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35What Is the Essence of an Essence? Comparing Afro-Relational and Western-Individualist Ontologies (repr.)In Jonathan O. Chimakonam & Monique Whitaker (eds.), Contemporary Debates in African and Western Philosophy, . 2024.Reprint of an article that first appeared in Synthesis Philosophica (2018).
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17Economic Goods and Communitarian ValuesIn David Bilchitz & Raisa Cachalia (eds.), Transitional Justice, Distributive Justice, and Transformative Constitutionalism: Comparing Colombia and South Africa, Oxford University Press. pp. 76-85. 2023.In contributions elsewhere to this volume, we considered the histories of Colombia and South Africa and how some of the values indigenous to those locales might plausibly bear on transitional justice in them. We advanced broadly relational and constructive (non-retributive) approaches to the social conflicts that had taken place there, ones that make victim compensation central. In this chapter we consider how Metz’s ubuntu-based reconciliatory approach to reparations might be relevant to Colomb…Read more
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11The Role of Economic Goods in National Reconciliation: Evaluating South Africa and ColombiaIn David Bilchitz & Raisa Cachalia (eds.), Transitional Justice, Distributive Justice, and Transformative Constitutionalism: Comparing Colombia and South Africa, Oxford University Press. pp. 33-53. 2023.Scholars have compared the transitional justice processes of Colombia and South Africa in some respects, but there has yet to be a systematic moral-philosophical evaluation of them regarding how they have sought to allocate economic goods. Here I appraise the ways that South Africa and Colombia have responded to their respective historical conflicts in respect of the distribution of property and opportunities. I do so in the light of a conception of reconciliation informed by a relational ethic …Read more
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134Life, Meaning ofIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. 1996.A 4000 word critical overview of recent Anglo-American philosophical books devoted to life's meaning. Online only.
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20An African Theory of the Point of Higher Education: Communion as an Alternative to Autonomy, Truth, and Citizenship (repr.)In Amasa Ndofirepi & Ephraim Gwaravanda (eds.), African Higher Education in the 21st Century: Some Philosophical Dimensions, Sense Publishers. pp. 122-145. 2020.Reprint of a chapter that first appeared in Contemporary Philosophical Proposals for the University: Toward a Philosophy of Higher Education (Palgrave 2018).
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23MeaningIn Graham Oppy (ed.), A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy, Blackwell. pp. 355-366. 2019.This chapter critically discusses philosophical literature bearing on the question of what the implications of atheism – roughly the nonexistence of God as conceived in the monotheist tradition – might be for whether and how our lives are meaningful, with a major focus on what has been published in English in the twenty‐first century. Its aim is to acquaint the reader with the major contemporary debates and to indicate some points where they call for contributions.
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24Replacing Development (repr.)In Benedict Okeja (ed.), African Philosophy and Global Justice, Routledge. pp. 109-135. 2019.Reprint of an article initially appearing in Philosophical Papers (2017).
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32The Meaning of Life (Annotated Bibliography)In Duncan Pritchard (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2010.A lengthy annotated bibliography of some of the key literature on analytical philosophical approaches to life's meaning as of 2010.
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African Moral Theory and Public Governance: Nepotism, Preferential Hiring and Other Partiality (repr.)In Paul Omoyefa (ed.), Basic Applied Ethics, Vdm. 2010.Reprint of a chapter that initially appeared in _African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics_ (2009).
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376Africanising Institutional Culture: What Is Possible and PlausibleIn Pedro Tabensky & Sally Matthews (eds.), Being at Home: Race, Institutional Culture and Transformation at South African Higher Education Institutions, University of Kwazulu-natal Press. pp. 242-272. 2015.Since the transition to a constitutional order, in what respects have cultures in higher education institutions in South Africa become Africanised, and, going forward, how should they be? In this chapter I provide an overview of the major different forms that Africanisation of institutional culture could take, and I then indicate the respects in which South African universities have or have not taken them on board over the past 20 years. In addition, I provide the first comprehensive critical di…Read more
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31African Values and Capital Punishment (repr.)In David R. Morrow (ed.), Moral Reasoning: A Text and Reader on Ethics and Contemporary Moral Issues, Oxford University Press. pp. 372-377. 2018.Reprint of a chapter first published in _African Philosophy and the Future of Africa_ (2011).
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21How to Ground Animal Rights on African Values: A Constructive Approach (repr.)In Jonathan O. Chimakonam (ed.), African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation, Routledge. pp. 30-41. 2017.Reprint of a 2017 article from the Journal of Animal Ethics.
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36African and East Asian Perspectives on AgeingIn Christopher Wareham (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing, Cambridge University Press. pp. 118-132. 2022.After expounding the conceptions of harmony that are central to Confucianism and the sub-Saharan ethic of ubuntu, I apply them to three major topics pertaining to age, namely, virtue, the value of life, and care. Roughly speaking, indigenous East Asian and African values of harmony both entail that only the elderly can be truly virtuous, that the elderly have a strong claim to life-saving resources, and that they are entitled to care from their children, views that I show are not characteristic …Read more
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432Neither Parochial nor Cosmopolitan: Cultural Instruction in the Light of an African Communal EthicEducation as Change 23 1-16. 2019.What should be the aim when teaching matters of culture to students in public high schools and universities, at least given an African context? One, parochial approach would focus exclusively on imparting local culture, leaving students unfamiliar with, or perhaps contemptuous of, other cultures around the world. A second, cosmopolitan approach would educate students about a wide variety of cultures in Africa and beyond it, leaving it up to them which interpretations, values, and aesthetics they…Read more
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779Popper’s Politics and Law in the Light of African ValuesJus Cogens 2 185-204. 2020.Karl Popper is famous for favoring an open society, one in which the individual is treated as an end in himself and social arrangements are subjected to critical evaluation, which he defends largely by appeal to a Kantian ethic of respecting the dignity of rational beings. In this essay, I consider for the first time what the implications of a characteristically African ethic, instead prescribing respect for our capacity to relate communally, are for how the state should operate in an open socie…Read more
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457Recent Work on the Meaning of 'Life’s Meaning': Should We Change the Philosophical Discourse?Human Affairs 29 (4): 404-414. 2019.In this article I critically discuss English-speaking philosophical literature addressing the question of what it essentially means to speak of 'life’s meaning'. Instead of considering what might in fact confer meaning on life, I make two claims about the more abstract, meta-ethical question of how to understand what by definition is involved in making that sort enquiry. One of my claims is that over the past five years there has been a noticeable trend among philosophers to try to change our un…Read more
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654The Meaning of Life (Textbook)In Duncan Pritchard (ed.), What is This Thing Called Philosophy?, Routledge. pp. 319-358. 2015.A three chapter part of a textbook for undergraduate philosophy majors.
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908Symposium: Are Certain Knowledge Frameworks More Congenial to the Aims of Cross-Cultural Philosophy?Journal of World Philosophies 2 (2): 99-107. 2017.In “Global Knowledge Frameworks and the Tasks of Cross-Cultural Philosophy,” Leigh Jenco searches for the conception of knowledge that best justifies the judgment that one can learn from non-local traditions of philosophy. Jenco considers four conceptions of knowledge, namely, in catchwords, the esoteric, Enlightenment, hermeneutic, and self- transformative conceptions of knowledge, and she defends the latter as more plausible than the former three. In this critical discussion of Jenco’s article…Read more
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642Relational Normative Economics: An African Approach to JusticeEthical Perspectives 27 (1): 35-68. 2020.Recent work by comparative philosophers, global ethicists, and cross-cultural value theorists indicates that, unlike most Western thinkers, those in many other parts of the globe, such as indigenous Africa, East Asia, and Latin America, tend to prize relationality. These relational values include enjoying a sense of togetherness, participating cooperatively, creating something new together, engaging in mutual aid, and being compassionate. Global economic practices and internationally influential…Read more
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75What Makes Life Meaningful? A DebateRoutledge. 2024.What does talk about life’s meaning even mean? Can human life be meaningful? What is God’s role, if any, in a meaningful life? These three questions frame this one-of-a-kind debate between two philosophers who have spent most of their professional lives thinking and writing about the topic of life’s meaning. In this wide-ranging scholarly conversation, Professors Thaddeus Metz and Joshua Seachris develop and defend their own unique answers to these questions, while responding to each other’s obj…Read more
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345Addiction in the Light of African Values: Undermining Vitality and Community (repr.)In Yamikani Ndasauka & Grivas Kayange (eds.), Addiction in East and Southern Africa, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 9-31. 2019.Reprint of an article that first appeared in Monash Bioethics Review (2018).
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894Pursuing Knowledge for Its Own Sake amidst a World of Poverty: Reconsidering Balogun on Philosophy’s RelevanceFilosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 8 (2): 1-18. 2019.In this article I critically discuss Professor Oladele Abiodun Balogun’s reflections on the proper final ends of doing philosophy and related sorts of abstract, speculative, or theoretical inquiry. Professor Balogun appears to argue that one should undertake philosophical studies only insofar as they are likely to make a practical difference to people’s lives, particularly by contributing to politico-economic development, or, in other words, that one should eschew seeking knowledge for its own s…Read more
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78The Concept of Life's MeaningIn Iddo Landau (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, Oxford University Press. pp. 27-42. 2022.I critically discuss views about what at least analytic philosophers have in mind when reflecting on what makes life meaningful. I first demonstrate that there has been a standard view of that, according to which meaningfulness centrally involves the actions of human persons, ones that exhibit a high desirability characteristically present in ‘the good, the true, and the beautiful’ and absent from the cases of Sisyphus or the Experience Machine. Then, I address five challenges to the standard vi…Read more
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384Addiction in the Light of African Values: Undermining Vitality and CommunityMonash Bioethics Review 36 (1): 36-53. 2018.In this article I address the question of what makes addiction morally problematic, and seek to answer it by drawing on values salient in the sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. Specifically, I appeal to life-force and communal relationship, each of which African philosophers have at times advanced as a foundational value, and spell out how addiction, or at least salient instances of it, could be viewed as unethical for flouting them. I do not seek to defend either vitality or community…Read more
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24Confucianism and Ubuntu: Reflections on a Dialogue between Chinese and African Traditions (repr.)In Chung-Ying Cheng (ed.), Confucian Philosophy: Innovations and Transformations, Wiley. 2012.Reprint of an article appearing in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy (2011).
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345An African Theory of Just Causes for WarIn Heleana Theixos (ed.), Comparative Just War Theory, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 131-155. 2020.In this chapter, I add to the new body of philosophical literature that addresses African approaches to just war by reflecting on some topics that have yet to be considered and by advancing different perspectives. My approach is two-fold. First, I spell out a foundational African ethic, according to which one must treat people’s capacity to relate communally with respect. Second, I derive principles from it to govern the use of force and violence, and compare and contrast their implications for …Read more
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21An African Theory of Good Leadership (repr.)In Josef Wieland & Julika Baumann Montecinos (eds.), Transcultural Leadership: Learning about Sub-Saharan Africa, Metropolis. pp. 41-63. 2018.Reprint of an article from the African Journal of Business Ethics (2018).
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22A Theory of National Reconciliation: Some Insights from Africa (repr.)In Aleksandar Fatic, Klaus Bachmann & Igor Lyubashenko (eds.), Transitional Justice in Troubled Societies, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 213-235. 2018.Reprint of mildly revised version of a chapter that initially appeared in _Theorizing Transitional Justice_ (2015).
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737An African Theory of Good LeadershipAfrican Journal of Business Ethics 12 (2): 36-53. 2018.This article draws on the indigenous African intellectual tradition to ground a moral-philosophical theory of leadership that is intended to rival accounts prominent in the East Asian and Western traditions. After providing an interpretation of the characteristically sub-Saharan value of communion, the article advances a philosophical account of a good leader as one who creates, sustains and enriches communal relationships and enables others to do so. The article then applies this account to a v…Read more
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1048Meaning in Life in Spite of DeathIn Michael Cholbi & Travis Timmerman (eds.), Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, Routledge. pp. 253-261. 2021.In this chapter the author critically explores answers to the question of how immortality would affect the meaningfulness of a person’s life, understood roughly as a life that merits esteem, achieves purposes much more valuable than pleasure, or makes for a good life-story. The author expounds three arguments for thinking that life would be meaningless if it were mortal, and provides objections to them. He then offers a reason for thinking that a mortal life could be meaningful, and responds to …Read more
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Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Areas of Specialization
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The Meaning of Life |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
African Philosophy |
Philosophy of Law |
Applied Ethics |
Value Theory |