Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

While there is a budding literature on media ethics in the light of characteristic sub-Saharan moral values, there is virtually nothing on wartime reporting more specifically. Furthermore, the literature insofar as it has a bearing on wartime reporting suggests that embedded journalism and patriotic journalism are ethically justified during war. In this essay, I sketch a prima facie attractive African moral theory, grounded on a certain interpretation of the value of communal relationship, and bring out what it entails for the (...) ways journalists should report on war. My aims are the normative ones of showing how this Afro-communal ethic can provide a unitary foundation for a wide array of plausible conclusions about reporting on war, and, in particular, can avoid objectionable implications such as support for embedded and patriotic journalism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on evaluating Odera Oruka’s role as an expert witness in customary law for the Luo community during the Nairobi, Kenya-based trial in 1987 to decide on the place of the burial of S.M. Otieno. During that trial, an understanding of Luo burial and widow guardianship (ter) practices was essential. Odera Oruka described the practices carefully and defended them against misunderstanding and stereotype. He revisited related topics in several delivered papers, published articles, and even interviews and columns in (...) the Kenyan newspapers. The paper will raise the questions: How does Odera Oruka’s role as expert on Luo customs fit in with his sage philosophy project? In his testimony at the trial and subsequent public addresses and published work, does he accomplish two important goals, the first being defending African traditions against prejudice and anti-African bias, and secondly, does he champion reform of traditions when reform is needed? And, can Odera Oruka’s participation in the famous trial avoid seeming ethnic chauvinism and marginalization of women? My conclusion is that he achieves the first goal, but some problems remain in the achievement of the other goals. While he often asserted the need to evaluate traditions and to jettison those that have become unhelpful, in this context he evaluated traditions so strongly that the need for evaluation and possible change was muted. (shrink)

I critically discuss contemporary work in African, i.e., sub-Saharan, moral philosophy that has been written in English. I begin by providing an overview of the profession, after which I consider some of the major issues in normative ethics, then discuss a few of the more noteworthy research in applied ethics, and finally take up the key issues in meta-ethics. My aim is to highlight discussions that should be of interest to an ethicist working anywhere in the world, focusing on ideas (...) characteristic of the sub-Saharan region that are under-appreciated not merely for the purpose of comparative ethics, but also for substantive ethical argumentation. In particular, I maintain that there are kinds of communitarian and vitalist approaches to morality commonly held by sub-Saharan philosophers that international scholars should take seriously as genuine rivals to utilitarian, Kantian, contractarian, and care-oriented outlooks that dominate contemporary Euro-American discussion of ethically right action. (shrink)

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

A reprint of 'African Ethics' from the _International Encyclopedia of Ethics_ (2015), but expanded to include discussion of more topics, texts and authors.

"Based on extensive research in primary and secondary sources and on field research in Ghana, including more than 40 interviews, and applying her formidable expertise in African history, philosophy, historical anthropology and religious studies, Dr Louise Müller has produced a superb analysis of the history and transformation of the roles of chieftaincy in the religious institutions, rituals and ideas among the Asante." David E. Skinner, Professor of History - African and Islamic Studies. (Santa Clara University, USA .

Two different kinds of rules are needed in the regulation of human conduct in the sphere of global interaction. There is a need for global ethics and also a need for a global ethic. The first exists but needs reinforcement. The second also exists but not sufficiently widely and therefore needs a fashioning out in some contexts. Because ethics and an ethic are grammatically cognate and are both concerned with behavior, it is easy to conflate the two. Accordingly, clarity will (...) be sought below about the distinction between them. The hope is that such clarity might help in directing efforts in search of harmony and other good things on our planet. (shrink)

Sceptics of an Africanisation of education have often lambasted its proponents for re-inventing something that has very little, if any, role to play in contemporary African society. The contributors to this issue hold a different view and, through the papers included in this issue, arguments are proffered in defence of an Africanisation of education on the African continent, particularly through the notion of ubuntu.Since the 1960s, Africana philosophy as an instance of Africanisation has emerged as a ‘gathering’ notion for philosophical (...) endeavours practised by professional philosophers and intellectuals, either of African descent, including those living in the diaspora, or those of non-African descent but who are devoted to matters pertaining to African and African-descended individuals and communities (Outlaw, 2004, p. 90). These philosophical endeavours mostly relate to a ‘critical analysis and reflective evaluation of the evidence and reasoning’ that constitute the beliefs, customs, values, traditions, oral literature (parables, proverbs, poetry, songs and myth), languages and histories of African and African-descended peoples (Hallen, 2004, p. 105). The articles presented at this symposium analytically explore ideas and practices central to Africana philosophy, their underlying rationales, and how these forms of philosophical inquiry can potentially engender defensible educative relationships. (shrink)

In this study, the idea of the local African community as a social structure ensuring the security of its members is presented. An understanding of the concept of security is first briefly discussed, followed by the meaning of the concept of the local African community. The chapter also makes an a priori distinction between what one can call “moderate” and “radical” types of communal life and two case studies exemplifying them are presented. The chapter aims to analyze the trade off, (...) in terms of provision of security, including economic security, by local communities, for the shaping of a democratic political culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most importantly, however, this chapter also highlights the rationality that underpins the seemingly low-quality democratic political activities of members of local African communities. (shrink)

One of the major concerns of advocates of common morality is that respect for cultural diversity may result in moral relativism. On their part, proponents of culturally responsive bioethics are concerned that common morality may result in moral imperialism because of the asymmetry of power in the world. It is in this context that critics argue that global bioethics is impossible because of the difficulties to address these two theoretical concerns. In this paper, I argue that global bioethics is possible (...) if we adopt a culturally responsive and self-critical attitude towards our moral values and those of others. I use the example of women’s reproductive autonomy in indigenous African culture to show that the difference between the leading Euro-American and indigenous African construal of autonomy is that the former ascribes greater weight on individual self-determination while the latter emphasizes responsibilities towards the community. One develops dignity in virtue of their capacity for communing with others. Hence, women have rights, but as members of the community, they also have obligations including the duty to procreate. The involvement of the family in reproductive decisions does not contravene women’s dignity and human rights. In applying the principle of autonomy in this communitarian context, one has to be sensitive to these ontological and moral specificities. The aim of global bioethics should not be to reach common grounds at all costs; any common norms should be the result of a negotiated democratic dialogue between cultures and not the result of imposition by the preponderant culture. (shrink)

: This paper responds to comments, queries, and criticisms offered by Alcoff, Bergoffen, and Ferguson at a scholar's session on my work held at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy in October 2001. Responding to Alcoff, I highlight my understanding of liberation in the context of a Nietzschean and a Latin American feminism and the politics of conceptualizing "resistance" in postcolonial theory. Responding to Ferguson, I address, among other issues, the often misunderstood distinction between postcolonialism (...) and postmodernism, as well as related implications regarding some postcolonial feminists' qualified appeals to universals and women's rights. Responding to Bergoffen, I advocate on behalf of cultural formations supportive of the feminist affirmation of life and of radical subjectivities that challenge gender orthodoxies. (shrink)

This article critically examines the competitive, adversarial nature of the Western neoliberal style of democracy. Specifically, this article focuses on Amartya Sen’s notion of a “universal democracy” as a means of addressing socio-economic inequalities through Sen’s capability approach. Sen’s capability theory has become an acclaimed and widely used theory to evaluate and understand development and inequalities. However, we employ a distinctive critique by engaging Amartya Sen through Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of one dimensionality and the adversarial nature of Western democracy. We (...) further highlight how contemporary neoliberal society employ a particular, adversarial form of public participation. Through this, we underline the various neoliberal problemata, such as Western idealism, political passivity, and a “flattening of choice,” within contemporary democracies and locate how their competitive, winner-take-all nature has become essential to contemporary, Western democratic models. Consequently, we argue that democracy, as a functional concept and form of public engagement, should be fundamentally re-examined in order to address inequalities. (shrink)

Faced with the ongoing tragedy of poverty in our world today, many have long called for a common standard of global justice. Such a standard should not be tied to any one particular strand of justice conceptualizations and it should yet be in harmony with the central motivating beliefs of the various concerned moral worldviews. The article reframes global justice thinking by approaching a core problem, namely motivating people to care for distant needy strangers, in a concrete intercultural manner: it (...) sets out to study and compare the motivational underpinnings for an expansion of social justice, in an exemplary fashion, within two long-standing worldview traditions, namely Christian social ethics and contemporary Confucian ethics, in order to gain a more realistic impression of what a commonly shared and motivationally backed notion of global justice may look like. While the former expresses a universal concern for the poor, the latter has recently attracted interest, since Southeast Asian countries managed to lift millions of people out of abject poverty. As both traditions consider loving communal relationships to constitute the foundation of all justice considerations, the article inquires how this quest shapes each tradition’s way to motivate their adherents’ compliance with a vision of global justice. (shrink)

Faced with the ongoing tragedy of poverty, ethicists call for effective measures of global justice to set up just institutional structures. Their arguments for a transnational obligation to help however remain contested, one of the main reasons for that being the lack of motivational support for trans-national visions of global justice. This articles suggests that the debate will gain new and helpful insights if it studies the motivational mechanisms at work in the dominant religious and cultural traditions, asking: How do (...) these particular traditions conceive of social justice; how do they motivate their adherents to extend solidarity? And how can the similarities surfacing in their motivational strategies be informative for the quest to devise a motivationally saturated account of global justice? The article demonstrates the potential of such an concrete-universal discourse in an exemplary manner by staging a dialogue between public Christian Social Ethics and African Ubuntu Ethics. (shrink)

I argue that the analytic method has been circularly used to analyze the concept of “philosophy,” and that the result of this analysis has also been used to criticize African ethnophilosophy as nonphilosophical. I critically examine the criticism that ethnophilosophy implies cognitive relativism and the criticism that it implies authoritarianism. I defend ethnophilosophy against these criticisms, arguing that they are rooted in logical positivism, the view that philosophy essentially involves the use of the methods of science and logical analysis. I (...) argue that such analysis and criticisms, given their pedigree, do not provide an adequate or accurate picture of the nature of philosophy. (shrink)

The quest for what constitutes knowledge and the authentic means of attaining it have been a subject of intense philosophical speculations from time immemorial. This is to say that the discourse about theory of knowledge had stated from the ancient era in philosophical parlance. Knowledge, in turn, is a co-efficient of social order, democratic ideology and development, which implies that for there to be any form of tranquility and peace in any society at all; its leaders must necessarily have the (...) right sort of intelligence and ability. And that is why leadership problem is the deadliest monster a state and its people can suffer from. Plato’s understanding of knowledge is apt and germane in the discourse of social orderliness essentially as it relates to and with the training of the guardians for the growth, progress and development of human society. In Plato’s view, the guardians must be courageous with instinctive love for wisdom and understanding, which by so doing will make a really noble guardian of commonwealth to be swift, strong, spirited and philosophic. But an attempt to understand the impact of knowledge on leaders of societies among societies of the Global South especially in Africa had become a phenomenal mirage as many of the leaders are not properly ‘schooled’ and are also bereft of ideas to lead human societies.The thrust of this paper will be to examine the impact of knowledge on the kind of leaders societies supposed to have through the prism of Plato’s training of the guardians in the quest for democratic ideology and setting in the Global South. The intent will be to engender political harmony, trust and ‘normalcy’ between the state and society, that is, between the leaders and the led. (shrink)

In this article, I attempt to bridge the gap between partiality and impartiality in moral philosophy from an oft-neglected African perspective. I draw a solution for this moral-theoretical impasse between partialists and impartialists from Kwasi Wiredu's, one of the most influential African philosophers, distinction between an ethic and ethics. I show how an ethic accommodates partiality and ethics impartiality. Wiredu's insight is that partialism is not concerned with strict moral issues. -/- .

In her essay ‘The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities’ (1987), Sandra Harding was perhaps the first to note parallels between a typical Western feminist ethic and a characteristically African, i.e., indigenous sub-Saharan, approach to morality. Beyond Harding’s analysis, one now frequently encounters the suggestion, in a variety of discourses in both the Anglo-American and sub-Saharan traditions, that an ethic of care and an African ethic are more or less the same or share many commonalities. While the two ethical (...) perspectives are indeed sisters, in this article I argue, first, that they are not identical twins, and, more strongly, that the family resemblance between the two is significantly less than has been recognized. I highlight key differences between representative forms of an ethic of care and a sub-Saharan communitarian morality, after which I argue, second, that the latter better captures some central feminist concerns and moral considerations generally. That is, I maintain that an African ideal of community, when understood in a philosophically refined way, provides an important, relational corrective to the ethic of care. (shrink)

From the perspective of an African ethic, analytically interpreted as a philosophical principle of right action, what are the proper final ends of a publicly funded university and how should they be ranked? To answer this question, I first provide a brief but inclusive review of the literature on Africanising higher education from the past 50 years, and contend that the prominent final ends suggested in it can be reduced to five major categories. Then, I spell out an intuitively attractive (...) African moral theory and apply it to these five final ends, arguing that three of them are appropriate but that two of them are not. After that, I maintain that the African moral theory prescribes two additional final ends for a public university that are not salient in the literature. Next, I argue that employing the African moral theory as I do enables one to rebut several criticisms of Africanising higher education that have recently been made from a liberal perspective. I conclude by posing questions suitable for future research. (shrink)

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

In this article I critically survey non-edited books on political and legal philosophy that have been composed by those working in the sub-Saharan African tradition and have appeared in print since 2016. These monographs principally address political, distributive, and criminal justice at the domestic level, with this article recounting the essentials of these texts as well as noting prima facie weaknesses in their positions and gaps in current research agendas. My aims are to enable readers to obtain a bird’s-eye picture (...) of key works in recent African political and legal philosophy and to suggest some plausible ways to advance debates. (shrink)

This article considers how global ethical matters might be approached differently in the English-speaking literature if values salient in sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia were taken seriously. Specifically, after pointing out how indigenous values in both of these major parts of the world tend to prescribe honouring harmonious relationships, the article brings out what such an approach to morality entails for political power, foreign relations and criminal justice. For each major issue, it suggests that harmony likely has implications that differ (...) from approaches that currently dominate Western thought, namely those of utility, autonomy and capability. Lacking the space to systematically defend harmony as a fundamental value, it nonetheless urges theorists not to neglect it in future work. (shrink)

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

Given a 21st century context of sophisticated market economies and other Western influences such as Christianity, what similarities and differences are there between characteristic indigenous values of sub-Saharan Africa and China, and how do they continue to influence everyday life in these societies? Establishing that central to both non-Western, indigenous value systems are ideals of harmonious relationships, I compare and contrast traditional African and Chinese conceptions of harmony and analyze a number of respects in which an appeal to this value (...) affects contemporary political, economic and social interaction. (shrink)

This article defends an alternative account of ubuntu and makes a novel proposition about African morality and ethics. In doing so, it refutes the normative account of ubuntu premised on the aphorism umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. According to this “greatest harmony” account, Africans are harmonic collectivists and sharers, linked together by community-defining conveyor-belts of moral and ethical goodwill “gifts.” It is assumed that an African theory of right action produces harmony and reduces discord. I aver, however, that such a prima facie (...) interpretation, notwithstanding its intuitive appeal, is still open to some rather strong doubt. (shrink)

: Simone de Beauvoir offers an important contribution to discourse on universal human rights. Her descriptive ontology of persons as free, interdependent, and sit-uated in a world that offers resistance brings the discussion of human rights to a new level that also converges with some African perspectives. I claim that Beauvoir is able to defend universal human rights and, moreover, justify moral action against human rights abuses by showing the existential priority of ontological freedom.

Simone de Beauvoir offers an important contribution to discourse on universal human rights. Her descriptive ontology of persons as free, interdependent, and situated in a world that offers resistance brings the discussion of human rights to a new level that also converges with some African perspectives. I claim that Beauvoir is able to defend universal human rights and, moreover, justify moral action against human rights abuses by showing the existential priority of ontological freedom.

The article defends ubuntu against the assault by Enslin and Horsthemke (Comp Educ 40(4):545–558, 2004 ). It challenges claims that the Africanist/Afrocentrist project, in which the philosophy of ubuntu is central, faces numerous problems, involves substantial political, moral, epistemological and educational errors, and should therefore not be the basis for education for democratic citizenship in the South African context. The article finds coincidence between some of the values implicit in ubuntu and some of the values that are enshrined in the (...) constitution of South Africa and that on that basis argues that ubuntu has the potential to serve as a moral theory and a public policy. The educational upshot of this article’s argument is that South Africa’s educational policy framework not only places a high premium on ubuntu, which it conceives as human dignity, but it also requires the schooling system to promote ubuntu-oriented attributes and dispositions among the learners. The article finds similarities between ubuntu and bildung, whose key advocates, among others was German scholar and intellectual Wilhelm von Humboldt. It argues that it would be ethnocentric, and indeed silly to suggest that the ubuntu ethic of caring and sharing is uniquely African when some of the values which it seeks to promote can also be traced in various Eurasian philosophies. (shrink)

A dialectical interaction exists between cultural unity and diversity. These two factors can operate for good or ill. In order to strengthen the positive factor and limit the negative, it is important to have a good conceptual grasp of the basis of the unity, as well as of the diversity of cultures. Such an understanding should facilitate dialogue in intercultural relations, dialogue that is the most rational of all ways of coexistence. This article aims to explore the underlying conceptual themes.

This paper presents an African relational view of social robots’ moral standing which draws on the philosophy of ubuntu. The introduction places the question of moral standing in historical and cultural contexts. Section 2 demonstrates an ubuntu framework by applying it to the fictional case of a social robot named Klara, taken from Ishiguro’s novel, Klara and the Sun. We argue that an ubuntu ethic assigns moral standing to Klara, based on her relational qualities and pro-social virtues. Section 3 introduces (...) a second fictional case, taken from McKeown’s novel, Machines Like Me, in which a social robot named Adam displays intrinsic qualities, such as sentience, rationality, and deductive moral reasoning, yet lacks close social ties to particular people. We argue that Adam is not a person in the African sense; however, he qualifies as a person according to many standard Western views, such as Kantian and utilitarian ethics. Section 4 further elaborates the African relational view by comparing the moral standing of social robots and humans in a forced choice scenario. Section 5 replies to objections. We conclude that an African relational approach captures important insights about the moral standing of social robots that many Western accounts miss and should be better incorporated into global frameworks for designing and deploying social robots. (shrink)

The title of Emmanuel Eze’s final, posthumously published book uses the words “reason” and “rationality” in a manner that might suggest they are interchangeable. I would like to suggest that we not treat them as the same, but rather tease out a difference in emphasis and reference between the two. In African philosophy, the problem of reason is really two separate problems, the first of which I will call the “problem of reason” (that is, the question of whether there are (...) diverse forms of reason or only one universal form) and the second the “problem of rationality” (that is, the question of whether everyone has the capacity to deploy reason past what mimicry or programming makes possible). Both of these problems are addressed by Eze’s schema for forms of reason. He identifies several forms, but focuses on “ordinary reason”, which allows all the other forms to operate. Ordinary reason also makes rationality possible, that is, the culturally specific yet emergent way of navigating forms of reason. Reason is necessarily diverse, because its multiple forms are deployed differently by different rationalities. (shrink)

O artigo trata da questão dos direitos humanos quanto ao potencial de consenso entre culturas através do diálogo intercultural. Trata-se de uma contribuição para superar os confrontos entre civilizações e a imposição coercitiva de direitos humanos sobre outras culturas. O paper mostra que a promoção intercultural de direitos humanos entre culturas individuais que se reconhecem mutuamente é uma das formas efetivas de resistência contra a falta de reconhecimento. Todavia, é mister uma formulação dos direitos humanos embasada nos valores de culturas (...) individuais e no diálogo entre elas. A interpretação aqui adotada é uma contribuição para criar ‘unidade na pluralidade’, i.e. uma universalidade de direitos humanos dentro da pluralidade de culturas. (shrink)

This article was written on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, where the Frankfurt School was founded and continues to evolve. From philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives, the article focuses on the trichotomic characteristics of critical theory, specifically: critique, explanation, and normativity. It looks first at the founding of the Institute for Social Research; second, at the emergence of critical theory at the Institute; and third, at how these ideas evolved. It (...) identifies trichotomy underpinning Horkheimer’s approach to critical theory. In the conclusion, the revisions made to critical theory in the later stages of development are considered. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the possibility of advancing a modern conception of social justice under neo-Aristotelian lights, focussing primarily on conceptions that assert a fundamental connection between social justice and eudaimonia. After some preliminary remarks on the extent to which a neo-Aristotelian account must stay close to Aristotle’s own, I focus on Martha Nussbaum’s sophisticated neo-Aristotelian approach, which I argue implausibly overworks the aspects of Aristotle’s thought it appeals to. I then outline the shape of a deeper and more (...) general, and as yet unanswered, problem facing neo-Aristotelian accounts: how to justify the claim that the point of a just society is to assist or enable its members to flourish. (shrink)

The liberation of Africa and its peoples from centuries of racially discriminatory colonial rule and domination has far-reaching implications for educational thought and practice. The transformation of educational discourse in Africa requires a philosophical framework that respects diversity, acknowledges lived experience and challenges the hegemony of Western forms of universal knowledge. In this article I reflect critically on whether African philosophy, as a system of African knowledge(s), can provide a useful philosophical framework for the construction of empowering knowledge that will (...) enable communities in Africa to participate in their own educational development. (shrink)

Diverse meanings of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘exchange’ force us to interrogate the implicit ontology of states and the associated assumptions about will, matter and spirit used by political theorists, evoking different religious and political traditions. This article contrasts the notion of ‘sovereignty’ found in Joseph Tonda’s Le Souverain Moderne with the one found in Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. Tonda’s text, I argue, challenges and complicates the appropriateness of referring to early Christianity as a model for resistance to global capitalism (...) in Empire. To help with this contrast, I draw on two Central African authors, Emmanuel Dongala and Joseph Mwantuali, whose novels illustrate the supernatural as well as thoroughly material significance of state power, wealth and sexuality in the modern Sovereign. (shrink)

This paper examines the problems that various contemporary human rights discourses face with relativism, with special reference to the global protection of women’s rights. These problems are set within the theoretical debate between the Western liberal individualism on the one hand, and African, Asian and Islamic collectivist communitarianism on the other. Instead of trying to prove the superiority of one theoretical approach over the other, the purpose here is to point out some of the most common logical fallacies and cultural (...) biases that have led to false polarizations between the various theoretical foundations of human rights discourse. The paper highlights these errors and inaccuracies with a view to diminishing the dichotomies between the various philosophical foundations of human rights, particularly in connection to the promotion of women’s rights. This is done in order to pave the way for more open and impartial political, cultural and gender dialogue in the promotion of human rights both in theory and in practice. (shrink)

Reconciliation in South Africa is often taken to mean the creation of culturally diverse communities. In reality, though, the multicultural often turns out to be multiracial only with People of Colour being included in White-dominated spaces. Likewise, socio-economic transformation means raising people’s chances to attain a living standard more equal to that of the bulk of the White population. In both cases, the strong position of White people in sociocultural and socio-economic terms remains largely untouched. Hence the calls for decolonisation (...) which seem to render the reconciliation discourse dispensable. Vulnerability by White South Africans is proposed as an alternative response to ongoing inequalities which – it is suggested – could contribute to both decolonisation and reconciliation on an interpersonal level. Likely objections to such a proposal are considered before making a case for vulnerability as an appropriate Christian way of living, particularly in the context of former settler colonialism. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions frame the problem of race as either a social or a historical one; race is rarely diagnosed as a problem in philosophy. This article employs African philosophical writings to capture the distinctiveness of philosophical racism. I offer some remarks on the concept of race, distinguish between social and philosophical racism, and set out African diagnoses of Western philosophical racism, before considering possible responses to these diagnoses. I reject a blanket anti-racist prescriptivism and instead urge individual adoption of a (...) research maxim that is responsive to opportunities for philosophical race reform as they arise within any domain of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)