tradition is often invoked as an absolute justification for the validity of these cultural norms. Robin Horton has characterized such African traditional societies as a ‘closed’ one that lacks ‘awareness of alternatives, sacredness of beliefs, and anxiety about threats to those beliefs’ as opposed to the ‘open’ modern scientific society with ‘awareness of alternatives, diminished sacredness of beliefs, and diminished anxiety about threats to them’ (1967: 156). Although such a closed society, contrary to what Horton would have us believe, is not peculiar to African traditional societies (see Wiredu 2020), it is this absolute acceptance and impossibility of questioning the established cultural norms that characterize African moral beliefs. 103

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On the other hand, this is different from systems of African ethics, where norms seem to be less absolute and sacred in their validity. At the same time, it has a wellstructured system with discernible logical and methodological underpinnings. This well-structured system helps to justify moral precepts by giving room for critical, rational and reflective engagement and questioning of these norms to either refine existing theories or construct new ones, thereby making them less absolute and sacred in their validity. I will go beyond this moral belief to articulate a personhood-based theory of right action as an ethical system in African ethics. Also, I will critically discuss different theories of right action within the African ethical context. In particular, I will focus on the works of Innocent Asouzu (2004), Thaddeus Metz (2007) and Jonathan O. Chimakonam (see Chapter 1 of this volume). Finally, I will attempt to construct a personhood-based theory of right action that draws so much from the Afro-communitarian notion of relationship, especially the variant put forth by Menkiti, salient in most cultures in Africa south of the Sahara. I will proffer this personhood-based theory of right action as ethical principles that would guide moral conduct. Also, I will consider some of the objections that might arise in such an attempt. Specifically, I will consider Kai Horsthemke’s objection in his claim that Menkiti advocates ‘justice-as-reciprocity/justice-as-mutuality’ that is ‘deficient in important respects in that it cannot accommodate these individuals’, i.e. animals, infants, the young, foetuses, and physically and mentally disabled individuals (2018: 72). In considering this objection, I will show that it is misplaced by pointing to ‘a capacity for moral sense’ presented by Menkiti. Also, I will go beyond Menkiti’s presentation to accommodate two clauses to a personhood-based theory of right action.

African moral beliefs vs systems of African ethics: A conversation with Menkiti on his account of the normative conception of personhood In this section, I will hold a conversation with Menkiti on his account of the normative conception of personhood. I aim to show that Menkiti’s account of normative personhood falls within the scope of African moral beliefs rather than systems of African ethics. This will run contrary to the widely held belief among contemporary African philosophers that posits Menkiti’s account of normative personhood as an ethical system in African philosophy. Even African philosophers as astute as Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye held that Menkiti’s ‘exposition’ of normative personhood is crucial to an ethical enquiry within the African philosophical context (Gyekye 1992; Eze 2008; Wiredu 2009; Masolo 2010; Ikuenobe 2006, 2016, 2018; Molefe 2016, 2019, 2020). Examples of this are plentiful. Gyekye, for instance, asks: Now, what would be the conception of personhood held in such a communitarian socio-ethical philosophy? The communitarian conception of the person needs to be critically and thoroughly examined . . . In making the communitarian self, as variously understood in African culture, my point of departure, I shall set off from

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the views clearly expressed in an interesting paper published some time ago by Menkiti. 1992: 107, italics mine

He goes on to argue that ‘Menkiti in his interesting paper deploys arguments to prove that African thought considers personhood as something defined or conferred by the community and as something that must be acquired by the individual’ (107). Gyekye then adds: ‘[I]n my critical examination of his paper I shall start with arguments that arrive from his understanding of African cultural practices or beliefs’ (107, italics mine). Kwasi Wiredu claims: In contemporary African philosophy, as far as I know, the first exposition of this normative conception of a person was given by Menkiti in an article of superlative beauty entitled ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought’. 2009: 16, italics mine

Motsamai Molefe states: I single out the normative concept of personhood as the foundational moral category to theorize about African moral and political thought . . . the idea of personhood is arguably the most salient moral notion in the tradition of African philosophy. This view implies that the idea of personhood is one of the most important indigenous axiological resources; it requires our earnest philosophical consideration if we are to articulate a robust monistic moral and political theory. 2019: 1

The above quotations present Menkiti’s normative personhood with the expressions of ‘exposition’, ‘clearly expressed’, ‘deploy argument to prove’, foundational moral category’. This shows that they assume Menkiti to have undertaken a systematic inquiry of personhood through critical analyses and arguments found in an African traditional thought system. It also implies that they assume that Menkiti goes beyond describing cultural world views to offer a systematic theorization of personhood as an ethical system in African philosophy. This belief suffers from a dogma, which I call ‘ethical system dogma’, that has blurred the field of African ethics. Ethical system dogma erroneously proclaims African moral beliefs as systems of African ethics.1 This means that any attempt to construe Menkiti’s normative personhood as merely an African moral belief rather than as an ethical system would be reflexively considered as a display of a profound lack of understanding of its relevance to African ethics, or a wholly futile exercise. However, challenging this dogma is not an exercise in futility, for it is by challenging this dogma that one may hope to transcend the realm of African moral beliefs to a system of African ethics that will turn African ethics into a clear and significant philosophical inquiry. A starting point then is to distinguish African moral beliefs from systems of African ethics.2 While African moral beliefs are world-view descriptions of cultural norms, systems of African ethics are the theories and principles of morality. On the one hand,

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African moral beliefs denote those communal norms put forth by society to guide the moral actions of its members. Such communal norms are often descriptive. For example, ‘I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am’ (Mbiti 1970: 141). This is a descriptive statement (‘is’ statement) which Mbiti renders as a norm in African moral beliefs. But principles of ethics are prescriptive (‘ought’ statement), in that they prescribe how we ‘should’ behave in order to behave morally. In this sense, one can refer to the norms of the Bantu, the norms of the Yoruba, the norms of the Akan, the norms of the Shona, the norms of the Igbo, and so forth, as examples of African moral beliefs which are only applicable in those cultures. On the other hand, systems of African ethics refer to principles and theories (with a logical foundation and methodological underpinnings) that prescribe codes of conduct that can guide human actions universally. In other words, this set of principles and theories can be applied to various cultures. J. O. Chimakonam clarifies this point when he distinguishes a theory of African ethics from the traditional African moral beliefs. For him, while the former possesses a ‘discernible logical foundation, rigorous methodologies’, and contents ‘that are organized along the lines of the laws of clearly formulated logic’, the latter are mainly the accounts of diverse cultural norms as they apply in specific traditional societies (J. O. Chimakonam, in this volume). For example, the principle of progressive transformation in Asouzu’s ethics of complementary reflection prescribes that ‘all morally good actions are those that are ‘geared towards the joy of being’ (2011: 105). By this principle, the killing of one’s neighbour, which leads to the sadness of being, cannot be a morally good action. This principle can be applied in many cultures of the world. Finally, while African moral beliefs document and describe collective moral beliefs common and applicable to a specific African ethnic cultural group, or all Africans, systems of African ethics systematically and critically study, examine and interrogate moral precepts teased out of the African world views – moral precepts that could be universally applicable. This implies that African moral beliefs are culture-bound in applying their norms, thereby belonging to the domain of moral relativism; systems of African ethics are culture-inspired and universal in the application of their theories and principles, thereby belonging to the domain of moral relativity.3 Menkiti’s normative personhood falls within the realm of African moral beliefs, not least since he himself refers to it as ‘a certain conception of the person found in African traditional thought’ (1984: 170). Menkiti’s account has undoubtedly enabled us to see that, in a traditional African society, personhood is socially defined through a harmonious relationship with members of the community. Menkiti did well to put personhood into context. He has described the concept of a person and the ways of attaining personhood in traditional African society. However, Menkiti presents mainly a cultural world-view account of how Africans understood personhood without necessarily transcending this communal narrative to articulate a systemic theory of personhood as an ethical system in African ethics. A similar idea has been shared by Kwame Appiah when he argues that ‘what is wrong with the ethnophilosophers is that they have never gone beyond this essentially preliminary step’ (1992: 106) of a deep understanding of the cultural world views. Menkiti simply accepts the African cultural world view of personhood that he presents without further critical engagement.

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It seems that Menkiti is very insistent on his reverence of personhood in the African thought system, so much so that he fails to raise philosophical issues or give a philosophical justification of this belief. For example, Menkiti uncritically takes it as a given that conformity to social norms confers personhood on an individual. To be critical of this view would not mean engaging in a practice of deploying destructive criticisms that aim at rejecting ideas or destroying beliefs; rather, to be critical involves ‘seriously asking oneself whether the ideas in question should be reformed, modified or conversed’, and, further,‘applying one’s entire intellectual and imaginative intelligence to the search for an answer’ (Bodunrin 1984: 153). J. O. Chimakonam expresses a similar concern thus: If we ask, for example, the methodological strength and logical foundation of the moral belief ‘individuals should obey communal norms to become persons’, we would notice the poverty of moral beliefs at once. But this is what personhood as a moral belief engenders. The methodological disposition for its application is weak. It trivializes all at once the significance of individual endowments and offers nothing by way of logical justification for such a course of action. It is a dogma that obeying communal norms can make individuals persons. Yet, it is upon this fatal dogma that Menkiti’s normative account rests. Chapter 1 in this volume

What seems to be clear at this point is that Menkiti gives an account of personhood that is hardly critical, evaluative and constructive. It is devoid of a well-defined logical foundation and methodological underpinning. This lack of theoretical systematization of the world-view idea of personhood into an ethical system makes Menkiti’s account a moral belief rather than an ethical system.4 However, something is required beyond giving an account of personhood as Menkiti has done in formulating a personhood-based ethical system. There is a need to rearticulate the idea of personhood through a critical, constructive and conversational approach so as to formulate an ethical system. In this vein, this chapter aims at articulating a personhood-based theory of right action as an ethical system in African ethics. This approach will fall within systems of African ethics since it will be breaking ranks with Menkiti to articulate a personhood-based theory of right action as ethical principles that would guide moral actions and conduct universally. But before presenting such a personhood-based theory of right action, it is important to discuss other attempts at articulating a theory of right action from African values. In the next section, I will discuss Innocent Asouzu’s complementary ethical reflection (2004), Thaddeus Metz’s Towards an African Moral Theory (2007) and J. O. Chimakonam’s ethics of uze-ezumezu (Chapter 1 in this volume).

Theories of right action in African ethics Innocent Asuozu, Thaddeus Metz and J. O. Chimakonam espouse African relational ethics based on the notion of relationship found in many cultures in Africa south of the

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Sahara. Their relational ethics aim to account for right actions ultimately in terms of harmonious communal relationship. For instance, Asuozu’s complementary ethical reflection is strongly rooted in his ibuanyidanda philosophy that construes reality in terms of ‘mutual complementary relationship’ (2004: 251–2; 2011: 103) (see also chapters 3, 8 and 9 in this volume). By extension, it conceives ‘members of the human family’ as being ‘interminably in a relationship of mutual dependence and interdependence in complementarity’ (2011: 104). In this vein, Asouzu claims that complementary ethical reflection espouses harmonious complementary relationship geared towards the joy of being. Complementary ethical reflection involves principles, imperatives and the truth and authenticity criterion that undergird such relationships. While the principle of integration states that ‘[a]nything that exists serves a missing link of reality’, the principle of progressive transformation states that ‘[a]ll human actions are geared towards the joy of being’. The imperative of ibuanyidanda philosophy urges the following: ‘Allow the limitations of being to be the cause of your joy.’ And the truth and authenticity criterion is as follows: ‘[N]ever elevate any world immanent missing link to an absolute instance’ (2004: 273–316; 2011: 105). From this notion of relationship, Asouzu draws his theory of right action that seeks to secure the joy of being. For Asouzu, the notion of joy is central to a theory of right action because of the psychological tendency inherent in human beings not to always aim at those actions that result in joyous outcomes but often at those with sad outcomes. This is what he calls the ‘paradox of ambivalence of human interest’ that subsists in human beings, given existential life situations, insisting ‘on doing those things that he would ordinarily not like to do, believing this to be the wisest thing to do’ (2004: 254). It is this psychological tendency that propels one to embrace actions that result in sad outcomes. Unfortunately, every human action, according to Asouzu, is subject to the dictates of this paradox. He claims that overcoming this paradox lies in centring moral actions on the notion of joy to deter individuals from choosing the negative side of this ambivalent interest. In this manner, individuals would be left to choose the positive side of this ambivalent interest that would bring joy. On this basis, Asouzu states his theory of right action thus: A morally good act is one, which is performed in the consciousness that it has a comprehensive and total outreach and with a view of being a source of joy to the actor and is capable of radiating such a joy in a dynamic complementary future referential manner (354) . . . any duties we perform in a complementary sense is duty performed, directly or indirectly, for the common good and for the wellbeing of the actor. 370

This theory of right action can be systematically stated thus: An action is right insofar as it promotes the common good and serves as a source of joy for the actor; it is wrong if it fails to achieve both. J.O. Chimakonam, Chapter 1 in this volume

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This implies that a right action is performed, directly or indirectly, both for the common good and joy of the actor. Let us explore these two aspects of the theory. First, consider Asouzu’s claim that a right action ought to promote the common good. For Asouzu, common good can be employed, first, as ‘the ultimate authenticating anthropological basic constant of human life’, which refers to that ‘ultimate common foundation that gives legitimacy to all human actions’, and, secondly, as The authenticating foundation of interpersonal relationship in society, expressible in all those socio-empirical goods and services we own in common whose upkeep is necessary for well-coordinated and contented existence. 2004: 378

One can say that the common good fosters a complementary harmonious existence that seeks to form a ‘common bond’ in which individuals see ‘the necessity to define [themselves] within the framework of the collective, in a manner that would guarantee [their] interest’ (384). He maintains that common good centres on collectivity, mutuality, reciprocity, interdependence, relationality and complementarity guided by the principle of integration and ibuanyidanda imperative. Now let us consider the second aspect of Asouzu’s theory of right action, namely that a right action ought to guarantee joy for the actor. Asouzu argues that human actions, guided by the principle of progressive transformation, are aimed towards the joy of being. He claims that an action that guarantees joy chooses the positive side of human ambivalent interest referentially within the ambit of common good, which means: ‘hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases (jide ka iji)’ (366–78). Asouzu also grounds this idea with his truth and authenticity criterion that ensures that the common good acknowledges its ‘inherent relativity’ (i.e. the community and individual) and rejects its ‘absoluteness’ (i.e. not making absolute claim on the individual or communities) so as to give room for human freedom and autonomy (398–9). In this way, the common good becomes a means of achieving the joy of being rather than an end in itself. These two points mean that a morally right action embodies a common good that guarantees the joy of being. Just as what makes a tin of tea the tea it contains, what makes a right action is the common good that assures joy to the one performing that action. On the contrary, a wrong action fails to promote the common good that assures joy of being.5 The question that now arises is, what should be the right course of action in a situation of conflict between common and individual interests? In other words, which interest should be most binding to an individual in a situation of tension between common good and joy for the actor? This question poses a significant challenge to Asouzu’s theory of right action when we consider that he favours the common good that serves as a means to realizing individual joy. So when confronted with this kind of situation, Asouzu would claim that one should consider the following facts: [F]irst, we have to understand the context in which such common goods appear; second, we have to examine the aim establishing them; third, we have to see to what extent our commitment to them puts us in a position to be fully aware of the

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ambivalence of our situation; and fourth, we have to know if the common good thereby pursued makes it possible for us to be aware of the ultimate legitimizing foundation of all human interests. 398

He maintains that these facts would help one question if such ‘common good can be recognized as means and not as an end in itself ’ (398). Bearing these facts in mind, Asouzu would want one to perform those actions that would promote the common good and be a source of joy for the actor. In this sense, Asouzu would claim that, in a conflict of interest between the common good and individual interest, such a line of action should be abandoned altogether. Take, for instance, a hypothetical situation where a man who owns a piece of land lying fallow for years decides to sell the land to satisfy his interest in going abroad for cosmetic rhinoplasty surgery to change the shape and size of his nose to improve appearance and breathing. However, his government freely wants the land to erect a tent as a Covid-19 extension care centre due to the rising rate of infected people from the third wave of the recent coronavirus pandemic. Thus, on the one hand, giving the land for free to the government satisfies the common good without being a source of joy for him. But, on the other, selling the land to raise the money needed for his cosmetic rhinoplasty surgery would be a source of joy for him since it fulfils his interest in having a better appearance and breathing. In this case, Asouzu’s theory of right action would require him not to give out the land to the government since the common good does not bring joy to him. In other words, he is not bound by the common good or his interest in such a case and, therefore, not morally obligated to perform such action. For his part, Metz, in his article titled ‘Towards an African Moral Theory’ (2007), argues that harmonious relationships properly capture ‘the communitarian renditions of ubuntu’, which is expressed in the maxim: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ (331). This maxim shows that individuals earn moral excellencies by engaging in a relationship with others. For Metz, this account of ubuntu ‘posits certain relationships as constitutive of the good that a moral agent ought to promote’ (334). In this sense, ubuntu is a relational ethical theory that emphasizes communal relationship. Metz strengthens this idea with Desmond Tutu’s claim that ‘harmony, friendliness, community are great goods. Social harmony is for us the summum bonum ‒ the greatest good’ (1999: 35; Metz 2007: 334–5). Drawing from this view, he argues that what is right is what maintains a harmonious relationship and what is wrong is what fosters disharmony and unfriendly relationship in the community. With this reasoning, Metz identifies major themes of relational ethics as shared identity, namely ‘sharing a way of life’ with others as a ‘we’ and solidarity/goodwill, which is ‘caring about each other’s quality of life’ (2012: 26; 2007: 337). Solidarity/ goodwill also refers to the sympathetic and empathic feelings towards others’ misfortune. He subsumes these themes into one major theme, namely harmony (2007: 337). Harmony, for Metz, is equivalent to love, which is akin to the way families show love to each other. In this light, harmony places individuals in a loving relationship within the community. It creates in them a sense of respect for communal friendship.

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From this, Metz draws out the principle of right action: ‘An action is right just insofar as it promotes shared identity among people grounded on goodwill; an act is wrong to the extent that it fails to do so and tends to encourage the opposites of division and ill-will’ (338; author’s italics). This implies that a right action promotes togetherness among people, whereas the contrary is a wrong action. Unlike Asouzu’s theory of right action, which seems to encourage one to abandon a moral action if such action does not promote the common good that guarantees joy for the actor, Metz’s theory of right action tends to encourage one to perform an action that promotes shared identity and solidarity/goodwill among members of the community. However, a problem will arise in a situation where the tension between common interest and individual interest tends to promote shared identity and solidarity/goodwill. Suppose that a footballer’s only dying wish is to give his life savings to his football club. But at the same time, a region of his country is facing severe famine, and he receives a letter from the government requesting that he donates his life savings for famine relief that would save many lives. Now, both fulfilling his dying wish and donating to the government famine relief fund are scenarios in which the footballer would conceive himself as part of the whole (shared identity): he is one of the team players and a citizen of the country experiencing famine. He would also realize the well-being of others (solidarity/goodwill) since sponsoring his football team would sustain the running of the club, and donating money to the government famine relief fund would save many lives. That is, giving his life savings to his football club to satisfy his interest would promote shared identity and solidarity/goodwill. Also, donating his life savings to the government famine relief programme to satisfy the common good would promote shared identity and goodwill. Therefore, Metz may wish to consider rethinking his position along this line. Like Asouzu’s and Metz’s theories, J. O. Chimakonam’s ethics of uze-ezumezu prizes the idea of relationship. It identifies two kinds of relationships, namely solidarity and difference. While the relationship of solidarity fosters a sense of oneself as we, the relationship of difference promotes a sense of oneself as an I. The former ensures that a moral agent acts for the common good. The latter ensures that a moral agent acts for individual good. These relationships are psychologically driven, according to J. O. Chimakonam, by two desires: ‘the desire for self-preservation that motivates acts that promote individual good and the desire for self-sufficiency that motivates acts that promote the common good’ (J. O. Chimakonam, in this volume). From these relationships, he derives the uze-ezumezu theory of right action, stated thus: An action is right insofar as it promotes the individual good, the good of the other or both (common good); it is wrong if it fails to promote at least anyone at all. J. O. Chimakonam, in this volume

According to J. O. Chimakonam, this uze-ezumezu theory of right action means that ‘[I]f an action promotes common good without promoting individual good and the good of the other, it is right. If it promotes individual good without promoting common good and the good of the other, it is also right. And if it promotes the good of both the

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self and the other (i.e. common good), it is right’ (J. O. Chimakonam, in this volume). J. O. Chimakonam grounds the uze-ezumezu theory of right action in the three supplementary laws of thought in Ezumezu logic, namely njiko· ka, nmeko· ka and ono· naetiti (J. O. Chimakonam, in this volume). While the laws of njiko· ka, which states: ‘An arumaristic proposition is true if and only if it is true in Relation to its opposite that is false’, and nmeko· ka, which states that ‘[i]f an arumaristic proposition is true in a given context, then it cannot be false in the same context’, ground individual good, the law of ono· na-etiti (‘an ohakaristic proposition is both true and false in a complementary mode of thought’) grounds that of the common good. J. O. Chimakonam’s theory of right action seems to overcome the challenges we identified in Asouzo’s and Metz’s theories of right action since it gives room for actions that promote at least the common good, the good of the other or individual good to be counted as the right course of action. In our hypothetical situation, the uze-ezumezu theory of right action would allow the landowner to prioritize his interest. Another example involves the case wherein a father is the only one who can divert a trolley hurtling towards a group of people, but, if he does, the trolley will be derailed into his bedroom where his wife and kid are sleeping. In this instance, if the father fails to divert the trolley to save his family, uze-ezumezu theory would count it as right action. It then seems morally obligatory and permissible for one to prioritize their interest in a situation of conflict between common interest and individual interest insofar as such a moral agent is not acting against the collective cause, but not for the common good. This kind of action is seen as having a less degree of moral goodness in J. O. Chimakonam’s uze-ezumezu theory. As he acknowledges, ‘[A]n action that promotes individual good or the good of the other alone is less in degree of moral goodness compared to one that promotes both (common good)’ (J. O. Chimakonam, in this volume). However, these questions still beg to be answered: can goodness be measured in degrees? And is there any calculus for determining the degrees of goodness? In other words, can one good be said to be greater than another? That is, can an action that promotes both the good of the other and individual good be said to be greater than an action that promotes just one? These are some of the questions that confront the ethics of uze-ezumezu.

Towards a personhood-based theory of right action6 I want to conclude this chapter by theorizing a personhood-based theory of right action. I begin by stating the main principle of such a personhood-based theory of right action. Main principle: An action is right if and only if it positively contributes to the common good while adding moral excellencies to the individuals; an action is wrong if it adds moral excellencies to individuals without contributing to the common good, or contributes to the common good without adding moral excellencies to the individuals.7

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The talk of right or wrong action is only meaningful in a society where one lives in relation with others, and where their actions can be thus judged and evaluated as right or wrong. For instance, let us imagine an island where a person Z lives alone without others. Let us call it an island of lone existence in which nature makes it impossible for two individuals to co-exist at a time. Z’s actions cannot be evaluated right or wrong on this island because they exist alone and interact with no other humans. On such an island, the talk of right or wrong action would not be sensible, since Z’s actions do not affect anyone other than himself. So, the talk becomes relevant in one’s relation and interaction with others, where a person’s action can affect others either positively or negatively.8 Menkiti notes this point when he reports that ‘the individual does not exist alone and cannot exist alone except corporately. Only in terms of other people does the individual become conscious of his own being, his own duties, his privileges and responsibilities towards himself and towards other people’ (1984: 172). An individual is a being with others – a being who depends on group cooperation and networking for his own actualization and fulfilment. Menkiti points out that moral personhood is predicated on an individual’s social relationship defined by adherence to social norms. Through a ‘long process of ritual and social transformation’, one ‘attains the full complement of excellencies seen as truly definitive of man’. During this process, ‘the community plays a vital role as a catalyst and as a prescriber of norms’ (172). By adhering to such social norms, one internalizes and actualizes the prescribed norms and accumulates moral excellencies to one’s person. In Menkiti’s account, moral personhood is ‘the sort of thing which has to be attained and is attained in direct proportion as one participates in communal life through the discharge of the various obligations defined by one’s stations’ (176). In this sense, the attainment of personhood involves social incorporation that ensures that individuals adhere to and fulfil social norms, contribute to the common good, and, in turn, receive social benefits and burdens. For Menkiti, ‘at the base of the idea of justice is the key notion of a fair and equitable distribution of the burdens and advantages of collective social life’ (2017: 25). Supporting the community’s way of life by contributing to the common good adds some excellencies to individuals involved. Common good is the ‘ “duty” . . . task, service, conduct or function that a person feels morally obligated to perform in respect of another person or other persons’ (Gyekye 1992: 118). One has an obligation to perform the duties and responsibilities of the community they inhabit. The more one adheres to social norms, the more excellencies they acquire and the greater a person they become. At this point, Menkiti informs us that one attains ‘ethical maturity’ and ‘becomes a person with all the inbuilt excellencies implied by the term’ (2004: 325; 1984: 172). But this does not mean that African values prohibit individual creativity and nonconformity to social norms. It does mean that the common good has higher moral worth than individual good. African values prize communal duty higher and above individual duty. As Menkiti points out, ‘African societies tend to be organized around the requirements of duty . . . priority is given to the duties which individuals owe to collectivity, and their rights, whatever these may be, are secondary to the exercise of their duties (1984: 180). So, individuals can as well decide whether to fulfil their communal duties, obligations and responsibilities as prescribed by their community

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and contribute to the common good. Menkiti pointed out that personhood is something one could fail at, and one fails at personhood by placing primacy on their interests higher and above collective interests (72). Here, and also for Menkiti’s account, there is a mutual exchange between the community and individuals. Just like in a banking system where customers deposit their monies and banks deduct interest for safeguarding them and refund the customers the remaining ones when needed, so individuals contribute to the common good and the community then creates a favourable means for them to realize and actualize their potentials and fulfil their individual goals. A personhood-based theory of right action also entails that one should be sympathetic to others’ needs by putting themselves in others’ position. Menkiti presents such a sympathetic attitude towards others with this Igbo aphorism,’ Ebele umu uwa, a phrase that roughly translates as ‘pity for the children of the world, among whom include one’s self ’ (Menkiti 2017: 23, italics original). Here, we are not presenting the worldview understanding of the community–individual relationship but an ethical systematization of the same in terms of the concepts of common good and individual good. A sympathetic attitude towards others requires that one relates to others in a friendly and dignified way that respects oneself and others. As Menkiti further elaborates: [T]he ‘pity’ or the ‘mercy’ that is called for is not called for so that one can assuage one’s soul, or broker a moral elevation for one’s self, but is called for so that one can better position one’s self to uphold the perspective of human dignity. 24

This idea is similar to Wiredu’s (1996) sympathetic impartiality and Metz’s (2007) harmony in which one situates oneself in others’ needs. Such a sympathetic attitude involves carrying out one’s social responsibilities and obligations, helping others in need, caring for others’ welfare and contributing to the community’s overall well-being by fostering the common good. Some scholars might object to constructing a theory of right action from Menkiti’s account of normative personhood in terms of the common good and moral excellencies by arguing that it does not have the necessary resources for a theory of right actions. They may hold that Menkiti’s normative personhood is ill-suited for such a theory since it specifies unjust exclusion. For instance, Kai Horsthemke, in his 2018 essay, ‘African Communalism, Persons, and Animals’, claims that ‘Menkiti is quite unapologetic about the exclusion [of the young] on the basis of a relative lack of moral personality (and even status) of those in the early stages of ‘ontological progression’ (1984: 173), i.e., infants and young children’ (65). He further argues that ‘[T]he implications of Menkiti’s view are clear: not only can non-human animals not be considered persons, but human zygotes, foetuses, babies and even children also fail to qualify’ (72). He also adds to this exclusion list those who have senile dementia, cognitive disability, severe autism, Down’s syndrome and physical disabilities (66). He believes that Menkiti espouses the idea of ‘justice-as-reciprocity/justice-as-mutuality’ and concludes that it is ‘deficient in important respects in that it cannot accommodate these individuals’ (72).

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The claim that Menkiti’s presentation is exclusive would strike one as counterintuitive; presumably, Menkiti did not include animals in articulating personhood, but this does not disbar moral persons from relating with animals as members of the society. Indeed, suggesting that personhood must always include animals is to court the very ‘extension of moral language to the domain of animals’, which Menkiti has objected to. What Menkiti is saying is that personhood should not be ascribed to animals because the question of right implies duties of justice, which only humans possess because of their capacity for moral sense. Menkiti’s words on this are: If it is generally conceded, then, that persons are the sort of entities that are owed the duties of justice, it must also be allowed that each time we find an ascription of any of the various rights implied by these duties of justice, the conclusion naturally follows that the possessor of the rights in question cannot be other than a person. That is so because the basis of such rights ascription has now been made dependent on a possession of a capacity for moral sense, a capacity, which though it need not be realized, nonetheless made most evident by a concrete exercise of duties of justice towards others in the ongoing relationships of everyday life. 1984: 72

From this quote, Menkiti is clarifying that animals do not possess a capacity for moral sense. For instance, animals cannot fulfil social norms, duties, obligations and responsibilities derived from the relationship between community members. Also, animals’ actions cannot be evaluated as right or wrong. A crocodile that kills and feeds on a person will not be held morally responsible for its action. But unlike animals that lack a capacity for moral sense, humans, including zygotes, foetuses, babies, infants and young children, possess such a capacity. It is this potential in the young that comes to actuality through the attainment of ethical maturity. That is why Menkiti believes that, through conformity to social norms, contribution to the common good and fulfilment of duties, this potential for moral sense well possessed by the young will attain full personhood. Motsamai Molefe argues in the same vein that ‘merely because the young possess the potential for the capacity for sympathy, they have moral status. As such, they are members of the moral community’ (2020: 89). It is also based on this capacity for a moral sense that those with senile dementia, cognitive disability, severe autism, Down’s syndrome and physical disabilities are included in the moral community since this capacity need not be realized. However, they will not attain full personhood since they do not contribute to the common good. Horsthemke might find this response unsatisfactory by further insisting that not extending personhood to animals is the major weakness in Menkiti’s account of personhood. However, Horsthemke needs to be reminded that the very idea of personhood necessarily entails how humans become persons. But this does not mean that a theory of right action arising from personhood should be limited only to our actions towards persons. Since, in African metaphysical thinking, the being of humans is interconnected with the being of other realities (see J. O. Chimakonam and Ogbannaya 2021), part of the requirements for attaining personhood is good conduct towards other members of the ecosystem such as animals and the environment, even

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though they are not persons. And conducts cannot be deemed moral if they harm other realities connected to humans. In this sense, a personhood-based theory of right action accommodates non-human entities (e.g. animals and environment) and foetuses by acknowledging that acting rightly towards these non-human entities enhances the moral excellencies of the actor insofar as they promote the common good – which includes the common good of the non-human realm (because morally excellent individuals, in the fullest sense, would take into account this realm when deliberating how to act). All these show that there is a strong epistemic reason to draw a theory of right action from Menkiti’s normative personhood, but one that goes beyond it. It is worth noting that this personhood-based theory of right action is not absolute. In other words, it does not accord to absolute priority in contributing to the common good and adding moral excellencies to the individual; or say that one’s actions must in all cases, no matter what the consequences might be, conform to the main principle of the personhood-based theory of right action. But, because it is important that theory suffices as a universal moral standard, I provide two exception-to-the-rule clauses to cover those contexts in which the main principle is challenged. In this regard, two clauses are set thus: First: Communal Exception Clause An action X (for one thing) is a communal exception in a case Y if and only if there is an extreme group necessity, all things considered, to violate adding moral excellencies to the individuals in order to sacrifice to the common good for the sake of collective interest. Second: Individual Exception Clause And (for another thing), an action X is an individual exception in a case Y if and only if there is an extreme personal necessity, all things considered, to violate contributing to the common good in order to add moral excellencies to the individuals for the sake of such individuals’ interest. An exceptional case is, by definition, an unusual one. An exceptional case is one in which nonconformity to this personhood-based theory of right action is usually admissible. With these exceptional cases, this chapter partly goes beyond Menkiti’s world-view account. The other part is the extent to which the theory I articulate here is a sample of a system of ethics that is universally applicable rather than mere moral beliefs restricted to specific groups. While Menkiti might be somehow settled with the first clause, he might outrightly reject the second one because he believes that ‘the reality of the communal world takes precedence over the reality of individual life’ (1984: 171). As shown above, Menkiti sees the common good as primary and individual good as secondary, since the individual acquires moral excellencies by incorporating into their community and contributing to the common good. So, in a situation where collective interest clashes with individual interest, Menkiti would insist that, in accordance to his cultural norms, collective interest should be favoured higher and above individual interest without putting into consideration the context guiding the action.

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This essay goes beyond this view to consider the context involved in such actions. Context then determines when these clauses are applicable. J. O. Chimakonam (2019: 119–122) draws crucial attention to the significance of context in African systems of thought. He explains this using the principle he describes as ‘context-dependence of value (CdV)’, in which he argues that, in the African epistemic perspective, ‘context upsets facts’ (122). This means that context is critical in correcting inferences and determination of values for propositions. Similarly, I deploy J. O. Chimakonam’s idea of CdV here to demonstrate that there may be circumstances in which the context of action may justify the violation of the principles of right action laid out in this essay. In other words, it is not a straitjacketed theory. For example, the rapid increase of Covid-19 infection in Africa compelled some countries to enforce national lockdown and curfew. On the one hand, let us imagine an expectant couple who went into labour during this period and needed medical attention. This couple would be left with either observing the curfew, thereby reducing the spread of the virus, or going to the hospital to get medical attention needed for her safe delivery. The second clause will account for this because it is an extreme personal necessity to get the medical attention required to save her baby’s life. On the other hand, let us imagine a group of alcoholic friends that cannot do without taking three to five bottles of alcoholic drink a day, who unfortunately ran out of alcoholic drinks during a national lockdown. They have the option of going out to either satisfy their alcoholic cravings, thereby increasing the risk of coronavirus infection, or complying with the lockdown, thereby not satisfying their cravings. The first clause will account for this because there is a strong reason to observe the lockdown as a common good, which is to reduce coronavirus infection rates and save lives, rather than satisfying their alcoholic cravings. In essence, the point that this section is trying to make is that one is to promote the common good, subject to the constraint that, save in communal and individual exceptional cases, one is to contribute to the collective interest of which the general observance is to add moral excellencies to the individuals. To decide the morality of the right action to take: first, identify the context requiring a personhood-based theory of right action. Secondly, then, determine whether such a context requires an action that conforms to the main principle of a personhood-based theory of right action or not. If it does, do an action that conforms to it. Finally, if it does not, apply the two clauses to the context and do one that best conforms to the situation.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have gone beyond Menkiti’s account of personhood to articulate a personhood-based theory of right action as an ethical system in African ethics. I began by stating that an action is right if and only if it positively contributes to the common good while adding moral excellencies to the individuals, while the contrary is a wrong action. I also formulated two exception clauses to this theory of right action. On the whole, my argument is that one is to promote the common good, subject to the constraint that, save in communal and individual exceptional cases, one is to contribute

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to the collective interest of which the general observance is to add moral excellencies to the individuals.

Acknowledgements I thank Asheel Singh and Harris Chadwin for their invaluable feedback during the drafting of this chapter. I am also grateful to the editors of this volume, Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues, and the anonymous referees, for providing me with helpful comments.

Notes 1

2 3 4

5

6

Jonathan O. Chimakonam in Chapter 1 of this volume also describes the basic supposition of normative personhood (the idea that obeying communal norms can transform individuals into persons) as dogmatic. This is, however, different from the sense in which I employ the term here. I have taken this insight from J. O. Chimakonam in Chapter 1 of this volume but deepened the distinction considerably. See J. O. Chimakonam (2019: 47) for a clear distinction of relativism and relativity. Some scholars may think that what I am saying here reflects the position of the professional/universalist school of African philosophy. However, that is not the case. My primary focus in this chapter is not to draw a distinction between ethnophilosophy and professional schools of African philosophy but to separate African moral beliefs from systems of African ethics. It is worth noting that both Asouzu’s complementary ethical reflection and Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethics share a similarity and difference. The similarity is that both theories aim to promote human happiness/joy within the ambit of universal wellbeing/common good. Kant has argued that the only absolutely good thing is the goodwill. He conditions this absolute goodwill to the realm of universal law that demands: ‘I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become universal law’ (as cited in Asouzu 2004: 370). Kant firmly bases human happiness on possessing this absolute goodwill when acting from duty without any form of inclination. As Asouzu acknowledges, ‘ If by inclination Kant means renunciation of personal interest as opposed to the common good as the foundation of human action, Kant’s approach would have consonance with the demands of the principle and imperative of complementarity’ (370). However, the difference is that, as Asouzu claims, complementary ethical reflection acknowledges acting from inclination as opposed to Kant’s deontological ethics that dismisses such inclination in the process of seeking human happiness (369–71). This section of this chapter is culled, although with some modifications, from my 2021 paper titled ‘Towards A Personhood-Based Theory of Right Action: Investigating the Covid-19 Pandemic and Religious Conspiracy Theories in Africa’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 10(2): 191–210. Copyright has been obtained.

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A minor adjustment has been made to the first statement of the main principle of the personhood-based theory of right action (see A. E. Chimakonam 2021: 198). A possible objection against Menkiti’s account is that it is somewhat anthropocentric and excludes animals and the environment in moral equation. This essay will address this objection of anthropocentricism entailed here later when engaging with the views of Kai Horsthemke.

References Appiah, K. 1992. In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Asouzu, I. I. 2004. The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and Beyond African Philosophy. Calabar: University of Calabar. Asouzu, I. I. 2011. ‘ “Ibuanyidanda” and the Philosophy of Essence’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 1(1): 79–118. Bodunrin, P. O. 1984. ‘The Question of African Philosophy’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, 3rd ed., ed. R. A. Wright, 1–23. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Chimakonam, J. O. 2019. Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies. Cham: Springer. Chimakonam, J. O. (in this volume). ‘Sources of Moral Justification in African Ethics’. In African Ethics: A Guide to Key Ideas, eds. J. O. Chimakonam and Luis CordeiroRodrigues. London: Bloomsbury. Chimakonam, J. O., and L. U. Ogbonnaya. 2021. African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic. Cham: Palgrave macmillan. Eze, E. C. 2008. On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gyekye, K. 1992. ‘Person and Community in African Thought’. In Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, Vol. 1, eds. K. Wiredu and K. Gyekye, 101–22. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Horton, R. 1967. ‘African Traditional Thought and Western Science’. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 37(2): 155–87. Horsthemke, K. 2018. ‘African Communalism, Persons, and Animals’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 7(2): 60–79. Ikuenobe, P. 2006. ‘The Idea of Personhood in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart’. Philosophia Africana 9(2): 117–31. Ikuenobe, P. 2016. ‘Good and Beautiful: A Moral-Aesthetic View of Personhood in African Communal Traditions’. Essays in Philosophy 17: 124–63. Ikuenobe, P. 2018. ‘Radical Versus Moderate Communitarianism: Gyekye’s and Matolino’s Misinterpretation of Menkiti’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 7(2): 79–100. Masolo, D. A. 2010. Self and Community in a Changing World. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Matolino, B. 2014. Personhood in African Philosophy. Piertermaritzburg: Cluster Publications Mbiti, J. 1970. African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Doubleday. Menkiti I. 1984. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, 3rd ed., ed. R. A. Wright, 171–81. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

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Menkiti, I. 2004. ‘On the Normative Conception of a Person’. In Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 324–31. Oxford: Blackwell. Menkiti, I. 2017. ‘Africa and Global Justice’. Philosophical Papers 46(1): 13–32. DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2017.1295626. Metz, T. 2007. ‘Toward an African Moral Theory’. The Journal of Political Philosophy 15(3): 321–41. Metz, T. 2012. ‘African Conceptions of Human Dignity: Vitality and Community as the Ground of Human Rights’. Human Rights Review 13(1): 19–37. DOI: 10.1007/ s12142-011-0200-4 Molefe, M. 2017. ‘Critical Comments on Afro-communitarianism: The Community versus Individual’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 6(1):1–22. Molefe, M. 2019. An African Philosophy of Personhood, Morality, and Politics. Cham: Springer. Molefe, M. 2020. An African Ethics of Personhood and Bioethics: A Reflection on Abortion and Euthanasia. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan Oyowe, O. A. 2013. ‘Personhood and Social Power in African Thought’. Alternation 20(1): 203–28. Wiredu, K. 1996. Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Wiredu, K. 2009. ‘An Oral Philosophy of Personhood: Comments on Philosophy and Orality’. Research in African Literatures 40(1): 8–18. Wiredu, K. 2020. ‘How Not to Compare African Traditional Thought with Western Thought’. In Logic and African Philosophy: Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 71–80. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press.

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Complementary Ethical Reflection in Ibuanyidanda Philosophy Innocent I. Asouzu

Complementary ethical reflection One of the central ideas of complementary reflection is that ethics and morality do not concern themselves solely with right and wrong actions or with good and bad conducts but primarily also with the joy and sadness of human action. It is therefore not enough to state that an action is good or right. Such an action must also be a source of joy for the actor. Hence, a morally good act is one which is performed in the consciousness that it has a comprehensive and total outreach and with a view to being a source of joy to the actor and is capable of radiating such a joy in a dynamic complementary future referential manner. To act is to act for the joy of being and to act is to have the imperative of complementarism or complementary philosophy fully realized in all existential situations. It is under this condition that missing links of reality function as modes of expression of being in history. Therefore, an action is performed not only because of the goodness that sustains it but more so for the authentic joy that animates and upholds it. A joy is authentic if it offers the actor reasons to believe that the criterion of truth and authenticity is upheld in his action. In this way, acting out of joy and acting out of goodness find one indivisible and total legitimacy in the one ultimate foundation of being. It is only in this way that this joy gives special character to ethical conduct. It does this in a manner that enhances and sustains authentic existence such that individuals and social institutions attain their autonomy fully and completely by acting under the impelling force of the joy of being. In acting, therefore, the mind is not only drawn by the good that sustains it but also in evident insight of the joy that drives it. This fact notwithstanding, we notice that human beings do not always act in response to those things that bring joy to their lives but often insist on doing those things that leave them sad and broken. One of the most difficult tasks of ethics is to unravel the root cause of this paradox. This is the paradox of the ambivalence of human interest. This paradox subsists in the fact that a person, in given existential life situations, insists on doing those things that he would ordinarily not like to do believing this to be the wisest thing to do. If in performing an act a person experiences sadness instead of 121

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the joy of being, this is indicative of the fact that such an action is not comprehensive enough in its conceptualization and execution. The duty of ethics and morality then is to show that for an action to be considered human it must be comprehensive enough. Hence, one of the necessary conditions for considering something an authentic human action is its ability to be articulated within a wider framework of meaning as to be as universal as possible. Where our knowledge and volition are not comprehensive and universal enough, the dangers are always given that we choose in apparent clear and full insight those things that invariably bring sadness into our lives. In this way, ethics seeks to show how and why we should replace our fragmented and world-immanent structured interests with those that have their legitimacy in the authenticating foundation of all missing links of reality in a non-contradictory futureoriented manner. Similarly, it seeks to show how those ethical and moral laws that bind the ego unconditionally must be made evident in a way that provides us clear insight into the nature of our authentic interests. Whereas ordinarily we approach the issue of morality and ethics from the point of view of the aim establishing human action, complementary reflection achieves the same thing by pointing out the implications of erecting our actions on a contradictory noncomplementary foundation. Instead of asking the question what is the good in its ultimate and universal form, complementary reflection asks the question what would be the case if what we claim as the interest guiding our action turns out to be false. It is the same question concerning what would be the case if an actor insists living in a contradictory manner. The answer is clear: the actor automatically ceases to make claims that he is actually acting because his claims obviously do not tally with his action. This is the moment where a person chooses non-being to being in this process of self-negation. Now, living entails commitment to existence in the most joyous comprehensive, total and complementary manner. It further entails comprehensive commitment to all those things that help this joy materialize and enable it be sustained. If it turns out that we are committed to existence and do those things that negate this existence, it means that we wish to live and not to live at the same time. This is a contradiction. Contradictory existence subsists in the negation of the ontological imperative establishing our action. It also means a negation of the joy of being in a way that one affirms and negates existence at the same time. To be entails those measures we take concretely to show the joy of being in our action. A situation where we negate consciously and willingly, but in implicit ignorance, the legitimacy conveyed by the principle of contradiction to our action and the truth and authenticity criterion, we run the risk also of depriving our action of the foundation on which it is erected even if only erroneously. This is the moment when we commit ourselves to the dictates of the ego in a way that makes the ego absolute in total negation of its relative constitution. A person who lives in a contradictory way, as to negate the relativity of his existence, does so only in the illusion that he is living authentically. A person shows, therefore, that he is human the moment this person seeks to be conscious of the forcefulness of ethical and moral laws as these find expression in the imperative of the principle of complementarity. To act ethically reasonable, therefore, is to uphold the imperative establishing our actions. This imperative subsists in the

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harmonization of our actions, in joy, with the authentic objective establishing them. It is the consciousness that all fragmented moments of our existence are moments of missing links of reality that seek unity in the foundation of our being. A deontological ethics, as has been pointed out, overlooks this fact and seeks this imperative in a way that negates the important role which fragmented relative moments of historical experiences play in the execution of human action. These fragmented relative dimensions of history are aspects of the totality of the joy that gives meaning and justification to human action. Hence, to act in consideration of the authentic joy we derive from our action is equivalent to acting in accordance to the dictates of the being that is the cause of our joy. This is why to act from duty must take seriously the joy we derive from acting from the joy of being to be ethically meaningful. In this way, the fragmented moments of historical existence show themselves as the only condition for ethical conduct. Now, an issue deserves particular attention within the context of complementary reflection. Every human action is subject to the dictates of humans’ ambivalent situation. To act ethically or morally responsible entails acting in view of overcoming this ambivalence. To overcome this ambivalence means choosing the positive side of our ambivalent situation. If one states that human actions are under the dictate of our ambivalent situation, does this leave the individual with the freedom to choose? That is to say, one might argue that a person who is acting under the dictates of his ambivalent situation is under no obligations since the individual is not free after all. Replying to this objection, I would say that the contrary is the case because the fact speaks for itself. Our ambivalent situations are situations of choice, where a person is free to choose or not to choose the negative side of this ambivalent interest. What is decisive is his manner of choice. In most cases, it is a choice made in very clear and evident insight of what is required of him but a choice made in error. The error is with regard to what one genuinely desires and wills insightfully. We can illustrate the damages resulting from such free choices by reference to the following examples that give us insight into the nature and level of culpability that is involved: A. A person can suffer injury unintentionally and here we say that this person is not directly the cause of his misfortune. This is the case where the requisite knowledge concerning a type of agent that can cause some effects is not in place. An example is when a person does not know that germs cause sickness and does not take the necessary precautions to protect himself from damages resulting from exposure to contamination with dangerous viruses. Due to his type of ignorance of the cause, his culpability is conditional. B. Another case is the situation where a person suffers injury out of his desire to take possession of something, which he willingly and insightfully identified as good. However, this thing is injurious to his health. His knowledge notwithstanding, he insightfully and willingly chooses the agent as to suffer some damage. Here he knows the cause of his problems and chooses it. C. Another case is similar to the second, this is where the person, insightfully, willingly identifies something as good, but is ignorant of the fact that he as the actor is the cause of his problems.

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While A may be blamed conditionally for his problem, B and C should be blamed grievously for their problems because of the level of insight and freedom involved in their choices. In the case of C, something peculiar is involved; here, although the actor chooses his problems freely and insightfully, he is not aware of the fact that he is the cause of his problem. For this reason, he may not understand why he should be blamed for his action. This is why he would complain and blame external factors for his predicament and problems. C is the type of situation we are dealing with in most ambivalent situations. Here, the agent suffers so much illusion due to his inability to come to terms with this ambivalence that he can be the cause of his predicaments without knowing it. In such situations, a person chooses a thing insightfully and willingly but is ignorant of the fact that his choice is the cause of his problem. The fact that his choice and the object of his cognition turns out later on to be the wrong thing does not matter much. This is where the error reverts to culpability because he has not taken the necessary precautions to forestall a problem that he would have been in a position to avert. This is why this person starts to regret his choice and action but may not be fully aware that he was the one who caused the problem due to his inability to be conscious of the ambivalence of his situation. The tragedy of his situation becomes very evident when this person imagines that his problems are caused by an external agent other than himself. In this case, he starts looking for scapegoats and for sacrificial lambs. That is to say, a person desires the wrong thing, insightfully and wilfully believing it to be the correct thing to do. At the initial stage of his action, his intention is clear, that is, he wishes to take possession of something he identifies as desirable, but which turns out to be wrong. The problem is that one exercises an act of the will in full insight of what one wants but his choice is directed towards the wrong side of what he wants. Whether he desires the correct thing or the wrong thing afterwards does not actually matter, the issue is that he initially desires it wilfully and insightfully. We are witnesses to those situations where people act wrongly in apparent insight into what they know and will. What this shows is that individuals can be committed wilfully and insightfully to those things that can undermine their interests believing this to be right. It does not show that in full insight and volition they do actually follow their inauthentic interests. Complementary reflection aims at creating awareness concerning such wrong choices that can be averted through creating consciousness concerning the ambivalent nature of our interests in all existential situations. It further calls attention to the phenomenon of concealment, which can render all goodwill null and void. The main objective of such critical awareness is to be able to recognize our interests for what they stand for in their capacity as the motor driving our actions. Knowing a priori the authentic nature of our ambivalent interests is not easy but it can be achieved through the rigorous process of learning that makes conversion of ontological categories of comprehensiveness, totality and universality a habitual assumption in all our actions. The mind converts the transcendent categories of being into existential categories through this process. In this process, the mind is enabled to act within the confines of its legitimacy in a habitual manner.

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Inability of the mind to act under this form of habitual assumption can result not only in its getting entangled in all manners of ambivalence, but worst still is the fact that the actor easily suffers a double tragedy which subsists in the fact of his being both culpable and a loser. An example suffices: a person sees a piece of land and believes that it contains gold. Now, in his greed, he sells everything he has and takes possession of the land. If the land actually contains gold, and if this gold is comprehensive enough to give him the satisfaction he wants, he is a winner. If it contains less precious minerals than he had earlier on anticipated, he is a loser. Now, if due to his greed, he has not given full thought of the possibility of the land containing lesser minerals and he commits all his resources, both human and material, acquiring the piece of land, he may be very disappointed if his expectations do not materialize. The fact that his expectations did not materialize has nothing to do with the fact that he committed himself to this act insightfully and willingly. Furthermore, whether the land contains gold or not does not invalidate his greed. If now he had known that the land could have contained less precious minerals from the outset, he would be more cautious in his action. That is to say, he would be more careful in making his choice. In this case, this person would definitely harmonize his desire with the content of his expectations. This care and awareness concerning the content of our desires and the object of our knowledge is what is often lacking in our relationship with the world that is often ambivalent. In most cases, we approach our interests in a noncomprehensive absolute manner that they make us losers and culpable at the same time. In most cases, we are not circumspect enough such that we are caught off guard on the wrong side of what we desire. We often have a one-way approach to the world and this is why we often make ourselves appear strange to the world and victims of our ambivalent interests. This is the paradox of ambivalent existence. Thus, ambivalent existence entails an existential ignorance of enormous proportion and consequences where a person acts in limited insight into his possibilities and thereby negates the comprehensiveness, totality and universality that gives authenticity to human life. This is one of the highest forms of ignorance. The reason is that a person thereby employs his energies in those fragmented and relative moments of existence that turn out to be a complete waste of energies and resources. It is like learning the wrong stuff all your life. A person puts all his energies learning the wrong thing. If he later finds out what the case is, we know how frustrating the experience can be. The person knows and wills the outcome indirectly. It is the error implicitly resulting from this insightful, wilful, but wrong choice that attracts our attention. One can say that the actor wills his interest wrongly and knows it negatively, and it is this wrong and negative knowledge and act of volition that is disturbing in all situations. If the being of a man of goodwill is the ability to do good, bad-will is a sign of negative ambivalent existence. Hence, we can say that the inability to manage the ambivalence of human interest well is a fundamental sign of bad-will. Where there is goodwill there is a way, and where there is bad-will human existence turns to excruciating torment and there is virtually no way at all. The most concrete form of expression of bad-will as negative existence is in contradictory actions. Therefore, contradictions and inconsistencies are the endemic forms of bad-will. When complementary reflection seeks to create

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awareness in this regard, it does this with the intent of calling our attention to the fact that bad-will does not pay. Hence, it targets the illusion or fallacy that a person can gain from negating the legitimizing foundation of his action. That is to say, all moral and ethical bad conducts are self-defeating actions because they are fundamentally contradictory and as such negate indirectly what the actor intends. In the final analysis, all attempts at gearing ourselves towards the positive side of our ambivalent interest brings with it double dividend. First, it guarantees our ethical autonomy and responsibility in a positive sense. Second, it guarantees that we get what we want, that is to say, it helps us to choose correctly the positive side of our ambivalent interests and thereby be winners at the same time.

Nature of ethical awareness Complementary reflection seeks to make the double tragedy associated with choosing the wrong side of our ambivalent interest impossible. It seeks to achieve this through creating awareness concerning the impact of ambivalent situations on human conduct. This is the point of focus of contentful conscientization whose aim is to make us aware of the tragic consequences of negative choices and negative living (Asouzu 2004: 38–42). In this sense, complementary reflection as a process of creating awareness about the impact of ambivalent situations on human action has a preventive and an enlightenment function. These target both dangerous and potential bad conducts. Of these two, potential bad conducts are those that are easily overlooked. Potential bad conducts are those apparent neutral acts that have the capacity to spin out of control if not well regulated and channelled to their authentic goals. Likewise, they are those acts that are not fundamentally bad but which have some moments of deviancy, which if not well managed can develop to grave dangers. In this way, complementary reflection shows how comprehensive it is ethically and morally as that mental activity, that targets all forms of human actions insofar as these are missing links of reality that are directed towards the good of the entire human person. It is within this context that the close relationship existing between ethics, morality and aesthetic becomes relevant. As a form of enlightenment over the impact of all missing links of reality in the realization of the joy of being as the ultimate aim of ethical reflection, authentic human actions have to be concerned with aesthetics. That is to say, an authentic human action that is rooted in the joy of being must also radiate some order and beauty as integral parts of its conceptualization. Aesthetics is about sense of proportion, order, symmetry, decency and decorum. A person who evidently has no sense of aesthetics and shame would definitely find it difficult understanding the need to maintain a harmonious complementary relationship since inconsistency, disorder and lack of symmetry are indications of an inner disunity and disharmony that contradicts all that complementarity stands for. It is instructive that for the traditional Igbo, for example, ‘the major deterrent to crime is not guiltfeeling but shame-feeling’ (Uchendu 1965: 17). Here, Basden observes with regard to the traditional Igbo ‘actual fear of retribution is not sufficiently strong to check

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wrongdoing. The only concern of the Ibo is to escape detection. He willingly admits that bad deeds (‘Ajo· o·lu) are sin, but does not refrain from committing them when conditions appear favourable. To be found out by his fellow-man is regarded as far more shameful than offending God’ (Basden 1966: 38–9). Besides, a life that lacks order and is spent utterly in fragmentation is a sign of negation of the comprehensiveness and totality that give richness and meaning to human existence. A life spent in the wrong choice is a life spent in disharmony. This is not a complementary lifestyle. It is a dangerous life beyond the confines of human warmth and joy of being. The fragmentation of our historical existence is the nature of our being but it is not our ultimate destiny. To live authentically subsists in our ability to see some order in fragmentation in a way that gives direction to all missing links of reality. What this means is that we can attain our destiny only on the condition that we are capable of founding our actions on the order provided by the joy of being. This sort of mindset demands from us some amount of consistency, clarity and transparency in the way we approach the world and other human beings. In a given framework, we cannot pretend as if words do not designate anything. If this were the case, words would be useless as means of conveying some meaning and concretely, too. This remark is important due to the human tendency to dissociate words from what they designate and in this case handle their meaning arbitrarily. Where we do this, there would be no harmony between what we say and what we do. Meanings have much in common with the being that gives our actions their internal unity. This observation has very serious implications for ethics and morality because it is under the assumption of this higher meaning that we can call things by name and they can be action- and choice-guiding. If not, things would have different meanings all the time and human co-existence, as a mutual act, would be impossible. Within a complementary moral-ethical framework, therefore, such words as compassion, reward, love, hatred, murder, fear, sadism, pain, sorrow, abortion, suicide, regret, atonement, despair, repentance, deviancy, punishment etc., in order not to vanish into the meaninglessness of our individual subjectivities, must have unified higher meanings that guarantee their content. It is under the assumption of such a higher unifying foundation that we can expect others to treat us the way we treat ourselves. Here, we mean that the type of treatment we expect from others must be in consonance with the type of treatment that is in harmony with the being that gives meaning and authenticity to our lives. In this case, it does not mean that a person, who is a sadist, handles others in the most sadistic manner with the intention of expecting sadism returned to him. A sadist should first go for treatment in the process of which he learns what authentic human relationship entails and return afterwards for such a human association. In this sense, therefore, the principles of complementarity consider all acts contradictory which are geared against the joy of all missing links of reality. The reason for this is that such acts are obviously directed against positive human interests and are as such self-defeating, most especially within a given framework of meaning. Furthermore, such acts are intrinsically opposed to this joy since they are radically directed against the conditions necessary for its realization. As self-contradictory acts, they are not transferable acts and cannot be generalized within a context of applicability

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of the demands of the principle of progressive transformation. To such acts belong all forms of self-defeatist antisocial behaviour that are directed against others or against the self. Here we use such behaviours as means of securing the joy that constitutes the foundation of all missing links of reality. Hence, the issue of right to be unhappy, as is today widely proposed as legal positivistic measures towards legitimizing certain antisocial alternative lifestyles, is counterintuitive. These antisocial acts contradict the basic principle of self-preservation and are indications that a person does not subscribe to the binding force of the principle of contradiction. These views and alternative lifestyles do nevertheless serve a missing link of reality but in a manner that helps raise our awareness concerning their antiintuitiveness. The relationship between ethics and aesthetics is very glaring because it shows the central position of harmony in all authentic complementary acts. Thus, a person who disobeys the law should expect to face the consequences of the law, his personal interpretation of the law notwithstanding. Likewise, those whose duty it is to enforce sanctions do so without regard to our divergent personal interpretations and perceptions about the law. Where this form of objectivity with regard to codes of conduct in society is not guaranteed, human society would fall into the state of anarchy and experience the type of capriciousness that is not obtainable even in the world of lesser creatures. We can transfer this approach to almost all spheres of life. Human existence is possible due to a consensual apodictic insight, which existential commitment to absolute truth is its guarantor. Our differences notwithstanding, therefore, we are often in a position to call a spade a spade. Where this does not happen, we lose our rights to be who we are as human beings seeking higher forms of legitimization. Hence, a person should be able to pay his taxes as a condition for enjoying basic amenities of life. Parents should be able to love and take responsibility for their children in order that they can qualify to be called parents. If we say that we are champions of human dignity, we should do those things that uphold peace, justice and security in society. A person who abhors bribery and corruption should not take away the property of his neighbours because he feels that he needs them more than these need them. Our ability to recognize things for what they stand for is the foundation of progress in society. It is also an indication that we seek legitimacy in our actions in a total, comprehensive and universal manner. Thus, a person who cherishes progress should do something for those things that enhance progress. He should encourage sound education and should undertake everything in his power to uphold order in society. A person who loves peace should not indulge in riots and wanton destruction of lives and property. A person who preaches God should not enter into any pact with the devil. A person who loves order and decency should obey simple rules regulating human conduct and organizations in society. Thus, lawmakers should never be lawbreakers at the same time and you cannot be giving with the right hand and be taking with the left hand at the same time. These and other maxims are the tested wisdoms of ages that have guaranteed order and harmonious co-existence of peoples in society. They are what it takes, in historical contexts, to show that we seek to eradicate contradiction from our lives and that we are committed to the idea that human action

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is geared towards the joy of being. They portray the aesthetic dimension of ethics and morality. These maxims have the force of imperative when we view them as the sum total of expectations that enter into the definition of our existence as relative beings living towards meaning and joy in a future referential manner. In this case, we strive to raise them to the status of habitual dispositions. This is the moment of existential conversion when we seek to actualize the transcendent categories of being in concrete situations of life. Here universality, comprehensiveness and totality are no longer experienced as abstract categories; they become an integral part of our life experience. Wherever, therefore, a person seeks to harmonize his actions with what these actions authentically represent, he is acting in an authentic, non-contradictory complementary awareness; he is acting under the drive of the imperative of complementarity. Human liberation subsists in this new and liberated attitude to reality. This is an attitude that seeks to lead all missing links to their authentic foundation and our interests to their pure original forms. Wherever this form of mindset has been actualized, the actor no longer sees merely the objectified realities as they are represented to us or as we perceive them. This new individual seeks to embrace reality from the conditions of its future transformed authentic representation. From this future transformed perspective, the individual now seeks to uplift the present to a higher plane devoid of the delimiting influence of the inherent ambivalence of our situation. Within this context, realities are considered not only because of what they represent here and now, but more so, because of the perfection that establishes their existence. This attempt at redefining things from the perspective of the future perfection that is the foundation of their being is what I mean by when I use the word ‘proleptic’: the present determined by its fulfilled future character. This form of proleptic determination is antithetical to the method of approach that seeks to define them within the context of their historical fragmentation only and within such a framework where they can be misused and misunderstood. Acting ethically and morally entails, therefore, all the efforts we make to live authentically such that we live above all forms of contradiction in the process of which we identify the objects of our everyday experience as means and not ends. Hence, there is need to review even our most cherished efforts and heroic acts, from time to time, from the background of their ultimate legitimizing foundation. They must always seek transformation from the proleptic end of their constitution. In everyday life, we are often so immersed in the unintended object of our attention that the very authentic objective of their orientation can very easily elude us. The incapacity to transcend the objectified meaning attached to the everyday world is the life we live and it becomes the bane of any society where self-interest dominates in the consciousness of people. The perception of the opposite-other in his uniqueness and singularity turns out to be a very important departure in this attempt at transforming and fixing our world. This opposite-other is the man next to me, the human organizations and human aspirations that are seeking transformation and rediscovery as aspects of the totality of reality that has become manifest in the fragmentation of our historical existence.

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Discovering the opposite-other as subject is an enabling condition for a systematic unmasking of the ambivalence of our situation. As individuals caught in the web of competition, the wrong interest relation can prevent us from being in tune with the authenticating foundation of our being. The wrong interest relation can mislead us to thinking that as long as everything appears to be moving on well for us and for our friends then the world is in order. This assumption can be wrong, totally wrong, and deceptive. This is more so the case should our interest-relations be a questionable coalition of interests, which seek mutual reinforcement, without a unifying foundation for their authenticity. Where human interests stay near each other and are not harmonized in a unifying common ultimate interest, they can all the more easily lead to all forms of contradictory existence. The reason for this is that uncoordinated interest relations can reinforce each other falsely towards securing all forms of anti-interests.

Nature of authentic human action: The joy of being – jide ka iji The question that is to be handled here is to state under what conditions of human actions are true and authentic. We can state that a human action is authentic if by acting a subject rejects its absoluteness and concedes to its relativity. A person is in a position to act in this way, if the actor is able to acquire a mindset that knows no other alternative than that conferred by the principle of non-contradictory as the legitimizing foundation of all human actions and desires. Where this type of mindset is operational, it is then possible for an individual to state categorically, in all given situations, that something is evil or that something is good. It is a question of ‘either or’. Here, there is no alternative. The mind can achieve this because this is the point where complementarity gives place to absolute convergence in a way that gives forcefulness to the idea of transcendent complementary unity of consciousness. Here the mind sees very clearly between alternatives and can make categorical distinctions between states of affairs. It is only under such a condition that we can identify something as good and stand by it. In this case, we can affirm its goodness categorically in a way that does not leave anyone in doubt and in a way that does not admit of an alternative because its negation would imply a negation of the foundation on which the reality of our being is erected. In the same way, if we identify something as evil, we reject it in its entirety since it is incompatible with the foundation on which the unity of our being is erected in a noncontradictory manner. When this happens, evil takes the form of absolute nonreciprocity or non-being, which in its rejection is the affirmation of absolute reality. In the same manner, we affirm goodness in its totality as absolute reciprocity or being. It is in the unequivocal affirmation of the good and the negation of evil, for example, that we concretely witness the bridging of the subject–object dichotomy in a way that gives legitimacy to transcendent complementary unity of consciousness underlying all authentic human actions. This is the moment where complementary reflection turns to a metaphysical commitment. Due to the limitations that characterize our being, we are not always in a position to respond and concede to this critical demand. These are those ambivalent moments

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when we tend to overstep, to overreact, or when we fail to meet certain expectations directed towards us because we have the natural inclination to protect our interests. In such situations, we may also be inclined to use all means at our disposal to get what we want. Such situations present themselves as very critical moments of decision between being and non-being, between the authentic and the inauthentic, between morality and immorality, between law and disorder, between good and evil, etc. These are the ambivalent existential moments of our lives that must be confronted with all the awareness, energy and insight we can afford. We show who we are in the way we confront these situations and the type of measures we adopt in addressing them. In all those situations where we seek to define our interests referentially within the ambit of the common good, we seek to respond positively to the demands of the criterion establishing our action. On the other hand, we fail the test of this criterion of truth and authenticity in all those situations where we elevate the ego to the absolute norm of our action. This is the case in those conditions where we seek to define the rules of human co-habitation arbitrarily such that those who have the advantages over others can always exploit such. Typical examples of this type of situation abound in all human societies where what it takes to uphold one’s interest is commensurate to those measures needed to subvert it. This subversion is most pronounced in those measures the subjects embarks upon towards eliminating competitors arbitrarily in the erroneous belief that he can secure his interests without taking the interests of others into account. The tension between the ego and the world reaches its peak in those circumstances where we equate what it takes to conserve private interest erroneously and, in some cases, unequivocally with the common good. This misidentification does not legitimize an action positively but highlights that we can with the best intentions err. Hence, all those measures needed towards self-preservation, even if they are performed for the common good, have no legitimacy if they are exclusive of the interests of others and seek their legitimacy on their own terms. Hence, the conditions that favour personal autonomy are the same conditions that are necessary towards upholding complementary harmonious existence in society. The imperative guiding both actions belong to the same sphere. Hence, all laws that appear to guarantee personal autonomy to individuals and societies in utter disregard of the universal outreach of such autonomy are worthy of overhaul. Since the line of demarcation between the laws originating from within the self and the legitimacy conferred by the absolute future foundation of all missing links of reality is not always easy to draw, due to the type of close relationship between the self and foundation of our being, individuals and groups can easily indulge in excesses believing them to be legitimate. When we seek to act from this background of selfishness and in our eagerness to preserve ourselves, we can unwittingly even embark on those things that lead to our destruction. Hence, the unification of all missing links becomes a challenge that we carry into all spheres of life. This becomes most evident in the type of services we render to people in the areas of management of resources, in the production and distribution of goods and services, in the harnessing of talents, in the ordering of people’s lives, in the administration and control of people, etc. Within this context, therefore, one can say

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that the goodwill to excel in the face of our diversities is a visible expression of our commitment to the ultimate absolute foundation of all missing links of reality. This is at the same time the surest step towards overcoming the ambivalence of our situation as human beings. This goodwill subsists in that urge, in all circumstances and at all times, always to seek forms of legitimacy. It subsists in the urge, in all circumstances, to expunge all that would compromise those values on which human life, healthy interpersonal relations, social institutions, and indeed all common goods, are erected. It is the urge to replicate nature in its beauty and to conserve it while exploring it. Where this type of goodwill is cultivated, it sees all relative values as means to an ultimate end of all missing links of reality. This notwithstanding, it considers these relative values as moments of joy that must be upheld in the most sacred and comprehensive manner. This approach is quite in consonance with the idea of anonymous traditional African thinkers who conceptualize the experience of transcendent complementary unity of consciousness as service in complementarity. This is why where there is no goodwill, most especially goodwill in service, all resources remain a waste; all laws have no focus, all rules ineffective; all meanings become distorted and ambiguous. It is because of the possession of a goodwill that we can find the good side of our ambivalent interests and employ it ultimately to its desired end. The reason for this is that the same law, which establishes the goodwill, is the same law that controls the fragmented and relative moments of all missing links of reality. Where the will is bad, it seeks to establish its own laws such that its own laws contradict the law on which all missing links of reality are founded. By so doing, it easily negates also the raison d’être that establishes all relative values. Since the law that gives the goodwill its legitimacy is the same law that sustains all missing links of reality, any conflict between both laws has untold consequences since it throws individuals and societies into irreconcilable differences and confusion. Deviation from this law is possible because individuals have the natural capacity to enthrone themselves as supreme arbiters in all matters relating to their interests. This is one of the gravest dangers to any human institution and human societies in general. It is that moment where individuals and societies confuse their relativity with absoluteness. Since man’s destiny is good, any individual is capable of choosing and discovering those things that would enable a person attain this destiny. In this connection, therefore, the goodwill is something that has its foundation in goodness per se; it is something that is within reach of anyone who earnestly seeks it. It is because of the goodwill that a person can, in anticipation and in the proleptic actualization of his future hopes, experience contentment and happiness in his actions. Since the ultimate common good, the unconditioned basis of human happiness, is not identical with any world-immanent value, the ability, therefore, to desire it as an end in itself can only be the property of something that has the unconditioned character belonging to the imperative establishing this end. Here the postulation of an absolute goodwill, as an integral part of our finitude in anticipation of the foundation of our being, becomes a practical, meaningful and necessary assumption. If an ultimate transcendent foundation of all missing links of reality is anything to go by, then, it must have the same character as impels me to take possession of it; this character is its fundamental absoluteness and goodness. The will is naturally impelled

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by this goodness and has a premonition of it in anticipation. Hence, it is only on the condition of our upholding, in all circumstances, a fundamentally goodwill that we can desire that which is the legitimizing foundation of society. This fundamental goodwill is natural to our being in anticipation and characterizes us in our finitude. Kant devoted a greater part of his work, ‘The Metaphysics of Morals’, to investigate the nature of the will. He insightfully came to the conclusion that ‘nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will’ (Kant 1972: 166). He thus identified an absolute goodwill as belonging to the law, which conditions it in a way that it absolutely acts without any form of inclination. For Kant, therefore, the absolute goodwill belongs to the law which demands ‘I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become universal law’ (172). For Kant, real human happiness subsists in possessing an absolute goodwill that concurs to the demands of this absolute law unconditionally and without any form of inclination whatsoever. In this case, it is something that must be attained through duty and duty alone. If by inclination Kant means renunciation of personal interest as opposed to the common good as the foundation of human action, Kant’s approach would have consonance with the demands of the principle and imperative of complementarity. Kant’s understanding of inclination gives the impression that missing links are not constitutive of the processes needed to attain human happiness. For this reason, the method he advocates in arriving at the imperative establishing the goodwill is not totally in harmony with the objective pursued by complementary reflection. For complementary reflection, every proclivity of duty is intricately related to the joy that gives legitimacy to all human actions.What this means is that for complementary reflection there is need to act due to inclination as opposed to Kant’s deontological ethics which dispenses with inclinations as a part of ethical good conduct. This is important because complementary reflection lays much emphasis on the need to take all missing links of reality into our equation of action. What this means is that, for human action to be moral or ethical, it must take into account the comprehensive outreach of any action we perform. That is to say, duties are no longer performed for their own sake but are tied to human interests in a way that defines their realization within a more universal, total and comprehensive framework. Here, our interests and all missing links of reality are seen as opportunities for a higher form of legitimization and for the joy of being. This is duty in complementarity and any duties we perform in a complementary sense is duty performed, directly or indirectly, for the common good and for the well-being of the actor. For this reason, therefore, we may not be doing what we want to do for duty’s sake or from duty as Immanuel Kant advocates (168–75), but we do so because we know that this is the natural joyous human way of doing things. That is to say, whereas Kant sought human happiness through duty and renunciation of all forms of inclination, the principle of harmonious complementarity does not consider it a disadvantage for one to act out of inclination in the process of seeking human happiness. The reason for this is that complementary reflection considers inclination a necessary condition for allowing the limitations of being to be the cause of our joy. As long as anything that exists serves a missing link of reality, all missing links of reality are integral parts of the goodwill in its attempt to attain the joy of being.

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We cannot say hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases (jide k’ iji), if we do not make all missing links of reality the realm of our action. Hence, all missing links of reality are very important moments and dimensions of our overall quest for happiness. For this reason, acting out of inclination is an expression of serving a missing link of reality. In service, for example, we experience concretely the transcendent complementary unity of consciousness, as this constitutes the foundation of our joy, which we must seek consciously, conscientiously and energetically. The task is to establish how acting out of inclination as a missing link of reality can become a meaningful source of our joy. To start with, in spite of all our efforts to maintain a goodwill, and an absolute goodwill for that matter, we are still subject to the constraints and limitations which the realities of human existence impose. We can never wish this fact away and we have to accept it as an integral part of our finite existence in future referentiality. We must carry this burden of our finitude with all the dignity, honesty and courage we can afford. It is in surmounting these difficulties with wisdom that we can hold tenaciously to that which gives meaning to our life and, as such, we can mutually affirm in a future referential manner: hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases (jide ka iji). The insinuations that our limitations are merely handicaps would immediately change, if we see ourselves as subjects of the transforming insight of the imperative of complementarity. This is the case when this imperative demands that we allow the limitations of being to be the cause of our joy. Here we discover our mutual involvement in the experience of this joy in our mutual joyous affirmation of jide ka iji. The imperative of complementarity imbues our actions with an inbuilt regulative mechanism that seeks to confer a more positive meaning to our limitations; insofar as it considers these limitations as deriving their meaning from the proleptic source of all meanings. In view of this proleptic source of their being, our limitations do not discourage and hold us back in our efforts to maintain a perfect goodwill. On the contrary, they give us a positive inspirations, since we see them as possibilities for the joy embedded in the anticipated end of our desire. In difficult human situations, therefore, in situations of challenges and even of failure, for example, we are not discouraged by the momentary setback, we rather know that there is always the possibility for a new beginning in view of the future referential source of our being. In this case, we would always see failures and success, good and evil, hardship and joy as different sides of the same coin that seek authentic complementarity. In this case, they become veritable opportunities always to excel and to seek better alternatives. It is this imperative that makes it possible to know that there are diverse and inexhaustible possibilities at our disposal towards arriving at the authenticating foundation of our desires and actions. Within this context, it is not the negative side of failure that is decisive, neither is it the limitations of our mistakes that are crucial, it is rather the natural insight into the nature of the ultimate good, which energizes and sustains us whenever it matters most. The stringent perfectionist Kantian approach to the issue of goodwill appears to overlook not only the limitation of human existence, but also the dynamic dimension

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of imperative of complementarity, which is invigorating, therapeutic, cathartic and cleansing. The liberating nature of any theory of action that seeks to use the will to establish true human happiness subsists in the dynamic constitution of this faculty. Since all things constituting the missing link of reality have their completion in the joy of the being that removes all ambivalences, the will owes its existence to this being. The will is ever attuned and dependent on this being for its direction. Where the will is attuned to this all-determining reality, it can never err, since what appears as error is legitimized in an intention that is pure. Where the intention is pure, it is capable of acting according to the dictates of this all-determining being. When one is acting from purity of intention sustained in the reality of this absolute foundation of all missing links of reality, what we call error in such contexts would be nothing other than a moment of a missing link of reality that seeks completion in the foundation of its being. Even in such cases, our goodwill remains the source of inspiration, our mistakes and failings notwithstanding. Even if the goodwill can be misused, the decision about its origin can never be an affair of limited individual subjective consciousness. Such goodwill can only be something received and sustained by a higher principle of the character of the principle of non-contradiction. This is the only principle that can give legitimacy to all expressions of goodwill. It is only as received goodwill that any form of pure goodwill, as the basis of our action as individuals, makes any sense. It is received in as much as we are dependent on the all-good, absolute and infinite being to do good. This absolute infinite being can confer a goodwill whose operations are characterized by the purity of intention. We can consider the reality of this absolute being the necessary assumption of any philosophy that sees complementarity as a foundation of human joy and happiness. In such a situation the fact of a being that confers a goodwill, on which the actions of all individuals in a complementary relationship rest, is something that has to be taken for granted. The reason for this is obvious. The condition for complementarity is the inescapable common bond, the common good which sustains such a relationship. The reality of this bond is tacitly implied both practically and theoretically in all human actions both positive and negative and we intuit it as that force that impels us in all situations of life to ask questions in a transcendent manner and seek ultimate answers. This being that gives all missing links of reality their legitimacy sustains this unending questioning and search for ultimate answers in future referentiality. Where goodwill in future referentiality is lacking nothing can substitute for its absence. Not even religion, for example, can fill up its place. In this way, one can even shed some light to the ubiquitous avoidable failures in human society in spite of human passionate religious commitment. As received goodwill, the goodwill can become a common property and bond for all who seek to do good in whatsoever capacity they find themselves. A lifestyle borne by this consciousness is characterized by the unified expression of actions and meaning as they seek to realize the absolute in the most authentic and clear manner. In a situation of this nature, a universe of discourse and meaning is achieved which authenticates the convergence of all experiences and action in all fundamental issues, most especially those that guarantee a higher we-consciousness. Where this level of consciousness is achieved, one can hardly differentiate the feelings and

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aspirations of individual subjects from their foundation of legitimacy in moments of intimate relationship. It is this ability to objectify and conceptualize reality as mutually shared meaning in a comprehensive, universal, total and future referential manner that makes authentic mutual participation and experience of a transcendent complementary unity of consciousness possible. This objectification has its dynamic moment in the goodwill we bring to bear on concrete situations of life. A natural intuition into the idea of an absolute in a future referential manner sustains such goodwill. This type of goodwill enables individuals and societies to eradicate all forms of contradictions in a manner that enables them to transform the limitations of being to the cause of their joy. One can then say that the level of humanity and civility within any given society depends on the level of goodwill in complementarity that is present. It further depends on the ability of all concerned to transcend themselves in the experience of transcendent complementary unity of consciousness in a universal, total, comprehensive and future referential manner. This goodwill has its natural expression in service, in the spirit of mutual dependence and care, in the spirit of fairness and justice, in the spirit of give and take, and in the unflinching desire to excel and to goodness. It subsists in recognizing that the varieties obtainable in nature are not purely accidental but are necessary conditions for the attainment of our ultimate joy and destiny. This realization is the foundation of civilized societies wherever this is practised authentically. This is still the case even if the aim sustaining this practice is not immediately evident to every individual in all circumstances. Generally, one can say that the aim driving all ethically and morally good conducts is the joy of being as the ultimate legitimizing foundation of all missing links of reality. We are provided with an instance of the experience of this joy of being in the content driving the Igbo aphorism, ‘hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases’ (jide k’ iji), as the mutual experience, in joy, of tasks well accomplished. In the mutual experience of jide k’ iji, human action shows its tendency towards the highest form of legitimacy. In this experience, within the contexts of mutual interaction, the actors intuiting the foundation which gives completion to all human actions, urge themselves mutually to hold firmly to this foundation now and in all future cases. In this way they enthuse mutually jide k’ iji, i.e. hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases. They do this in the evident insight that this goodness, worth adhering to, is the source of their being and joy. This is an instance where we come to the insight that being is communicable only in authentic mutual action and in service as this is possible between individuals and communities. In the mutual affirmation and grasping into the foundation of all missing links of reality, as is made evident in this mutual experience, the mind is challenged to hold tenaciously to the goodness that is the authentication foundation of all missing links of reality, now and in all future occurrences in a certain, absolute, universal and comprehensive manner. In response to the insight arising from intuition of goodness in this mutual act, the mind experiences being authentically in those legitimizing moments of authentic action in history. Since such actions are subject to spatiotemporal vicissitudes, the mind anchors its hope in the veracity of the content expressed and held firmly in this aphorism as future experience. The certitude thereby

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derived becomes evident in the joy accompanying human action in anticipation of this content. In the authentic experience of being implicit in its joyous expression in jide ka iji, therefore, the mind, in anticipation, grasps at the fullness that makes this experience possible, and for this reason can share it with others as lived experience. In the mutual experience of the determining content of jide ka iji, no one is left in doubt as to the certainty of the being that gives authenticity to human action in the past, in the present and in all future occurrences. Whenever human beings live from the mutual imperative driving the experience of jide ka iji, their actions are geared towards the future in a joyous proleptic manner since they live from the certitude of the being that gives completion to their action. In this way, their present state anticipates the future in joyous expectation of its actual realization. This joyous hope energizes and sustains their efforts and impels them to prove that they are right in view of the totality that gives them hope about their present joyous state. Here the anonymous traditional Igbo philosopher has a premonition into the nature of this ultimate content as something positive; hence, he affirms and urges in all successful and positive situations of life jide ka iji, i.e. hold firmly to the good, to the joy that gives completion to all human actions in a future referential manner. This is why when the Igbo says to a person jide k’ iji, no one is left in doubt that the person is doing well and everyone wishes this person to hold firmly to it, i.e. to the being that gives ultimate meaning and joy to a person’s existence. Even if the content that impels us in our experience of jide ka iji is not completely evident to us here and now, we, nonetheless, anticipate it as the fullness of all fullness, the goodness of goodness, the truth of all truths in a universal, total and comprehensive manner. It is for this reason that in the spirit of jide ka iji the content of the future in referentiality must be transcendent but complementarily communicated to have any meaning at all. The joy of being in the experience of jide k’ iji subsists in the experience of the existential categories of being in day-to-day encounter with reality as missing links. It is the capacity of the mind to give meaning to all missing links of reality as moments of expression of being. Here, the mind seeks to place all fragmented moments of existence in their authentic contexts as aspects of the joy that is constitutive of the authenticating foundation of all existent things. In other words, in the experience of the joy of being, the mind seeks full realization of fragmented missing links of reality in a universal, total, absolute, unified and future referential manner. This experience of joy of being becomes a complementary reality the moment we can communicate it mutually in the action. In this way, the content expressed in the aphorism jide k’ iji recasts the transcendent complementary unity of consciousness as the mutual conscious experience of being as the authentic foundation of human action. Whenever the mind is not able to transcend fragmented existence in a universal, total and future referential perspective, it negates the joy of being as the foundation of the transcendent complementary unity of consciousness. At this moment, it gets itself entangled in all forms of low-level comprehensiveness in view of its determination. At such moments, we would hardly say jide k’ iji and mean it; this is the moment of mismanaged ambivalence.

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For this reason, complementary reflection does not consider the fragmentation of historical existence a big disadvantage to our self-actualization and authentication. On the contrary, it views it as the condition of possibility of all forms of human selfauthentication and actualization. It is only due to and in the fragmentation of our existence that we can meaningfully and joyously affirm jide ka iji. Hence, this fragmentation is the condition for our encounter with the world and, as such, the only condition for the realization of ultimate joy that is characteristic of being. In this fragmentation, we experience being in the most natural and yet authentic way. The principle of harmonious complementarity enables us, therefore, to come to the insight that, although we are finite, we are not condemned to our finitude but we are beings aiming towards ultimate completion in joy. This joy is not something that we can identify with the diverse moments of missing links of reality but is the property of a being that transcends the fragmented moments of historical existence and gives legitimacy to this. For this reason, complementarism or complementary philosophy makes recourse to truth and authenticity criterion as that criterion which grants autonomy to all missing links of reality in a manner that guarantees the authenticity of their being. We can, then, understand why those human societies which see the fragmentary moments of all missing links of reality as opportunities for authentic joy are more likely to meet this criterion than those others who view the historical moments of existence as absolute constitutive determinants. Hence, the traditional African society, for example, in its fundamental complementary orientation, is more likely to meet this criterion more than the paradoxical individualism of the contemporary African society. In the same way, all forms of authentic conjunctive reasoning are more likely to satisfy its demands more than all forms of disjunctive articulation of world-immanent realities. A philosophy is in a position to meet the postulations of complementarism or complementary philosophy as it concedes to the fact that anything that exists serves a missing link of reality and seeks to conceptualize all existing realities in a manner that leads them to their joyous, common absolute future referential determination. It is in the pairing-up, in categorization and harmonization of all compatible missing links of realities, in view of an absolute synthesis of all relative world-immanent realities, that our positively shared experiences can be conceptualized as reinforcing themselves mutually and joyously. In seeking this legitimization in this absolute foundation of our being, we reject all those conditions that are opposed to the authentic nature of our being. In this way, one can say that exclusivities have their legitimacy only in the affirmation of the totality that gives meaning to them. That is to say, it is only in view of this absolute foundation of the transcendent complementary unity of consciousness that any form of distinction or exclusive claim we make can have any meaning. Where this condition is not met, such exclusivities revert to arbitrariness and a negative infringement into the will seeking autonomy. Where such exclusiveness occurs, in view of the totality of all missing links of reality, the individual can never regain his autonomy since he is committed to the negation of the foundation of his existence. Positive commitment to that transcendent, ultimate foundation of our action should always constitute a major focus of ethics and morality insofar as they concern themselves with human action and

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insofar as they seek to establish the conditions for those insightful actions that lead to the joy of being.

Acknowledgements This chapter was first published in The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and beyond African Philosophy by Innocent I. Asouzu (Calabar: University of Calabar Press, 2004), 354–80. Reprinted here with the permission of the author who is the copyright holder.

References Asouzu, Innocent I. 2004. Effective Leadership and the Ambivalence of Human Interest. The Nigerian Paradox in a Complementary Perspective. Calabar: University of Calabar Press. Basden, G. T. 1966. Niger Ibos. London: Frank Cass.. Kant, Immanuel. 1965. Critique of Pure Reason (Norman Kemp Smith, trans.). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1972. ‘The Metaphysics of Morals’. In Basic Problems of Philosophy, eds. Daniel J. Bronstein et al. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson. Uchendu, V. C. 1965. The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

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The Common Good in Complementary Ethical Reflection Innocent I. Asouzu

The common good The common good offers us a clear platform to show concretely our commitment to the joy of being as the ultimate transcendent foundation of meaning in our actions. We can talk of the common good in two ways. First, we use the term common good to refer to the ultimate authenticating anthropological basic constant of human life. In this case, we are referring to that ultimate common foundation that gives legitimacy to all human actions. Second, the common good refers to the authenticating foundation of interpersonal relationship in society, expressible in all those socio-empirical goods and services we own in common whose upkeep is necessary for well-coordinated and contented existence. In any complementary relationship, a profound and well-developed sense of common good is essential towards upholding even one’s autonomy and preventing a relapse into the destructive canons of self-interest. It is therefore very essential to have a very balanced idea of the common good should an individual be in a position to manage the tensions arising from the ambivalence of his situation well. The idea of the common good refers to a common source of collective legitimization beyond the dictates of the ego. This basis of collective legitimization always entails a dimension of common ownership that makes provision for the needs of others. The idea of common good thus negates the idea of absolute possessiveness and exclusiveness. In this way, the idea of common good shows its close affinity with the phenomenon of transcendence of compassion in all existential situations (Asouzu 2000a). This is why, within a given framework of action and meaning, each individual needs the common good for the ordered and effective execution of his function as a human being; but he has no exclusive claims to it beyond what is his or her due. It is for this reason that we designate those facilities, institutions and natural resources which we share in common, in order that meaningful life can be possible, as common goods. In some cases, we take these common goods for granted and they constitute those crucial elements needed towards upholding contented existence. Some of the things we 141

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refer to as common good include such resources as space, air, water, sunshine, forest, land, the earth, natural resources, our environment, etc. Others include natural heritages such as language and parentage. In some cases, common goods can take the form of non-natural objects to include infrastructures and institutions such as roads, schools, public libraries, hospitals, post offices, telephone installations, electricity supply facilities, water supply facilities, cultural heritages, monuments, etc. We own these resources and amenities collectively and they can help us add more quality and meaning to our individual existences. As common goods, we are challenged to uphold and preserve them as a common legacy. If we are successful, they can be a cause of our joy and, in this case, we sense the urge within us which challenges us to keep them as something good, to hold firmly to them now and in all future cases. This challenge is possible primarily as a mutual experience. This is the moment where they are experienced as the concrete content expressed in the aphorism jide k’ iji, i.e. keep hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases. In this experience, being becomes lived experience in all the efforts we make to recognize and conserve the common good either as a basic anthropological constant or as those goods that we share in common towards a higher form of legitimization. This is why as a dimension of the ultimate foundation of our being the idea of common good always connotes mutual relationship. Even in cases of private ownership of institutions, infrastructures and natural resources, there is always an implicit moment of we-consciousness between the owners and the users. This we-consciousness binds them to collective responsibility and mutual benefits towards such facilities. This we-consciousness derives from the sense of co-possession and unity in the joy that is the foundation of such common goods. Furthermore, this we-consciousness is deeply rooted in a higher norm that binds beneficiaries and actual owners on a higher plane. This is the moment of co-legitimacy and it confers an ontological transcendent complementary status to the common good as the legitimizing foundation of human life. We say an ontological transcendent status because we intuitively sense the imperative that the common good places on our sense of obligation, which goes beyond any individual or personal claim to them. In this transcendence, they acquire their legitimizing role in our interpersonal relationship. Here, we notice how the idea of common good can help concretize the experience of a transcendent complementary unity of consciousness. Although many would ordinarily accept the fact that the common good is necessary for a meaningful life, our actions in practice do not always show our commitment to this transcendent legitimizing role. This is the root of the fallacy of endemic selfishness and of the global paradox where we act under the illusion that we can circumvent the impelling legitimacy which the common good gives to our collective and personal actions. Where we act in this manner, we at the same time negate the legitimizing role which the experience of transcendent complementary unity of consciousness plays in our lives. A careful inquiry into the nature of the common good would immediately reveal how untenable this position is both theoretically and practically and how it can lead easily to all forms of fallacies, contradictions and inconsistencies.

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The common good as basic anthropological constant The first issue to be handled is to show in what sense the common good is a universal anthropological basic constant for meaningful human existence. That is to say, how it is anthropologically and ontologically constitutive as to serve an ultimate legitimizing function in all situations of life. I will not address this matter through a direct analysis of the content or structure of the common good as a pure concept. This abstract speculative approach is likely to render the relational dimension of the concept imperceptible. This relational dimension is basic towards understanding the relevance of the common good in existential situations of life. Furthermore, it is essential towards understanding how the aphorism jide k’ iji, whose target is to uphold the common good in all existential situations, has the character of complementary imperative. For this reason, I have chosen to objectify this concept empirically while retaining its transcendent all-inclusive and ultimate characteristic. The concept of reciprocity offers the framework for explicating the idea of the common good in this relational, comprehensive and future-oriented manner. Reciprocity is the act through which distinct entities stay in complementary relationship to each other, such that each, more or less, recognizes the necessity of the mutual dependence that is fundamental to this act (Asouzu 2000b: 102–3). Reciprocity derives from the natural systematic complementary relationship existing between units. Now, oversimplification and the attendant overconcentration and dependence on one’s interests raise the impression that human interaction does not necessarily aim at universal, total and comprehensive reciprocity. If carefully considered, all human interactions aim necessarily at reciprocity and towards unity of being and consciousness. This assertion can be buttressed by the fact that a given system upholds its nature only on the condition that all its parts reciprocate their functions. Where this reciprocity is not maintained, we talk of fragments, and such fragments are mere mental constructs since anything that exists serves a missing link of reality. Through reciprocity, therefore, the components of which a system is constituted show that they share a common framework of action and meaning since all the units are necessarily bound to each other complementarily. What this means is that wherever we find ourselves within a universe of discourse, we stay in an inescapably reciprocal relationship to each other. This is the only condition for each single unit to uphold its existence. That is to say, a human society, for example, has the capacity to maintain itself and attain its objectives, if and only if the different components of which it is constituted function in a genuine reciprocal relationship and understand their action as such. The realization of our objectives, as human beings, in a genuine reciprocal relationship, is thus characterized by give and take in mutual complementary dependence. The sole aim of this mutual act is to uphold the bond existing between individuals as a necessary condition for the effectiveness of this act itself. Where the capacity to this act is not present or where we approach it in a haphazard manner, a system-typical situation would hardly be conceivable. However, human existence, in whatever form we conceive it, makes meaning only when viewed as a system typical act. The bond which sustains and facilitates our reciprocal actions is a necessary

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component of the whole system itself, insofar as it offers the fundamental condition for the system to uphold itself. Now, the existence of this bond, as the necessary condition of system-typical acts, remains, even if individuals do not recognize its necessity and act in a manner that appears to negate its existence. Where they try to ignore this preceding condition of their action, they are merely acting in error. The reason for this is that they are ab initio bound to each other inextricably in a reciprocal manner. This they must concede to should their relationship be conceptualized as something that has the character of a system; but this is exactly the character of this relationship. This would not have been the case were those involved in this type of relationship distinct isolated units that exist independent of each other and in that case lacking in mutual relations – but this they are not, because of the type of special intricate relationship existing between them. To seek reciprocity, therefore, presupposes the existence of a natural common bond, which sustains diverse components of a system in a manner that makes them inextricably related to each other; that is to say, in a way that makes their individual existences possible only by considering the type of bond that joins them. This fundamental intrinsic mutual relationship enables the diverse components attain self-actualization but in necessary connection to other beings. Whether they are able to identify, consciously, the necessity of this type of relationship is another question. The fact, however, remains that they, in their actions, intuit something which fundamentally impels them. The unidentified entity that impels them has the character of goodness and this is why it is identified as something desirable. This is why, in the first place, they commit themselves to this entity naturally and spontaneously. In this way, they seek to actualize their lives within the framework provided by this entity. This is when they sense the urge to keep to it, to hold firmly to it, to keep it always now and in all future cases. This is when, in mutual encounter and in the face of a wellaccomplished task, they enthuse jide k’ iji. Reciprocity always has a dimension of this fundamental intuitive response to something fundamentally desirable, which, in itself, is the precondition of our reciprocating at all. Hence, one can say that the common bond which is the foundation of reciprocity is at the same time something desirably pre-given because, without it, the act of reciprocity would be inconceivable and unintelligible. One can then understand that even the ability to reciprocate is predicated on the preceding condition of this common bond, which makes this act perceptible in the first place and gives it its character. We can conceptualize this common bond as the common good or the a priori goodwill that establishes human relationship. Without the necessity of this foregoing common bond, no system-typical act can be possible. This foregoing common bond reveals to an individual the necessity to define himself within the framework of the collective, in a manner that would guarantee his interest. Furthermore, this a priori condition reveals to the individual, even without this person recognizing what this impelling force is all about, that there is something good, in returning all interests to himself and to himself alone, even when this is a misconceived notion of reciprocity. In other words, we act intuitively and instinctively to get, even in the case of selfishness, on the grounds of a pre-given necessity that makes such action desirable,

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interesting, attractive and meaningful. This common bond which gives every action its forgoing necessity is the common good as a basic anthropological constant of any form of human action. Its ambivalent nature subsists in its capacity to elicit both collectivistic and egoistic tendencies in our minds. Its a priori preconditioning confers on it the comprehensiveness and ultimacy that expresses its transcendence as the legitimizing foundation of human actions. Any action that seeks to be human in any form seeks its definition, therefore, within the ambit of this foregoing ultimate necessity of a common bond. When now Rousseau in his social contract theory alludes to the fact that human beings are fundamentally good, he may have been thinking of the fact of their having a common enabling foundation of their action, (1954: 20). A man acts rational then, and only then, if he sees the necessity to define his actions authentically within the confines of this a priori condition, knowing full well that this is the guarantor of his genuine interest. The common good as an a priori basic anthropological constant is a guarantor of authenticity to human actions. In this capacity, the common good reveals to us that we cannot seek to act authentically without taking into account the interests of others. It is the fact of the precedence of the ultimate common good, expressed in the fundamental will to reciprocity, that even all forms of egoism have their foundation and are conceivable. The primacy of the ultimate common good remains, therefore, in all cases, the tensions that are associated with the relativity of our being notwithstanding. This is still the case where the urge to personal interest functions as an apparent negation of its existence. This observation underlines the fact that no human action is devoid of any interest. We say this bearing in mind that, in those cases where there is no clearly defined interest as such, a person invariably makes recourse to an interest; in this case, perhaps, to his own interest, which he identifies as good and in implicit reference to this all-authenticating absolute common good. The cause or reasons for this recourse may not be immediately evident to the actor in all cases. One can identify this cause, which is always co-intended, as the primordial enabling condition of all interests. This is the ultimate common good as the anthropological basic constant. As an anthropological basic constant, the common good is the preceding condition of all interests. All forms of human interest always seek to give expression to this anthropological basic constant. The level of conformity to its demands is in proportion to a person’s awareness of its preconditioning necessity. The most tragic of all cases is the situation where we act as if this all-authenticating foundation of our being does not matter, and in such situations we seek to substitute it with those actions that are based on the insinuations of the self. This is the situation where the ego seeks to be absolute, its relativity notwithstanding. In such situations, the articulation of human interest easily takes the form of systematized and institutionalized personal interest, which is nothing other than man’s negation of the foundation of his being and existence. Whenever reciprocity is denied its a priori foundation, in this manner, and whenever individuals act in a manner as to undermine this transcendent condition of possibility of human interest, human society and institutions are subjugated to radical and irreconcilable tension. Recognition of the ultimate common good as the transcendent precondition of human action diffuses this tension and gives impetus and direction to those acts we

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share as communities of individuals in society. Thus, the survival of any human organization depends largely on the level of awareness concerning the legitimizing function of the absolute common good as it finds expression in those authentic goods and services that we recognize as common goods.

Common good in tension-laden existential situations The common good as the transcendent anthropological foundation of human action finds expression in those authentic goods and services we share in common. It is for this reason that these common goods are ideal of our collective ownership or aspiration. In many instances, we can concretely quantify and identify the common good as concrete physical objects or even as ideas, geographical, political, economic, social and cultural and other forms of ideological heritage. Within this context, it can pose theoretical problems of enormous practical consequences. Some of these problems concern themselves with the type of ideas we associate with the very ideal of common good and its concrete modes of expression. This is a general problem as this relates to the actual nature of the transcendent ultimate common good. As empirical foundations for collective meaningful actions, in diverse contexts, the idea of the common good is not intrinsically absolute, but it shares some dimensions of the absolute and hence can be mistaken for the absolute common good itself. This is one of the major reasons, in existential situations, the idea of the common good can be overloaded with practical difficulties because of numerous counterfactual alternatives that struggle in their bid to be recognized as common goods in a way that should be directional for our action and volition. This is the case in all those situations where we recognize certain objects or qualities as the common good. Here, we say, for example, that certain properties or ideas we own in common are common good, e.g. cultural heritage, works of arts, buildings, schools, libraries, parks, public utilities, natural resources, ideological values, etc. We evoke the idea of the common good as it relates to these objects to legitimize certain claims we make or certain expectations we place on individuals and groups of individuals. This is the case where we demand from them to respect and uphold such objects as common goods. This is again the case where we demand from them to make certain contributions for the sake of the common good. In these contexts, we co-join something immaterial, super-sensible and something imperceptible with our understanding of empirical realities and make our demands and claims with regard to a certain transcendent quality that the mind perceives very clearly in connection with the objects in question. This is why, even in those cases where a private individual, for example, owns an institution, we can still see the necessity to uphold something within such private institutions that we clearly perceive as the common good but which exists independent of the object in question and independent of the fact that a certain individual owns it. Even then, the independent existence of the object of our attention is not possible without relation to the object it so designates. Hence, in all circumstances, the common good is often more than the ideas that are expressed in the empirical realities that give them their expression. This is why we use

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such expressions as ‘for the sake of the common good pay your taxes’, ‘keep your environment clean for the sake of the common good’, ‘for the sake of the common good, handle the books in the library with care’, ‘for the sake of the common good, be punctual at the exercises’, etc. What this reveals is that the common good subsists in the socio-empirical variables themselves and transcends these at the same time. That is to say, it enters into our definition of terms in a way that depicts what we mean and transcends what we mean at the same time. It is for this reason that paying taxes entails a moment of the common good, just as a clean environment is a part of the common good. Here, we are dealing with transcendent theoretical entities, whereby we tie concepts and ideas to certain empirical conditions and realities we concretely express. Here Ryan rightly pointed out that the type of understanding that we have of such theoretical entities as justice, common good, democracy, good health, clean environment, etc. is of a ‘different logical type from the description of the observed phenomena’ themselves (1988: 76–97, esp. 85). It is incontrovertible that those observable objects that enter into our definition of theoretical entities can be isolated for a closed examination. Thus, in the case of democracy, we can empirically quantify such variables as the votes needed to elect a democratic government, the number of people who hold elective positions, the number of articles written in newspapers to depict freedom of the press, etc. In the same way, we can quantify the elements that go into our definition of a clean environment, or the objects that make up specific institutions or resources we designate as common good. In all these cases, the ideas democracy and clean environment can be conceptually abstracted and isolated from the diverse components expressing them empirically. In those cases where we talk of common good, there is often the tendency to join the theoretical entities themselves with the objects that give them expression in a necessary causal manner. When this happens, we come to assume that the modes of expression of these theoretical entities are in fact identical with what they express. In the case of the common good, we come to assume that the diverse variable through which the common good is expressed is in fact the common good itself. In practical terms, this is the situation where we tend to equate democratic government with such observable factors as voting, elections, freedom of the press, freedom of movement, with some forms of justice, order, fairness, etc. In the same way, we come to equate clean environment with the sweeping of our compounds, clearing the refuse, maintaining some level of hygiene, etc. In all these cases, we establish a causal link between states of affairs and certain mental objects. What this shows is that our ability to co-join the idea of the common good with specific theoretical entities is not an a priori given fact; it is rather something that is historically conditioned in the process of association. In this coalescing process, such factors as the values and norm systems, education, religious and cultural beliefs play very important role in determining what we designate as the common good. Besides, it depends largely on those interests that closely bind people who find themselves within a given framework of action, interaction and meaning. Because of differences in the perception of the world, we can then understand that diverse groups follow diverse interests, which influence what they designate as the

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common good determining their actions. It is for this reason that we can have variations in our understanding of what different human communities regard as the common good. Since our historicity is a part of our personality and determines this, a person who takes the idea of the common good seriously must abide by the type of understanding prevalent in the community this person belongs to. This is necessary to ensure full integration and acceptance in the community. Compliance to the common good enters invariably, therefore, into the self-definition of membership of any group. Thus, when we talk of a person placing the common good above private interests, we are referring to the diverse common goods that become evident and constitutive as values and norm systems of given human communities. Since human beings play diverse roles, they can belong to different communities, and their membership to each of these groups is guaranteed by their ability to adhere to the demands of the common good. Now, if a person should place the common good establishing each of these groups supreme, invariably conflicts and tensions are bound to arise. The question now arises: in a series of common goods, how does an individual determine and choose, such that he does not run into conflict with any of the subgroups, which legitimately demand his allegiance? In other words, which common good or common goods should be most binding to a person in the face of competing alternatives? How do we go about the common good in situations of tension? How should we define the common good vis-à-vis private interest in a situation of conflict of interests such that the distinction between common good and private interests makes any meaning at all? In view of the diverse ways the common good can be constitutive in diverse groups, one thing becomes certain, that is, these diverse ways make the distinction between common good and private interest shaky. That is to say, in view of these variations, what we consider as the common good can, in any given situation, and at any moment, and in view of the ambivalence of our situation, turn to creations of our own individual egos. In this case, personal interests can easily metamorphose to the common good and vice versa. One of the greatest tasks of complementary reflection is to reconcile this tension and ambiguity. Here, we are faced with the question concerning the preconditions for authentic existence.

The idea of common good and overcoming existential tension Since complementary ethical reflection aims at providing the conditions for the actualization of the joy of being, we see how the thematic of reconciling the conflicts of interest falls within the centre of its consideration. It approaches this from the point of view of meaning in a transcendent, comprehensive, whole and future-oriented manner. This approach is both theoretically and practically reasonable, if human interests in their diverse areas of relevance should have meanings beyond the confines of individual egos. I say this for the following reasons: without a transcendent, whole and future referential authenticating foundation as the framework of articulation of all forms of

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world-immanent common goods, they invariably assume the character of selflegitimizing units. However, the fact that they are fragmented and historically determined shows very clearly that they are not self-legitimizing. Besides, we need this unifying referential content as ultimate common good to maintain an authentic existence and to uphold the legitimacy, which the fragmented common goods seek in their relative historical conditions. The need to make recourse to this all-authenticating common good can be inferred from practical common sense. Human beings, as individuals and as groups, need a unifying foundation which is expressed by the idea of common good, even if this idea is fragmented, to uphold their existence and give this a focus. What this suggests is that no human act would be possible and no human society practicable, within the context of its historicity, without a unifying foundation that confers legitimacy to it. In other words, in the absence of a unifying foundation that we can clearly and consciously identify, human life would amount to each person to himself and each person doing as he pleases. Where this happens, we can hardly speak of human action and definitely no human society would be possible and human acts would be the summation of uncoordinated acts of an aggregate of individuals. Where we reject this chaotic state, we submit ourselves to a unifying bond that transcends our individuality. In this case, this unity, no matter how we conceptualize it, becomes the aura of legitimization of our diverse individualities. We are able to form groups, governments and enter into all forms of associations, build society because of this our ability to reject chaos as foundation of our action and submit ourselves to an overriding unity provided by a common foundation. Where we are not able to do this, we can never speak of human communities and societies with common objectives. In the absence of a common objective, we have a crowd or a mob with uncoordinated interests. Even then, such mobs and crowds often know why they are assembled, and can call it by name. Besides, the fact that there are human interests that we can identify, in our individual capacities, as anti-interests shows that we can never make recourse to such anti-interests as adequate reasons for our actions. In other words, we seek those desirable interests that give character to our actions as reasons why we act. In this case, we wish our actions to be identified in a particular way with some sort of orderliness and focus. In this quest, we are committed indirectly to the idea of being as the foundation of unity and human consciousness. Finally, if one were to assume that all common goods, as values, are interchangeable, and can as such be used as substitutes mutually, this assumption would imply that they are not identical since their areas of application are different. As dissimilar units, they cannot serve the same purpose all at the same time and in the same place. In other words, in their diversity and dissimilarity there exists, yet, some sort of order that enables the mind to bring them in relation and thus put them in a scale of preference. This is precisely why we cannot embrace all our interests at the same time but must take them one after the other, or as a system of preferences within a hierarchy of values. Even in those cases where we can pursue some of our interests contemporaneously, we cannot realize all of them at the same time. There is always a scale of attention. This scale of attention indicates our commitment to a unifying foundation of all our interests. Recognizing this scale of preference entails commitment to relation and this in turn requires awareness of a higher order that sustains such relation. Hence, the diversity

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and dissimilarity we find in our interests indicate the need for a transcendent, whole and comprehensive ultimate point of reference for their validity. That this aura of convergence and unity must not subsist in each is understandable. Hence, worldimmanent common goods have the intrinsic characteristic of referentiality towards a being that gives them their unity. That is to say, they always point at something beyond their individuality and something with respect to which they gain an overall legitimization. In future referentiality, therefore, all world-immanent missing links, as common goods that have inherent moments of unity and goodness, have the capacity of ultimate perfectibility. It is for this reason that, when we are able to identify something as good, we can affirm with certitude and enthuse mutually jide ka iji – hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it in a proleptic future referential manner with regard to their realization and perfectibility. In this way, our existence, which has the character of unity and goodness, gains its full meaning proleptically in relation to something outside of ourselves, which gives ultimate unity to our interests, and actions. This aura of unity must lie outside of all world-immanent common good to be meaningful. This is still the case when all common goods, in their fragmentation and referentiality, are taken together. Not even a combination of all world-immanent common goods, as missing links of reality, makes the idea of this transcendent ultimate common good superfluous. The reason is that all missing links of reality, due to their historicity and contextuality, are already limited in their nature. For this reason, we can never rely on them as that ultimate, total comprehensiveness and all-authenticating future referential foundation of human interests, most especially in contentious situations of life. In relation to this ultimate and absolute all-authenticating common good, all world-immanent common goods have the intrinsic characteristic of relativity because of their contextuality, historicity and future referentiality. Hence, one can say that relativity is a cardinal nature characterizing all world-immanent common goods as opposed to the totality, ultimacy and comprehensiveness that is characteristic of the aura of their absolute legitimacy. As finite beings, we rely on our interests as far as they are relative values to live a meaningful life. Our condition as moral beings is determined, largely, by the level of our ability to manage this relativity well. This in turn can be successful if we are able to conceptualize and actualize our relative values as part of the missing links that enter into the realization of the authentic foundation of reality. Whenever this realization is in place, we are in a position to see our relative world-immanent values as means towards the realization of other higher values within the framework of a complex network of values. In conscious awareness of this network, and in its hierarchical and complementary interconnectedness, we have our chances of living authentic existence through overcoming the ambivalence of our situation. The conscious awareness we bring to world-immanent realities and our recognition of their fragmentation and the fact that they merely serve a missing link, within the framework of higher values, helps us recognize their worth as moments of the higher values, which determine and gives them their meaning. For this reason, we can never regard world-immanent values as merely disposable objects but values that have hidden meanings that we must find within a context of complementarity.

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The onus of authentic meaningful existence subsists, therefore, in the consistent complementarity of world-immanent missing links such that we give all missing links their determination as important factors in a system within a continuous process. It is within such a context that we recognize that world-immanent realities, although they are relative, nonetheless have more meaning attached to them than what they immediately represent. Hence, their authentic usefulness and validity constitutes a continuous challenge in view of their future referentiality. Where we are able to actualize this thought, complementary reflection highlights the importance of all world-immanent determinations as a necessary condition for the ultimate authentication of meaningful existence. It is, therefore, in the recognition of this future dimension of relative human interests that we show what type of human beings we are. It is in the recognition of this future referential dimension of all missing links that we seek to understand, interpret and explain common goods beyond the ad hoc meanings they have within given historical contexts. This future orientation of all missing links, in view of the totality that gives them their ultimate meaning and determination, confers validity to any action that seeks to be truly human and complementary. It is in this future referentiality that we allow the limitations of being to be the cause of our joy and affirm in a certain hope jide k’ iji, i.e. hold firmly to the joy of being, always seek to retain it, now and in all future cases. In those instances where we are not able to identify adequately our interests in this referential mode, we have the tendency also to be less human, less rational and less moral. This is the moment where we heighten existential tension and make this a paradigm of authentic existence. These are those moments where we lose touch with reality and miss the chances of exploring the authentic joy that gives meaning to our being. In this way, we misidentify this joy in fragmented missing links of reality and confuse concomitancy with ultimacy and teleology. In such circumstances, there is the danger of confronting missing links of reality in their pure relativity and losing sight of the higher meaning conferred by their future referentiality. Where this happens, we considered them as pure means to ends but not as complementary means. Likewise, we can even misidentify these means as ends in themselves and not as meaningful relative means. Here, we miss the moment that gives them their actual worth as things that serve a missing link of reality. When we lose touch with their relativity, we tend to search and destroy, to grab and discard, and to seek meaning in ways that gratify the ego and in ways that can even be anti-ego and self-destructive. In such situations, absolute commitment to fragmentation and relativity overwhelms our actions because we have lost sight of their future referentiality. At this moment, we find ourselves at war with ourselves, with the world around us and with all other missing links that we misidentify as standing in opposition to our fragmented conception of the world. We can bridge the obstacles placed to the mind by the exclusiveness we erect between opposites in a manner that hinders them from staying in a natural complementary relationship to each other by way of a future reference. In future referentiality, differences assumes the character of complements. Where this happens, we are in a better position to bridge the subject–object dichotomy in the most natural manner. When, on the other hand, our interests assume an undifferentiated exclusive

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characteristic they lose the moment of future reference. We become obsessed the moment missing links of reality catch our fancy in exclusive non-future referential manner. This easily leads to alienation and tension because it is the moment of being misidentifying its relative characteristic and assuming an absolute importance. In such moments, our interests take hold on us in a very exclusive absolute obsessive manner. At this moment, we tend to discriminate against all that stands on our way towards realizing those anti-interests that we have misidentified as absolute interests. These anti-interests we now enthrone as objects of vile admiration and adoration. In this process, we also seek to destroy and eliminate anything we perceive as an obstacle towards their full realization. Since we identify these anti-interests as absolute values, they would no longer admit of any competition and, as such, they demand absolute allegiance. This is the moment we become intolerant, dogmatic and rejectionist and even diabolical. On the other hand, in rejecting the absolute demands placed on us by our interests, they provide us with the opportunity to know other alternatives and to be free and accommodating of other interests and varieties. Whenever we are in a position to identify our relative values in their future referential constitution, we are in a position to cherish varieties and alternative ways of doing things. We are also in a position to see new meanings in all situations of life, most especially in those new and alternative ways that bring surprises and the unexpected. In such situations, we see such surprises as moments of inexhaustible missing links of reality, as those limitations of being that constitute the cause of our joy. In this way, a complementary mindset is one that welcomes competition and sees challenges and disappointments not as a threat to its existence but as an enabling condition towards the perfectibility of all missing links of reality of which it is a part. In the same way, we welcome mutual interdependence and indebtedness as means of mutual enrichment and as the only credible and authentic ways of dignified and meaningful co-existence. In other words, recognizing the future referentiality of all relative values opens up inexhaustible opportunities to an individual. Besides, it makes it possible for a person to see the relativity of all world-immanent interests and, in the event, this person stands better chances of recognizing all world-immanent missing links for what they are and stand for. That is to say, the person is better in a position to reject them as absolute values, which have the capacity to intrude into his freedom and delimit his ability to choose correctly, when it matters most. Besides, recognizing world-immanent missing links as opportunities towards absolute commitment makes it possible for us also to identify them in their fragmentation and relativity. In this case, a person is able to reject them when they become overbearing, intrusive and disruptive as evil and when they refuse to concede to their relativity. It is in recognizing them in their relativity that we show that we are moral subjects who are capable of saying no to evil and yes to good. It is in this connection that we show that we do not merely serve a missing link like all other world-immanent reality. On the contrary, we are subjects that have a higher form of awareness towards the ambivalence of our situation. In this way, we show that we are special intelligent beings that can cherish and live from novelties, can be creative and rejoice in the positive side of our ambivalent interests. In this way, we show also that we are those special spiritual creatures who can say no and who can make distinction

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between what is essential and what is accidental. When we live from this realization, we can say to ourselves and mutually, too, jide k’ iji, and mean it and rejoice in it.

The idea of common good and authentic existence Authentic or meaningful human existence, therefore, turns out to be a continuous and consistent conscious critical evaluation and re-evaluation of all missing links of reality in their future referentiality. In future referentiality, we subjugate all our interests to conscious critical review in view of the foundation that gives them their absolute authentication. We uphold our legitimacy, therefore, only if we are in a position to review consciously all our opportunities and all common goods from the background of the nature of their ultimate determination. The more challenging an opportunity becomes the more the need to intensify such a scrutiny. It has turned out that the bane of human societies is our inability to put our interests consciously in their future referential perspective. Where this happens, we become victims of the importance we attach to them in their isolated fragmentation and lose the moment of the joy, beauty and richness of their complementarity. Complementary reflection challenges us, therefore, to take our time in reassessing those interests that have become problematic and obsessive in our lives. These could be those interests we take for granted, but which in the final analysis have reverted to tyrants over us such that they allow us neither to reason correctly not to act freely. The question concerning our interest is a life challenge, and a qualitatively high and meaningful life is something worth guarding with all the legitimate means available to us. This is important if our lives should have any other values other than those they have due to constraints of circumstances. However, as beings endowed with qualitatively higher objectives, our life is more than all the relative common goods and interests that enter into defining our diverse peculiar circumstances. It is in the realization of the inherent future referential nature of human interests that we can respond consciously to that internal urge and cute insight to use relative values as means not as ends in themselves. Because of this positive disposition towards all missing links of reality, we are able to reject any desires that would compromise our responsibilities to the world in all existential situations of life. It is in this feeling that the wisdom lies which impels us to use the opportunities provided us, most especially those we least expect, those that have fallen into our laps, to work for those higher values that define us as unique beings. Where this wisdom is lacking, we often consider any given opportunity, most especially those rare good opportunities that come our way unexpectedly, as exceptional chances to satisfy our personal desires at the expense of the common good. We can all the better now understand the situation of unmitigated excesses and inhumanity that often characterizes our world today. These are those unfortunate moments where we have not tried to live consciously according to the higher objectives establishing our being. These are those moments where a person has misidentified his relative interests and mistakes them for absolute values. In such a situation, we allowed these relative interests to be constitutive of our actions in the most fragmented and non-future referential manner. The result of this tragic misrepresentation and mistake

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is always confounding. These are those moments where monstrous, perplexing and dehumanizing behaviours entrap our being. These are those cases where a person, in the face of clear and cogent reasons to do it otherwise, seeks to impose his will against the general will. This is the case, in all those instances, where the individual uses the world and the opportunities open to him to establish his ego and that of his faithful follower in a very questionable and incomprehensible manner. This is the case in all those instances where we seek to do science in a manner that turns wisdom to mere ideology and knowledge to a weapon of control and subjugation. This is the case in all those situations where we turn ad hoc opportunities that sudden change in power relations confers on us to unmitigated chances towards gross injustice. This is the case in all those instances where we embark on pseudo-legitimate strategies to get illicitly those advantages that we have always wished to get. This is the case in all those instances where, in the face of adversity, we remain insensitive to the plight of our fellow human beings, while diverting those means meant for their betterment to the vain objects of our own amusement. This is the case in all those instances where the logic of common sense fails to move us to action even if, through our negligence, a situation may likely lead to our own personal destruction. This is the case in all those instances where we seek to rationalize our exclusiveness based on unsubstantiated guesswork and pseudo-theories. One can say that confusing relative common goods for absolute values is the root cause of all those evils and actions that boggle our minds in the world. In this confusion lies our inability to manage the ambivalence of our situation well and to choose those things that give legitimacy to our being. In the mismanagement of the ambivalence of our situation, we turn to those monsters that hunt our fancies without our knowing it. It is for this reason that the mismanagement of the phenomenon of ambivalence of human interest can make us pitiable and broken, even if we are not able immediately to appreciate and come to terms with our situation. Hence, authentic existence subsists in creating awareness and living in full awareness of this phenomenon that is capable of depriving us of the foundation of our being and existence. When one is able to manage the ambivalence of his situation well, one is even more in a position to seek, through keen insight, a greater happiness for a greater number of people, not strictly based on a hedonistic principle of utility. That is to say, we would seek true happiness not in a manner that sees renunciation of certain personal privileges in the pursuance of higher objectives, as something evil, demeaning or disadvantageous. On the contrary, this person would see some wisdom in accepting the limitations of being as the cause of his joy, knowing fully well that commitment to world-immanent missing links of realities in their future referentiality is a moment of participating in the completion and joy conferred by the ultimate foundation of all missing links of realities. One can then understand how the greatest poverty is the poverty of the spirit, which deprives an individual adequate insight into the nature of his being as someone destined for higher objectives. This type of poverty hinders the mind from understanding and appreciating the riches embedded in the complementation of our opportunities. This type of impoverishment delimits us to unbridled commitment to world-immanent values in their fragmentation, it insinuates to a lifestyle of unbounded

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excesses and tension, ruthlessness, thoughtlessness and demeaning inhumanity, irrationality and egocentric rationalization. This poverty radically delimits and impairs an individual’s ability to choose and choose properly. This victimization of the human spirit can reduce the human mind to a mere shadow of itself. This shadow knows merely only few alternatives and these are those that the law of our individual subjectivities can guarantee. This type of condition diminishes our being because we are entangled in all sorts of false and strange ideas concerning what true human life and value should be. Where this happens, we dissipate our energies, unnecessarily, solving all sorts of pseudo-problems that are based on wrong premises. By so doing, we fall into the abyss of our desires, which is filled up with all sorts of weird and perverse objects; escaping, we look for solutions in our minds, which have become tainted, impoverished and estranged. Unable to find answers, we are left alone and isolated in the world, as victims of our own strange ideas, desires and imaginations. This is the tragedy of lack of awareness concerning the devastating effect of the phenomenon of ambivalence of our situation as it turns relativity to absoluteness, as it turns relative common goods to ultimate absolute common good.

Common good and truth and authenticity criterion All common goods are therefore subject to the demands of truth and authenticity criterion for their validity. Any world-immanent common good that makes an absolute claim on the individual or communities invariably loses its authenticity. A worldimmanent common good is therefore valid to the degree that it is in a position to concede to its inherent relativity, and to the proportion that it is committed to its authentic nature as a thing destined for higher form of legitimization. In this case, an authentic world-immanent common good is that which concedes its relativity, rejects its absoluteness and is committed to its future referentiality. This assertion is valid for all spheres of world-immanent realities, as they constitute those common goods as reasons for our actions. In dealing with world-immanent common goods, it is therefore important to consider the following facts. First, we have to understand the context in which such common goods appear. Second, we have to examine the aim establishing them. Third, we have to see to what extent our commitment to them puts us in a position to be fully aware of the ambivalence of our situation. Fourth, we have to know if the common good thereby pursued makes it possible for us to be aware of the ultimate legitimizing foundation of all human interests. In other words, we must ask ourselves the question if we can still recognize such common goods as means and not as an end in themselves. Only those common goods, which in their realization we adequately and clearly perceive in their authentic constitution, are capable of fostering human freedom and autonomy. In the same way, any human community that is conscious of its inherent relativity stands the chance of helping its members attain their destiny better. Such a system can achieve this because it does not make absolute claims and demands on the individual as to infringe on his personal autonomy. Besides, such a system has clearly

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set goals such that it does not confuse realities for what they are not. The same applies to individuals in their relation to society and institutions. A person who confuses his interests for what they are not soon becomes a bundle of contradictions and confusion. Unmasking the phenomenon of concealment as a dynamic moment of human ambivalent situations turns out to be an integral part of any quest for truth and authenticity. Where the limitations imposed by our apparent absolute commitments saddle our minds, they entangle us also in all sorts of existential difficulties. We can buttress and illustrate this observation by reference to a few concrete cases. Love, for example, is a very important passionate human act and commitment. Such passionate acts challenge a person to absolute fidelity and commitment. Even here, a one-sided approach to the world-immanent object of love can be dangerous if we do not identify this object in its true and authentic relative nature. This is why those things we love passionately, at times, hold us in bondage and can lead to all forms of tragic consequences. This is the case when the object of love becomes so obsessive as to delimit our chances of upholding our freedom and self-determination. If in the name of love we show absolute commitment to a world-immanent reality, we are merely denying love to such an object. The reason is that in such cases we overburden finite objects with those characteristics that they do not possess. In the same way, we handle them in a manner that is not natural to their being. We can then understand why, in our excessive patriotism, religiosity, tribal, ethnic and racist sentiments, etc., we become those monsters we dread. Hence, if one catapults a human interest to an object of adoration and obsession, it loses its significance, because adoration, in the strict sense of the word, is not natural to relative worldimmanent realities. What this means is that the thing we employ towards the actualization of our autonomy must never stay in opposition to the very foundation of our being. We can misuse any human interest because each interest has the capacity to conceal from us its true and authentic nature. We address the phenomenon of concealment inherent in our interests adequately on the condition that we are in a position to harmonize all interests in the most complementary non-contradictory manner. Hence, in our actions, our interests must never be exclusive but inclusive and complementary. In practical terms, this would mean that whatever I use for the realization of the love which I have for my race, ethnic group, clan or tribe should never be in opposition to my commitment to the ideals of humanity. In the same way, the interest I have for my family should never be in opposition to the love I have for my friends and associates. Furthermore, whatever I employ to realize the interest I have for my country, no matter how exalted, should never contradict the interest I have for those values that make us a human family. Whatever I employ to express my interest for an ideology should never be in opposition to the commitment I have for reality in its most authentic and true form of expression. My religion should not contradict my humanity. Pure market-economic consideration should never be in opposition to humanitarian considerations. A non-complementary, one-sided approach to human interest would ever lead to tension, confusion and destruction because such situations negate the unifying foundation of being. When this happens, our interests lose their foundation of

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authenticity. These are those situations where our urge to realize our interests has almost assumed an absolute pseudo-religious dimension, such that we are even ready to pay the supreme price in order to conserve our interest. No single individual is immune to this temptation and error of judgement. The reason is that we are all, to some extent, products of our environment and we are victims of the same naked dangers brought about by greed, pride and thirst for power. For this reason, no amount of high office or education, no level of enlightenment, no amount of technological achievement is a guarantee that a person would always pursue his interests legitimately and legally. The only thing that would guarantee that we seek our true and authentic interests is the effort we make to be conscious of the ambivalence of our situation and, in this case, we seek always to choose the positive of this ambivalence.

Acknowledgements This chapter was first published in The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and beyond African Philosophy, by Innocent I. Asouzu (Calabar: University of Calabar Press, 2004), 380–402. Reprinted here with the permission of the author who is the copyright holder.

References Asouzu, Innocent I. 2000a. ‘Unintended Necessary Cause, Transcendence of Compassion and the Practice of Human Rights’. Journal of the Humanities 1(3). Asouzu, Innocent I. 2000b. ‘Impact of Pseudo-legitimate Strategies of Survival on Systems and Institutions’. Classical Journal of Research in Education 2(1): 102–3. Rousseau, J. Jacques. 1954. The Social Contract (Willmoore Kendall, trans.). Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Ryan, Alan. 1988. The Philosophy of the Social Sciences. London: Macmillan Education.

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Underlying Moral Justification of Baraza and Indaba Dialogic Institutions in African Social Ethics and Philosophy Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala

Introduction African social ethics and philosophy have evolved from epistemological, metaphysical and ontological research that critically dissects African world views from the vantage point of inter-relations between human persons and the dual unity of person and community. Among African philosophers, we acknowledge the works of Kwame Gyekye, Bénézet Bujo, M. Tshiamalenga Ntumba, Magobe B. Ramose, John Mbiti, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Kwasi Wiredu, Alexis Kagame, Paulin J. Hountondji and Father Placid Tempels. That there has been a great contribution in this field we owe to African visionary leaders such as Julius Kambarege Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Patrice Lumumba, Kenneth Kaunda and Thabo Mbeki, from whom societies worldwide attempt to build a pragmatic philosophy of life, resourced from the notions of African communitarianism, African socialism and African humanism, which underscore global solidarity, hospitality, mutual respect and acceptance. These thoughts are well expounded and expanded in collected works edited by Wiredu (2004) and Coetzee and Roux (2003). It is important to acknowledge that African social ethics and philosophy in their current outlook embody the ancient Greek philosophical categories (Ramose 2002) and some works of ancient African civilization cultivated in Egypt, Ethiopia, Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria and Sudan (Obenga 2004). The influence of Platonism and Neoplatonism is reflected in African world views regarding the human person (Masolo 2004; Wiredu 2004). This shows how African social ethics embraces the global philosophy of life and being. This chapter focuses on the underlying moral justification of Baraza and Indaba as dialoguing institutions, and will provide some insights regarding the relation between Indaba and Imbizo. The latter is rather a communicating forum that does not follow the dialogic structure. However, it is important to mention it in this work, which provides an extensive review of the writings of African moral philosophers and the 159

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testimonies of a few persons who have experienced how Indaba and Imbizo function and their impact on social endeavours. Those three concepts will be analysed in conjunction with four African world views, namely African communitarianism (metaphysical relatedness of person and community), African humanism via the philosophy of ubuntu, African socialism through the ujamaa ethos, and the African Palaver as an instrument utilized by the two institutions that are examined here: Baraza and Indaba. Extensive methodological controversies and debates between various concepts employed here and their meaning in the Western world view are beyond the scope of this paper. The overarching thesis supported by this work is to maintain that Baraza and Indaba, and even Imbizo, underscore a moral justification in African social ethics and philosophy. This is explained by four tenets of African ethics and philosophy, that is to say African communitarianism, African humanism, African socialism and African Palaver. This essay is based on literature research (Crampton n.d.) and experiential individual testimonies on Indaba and Imbizo. It is methodically dissected in five sections, with its introduction followed by a background underlying the historical context of Baraza and Indaba practice. This part precedes the section on definition of Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo concepts. The analysis goes along after, under which the main thesis of this chapter is developed, focusing on the moral justification of Baraza and Indaba in African social ethics and philosophy. The conclusion comes after to summarize the work. A list of references is provided at the end.

Ethical background The pursuit of ‘good’ constitutes the finality of every art, every inquiry and every action, according to Aristotle’s Book I, 1: ‘Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim’ (1999). Furthermore, in Book I, 2, Aristotle underlines that all human action should aim at ‘good’ and the ‘chief good’ emerges from the self-fulfilment of human activities in the sense that human desire should not seek to satisfy something else but rather its own satisfaction. That leads to the understanding of the ‘chief good’ – as the pursuit of common or collective good as he states: For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worthwhile to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states. 1999

The collective dimension of moral good developed by Aristotle enlightens the communitarian ground upon which it becomes plausible to argue that the notions of Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo – communitarian and dialoguing institutions – are

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anchored in the principles underlying African ethics and philosophy because these three institutions aim at collective or communal good. They embody moral standards that place the well-being and interests of the community at the centre of interpersonal relations, and define the mode of interaction between communities and their respective members or community and person. Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo are multidimensional concepts and their meaning should be context-based. For instance, Newenham-Kahindi (2009) remarks that, besides its ethical connotation, the word indaba has been used technically as an inventive model in the business and banking industry. It is also regarded as a traditional forum for conflict resolution, where the conversations engaged in could be extended to contentious matters regarding faith and sexuality, as in the case of the Anglican Church (Bridger and Goddard 2014). As a way of finding a collective response to critical social, economic or theological matters, Indaba may also embrace other conflict resolution theories and problem-solving strategies to make it more systematic in responding to contentious issues. Indaba has been identified as an appropriate approach for conflict transformation and problem-solving in matters that concern faith-living and practice in the context of the Anglican Church’s struggle (Bridger and Goddard 2014). Indaba has been theoretically and pragmatically referred to as a concept which promotes mutual acceptance, as a model of Christ who accepted everybody; while at the same time it is a medium of mutual listening, shared respect and a commitment towards building an inclusive, caring, loving and serviceable body as Anglicans (Lee 2009: 161). Professor Barney Jordaan describes informal South African conflict resolution institutions such as Lekgotla, Imbizo or Indaba as very significant, pragmatic, viable and efficient forums where parties with a stake in a conflict feel comfortable engaging with one another and finally come out with a mutually understood and acceptable solution (cited by Bell 2008). Lekgotla is defined by Willem de Liefde (2003) as an African word for a meeting circle and tribal management tool where people sit in a circle to discuss issues in a spirit of togetherness, in a participatory way. Further details regarding Lekgotla are outside the scope of this chapter. However, it is mentioned to support the thought that ubuntu is the guiding principle of many dialogic institutions in Africa, not limited to Baraza, Indaba, Imbizo and Lekgotla, and their praxis is discernible within the relational framework ‘person–community’.

The notion of personhood and community In African philosophy and ethics, this is reflected in the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (‘a person is a person through other persons’) or in Sesotho motho ke motho ka batho, which means, in English, that to be human implies an affirmation of one’s own humanity by acknowledging the humanity of others, and, on that ground, building sound and humane rapports with them (Ramose 1999 cited in Mahlatsi 2017). I should assert that humaneness is a fundamental and intrinsic characteristic of a person that is well-expressed and lived out through a community, and that defines a human being only in relation to others. Where all members are ontologically bound together, the implications of such shared experience of ‘being-with’ are such that each person adopts

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morally good attitudes and does what is right and admirable to maintain societal harmony. This leads to the indissolubility of human community. A person cut off from society or his/her community is non-existent because he/she is cut from the source of vitality which is his/her community. It is in this context that the Baraza and Indaba institutions are comprehended: as platforms whereby the common good is pursued inasmuch as the dignity of every human member of the community is acknowledged. Beside the interaction among the living members of the community, moral norms and ethical behaviours in many African communities are inspired by a cosmological understanding of the web of affinities that exist between the living, the living-dead and the environment where the community is established. To some extent, human conduct is not an isolated set of actions and attitudes independent of the African religious world view, based on the role that the Supreme Being – the Divine – exerts on the living, and the interdependence between the living and the living-dead (also known as ancestors). These interactions are demonstrated in sacrifices offered to and in veneration of the ancestors, who, in return, give protection, good harvests, success and development to the living. The ancestors, who serve as intermediaries between the living and the Supreme Being, expect the living to observe rules, norms and certain codes of conduct, which are sacred, in order to maintain societal harmony and prevent calamities. Ancestral prescriptions include interdicts on murder, insult of parents, environmental crimes and pollution of particular sacred spaces such as graveyards, streams and certain forests. All these aim to promote good moral behaviour.

Anthropocentric ethics Anthropocentrism has been presented as one dimension of African ethics inasmuch as the focal point of human relationships has been placed on moral action (Bujo 1998). Human relationships carry a significance between the living and the living-dead who are regarded as the dead-members of the comprehensive human community (Bujo 1998). The course of human action in traditional African societies was imbued with a consciousness of the impact of individual and community conduct on the invisible yet surrounding community of the living-dead. One would assume that the behaviour of a person was partly dictated by a consciousness that the ancestors watched over the individual or the entire community. Besides the belief in the influence exacted by the living-dead on the living, it is important to note also that moral norms are inspired by the deepest aspirations of society to preserve the cultural heritage that upholds the sanctity of life, and regulates interpersonal relationships through observance of standards for good or bad behaviour. The morality of human actions is determined by a personal and social consciousness that all humans share a common humanity: the humanness which is characteristic of each human person and the vital need that ensues from that awareness, namely solidarity among humans. Moral principles and rules arise from a particular society; however, they are applicable to a larger human society insofar as they constitute a response to basic vital human needs, interests and people’s sense of resolve and autodetermination (Gyekye 2010). Furthermore, African social ethos is defined as ‘a non-

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individualistic morality’, because life is shared and lived within a community (Gyekye 2010). It is within a given community that the common good is pursued.

Common good-centred ethics The pursuit of the common good emerges as the teleological underpinning of ethical norms and is comprehended within Aristotle’s thoughts on ethics as explained earlier. This implies the capacity of individual members of the community to rise above selfish interests so as to promote shared aspirations, as observed by Gyekye, who refers to the common good as that which galvanizes ‘the creation of a moral, social, political, or legal system for enhancing the well-being of people in a community’ (Gyekye 2010). The African world view on morality encompasses the perspective of Catholic social teaching with regards to the common good. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (paragraph 164) explains the common good as being what belongs to everyone: ‘it is and remains “common”, because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future’ (Vaticana 2004). The conceptualization of Christian morality vis-àvis the common good reflects the African social ethical notion of the finality of the common good – the welfare of the community in the present and in the future – and this needs not only an individual intervention but also a collective involvement of the community. This is explained as follows by Catholic social thought in paragraph 164 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church: ‘Just as the moral actions of an individual are accomplished in doing what is good, so too the actions of a society attain their full stature when they bring about the common good. The common good, in fact, can be understood as the social and community dimension of the moral good’ (Vaticana 2004). The social teaching of the Catholic Church adopts the ethical affirmation of the extent to which the pursuit of the common good can enhance harmonious living in society. According to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, paragraph 77, the attainment of the common good requires a coherent and multilevel understanding of concepts such as the human person, ‘society, freedom, conscience, ethics, law, justice, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, [and] the State’ (Vaticana 2004). These are key thoughts in the African social ethos, where the understanding of the human person is intrinsically associated with his/her relationship with a given community in particular, and society in general. In other words, African morality originates from humanism, the belief according to which human interests and welfare are fundamental to the ideas and actions of the people; and this is the doctrine underlying African moral thought embodied by the communitarian moral quintessence of African society (Gyekye 2010). The implication of this conviction suggests the search for common welfare and wellbeing which is contingent upon the practice of moral virtues. This is primarily a communitarian exercise which each individual member of the community strives to undertake within their respective community, and that at the same time requires the efforts and commitment of the entire concerned community. The elementary definition of ethics which closely resonated with the overarching argument in this paper is borrowed from Karen Rich (n.d.: 4) who defines it as: ‘a

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systematic approach to understanding, analyzing, and distinguishing matters of right and wrong, good and bad, and admirable and deplorable as they relate to the wellbeing of and the relationships [among] sentient beings’. This definition is shared by Mahlatsi (2017). Thus, the common good is an important dimension of the communitarian African social ethos, which gives a moral justification to dialogic institutions such as Indaba and Baraza, which represent two cultural forums through which people set standards that guide those living in society, and which aim at maintaining societal harmony and pursue the common good and integral development of the community. So, in order to safeguard traditional ethical norms, African philosophers have contributed to forging reflexive concepts of morality that hinge on a fundamental African world view – ethics or moral philosophy, which is sustained by a dialogical framework of problem-solving, and peacebuilding, which is ethical, humanistic and communitarian. Two main models are explored here, namely the Baraza and Indaba institutions. Though these constitute the key components of this chapter, the latter is studied along with the Imbizo for which it often lays the ground. The chapter also takes into account the characteristics of the Palaver, which entails inclusivity, as opposed to marginalization and exclusion, for seeking out means to attain common good.

Concept definitions and delimitations Three main concepts are explored here, namely Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo, and in the next section the three will be analysed through the lens of four African world views mentioned earlier to establish their ontological connectedness and affirm how and why they denote moral justification in African ethics and philosophy. The use and functionality of these three communicative models here are limited to their ethical function and moral rationale.

Baraza The word baraza means ‘veranda’ in the Kiswahili language of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and refers to a gathering of community leaders to discuss matters pertaining to the welfare and development of the community and social cohesion. It is initiated and presided over by a traditional leader (a Mwami or area chief/king, paramount chief) at the chieftaincy level, and by the president of the Intercommunity Baraza of Elders at the provincial level (Kiyala 2016). The Baraza has served as a conflict resolution, peacebuilding, economic and development forum and also as an indigenous jurisprudence – a non-adjudicative system of holding perpetrators accountable but which promotes reconciliation, healing, reparation and reintegration of the offender. Its structure puts the Mwami (king or area leader) as presider over the gathering, assisted by the custodians of customs, followed by the college of notables (wise men) who assist in all Baraza hearings while conveying the message of the folk (community) to the Chief. The role played by the custodians of customs consists in ensuring that ancestral norms (prescriptions, interdicts and rules) are not violated, and

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in providing the response to any transgressions that might have occurred and which have affected interpersonal relationships – or even the harmony between the livingdead (ancestors) and the living community. There exist two levels of Baraza, namely the local Baraza, which is established at the level of villages, chiefdoms and localities, and the Baraza la Waze Intercommunutaire (Intercommunity Baraza of Elders), which is composed of the representatives of the main communities of the North Kivu province, essentially the Hutu, Kano, Kumu, Nande, Nyanga, Tembo, Tutsi and fellow Congolese from remote provinces of the country (Kiyala 2016). The Intercommunity Baraza has focused on promoting intercommunity and interethnic social cohesion, always striving to assist in resolving contentious issues peacefully using the traditional African dialogic medium commonly known as the Palaver – the conversational institution during which all participants share equal dignity and rights to speak and to be heard in view of finding a solution to a problem. When gathered in the Baraza, community leaders strive to resolve conflict by means of dialogue and by performing some rituals. In some cases, reparative sanctions are employed to chastise the offender, but the ultimate aim of such sanction is restoration, rehabilitation and reintegration after personal renewal. The types of reparative deterrence utilized in this context include acknowledgement of offences committed, admission of guilt, asking for forgiveness, promising to refrain from reoffending, an acceptance of participation in the reparative ritual ceremonies and complying with other reparative measures such as monetary and symbolic offerings (goats, chickens or any other equivalent). The Baraza is still considered as an important social structure of community justice, conflict resolution and as a platform where matters of community development and welfare can be debated in a more participatory and collaborative way under the guidance of the Mwami and the custodians of customs who advise the chief. It has also been utilized to facilitate accountability of former child soldiers who have been accused of carrying out war atrocities in the North Kivu Province. It showed the potential for reconciling child soldiers with their respective communities and reintegrating them into society. It opens the way to healing, reintegration and acceptance of young soldiers in communities when they have perpetrated criminal actions by violating international law and international humanitarian law in armed conflict (Kiyala 2018). This institution is imbued with the humanistic, anthropocentric and communitarian principles that underscore African philosophy and ethics and which serve as a moral justification for the Baraza and Indaba. While Indaba and Baraza are educative, collaborative and participatory, an Imbizo decree is more authoritative and directional. In addition, Baraza is further used as indigenous jurisprudence.

Indaba Rev. Fr. Aaron Gabela, a priest of the Archdiocese of Durban in South Africa, reports: The term Indaba is one of those that have a lot of significance. Indaba is first of all a talk or story, which can be either spoken or written. It is somehow a form of conversation. Indaba is also a problem or an issue. Usually when someone has a

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long face or seems worried they are asked, yini indaba? The literal translation of this expression is, ‘What is the matter? What is it that is bothering you or what is the problem?’ Indaba is a meeting or gathering of people of different interest groups in order to find a common ground or resolution to issues. This kind of gathering is called by a chief or king, but nowadays even politicians invite people, on a national and international level, to attend an indaba. On both levels, it involves discussions, view-sharing, informing, problem-solving, proposals and resolutions.1

Fr. Gabela’s explanations support other contributors’ insights in this work. They comprehensively subscribe to the multifunctional definition of the Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo dialogic paradigms as noted in this essay.

Imbizo Fr. Gabela defines Imbizo as: A gathering or conference of people of one interest group to solve their problems and come out with suitable resolution/s. It is more on a tribal level, even though it can and is called at both international and national levels. The above-mentioned social leaders are still responsible for this kind of meeting. It is a dialogic or dialogical meeting where the views of the people are heard on a matter in question. Imbizo is normally held when there are burning issues which call for the community to come together and resolve them. Imbizo is meant to respond to social needs. It is always for the good of society. It is meant keep the society glued together and living in harmony. The often-discussed issues are justice and ethics. Relating Imbizo to Indaba, these two forums are very important for harmony in a society. The terms Indaba and Imbizo can also be used interchangeably, based on the context that delineates their definition and function.2

Indaba vs. Imbizo Rev. Fr. Sfiso Mpanza, a priest in the same archdiocese, reports: I would like to share my personal experience of growing up in Nyamazane, under the Mkhonto tribal authority led by induna (ward leader) Mr. R. Mbongwa, under the chieftaincy of inkosi (chief) M. Ntuli. This place is situated in KwaZulu-Natal in the Maphumulo municipality in the Ilembe region. In this text I would like to paint a picture of how Indaba and Imbizo are conceived; in doing that I will share my personal experience, which has some historical background from tradition. Indaba and Imbizo play multiple roles in this environment and surrounding areas, and even the government has taken the concept to bridge the two worlds of political and tribal leadership. In the area mentioned above problems are discussed in almost all stages of life and various levels of the community. At night children are told stories around the fire about their origins and the genealogy of each family. For instance, a family Indaba sorts out family issues including the lobola [dowry]

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settlement and marriages. This Indaba stands also as a model of family or community dispute resolutions when disagreements arise. In the area where I grew up, the induna (ward leader) would act only once he had listened to both sides of the people involved in the dispute. However, the elders of the community would be present to ensure that justice has been attained. They would act as the people who keep knowledge and know the stories and families; at times they would even know people and property boundaries. Recently, with the democratic government the traditional authority exists alongside the democratically elected leadership. In this instant they continue to support the government in making sure that the rights of rural people are protected. An Indaba or Imbizo will be called for development processes to begin. They would be consulted about properties, and should there be any disputes they would help easily, for they know each member of the community.3

The concept of Indaba goes to the heart of social cohesion and stability in a community, society and even the nation. Both Indaba and Imbizo serve a similar purpose: to address, in public, critical matters that affect the community. It is critically important to note that the two words, Imbizo and Indaba, are typically Zulu in origin and are on many occasions used interchangeably. However, using the two words mutatis mutandis is incorrect. Indaba refers to a conference or get-together called by an overseer/chief or induna to discuss and sort out community concerns, and to discuss and agree changes as to how certain matters are to be dealt with or handled in the future. The Indaba is a participatory and interactive discussion and demands free and full participation by the subjects under the king or the Paramount Chief. These discussions are interactive and based on dialogic principles. An Indaba can be called by anyone in a community leadership position: be it a mayor, an induna or ward councillor. A good example is that of an induna in charge of an isigodi (a region, a district or given precinct/area in the Zulu Nation). On receiving a complaint or a message from the chief about taking community action, the induna will call an Indaba in which all the people of the isigodi he oversees have to participate. All will be expected to contribute to the discussion with wisdom and relevant ideas susceptible of resolving matters of critical importance for that particular isigodi. Often, the outcome of the meeting and the way forward, such as the implementation of the resolutions taken at an Indaba, are attained through consensus. An Indaba is an inclusive process, and strives to see that no participant leaves the gathering with the sentiment of being marginalized or not heard.4 When there is an issue or matters of serious concern that affects the isigodi, the induna calls for an Indaba where he meets his councillors to discuss ways of solving those issues in a more collaborative, consensual and participatory manner. At the level of the Zulu Nation, it is the prerogative of the Imbube (the Zulu monarch) who first convokes the amaKhosi (Zulu lords) and izinduna to discuss emerging problems that affect the well-being and harmony in the nation before taking such concerns to an Imbizo. In cases such as communicating the resolutions taken by the central government with the purpose of carrying out far-reaching changes in land ownership or taxation, control of veld fires in winter or raising money for a district project, the Imbizo becomes a channel to spread information widely, thus avoiding asymmetrical

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information.5 Everyone gets to know what has been decided, and the king summons his nation to take action directly. Only the monarch can call an Imbizo; this is always at a level higher than an Indaba, and the king maps the way forward on critical matters concerning the nation. The monarch instructs the people and gives the direction to be followed to tackle issues of concern laid down in his speech, notably that which has occasioned the Imbizo. How then do Indaba and Imbizo fit within the traditional administrative system of Zululand? Regarding the structure of traditional leadership in the Zulu Nation, Inkosi Mkhize, a prominent member of the Zulu Nation, explains: When referring to the Zulu King/Monarch, it is more appropriate to use the term, iSilo or Imbube. The term iNkosi is an honorific that not only refers to His Majesty, but also to other Senior Traditional Leaders that report directly to him. Outside the province of KwaZulu-Natal such Senior Traditional Leaders are referred to as Chiefs, a word that is not used nor legislated in this province as it is derogatory. INkosi has a clan of his own called iSizwe. The plural of iNkosi is amaKhosi. W[h]ere we [are] in England, amaKhosi would be synonymous with Lords [. . .] Induna is directly appointed by iNkosi to look after his different precincts called isigodi (plural is izigodi). Each induna has his different isigodi that he/she oversees. He is assisted by amakhansela eNkosi (Traditional Council Members), who are selected and elected by iNkosi and iSizwe respectively at an election every five years.6

So, with respect to the Imbizo, it is the sole prerogative of the king and his privileged forum of communication to the nation. It takes place at a level higher than the Indaba. The king maps out the way forward and tells his people what he wants done, how things are to be done, by whom and by when. The communication made by the monarch is equivalent to a legal decree in indigenous Zulu jurisprudence. Furthermore, the aim of such a forum is to let everyone in Zululand know the king’s decision, whether that concerns consolidating peace or going to war.7

Moral justification of Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo This section presents the core argument of the thesis supported by this work, based on African ethics and philosophy. It incorporates both individual testimonies from local people where Indaba and Imbizo are practised, the literature on Baraza, and frames these experiences within the context of four concepts, namely African communitarianism, African humanism, African socialism and the African Palaver. Rev. Fr. Gabela asserts: Since Indaba and Imbizo are meant to come up with resolutions on issues which concern a society, they are the right platform for moral justification of African ethics. Society expects people to behave in a particular way, and that particular

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kind of behaviour is discussed and approved in such meetings. Ethical values are not inborn, but taught and practised. The more they are practised the more spontaneously they happen. It is impossible to imagine this prior to Indaba or Imbizo. This, however, is in no way negating the natural law, but on the contrary it discovers and puts it into practice. African philosophy is, in all its diversity, centred on the human person and practice though some moral concepts are abstract. The oral traditional seems to be prevalent, even though some of these ethical values are in writing. Normally, they are orally handed on from one generation to another. This is a responsibility of each family, though society does indirectly form a human person. The human formation, in the past, was not just left to a family but it was the responsibility of the whole society. What the children could not do in front of their parents they would also not do in front of any elder who was given the same respect as their own parents. The elders in those days could punish any child for not behaving, and their parents would praise them for doing so, which is no longer the case today, and the child would be further punished for embarrassing the family. Indaba or Imbizo was not only called to create moral laws, but to evaluate them now and then. If there was something that had gone wrong as far as the execution is concerned, Indaba would be called to find a way forward. Therefore, there is this constant contact with people to guarantee the implementation of the resolutions and also to assess if they are viable. The dos and don’ts are suggested and approved in these forums and so are the sanctions.8

There are a few doctrines upon which African social ethics is grounded. These include: the communitarian characteristic of the human person’s ontological nature; the humanistic dimension of interpersonal relationships (also called ubuntu); the brotherly existential attribute of the human person and social being, which Julius Nyerere calls ‘African socialism’; ‘African anthropocentricity’ which emphasizes the capital significance of human relationships aiming for moral action; and the dialogic institution called the Palaver through which society is built around the Word in interactive conversation or dialogue.

African communitarianism: the ontological relatedness of personhood and community The concept of community is closely linked to personhood, and both make social structure, according to Gyekye (1998). He looks into the question of a human person as a self-sufficient atomic individual who has little if any need to connect to others for his existence. He also examines whether a person has an ontological preponderance over community and he reflects on the fundamental communitarian dimension of a person as ontologically interrelated to others. In the African social ethos, a human person is defined as a communal being living in interdependent webs of interrelationships and this excludes the idea of a person being an isolated atom, but rather a being-with and social being. Tshiamalenga Ntumba (cited by Ngoy 2005) argues that this universal unity which he calls ‘Community We’ negates all sorts of existential dualisms:

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African metaphysical ‘community we’ expresses a whole and a unity that reconciles all forms of dualism: God-man, soul-body, elite-people, etc. . . . he makes use of various domains. An example is the concept of environment, which ordinarily places man at the centre, whereas man is a microcosm, and he is the very environment: air, water and minerals are constituent parts of the human person. 167

Ngoy observes that Tshamalenga Ntumba moved further in interpreting the I–You metaphysical unity of we in Western philosophy by developing the concepts of l’unité du nous englobant et processuel (‘the unity of the encompassing and processual us’); nous sans frontiers (‘we without borders’) or Bisoïte (‘the essential condition of being who we are’ in Lingala slang) (166). The notion of ‘we without borders’ reflects the African socialist thought of the ujamaa, developed by Julius Nyerere, to which we will come back later. Ujamaa denotes intersubjective relation which Nyerere describes in terms of socialism: ‘We have found by simple experience that tools do help! So we make the hoe, the axe, or the modern factory or tractor, to help us to produce wealth – the goods we need’ (1962). This metaphysical description of We in African socialism is comprehended beyond the I and Thou relation in Buber’s (1958) personalism. Bidima (2004) asserts that Western philosophy has overvalued I–Thou while overlooking ‘the dialogical community where intersubjectivity is the foundation’ of interrelationships, and that We or Biso (in the Lingala language) denotes ‘a logical and ontological priority over the I of I–Thou’ (554). However, Buber’s notion of intersubjective relation in I and Thou along with Levinas’s ontology and phenomenology embodied in the Epiphany of the Face (1991) stand as profound moral principles that sustain non-violent living in society. The worth of Levinasian ethics of intersubjective relations is framed in the following citation: ‘The other person as he comes before me in a face to face encounter is an alter ego, another self with different properties and accidents but in all essential respect like me’ (1991: 13). This lays down the path for fostering good-living with the other and such a moral standard should permeate the whole society by privileging dialogue as the tool that binds the person and community together. Levinasian metaphysics and social ethics, though, does not contrast the underlying truth of Ntumba’s moral philosophy. Ntumba associates the notion of metaphysical We with the notion of relationships, which are not simply mechanical, but moreover dialogical because of the ontological connectedness of the metaphysical We (Bidima 2004; Ngoy 2005). Thus, the concepts of community and personhood are intimately bound together, and this explains the moral nature of this encompassing unity of unlimited We which is supported by the Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo communicative institutions in their commitment to hospitality, solidarity and the pursuit of the common good. The human person remains a communal being who depends on others without losing his/her autonomy, in terms of self-determination. Society is therefore a locus of searching for, pursuing, sharing and fulfilling common goals, interests and values in a way that involves interpersonal relationships which shape community (Gyekye 1998: 317). Without intending to engage in a philosophical debate on the concept of personhood as discussed by some African philosophers (Gyekye 1998; Ramose 2002; Menkiti 1984), it can be postulated that the African concept of personhood is closely connected

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to the community. Current debates show that the community has a preponderant role to play when individuals find themselves in interwoven relationships that make them members of the community. In these interrelations, the community has primacy over individuals (Gyekye 1998: 331). Gyekye describes society in terms of biological and non-biological, or interpersonal, bonds that unite a group of persons who remain connected to each other. He further asserts that it is a place where goals, interests and values are shared by several persons and these elements shape the community (317). He observes that when a person neglects his/her responsibilities towards others or lacks sensitivity to the needs of others he/she goes against the communitarian principle (317, 331). For instance, in a community where social relations, concern and compassion for others are stressed, some rights may not be necessary. Communitarian theory gives priority to duties rather than rights of individuals, for duty is a ‘moral tone’ that responds to common good and communal welfare. Duty here is defined as tasks, service and conduct or functions that a person undertakes as a moral obligation. These tasks are performed in respect of another person or other persons. This is articulated in these terms: ‘The duties which some members of the community feel they owe others by reason of a common humanity and should demonstrate in practice, are such as the duty to help others in distress, the duty not to harm others, and so on’ (331). On the other hand, Menkiti (1984) describes personhood as a being defined and emanating from the community. He affirms: ‘in the African view it is the community which defines the person as person, not some isolated static quality of rationality, will, or memory’ (172). This communitarian dimension of interpersonal relationships and their close link to community explain why restorative justice is close to the African world view. This implies that when victims and perpetrators are entangled by the consequences of a crime, the community is simultaneously affected. The needs that arise from an offence expand into the entire community, which becomes obliged to play a significant role in addressing it. Communitarianism is closely linked to humanity in the African social ethos due to the fact that many African communities look at human interrelations as a broader brotherhood. Gyekye notes: ‘The term “brotherhood” has come to refer to an association of men and/or women with common aims and interests’ (Gyekye 2010). The underlying philosophy and morality conveyed by the notion of brotherhood can be understood as the universality of interrelations among all humans as they seek to attain their common interests, goals and welfare. There is a common trend to link African ethics to theology, in the sense that morality is influenced by African traditional religion. But this view is mitigated by Gyekye (2010) who notes that African morality is not inspired by traditional belief and traditional religion, which is a non-revealed religion; thus, African religion does not contain sets of moral values and principles that can inspire a given African society. In a similar vein, Bujo (1998) notes that ‘African ethics is primarily anthropocentric and [the] theocentric aspect has not been properly studied’ (25). However, he observes that the Massai believe that there is one God who is a spiritual being, the creator of all things; he is ‘almighty, ubiquitous, omniscient, merciful and eternal’ (25). He further asserts that because God is omnipotent – the Supreme Ruler of everything – he is also generally the custodian of moral laws and morality; he gratifies the righteous and

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chastises the evil doers (25). Thus, the Massai strive to live good lives to escape God’s punishment (ngai); they further have rules such as not stealing from another person. This suggests that morally good behaviours are inspired by the theological understanding of the Supreme Being and the way he regulates society to influence sets of personal or social standards for good or bad conduct. To support this view, Bujo refers to God’s commandments among the consequences of human actions. Belief in this God is common among the population of Kenya (Massai, Gikuyu, Akamba peoples); the DRC (the Bashi, Bahema and Banande); among the Banyarwanda; the Barundi; and the Bassa of Cameroon (26). Bujo (1998) and Gyekye (1992) underline the pursuit of common good as the goal of human action. The contrary would be evil, because that would prevent the growth of the community. It follows that the search for common good becomes the ultimate measure of the morality of an action or behaviour. In this regard, Eze (2008, 109) points out: ‘The pursuit of the common good need not undermine individual subjectivity nor yield to univocal unanimity insofar as the good of the community is dependent on an intersubjective affirmation and unique subjectivities.’ Subsequently, in the context of South Africa and the eastern DRC, structures utilized to forge the way to achieving common interests (whether these be social needs such as justice, rights, social development, economic growth, or peace and societal harmony) are Indaba and Baraza, respectively, which will be explained as forms of moral justification. This communitarian and anthropocentric understanding of personhood justifies the need for community engagement through Baraza and Indaba in efforts to achieve peace and development of the human community. However, this understanding is not isolated from the spirit of ubuntu, which is evoked as the driving force behind reconciliation, forgiveness and mutual respect and acceptance in society.

African humanism: The philosophy of ubuntu Ramose (2002, 224) expounds the concept of ubuntu as a principle that is foundational of human moral behaviour inasmuch as it connects several categories, namely muntu (‘person’) or bantu (‘people’), and kintu (‘thing’). Ubuntu substantiates these categories and brings them together. Umuntu (‘human being’) features the ontological dimensions of a human person, these being political and religious (Ramose 2002, 225). It is sourced from the Zulu wisdom that ubuntu originates from the conception of personhood carried in the Zulu maxim umuntu ugumuntu ngabantu or the Sotho version of it, motho ke motho ka batho, translated as ‘a person is a person through other persons’ (Shutte 1993 and Ramose 2002 cited in Louw 2008: 161). Ramose (2002: 380) describes Umuntu in the following terms: Umuntu is the being which renders the coincidence between ontology and epistemology meaningful. Through the faculty of consciousness or self-awareness, Umuntu releases the speech of being, and pursues its rationality by means of dialogue of being with be-ing. The interaction of the latter as an indivisible part of be-ing-with be-ing as wholeness is the reason for our statement, namely, the ‘dialogue of being with being’.

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According to Dolamo (2013: 1), ‘Botho/Ubuntu is therefore an integral part of African ethics that is steeped in issues of liberation, development, identity, etc. It has to do with a person’s integrity and dignity.’ It is understood that these concepts determine the ethical personhood, the ontological characteristic of a person as good or bad. Mahlatsi (2017) explains this as follows: In the Basotho (plural for Mosotho in the Lesotho population) community, the designation ke motho refers to a good person. Thus botho expresses ‘humanness’ because it alludes to the inner being of an individual, it goes as deep as to the soul of the person, and the description as good or bad, right or wrong is essential in establishing botho. From the point of view of the African communitarian social ethos, ubuntu commands the values that sustain interpersonal relationships, such as mutual love, mutual service, mutual respect, reciprocal care and sharing. It follows that ubuntu excludes the child soldiering practice, human trafficking, slavery, gender-based sexual violence, economic exploitation, economic and social inequalities, political oppression, ethnic cleansing, xenophobia and genocide. It expresses a conviction to build a more humane, peaceful and caring society where conflict and dissension are dealt with collaboratively and peacefully. The tenets conveyed by ubuntu or botho are lived up to and experienced in society and pursued by the Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo institutions. Furthermore, ubuntu promotes respect for human rights and human dignity, and opens society to the Palaver and dialogue as means of conflict resolution, peacebuilding and reconciliation. Skelton (2013: 173) maintains: ‘Dignity and respect are viewed as central values, and this links closely to the African concept of Ubuntu.’ These values are the pillars of a community conceived as a family which provides a pragmatic model of human interaction that could be universalized. A society is not an association. It is a place where individual members share the same goals, interests, values and etiquettes that shape community life (Gyekye 1998: 317). In the same vein, Ramose (2002: 228) speaks of the ubuntu ethos or philosophy as deeply rooted in the family model of relationships. Extended to the whole of humankind, the whole world becomes a mega-family where human relationships are anchored in love and mutual care. The result of this social ethos is the opening up to reparation for harm caused by any person that makes up the community. Any act that affects interpersonal relationships is likely to impact on the community. So reconciliation involves not only disputants entangled in a conflict, but their community as well. It follows that using ubuntu becomes the appropriate route to reconciliation and societal harmony. In my view, this philosophy excludes the retribution and humiliation that may be intended against a wrongdoer as inflicted by conventional punitive trials. There is a close link between the four African socio-philosophical trends that are discussed here, namely African communitarianism, the philosophy of ubuntu, the ethics of ujamaa and the Palaver tradition. Dr. Ben Ngubane notes the following regarding ubuntu: This is an African trait borne of strenuous migration from central Africa to the Deep South. We learned that people matter; that each needs and depends on others; that being self-centred and therefore disdainful of others does not pay. When my neighbour or relative needs help I should respond positively. Now of

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course the concept [ubuntu] is being abused. Government offices have Batho Pele which is Sotho for Ubuntu, yet some civil servants are most insensitive to the plight of poor people.9

Writing on the impact of ubuntu and communitarianism in media ethics, Christians (2004: 236) notes: ‘In the South African context, the philosophy of Ubuntu represents the communitarian consciousness, and it arises from African traditions without emulating European versions.’ He links the ubuntu social ethos to the notion that the community comes before the person, and ubuntu communitarianism springs forth from its absolute focus on humans and its emphasis on the moral dimension of society. In that sense, the dialoguing nature of Baraza and Indaba fits within the African normative set-up whereby ethical communication is pursued for peace and societal harmony even when the media is employed. To support this point, Christians avers: ‘We are born into a socio-cultural universe where values, moral commitments and existential meanings are negotiated dialogically’ (237). In a similar vein, Ogunbanjo and van Bogaert (2005) see the essence of communitarianism in the pursuit of the common good, the attainment of peace, and the search for ‘harmony, stability, solidarity, mutual reciprocity and sympathy [which] are the social values upheld by communalism’ (51). The same view is held by Eze (2008) who states: ‘Ubuntu is a politics of the common good according to which collective pursuit of ends as shared by members of a community is the primary political aim’ (109). Ogunbanjo and van Bogaert continue: ‘Generosity, compassion, solidarity, and social wellbeing are the ethical values communitarianism has at heart’ (2005: 51). Their views translate the objectives that Indaba and Baraza seek to achieve, namely societal harmony, the well-being of all, justice, peace and human development. Fr. Mpanza observes: In the Zulu culture the Ubuntu philosophy is visible in many ways, especially in making sure that the rights of people are protected. The saying Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, or ‘a person is a person because of others’ becomes a mantra of making sure that you treat others with respect and as you would want also to be treated. You are nothing without others, so there must be mutual respected among human persons. In the Zulu consciousness regarding Indaba or Imbizo, should there be a feeling that one undermines or ignores his or her community and its tradition, even if he or she intends to bring something good, that person would not be allowed. If one misses the Imbizo there is a fine which one will have to pay. This is to make sure that one attends these meetings and participate in building the society. In this way the community is aware of anything that disturbs peace within the community. People share in the joy of others, and community becomes your extended family, as it were. Imbizo will not only deal with disputes, but also deals with community development. With the birth of democracy the rural areas were subdivided to accommodate municipalities to form developmental goals. The tribal authority and elected government authorities prevented a bloodbath where borders crossed different chiefdoms. If it weren’t for Imbizo, a common understanding would have not been possible.10

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Rev. Fr. Gabela observes: Ubuntu is a very broad concept and cannot be summed up in one definition. It is said that it was popularised by Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. He and other political leaders ‘made an impassioned plea’ for an African moral philosophy of Ubuntu/botho. Ubuntu denotes more than a single definition or characterisation, and according to Mabogo (2004) it has been variously equated with African communalism or African humanism, and has been associated with values such as ‘caring, sharing, hospitality, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, honesty, humility, or ‘brotherhood” [Mabogo 2004: 156 cited by Fr. Gabela]. Ubuntu is an ancient term amongst the Nguni people of Africa or sub-Saharan people (known as the Bantu). I prefer to talk about the Ngunis of Africa rather than of South Africa because there are Ngunis in Zimbabwe and Malawi as well as Zambia. Ubuntu is that which suitably qualifies a person as a human being. In other words, it is that essential characteristic that distinguishes a human being from any other being; especially an animal. There is a common name in Zulu, one of the main Nguni languages, for someone who is not fully human. The name for this kind of person is inswelaboya, which literally means ‘the one who lacks fur’. He lacks fur to be fully animal instead of a human being [as a rational being]. However, in this context, it has all to do with ethics rather than rationality per se. The inference that someone is inswelaboya is based on his demonstrated conduct. Ethical behaviour confirms the humanity of a person. This must not be considered to mean that a human person is less human prior to his ethical conduct. The term ubuntu also concerns a relationship between people and it is here called communalism. The Zulu expression umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu sums up what communalism ought to be. This expression literally means ‘a person is a person because of other people’. However, many authors have translated it using more or less the same words. The heart of this expression is human beings’ interdependence. This denotes an indispensable social aspect of a human person as a social being. Human conduct always concerns the other person. Since ubuntu is inseparable from social life, it cannot but be one of the most important factors in Indaba or Imbizo, where ethical issues are discussed and promulgated. People come together to discuss how can they live in harmony with each other. Harmony in its proper sense cannot be divorced from ethics. Social harmony implicitly means ethical conduct.11

These statements by Fr. Mpanza and Fr. Gabela elucidate furthermore to what extent Indaba and Imbizo pursue common good, societal harmony, attain and sustain peace in the community, and convey moral principles underlying such as the communitarian ethos which must prevail in ‘person to person’ and ‘person to community’ interrelationships. It becomes evident that an Indaba or an Imbizo remain two important vehicles of long-standing moral values in the Zulu Nation and other Nguni traditional societies. In spite of criticisms of African communitarianism, such as overburdening individuals, there is still the opportunity for every society to critically explore the

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richness and adaptability of ubuntu in difficult contexts where the need for harmonizing social relationships requires non-punitive intervention and reconciliation. I note here that sustainable peace relies on agreement, consensus and restorative dialogue. In South Africa, during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an ubuntu spirit prevailed and this was set as the guiding principle of the Commission, which became the catalyst for transformation in post-apartheid South Africa (Louw 2008: 160). Umuntu is the being endowed with the faculty of consciousness or self-awareness, who declares his being via the medium of speech, and attains rationality through dialogue in interrelations with other beings (Ramose 2002). The interaction with the latter – as an indivisible part of be-ing with be-ing as wholeness – is the reason for our statement, namely the ‘dialogue of being with being’ (225). The dialogic dimension of ubuntu is comprehended as ‘restorative communication’ that deepens interpersonal reconciliation between parties entangled in a stake and enhances social reconciliation between victims, offenders and the community (Louw 2008: 167). Similarly, Dzur and Wertheimer (2002: 3–7 cited in Louw 2008: 167) aver: ‘[Dialogue] vents harmful emotions, repairs relationships, and importantly, challenges any stereotypes that partners in dialogue (that is, the victim, offender and community) may harbour.’ As affirmed by InKosi Mkhize: ‘The institution of UbuKhosi (Traditional Leadership in the Zulu culture) aims to promote principles of peace, restorative justice, being custodians of culture, and advocating for moral regeneration.’12 The platform utilized to drive home this message is Indaba or Imbizo. The same applies to the Baraza in the eastern DRC.

African socialism: ujamaa as the foundation Reflecting on the impact of colonialism and the capitalist trends emerging in Africa in this context, Julius Nyerere initiated a reflection on the ontological dimension of society and he developed the concept of ujamaa as ‘the basis of the African Socialism’ (1987). The fundamental rules of ujamaa, according to Nyerere (1962) are summarized as follows: (1) African socialism is an attitude of mind that prompts people to care for the welfare of one other; (2) Society provides security to each of its members and the hospitality needed everywhere; (3) Each member of society contributes to the overall wealth of society by his/her fair share in producing that wealth; (4) Individuals exist within the framework of the entity called ‘community’, where individuals and community care for each other mutually; (6) The land belongs to the community; prosperity and wealth are shared in an unselfish and non-exploitative way; (7) Prosperity and wealth are generated by mass participation to bring them forth; (8) Society is construed in the idea of family that is expanded to include every person, beyond tribal, regional, and continental borders.

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To explain hospitality, Nyerere used the Kiswahili idiom Mgeni siku mbili; siku ya tatu mpe jembe, meaning, in English, ‘Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day give him a hoe’ (Nyerere 1987: 6). Going back to African traditional values such as mutual care, solidarity, distributive justice, and society as a widely conceived family, Nyerere opposed the European socialism born of the Agrarian Revolution and Industrial Revolution. These two revolutions in the West fathered conflicts and civil war as a result of social disparities and economic classes built on human exploitation. He notes: ‘These two revolutions planted the seeds of conflict within society, and not only was European socialism born of that conflict, but its apostles sanctified the conflict itself into a philosophy’ (1987: 9). He further asserts that, in this process, ‘Civil war was no longer looked upon as something evil, or something unfortunate, but as something good and necessary’ (9). It follows that African socialism is imbued with communitarianism and humanitarianism built on the idea of personhood as emanating from community and as actors of its progress. A person defines his/her personhood in relation to other individual members of society who identify themselves with their land which is a means of subsistence and commonwealth. Each member contributes to this community-generated wealth that should in return benefit all. Humanitarianism here evolves as recognition of the shared humanity and the humanness of each member of the community, and this gives meaning to interpersonal relationships and mutual relations between individuals and the community to which they belong and the larger community, understood as the universal human family. Each person is treated with dignity and respect and he/she is considered as having equal worth. Although Nyerere does not explicitly mention restorative justice, the underpinnings of the social ethos make Ujamaa reflect the idea of a fair and just society that prevents any instance of violence against another. When these relations are broken by unresolved conflicts, the mechanisms of restoring these should be modelled on the family approach to conflict resolution, when members of the same family are involved in a dispute or have hurt each other. The concept of ujamaa denotes equality of all people and distributive justice. Ujamaa is based on equal distribution of wealth, the establishment of a society without discrimination or social classes, where people relate to each other as members of one family, as brothers and sisters, father and mother, parents and children. Nyerere expresses this sociability in a Kiswahili idiom which was the creed of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU): Binadamu wote ni ndugu zangu, na Africa ni moja, which means ‘I believe in human brotherhood and the unity of Africa’ (10). Nyerere laid the idea of the universality of the human family in the philosophy of African Socialism, ujamaa or ‘familyhood’ or ‘universal familyhood’. He remarks that ujamaa is not taught to African socialists, but it is a patrimony that has been in Africa ever since he introduced it. It follows that the philosophy of ujamaa can no longer be limited to the idea of a social family meaning a tribe, or the nation, but rather a universal family that brings together every human being regardless of his/her geographical origin (Nyerere 1962). Nyerere maintains: ‘Our recognition of the family to which we all belong must be extended yet further – beyond the tribe, the community, the nation, or even

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the continent – to embrace the whole society of mankind. This is the only logical conclusion for true socialism’ (1987: 11). This view is acknowledged by Onwubiko (2001: 33, 34): that Ujamaa is not conceptually limited to family relationships. It is extended to the whole human race, to all the people who share a common humanity. This unity implies that every person should be considered as a brother or a sister to each another, enjoying the same privileges and same rights as in a family. This conceptualization of family-bond interrelations excludes racial, tribal or gender discrimination, injustice, oppression, and inflicting inhumanities on other humans. A debate on the economic achievements of ujamaa, considered by some scholars as an experiment of socialism in Africa, does not have much space in this study. A scrutiny of Nyerere’s economic and political policy successes (Ibhawoh and Dibua 2003), or the related issues of socialism and democracy in an African context and the background of Nyerere (Stöger-Eising 2000) are beyond the scope of this inquiry, which focuses on the social ethos and the philosophical principles of ujamaa as a model of social interaction, justice and prevention of inhumanities. Ibhawoh and Dibua (2003) look into Ujamaa from various angles, namely as a political ideology, an economic strategy and a basis for distributive justice. Picturing society as a family underlines the ethical responsibility that emerges in every aspect of life within society with regard to respect vis-à-vis each other, handling conflicts, the way criminals are treated, the responsibility for and care of children, and justice and reconciliation among members of the same family. This is also an attitude of mind that prompts each person to regard the other as having dignity and worth. Subjective knowledge that is built on wrong perceptions and erroneous assumptions about others is likely to generate authoritarianism and cause humanitarian tragedies such as holocausts and genocide and the like. True knowledge in intersubjective relationships ought to be grounded in humility and respect for the other. Such consciousness is likely to prevent any instance of inhumanity that begins with the negation of the otherness of fellow humans. The consequences of this attitude lead to trampling on the dignity and rights of others. Our understanding of restorative justice requires that we move away from the conventional interpretation of justice, perceived as settlement, in the direction of prevention. Fair deal, fair share, respect of the other, self-respect and the recognition of the humanity of the other are acts of justice. Restoration helps avert the propensity for violence that often arises from unsettled disputes. Restorative justice intervenes to fix the wrongs arising from the mishandling of the original justice (lack of fair dealing with each other). On the level of the ‘collective’/community this justice is broadened to fair relational engagement that means mutual responsibility between community and its individual members. This is the basis of communitarianism and humanism. There is a strong link between ujamaa and the Imbizo called by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini that took place at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on 20 April 2015 in the wake of xenophobic attacks against foreigners living in South Africa.13 Peroshni Govender (2020) reported for Reuters and quotes the king urging the crowds assembled to calm, as he said: ‘We need to make sure no more foreigners are attacked. We must

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stop these vile acts.’ Similarly, in the Guardian, Smith (2015) reports the king as saying: ‘I called you all here today so we can start a real war which is needed now. The war I am referring to is to ensure that all foreign nationals in South Africa, regardless of which country they come from, are protected.’ Thus, the Zulu monarch managed to quell the looming anti-foreigner aggression by sending a strong message against anti-xenophobic attacks at the April 2015 Imbizo. It is reported that 10,000 people were to gather at Moses Mabhida Stadium, and these included amakhosi, izinduna and amabutho (regiments/traditional warriors). One should note that, prior to this, the monarch had met amaKhosi (Zulu lords) and izinduna (headmen/chiefs) in charge of various izigodi (rural Zulu communities). Despite controversial statements criticizing King Goodwill Zwelithini’s approach and xenophobic violence message as reported in an article written by Hogg (2015) and by Smith (2015), the imminent physical attacks against foreign nationals living in South Africa were averted and the worst was avoided. This is how Indaba and Imbizo were jointly utilized to offer hospitality to African immigrants residing on South African soil. In the same way, the DRC Intercommunity Baraza of Elders (BWI) has been dealing with intercommunity violence and has managed in some instances to settle conflicts between neighbouring ethnic communities which have turned into rivals in the DRC (Kiyala 2016). In 2007, the BWI successfully persuaded Laurent Nkunda, a DRC rebel of Tutsi descent, to end his rebellion which he is presumed to have launched against Goma (the capital of North Kivu province) to protect the Tutsis (settlers from Rwanda) whose presence was threatening peace in the DRC (Kiyala 2016). In 2010, the BWI managed to quell violent conflicts opposing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the Coalition of Resisting Congolese Patriots (PARECO), which caused the displacement of many people from their communities in Walikale in North Kivu (Kiyala 2016). It is evident that African social ethics as conveyed by Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo unleashes communitarian vitality as it pursues non-confrontational resolution of disputes, forges social cohesion, and paves the way for mutual acceptance and global hospitality that can lead each person to embrace values that are not inimical to solidarity, peace, societal harmony, mutual respect, and which foster human dignity and seek to attain and protect individual liberties and human rights. As noted earlier, the most powerful ethical communicative instrument is the African Palaver. The next section explores this communication institution.

African Palaver as a tool of Baraza and Indaba Baraza and Indaba have evolved as community-based models of conflict resolution and indigenous jurisprudence. The Baraza emerges from the roots of Palaver, that is, a ‘dialoguing institution of unlimited domain’ (Ngoyi 2006: 173). Dialogue has been used as the key tool of alternative dispute resolution, negotiation, peace consolidation and societal harmony. The Baraza ensured that peace and societal harmony was maintained among ethnic groups and communities in the same neighbourhood. As noted by Sheid (2011: 19): ‘Given the violent conflict that continues to roil parts of Africa today, it is

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critical to make explicit African traditions that emphasize reconciliation, advance the common good, and encourage a just peace.’ The Palaver works on the principle that all participants in the conversation or dialogue are partners with equal privileges to engage with each other for as long as is necessary (Ngoyi 2006: 173). Drawing from the Congolese moral theologian Bénézet Bujo, Scheid (2011) explains the ‘Palaver tree’ as an important principle/model for post-conflict reconciliation for ‘[t]he palaver creates physical, social, and psychological space for open communication so that persons can be integrated into the life and expectations of their communities’ (17). The Palaver is also identified as a medium of education, a means of healing sickness and of instilling moral standards in community members, and reconciling enemies. This understanding of the human person defines the importance of dialogic institutions such as Baraza which use the Palaver praxis and ubuntu ethos to regulate interrelationships and respond to various needs of the community, including the common good, in a collaborative fashion. Indaba and Baraza as dialogic institutions are rooted in communitarianism, and they embed normative principles that define a person as intrinsically social and communitarian. Communitarianism here entails promotion of persuasion instead of coercion in the search for ‘pro-social behaviour through counselling, conflict resolution, communication, pluralism, and consensus through dialogue’ (Ogunbanjo and van Bogaert 2005: 51).

Conclusion The customary dialoguing institutions Baraza and Indaba have a long tradition of pursuing the common good, societal harmony, economic development, justice and equality. In the process of achieving this, these two traditions – the Baraza and Indaba – prove to have been inspired by African social ethos and a philosophy that puts the human person at the centre of interrelationships within the framework of the society/ community from which the human person draws vitality. A review of four African doctrines, identified as African communitarianism, the philosophy of ubuntu, the ethics of ujamaa and the African Palaver practice, sustains the idea that Baraza and Indaba underscore an ethical justification of the African social and philosophical world view. This reasoning is substantiated by core thinking behind the collective and communitarian approach for dealing with crises, planning for the welfare of the community, preventing conflict and violence, consolidating peace, dealing with violence in a more comprehensive way, acknowledging the shared humanity of all, and broadening the concept of brotherly interrelationships to the global human community. The aspirations of African communitarianism, humanism and socialism are imbued with the search for the common good, the pursuit of solidarity and the commitment to collective action that is negotiated and decided via the Palaver practice. Attainment of individual and community well-being, protection of liberties and rights, and respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life are enhanced by a constant reference to the principles of ubuntu, ujamaa and the Palaver – the tenets that guide and sustain Baraza,

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Indaba and Imbizo, and determine the morality of human action in an African context. Furthermore, these ethical postulates seek the welfare of the global community, achieve post-conflict reconciliation, nation-building and national healing, and encourage sustainable peace and mutual acceptance. Ubuntu, ujamaa and the Palaver are juxtaposed with perennial conflict, enmity, social exclusion, marginalization, indifference, war and quarrels. These moral propositions are essentially the principles that guide Baraza and Indaba. For this reason, it is obvious to conclude that, when Baraza, Indaba and Imbizo are imbued with the spirit of ujamaa, ubuntu and Bisoïte, and employ African Palaver as a means of communication, they hold moral justification in African ethics and philosophy.

Acknowledgements This paper was sponsored by grants from the South African National Research Foundation: Grants UID No. 88906 and UID No. 106485. It benefited from the contributions of Inkosi Sbonelo N. Mkhize, Mr. Bongani Cele, Dr. Baldwin Sipho ‘Ben’ Ngubane, Rev. Fr. Aaron Gabela and Rev. Fr. Sfiso Mpanza. Baldwin Sipho ‘Ben’ Ngubane (1941–2021) was a retired politician from South Africa. He served the Post-Apartheid South African Government as Minister of Health in the KwaZulu Government, a post he held until 1994; Premier of KwaZulu-Natal and Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology of the KwaZulu Government, from 1994 until 31 August 1996 and from February 1999 until April 2004. Dr. Ngubane served as South African Ambassador to Japan (2004–8); he worked as Chairperson of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (appointed in 2009) and finally as Eskom Board Chairperson (2015–17). He was a scholar animated with a deep understanding of Zulu culture, a devoted member of the Catholic Church, and he was commited to peace education. Dr. Ben Ngubane succumbed to Covid-19 on 12 July 2021. This piece of work is dedicated to him.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Email communication, 22 August 2020. Email communication, 22 August 2020. Email communication, 22 August 2020. Email communication with Mr. Bongani Cele, a former FNB Bank Manager and an elder in the Zulu Nation, 30 February 2020. Email communication with Mr. Bongani Cele, 30 February 2020. Email communication , 30 June 2020. Email communication with Mr. Bongani Cele, 30 June 2020. Email communication, 22 August 2020. E-mail communication, 15 August 2020. Baldwin Sipho ‘Ben’ Ngubane is a retired politician from South Africa. He served the Post-Apartheid Government as Premier of KwaZulu-Natal and Minister of Arts and Culture from 1994 until 31 August 1996 and from February 1999 until April 2004, and finally as Eskom Board Chairperson.

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10 Email communication with Rev. Fr. Sfiso Mpanza, Archdiocese of Durban, South Africa, 22 August 2020. 11 Email communication with Rev. Fr. Sfiso Mpanza, Archdiocese of Durban, South Africa, 22 August 2020. 12 Email communication with Rev. Fr. Sfiso Mpanza, Archdiocese of Durban, South Africa, 30 June 2020. 13 Among the dignitaries that attended His Majesty King Goodwill Zwelithini’s AntiXenophobic Attacks Imbizo were Minister for State Security David Mahlobo, Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba and KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu, with eThekwini Metro Mayor Councillor James Nxumalo, Inkosi Phathisizwe Chiliza and MEC for Economic Development and Tourism, Mike Mabuyakhulu. Available online at https:// www.gcis.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/His_Majesty_Pictorial_Durban_Imbizo.pdf

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Hogg, A. 2015. ‘Xenophobia: Zwelithini offers to help after Tossing the Grenade’. BizNews, 20 April. Available online at https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2015/04/20/ xenophobia-zwelithini-offers-to-help-after-tossing-the-grenade. Ibhawoh, B., and J. I. Dibua. 2003. ‘Deconstructing Ujamaa: The Legacy of Julius Nyerere in the Quest for Social and Economic Development in Africa’. African Journal of Political Science 8(1): 59–83. Kiyala, J. C. K. 2010. ‘Reconciliation in the Judeo-Christian Tradition and its Relevance to Zaire/ Democratic Republic of Congo post 1990 context’. MPhil dissertation, Saint Augustine College of South Africa, Johannesburg. Kiyala, J. C. K. 2016. ‘Utilising a Traditional Approach to Restorative Justice in the Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers in the North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo’. Africa Insight 46: 33–50. Kiyala, J. C. K. 2018. Child Soldiers and Restorative Justice: Participatory Action Research in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Cham: Springer International. Lee, P. J. 2009. ‘Indaba as Obedience: A Post Lambeth 2008 Assessment “If someone Offends You, Talk to Him” ’. Journal of Anglican Studies 7(2): 147–61. Levinas, E. 1991. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Alphonso Lingis, trans.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Louw, D. J. 2008. ‘The African Concept of Ubuntu and Restorative Justice’. In Handbook of Restorative Justice, eds. D. Sullivan and L. Tifft, 161–73. London: Routledge. Mabogo, P. M. 2012. ‘Philosophy in South Africa under and after Apartheid’. In A A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 149–60. Oxford: Blackwell. Mahlatsi, M. 2017. ‘Botho/Ubuntu Philosophy: Education from Childhood to Adulthood In Africa’. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research 6(8): 94–8. Menkiti, I. A. 1984. ‘Person and community in African traditional thought’. African Philosophy: An Introduction 3: 171–82. Masolo, D. A. 2004. ‘African Philosophers in the Greco-Roman Era’. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 50–65. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Newenham-Kahindi, A. 2009. ‘The Transfer of Ubuntu and Indaba Business Models Abroad: A Case of South African Multinational Banks and Telecommunication Services in Tanzania’. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 9(1): 87–108. Ngoyi, A. T. 2006. ‘M. Tshiamalenga Ntumba: a Philosopher Attentive to the Problem of African Theology’. In African Theology in the 21st Century. the Contribution of the Pioneers, eds. B. Bujo and J. I. Muya, 161–81. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa. Nyerere, J. K. 1962. ‘Ujamaa’: The Basis of African Socialism. Dar-es-Salaam: Tanganyika Standard Limited. Nyerere, J. K. 1987. ‘Ujamma – The Basis of African Socialism’. The Journal of Pan African Studies 1(1): 4–11. Ogunbanjo, G. A. and D. K. van Bogaert. 2005. ‘Communitarianism and Communitarian Bioethics’. South African Family Practice 47(10): 51–3. doi: 10.1080/20786204.2005. 10873305 Obenga, T. 2004. ‘Egypt: Ancient History of African Philosophy’. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 31–49. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Onwubiko, O. A. 2001. The Church in Mission in the Light of Ecclesia in Africa: A Trilogy. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa. Ramose, M. B. 2002. ‘The ethics of Ubuntu Philosophy from Africa: Morality in African Thought’. In Philosophy from Africa, eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, , 324–37. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Rich, K. L. n.d. ‘Introduction to Ethics’. Jones & Bartlett Learning Blog 3–30. Available online at http://samples.jbpub.com/9781449649005/22183_CH01_Pass3.pdf. Scheid, A. F. 2011. ‘Under the Palaver Tree: Community Ethics for Truth-Telling and Reconciliation’. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31(1): 17–36. Skelton, A. 2013. ‘Civilising Civil Justice’. In Civilising Criminal Justice: An International Restorative Agenda for Penal Reform, eds. John Blad, David J. Cornwell and Martin Wright, 171–185. Hook: Waterside Press. Smith, D. 2015. ‘Zulu Leader Suggests Media to Blame for South Africa’s Xenophobic Violence’. The Guardian, 20 April 2016. . Available online at https://www.theguardian. com/world/2015/apr/20/south-africa-xenophobic-violence-zulu-king-goodwillzwelithini. Stöger-Eising, V. 2000. ‘Ujamaa Revisited: Indigenous and European Influences in Nyerere’s Social and Political Thought’. Africa 70(1): 118–43. Vaticana. 2004. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Vol. 13, Vatican City: Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Available online at http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_ 20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html. Wiredu, K. 2004. A Companion to African Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

11

The Virtues of African Ethics Thaddeus Metz

Introduction Since its inception as a professional field in the 1960s or so, African ethics has yet to be given serious consideration by virtue ethicists and international scholars in moral philosophy generally.1 This neglect is unfortunate, since sub-Saharan perspectives on how to live are characteristically virtue-centred and, furthermore, are both different from the most influential Western virtue ethical philosophies and worth taking seriously. According to one major swathe of African ethical thought, community is the foundational value for virtue, while, for another, it is vitality. This contribution spells out these two theories of virtue salient in the sub-Saharan tradition and critically appraises them in comparison to some dominant Western conceptions. The African approaches to virtue should be of interest to a wide readership insofar as they provide attractive alternatives to the most influential ones in the West, which tend to be pluralist views that eschew the search for unity among the virtues, on the one hand, and theoretical conceptions of virtue grounded on the basic value of rationality (or divinity), on the other.2

The traditionally African and the classically Greek By ‘African’ ethics is meant ideas about what the good life is for human beings and which choices they should make that have been salient in the world views of black peoples indigenous to the sub-Saharan region and, especially, in contemporary philosophical writings grounded on them. This chapter is therefore not concerned with, say, the Islamic philosophy characteristic of Arabs in North Africa, or the Calvinist values of the white Afrikaans society in South Africa. In addition, calling certain ideas ‘African’ is not meant to suggest either that they are held by all black peoples on the continent, let alone all individuals there, or that only such persons hold them. Instead, to call views ‘African’, ‘sub-Saharan’ or the like simply indicates that they have been salient in much of that part of the world and for a long time, in a way they have tended not to be elsewhere.3 Indigenous black societies below the Sahara characteristically4 have: been smallscale in number, with nothing approximating the size and anonymity of a metropolis; 185

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been oral cultures, lacking a corpus of written works; maintained that ritual, initiation and tradition have some moral importance of a sort unrecognized in modern societies; held land in common, parcelling it out to households based on need or clan membership, in contrast to permitting profit-maximizing private ownership; lacked sophisticated natural science and technology, with the economy based largely on agriculture, cattle or hunting/gathering; maintained that there are weighty duties to aid particular others that far transcend the nuclear family, centred on what Westerners would call ‘extended family’ such as uncles, cousins and many other members of a lineage; believed in a duty to wed and to procreate, viewing solitariness as problematic; believed in the continued, disembodied and earthly existence of (and interaction with) ancestors, people who were not merely forebears of a given people, but ones who both lived to a ripe old age and exhibited moral wisdom; resolved conflicts affecting society by consensus, at least some among popularly appointed elders, rather than rested content with either majority rule or the non-consultative will of a monarch; responded to wrongdoing not so much with retribution, but principally with an eye towards reconciliation between the offender and his family, on the one hand, and the immediate victim, her family and the broader society, on the other. Yet another recurrent feature of indigenous African cultures has been the similarity of the maxims taken to encapsulate ethical ideals. In southern Africa it is common to say, ‘A person is a person through other persons’ (e.g. Kasenene 1994: 141; Tutu 1999: 35), whereas in eastern and western African the more frequent phrase is, ‘I am because we are’ (Menkiti 1984: 171; Mbiti 1990: 106). These literal translations appear to express merely descriptive claims about human sociality, to the effect that one cannot meet all of one’s needs on one’s own, or that one’s identity is bound up with one’s society. Although these maxims do connote the physical and even metaphysical interdependence of human beings on one another, they also include resolutely evaluative and normative senses. In particular, these maxims are in the first instance prescriptions to develop one’s personhood or to become a real self. The typical thought is that human beings have a nature they share with animals and also one that is distinctively human and qualitatively higher. One’s basic aim in life should be to develop the valuable features of human nature, or to exhibit ubuntu, literally humanness, as it is famously known among Nguni speakers in southern Africa. As Desmond Tutu, in his book about having been the Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, remarks about African ethics: ‘When we want to give high praise to someone, we say “Yu u nobuntu”; “Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu.” This means they are generous, hospitable, friendly, caring and compassionate’ (1999: 34). And when someone is criticized for immoral behaviour, African people typically say that he ‘is not a person’ or even that he ‘is an animal’ (Letseka 2000: 186; Dandala 2009: 260). At this point sub-Saharan ethics is seen to be characteristically perfectionist and even eudaimonist, as one’s fundamental aim ought to be one’s self-realization. So far, so Greek. The similarities between traditionally African ideals and those of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle continue, in that self-realization is typically understood to be a function of the exhibition of virtue or human excellence. Becoming a complete person or living a genuinely human way of life is not merely a matter of performing actions that are right because they accord with some principle, but rather primarily a function of

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displaying certain character traits relating to one’s beliefs, desires, emotions and actions that express such states of mind. Where the African and Greek approaches to ethics clearly split apart concerns the content of human excellences, the traits deemed to exhaust or at least be at the core of living an ideal human life. As is well known, the most influential Greek philosophers held that our capacity to behave rationally is what unifies the virtues; diverse forms of human excellence are ultimately all a matter of ways of realizing our rational nature. The African tradition is different, focusing instead on two distinct goods: vitality and community.5 The following expounds sub-Saharan conceptions of virtue grounded on these respective values, and considers their merits and demerits in relation to the Greek and other traditions likely to be familiar to readers beyond the African tradition.

Community as the ground of virtue For one major strand of African ethical thought, at least as philosophically interpreted, self-realization is exhausted ‘through other persons’, that is, through communal (or harmonious) relationships alone. It is typical for African theorists to maintain, or at least to suggest, that the only comprehensive respect in which one can live a genuinely human way of life is by prizing community with other people. The following claims are representative of the strong view salient among subSaharan thinkers that relating communally is one and the same thing as self-realization, humanness or virtue. Consider, first, Tutu’s comments on the way sub-Saharans tend to understand ethics: We say, ‘a person is a person through other people’. It is not ‘I think therefore I am’. It says rather: ‘I am human because I belong.’ I participate, I share . . . Harmony, friendliness, community are great goods. Social harmony is for us the summum bonum – the greatest good. Anything that subverts or undermines this soughtafter good is to be avoided like the plague. 1999: 35

Similarly, South African public intellectual Gessler Muxe Nkondo remarks that if you asked adherents to an ubuntu philosophy, What do you live for? What motive force or basic attitude gives your life meaning? What gives direction and coherence to your life?, the answers would express commitment to the good of the community in which their identities were formed, and a need to experience their lives as bound up in that of their community. 2007: 91

And, again, the Nigerian theologian Pantaleon Iroegbu sums up African ethics with the claim that ‘the purpose of our life is community-service and community-belongingness’ (2005: 442).

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These and other characterisations by sub-Saharan ethicists of one’s proper final aim often focus on two different elements of community as an ideal, namely participating, being bound up with and belonging, on the one hand, and sharing, promoting the good and serving, on the other. Some have analysed these two conceptually distinct facets of community under the headings of ‘identity’, or ‘sharing a way of life’, for the former, and ‘solidarity’, or ‘improving others’ quality of life’, for the latter, with the suggestion being that the combination of the two relationships not only captures what many African thinkers have had in mind, but also is a rational reconstruction of the ground of a plausible moral theory (Metz and Gaie 2010). The combination of sharing a way of life and improving others’ quality of life is what most English-speakers mean by ‘friendliness’ or a broad sense of ‘love’. In short, then, the maxim that ‘a person is a person through other persons’ is well understood, in a philosophical, principled form, to be this claim: one should develop into a real person, or live a genuinely human way of life, which one does just insofar as one prizes friendly relationships of sharing a way life with others and caring for their quality of life.6 This purely relational, and specifically communal, interpretation of the essence of self-realization on the face of it makes good sense of the particular virtues that have been salient in the African philosophical tradition. For instance, Kwame Gyekye, the important Ghanaian moral and political theorist, remarks that for his Akan people, ‘ideal and moral virtues can be said to include generosity, kindness, compassion, benevolence, respect and concern for others’ (1992: 109);7 Dismas Masolo, a key historian of African philosophy, says in a book on sub-Saharan conceptions of self and personhood, ‘Charity and other virtues of altruism such as politeness and benevolence to others are perhaps the most celebrated aspects of African communitarian practices and ideals’ (2010: 251); Mluleki Mnyaka and Mokgethi Motlhabi, two South African theologians, associate the following traits with ubuntu: ‘Because it is manifested in living in community, it is best realised in deeds of kindness, compassion, caring, sharing, solidarity and sacrifice’ (2009: 74); and, finally, in a book devoted to the topic of virtue in the African tradition, Peter Paris remarks, ‘No virtue is more highly praised among Africans and African Americans than that of beneficence because it exemplifies the goal of community’ (1995: 136). What these conceptions of virtue all have in common is other-regard; one realizes oneself essentially in relation to people distinct from oneself, and in principle cannot do so in isolation from them. Summing up one major Afro-communal conception of virtue, then, a person exhibits human excellence or virtue just insofar as she has character traits that express a prizing of communal or friendly relationships. Such an analysis would appear to capture additional virtues such as industriousness, respectfulness and fairness. When it comes to how to inculcate other-regarding virtues, consider some approaches that institutions might usefully take. Primary and secondary schools should avoid competitive assessments of pupils, instead finding ways to encourage them to exhibit solidarity with one another, and they should also strive to prompt pupils to identify with each other, perhaps by requiring uniforms to be worn so that class divisions are minimized. At the tertiary level, a university might develop students’ other-regarding capacities by teaching them how to become more aware of their

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implicit biases against others, how to identify and deal with conflicts of interest and how to become more attuned to other people’s points of view and feelings. In the workplace, it would be apt for managers to consider whether they could form what are often called ‘communities of practice’, in which workers are not isolated from one another, but instead cooperate to achieve shared ends. With the focus on other-regard here, the suggestion is not that the African tradition is utterly devoid of more self-regarding considerations. There are, for instance, recurrent proverbs praising traits such as moderating one’s desires and being cunning (Ibekwe 1998: 37–8, 127–8). However, sometimes these traits should be viewed as conducive to happiness or prudence, not so much virtue. Other times these individualist values are related to virtue, but either as instruments, that is, as means to behaviour oriented towards communal ends, or as constituents of virtue insofar as they are done to foster community (e.g. Paris 1995: 141–8; Ntibagirirwa 2001). For instance, if one did not look after oneself, then one would threaten to become a burden on others. One may, however, reasonably question whether temperance, craftiness and related traits are related to virtue only insofar as they have an other-regarding dimension, a point discussed below (see below The vices of African ethics). Another way to question the communal conception of virtue is to suggest the existence of additional character traits that appear to be excellences but not to include an essential reference to another person. Perhaps bravery is a good example. Although it appears that Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics believes that bravery is most clearly a virtue only in the context of fighting a just war (1115a25–35), he might be wrong about that. Suppose one were alone on an island that were deserted of other people, but that did have fierce animals on it. Could one not exhibit the virtue of bravery in relation to, say, a warthog or a thunderstorm? Another sort of counterexample to the communal theory of virtue is excellence that is intuitively associated with mental health. Many believe that those who love themselves, at least to the right degree or in the right way, are better persons in some respect than those who hate themselves. Similarly, those with confidence, determination and vigour appear to have some virtue that those without them, viz. the depressed or neurotic, lack. These traits seem to be virtues, apart from any positive role they might play with respect to facilitating communal relationships. Although a strictly relational or other-regarding conception of virtue has difficulty accommodating cases such as prudence, bravery and psychological strength, there are other intellectual resources in the sub-Saharan tradition that promise to do so with comparative ease. One finds them in the vitalist strain of African ethical thought, considered in the next section.

Vitality as the ground of virtue8 One of the first writers to take African ethical thought seriously was Placide Tempels, a Belgian missionary who sought to make sub-Saharan metaphysical and moral beliefs comprehensible to a European-colonial mindset, but is reported to have

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been the first Western intellectual to dignify African thought with the title of ‘philosophy’. Tempels’s (1952) analysis of sub-Saharan views of how to live focuses on the concept of life-force, famously called seriti in the southern African Sotho-Tswana language group. While Tempels has been rightly criticized for overgeneralizing, claiming that all Africans of the bantu linguistic group place life-force at the centre of their world views, he has captured aspects of one major strain of sub-Saharan ethical thought that present-day African thinkers continue to espouse. Life-force is traditionally construed as an invisible divine energy that permeates everything in the world in varying degrees. The ‘inanimate’ mineral kingdom has the least degree of life-force; plants have more than rocks; animals have more than plants; humans have more than animals; ancestors and other disembodied and imperceptible (‘spiritual’) agents have more than humans; and God, as the source of all life-force, has more than anything else. Appealing to this ‘great chain of being’ metaphysics, some African philosophers propose a variant of a self-realization ethic according to which one’s fundamental aim should be to increase life-force, either one’s own or people’s generally (Anyanwu 1984; Dzobo 1992; Kasenene 1994; Bujo 1997; Magesa 1997; Iroegbu 2005a, 2005b). Although these and related philosophers often hold thickly religious or metaphysical interpretations of vitalism, the language they use permits of more secular readings, ones that are likely to be of broader interest to the field. For instance, often enough talk of ‘life-force’, ‘life’, ‘energy’ and the like may be understood in purely physicalist terms, connoting health, strength, growth, reproduction, generation, activity, selfmotion, courage and confidence. Correspondingly, a lack of vitality would be construed to involve the presence of disease, weakness, decay, barrenness, destructiveness, lethargy, passivity, insecurity and depression. Such naturalist understandings of what counts as ‘life-force’, or what might be usefully be called ‘liveliness’, interestingly recall the views of classic German-speaking philosophers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt (1791) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1887) as well as contemporary work by Anglo-American virtue ethicists and self-realization psychologists who prize traits such as spontaneity, vigour, creativity and strength (e.g. Maslow 1956; Rogers 1961; Swanton 2003). Persons, by virtue of their capacity for reason, are presumably capable of a greater or higher form of liveliness than animals; consider dancers or martial artists. However, rationality and vitality are not one and the same thing, by the present account. The revenue agent who checks tax returns is acting rationally, but does not exhibit much liveliness thereby. One readily sees that the Afro-vitalist theory easily accommodates the counterexamples to the communal account; prudence, courage and mental health are plausibly united by the property of liveliness. In addition, many of the virtues that motivate the communal theory are arguably captured by vitalist considerations. That is, perhaps what kindness, concern, charity, hard work, respect, fairness and the like have in common at bottom is not that they are ways of prizing communal relationships, but rather that they tend to produce liveliness and to reduce weariness.9

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The vices of African ethics This section considers counterexamples to the account of virtue in terms of liveliness, ones that apply with equal force to the communal account, and that hence cut to the heart of characteristically sub-Saharan approaches to human excellence. It first addresses some intuitive virtues that neither vitality nor community can easily entail and well explain, and then some traits that intuitively are not virtues or vices but that the vitality and community theories suggest are.10 One virtue that is highly prized in the Western tradition but that is not on the radar in the African is that of ‘pure’ intellectual enquiry, that is, seeking certain kinds of knowledge for their own sake. Sub-Saharan societies clearly rate education and wisdom highly, but their cultures typically value knowledge for pragmatic reasons, e.g. as ways to foster adherence to tradition and custom, or to resolve moral dilemmas, or to promote well-being or liveliness (Adeyemi and Adeyinka 2003; Wiredu 2004). It is very difficult to find a philosopher in the African tradition akin to Aristotle when he deems it a virtue to know the nature of the heavens and to know it merely because the object of such an enquiry is valuable (1141a20–b7). Knowing (as opposed to myth-making about) the composition of stars, or the origin and fate of the universe, is unlikely to foster communal relationships or to improve others’ vitality, at least not very much compared to other kinds of knowledge. A standard response to this concern is to suggest that the search for ‘blue-sky’ knowledge typically turns out to have useful applications. Einstein was interested in the nature of space-time as such, but his general theory of relativity has enabled us to position satellites accurately, so the story goes. However, such a response will likely be unsatisfying to those working in fields such as theoretical physics, cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology and even evolutionary biology, and to those who appreciate their achievements. At least part of what confers excellence on those who engage in such scholarship is what it is about, and not merely its expected effects. It appears to be a failure to appreciate the nature of the virtue involved to suggest that knowledge of the fate of the universe is to be valued merely because of its expected contribution to the realization of community or vitality. A more promising explanation of why the discovery of such knowledge would constitute human excellence has to do with the proper exercise of theoretical reason. A similar sort of counterexample, mentioned above, is virtue that intuitively is a function of the organization of one’s mental states. Think here of the views of Plato and Aristotle, who find human excellence in those whose desires are reasonable, whose emotions are fitting and, in general, whose judgements regulate their conative, emotive and affective states. Even supposing that such dispositions served the function of enhancing one’s vitality (or that of others) or of supporting communal relationships, these considerations do not seem to be the best explanation of why they are virtues. Instead, a prima facie stronger explanation of their excellence appeals to the property of practical reason. Here is a reasonable reply to be made on behalf of the friend of an African approach to human excellence. What she ought to do is to draw a modern distinction between morality, in the narrow sense of attitudes and actions towards which guilt is an apt

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response, and ethics, in the broad sense of how best to live. Although virtue ethicists, including those in the African tradition, tend to eschew such a distinction, it is one worth considering in the face of the above criticisms of sub-Saharan approaches to virtue. At least the friend of the communal conception could suggest that her view captures the moral virtues, traits related to the way one must regard others so as not to be liable for guilt, where non-moral virtues include those concerning intellectual excellence, those relating to temperance, prudence and the like, and those that are a function of mental health. She could furthermore attempt to argue that the moral virtues, of generosity, compassion, politeness and so on, are generally weightier than the non-moral ones, such that the latter ought to be pursued only to the extent that they harmonize with the former. Such a reply merits consideration by the field. Turn now to a different kind of criticism of the sub-Saharan conceptions of virtue, namely that they have questionable implications about what counts as virtue and vice. First off, notice that many sub-Saharan moral philosophers deem people to have moral obligations to wed and to procreate, or, in terms of virtue, deem those inclined towards such behaviour to exemplify human excellence in ways that others do not (Dzobo 1992: 225–7; Kasenene 1994: 141; Tangwa 1996: 194–5; Magesa 1997: 63, 89, 120–1, 167; Bujo 2001: 6–7, 34–54). Such a view appears to follow from either a vitalist or communal approach to virtue. Traits that foster vitality will include a disposition to create new life, and those that prize community will involve forming friendly relationships that are the most intense instances possible, viz. a family. Now, such a perspective is not in itself so troublesome, and perhaps even welcome for squarely capturing an important social dimension of human virtue. However, where at least Western ethicists will baulk are further implications that are often drawn out of it. For example, it is characteristic of sub-Saharan countries to frown upon homosexuality, to the point of imposing the death penalty and other weighty formal and informal penalties. Gay partners are of course incapable of procreating, and they flout what are traditional lifestyles in many African societies, and for such reasons are deemed to be base. For a second example, those who get abortions are often deemed to exhibit vice, at least insofar as they fail to prize the value of human life or familial relationships. For a third case, remaining single and aloof from one’s fellows, and even failing to remarry upon widowhood, are commonly viewed as indicative of bad character. Truly prizing community would mean sharing oneself and one’s time, abilities, knowledge, etc., with others, as opposed to withdrawing; similar remarks go for highly valuing other people’s vitality. So far this section has noted attitudes, beliefs and practices that have been common below the Sahara and that appear to follow naturally from taking the goods of vitality or community to be fundamental to human excellence. There might be ways of interpreting the virtue theories in ways that do not have these implications, e.g. gay relationships could readily be viewed as instances of love. However, such projects have yet to be undertaken in earnest by African thinkers, many of whom might be happy to accept the above, conservative implications. Consider, now, a second cluster of concerns that at least Westerners will tend to have about African conceptions of virtue. Some sub-Saharan moralists contend that

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the virtues include traits such as obedience to authority, conformity to tradition and deference to elders (Dzobo 1992: 229; Mokgoro 1998: 21–2; Ikuenobe 2006). Consider some of the central virtues listed by the magisterial historian of sub-Saharan cultures, John Mbiti: ‘be kind, help those who cry to you for help, show hospitality, be faithful in marriage, respect the elders, keep justice, behave in a humble way toward those senior to you . . . follow the customs and traditions of your society’ (1990: 208–9). For some concrete examples of these ‘virtues’ in action, consider that education among indigenous sub-Saharan societies has usually been parochial, focused exclusively on imparting the norms of the student’s culture, and that educators have often used fear and indoctrination to instil values, dissuading students from questioning the – often, gendered – roles being handed down (Pearce 1990; Adeyemi and Adeyinka 2003). For another example, artists who draw satirical portraits of African leaders in order to provoke critical reflection and to question authority are typically deemed to be immoral and provoke outrage. Conformity and traditionalism are often considered virtues, and their opposites vices, in part because they are conducive to other virtues. Supposing that teachers and elders have moral wisdom, one would be most likely to become virtuous by doing as they say, so the reasoning goes (see especially Ikuenobe 2006). Another factor has been the communal approach to virtue, part of which prescribes supporting a people’s sense of identity and hence their culture. Perhaps, upon reflection, taking vitality or community to be the ground of virtue does not entail the aptness of docility towards those in authority and ready acceptance of customary ways of life. The latter could of course be stifling of liveliness, e.g. clitoridectomy, in which case the fundamental value would recommend criticism and change. Similarly, although the communal conception of virtue does include the idea that a common sense of self matters for its own sake to some degree, it also includes values that could regulate or override that one, namely the ideas that genuinely sharing a way of life requires freely choosing it and that people must also care about others’ quality of life. Where practices are authoritarian and harmful, e.g. patriarchal, the virtuous person qua one who prizes communal relations has ground to struggle against them, on the interpretation advanced here. Or so the reader might consider.

Conclusion This chapter has critically explored two theoretical approaches to virtue that are grounded on values salient in the worldviews of indigenous sub-Saharan peoples. According to one perspective, human excellence is a way of prizing communal relationships, conceived as the combination of sharing a way of life and caring for others’ quality of life. According to another, a character trait is virtuous just insofar as it is a disposition to promote vitality in oneself and in others. This chapter has striven to show that these theories are worth taking seriously as alternatives to characteristic Western grounding of virtue on rational capacities or the widespread disinclination to seek a ground at all and to rest content with a grab bag. The rise of African ethics as a

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body of literature and professional discourse has taken place simultaneously with the flowering of virtue ethics in the West; may the two from here on out continue to grow together, and not merely side by side, as they have done up to now.11

Acknowledgements This chapter was first published in The Handbook of Virtue Ethics, edited by Stan Van Hooft (Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing, 2014), 276–84. Reprinted here with copyright permission of the publishers, Informa UK Limited.

Notes 1

The first real anthology devoted to work in sub-Saharan ethics appeared only about a 15 years ago; see Murove (2009). 2 There are of course exceptions, Hursthouse’s (1999) flourishing theory being one, but her view is still not characteristically African. 3 For useful discussion of ethical perspectives characteristic of indigenous, and characteristically small-scale, societies generally, see Silberbauer (1991). 4 The following is taken from Metz (2012: 22–3), which is grounded on anthropological evidence cited there. 5 The influential Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye interprets the tradition differently, contending that what Africans tend to deem virtuous are merely those traits that improve others’ quality of life. This chapter does not address his view, partly since it is already accessible to an international audience (see esp. Gyekye 2010), and partly because focusing on well-being is not as useful as doing so on the underexplored sub-Saharan notions of vitality and community. 6 Traditionally, the relevant persons with whom to commune include imperceptible agents such as God and ancestors (e.g. Bujo 2001). 7 Although Gyekye himself believes that these virtues are unified by their tendency to promote well-being (1992: 109), it is plausible that it is rather prizing communal relationships that makes the best sense of them. 8 The next two paragraphs borrow heavily from Metz (2013). 9 Many African ethicists who take vitality to be the fundamental value highlight the importance of community in various ways, either as a reliable means to the production of vitality or a useful way by which to know which courses of actions will do so. See, for example, Magesa (1997) and Bujo (2001). 10 There is of course a major strain of reflection on virtue according to which there is no one ‘master value’ that would unify all the divergent forms of human excellence. However, in order to know that with some degree of assuredness, it is worth considering promising attempts to establish unity and, furthermore, one would presumably learn much about the virtues simply in the course of searching for such unity, even in the event there turned out to be none. 11 The author would like to thank Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Mechthild Nagel, Frans Svensson, Pedro Tabensky and Stan Van Hooft for having commented on a prior draft of this chapter.

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References Adeyemi, Michael, and Augustus Adeyinka. 2003. ‘The Principles and Content of African Traditional Education’. Educational Philosophy and Theory 35: 425–40. Anyanwu, K. C. 1984. ‘The Meaning of Ultimate Reality in Igbo Cultural Experience’. Ultimate Reality and Meaning 7: 84–101. Aristotle. 1985. Nicomachean Ethics (Terence Irwin, trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Bikopo, Deogratias, and Louis-Jacques van Bogaert. 2010. ‘Reflection on Euthanasia: Western and African Ntomba Perspectives on the Death of a Chief ’. Developing World Bioethics 10: 42–8. Bujo, Bénézet. 2001. Foundations of an African Ethic: Beyond the Universal Claims of Western Morality (Brian McNeil, trans.). New York: Crossroad. Bujo, Bénézet. 1997. The Ethical Dimension of Community (C. N. Nganda, trans.). Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa. Dandala, Mvume. 2009. ‘Cows Never Die: Embracing African Cosmology in the Process of Economic Growth’. In African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, ed. F. M. Murove, 259–77. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Dzobo, N. K. 1992. ‘Values in a Changing Society: Man, Ancestors, and God’. In Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies 1, eds. K. Wiredu and K. Gyekye, 223–40. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Gyekye Kwame. 2010. ‘African Ethics’. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. E. Zalta. Available online at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/african-ethics/. Gyekye, Kwame. 1992. ‘Person and Community in African Thought’. In Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, eds. K. Wiredu and K. Gyekye, 101–22. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ibekwe, Patrick. 1998. Wit and Wisdom of Africa: Proverbs from Africa and the Caribbean. Oxford: New Internationalist Publications Ltd. Ikuenobe, Polycarp. 2006. Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African Traditions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Iroegbu, Pantaleon. 2005a. ‘Do All Persons Have a Right to Life?’. In Kpim of Morality Ethics, eds. P. Iroegbu and A. Echekwube, 78–83. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books,. Iroegbu, Pantaleon. 2005b. ‘What Is Life: Body, Mind and Soul?’. In Kpim of Morality Ethics, eds. P. Iroegbu and A. Echekwube, 435–9. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books. Iroegbu, Pantaleon. 2005c. ‘Beginning, Purpose and End of Life’. In Kpim of Morality Ethics, eds. P. Iroegbu and A. Echekwube, 440–45. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books. Kasenene, Peter. 1994. ‘Ethics in African Theology’. In Doing Ethics in Context: South African Perspectives, eds. C. Villa-Vicencio and J. de Gruchy, 138–47. Cape Town: David Philip. Letseka, Moeketsi. 2000. ‘African Philosophy and Educational Discourse’. In African Voices in Education, eds. P. Higgs et al., 179–93. Lansdowne: Juta. Magesa, Laurenti. 1997. African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Maslow, Abraham. 1956. ‘Self-Actualizing People: A Study of Psychological Health’. In The Self, ed. C. Moustakas, 147–59. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

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Masolo, Dismas. 2010. Self and Community in a Changing World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mbiti, John. 1990. African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd ed. London: Heinemann. Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 1984. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, 3rd ed., ed. R. Wright, 171–81. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Metz, Thaddeus. 2013. ‘African Ethics’. In The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. H. LaFollette. Malden, MA: Wiley. Metz, Thaddeus. 2012. ‘African Conceptions of Human Dignity: Vitality and Community as the Ground of Human Rights’. Human Rights Review 13: 19–37. Metz, Thaddeus, and Joseph Gaie. 2010. ‘The African Ethic of Ubuntu/Botho: Implications for Research on Morality’. Journal of Moral Education 39: 273–90. Mnyaka, Mluleki, and Mokgethi Motlhabi. 2005. ‘The African Concept of Ubuntu/Botho and Its Socio-moral Significance’. Black Theology 3: 215–37. Mokgoro, Yvonne. 1998. ‘Ubuntu and the Law in South Africa’. Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal 1: 15–26. Murove, Munyaradzi Felix, ed. 2009. African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1887. The Genealogy of Morals. Nkondo, G. M. 2007. ‘Ubuntu as a Public Policy in South Africa: A Conceptual Framework’. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 2: 88–100. Ntibagirirwa, Symphorien. 2001. ‘A Wrong Way: From Being to Having in the African Value System’. In Protest and Engagement; South African Philosophical Studies II, ed. P. Giddy, 65–82. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Paris, Peter. 1995. The Spirituality of African Peoples. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Pearce, Carole. 1990. ‘Tsika, Hunhu and the Moral Education of Primary School Children’. Zambezia 17: 145–60. Rogers, Carl. 1961. ‘A Therapist’s View of the Good Life’. In On Becoming a Person, ed. C. Rogers, 183–96. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Silberbauer, George. 1991. ‘Ethics in Small-Scale Societies’. In A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer, 14–28. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Swanton, Christine. 2003. Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View. New York: Oxford University Press. Tangwa, Godfrey. 1996. ‘Bioethics: An African Perspective’. Bioethics 10: 183–200. Temples, Placide. 1952. Bantu Philosophy (Colin King, trans.). Paris: Présence Africaine. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future without Forgiveness. New York: Random House. von Humboldt, Wilhelm. 1791. The Limits of State Action. Wiredu, Kwasi. 2004. ‘Prolegomena to an African Philosophy of Education’. South African Journal of Higher Education 18: 17–26.

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Ujamaa and African Ethics Isaiah Negedu

Introduction The need for civil engagements in democracy is largely responsible for the shift from strictly trado-cultural relationships in communities. The idea of civil engagements means that there is a movement from community relations to emphasis on citizenship. It is on this note that Nelson Maldonado Torres submits that to be a citizen qualifies an individual to the entitlement of founding fathers, and not ancestors, and that the space of operation of citizenship is a political creation1. The African was also an active participant in community formation and operations, which different scholars of African studies have branded by different names depending on the particular community they belong to. However, because Africa is also a shareholder in a globe, there is a clarion call to always adapt the traditional concept of community to meet the demands of a society that constantly evolves. This absence of community consideration is a fundamental vacuum in democracy in Africa. Hence, the idea of socialism as a practice that suits the African condition becomes dominant. It is within this context that Julius Nyerere developed the concept of ujamaa out of the culture of Tanganyikan society. Matolino (2018: 187) suggests that the animating factor that engineered the socialist school in Africa is the quest for political freedom. However, this would only be possible through a reinterpretation of society. ‘Hence they saw the need of outlining the conditions necessary for the success of nationalist African socialism.’ This was what inspired the ‘Arusha Declaration’ in 1967, to make this traditional attitude more formal. It is summarized in the fact that it calls for socialism through self-reliance. Its hope is to unseat the equilibrium of class structure that was made possible through organized capitalism. It is to this end that this work highlights a departure from the capitalist system. It does not in any way deny the existence of such structure in the minds of people, for there are capitalist- and socialist-oriented humans in every society. The first part of this work, therefore, focuses on a general overview of ujamaa as a sociopolitical philosophy as a proposed better alternative to capitalism. The emphasis here is not on liberal democracy with emphasis on the individual, but on social democracy that incorporates the peculiarities of the African people. In the second part of this work, I raise issues of relationship between ujamaa as a political theory and moral theory, and how both realities should converge for a holistic union. 197

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Understanding ujamaa and African sociopolitical philosophy In Kiswahili, ujamaa stands for the traditional kinship communalism that exists in many rural communities in Africa. It represents a developmental process where all economic activities are collectively organized through gradual transformation. This explains the concept of ujamaa vijijini (Boesen, Madsen and Moody 1977: 11). But this transformation is only made possible through a radical reorientation of the mind of the people. It is an approach that seeks to integrate political philosophy with socioeconomic welfare for the common good/benefit of the African society. Common good here has to do with the transit from the traditional way of life made known through the values of solidarity, responsibility towards others and civic friendship in sharing benefits and burdens. This passage from traditional to civil life demands that the concept of traditional familyhood should be transformed into a law that should be legislated. Thus, it is based on the principle of mutual responsibility, concern for others and a sense of relationship which serves as a unifying factor. It is a people-centred theory that incorporates African communitarian ethos and relationship. As a political ideology, its development is a combination of African traditional culture and modernity. Ujamaa being a linkage between African traditional culture and modernity makes it a model for new states in Africa that will facilitate human service to the community. The concept of ujamaa was hinged on the African traditional notion of familyhood. Ujamaa was founded on a philosophy of development that has freedom, equality and unity as its basis (Ibhawoh and Dibua 2003: 62). Communal relation in this sense is not a return to the traditional mode of existence, but a modernization of the same to fit into contemporary realities that evolve from civil democratization in societies. In different parts of Africa, there have been different concepts with similar ideological underpinnings that speak to the same reality of community relations (ubuntu, negritude, African socialism, humanism). The preference of ujamaa as an image of traditional African society stems from the claim that it minimizes exploitation and oppression of man by man (Ude 2018: 186). As an African sociopolitical philosophy, it prescribes a template for social existence. It is a socializing African philosophy that is based on three important social existentialities: equality, which must be in place for people to work together cooperatively; freedom, since rights are defined in reference to alignment of the individual to social realities that recognize the ‘other’; and unity, because when this exists in a society, individuals can live and work in peace, love, security and well-being. Okoro (2010: 151) describes it as a sociopolitical philosophy which promotes human connection. Its basis on the family is hinged on the fact that no nation can attain success without ‘the family’. It, however, concerns itself with community development. The intention is to recapture the importance of human dignity, equality, solidarity and human rights that hitherto exist traditionally in the family (Ng’weshemi 2002: 73). Tanzania embraced ujamaa as its sociopolitical and economic theory, which projected the ideals of exploitation by none, fair sharing of the resources produced by the efforts of all, equality, respect for human dignity, and work by all/everyone (Nasongo and Musungu 2009: 113). As a family relationship in the spirit of cooperation and equality, together with a readiness for mutual assistance, as well as sharing of possessions, ujamaa implies

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solidarity between members of the African society. It captures the precolonial African society where respect and honour for humans is of utmost importance. This sociopolitical philosophy encompasses both socialism and democracy, which are engrained in some traditional African communities, and also negates individualism. Modern African democracy needs to learn from Africa’s rich traditional heritage and the recognition of the society as an extension of the basic family. Under this arrangement, land is basically held on the basis of communal ownership. The motive behind ujamaa is to transform Africa into a society similar to its lost, past precolonial epoch (Albert and Michele 1993: 21–33). Ujamaa is indicative of a preferred model that should be aspired to because liberal democracy claims to promote a free market system that is strictly capitalist-oriented. The moral imperative stated by ujamaa that hinges on social relationship gives a depiction of how the society was perceived in traditional times before the emergence of colonialism. This is to the effect that African societies without exception never had any among them that were capitalist-oriented. This, however, is an extreme position to take, as history has shown that precolonial Africa was to some extent capitalist, but its disposition for socialist orientation was more admired. There were still negligible people, however, who had the tendency to be oppressive and to use the wealth derived from the society in the attainment of such oppressive aims. Some people revolted against the system for personal or group gains even within African society, without at the same time taking into cognizance the effects of their actions on the entire people irrespective of ethnic distinction. But what appears to be a contradiction is clear when it is viewed from the perspective that the society that Nyerere (1968: 6) proposes is a formal society that is made so by democracy. Such society is intended to mirror the informal traditional setting of the African people. So while the latter society (traditional) is an actual one, the former (democratic) is still undergoing tutelage with the lens of the traditional society. One thing that is clear in all of this is that laziness was not a right to be tolerated, since the price of laziness was that it would eventually become a tax on those who have the disposition to work. When a person rebels against a system, s/he rebels on the basis of the idea that there is need for a better system which is antithetical to the status quo. The question that quickly comes to mind is that there must have been an existing society which needs to be disturbed. Capitalism came in order to unseat another system, which is likely to be alien or pose a threat to it. A capitalist system cannot repel itself. It needs to repel another which does not promote its ideology in order to survive. What, then, was the status quo that capitalism desires to rebel against? Surely it would not have been capitalism since such a battle would have been an exercise in futility. What makes the capitalist system distinct from the socialist system is the fact that, in practice, the former intends to enslave a category of human beings in order to create wealth for a few, while the latter theoretically produces wealth from which all can benefit equally so that the society would be ‘free’ of slaves. Both the capitalist and socialist systems have the capacity to be slavish without checks; this is the same for communism that is practised in China with high elements of capitalist structures. Ujamaa was the perceived ‘demon’ that prevented the entrenching of individualism as it came with the intention of cushioning the effects of capitalism. What makes the difference is the fact that ujamaa is central to community development that has a

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bearing on traditional African communities. Socialism and capitalism are not strictly speaking two systems that stand at odds against themselves because even a socialist system cannot claim to rid itself totally of the influence of capitalism. Foreign investors in a socialist system intend to make a profit from their business establishments. So when the Swahili proverb says, ‘treat your guest as a guest for two days, on the third day give him a hoe’, the intention is two-fold; to avoid loitering and to increase the wealth of the society that future generations will benefit with ease. By this, the community is not plunged into a situation where it cannot sustain itself. Every theory intends to provide a response to a specific situation/problem, even when it is not perfect. Surely, no system is perfect and ujamaa is not immune from errors. There seems to be tension on how to acquire the benefit of European society, which has been brought about by an organization of society based on an exaggerated idea of the rights of the individual, and at the same time the possibility of retaining Africa’s own structure of the society where the individual is a member of a kind of fellowship. To achieve this, both European Christianity and Islam will be fused with African indigenous communalism in order to attain a society where everybody is equal, where there is no division between the rulers and the ruled, the rich and the poor, literate and non-literate, equality in terms of dignity, equal right to respect, the opportunity of acquiring a good education and the necessities of life, and the opportunity for people to serve their society within the limits of their ability (Mohiddin 1970: 12–13). Religious institutions are fundamental to this vision because of the influence they have on the African continent. The sincerity of this is made possible when religious books/symbols/teachings are used as means to an end to the extent that they dignify humans. The formation of community is a central theme that religions teach and this very theme of communion is the basis for the African community. As a philosophy, therefore, ujamaa does not imply isolationism from other countries. In fact, it means embracing others irrespective of their system of government. This is necessary for two reasons. The first is that it means that we have a socialist mindset by not thinking of ourselves better than others, but that we are all equal. Secondly, it paves the way for development by making it possible for us to look into our traditional system, revise it, and adapt it to meet the demands of technologically advanced countries (Nyerere 1968: 110). Nature embraces diversity. It also emphasizes the uniqueness of each society based on its peculiarities. Thus, there is no one-size-fits--all solution in the application of ujamaa. Nyerere, therefore, holds (121) that ujamaa, or rather socialism, comes in varieties. What works for one community may fail in another. Policies must, therefore, be drawn to meet their demands. However, as long as this is done using ujamaa as its guiding principle, it is proper in such circumstances. So it is wrong to conceive of a society as self-sufficient. This must not be confused with the notion of self-reliance. To be self-reliant is not to think that the existence of a country solely depends on the goodwill of another (146). Self-reliance is not really against anything or anyone, unless there are people who want to recolonize others. Self-reliance is a positive affirmation that Africa shall depend upon herself and use the resources in the state for the attainment of that purpose (149). One aspect of ujamaa that is worth noting is the fact that it repels prebendal politics and neo-patrimonial affiliation. The selection of people to do a job should be based on

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character, competence and capacity of the applicant in question. In so doing, the society is able to draw from the wealth of expatriates. The foreigners in question that come into the society to render their expertise should also bear in mind the nature of the society and tailor their skill towards the socialistic goal. Thus Nyerere (147) contends: ‘To employ an inefficient person just because he is a Tanzanian, when the job he has to do is crucial for our development, is not self-reliance; it is stupidity.’ Ujamaa has both inward and outward outlook. Che-Mponda (1984: 64) is of the view that Nyerere envisaged an African image and personality and sees it as a facelifting platform for the continent to regain its honour in global civilization. This philosophy did not emerge from class struggle but from the nature of indigenous African systems, which is Africa’s guiding principle. Fouéré (2014: 3) opines that it promotes a moral economy on the basis of justice and equality for all, built on concrete government policies such as the communitization of the work force, the collectivization of the means of production, the nationalization of private businesses and housing, and the provision of public services such as healthcare and education. Those who advance capitalism opine that it is the brilliance of the rich that puts them in a position of advantage over the generality of the populace. However, Nyerere contends that this assertion is not a product of empirical evidence. The capitalist is not different from the feudal monarch who rises to prominence by enslaving the masses under him. For God who created human beings could not have been so careless as to make the prosperity of one person dependent on the suffering of another. The desire of individuals to always gravitate towards the accumulation of wealth is symptomatic of a failed society and a ‘vote of no confidence’ passed on the government which will close its eyes towards the basic necessities of the individual in the event that the individual retires from active service. That said, acquisition for the sole purpose of exerting power is not a mark of a socialist society. Nyerere (1968: 4, 5) opines that the elder in traditional African society who enjoys more respect is not as a result of the wealth he possesses, but the fact of his advancement in age. This position shows that both the poor and rich elders in African society have equal respect. In fact, the rich elder is only considered fully part of the society to the extent to which he is able to use his wealth for the development of the community. The use of traditional African society gives a sweeping picture of a romanticized past that never existed. At best, it is proper to speak of Tanganyikan society and not of African society in general. This reiterates the point that the use of traditional African society used by Nyerere is misleading. That said, even in Tanganyikan society, it is not feasible to know the behaviour of everyone in the community to the point of saying that ‘everyone’ was a worker. Ujamaa is to the effect that those who sow should reap a fair share of what they sow, and there cannot be such a concept as acquisitive socialism as it would be a contradiction in terms since socialism is inherently distributive. But, on the other hand, it tends to put more pressure on the government beyond what its resources can take, to cater for those who cannot take care of themselves either as a result of physical disabilities or sheer laziness. Either way, it depletes the resources of the government as people will always find reasons to belong to the social scheme where the society does everything for them. It may also not amount to social/distributive justice to tax those who tend to work tirelessly for the poverty of the lazy. The land and the hoe cannot on its own

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produce wealth without the labour of human hands; the land is sterile and the production of tools useless without human capital. One of the tenets of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) creed is the fact that all citizens of a country own the natural resources and that those resources should be used for the advancement of society. The citizens, therefore, have a right to the benefits accruing from such resources. The purpose of this communal ownership is to prevent situations where only the capitalist is the beneficiary of the resources (Nyerere 1968: 14). This partly led Nyerere to suggest that it is uneven distribution of production that is responsible for inequality. However, even in socialist states, if resources are distributed evenly among all human beings, the output will certainly not be the same as economic forces will undermine productivity of all in the society to compete favourably. Thus, some persons are bound to outcompete others since we cannot at the same time expect that some should walk slowly in order to allow others to keep up with the pace of competition Ujamaa places a moral burden on the shoulders of leaders to be people-centric. Thus, it is not possible to be grafted into the TANU party until you have exhibited the will to respect values that are communal in nature. Nyerere (1968: 29) opined that good leadership, good policies, land and the people are the triggers of development. He opined that money is the result of development and not its foundation. For him, people, land, good policies and good leadership are the indicators that a society is on the path of development. Money under the watch of a bad leader cannot lead to a prosperous society. In order to be on the path of development, a nation must not solely be consumer-driven but also a manufacturing/producing society that has something to give to the world as it also receives something in return. Money is a fruit of the abovementioned drivers of a prosperous nation. For Nyerere, it is therefore wrong to equate money with development. There is, therefore, need for Afro-continental mental surgery to shape the thinking of the people on the proper meaning of prosperity. Socialism is an attitude of the mind and not an inbuilt virtue. ‘It is a belief in the oneness of man and the common historical destiny of mankind.’ That said, there are human beings with a socialist mindset in every part of the world irrespective of the colour of their skin. There are also people with a capitalist mindset. Therefore, capitalism is not an economic style of leadership that belongs to Europe. Each individual must be assessed on his/her own merit and not bundled into a prearranged group category. Also, the fact that a country chooses capitalism over socialism does not make it inherently depraved. In the fullness of time, such a capitalist economy will also see socialism as an evil. However, socialism and racialism are incompatible because socialism is premised on the fact that all human beings are equal. We cannot speak of racialism since it classifies human beings along unequal lines. Racialism and fascism, on the other hand, are compatible since fascism creates boundaries between people (Nyerere 1968: 38). Nyerere thinks that it was not enough to deify the informal status of community. Thus, he opted for a sociopolitical arrangement that would be an extension of the villagization project. Matolino (2014: 120) opines that the communal arrangement is only well adapted to a native environment since it has not experienced the advancement of technology. It implies that capitalism has more influence on technological

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advancement than communal arrangement. But if all native environments progress to meet the demands of a scientific age, then Matolino’s view will lead to the gradual extinction of socialism. Advancement in science and technology begins with an idea in the minds of the people. Academic authorship of ideas has more credibility when it can be personalized. It is within this context that I acknowledge Matolino’s submission because personalization makes it possible for a researcher to have tangible material benefits from the fruits of research. At the same time, I also believe that such research should have some social character because its ultimate goal should be to the advancement of society. An individual can, therefore, be a capitalist with socialist orientation in terms of altruistic goals. To this end, therefore, one is not socialist because the community merely compels him/her to be so, but because a person has rationalized it, making it an attitude of the mind. Masolo (2010: 247–8), for his part, joins his voice with Wole Soyinka to state that an African does not have to be unmodern to be authentically African. Socialism for the African is an altruistic principle. Africans extend the bounds of their obligations beyond family. The obligation towards family outside one’s nuclear family is not actually a product of a legal duty as such but of a categorical imperative. It is a gradual progression of the teachings of right and wrong and what is noble. In explaining the radical communitarian role of the African, Matolino (2014: 113) states that the individual is a secondary reality that must align him/herself to the community. What is important in this is that, whether moderate or radical communitarians, they all agree that the community is crucial in the realization of personhood. Human nature for the African is, therefore, community-based. I now move to respond to the possible relationship ujamaa has with African ethics.

The possibility of a meeting point between ujamaa and African ethics (can ujamaa accommodate African ethics?) Being a phenomenon that rhapsodizes traditional Africa, ujamaa as an ethic bears semblance to ubuntu in terms of projection of the community above the individual (Dolamo 2013: 7). Goran Hyden’s (1980: 9–14) description of the relationship between rural dwellers in Africa shows that ujamaa’s ideology of rural development emphasizes the countryside as the right place for an African. The African had the capacity to access land directly and engaged in production with the help of family members. Under such circumstances, the bond that exists is enhanced in the community. Significantly, ujamaa is the adoption of and the adaptation to indigenous African communalism in postindependent Tanzania, in particular, and Africa as a whole. Ujamaa is about all individuals in society. It is on this note that we search for the nexus between ujamaa and African ethics. In conceiving morality in the African context, Metz (2007: 326) opined that an action is morally praiseworthy to the extent that it is able to take into consideration societal interest. Metz (2017: 113, 117) makes reference to the African communal arrangement that is based on shared identity. For him, however, it is the combination

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of shared identity and goodwill that has highest moral value than either goodwill or shared identity taken separately. This includes the coming together of people in a group towards a rewarding end and the desire for such ends to the benefit of everyone. Unlike the Western notion of morality that permits some actions to be carried out generously, in Africa it is an obligation or a sense of duty to act in favour of the community. This is what ubuntu hopes to achieve. So there are some major similarities between the concept of ubuntu, ujamaa and African ethics. It is the fact that the community takes precedence over the individual, and at the same time the more the individual places more value on the community over him/herself, the higher the moral standing of such an individual. Metz (2013: 148), therefore, concludes that an individual ‘lives a genuinely human way of life just insofar as one enters into or prizes community with others’. In Nyerere’s attempt to justify ujamaa as socialism, a millionaire’s wealth is valuable to him only when it can be utilized in the service of his fellow humans. This affirms that ujamaa is not mere socialism but an ubuntu ethic. This is due to the fact that socialism is a political economy (political ideology) imposed on people, but ubuntu is a cultural ethic and not a political ideology. In as much as ujamaa is an attitude of the mind, it is also a moral mindset that transcends sociopolitical and economic theories and systems. Ujamaa is fundamentally or basically an ethic (Chuwa 2014: 40–1). In indigenous African societies, everyone worked to take care of his/her personal needs, as well as the needs of the sick, the elderly and children (dependants). It is very vital to provide for these people since they cannot provide for themselves. The society did not compel its constituents to distribute their produce. Its emphasis was more on the equality of personhood than possession. It discourages individual ownership of major means of production without the use of force and allows people to participate in the process of the production of wealth on the basis of their ability. The resultant effect is the occurrence of a natural division of labour. Traditionally, the society provides security for children, the elderly, less fortunate, physically impaired and the sick, which enables them to live dignified lives. This security is a common feature in virtually all indigenous African societies and, therefore, its preservation and extension beyond ethnic, national and continental boundaries is imperative because all people are equal. Ujamaa is contained in the Arusha Declaration of 1967, which is a policy statement of the TANU with African culture as its foundation. This policy document contains proposals on better ways to modernize the community lifestyle that was key to the development of African society. The declaration gives recognition to human equality, human rights to life, dignity and respect; equal rights as citizens, equal rights of expression, movement, religious belief, right of association, rights to be protected by the society, rights to just reward for human labour, equal rights to access national natural resources and major means of production (Chuwa 2014: 40–2). Ujamaa is an embodiment of the common good, which means the distribution of resources essentially within the scope of socio-ethical doctrine cherished by the society. This includes familyhood, caring, well-being, reciprocity, togetherness, human equality, sense of security and universal hospitality. Collectivism is perhaps a perfect strategy for resource management and the elimination of exploitation, as well as a suitable avenue for transformation of everybody in the society. Collectivism makes people

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gravitate towards the pooling of resources to avert widespread poverty. Ujamaa inculcates civic virtues where people seek well-being through the establishment of standards that enable them to discern what is good for the community. In order to properly align the thought of Wiredu (1992: 193) to the concept of ujamaa, it is important to understand the idea of morality. The concept of morality is tied to the observance of one’s own preference to that of the general good. However, it does not just stop there. It has to be accompanied with a sense of duty and not out of morbid compulsion. This description of morality succinctly captures the logic of ujamaa as a sociopolitical system of the African. Besides being a system that takes the society into consideration as opposed to an individual, ujamaa emphasizes the fact that it is an attitude of the mind. The importance of this mind-training explains the reason it is constantly repeated by Nyerere in his work. Wiredu (199) used some Akan proverbs that explain the communal nature of the Akan people. This is summarized in the fact that you should do to no one what you would not want done to you. In this form of what he refers to as sympathetic impartiality, there is a gradual ascension from rigorous individualism to social commitment. Thus, even when an action is not socially acceptable, there is an aspect of the wrong that touches not just the individual or the immediate family, but the community at large. Since ujamaa is predicated on ubuntu, what facilitates the rights of people is the common good, because individuals do not act for themselves alone to the disadvantage of the community. The tension between individual rights and the community is resolved through the consideration of unalienable individual rights in the context of societal common good. The importance of the society cannot be downplayed partly because the potential of the individual is perfected in the society. Therefore, the society takes precedence over the individual, although it does not underestimate the personal rights of the individual. Every member of the society has rights to self-determination which finds its limitations in the common good because individuals should limit the urge for personal benefit to the extent that it negatively affects the community. Summarily, personhood takes place through other persons. With this, the importance of the saying ‘no man is an island’ comes to play in the society. This, however, reveals how humans are dependent on each other for personal and group accomplishments. Ramose placed emphasis on the unity of ubuntu in African political and moral thoughts. He was first of all critical of the fact that Western-style democracy will not work for Africa until it undergoes revision. He proposes a purposive construction of politics that is responsive to the volksgeist of the people. He sees ubuntu as the uniting force in this development. If one is to choose between wealth and the welfare of others, human beings should take precedence. This is not a mere deviation from the tenets of capitalism, but is a moral imperative which the African is obligated to keep. ‘To refrain from sharing whatever we have with those in greater need than ourselves is contrary to botho. Sharing and caring for one another are basic tenets of African morality’ (2005: 102). The moral worth of a person is measured by his/her compliance with social norms. However, this does not in any way relegate the individual to a mere being devoid of soul. This exactly is what defines ubuntu. Ubu is considered as the prefix that takes into cognizance the inclusion of the entirety of human beings irrespective of categorization

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of moral worthiness: ‘It is enfolded be-ing before it manifests itself in the concrete form or mode of a particular entity’ (Sharma 2013: 119). This explains the communalistic structure that moves from the community to the individual as opposed to the Western structure that moves from the individual to the community. A deviation from this is a condemnation to an unbroken silence. What ujamaa does, therefore, is to institutionalize the indigeneity of ubuntu, while the concept of ubuntu remains the most important element within African cultural identity. In other words, the meeting point between ujamaa and African ethics is ubuntu and, thus, it can and should accommodate African ethics. Ujamaa is an African contribution to the external human search for a fairly ideal society. We cannot also deny that it will come with its own problems. I acknowledge that ujamaa is an ideology that projects socialism. Like Nyerere, I also accept that it is a system that is in the making. However, I disagree with the fact that it is workable in its entirety. Although it is not a perfect system, it cannot be made perfect even if every one of its tenets is applied. There is no guarantee that socialism would lead to prosperity. For every system, no matter how perfect, there is usually conflict of interest, and as such it leads to friction among members. Communism, capitalism, socialism are all systems with their different challenges. There is a sense in which capitalism filters into communism, and the same would apply to socialism. If we are to go by how the world truly works, then the possibility of having the kind of society that Nyerere envisioned may be difficult to attain in reality. On the other hand, one wonders if attaining such a vision does not come with its own problems.

Conclusion I have explained what ujamaa entails and what it intends to achieve, which is a system of government that aligns with the African traditional community system in contrast to capitalism. I have also highlighted its place in African ethics. Julius Nyerere used the concept of ujamaa to show how traditional African society and democratic society should be blended to ensure the prosperous well-being of the African continent. Although it is a principle that was intended for Tanzania, it is used as a model for other African countries. However, what is important is the fact that socialism is not a readymade practical theory. It can only be attained when different parties come together to agree on different versions of commune. It is on this premise that we can grasp the constant reiteration of the fact that socialism ‘is an attitude of the mind’. Without the effort of human beings through this constant training of the mind, it will be a utopian ideal to be admired. It is, therefore, a work in progress.

Notes 1

This submission was made during the 2020 Decolonial Summer School in the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

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Ancient Egyptian Ethics’ Origin of the African Renaissance Concept Simphiwe Sesanti

Background and introduction A number of scholars (cited below) have observed that spirituality, usually referred to as ‘religion’, is, historically, an immanent and prominent feature in African people’s lives. It has been noted that ‘Africans are notoriously religious’ and that ‘[r]eligion permeates into all the departments of life so fully that it is not easy or possible to always isolate it’ (Mbiti 1989: 1). An examination of ancient Egyptian literature has left an impression that ‘almost all writings in ancient Kmt emerged out of a profound religious orientation toward the world’ (Hilliard, Williams and Damali 1987: 11). Among the ancient Egyptians, ‘[t]here is no force in the life of ancient man the influence of which so pervades all his activities as does that of his religion’ (Breasted 1933: 17). As a result of their meticulous approach to ‘religion’, and the devotion to rules which governed their interaction with the Supreme Being and Ancestral spirits, ancient Egyptians ‘gained [. . .] among the nations with whom they came in contact the reputation of being at one the most religious and the most superstitious of men’ (Budge 2016: 2–3). This ‘religious orientation’, it has been observed, ‘found its expression in preparations for life after death or for the resurrection’ (Hilliard et al.: 1987: 12). In line with this observation, it has also been recorded that ‘[a]mong no people, ancient or modern, has the idea of life beyond the grave held so prominent a place as among the ancient Egyptians’ (Breasted 1933: 45). This observation has led to one philosopher concluding that ancient ‘Egyptians were preoccupied with death’ (Russell 2004: 16). This perceived preoccupation with death is informed by the ancient Egyptians’ belief in life beyond death, where ‘deeds on earth receive reward or retribution’ (Russell 2004: 18). In opposition to the view that ancient Egyptians were preoccupied with death, it has been argued that the ‘Kemites [ancient Egyptians] were not obsessed nor preoccupied with death’, but that ‘on the contrary, they enjoyed life and were quite realistic about death’ (Carruthers 1984: 66). Closer to this assessment, it has been noted that what has been described as obsession with death, on the part of the ancient Egyptians is, in fact, ancient ‘Egyptians’ obsession with eternal life’ (Fletcher 2016: 69). The perceived obsession, whether with death or eternal life, on the part of the ancient Egyptians, gave birth to a conclusion that ‘[n]o other nation of the ancient world made so determined an effort to vanquish death and win eternal life’ (Lichtheim 2006b: 119). 209

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While it may appear as if obsession with death, on the one hand, or with eternal life, on the other, are two different and conflicting perspectives, there is, in fact, no conflict, and none of the two is false. That is because the ancient Egyptians were intensely passionate about life on earth as they were about eternal life beyond death, death being seen as a continuation or an extension of life – preparations for eternal life being made in the earthly life. In the belief that spiritual life after physical death resembled earthly life, dead bodies were buried in the graves with some possessions that the deceased had before physical death (Fletcher 2016: 15). The ‘grave acted as a womb from which the dead could be reborn’ (15). Rebirth, the destination, was not only a spiritual journey, but also an intellectual one, finding itself in the interrogation of the meaning of ethics. The ancient Egyptians’ notion of rebirth is the foundation of the present-day notion of the African Renaissance. For a person to achieve life eternal, one had to live according to the teachings of Maat (Carruthers 1984: 66–7). Maat can be defined as the ancient Egyptians’ ‘moral philosophy’ that gave guidance to humans on everything including table manners and marital relations (Fletcher 2016: 93). Maat occupied a central and key position in the ancient ‘Egyptian view of ethical behavior for humans while alive and of divine behavior in the judging of souls after death’ (Armour 2016: 133). It is the ‘principle of balance in the universe whether that balance refers to weights and measurements in the market, law in the courts, judgment of the heart of the dead or the universal cosmological patterns’ (Carruthers 1984: 58). While the concept Maat ‘cannot be translated literally’, it refers to ‘justice’ or ‘truth’ and represented the ‘ideal state of the universe and everyone in it’ (Tyldesley 2005: 71). The ancient Egyptians believed that if a person lived according to Maat, s/he achieved eternal life in two ways, the first being that her/his name would achieve immortality by being remembered by the living after her/his physical death, and also by future generations (Carruthers 1984: 67). The second way of achieving eternal life was to be admitted into the abode of the Ancestor Spirits – the departed souls (67). Entrance into the Abode of the Ancestors and spiritual immortality, was conditional on one performing justice. King Merikare (Lichtheim 2006a: 100) is advised thus by his father: Life on earth passes, it is not long, Happy is he who is remembered [. . .]

But if one is to be remembered in a good way when s/he has passed on, s/he must be ethical while still on earth: Don’t be evil, kindness is good, Make your memorial last through love of you. Increase the [people], befriend the town, God will be praised for (your) donations [. . .] Make firm your station in the graveyard, By being upright, by doing justice, Upon which men’s hearts rely. 99; 106

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The performance of justice as a condition of becoming an ancestor is also captured in The Eloquent Peasant (181), one of ancient Egypt’s philosophers’ speeches: For justice is for eternity It enters the graveyard with its doer. When he is buried and earth enfolds him, His name does not pass from the earth; He is remembered because of goodness, That is the rule of god’s command.

This chapter examines a number of ancient Egyptians’ texts such as The Instruction Addressed to Kagemni, The Teachings of Ptahotep, The Instructions Addressed to King Merikare, The Instruction of Any, The Instruction of Amenemope, which reveal that the ancient Egyptians did not leave things to chance in the development of ‘ethics’. The Instruction Addressed to Kagemni was an ancient Egyptian’s sage’s advice to the latter about the importance of respect, modesty and self-restraint (59 – 60). The Teachings of Ptahotep address the ‘most important aspects of human relations and they focus on the basic virtues’, the ‘cardinal virtues [. . .] self-control, moderation, kindness, generosity, justice and truthfulness tempered by discretion’ (62). Important to note is that ‘[t]hese virtues [were] to be practiced alike toward all people’ (62). The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare is the ‘legacy of a departing king’ to his son and successor, which ‘embodies a treatise on kingship’ (97). Ancient Egyptians paid a special attention to the character and conduct of a king because they held the view that as someone who had a responsibility of ruling over the whole community, the success or failure of Maat depended on her/him. The Instruction of Any is a text presented in the ‘form of a father instructing his son’, advising him about conduct (Lichtheim 2006b: 135). The Instruction of Amenemope is a counsel about the ‘ideal man [. . .] whose chief characteristic is modesty’, a person who is ‘self-controlled, quiet, and kind toward people [. . .] humble before God’ (146). We begin by defining and contextualizing the concept ‘ethics’, followed by showing that the Supreme Being and the ancestors were regarded by the ancient Egyptians as their sources of ethics. We then examine libation, a ritual performed by ancient Egyptians and Africans in general, as a token of appreciation to the Supreme Being and the ancestors as the source of ethics. Next, we examine the centrality of the ‘heart’ and the ‘tongue’ in the exercise of, and their implications in, building or destroying a family, socially, as a source of ethics, and also how the ‘heart’ and the ‘tongue’ are central in building or destroying political stability for a nation. Then, the concluding remarks.

Defining and contextualizing ancient Egyptians’ ethics The word ‘ethics’, whose etymology is Greek, refers to ‘matters concerned with character’ (Watt 1996: xiii). That is what the ancient Egyptians themselves understood and meant by ‘ethics’. In The Teachings of Ptahotep, which is not only ancient Egypt’s oldest

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complete book, but also the oldest complete book in the world, the ancient Egyptian philosopher Ptahhotep (Hilliard et al. 1987: 21) taught that ‘[a] person of character is a person of wealth’, meaning, in this case, that wealth was not only measured in terms of material but, also, in terms of spirituality. The Instructions of Any (Lichtheim 2006b: 139) states that ‘[n]o good character is reproached, [a]n evil character is blamed’. In The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare (Lichtheim 2006a: 107), King Merikare’s father, in advising his son to endear himself to everyone, tells him that ‘[a] good character is remembered [when his time] has passed’. For ancient Egyptians, the source of character was the Supreme Being.

The Supreme Being as a source of ethics Explicit association of ethics with the Supreme Being is found in two of ancient Egypt’s oldest pieces of literature. The first is the ‘Memphite Drama’ (Breasted 1933: 33) or the ‘Memphite Theology’ (Lichtheim 2006a: 51), and the second is ancient Egyptian philosopher Ptahhotep’s book The Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World. The Memphite Drama or Theology is a document, written between the years 3,500 and 3,400 BCE, and is regarded as the ‘earliest known discussion of right and wrong in the history of man’ (Breasted 1933: 19). It is a ‘semi-theological, semiphilosophical discussion of origins, produced by a priestly body of temple thinkers’ (19). It is a dialogical exercise, a ‘philosophical discussion’ between various gods, about, among other interrelated issues, a Supreme Being who guided ‘human life in accordance with distinctions between right and wrong’ (32; 34). The Memphite Drama, thus, may be summarised as an effort to account for the origin of all things, including the moral order of the world, and to show that they had their origins in Ptah of Memphis. 34

Ptah was the name the people of Memphis, one of the provinces of ancient Egypt, used in reference to the Supreme Being. When Shabaka, the Ethiopian pharaoh, who ruled ancient Egypt in 800 BCE, saw the Memphite Drama, he declared it as ‘a work of the ancestors’ (29). When Ptahhotep put together his teachings, titled by Hilliard et al. (1987: 16, 37) as The Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World, he referred to its contents as ‘the ways of our ancestors’, ‘the writings of the ancestors’. Both the Memphite Drama or Theology, and Ptahhotep’s teachings, reveal two significant issues about ancient Egyptian ethics. First, in acknowledging the Memphite Drama or Theology as the literature of the ancestors, the Shabaka simultaneously acknowledged the ancestors as the source of ancient Egyptians’ knowledge of both the Supreme Being, and their ethics. Secondly, while the ancestors are celebrated as the source of ancient Egyptians’ knowledge, what emerges is that the ancestors themselves acknowledged the Supreme Being as the source of all knowledge, including ethics. Ptahhotep (19) did the same, as well, in acknowledging the ancestors as a source of ancient Egyptians’ ethics, but the Supreme Being as the source of knowledge:

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Great is Maat (truth, justice and righteousness). It is everlasting. Maat has been everlasting since the time of Asar.

Ptahhotep’s (22) counsel makes this explicit: If you are a wise man, train up a son who will be pleasing to God. If he is straight (emphasis added) and takes after you, take good care of him.

This comes out clearly, also, in The Instructions of Amenemope (Lichtheim 2006b: 158): Maat is a great gift of god, He gives it to whom he wishes The might of him who resembles him It saves the poor from his tormentor.

What comes out clearly from both Ptahhotep’s book, and The Instructions of Amenemope, is that ancient Egyptian philosophers taught that the reason for the Supreme Being to create humankind was to make women and men to be agents of truth, justice and righteousness (Maat). The purpose for humankind’s existence was meant to please, in other words, serve and live for the Supreme Being. Serving and living for the Supreme Being meant, among other things, doing justice by protecting the poor from powerful tormentors. What this means is that Maat is not only about being pro-justice, but also about being actively anti-injustice. A person, then, who associates her/himself with Maat is, for ethical reasons, expected to shield the poor from exploitation by the powerful, the reason being that the Supreme Being opposes injustice and proposes justice. The Instructions of Amenemope (158; 161) spell this out thus: Do not confound a man in the law court In order to brush aside one who is right. Do not incline to the well-dressed man, And rebuff the one in rags Don’t accept the gift of a powerful man, And deprive the weak for his sake [. . .] God prefers him who honors the poor To him who worships the wealthy. emphasis added

The above reveals that according to Maatian ethics, the Supreme Being expected those who claimed to be ethical to associate themselves with the needy poor instead of keeping the company of the rich. Aligning oneself that way was an act of Maat. Ancient Egyptian philosophers did not allow the concept of justice to be vague, thus being

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interpreted in any way. Its meaning had to be found in concrete expressions of generosity, as found in The Instructions of Any (141): Do not eat bread while another stands by Without extending your hand to him. As to food, it is here always, It is man who does not last.

Doing good for the next person, the Maat philosophy taught, was not just for the benefit of the other, but for the benefit of the self, too, because in sharing there were blessings, in that the giver would be blessed with more abundance (142). While believing that in giving there were returns, ancient Egyptians were realistic, and sensitive to the fact that there was always a possibility that fortunes could turn, hence the caution (142): As to him who was rich last year, He is a vagabond this year; Don’t be greedy to fill your belly, You don’t know your end at all. Should you come to be in want, Another may do good to you.

The perspective above is not uniquely ancient Egyptian, but universally African. Regarding uncertainty about the future, the absence of guarantees about where a person may find the self the next day, this insight is captured well in one of South Africa’s languages, isiXhosa, saying, unyawo alunampumlo. Literally, it means that ‘a foot has no nose’, meaning that a human being does not have a capacity to smell where s/he may end up next. While Maat urged a sense of generosity, benevolence, it was not lost to the ancient Egyptians that unscrupulous people could abuse generosity and exploit kind people, hence the caution in The Instructions of Any (139): The wise lives off the house of the fool, Protect what is yours and you find it; Keep your eye on what you own, Lest you end as a beggar.

The above caveat is found in southern African languages, isiXhosa (ilifa lezidenge lidliwa zizilumko) and isiZulu (ilifa lezithutha lidliwa ngabahlakaniphileyo). What this points to was that while Africans, in general, and ancient Egyptians, in particular, regarded kindness as an ethical imperative, they also found exploitation of kindness disdainful. Hence the counsel that humans should not ‘rejoice in wealth from theft’, they should ‘not cheat a man pen on scroll’, and the reason for this proscription being that the ‘god abhors it’, that is, the Supreme Being disapproves (153, 155). The ancient Egyptians taught that in the eyes of the Supreme Being it was an honourable thing to be poor than to be rich by unethical means (152): Better is a bushel given to you by the god, Than five thousand through wrongdoing [. . .]

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Better is poverty in the hand of the god, Than wealth in the storehouse; Better is bread with a happy heart Than wealth with vexation [. . .] If riches come to you by theft, They will not stay the night with you.

While the ancient Egyptians believed that good actions were measured by whether the Supreme Being approved of their conduct or not, they also looked up to the conduct of their departed forebears, their ancestors as their source of character.

The ancestors as a source of ethics: The logic The Instructions of Any (138) give a clear sense that the ancestors were taken as role models: Emulate the great departed, Who are at rest within their tombs. No blame accrues to him who does it, It is well that you be ready too.

Faith in the ancestors was not an exercise rooted merely in sentiments. It was rooted in logic. It was informed by the hindsight of those that had examined the ancestors’ wisdom, which was informed by their insight in the challenges they confronted in their time. The appreciation of the ancestors’ foresight and insight comes out clearly in The Admonitions of Ipuwer (Lichtheim 2006a: 150): ‘What the ancestors foretold has happened.’ The Instructions to King Merikare is one of the clearest statements which reveal the logic which informed the ancient Egyptians’ faith in their ancestors as role models in life, and as their source of ethics. This is because not only does this text reveal the ancient Egyptians’ admiration of the departed, but also reveals their logic for doing so. An examination of the text reveals that the ancestors were associated with, and seen as a source of ethics, a source of conduct, a source of justice (Maat): Justice comes to him distilled, Shaped in the sayings of the ancestors, Copy your fathers, your ancestors, .............. See, their words endure in books, Open, read them, copy their knowledge, He who is taught becomes skilled. 99

A greater appreciation of the above is possible when one considers that the philosopher Ptahotep, whose teachings he attributed to his ancestors, taught that ‘[n]o one is born

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wise’ (Hilliard et al. 1987: 17). This being the case, then, ancient Egyptians believed that wisdom came through a conscious act of learning, which came through the philosophical heritage of the ancestors ‘whose words endure in books’. Learning, the ancient Egyptians believed, gave individuals, as articulated in The Instruction of Any (Lichtheim 2006b: 140), power, authenticity and authority: One will do as you say If you are versed in writings; Study the writings, put them in your heart, Then all your words will be effective.

While there was a great appreciation that knowledge from the ancestors’ writings would give individuals the power that would make lesser powerful mortals ‘do’ what the more knowledgeable ones ‘say’, ancient Egyptian philosophers took great care in cautioning the knowledgeable ones not to exercise their power with arrogance but with moral authority. That is because, as The Complaints Od Khakheperre-Sonb (Lichtheim 2006a: 146) make explicit, the education that the knowledgeable possessed was a gift from the ancestors, not their original creation, and this being the case, power had to be exercised with a great sense of humility, not with arrogance: Ancestor’s words are nothing to boast of, They are found by those who come after [. . .]

As a token of reverence for, and appreciation of the departed souls, ancient Egyptians performed ‘elaborate rites of funeral’ for a safe journey to the world yonder (Romer 2008: xxvii). The ‘elaborate rites of funerals’, however, were, and are, not exclusively ancient Egyptian but found throughout the African continent. The ‘[e]laborate funeral rites’ performed for the departed are aimed at showing that ‘the living hold the departed person as a valued member of their community, one whose worth does not end with their death’, the event of death being ‘seen merely as transfer or passage of a person from one form of life to another and the dead person is regarded as still playing an active role in keeping the family, clan and community together’ (Kasoma 1994: 27–28). That Africans have historically performed, and continue to perform, ‘elaborate’ funeral rituals for their departed, and that, historically, and presently, continue to hold a view that a departed soul, even in death, is perceived as ‘still playing an active role in keeping the family, clan and community together’, are factors deserving an elaboration. That is so because they help to clarify the meaning of Africans’ cultural notions of the ‘family’ and the ‘ancestors’ and the centrality of these notions in understanding Africans’ approach to the notion of ‘ethics’. Among Africans, family is defined as those who have passed on (the ancestors), those who are living, and those yet-to-be-born or not yet born (Mbiti 1989: 104–5). What this definition reveals is that there is an unbroken link between those who have passed on, the living and the yet-to-be-born. Elaborate rituals for the departed ones were not, and continue not to be confined and limited to funerals – they continue beyond funerals. One of the significant rituals that keep the memory of the departed, and the link between the departed and the living, alive is the act of libation.

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Libation: An act honouring the Supreme Being, the ancestors, and preserving family ties Libation is a symbolic act of offering drink or food to the departed as ‘tokens of fellowship, hospitality and respect’ (emphasis added), also signifying ‘family continuity and contact’ (Mbiti 1990: 9). The act of libation is not uniquely ancient Egyptian, but a cultural practice found throughout the African continent, and among people of African descent now constituting the diaspora (Nehusi 2016: 43). Any (Lichtheim 2006b: 137), an ancient Egyptian sage, is recorded as giving the following advice regarding libation: Libate for your father and mother, who are resting in the valley; When the gods witness your action, they will say: ‘Accepted.’ Do not forget the one outside, Your son will act for you likewise.

The counsel, above, by Any, and The Instructions to King Merikare (Lichtheim 2006a: 102, 106), below, reveal two important beliefs and lessons regarding libation in the ancient Egyptian community, that being that they believed their symbolic act would be pleasing not only to their ancestors, but also to the Supreme Being: Proffer libations, multiply the loaves, Make ample the daily offerings, It profits him who does it [. . .] God recognizes him who works for him [. . .] The loaf of the upright is preferred To the ox of the evildoer. Work for god, he will work for you also, With offerings that make the altar flourish, With carvings that proclaim your name, God thinks of him who works for him.

Libation was also a conscious educational exercise of teaching children through role modelling. The rationale was that if an adult were seen by one’s children performing libation for her/his parents, their children will do it for them, too. What this reveals, then, is that the performing of rituals for the dead was neither just about the purification of the body, nor about merely keeping the memory of the dead alive, but also about the inculcation of values aimed at moulding the character for the life ahead. So, libation was not for ostentatious purposes – it was aimed at building character. For those who thought that it was an exercise or a show-off, which could be used to conceal acts of justice, ancient Egyptian philosophers left no doubt that performing libation and turning a blind eye to injustice reduced libation to an empty and useless ritual: He who is silent toward violence diminishes the offerings. 105

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In advancing Maat, ancient Egyptians considered the heart and the tongue as key factors.

The heart and the tongue as crucial factors in the exercise of Maat To better appreciate the meaning and the significance of the heart in ancient Egyptians’ culture, the ‘Memphite Drama’ (Breasted 1933: 33) or the ‘Memphite Theology’ (Lichtheim 2006a: 51) is helpful in shedding light. This document provides an explicit explanation about the centrality of the heart in ancient Egyptian culture, and more specifically, in ethical conduct. The explanation is drawn from one of ancient Egypt’s myths about creation: There took shape in the heart, there took shape on the tongue the form of Atum. For the very great one is Ptah, who gave [life] to all the gods and their kas through this heart and through this tongue [. . .] 54

This statement reflects the ancient Egyptians’ belief that Ptah (the Supreme Being) ‘thought’ creation into existence, with The One’s heart, and ‘commanded’ it with The One’s tongue. The heart and the tongue were associated with the Supreme Being, and the latter with the creation of everything that exists. Among the ancient Egyptians, the ‘heart’ was not merely or simply a cardiac muscle – the ‘heart was considered the seat of emotion and intellect, and [. . .] essential for a harmonious life’ (Jacq 2004: x, xviii). The heart referred to the ‘mind’ or ‘intelligence’, and the ‘tongue’ referred to the ‘designation of the spoken word, the authoritative utterance, by which the thoughts of the mind became objective, that is, are projected into a world of objective reality’ (Breasted 1933: 34). Considering, therefore, as the ancient Egyptians believed, that the Supreme Being first ‘thought’ creation in The One’s heart, and then pronounced it with The One’s mind, human beings were taught that The heart of a man is a gift of god, Beware of neglecting it. Lichtheim 2006b: 160

The Instructions of Amenemope, above, give a clear indication that human beings should not take for granted the ability to think. It was regarded as a great gift from the Supreme Being that was not to be used recklessly. The act of thinking had to be exercised with caution. Caution in the act of thinking extended to the act of speaking. The two – thinking and speaking – the ancient Egyptians believed, were not, and should not, be separable as The Instructions of Amenemope (154) made explicitly: Do not sever your heart from your tongue, That all your strivings may succeed.

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You will be weighty before the others And secure in the hand of god.

What The Instructions of Amenemope reveal is that in the ancient Egyptians’ belief, in order for one to be respectable – ‘weighty’ – among fellow human beings, in order for a person to succeed in one’s life’s efforts as part of human struggles, but more importantly, in order for one to please the Supreme Being, to be ‘secure in the hand of god’, a human being should think clearly before opening her/his mouth and making a statement. Such, the ancient Egyptian philosopher Amenemope taught, was, in the eyes of the Supreme Being, an ethical obligation (154): Another thing good in the heart of the god: To pause before speaking.

A ‘pause before speaking’ implied that human beings were required to measure their words carefully, to exercise self-control. The location of the heart as a site of virtues is not uniquely ancient Egyptian, but also found in the greater African family. The Bemba of Zambia refer to a human being who performs a virtuous act as ‘a person with a kind generous heart’ (Moemeka and Kasoma 1994: 39). Among the Luo of Kenya, a person who is not easily offended is said to have a ‘good heart’ or a ‘deep heart’ (Ocholla-Ayayo in Moemeka and Kasoma 1994: 39). Conversely, a person who is easily offended and is impossible to please is said to have a ‘bad heart’ (39). A person who cannot keep a secret is said to have a ‘narrow, weak or unstable heart’ (39). Africans, in general, and ancient Egyptians, in particular, understood that the ability or inability to restrain their thoughts (hearts) and their speech (tongue) not only had serious social implications, as in the case of Africans’ notion of family, but also political implications, in terms of governance. We examine the social, and then political implications, below.

Social implications: Family as a source of ethics Self-control was perceived as a good ingredient in a family-building exercise. The philosopher Any (Lichtheim 2006b: 143) taught his son that Every man who founds a household Should hold back the hasty heart.

Holding back a hasty heart in the household meant, Any (143) further told his son: Do not control your wife in her house, When you know she is efficient; Don’t say to her: ‘Where is it? Get it!’ When she has put it in the right place, Let your eye observe in silence, Then you recognize her skill;

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It is joy when your hand is with her, There are many who don’t know this. If a man desists from strife at home, He will not encounter its beginning.

Any (140) cautioned that inability to self-control could have disastrous consequences: A man may be ruined by his tongue, Beware and you will do well.

Not only will a man have good relations with his wife if he is able to self-control, but he will also be a good role model to his children, and thus have a healthy family life. This comes out in The Instruction of Amenomope (150): Don’t start a quarrel with a hot-mouthed man [. . .] If you make your life with these (words) in your heart, Your children will observe them.

We now turn to political implications of self-control.

Political implications: Ethical leadership Self-control implies that an individual must wage a struggle with, and against, the self. Such is no easy exercise, because it means that one must subdue one’s ego. For this reason, Ptahotep (Hilliard et al. 1987: 34) taught that Hearing is better than everything else. It creates good will.

Hearing, in this case, meant conscious listening, that is, keeping quiet and paying attention, as Ptahotep (28), himself, counselled: Your silence is much better than boasting. Speak when you know that you have a solution. It is the skilled person who should speak when in council. Speaking is harder than all other work. The one who understands this makes speech a servant.

Ptahhotep’s recognition that speaking ‘is harder than all other work’, and that it is a necessary skill that must not only be learnt but mastered, finds an echo in The Instruction Addressed To Merikare (Lichtheim 2006a: 99): If you are skilled in speech, you will win, The tongue is a [king’s] sword (square brackets original);

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Speaking is stronger than all fighting, The skillful is not overcome.

In nineteenth-century Lesotho, in preparation for BaSotho king Moshoeshoe becoming a chief, and ultimately a king, of his people, the seer and philosopher Mohlomi told Moshoeshoe that there was ‘no herb, no medicine and no form of taslisman that can be used to help anybody to become a chief [. . .] a great chief ’ (Mokhehle 1990: 31). The ‘only form of talisman’ that Mohlomi (31) knew of, he counselled Moshoeshoe, was a man’s heart – yes – Botho-ba-motho – (Man’s own sacred goodness and purest being). It is Botho alone that shall help you become a great chief.

Botho is a SeSotho and SeTswana expression of Africans’ philosophy about the meaning of being ‘human’. In the Shona of Zimbabwe, and KiSwahili of East Africa, to name only two African languages, it is known as Unhu and Utu, respectively. Just like the ancient Egyptians before him, Mohlomi (31) taught that ruling according to the ‘heart’ meant that Moshoeshoe should always determine and direct the BaSotho ‘along the paths of truth and sympathy’, and that in the people’s disputes he should always ‘adjudicate with justice, perfect justice and sympathy’.

Concluding remarks The history of ancient Egypt is one of highs and lows, successes and failures, ascent and descent, birth, death and rebirth of civilizations. In their best and worst moments, the philosophers of that ancient world measured their conditions by the standards of their values. As a source of their inspiration, they looked up to and invoked the Supreme Being’s and their ancestors’ ethics as the basis of their call for the rebirth of their nation. This chapter has sought to show that physical death and, later, rebirth as ancestors were not only represented in the literal death and resurrection in the afterlife, but that it was a metaphor for the death and rebirth of values, a necessity and a call for the reclamation of ethics. In 2,500 BCE, the ancient Egyptians took the lead in what is known today as the African Renaissance.

References Armah, A. K. 2006. The eloquence of the scribes: a memoir on the sources and resources of african literature. Popenguine: Per Ankh. Armour, R. A. 2016. Gods And Myths Of Ancient Egypt. Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press. Breasted, J. H. 1933. The Dawn of Conscience: The sources of our moral heritage in the ancient world. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Budge, E. A. W. 2016. Egyptian Magic: A history of ancient Egyptian magical practices including amulets, names, spells, enchantments, figures, formulae, supernatural ceremonies, and words and power. New York: Chartwell Books.

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Carruthers, J. H. 1984. Essays In Ancient Egyptian Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press. Diop, C. A. 1987. Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State, expanded ed. (Harold J. Salemson, trans.). Chicago and Trenton: Lawrence Hill Books and Africa World Press. Fletcher, J. 2016. The Story of Egypt. London: Hodder. Hilliard, A. G., L. Williams and N. Damali, eds. 1987. The Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World. Atlanta: Blackwood Press. Kasoma, F. P. 1994. ‘An Introduction to Journalism Ethical Reasoning in Africa’. In Journalism Ethics in Africa, ed. F. P. Kasoma, 22–37. Nairobi: African Council for Communication Education. Lichtheim, M. 2006a. Ancient Egyptian Literature: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, Vol. I. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lichtheim, M. 2006b. Ancient Egyptian Literature: The New Kingdom, Vol. II. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mbiti, J. S. 1990. African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd ed. Sandton: Heinemann. Moemeka, A. A., and F. P. Kasoma. 1994. In Journalism Ethics in Africa, ed. F. P. Kasoma, 38–50. Nairobi: African Council for Communication Education. Mokhehle, N., ed. 1990. Moshoeshoe I: Profile – Se-Moshoeshoe. Maseru: Mmoho Publications. Nehusi, K. S. K. 2016. Libation: An Afrikan Ritual of Heritage in the Circle of Life. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Romer, J. 2008. ‘Introduction’. In The Egyptian Book of the Dead, ed. E. A. W. Budge, xxiii–xl. Johannesburg: Penguin Books. Russell, B. 2004. History of Western Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge Classics. Tyldesley, J. 2005. Nefertiti: Unlocking The Mystery Surrounding Egypt’s Most Famous And Beautiful Queen. London: Penguin Books. Watts, S. 1996. ‘Introduction’. In Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics, ix–xxiii. Ware: Wordsworth Editions.

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The Partialist Leaning and Impartialist Aspiration of Traditional African Ethics Ada Agada

Introduction African philosophy has variously been described as the unique philosophical world views of the people of sub-Saharan Africa, a systematic rational enquiry into African traditional phenomena, practices and belief systems, a body of critical knowledge systems created by a set of people claiming the title African philosophers and who may be living in Africa or beyond the geographical boundaries of the continent but who are committed to the systematization of African forms of thought (Bodunrin 1981; Oruka 1990; Appiah 1992; Masolo 1994; Hountondji 1996; van Hook 1997; Imbo 1998; Hallen 2002, 2015; Uduma 2014; Chimakonam 2015, 2018). African ethics naturally arises as a branch of African philosophy. In recent years, African philosophy has witnessed a renaissance of some sort with early controversies over its existence laid to rest and with individual African philosophers pushing ahead determinedly with the task of expanding the intellectual horizon of the tradition. One consequence of the expansion of the intellectual horizon of African philosophy is a budding interest in the ethical subfield of partiality and impartiality which investigates the relationship between impartiality and morality and explores the question whether ethics is best thought of and delineated in terms of impartiality. This chapter will exhibit the tension between the partialist structure of traditional African ethics and its, paradoxically, universalist aspiration. In the pursuit of this goal, the chapter clarifies the concepts of African ethics, partiality and impartiality, while noting the porosity of the borders demarcating the territories of reasonable partiality and the orientation of partiality that raises moral questions. The chapter will show that the universalist aspiration of African ethics makes it a worthy ethical system committed to the actualization of the principles of justice and equality that play an integral role in human progress.

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African Ethics, partiality and impartiality If ethics broadly construed is the investigation of the concepts that define moral behaviour, then African ethics must be understood as the investigation of concepts and precepts that define or characterize moral behaviour from the standpoint of the people of sub-Saharan Africa. This African standpoint finds its bearing within the space of a basic African world view variously characterized as at once theocentric and anthropocentric, cosmocentric and communocentric, more people-regarding and less person-emphasizing (Senghor 1964; Nyerere 1968; Mbiti 1969; Menkiti 1984, 2004; Ramose 2003a, 2003b; Kaphagawani 2004; Gyekye 1997, 2010a, 2010b; Ikuenobe 2006, 2018; Asouzu 2007; Wiredu 2010; Chuwa 2014; Omotoso 2017). In a nutshell, African ethics encompasses ‘the moral beliefs and presuppositions of the sub-Saharan African people and the philosophical clarification and interpretation of those beliefs and presuppositions’ (Gyekye 2010, section 1). The vaunted communitarianism of traditional African societies, which to a large extent condition the moral world views of Africans, inevitably supports a partialist stance that privileges primary orientations, interests and commitments, seemingly at the expense of secondary orientations, interests and commitments. The terms ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ are sometimes used interchangeably, regardless of the former focusing on principles of right conduct and the latter on right conduct itself. The two terms will be used interchangeably in this chapter. Given the concern of morality with right or seemly conduct, the notion of partiality becomes a problem for ethics which strives for impartiality and universalism as the core conditions for a system of morality that can be binding for everyone endowed with the capacity to think, feel and act. Partiality is the human tendency to acknowledge and pursue preferences or biases (Hume 1963; Rollin 2005; Scheffler 2010). Considered in this light, partiality poses an ethical problem since a preference or bias can be positive or negative, harmless or harmful. While a preference or fondness for one’s primary group or interests – for instance, one’s family, friends or community – does not seem to go against moral intuition, the kind of preference which manifests in prejudice definitely raises questions of moral conduct. Examples of preferences indistinguishable or increasingly indistinguishable from prejudice are greed motivated by self-interest, nepotism, tribalism, clannishness and racism. Impartiality is the opposite of partiality. Impartiality strives towards the realization of the most thorough ethical universalism and appeals to concepts like equality and justice for the validity of its formal or perfectionist outlook (see Scheffler 2010). The tension between morality, partiality and impartiality comes out clearly in this dilemma: If, by ‘partiality’, we mean bias or prejudice, then surely morality and partiality are not compatible, for bias and prejudice are antithetical to the kind of impartiality that is a fundamental feature of moral thought. But if . . . what we mean by ‘partiality’ is a preference or fondness for a particular person, then surely morality and partiality are compatible. Scheffler 2010: 99

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On account of the porosity of the borders of morality, partiality and impartiality, the relationship between all three concepts is often an ambiguous relationship. A harmless preference can easily degenerate into irrational bias. The recognition of this danger has led to the formulation of the idea of reasonable partiality, the view that one can find legitimate and compelling reasons to favour or have a preference for one’s primary group and interests (Rollin 2005; Scheffler 2010).

The partialist structure of traditional African ethics The communal world view is pronounced in Africa. Communitarianism, the view that the community takes precedence over the individual, is a distinctive feature of traditional African life. While some scholars have noted the destabilizing influence of modernity on the communal way of life with urbanization changing the face of modern Africa (see, for instance, Taiwo 2016), the communal world view has remained a defining feature of African life, contributing in no small measure to the debate on the African concept of personhood. Partiality is implicit in the high regard Africans accord their family members. The commitment to the interests of the primary group can be further expanded beyond the immediate family sphere to include the network of intimate friends, clan members, the community and the ancestors. The paterfamilias deserving not only his title but respect within the community is under obligation to first meet the needs of his family members, beginning with the nuclear family, and then extending his beneficence to the extended family before considering the interests of the stranger. The individual is under a moral obligation to [C]arve out a reasonably ample livelihood for self, family and a potentially wide group of kin dependents, besides making substantial contributions to the wellbeing of society at large. The communalistic orientation of the society . . . means that an individual’s image will depend rather crucially upon the extent to which his or her actions benefit others than himself . . . The implied counsel, though, is not one of unrelieved self-denial, for the Akans are well aware that charity further afield must start at home. Wiredu 2010: 200

At this stage partial consideration remains within the reasonability limit, as preference is not only sanctioned by the community but is also deemed by reason and common sense to be morally worthy. A head of a family abandoning his responsibility to family members will be deemed as acting immorally even if he cites care for a secondary group such as refugees from a different community as the reason for neglecting family members. African communalism, or Afro-communitarianism, has received the lion’s share of attention from African philosophers in recent years with a number of compelling theories of what African communitarianism is or should be competing for clarity and acceptance. As already noted, much of the partiality implicit in African ethics owes its origin to the communal world view which privileges the primary group and promotes

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commitment to the interests of the primary group. Radical communitarianism is often contrasted with moderate communitarianism, although both variants of Afrocommunitarianism accept the basic communitarian thesis of the priority of the community over the individual. Radical forms of Afro-communitarianism exalt the value of the community to the point of exaggeration (see Mbiti 1969; Menkiti 1984; Molefe 2017; Ikuenobe 2018). Radical communitarianism typically asserts: [T]he individual does not and cannot exist alone except corporately. He owes this existence to other people, including those of past generations and contemporaries . . . The community must therefore make, create, or produce the individual . . . The individual can only say ‘I am, because we are; and since we are therefore I am’. This is the cardinal point in the understanding of the African view of man. Mbiti 1969: 108–9

The apparent magnification of the role of the community in the individual–community relationship is the basis for moderate communitarianism challenging radical communitarianism. According to the moderate communitarian viewpoint, a one-sided focus on the community comes at the expense of the individual who is clearly a rational being with projects and goals directed by her autonomous status (Gyekye 2010b; Majeed 2018). However, some scholars consider the challenge of moderate communitarianism a failure or, at best, a tame challenge given that it has neither shown that radical communitarianism is false nor extricated itself from the community-prior framework that informs the authoritarianism of the radical communitarian thesis (Eze 2008; Matolino 2009; Famakinwa 2010). Other scholars have insisted that moderate communitarianism is distinct from radical communitarianism since the former’s basic submission is that ‘the African social order will exhibit both individualistic and communalistic features, and neither strictly communal or individualistic’ (Majeed 2018: 6). Limited communitarianism advances the centrist aspiration of moderate communitarianism by approaching the question of personhood from the angle of personal identity rather than communalism, in the process emphasizing the individual as a free entity immersed in social life (Matolino 2014). A more compelling recent response to the community–individual conundrum is the contemporaneity thesis which regards the community–individual question as one best understood in terms of a ‘now’ relationship, a mutually beneficial bond linking contemporaries (see Eze 2008; Chimakonam 2018; Agada and Egbai 2018; Majeed 2018). The contemporaneity thesis affirms that the ‘individual and the community are not radically opposed in the sense of priority but engaged in a contemporaneous formation’ (Eze 2008: 386), which ‘at the very moment of its emergence and all through the lives of the individuals so bonded is a ‘now’ relationship’ (Agada and Egbai 2018: 150). The importance of Afro-communitarianism as a core determinant of the partiality or impartiality of African ethics cannot be overemphasized. It reveals the partialist structure of African ethics in its unmistakable emphasis on the primary group, with the locus of interest expanding from the social self to the nearest primary group, the nuclear and extended family, and then the clan and community. Solidarity can, of

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course, be extended to the secondary group of non-family members, non-clan members and strangers, but the first obligation is to the primary group. Here, there seems to be no clash between partiality and morality as ‘[o]ur natural, uncultivated ideas of morality, instead of providing a remedy for the partiality of our affections, do rather conform themselves to that partiality and give it an additional force and influence’ (Hume 1963: 489). Yet, the borders of partiality and prejudice are porous. What seems like reasonable partiality one moment becomes irrational prejudice the next moment. The partiality of traditional African ethics, hinged on communalism, easily degenerates into prejudice and exacerbates such social ills as nepotism, clannishness, tribalism and violent xenophobia, on the strength of the seemingly misplaced conviction that what is familiar and most intimate is harmless while what is unfamiliar and remote is dangerous (see Ramose 2003a, 2003b; Asouzu 2004, 2007; Appiah 2006; Niekerk 2011; Metz 2014). Paradoxically, the same communal ethics, undergirded by a partialist structure, also reveals an impartialist aspiration, thus confirming its status as a universalist ethical framework that espouses universally applicable moral precepts. The next section will show how African ethics pursues the ideal of impartiality.

The impartialist aspiration of African ethics It is doubtful if any system that prides itself as an ethical system can be worth the title without embodying universalism in principle or, at least, aspiring to universalism that its precepts may be applicable to all rational beings of a determined nature such as humans in all possible worlds. The distance between theory and practice no doubt exists as what is thought of is often more complete than what is the case in the real world. The universalism in question connotes and denotes impartiality. While African ethics leans towards partiality on account of its communal outlook, the same communalism inclines it towards impartiality. It has been noted, in defence of a strong partialist thesis of African ethics, that ‘the high price usually attached to family; the veneration of ancestors and the normative notion of personhood recommend partiality rather than impartiality’ (Molefe 2016a: 105). The basic argument is that, since the family unit serves as an ideal model of African moral conception of the relations subsisting between humans and between humans and the universe as a whole, the privileging of this unit is a fundamental endorsement of partiality understood as a preference for the familiar and homely, within the limits of reasonable partiality (see Ramose 2003: 386). The concepts of ubuntu, ujamaa, negritude and igwebuike – which underline the communal outlook of African traditional values – are invoked to justify partiality. Ubuntu, ujamaa, and igwebuike celebrate humaneness and social harmony in their capacity to enhance individual existence (Senghor 1964; Nyerere 1968; Shutte 2001; Kanu 2016), while negritude hammers on the humanistic orientation of African ethics, the emphasis on the expandability of the nuclear and extended family to encompass the universe of primary and secondary groups and interests, the family member and the stranger (see Senghor 1964; Irele 2003: 56).

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This universalist feature of African ethics vitiates the strong partialist thesis. African societies indeed recognize that charity begins at home, but they also understand that communalism invites humans to share a broader horizon by going persistently beyond narrow borders to prevent the social disasters of nepotism, clannishness, tribalism and violent xenophobia, which are today ubiquitous throughout sub-Saharan Africa (Ramose 2003; Niekerk 2011). A fuller humanity, the realization of the universalist message of ubuntu, negritude, ujamaa and igwebuike, resolves the tension between partiality and impartiality. The expansion of the shared humanistic horizon persuades individuals that the expanding horizon is not only for their needy family and clan members but also non-family and non-clan members, such that the relative takes on the aspect of the universal in a process that promotes impartiality (see Ramose 2003: 385–6). The defender of partiality who sees in the demarcation of distinct spheres of primary moral obligations, such as the family sphere, justification for the partialist thesis cannot but acknowledge the border-erasing concept of African humanism which motivates a rethink along the line that ‘the boundaries in question are permeable [since] . . . one is urged to avoid moral myopia and parochiality by thinking that one’s partialist considerations exhaust what morality is all about’ (Molefe 2016b: 102). African humanism thus measures the impartialist aspiration of African ethics. Humanism in this context is not secular humanism, the anthropocentric outlook now dominant in the West, which strongly de-emphasizes religious concerns and focuses on the human being as in some way the measure of all things. African humanism consists of a strong commitment to human interests and well-being without shutting out a whole range of experience belonging to the sphere of transcendence or religion. While secular humanism de-emphasizes transcendence, African humanism only affirms that there can be no dogmatic religiosity as the African cultural world does not admit of revealed religions and prophets with privileged access to God (Danquah 1944; Menkiti 1984; Oluwole 1984; Ekei 2002; Azenabor 2008; Gyekye 2010a, 2010b). There is no implied hostility towards religion as the African world view is generally considered as theocentric in addition to being anthropocentric. God, who is at the summit of the hierarchy of being, is the supreme principle of the universe, and human beings who are endowed with sentience and reason are his children (Gyekye 2010b). African humanism underlines the impartialist aspiration of African ethics, the quest for a system of moral conduct that embodies moral principles and precepts which are binding on all members of the community in its broadest sense as the network of relationships uniting all human beings, the family writ large. African impartialist ethics has been instantiated variously as negritude (Senghor 1964), ujamaa (Nyerere 1968), ubuntu (Shutte 2001; Ramose 2003; Nkondo 2007), igwebuike (Kanu 2016), the golden rule principle (Azenabor 2008), sympathetic impartiality (Wiredu 1996, 2010) and enlightened self-interest (Asouzu 2007). Negritude finds its inspiration in the African holistic view of the universe, the understanding of being as a whole of interconnected realities, and expands the space of solidarity to encompass all humanity under the rubric of a universal civilization.1 The communitarian principles of ujamaa, ubuntu and igwebuike have their universalist moment, which underlines the commitment to the promotion of human well-being. What is of interest here is the

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well-being of the human being as a member of the human family, the human being qua human being. As a member of the human family, each human being is entitled to humane treatment. The horizon of solidarity expands quickly beyond the self and the immediate community and captures the vision of the universal human community, family writ large. African communitarianism thus agrees with the golden rule principle which invites each individual and all individuals to do to the other and others exactly as they will want the other and others to do to them. This is impartiality completing the partialist framework of traditional ethics and confirming African communitarianism as having a truly ethical foundation. The notions of sympathetic impartiality and enlightened self-interest so well capture the universalist aspiration of African ethics. The location of value in the human being (Wiredu 2010: 194) becomes the basis for African ethics expressing sympathetic impartiality. The African world view is indeed theocentric as well as anthropocentric, but theocentricity finds relevance only with regard to ultimate value, as a compass for finding answers to questions seemingly beyond the this-worldly competence of humans and the sphere of immanence. Human value is a universal quality, recognizable in each individual and all individuals. This universalism validates impartiality. But since humans are creatures of feeling as well as reason, able to feel pain and respond to the call of pleasure, the impartiality that universal human value endorses is a sympathetic impartiality. Human dignity is constructed out of the materials of feeling and reason. Pure morality, or a universalist morality, emerges out of the commitment to human dignity. This morality which animates the African anthropocentric outlook is impartial because it enjoins on the individual ‘impartial regard for the interests of others motivated by a certain minimum of altruism’ (Wiredu 1999: 33). Sympathetic impartiality embodies the golden rule principle since the former makes it obligatory for individuals to put themselves in the place of others when carrying out activities that significantly impact the feelings and orientations of others. The tension between the notion of sympathetic impartiality, in its aspiration towards universalism, and the idea that African ethics has a partialist structure (cf. Molefe 2016a, 2016b) is not one beyond resolution. There is a conflict, indeed, to the extent that partiality contests the claims of impartiality. The conflict is beyond resolution only if the universalist aspiration of traditional African ethics is conveniently ignored, leaving this ethics wholly in the domain of the particular. But traditional African ethics is human-centred. The human values espoused by this ethical system are universal human values, thus establishing the system as one that advocates impartiality. It is another question whether human beings can realize absolute impartiality or whether an adequate level of impartiality has been realized or is capable of being realized in practice. Nevertheless, the shortcomings of practice do not dilute the universalist, and therefore impartialist, aspiration of African ethics as instantiated by the idea of sympathetic impartiality. Another idea that instantiates the impartialist aspiration of African ethics is the notion of enlightened self-interest. Self-love is clearly expressed in the individual’s struggle to attain moral personhood on earth and achieve a smooth transition to ancestorhood after death. Here partiality is implicated. This partiality diminishes but is not overcome as self-love is counterbalanced by commitment to family members, the

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clan and the community considered as primary groups. This partiality is driven by the sentiment of ‘the nearer the better and the safer’ (Asouzu 2007: 38). Conflict scenarios arise inevitably from the overwhelming emphasis on self-interest as personal, clannish, ethnic and racial prejudices blur the line between harmful and reasonable partiality. The individual, therefore, must go through a process of enlightenment that is facilitated by the concept of missing links.2 Enlightened self-interest makes a plea for greater inclusion, a more universal ethical framework and a more comprehensive network of meaning that affirms: [A]ll matters of meaning are complementarily relational and can be articulated in view of a common foundation from which they ensue. Here, the idea of being as something dynamic in its essential interrelatedness and something that connotes all possible relations because of which anything that exists serves a missing link of reality becomes relevant. Asouzu 2007: 173

Partiality panders to the natural human tendency to promote ties with those with whom humans share personal, family, communal and ethnic bonds. However, impartiality also stakes its claim as an ethical ideal worth pursuing since the community itself is a network of missing links of reality. No individual is self-sufficient, but all individuals defined as missing links are interrelated and interdependent. In the context of the community as a network of missing links, self-interest always invites enlightened self-interest, the motivation for the expansion of partialist considerations into the sphere of impartialist ideals where the community becomes no longer the abode of a particular person or community but rather of all humanity. As a kind of negative signifier directing conduct towards a positive inclusivity, self-interest reveals: [T]he human mind is fundamentally structured for absoluteness, totality, comprehensiveness . . . the human mind can seek absoluteness either positively or negatively . . . we seek absoluteness positively as the sum total of all the positive measures we take to actualise ourselves in a future-oriented manner. Likewise, all acts of selfishness are moments of the mind seeking absoluteness but in a negative world immanent manner. The fact that in the fallacy of ‘the nearer the better and the safer’ we seek to join our interests with those of others nearest to us, shows that our being is fundamentally also structured to reach out to something outside of itself for its ultimate determination and authentication. Asouzu 2004: 66

In a nutshell, then, the perceived partiality of African ethics is an invitation to participation in the ideal of impartiality. Community codes of conduct may be culturespecific, but the underlying principles are universal and aim at the preservation of the status of the human being as an entity entitled to absolute dignity by virtue of membership of humanity. Some philosophers have contended that Afro-communitarianism is incompatible with universal human rights on the grounds that the emphasis on community

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comes at the expense of the individual while others have argued that moderate communitarianism, for instance, allows room for the individual’s self-creation and is, therefore, compatible with human rights understood as intrinsic goods (see Gyekye 2010; Oyowe 2013; Metz 2014; Molefe 2017). It can be argued that the incompatibility of Afro-communitarianism with universal human rights is yet another instance of the partiality of African ethics given that the denial of human rights implies the denial of the universality of ethical standards by which every individual must be judged to guarantee impartiality and equality. A very recent and novel attempt to show how Afro-communitarianism is compatible with individual autonomy and human rights suggests that discarding the Aristotelian logic of contradiction and bivalence – in the framework of which most African scholars explicate their communitarian theories – in favour of a more authentically African logic resolves the apparent imbroglio that comes with the ethical system of Afrocommunitarianism in its denial of the strict validity of rights due humans qua humans (Chimakonam 2018). The principle of contradiction asserts that a thing is what it is and not something else or that a statement that is necessary cannot be impossible while the principle of bivalence affirms that a statement is either necessary or impossible (Chimakonam 2018: 133–4). It is asserted, perhaps controversially, that Aristotelian logic supports the strong communitarianism espoused in Western philosophy by thinkers like Charles Taylor and Sandel while Afro-communitarianism is undergirded by an African logical system like the complementary and trivalent Ezumezu logic. This new logical system, an African variant of two-valued classical logic, submits the claim that the complementarity principle allows for the possibility of two opposing statements holding equally in specific contexts while the principle of trivalence allows for the possibility of two polar truth values (truth and falsity) coming together at some intermediate point where they then constitute a complementary truth value. The complementarity principle undergirds dynamic unities or wholes, while the trivalence principle admits of the plausibility of a complementary truth value. Given the dominant role of the principle of complementarity in a complementary ontology, it is claimed that there is no radical conflict between the individual and the community as the affirmation of community means that individuals enter into a mutual relationship and retain their individuality within the network of relations (135–7). Communalism and individualism are, ultimately, not in opposition. The affirmation of individualism proclaims the reality of rights that are universal by virtue of belonging to humans qua humans. With Afro-communitarianism seen to be compatible with autonomy and human rights, it becomes evident that African communalism aspires to impartiality, drawing its vitality from a robust anthropocentrism that locates value in the human being qua human being.

Conclusion While it is true that African ethics leans towards partiality in view of the dominant place of communalism in traditional African life, it is also true that African ethics aspires to universality and impartiality. This chapter took a survey of African ethical

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thought and showed how the essentially anthropocentric world view of Africans reinforces the humanistic credentials of African ethics, which in its turn seeks the broadening of the horizon of solidarity to encompass the whole of humanity such that partialist considerations become, in fact, signifiers of impartialist ideals.

Notes 1

2

In the concept of a universal civilization, some critics have read a certain glorification of globalism which comes at the expense of the African, implying that Senghorian negritude does not achieve a true universalism and impartiality as Westernism gains a cultural advantage over Africanity, or the Afrocentric perspective (see Lamola 2016). The concept of missing links derives its validity from the understanding of the universe as a dynamic whole in search of completeness, with each discrete entity lacking completeness and with the dynamic whole needing individual entities to be more complete. Such a complementary ontology makes all existent things links, and missing links in the bargain (see Asouzu 2004, 2007).

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Matolino, Bernard. 2014. Personhood in African Philosophy. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications. Matolino, Bernard. 2009. ‘Radicals versus Moderates: A Critique of Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism’. South African Journal of Philosophy 28(2): 160–70. doi: 10.4314/ sajpem.v28i2.46674. Mbiti, J. S. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. London: Heinemann. Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 2004. ‘On the Normative Conception of a Person.’ In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. K. Wiredu, 324–31. Oxford: Blackwell. Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 1984. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought.’ In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. R. A. Wright, 171–81. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Metz, Thaddeus. 2014. ‘African Values and Human Rights as Two Sides of the Same Coin: A Reply to Oyowe’. African Human Rights Law Journal 14: 306–21. Molefe, Motsamai. 2017. ‘Critical Comments on Afro-communitarianism: The Community versus Individual’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture, and Religions 6(1): 1–22. doi: 10.4314/ft.v6i1.1. Molefe, Motsamai. 2016a. ‘African Ethics and Partiality’. Phronimon 17(1): 104–22. Molefe, Motsamai. 2016b. ‘A Critique of Kwasi Wiredu’s Humanism and Impartiality’. Acta Academica 48(1): 91–110. Niekerk, Jason van. 2011. ‘On the Tension between Ubuntu and Simunye’. In African Philosophy and the Future of Africa, ed. G. Walmsley, 61–9. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Nkondo, Gessler. 2007. ‘Ubuntu as Public Policy in South Africa: A Conceptual Framework’. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 2: 88–100. doi: 10.1080/18186870701384202. Nyerere, Julius. 1968. Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism. Nairobi: Oxford University Press. Oluwole, S. B. 1984. ‘The Rational Basis of Yoruba Ethical Thinking’. The Nigerian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1&2): 14–25. Omotoso, S. A. 2017. ‘African Ethics and African Political Communication: Some Comments’. In Political Communication in Africa, eds. A. Olukotun and S. A. Omotoso, 51–62. Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-48631-4_4. Oruka, H. O. 1990. Sage Philosophy and the Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Leiden: Brill. Oyowe, A. O. 2013. ‘Strange Bedfellows: Rethinking Ubuntu and Human Rights in South Africa’. African Human Rights Law Journal 13: 103–24. Ramose, M. B. 2003a. ‘The Philosophy of Ubuntu and Ubuntu as a Philosophy’. In The African Philosophy Reader, 2nd ed., eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 270–80. London: Routledge. Available online at http://www.docstoc.com/?docId=81721439&do wnload=1. Ramose, M. B. 2003b. ‘The Ethics of Ubuntu’. In The African Philosophy Reader, 2nd ed., eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 379–87. London: Routledge. Available online at http://www.docstoc.com/?docId=81721439&download=1. Rollin, B. E. 2005. ‘Reasonable Partiality and Animal Ethics’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 8: 105–21. doi: 10.1007/s10677-005-3297-1. Scheffler, Samuel. 2010. ‘Morality and Reasonable Partiality’. In Partiality and Impartiality: Morality, Special Relationships, and the Wider World, eds. B. Feltham and J. Cottingham, 98–130. New York: Oxford University Press. Senghor, L. S. 1964. On African Socialism (M. Cook, trans.). London: Pall Mall.

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Yorùbá Ethics Babalola Joseph Balogun

Introduction Ethics is a ubiquitous human phenomenon and therefore cuts across cultural boundaries. Different cultures of the world have their different systems of ethics. This does not necessarily support the position of the ethical relativists because, as it were, certain ethical practices are accepted on a global scale. No culture approves of theft, robbery, cruelty to fellow humans, murder, breaking of promises, and other forms of immoral acts. On the other hand, all cultures of the world approve of acts such as honesty, hard work, love, marital faithfulness, promise-keeping, truth-telling, among others. Neither does this advance the position of the ethical universalists. This is due to the fact that, whereas there is a global repulsion of the former set of acts, and a global acceptance of the latter, different cultures have different justifications for either accepting or rejecting these acts. Whatever justification a culture finds in either case, there is a unified end in view, namely the need to make human societies conducive for human cohabitation. In fact, this could be identified as the sole essence of ethics. In keeping with the above backdrop, the current paper attempts an exposé of the Yorùbá ethics as a system of morality undergirding the Yorùbá social behavioural pattern. The paper is essentially expository; hence, it strives only to highlight some of the features of Yorùbá ethics as a variant of the African ethical system generally, with its own peculiar nature. There are six sections in all, the first and last sections being the introduction and conclusion. Section two outlines what it calls ‘the seven pillars of the Yorùbá ethical system’. These pillars, although not strictly unique to the Yorùbá, as the section purports to show, play major roles in the understanding of Yorùbá ethics. The third section describes the roles of the gods and their deputies in the formation, institutionalization and enforcement of ethical standards, coupled with the determination of punitive measures for offenders of moral laws. In section four, the Ifá oracle is revealed as the custodian of the Yorùbá ethical vision, while the penultimate section reviews Yorùbá ethics within the context of contemporary times.

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The seven pillars of the Yorùbá ethical system Every system of ethics has its peculiarities. These are features that define the essence of a particular ethical system. In the current context, there are certain fundamental features which give substance to the ethical reasoning of an average Yorùbá person. It is apposite to restate here that these pillars are not really peculiar to the Yorùbá alone. The Yorùbá system of morality is a subset of African ethical thoughts generally; and, as a subset, it bears some overlapping relations to the ethical thoughts of some other African groups, especially those to which it is territorially proximate. It must also be stated that these seven pillars do not exhaust all there is to the Yorùbá ethical system; there may be others that future research on the Yorùbá has the mandate to unearth. However, those discussed below are ones that the literature has since established. I shall now proceed to discuss these pillars of the Yorùbá ethical system: humanism, existentiality, religiosity, rationality, communality, reciprocity and quality of character.

Humanism Yorùbá have a human-based system of ethics, that is, a system of ethics in which everything revolves around the wellness of human beings. Theirs is not an abstract notion of good that bears no practical relation to human concerns. All ethical considerations have human beings as the centre of attraction. In other words, the strongest motivation to act morally is to preserve the sanctity of humanity either in one’s own case or in others. If, as Gyekye (2010) notes, ‘the ethics of a society is embedded in the ideas or beliefs about what is right or wrong, what is good or bad character, etc.’, then it would be correct to say of the Yorùbá that their standard for arriving at these moral judgements is whether or not a piece of action so adjudged advances the cause of humanity, promotes human welfare or produces other unspecified beneficial outcomes for human flourishing. As it were for African morality generally, therefore, Yorùbá ethics reflects the logic that ‘actions that promote human welfare and interests are good, while those that distract from human welfare are bad’ (Gyekye 2010). It is remarkable to point out how the humanistic character of Yorùbá ethics derives from the metaphysical status of the human person. The Yorùbá word for a person is ènìyàn. According to Maulana Karenga (2009), ‘in the Ifá spiritual and ethical tradition, ènìyàn is a fundamental concept that speaks to the moral status and moral considerability of the human person’. Etymologically, the term ènìyàn derives from the Yorùbá phrase e· ni tí a yàn (literally, ‘chosen one(s)’). This shows the peculiar status of the human person as an object of moral consideration. To be chosen in this context ‘has profound significance in moral anthropology for both the conception and treatment of human beings’ (Karenga 2009). In addition to the uniqueness conferred on the human person, the element of human chosenness presents the highest level of humanism in its inclusion of all humans as chosen. This, as a basis for human equality, equity and fairness, makes it morally binding on the Yorùbá, to treat all human beings with equal respect and dignity (see Balogun 2013, 2017). A corollary moral principle

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inferable from this is that, given that all human beings are morally equal – based on equal chosen status – it would be immoral for anyone to discriminate against another on the basis of race, gender, religion or any such standards that divide humans into different social categories. Also, as members of the same chosen family, it is morally obligatory for those who have the means (to do so) to come to the aid of the less privileged ones1 to enable them to cope with the vagaries of life. Hence, Yorùbá ethics is not only humanistic, it is also humanitarian. Failure to show a genuine concern to fellow human beings, when it is required and the resources are available, is considered a moral omission. Also, the humanistic approach of Yorùbá ethics reveals some level of flexibility in terms of how quickly a praiseworthy action can change to a blameworthy one, if adequate attention is not paid to its deprecating effect on human agency. It means that what appears a morally right line of action may degenerate into a socially unacceptable act if caution fails to apply (see Lawuyi 1988). The concern for human beings as the centre for ethical considerations among the Yorùbá plays a pivotal role in the way they see and relate to other (non-human) components of the universe. In other words, Yorùbá moral attitudes towards nonhuman animals, trees, rocks, water and land are regulated, and sometimes moderated, by the possible implications they bear on human welfare and interests. Strictly speaking, even though these environmental components of nature do not constitute direct objects of moral concern (as humans are), human attitudes towards them may advance or disrupt human welfare or interests. The reason for this can be found in the relation of humans to their environment. There is no possibility of human existence outside of the ecological confinement called the world (see Balogun 2018). Invariably, since human beings are part of the environment, whatever affects the environment equally affects them. Hence, the need to treat the environment as an ally that must be accorded a high level of respect in order to allow for the fulfilment of human earthly destiny. A good world is a necessary condition for a good life (Karenga 2009).

Communality There seems to be a general consensus among scholars that Africans practise a communalistic social system (Idowu 1962; Mbiti 1969, Makinde 1988, Gbadegesin 2005). Their moral world is defined by collective concerns rather than individual concerns. This central feature of Africa social relations finds an illustrative expression in the Yorùbá moral system. Joseph Omoregbe (2005) clarifies what it means when African ethics is said to be communalistic by averring that, in such ethics, what one does affects all the others, and to this one should add, what all the others do affects one. Further, it ‘means to say that one is there for the community just as the community is what gives the individual his or her fullest welfare’ (40). The communal outlook of the traditional Yorùbá ethics is forcefully brought out by their moral education or socialization process, which, as found elsewhere in Africa, is community-based. The indigenous Yorùbá lived in towns and villages which were further broken down into extended families. This social structure plays a pivotal role in

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the acculturation of moral ideals into an individual, right from birth. Gbadegesin (2005) explains how a newly born child is welcome into the waiting hands of older members of the family, amid cheerfulness, joy and prayers. At the appropriate time, usually the eighth day, the child is given names, determined from circumstances predating its birth. The community assists the individual as he/she climbs the ladder of personhood. In traditional Yorùbá society, the task of morally moulding a child is not an exclusive responsibility of the parents alone; rather, it is a joint task of all older members of the community. This point is supported by the saying ojú kan níí bímo· , igba ojú níí to· (‘it takes a single person to bear a child, but several persons to bring him/ her up’). Hence, the individual is imbued with the sense of communal living from childhood, which naturally conditions him/her to see the self as a part of a whole, and not a whole all by him/herself. Gbadegesin (2005) sees this as the limit to individualism. As he writes: Not that the community forces itself on an unyielding individual; rather the individual, through socialization and the love and concerns which the household and the community have extended to him/her cannot now see himself or herself as anything apart from his/her community. Interest in his/her success is shown by members of the extended family who regard him/her as their blood and the community are (sic) also able to trace their origin to a common even if mythical ancestor. There is, therefore, a feeling of solidarity among its members and this is neither forced nor solicited. 131

Although the feeling of solidarity is neither forced nor solicited, it serves as a motivation for acting or refusing to act in certain ways. In other words, solidarity with other members of the community forms part of what determines the rightness or wrongness of an action within the Yorùbá moral system. For instance, it is morally imperative that one rejoices with members of one’s community whenever there is a thing of joy such as the arrival of a new baby, the occasion of the roofing of a new house, conferment of a chieftaincy title, and the like. On the other hand, it is expected that one be soberly when calamities strike any member of the community. In fact, sometimes major celebrations are cancelled because of the tragedies that befall members of families. Here, there is no personal mood; each person’s mood is determined by the general mood of the community. Any individual who is not attuned to the prevalent mood of the community is seen as morally deviant, selfish and, ultimately, not a person. The socio-ethical picture painted above has a great impact on the lives of the Yorùbá person living outside his/her immediate community. In the first place, it helps to form social bonding with other members of the immediate community both of whom now live in a foreign land. Abroad, all Yorùbá persons are brothers and sisters because of their common ancestral source. Such moral outlook helps to foster the culture of cooperation, unity and nationalist consciousness among the Yorùbá. Yorùbá detest loneliness so much as a trait that they consider it an evil worthy of being prayed against. One of their proverbs says Àgbájo· o· wo· laa fi sàn’yà (‘In unity we fight a common cause’). Also, the emotional attachment to the feeling of solidarity makes it morally obligatory

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for members of a community resident outside to always give back to their communities if they have the means to do so. Giving back here may mean different things ranging from owning a house in one’s community, helping in training other people’s children, to contributing to the general welfare of the community in some other unspecified way. It is immoral for any individual to have the means to give back to his/her community but refuse to do it.

Religiosity It has always been tempting for scholars to describe the African moral system as religious. This temptation is real, and the urge very strong. Some (Wiredu 1983; Oluwole 1984–5; Omoregbe 1989, 2005) have resisted the urge, and found alternative foundations for African ethics. However, it is doubtful whether such alternative foundations can be pushed to their logical conclusion without encountering religion on the way. The observation by J. S. Mbiti (1969) that Africans are irredeemably religious is one that is very difficult to refute in the light of the happenings on the African continent. One argument against this position, advanced by Omoregbe (2005), appeals to the fact that there are people with strong moral standing in Africa who do not profess any religion. This is correct, but never inconsistent with the claim that African lives are pervaded with religious beliefs. The claim that Africans are religious people does not mean that every individual in Africa is a religious person. No trait ever rubs off on all members of a society. Beside the fact that irreligiosity is a current orientation in Africa (Balogun 2014), imported into its culture through contact with the ‘critical’ attitude of the Western intellectual tradition, it was almost impossible in the African traditional society to avoid religious considerations in choosing a course of action over another. Writing about the Yorùbá, scholars such as Idowu (1962) and Awolalu and Dopamu (1979) have defended the religious foundation thesis. Idowu (1962) regards morality among the Yorùbá as certainly the fruit of religion. To Awolalu and Dopamu (1979), morality is not merely a human invention, it is an offspring of religion. The import of these scholars’ argument is that, among Yorùbá, religion and morality, like Siamese twins, are conceptually inextricable, with the former providing a foundation and justification for the latter. According to Bewaji (2006), the attitude of Idowu, and Awolalu and Dopamu, could be attributed to the influence of their foreign academic mentors such as G. E. Parrinder, R. S. Rattray and A. B. Ellis. Makinde (1988), for his part, does not appear to have anything against religion being the foundation of morality. For him, In so far as reason can neither prove that God exists or not, it cannot be an offence against reason to postulate that God, as a perfect, benevolent and the highest good, exists and then trace the origin of our morality to His will and ideal of moral perfection . . . after all, there is nothing objectionable in an obedience to the Biblical injunction ‘love thy neighbour as thyself. 1988: 8

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It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Makinde is in support of the religious foundation of the Yorùbá moral system. It should be noted that the controversy surrounding the proper relationship between religion and morality in the Yorùbá context has to do with whether or not the former serves as the foundation for the latter. Taken at face value, nothing seems to be inherently wrong in religion being a basis for morality, if, by this, derogation is not intended. Religion and morality are not mutually exclusive within the Yorùbá ethical context: religion helps individual to make correct moral choices as a way of courting friendly relationships with the Deity and other spiritual beings. Thus, among the Yorùbá, religion is important, but, as Bewaji (2006) notes, not necessarily as the foundation of morals, but as an instrument of ensuring the welfare of the individual and the society. The point, then, is that religion has a pivotal role in Yorùbá morality, even if this role is not a foundational one. The roles of God and other smaller deities in the formation, institutionalization and enforcement of moral laws will constitute the central discussion of a section below.

Existentiality Yorùbá ethics is built on the principle of choice-based actions and responsibilities. The choices that people make are what the essence and worth of their social standings consist in. Although these choices are influenced, to a large extent, by the social milieu in which one finds oneself, the choice on whether or not to be so influenced is strictly that of the acting individual. This may appear strange, and inconsistent with the communality that typifies African (Yorùbá) social setting. In fact, some scholars have argued, sometimes with an uncut emphasis, that individualism is strange to the African mind. On a critical look, however, there is nothing I have said here that stands contrary to African communal existence. Against a completely communalist standpoint, scholars like Gbadegesin (2005), Ogungbemi (2007) and Famakinwa (2010) have sought to reconcile the individual with the community by noting that the former is not crushed under the weight of the latter. Hence, while the fact that Africans are communalistic remains unobjectionable, the right of the individual for autonomous actions is not thereby eroded. Although they intend the same conclusion, Gbadegesin and Ogungbemi are motivated by different reasons for their positions. For Gbadegesin (2005), the individuals are valued in the traditional society in themselves and as potential contributors to community survival. Extolling the existential attribute of individuality in the Yorùbá moral system, Gbadegesin writes further: Emphasis is placed on usefulness to self and the community, and not on wealth or strength. If individual uniqueness were not recognized, how could we have such powerful figures as Kurumi, Latoosa, Obokun, Moremi becoming charismatic leaders? 131

It may be argued that the ‘historico-heroic’ figures listed above became paradigms of moral courage for their generations and beyond because of the personal choices they

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made at one point of their lives. The case of Moremi is instructive. Oral tradition has it that she came into the historical limelight as a result of the sacrificial role she played in extricating her people from the frequent invasions by their enemies. This choice was not without its price (responsibility), which involved the death of her only child. She has, since then, become an epitome of courage, promise-keeping, loyalty and commitment to the communal cause. For Ogungbemi (2007), the belief in individuality spans through the entire life of the Yorùbá person from his/her creation to death. At creation, it is the individual that is moulded by Òrìs· àńlá and given breath by Olódùmarè, who proceeds to the house of Àjàlá to take his/her orí. In all of these, only the individual features. Specifically on the choice of orí, Ogungbemi identifies three key elements that betray the Yorùbá belief in individuality, namely freedom of choice, freedom of action and responsibility (2007: 122). While in the world, the individuality of each person is well established. For example, the Yorùbá idea of punishment for moral failures is done on a personal, not corporate, basis. The proverbial saying, Ìka tó bá s· e· ni O · ba ńgé (‘It is the finger that errs that the King cuts’) attests to this observation. Punishment results from a choice previously made; that is, it is a way of being responsible for one’s action or omission. It thus follows that, by punishing moral offenders, the Yorùbá take individuals as responsible for their actions. Were this not the case, the idea of punishment would have been significantly rendered arbitrary. If the forgoing were correct about the existential status of Yorùbá ethics, then there really must be a problem with Wale Olajide’s (2011) submission that humans’ values are crafted for them by God, and that they unconditionally must abide by these dictates. This submission is informed by his position that each person has already chosen his/her essence within which his/her scope for any other form of choice is simply stifled (2011). The implication of this on human freedom is dire and unsustainable. Besides, it is not consistent with the belief that God created each person with what the Yorùbá call Ifá àyà – roughly, the Yorùbá equivalent of ‘conscience’ – a belief that Olajide seems to accept as true. My position is that, although the Yorùbá concede to the existence of such ‘oracles of the heart’ in every person, the individual has the freedom whether or not to act in accordance with its dictates, which is the line between morally good persons and their morally bad counterparts. Pace Olajide, there seems to be a sense in which humans choose their values; the choice made naturally makes one either good or bad person.

Rationality Rationality is here used in Aristotle’s sense of self-interestedness of action or inaction. For an action to be rational, therefore, means that the action follows from the human drive for self-interest. What has been said about the Yorùbá ethical system so far shows that it is in the interest of the acting agent to live a moral life. The interest talked about here is both personal interests and corporate interests, as Oyeshile notes: We can say that people obey moral laws to enjoy the benefit of morality on the one hand, and to avoid sanctions that accompany the violation of such moral rules, on

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the other hand. In talking about benefits, the individual tries to be prudent in his action. He also takes actions on an expeditious basis depending on the situation he finds himself in. What all this points to is that human well-being in the form of individual interest and social interest, constitutes the main rationale for being moral. 2002: 95

Balogun (2013), therefore, describes the Yorùbá moral outlook as an ‘end-centric’ system. Yorùbá consider the outcomes of their actions before embarking on them. Outcomes are what confer moral status on actions. A good action produces a good outcome; and a bad action a bad outcome. Fundamentally, three end-related considerations underlie the motivation to be moral among the Yorùbá. These, as identified by Balogun (2013), are: a good personal name; a well-ordered relationship with other members of the human community; and a secured place among the ancestors after death. At the base of each of these considerations lies the self-interest of the acting agent. A good personal name is never sought for its own sake. If a good name is better than silver and gold, as the Yorùbá agree, there must be something in good names that is of higher worth than both silver and gold, to the acting agent. Also, a well-ordered relationship with others in the human community guarantees an enabling environment that makes fulfilment of destiny not only possible but with less social impediments. The last and the ultimate end towards which an average Yoruba person strives is the last home, built on the religious belief and practice of ancestor worship. Every Yorùbá elder looks to the future when they will reunite with their departed forefathers/foremothers, and merge with the continuum of beings on the other side of life. This is often accompanied with excitement and fear, as noted by Idowu (1962): It is on account of After-life that we treat today hospitably, that we make good use of the present and not abuse it. The Yorùbá aged look forward with longing or dread in anticipation of what may be awaiting them in the new life where they are bound to fare according to their deserts.

As an end-centric moral system, the description of Yorùbá ethics as an instance of a consequentialist moral framework is apposite (see Balogun 2013). This variant of consequentialism, however, is not driven by the ‘end justifies the means’ motive as found in mainstream consequentialist doctrine. In contradistinction to Western consequentialist theories, the Yorùbá do not differentiate between the means and the end, especially when these are found to be causally related. Within the framework of the Yorùbá belief system, a means is an end in process; hence, when the means is wrong, the end cannot be right (Balogun 2013). A support for this can be found in a line from Odù Ogbeate, a verse in the Yorùbá Ifá literary corpus, which cautions that A kìí fi ìkà di e· rù kó gún gégé (‘we cannot use evil to secure good and expect them to be anchored firmly’) (Karenga 1999). Hence, the means–end dichotomy that characterizes Western consequentialism does not hold in Yorùbá consequentialist thinking.

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Reciprocity There seems to be a consensus among scholars that the Yorùbá ethical system exemplifies what is known in ethical discourse as the Golden Rule (Oluwole 1984–5; Makinde 1988; Omoregbe 1989). The most familiar version of the Golden Rule in moral philosophy says: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ (Puka n.d.). The idea of the Golden Rule, therefore, urges us to make ourselves the measure of how we ought to act in relation to others. This describes the reciprocity that underlies Yorùbá moral philosophy. In the Ifá literary corpus, Yorùbá moral reciprocity is called the principle of ‘share with me that I may share with you’. Karenga (1999), citing Odù Irosun-Obara in the Ifá literary corpus, reveals the essence of this principle: ‘If we practice the principle of share with me that I may share with you, the world will be an orderly place’ (127). The rationale for this sense of reciprocity is found in the fact that all humans are in the same situation, that is, the human journey, and on this journey a helping hand receives help in return (Frisvold 2016). Fair play is here being emphasized. According to Arman, quoted in Oladipo (2006: 141), reciprocity is characterized by ‘giving, but only from those from whom we receive in equal measure. Receiving, but from only those to whom we give in reciprocal measure.’ This builds a healthy culture of mutuality of benefits and burdens, and a community characterized by mutual trust and interdependence, wherein fear is not entertained. The saying, O· tún we· òsì; òsì we· òtún níí mú o· wo· méjèèjì mo· (‘A complementary washing leaves both hands clean’) helps further with understanding this reciprocity. Beside its prescriptive appeal, the principle of reciprocity also describes the Yorùbá belief in attendant cosmic justice that trails individual action, be it good or bad. Consciousness of this cosmic justice called e· san is a fundamental social regulatory factor in traditional society. E· san is that which a moral agent receives as the consequence of his/her moral deed. Hence, when one considers that e· san is inevitable, one will reconsider one’s action. Thus, the Yorùbá will say: E· nití ó s· e oore, ó s· eé fún ara re· , e· nití ó s· e ìkà, ó s· eé fún ara re· . Àti oore àti ìkà, o· kan kìí gbé. O · jo· àtisùn l’ó s· òro. (The person who performs good deeds does so for himself/herself. The person who performs wicked acts does so for himself/herself. Neither good deeds nor wicked acts will go unrewarded. The time of death is the hard fact that should be born in mind). Gbadegesin 2005: 138

The lesson from this is that whatever one does, one will always receive in the proper measure. Given this principle of reciprocity, humans are encouraged to take seriously moral virtues such as hospitality to strangers, generosity to other human beings, readiness to assist others in times of needs, forgiveness of those that offend us, and respect for people of all age groups. Observing these implies throwing cold water on the ground of the future so as to tread on cold ground. The wisdom here is that, since no one is sufficient, morally or materially, it is good to sow these virtues so as to be their recipient when one stands in need of them in the future.

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Character-based It is rare to see any serious discussion of Yorùbá ethics without situating it within its character-centrality. The Yorùbá word for character is ìwà. But ìwà is an ambiguous word because it can either mean character or existence – or, according to Abimbola, ‘the fact of being, living or existing’ (Abimbola 1975; Roland 1983; Oke 1988; Gbadegesin 2005). It should be noted, however, that, unlike other ambiguous words, ìwà (as character) derives from ìwà (as existence). As noted by Roland (1983), ìwà, both as character and existence, do not just have a homophone relationship, they are also related by etymology, and one appears to be a derivation of the other. Hence, the former is not completely meaningful without the latter. Taken as the attribute of beingness (Oke 1988), ìwà determines the essence of a person, as existence determines the essence of things. There is, therefore, a connection between one’s personhood (as one’s essence) and one’s ìwà. Although there are ìwà rere (‘good character’) and ìwà búburú/burúkú (‘bad character’), some Yorùbá speakers just use ìwà to denote good character, for one either has ìwà or lacks it. To have ìwà is to be a person; while to lack ìwà is to not be a person. Lack of ìwà leads to the denial of one’s existence at the level of personhood. This conceptual synchronism is very important in understanding the role of character in the Yorùbá value system. It therefore follows that personhood is not a given. One learns to be a person by developing or building one’s character in a socially acceptable manner. It is with one’s hand that one shapes one’s character. Just as one can develop from a non-person to a person by developing one’s character, one can also degenerate from a person to a nonperson by losing one’s character. This points to the indispensability of character in the search for a good life both on earth and in the afterlife. Karenga (2009: 346, quoting from Odù 31: 3) writes: ‘Character is all that is required. There is no destiny that needs to be called unfortunate (bad) in Ifè City. For character is all that is required.’ Ìwà is to be nurtured and treasured because it is the key to sustaining one’s achievements. For without ìwà, every good thing that a person has achieved, will automatically become someone else’s. The Yorùbá belief system also connects the fulfilment of personal destiny to possession of good character. In other words, that a person has good destiny as contained in his/her orí is not a guarantee that such person will end up fulfilling such a destiny; only good character ensures fulfilment of destiny (Labeodan 2009). Even someone with bad destiny can upturn the verdict of the gods by possessing ìwà. Among the Yorùbá, a morally ideal person is called O· mo· lúàbí, that is, an offspring of the source of ìwà, ‘a person who embodies all the qualities appreciated by Yorùbá people’ (Labeodan 2009: 348). There are a number of these qualities that a morally upright person is expected to be in possession of. Idowu (1962) refers to these qualities as ‘the main components of good character’. Among these are: chastity in women, hospitality, unselfishness, generosity, truth-telling, protection of women, respect for others, especially elders, as well as avoidance of stealing, covenant-breaking and hypocrisy. Others identified by Fayemi (2009) are good heart towards others, bravery, hard work and intelligence. An O· mo· lúàbí must also be someone who is properly nurtured, and who behaves accordingly (Oluwole 2007). There are also the qualities of ìfarabale· (‘to have control over one’s physical body and the mind’), ìlutí (‘good listening

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ability’) and ìfe· ràn (‘love towards oneself and others’). A person with these qualities not only lives a blissful life on earth, but also has the assurance of entering good heaven (O· run rere) after death.

The roles of the gods and their deputies Having itemized and discussed the seven pillars of the Yorùbá ethical thought system in the foregoing manner, the current section interrogates the roles of the gods and their deputies in the institution of morality among the Yorùbá. There is no agreement among scholars as to the exact roles played by the transcendental objects of worship in the moral system of the Yorùbá. As earlier noted, there are two sides to this discourse. In holding that morality is founded on religion, Idowu (1962) and others can be said to attribute a legislative role to the gods. This would mean that God or gods is/are founder(s) of morality as a regulatory mechanism and an instrument of control of behaviours of creatures in the created world. The Ifá-àyà (conscience) hypothesis, for instance, shows that Olódùmarè (‘God’ in the Yorùbá language) puts the consciousness of the moral order in the heart of human beings to constantly guide them to make right decisions in moral matters. Having created the individual with his/her conscience, a wilful disobedience to the dictate of it attracts divine punitive consequences, for anyone who knows that a thing is wrong and still goes ahead to do it is wicked and deserving of punishment. The appeal to gods is born out of the epistemic limitations of human beings. So many acts of wickedness go unpunished by human social agencies because the perpetrators are hidden from human sight – wicked acts are carried out at night. But this is not the case with God and the gods. They see where human sight fails. E. M. Lijadu (1923: 8) cites evidence of this in one Ifá verse: Olódù’marè can penetrate. It (the message) is intended for a sneaking thief who boasts that earthly kings cannot find him out. If earthly kings cannot see you, do you not think that the eyes of the heavenly king are on you?

Deities such as Sàngó, Sànpo·nná, Ayé lála, Ògún, among others, are often consulted for justice, when a wicked act is done against a member of the community by an unknown person. It is often part of the processes that the priests of these gods ask the suspects in the case to confess if they know anything about the act for which justice is being sought. Where anyone fails to confess, the priest goes ahead with the invocation of the wrath of the deity concerned, and in due course the perpetrator is brought to justice, most times with irrevocable consequences. This has made some to argue that the role of the gods is that of enforcement, rather than as legislators, of the moral laws (see Oluwole 1984). This is another justification of the role of God or the gods in matters of religion among the Yorùbá. For the latter, reference has often been made to taboo/tabu (Yorùbá, èèwo· ), which are ‘things prohibited by the Supreme Being, the divinities and the ancestors’ (Bewaji 2006). Given this prohibitive tendency, humans are expected to avoid them in order

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not to incur the wrath of the spirit being involved as the case may be. It is, therefore, clear why Yorùbá stay clear of taboos, namely because of their attendant adverse consequences. In cases of taboo, no explanation is given as to why actions forbidden by taboo are wrong except that the gods hate such things and anybody who does them would incur the vengeance of the gods (Omoregbe 2005). However, this attracts the problem of whether the gods hate the acts because they are wrong or they are wrong because gods hate them. Although this problem has not been sufficiently examined within the Yorùbá moral system, it could be argued that if one affirms the former, then one may conclude that moral institution is based on the inherent wrongness and rightness of certain actions, which explain why those actions are frowned on both by the gods and human beings. If, on the other hand, one affirms the latter, then morality becomes a matter of the whims and caprices of the gods, wherein human inputs are neither necessary nor sought. There are more to this problem than we are willing to go.

Ifá and ethical visions The Ifá literary corpus provides the epistemological source and motivational force for the Yorùbá ethical system. The Ifá literary corpus (Odù Ifá) is the sacred text of the ancient wisdom. It reveals the profundity and beauty of the Yorùbá spiritual and ethical tradition of Ifá, which is one of the greatest sacred texts of the world and a classic of African and world literature (Karenga 2008). Ifá wisdom is ascribed to a mythical personality called o·rúnmìlà, reputed for having a perfect measure of wisdom, which he reveals to human beings through the Ifá divination. The ethical visions of Ifá are thoroughly cosmopolitan. Human beings are sent to the world saddled with the divine obligation to bring good to the world. Ifá teaches that our world is broken, that we need to reassemble the shards of wisdom into their original unity, both on a personal and global level (Frisvold 2016). Karenga identifies four tiered themes of Ifá as all revolving around the theme of goodness of the humanpopulated world. They are ‘the Goodness of and in the world; the chosen status of humans in the world; the criteria of the good world; and the requirements for the good world’ (2008). Hence, the chosen status of the humans (i.e. ènìyàn) is not without its responsibility, to cure the world of its numerous evils such as poverty, oppression, exploitation and general suffering of people, and therefore ensure a world filled with sufficient good for human survival and convenience. One important element of the chosen status of humans is that it is not bound by any classificatory paradigm such as nation, race, gender, special religious relationship or promise. ‘And we are chosen not over and against anyone, but chosen with everyone to bring good in the world’ (Karenga 2008, 2009). Ifá teaches that all deserves the right to a good life, achievable only through obligation of shared responsibility to make the world a good place for everyone. Hence, the Ifá ethical vision is characterized by its altruistic considerations. Achieving a good world for all, therefore, demands that character becomes an indispensable companion to human beings in their respective earthly spheres of existence. This demand also permeates the length and breadth of the Ifá literary corpus. As Frisvold (2016) notes, ‘Ifá is revealed ultimately to be a philosophy of character, and

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its diversity.’ Character provides the required light with which the individual navigates the dark terrain that the world is. Hence, anyone without character is bound to fall into a ditch that will ultimately make the world an unfavourable place to live in. Using O· fún Méjì, Frisvold highlights some other ethical requirements for peaceful co-existence among people in the world. These include possession of inner peace, patience, love, forgiveness, compassion, generosity and charity as well as the avoidance of greed and jealousy. At a personal level, Ifá teaches ethics of cleanliness and personal hygiene, as a force of attraction to fortunes and realization of a good destiny. It is, therefore, plausible to surmise here that Ifá does not only provide motivations for moral living, it is also a guide to a blissful earthly existence based on strong moral convictions.

Yorùbá ethics in contemporary times In contemporary times, the originality of the Yorùbá ethical system has come under heavy attack by the forces of modernity and civilization, especially those brought about by the introduction of Christianity and Islam. While there is no significant conflict between Yorùbá morality and these foreign religions in terms of rightness and wrongness, it could be observed that the focus on the motivation for living morally has significantly shifted from a concern for healthy humanism to considerations of a blissful afterlife existence in a place called heaven, and ultimate avoidance of hell. It is not the case that these religious beliefs were totally strange to the Yorùbá before their contact with European and Arab missionaries. Of course there are equivalents of heaven and hell in Yorùbá linguistic convention: O · run Rere (‘Good Heaven’) and O· run Àpáàdì (‘Heaven of Potsherds’) (Fadipe 1991). As Dopamu and Alana (2004) point out, ‘there are sufficient hints to believe that the good go to the Good Heaven of the ancestors, divinities and God, while the wicked go to the Heaven of Potsherds’. However desirous people were of this Good Heaven, it was not taken as the primary motivation for living morally, at least not above the need for a good life here on earth. Now, people are more concerned about making heaven to the manifest neglect of their duties to a good life on earth. Other influences of Christianity and Islam on traditional ethic have been chronicled by Idowu (1962: 211) as follows: Christianity, by a miscarriage of purpose, makes its contribution to the detrimental changes in moral value. Somehow, it has replaced the old fear of the divinities with the relieving but harmful notion of a God who is a sentimental old man, ever ready to forgive perhaps even more than man is prone to sin, the God in whom ‘goodness and severity’ have been put asunder. So also does Islam unwittingly create the erroneous impression that the fulfillment of the obligatory duties and acts of penance by good works are sufficient for the purpose of winning heaven. The result of all these is that our ‘enlightened’ products of the two ‘fashionable’ religions can now steal without any twinge of moral compunction.

This has destroyed the communalistic fervour of Yorùbá moral values. The saying Ayé la ó s· e ká tó s· ’o· run (‘This world first, then heaven’) is an indication that the Yorùbá put

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a premium on healthy humanism above anything outside here. Attention has also been shifted from Ifá to either the Bible or the Qur’an as the ultimate source of moral injunctions. Yorùbá ethics has also been impacted by the force of globalization, as other aspects of Yorùbá culture. The cultural revolution brought about by globalization, more than religions, has left the Yorùbá sense of morality worse than it met it. Some of the values that were held in high esteem have lost their place. The culture of virginity, respect for elders, hard work, good dressing sense, among others, that used to be the hallmark of O· mo· lúàbí, have now been replaced by their direct opposites. What used to be shameful things are now fashionable, and vice versa. For example, smoking of hemp used to be a shameful thing; so it was done in the bush. It was from this that the Yorùbá term for Indian hemp Igbó (‘bush’) originated. However, in the contemporary Yorùbá community, hemp is now smoked among people without any sense of moral shame attached. The rat race to become rich has made the virtue of O·mo· lúàbí a thing of little or no moral significance.

Conclusion The foregoing discussions revealed a well-rounded conception of moral system as envisioned by the Yorùbá group of Nigeria. It showed an ethic rich in considerations for the well-being of both the individual and the community, with connecting threads spanning beyond earthly concerns to the afterlife. Both at a personal and global level, Yorùbá ethics extols human essence, which culminates in human-centred ethical thinking. Given the outline of the Yorùbá ethical system attempted in this essay, it could be submitted that the Yorùbá hold an optimistic view of human nature as capable of providing solution to the world’s problems. The world’s problems are inspired by the activities of human beings; and it takes human efforts, in terms of character, to put an end to them.

Notes 1

Including the poor, the weak, the sick, persons with disabilities, elders and all the vulnerable in general.

References Abiodun, R. 1983. ‘Identity and the Artistic Process in Yorùbá Aesthetic Conception of Ìwà’. Journal of Cultures and Ideas 1(1): 13–30. Abimbola, W. 1975. ‘Ìwàpe· le· : The Concept of Good Character in Ifá Literary Corpus’. In Yorùbá Oral Tradition, ed. Wande Abimbola, 387–420, Ife: Ife African Languages and Literature Series, no. 1. Armah. A. K. 1979. Two Thousand Seasons. London: Heinemann Educational.

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Awolalu, J. O., and P. A. Dopamu. 1979. West African Traditional Religion. Ibadan: Onibonoje Press. Balogun, B. J. 2018. ‘A Sartrean Approach to Ayé S· ís· e in Yorùbá Existentialism’. Yorùbá Studies Review, Special Edition, 3(1): 297–314. Balogun, B. J. 2017. ‘Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights: The Yorùbá Example’. Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 6(2): 1–19. Balogun, B. J. 2014. ‘Ibi: An Examination of the Yorùbá Traditional-Existentialist Conception of Evil’. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 6(2): 55–73. Balogun, B. J. 2013. ‘The Consequentialist Foundations of Traditional Yorùbá Ethics: An Exposition’. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya 5(2): 103–21. Bewaji, J. A. I. 2006. ‘Ethics and Morality in Yorùbá Culture’. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 396–403, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Dopamu, P. A., and E. O. Alana. 2004. ‘Ethical System’. In Understanding Yorùbá Life and Culture, eds. Nike Lawal, Matthew Sadiku and Ade Dopamu, 155–7. Trenton, NJ: African World Press. Fadipe, N. A. 1991. The Sociology of the Yorùbá. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. Famakinwa, J. O. 2010. ‘How Moderate is Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism?’. Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Society of Kenya 2(2): 65–77. Fayemi, A. K. 2009. ‘Human Personality and the Yorùbá Worldview: An EthicoSociological Interpretation’. Journal of Pan-African Studies 2(9):166–76. Frisvold, N. M. 2016. Ifá: A Forest of Mystery, London: Scarlet Imprint. Gbadegesin, S. 2005. ‘Yorùbá Philosophy: Individuality, Communality, and the Moral Order’. In African Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, 130–41, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Gyekye, K. 2010. ‘African Ethics’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Available online at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/ african-ethics/. Idowu, E. B. 1962. Olódùmarè: God in Yorùbá Belief. London: Longman. Karenga, M. 2009. ‘Ènìyàn’. In Encyclopedia of African Religions, eds. Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, 239–40. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Karenga, M. 2008. ‘Ethical Insights from Odù Ifá: Choosing to be Chosen’. Los Angeles Sentinel, 25 January, A-7. Karenga, M. 1999. Odù Ifá: The Ethical Teaching. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press. Labeodan, K. 2009. ‘Ìwà Pe· le· ’. In Encyclopedia of African Religions, eds. Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, 348–9. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Lijadu, E. M. 1923. Ifá, Imo·le· Re· . Exeter: J. Townsend & Son. Lawuyi, O. B. 1988. ‘The Tortoise and the Snail: Animal Identities and Ethical Issues Concerning Political Behaviours among the Yorùbá of Nigeria’. Second Order 1(2): 29–45. Makinde, M. A. 1988. ‘African Culture and Moral Systems: A Philosophical Study’. Second Order 1(2): 1–27. Mbiti, J. S. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. Oxford: Heinemann Educational. Ogungbemi, S. 2007. Philosophy and Development. Ibadan: Hope Publications. Oke, M. 1988. ‘Self-Interest as the Ground of Moral Obligation’. Second Order 1(2): 79–103. Oladipo, O. 2006. ‘Challenges of African Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century’. In Core Issues in African Philosophy, ed. Olusegun Oladipo. Ibadan: Hope Publications. Olajide, W. 2011. ‘Existential Reversal and Yorùbá Philosophy’. Lumina, 22: 1–15.

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Oluwole, S. 1984–5. ‘The Rational Basis of Yorùbá Ethical Thinking’. The Nigerian Journal of Philosophy 4/5(1&2): 14–25. Oluwole, S. 2007. African Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernization. Lagos: First Academic Publishers. Omoregbe, J. 2005. ‘Ethics in Traditional African Society’. In Kpim of Morality: Ethics, eds. Pantaleon Iroegbu and Anthony Echekwebe, 36–42. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational. Omoregbe, J. 1989. Ethics: A Systematic and Historical Study, 2nd ed. Lagos: CEPCO Communications System Ltd. Oyeshile, A. O. 2002. ‘Morality and Its Rationale: The Yorùbá Example’. Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies 11 & 12: 90–8. Puka, Bill n.d. ‘Golden Rule’. In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eds. James Fraser and Bradley Dowden. Wiredu, K. 1983. ‘Morality and Religion in Akan Thought’. In Philosophy and Cultures, eds. H. Odera Oruka and D. A. Masolo. Nairobi: Bookwise Limited.

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The African Ethics of Ukama Munamato Chemhuru

Introduction A lot of ground has been covered in the field of African ethics in the past few decades (see, for example, Menkiti 1984, 2004; Gyekye 2010, 2013; Wiredu 2010; Molefe 2017, 2019; Metz 2022). However, the question of whether there can be a unified and distinct African ethical theory, as well as the grounding for such kind of ethics, is still not settled in African philosophy. One of the reasons for this is the differences among African cultures and traditions (Appiah, Arko-Achemfuor and Adeyeye 2018: 1). One then wonders whether it would be possible to propose a coherent view from which a universally binding African ethics could stem. Interestingly some of the dominant subSaharan African ethics such as unhu/ubuntu and communitarian philosophies are still disputed in terms of acceptance as universal philosophies applicable to the length and breadth of the African socio-ethical context. Notwithstanding the differences in African cultures, there remain some aspects of these African philosophies that support much of their value systems such that it would be difficult to ignore their somewhat universal appeal, applicability and import to African ethics. Although the African philosophies of communitarian existence and unhu/ubuntu have been extensively examined in the literature, there is still a metaphysical or ontological gap on what really undergirds these philosophies such that human beings could easily be compelled to commune and be guided by them. In order to reach such a meta-ethical conception of existence, which Metz (2022: 6) shows some discomfort with, there is a need to flesh out some aspects of African relational ethics. One of the often-neglected perspectives is how the African relational philosophy of ukama forms an integral basis for communitarian existence and unhu/ubuntu. I will show that the ethics of ukama (‘relatedness’) forms an integral anchor of African philosophy and ethics. Although there has been a growing body of literature on African relational ethics over the past decades (see, for example, Samkange and Samkange 1980; Ramose 1999; Murove 2014), much of the discourse has tended to be more focussed on the notions of communitarianism and unhu/ubuntu. Yet the African philosophy of unhu/ubuntu (‘humanness’) is anchored on the ethics of ukama, at least if understood closely with reference to how it is understood among mostly southern African Shona, Ndebele, Zulu and Xhosa communities. For easy of reference, however, I will mainly focus on the Shona 253

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communities to which I am more accustomed, although these communities share a lot in common in terms of languages and other aspects of their cultures. The connection between unhu/ubuntu and ukama has not been so clearly elaborated, although it should be. Except for Murove (2004, 2009, 2014) and Le Grange (2012), the notion of ukama has largely been ignored in much of the influential African ethical discourse, and it has tended to be taken as peripheral to unhu/ubuntu, which most African philosophers tend to pay more attention to. I, therefore, seek to revisit ukama and possibly offer a different and uncontroversial perspective to it by addressing it as one of the grounds on which unhu/ubuntu philosophy itself is based. I do not wish to claim that my approach is better than what others such as Murove (2004, 2014) have done so far. My intention is to flesh out a different interpretation and view of ukama ethics in order to give it a different dimension from which it could also be understood. I also articulate what I see as a holistic view of ukama in which a network of intragenerational and intergenerational relationships between human and non-human beings ought to be considered. The development of my argument in this chapter is organized as follows. First, I revisit and analyse one of the widely accepted etymological views and understanding of the notion of ukama. This view has been mainly propagated by Zimbabwean philosopher Munyaradzi Murove. Contrary to this earlier view based on an anthropocentric interpretation of ukama, I seek to strengthen the etymological understanding of ukama as emanating from less controversial and impartial relationships among all beings. In the second section, I continue to examine the concept of ukama as I try to clearly distinguish it from the idea of unhu/ubuntu, with which it is mostly conflated in much of the discourse on African relational ethics. I argue that, although the two conceptions are closely connected and concretize African relational ethics, they do not mean the same thing. I also position ukama as the invisible metaphysical premise from which unhu/ubuntu springs. In the end, I examine the multidimensional and holistic understanding of ukama as a relational notion that can be used to connect human beings with the entire environment, including non-human beings, that can also include past, present and future generations.

Understanding ukama The word ukama (‘relatedness’) is understood by different people in different ways in terms of how it accounts for responsibility towards fellow human beings and nonhuman beings. Although it may not be so explicit, ukama is loosely understood to refer to the African communitarian conceptions of existence. Menkiti’s (1984, 2004) and Gyekye’s (2010) communitarian conceptions of person could be understood as pointing to ukama between individuals constituting a community. This is because of their emphasis on communality based on what Gyekye sees as ‘social relationships; that . . . tend to whittle down the moral autonomy of the person’ (Gyekye 2010: 103). Although Menkiti and Gyekye are not so explicit about the nature of relationships among human beings, their communitarian standpoint is basically built on, and strengthened by, human relationships.

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Apart from the interpretation of Menkiti’s and Gyekye’s communitarian standpoints, other perspectives also lean on African communitarian philosophy to further interpret what is now commonly taken as African relational ethics. According to Metz, African relational ethics is a view that is ‘grounded in salient sub-Saharan moral views, roughly according to which the greater a being’s capacity to be part of a communal relationship with us, the greater its moral status’ (2012: 387). Although Metz is not explicit about the nature of ukama between various forms of being, what he examines as a relational theory of moral status is basically an indirect conception of moral status based on ukama. However, his view tends to overtly distribute moral status to other beings on the basis of degree of relationships with human beings, hence the criticism from Molefe for justifying relational ethics based on partiality (2017: 53). Notwithstanding some of these objections, what is common among communitarians and relational philosophers is the attempt to understand the moral relationship between human beings and nonhuman beings. Such a moral relationship could be built on further constructing some sort of relationships between human beings and non-human beings such as nonhuman animals. As a Shona word (noun) from Zimbabwe, ukama is generally understood to refer to relationships. In much of the discourse on African relational ethics, ukama is loosely used to refer to human relationships. However, most African philosophers agree that it refers to more than just human relationships (see, for example, Murove 2004 and Le Grange 2012). This understanding is also echoed in Metz’s view that an African theory of moral status accounts for degrees of moral status based on ‘capability of having a certain causal or intentional connection with another being’ (2012: 387). Thus, ukama has more to do with human relationships and their significance and import to other human and non-human beings transcending families and generations to which a being is connected. The above and some most recent philosophical interpretations of ukama seem to be philosophically compelling (see Murove 2004, 2014; Le Grange, 2012), as they focus on some charitable readings of ukama as a value-laden relational and moral concept enabling co-existence and interdependence among human beings. Nevertheless, there still remains some definitional haziness about the etymological origin and meaning of the concept itself. The word ukama can be best understood by making reference to its etymology just as Murove has attempted to do. According to Murove, ‘ukama is an adjective. As an adjective, its grammatical construction is “u-kama”. “U” is an adjectival prefix and “-kama” is an adjectival stem. Taken as the stem “-kama” becomes a word which means “to milk a cow or a goat”. The idea of milking in Shona thought suggests closeness and affection’ (2004: 196). However, what is important here is to see that Murove’s interpretation is based on understanding the word ukama as coming from the word -kama (as in milking some animal). This kind of interpretation is absorbing because of its attempt to make relational connections between human beings and animals. However, it is objectionable because of the anthropocentric overtones in it as the ‘closeness in question derives from an animal being used, first and foremost, for human ends and purposes’ (Horsthemke 2015: 98). In this regard, Murove’s interpretation of ukama might be seen as being agent-centred and justifying partiality, failing to value non-human animals for their own sake (see Molefe 2017: 53).

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The above criticism would not have been levelled against the relational import of ukama if it was properly defined as a noun in the first place. As a result, Murove’s understanding of ukama might also be objectionable as it is based on what I think is a misconception of the noun ukama and the verb -kama, all of which mean different things altogether. Murove seems to have ignored the meaning of ukama as a class 14 noun in the Shona language, and hence based his interpretation of ukama on the interpretation of the verb -kama, which has nothing to do with the noun ukama. According to Murove, ‘in its adjectival form, ukama means being related or belonging to the same family’ (2004: 197). Also, by looking at ukama as if it assumes an adjectival form, Murove assumes that the word ukama (which he takes to be an adjective) is telling us more about the noun ukama itself. It is not possible that a word can be a noun and an adjective at the same time, and hence the word ukama cannot be a noun and at the same time assume an adjectival form. Rather, the word ukama ought to be understood as a class 141 noun just like other Shona nouns in that particular class such as uswa (‘grass’), uroyi (‘witchcraft’), usimbe (‘laziness’), hwahwa (‘beer’), etc. Such nouns are used with reference to aspects of reality or things that are infinite and quantity-neutral. A number of conclusions that Murove makes about the import of ukama to ethical thinking in general cannot be disputed. However, I am somehow unassumingly at variance with him on the above etymological view of ukama, which I think is based on mixing its usage as a noun, with the verb -kama, both of which refer to different things altogether. Even if -kama could be understood in the metaphorical sense in which Murove wants us to, that is, as referring to the ‘closeness’ and interrelated bond that is established in human beings milking cows, I do not think that it is the word from which the noun ukama is derived. The noun ukama (‘relatedness’) has nothing to do with the verb -kama/kukama (‘milk[ing]’), although Murove would want us to believe that they have the same etymology. Perhaps an appropriate etymological interpretation of the word ukama should be one in which we need to understand the noun hama (‘relative’) which is in the Shona noun class 9 and class 10, respectively. For example, class 9 noun prefix i + hama = ihama (used with reference to either one or more relatives), and class 10 noun prefix dzi + hama = hama + dzacho, dzake, etc. (used with reference to more than one relative) (see Déchaine et  al. 2014: 19). From this understanding, the noun hama serves to enumerate either singular or plural objects, and hence it belongs to these two noun classes. It is from this word that the word ukama is derived, and not the kama implying milking. Contrary to Murove’s adjectival understanding of ukama. the understanding of ukama as a noun seems much more uncontroversial and closer to its relational understanding and the implications thereof. While I do not agree with Murove’s etymological understanding of ukama above, I do not object to his ethical interpretation of the notion of ukama with reference to its relational grounding of African ethics. According to Murove, ‘while the Shona word ukama means relatedness, ubuntu implies that humanness is derived from our relatedness with others, not only to those currently living, but also through the generations, past and present’ (2004: 196). This view suggests that unhu/ubuntu is derived from conceptions of ukama, but that such a view has not been explored in greater detail in much of the literature focusing on African relational ethics. In the

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following section, I pursue that line of thinking and argue that ukama actually forms an important basis for unhu/ubuntu (‘humanness’). Taken together, ukama and unhu/ ubuntu form a chain of ethical connectivity that binds human beings with other human beings and other non-human beings, including animate and inanimate reality, past, present and future generations, a view that I explore in the last section of this chapter mainly focusing on the holistic character of ukama.

Ukama and unhu/ubuntu: Distinguishing the two Most of the writings on African ethics tend to conflate the two concepts, ukama and unhu/ubuntu. While these concepts are closely related, and form a closely connected ethical chain in African ethics, they are not one and the same thing as I will try to show here. However, before doing that, since I have done an etymological analysis of the concept ukama in the above section, one would naturally expect that I do the same analysis with the concept unhu/ubuntu since I intend to distinguish the two. However, such an undertaking has already been done by different scholars such as Samkange and Samkange (1980), Ramose (1999), Chivaura (2006) and Murove (2014), making my task a little bit easier. Although it is beyond the scope of my overall focus on ukama in this article, I will briefly show how the etymological understanding of unhu/ubuntu resonates with the notion of humanness, and in the end show how unhu/ubuntu concretizes ukama. Ultimately, while I seek to examine how ukama is either similar or different from unhu/ubuntu, I will take the position that ukama is broader than unhu/ ubuntu. Among the philosophers who have examined the philosophy of unhu/ubuntu in recent years, Ramose has given one of the most vivid etymological and philosophical analyses of it. According to Ramose, the term ubuntu is derived from two conjunctions -ubu implying the notion of be-ing or existence in general and -ntu signifying the nodal point at which beingness achieves fullness or concrete form (Ramose 1999: 49– 50). A similar etymological analysis which captures the Shona version is also provided by Chivaura who observes that: ‘the -nhu in hu-nhu or -ntu in ubu-ntu refers to one’s physical existence as a thing with no values attached. Hu- and ubu- indicate values. People who lack hu- or ubu- attached to them are mere -nhus/-ntus or things. Havana unhu, in Shona: they lack human content’ (2006: 232). Although the notion of relatedness (ukama) is not so explicit from the above definitions of unhu/ubuntu, they also implicitly point to it or the relational character of human existence because the values to which unhu/ubuntu is attached, emanate from a community of human persons with specific relationships and a definite understanding of a human being. Accordingly, Murove argues that, ‘ubuntu means humanness – treating other people with kindness, compassion, respect and care’ (2014: 37). Murove draws the notion of unhu/ubuntu closer to relationships between human beings such that one can understand it as an important aspect of ukama. Accordingly, Chivaura concludes that ‘hunhu/ubuntu is the ability to control overpowering urges in one’s physical being’ (2006: 232). The physical being that Chivaura refers to here should be understood as the person. Through unhu/ubuntu, the person ought to safeguard the

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relationships that one has with other human beings and non-human beings at large. For this reason, it therefore becomes a bit difficult to examine unhu/ubuntu without referring to ukama. While unhu/ubuntu points to humanness, ukama is much broader than humanness in terms of its scope. Ukama is used with reference to human relationships although such reference could be metaphorically understood as going beyond human versus human relationships. Ukama points to the relationships, linkages and interconnectedness among humans with other beings (including non-human animals, non-animate beings, past, present and future generations), while unhu/ubuntu has more to do with humanness in so far as the human being’s standards of moral expectations are concerned. Interestingly Lesley Le Grange would like us to believe that ‘ukama is the ChiShona version of the Zulu / Xhosa concept of buntu’ (2012: 332). However, Le Grange’s assertion is disputable because it is not true that ukama and unhu/ubuntu are equivalent. Rather, ukama is referred to in Ndebele, Zulu and Xhosa as ubuhlobo and not as buntu, as implied in Le Grange’s reference. Apart from the differences based on reference as seen in the above-selected African languages, ukama and unhu/ubuntu could be understood by making reference to the macrocosm and microcosm relationship. According to such a view, ukama, which is the macrocosm, is the metaphysical source for other microcosms like morality or ethical relationships between various beings. Ukama represents the grand or whole complex structure of relationships in the universe. It is rather the whole or the ultimate cosmos of relationships within the world of beings or microcosms. Ukama could thus be understood at the macrocosmic level of existence, at least among all relational beings in the universe, while unhu/ubuntu could be seen as representing microcosmic relationships among selected beings that could be judged as either exuding or lacking unhu/ubuntu (‘humanness’). According to this view, unhu/ubuntu points to some specific miniature relationships between various forms of being (microcosms) that are ultimately united by the macrocosm. Thus understood, ukama is therefore something that can be taken to be omnipresent among all beings in the universe, yet unhu/ubuntu is only restricted to human beings, and in particular some human beings that have that kind of moral aptitude to be defined as such. Otherwise some human beings can lack unhu/ubuntu. Understood from the above view, ukama is therefore intrinsic to all beings while unhu/ubuntu is relative in that it might either be attained or lost at some point in time. For example, Samkange and Samkange (1980: 38) use the example of how, one day, an old man discouraged Samkange from paying money to two youngsters who had helped him to pull his car from a ditch on the basis that they were related. The assumption is that receiving payment for helping a relative is inconsistent with unhu/ubuntu, and ultimately lack of respect for ukama that exists between individuals. In this case, assuming that the two young men would have received payment from Samkange (their father-in-law as echoed by the old man) (1980: 38), that does not take away the relationships between the families, but it shows lack of unhu/ubuntu. Accordingly, although unhu/ubuntu is a cherished ethical trait among human beings, it is not possible that all beings will attain it all the time because some individuals will receive such payment from a relative, while ukama is something that cannot be taken away at

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any point. This explains why, for example, sometimes if certain individuals do some things that are not in accordance with accepted ethical norms, such persons are described as lacking unhu/ubuntu and not ukama. Thus, unhu/ubuntu remains an important ingredient of ukama, although it may not be sufficient at all times. In African relational ethics, it is not possible that unhu/ubuntu might be realized without reference to the relational orientation of humanity with the rest of the world. Rather, relationships (ukama) take fundamental ontological precedence over unhu/ ubuntu. In the article titled ‘Ubuntu’, which was published in Diogenes in 2014, Murove makes this point clear that ubuntu is made possible by the relational bond among beings. For Murove, ‘the definition of ubuntu as humanness is dovetailed by this presumption – namely that humanness is our existential precondition of our bondedness with others’ (2014: 37). What this implies is that humanness is largely an outcome of the relationships among beings. This is clear from the expression that has come to be accepted as the dictum of unhu/ubuntu, the view that munhu munhu navanhu (Shona) / umuntu ngomuntu ngabantu (Ndebele/Zulu) (‘A person is a person through others’). What this means is that humanness (unhu/ubuntu) is an expression of relationships (ukama) with others. While they fundamentally differ like I have indicated, taken together, ukama and unhu/ubuntu provide a comprehensive ethical framework for conceptualizing human and non-human animal relationships in African relational ethics. According to Murove, ‘when these two concepts are compounded in their togetherness, they provide an ethical outlook that suggests that human well-being is indispensable from our dependence on and interdependence with all that exists, and particularly with the immediate environment on which all humanity depends’ (2004: 196). I show this transcendental understanding of ukama, which has largely been ignored in preference for unhu/ubuntu, in the following section focusing on the holistic character of ukama in African ethics.

The holistic character of ukama ethics In the section above, I examined the relationship between ukama and unhu/ubuntu. I argued that ukama takes metaphysical and ontological precedence over unhu/ubuntu as a category in the definition of human and non-human relationships, whereas unhu/ ubuntu springs from such relational metaphysics and ontology as a humanist category in the definition of what it means to be a human being. In this section, I proceed to consider the multipronged understanding of ukama as a relational category in defining human beings in their relatedness and interdependence with the rest of the world encompassing human and non-human beings, past, present and future generations. Ukama forms an important ontological basis for the ethics of unhu/ubuntu. Following African relational ethics, the idea of ukama ought to be understood as a useful ontological connection on which all humanity hangs. It is like a code of existence among all beings. Such a code of existence is naturally inculcated into, and binds, human persons from birth and continues to be taught throughout the various stages of human development. For Murove, ‘it is through ukama that the moral values of the

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community are conveyed to the individual from childhood up to adulthood. In his or her social setting, the individual is thus sensitised to the reality of interdependence from birth until death’ (2004: 198). Accordingly, the notion of right or wrong comes from the fact that human beings have relationships (ukama) such that all human beings always should aim to distinguish the two and choose that which is right in order to maintain ukama or good relationships. The relational character of ukama, used with reference to human beings is seen in the way human persons try to make a bond through familial, societal and extra-familial and societal relationships. At the level of the family, the child is born and inculcated into a network of relationships that stretch from one’s immediate parents (mother and father) and siblings who are either one’s brothers or sisters. At the same time, the same individual belongs to the other wider and complex network of relationships that is broader than the immediate family, although the family remains highly regarded as ‘the best school for moral education’ (Molefe 2016: 113). That broader family network may include relatives like cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, grandparents (grandmother and grandfather) up to the great-grandparents and including the ancestors. However, ukama, as well as its relational import to other spheres of life, should not be understood as limited to these relationship structures alone. Following ukama, even individuals that do not belong to the immediate family may also be referred to as one’s mother/father, grandfather/grandmother (see Murove 2004: 197) as a way of trying to bring them within the network of relationships (ukama). Murove rightly captures this view as he argues that, among the Shona, ukama ‘is not simply restricted to marital and blood ties because there is a tendency in this culture to see all people as hama or relatives (197), including strangers. What is interesting here is that Murove brings in the word hama which, for reasons known to him, he did not deal with in his etymological definition of ukama. By mentioning the word hama here, Murove rightly captures the word from which the term ukama is derived although he ignored it in his etymological definition of ukama. However, a fundamental point that he makes here is that ukama is not necessarily limited to people belonging to the same family or blood ties. This explains why, for example, during the marriage negotiations (roora/lobola) among the Shona, Ndebele, Zulu and other African communities, lack of bride-price (lobola) cannot hinder the marriage between two people who have decided to marry. Although ordinarily people would be expecting that the bride price be paid as a sign of respect for the union and the in-laws, the marriage between two people from two different families is largely understood as kusunganidza ukama/kusimbisa ukama (in Shona), loosely meaning ‘strengthening relationships’. This can be understood to mean that relationships already existed between the two different families that are being joined and strengthened together through marriage. According to this understanding of marriage and ukama, even the son-in-law without bride-price (lobola) could still be accepted so long as one is committed to upholding relationships among human beings. It is also interesting to note that ukama ethics is not limited to human communities alone. Within the Western philosophical tradition, a number of philosophical perspectives have been proffered in trying to respond to this question, particularly the question of what really unites human beings as a species that might be construed as

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different from other non-human species. For example, Platonic, Aristotelian and Kantian ethics emphasize reason as being a universal aspect of humanity and, hence, the defining feature for partiality from the rest of non-human animals and the universe. Here, partiality ought to be understood as ‘the moral idea that sanctions favouritism in morality specifically in our relationships like family and friends’ (Molefe 2017: 55). Following such an exclusivist view, all rational beings are related by virtue of having reason, and hence non-rational beings are not related to them. Others such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill at least try to go beyond this speciesist and agent-related moral view (see Molefe 2017: 55) and insist on sentience and welfare, thereby at least taking animate beings into the moral world of relationships. Interestingly, the African ethics of ukama goes beyond these speciesist views. According to Peter Singer, speciesism ‘is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species’ (1975: 35). Understood within the context of speciesism as defined by Singer, ukama ethics is non-speciesist because of its emphasis on relationships of interdependence among all beings including those outside the human species. One major objection that has been raised against African relational ethics is by Molefe, who thinks that ‘the literature in African ethics has tended to neglect considering whether African ethics is best construed in terms of partiality or impartiality’ (2017: 59). However, from the above view, the African ethics of ukama could best be described in terms of impartiality because of the way it tries to be non-speciesist and taking non-human beings to be within the moral world to which all species belong. To show that the ethics of ukama is not oriented towards agent-related partiality, a fear that Molefe expresses with reference to African relational ethics (2017: 55), the ethics of ukama brings together relationships between human beings and non-human beings. This is an environmental ethical view that has been addressed by quite a number of philosophers addressing African relational ethics (see, for example, Murove 2004; Chemhuru and Masaka 2010; Mangena 2013). These philosophers agree that ukama ethics is relational not only with reference to human beings alone, but with regards to how human beings are also related to other non-human beings. Notwithstanding the accusations for propagating a somewhat human-centred ethics based on constructing indirect relationships between human beings and animals, these views remain central in the understanding of human relationships with nature based on ukama. Especially with reference to the relationships between human beings and nonhuman animals which it emphasizes, ukama is sometimes accused for being anthropocentric. However, through the totem system, ukama (‘relational existence’) is promoted between not only human beings, but also between human beings and the totem animals to which certain individuals belong. According to this relational view emphasizing relationships between human beings and non-human beings, especially non-human animals, every individual person belongs to a particular family that is related to a particular totem animal or animal parts. These totem animals could range from domestic animals, wild animals, aquatic animals, birds and endangered animal species. As Murove sees it, ‘ukama is also based on the totemic system where by a person sees himself or herself as related to natural species, thereby instilling a sense of belonging to the wider environment, past as well as future’ (2014: 44).

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The environmental ethical import of totems is based on ukama (‘relations’) between the totem animals and the human community. The idea is almost similar to a situation where, for example, an individual cannot marry from one’s family or from a family with the same blood ties. Similarly, certain animal species are honoured and respected as totems or totem animals because they are hama (‘related’) to human beings. Accordingly, Masaka avers that ‘totems are aimed at creating harmonious and respectful co-existence between human beings and non-human animals and the environment’ (2019: 35). By belonging to different totems based on certain groups of animals, human beings are taught that they at least have ukama (‘relationships’) with these animals. Such a view would teach human beings to accord moral status to animals and avoid cruelty when treating them because animals are thought to be related to human beings in general. Notwithstanding the above environmental ethical view informed by ukama between human beings and animals through totems, Horsthemke is not convinced, as he insists that the duties to animals through totems and taboos in Shona are not only indirect but ‘. . . illustrate a manifestly anthropocentric ethic of sustainable use of nonhuman resources . . . The taboos placed on killing certain animals are frequently arbitrary, and one clan’s totem animal often turns out to be another clan’s favourite bush meat’ (2019: 242). However, although ukama ethics instilled through totems might be seen to be anthropocentric, I do not take the position that such relational ethics is decidedly anthropocentric (see also Masaka 2019: 223). Perhaps it would be proper to go with Masaka’s compromise position and accept it as a ‘moderate anthropocentric view’ 2019), one that could be taken as the relational basis for the moral status of all beings. According to Masaka, this is ‘an ethic that is significantly focussed on promoting human interests but at the same time concerned about some interests and rights of non-human animals and the environment at large’ (2019: 231). This position is not defeatist because it is actually difficult to find an environmental ethical position that is totally non-anthropocentric. So far, what is apparent in the above views is the emphasis on all human beings as hama (‘related’) to each other as well as the sublime understanding of ukama to include the environment, particularly non-human animals. Perhaps what needs to be understood is the extent to which those kind of relationships go as far as other beings past, present and future generations are concerned. In this regard, ukama ought not to be understood as intragenerational, but also as an intergenerational ethics that cuts across generations and binds together past, present and future generations of both human and non-human beings. Even in the Western philosophical tradition where intergenerational ethics/justice is mainly understood from a distributive perspective, ukama could still provide a framework for such distributive patterns based on the interrelationships and interconnectedness between people belonging to different generations. In A Theory of Justice, for example, John Rawls struggles to find a plausible basis on which to reach for ‘justice between generations’ (1971: 251). However, while Rawls might have settled for the economic theory based on the ‘just savings principle’ (271), the idea of ukama between different generations could have easily settled his puzzle with regards to the basis for distributing justice between generations. Connected with African relational ethics of ukama is the African religion that tries to strengthen ukama (‘relational living’) between different generations, that is, past,

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present and future generations. As Murove puts it, among the Shona ‘religion is the reenactment of ukama between the living and their ancestors’ (2004: 198). This view faces some serious objections because issues to do with religion are mostly based on metaphysical premises that make it difficult to accept (see Metz 2022: 11). Nevertheless, I insist that the religious premises of ukama are anchored on some long-standing though controversial fundamental beliefs and practices that are based on the interconnectedness of the past (ancestors), the present (living human and non-human beings) and the future, consisting of human beings, non-human beings and the environment at large. The understanding of ukama as subsisting between past, present and future generations is thought to have a teleological dimension to it. Ukama (‘relationship’) between past, present and future generations is thought to have a purposive function of strengthening the existence and well-being of all beings. This is because non-living beings and past generations – the ancestors, for example – are thought to be alive and active in so far as they have a spiritual influence in the lives of the living beings. This metaphysical view of existence is very prevalent in African metaphysics and philosophy. However, I will not venture into it because of its controversial premises, as well as the lack of space to do so. Related to the above teleological dimension of ukama ethics is also the vitalist understanding of it. This view was mainly popularized by Tempels (1959), and later taken up by Magesa (1997) and Bujo (2001), although they were not more focused on ukama per se. According to such a view of existence, related beings are not only teleologically oriented but some beings have some vitality or vital force, or the ability to cause or influence certain phenomena to happen in the lives of other related beings. For Tempels, ‘there is no idea among Bantu of being divorced from the idea of force. Without the element force, being cannot be conceived’ (1959: 151–2). Implicit in this idea is the view that all related beings (living humans and the ancestors) have vitality, or that they are actually vital forces in so far as they have some invisible spiritual energy that is considered to be inherent in them all. Accordingly, ukama between the living beings and the non-living beings must be respected, safeguarded, strengthened and reciprocated all the time through various ritual practices, which I will not venture into because of the lack of space to do so. Overall, ukama must still be taken as one of the promising relational bases for conceptualizing African ethics in general because of its ontological basis on relationships, as well as the possibility of understanding it as having a holistic understanding.

Conclusion In this chapter I do not wish to pretend that I am the first to consider the ethical dimension of ukama or that I have given a comprehensive account of it. Much of the discourse of African relational ethics ventures into some of the properties of ukama that I have considered here. What I have done is to at least try and give a different and at least less controversial perspective of ukama ethics, especially if read in connection with the African philosophy of unhu/ubuntu. I have observed that mostly unhu/

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ubuntu philosophy is examined with little attention to how it is grounded on human relationships (ukama), which I have considered here as its grounding. It is my hope that this different view of ukama as the grounding of unhu/ubuntu will stimulate further debate on the two philosophies. Overall, I have not only looked at this relational grounding of African ethics, but have tried to emphasize the characteristically holistic orientation of ukama ethics, a position which I think most readers of African ethics will not have problems accepting.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for sponsoring me to do this research. I also wish to thank Dennis Masaka for reading a draft of the chapter.

Notes 1

Noun classification in the Shona language is a system of categorizing all nouns into each of the twenty-one noun classes based on the prefix of the noun itself.

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Mangena, F. 2013. ‘Discerning Moral Status in the African Environment’. Phronimon 14(2): 25–44. Masaka, D. 2019. ‘Moral Status of Non-human Animals from an African perspective’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. Munamato Chemhuru, 223–36. Cham: Springer. Menkiti, I. A. 1984. ‘Person and Community in African Traditional Thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Richard Wright, 171–81. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Menkiti, I. A. 2004. ‘On the Normative Conception of a Person’. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 324–31. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Metz, T. 2012 ‘An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism’. Ethical Theory and Practice 15: 387–402. Metz, T. 2022. A Relational Moral Theory: African Ethics in and beyond the Continent. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Molefe, M. 2016. ‘African Ethics and Partiality’. Phronimon 17(1): 104–22. Molefe, M. 2017. ‘Relational Ethics and Partiality: A Critique of Thad Metz’s ‘Towards an African Moral Theory’. Theoria 64(3): 53–76. Molofe, M. 2019. An African Philosophy of Personhood, Morality, and Politics. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Murove, M. F. 2004. ‘An African Commitment to Ecological Conservation: The Shona Concepts of Ukama and Ubuntu’. Mankind Quarterly 45(2): 195–215. Murove M. F., ed. 2009. African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics. Scottville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Murove, M. F. 2014. ‘Ubuntu’. Diogenes 59(3–4): 36–47. Ramose, M. B. 1999. African Philosophy through Ubuntu. Harare: Mond Books. Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Samakange, S., and T. M. Samkange. 1980. Hunhuism or Ubuntuism: A Zimbabwean Indigenous Political Philosophy. Harare: Graham Publishing. Singer, P. 1975. Animal Liberation. New York: Early Bird Books. Tempels, P. 1959. Bantu Philosophy (Colin King, trans.). Portland, OR: HBC Publishing. Wiredu, K. 2010. ‘Moral Foundations of an African Culture’. In Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies 1, eds. Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye, 193–206. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.

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African Feminism and Africana Womanism Joyline Gwara

Introduction As a theory, feminism is understood by its advocates as the championing of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality with men. At the core of the theory is the empowerment of women, which leads to gender equality. There are several feminist movements around the world and most of these movements are female-centred, that is, they view men as possible enemies. The pioneers of feminism were white middle-class women of privilege who were not so concerned about women of colour, poor women or women with disabilities. Even though feminism had a strong impact on many societies, the movement was mainly confined to middle- and upperclass white women. Thus, black women struggled to identify with traditional feminism because they did not identify with the issues that feminism typically advocates. This prompted the rise of black feminism or African feminism, which, some scholars argue, was just an adoption of the feminist ideology into the African context. To this effect, it would seem that there is no significant difference between the objectives of African or black feminism and those of traditional feminism. This paper challenges this view and argues that black feminism did not accept uncritically the tenets of traditional feminism. For instance, black feminism heavily criticized white feminist’s racism. This perceived weakness of black feminism, however, led to the rise of Africana womanism which purports to be  grounded in African culture and focuses on the unique experiences, struggles, needs and desires of Africana women. Proponents of Africana womanism supplied eighteen key tenets of their theory, and of these eighteen there are three salient themes, namely agency, alliances and attributes. Advocates of Africana womanism wanted to be equal to men, at the same time realizing the fact that, on top of being a woman, they also had race issues that they had to deal with. Africana womanism focuses on all forms of oppression and discrimination in the form of classism, sexism and racism faced by black women in all societies. To this effect, Africana womanism believes that it separates itself from traditional feminism on the basis that, at its core, are the interests of black women and their womanhood. But does it separate itself from black feminism? Is it possible to conflate black feminism with Africana womanism? Are there no points of convergence between black feminism and Africana womanism? In an attempt to understand these dynamics, this paper is an investigation into whether there are real or imagined differences between black feminism/womanism and Africana womanism. 267

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Black feminism/womanism This section looks at black feminism and the reasons that gave rise to this movement. It is the belief of most black feminists that some of the things white feminism addressed were not applicable to women of colour. In other words, their struggles are different; that is, white feminists are more privileged than black feminists. In the mid-1960s, black women began to join the feminist movement where they expressed their unique experiences (Breines 2007). They felt that the white feminist movement had turned a blind eye to their challenges and they created their own movement which they defined in the face of black women’s experiences. Black women also felt that they were an invisible group insofar as the issues of gender were concerned, with the black men only recognized as a ‘black’ person. They, thus, sought to have their voices heard and set a new trajectory in the feminist movement, which appreciated the experiences of black women. As Breines (2007) notes, the black women’s trajectories were different from those of white women, partly because they were members of an oppressed racial minority. Black feminism also stands as a resistance to Western domination, as for almost two hundred years in the United States black women suffered ‘extreme and unimaginable cruelty under a legalized system of human slavery’ (Norwood 2013). Thus, black feminism was also a response to these social, economic and political inequalities, as black women were not recognized as citizens, as they possessed no legal rights and did not enjoy any protection under the law. Together with their men, they were assaulted physically, emotionally, psychologically and sexually. Slavery was their permanent status for a long time. The first black women to air their voices were the abolitionists, who advocated for the end of slavery and the slave trade. For them, it was nonsensical to advocate for social empowerment through gender struggle without first uprooting the evil of slavery. These black women of the eighteenth century fought fiercely against slavery, and it was not difficult for the black feminist of the nineteenth century to demand their liberation and the liberation of the entire race (Breines; 2007). The road had been already set, their job was to clear it completely. Also black feminists noted that some of the prominent white feminists were racist. For instance, in the writings of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, when she challenged the status quo of white women being denied the right to vote whereas the ‘degraded black men’ had that right sets the mood for racial overtones. Furthermore, Frances Willard also described black men as drunken menaces who were collectively guilty of raping white women. Due to this factor, most women of colour who argue for equal rights find it difficult to identify themselves as feminists. Following on from this, it is clear that the women of colour felt segregated once again by the existence of racism in the history of feminism. This, however, led to the marginalization of women of colour. As a result black feminism rose as an attempt to try and make white feminists recognize that women of different races, sexual orientations and socio-economic statuses experience gender inequality differently. Furthermore, black feminists believed that their plight and that of white feminism differed in many respects. For instance, the plight of a middle-class, heterosexual white woman was completely different from that of an uneducated, lesbian woman of colour.

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Also the fact that white feminism has failed to see the fact that racial inequality and gender inequality intersect led to the rise of black feminism, which believed that women of colour suffered both these atrocities. Black women were excluded in most white-women activities. They were not invited to participate on conference panels which were not specifically about black or Third World women. They were not equally, or even proportionately, represented on the faculty of Women’s Studies departments, nor were there classes devoted specifically to the study of black women’s history. In most women’s movement writings, the experiences of white, middle-class women were described as universal ‘women’s experiences’, largely ignoring the differences of black and white women’s experiences due to race and class. In addition to this, well-known black women were often treated as tokens; their work was accepted as representing ‘the’ black experience and was rarely ever criticized or challenged. The Black Liberation Movement, though it was aimed at liberating the black race in principle, in practice focused on liberating the black male. Thus, black feminism aimed at responding to the Black Liberation Movement which sexually and racially oppressed them. For instance, it was a general belief that racism was more detrimental to black men than it was to black women because racism results in the loss of manhood. This belief indicates both the acceptance of masculinity defined within the context of patriarchy as well as a disregard for the human need for integrity and liberty felt by both men and women. Black feminism is seen by its advocates as the process of self-conscious struggle that empowers women and men to realize a humanistic vision of community. While the white feminists of the second wave focused on issues of contraception and abortion, their coloured counterparts still struggle for enfranchisement (Izgarzan and Slobodanka 2012).

Themes in black feminism Black women drew out major standpoints for their new movement which could address issues that affect all women of colour, paying attention to their lived experiences through culture and history. In this endeavour, they came up with four major themes which shaped black feminism. First, they define and evaluate their social standings and try to debunk negative images that have been said about black women, and intersectionality becomes an important aspect of black feminism. Intersectionality is the view that the issues of race, class, gender and sexuality depend on each other as they cannot be separated (Ransby, as cited in Simien 2004). Secondly, they try to dislodge racial and class domination as well as gender oppression. They try to address gender inequality issues as experienced within the black community. Black women’s contributions to society were not recognized and leadership roles were reserved only for black men. Notably, patriarchy reigned in the black communities, and this led black feminists to demand their space in the social, economic and political affairs of their society (Simien 2000). They agree that gender inequality also exists in black communities. Only black men’s activities were given recognition, ignoring the contribution of black women.

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Thirdly, they try to connect ‘intellectual thought and political activism’, which enables them to have a sound movement based on black women’s experiences (Ransby, as cited in Simien 2000). Black feminists see the feminist movement helping them address and challenge patriarchy. However, black feminists do not attack individual black men, as they want them to work with them to expand the fight against inequality and injustice for women. Black feminism does not seek to divide the black race along exclusivist gender lines, as it wants emancipation in all spheres of life. Lastly, black feminists present a history and culture, which enables them to resist and transform daily discrimination. The evolution of black feminism did not only come out from their resistance to white feminism but also from their quest to empower themselves according to their unique experiences (Taylor 1998). Black feminists maintain their movement is inspired by their everyday experiences within the framework of race, class and gender oppression. Theirs is a collective movement for all black women addressing their unique challenges. Having decided to form a movement of their own, women of colour needed to define the goals of the feminist movement to determine its focus. Many scholars came up with their definitions, among them Alice Walker, who coined the term ‘womanism’ to refer to the black feminist movement. Many African-American women see little difference between black feminism and womanism since both support a common agenda of black women’s self-definition and self-determination (Collins 1996). Thus, womanism has been defined by its adherence as follows: Womanist 1. From womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e., frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, “You acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in great depth than is considered “good” for one. Interested in grown-up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with another black folk expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious. 2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally universalist, as in: “Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige, and black?” Ans.: “Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.” Traditionally capable, as in: “Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me.” Reply: “It wouldn’t be the first time.” 3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless. 4. Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender. Walker 1984: Xi–xii

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The first part of the definition of womanism implies that it is synonymous to black feminism or a feminist of colour, and at times the terms are used interchangeably. The second part of the definition refers to different relations that can exist between women. The fact that womanism allowed women to prefer sexual relations with other women makes it consistent with white feminism. However, that is as far as the similarities go, for womanism does not despise heterosexual relations. Unlike white feminism, womanism is not hostile towards men – a womanist loves individual men, sexually and or non-sexually. In this regard, womanism seemingly supplies a way for black women to address gender oppression without attacking black men (Collins 1996). Still, in the second part of the definition there is an indication that a womanist is committed to survival of human kind as a whole; that is, the theory champions race liberation. The fact that a womanist is traditionally universalist in the definition is illustrated by way of a metaphor of the garden in which ‘the women and men of different colours coexist like flowers in a garden yet retain their cultural distinctiveness and integrity’ (Collins 1996). Following this line of argument, a womanist ‘draws her reader’s attention to the importance of women’s intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual wholeness, and she stresses the need to create a global community where all members of society are encouraged to survive and survive whole’. Madhu Dubey argues that Walker’s womanist project seeks to ‘integrate the past and present, individual and community, personal and political change, into a unified whole’ (Davis 2004). This stresses the need for tolerance not only of sexes but of races. In this regard, womanism caters not only for black women but for all humankind. In her definition also, the relationship of women, that is, between mother and daughter, is indicated. This indicates that, unlike white feminism, womanism values motherhood to be essential to womanhood. In the final analysis of the definition of womanism is the phrase, ‘Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender’ (Walker 1984), which indicates that the two have things in common but are undeniably different. In the above four-part definition, womanism expresses the attributes of women of colour without denouncing men or white people. Other African women activists noted some problems with black feminism or womanism. Critics assert: The term ‘black feminism’ also makes many African American women uncomfortable because it challenges black women to confront their own views on sexism and women’s oppression. Because the majority of African American women encounter their own experiences repackaged in racist school curricula and media, even though they may support the very ideas on which feminism rests, large numbers of African American women reject the term ‘feminism’ because of what they perceive as its association with whiteness. Many see feminism as operating exclusively within the terms white and American and perceive its opposite as being black and American. Collins 1996: 13

This observation is what pushed other African-American women to advance a theory that they thought speaks to African women’s experiences. Black feminism was charged with promoting the Western agenda by advocating lesbianism. This is clearly stated in

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the definition of womanism where it states that a womanist loves other women sexually or non-sexually. Lesbianism, which the black feminist tolerated or borrowed, led to the rise of another theory which claimed that black feminism or womanism was divorced from the African cultural dictates. Africana womanism arose as a way of dealing with the challenges faced by womanism.

Africana womanism As indicated in the opening quotation by Ama Ata Aidoo, Africana womanism was founded after realizing the limitations of Western-oriented female theories. The chief proponent of this theory is Clenora Hudson-Weems. The theory was an endeavour to address the struggles and realities of an African woman that are different to those of white feminism, African/black feminism or womanism. To this end Africana womanists assert that ‘Africana womanism is not black feminism, African feminism or Walker’s womanism’, for Africana womanism is family-centred and a quest for race empowerment while feminism is female-centred and focuses on female empowerment alone (Hudson-Weems 2019). In other words, Africana womanism is neither a derivative of nor an appendage to African feminism, black feminism, feminism or Walker’s popularly accepted womanism. Africana womanists further argue that feminism cannot be enough for the struggles of African women. Unlike the other theories which are female-centred and present an African woman as antagonistic to her male counterpart, Africana womanism presents an African woman who is in concert with her male counterpart and does not consider him as the enemy. An Africana womanist is one who nurtures and mothers her family, who is a self-namer (nommo) and self-definer, who is strong and ambitious (Hudson-Weems 2004). So, in this case, the very foundation upon which the critical paradigm of Africana womanism rests is self-naming and self-defining for Africana people. Africana womanists argue that self-naming and self-defining are at the core of authentic existence (Hudson-Weems 2004). Africana womanists advocated a theory whose qualities are deeply rooted in the rich African history and culture which is humanistic in nature. To this effect, Africana womanists call for African women worldwide to reclaim, rename and redefine themselves, using the terminology and concept of Africana womanism, which term itself evokes a new paradigm of prioritizing the tripartite plight of race, class and gender for all women of African descent, as a new tool for analysis, beginning with the power of the word nommo (Hudson-Weems 2004). Africana womanism has been defined as ‘an ideology created and designed for all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture, and therefore it necessarily focuses on the unique experiences, struggles, needs and desires of African women . . . . its primary goal . . . is to create their own criteria for assessing their realities, both in thought and in action’ (Hudson-Weems 2019). Africana womanism digs deep into African heritage and gender questions, confronts Eurocentric notions on questions of gender, and puts forward the Afrocentric point of view. The theory dares to challenge the Eurocentric status quo in Africana womanism as it fearlessly presents, from African roots, an African woman’s identity, realities and

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different dimensions in family life, social organization and history. Africana womanism makes a call for the adoption of a thought-action-based paradigm that highlights what is African-centred, rooted in African culture and directed towards the needs of the Africana communities as a whole (Ahmed 2017). Central to Africana womanism is Afrocentricity. In the quest for a unique African identity, Africana womanism emphasizes collectivism and communalism as the characteristics of African culture. Africana womanism is against feminism which is based on individualism, which is based on individual empowerment (Dove 1998). In an attempt to distance Africana womanism from other feminist theories, its proponents forwarded the key guiding attributes of the theory. These attributes are eighteen in number and are believed to come from the rich legacy of womanhood and culture. These are: self-namer, self-definer, family-centred, genuine in sisterhood, strong, in concert with male in struggle, whole, authentic, flexible role player, respected, recognized, spiritual, male compatible, respectful of elders, adaptable, ambitious, nurturing and mothering (Hudson-Weems 2019).

Characteristics of Africana womanism Hudson-Weems characterizes an Africana womanist as one who fully defines and names her own movement without being dictated to by borrowed Western theories that do not speak to African realities. As a self-namer, an African woman is able to name her movement relating to her historical and cultural background. According to Hudson-Weems (2004), naming holds a significant role in African culture since ‘the proper naming of a thing gives it essence’. This appropriate naming in Africana womanism is an essential condition in expressing her identity and cultural reality. For Africana womanists, this is what is missing in black feminism and womanism, which seems to borrow the agenda of white feminism. Another feature of Africana womanism, that is linked with self-naming in creating the identity of Africana womanism, is selfdefinition. Hudson-Weems (2019) asserts that the Africana womanist is conscious enough to create her identity in accordance with her cultural reality. Africana womanism believes that black feminism’s thought is different from theirs since they argue the former are mere assimilationists, as they do not have a true commitment to their culture and their people; they just embrace the feminist movement (Hudson-Weems 2019). Jacobs (as cited in Norwood 2013) agrees with HudsonWeems that it is problematic to name ‘feminism’ in Africa since the term reflects to them Western feminists’ reluctance to end material oppression and also to end the marginalization of all women regardless of race, class and colour. Africana womanism has also been characterized as being family-centred. This feature argues that an African woman is concerned about the struggles of the entire family, which includes the mother, husband and children, not just her own individual struggles (Hudson-Weems 2019). For Hudson-Weems (2019), Western women are in search of individualistic rights, which are not part of the Africana womanist’s agenda. Another feature of Africana womanism is that it is capable of establishing genuine sisterhood. According to Hudson-Weems:

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This sisterly bond is a reciprocal one, one in which each gives and receives equally. In this community of women, all reach out in support of each other, demonstrating a tremendous sense of responsibility for each other by looking out for one another. They are joined emotionally, as they embody empathetic understanding of each other’s shared experiences. Everything is given out of love, criticism included, and in the end, the sharing of the common and individual experiences and ideas yields rewards. 2009: 64–5

This feature also brings in the uniqueness of an African woman through shared identity and communitarianism which is the opposite of Western theories (2019). Africana womanism further presents African women as being whole and authentic. In this regard, the Africana womanist seeks wholeness (completeness) and authenticity (cultural connection) in her life, and to be complete the Africana woman wants her home, her family and her career, without neglecting one for the other (2019). An Africana womanist is also male compatible. The women desire positive male companionship, a relationship in which each individual is mutually supportive and, thus, an important part of a positive Africana family (2019). In tandem with this view, Makaudze (2014) argues that, unlike Western women who have irreconcilable grudges with their male counterparts and who do not want anything to do with men, Africana women are male compatible as they can live, work and sit side by side with their male counterparts. Being a flexible role player is another characteristic of Africana womanism (Hudson-Weems 2019). Feminists usually fight to have space, want to enter and venture into domains, responsibilities and positions normally believed to be under the domain of men and, as such, their number one enemy is the man, whom they believe shuts doors to women’s emancipation (Makaudze 2014). Contrary to feminists, an Africana woman is not keen to fight to be accorded her own space and does not compete with her male counterpart for positions, responsibilities and privileges; rather, she and her male counterpart are flexible role players. An Africana woman does not fight her male counterpart to be accorded a platform to demonstrate her potential; she knows that chance will come without her having to fight for it (Hudson-Weems 2019). The Africana womanist is also characterized as being in concert with men in the struggle. Africana women do not perceive their African male counterparts as their enemies and, thus, they reason that their problems are not entirely caused by men, but that their men are also in many ways victims of the same system that has marginalized and oppressed them (2019). Makaudze (2014) also believes that African women do not fight their men but rather fight alongside and together with their men to uplift black people’s lives. Respect and recognition are other two important characteristics of Africana womanism. In tandem with these characteristics, Gelfand (1968) notes how Africana women command respect with the African husband consulting her in all decisionmaking. He goes further to argue that a husband who wrongs his wife must ask for forgiveness and, if need be, should be prepared to have their domestic misunderstanding resolved by aunts and grandmothers. This demonstrates his respect for women,

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showing to all that his wife and other women need to be respected and recognized (Gelfand 1968). Another important feature of an Africana womanist is that she is respectful of elders. The true Africana womanist respects and appreciates elders, insisting that her young do likewise (Hudson-Weems 2019). This feature is embedded in African culture. An Africana womanist encourages the young to seek advice from their elders as the wisdom of elders is indisputable, for it is the elders who keep the family fabric intact and who undertake most religious responsibilities, thus guaranteeing families a good living, and they, in turn, command the greatest respect in society (2019). The Africana womanist also possesses features of mothering and nurturing. In the Africana womanist ethic there is a commitment to the art of mothering and nurturing of children and, in general, humankind. Being ambitious and responsible is another feature connected to the art of mothering and nurturing. This means that a woman sees herself as a mother to her own children and to all of humanity (Makaudze 2014).

Looking through the lens of black feminism, womanism and Africana womanism As indicated above, Africana womanism believes that it can separate itself from traditional feminism, black feminism or womanism on the basis that, at its core, are the interests of black women and their womanhood. In this section my concern is to attempt to address the following questions: Does Africana womanism succeed in separating itself from black feminism? What are the points of convergence or divergence between black feminism/ womanism and Africana womanism? Is it possible to conflate black feminism/womanism with Africana womanism? This paper, however, notes that there are more similarities than differences between what Africana womanism, black feminism and womanism sets out to achieve. Thus, black feminism/ womanism shares more similar traits with Africana womanism than it does with white feminism. Even black feminists argue that womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender, which indicates that the two have things in common but are undeniably different. The most important attribute which is believed to set Africana womanism apart from black feminism/African feminism/womanism is that of self-naming. It has been noted that this appropriate naming in Africana womanism is an essential condition for the survival of Africana women, thus the Africana womanist’s name should express her identity and cultural reality. However, it can be noted that Walker coined the name ‘womanism’ for the black feminist movement, which is far from being just a mere appendage of the word ‘black’ to ‘feminism’. At this juncture, I will focus on points of convergence and divergence of black feminism/womanism; mainstream feminism and Africana womanism. First, the charge that Africana womanism lays on black feminism/ womanism that it adopt the Western agenda seems to be valid, especially if one considers the fact that they tolerate such practices as lesbianism, which contradicts African cultural dictates. This, however, is as far as the similarities between white feminism and black feminism/ womanism go. Black feminists/womanists do not

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despise heterosexual relations like some other feminists do, but, like Africana womanists, address gender oppression without attacking black men Like Africana womanism, black feminism argues for their movement to be defined in the face of black female experiences. They believe as Africana womanists that black women’s trajectories are different from those of whites due to the fact that they belong to the group of an oppressed racial minority. Both Africana womanists and black feminists believe that women of different races and socio-economic statuses experience gender inequality differently. They both believe that their movements are inspired by the daily experiences within the framework of race, class and gender oppression. Also, they fought against slavery for both women and men. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the main objective of black feminists was to demand the liberation of women and that of the entire race. So the charge that black feminism borrows the white feminist agenda falls apart, because white feminism is female-centred whereas black feminism is concerned about liberating the whole race. They also believe, like Africana womanists, that feminism fails to see the intersection of racial inequality and gender inequality. Both argue that issues of race, class and gender depend on each other and cannot be separated. In light of this, they believe, like Africana womanists, that there is the need to dislodge racial and class domination as well as gender oppression. Another attribute of Africana womanism which is believed to set it apart from feminism and womanism is that an Africana womanist is said to possess features of mothering and nurturing. In the Africana womanist ethic, there is a commitment to the art of mothering and nurturing her children and, in general, humankind. The same can be said of black feminism, which brings out the relationship between a mother and the daughter. In this regard, womanism values motherhood, which they regard as essential to womanhood. Another attribute of Africana womanism, which its adherents think separates it from black feminism, is that it is family-centred. An African woman is concerned about the struggles of the entire family, which includes the mother, husband and children not just her own individual struggles. However, it can be noted that black feminism/womanism is committed to the survival of humankind as a whole. In other words, it is concerned about the liberation of the whole race.

Conclusion From the discussion above, it can be noted that there are certain traits in black feminism which may make it incompatible or at odds with Africana womanism. For instance, black feminism as articulated in the definition of womanism tolerates lesbianism, which to the Africana womanist is a borrowing of the white feminist agenda. Also another criticism is that the black feminists fail to name their agenda. But, from the above discussion, that’s as far as black feminism can be associated with white feminism. This is evidenced by Hudson-Weems’s admission that Africana womanism has been there from antiquity, but what was not there was a paradigm and proper naming. Also the fact that both black feminism and Africana womanism grappled with the same issues, such as race, sex and gender, makes the two share a lot in common. In short,

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there are more similarities than differences between Africana womanism and black feminism. Both theories are concerned about freeing the whole black race, that is, men, women and children. They are both all-inclusive. This is what separates both theories from white feminism. Further to this, unlike white feminism which emphasizes the elimination of marriages in a bid to claim women’s biological rights, black feminism and Africana womanism are both family-centred and family-oriented. Both black feminists and Africana womanists see the relevance of motherhood, and they both do not see their black male counterparts as their enemies. To this effect both black feminism and Africana womanism advocate for the same things, the only difference being that, prior to Africana womanism, there was no clear definition of the black feminist’s agenda. In short, from the above discussion, similarities outweigh differences, and also the admission by womanists that Africana womanism was there since time immemorial makes it appropriate to name the agenda of black activists black feminism or Africana womanism.

References Ahmed, N. M. 2017. ‘Africana womanist Reading of the Unity of Thought and Action’. Journal of Humanities and Social Science 22(3): 58–64. Breines, W. 2007. ‘Struggling to Connect: White and Black feminism in the Movement Years’. Contexts 6(1): 18–24. Collins, P. H. 1996. ‘What’s in a name? Womanism, Black Feminism, and Beyond’. Black Scholar 26(1): 9–17. Davis, A. J. 2004. ‘To Build a Nation: Black Women Writers, Black Nationalism, and Violent Reduction of Wholeness’. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 26(3): 24–53. Dove, N. 1998. ‘African Womanism: An Afrocentric Theory Source’. Journal of Black Studies 28(5): 515–39. Gelfand, M. 1968. African Crucible: An Ethico-religious study with special Reference to the Shona-Speaking People. Cape Town: Juta and Company. Hudson-Weems, C. 2019. Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. 5th ed. London and New York: Routledge. Hudson- Weems, C. 2009. Africana Womanism and Race and Gender in the Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama. Bloomington AuthorHouse. Hudson-Weems, C. 2004. Africana Womanist Literary Theory: A Sequel to Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Izgarjan, A., and M. Slobodanka. 2013. ‘Alice Walker’s Womanism: Perspectives Past and Present’. Gender Studies 11(1): 304–15. Makaudze, G. 2014. ‘Africana Womanism and Shona Children’s Games’. The Journal of Pan African Studies 6(10): 128–43. Norwood, C. 2013. ‘Perspective in Africana Feminism; Exploring Expressions of Black Feminism/Womanism in the African Diaspora’. Sociology Compass 7(3): 225–36. Simien, E. M. 2004. ‘Black Feminist Theory, Women & Politics: Charting a course for black women’s studies in political science’. Journal of Women in Politics 26(2): 81–93. Taylor, U. 1998. ‘The Historical Evolution of Black Feminist Theory and Praxis’. Journal of Black Studies 29(2): 234–53. Walker, A. 1984. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Womanist Prose. New York: Harcourt.

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African Business Ethics Past Contributions and Future Challenges and Possibilities Minka Woermann

Introduction Africa and African ethics are receiving increasing attention in the field of business ethics. Aside from the African Journal of Business Ethics, fifty-one articles focusing on Africa appeared in the internationally acclaimed Journal of Business Ethics (JBE)1 and other business and society journals between 2010 and 2014 (Kolk and Rivera-Santos 2018), and two special issues on African business ethics subsequently appeared in JBE. Although not all these articles focus on African ethics specifically, there is a growing interest in the application of African ethics – specifically, ubuntu – within this field. Conceptually, ubuntu can be interpreted variously in light of metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, ethics or politics (Praeg 2017). However, an overview of the extant business ethics literature reveals that it is predominantly the ethical interpretation of ubuntu, that is, ‘can Ubuntu be retrodicted as a moral theory?’ (294), and the epistemological interpretation, that is, ‘what can I know of Ubuntu?’ (294) that are addressed in this field. Apart from this conceptual orientation, a second relevant distinction concerns the ends towards which ubuntu have been applied in business ethics. Following Andrew West (2014: 49), two dominant arguments are identifiable, namely arguments that claim that business environments in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) should reflect the values of ubuntu (which, by implication, suggests that these values are knowable) (A1), and arguments that claim that ubuntu can significantly contribute to the development of business ethics (which, by implication, suggests that ubuntu can be fleshed out into a normative theory) (A2). However, it should also be noted that A1 and A2 arguments cannot be kept neatly apart, because what we claim to know of ubuntu is, in part, contingent on how we theorize ubuntu, and, conversely, the values that we ascribe to ubuntu are informed by the contextual realization and observance of such values. One can further refine these arguments as follows: A1 is advanced in light of two claims, namely, and at the macro-level,2 that the economic systems of SSA should 279

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reflect ubuntu values (Murove 2005; Ntibargirirwa 2009); and, at the meso- and microlevels, that business practices in SSA should be compatible with ubuntu values (Mbigi 1992; Mangaliso 2001; De Avillez, Greenman and Marlow 2020). Similar subcategories are distinguishable in A2: at the macro-level, we find arguments for an ubuntu-infused understanding of business ethics (Nussbaum 2009; Auchter 2017), whereas at the meso- and micro-levels, we find a reinterpretation of business ethics themes in light of ubuntu insights (Lutz 2009; Metz 2018; Woermann and Engelbrecht 2019; Pérezts, Russon and Painter 2020). The broad typology presented in figure 1 can thus be used to structure our overview of the import of African ethics into the field of business ethics. Using this typology, this chapter will provide an overview of the positions forwarded by the aforementioned scholars, whose scholarship illustrate the types of arguments on African ethics that are found in the field of business ethics. In other words, this analysis is not a complete survey of all ubuntu-related contributions in the field of business ethics, but rather constitutes an engagement with articles that exemplify the main thrust of the debates on African ethics in this literature. The aim of this overview is thus not merely to familiarize the reader with ubuntu developments in the field of business ethics, but also to identify certain common

Figure 1. Typology of arguments for an African-infused business ethics

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assumptions that define A1 and A2. These assumptions will be interrogated critically in order to demonstrate the problems associated with them. In the penultimate section, these problematic assumptions will be linked to the overarching difficulty that ubuntu scholarship faces in defining itself against Western-based (business) ethics discourse. In the last section, the challenges raised are discussed with reference to possible trajectories that future research on an African business ethics may take.

A1: Business environments in sub-Saharan Africa should reflect the values of ubuntu As stated in the introduction, positions defended under A1 generally work with the assumption that SSA countries maintain the values of ubuntu and that these values differ from Western values (West 2013: 49), which assumes that we can know ubuntu values as distinct from Western values. This claim is defended at various levels, as argued below.

Macro-level arguments: The economic systems of SSA should be compatible with ubuntu values Murove (2005) argues that a primary reason for Africa’s slow postcolonial economic development is the fundamental incompatibility that exists between Africa’s communitarian values and the Western individualism that undergirds capitalism (which was imported during the colonial period), as well as Islam and Christianity. He argues that an African business ethics, premised on a relational world view, would indigenize Africa’s business landscape, and would hold positive consequences for Africa’s economic development, for the reason that ‘Africans [would be] readier to identify themselves with their working environments as well as with those with whom they enter into business relations’ (346). Ntibagirirwa (2009) presents a more sophisticated version of the same argument: he undertakes a historico-cultural investigation of the philosophical principles and assumptions underlying the Western economic conception of humans as rational, selfinterest maximizers (the homoeconomicus model), and shows that this conception (and its associated principles and assumptions) has been universalized to the extent that the cultural values and beliefs of non-Western societies are deemed economically worthless. He argues, following Kebede (2004), that what may be needed is for Africans ‘to undergo a mental decolonisation so as to emancipate their views from non-African constructs’ (Ntibagirirwa 2009: 304). By undertaking a conceptual analysis of the Bantu value system (specifically the categories of being that define this value system), he derives an understanding of ubuntu as both a metaphysical and moral construct, wherein to live with ubuntu means to live in a way that fulfils our nature as intelligent beings, that is, as beings who ‘live, act, and behave in the way that fosters harmony in the society and universe around them’ (306). From this value system, Ntibagirirwa identifies community as the first value, which cashes out in terms of a host of moral

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values, which Ntibagirirwa associates with the lives, actions and behaviours of the fathers of Africa’s independence (Nyerere, Kaunda, Senghor), all of whom attempted ‘to build a socialist type of economy on the community and values that flow from it’ (306). Ntibagirirwa concludes that, from the Bantu perspective, economic development should be inclusive, and that the three major actors of economic development (the state, the market and the people) should work in solidarity and cooperation with one another in order to foster economic growth and development.

Micro and meso-level arguments: Business practices in SSA should be compatible with ubuntu values Mbigi (1992), Mangaliso (2001) and de Avillez, Greenman and Marlow (2020) argue for the need to align business practices with African values. They draw on case studies to illustrate their positions. In his pioneering work on conceptualizing an ubuntu style of participatory management and leadership, Mbigi (1992) argues that universal brotherhood and sharing should inform both the organization’s operations and ultimate purpose. Drawing on a case study of the challenges faced by the Eastern Highlands Tea Estates, Mbigi explains how workers’ ambitions and the practical constraints in meeting these ambitions were negotiated via cooperative engagement, which resulted in emergent strategies (bottom-up management), and the expression of workers’ emotions, hopes and visions for the future. This demonstrates how cultural attitudes can be integrated into management practices. Mangaliso’s (2001) argument also presents a case study, but of strike action at a South African mine that potentially could have been avoided had the mining managers respected the workers’ cultural values (specifically the value of stakeholder engagement in dispute resolution). The thesis that Mangaliso defends is ‘that observable workplace behavior is strongly influenced by latent, unobservable social attitudes’ (24). These attitudes stem from the philosophical thought system of the group to which an individual belongs, and are shaped by a number of sociocultural factors, including norms, values and religious beliefs. Managliso then proceeds to look at the potential advantages that the relational, communitarian-orientated ethic of ubuntu may hold for business practices, including collective decision-making, workplace communication, productivity and leadership. He concludes that, although African cultures and beliefs should be interrogated critically within contemporary urban contexts, ‘ubuntu is an important legacy from South Africa that can be parlayed into the practice of management for competitive advantage’ (31). More recently, Adewale (2020) and De Avillez et al. (2020) have conducted research on the influence of African values in leadership and ethical perceptions of social entrepreneurship, respectively. Adewale (2020) forwards a model of virtuous leadership, which is founded on insights emanating from a case study examining leadership practices within the Nigerian pharmaceutical sector. Adewale identifies four ‘African primary virtues’ for a communitarian context, which were observed in the context of this case, namely ‘truthfulness, courage, humility and humanity’ (759). However, Adewale also warns that the model of virtuous leadership functions better with respect to external stakeholder engagement. When it came to internal issues, hierarchical

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privileges often took precedence over the common good. In contrast to Adewale’s case analysis, De Avillez et al. (2020) conducted a longitudinal study measuring attitudes towards social entrepreneurship in Maputo over a four-year period. This meso-level study found that attitudes were informed by both ‘global normative meanings and those embedded within local contexts’ (877), including ‘African philosophies, such as Ubuntu’ (888).

Evaluation of A1 arguments In response to Mbigi’s (1992) argument specifically, Prinsloo (2000) questions whether the concepts of ‘sharing’ and ‘brotherhood’ are as unique to ubuntu as Mbigi’s position suggests. This criticism is echoed by West (2014: 49), who argues that the problem at stake with the broad claim that SSA economic systems and business practices should reflect ubuntu values is that ‘it is simply assumed, or categorically stated, that Africans do in fact maintain the values of ubuntu and that these values differ from those in the West’. The scant empirical evidence addressing this question is mixed: Adeleye, Luiz, Muthuri and Amaeshi (2020) report that the ‘Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness’ research project (which includes samples from five subSaharan African countries) found that ‘Ubuntu was reflected in high levels of group solidarity, paternalistic leadership, and humane orientated leadership’ (Wanasika et al. 2011: 234). In contrast, Okereke et  al.’s (2018: 577) recent study conducted in the Nigerian extractive industry found that ‘[e]nvironmental orientation and behaviour are most likely induced by instrumental economic motives, whilst ethical considerations exert a weak impact’. Murove’s and Ntibgiririwa’s arguments are the most vulnerable to the criticism concerning the distinctiveness of Ubuntu values and practices, as their arguments are based on this non-interrogated premise. In contrast to Murove’s claim that capitalism in Africa is a Western colonial import that is incompatible with the cultural values of ubuntu, Gichure (2006) and Ayittey (2009) argue that capitalism ‘is as African as the sunset on the savannah’ (41). Ayittey explains that in precolonial Africa, the means of production were privately owned, but, unlike in the West, the basic economic unit was the extended family. Gichure’s (2006: 42) analysis focuses on trade, and she argues that ‘[l]ocal trade was part and parcel of the social and food productions systems that evolved amongst communities’. These counter-narratives suggest that more empirical work on indigenous African economic systems is needed. West (2014) notes that, in some instances, personal experiences and/or anecdotal evidence are provided in support of the claim that ‘Africans’ world views, and value systems remain noticeably different from those of the West’ (Ntibigiririwa 2009: 304). The case-based approaches of Magaliso and Mbigi are examples of where anecdotal evidence is employed in support of this general claim. Indeed, Prinsloo (2000) also argues that Mbigi’s project is in need of further systematization, because in order to operationalize participatory management across scales and contexts, it is necessary to develop the criteria informing consensus procedures. In short, in academic contexts, anecdotal evidence is insufficient support for universal claims. Even in the case of Adewale’s (2020) more balanced assessment of virtuous leadership in Africa, he readily

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admits that the study suffers from limitations: ‘The sample size is quite small especially in a qualitative study aiming to present a model further studies can test . . . [and] is focused on one industry sector’ (760). As such, West (2004) concludes that an important avenue of research should be cross-cultural comparative studies (within African societies, but also between African and Western societies) in order to identify different cultural conceptions of ubuntu, as well as to demonstrate the distinctiveness of African values and indigenous African economic systems. Conducting such studies is becoming increasingly feasible, because, as Kolk and Rivera-Santos (2018) report, reliable quantitative databases on African data are now available.

A2: Ubuntu can contribute significantly to the development of business ethics The second group of arguments fall under the umbrella of A2, and the central claim is that the contribution of ubuntu to business ethics rests on the purported distinctive ethic that it advocates. What this ethic is comprised of is subject to interpretation, but much of the business ethics literature – particularly the literature interrogating the field of business ethics as such – identifies this ethic as ubuntu’s collectivism or communitarianism, which is contrasted with the individualistic ethic of Western societies.

Macro-level arguments: The case for an ubuntu-infused business ethics One of the earliest and most prominent voices promoting the distinctiveness of the African ethic is that of Shutte (2008: 16), who argues that ‘there exists a characteristic indigenous ethical tradition or set of traditions in sub-Saharan Africa that . . . embodies ethical insights that are both true and important in themselves, and are also significantly lacking in the dominant ethical thinking in the global community’. In the business ethics literature, this position is comprehensively articulated by Nussbaum (2009), who, in her work, seeks to clarify the difference between an individualist and extractive model of capitalism and the world view of ubuntu. Although she also draws on anecdotal evidence to support her position, her position is more normative, in that she seeks to understand ubuntu as ‘an integrating philosophy’ (250) that, if applied to the business landscape, would totally transform ‘[t]he meaning of business, the way trade and investment [are] carried out, the nature of profit, [and] the character of relationships with employees and shareholders’ (251). According to her, ubuntu’s unique contribution is contingent on the virtues of ubuntu – particularly humility, cooperation and generosity – which she contrasts with the capitalist vices of arrogance, domination and greed. One could argue that Nussbaum’s vision of ubuntu’s reformative power at a global level is both too general and too idealistic – indeed, she claims that ‘Ubuntu would help to foster the development of humane political and business leadership to heal the divide between North and South and rich and poor’ (250). Furthermore, apart

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from the anecdotal evidence gleaned from one company case study, she offers no practical guidance on how such a breathtaking transformation of the global political and business landscapes could take place. A more carefully argued position concerns Auchter’s (2017) article, titled ‘An African view on global business ethics: Ubuntu – a social contract interpretation’, which is based on a particular theory of ubuntu, rather than communitarianism in general. Auchter gives an ubuntu-based reading of Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT), which he argues could provide a sketch of a theory of global business ethics. ISCT distinguishes between hypernorms and micro- and macrosocial contracts. Hypernorms provide the normative ground rules for creating micro-contracts between businesses and stakeholder groups. Hypernorms must be based on the prevailing norms of communities, if they are to be authentic. Auchter follows Metz (see below) in defining harmony as a specific norm in the community of ubuntu that could become a hypernorm for directing a global business ethics. Premising business ethics on harmonious communal relations both resonates with the cultures of Africa and Asia, and redirects the purpose of the firm from being a mere economic unit to working for the benefit of the common social good.

Micro- and meso-level arguments: The case for an ubuntu understanding of business ethics themes Lutz’s (2009: 313) article titled ‘African Ubuntu philosophy and global management’ serves as a good example of a normative argument pitched at the organizational or micro-level. Herein, he argues that ‘[o]ur globalizing world needs a theory of global management consistent with our common human nature’. He begins by dismissing all variants of social contract theory, stakeholder theory and shareholder theory as the basis for a global management theory, for the reason that these theories all prioritize individual interests above communal interests (that is, our common human nature). As an alternative, Lutz draws on ubuntu to develop ‘the philosophical foundation of a theory of ubuntu management’ (319), wherein management recognizes the firm as a community, and wherein the task of management is to promote the good of the firm’s community, and the larger communities within which the firm is embedded. Lutz uses this communal conception of ubuntu management to explore parallels with Confucian management and Platonic-Aristotelian management. He concludes with an outline of a theory of Global Business Management, which is consistent with the traditional philosophies of Africa, Asia and Europe, and which he believes can become a viable alternative to individualistic Anglo-American management theories. Metz (2018) and Woermann and Engelbrecht (2019) also provide normative perspectives on how to rethink leadership and stakeholder theory, respectively, from the perspective of ubuntu. In contrast to Lutz who undertakes a theoretical comparison between the ethic of individualism and the ethic of communitarianism, they take – as their theoretical grounding – one circumscription of ubuntu principles in a theory of right action. Although competing normative ‘theories of Ubuntu’ exist, the Metzian (2007, 2016) theory of right action has recently found the most traction in the business ethics and philosophical literature for the reason that it provides the most fully worked

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out normative theory of ubuntu; a theory, which, in principle, is capable of competing with Western normative theories. Metz (2007) forwards a prescriptive account of ubuntu that compels us to adopt certain attitudes and behaviours in line with certain underlying African moral principles. In order to distil these principles, Metz identifies two sets of moral judgements, one that is consistent with universal moral intuitions and one that is consistent with African moral intuitions. The judgements that are deemed African are identified on the basis of anthropological and philosophical work on African ethics. Next, Metz investigates six popular, but competing, definitions of ubuntu in order to ascertain which interpretation of ubuntu best accommodates the moral judgements in both the universal and African set of moral judgements. The criteria employed by Metz are entailment and the explanatory power of why certain duties obtain. After testing each interpretation, Metz concludes that the following constitutes an integrating principle that approximates a more precise, unified and complete theory of ubuntu: ‘An action is right insofar as it produces harmony and reduces discord; an action is wrong to the extent that it fails to develop community’ (Metz, 2016: 334). Next, Metz fleshes out harmony in term of two necessary relational understandings, namely shared identity and good will. In his article, ‘An African theory of good leadership’, Metz (2018: 40) reinforces the view that our ability ‘to commune, harmonise . . . [is contingent on] two distinct relational goods . . . namely, considering oneself as part of a whole [solidarity] . . . and then achieving the good of all [good will]’. Following from this, he argues that ‘a good leader is one who helps to meet other peoples’ needs, and above all their need to realize their social nature by prizing communal relationship’ (42). Metz then explores the implications that this understanding of leadership holds for a number of business ethics questions, including: For whom, and to what end, should the firm be managed?; How should firms make decisions?; How should the workplace be organized?; What is the relevance of emotions in the workplace?; and, How should conflict in the workplace be resolved? Since the analysis is largely normative, Metz also compares and contrasts the implications that ubuntu leadership holds with other Western and Eastern leadership theories and views of the organization. Woermann and Engelbrecht (2019) also employ the guiding principle of harmony that undergirds Metz’s theory of right action in retheorizing stakeholder theory. They begin by challenging the libertarian perspective upon which stakeholder theory is based. This perspective prioritizes equal liberty, negative rights, voluntary actions that produce positive obligations, a minimal state and a causal notion of responsibility (Freeman and Philips 2002). In stakeholder theory, libertarianism cashes out as a contractual understanding of the firm: the firm is defined as ‘a nexus of contracts or the centerpiece of an ongoing multilateral agreement, based on voluntary consent’ (338), and the job of management is ‘to try to keep the joint interests of stakeholders in balance’ (338). Woermann and Engelbrecht (2019) argue that libertarian stakeholder theory cannot sufficiently account for issues of power, legitimacy and urgency, which are crucial in determining the stakeholder groups recognized in the contracting process. As an alternative, the authors argue for what they term ‘relationholder theory’. The duty of the firm under relationholder theory is ‘to respond to stakeholder claims on the moral imperative to foster harmonious relationships with those parties with

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whom the firm communes, rather than on their stakes’ (29–30). In order to determine the firm’s duties towards different relationholders, Woermann and Engelbrecht develop an ubuntu heuristic to guide organizational decision-making, and then apply this heuristic to the firm’s relational duties to one set of relationholders, namely employees. These duties are investigated in terms of leadership practices, decision-making, issues of ownership and profit-sharing, and termination and retrenchment. A third contribution concerns Pérezts, Russon and Painter’s (2020) relational approach to value-driven leadership. Although these theorists do not rely on Metz’s principle of right action, the theoretical backbone of their study also concerns the ubuntu principle of relationality, which they argue moves beyond the I/you dichotomy, thereby facilitating inclusivity and collaboration. To illustrate the fruitful implications that an African approach to value-driven leadership can offer, they discuss the executive education course called Values-Driven Leadership into Action (VDLA), which has run in South Africa, Kenya and Egypt over the past years. This course combines insights from the ubuntu tradition and Mary Gentile’s (2013) ‘Giving Voice to Values’ (GVV) approach to pedagogy. However, they argue that ‘[t]he VDLA goes beyond GVV in its unique approach to developing relationality through its African experiential pedagogy [through the ME-WE-WORLD framework] and exercises tailored to exert this in the context of ethical leadership education’ (Pérezts et al. 2020: 733). The authors motivate the unique contribution of their programme as demonstrating not only the value of African moral perspectives, but also informing global pedagogy and practices: ‘such programmes can help spread their contributions . . . from South to North, further challenging many of the underlying assumptions that undermine taking ethical concerns seriously and effectively in management education’ (743).

Evaluation of A2 arguments As is the case with A1 arguments, the claim that ubuntu can contribute significantly to the development of business ethics rests on the purported distinctiveness of ubuntu. As noted from the above literature overview, what makes ubuntu distinctive is its communitarian (and, hence, relational) orientation. In the business ethics literature, the communitarian ethic is either compared with the ethic of individualism to demonstrate how a move to communitarianism could temper capitalism and promote social well-being; or, the communitarian ethic is fleshed out in terms of its normative implications, which are presented as an alternative to Western principles. There are, however, problems with both these strategies. As concerns the first line of argument, there is a lot of theoretical and practical evidence to suggest that Western societies are not as individualistic as the literature on ubuntu suggests. At a theoretical level, Naudé (2019) criticizes the tendency in the African business ethics literature to reduce the thoughts of Western thinkers to the simplistic claim that human exist in and for themselves. Naudé (32) cites ‘Descartes’ notion of moral perfection, Kant’s communal law-making, and Marx’s class struggle towards a more just society’ in order to demonstrate that generalizations of Western philosophy (often appealed to as justification for the communitarian alternative of ubuntu) are incorrect.

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The portrayal of the communitarian ethic is based on similar generalizations: while some caveats are presented in the literature (Mangaliso 2001), for the most part the focus is solely on the virtues of a communitarian perspective. Against this, Praeg (2017) warns that underlying all interpretations of ubuntu is the imperative to (re)establish unity. He writes that ‘[i]n all instances, the final cause – unity – is the constant that should be recognised as the cornerstone of an African moral theory’ (292). Unity, in and of itself, is neither a virtue nor a moral principle, and the issue of violence remains implicit in a communitarian reading of ubuntu, in that coercion is ‘prefigured by any claim that the common good outranks individual freedoms’ (295). In short, what Praeg calls ‘the dark side of Ubuntu’ is given little attention in the business ethics literature (it is notable that Pérezts et  al. (2020) do reference this dark side, but – following Tavernaro-Haidarian (2018) – choose to interpret ubuntu as ideal theory, rather than in terms of its historic or anthropological iterations). On a practical level, there have been several developments in the West that also undermine the claim of Western individualism, such as commercial law and regulation that constrain individual agency, including the ethical and legal constraints governing shareholder relations, and the ongoing debate over the optimum level of regulation of private enterprise (West 2014: 51). In sum, and as succinctly summarized by Naudé (2019: 32), ‘In their efforts to create an African ethic, most ubuntu scholars work with false generalizations of both Africa and the West, as well as with assumed dichotomies between them. This is a well-known rhetorical strategy: One creates space for one’s views by building an exaggerated contrast position of the other.’ As concerns the second line of argument (that is, that an ubuntu normative theory offers a viable African alternative to Western normative theories), two issues arise, namely: Whose theory counts as the definitive theory of ubuntu?; and, Are the founding assumptions of such a theory sound? Regarding the first issue, both West (2009) and Naudé (2019) note the plethora of interpretations of ubuntu that exist in the literature. Given this pluralism, West (2009) suggests that in order to operationalize the concept of ubuntu successfully, we should research specific interpretations of ubuntu. The outcome of research may well be that instead of coming to a universal theory of ubuntu, we would settle on different interpretations of ubuntu, for example, ‘Ramose’s Ubuntu, Shutte’s Ubuntu or Metz’s Ubuntu’ (56), all of which may be quite different and lead to different outcomes. As noted, Metz’s more analytic approach to systematizing ubuntu as a theory of right action has found traction in both the philosophical and business ethics literature, for the reason that it is considerably more specific (and less descriptive) than many other views. However, Metz’s theory of right action has not been without criticism: Naudé (2019) argues that, despite Metz’s claim that his project is constructive and not descriptive, the evidence that he gathers for his list of authentic African moral judgements are also based on anecdotal material (books, conferences, engagement with African colleagues and scholars). Metz’s (2007) assertion that it is a fact that there exists a complete set of moral judgements in African contexts that is missing from the West is therefore misleading. Praeg (2017), in turn, dismisses Metz’s claim to the singularity of his theory, arguing that the values that he associates with ubuntu (friendliness, harmony, love) are historical associations tied up within a nationalist

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matrix, and that these values are simply a means to fostering unity (which, as discussed above, is a concept with an ambiguous moral status). Lastly, Lutz (2009) questions Metz’s dismissal of the arguably dominant interpretation3 of ubuntu on the basis that this interpretation foregrounds self-realization (as opposed to harmonious interpersonal relations). By reviewing the Aristotelian tradition (a tradition that Metz ignores), Lutz shows how it is possible to foster both communal harmony and selfactualization. This critical analysis of Metz’s project demonstrates that, despite the significant advantages that a systematic theory of ubuntu holds for application, the status of such a theory also remains open to further critical inquiry.

The ubuntu challenge to Western-based theories The critical assessments of both A1 and A2 arguments for applying ubuntu to business and business ethics, respectively, demonstrate the difficulties that a minor discourse, such as ubuntu, faces when challenging predominantly Western-based major discourses such as (business) ethics, as well as globally accepted economic and business practices. The difficulties in theorizing ubuntu in contrast to the Western canon are carefully unpacked by Praeg (2017), who argues that ubuntu is first and foremost political. In his words, ‘by thinking Ubuntu we are implicitly doing politics long before we get to do what we explicitly aim to do, namely to explore epistemology, ontology, or ethics’ (294). In order to explain this position, Praeg distinguishes between ‘Ubuntu’ as a philosophy (that is, an intellectual discipline subject to the rules of critical analysis) and ‘ubuntu’ as traditional ‘systems of thought’ (that is, as praxis). To philosophize ubuntu is to name African philosophy in the moment of writing. Praeg argues that the failure to distinguish between philosophy (‘Ubuntu’) and praxis (‘ubuntu’) underlies much of the confusion that has recently characterized the debate on whether the time for ubuntu has passed (see Matolino and Kwindingwi (2013) and the responses to their article). Praeg (2017) explains the distinction between ‘Ubuntu philosophy’ and ‘ubuntu praxis’ by virtue of the analogy of the ‘we’: To state that ‘I am because we are’, denotes the ‘we’ of a visible community, as well as hints at the political and moral obligations that are placed on an individual belonging to said community. In contrast, when it is written in the Constitution that ‘We, the people of South Africa . . .’, the ‘we’ refers to what Praeg calls ‘the imagined community of all South Africans’. The difference between these two interpretations of ‘we’ mirrors the difference between ‘ubuntu’ as a cultural praxis, and ‘Ubuntu’ as a theoretical, philosophical discipline. Based on this distinction, Praeg argues that a big challenge that we are currently facing is to translate a precolonial, traditional understanding of ubuntu into a postcolonial philosophy. He explains as follows: the crisis around Ubuntu’s authenticity or originality arises at precisely the point of translation from ubuntu [praxis] to Ubuntu [philosophy] because in order to retrodict Ubuntu in the postcolony, the phallo-primocentric values associated with ‘having ubuntu’ have to be actively and passively developed in line with the spirit of constitutionalism. Once that is done, the indentitarian question arises

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whether the remaining values associated with Ubuntu are not perhaps broad and vague to the point of being vacuous – if not per definition, then certainly for the emancipatory purposes envisaged by Metz. 299–300

This critical assessment of the status of the ubuntu debate holds important implications for the application of ubuntu to the field of business ethics, specifically for the macrolevel A1 interpretation of ubuntu (Murove, Ntibagirirwa). The claim that economic and political systems should be indigenized makes little sense in today’s national and global contexts, if the indigenous values referred to are those characterizing the system of thought of precolonial ubuntu praxis. Indeed, the fact that these traditional cultural values (specifically the interrelated conception of personhood implied by the dictum ‘I am because we are’) are nowhere represented in the economic or polito-juridicial domains of (post-apartheid South) Africa (Praeg 2017), attests to the likely futility of pursuing this line of argumentation in business ethics. While certain cultural conceptions of ubuntu may find traction in specific work communities, a careful analysis is needed of how workplace communities differ from traditional local African contexts, and the implications that these differences hold for introducing ubuntu cultural practices and values into the workplace. As concerns the task of retrodicting a postcolonial theory of ubuntu, the present conceptual ambiguities defining the debate suggest that no universal perspective of ubuntu is likely to emerge. If we were to adopt Praeg’s suggested approach, then comparing African ethics with Western ethics is also futile, for the reason that the spirit of constitutionalism is steeped in the Western perspective. This is not to say that work on theorizing and applying ubuntu should stop. The aim of the analysis is simply to point out the difficulties inherent in such a project of decolonization (that is, critiquing Western perspectives and developing alternative African models). The possibility of ubuntu to act as a vehicle for decolonizing knowledge constitutes the subject of Naudé’s (2019) article. He discusses three models of ‘African’ business ethics. The transfer model simply transfers Western scholarship into African classrooms. The translation model interprets Western ethics from local perspectives or translates local case studies or context-specific issues using Western theoretical perspectives. The substantive model concerns the development of a distinct African ethics, such as ubuntu, which can compete with Western theories. The challenges involved in developing and applying the latter model have already been addressed. The question that must now be asked is why it is so difficult to escape from epistemic coloniality (that is, to pose perspectives that can counter the dominant, Western view). In addressing this question, Naudé echoes Praeg’s concerns. As with Praeg, Naudé (2019) argues that as soon as the ‘indigenous moral knowledge of “sub-Saharan bantuspeaking peoples” is made into an object of study beyond its lived reality, the shadow of the Western canon with its particular thought forms looms large’ (33). Compounding this issue is the universalization of Western scientific knowledge through academic and economic globalization. Naudé argues that ‘[t]he same globality holds for the development and advancement of ethical theories’ (34). No matter what the context, all ‘moral philosophers are now embedded in this global knowledge system’ (34). This

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begs the question as to what role African philosophy can potentially play in the field of business ethics in future.

The future of African business ethics Apart from the suggestions already made in the preceding analyses, this chapter concludes with a more general suggestion, namely that, to address the shortcomings mentioned in the analyses, it may be necessary to forgo the strong assertion that ubuntu, as an African ethic and practice, is completely distinct from Western normative ethics and practices. This is not to say that we should forego ubuntu-theorizing, but that we should perhaps approach such theorizing differently. ‘African’ ideas are not first and foremost identified on the basis of their exclusivity, but rather readily refer to those concepts that are salient and recurring themes in African philosophical discourse, such that they are easily associable or identified with most sub-Saharan black cultures. Employing this more temperate approach allows for scholarship that moves beyond advocacy, that is, putting African philosophy on the business ethics map (see, for example, Mbigi, Nuusbaum, Murove). As the scholarship in this field matures, the focus is likely to shift to critically investigating areas of overlap and differences between knowledge systems and practices. Doing so avoids the charge of rhetoricism, whereby both African and Western positions are generalized in the quest to illustrate the merits of ubuntu. It may also lead to insightful leverage points for introducing new insights (and knowledge forms) into Western-based discourses. This critical investigation may also lead to a more refined and practically plausible philosophical conceptualization of ubuntu for a globalized world. Indeed, the articles appearing in the recent special issue on ‘Advancing African business ethics research, practice and teaching’ in the Journal of Business Ethics (some of which are cited here) already attest to this ‘second wave’ of African business ethics scholarship. The suggestion is thus that a wider, more careful analysis of points of intersection and divergence between ubuntu and Western practices and philosophies would constitute an important avenue of research to complement the analytic work currently being done in circumscribing ubuntu as a philosophical theory. The business ethics literature constitutes a rich body of both descriptive and normative insights pertaining to business and the business landscape. Theorizing ubuntu business ethics should thus begin within business ethics itself. Existing theories and practices should be scrutinized with the aim of interrogating the status quo via a more modest reading of the potential contribution that the African ethic of ubuntu can make to the field.

Notes 1 2

By contrast, Business Ethics: A European Review and Business Ethics Quarterly, which are the other leading journals in the field, contain no articles on African ethics. The micro-economic level ‘focuses on economic activity within business organisations. It concentrates on the moral dimension of business practices, policies, behaviour and

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African Ethics decisions that occurs within business’ (Kretzschmar et al. 2012: 22). The mesoeconomic level ‘refers to the level at which the impact of business on broader society is evaluated’ (282) and pertinent themes include corporate responsibility and corporate citizenship. The macro-economic level is the ‘level at which economic systems or macro-economic policies and trade agreements are scrutinised to see that they are equitable and fair’ (280). Here the focus is on economic ethics and sustainability. The interpretation reads as follows: ‘An action is right just insofar as it positively relates to others and thereby realizes oneself; an action is wrong to the extent it does not perfect one’s valuable nature as a social being’ (Metz 2007: 331).

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Key Perspectives on Medical Ethics in Africa Gerald M. Ssebunnya

Introduction Medical ethics essentially refers to the philosophical inquiry into practising medicine the right way. It is thus concerned with discerning the complexity of values and obligations in the clinical encounter between a physician, who professes to heal, and a patient, who entrusts herself/himself to the healing competence of the physician. Fundamentally, the ethical characteristics of this fiduciary or trust-based physician– patient relationship depend on the prevailing medical expertise and the cultural, philosophical, scientific and sociopolitical awareness in a given society (Kaba and Sooriakumaran 2007: 58). The systematic exploration of medical ethics in Western medicine is traceable to Thomas Percival ([1803] 2014: 9), who first coined the term ‘medical ethics’ in 1803, and whose work led to the first modern code of medical ethics, which was adopted by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1847 (AMA 2017: 1). Previously, ethical medical practice was simply subsumed in the iconic Hippocratic Oath. In Hippocratic medical ethics, the notion of the good physician consists mainly in the physician’s compassionate virtuous disposition, decorum and etiquette; and in rules of obligations to the patient, the physician’s teachers, the profession and the society at large (Miles 204: vi). Today, Western medical ethics has espoused the contemporary bioethical approach of principlism, which is a pragmatic framework of ethical principles (Beauchamp and Childress 2008: 371). Drawn from general norms of ‘common morality’, a four-principle ethical framework – beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy and justice – has been formulated towards analytical guidance in ethical dilemmas in medical practice and biomedical research. Exploring the trajectory of medical ethics in Africa reveals a vital complexity of African values and realities at play. These range from the primacy of the communitarian traditional African thought to Africa’s deplorable postcolonial socio-economic strain and overwhelming disease burden. Africa’s realities and concerns are certainly not homogeneous. Their common strands and aspirations, however, warrant collective conceptual articulation. Accordingly, this chapter gives an overview of the current key perspectives and debates on medical ethics in Africa. First, the concept of health and the physician–patient relationship are explored in the context of African traditional 295

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healing so as to highlight the perspective of African indigenous medical ethics. The role of the African traditional healer today is also underlined. The perspective of Western medical ethics in Africa is then examined. Here, the erosion of Hippocratic medical ethics is highlighted and the African trajectory of contemporary principlism explored. Lastly, a look towards the future of medical ethics in Africa examines the status of medical ethics as a learnable and teachable discipline.

Indigenous medical ethics in African traditional healing Health is a basic human need. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ (WHO 2006: 1). Illness is a universal human experience, which imposes a unique state of vulnerability on the patient, who then seeks healing from a healthcare provider who professes to heal (Pellegrino 2008a: 81). True healing is holistic and goes beyond the mere curing of an illness. It thus aims at restoring and maintaining health, or the biological, psychological, social and spiritual well-being of the patient. The hallmark of a good healer, therefore, consists in her/his competence to discern the biopsychosocial and spiritual needs and values of the patient. In other words, the good physician is one who is well-versed in medical knowledge and interpersonal skills, and professes the competence and compassion to heal. Characteristically, the physician–patient relationship is fiduciary in that it is based on trust and, more so, on the trustworthiness of the physician. It is essentially an unequal relationship whereby the higher degree of responsibility is on the part of the physician. This fiduciary nature of the healing relationship is the basis for medical ethics and is characteristically indigenous to African traditional healing. Indigenous medical ethics in African traditional healing is rooted in the traditional African cosmological worldview. According to traditional African thought, the universe exists in a harmonious unity of ‘being’, with a metaphysical existential vitality that is referred to as the ‘vital force’ (Kasenene 2000: 349; Tempels 1959: 21–22). Thus the whole of creation – the animate and the inanimate; the material and the spiritual; the living and the ‘living dead’ (Mbiti 1970: 32) or ancestors; together with the environment – is harmoniously interrelated through a vital force (Tempels 1959: 22). The vital force sustains the health and well-being of an individual as well as the abundance of good fortune in the community. So, any misfortune or suffering – such as illness – is regarded as an assault on the vital force of not only the individual patient, but of the whole community and the environment (Kasenene 2000: 349–50). Hence, African traditional healing essentially aims at restoring and maintaining the biopsychosocial and spiritual well-being of the patient, as well as the harmonious cosmological balance of the community. Accordingly, the practice of African traditional healing is a highly revered profession. It requires a unique aptitude for discerning any disharmony in the cosmological balance that might have led to the event of illness, so that corrective measures may be promptly prescribed to heal and avert further catastrophe to the patient and, possibly,

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to the whole community. Hence, African traditional healing is regarded as a special vocation that is rooted in cosmology and ancestral heritage, and transmitted through a variety of cultural rituals and specialized training. Ideally, the good African traditional healer (ATH) is manifestly marked out by the ancestors and, through appropriate apprenticeship, becomes superiorly knowledgeable in the metaphysical, cultural, social and environmental matrix of the community. Notably, there is significant specialization within African traditional healing as a healer’s calling may focus on herbal medicine (biomedical), human relationships (psychosocial) or divination and ancestor relationships (spiritual), in the biopsychosocial and spiritual spectrum of healing. Thus, given her/his distinctive calling, the professed ATH enjoys a privileged social status as the community’s supreme authority on matters of health. It is vital to note that, usually, the ATH thrives in the same web of relationships and communal values as the patient. The overarching principle in African communitarian values is that of shared humanity, or ‘humaneness’, popularly encapsulated in the saying: ‘I am because we are and, since we are, therefore I am’ (Mbiti 1970: 141). Humaneness is central to traditional African thought and is the normative principle for ethical living. It is operative in virtually all African cultures, being variously referred to as ubuntu in isiZulu, botho in Setswana, obuntubulamu in Luganda and utu in Swahili, to mention but a few. Accordingly, the primary virtue of the good ATH is benevolent ‘humaneness’. It is because of this sense of shared humanity and cultural values, therefore, that the patient feels properly understood and valued, and can thus easily entrust herself/himself to the benevolent expertise of the ATH. Moreover, the good ATH is expected to be professionally adept such that her/his diagnostic and therapeutic acumen should require minimal probing into the patient’s presenting problem and history. Thus, the patient in the African traditional setting expects a good healer to be competent enough to use her/his diagnostic aids (such as bone-throwing) – or simply intuit – and determine the nature and history of the patient’s illness. Hence, in an apparent role reversal (according to Western clinical practice) it is the patient who expects the good ATH to satisfactorily narrate to her/him the history of – and reasons for – the illness. In fact, from an African traditional healing perspective, a patient may find the Western physician’s questioning and probing during history taking not only disrespectful and unethical, but also a clear sign of the physician’s professional incompetence! Consequently, the ATH espouses a strong paternalistic ethical approach towards her/his patient and the community. Paternalism may be defined as ‘the intentional overriding of one person’s preferences or actions by another person, where the person who overrides justifies this action by appeal to the goal of benefiting or of preventing or mitigating harm to the person whose preferences or actions are overridden (sic)’ (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 208). Paternalism in African traditional healing becomes particularly manifest when dealing with divination or ancestor relationships. Here, the ATH becomes the key intermediary and medium of communication with the otherwise inaccessible powerful forces of the afterlife. Thus, the ATH characteristically assumes a paternalistic priestly role while the patient becomes simply a passive supplicant beseeching the gods and ancestors to grant the needed healing through the benevolent intercession of the ATH.

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It is notable, however, that paternalism in authentic African traditional healing is underwritten by benevolence and altruism. Among the Baganda, for instance, the good ATH does not directly charge professional fees for her/his services but may accept thanksgiving gifts – both personal and on behalf of the ancestors – and only if the expected healing occurs. However, some form of an upfront mobilization fee (ekikubansiko) may be payable to facilitate the sourcing and preparation of the necessary herbs and medications, or for the invocation of the ancestors. Thus, benevolence and paternalism are operative norms in authentic African traditional healing and, given the revered ancestral and cosmological roots of the healing profession, the good ATH is trusted to always have the patient’s best interest at heart. The communitarian setting of African traditional healing means that the patient is essentially an individual-in-community and, as such, communal values become paramount. In fact, the patient’s suffering due to illness becomes the suffering of the whole community (Mbiti 1970: 141). As Kasenene (2000: 349) succinctly puts it: [A]ccording to the Venda philosophy, which is similar to the philosophy of other African peoples, one cannot regard even one’s own life as purely personal property or concern. It is the group which is the owner of life, a person being just a link in the chain uniting the present and future generations. For that reason one’s health is a concern of the community, and a person is expected to preserve this life for the good of the group.

Thus, all important decisions regarding the healing process necessarily involve the consent of not only the individual patient, but also the expressed consent of the patient’s significant others – including family members, kinsmen or community elders. Hence, as we explore in the section on the trajectory of principlism below, consent in African traditional healing is necessarily consultative and communal, as opposed to the concept of autonomous consent in Western medical practice.

The role of the traditional healer in Africa today It is worth noting that the majority of patients in Africa (more than eighty per cent, according to Nyika (2007: 25)) seek healing, at some stage during their illness, from traditional healers. Indeed, ATHs play such a vital role in affording primary healthcare to the community: not only are they easily accessible and affordable, they are particularly trusted for their practical knowledge of the intricate communal norms and values. Regrettably, however, there are alarmingly many charlatans – possibly as many as seventy per cent of ATHs in suburban Africa (Serbulea, quoted in Bogaert 2007: 37) – who have infiltrated the profession. These have brought the noble profession of authentic ATHs into disrepute and have evidently eroded the traditional trust in African traditional healing. Besides the charlatans, the apparent failure of African traditional medicine to adapt to the contemporary African worldview of increased scientific awareness has also negatively impacted its credibility and popularity, especially among the younger

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cosmopolitan generation. Moreover, the lack of methodological research and documentation in African traditional healing has tended to reduce it to superstition, hampering its beneficial growth and development. Furthermore, its unsubstantiated heroic claims and lack of regulation in the face of devastating epidemics and pandemics – such as the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and the coronavirus disease of 2019 (Covid-19) – have also been seriously criticized (Nyika 2007: 25). Nonetheless, modern adaptation of African traditional medicine is feasible and has been shown to be beneficial, as in the case of the changing role of traditional birth attendants (Hodnett 2012: e365). Its evident limitations notwithstanding, authentic African traditional healing highlights a vital indigenous perspective in medical ethics in Africa. First, it underscores the importance of the African traditional cosmological worldview in the holistic understanding of the concept of health that is consonant with the contemporary WHO definition of health. Second, it underlines the significance of the harmonious communitarian values in healthcare in Africa, whereby a patient is regarded as an individual-in-community, with vital implications to issues of confidentiality and informed consent. Third, it stresses the fundamentality of trust and trustworthiness in the unequal healer/physician–patient relationship. Fourth, it underscores the importance of the physician’s humaneness and proficiency in the psychosocial, cultural and spiritual values, which engenders compassion and benevolence towards effective holistic healing. It is vital to note, therefore, that, despite its patent paternalism, lack of scientific methodology, and constraints with regard to informed autonomous consent, African indigenous medical ethics continues to inform the viability of contemporary medical ethics in Africa. There are calls, for instance, to accentuate the harmonious African communitarian values (Behrens 2013: 32) and the ethical principle of ‘humaneness’ or ubuntu (Metz 2007: 321) towards a viable trajectory of contemporary principlismbased medical ethics in Africa. Evidently, principlism was premised on the prevailing scientific, philosophical, cultural and sociopolitical awareness in the West and was rooted in a Western-conceptualized ‘common morality’. Its effective African internalization remains tentative as we examine in the section on the trajectory of principlism below. Let us first briefly consider the evolution of the physician–patient relationship and the erosion of Hippocratic medical ethics.

The erosion of Hippocratic medical ethics The introduction of modern Western medicine in Africa was arguably part and parcel of the ‘civilizing’ of Africa by its colonial masters. A detailed account of this ‘civilizing’ enterprise is beyond the scope of this chapter. Evidently, however, the evolution of modern medical ethics in Africa has largely followed its Western Hippocratic heritage, which is essentially enshrined in the iconic Hippocratic Oath (HO) and its various adaptations (Veatch 2000: 1). Notably, the early Christian missionaries played a significant role in establishing healthcare facilities and training institutions as a cornerstone of their charitable work in Africa. Hence, the Christian rendition of the

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HO became the main code of medical ethics in the many Christian missionary healthcare facilities and institutions in Africa. Understandably, the key difference in the Christian version of the HO is the physician’s allegiance to the One God instead of the many pagan gods in the original HO (28). Fundamentally, the ethical imperative of the good physician in the Hippocratic tradition is to always act in the best interest of the patient and to avoid, or at least minimize, any harm to the patient (1). It is notable that, similar to African traditional healing, traditional Hippocratic medical ethics espoused benevolence and paternalism. To be a good physician meant being medically proficient, virtuous in character and paternalistically benevolent for the presumed good of the patient. It was not until the post-World War II sociopolitical, scientific and ethical awareness that the dangers inherent in paternalism in medicine were acutely brought to the fore. This was precipitated by a chronicle of major ethical events that included the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, following the Nazi atrocities; unprecedented scientific discoveries, such as the genetic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule; organ transplantation; and the legalization of abortion in the United States (Jonsen 2000: 99). These ethical concerns highlighted the serious inadequacy of Hippocratic medical ethics in regulating contemporary medical practice and biomedical research. Consequently, the focus in medical ethics radically shifted from the paternalistic benevolence of the physician to the inalienable rights of the patient (94). The complex ethical concerns in biomedical research led to intensive and extensive debates on the changing physician–patient relationship. In the United States, these debates culminated in the landmark Belmont Report, which identified three basic guiding ethical principles for biomedical research involving human subjects, namely respect for persons, beneficence and justice (National Commission for the Protection Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research 1979: 4). Although the immediate focus of these ethical principles was on biomedical research – in light of the precedent atrocious research scandals – their conceptual import was clearly pertinent to the changing physician–patient relationship. In the twentieth century, the simple physician–patient relationship metamorphosed into an institution with a complex interaction of medical professionals and paraprofessionals, the biomedical industry, management funders and the general public (Jonsen and Hellegers 1977: 133). Meanwhile, the unprecedented biotechnology revolution aroused an equally unprecedented public interest in the practice of medicine, bringing into question the physician’s paternalistic infringement on the patient’s personal autonomy. Moreover, moral pluralism and relativism were quickly eroding the virtue-based ethics that had all along buttressed Hippocratic medical ethics (Pellegrino 2008b: 89–90). Hence, the advent of the pragmatic ethical principles of the Belmont Report gave a fresh outlook to the ethical practice of Western medicine, ushering in the contemporary dominant ethical approach of principlism.

Medical ethics in Africa today: The trajectory of principlism The three basic ethical principles from the Belmont Report were subsequently developed and expanded to the current four prima facie principles of biomedical ethics

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(Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 99–280). These are: respect for autonomy; nonmaleficence; beneficence; and justice. This four-principle approach, commonly referred to as principlism, has come to dominate contemporary medical ethics and bioethics in general. Notably, principlism was not grounded in any single foundational moral theory but rather in a ‘common morality’, which is a ‘set of norms shared by all persons committed to morality’ (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 3). Essentially, therefore, principlism is meant to be trans-cultural with a universal ethical imperative (Tangwa 2003: 63–4). Indeed, the key to ethical principlism is in grasping and internalizing the underlying universal ethical imperative and determining how it may apply to a particular situation in a particular sociocultural setting (67). As already noted in the first section above, it would be erroneous to assume homogeneity of African ethical thought or practice, given the great diversity of African cultures, traditions and beliefs. Moreover, the diverse colonial, postcolonial and religious acculturation has heterogeneously impacted contemporary African thought. Nonetheless, the common African traditional value system, which is rooted in communitarianism and African traditional cosmology, critically informs the viability of the four-principle ethical framework in Africa. Arguably, the precipitate advent of principlism in Africa, about three decades ago, is attributable to the surge in biomedical research as a result of the increasing burden of disease in Africa – especially the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS scourge. Following the Belmont Report, stringent international measures were instituted to protect human subjects and prevent the recurrence of crimes against humanity in biomedical research. These were articulated in the World Medical Association’s (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki, which is ‘a statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects, including research on identifiable human material and data’ (WMA 2013: 2191). Biomedical research in Africa has largely been funded and supported by Western development partners. In fulfilment of the requirements of the Declaration of Helsinki, it was mandatory to establish local African research ethics committees (RECs) aimed at preventing abuse of human research subjects in Africa. In this regard, development partners such as the Fogarty International Center and the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trial Partnership have greatly assisted by sponsoring research bioethics training programmes to capacitate African RECs (Mokgatla-Moipolai, 2014: 11). These research bioethics training programmes are fundamentally based on the Belmont Report and, consequently, principlism has become the dominant approach to contemporary bioethics in Africa. It is vital to note that of the four prima facie principles in contemporary principlism, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice are generally consonant with African indigenous medical ethics, while that of autonomy remains rather contentious.

The principle of beneficence Beneficence, or benevolent action towards the benefit of others, is at the core of acceptable human behaviour in traditional African thought and arises from the overarching ethical concept of the ‘common humaneness’ we noted in the second section above – commonly referred to as botho or ubuntu in southern Africa. It is

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engendered by the virtue of benevolence and is enshrined in such values like togetherness, compassion, charity, kindness and hospitality (Kasenene 2000: 354). African communitarianism demands mutual benevolent actions for the good of all members of the community. The ethical principle of beneficence is, therefore, congenial with African traditional thought. The African communitarian perspective on beneficence, however, may require the individual to submit to the wider needs of the community, such as being isolated, left or helped to die in order to save the rest of the community from a contagious illness or a perceived catastrophe (354). It is also notable that, similar to Hippocratic medical ethics, beneficence in African indigenous medical ethics is intertwined with paternalism. Thus, it is customary in African traditional thought for the patient to unquestioningly submit to the decisions of the attending physician. This paternalistic connotation to beneficence certainly falls short of the four-principle ethical framework standard, which regards the autonomous decisions of a competent patient as paramount. This is especially critical when obtaining informed consent of a patient before carrying out any biomedical intervention. There is an acute need, therefore, to re-examine the scope of the indigenous African concept of paternalistic beneficence and harmonize it with the contemporary autonomy-linked principle of beneficence.

The principle of nonmaleficence The Western conceptualization of nonmaleficence seems to be more coherent with African indigenous medical ethics than that of beneficence. Although its origins are obscure and it does not expressly appear in the Hippocratic Oath, nonmaleficence has traditionally been regarded to be the first principle in Hippocratic medical ethics (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 149). It is enshrined in the popular maxim Primum non nocere, which translates: ‘Above all [or first] do no harm.’ (149). Nonmaleficence is clearly inherent in the African traditional imperative to avoid harming others or the community. Intentional harm is a serious evil in African traditional ethics as it violates communal harmony and the sanctity of human life. Indeed, individuals perceived to be harmful, such as murderers, witches and sorcerers, are judged to have assaulted the sanctity of human life and the cosmological vital force that sustains the whole community – and thus deserving to be neutralized or excommunicated (Kasenene 2000: 355). Although beneficence and nonmaleficence express the same moral imperative, which is ‘the good of the patient’, the two are quite distinct in their practical specification. While the principle of beneficence is concerned with obligations to help the patient, the principle of nonmaleficence carries specific obligations not to harm the patient and is generally more stringent than beneficence (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 150). Understandably, however, some risk or degree of harm, such as in surgery, may be justified on account of the greater benefits of the intervention. Hence, balancing the principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence becomes particularly vital in resolving critical ethical dilemmas with regard to negligence and due care; withholding and withdrawing treatment; extra-ordinary and ordinary treatment; sustenance technologies and medical treatments; ‘double effect’, or intended effects and merely

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foreseen effects; and killing and letting die, among others (153–66). Such decisive ethical dilemmas are also closely linked to the principle of justice in determining the fair and equitable use of healthcare resources, particularly in Africa’s resource-limited setting.

The principle of justice The concept of justice is essential in all organized human societies and has been the subject of philosophical treatises since antiquity (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 241). The Aristotelian conception of justice as the moral obligation to treat equals equally and unequals unequally arguably encapsulates the crux of the formal principle of justice (241). Thus, justice must reflect fairness, which in turn becomes specified in substantive distributive justice according to particular material principles such as need, merit, effort, contribution or equal opportunity in a free market (242–63). Healthcare being a fundamental human need, the principle of justice becomes crucial in allocating the particularly limited healthcare resources in Africa. These are strained not only by the heavy burden of preventable infectious diseases like AIDS and malaria, but also by the rising incidence of preventable lifestyle-linked diseases like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Specifying the principle of justice, therefore, attempts to answer the key ethical question as to, when not all can benefit, who should benefit. Notably, the African traditional conception of justice tends to answer the question of distributive justice rather hierarchically (Kasenene 2000: 355). Although justice is considered essential to maintaining communal harmony in African societies, its practical application follows the structural and functional hierarchy of the community – in line with one’s social status – in order of privilege. Societal hierarchy is a fundamental component of the African concept of ubuntu (or humaneness) and is commonly manifested in the due respect given to one’s elders. Thus, justice relatively diminishes according to the descending order of one’s social status – for instance, in order of: the royal family; the chiefs; the priests; the elders; the grandparents; the parents; the older children; and the younger children (355). Nonetheless, despite its hierarchical nature, justice in traditional African thought is harmonious and remains mindful of the particular needs of the individual in the community. Indeed, ubuntu in African traditional ethics demands that due care be readily given to those in most need. However, similar to the African traditional conception of beneficence and nonmaleficence, the African traditional conception of justice is faced with an acute need to internalize the ethical principle of respect for personal autonomy.

The principle of respect for personal autonomy The principle of autonomy in medical ethics is primarily concerned with self-rule in a patient’s decision-making with regard to her/his medical care. Similarly, autonomy refers to a research participant’s freedom to choose with regard to her/his participation in biomedical research. Accordingly, autonomy essentially requires an individual’s competence for intentional action, or moral agency, as well as liberty or freedom from coercion (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 100). It is vital to note that to be fully

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autonomous would require full understanding of the biomedical intervention and total absence of influence, and this is certainly ‘a mythical ideal’ (102). The principle of autonomy, therefore, simply requires ‘a substantial degree of understanding and freedom from constraint, [and] not a full understanding or a complete absence of influence’ (101). It is also vital to note that personal autonomy is rooted in the concept of the dignity of the human person, which denotes the inalienable intrinsic worth of every human being. This means that every human being must be treated as an end-in-itself and never merely as a means to an end (Kant 1964: 96). The human person is a priceless rational agent capable of moral self-regulation by formulating moral laws to which, at the same time, she/he becomes the subject (96). Respect for personal autonomy, therefore, becomes the concrete affirmation of the dignity of the human person (Hailer and Ritschl 1996: 98). Vitally, respect for autonomy encompasses not only the negative obligation not to coerce, but also the positive obligation to foster freedom of personal choice by empowering the patient through appropriate and adequate information disclosure (Beauchamp and Childress 2009: 104). Indeed, respecting the patient’s autonomy is a fundamental fiduciary responsibility of the physician. It is hence specified in the rules of confidentiality, fidelity, veracity and privacy (288), and this becomes particularly manifest in the crucial requirement for informed consent in biomedical practice and research. Essentially, informed consent requires the two threshold elements of autonomy, namely 1) competence to understand and decide, and 2) voluntariness in deciding (120). It also requires the three information elements of 1) disclosure of material information, 2) recommendation of a plan, and 3) the understanding of the material information and the recommended plan (120). Finally, informed consent requires the two consent elements of 1) decision in favour or against the recommended plan, and 2) authorization or non-authorization of the recommended plan (121). Notably, the concept of autonomy acknowledges the complex relationality of persons and the social determinants that influence personal identities, such as the family, ethnicity, race, gender, religion and community. Nonetheless, the principle of respect for personal autonomy requires that the right to personal decision-making should always prevail (103). Undoubtedly, the idea of individual autonomy prevailing over relational autonomy becomes problematic in communitarian traditional African thought. Here, human relationships are of a superlative value whereby reality becomes intelligible only through a wholesome life-web of human relationships (Agrawal 2005: 153). In fact, the individual must necessarily submit to the harmonious dynamism of communitarian human relationships in order to attain ‘personhood’ (153). It is notable, however, that, although the individual is actualized in the community, traditional African thought cherishes the individual’s excellence and heroic achievements (Makumba 2007: 130). Thus, the community should not be regarded as being tyrannical to the individual but rather as being the optimum value matrix for the individual’s flourishing (130). It becomes mutually imperative, therefore, for the individual to uphold communal values. In other words, unlike its Western conception, autonomy in traditional African thought is more relational or communal than individual. Thus, any major decision-

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making in healthcare or biomedical research requires prior consultation within the individual’s significant relationships. Indeed, in traditional African thought, communal autonomy – together with compassionate paternalism – is considered benevolent and conducive to healing. In fact, any major deviation from communal autonomy may be regarded as antisocial, with adverse repercussions to the individual (Kasenene 2000: 351). The process of authentic informed consent in traditional African thought, therefore, becomes that of sociocultural negotiation and semiotic or meaning-making, rather than legalistic as arguably is the case in Western practice (Mkhize 2008: 28). Notably, in African traditional healing, beneficence is more valued than autonomy (Kasenene 2000: 353). Hence, the principle of respect for personal autonomy in medical ethics – as conceptualized in the West – remains in need of adequate internalization in Africa, given its contention with the strong traditional African communitarian values. It is evident, therefore, that the viability of principlism in Africa would require systematic dialectical elucidation through comprehensive medical ethics education and scholarship in Africa.

Medical ethics education in Africa The main goal of medical ethics education is to ensure excellent, value-laden patient care by preparing medical students ‘for a lifelong commitment to professionalism in patient care, education and research’ (Caresse et al. 2015: 744). Traditionally, medical ethics has been ‘learnt’ – rather than formally ‘taught’ – through socialization, role modelling and apprenticeship. In African traditional healing, aspirants are apprenticed to senior healers to learn the ethical skills and etiquette that are vital for the healing profession. In the classical Hippocratic tradition, medical students were presumed to be morally adept and attuned to enhancing their ethical disposition through experiential learning from physician teachers (Kenny et al. 2003: 1205). Here, medical ethics was enshrined in the Hippocratic Oath and the virtuous character of the good physician – and was transmissible through codes of conduct, etiquette, role modelling and apprenticeship (1205). In fact, it was simply assumed that seniority in the medical profession meant seniority in medical ethics proficiency. The growth of medicine into a science-based profession, however, brought about an overloaded medical curriculum whereby simple apprenticeship became untenable. Moreover, the 1910 landmark Flexner Report scientified Western medical education, leading to the de-emphasis of the traditional non-scientific values of virtuous compassionate patient care (Regan-Smith 1998: 505). Meanwhile, increasing scepticism and moral relativism in Western philosophical thought, coupled with the post-World War II sociopolitical awareness, eroded virtue-based ethics, which had hitherto underpinned medical ethics. Consequently, the apprenticeship model of medical ethics education that relies on virtuous role modelling essentially became relegated. Subsequently, as science-based medical education became methodically established in the twentieth century, an impetus emerged to at least similarly formalize medical ethics curricula (Bernard and Clouser 1989: 745). Hence, formal medical ethics education is now firmly established in practically all medical schools in the developed world.

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Largely due to limited resources, there is a conspicuous lack of formal medical ethics education in Africa, with serious implication to the desirable forming of good physicians and excellence in value-laden patient care. Many, if not most, African medical schools still simply rely on the presumed experiential competence of their (especially senior) faculty to somehow transmit some medical ethics wisdom to their students. Although records are not readily available, there are still too few physicians in Africa who have had adequate postgraduate training in medical ethics so as to competently teach contemporary medical ethics and professionalism. The lack of qualified medical ethicists in Africa notwithstanding, it is vital to note that medical ethics values may be transmitted through the informal faculty–student interaction and socialization. Indeed, this integral component of medical ethics education plays a vital role and has been well-described as the ‘hidden curriculum’ (Hafferty 1998: 404). The hidden curriculum does not imply some mischievously veiled agenda but rather denotes the unseen, informal and unstructured role modelling, interaction and socialization in the medical school environment (Ssebunnya 2013: 49). It is a dynamic process through which medical students may acquire life-long professional (and/or unprofessional) behaviours and values. Accordingly, the success of the hidden curriculum in forming good physicians depends on the moral ecosystem of the particular medical school whereby the faculty act as desirable role models (49). Guaranteeing the faculty as good role models is certainly a tall order as many other factors (including budgetary constraints), rather than personal and professional virtue, influence faculty recruitment and promotion. Nonetheless, there is a critical need and opportunity in Africa to harness the hidden curriculum through appropriate faculty training programmes towards value-laden medical ethics education (50). Favourably, the need to develop RECs due to the rapid increase in biomedical research in Africa has led to education opportunities in research ethics, with support from Africa’s development partners. Thus, some groundwork has been done in establishing formal bioethics curricula in at least a dozen research ethics training programmes in Africa (Mokgatla-Moipolai, 2014: 11). The focus in these pioneering bioethics education programmes has so far been on the empirical research ethics dimension of bioethics – essentially aimed at establishing capacity for the requisite RECs in Africa (11). Consequently, there has not yet been any significant African engagement with the conceptual dimension of bioethics by way of articulating and internalizing the foundational ethical theories and principles from an African perspective. In fact, bioethics and bioethics education in Africa have so far been dominated by the Western conceptualization of morality and human values, leading to pertinent criticisms of bioethics colonialism (Chadwick and Schüklenk, 2004: iii). Nonetheless, the available groundwork of research bioethics education could become the springboard for comprehensive conceptually grounded medical ethics education in Africa. Indeed, the development of a bioethics core curriculum by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2008: 3) provides an appropriate stimulus for African engagement with formal medical ethics education. Evidently, the focus in medical ethics today has greatly metamorphosed from Hippocratic paternalism to patient-centred care, which aims at upholding the dignity

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of the patient as a human person. Comprehensive medical ethics education in Africa would, therefore, require resolute commitment by African philosophers, bioethicists and other scholars to articulating a contemporary African value system – rooted in the fundamental concept of human dignity – in which the four-principle ethical framework may be grounded (Ssebunnya, 2017: 26). It would also certainly require concerted prioritization and budgetary commitment by medical schools, African governments and Africa’s development partners (27–9).

Conclusion The above exploration of the current key perspectives on medical ethics in Africa clearly reveals that the notion of ethical medical practice is indigenous to African philosophical thought, which is rooted in the African traditional cosmological worldview and harmonious communitarian values. African indigenous medical ethics is characterized by paternalistic beneficence and nonmaleficence, together with communal consent and communitarian justice. Contemporary medical ethics in Africa, on the other hand, is dominated by ethical principlism, which was conceptualized in a Western autonomy-dominant value system. In order to be conceptually internalized in Africa, contemporary medical ethics would, therefore, have to seek meaning in Africa’s traditional communitarian value system. Indeed, African indigenous medical ethics could enrich contemporary patient-centred medical ethics with its universalizable insights, such as the holistic biopsychosocial and spiritual approach to patient care. Conversely, in light of the historical biomedical atrocities and the current momentum towards patient-centred care, African ethical thought is in need of adaptation towards valuing the primacy of the patient’s informed personal choices, which arises from the inalienable dignity of the patient as a human person. Above all, the viability of principlism-based medical ethics in Africa demands sustained dialectical African scholarship in medical ethics, and a resolute commitment to prioritizing medical ethics education in African medical schools.

References Agrawal, M.M. 2005. ‘Morals and the Value of Human Life’. In African Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. E. C. Eze, 146–54. Malden, MA: Blackwell. American Medical Association. 2017. ‘History of the Code’. Available online at https:// www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-browser/public/ethics/ ama-code-ethics-history.pdf. Beauchamp, T. L., and J. F. Childress. 2008. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Behrens, K. G. 2013. ‘Towards an indigenous African Bioethics’. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law 6(1): 32–5. DOI:10.7196/SAJBL.255 Bernard, D., and K. D. Clouser. 1989. ‘Teaching Medical Ethics in Its Contexts: Penn State College of Medicine’. Academic Medicine 64(12): 744–6.

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Bogaert, D. K. 2007. ‘Ethical Considerations in African Traditional Medicine: A Response to Nyika’. Developing World Bioethics 7(1): 35–40. DOI:10.1111/j.1471-8847.2007.00184.x Carrese J. A., J. Malek, K. Watson, L. S. Lehmann, M. J. Green, L. B. McCullough, G. Geller, C. H. Braddock III and D. J. Doukas. 2015. ‘The essential role of medical ethics education in achieving professionalism: the Romanell Report’. Academic Medicine 90(6): 744–52. DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000000715 Chadwick R., and U. Schüklenk. 2004. ‘From the editors: Bioethical colonialism?’. Bioethics 18(5): iii–iv. Hailer, M., and D. Ritschl. 1996. ‘The General Notion of Human Dignity and the Specific Arguments in Medical Ethics’. In Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity, ed. K. Bayertz, 91–106. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hodnet, E. 2012. ‘Traditional birth attendants are an effective resource’. British Medical Journal 344: e365. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e365 Jonsen, A. R. (2000. A Short History of Medical Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. Jonsen, A. R., and A. E. Hellegers. 1977. ‘Conceptual Foundations for an Ethics of Medical Care’, in Ethics in Medicine: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Concerns, eds. S. J. Reiser, A. J. Dyck and W. J. Curran, 129–36. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kaba, R., and P. Sooriakumaran. 2007. ‘The evolution of the doctor–patient relationship’. International Journal of Surgery 5: 57–65. Kant, I. 1964. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (H. J. Paton, trans.). New York: Harper & Row. Kasenene, P. 2000. ‘African Ethical Theory and the Four Principles’. In Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Medical Ethics, ed. R. M. Veatch, 347–57. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Kenny, N. P., K. V Mann and H. MacLeod. 2003. ‘Role modeling in physicians’ professional formation: Reconsidering an essential but untapped educational strategy’. Academic Medicine 78(12): 1203–10. Makumba, M. M. 2007. Introduction to African Philosophy. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa. Metz, T. 2007. ‘Towards an African Moral Theory’. Journal of Political Philosophy 15: 321–41. Mbiti, J. 1970. African Religions and Philosophies. New York: Doubleday. Miles, S. H. 2004. The Hippocratic Oath and the Ethics of Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. Mkhize, N. 2008. ‘Communal personhood and the principle of autonomy: the ethical challenges’. Continuing Medical Education 24(1): 26. Mokgatla-Moipolai, B., C. IJsselmuiden and D. Wassenaar. 2014. ‘MARC (Mapping African Research Ethics Review Capacity) Project’. In Research Ethics in Africa: A Resource for Research Ethics Committees, eds. M. Kruger, P. Ndebele and L. Horn, 11–17. Stellenbosch: SUN PRESS. National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. 1979. The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Available online at https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/sites/ default/files/the-belmont-report-508c_FINAL.pdf. Ndebele, P., G. Mwaluko, M. Kruger, O. O. M. Oukem-Boyer and M. Zimba. 2014. ‘History of Research Ethics Review in Africa’. In Research Ethics in Africa: A Resource for Research Ethics Committees, eds. M. Kruger, P. Ndebele and L. Horn, 3–10. Stellenbosch: SUN PRESS.

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Pellegrino, E. D. 2008a. ‘The Internal Morality of Clinical Medicine: A Paradigm for the Ethics of the Helping and Healing Professions’. In The Philosophy of Medicine Reborn: A Pellegrino Reader, eds. H. T. Engelhardt and F. Jotterand, 62–84. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Pellegrino, E. D. 2008b. ‘Humanistic Basis of Professional Ethics’. In The Philosophy of Medicine Reborn: A Pellegrino Reader, eds. H. T. Engelhardt and F. Jotterand, 87–100. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Percival, T. [1803] 2014. Medical Ethics: Or, a Code of Institutes and Precepts, Adapted to the Professional Conduct of Physicians and Surgeons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ssebunnya, G. M. 2013. ‘Beyond the hidden curriculum: The challenging search for authentic values in medical ethics education’. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law 6(2): 48–51. DOI:10.7196/sajbl.267 Ssebunnya, G. M. 2017. ‘Beyond the Sterility of a Distinct African Bioethics: Addressing the Conceptual Bioethics Lag in Africa’. Developing World Bioethics 17(1): 22–31. DOI:10.1111/dewb.12106 Tangwa, G. B. 2004. ‘Between universalism and relativism: a conceptual exploration of problems in formulating and applying international biomedical ethical guidelines’. Journal of Medical Ethics 31: 63–7. Tempels, P. 1959. Bantu Philosophy. Paris: Présence Africaine. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2008. Bioethics Core Curriculum – section 1: syllabus ethics education programme. Available online at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByGdQDy_hOF7ZmJTaEdSbkNIcUU/view. World Health Organization (WHO). 2006. Constitution of the World Health Organization. Available online at https://www.who.int/governance/eb/who_constitution_en.pdf. World Medical Association (WMA). 2013. ‘World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects’. Journal of the American Medical Association 310(20): 2191–4.

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African Just War Theory Theoretical Impetus and Contemporary Trajectory Ronald Olufemi Badru

Introduction The social phenomenon of war is, undoubtedly, one of the most intractable problems of the human person. In fact, war is a kind of phenomenon that, perhaps, has little to commend it, but much to condemn it, in view of the level of destructiveness it has wreaked and the deprivations it has caused in the life of the human person in society. Generally, scholarship on the war phenomenon could be classified in two major ways, descriptive and normative. The descriptive research usually focuses on stating social facts about war, such as the evolution of the violent phenomenon, some details about its destructiveness, the participants/parties involved, and so on. The normative research, on the other hand, aims at unravelling the moral justifiability or non-justifiability of the phenomenon, the moral principles involved in the justifiability or non-justifiability of the phenomenon, moral examination of the actively participating agents and institutions as well as the means of war prosecution, and so on. In line with the descriptive approach, much scholarship has been dissipated in social scientific disciplines, especially in political science, sociology and psychology, as well as in peace and conflict studies, security studies on war and war-related phenomena. However, the focus of the present entry is on the normative approach. Normatively, moral and political philosophers as well as normatively inclined political theorists have felt that a framework could be excogitated to address the destructiveness of the phenomenon of war and the negativities of conflictual phenomena, such as revolution, coup, armed retaliation, terrorism, and so on. From this perspective, a significant philosophical approach to discussing the issue of war, undoubtedly, is represented by the just war theory, or, better put, the just war tradition (JWT), chiefly developed by Western philosophers of the medieval era. The basic moral principles of JWT, which are jus ad bellum (justice in the resort to war), jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (post-war justice), have been variously discussed and are still being rediscussed in contemporary world by various 311

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scholars, especially in the Western world, such as moral and political philosophers, political scientists, political theorists and international lawyers. These scholars have also notably attempted to extend the principles to morally addressing different conflictual phenomena, such as conventional wars, secessionist bids, armed humanitarian interventions and terrorism. Possibly, it is this trend that has led to the rise of normative thinking about the phenomenon of war in Africa among some philosophers on Africa, who have attempted to look inwards, drawing on autochthonous ideas and values, in developing an African theory (or tradition) of JWT. Intently considering the given background, the following entry makes a systematic attempt to critically look into the state of moral thinking about war in Africa, exposing some works that have been done in the area, the dimensions taken by the works in foregrounding the idea of just war theory (or tradition) from African perspective(s) as well as frontline minds in this area. The entry is divided into six sections. The first section focuses on the introductory aspect of the entry; the second section examines some relevant conceptual issues; the third section briefly examines the theoretical impetus from the Western background for the interest in, and the discussion of, just war theory in African philosophy; the next two sections focus on evolutionary trends, contributors to the discussion, contemporary trajectory, as well as the features of the idea of the African just war, and the final section summarizes and concludes the whole discussion.

About conceptual issues The two phrases that require some preliminary explications, given the fact that they constitute the conceptual framework for the present contribution, are philosophers on Africa and African just war theory. Philosophers on Africa: In the present context, the phrase is an umbrella concept, used to capture and explicate three distinct groups of philosophers: (i) African philosophers, who are of African origins (continental or diasporic), philosophically researching on African beliefs, norms and values. This group also embraces some other non-philosopher African scholars in the humanities, who, nonetheless, have also relevantly researched philosophically on African beliefs, norms and values; (ii) nonAfrican philosophers in Africa, making a philosophical career out of researching on African beliefs, norms and values; and (iii) non-African philosophers, who are outside the African continent, but who philosophically research on African beliefs, norms and values. The umbrella concept is justifiably used to factor in the scholarly contributions of (ii) and (iii), in addition to those of (i), relative to the discussion of African just war theory in the present entry. African just war theory: Drawing on the above insight, African just war theory (AJWT) is used to refer to a body of philosophical reflections and assertions of philosophers on Africa, relative to the phenomenon of war. The word ‘philosophical’, rather than ‘ethical’, is emphasized because some of the philosophers research beyond the ethical boundaries into other areas of African philosophy, such as African epistemology and African metaphysics, in their theorizing on AJWT.

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The Western theoretical impetus to just war theorizing in African philosophy In discussing the historical development of just war theorizing in African philosophy, it is highly intellectually informative to commence the exercise from a Western background, being the most accessible relevant tradition in the area of discussion. Historically, just war theory from a Western philosophical background could be traced to Middle Age scholastics and related others. In terms of cultural evolution, the theory is first grounded in classical Roman and biblical Hebraic traditions. In terms of the contents, it is a theoretical amalgam, drawing on and inculcating prescriptions from canon law and theology, on the one hand, and the ideas of jus naturale (Latin for ‘natural law’) and jus gentium (Latin for ‘law of nations’) from Roman law, on the other (see Johnson 2020). Some biblical references that might have influenced them, which could be interpreted along the lines of the principles of just war, are examined below, drawing out the relevant implications. About this time war broke out in the region. King Amraphel of Babylon, King Arioch of Ellasar, King Kedorlaomer of Elam, and King Tidal of Goiim fought against King Bera of Sodom, King Birsha of Gomorrah, King Shinab of Admah, King Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the King of Bela (also called Zoar). Genesis Ch. 14:1–2

The point here is that kings are to go to war, but not just any group of people (the Principle of Right Authority in jus ad bellum is implied). ‘Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?’ Luke Ch. 14: 31

The point here is that engaging in a state of war morally should require deep thought, focusing among others on the chances of success (the Principle of Prospect of Success in jus ad bellum is implied). When you go out as an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.’ Deuteronomy 23:9

The point here is that a state of war morally should not admit of doing just anything or using just any means to prosecute the war (the Principle of Proportionality in jus in bello is implied). When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them? However, you

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may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls. Deuteronomy 20:19–20, modified

The point here is that moral caution should be exercised by combatants, relative to war neutrals. Specifically, some measure of fairness-in-war (justice) should be maintained by combatants against those that are non-combatants in the war (the Principle of Discrimination and the Principle of Proportionality in jus in bello are implied). Moreover, the virtue of eco-citizenship and the value of environmental protectionism, even in a war period, are also implicitly promoted. First, an eco-citizen ought to look for the good of the environment, and one of the ways of achieving this is to protect trees. Second, given the first, it would be environmentally vicious on the part of ecocitizens, even as justified combatants, to indiscriminately cut down trees in the process of prosecuting a war. This, to reinforce the point, connects the just war theory to the issue of environmental protection. In fact, Reichberg and Syse (2000) support this conclusion. The above is further supported by Christian-based ethical justifications for war, evident in the writings of the scholastics, such as St Aurelius Augustine (354–430) and St Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–74). For instance, the Summa Theologiae (1265/6–73) of Aquinas adumbrated the justifications for war and also discussed the acts permissible to commit in wartime. Thus, there evolved a normative system, which was then (and is still) expected (now) to guide how states of the era (and subsequent ones) were (are) to morally conduct themselves, relative to war situations (see Johnson 2020). Similarly, secular theorists, who contributed to the development of just war theory in the noted era, include the Roman jurist and philosopher Cicero (106–43 BCE), who argued that legitimate wars must be openly declared, have a just cause and be justly conducted. Moreover, the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) maintained in De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On the Law of War and Peace) that war is justifiable only if a country faces imminent danger and the use of force is both necessary and proportionate to the threat (see Johnson 2020). Clearly, one could relevantly note here that the conviction of Hugo Grotius that a country could go to war if it faces imminent danger is now regarded as the Principle of Supreme Emergency in Western Ethics of War and Peace. Put differently, his belief that the use of force is necessary in the noted instance indelibly resonates in the Principle of Supreme Emergency. Moreover, his assertion that the force in the noted instance should be proportionate to the incoming threat is captured in the Principle of Proportionality. All the foregoing grounds the theory of just war in the medieval era. Before moving further, we should try to distinguish between just war theory and the concept of what was once regarded as the holy war, so as not to confuse one for the other. In this regard, Frederick Russell provides an insight: The crusading ideal is bound up with a theocratic view of society, while the just war is usually fought on public authority for more mundane goals such as defense of territory, persons and rights. Content with the achievement of more concrete political objectives, the just war stops short of countenancing the utter destruction

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of the adversaries and tends to limit the incidence of violence by codes of right conduct, of non-combatant immunity and by other humanitarian restraints lacking in the holy war. 1975: 2

From this piece, we should decipher that the so-called holy war is both deontologically and teleologically theocratic. First, getting involved in it emphasizes a commitment to the duty of promoting the theocratic view of human society, regardless of any possibility of practical utility from it. Second, whatever society this view is not grounded in, it is the duty of a person committed to the view to help advance the end of establishing it there. But, just war theory is highly secular in the consequentialist sense; it is not to help establish a theocratic society, but to forge a largely stable world, where war is either non-dominant or moderately prosecuted, even if it is to be engaged in, as an instrument of human interaction. Deontologically, it may allow for a conscientious objector, who may not want to participate in war (compulsive participation renders inconsequential its justness). Thus, there is no strict duty of participation. In the modern world, many Western moral and political philosophers and relevant normative theorists have variously advanced the course of just war theory, applying it to both asymmetrical and non-asymmetrical conflict and conflict-related phenomena, such as terrorism (Patterson 2016), intelligence collection (Bellaby 2012) humanitarian intervention (see Coady 2002), nuclear war (see Sterba 1987), revolution (Finlay 2015), coup (Finlay 2017), securitization (Floyd 2011), ethics of strike actions (Sheeran 1993: 135–6), environmental care and protection (Reichberg and Syse 2000). However, some scholars have contended that the Western just war theory is not really applicable to new generational warfare (see, for example, Berkebile 2018). Moreover, there is a critique from an African womanist perspective that the Western just theory has largely failed within the context of conflict in Africa (Omotoso 2018). Despite the counter-narrative to it, the popular discussion on, and the fecundity of the discourse of, the just war theory from a Western philosophical perspective, has also intellectually motivated into action some philosophers on Africa, making them start theorizing on the idea of just war in an African cultural context. This becomes the focus of the next two sections.

The evolutionary trends in just war thinking in African philosophy Serious scholarly attempts at developing a coherent African just war theory seem to be a recent entrant into the sphere of philosophical discussion on Africa; though scholars have been discussing the Western just war theory in Africa. An example of the latter is Deane-Peter Baker and Deborah Roberts’s ‘Extending Just War Theory: The Jus ad Bellum and the Capabilities approach to Armed Conflict’, published in 2007, by Scientia Militaria, a South African journal of military studies. But a serious effort to motivate African scholarship (grounded in African beliefs, norms and values) on the theory of just war, to the best of the present author’s knowledge, came to the foreground through an international conference that was pioneered by Thaddeus Metz and organized at the

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Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg in April 2016. The conference, titled Just War Theory in an African Context, brought together African and non-African philosophers, who presented research papers on the African context of the Western just war theory. Since then, scholarship on the subject of African just war theory has been gradually growing. Notably, research has shown that three distinct groups of normative scholars have emerged in the direction of advancing scholarship on African just war theory, the groups that are collectively regarded as philosophers on Africa. The first group is constituted by African-born philosophers (continental or diasporic), philosophically researching on African beliefs, norms and values, or, similarly disposed others; the second group is composed of non-African philosophers in Africa, who make a philosophical career out of researching on African beliefs, norms and values; and the third group is made up of non-African philosophers, who are outside the African continent, but who still philosophically research on African beliefs, norms and values. Since the 2016 international conference in Johannesburg, these groups of philosophers on Africa have produced numerous articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, written chapters in scholarly edited books and have even edited some volumes, related to the idea of African just war. The next subsection focuses on a survey of their contributions.

Philosophers on Africa and just war thinking and practice from African philosophy As hinted at in the last section, three groups of philosophers on Africa have made scholarly efforts in theorizing on the idea of African just war. Starting from the first group of philosophers on Africa, much has been done. A Zimbabwean, Colin Chasi, is an African thinker of the first group, who has attempted to philosophically research in the area of African just war theory. In his ‘Tutuist Ubuntu and Just War’ (2017), Chasi makes an attempt to achieve two major aims: (i) to show how Tutu’s philosophy of peace, harmony and reconciliation is invariably influenced by his Christianity, and (ii) to show how this pacifism-tilted philosophy connects with his understanding of ubuntu, relative to the African idea of just war. Another scholar, belonging to the first category of philosophers, who has contributed to the scholarship on the idea of African just war, is a Nigerian feminist philosopher, Sharon Omotoso. In her article, ‘An African Womanist View of Just War Theory in Tunde Kelani’s The Narrow Path’ (2018), she makes four basic statements: (i) that African womanism is more inclusive than Western feminism; (ii) that the Western just war theory has largely failed within the context of conflictual African environment; (iii) that African womanism, appropriately unpacked, embraces values, such as compassion, care, love, concern, as well as resilience, which make it more holistic than the Western just war theory, in normatively dealing with conflicts in Africa; and (iv) that the values noted of African womanism were amply demonstrated by Awero from Orita Village, who made a remarkably reconciliatory speech, which doused the tension and ended the war between Aku Village and Agbede Village in the play, The Narrow

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Path, as well as by Abigael, who confronted and challenged corrupt government officials, who were ‘waging wars’ of exploitation against innocent villagers. However, nowhere in the work does Omotoso (2018) actually deploy the values she derives from African womanist perspective to formally develop an African womanist theory of just war, structurally similar to the Western just war theory, which she criticizes in her article; though the noted values could have been successfully tinkered with to develop a coherent just war theory from African womanism. For example, the values of love and concern could have been functional principles within a post-conflict environment (a sort of jus post bellum), where pre-conflict communal relationships, built on communal love and care, might have been sadly ruptured by the conflict, and the postconflict environment/period needs some kind of re-engineered communal love and care, in order to properly return to a sort of status quo ante bellum. Yet another female scholar, who does not also really develop a formal African theory of just war, but nonetheless directs scholarly attention to the significance of making efforts in this direction, is the Congolese-American, Georgette Mulunda Ledgister. In her chapter contribution, ‘When the Ancestors Wage War: Mystical Movements and the Ethics of War and Warfare’ (2020), Ledgister submits that academic discourse on the ethics of war must include an African ethic of war – an ethical framework that attends to the spiritual lifeworld in which African combatants experience daily life, and subsequently informs and determines what qualifies as moral action during war (222). Relying on an interview she conducted with a personality called Chatty, a former warlord of the Mai-Mai Movement in the eastern part of Congo as a point of departure, Ledgister states that this movement has a war code of conduct, such as fighting only for self-defense (223) (which obviously negates fighting as an aggressor) and not fighting war to enrich the fighters (223). The former is something that could have become an important principle under a Congolese version of jus ad bellum, if it were properly sketched out theoretically, while the latter is something that could plausibly have been functional as a principle under a Congolese version of jus in bello, if it were to be formally theoretically developed. Another African scholar of the first category of philosophers, who has contributed to the discussion on the idea of African just war is Ronald Olufemi Badru. In his article, ‘An African Philosophical Account of Just War Theory’ (2019), Badru attempts to formally develop an African theory of just war. He sets out to draw on what he calls ‘an expansive conception of Alajobi (commonness of descent between the self and the other) in Yoruba-African metaphysics and harmonizes this with the normative value of social utilitarianism (moral rightness or wrongness as conduciveness or nonconduciveness to social or communal progress and development) in African ethics’ (154), coming up with three basic prescriptions:

(i) (ii)

Conflict should not be a norm of social interaction in Africa, given that it represents social (or communal disharmony) between the self and the other; therefore, it does not truly depict commonness of descent; If there must be a conflict, at all, then it must be strictly justified on the basis of removal of obstacle(s) to social (or communal) progress and development of the self and the other, and

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(iii) Since any conflict that arises at all must be on the strict basis of removal of obstacle(s) to social (or communal) progress and development of the self and the other, then the conclusion of the conflict must be such that, all things considered, would ultimately allow future social (or communal) progress and development of the self and the other. (154–5) Carefully examined, the three basic prescriptions adequately mirror the three groups of principles of the Western just war theory. First, if we sincerely avow and hold on to the idea of commonness of descent between the self and the other (self and other understood in the plural universal sense, which is the expansive conception of alajobi), then the self (or non-other) and the other (or non-self) would not be eager to readily engage in any conflictual interaction, or would readily entertain some moral restraint from being easily enmeshed in conflict. This moral thought accords with the moral considerations of the Western jus ad bellum. Second, if any conflict that may eventually occur is strictly based on the removal of obstacle(s) to social (or communal) progress and development of the self and the other, then the conflict is morally conducted such that things are not overdone. The combatants still have their eyes on the eventual restoration of the presently combat-strained ontological and moral link between them. Therefore, they do not act outrageously towards one another, despite the fact that they are presently in combat. This moral thinking, undoubtedly, also concurs with the moral considerations under the Western jus in bello. Third, given the second, the conflict is concluded in such a way that, all things considered, the ontological and moral link, which was combat-strained, between the former combatants, would be ultimately restored to the status quo ante bellum so as to promote future social (or communal) progress and development of the self and the other. Just recently, in another publication, ‘Pluralism and African Conflict: Towards a Yoruba Theory of African Political Ethics of Neighbourliness’, Badru (2020) attempts to retool his theory of African just war into political ethics, which is advanced as necessary to counter the uncharitable understanding of pluralism, exemplified by the common anti-neighbourliness of conflictual interaction, in Africa. This, it must be noted, is intellectually and practically significant for the entrenchment of sustainable peaceful interaction in the modern African state, which is largely characterized, and thus divided, by both ethnic and religious pluralism. However, it is noteworthy that Cordeiro-Rodrigues (2020) has somewhat attempted a critique of Badru’s (2019) article. A distinguished scholar, who belongs to the second category of philosophers, who has contributed to the discussion of the idea of African just war is Thaddeus Metz, an American by birth, but largely African by scholarship. In his attempt to later develop an African theory of just causes of war (2020), Metz first makes a step, stressing the principle of relationality, as one of the basic grounds of African moral thought, which, according to him, is composed of two elements: (i) ‘identifying with’ or ‘sharing a way of life with’, and (ii) ‘exhibiting solidarity with’ or ‘caring for’ (134). For Metz, the first element (say, self-other identity) necessarily connects the second element (say, selfother solidarity) within the African moral world, making the two non-superficially (deeply) interactional and, thus, different from other forms of relating that may be for

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selfish reasons or similar morally non-commendable purposes. For Metz, the two elements coalesce to ground the African morally treasured principle of harmonious social relations. Generating a normative theory from the foregoing, Metz states that what makes an act right is respecting others by virtue of their natural capacity to relate harmoniously. Conversely, for Metz, what makes an act wrong is if, and only if, it degrades others who can in principle be party to relationships of identity and solidarity, especially insofar as (roughly) it treats innocent parties in extremely antisocial or discordant ways, with enmity. Metz defines discord in this instance as oppositional to identity and solidarity, replacing togetherness and coordination with distance and subordination, and altruism and aid with cruelty and harm or ill-will (135). The second step of Metz is to derive his African notion of the morality of warfare from the first step. Metz divides this second step into two: (i) the aggressor aspect, and (ii) the aspect of the innocent. In the case of the aggressor, according to Metz, if the African normative theory is applied to a large-scale use of force, then one could state that this use of force that is other-directed is morally justified if it is the least amount necessary and it is the most likely counterpoise to rebutting a comparable initial discord on his part. Similarly, Metz affirms that one may significantly subordinate or harm another if that is essential and expected to prevent or compensate for a similar or greater degree of subordination and harm that he previously initiated. In the case of the innocent, for Metz, she has not acted in a substantially discordant way or been responsible for such; thus, she is not liable to be treated in a substantially discordant way; equivalently, it is gravely wrong to subordinate or harm another person significantly if she has not herself acted similarly, been responsible for others doing so, and the like (139). This, it must be noted, is similar to the principle of discrimination under the Western jus in bello; though Metz does not specifically mention this in the context. The third step taken by Metz is to practically apply the developed African moral theory of just causes for violence (understanding war as large-scale violence), among others, within the context of the former apartheid regime in South Africa. For him, violence directed against those responsible for the apartheid administration was morally justified, given that the white South African government was of course the one that was initially discordant towards black people, who were now perpetrating the violence against their former tormentors. However, violence directed against those not responsible for the apartheid administration was morally not justified (140). A scholar of the third category of philosophers, who has contributed to the discussion on African just war is Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues, a Portugese philosopher, who has developed great interest in African philosophy. In his article, ‘African Views of Just War in Mandela and Cabral’ (2018), Cordeiro-Rodrigues attempts to inquire into the African value system, as represented by the philosophy of ubuntu, in the actions and speeches of two prominent African leaders, Nelson Mandela and Amilcar Cabral, relative to the African idea of just war. Just like Metz examined under the second category of philosophers that have contributed to the development of African theory of just war, Cordeiro-Rodrigues also attempts to sift just war prescriptions from an African ubuntu perspective.

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According to him, the idea of ubuntu is that one ought to live according to the values of friendship and promote friendship. And, for Cordeiro-Rodrigues, this means two things. First, if there is a possibility of acting in a friendly manner before engaging in war, one ought to do so. Second, if one acts in an unfriendly way when one has the opportunity of acting in a friendly one, then this is acting immorally (663). This implies that acting in an unfriendly way should be an issue of last resort, and CordeiroRodrigues affirms that much in the liberation actions of both Cabral and Mandela in Guinea-Bissau and South Africa, respectively. According to Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Cabral initially believed in peaceful means in dealing with the fascist Portuguese colonial administration in Guinea-Bissau, prior to the 1960s. However, he later changed tactics, adopting violent means in the post-1960s, when he discovered that the success possibility of the initial tactic was doubtful (663–4). According to Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Mandela was initially peaceful when the African National Congress (ANC) was formed in 1912, reactive to the movement that led to South Africa’s Native Land Act, an act that substantially curtailed black people’s rights. For Cordeiro-Rodrigues, the ANC remained non-violent until 1949, when it dawned on them that peaceful means could not get them what they wanted from the apartheid regime. Thus, in 1961, the ANC adopted a more violent approach of interaction with the recalcitrant apartheid regime (664). Cordeiro-Rodrigues also affirms that the idea of legitimate authority in Western just war theory is also replicable in the idea of just war in Africa; though it is the state in the Western just war theory that has this legitimacy, while it is any group of people with just cause (promotive of the highest value, and in African terms this means friendship) that possesses this legitimacy within the context of African values. For him, this position is well-illustrated in Cabral’s and Mandela’s writings and war actions. For Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Cabral represented this when he argued various times during the Portuguese colonial war that the whole population ought to engage in fighting against the imperialist Portuguese state, independent of their class, because the degrading treatment blacks received under this state was intolerable (666). Similarly, for Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Mandela also avowed that black people were morally legitimized to use violence because they wished to fight the oppression of the apartheid state and replace it with equal rights for all the peoples of Africa (666). Transiting from jus ad bellum, Cordeiro-Rodrigues also avers that jus in bello principles could also be detected in African thought, as exemplified in Mandela’s remark in Long Walk to Freedom: “Our intention was to begin with what was least violent to individuals but most damaging to the state . . . It made sense to begin with the form of violence that inflicted the least harm against individuals: sabotage . . . [I]f sabotage did not produce the results we wanted, we were prepared to move onto the next stage (1995: 325). Here we could see the gradualist approach adopted in the fight against apartheid, starting from the least violent (and, thus, more peaceful and less harmful) to the more violent (and, thus, less peaceful and more harmful). Mandela’s position here also reflects the ‘principle of discrimination’ as it is in the jus-in-bello of the Western just war theory’. Cordeiro-Rodrigues also notes that jus post bellum principles are evident in African political thought as represented by Mandela again, who suspended armed struggle for negotiations with the apartheid regime to proceed smoothly (see Cordeiro-Rodrigues 2018: 669). Cordeiro-Rodrigues notes the ubuntu principles involved in this regard:

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After war, there is no reason why one ought to engage in violent acts, because (1) nonviolent acts are available and are the most ethical option to take if available and (2) doing so will not further the objectives of promoting social harmony. These ideas are reflected in how to address war criminals and what policies to apply after war.

Features of African just war theory So far, an attempt has been made to survey the scholarship on the development of the idea of the African just war. It seems apposite, at this point, to foreground certain features of the subject of the intellectual survey. First, one could see that the discussion of the idea of the African just war has been philosophically broad-based. Systematic scholarly attempts have been made to derive, analyse and harmonize its theoretical contents from African ethics, African metaphysics, African epistemology, and so on. Thus, it could be described as a philosophically robust intellectual outcome. Second, the whole idea has been, critically examined, reactive. It is, perhaps, a theoretical response to the external impetus, constituted by popular Western just war theory, that African philosophical thought could as well produce a moral framework for the management of the phenomenon of war, within the confines of African beliefs, norms and values. Third, it is also significant to note that it is an intellectual output of scholars from within and without. As taxonomized in the earlier part of the work, both African and non-African thinkers have substantially contributed to the evolution and the development of African just war theory. This also makes it intellectually robust, apart from being philosophically robust. Fourth, just as has been done with Western just war theory, scholarly attempts are also being made to extend the applicability of the African just war theory to other related areas. Badru’s (2020) ‘African political ethics of neighbourliness’ seems to be a scholarly effort in this regard.

Summary and conclusion In this entry, an attempt has been made to forensically examine the evolution and the development of the idea of just war within the context of African beliefs, norms and values. To properly address the issues involved, we first examined some necessary conceptual issues in the exercise, and later discussed Western theoretical influence on just war theorizing by the philosophers on Africa examined. Thereafter, we focused on the scholarly efforts of some philosophers on Africa, relative to just war theorizing in Africa. Specifically, we noted that the phrase ‘philosophers on Africa’ is actually an umbrella concept for the three groups of philosophers who have contributed to the development of the idea of just war in Africa, which are African-born philosophers (continental or diasporic), non-African philosophers on the continent of Africa, and

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non-African philosophers that are not resident in Africa. Lastly, we touched on some of the central features of the idea of the African just war. It is hoped that future researchers on the idea of the African just war would further extend their intellectual frontiers in its discussion so as to intelligibly apply the theory to other conflict-related phenomena, such as terrorism, revolution, intelligence gathering, and so on.

References Badru, Ronald Olufemi. 2020. ‘Pluralism and African Conflict: Towards a Yoruba Theory of African Political Ethics of Neighbourliness’. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Social Ethics, eds. Nimi Waribiko and Toyin Falola, 167–83. Cham: Springer Nature. Badru, Ronald Olufemi. 2019. ‘An African Philosophical Account of Just War Theory’. Ethical Perspectives 26(2) : 153–81. Baker, Deane-Peter, and Deborah Roberts. 2007. ‘Extending Just War Theory: The Jus ad Bellum and the Capabilities approach to Armed Conflict’. Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies 35(2). doi: 10.5787/35-2-36 Bellaby, Ross. 2012. ‘What’s the Harm? The Ethics of Intelligence Collection’. Intelligence and National Security 27(1): 93–117. Berkebile, Richard E. 2018. ‘New Generation Warfare and Just War Tradition’. InterAgency Journal 9(3): 17–33. Coady, Tony. 2002. The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. Chasi, Colin. 2017. ‘Tutuist Ubuntu and Just War’. Politikon 45(2): 232–44. Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Luís. 2020. ‘Yoruba Philosophy and Moral Constraints to War’. Ethical Perspectives 27(4): 359–74. Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Luís. 2018. ‘African Views of Just War in Mandela and Cabral’. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 32(4): 657–74. Deuteronomy Ch. 23, New American Standard Bible. Available online at: https://bible. knowing-jesus.com/topics/War#thematic_title_54260. Deuteronomy Ch. 20, Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV) 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Finlay, Christopher, J. 2017. ‘Just and Unjust Coups d’état? Zimbabwe and the Ethics of Military Takeover’. Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace, 24 November, blog. Available online at: http://stockholmcentre.org/just-and-unjust-coups-detatzimbabwe-and-the-ethics-of-military-takeover/. Finlay, Christopher J. 2015. Terrorism and the Right to Resist: A Theory of Just Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Floyd, Rita. 2011. ‘Can Securitization Theory be used in Normative Analysis? Towards a Just Securitization Theory’. Security Dialogue 42(4–5): 427–39. Genesis Ch. 14, Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), 2nd ed. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Publishers, Inc., 1996, 2004. Johnson, James, T. 2020. ‘Just War, International Law’. Encyclopedia Britannica. Available online at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/just-war. Ledgister, Georgette Mulunda. 2020. ‘When the Ancestors Wage War: Mystical Movements and the Ethics of War and Warfare’. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Social Ethics, eds. Nimi Waribiko and Toyin Falola, 217–30. Cham: Springer Nature.

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Luke Ch. 14, New American Standard Bible. Available online at: https://bible.knowingjesus.com/Luke/14/31. Mandela, Nelson. 1995. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, new ed. London: Abacus. Metz, Thaddeus. 2020. ‘An African Theory of Just Causes for War’. In Comparative Just War Theory: An Introduction to International Perspectives, eds. Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues and Danny Singh, 131–55. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Omotoso, Sharon Adetutu. 2018. ‘An African Womanist View of Just War Theory in Tunde Kelani’s The Narrow Path’. African Notes 42(1&2): 56–74. Paterson, Eric. 2016. ‘Just War Theory & Terrorism’. Providence (Summer): 38–44. Reichberg, Gregory, and Henrik Syse. 2000. ‘Protecting the Natural Environment in Wartime: Ethical Considerations from the Just War Tradition’. Journal of Peace Research 37(4): 449–68. Russell, Frederick, H. 1975. The Just War in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sheeran, Patrick, J. 1993. Ethics in Public Administration: A Philosophical Approach. Praeger, London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Sterba, James, P. 1987. ‘Just War Theory and Nuclear Strategy’. Analyse & Kritik 9, S. 155–74.

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Animals and the Environment Kai Horsthemke

Ethics and religion on the African continent Moral philosophy on the African continent and within the African diaspora has, for a long time, ignored the status of other-than-human animals and the environment. It is only in recent years that questions pertaining to their consideration and treatment, and relevant human responsibilities, have begun to receive serious attention from scholars working within African philosophy. While there exists no single unified ‘African ethic’ or ‘African moral outlook’, there are nonetheless certain core ideas that appear with astonishing regularity across African (especially sub-Saharan) societies and cultures. There appears to be agreement that the striking commonalities and shared concerns among most African communities render it possible to generalize without causing confusion and ambiguity. The focus in this chapter is on the status of non-human animals and the natural environment, in order to guide reflections on African ethics. Other common themes, like ubuntu, ukama, the importance of community and relationships, and the roles played by God, spirits, ancestors, totems and taboos, are necessarily related to the chosen theme and will be scrutinized in what follows. A common view is that religion permeates all aspects of African existence and, especially, that it is the foundation of all philosophical and ethical considerations in Africa. African critics of the religionist position, however, have alleged that it fails to acknowledge not only the intellectual prowess of Africans but also the spread of secularism on the African continent (see Horsthemke 2015: 30–3). In other words, African atheists would not accept divine command theory. Apart from emphasizing that the scriptures contain characteristically untrustworthy testimony, are ambiguous and frequently contradictory, and cannot provide guidance regarding modern ethical problems and dilemmas, atheists would claim that ethics and morality have nothing to do with God’s will or command. In addition, the religionist position encounters a substantial dilemma. Is something morally right (or wrong) because God commands (or forbids) it (see Molefe 2019: 74)? Or does God command (or forbid) something because it is morally right (or wrong)? If it is the former, then God could command anything, and it would be morally right. After all, nothing is right or wrong before (or independently of) God’s command or prohibition. Only God’s will makes something right or wrong. Not only would this view render morality arbitrary, but the doctrine of 325

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God’s goodness, too, would become meaningless. If it is the latter, on the other hand, then a standard of right and wrong exists independently of God’s will, and we do not need to consult God’s word in order to decide what to do or how to live. Thus, in taking the latter option, we have abandoned the theocentric conception of right and wrong because we have independent access to morality. A more recent version of the religionist position, ‘ethical supernaturalism’ (Molefe 2019), sees African ethics as having a non-humanist supernatural foundation. It involves the rejection of humanism as the best interpretation of African ethics (60), on the grounds that humanism by definition fails to accord moral standing to nonhuman animals, nature and the environment for their own sake. But surely ethical supernaturalism encounters a very similar difficulty, in that nature matters or is morally considerable only because it is (part of) God’s creation. It follows that human duties and responsibilities regarding animals and the environment are actually owed directly only to God. While it has been suggested that ‘duties to God and the ancestors could plausibly ground duties to the environment’ (Chemhuru 2019: 30), the latter will necessarily be indirect duties, in that they are owed directly only to God not to neglect, maltreat or despoil his creation. Failure to take appropriate care of animals and degradation of the environment would also displease the ancestors, in their role as mediators between human beings and God. More recent versions of the non-religionist position acknowledge the growing influence of environmental ethics within African philosophy and either defend a novel kind of ecohumanism against the charge of (humanist) anthropocentrism (Eze 2017) or appeal to a distinction between ‘humanism’ and ‘humanness’ (Ramose 2005: 105, 108; Le Grange 2015: 305, 306). Humanness, unlike humanism, is claimed not to imply placing human beings at the centre of all analysis and concern. Both eco-humanism and humanness are considered to be compatible with biocentrism and ecocentrism (see also Etieyibo 2017a, b). As the discussion of ubuntu later in this chapter will show, however, it is not at all clear whether this is correct. A key idea needs to be explained at this juncture, namely that of moral anthropocentrism. Just as Afrocentrism places Africans and Africa at the centre of analysis, anthropocentrism (or human-centredness) essentially refers to placing the focus of analysis on human beings and humanity. It is concerned, for example, with what it means to ‘be human’. In terms of (informing) a perspective on moral matters, anthropocentrism assigns special value or worth to human beings. It is with regard to their essential humanity that human beings matter. On this view, therefore, the putative moral value or worth of non-humans will always be measured against (and be derivative from) this human essence, i.e. insofar as they possess characteristics that resemble those of human beings (see also Horsthemke 2015: 5). In what follows, unless indicated otherwise, I will be using ‘anthropocentrism’ to refer to ‘moral anthropocentrism’. Even in the judgement of global warming denialists, the prospects for Africa are dire: Africa is most vulnerable to climate change. Southern Africa, in particular, faces imminent food and water shortages. South Africa has the third highest level of biodiversity in the world. If, as seems to be a foregone conclusion, the southern part of Africa is going to ‘dry up’, the implications for biodiversity will be severe (see

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Horsthemke 2009). Desertification and deforestation constitute substantial threats to biodiversity. While some consider ignorance and poverty to be among the chief contributors to environmental degradation on the African continent (Chimakonam 2018b: 1; Fayemi and Balogun 2018: 106, 107), others see environmental degradation as a result of colonialism (Agada 2018: 82). Of course, these views are not mutually exclusive. Ironically, while climate change and its effects amount to an array of African problems, they are not Afrogenic. But does this absolve Africans from any responsibility, wrongdoing or blame for their environmental predicament? The issue is not only how the lamentable state of the (African) environment, and the ongoing loss of biodiversity could be explained, but also how African ethics and values are positioned to confront these and related problems. It remains an interesting (if rather romantic) hypothesis that Africa existed in a state of balance and harmony prior to the ravages of colonial expansion and subsequent globalization and the neoliberal obsession with growth. When expanding on the ethical resources within African philosophy to deal with these issues, responses vacillate between emphasis of cultural variance of moral values, on the one hand, and the universality of morality, on the other, sometimes within one and the same sentence (see, for example, Le Grange 2015: 307; Oyeshile 2018: 65). The next section examines some notions commonly associated with African ethics.

Traditional African perceptions and current practices: The hierarchy of beings, taboos and totemism One of the common ideas within African religious and secular orientations is the hierarchy of beings, which invariably places non-human life forms in an inferior position to humans. This ontological hierarchy is composed of several levels and forms an intricate web of relations. At the top of the hierarchy (at least according to religious orientations), unsurprisingly, is the creator-god, who is responsible for all existence and has designed and created all beings, living and non-living. These are, in hierarchical order, the spirits (which often act like divinities), ancestors or ‘living-dead’ (who act as mediators between humans and God), human beings (both those of who exist presently and those yet-to-be-born), animals, plants (which are often assumed to occupy the same level as animals, in that they are used by human beings for sustenance and sacrifice), and finally ‘non-living beings such as air, water, and soils’ (Chemhuru 2019: 30), rocks, minerals, mountains, rivers, stars, etc. A related way of establishing this hierarchy would be in terms of vitality or life force, whether or not dispensed by God (who is ‘at the apex of the ladder’, according to some orientations) in varying degrees to ‘spirits and then ancestors, humans, animals, and inanimate beings’ (Etieyibo 2017b: 153). According to the African view of the universe, there is an interrelationship of all beings, living and non-living: all created beings depend on each other (and God). The universe is viewed as the totality of all existence, spiritual and physical. Thus, ‘the African hierarchy of ontology’ is considered to hold ‘significance for environmental ethics’ (Chemhuru 2019: 29), with a few non-African notions thrown in for good measure. Munamato Chemhuru refers, inter alia, to ‘vitalism, sentience, subject of a life, well-being and degree of vital force’ (31). Apart from possible clashes between these

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different approaches, many of these are not ‘African’ – so it remains unclear in what way the view espoused here is ‘a uniquely African view of the moral status of nature, one that fundamentally differs from other views [that are] dominant [in] much of Western philosophical thinking’ (29). Moreover, biocentrism and vitalism would not apply to rocks, rivers, etc., in abstraction from the living organisms they host – neither would sentience, subject of a life, welfarism. ‘Within the African ontological hierarchy, non-human animals and plants’ – unlike rocks and stones – ‘are vital forces by virtue of possession of life’ (35). Although they are ‘referred to as “lower forces” these non-human animals and plants that possess life have their own vital force such that they complement the teleological dimension of existence’ (35). This legitimates instrumentalization by the self-proclaimed ‘higher forces’: it is the purpose or telos of animals and plants to benefit humans. Chemhuru (34) claims that ‘it is not possible to grant all beings equal moral status . . . This is because all beings do not occupy the same level of existence within the African hierarchy of existence.’ Quite apart from the circularity of this argument and concerns about the plausibility of hierarchical thinking, generally, there is a confusion here between ‘sameness’ and ‘equality’. Men and women, members of different cultures and ethnicities, and human and non-human animals are not the same, clearly. They are not identical – but does this mean that they are also not equal? Do they differ perhaps not in kind but in degree – and if so, in degree of what, exactly? This gradational approach reappears in relation to the question of value: ‘what degree of inherent value could be assigned to different life forms?’ (39; emphasis added) But how would one quantify (i.e. measure degrees of) inherent value? And, if there exists substantial inequality in moral status, then why appeal to ‘inherent value’ at all? Morality, in the African understanding, is a matter of human relationships, typically with God, the ancestors and non-human creation. The ancestors play a vital role in the lives of Africans in that they act as a link between God and living human beings. They are consulted regularly during ceremonies at which animals are routinely slaughtered. Failure to engage in such sacrificial activities is believed to provoke the wrath not only of the ancestors but also of God. Rituals of sacrificial slaughter constitute a widespread practice on the African continent, as a part of all kinds of religious, traditional or cultural ceremonies. Sacrifices and offerings may be directed not only to God but also to the spirits and the ancestors, for purposes of healing, to revive or restore relationships between the living and the ancestors, on the one hand, and the spiritual world, on the other. Living human beings communicate with the dead by regular sacrifice and invocation. The kind of animal to be slaughtered varies with the respective social and economic circumstances. The defence of ritual slaughter often invokes some kind of cultural relativism. This view and the culturalist justification of sacrificial slaughter have been shown to be hugely problematic – logically, normatively and empirically (Horsthemke 2015: 44–62). If there are no norms or values beyond those of particular cultures, what then would account for the imperative of respect that is invariably introduced by traditionalists? Furthermore, is the view of culture as fixed and unmalleable, impervious to external influence and inspiration, not also empirically mistaken? Traditional African perceptions of and interaction with the non-human world usually emphasize that, in the past, African people did not regard themselves as being

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above the animals, birds, fish and trees (Mutwa 1996). Carefully observed, however, it is evident that the ‘value’ of, and basis of ‘respect’ for, wild animals – like domestic animals – and the extra-human environment is determined by their function in the lives of human beings, their purpose and the use to which they are put by human beings, more often than not guided by superstition. For example, the taboos placed on killing certain animals are frequently arbitrary. One clan’s totem animal often turns out to be another clan’s favourite ‘bush meat’, just as one clan’s sacred site is another clan’s garbage dump. The human-centred, instrumental approach to environmental ethics is starkly manifest in the idea of human environmental responsibility as an obligation to future generations (although there is also an acknowledgement of some kind of agency on the part of non-human nature: thus, non-humans are not necessarily seen as ‘blameless’, and mention is made of the ‘aggressiveness and destructiveness of nature’; Agada 2018: 190). The notion of human environmental responsibility as an obligation to future generations is not exclusively ‘Western’ or ‘Northern’. A Kenyan proverb states: ‘The world was not given to you by your parents, it was lent to you by your children.’ In this regard, too, ‘each generation’s possession of the environment’ has been likened ‘to a mortgage, suggesting that the land is not so much owned as it is on loan to its current users’ (Behrens 2018: 52), and Jonathan Chimakonam (2018b: 2, 4) speaks of ‘our failure as future human ancestors’. The idea that the current or present generation ought to be grateful ‘to their predecessors for having preserved the environment for their sake’ (Behrens 2018: 52; emphasis added) is hardly a compelling foundation for environmental concern. If anything, this might be considered a case of intergenerational modelling – and that we, by despoiling the environment, have not learned to model appropriate behaviour.

Ubuntu/botho/hunhu, ukama, ohanife and African environmentalism There have been various attempts in recent years (Etieyibo 2017a; Eze 2017: 629; Chemhuru 2018; Mangena 2018: 196, 198, 206) to employ ubuntu (botho or hunhu) as a viable ecophilosophy (Le Grange 2012, 2015), as a locus for ‘fostering human respect for the environment’ (Makgoba 1996: 23), as an orientation towards ‘a complex wholeness involving the multi-layered and incessant interaction of all entities’ and that ‘applies also with regard to the relation [balance and harmony] between human beings and physical or objective nature’ (Ramose 2005: 105, 106), and as ‘an expression of interconnectedness between people themselves, and between people and the biophysical world’ (Le Grange 2012: 63). The African principle of human interdependence states that a person becomes a person through other persons: a human being depends on human beings to be a human being. Or, in other words, ‘I am because we are.’ The critique of a generalized notion of ubuntu environmental ethics (Gwaravanda 2019), based on the concern that ubuntu is ‘local’, is not very convincing. After all, the ideas of botho and hunhu in sub-Sahara Africa and of maat in northern Africa indicate strong, shared conceptual and normative commitments across the continent.

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Nonetheless, ubuntu appears to be a dubious candidate for deep environmental concerns. In focusing essentially on human beings, ubuntu is by definition anthropocentric (Horsthemke 2015; Nweke 2018: 156), at least insofar as it is defined in terms of humanness and personhood. At best, then, the principle(s) in question yield what is generally referred to as an ‘indirect-duty view’ regarding animate nature: maltreatment of animals and environmental degradation are to be avoided first and foremost because of their effects on humans. The charge of anthropocentrism against ubuntu has been denied by several philosophers (Le Grange 2015; Etieyibo 2017a, b; Manzini 2019: 156), although these denials amount to little more than bald assertion. Additional problems regarding ubuntu arise from its proximity to androcentrism. Ubuntu has been shown to be anything but innocent in female oppression (Horsthemke 2015: 159 n. 10, 162 n. 4; Kelbessa 2018: 99 n. 9). The charge of androcentrism is made especially salient by frequent references to the nexus between women’s empowerment and care for the environment (Fayemi and Balogun 2018). Africa has other conceptual resources that might help address questions around direct ethical responsibility regarding non-human nature, resources that involve an extension of the traditional ideas of ‘relatedness’ and ‘relationality’. Whereas some thinkers emphasize African holism, ‘solidarity with creation as a whole’ (Bujo 2009: 284) and ‘cosmic community’ (296), others (Murove 2009; Le Grange 2012, 2015) draw on the notion of ukama. They claim ukama asserts that a person can only be a person in, with and through not just other people (those who are still alive as well as ancestors) and but also in, with and through the natural environment. Ukama (meaning ‘relatedness’; Murove 2009: 302) ‘is a Shona word implying relationship and an understanding of reality in terms of interdependence. Grammatically ukama is an adjective constructed u-kama. . . . Kama becomes a word meaning to milk a cow or goat. In Shona thought the idea of milking suggests closeness and affection’ (316). Tellingly, the ‘closeness’ in question derives from an animal being used, first and foremost, for human ends and purposes. Indeed: ‘Umuntu [man] is always in need of others and these others, as suggested in ukama, also imply the natural environment’ (324). Just insofar, one might add, as the ‘natural environment’ (which may be taken to include animals) meets and satisfies umuntu’s needs – personal, cultural or other: ‘In its adjectival form, ukama means being related or belonging to the same family. However, in Shona, as in many other African languages, the meaning of ukama is not restricted to marital or blood ties. This culture tends to see all people as hama (relatives)’ (316). ‘All people’ – which effectively excludes non-human animals and the environment. Therefore, the non-anthropocentric orientation some (e.g. Le Grange 2012, 2015; Behrens 2018) claim to detect in ukama appears to be illusory, i.e. not properly founded: most of the supporting examples collected here (Behrens 2018: 43–6, 49, 52) exhibit broadly human-centred leanings. Similarly, the assertion that the principles of the deep ecology movement, and ‘the notion of wholeness of the earth’ expressed in the Gaia hypothesis, ‘have resided among African peoples for many centuries through notions such as ukama’ (Le Grange 2012: 62; see also Le Grange 2015: 301, 304, 306, 307) is rather misleading in that it contains a false analogy. Neither the principles of the deep ecology movement nor the basic ideas of the Gaia hypothesis are human-centred – unlike ukama (or ubuntu, for that matter).

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At the heart of African ethics is the idea of relationality and the value of relationships (Chimakonam 2018a: x, 2018b: 6 and 2018c; Metz 2018; Mweshi 2019), which arguably goes beyond the naive forms of community, communalism and holism that have been embraced by less reflective practitioners and that have, indeed, been targeted by those not favourably disposed towards African moral philosophy. Of course, relationalism could be rejected tout court on the grounds that it misses or misinterprets certain aspects of moral status and moral rights (see Horsthemke 2015: 85–92). If it is accepted not only as a representative but also as a viable, deep African environmental ethic, however, then it arguably cannot have the kinds of hierarchical implications some thinkers (e.g. Etieyibo 2017a, b; Metz 2018: 39; Metz 2019; Chemhuru 2019: 34) draw from it. In terms of establishing such a deep environmental ethic, it should also be borne in mind that the construction of a hierarchy could follow any number of criteria. After all, if a hierarchy were constructed on the basis of sociality, social or communal organization, etc., bees, ants and termites would come out near the top, and mammals like baboons, African wild dogs and elephants would outrank humans by some distance. ‘I am because we are’ could quite coherently be extended equally to all those who could make up the ‘we’. The issue, surely, is not who or what is able to commune with or relate to us, i.e. human beings, but who or what plays a significant role in making life, communion and relations possible at all, in contributing to the very possibility of life on earth – still our only home.

Environmental justice, biocentrism and ecocentrism Anthropocentrism appears not only in traditional African perceptions and world views; it also (and explicitly) pervades post-apartheid and postcolonial environmental politics, like the idea of environmental justice (contra Ssebunya et al. 2019; see Horsthemke 2015: 118–21). Although it is acknowledged that ‘justice for humans is tied to justice for the physical environment’ (Agada 2018: 183), a ‘fundamental difference’ between humans and other living things, including animals, is commonly postulated (Oyeshile 2018: 58). The point is that ‘ontological variance’ is compatible with ‘ontological equality’: ‘The fact that trees are different from humans in their ontological structure does not mean that the property of treeness is inferior to the property of humanness in the ecosystem’ (Chimakonam 2017c: 122). That the adoption of an anthropocentric agenda is politically expedient is not in doubt. The interesting question is whether it is ethically coherent. Thus, a critique might take issue with the notion of justice employed here and counter the idea of justice-as-reciprocity with that of subject-centred justice. Moreover, the ethics of anthropocentrism might be shown either to have undesirable implications or to be logically and ethically incoherent, or both. The case against moral anthropocentrism is two-pronged (Horsthemke 2010: 135–58). The ‘argument from non-paradigmatic cases’ (also known as the ‘argument from marginal cases’ and the ‘argument from species overlap’) states that any account designed to exclude animals from the realm of (directly) morally considerable beings will also exclude certain human beings (like young children and people with cognitive disabilities, senile dementia, and the like). The ‘argument from speciesism’ holds that excluding animals

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simply on the basis of their not being human is an irrational prejudice not unlike that involved in sexism and racism (see also Horsthemke 2015: 125–46). Some scholars, in defending (moderate) anthropocentrism and human bestowal or withholdings of value (Oyeshile 2018: 63, 64; Agada 2018: 187) have dismissed this charge of prejudice, on the grounds that ‘all standpoints are anthropocentric’ (Agada 2018: 188, 190, 191, 192): ‘We have no epistemic access to the perspectives of animals and physical nature. Consequently, the granting of intrinsic value to animals and the physical environment is at the pleasure of the human being. Anthropocentrism considers the charge of chauvinism levelled against it and dismisses it precisely on this ground of the primary standpoint’ (185). ‘The epistemological standpoint, our window on the world, is necessarily ‘anthropic’ . . . Our beliefs and values are anthropic by virtue of their subjective character. These beliefs and values are also anthropocentric by virtue of being shaped by our experience of the world in our capacity as human beings. A pro-environment view that accuses humans of chauvinism is no less anthropocentric than the anti-environment view it disparages, for the former is shaped by events in the world that revolve around the human phenomenon’ (192). However, while there are obvious problems with speaking of the standpoint of nature, or of the earth, animal standpoint theory is both clear and compelling. There is an impressive, steadily expanding array of empirical evidence available for establishing that other-than-human animals have rich conscious and conative lives, experiences and abilities that are often on a par with those of human beings – and sometimes indeed transcend these. The more serious question would be, however, what animals’ perspectives are, what they consist in. How do we know what ‘the animal standpoint’ comprises? How can we speak with any authority on the plurality of perspectives that make up the animal standpoint? The contention is that we cannot, as humans, presume to make claims or demands from a standpoint that is necessarily, and essentially, not our own. Despite the enormous diversity of animals, in their needs, abilities and experiences, it is arguably easier to establish something like an ‘animal standpoint’ than it may be to determine ‘the’ standpoint of women, workers or indigenous people. We can ask the questions: What are the interests of animals, as opposed to the interests of exploiters, or humans generally? What would animals want, to live or to die? With a modicum of imagination and empathy we can arrive at satisfactory answers, without needing to consult past histories or engage in discourses of reparation, restorative justice and affirmative action. The morally significant aspects of the animal standpoint are not inaccessible. They concern the need and ability to live in peace, without being subjected to physical and psychological discomfort, stress, distress and trauma, and without their lives being prematurely terminated. These needs and preferences are essential features of the animal standpoint that are easily accessed via ‘imaginative empathy’ (Nneji 2010: 40) and sympathy.

A ‘truly African paradigm of knowledge’? In discussions about animals and the environment, African scholars frequently appeal to traditional (i.e. African) ecological knowledge. Thus, the literature on African

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environmental ethics contains references to a ‘truly African paradigm of knowledge’ (Chimakonam 2018a: xi), ‘the failure to . . . tap into . . . indigenous knowledge systems’ (Mangena 2018: 196), the putative distinction between ‘Western science’ and ‘African science’ (Nweke 2018: 153, 154), the ‘impact of colonization on African epistemologies’ (Madavo 2019: 143), the significance of ‘alternative’ or ‘Southern epistemologies’ (Manzini 2019: 111, 112, 120, 121), ‘the African knowledge system’ (Diawuo and Issifu 2018: 219) and ‘the African epistemological paradigm’ (Gwaravanda 2019: 83). The motivation for a focus on indigenous (African) knowledge is fairly easy to explain, especially when one considers the denigration, suppression and exploitation of so-called traditional knowledge systems during and even after colonialism. The reclamation project that underlies this renewed focus is not only epistemological but is also concerned with legislation and social justice. It is clearly not difficult to be in principled agreement with what underlies many indigenous knowledge projects. First, the marginalization of indigenous peoples’ practices, skills and insights has, to a large extent, been arrogant and of questionable rationality. Second, current attempts by industrially and technologically advanced nations to (re)colonize or appropriate for commercial gain these practices, skills and insights are exploitative and contemptible. Finally, and most to the point of the central concern in this chapter, ‘Western’ or ‘Northern’ knowledge, science, technology and ‘rationality’ have led to, or have had as a significant goal, the subjugation of nature, and so far have been devastatingly effective. The pursuit of nuclear energy, wholesale deforestation and destruction of flora and fauna, factory farming of non-human animals for human consumption, experimentation and cosmetics testing on animals, and genetic engineering are deplorable and – indeed – irrational, given questionable benefits, difficulties in extrapolation, and the like. Although scholars have been at pains to provide their understanding of ‘indigenous’, ‘African’ and/or ‘traditional’, a question that remains largely unaddressed is whether the idea of ‘indigenous knowledge’ makes any sense. A central problem appears to be the lack of clarity about the meaning or understanding of ‘knowledge’. Defenders of the idea of indigenous (African) knowledge commonly refer to both ‘skills’ and ‘knowledge’ – which suggests, in the absence of any definition, that the idea is meant to cover both practical and theoretical (factual or propositional) knowledge. Insofar as ‘knowledge’ in the latter sense includes reference to ‘truth’, this implies that truth, too, could be ‘indigenous’ or ‘African’. On a related point, there is a frequent confusion of beliefs/ belief systems and knowledge (see, for example, Diawuo and Issifu 2018: 213). A problem that would need to be addressed is that of relativism (about both knowledge and truth) and of the implications of taking epistemological relativism seriously. A further question concerns the basis, if there is one, for distinguishing between knowledge and superstition within indigenous African belief systems. There are numerous examples of superstition and anthropocentric rituals being passed off as ‘knowledge’: the performance of atetee ceremonies in Ethiopia that involve among other things ‘the shedding of cow blood’ (Kelbessa 2018: 93); the ‘view in African philosophy that the world is divided into three’: not only ‘the world of human beings including other animate and inanimate but tangible existents’ but also ‘the world of spiritual entities/deities’ and ‘the ancestral world of the living dead’ (Nweke 2018: 158 n. 5; see also Mangena 2018: 199, 201), for whom sacrifices must be made; ‘rain-making’

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(Madavo 2019); and totemism and taboos in Ghana (Diawuo and Issifu 2018: 214, 216, 218). While it makes little to no sense to speak of ‘indigenous’ or ‘African’ theoretical (propositional or factual) knowledge, to speak of indigenous skills or African practical knowledge seems to be fairly unproblematic, both logically and empirically. Moreover, a San elder’s knowledge of the appetite- and thirst-suppressant properties of the !khoba cactus constitutes knowledge that was not initially shared by many – indeed, perhaps not even by the younger San – but it has transregional value and application. Similarly, the insight of a sangoma (someone who diagnoses illness) or an inyanga (a traditional healer) that one should only use a limited amount of bark from a given tree, or that one should harvest no more than one-tenth of a given natural resource (i.e. harvest a plant only if it is one of ten such plants growing in the vicinity), constitutes an insight that may not be shared by many (if it were, our planet would arguably be in a much better, healthier state), but it has universal value and application. There is a surprising amount of common ground between cultures, not only in terms of factual knowledge but also in terms of values.

Towards a non-anthropocentric African ethic? African morality (whether religious or secular) is demonstrably anthropocentric. However, anthropocentrism is not an essential or necessary feature of African moral philosophy. On the contrary, the latter has certain normative resources at its disposal for a comprehensive overhaul of the traditional stances and world views that inform it. Thus, the Igbo concept of ohanife unites ‘people, usually in a group, community of network’ (oha) and non-human life (ife) (Chimakonam 2018c: 123), which arguably amounts to a rejection of anthropocentrism. ‘When things fall apart in the architecture of the environment, the only entity to be blamed is oha’ (Chimakonam 2018c: 127). In fact, ife (non-human nature) can do very well without oha. Ife does not need humans and would almost certainly thrive in the absence of oha (or muntu). While bees, butterflies, dung beetles and earthworms are important to the integrity and diversity of ife, oha could be removed from earth ecosystems without adverse effect. Oha (muntu) is the one species the earth could well do without. The realization that ‘I am because we are’ could quite coherently be applied beyond the human realm, however, suggests the need for both sincerity and practical consistency on the part of African ethicists. Given the brutal and dehumanizing ravages of colonialism, racism and apartheid that Africans have historically been subjected to, it seems to be reasonable to invite concerned and thinking people in sub-Sahara Africa, especially, to reflect on an even longer, more deeply entrenched historical process of discrimination, oppression and exploitation, namely that of species apartheid. Perhaps the minimal insight one could reasonably expect from African liberatory ethics is that true human liberation also consists in the act of human beings freeing themselves from the role of subjugators, from the oppressive and exploitative relationship they have with the rest of animate nature, and especially from dependence on other-than-human animals at the expense of the latter’s lives, freedom and well-being.

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References Agada, A. 2018. ‘Catalyzing Climate Change Action in Nigeria: Moderate Anthropocentrism and the African Perspective of the Cosmos’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 177–95. London and New York: Routledge. Behrens, K. G. 2018. ‘An African Account of the Moral Obligation to Preserve Biodiversity’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 42–57. London and New York: Routledge. Bujo, B. 2009. ‘Ecology and Ethical Responsibility from an African Perspective’. In African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, ed. M. F. Murove, 281–97. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Chemhuru, M. 2019. ‘The Moral Status of Nature: An African Understanding’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 29–46. Cham: Springer. Chimakonam, J. O. 2018a. ‘Preface’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, x–xi. London and New York: Routledge. Chimakonam, J. O. 2018b. ‘Introduction: Should African Philosophers Care About the Sub-Saharan Environment?’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 1–8. London and New York: Routledge. Chimakonam, J. O. 2018c. ‘Ohanife: An Account of the Ecosystem Based on the African Notion of Relationship’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 120–. London and New York: Routledge. Diawulo, F., and A. K. Issifu. 2018. ‘Exploring the African Traditional Belief Systems (Totems and Taboos) in Natural Resources Conservation and Management in Ghana’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 209–21. London and New York: Routledge. Etieyibo, E. 2017a. ‘Ubuntu and the Environment’. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, eds. A. Afolayan and T. Falola, 633–57. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Etieyibo, E. 2017b. ‘Anthropocentrism, African Metaphysical Worldview, and Animal Practices: A Reply to Kai Horsthemke’. Journal of Animal Ethics 7(2): 145–62. Eze, M. O. 2017. ‘Humanitatis-Eco (Eco-Humanism): An African Environmental Theory’. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, eds. A. Afolayan and T. Falola, 621–32. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Fayemi, A. K., and O. A. Balogun. 2018. ‘Women’s Identities in African Environmental Ethics: A Conversational Approach’, in African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 103–19. London and New York: Routledge. Gwaravanda, E. T. 2019. ‘Ubuntu Environmental Ethics: Conceptions and Misconceptions’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 79–92. Cham: Springer. Horsthemke, K. 2009. ‘Learning for the Natural Environment: The Case Against Anthropocentrism’. US-China Education Review 6(10): 22–30. Horsthemke, K. 2015. Animals and African Ethics. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Horsthemke, K. 2019. ‘Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics in Africa: From Anthropocentrism to Non-speciesism?’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 239–53. Cham: Springer. Kelbessa, W. 2018. ‘Women and the Environment in Africa’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 83–102. London and New York: Routledge.

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Le Grange, L. 2012. ‘Ubuntu, Ukama and the Healing of Nature, Self and Society’. Educational Philosophy and Theory 44(S2): 56–67. Le Grange, L. 2015. ‘Ubuntu/Botho as Ecophilosophy and Ecosophy’. Journal of Human Ecology 49(3): 301–8. Madavo, G. 2019. ‘African Environmental Ethics: Lessons from the Rain-Maker’s Moral and Cosmological Perspectives’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 141–52. Cham: Springer. Makgoba, M. W. 1996. ‘In Search of the Ideal Democratic Model for SA’. Sunday Times (South Africa), 27 October: 23. Mangena, F. 2018. ‘Zimbabwe’s Environmental Crisis: Questioning Ubuntu?’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 196–208. London and New York: Routledge. Manzini, N. Z. 2019. ‘African Environmental Ethics as Southern Environmental Ethics’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 111–23. Cham: Springer. Metz, T. 2018. ‘How to Ground Animal Rights on African Values: A Constructive Approach’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 30–41. London and New York: Routledge. Metz, T. 2019. ‘An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 9–27. Cham: Springer. Molefe, M. 2019. ‘The Criticisms of Secular Humanism in African Philosophy’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 59–76. Cham: Springer. Murove, M. F. 2009. ‘An African Environmental Ethic Based on the Concepts of Ukama and Ubuntu’. in African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, ed. M. F. Murove, 315–31. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Mweshi, J. 2019. ‘The African Emphasis on Harmonious Relations: Implications for Environmental Ethics and Justice’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 191–204. Cham: Springer. Nneji, B. 2010. ‘Eco-Responsibility: The Cogency of Environmental Ethics in Africa’. Essays in Philosophy 11(1): 31–43. Nweke, V. C. A. 2018. ‘Global Warming as an Ontological Boomerang Effect: Towards a Philosophical Rescue from the African Place’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam, 149–60. London and New York: Routledge. Oyeshile, O. A. 2018. ‘Transformation of Urban Space in South-West Nigeria, 2011 to Present: Ethical Issues in Development and Aesthetics’. In African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, ed. J. O. Chimakonam (ed.), 58–69. London and New York: Routledge. Ramose, M. B. 2005. African Philosophy Through Ubuntu, rev. ed. Harare: Mond Publishers. Ssebunya, M., S. N. Morgan and B. D. Okyere-Manu. 2019. ‘Environmental Justice: Towards and African Perspective’. In African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, ed. M. Chemhuru, 175–89. Cham: Springer.

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African Distributive Justice Christopher Simon Wareham

In a continent of massive inequalities, it is unsurprising that much contemporary African debate traverses the territory of distributive justice. While this unequal context informs many ideas concerning justice in Africa, the primary focus of this chapter is on the distinctive contributions of African moral ideas to the philosophical literature on distributive justice. That is, the subject is not distributive justice in Africa, but African conceptions of distributive justice. Similarly, it is clear that international conceptions of distributive justice, such as Marxian egalitarian views, have had a large influence on African political debates. Again, the focus here is on accounts of distributive justice that claim a distinctively African heritage. A further limitation of the intended scope is that the aim here is not to provide a comprehensive account of all African ideas concerning distributive justice. Instead, the focus is on prominent African conceptions of distributive justice in anglophone philosophical literature, pointing to common paths, as well as identifying points at which these paths go in different directions. A final qualification is that the selection of sources is, for the most part, limited to those that engage directly with the core subject matter of distributive justice. At the core of many African ethical systems is a basic tenet of ‘sharing and caring’. While this maxim may seem shallow, the depth of work on the topic of justice enriches the content, providing contributions that are distinctive and rival better-known global ideas in terms of their plausibility. This chapter describes some of this work, first by elucidating the general content and context of distributive justice before discussing key African debates concerning the proper ends, beneficiaries of, and means to distributive justice.

The subject matter of distributive justice Before turning to African contributions to the area, it is useful to provide an overview of the subject matter and themes of distributive justice. Naudé defines distributive justice as

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a form of socio-economic justice that regulates the distribution of goods (however defined) amongst the people of a specific society or amongst societies in a regional or global arrangement. 2016: 207

Theories of distributive justice, then, are theories that aim to provide ethical guidance for the processes and structures that affect the distribution of benefits and burdens – distribuenda such as wealth, health and resources – within and between societies. Among the central questions of distributive justice are: What contexts require principles of justice? Which goods and resources ought to be shared, and which not? Which moral considerations or principles are relevant in determining a fair distribution of benefits and burdens? Which people should be prioritized in allocating burdens and benefits? What procedures ought to be followed in legitimately resolving the above questions?

Distributive justice distinguished One way to further elucidate the focus of distributive justice is through comparison with other conceptions of justice. While it is not always possible to drive a hard conceptual wedge between distributive justice and other conceptions, it is useful to compare it to retributive justice and restorative justice and consider points of difference and potential overlap. These conceptions can be distinguished in part by their core aims. Accounts of retributive justice focus on justice as deserved and proportional punishment. For example, in the context of African debates about land reform, a retributive theorist might attempt to identify conditions under which white landowners could deservedly be punished, as well as determining what a just punishment would consist in. Such considerations are generally backward-looking, in the sense that future consequences, like the satisfaction or well-being of the wronged party, do not figure in the determination of a deserved punishment. By contrast, restorative justice is forward-looking, since its aim is reconciliation between parties. Some punishment is often justified on such approaches if it can contribute to reconciliation. An often-cited example of this type of approach to justice is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which aimed to heal some of the divisions caused by apartheid. A restorative account of the land reform issue may thus encourage giving land to indigenous populations in such a way that resentments can be dissolved. Like restorative justice, distributive justice is generally conceived of as forwardlooking. Theories of distributive justice aim to determine principles and procedures that will define or produce fair distributions of certain goods. Such theories might, for instance, point to the fact that radically unequal land distributions between blacks and whites contribute to unfair distributions of wealth and opportunity. They may, therefore, advocate redistributive schemas to correct these disparities. In doing so they would not necessarily make reference to past wrongs, nor would they necessarily require that just distributions would reduce resentments.

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Although there are general conceptual differences between the aims of these three types of justice, there are important senses in which considerations of retributive justice and restorative justice might overlap with, or be incorporated in, an account of distributive justice. For instance, one might claim that retributive criteria should figure as principles of just distribution. As an example, one could suggest that criminals, as part of the deserved retribution for their crimes, ought to be deprioritized in allocations of health resources, such that distributions favour law-abiding citizens. Similarly, while it is not conceptually necessary that principles of distributive justice are restorative, it is generally the case that some restorative considerations figure into the equation. Positive social consequences, such as reconciliation, are likely to figure as significant desiderata in fair distributive decisions, particularly on African conceptions that place a high premium on harmonious relationships.

The context of distributive justice A further important distinction in debates about distributive justice concerns the context in which distributions take place. Allocation decisions can be thought of as taking place in three contexts: the micro-levels of individual decisions, the meso-levels of organizational policy, and the macro-levels of government or global policy (Wareham 2017). While this terminology is used throughout, it should be noted that these terms may refer to a wide variety of contexts, including questions of fairness within and between families, communities, nations and generations. One reason it is important to distinguish between contexts at the outset is that different principles of distributive justice may apply differently in different contexts. For instance, while it may be justified to employ a principle of partiality in the context of a decision between giving health resources to give bread to my wife or a stranger, partiality to family may appear less justified at the macro-level of state distributions. Indeed, problems with this contextual extension a site of substantial regarding the beneficiaries of distributive justice discussed later. Having sketched the terrain of distributive justice and provided a few useful distinctions, I discuss accounts of African moral ideas that occupy this terrain. I divide this discussion into African contributions to debates about the moral ends of distribution, the justified recipients of distributions, and close with a discussion of procedural criteria for distributive justice.

To what ends should we distribute? Perhaps the deepest divide between accounts of distributive justice concerns the rationale, or justification, for distributive decisions. This section places African contributions in a global context, indicating differences and areas of conceptual overlap between African and Western ideas about the ethical aims of distributions. Thereafter, the focus moves to the implications of two particularly distinctive moral ends in African work on distributive justice: harmony and dignity.

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African conceptions in global context Conceptions of distributive justice in Western contexts suggest that the aims of distribution are, inter alia, to maximize overall good (maximization) (Crisp 1997), to secure equal outcomes (egalitarianism) (Cohen 1989), to prioritize distributions that favour the worse off (prioritarianism) (Rawls 1999), to secure a basic level of goods, sometimes identified as ‘rights’ (sufficientarianism) (Frankfurt 1987), to bring about outcomes that are deserved, perhaps by creating a ‘level playing field’ and reducing the impact of luck (luck egalitarianism) (Arneson 1989), or to ensure that individual liberty is maximally protected (libertarianism) (Nozick 1974). These understandings of the aims of distributive justice have different implications for the procedures and institutions whereby distributive justice is to be achieved. For instance, libertarians may claim that state interventions should be limited to those necessary to protect free transactions, and that little governmental redistribution should occur (Nozick 1974). By contrast, Rawls’s prioritarian ‘Difference Principle’ only permits unequal distributions where such inequalities work to the benefit of the least well off (Rawls 1999). Consequently the ‘Basic Structure’ of a Rawlsian society is larger so as to prevent unjustified inequalities. Drawing from African ethical ideas, African conceptions of distributive justice take concepts like harmony, solidarity, identity, humanness and dignity to be the core ends of distributive outcomes and procedures. However, many of the global rationales above are arguably compatible with African thinking on distributive justice. For instance, Kwame Gyekye appears to provide a welfare maximizing reading of the moral thought of Akan peoples (Gyekye 2011), albeit with an alternative conception of welfare. Others, such as Nyerere and Nkrumah, advance ideas that are strongly egalitarian (Nkrumah 1970; Nyerere 1968). By way of contrast, libertarianism is perhaps most obviously inimical to African ethical systems. Libertarianism is generally regarded as ‘atomistic’ in the sense that it takes the free individual as its ethical unit, much as atoms or particles are the units of science. For libertarians, securing the freedom of the individual is of primary importance. In contrast to this individualistic approach, African conceptions such as ubuntu adopt a more communal and relational perspective, which is exemplified in well-known maxims such as ‘A person is a person through other persons’ and ‘I am because we are.’ These claims are ontological, since ‘I’ could not exist without other persons: our subsistence is secured, and identity and freedom are products of relationships with others in networks of interdependence (Ikuenobe 2015). These ontological claims have ethical implications, since ubuntu posits a need and an obligation to maintain, protect and develop these relationships. Indeed, on some conceptions, the maintenance of human relationships is valued over and above individuals themselves, with individuals’ welfare taking on secondary or derivative importance by virtue of the individual’s capacity to be subjects of relationships. Nkondo, for instance, suggests that a genuinely ubuntu approach ‘should make individuals and their rights and interests subordinate to those of society’ (2007: 96). In this case, the contrast between African communitarian and Western conceptions of distributive justice is at its most stark.1

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Having sketched some differences between the aims and ends of African and global conceptions of distributive justice, I now focus on the role played in conceptions of distributive justice by two core African values: harmony and dignity.

Harmony Sophisticated African accounts of distributive justice tend to propose that a deeper understanding of African moral ends and the moral person justify forms of redistributionism. A foundational idea in Afro-communitarian thought is the value of harmony and harmonious interaction. For Masolo, prizing harmony involves ‘living a life of mutual concern for the welfare of others’ and ‘feeling integrated with as well as willing to integrate others into a web of relations free of friction and conflict’ (Masolo 2010). This in turn is likely to involve ‘cooperative creation and distribution of wealth’. Similarly, Gyekye argues that [a] harmonious cooperative social life requires that individuals demonstrate sensitivity to the needs and interests of others . . . Communitarian moral theory . . . advocates a life lived in harmony and cooperation with others, a life of mutual consideration and aid and of interdependence, a life in which one shares in the fate of the other. 1997

For this reason class-based separations and large disparities of wealth are regarded as unethical in African conversations about distributive justice. Metz, too, advocates a conception of distributive justice that takes harmonious relationships and relationality as its primary source of value (2015). On this view, justice is determined in part due to its impact on harmonious relationships. Inequalities are disvalued since they impact negatively on these relations. Extremes of poverty, for instance, result in social emotions such as shame, envy and inferiority. They also deprive individuals of resources to participate in, and contribute to, communal activities that allow for the development of harmonious relationships. Similarly, for the rich, extremes of wealth create social distance between, and fear of, the poor (Oruka 1997). Failure to share thus violates obligations to generate and improve harmonious relations. Thus, while African moral systems do not explicitly regard resource or outcome equality as intrinsically valuable, the absence of inequality is nonetheless instrumentally valuable in furthering harmony. Behrens goes as far as to argue that a principle of harmony ought to entirely replace or subsume the principle of justice. This is because, while justice, like harmony, is a relational principle ‘[t]here is more to healthy, harmonious, co-operative relationships than justice alone entails’ (2013). This intriguing suggestion raises broader questions about the centrality of distributive justice in Western thinking and whether it is justified to replicate this centrality in African debates. It is important to note that there is disagreement about whether treating harmony as a basic good or distribuendum entails that we should maximize it, even if doing so

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resulted in violations of individual rights. That is, there is a question about whether we should be ‘harmony consequentialists’, or if there are plausible rule-based or rightsbased deontological accounts that can plausibly compete with or constrain harmony maximizing approaches to the distribution of goods (Wareham 2017). Ifeanyi Menkiti’s work may appear antagonistic to human rights-based constraints on maximizing, since ‘personhood is something at which individuals could fail’ (1984). If personhood is inextricably tied to rights, and is only achievable through harmonious collaboration with a collective, then humans that detract from social harmony may lack rights. While this is not conceptually inevitable, it nonetheless presents a challenge at the intersection between communitarianism and human rights conceptions of distributive justice. It is thus unsurprising that the tension between harmony maximizing approaches and respect for the rights of individuals is a consistent theme in thinking on distributive justice (Oyowe 2014). For instance, despite the above-mentioned endorsement of subjugation of rights to collective goods, Gessler Nkondo acknowledges the difficulty in taking the collective as the ‘subject of utility’, and ignoring ‘the separateness of persons’ (2007). Other theorists have done considerable work to remove the misconception that African communitarianism would inevitably disregard rightsbased considerations due to its emphasis on prizing community (Gyekye 1992; Metz 2016; Molefe 2018; Ramose 1999). For instance, as discussed below, respect for human dignity and personhood is seen to ground conceptions of rights that might serve as constraints on decisions that seek to maximize harmony. The content of these accounts is beyond my current scope, but such approaches typically argue that rights – for example, to dignity and life – would justly constrain and inform distributive decisions, over and above the contribution of such rights to maximizing harmony. It is thus important to note that specifying that harmony is a significant moral end of distributive justice does not, by itself, resolve debates over the best way to achieve harmony, or whether there are moral limitations on methods to achieve harmony in distributive decisions.

Dignity, personhood and humaneness As mentioned above, the idea of dignity has been proposed as a constraint on harmony maximizing approaches. However, it has also been put forward as a core substantive value in just distributions, such that the obligation to distribute resources stems from the duty to respect human dignity and moral worth. Masolo suggests that the Luospeaking people in Kenya and neighbouring countries have a conception of equal human dignity that grounds rights which, in turn, impose distributive obligations (2014). Ramose similarly draws a connection between respect for dignity and the African morality of ubuntu. Importantly, the fact of being a-living-human being deserves recognition by all human beings. Furthermore, this recognition must be understood to understood to mean both respect for and protection of the fact of being a-living-human being. 1999: 181

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On Ramose’s view, this basic right to life is the basis of other significant rights such as the right to subsistence and work. Moreover, such rights are, as in Western deontological conceptions, borne equally, so that rules of distributive justice require us to treat claims on scarce resources equally. For Ramose, a major function of distributions is to protect the morally equal claims of the weak from those who are stronger (183). Ramose suggests further that the individual ‘right to life is prior to the establishment of a community or society’. Depending how this ‘priority’ is explicated, Ramose’s perspective may contrast with other interpretations of the role of dignity and humanness. Metz, for instance outlines a perspective whereby worth and dignity are inextricably constituted by human relationships: [P]eople have a human dignity by virtue of their capacity for friendly and communal relationships qua identity and solidarity and . . . various human rights plausibly follow from a requirement to respect dignity so conceived. 2011: 553

This view of dignity has slightly different implications for distributive justice. While Ramose’s view implies that rights to scarce resources are derivative of the fundamental right to life, which is ‘prior’ to the community, Metz’s account suggests that individual rights are derivative of capacities for communal engagement. On this latter view, just distributions are those that respect, protect and further citizens’ rights to commune or engage in friendly or harmonious relationships with others. Respecting human worth involves not only obligations to protect life and subsistence but grounds prioritization of distributions that protect and develop other persons as communal beings. If dignity is instead people’s capacity to share a way of life and care for one another’s quality of life, then duties to enable others to live good lives follow straightaway. One must honour one’s own capacity to care for others, others’ capacity to be cared for, and, moreover others’ capacity to care for others, all of which mean going out of one’s way to help others flourish . . . who can themselves aid others with the goods they have received. 2015

Again, while notions of dignity play a key role in determining criteria for distributive justice, differences in the grounds and substance of conceptions of dignity have concrete implications for what sorts of distributions are regarded as just, and on the question of what is to be distributed. As an example of the role that this extended role that dignity might play in determining the sorts of thing that are distributed, Metz suggests his conception may point to a far richer array of goods that could justly be slated for distribution. The most common goods considered are material or economic resources, such as wealth, land, health, welfare and jobs. However, because of the central distributive goal on African accounts of distributive justice is to enhance sharing and caring, Metz posits that the state should, in addition to distributing basic resources, focus more broadly on resources that enable ‘people to share a way of life and to care for one another’s quality

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of life’. This focus might result in higher priority being accorded to seldom considered goods such as couples counselling, parenting classes and neighbourhood parks (2016). Having discussed the role of two significant values in African work on distributive justice, this chapter turns to a further area of controversy concerning the justified beneficiaries of distributive decisions.

Who is to benefit from distributive decisions? A significant subset of work on distributive justice engages questions about who is to receive the benefits and burdens of distributions. For instance, retributivists or luck egalitarians might argue that smokers or drug addicts ought to benefit less from, or be deprioritized in health resource allocation decisions, since their condition is deserved. Given the emphasis on interdependence in the construction and survival of identity, African accounts appear far less likely to deprioritize such groups on this basis. It should be expected, however, that African ethical systems would be harsh towards free-riders – those who intentionally take advantage of social support structures to gain unjustified benefits. The priority accorded to social harmony is likely to be unforgiving of behaviours with the potential to undermine cohesion and community identity. Besides a tendency towards distributions that further the ends of harmony and cohesion, a further commonality in African accounts of who ought to benefit from distributions concerns their tendency towards partiality. A common feature of African moral beliefs concerns the priority given to existing, close relationships. Kwame Anthony Appiah points to the prevalence of maxims like ‘family first’ and ‘charity begins at home’ in African thinking (1998). Similarly, Julius Nyerere and Augustine Shutte point to the family unit as the paradigm of ethical communal relationships (Nyerere 1968; Shutte 2001). Shutte writes: The extended family is probably the most . . . fundamental expression of the African idea of community . . . [H]umanity itself constitutes a kind of family. 2001

These and other, similar, maxims direct decision-makers to prioritize those near and dear over those distant or unknown. Because of the centrality of family in African tradition, Metz suggests that we should attempt to extend conclusions derived in this micro-level familial context to meso- and macro-levels. One implication of this is that, in a family situation, the head of household ought distribute resources in a ‘balanced’ way. For Metz, this involves distributing preferentially to both the most and the least talented, and providing a fair share to those between. Given this exemplar, he proposes a similar mode of distribution at the macro-level of society, such that both the least and most talented are provided with resources to thrive (2016). This could be seen as an African alternative to Rawlsian prioritarianism mentioned above, which holds inequalities to be justified

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only when they benefit the worst off, and arguably neglects the flourishing of the more talented. However, in distributive justice contexts outside the micro-level, the ‘partiality tenet’ is regarded as unjust (Wareham 2017). Below I discuss debates concerning impartiality at the level of state distributions, international distributions, global distributions and intergenerational decisions. Many of these implicate African theoretical partiality as the major source of disagreement.

State distributions As mentioned, Metz explicitly regards some element of partiality as a justified and hermeneutically plausible understanding of African thinking. On Metz’s view, the partiality tenet is an attractive feature as compared to the impartiality of, for instance, utilitarianism, which instructs us to ignore personal features, such as personal relationships, in maximizing utility. Assimilating partiality plausibly accounts for cases in which we think it is justified to prioritise loved ones over strangers (2010). Against this,Wareham argues that incorporating the partiality tenet as a foundational intuition, as Metz arguably does, results in a theory that accepts nepotistic practices at the macro-level of government decision-making (2017). Wareham proposes instead the desirability of impartial versions of African theories that allow for partiality in micro-level distributive decisions like those involving kin. This differentiation is possible since micro-level partiality contributes to macro-level or state-level harmony, while macro-level partiality is damaging to social harmony.

Global justice While partiality towards kin is regarded as morally mandatory, some theorists take this observation in a radically different direction by suggesting that all of humanity is regarded as kin in sub-Saharan African thought. Etieyibo, in particular, emphasizes an understanding of ubuntu that ‘takes everyone to belong to one human family and takes our duty towards other as grounded on the notion of human-ness’ (2017: 146). This suggests a type of impartiality that is in tension with and, in some cases, in diametric opposition to alternative interpretations of African distributive justice. This tension is particularly apparent in debates about global justice. For example, in contrast to Metz’s acceptance of some degree of preferentialism, Etieyibo entirely rejects the partiality tenet in proposing that ubuntu theory should be viewed as a version of ‘strict cosmopolitanism’. As a moral idea, strict cosmopolitanism entails that a duty to aid others (a) must not be balanced against any additional duty to help those near or dear to us [and] (b) does not increase in strength and level when locals or compatriots are implicated and in question. 20172

One implication of strict cosmopolitanism for global distributive justice is that, efficiency aside, states and individual actors have no greater reason to distribute

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resources to their own citizens than to citizens in foreign nations. This is likely to entail significant transfers of resources from richer to poorer nations, so as to correct unjust disparities. For Etieyibo, the impartial understanding of ubuntu as human-ness, or humaneness, entails an injunction not to recognize nation states in distributive decisions. It also requires limited egalitarianism that accepts some inequalities of wealth, but not disparities in which ‘some people and nations . . . live in abject penury while others live in great opulence’. In this sense Etieyibo’s interpretation of ubuntu morality appears to require impartial global sufficientarianism (2017).

Intergenerational distributions In questions about who should fairly receive a resource, at least two generations of person are relevant in discussions by African theorists. The first is older generations, and the second is future generations. In discussing distributive justice related to the elderly, it is useful to draw attention to a contrast between Western and African ideas. In particular, African theories are likely to differ from utilitarian accounts of distributive justice in treatments of groups such as the elderly. Maximizing accounts of just health distribution, for instance, are likely to deprioritize an elderly person, as compared to a younger person in decisions about who should receive a resource. This is because in most cases a younger person who receives a treatment is likely to gain more healthy life years from the intervention (Wareham 2015). It is, however, questionable that this move would be so seamless on African accounts. Given the emphasis on cohesion, as well as a traditional veneration for the elderly, the enhanced social role of elderly people – as story tellers and weavers of social fabric – is likely to complicate simple utilitarian calculations about health measurement (Aboderin 2017). While the value of the elderly in Afro-communitarian thought is easily seen, it is prima facie less easy to see how it is possible to justly allocate resources that will benefit future generations. This difficulty is made all the more stark if African moral beliefs are perceived as partial. Why should we save any resources for nondescript, unrelated others who are distant in time? If we should not, this presents severe difficulties for African conservationist and environmental movements. In locating obligations towards future generations, Murove considers the concept of ancestor worship in ukama and ubuntu traditions. Far from being in tension with environmentalism, Murove suggests that African ethical beliefs commonly accept that there is a debt to previous generations, and that this generates obligations to future generations, even those with whom there is no familial relationship: [P]ractices that help the present living to commit themselves to the wellbeing of not only ancestors but also of future generations. A concern for the past is inseparable from a concern for the future. It is out of this concern for the future that the present generation is persuaded to live virtuously so that they can be in anamnestic solidarity with future generations. 2004: 213

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This suggestion is developed by Behrens, who argues for the secular plausibility of the claim that there exists an indirect moral obligation towards future people, based on an obligation to predecessors: that the living need to demonstrate gratitude to their ancestors by following their example 2012: 180

Moreover, in African thought, land and the environment as a whole ‘belongs to the community, which comprises past, present, and future generations’ (2012) Since the land itself is a communal resource, obligations to its preservation rest on all members of the community, past, present and future. This suggestion is taken up by Workineh Kelbessa, who argues that the core ideas of interdependence and community extend beyond intergenerational boundaries, further justifying intergenerational transfers of resources – perhaps through present resources on the environment – as a condition of distributive justice (2015).

How should we arrive at distributive decisions? While the above sections focus primarily on ideas about what patterns of, or priorities in distributions are substantively just, there remain important procedural questions about the means or procedures whereby distributive decisions are reached. It is important to mention these, as, on ‘pure’ procedural views, distributive decisions cannot be considered just, if they are not reached by legitimate procedures, even if the outcomes themselves are substantively just. On extreme view of this kind is that the substance of a distribution is irrelevant to the justice of the distribution, provided the procedure used is legitimate (Beitz 1989). Although African thinking on distributive justice tends not to occupy the extreme perspective, there is nonetheless a clear emphasis on the need for legitimate procedures in reaching and carrying out distributive decisions. These almost always require communal participation and generally aim at consensus. For Metz, requirements for harmony and community solidarity require participatory methods. In particular, distributive decisions must be made in a way that esteems relationships of identity . . . for identifying with others is roughly a matter of enjoying a sense of togetherness and engaging in joint projects. [Thus] there is strong moral reason for projects to be participatory, beyond considerations of efficiency. 2017: 135

The implication is that having procedures that are fair, in the sense of encouraging communion, is worth some loss to the efficiency of the outcome of the procedure. If, for instance, participatory procedures reduced effectiveness because they took too

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long, or arrived at decisions that were suboptimal, they may nonetheless be preferred since they contribute to the shared life of the community. The emphasis on consensus and participation in decision-making is a common thread in African thinking on distributive justice and morality more generally. Accordingly, African theorists tend to recommend participatory tools such as indaba, (open discussion by a group of people with a common interest), a lekgotla (a scheduled discussion at a secluded venue), or a pitso (a public assembly for discussing issues of national concern). Letseka 2014

These mechanisms, as well as baraza, are essentially inclusive public meetings, which, in addition to enabling a decision, allow participants to develop and exercise capacities for harmonious engagement (Naanyu et al. 2010). This is achieved both by providing an opportunity for educative interaction in a shared project, and by forcing participants towards compromise and consensus that subjugates individual opinion to the harmony of the collective. The application of such procedures in distributive decision-making may be regarded as influential, and perhaps even determinative of the justice of the outcome.

Conclusion The above discussion highlights that it is inaccurate to represent African thinking on distributive justice as a single, unified and coherent body of work. Substantial disagreement exists, particularly regarding the extent to which core values like harmony require maximization, the extent to which distributions should be impartial, and the proper role of legitimate procedures in decisions about distributive justice. Despite these disagreements, varieties of African work on distributive justice have been thoughtfully applied to areas such as copyright justice (Ncube 2017) and business ethics (Taylor 2014; West 2014). There remain substantive areas within the theories that require development and critique, as well as myriad domains for fruitful practical application of these core concepts.

Notes 1

2

While these ethical foundations play a significant role in preferences for more egalitarian distributive systems in African ethics, it should also be noted that traditional cooperative schemas also favour forms of redistribution. The proper relation between such traditional, historical structures and modern normative ideas is a complex question, which is beyond my current scope. Strict cosmopolitanism is perhaps best understood in contrast to what might be called ‘strict nationalism’. This is the partialist view that states that state actors only have duties to citizens, and distributing resources to serve other interests is supererogatory or even immoral.

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References Aboderin, I. 2017. Intergenerational Support and Old Age in Africa. London: Routledge. Appiah, A. 1998. ‘Ethical systems, African’. In Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, ed. G. Parkinson. London: Routledge. Arneson, R. J. 1989. ‘Equality and equal opportunity for welfare’. Philosophical Studies 56(1): 77–93. Behrens, K. G. 2013. ‘Towards an indigenous African bioethics’. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law 6(1): 32–5. doi:10.7196/SAJBL.255 Behrens, K. G. 2012. ‘Moral obligations towards future generations in African thought’. Journal of Global Ethics 8(2–3):179–91. doi:10.1080/17449626.2012.705786 Beitz, C. R. 1989. Political Equality: An essay in democratic theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cohen, G. A. 1989. ‘On the currency of egalitarian justice’. Ethics 99(4): 906–44. Crisp, R. 1997. Routledge philosophy guidebook to Mill on utilitarianism. Routledge philosophy guidebooks. London: Routledge. doi:10.1080/00201746708601495 Etieyibo, E. 2017. ‘Ubuntu, Cosmopolitanism, and Distribution of Natural Resources’. Philosophical Papers 46(1): 139–62. Frankfurt, H. 1987. ‘Equality as a moral ideal’. Ethics 98(1): 21–43. Gyekye, K. 1992. ‘Person and community in African thought’. In Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies 1, eds. K. Wiredu and K. Gyekye, 101–22. Washington, DC : Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Gyekye, K. 1997. Tradition and modernity: Philosophical reflections on the African experience. New York: Oxford University Press. Gyekye, K. 2011. ‘African ethics’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. N. Zalta. Ikuenobe, P. 2015. ‘Relational Autonomy, Personhood, and African Traditions’. Philosophy East and West 65(4): 1005–29. Kelbessa, W. 2015. ‘African Environmental Ethics, Indigenous Knowledge, and Environmental Challenges’. Environmental Ethics 37(4): 387–410. Letseka, M. 2014. ‘Ubuntu and Justice as Fairness’. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 5(9): 544–51. doi:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n9p544 Masolo, D. A. 2010. Self and Community in a Changing World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Masolo, D. A. 2014. ‘Re-charting global ethics’. Journal of Global Ethics 10(1): 38–44. Menkiti, I. A. 1984. ‘Person and community in African traditional thought’. In African Philosophy: An Introduction. Lanham, MD : University Press of America. Metz, T. (2010. ‘African and western moral theories in a bioethical context’. Developing World Bioethics 10(1): 49–58. doi:10.1111/j.1471-8847.2009.00273.x Metz, T. 2011. ‘Ubuntu as a moral theory and human rights in South Africa’. African Human Rights Law Journal 11(2): 532–59. doi:10.4314/sajpem.v26i4.31495 Metz, T. 2015. ‘African Political Philosophy’. In International Encyclopedia of Ethics. doi:10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee804 Metz, T. 2016. ‘An African Theory of Social Justice’. In Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought, eds. C. Boisen and M. C. Marray, 171–90. New York: Routledge. Metz, T. 2017. ‘Replacing development: an Afro-communal approach to global justice’. Philosophical Papers 46(1): 111–37. doi:10.1080/05568641.2017.1295627 Molefe, M. 2018. ‘Personhood and rights in an African tradition’. Politikon 45(2): 217–31. Murove, M. F. 2004. ‘An African commitment to ecological conservation: The Shona concepts of Ukama and Ubuntu’. Mankind Quarterly 45(2): 195.

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Naanyu, V., J. E. Sidle, R. M. Frankel, D. Ayuku, W. M. Nyandiko and T. S. Inui. 2010. ‘Rooting Inquiry in Tradition : The Health Baraza as a Tool for Social Research in Kenya’. doi:10.1177/1049732310367498 Naudé, P. 2016. Pathways in Ethics: Justice, Interpretation, Discourse, Economics. Stellenbosch: SUN Press. Ncube, C. 2017. ‘Calibrating copyright for creators and consumers: promoting distributive justice and Ubuntu’. DOI:10.22459/WIWCRC.01.2017.08 Nkondo, G. M. 2007. ‘Ubuntu as public policy in South Africa: A conceptual framework’. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 2(1): 88–100. doi:10.1080/18186870701384202 Nkrumah, K. 1970. Consciencism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books. Nyerere, J. K. 1968. Ujamaa: Essays on socialism. Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press. Oruka, H. O. 1997. Practical Philosophy: In Search of an Ethical Minimum. Nairobi: East African Publishers. Oyowe, O. A. (2014. ‘An African Conception of Human Rights? Comments on the Challenges of Relativism’. Human Rights Review 15(3): 329–47. Ramose, M. B. 1999. African Philosophy through Ubuntu. Harare: Mond Books. Rawls, J. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shutte, A. 2001. Ubuntu: An ethic for a new South Africa. Cape Town: Cluster Publications. Taylor, D. F. P. 2014. ‘Defining ubuntu for business ethics–A deontological approach’. South African Journal of Philosophy 33(3): 331–45. Wareham, C. S. 2015. ‘Youngest first? Why it’s wrong to discriminate against the elderly in healthcare’. South African Journal of Bioethics and Law 8(1): 37–9. doi:10.7196/sajbl.374 Wareham, C. S. 2017. ‘Partiality and distributive justice in African bioethics’. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 38(2): 127–44. doi:10.1007/s11017-017-9401-4 West, A. 2014. ‘Ubuntu and business ethics: Problems, perspectives and prospects’. Journal of Business Ethics 121(1): 47–61.

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Reconciliation and Retribution in the Context of Africa Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji and Mojalefa Koenane

Introduction For an explanation on an African position, the appropriate place to begin is to explain the original dominant perception of reality among African cultures. At the wake of the debate on whether there is an authentic African philosophy, many scholars of African descent defended the position that there is in existence an indigenously African philosophy. Many of these scholars believe that African philosophy must be necessarily and significantly different and possibly opposed to the Western tradition. In a similar way, some scholars, including Asouzu (2004), Oluwole (2015) and Chomakonam (2019), came up with the idea that the African conception of reality is opposed to that of the West other than for mere reason of necessary opposition. They argue almost independently towards similar conclusions pointing to the summary that reality is composed of binary opposition in the Western tradition and binary complementarity in the African system. Sophie Oluwole (2015: 139) uses the example of Socrates and Orunmila as an illustration of the differences between the Western and African views of reality. She argues to the effect that Africans (represented by the Yorùbá) regard reality as being binary and complementary in nature, while truth is lineal in the Western conception of reality in the sense that truth is always either/or. In other words, only one side of the opposing reality could be true. That is, if one side of the binary opposition is true the other is necessarily false and vice versa. However, according to this scholar, the two composite parts of reality are like two sides of the same coin, which, though they appear as opposing, are inseparable and complementary in nature and function. As further reported by Oluwole, Michael Titlestad from the Department of English, UNISA in South Africa echoes that there is no intrinsic need in Yoruba ideology to fixate on the either/or mode of European thought, which Richard Rorty (as used in Oluwole 2015: 137) has identified as the unique contribution of the West to world intellectual culture, and which would make it exclusively one or the other. The law of ‘included middle’ implied by the African opposition to the either/or model of European thinking is further explicated in the African logic espoused by Chimakonam as Ezumezu. 351

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The acclaimed African thinking is directly opposed to the Western system of either/ or in which if one side is true, good, correct or right, the other must necessarily be false, bad, incorrect or wrong. Applying the either/or system informs and provides theoretical foundation for the Western retributive justice in which the winner takes all, and in which one person is considered a vindicated innocent party while the other is regarded as the implicated convict. Following the law of included middle, therefore, the African scholar believed that the authentically indigenous legal system of Africa must be one in which even though one person is considered to be a perpetrator, the other person is not necessarily an innocent victim in a conflict. More so, a case is not dismissed merely because both parties are found guilty of equal faults or innocent of some faults. Given the ‘under the bid tree’ arrangement, issues are discussed and discussed until people are reconciled and solutions found, issues resolved, parties reconciled among themselves and with the community, and relationships restored and peace ensured in the community (Wiredu 2000: 374–82).

Retribution and reconciliation Literature is replete with arguments of scholars, both of African and of foreign descent, on the position that the African legal system of justice is reconciliatory. By reconciliation is usually meant the total absence of punishment for crimes regardless of their magnitude. In this sense, the reasons for the absence of punishment are sometimes for two opposing ends. The official historian of the colonial powers was one of the first to make the insinuation in that dimension regarding African society as earlier noted. Samuel Johnston insinuates that Africans are a naturally docile people with little or no memories for ills inflicted on them. He makes his conclusion by observing the behaviour of slaves imported from Africa and argues that the African slave could comfortably live independently and could not care less about racial affinity. According to Harry Johnston: . . . the Negro, more than any other human type . . . does not suffer from homesickness to the overbearing extent that afflicts other people torn from their homes, and . . . he has little or no race-fellowship – that is to say, he has no sympathy for other Negros; he recognizes, follows and imitates his master independently of any race affinities. 1913: 151–2

For Johnston, most likely, the virtue of simplicity, civility and exculpation as found in African slaves is an attitudinal weakness or moral akrasia of the victim, which tactically should be praised to ensure its continuity. That is, one of the easiest ways the colonialists would ensure that African slaves and Africans generally could be encouraged to foster such behaviour is to praise it as though he truly believes it is a positive characteristic. As an African proverb goes, ‘When your exploiter praises you, you need to be careful, he is likely feeding on you.’ Whether Johnston is objective or not, many African scholars have made similar observations. Many African scholars have observed that the

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indigenous justice system does not encourage revenge, or something which Ramose calls ‘the winner takes all’ of the Western justice system. They argue to the effect that the African justice system is reconciliatory. This theoretical undertone has eluded scholars for so long, but obviously may not remain so ad infinitum. Much of the debate has centred on the question of whether the African justice system is truly reconciliatory or not. In this way, some recent events in Africa have triggered the debate. Some events that have prompted the debate especially in recent time are: political violence in Egypt and the insurgency in Egypt since 2013, the 2010 Chad–Sudan conflict, the Sudanese nomadic conflicts of 2009, the 2011 ethnic violence in South Sudan, and the 2012 Sudan–South Sudan Border War, the post-civil war violence in Libya and the civil war of 2014, the Tunisian revolution which turned insurgency since 2011, and the Eritrean–Ethiopian border skirmish which began as a civil war in 1998. All these are in addition to the Rwanda Genocide of 1994, the 2017 Kenyan general election violence, the Boko Haram insurgency since 2014, the last Ivorian civil war of 2011, the second Liberian civil war which started as the first civil was ending in about 1989, the insurgency in the Maghreb since 2002 and the Tuareg rebellions up to the recent northern Mali conflict, the Niger Delta conflict which began about 2004, the Boko Haram insurgency which began about 2009 and the ongoing banditry and Herdsmen insurgency, the eleven-year-long Sierra Leone civil war, and the 2016 Kamwina Nsapu rebellion. To these could be added apartheid in South Africa, which was protracted and saw the subjection of millions of Black people to inhuman treatment and maximum subjugation, to mention a few. One of the notable features of African conflicts is that they are usually unending or always transforming and metamorphosing to take new dimensions. Another is that they are almost all either intra-state or intra-regional. Owing to the frequency of wars and conflicts, it became necessary for stakeholders and scholars who have concern for the continent to critically examine the policies and the underlying cultures, not only to prevent future occurrences but also to ensure that, even after conflicts and violence, the continent is actually better for it. For example, the 1999 Ituri conflict claimed the lives of over 3 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the ensuing post-conflict negotiations, the transitional government of the DRC negotiated peace agreements with three Ituri warlords, namely Mathieu Ngudjolo, Peter Karim and Cobra Matata. Each leader was granted an amnesty and a military commission up to the rank of colonel in the national army in order to pacify the Ituri towards the upcoming elections. The International Criminal Court also appointed Luis Moreno Ocampo as the Chief Prosecutor who was faced with the dilemma of either to begin with a formal arrest and then proceed to the investigation and prosecution of the three rebel leaders, as it was in his power to do so, or to honour the initial peace arrangement and hold back from the intention to arrest, or even to employ alternative methods or options. Most post-conflict situations in Africa are confronted with similar dilemmas. Postapartheid South Africa was also, at the time, faced with the challenge of whether to accept or reject the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The question is not only about what is the most appropriate option, but more that, among the appropriate methods, which is the most compliant with the African system of justice. The quandary that confronted Moreno Ocampo and the moral

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conflict since 1994 have challenged the minds of the average post-apartheid South African, having in mind fresh memories of the race-based oppression, discrimination and exploitation traceable to the arrival of the Dutch settlers and the British colonists that formalized into a system of legitimized racism called apartheid in 1948 (Gibson 2004). The apartheid system had seen a deeply unequal and segregated South Africa in which, for several generations, the Black South African continued to be agonized by the poverty and social trauma ensconced by a racially discriminatory system. The question was, how best would it be to compensate the Black victims in order to erase the social, economic and psychological burden of resentment sure to be transmitted intergenerationally or treat the White settlers who masterminded and sustained such horrible social ills for decades, in the wake of democracy and the formal end of the apartheid system in 1994. Allowing the perpetrators to go unpunished was not only an additional injury to the victims, but also an institutional support for impunity that could soon become a tradition, and ultimately the national security and social culture. Post-apartheid scholars of African studies are now concerned about what to recommend in such situations, having understood the covert moral dilemma in the case. Suffice it to say that this implied concern of the Afro-optimistic scholars sparked off a flaming controversy that continues to blaze today. In the debate there are two main and opposing schools of thought, with an emerging third in between. The first and dominant are those who opine that the African traditional approach to conflict is perfectly reconciliatory. The concept of reconciliatory justice is very often applied in a fluid and unspecific manner such that the meaning is sometimes either inconsistent or lost. It is, therefore, not unusual that other terms such as reparation and restoration are employed which, though conceptually different, are used to describe what they consider to be the African system of justice, not too different from reconciliation. In fact, it is not out of place to assume that some descriptions of reconciliation include as their component parts what some describe as reparative and restorative justice (Skelton 2005). To the African reconciliatory school of thought belong Thabo Mbeki, Desmond Tutu, Joe Teffo and Ademola Kazeem Fayemi. As is typical of philosophers, the 1996 speech of Thabo Mbeki on behalf of the African National Congress in Cape Town turned the mind of listeners and subsequent readers back to the very beginning, as did René Descartes’s ‘Cogito ergo sum’, or Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature. In that speech, Mbeki, without necessarily saying it directly, makes his poetic rendition turn the past suffering of the Black South African and African elsewhere to a heritage of colossal pride. He says: I am an African. I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa. The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria experience is a pain I also bear. The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share. The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow of despair. This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned. This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution

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of humanity, says that Africa rearms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes. Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper! Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us say today: Nothing can stop us now!

This in itself is a practical expression of a capacity for forgiveness that has hardly ever been shown anywhere universally. Joe Teffo (1994, 1997; 1999: 149–99) is a regularly quoted member of this school of thought. Teffo has consistently defended the thesis that the African approach to justice is placed on the philosophy of reconciliation as provided in the moral ideal of ubuntu. Teffo (1994: 4) states in unequivocal terms that Africans have infinite capacity for the pursuit of consensus, forgiveness and reconciliation. In his review of Teffo, Dirk J. Louw (2001: 15–36) states that, wherever ubuntu exists, takes root and becomes part of everyday life, violent ethnic and political clashes ought to be foreign. Teffo defends the thesis that reconciliatory justice is an applied expression of ubuntu as an ethical ideal. Desmond Tutu is another astute member of the reconciliationist school of thought. Coincidentally, he was the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of post-apartheid South Africa. For Tutu, the spirit of ubuntu, which originates from an African world view and philosophy and underpins the TRC project, is the spirit of forgiveness, reconciliation and mutual responsibility (1999: 34). Also associated with Desmond Tutu is his statement: ‘Forgiveness will follow confession and healing will happen, and so contribute to national unity and reconciliation’ (91). The enormity of the past meant to be dealt with, and for which the TRC was commissioned to recommend a way to handle, needs to be described in order to grasp the extent of Tutu’s perception of reconciliation. This is important because the TRC had other options of recommending retribution, victimization or even outright retaliation. In spite of those options the Tutu-led commission, after saying, ‘There is not a single person who has not been traumatized by apartheid’, still went further to recommend the reconciliatory option. According to Tutu: All South Africans know that our recent history is littered with some horrendous occurrences – the Sharpville and Langa killings, the Soweto uprising, the Church Street bombing, Magoo’s Bar, the Amanzimtoti Wimpy Bar bombing, the St James’ Church killings, Boipatong and Sebokeng. We also knew about the deaths in detention of people such as Steve Biko, Neil Aggett, and others; necklacings, and the so-called ‘black on black’ violence on the East Rand and in KwaZulu Natal which arose from the rivalries between IFP and first the UDF and later the ANC. 1998: 1–23

In addition to these, it was obvious that Tutu’s commission did not make its recommendations out of ignorance of horrible occurrences such as the ‘systematic elimination of thousands of voices that should have been part of the nation’s

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memory . . . through censorship, confiscation of materials, banning, incarceration, assassination and a range of related actions’. Desmond Tutu’s position is, therefore, a practical expression of what Joe Teffo had described as an infinite capacity for forgiveness and reconciliation. According to him, The road to reconciliation, therefore, means both material reconstruction and the restoration of dignity. It involves the redress of gross inequalities and the nurturing of respect for our common humanity. It entails sustainable growth and development of the spirit of ubuntu . . . It implies wide-ranging structural and institutional transformation and the healing of broken human relationships. It demands guarantees that the past will not be repeated. It requires restitution and the restoration of our humanity – as individuals, as communities and as a nation . . . ‘a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation’. It was a commitment that called for a respect for human life and dignity and for a revival of ubuntu; a commitment that included the strengthening of the restorative dimensions of justice . . . a process which: shifts the primary focus of crime from the breaking of laws or offences against a faceless state to a perception of crime as violations against human beings, as injury or wrong done to another person, healing and the restoration of all concerned, encourages victims, offenders and the community to be directly involved in resolving conflict . . . a return to ubuntu’.

The motivation behind Tutu’s recommendation is based on his opinion that punishment is retribution, and retribution is vengeance. Hence his recommendation that punishment should be avoided because he is of the view that vengeance is morally wrong. The basis of the enthusiasms of Mbeki, Teffo and Tutu has been challenged by B. N. Gade. He believes that the popular linking of the post-apartheid TRC with restorative justice (RJ) as taking its root from African indigenous cultures by virtue of its resemblance with ubuntu and with what has been termed as African indigenous justice systems (AIJS) is overambitious. It must be recalled at this point that not many scholars have taken the trouble to distinguish between reconciliatory justice and restoration, reparatory justice and many other similar concepts. Not even the TRC did. This explains why in spite of being committed to reconciliation, as the TRC claims, it actually applied the concept of restorative justice in many cases. It is from the point of view of restorative justice that Gade takes off with his criticism. According to Gade, a number of people have argued that RJ has deep historical roots in African indigenous cultures by being congruent with ubuntu and African indigenous justice systems (AIJS). 2013: 10–35

Gade argues that both the connection between RJ and ubuntu, and that between RJ and AIJS, are less straightforward and, therefore, more problematic than is often assumed, and that AIJS of precolonial Africa were not as restorative as is often

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eulogized during the present era. Gade infers, by implication, a finding that might suggest that the idea of harmony between RJ and AIJS does not have reliable credibility. To further substantiate his criticism, Gade outlines the genealogy of the concept of RJ, which obviously predates the TRC. According to Gade, though the concept had been applied pre-1950 without any clear description of its meaning, Christopher Marshall writes that the ‘term restorative justice was coined in the 1970s to describe a way to respond to crime that focuses primarily on repairing the damage caused by the criminal act and restoring, insofar as possible, the dignity and wellbeing of all those involved’ without reference to truth or otherwise. That notwithstanding, it is generally accepted that the term ‘restorative justice’ was coined during the second half of the twentieth century in the 1950s. Whatever the time between the tentative dates identified, none of them coincides with the TRC in time and nature. If the original meaning of restorative justice does not include truth, as many African studies scholars tend to extend it in recent times, then it may properly not be a synonym for reconciliatory justice, because reconciliation cannot exist until truth is involved. At the same time, even if one would want to admit otherwise, the fact also remains that, as long as both are very related, neither of them can be claimed to have originated from the TRC and consequently from African ontology or culture, as Mbeki, Teffo and Tutu seems to be insinuating. One of the latest responses to Gade is Fainos Mangena’s African Ethics through Ubuntu: A Postmodern Exposition (2016: 66–80). According to Mangena, the motivation for writing this essay came after I had read an article by Christian B. N. Gade, entitled ‘Restorative Justice and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Process’, published in 2013 in the South African Journal of Philosophy. In this essay, Gade makes three important claims. First, he traces the seeds of the phrase ‘restorative justice’ back to the West by sampling definitions of restorative justice from Western scholars such as Christopher Marshall, Daniel W. van Ness and Albert Eglash. Second, although he does not say it explicitly, Gade seems to be suggesting that there are attempts to Africanise restorative justice by African states and, third, he claims that the relationship between restorative justice, ubuntu and African indigenous justice systems is not straightforward and is problematic.

Mangena, therefore, argues to the contrary that restorative justice has deep roots in Africa and that the connection between restorative justice, ubuntu and African indigenous justice systems is straightforward and unproblematic to the extent that the talk on one of the concepts necessarily alludes to the other two. Mangena examines the nature, character and origin of hunhu as a linguistic variant of ubuntu ethics, which, according to him, is the organizing philosophy of the Bantu-speaking people of southern Africa. He employed the discrepancies between modernist and postmodernist philosophers, in which the acceptance of the criteria by which one is a philosophy necessarily denies the other the status of being a philosophy. He claims that, as long as both are still regarded as philosophies, then, African philosophy cannot be denied the status of a competing philosophy. Whoever is conversant with the controversy regarding

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methodological appropriateness between African- and Western-oriented philosophers on the issue of whether philosophy is individualistic or otherwise is likely to understand what the issue is here. To western thought one of the most surprising properties of African thought is the idea of ascribing knowledge to certain kinds of collective subjects – such as family lines. The idea that it is not John or Mary who are the thinking subject but the family line is totally incomprehensible to western philosophy, still dominated as it is by individualism. Especially as African thought includes one of the presuppositions of the ‘heathen’ beliefs in the spirits of forefathers and their watching over us, it is as much to be ignored as ‘metaphysics’ is in the negative meaning of the word. Nowak 2005: 117

Mangena (2016) goes further that, unlike Western-based approaches to ethics, such as Aristotelian eudaimonism, Kantian deontology or Platonic Justice that are usually established on the theorization and rationalization of a single person, the Common Moral Position as found in African philosophy and societies is communocratic (not necessarily a collectivist option) (Olatunji 2018: 1–17). Mangena, therefore, insinuates that the fact that certain persons already employed the concept of restorative justice long before it was ever mentioned on African soil (even if that position is correct) does not logically deny Africa an originality of the idea of restorative justice as relating to the AIJS. Some other scholars, such as Francis Kariuki, Christof Heyns and Karen Stefiszyn (2006), Tom Bennett (2012), Elisabeth Porter (2015), Severino Elias Ngoenha (2006), Lawrence Bankole and Dani W. Nabudere, also lent their voices to the debate. To varying degrees, they support the view that the indigenous African justice system is reconciliatory, and/or that the sort of justice system, which ranks reconciliation between the victim and the perpetrator as higher than punishment, is indigenous to Africa. Examining independent examples from Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia, the United Nations (2016) also became convinced that reconciliation and maintaining harmony in the community are the guiding principles of African traditional dispute resolution: a process developed and followed by traditional justice systems, which most often leaves both parties to a conflict, as well as the community, satisfied with the outcome. Lawrence Bankole (2008) is one of the most recent expressions of optimism towards the capacity of traditional African justice systems to foster reconciliation. One of the main arguments of Bankole is that there is no conflict that is not resolvable if and only the parties to conflicts are willing to resolve them by showing understanding to one another (Bamikole 2008: 5). To support his claim, Bankole cites the examples of those like Desmond Tutu, Tambo Mbeki and Kofi Anna as members of the class of those with the required qualities of Agba (elders) who have proved themselves capable of employing the African reconciliatory method of conflict resolution. Fayemi’s critique of Bankole is basically that Bankole’s optimism about the capacity of elders to ensure justice through reconciliation is uncritical and overambitious. As

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noted by Bankole himself, authentic elders are not easy to come by, as most elderly people have been influenced by the modern consumerist and acquisitionist cultures of corruption (2009). Fayemi adds that the belief of Bankole, that man could be altruistic and egoistic, is only an assumption because man can equally be irrational, aggressive, socially cohesive and bad (2009: 60–7). Retributive justice, on the other hand, has not received the literary attention of African studies scholars in recent times. This has probably been due, first, to the widespread belief among scholars of jurisprudence in recent times that retribution is barbaric and unhelpful to either the offender or the society, as it dehumanizes individuals and society alike. In spite of the theoretical optimism, which has coloured the debate as to the extent to which the reconciliatory justice system represents, or originates from, the cultures and philosophies of Africa, there are scholars and historical events within the same continent to logically nullify, or at least cast doubt on, the widespread belief that the reconciliatory system is African. In ‘An indigenous Yorùbá (African) philosophical argument against capital punishment’, Moses Oke (2013) identifies the existence of capital punishment, which is one of the extreme examples of the retributive justice system within the cultures of Africa. According to him, there are traces of the practice of capital punishment in the justice system of all human societies, including Africa, for a number of offences such as from arson, treason, rebellion, theft and murder. Oke admits, though, that though there is widespread acceptance of the use of capital punishment in many places including Yorùbá (an ethnic society in Nigeria and some neighbouring countries such as Togo and Benin). The fact, according to Oke, is that, even in places where capital punishment as a form of retribution is no longer in existence, there is the possibility that it was previously in existence, because in some places it has simply been abolished in deference to the pressure and force of the abolitionists’ (those who advocate its eradication) arguments (2). Oke further reports that the Yorùbá literature is replete with folk tales in which the culprit or the convicted tragic character is executed or subjected to other severe punishment ordered by the oba (i.e. the king, the nearest equivalent in English), who was usually perceived as the legitimate custodian of justice, and who also employed the execution of convicts as a mark of his royal prowess and dignity. Among Yorùbá, the ability of the oba (in council), after due consultations with the ancestors and the advisory chiefs, to identify the secret faults of a perpetrator, who ordinarily would prefer to withhold the truth from the interrogators, was traditionally a mark of dexterity. In addition to the foregoing, there are proverbs in almost all African cultures that betray the possibility of the practice of the retributive system of justice even in its extreme form called capital punishment. There is a common proverb in the Yorùbá language that ika to ba se, l’oba nge (meaning literarily that it is the finger that sins that the king severs). This means that it is the person who commits a crime that is punished. If punishment were completely out of place or not in existence, the proverb would probably have taken another shape. There is another proverb which goes, oju odaran la ti nfa ida yo, ehin re la ti nkii bo ako. This means that, during the execution of a criminal by beheading, the sword is

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usually brought out in the presence of the criminal, but the offender is never alive to witness the returning of the sword into the scabbard. Then, omo kii pa omo jaye, meaning that no child (person) kills others to live. By implication, whoever murders also deserves the death sentence as punishment. In fact, the discussion of Oke (2013) centres on another common saying, ori yeye ni nmogun, t’aise lo po. The folk saying originates from a folktale in Yorùbá, which emanates from an Ifa oracle, the compendium of Yorùbá ancient wisdom and primary culture. According to the story, titled Orí yéye ní mògún, tàìsè lójù (i.e. ‘There are numerous heads at the execution ground, but most of them belong to innocent persons’): In a certain mythical town there lived two brothers – Ògúndá and Ìròsùn. There were also the king and other townspeople. On the way to their farm each day, the two brothers passed by the shrine of Ògún, which served as the public execution ground, and which was therefore always littered with many human heads. One day as they passed by the shrine, Ìròsùn remarked that most of the heads at the shrine were those of persons who were not guilty of any capitally punishable offence. His brother objected, arguing that everyone who was beheaded at the shrine must have deserved the capital punishment. The debate between the two brothers continued for a long while with Ògúndá always maintaining that ‘to be punished is to be guilty’, while Ìròsùn maintained that ‘punishment does not imply, confirm or establish guilt’. To drive his point home, Ìròsùn mentally constructed a possible situation in which an innocent person was convicted of a capital offence, as in a set-up. 29–31

The story proceeds that the set-up was carried out by killing the king’s goat and implicating Ògúndá in the event. During the planned execution, Ìròsùn emerged and confessed to the king in public that he had set his brother up in order to prove the point that many of those previously executed at the shrine of Ògún were possibly innocent of the charges levied against them and for which they were convicted and condemned. By extension, he wanted to show why capital punishment was bad and so should be discontinued in the town. The message was taken in good faith by the king and the people, who henceforth abolished the death sentence and atoned for all previous executions. Though the sayings which are sometimes exaggerated to drive home certain moral lessons are in themselves not conclusive evidence of their literary meanings, they at least signal the possibility of what they express. There are historical events to support the position insinuated by mythical event articulated in Ògúndá-Ìròsùn. In fact, Gade (2013: 11) did not complete his articulation without mentioning: ‘According to some sources on AIJS, witchcraft, murder, theft and incest were sometimes punished by death.’ In the heritage of the controversial Long juju of Arochuckwu in the Igbo-speaking eastern part of Nigeria, sometimes referred to as Biafra, the practice of retribution as a system of justice is glaring and undeniable. The Arochukwu shrine was a precolonial court for the purpose of adjudicating between contenders. In the case of individuals, each person takes responsibility for his/her actions. In the case of corporate or group

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events, or conflicts as well, all those in support or opposed to any side equally take responsibility for the position and evidence they have supplied. That is, a group may be vindicated while an individual who has supplied false evidence could receive a punishment for his/her falsehood. The eventual controversy and corruption of the process notwithstanding, the forms of legal system applicable in the long precolonial tradition of the Long juju of Arochukwu was purely retributive. Offenders and evil perpetrators were often either given the death sentence or ostracized or banished into the evil forests to be possibly devoured by beasts. The possibility, therefore, exists that many African communities initially solely practised retributive justice, such that the punishment only depends on the gravity of the offence committed. There is also the possibility, inferring from the story of ÒgúndáÌròsùn, that capital punishment and all other irreversible sentences were only gradually eradicated. Probably, too, the colonial and postcolonial economic system may have encouraged the reconciliatory method of justice because sentencing anyone to death, the evil forest or any punishment through elimination could subject other innocent members of the family, for which the offender is a breadwinner, to undeserved hardship. The possibility is also there that capital punitive measures, such as death by hanging or beheading, are not applied in some African communities, except if the innocent victim of the crime loses his/her life as a result of the crime. These are mere possibilities. On the other hand, however, the retributive system of justice could also be so alien to prehistoric Africa, such that what we now have are products of colonial moral decadence in Africa. Whatever the case, discussion still continues among scholars of various disciplines, such as anthropology, language, philosophy and history, as to what the indigenous practice of Africans is, as well as regarding what it actually means for something to be indigenous. Recently, there emerged within African jurisprudence a school of thought classifiable as the combinationists. This consists of those who contend that the old and traditional method, whatever it was in previous epochs (reconciliatory or retributive), was only relevant in its time, and therefore needs to be complemented in modern times with a modern legal system. Though this legal combinationism is both a theory and a movement, scholars in this group are only linked by their belief that the traditional system of justice, usually defended as restorative or reconciliatory, especially in Africa, is not strong enough to support present-day Africa. Some of them go as far as insisting that there was never a time when either only retributive or only reconciliatory system of justice was exclusively practised in Africa. Scholars in this group include Oladele Abiodun Balogun (2009), J. C. Achilike (1999), William Idowu and Moses Oke (2008: 151–70), Katerina Mansour and Laura Riches (2017), Idette Noome (2016: 69–86), Jacob Arowosegbe (2017: 155–70), Olasunkanmi Aborisade (2016), David Dolinko (2003: 319–42), Francis Kariuki (2014: 226–7), Dignan (2003: 135–56) and Lucia Zedner (1994: 228–50). The anti-combinationist group or school of thought also maintains an opposing view. Notable among them are M. Minow (2000) and Rebekka Friedman and Andrew Jillions (2015: 141–50). They are usually quick to point out the weaknesses of combining the traditional and the modern systems of justice. As is typical of this school of thought, Friedman and Jillions identify the dangers and policy dilemmas in the practice of what they call holistic justice. However, in spite of

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subscribing to legal eclectism (combinationism), Helen Lauer (207: 163–89) equally warned against certain hidden dangers and possible oversights in combining African and Western methods. In spite of the raging nature of the foregoing debate among scholars and critics of African culture, African philosophy, even in its modern professional model, seems deficient in the history of sophisticated linguistic analysis of conflict or justice systems compared with other geo-bound philosophies, such as in the West and in Asia. The deficiency may actually have nothing to do with age and length of history of African philosophy. Perhaps, it has to do with the fact that the African languages, for which such fantastic linguistic analysis should have supposedly taken root, uniquely operate at a deeper level and on a higher pedestal than can easily be manipulated to articulate appreciable intellectual analyses of philosophical importance in the dominant languages of scholarly engagement in the contemporary era.

Concluding remarks Restoration is part of reconciliation and, if restoration is itself a sort of punishment, except in cases of the death penalty outright, forms of retribution can also be employed to reconcile warring parties. The simple implication, then, is that reconciliation is not necessarily as opposed to retribution as many scholars of African jurisprudence may have imagined. Unfortunately, too, it has not properly caught the attention of scholars of African languages to confront the challenges in order to explore the opportunities therein in philosophizing in one’s language. The question is, can an African philosophy be authentically carried out in Asian or Germanic languages to support mental categories original or indigenous to Africa? These are questions that are likely to feature in the continuing debate on the question of the justice system of Africa. In the debate among scholars of African studies and their critics, there has been the use of the two concepts, restoration and reconciliation. The duo is applied as though they were alternative concepts. While some believe that the indigenous African system of justice should be called restoration, others refer to it as reconciliation. Some use the two interchangeably as though they are one and the same. Scholars such as Umaru (2018) favour the use of reconciliation, and refer to it as a method of conflict reconciliation; the same goes for Huyse and Salter (2008). On the contrary, others such as Kohen (2009: 399–443) prefer to employ restorative justice as the appropriate concept. In the description of restorative justice, the pictures they give come closer to reconciliation than any. According to Graybill and Lanegran (2004), Pardon rather than punishment, or pardon for the many alongside punishment of the few, has become a trend for transitional societies coming out of eras marked by intrastate conflict. Restorative justice, which favors reconciliation among former foes over punishment of perpetrators of crimes, has been increasingly applied since 1974,

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with truth commissions implemented in approximately two dozen countries around the world.

It appears that many of the scholars do not have the same idea or conception of restoration itself. For a good number, restorative justice implies restoring or reinstating the existing social peace and order. As a result, their focus is on reconciling warring parties: the victim and the perpetrator. For some others it is about reinstating whatever has been lost to the perpetrator. These call for adequate compensation for the victim for the materials or human dignity lost as a result of the actions of the perpetrator(s). In sum, they conceive restorative justice as attending to the previously denied physical and/or financial needs of the victim, preventing reoffending or continuation of the offence against the victim, rehabilitation of both the offender and the victim, integrating the perpetrator or offender into the society, assisting the perpetrator to take full responsibility for his/her action, and preventing the retaliation and counterretaliation that could follow the aggression of the offender. A quick observation shows that many of those who employ reconciliation as a topical issue in conflict are mostly scholars who are religiously minded, while those who adhere to restoration are mostly those who are opposed to religious approaches, those who combine both approaches and those who find reasons to accommodate both. This insinuation, perhaps, is informed by the fact that many of the church’s documents regarding social, spiritual and even intrapersonal conflicts prefer to use reconciliation, even at a period when conflict resolution as a discipline was yet to gain ground in post-apartheid and post-Rwandan-genocide Africa. These include Dives in misericordia (‘Rich in mercy’ in English), a papal encyclical of John Paul II of November 1980, and Leo XIII’s 1891 Rerum novarum (literally, ‘Of revolutionary change’), which addressed conflicts arising from labour and growing industrialization. At the points of reconciliation programmes in post-conflict Rwanda and the postapartheid TRC, the dominant view among literary actors focused more on restoring human dignity and the material losses of victims than on reconciling them. Consequently, the literary actors seemed constrained to adopt the option of justice as restoration than as reconciliation. This legacy has lingered on with only a few exceptions. Hence, the choice of restoration among those who see themselves as free thinkers or those who prefer to discuss from secular or non-religious perspectives. In spite of language, they often refer to all the qualities of reconciliation while referring to restoration and qualities of restoration even while referring to restoration. Some even think of restoration as a step in reconciliation and reconciliation as a stage in the process of restoration. At the wake of the debate on whether or not there is any such thing as African philosophy, scholars felt they were under pressure to show clearly and undeniably that Africans have some ways of thinking which are peculiar to them and which distinguish them from other races. Beyond that, they also, based on the proposals of African leaders such as Nkrumah and Nyerere, established unifying ideas on which to ground the project of unifying Africa, which, in their opinion, could assist the Black race to compete favourably with other races of the world. Given these epistemo-political underlining factors beneath the search for an authentically unifying African philosophy, African scholars came under pressure not only to search for Africa-wide beliefs and

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identity, but also to ensure that such beliefs were suitable ideals, comparable and preferable (if possible) to other Western ideals, Africa-wide, different and possibly opposed to Western ideals. Doing so, unfortunately, has in many ways made African philosophy appear like a mere expression of cultural primitivism (the belief that an idea is not African if it is not primitive) or that the modern is necessarily Western and opposed to the authentically African. Regarding the foregoing issue of jurisprudence and justice, it is obvious that the reconciliatory system of justice is not alien to Africa. In the context of the TRC, its institutional application was also a useful and practicable ideal, which would most likely have posed herculean incompatibility challenges if it had not been indigenous to Africa. As also identified in the discussions of scholars such as Gade and Oke, some practices of reconciliation involved the restoration of rights and property denied or destroyed, and ensuring the restoration of such rights and property are sufficient as retributions for offences committed, so it is difficult and illogical to assume that retributive justice is less indigenously African than any of the aforementioned. From the story of Ogunda, from one of the main indigenous compendiums of Yorùbá ancient wisdom and primary culture, it becomes difficult to assume that retribution was never widely practised in Africa. On the whole, we have not in any way argued that either or all (retribution, restoration or reconciliation) the systems of justice are indigenously and simultaneously practised in Africa or not. Rather, we are merely trying to show that none of the systems are alien to Africa and, therefore, it would offend history and logic to assume that one of the options is adopted as the only indigenous practice compatible with the lifestyle of Africans. Put differently, must there be only one or an all-encompassing philosophical position to which all African societies must have subscribed? Does pragmatism become an American philosophy because the entire American society was thinking alike in the direction of pragmatic ideology? Why, then, do African scholars undertake the adventure of identifying or constructing a single African position on any issue, and why are there not many African philosophies on many issues in which there are many Western or Asian thoughts? In this article, however, we have identified some inconsistencies in the arguments and positions of some scholars on the issue. Beyond that, however, it is at least possible that, from time immemorial, the justice system has been context-dependent. We, however, leave it to further investigations to ascertain what constitutes the context. There is the possibility that seasons of the year constitute the context, and it is also the gravity of the offence or the reign or reign style of the ruler that constitutes the context which determines the method. What is important, however, is that, in part and as a whole, the conclusion inferred in this discussion is logically connected and that the conclusion inferred logically follows.

References Aborisade, Olasunkanmi. 2016. ‘Interogating Capital Punishment and indigenous Yoruba African Culture’. International Journal of History and philosophical Research 4(2): 23–9.

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Achilike, J. C. 1999. ‘Two Theories of Punishment: a reconciliation’. In Issues in Philosophy of Law, eds. Oladele Balogun and Olaolu Mabol. . Ibadan: Be-El Books. Arowosegbe, Jacob O. 2017. ‘Indigenous African Jurisprudential Thoughts on the Concept of Justice: a reconstruction through Yoruba proverbs’. Journal of African Law 61(2): 155–70. Asouzu, Innocent I. 2004. The Method and Principles of Complementary Reflection in and beyond African Philosophy. Calabar: Calabar University Press. Balogun, Oladele Abiodun 2009. ‘A Philosophical Defence of Punishment in Traditional African Legal Culture: the Yoruba Example’. The Journal of PanAfrican Studies 3(3): 43–54. Bamikole, Lawrence O. 2008. ‘Agba (Elder) as Arbitrator: A Yoruba Socio-Political Model for Conflict Resolution’. Paper presented at The Afolabi Olabimtan Memorial Biennial International Conference held at College of Humanities, Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu-Ode, 22–25 September 2008. Bennett, Tom. 2012. ‘Access to justice and human rights in the traditional courts of sub- Saharan Africa’. In African Perspectives on Tradition and Justice, eds. Tom Bennett, Eva Brems, Giselle Corradi, Lia Nijzink and Martien Schotsmans, 19–46. Cambridge: Intersentia Publishing Ltd. Chimakonam, Jonathan O. 2019. Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies. Cham: Springer. Davis, Gwynn. 1992. Making Amends: Mediation and Reparation in Criminal Justice. London: Routledge. Dignan, Jim. 2003. ‘Towards a systemic model of restorative justice’. In Restorative Justice and Criminal Justice: Competing or Reconcilable Paradigms?, eds. Andrew von Hirsch, Julian Roberts, Anthony E. Bottoms, Kent Roach and Mara Schiff, 135–56. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Dolinko, David. 2003. ‘Restorative justice and the justification of punishment’. Utah Law Review 1: 319–42. Ekwealor, Chinedu Thomas, and Nwabufo (Ufo) Okeke Uzodike. 2016. ‘The African Union Interventions in African Conflicts: Unity and Leadership Conundrum on Libya’. Journal of African Union Studies 5(1): 63–82. Fayemi, Ademola Kazeem. 2009. ‘Agba (elder) as arbitrator: A Yoruba socio-political model for conflict resolution’. A review of Bamikole (2008). Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution 1(3): 60–7. Frahm, Ole. 2015. ‘Actors of Accountability in Africa: ICC, African Union and NationStates’. Istituto Affari Internazionali Working Papers 15(12): 1–15. Friedman, Rebekka, and Andrew Jillions. 2015. ‘The dangers and politics of holistic justice’. Global Policy 6(2): 141–50. Gibson, J. L. 2004. Overcoming Apartheid. Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Heyns, Christof, and Karen Stefiszyn. 2006. Human Rights, Peace and Justice in Africa. Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press. Huyse, Luc, and Mark Salter. 2008. Traditional justice and reconciliation after violent conflict: Learning from African experiences. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). Idowu, William. n.d. ‘African Philosophy of Law: Transcending the Boundaries between Myth and Reality’. African Philosophy of Law 4(2): 52–93. Idowu, William, and Moses Oke. 2008. ‘Theories of Law and Morality: Perspectives from Contemporary African Jurisprudence’. In-Spire Journal of Law, Politics and Societies 3(2): 151–70.

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Johnston, H. H. 1913. A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kariuki, Francis. 2014. ‘Applicability of Traditional Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Criminal Cases in Kenya: Case Study of Republic v Mohamed Abdow Mohamed’. Alternative Dispute Resolution 2(1): 226–7. Kinyanjui, Sarah. n.d. ‘Restorative Justice in Traditional Pre-Colonial “Criminal Justice Systems” in Kenya’. Tribal Law Journal 10: 1–16. Kohen, Ari. 2009. ‘The Personal and the Political: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Restorative Justice’. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (12)3: 399–423. Lauer, Helen. 2017. ‘Global Justice as Process: applying normative ideals of indigenous African governance’. Philosophical Papers 46(1): 163–89. Graybill, L., and K. Lanegran. 2004. ‘Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Africa: Issues and Cases’. African Studies Quarterly (8)1. Mangena, Fainos. 2016. ‘African Ethics through Ubuntu: A Postmodern Exposition’. Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies 9(2): 66–80. Mansour, Katerina, and Laura Riches. 2017. ‘Peace versus Justice: A False Dichotomy, Contemporary Issues in Conflict Resolution’. Paper Presented in 2017, Professor Alvaro de Soto, Spring/Summer. Mbeki, Thabo. 2001. ‘I am an African’. QUEST: An African Journal of Philosophy XV (1–2). Minow, M. 2000. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. Boston, MA : Beacon Press. Ngoenha, Severino Elias. 2006. ‘Ubuntu: New Model of Global Justice?’. Indilinga – African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems 5(2): 125–34. Noomé, Idette. 2016. ‘Justice for All? Accountable Translations of Texts on Indigenous Law’. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity 10(2): 69–86. Nowak, Leszek. 2005. ‘On the Collective Subjects in Epistemology: the Marxist case and a problem for the African viewpoint’. In Knowledge Cultures: Comparative Western and African Epistemology, ed. Bert Hamminga, 117–28. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Oke, Moses. 2008. ‘An indigenous Yorùbá (African) Philosophical Argument against Capital Punishment’. QUEST: An African Journal of Philosophy XXII : 25–36. Olatunji, Cyril-Mary Pius 2018. ‘ “Complex Question” and the African Youth Expression Evhien’ida compared’. Commonwealth Youth and Development Journal 15(2): 1–17. Olatunji, C. P. 2012. ‘Is Africa Merely an Effect?’. International Journal of Radical Critique 1(1) Available online at www.radicalcritique.org/2012/11/Olatunji.html. Oluwole, Sophie Bosede. 2015. Socrates and Orunmila: Two Patron Saint of Classical Philosophy. Lagos: Ark Publishers. Omoyibo, K. U. 2016. ‘African Jurisprudence: The Law as a Complement to Public Morality’. International Journal of Social Sciences 6(4): 13–22. Pope John Paul II . 1980. Dives in Misericordia. Available online at https://www.vatican.va/ content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30111980_dives-inmisericordia.html. Pope Leo XIII . 1891. Rerum Novarum. Available online at http://www.vatican.va/content/ leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html. Porter, Elisabeth. 2015. Connecting Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

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Skelton, Ann. 2005. ‘The Influence of the Theory and Practice of Restorative Justice in South Africa with Special Reference to Child Justice’. LLD thesis, University of Pretoria, Faculty of Law. Tangen, Sarah 2013. African Perspectives on Social Justice. Acacia: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Teffo, L. J. 1994. The Concept of Ubuntu as a Cohesive Moral Value. Pretoria: Ubuntu School of Philosophy. Tutu, Desmond 1998. ‘Chairperson’s Foreword’. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report 1. Tutu, Desmond. 1999 No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Random House. United Nations 2016. Human Rights and Traditional Justice Systems in Africa. Geneva: United Nations. Wiredu, K. 2000. ‘Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics: A Plea for a Non-Party Polity’. In Philosophy from Africa: A Text with Readings, eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 374–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zedner, Lucia 1994. ‘Reparation and Retribution: Are They Reconcilable?’. The Modern Law Review 57(2): 228–50.

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Human Rights in Modern African Philosophy Katrin Flikschuh

The historical ascendance of human rights Human rights are a contested idea, the philosophical fortunes of which wax and wane with political circumstances. Officially conceived after World War II in response to the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany against Jewish people and other ‘undesirable’ ethnic groups and citizens, human rights were meant to enshrine in international law the limits of states’ legitimate powers over their citizens. The period of the allied powers’ postwar consensus was brief; by the time of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Cold War was already brewing between the Soviet Union and Western powers. Even during the Commission’s sittings, disagreement had been rife as to the proper content and limit of human rights, most conspicuously whether any universal declaration should focus on so-called civil and liberty rights – freedom from wrongful imprisonment and from torture, freedom of conscience and association, etc. – or whether it should also include so-called social rights – the right to food, shelter, health and education. The disagreements between the socialist block and the ‘free world’ are well known; less familiar are disagreements among the Western powers themselves concerning both human rights’ legal authority and the scope of their actual implementation. The British, for example, favoured a more legalistic approach; they were keen to limit the list of international human rights to rights already enshrined in their domestic law. The Americans, by contrast, preferred a more expansive list in a more aspirational tone and not necessarily codified as law. The imperial powers – Britain and France – pleaded for exemption clauses in relation to their colonial possessions; the Americans were concerned about how international human rights obligations would impact domestic treatment of subsections of their population, most notably African Americans. In short, and from the start, the human rights consensus was in many respects more apparent than real. This may be why, shortly after the 1948 Declaration and the subsequent two International Covenants (1966) – one on Civil and Political Rights, the other on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – human rights fell into oblivion, at best becoming a political football in the ever more intense Cold War climate.1 In the mid-1970s, the idea of human rights was redeployed politically against dictatorships – partly led by the Catholic Church in its ambivalent engagement with 369

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the military juntas in Latin America.2 The US president, Jimmy Carter, took up the idea in the context of his wider ambitions for an ethical foreign policy; in the 1980s, human rights language entered protest movements against the Soviet regime in Eastern Europe, though human rights were hardly decisive in the economically induced fall of the Eastern bloc. Since the end of the Cold War, the idea has, in Western circles, come to be associated with developmental concerns – ironically so, given that socioeconomic rights were initially championed by the Soviet Union. Human rights theorizing became prevalent in mainstream Anglo-American political philosophy in the context of the global justice debate. Although initially focused on distributive justice, the failure of attempts to extend the Rawlsian difference principle to the global context led theorists towards the alternative, more individualist human rights paradigm.3 Currently, there is a burgeoning philosophical human rights literature, which has divided into variants of two major positions: human rights conceived as a species of moral rights and human rights conceived as distinctly political rights. While moral human rights are cast as historical successors to the long-standing natural rights tradition and are thought of as rights which all persons hold against each other, proponents of the political view regard human rights as sui generis and as intended to affirm the rights of individuals against states.4 One might think the above preamble superfluous to human rights reasoning on the African continent. Yet it is worth noting that, historically, the focus was on Europe, with European ‘overseas possessions’ largely folded into – or exempted from – the discussion. Nor were African independence movements decisively motivated by human rights. Independence agitation grew more intense post-World War II, but nonetheless predated it; its intellectual sources were the leading thinkers of the pan-Africanist movement, including Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah and Leopold Senghor, among others. However, once independence was achieved, the newly recognized states were, as a matter of course, bound by international law and statutes. Thus, although the original human rights discourse did not address Africa and other colonized regions of the world, African states became signatories to international human rights declarations as a condition of being received into the ‘community of states’. African states’ commitment to international human rights laws and aspirations has been ambivalent.5 This ambivalence is reflected in the African Charter of Human Rights (ACHR), adopted in 1981 though not activated by Heads of States and the African Union until 2006. The Charter enumerates rights of peoples in addition to affirming individual rights; moreover, the ACHR specifies numerous duties of individuals towards community and state, including the duty to foster African culture and traditions and the duty to contribute to nation-building. The Charter is an implicit corrective of the 1948 Declaration: in emphasizing group rights and individual duties, it identifies crucial omissions, from an African perspective, by the original human rights commission. I will, for the rest of this chapter, focus on two problem areas identified by African philosophers. The first concerns the underlying conception of the person that informs international human rights declarations and laws; the second concerns the distinctive challenges faced by postcolonial states in negotiating domestic and international human rights pressures.6

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Human rights and human persons Advocates of human rights generally take their universal validity for granted. A human right is said to be claimable by anyone merely by virtue of being human. The appeal to ‘mere humanity’ either assumes the normative neutrality of the concept of a ‘human being’ or presumes to capture a moral minimum shareable across all cultures and historical periods. Critics of human rights often contest this presumption. Objections take various forms. Socialists and utilitarians often see human rights as ideological or metaphysical distractions, devoid of substantive meaning.7 Alternatively, the concept of ‘rights’, is decried as culturally relative and as peculiar to the Western philosophical tradition, with non-Western traditions cherishing different moral values.8 Again, while one might concede the universal validity of the general concept, one might nonetheless object to that of particular substantive human rights. Finally, one might contest the universalism of human rights on grounds of their parochial underlying premises. African philosophical critics tend to focus on this fourth type of objection; they query the presumption in favour of human rights’ universalistic conception of a person. According to African philosophical critics, the underlying conception of the person is neither normatively neutral nor undemanding – most detect in it a culturally highly particular ideal of personhood that prizes individuality above persons’ communal being.9 To critique the underlying conception of the person is not necessarily to reject the very idea of human rights; however, a different conception of personhood may yield rather different kinds of substantive rights. Relatedly, a different conception of the person may acknowledge the moral importance of (non-correlative) duties as well as that of rights. Most African critics contest what they regard as the unrestricted individualism of current human rights and the resultant reduction of morality to the language of legally enforceable rights. Concerns about ‘rights reductivism’ are not exclusive to African philosophers; other philosophical traditions, too, object to excessive individualism and many Western philosophers share this concern.10 The African debate is nonetheless very much focused on the African context. The overall view appears to be that, if human rights are to gain a practically realistic foothold on the continent, they must be modelled on a conception of the person that reflects specifically African value traditions. What is distinctive about African conceptions of the person? There is nearunanimity among African philosophers regarding the prevalence of communal conceptions of the person in traditional African societies. Kwasi Wiredu says of Akan ethics that ‘the word ‘communalistic’ might be used to characterize the bent of that ethic’, meaning that ‘the norms of morality are defined in terms of the adjustment of the interests of the individual to the interests of society, rather than the adjustment of the interests of society to those of the individual’.11 Segun Gbadegesin notes of traditional Yorùbá society that ‘everyone is expected to be the keeper and protector of the interests of others which are, by extension, their own too’;12 according to Ajume Wingo, the Nso of present-day Cameroon have a relational rather than a personal conception of freedom: to be free is not to be unperturbed by others to do as one chooses, but is to be at ease in the company of others: ‘the thicker the network of affectual dispositions

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available to an individual, the more opportunities there are for the exercise of [relational] freedom’.13 It would be a mistake to assume that African communalism is simply a feature of economic underdevelopment and that it will give way, in the fullness of developmental time, to the individualism associated with ‘modernity’. To the contrary, the commitment to communal life and personhood is deep and well grounded, with lineage in particular seen as constitutive of personhood.14 The African philosophical debate is not about the merits of individualism versus those of communalism so much as the extent of communal personhood. Some favour a so-called radical communalism and others a so-called moderate form. The former is chiefly associated with John Mbiti and Ifeanyi Menkiti; the term ‘moderate communalism’, by contrast, was coined by Kwame Gyekye.15 Since the difference between radical and moderate communalism has a bearing on one’s assessment of human rights, I shall briefly outline the main contrast between them. According to John Mbiti’s oft-cited adage, ‘I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am.’ This formulation challenges Descartes’s ‘I think, thus I am.’ On the Cartesian picture, my immediate acquaintance with myself as a thinking being yields my self-conception as an immaterial substance only contingently connected to my body and essentially left unmodified by social interactions with others. Mbiti’s formulation, by contrast, affirms communal membership as a necessary condition of consciousness of self. Although Mbiti’s formula is often seen as something of an overstatement, the underlying sentiment resonates across African oral traditions: ‘a person is a person through others’; ‘two heads are better than one’; ‘when I call upon another human being, s/he answers’, and so on. Ifeanyi Menkiti builds upon Mbiti’s adage. He distinguishes between being human and being a person: the former is biological, the latter is moral. Personhood is an ontological modification of being human – a modification that requires communal input. Menkiti speaks of an ontological progression ‘from an it to an it’: while the human infant is not yet a person, the ‘nameless death’ are no longer persons. The ‘drama of personhood’ happens in between these two polar extremes of an ordinary human lifespan. As the infant is nurtured by her community, she grows into a toddler, child, youth and adult. Each of these biological stages is accompanied by progressive moral development achieved through induction into age-related obligations and entitlements. As the human being ages, personhood matures. The highest stage of personhood is ancestorship; it is reached after the point of biological death: the biological human being dies, yet the moral person lives on. Menkiti’s account has been criticized for according the community excessive powers over the individual. The concern is that, insofar as the community is the shaper of personhood, it can accord or withhold acknowledgement of a human being as a person. For some, the worry runs deeper – they find that Menkiti’s designation of human infants as non-persons violates our most basic commitment to recognizing the humanity of each merely in virtue of their human nature. My own view is that these criticisms are overdrawn. Menkiti clearly assumes that infants have the capacity to become persons; moreover, he assumes that communities have an obligation to ensure that their members flourish and become responsible agents. In many respects, Menkiti’s position resembles that of Aristotle whose account of the virtues in terms of the

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acquisition of a ‘second nature’ similarly emphasizes a person’s social induction into moral community. Nonetheless, many of his critics worry that Menkiti underestimates the distinctness of persons. Kwame Gyekye’s ‘moderate communalism’ seeks to preserve Mbiti and Menkiti’s insights into the constitutive importance of community while securing the ontological distinctness of the individual from his community. On Gyekye’s account, rather than being mutually exclusive, individuality and communality are co-constitutive of personhood: ‘besides being a social being by nature, the human individual is, also by nature, other things as well’.16 Gyekye enumerates as essential attributes of a person ‘rationality, having a moral sense and a capacity for virtue and, hence, for evaluating and making moral judgement’. As noted, Menkiti does not deny that human beings must possess the potential to become persons, so must bring to their moral development innate capacities such as rationality and moral judgement – to that extent, the difference between Menkiti and Gyekye may be one of emphasis rather than substance. Yet Gyekye wants to preserve a sense of the individual’s capacity for dissent and for making independent judgement: while a person’s substantive moral values and beliefs are contingently shaped by her community, she has in principle the capacity to judge independently of communal values. The contrast between radical and moderate communalism is of significance in the context of the human rights debate in that moderate communalism might be thought more readily to incorporate human rights individualism. While on some readings of radical communalism it is conceptually and hence practically impossible for a person to think of herself as apart from her community, on the moderate account persons do not owe their very status as persons to their community. This may allow one to affirm rights that persons have independently of their communal membership. But here some of the ambivalences of Gyekye’s position show up. It is one thing to affirm that persons are equally individual and communal – another to show how this may coherently be so. The Cartesian conception of the person is individualistic in that it affirms the self ’s knowledge of itself independently of community. By contrast, Menkiti is committed to human beings’ ‘ontological progression’ to personhood: here, community is a necessary condition of personhood. In contrast to both these positions, Gyekye affirms the coeval nature of individuality and communality – there is no normative priority of the one over the other. But which feature of personhood should be given normative priority in the event of a possible conflict between them? A sensible answer may be that this depends on case-by-case judgements – it depends on negotiating the demands of individuality and community contextually. Yet such a balancing approach is not easy to reconcile with the standard view of human rights as non-negotiable entitlements of persons which even their claimants lack the power to waive. If a person has a human right to X, there is simply no question of weighing individual versus communal interests. Despite appearing to be more accommodating towards human rights, moderate communitarianism may in fact find it no less difficult than its radical counterpart to accede to human rights’ uncompromising stance on behalf of individuals’ moral priority. One possible way in which to avoid the prospect of rights conflicts between individuals and their communities is to think of rights as individual entitlements

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bestowed by the community. Where the community is itself the source of rights, they can hardly conflict with communal values and interests. Both Kwasi Wiredu and Souleymane Diagne have argued that communally bestowed rights are integral to traditional systems of governance in Africa. Wiredu both acknowledges the constitutive importance of community to the Akan conception of the person and affirms a basis for individual rights in the Akan political system. Thus, for example, the right to be nurtured is grounded in the Akans’ ‘acute sense of the dependency of a human being’; this right ‘never deserts a human being for one is seen at all times as insufficient unto oneself.’17 Wiredu goes on to extrapolate from the traditional Akan system of governance rights to land, rights of political participation, rights of fair trial, and a right to religious freedom: while resonating with contemporary human rights affirmations, all these rights are ultimately grounded in the Akan communal conception of the human person. While Wiredu seeks to demonstrate the manifestation of universal values in a particular culture, Diagne initially adopts a more stridently individualistic tone. He asks, rhetorically, ‘must an African philosophy of what it means to be human and, as such, to have rights, be caught up in a communitarian approach?’ – to which he answers ‘absolutely not!’18 Diagne’s aims to refute Western theorists who speak of a ‘clash of civilizations’ and who think of human rights as reflecting the unique telos of Western civilization. Against this, Diagne introduces an important historical document from the ancient Mali Empire, ‘The Oath of the Manden’ (dated 1222), which affirms a number of entitlements that would today be recognized as human rights. In the Oath, ‘the Hunters declare: Every (human) life is a life. It is true that a life comes into existence before another life, but no life is more “ancient”, more respectable than another life, just as no life is superior to another life’.19 The Oath goes on to declare each person’s right to self-determination, to freedom of speech, and to property among other things. Diagne compares the Oath favourably to the ACHR, querying the cogency of the latter’s commitment to the rights of peoples as well as individuals’ duties to foster African traditions. For Diagne, the Oath of the Manden, though African, is unapologetically individualistic – this not only disproves Western claims to cultural uniqueness but also shows up the misguided nature of the AHRC’s cultural exceptionalism. And yet, having declared that African rights commitments need not be ‘caught up in a communitarian approach’, Diagne goes on to endorse Wiredu’s moderate communalism: ‘on the one hand, the human being is fully complete and can achieve his destiny only in community. On the other hand, the duty to become a person through the group and through service is affirmed and remains inscribed in the individual trajectory of a life seeking self-realization.’20 Whereas Wiredu and Diagne both argue that a (moderately) communal conception of the person need not be antithetical to human rights, there is a legitimate question as to whether communally grounded rights equate to human rights. Communal rights are typically accorded on the basis of group membership, whereas human rights are meant to accord to persons independently of such membership. Are the individual rights which members of the Akan political system enjoy under that system human rights, or are they a species of civil rights? Wiredu is aware of the tension – his attempt to identify the universal in the particular is not unlike John Rawls’ search for an

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overlapping consensus. According to Rawls, different peoples and cultures might affirm human rights for very different reasons: so long as both reasons converge on the same set of substantive rights, human rights practice is secured.21 This nonetheless leaves open the conceptual issue as to whether rights grounded in community are rights which persons have merely in virtue of being human. Ajume Wingo and Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe both resist attempts to turn a communal morality into a rights-based one. Both argue that a communal morality, though non-rights based, is not therefore disrespectful of personhood. To the contrary, a communal morality emphasizes virtues, including virtues of companionship and mutual assistance, which a rights-based morality will struggle to accommodate. Wingo takes issue with Diagne’s position directly. While he concedes that the Oath of the Manden is cast in individualist terms, he does not think the Oath representative of African communal morality; he thus objects to Diagne’s generalizing from an exceptional case. More positively, Wingo contrasts the system of mutual assistance at the heart of communal morality with an individualistic morality that all too frequently terminates in mutual indifference: while in his home town of Nso in north-west Cameroon,‘a ululation from a lone voice is a call for immediate help’ to which everyone ‘responds with alacrity’ (120), in the New York of 1964 it was possible for a young girl, Kitty Genovese, to be stabbed to death while thirty-eight neighbours passively looked on from their windows.22 Wingo finds it literally unthinkable that no one responded to the young girl’s cries for help. More generally, Wingo casts African moral communalism as a reasoned response to often exceptionally harsh environmental conditions. Life under conditions of climatic extremes, with long periods of either drought or rain (or both alternately) is possible only where people know they can depend on each other. Under such conditions, a morality of mutual assistance will emerge and with it an ethos of what Wingo calls ‘the joy of living together’. In direct challenge to Diagne, Wingo offers his own historical example of a communal moral code – the Islamic Shari’ah: ‘Indeed, the word Shari’ah in Islam is closely connected to water, originally meaning “the place from which one descends for water”. Before the advent of Islam, the Shari’ah was a set of rules governing water use.’23 According to Wingo, this early example of ‘water rules’ – subsequently expanded into a more general body of law – is an instance of a system of entitlements that is directly responsive to particular environmental conditions which, in the case at hand, calls for mutual assistance and dependability. Moving from the Shari’ah to the ACHR, Wingo reasons, against Diagne, that far from lacking cogency, the inclusion of peoples’ rights and individual duties in the ACHR presents a legitimate attempt to articulate a contextually adequate approach to human rights. While Oyowe agrees with Wingo regarding the communal orientation of African personhood and morality, he worries that conceiving distinctly African human rights encourages a pernicious kind of exceptionalism. Oyowe approvingly cites Oruka to this effect: ‘What may be superstition is paraded as “African religion”; what in all cases is a mythology is paraded as “African philosophy”; what in all cases is dictatorship is paraded as “African democracy”.’24 A similar fate awaits African human rights reasoning: what would in all cases be classed as a ‘communal morality’ is magically transformed into ‘African human rights’. Oyowe thinks this unhelpful conceptually and practically. Conceptually, it introduces a cultural relativism about human rights that directly

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contradicts the latter’s universalizing aspirations. Practically, the reclassification of communal values into human rights denigrates the latter’s intrinsic value. If Oyowe doubts that a communal morality can provide an adequate basis for individual human rights, this is because such a morality will tend to prioritize duties over rights: ‘Although African conceptions of human nature, or at least the ones explored here, do not provide an adequate foundation for human rights, they nevertheless can pass as plausible accounts of human duties, the performance of which can guarantee the protection of human dignity. And this may not be a bad thing if indeed the idea of human rights is but one way of protecting human dignity.’25 This move is anathema to many defenders of human rights for whom the very idea of a duty – especially of a duty without correlative rights – spells communal or statist oppression of individual personhood. In Western philosophical circles, and especially within Anglo-American traditions, the idea of a duty is generally viewed with suspicion. Yet, in presenting the idea of duty as an alternative to unconstrained human rights theorizing, Oyowe can also claim powerful philosophical allies from the Western tradition. Immanuel Kant, for example, though often associated with human rights reasoning – largely on the grounds of the latter’s association with human dignity – holds the concept of duty to be prior to that of rights. For Kant, not only are all rights grounded in duties, but there are also duties that do not correlate with rights. At least for Kant, the concept of duty is thus far wider and far more basic to morality than is that of rights. Oyowe’s strategy of avoiding African rights exceptionalism by theorizing an alternative, duty-based morality may thus be regarded as an African philosophical contribution to a more general reassessment of the neglected and unjustly maligned concept of duty.

Human rights and African statehood I noted above that, while during postwar human rights negotiations the colonial powers of Britain and France argued for exemption clauses with regard to their colonial territories, postcolonial states were expected, upon independence, to commit to upholding international human rights aspirations and laws. Not much had changed in terms of new governments’ administrative capacities. As regards the ‘legitimacy deficit’, the situation was even more challenging. While colonial governments did not need to worry about popular legitimacy, newly elected governments were expected to govern in accordance with the ‘will of the people’. In ethnically heterogeneous societies, such a will is elusive at best; add to this poor infrastructure, an overbloated colonially inherited bureaucratic centre, and severe underrepresentation in the reminder of new state territories, and the challenges become virtually insurmountable. The history of European state-building is graphically documented in Niccolo Machiavelli’s infamous essay on statecraft, The Prince. Its guiding principle is that, in politics, one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. The ruthlessness of the Prince’s domination of subject populations, including the bloody despatch of political opponents, scandalizes and intrigues first-year students of political science to this day. Under an international human rights regime, Machiavellian statecraft is not officially

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an option. While this may be a very good thing in many other respects, it has not proven conducive to the consolidation of sovereign authority. Political scientists and sociologists have explored the distinctive nature of the postcolonial state: recall Peter Ekeh’s classic analysis of ‘the two publics’ in the postcolony; Mamood Mamdani’s exploration of the historical legacies of the colonial distinction between ‘subjects’ and ‘citizens’; and Crawford Young’s equally detailed analysis of the continued perception in postcolonial societies of the state as a ‘crusher of stones’.26 Given postcolonial inheritance of a colonial political infrastructure, including a massive legitimacy deficit, the challenges of internal structural transformation are immense. The introduction of international human rights demands into this complex postcolonial situation often makes transformation harder, not easier. The model of statehood which human rights are based on is derived from European state history, including acceptance, at least until 1948, of states’ mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs – the so-called Westphalian principle of sovereignty. The human rights regime shifted the emphasis from internal to international standards of legitimation: a state now needs primarily to be recognized as internally legitimate by other states.27 The presumption is that insofar as human rights protect individual citizens, citizens’ demands will accord with those of international human rights laws. Often, this is not the case. The popular will may in fact be divided; in that case, sovereignty is contested and the contending sides will engage in mutual recriminations, using human rights as a convenient rhetorical weapon. Even where political insurgency is avoided, tying traditional systems of rule into modern state structures is a formidable challenge. As Kofi Quashigah has shown, the need to abide by international human rights demands often introduces yet further complexity. Most postcolonial African states contain constitutional clauses and political arrangements that afford varying degrees of recognition to precolonial systems of governance. The chieftancy system in Ghana, for example, remains locally powerful and serves as a parallel source of political legitimation to that of the state. Traditional and state authorities need to find ways of mutual accommodation; typically this is done by way of allowing minor legal disputes, especially concerning land and family disputes, to be resolved by traditional means. However, the state’s tolerating traditional customs to this purpose often runs foul of international human rights demands. The state then finds itself caught between conflicting internal and international legitimacy demands. Interestingly, international insistence on human rights respect will often result in a felt sense of injustice among local populations: ‘in the zeal to reform the customary practices of the traditional societies [human rights] discourse often ignores the expectations of the traditional societies thereby occasioning a sense of injustice within the traditional set-up.’28 One of the most thorough assessments of the general impact of the international human rights regime on African statehood comes from the Kenyan legal theorist, Makau Mutua, in his 2002 monograph, Human Rights. A Political and Cultural Critique. According to Mutua, the overall failings of human rights on the continent are largely explicable in terms of the discourse’s unexamined and particularistic understanding of the twin concepts, statehood and good governance. More specifically, Mutua identifies a close conceptual and practical overlap between human rights, multiparty democracy and liberal market economics. On Mutua’s account, abidance by international human

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rights standards all but ushers in a liberal conception of good governance, including the demand for multiparty electoral competition. Despite the severely limited success of multipartyism on the continent, and despite the theoretical availability of alternative models of democratic governance,29 African states have found it extremely difficult in practice to diverge from the international preference for multipartyism. Like Quashigah, so Mutua attests to a sense of popular disappointment and feelings of betrayal. Often human rights demands fail to align with the principle of selfdetermination. Mutua’s case study of the post-apartheid South African ‘human rights regime’ is especially telling in this regard. According to Mutua, ‘the construction of the post-apartheid state represents the first deliberate and calculated effort in history to craft a human rights state – a polity that is primarily animated by human rights norms.’30 The new South African constitution draws extensively on international human rights law; it includes express commitment to rights against torture, against racial or gender discrimination, against cruel and unusual forms of punishment. However, the human rights framework is also said to have powerfully underwritten existing property rights, with consequent negative effects on burning issues of social redistribution – most notoriously the redistribution of land owned by a small minority of whites. Mutua cites Ibrahim Gassama’s assessment of the double-edged quality of the human rights regime, which ‘can be deployed to protect the powerful and the status quo just as easily as [it] can be wielded to advance the interests of the weak and excluded. It is not altogether surprising that even as the attainment of political participation rights by blacks in South Africa is celebrated, rights-rhetoric is being successfully deployed to protect the economic status quo – the private property rights – of the white minority in the country.’31 One might think Mutua’s assessment of the often ideological character of international human rights unfounded. There is, one might protest, nothing distinctly ‘liberal’ about a right not to be tortured, nor about a right to political participation. Indeed, one might protest that the South African case constitutes an exception, from which it would be unwise to generalize to other African states: some settlement between the white minority and the black majority was always going to be needed. These counter-objections are not without weight; certainly the South African state possesses a political infrastructure that approximates the European more than the postcolonial model; rights may to that extent be more realistically enforceable as well as according with the cultural self-understanding of at least some citizens. And it can of course not be denied that rights against torture, discrimination and cruel punishment are supremely important political goods. Nonetheless, Mutua’s underlying point should not be lightly dismissed that allowing an entire constitution to be guided by individual rights talk exclusively makes for a political culture in which a much needed sense of community and communal solidarity is largely noticeable for its absence.

Conclusion I opened this chapter by noting that the philosophical human rights debate waxes and wanes according to political circumstance. During the last twenty years, the concept

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received a considerable degree of philosophical attention among Western theorists, in part because the fall of Soviet socialism raised the question anew of a possible universal consensus on basic norms of governance. As Mutua also notes, Western attention quickly focused on human rights reasoning in the context of so-called developing nations – Asia and especially Africa –where good governance is notable for its absence (though one can hardly claim that bad governance is the preserve of non-Western states!). The expectation among theorists and practitioners alike was that human rights morality and law might compel rulers to improve accountability and legitimacy among other things. Yet Western human rights theorists rarely take cognizance of the distinctive circumstances of postcolonial statehood; nor, in general, do they have much patience for complains about human rights’ underlying moral parochialism. African philosophers’ engagement with human rights, meanwhile, is notable for its general non-hostility to the concept of right, on the one hand, combined with deep and persistent misgivings about the unrestrained individualism of contemporary human rights theory and practice, on the other. While it is difficult to predict the course of future developments, it seems to me unlikely that existing human rights theory and practice will make an appreciable difference to African states’ future political and social trajectories. Human rights theorists and practitioners would have to engage much more seriously with legitimate concerns about the underlying parochialism of human rights’ erstwhile reception. But, if such serious engagement were to be forthcoming, the very idea of universally valid human rights might dissipate. This may sound like a pessimistic conclusion – however, it needn’t be seen as such. As Oyowe notes, there are alternative ways in which to express and practise commitment to human dignity; perhaps it is time for these alternatives to receive a fair hearing.

Notes 1

2 3

4

5

6

For a detailed account of the early history of human rights, see A. W. Brian Simpson’s magisterial Human Rights and the End of Empire. Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). See Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia. Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). See, for example, Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Oxford: Polity Press, 2002). Contrast David Kennedy, The Dark Side of Virtue. Reassessing International Humanitarianism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). For an example of the moral approach to human rights, see James Griffin, On Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). For an example of the political approach to human rights, see Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). One of the most thorough recent treatments of the political and legal reception of human rights in Africa is Makau Mutua, Human Rights. A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). See Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, ‘Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood’, World Politics 35 (1982), 1–24. Also Christopher Clapham, ‘Degrees of Statehood’, Review of International Studies 24 (1998), 143–57. Declaratory versus Constitutional Statehood. See Jackson

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9 10 11 12 13 14

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16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

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27 28

African Ethics These reflect the views of Karl Marx and Jeremy Bentham, respectively. Cultural relativism about human rights is often associated with the so-called ‘Asian Values Debate’. For a critical assessment, see Amartya Sen, Human Rights and Asian Values (New York: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, 2003). Cf. Martin Odei Ajei, ‘Human Rights in a Moderate Communitarian Political Framework’, South African Journal of Philosophy 34 (2015), 491–503. See especially Onora O’Neill, ‘The Dark Side of Human Rights’, International Affairs 81 (2005), 427–39. Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universals and Particulars. An African Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 71. Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy. Traditional Yoruba Philosophical Thought and Contemporary African Realities (New York: Peter Lang 1991), 65. Ajume Wingo, ‘The Odyssey of Human Rights’, Transition 102 (2010), 120–38, at 126. See, for example, Kwame Gyekye, African Philosophical Thought. The Akan Conceptual Scheme (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 85–103; Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy. Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), 27–61; D. A. Masolo, ‘The concept of a person in Luo modes of thought’ in Lee Brown (ed.), African Philosophy. New and Traditional Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84–106. Compare Ifeanyi Menkiti, ‘On the Normative Conception of a Person’ in Kwasi Wiredu (ed.). A Companion to African Philosophy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2006), 324–31; Kwame Gyekye, ‘Person and Community: in Defense of Moderate Communitarianism’ in Tradition and Modernity. Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997), 35–76. Gyekye, Tradition and Modernity, 53. Wiredu, Universals and Particulars, 158. Souleymane Bachir Diagne, ‘Individual, Community, and Human Rights: a Lesson from Kwasi Wiredu’s Philosophy of Personhood’, Transition 101 (2009). ‘The Oath of the Manden’, cited in Diagne, ‘Individual, Community, and Human Rights’, 12. Diagne, ‘Individual, Community, and Human Rights’, 15. John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Ajume Wingo, ‘The Odyssey of Human Rights’, Transition 102 (2010), 120–38, at 120. Wingo, ‘The Odyssey of Human Rights’, 130. Odera Oruka cited in Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe, ‘An African Conception of Human Rights? Comments on the Challenges of Relativism’, Human Rights Review 15 (2014), 329–47. Contrast Thaddeus Metz, ‘Ubuntu as a moral theory and human rights in South Africa’, African Human Rights Law Journal 11 (2012), 532–59. Oyowe, ‘An African Conception of Human Rights?’, 347. Peter Ekeh, ‘Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1975), 91–112; Mamood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject. Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Kofi Quashighah, ‘Justice in the Traditional African Society within the Modern Constitutional Set-up’, Jurisprudence 7 (2016), 93–110, at 95.

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29 See, for example, Kwasi Wiredu, Cultural Universities and Particulars. An African Perspective: Part IV. ‘Democracy and Human Rights’ (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); Ajume Wingo, ‘Good Government is Accountability’ in Teodros Kiros (ed.), Explorations in African Political Thought (London: Routledge, 2001), 151–70. 30 Mutua, Human Rights, 126. 31 Mutua, Human Rights, 128.

References Ajei, Martin Odei. 2015. ‘Human Rights in a Moderate Communitarian Political Framework’. South African Journal of Philosophy 34:491–503. Beitz, Charles. 2009. The Idea of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buchanan, Allen. 2003. Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clapham, Christopher. 1998. ‘Degrees of Statehood’. Review of International Studies 24: 143–57. Diagne, Souleymane Bachir. 2009. ‘Individual, Community, and Human Rights: a Lesson from Kwasi Wiredu’s Philosophy of Personhood’. Transition 101. Ekeh, Peter, 1975. ‘Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 17: 91–112. Gbadegesin, Segun. 1991. African Philosophy. Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities. New York: Peter Lang. Griffin, James. 2008. On Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson, Robert, and Carl G. Rosberg. 1982. ‘Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood’. World Politics 35: 1–24. Gyekye, Kwame. 1995. African Philosophical Thought. The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Gyekye, Kwame. 1997. ‘Person and Community: in Defense of Moderate Communitarianism’. In Tradition and Modernity. Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience, ed. Kwame Gyekye, 35–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kennedy, David. 2004. The Dark Side of Virtue. Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mamdani, Mamood. 1996. Citizen and Subject. Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Masolo, Dismas. 2004. ‘The concept of a person in Luo modes of thought’. In African Philosophy. New and Traditional Perspectives, ed. Lee Brown, 84–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Menkiti, Ifeanyi. 2006. ‘On the Normative Conception of a Person’. In A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu, 324–31. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Metz, Thaddeus. 2012. ‘Ubuntu as a moral theory and human rights in South Africa’. African Human Rights Law Journal 11: 532–59. Moyn, Samuel. 2010. The Last Utopia. Human Rights in History. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. Mutua, Makau. 2002. Human Rights. A Political and Cultural Critique. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. O’Neill, Onora. 2005. ‘The Dark Side of Human Rights’. International Affairs 81: 427–39. Oyowe, O. A. 2014. ‘An African Conception of Human Rights? Comments on the Challenges of Relativism’. Human Rights Review 15: 329–47.

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Pogge, Thomas. 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights. Oxford: Polity Press. Quashigah, Kofi. 2016. ‘Justice in the Traditional African Society within the Modern Constitutional Set-up’. Jurisprudence 7: 93–110. Sen, Amartya. 2003. Human Rights and Asian Values (New York: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. Simpson, Brian. 2001. Human Rights and the End of Empire. Britain and the Genesis of The European Convention. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wingo, Ajume. 2001. ‘Good Government is Accountability’. In Explorations in African Political Thought, ed. Teodros Kiros, 151–70. London: Routledge . Wingo, Ajume. 2010. ‘The Odyssey of Human Rights’. Transition 102: 120–38. Wiredu, Kwasi. 1996. Cultural Universities and Particulars. An African Perspective: Part IV. ‘Democracy and Human Rights’. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Euthanasia in African Ethics Simon M. Makwinja

Introduction What appears to be the most important question within euthanasia debates, and given the high value attached to life, is whether a deliberate termination of human life is justifiable and defensible. The discussion of euthanasia in the Western philosophical tradition generally hinges on the principle of individual autonomy as the basic element which defines the nature of a person. Autonomy enables and enhances self-governance, self-rule or self-determination in an individual. Hence, autonomy, which is the ability of an individual to choose, becomes a defining feature of morality (Molefe 2020: 111). For example, in the Netherlands, which by the year 2002 was the only country in the world to have legalize euthanasia, autonomy and condition of the patient were deemed critical when making such a euthanasia request (de Haan 2002: 155). Although African traditional thought systems do recognize the metaphysical formulations of the nature of a person (see Metz 2015: 2), preference is given to the normative dimensions of personhood (2012: 22). The normative personhood is conceived within the broader communitarian philosophy, whose central idea is that human beings are entities embedded within and are penetrated by an array of cultural assumptions and knowledge (Ridley-Duff 2007: 382). It is for this reason that this discussion approaches euthanasia as implied by the idea of personhood based on the communitarian ethic. This personhood should arguably provide a robust basis for making decisions regarding the termination of human life in Africa. This discussion attempts to answer the question: What does the African communitarian ethic entail for the problem of euthanasia? The immediate implication that one might draw from the normative idea of personhood in African philosophy is that the individual has very little latitude to decide how he ends his life. The reason is that community decisions override those of the individual as ‘man is defined by reference to the environing community’ (Menkiti 1984: 171). Thus, as Maduka Enyimba and Lawrence O. Ojong (2019: 49) explain, it is difficult for the individual to isolate himself from the community and its influences. However, such a casual inference has been challenged by some African philosophers who think this position overstates its claims. For instance, Motsamai Molefe (2019: 53) sees the individual as central in the communitarian moral set-up. He submits that, insofar as the moral idea of personhood 383

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makes the perfection of the character of the individual the essential focus of morality, it is overtly individualistic. To realize the objective of this chapter, the discussion will not join the debate whether personhood is constituted by one’s embeddedness or individuality. Its approach is from the broader communitarian framework which, on many counts, is authoritative for many debates, euthanasia included, in the African context. To achieve this, four broad sections form the structure of this work. The first main section conceptualizes euthanasia. In this specific objective, given the lack of a universally agreed definition, the point is to clarify how the idea of euthanasia is used in various contexts. The hope is to get rid of conceptual confusions for ease of analysis and implications (see Keown 2002: 9). Above all, conceptual clarity, which is regarded as the primary fodder of a philosophical enterprise, leads to the development of a theory (see Bishop 1992). The second main section discusses African value systems. Values which include norms and goals existing in a society are important for determining what is right and wrong and what is important in life. It is through values that some forms of behaviour, actions and conduct are approved while others are widely disapproved of (Idang 2015: 98–102). The third main section, which is a consequent of section two reflects on the idea of personhood which is at the centre of deliberate termination of life. The idea of personhood is important to understand the value of the individual whose life is to be terminated as well as the responsibility of the individual to terminate that life. Embedded in this section is the commitment to determine the value of life within African traditional thought. The fourth main section focuses on the central aim of this chapter, namely euthanasia in African ethics. In this section the problem of euthanasia is subjected to the African moral judgement expressed through the African value system in general, and the idea of personhood in the African value system. This section ideally draws implications about the practice of euthanasia from African ethics.

The concept of euthanasia In engaging in a philosophical discussion of any kind, it is imperative to commence by seeking clarity of concepts used in a given problem. Entities to which ideas refer are the subject of contentions and various interpretations. One way to pursue clarity of ideas is through their definitions. Definitions of concepts create boundaries within which a particular term applies. Definitions focus on the essential or abstract features of an entity for it to be called by that name. As logician Patrick J. Hurley (2015: 96) explains, definitions are philosophically critical. He says: ‘For most logicians today . . . definitions are intended exclusively to explicate the meaning of words.’ Indeed, some philosophical problems arise from lack of conceptual clarity. Importantly, definitions help us avoid vagueness and ambiguity in our communication with others. Scholars in various knowledge domains have formulated various working definitions for euthanasia in order to avoid ambiguities and vagueness within such a general definition. A clear definition acts as a guide to decisions made about euthanasia within various domains such as law, medicine and ethics. In the present case, discussion about euthanasia in African ethics cannot begin in earnest without first engaging its definition and

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conceptualization. It is for this reason that the present section engages the definition and concept of euthanasia. The term euthanasia falls within the ambit of medical ethics. Medical ethics defines the characteristics of the medical profession whose primary objective is to save human life at any cost (see Mawere 2011: 6). Etymologically, the term euthanasia has got Greek roots. Formed from a compound of two words, eu which means ‘well’ or ‘good’, and thanatos which means ‘death’, euthanasia literally means ‘good death’ or ‘dying well’. From this etymology, euthanasia is generally defined by a number of phrases, such as killing, letting die, mercy killing or the most humane intervention available to patients whose conditions cannot be alleviated by means of the available medical options (Mawere 2011: 6). The good and sometimes happy death, mercy killing or the most humane intervention to one’s irreversible medical condition, as distinguished from other forms of death, is for the person who is dying as a subject (see Scherer and Simon 1999: 2–3; Mawere 2011: 7; Koenane 2017; Molefe 2020: 105). In Molefe’s (2020: 103) working definition, euthanasia is simply mercy killing or a ‘good death’. This death occurs at the request of the individual who is usually terminally ill. The request originates from the desire to be relieved of a life of unbearable pain and suffering. Koenane (2017: 1) adds that euthanasia is a good or happy death because it is supposed to be painless and stress-free. Hence, for some, painless and easy death should be permitted under chronic conditions such as lack of treatment and possibility of cure. In such situations, death is dignified, and therefore preferable. Euthanasia is good death because it ends a patient’s pain and suffering, easing the passing which is quiet and painless. For others, euthanasia is an act of mercy because it is in the interest of the suffering and painstricken patient that death be facilitated. It is for this reason that Nwafor (2010: 173) thinks ‘euthanasia may thus be looked upon as the act of bringing about the death of a patient by a physician, by whatever means so attained, in the interest of the patient’. According to Molefe (2020: 105; see also Gbadegesin 1993: 259; Nwafor 2010: 173).), it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that all sound-minded individuals desire to avoid going through unnecessary and excruciating pain and suffering which originate from some illness, especially if it becomes clear that death is inevitable. Sometimes, it becomes so clear that the individual is not only suffering pain, but, as a consequence, the illness is also affecting her mental functioning. For this reason, proponents of euthanasia usually argue that some forms of killing, such as murder, suicide, abortion, infanticide and others aimed at helping a patient to escape this suffering, cannot be classified as euthanasia (Mawere 2011: 8). However, even if a person suffers from terminal illness, practical and existential conditions certainly dictate how people perceive the idea and practice of euthanasia. For instance, while some people would view euthanasia as murder, others would view it as an act of benevolence and compassion. Further, some consider it as a mark of respect for autonomy or dying with dignity. These and many other views have important implications for the classification of euthanasia. In its various classifications, euthanasia can be active or passive, voluntary or involuntary. In the definition of euthanasia which suggests good death, two elements of emphasis are particularly central. These are intention and interest, for which the deliberate killing or letting die of the patient with terminal illness is carried out. In terms of intention, the death under consideration must be purposively or deliberately carried out (see Molefe

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2020: 105–6; Mawere 2011: 7). In other words, it must be caused, or come about, as a result of someone’s intention – for instance, the medical practitioner. This means that death cannot be attributed to an accident or chance. In terms of interest, death described as euthanasia must be carried out exclusively in the interest and for the benefit of the dying patient. In other words, euthanasia is carried out by a person other than the patient herself, for the sake of the patient. Such interest and benefit referred to here are dictated by the serious and extreme condition of the patient for whom euthanasia is prescribed and carried out. The commonly cited extreme or serious medical conditions include: a terminal illness; a persistent (permanent) vegetative state; and protracted unbearable pain with no possible medical intervention. In the Western philosophical tradition, autonomy of an individual plays an important role in understanding various practices involving human beings. Similarly, the autonomy of a patient or that of her proxy is very important in the debates on euthanasia. Most scholars defend or reject euthanasia by appealing to the concept of dignity of a person where dignity is a function of human autonomous nature which points to the human ability to govern themselves. The underlying reasoning here is that the ability to choose is fundamental to human dignity. On this basis, allowing the individual to exercise freedom in making critical decisions that affect her life is regarded as paramount and consistent with human nature (Molefe 2020: 110). Many scholars (such as Molefe 2020: 123; see also Mangena and Chitando 2013: 125; Jacobs 2018: 67; Mawere 2009: 102) see the autonomy-based view as suggesting that the most important thing is for the medical patient to have the power to govern her life, including on matters concerning its conclusion. Allowing the patient to exercise her freedom entails respect for her dignity. If, on the other hand, the patient is denied the opportunity to make choices about her own life, she would have been treated to an undignified and inferior form of human existence. Although the autonomy-based idea of personhood appears to have acquired a universal status in euthanasia debates in contemporary Western ethics, one must exercise extra caution regarding the controversial nature of the idea of autonomy itself. The idea of autonomy can be used in either permitting or rejecting the practice of euthanasia; that is, the same freedom can legitimately be employed to preserve or terminate life. Although autonomy-based personhood appears to command universal appeal, it has nonetheless very little latitude to fundamentally influence various decisions regarding the end of life in the African context. The African context provides a different position of personhood. Although communitarianism is neither a preserve of African traditional thought nor generalizable to the whole of Africa, it is not an overstatement to argue that it is a distinctive and dominant feature of African traditional thought. Generally, communitarianism views an individual as largely sociocentric or communitarian in nature. It is in this consideration that, as a dominant philosophy in Africa, communitarianism should be able to provide the platform for articulating the permissibility of euthanasia with African pedigree. The idea is that the best decision to be made is most likely to come from the engagement one has with others. Besides the idea of personhood, death is very central to the ethical or moral dilemmas that euthanasia raises. Death tells us something about the value of life. Hence, the moral significance of euthanasia is closely connected to the intrinsic value

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of life, and the human propensity to always feel responsible for its protection. The practice of euthanasia involves implementation of a decision to terminate life before it naturally does so and when it could be prolonged. Such a decision may involve direct intervention (active euthanasia) or withholding life-prolonging measures (passive euthanasia). Such decisions may have to collide with the individual who has her own wishes and conscious decisions to make about her own life (Harris 1999: 6). The value of life is linked to the central features of the individual person as opposed to the lives of other things (the notion of human person). The central features of an individual person answer the question: What kind of being is a person? Such features invoke in individuals the responsibility to respect others. This respect includes the concern for others’ welfare, respect for their intrinsic value of their lives, and respect for their wishes and interests (Harris 1999: 10). In terms of the value of human life as the moral basis of euthanasia debates, Keown (2002) has identified three competing views, namely vitalism, sanctity/inviolability of human life, and quality of human life. For vitalism, human life has absolute moral value, and requires that human life be preserved at all costs (39). It is against this absolute worth that shortening or failing to prolong the life of a patient is wrong. Vitalism promotes the prolongation of life regardless of whether the life is that of a seriously disabled newborn baby, or an elderly person with advanced senile dementia. Through the sanctity or inviolability of life, human beings possess inherent dignity, as a result of which they develop rational abilities such as understanding and choice. Accordingly, all human beings should be presumed to possess capacities characteristic of their nature. These abilities are, however, not always exercisable. The sanctity (religious) or inviolability (secular) of human life is the principle on which the Hippocratic Oath in Western medical ethics is founded. For Keown (40–1) then, whether expressed in religious or secular form, the right not to be killed intentionally should be enjoyed by all human beings regardless of ability, inability or disability. Finally, the quality of human life concerns the worthwhileness of a patient’s life after getting a specific treatment. Some disabilities deprive one of the ability to think rationally. Can this kind of life be worthy of prolongation? This is particularly inconsistent with the principle of inviolability of life, for it provides conditions under which human life loses its worthwhileness. As Fletcher (1973: 670) did argue, ‘[I]t is harder morally to justify letting somebody die a slow and ugly death, dehumanized, than it is to justify helping him to escape from such misery.’ Dilemmas arising from euthanasia do not only affect patients on the basis of their autonomy; doctors are also faced with more devastating dilemmas in their moral duty to patients, profession and society. The thinking that a doctor has unconditional moral duty never to kill is misplaced. Doctors should find it hard to reconcile the obligation not to kill intentionally and the obligation to relieve suffering and to prolong life, particularly of patients who are suffering terminal illnesses and are facing imminent death since all palliation has been unsuccessful. As Koenane (2017: 1) worries, dilemmas raised in euthanasia debates make it difficult to make firm decisions about its practice, especially for the reason that involves the end of life. In the face of dilemmas raised by euthanasia, Egan (2008: 49–50) has identified three moral tensions that doctors usually have had to confront. These are their

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autonomy, suffering and conscience. Autonomy is clearly an important principle in biomedical ethics. The principle of autonomy prevents medical professionals from arbitrarily ending patients’ lives which they may consider technically futile. Autonomous decisions are meant to avoid coercion. For this reason, autonomy is cited as the basis for legalizing euthanasia. However, the problem with autonomy as a fundamental principle implies freedom is absolute. Sometimes, it happens that terminally ill patients are not autonomous to make free decisions. Factors such as culture, ability, family, as well as laws, may limit one’s freedom and rights to act autonomously. One does not simply get what he wants, especially when the stakes concern something so final that it has personal and social consequences. Suffering by a patient can also be a source of moral tension (Egan 2008: 49). Unbearable pain and suffering by a patient are considered as fundamental reasons for seeking and legalizing euthanasia. Euthanasia is sought or recommended on the understanding that the existing medical treatments for terminal illnesses are futile, and pain control may not be sufficiently effective, or the illness in question leads to a slow and debilitating death. Suffering could be both physical and mental. The suffering of this nature greatly diminishes the quality of a patient’s life. Although some religions argue for the significance of human suffering, it remains unclear how long one should endure suffering. Since suffering does not provide a sufficiently argued position against euthanasia, one may argue that its contrary position offers a stronger case for legalizing euthanasia. The third moral tension, according to Egan, involves conscience (50). Regardless of the reason offered for euthanasia, a direct involvement in ending another person’s life becomes a problem of conscience. Medical professionals who are involved in the planning and actual administering of euthanasia may find this particularly disturbing. Accordingly, Egan (51) contends that an objective and morally correct decision does not arise from an external source, but ultimately from within one’s convictions embedded in the conscience. Although this does not make decisions easy, living according to our respective conscience is what makes us human. What is more, medical professionals, like other human beings, have their own beliefs about life and death, besides their rights which ought to be respected. Doctors whose conscience is pro-life, and who are under pressure to perform euthanasia on a patient who also has her own rights, face a very difficult dilemma. Given these definitions, philosophical foundations and other ethical dilemmas arising from euthanasia, does African philosophical thought have anything to contribute to the debate on euthanasia? What implications does African philosophical thought, and especially the idea of personhood, have on the euthanasia debate? This is where the discussion now turns.

The African value system To be able to draw valid implications about euthanasia in African ethics, there is need to consider the African value system. Values connote something of importance or worth. They consist of moral principles which guide the actions and belief systems of

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African people. Values can be seen as assumptions that form the basis of ethical actions. They form the basis of determining actions as good or bad, right or wrong. Social values are particularly important as they determine the contents of its norms, which in turn help in maintaining social order (Columbus 2014: 208). Communitarianism is considered as the dominant theme and distinctive feature in African traditional thought (Menkiti 1984; Gyekye 2004; Ramose 1999, 2003; Wiredu 2008; Matolino 2009, 2014; Chuwa 2014). For Metz (2012: 12), the communitarian view is more attractive than other views. It is for this reason that according to Masolo (2004: 488),‘Africa’s recent intellectual movements have tried to give communitarianism a robust and prescriptive status’. Chuwa (2014: 77) emphasizes the idea that ‘communitarianism is at the heart of indigenous African way of life, so much so that immediate community is viewed as an extension of the self ’. However, as Wiredu (2008: 338) observes, the communitarian label is assigned to some thinkers on the basis that their works largely contain communitarian elements and are deemed as such. For other communitarians, it is their works which categorically state some facts about communitarianism as an ideal feature of African philosophy. On the social and political front, communalism or collectivism and communitarianism constitute a very important theme in postcolonial Africa. However, as a philosophical system, communitarianism is a fairly recent doctrine in social and political philosophy (Masolo 2004: 483). In spite of the ubiquity of communitarian ideas throughout intellectual history, they lacked a deliberate articulation which would lead into a system. As a version of broader communitarian views, African communitarianism provides a coherent philosophy through which social and political life in the African context can become intelligible. Systematic African communitarian thought is also associated with postindependence African political leaders. Wiredu (2008: 332) calls them the first crop of post-independence African political leaders who saw the practical significance of philosophy. These leaders had embarked on postcolonial reconstruction of their respective states, replacing colonial institutions with those modelled on indigenous value systems. The resort to communitarian ideals on the part of these political leaders underlined their obvious dissatisfaction with capitalism as a sociopolitical and economic ideology, which left most African countries in ruins of different sorts (Obioha 2014: 17). As one of the primary motives that led to the development of the communitarian view and African socialism was the desire to differentiate Africans from Europeans (Matolino 2008: 8), African communitarianism provided a unique philosophical as well as ideological platform for post-independence political, economic and social processes and development in many African countries. African communitarianism specifically refers to the social formation founded on kinship relationships (Wiredu 2008: 335). The very idea of the community implies the common good; that is, the community is perceived as the embodiment of what is good for members of the community (Gyekye 1987: 158; 1997: 42). The communal good is not implied merely in the aggregate of individual interests resulting from the agreements that those individuals enter into with each other based on convenience and exploitation, but rather in members’ shared values such as peace, dignity, freedom, respect, security, satisfaction, and many more. The fundamental meaning of community

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lies in the shared life for the purpose of achieving the common good (Gyekye 2004: 16; Deng 2004: 502). The expectation within the communitarian framework is that the actions of the individual must be adjusted to the interest of the public. As Bewaji (2004: 396) explains, the ‘human social and interpersonal behaviour is under the necessity of the adjustment of interests among individuals for attaining the general well-being of the community’. Masolo (2004: 483) has named this the ‘good of the collective whole’, which implies that its origins are from members’ deliberate contribution, and not leaders of the community, as the accusation has always been. Therefore, as a distinctive and dominant feature of African philosophical thought, African communitarianism presents as a set of a priori categories and forms of intuition that regulates African peoples’ perception towards social reality. Some of the realities that depend on these forms include personhood, life and death, which are critical for engaging euthanasia.

Personhood in the African value system Personhood in African thought systems is critical to the understanding of euthanasia in African ethics. As Gbadegesin (1993: 257) explains, the idea of personhood is critical to understanding bioethical issues, influencing people’s attitudes to health, illness and their choices regarding healthcare. Molefe (2020: 103) stretches the notion of personhood as to include dignity of the person as the basis for permitting or rejecting euthanasia. His philosophical exploration draws from African cultures, relying on the notion of dignity which is itself based on the salient moral category of the personhood in African philosophy to reflect on the permissibility of euthanasia. While it deals with the nature of the self, personhood directly entails a particular moral standpoint (Gyekye 1997: 35–76; Ramose 1999; Imafidon and Bewaji 2013). As a feature central to ethical decisions regarding the ending of human life, personhood provides the basis for a meaningful debate on euthanasia. Personhood can be understood from the way human societies are organized; that is, in their various forms of organization, societies consider the person as a central element. In this regard, social order is generally based on two competing constructs of personhood of human beings, namely an existential construct, which holds that personhood is a state of being inherent and essential to the human species, and a relational construct that personhood is a conditional state of value defined by society (White 2013: 74). Drawing on this distinction, the present discussion will deliberately adopt the relational personhood since it is dominant among many African philosophers (see also Metz 2021; Molefe 2020). It is this nature of the self that will form the basis of euthanasia debate in African ethics. To see how this construct of personhood becomes the foundation of African ethics, there is a need to start with an analysis of the African view of life and human nature (Kasoma 1996: 102). The African’s world is a continuum of both the living and the dead. The living and the dead all share one world, and are connected through the vital force or life force (see Tempels 1959). The vital force constitutes a hierarchy of being so that it is kept in perfect harmony with the rest of the members. In this sort of community, the living

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and the dead do affect each other in what they do or do not do. The living need the dead to carry out a normal and full life. The dead, in turn, need the living to enjoy their ‘lives’ to the full through libations and other sacrifices by the living. In addition, names which are usually given to the living belong to the dead so that the dead become alive in the living and propagate their vital force (Kasoma 1996: 102–7). Sometimes, evil spirits (bad dead people) have the power and influence to haunt the living against whom they have a grudge by generally making their lives difficult. The good spirits, on the other hand, protect the living from problems which come with life’s vicissitudes, or are deliberately planted by evil living people or spirits. To understand this, it is important to realize that the dead are not actually ‘dead’ in the ordinary sense. They merely transfer to another life – a life of the dead-living or living-dead. Any interference with this harmony of forces creates a gap, and is regarded as unethical (Sakali 2013: 10). The world that comprises the living-dead or dead-living, in which they also share one life and one vital force, is properly called the community. On the basis of the African view of life and nature, the majority of scholars on personhood in African philosophy subscribe to the normative idea in Mbiti’s (1970: 141) classic dictum that ‘I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am’, although its interpretation has some variations. In its various interpretations, this normative concept of a person is natural to the subject of morality. For Menkiti (1984: 171), Mbiti’s dictum suggests that ‘the reality of the communal world takes precedence over the reality of individual life histories, whatever these may be. This primacy is meant to apply not only ontologically, but also in regard to epistemic accessibility.’ These expressions sum up African people’s morality. Phrases like these are common in societies across countries like South Africa, Kenya to the east, Ghana to the west, and Malawi and Zambia in central Africa. These phrases connote both metaphysical/ empirical and normative outlooks (Metz 2017: 2). As the most prominent strand of moral thought in the African philosophical tradition, communitarianism emphasizes the relational and cohesive dimensions of an individual, and roughly demands that individuals enter into communion with each other. The familiar implication from this view is that the ideal person is the one who shares a way of life, and perhaps even in their fate, with others (Metz 2021: 7). From this normative outlook, the individual is regarded largely as sociocentric or communitarian in nature. In a basic interpretation of African personhood, the community is central in its conception of the person, where the individual is regarded as wholly constituted by the community, and that the individual has meaning so long as she identifies herself with her community (see Tempels 1959: 108; Mbiti 1970: 141; Matolino 2008). According to Menkiti (2004: 324), one’s identity can only be realized through solidarity with others. In the absence of others, one cannot make a claim regarding her existence as a person. This is the notion of an extended self. However, this should not be confused with, and cannot be substituted by, other related statements. For example, John Mbiti’s (1970: 141) classic statement, ‘I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am’, represents a feature of the African world view of personhood in which a person is wholly constituted by social relationships. What this suggests is that belonging to a community and participating in its activities makes one an authentic human being. It is not by chance, but necessity, that one belongs to a community.

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Within this view, the community, not the person, is at the centre, and one’s behaviour is modelled along the community’s prescriptions. The kind of society or community under consideration is not only a necessary condition for human existence, but it is also something natural to human beings. From the very moment one begins to exist, say at birth, she is involved in an intricate web of social relationships with other members of the society (Obioha 2014: 14). This society plays a very critical role in one’s journey towards achieving personhood. The community becomes the catalyst of one’s personhood as it prescribes moral norms. This process transforms an individual from a merely biological entity into full personhood. Thus, an individual cannot carry through this transformation unassisted by the community (Menkiti 2004: 326). The approach to personhood in African traditional thought is generally speaking maximal, insofar as it reaches for something beyond such minimalist requirements as the presence of consciousness, memory, will, soul, rationality or mental function. Failure by an individual to attain personhood would have implications on the whole community one is a member of. As such, personhood is tied to the notion of morality by which certain behaviours are detested. In a way, personhood does not simply refer to individuals considered as crude existents, but some excellence achieved by individuals in relation to their duties to the community. One’s social conduct, which consists in the fulfilment of obligations to kin, that is, people with whom one forms the community, both living and dead, is important for morality in the African context. As already alluded to, it is believed that some of the departed relations and the spirits are responsible for watching over people to make sure that they observe the moral laws. Breaking such laws results in punishment. The relationship between the living and the dead helps members of the community to live harmoniously and responsibly. Acts are considered good or bad depending on whether or not they serve the community. Acts that only serve to propagate individual pursuits are not regarded as good as those that serve the family, clan or tribe. Selfish acts may even be regarded as bad acts if they are harmful to the community. To safeguard the welfare of the community, there exist many taboos concerning what may not be done, and the consequences for disregarding these taboos (Kasoma 1996: 8). One of the most popular and widely cited African communitarian philosophies of personhood is ubuntu. The term ubuntu is used among many sub-Saharan tribes of the Bantu language family. Although it is expressed in different African languages by different names with similar meanings, it describes the essence of being a person, highlighting the significance of human relationships and intersubjectivity (Eze 2008: 387). As a Nguni word, ubuntu represents notions of universal human interdependence, solidarity and communalism which can be traced to small-scale communities which existed in precolonial Africa. To be specific, among Zulu, Xhosa and Ndebele speakers in South Africa, one’s fundamental goal ought to be to obtain ubuntu; that is, to develop human-ness or to live a genuinely human life (Ramose 1999: 49–53). Human-ness is more appropriately described as it refers to the inner core of an individual (Dolamo 2013: 2). Humanism is in general said to be committed to a life in which every individual is in principle morally obligated to contribute to the well-being of her community. As a world view, ubuntu advocates a profound sense of interdependence and emphasizes the idea that human potential can only be realized in partnership with

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others (Gade 2012: 492). This perspective underscores the role that the community plays in one’s journey to personhood. Therefore, to be a person is to recognize one’s subjectivity as partly constituted by other members of the community. To deny another’s humanity is to disrespect one’s own humanity. Hence, the social world is essentially dependent on this constitutive social intercourse (Eze 2008: 387). The views on personhood and ethics presented here represent commonalities that most scholars in African philosophy subscribe to, albeit in a variety of interpretations. They subscribe to moral personhood which embodies some ethical assumptions (Gyekye 2010). The common feature being encapsulated in the normative personhood is the role of community in its acquisition. This is the normative outlook of personhood and selfhood, which in much of African moral thought, is value-laden in the sense that, as a moral agent, the basic aim is to become complete through the fulfilment of various obligations in one’s post and as assigned by the community (Metz 2015: 2). In moral personhood, character has been a very critical feature. The Yorùbá community provides us with an example where character, tolerance, truthfulness and rectitude, and covenant keeping are critical; and it abhors selfishness, condemns wickedness, stealing, hypocrisy, and many more social-ethical vices. A well-behaved person is not selfish. An individual is regarded as a person of good character if her actions are primarily good for the society (see Oyeshile 1993; Gyekye 2010). Another important feature in African ethics is its humanistic foundations. One’s deeds, habits and behaviour patterns are classified as good if their consequences are good for human welfare. In other words, an act is good if its consequences are good for humankind and human society. Good deeds include generosity, honesty, faithfulness, truthfulness, compassion, hospitality, happiness, that which brings peace, justice, respect, and so on (Gyekye 2010). These deeds should lead to social well-being or human welfare. This leads to the common good as yet another important feature in African ethics. For example, a person is regarded as having ubuntu when she is not individualistic in nature but looks at the common good as a priority for her actions. The common good is essentially good for human beings as such, and embraces the needs that are basic to the enjoyment and fulfilment of the life of each individual. Shared values also constitute the common good. Thus, ubuntu is concerned with collective well-being (Gyekye 2010; Enyimba and Ojong 2019: 50). Finally, African ethics and personhood emphasize duties that one must perform, and not rights against others. The concern for human welfare or for others is the axis of this value system. The natural sociality and relationality of human beings prescribes the ethic of duty towards the interests of other members of the community.

Euthanasia in African ethics Having considered the ethics and personhood in African philosophy, we should now be in a position to determine what these entail for euthanasia. The variations in the roles of the individual and community by African scholars appears to be a matter of methodology which is no less important than the objective of euthanasia. The disagreement between individualism and communitarianism as fundamental bases

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has unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, polarized debates on different issues. We should expect the same when it comes to the problem of euthanasia. Why individualists consider communitarians as dangerous squarely rests on the latter’s take on human rights. For example, the moderate communitarian position taken by Gyekye, Eze and Famakinwa takes issue with what they regard as radical communitarianism. Gyekye (2004: 351) finds it unsupportable on the basis that it never allowed room for individual rights. He thinks Menkiti and others, who subscribe to radical communitarianism, exaggerated the normative status and power of the cultural community in relation to those of the individual. Gyekye’s proposal for moderate communitarianism is based on what he regards as its capability to accommodate both communal and individual values. For Famakinwa (2010: 153), moderate communitarianism helps strike a balance between rights and responsibilities where possible. Although the moderate communitarian position sounds attractive, one cannot live a life which lacks priorities, so we prioritize either the individual or the community. Thus, regardless of whether it is radical or moderate, communitarianism should readily provide the basis for the discourse and decision-making on euthanasia in Africa. Although autonomy and rights are critical in the permissibility of euthanasia in the West, they have not managed to escape dilemmas affecting patients, relatives and doctors. A patient may not always be able to exercise her autonomy. Any decision originating from outside violates the principle of autonomy. Doctors also face devastating dilemmas concerning their duties to patients, profession and society. For doctors it is difficult to reconcile their obligation not to kill intentionally and the obligation to relieve suffering and to prolong life, particularly when patients suffer terminal illnesses and face imminent death since all palliation has been unsuccessful. Since it involves life, the dilemmas raised by euthanasia make it difficult to make firm decisions about its practice. The elements of African ethics should be instructive in carving out a position on the permissibility of euthanasia in African ethics. Although Molefe (2020: 104) has claimed that the idea of personhood has not been invoked in the African philosophical literature to reflect on the bioethical question of euthanasia, I disagree with him. Gbadegesin (1993) did an exploratory work on this when he offered a careful exposition and application of a personhood-based conception of dignity to the issue of euthanasia. Perhaps Molefe should have engaged Gbadegesin and other scholars arguing that such an exploration may have lacked a sustained treatment on the issue, as the work focused on bioethics and culture in African perspective. Elsewhere, Gbadegesin has been accused of romanticizing the attitudes of traditional Africans in evaluating bioethical issues in the contemporary world, citing such attitudes as detrimental to development of thought (Kazeem and Adeogun 2012: 10). The community is central to character development of the individual. Character is a requirement for the existence of a harmonious community. Since human life is morally distinctive because of the possibility to pursue moral perfection/excellence, Molefe (2020: 120) proposes that euthanasia, and specifically non-voluntary euthanasia, should be permitted in the context where the pursuit and preservation of a dignified life are threatened to be reversed by extreme medical conditions such as when one is in a persistent vegetative state. The reason is that such a human existence is morally

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pointless, since the agent can no longer pursue or preserve her dignity or life excellence. For Molefe, to allow such a life to continue is to defy the very essence of the ethic of personhood which is concerned with such values as sympathy, compassion and care. Since such a form of existence is pointless, Molefe thinks euthanasia seems to be the only option since it is sympathetic to do so, and in keeping with respecting the patient’s dignity. I find some contradictions in Molefe’s argument. Sympathy cannot only be exclusively applied to the termination of one’s life. Indeed, human beings have sympathy for others who are in trouble. At the point when a patient suffers from a medical condition where death is considered as a far better option than merely remaining alive, death is conceived in the positive sense, benefiting the one being killed or allowed to die. The kind of suffering in mind here is the one in which one loses the ability to responsibly make a decision affecting her life. In that regard, the communitarian option sounds more logical. However, the same sympathy can be the basis for preserving life. Everyone desires to live as long as she can. To assist a person to die in whatever circumstances is also to lack sympathy. Naturally, sympathy would compel one to avoid helping someone to die. So, the idea of sympathy could be used on both divides. From this consideration, it would be naive to think the African conception of personhood and ethics would provide a straightforward answer to the question of euthanasia. Koenane (2017: 2) raises a critical point. On the basis of the various forms and methods of euthanasia, he talks of the significance of practical and existential conditions, besides being a normative issue. What makes euthanasia ethically interesting is the fact that it leads to the death of an individual. Whether the decision to carry out euthanasia is made by the individual herself or by relatives or medical professionals, they all end in death. No method is morally superior. Ordinarily, euthanasia should be unacceptable on the basis that African tradition values life more than anything else (Mangena and Chitando 2013: 125). The preservation of life is prioritized in all circumstances. To cause or allow someone to die is to cut short one’s mission to the process of character development. However, character development in the communitarian view is primarily at the service of other members of her community. Since it is a lifetime process, the community stands to gain maximum service when an individual lives a long life and dies at an advanced age. In the circumstances, it would, therefore, be logical to let death occur naturally and not facilitate it. However, this conclusion is too simplistic. As Molefe (2020: 115–17) argues, the biological state of decline and deterioration of the human body should not be allowed to continue to the extent where it overshadows the moral achievements that an individual has accrued to herself over a period of time. Indeed, there must be some dignity preserved by allowing someone to die a good death. However, death in traditional African thought is considered as a transition from one form of ‘life’ to another, and, therefore, one remains one with the community after this transition. However, such a transition to the other life must not be allowed to overshadow what one already achieved in her physical existence. Besides, to say that a human life is abundant with vitality (life) is to suggest that it is productive, flourishing and fruitful. On the other hand, a life that is diminishing is unproductive, depleting and barren. Molefe’s position is sufficiently strong and compelling to permit euthanasia.

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Death seems to be the easiest way out of the undesirable state of life of a patient suffering terminal illness. Although terminal illness with no cure places a huge financial or psychological burden on the family members who have to attend to her, mutual caring becomes very necessary for the patient. Within the communitarian set-up, every member of the community plays a critical role when someone is sick. It comes as no surprise when it is argued that there is no life which is completely useless, for even a terminally sick person is recognized as a moral necessity. Consistent with the Bantu hierarchy of beings, the sick remain useful within African society. Everything and everybody is important. Even plants and animals are significant. The dead and ancestors are vital. The terminally sick patient is also useful. Even the life of the demented has meaning. They are in that condition for a reason which might be beneficial to society at large. For Enyimba and Ojong (2019: 50), this state affords family members an opportunity to express love, care, concern and compassion to the terminally ill. Consequently, every effort must be made to save or preserve life in any condition. Besides the dilemmas involved in making such decisions, the communitarian framework appears capable of going around this quagmire. A decision that is made either for or against euthanasia is supposed to provide unity and cohesion within the communitarian framework. To do so, the idea of consensus is critical. Although he does not subscribe to it, Matolino (2018: 7) sees consensus as emphasizing the ability of Africans to overcome individual differences in favour of shared or common interpretations of the best way to act or proceed; its advocates have largely sought to show how this arrangement was countenanced in the past as well as how its revival is in the interests of the present polity.

However, Wiredu’s position on consensus, the basis on which Matolino’s critique is raised, has been deliberately misunderstood. For Wiredu, consensus was meant to be a rational activity backed by the logical persuasiveness of ideas. Since humankind is heterogeneous in terms of ideas, rational consensus is what every working social and political arrangement ought to strive for. A consensus is not simply conformity to the common good. Rather, it is a regulative idea for moral and rational discourse. In the spirit of consensus, individuals engage in a dialogue for the purpose of finding a common position that accommodates everyone, the end of which is considered as the common good. For Eze (2008: 393), this consensus is discursive and is from a realist perspectivism point of view, which, he explains, does not depend on the elusive prospect of conformity to community ideals, but strives for conversion of beliefs. Any consensual decision is collective in a rational sense. In the case of euthanasia, when a patient is showing signs that her life has become meaningless, and therefore becomes a burden not only to the individual herself but to also to the life of the community at large, then euthanasia can be permitted. However, Molefe has made a very interesting remark that I find very instructive, namely that what is more critical in the euthanasia debate is not choice itself, but the moral reason for making euthanasia available and plausible in the first place (Molefe 2020: 121). Such reasons can be offered on a case-bycase basis.

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Perhaps the most important question in relation to African ethics that euthanasia asks is the extent to which an act of euthanasia promotes harmonious relationships which embody the idea of community and the normative concept of personhood. Thus, we move away from personhood as a metaphysical entity towards its normative articulation. There is a reason why normative personhood is appealing. I propose to look at this in relation to Metz’s (2007: 321) interpretation of ubuntu philosophy as ‘the principle that an action is right insofar as it respects harmonious relationships, ones in which people identify with, and exhibit solidarity toward, one another’. African personhood is consistent with African ethics. For euthanasia to be consistent with African ethics, it should be able to enhance harmonious relationships among and between the patient, doctors and relatives, as well as the wider community membership. Thus, we ask ourselves whether an act of euthanasia, passive or active, promotes the harmonious relationships which are embedded in the African value system and, in particular, African personhood. If euthanasia does not help this, then it remains unethical.

Conclusion In this chapter, I set out to explore the implication that the available literature on African ethics might have on the permissibility of euthanasia in Africa. I have not attempted to mount a position alternative to those in existence. I have merely highlighted insights from African ethics with the possibility of opening up a more serious debate on euthanasia in Africa. In my exploration, I engaged the concept of euthanasia to understand its central features and lay bare the dilemmas involved in the attempts to permit it. Then I discussed the African value system with the aim of articulating African personhood, which is normative in nature. With this normative personhood, I explored some literature on euthanasia in Africa and found that it encounters dilemmas similar to those it faces when Western individualistic personhood is employed. On the basis of the dilemmas encountered, I hinted at the possibility that scholars inadvertently lose focus when discussing euthanasia. Particularly, I suggested that, in dealing with euthanasia from African ethics, there is a need to go back to basics where personhood in African ethics considers its purpose as that of enhancing harmonious relationships among members of the community. So, in dealing with euthanasia in Africa, I suggested scholars should constantly ask themselves whether the act of euthanasia is consistent with the values that African personhood is supposed to promote.

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