An African perspective on the partiality and impartiality debate: Insights from Kwasi Wiredu's moral philosophy

South African Journal of Philosophy 36 (4):470-482 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

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.

Similar books and articles

The practice of partiality.Marilyn Friedman - 1991 - Ethics 101 (4):818-835.
Egoism, partiality, and impartiality.Brad Hooker - 2013 - In Roger Crisp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 710-728.
Partiality and distributive justice in African bioethics.Christopher Simon Wareham - 2017 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 38 (2):127-144.
Friendship, virtue, and impartiality.Diane Jeske - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (1):51-72.
Friendship, Virtue, and Impartiality.Diane Jeske - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (1):51-72.
Wiredu, Kwasi.Sanya Osha - 2014 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Cultural universals and particulars: an African perspective.Kwasi Wiredu - 1996 - Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Philosophy and an African culture.Kwasi Wiredu - 1980 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-11-28

Downloads
1,470 (#7,296)

6 months
247 (#9,962)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Motsamai Molefe
University of Witwatersrand

References found in this work

Practical Ethics.Peter Singer - 1979 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Susan J. Armstrong & Richard George Botzler.
Moral Luck.B. A. O. Williams & T. Nagel - 1976 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 50 (1):115-152.
Two kinds of respect.Stephen L. Darwall - 1977 - Ethics 88 (1):36-49.
Toward an african moral theory.Thaddeus Metz - 2007 - Journal of Political Philosophy 15 (3):321–341.
Two distinctions in goodness.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1983 - Philosophical Review 92 (2):169-195.

View all 42 references / Add more references