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Why Personhood Is Not So Social: Reflections on Oyowe’s MenkitiPhilosophia Africana. forthcoming.In Menkiti’s Moral Man, Oritsegbubemi Oyowe aims to provide a sympathetic interpretation of the works of Ifeanyi Menkiti as they address personhood, community, and other facets of morality. In my contribution I maintain that, while Oyowe’s Menkiti is more plausible than the way Menkiti has often been read, there are still respects in which the account of personhood advanced invites criticism. One criticism is that it is implausible to think that personhood is constituted by others recognizing on…Read more
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1The Meaning of Life (2nd ed.)In Duncan Pritchard (ed.), What Is This Thing Called Philosophy? 2nd edn, Routledge. forthcoming.Three chapters on the meaning of life composed for undergraduate philosophy majors, now revised and updated for a second edition.
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12A Relational Theory of Dignity and Human Rights: An Alternative to AutonomyThe Monist 107 (3): 211-224. 2024.In this article I draw on resources from the African philosophical tradition to construct a theory of human rights grounded on dignity that presents a challenge to the globally dominant, autonomy-based approach. Whereas the latter conceives of human rights violations as degradations of our rational nature, the former does so in terms of degradations of our relational nature, specifically, our capacity to be party to harmonious or friendly relationships. Although I have in the past presented the …Read more
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163Understanding a Thing's Nature: Comparing Afro-Relational and Western-Individualist Ontologies (Repr.)In Peter Aloysius Ikhane & Isaac E. Ukpokolo (eds.), African Epistemology: Essays on Being and Knowledge, Routledge. pp. 63-78. 2023.Slightly modified reprint of an article first appearing in the journal _Synthesis Philosophica_ (2018)
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112Relationalizing Normative Economics: Some Insights from AfricaIn Josef Wieland, Stefan Linder, Jessica Geraldo Schwengber & Adrian Zicari (eds.), Cooperation in Value-Creating Networks Relational Perspectives on Governing Social and Economic Value Creation in the 21st Century, Springer. pp. 167-185. 2024.In this chapter I systematically distinguish a variety of ways to relationalize economics, and focus on a certain approach to relationalizing normative economics in the light of communal values salient in the African philosophical tradition. I start by distinguishing four major ways to relationalize empirical economics, viz., in terms of its ontologies, methods, explanations, and predictions, and also three major ways to relationalize normative economics, in regards to means taken towards ends, …Read more
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9Replacing Development: An Afro-communal Approach to Distributive Justice (Repr.)In Ephraim Stephen Essien & Frank Aragbonfoh Abumere (eds.), African Political and Economic Philosophy with Africapitalism: Concepts for African Leadership, Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 103-120. 2024.Reprint of an article first appearing in Philosophical Papers (2017).
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African Moral Philosophy and WorkIn Julian Jonker & Grant Rozeboom (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Work, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.One aim of this chapter is to acquaint a reader unfamiliar with African philosophy with some of its more prominent ethical perspectives, especially those pertaining to ubuntu, as they bear on work. However, I undertake this discussion with some sympathy towards these implications, such that another aim is to point out that the prescriptions for the workplace that moral philosophers working in the African tradition have made (or would sensibly make given their more basic commitments) are worth ta…Read more
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15Afrikali Ubuntu EtiğiÖncül. 2022.Turkish translation by Eren Yildiz of ‘The African Ethic of Ubuntu', which first appeared in the online collection 1000WordPhilosophy
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'....the Point Is to Change It': A Large and Ironic CaveatRadical Philosophy Review. forthcoming.Karl Marx did say, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world….the point is to change it.” However, in this short article, I argue that a plain reading of several passages from Marx indicates that an ultimate reason to engage in revolutionary practice is so that more people have the freedom to engage in interpretation such as philosophy. Beyond intending to provide revealing and coherent exegesis in respect to Marx, I argue that it is reasonable for many of us to do some philosophy now, e…Read more
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21Neither Parochial nor Cosmopolitan: Cultural Instruction in the Light of a Communal Ethic (Repr.)In Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi (ed.), Educating All for All, Cambridge Scholars. pp. 43-62. 2024.Reprint of an article that first appeared in the journal _Education as Change_ (2019).
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388How African Conceptions of God Bear on Life's MeaningReligious Studies 59 (2): 340-354. 2023.Up to now, a very large majority of work in the religious philosophy of life’s meaning has presumed a conception of God that is Abrahamic. In contrast, in this essay I critically discuss some of the desirable and undesirable facets of Traditional African Religion’s salient conceptions of God as they bear on meaning in life. Given an interest in a maximally meaningful life, and supposing meaning would come from fulfiling God’s purpose for us, would it be reasonable to prefer God as characteristic…Read more
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16Defending a Communal Account of Human DignityIn Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Human Dignity in African Thought, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 23-42. 2023.For more than ten years, I have advanced a conception of human dignity informed by ideas about community salient in the African philosophical tradition. According to it, an individual has a dignity if she is by her nature able to commune with others and to be communed with by them. I have argued that this conception of dignity grounded on our communal nature not only helps to make good foundational sense of many characteristically African moral prescriptions, but also constitutes a strong rival …Read more
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109How to Do African Ethics: Reply to Six CriticsAfrican Philosophical Inquiry 11 123-150. 2023.This essay is a lengthy response to six contributors to a special issue edited by Adeshina Afolayan and devoted to critical discussions of _A Relational Moral Theory: African Ethics in and Beyond the Continent_. Key topics include: the proper role of metaphysics when doing moral philosophy; the appropriate aims of moral philosophy in the light of relational values and properties; the ir/relevance of imperceptible agents for an African ethic; the un/attractiveness of the principle that one morall…Read more
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34Contemporary Anti-Natalism, Featuring Benatar’s Better Never to Have Been (Repr.)In Contemporary Anti-Natalism, Routledge. pp. 1-9. 2023.Mildly revised reprint of a 2012 overview of recent work on anti-natalism reprinted in a collection devoted to the topic.
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38Are Lives Worth Creating? (Repr.)In Contemporary Anti-Natalism, Routledge. pp. 20-33. 2023.Reprint of a 2011 article about David Benatar's approach to anti-natalism in a collection of essays devoted to his and other forms of anti-natalism.
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181Der junge Marx im Licht einer afrikanischen Ethik: Zwei Ansichten der SelbstverwirklichungPolylog: Zeitschrift Für Interkulturelles Philosophieren 47 69-93. 2022.German translation by Namita Herzl and Juri Wald of ‘The Young Marx and an African Ethic: Two Views of Self-realization’.
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Grounding Distributive Justice on an Ideal Family: What Familial Norms Entail for InequalitiesIn Ingrid Robeyns (ed.), Pluralising Political Philosophy: Economic and Ecological Inequalities from a Global Perspective, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.An idea salient in the African and East Asian philosophical traditions is that the right sort of socio-political interaction would be similar to the intuitive ways that family members ought to relate to each other. Applying this perspective to economic and ecological inequalities, I articulate some principles implicit in healthy familial relationships, show what they entail for certain aspects of distributive justice at the national level, and contend that the implications are plausible relative…Read more
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113Holding Responsible in the African Tradition: Reconciliation Applied to Punishment, Compensation, and TrialsIn Maximilian Kiener (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Responsibility, Routledge. pp. 380-392. 2023.When it comes to how to hold people responsible for wrongdoing, much of the African philosophical tradition focuses on reconciliation as a final aim. This essay expounds an interpretation of reconciliation meant to have broad appeal, and then draws out its implications for responsibility in respect to three matters. First, when it comes to criminal justice, prizing reconciliation entails that offenders should be held responsible to “clean up their own mess,” i.e., to reform their characters and …Read more
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91Contemporary Anti-Natalism (edited book)Routledge. 2023.Given the pain, discomfort, anxiety, heartbreak, and boredom that most humans experience in their lives, is it morally permissible to create them? Some philosophers lately have answered ‘No’, contending that it is wrong to create a new human life when one could avoid doing so, because it would be bad for the one created. This view is known as ‘anti-natalism’. Some contributors to this volume argue that anti-natalism is true because: agents have a prima facie duty to prevent suffering; it is immo…Read more
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Reply to six contributions to a special issue of _Social Theory and Practice_ that are devoted to _A Relational Moral Theory: African Ethics in and Beyond the Continent_.
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276African Philosophy of Religion and Western MonotheismCambridge University Press. 2024.The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglec…Read more
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29African Reasons Why Artificial Intelligence Should Not Maximize Utility (Repr.)In Aribiah Attoe, Samuel Segun, Victor Nweke & John-Bosco Umezurike (eds.), Conversations on African Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness and AI, Springer. pp. 139-152. 2023.Reprint of a chapter first appearing in African Values, Ethics, and Technology: Questions, Issues, and Approaches (2021).
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The Young Marx and an African Ethic: Two Relational Views of Self-realizationIn Ken Cheng & Jun-Hyeok Kwak (eds.), Relationality Across East and West, Routledge. forthcoming.Karl Marx's normative views have routinely been contrasted with moral-political theories such as utilitarianism and Rawlsian justice. They have not been systematically contrasted with characteristically African, and specifically communal, values, with post-independence African leaders such as Nyerere and Nkrumah instead having emphasized the similarities. In this article, a work of analytic philosophy, I sketch the essentials of Marx’s approach to the human good, especially his early writings on…Read more
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10Ancillary Care Obligations in the Light of an African Bioethic: From Entrustment to Communion (Repr.)In Ike Iyioke (ed.), An African Research Ethics Reader, Brill. pp. 92-111. 2024.Reprint of an article that first appeared in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (2017).
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288Africanising Institutional Culture: What Is Possible and Plausible (Repr.)In Dennis Masaka (ed.), Knowledge Production and the Search for Epistemic Liberation in Africa, Springer. pp. 111-134. 2022.Reprint of a chapter first published in Being at Home (2015).
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6Two Conceptions of African EthicsQuest - and African Journal of Philosophy 25 (1-2): 141-162. 2011.
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340The Meanings of God: Reply to Four CriticsInternational Journal of Philosophy and Theology 82 (4-5): 366-374. 2021.In this article, I briefly reply to four critics who critically engage with my book God, Soul and the Meaning of Life in a special issue of the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology. I view them mainly as addressing the ‘meaning’ of God in three distinct senses, namely, in terms of how best to understand the word ‘God’ and related terms such as ‘the spiritual’, whether God is central to what gives our lives a particular sort of final value, and how beliefs about God might be central t…Read more
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254Problems of Living Meaningfully in Psychiatry and PhilosophyBrazilian Journal of Psychiatry 44 (3): 229-230. 2022.A brief critical notice of Dan J Stein's new book _Problems of Living: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Cognitive-Affective Science_.
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561A Reconciliation Theory of State Punishment: An Alternative to Protection and RetributionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 91 119-139. 2022.I propose a theory of punishment that is unfamiliar in the West, according to which the state normally ought to have offenders reform their characters and compensate their victims in ways the offenders find burdensome, thereby disavowing the crime and tending to foster improved relationships between offenders, their victims, and the broader society. I begin by indicating how this theory draws on under-appreciated ideas about reconciliation from the Global South, and especially sub-Saharan Africa…Read more
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420How Much Punishment Is Deserved? Two Alternatives to ProportionalityPhilosophies 7 (2): 1-13. 2022.When it comes to the question of how much the state ought to punish a given offender, the standard understanding of the desert theory for centuries has been that it should give him a penalty proportionate to his offense, that is, an amount of punishment that fits the severity of his crime. In this article, part of a special issue on the geometry of desert, we maintain that a desert theorist is not conceptually or otherwise required to hold a proportionality requirement. We show that there is log…Read more
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The Meaning of Life |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
African Philosophy |
Philosophy of Law |
Applied Ethics |
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