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17African Ethics, Revised EditionIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.An updated version of this 4000 word overview of the meta-, normative and applied ethical dimensions of contemporary sub-Saharan moral philosophy.
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307How the West Was One: The Western as Individualist, the African as CommunitarianEducational Philosophy and Theory 47 (11): 1175-1184. 2015.There is a kernel of truth in the claim that Western, and especially Anglo-American-Australasian, normative philosophy, including that relating to the philosophy of education, is individualistic; it tends to prize properties that are internal to a human being such as her autonomy, rationality, pleasure, desires, self-esteem, self-realization and virtues relating to, say, her intellect. One notable exception is the idea that students ought to be educated in order to be citizens, participants in a…Read more
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561Meaning as a Distinct and Fundamental Value: Reply to KershnarScience, Religion and Culture 1 (2): 101-106. 2014.In this article, I reply to a critical notice of my book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study, that Stephen Kershnar has published elsewhere in this issue of Science, Religion & Culture. Beyond expounding the central conclusions of the book, Kershnar advances two major criticisms of it, namely, first, that I did not provide enough evidence that meaning in life is a genuine value-theoretic category as something distinct from and competing with, say, objective well-being, and, second, that, even if…Read more
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6Recent Work in African Ethics (repr.)In Sharlene Swarz & Monica Taylor (eds.), Moral Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, Routledge. pp. 115-126. 2011.Reprint of an article that initially appeared in the Journal of Moral Education (2010).
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808Auf dem Weg zu einer afrikanischen MoraltheorieIn Franziska Dübgen & Stefan Skupien (eds.), Afrikanische politische Philosophie - Postkoloniale Positionen, Suhrkamp. pp. 295-329. 2015.German translation by Andreas Rauhut of a mildly revised version of 'Toward an African Moral Theory' (Journal of Political Philosophy 2007).
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382The Western Ethic of Care or an Afro-Communitarian Ethic?: Finding the Right Relational MoralityJournal of Global Ethics 9 (1): 77-92. 2013.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 man…Read more
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187Jurisprudence in an African ContextOxford University Press. 2017.A textbook written mainly for final year law students taking Jurisprudence at an African university, but that would also be of use to those in a political philosophy course. It includes primary sources from both the Western and African philosophical traditions, and addresses these central questions: what is the nature of law?; how should judges interpret the law?; is it possible for judges to be objective when they adjudicate?; how could the law justly allocate liberty and property?; who is owed…Read more
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296De zachte plek (The Sweet Spot)In Leo Bormans (ed.), The World Book of Happiness 2.0, Marshall Cavendish International (asia) Pte. pp. 335-338. 2011.An 850 word statement, translated into Dutch and composed for a lay audience, of respects in which happiness and meaningfulness can come apart, but highlighting the aim of engaging in projects in which they are co-present.
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779In Search of Ubuntu: A Political Philosopher’s View of Democratic South AfricaIn Busani Ngcaweni (ed.), Liberation Diaries: Reflections on 20 Years of Democracy, Jacana. pp. 205-214. 2014.In this essay I recount how I have been hoping to see more ubuntu in South Africa’s institutions than had been present in the two dominant socio-politico-economic models across the world in the 20th century. I haven’t been expecting utopia from the past 20 years of democracy; I’ve just wanted something new to come out of Africa. I here relate my experience of learning that it is not always forthcoming, at least not as quickly as I would have liked. However, I conclude by indicating that the prom…Read more
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188آيا هدف خداوند مى تواند سرچشمه معناى زندگى باشد؟* (Persian: Could God's Purpose Be the Source of Life's Meaning?)Naqd Va Nazar: Quarterly Journal of Philosophy and Theology 8 (29-30): 149-183. 2003.Persian translation by Mohammad Saeedi of 'Could God's Purpose Be the Source of Life's Meaning?' (first published in Religious Studies 2000).
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531The immortality requirement for life's meaningRatio 16 (2). 2003.Many religious thinkers hold the immortality requirement, the view that immortality of some kind is necessary for life to have meaning. After clarifying the nature of the immortality requirement, this essay examines three central arguments for it. The article establishes that existing versions of these arguments fail to entail the immortality requirement. The essay then reconstructs the arguments, and it shows that once they do plausibly support the immortality requirement, they equally support …Read more
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618Ubuntu: The Good LifeIn Alex Michalos (ed.), Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-being Research, Springer. pp. 6761-65. 2014.An overview of a characteristically African approach to the human good.
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232Distributive Justice as a Matter of Love: A Relational Approach to Liberty and PropertyIn Ingolf Dalferth (ed.), Love and Justice (Claremont Studies in Philosophy of Religion), . pp. 339-352. 2019.Usually a relational approach, such as one appealing to care or love, is contrasted with an account of justice. In this chapter, however, I argue that distributive justice is well conceived as itself a matter of honouring people in virtue of their capacity to love and to be loved. After spelling out a familiar conception of love, I explain how treating people with respect in light of this capacity provides a plausible basis for human rights, one that rivals influential individualist foundations …Read more
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1095Happiness and Meaningfulness: Some Key DifferencesIn Lisa Bortolotti (ed.), Philosophy and Happiness, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 3-20. 2009.In this chapter, I highlight the differences between the two goods of happiness and meaningfulness. Specifically, I contrast happiness and meaning with respect to six value-theoretic factors, among them: what the bearers of these values are, how luck can play a role in their realization, which attitudes are appropriate in response to them, and when they are to be preferred in a life. I aim not only to show that there are several respects in which happiness and meaning differ as categories of val…Read more
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837The Concept of a Meaningful LifeAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 38 (2): 137-153. 2001.This paper aims to clarify what we are asking when posing the question of what (if anything) makes a life meaningful. People associate many different ideas with talk of "meaning in life," so that one must search for an account of the question that is primary in some way. Therefore, after briefly sketching the major conceptions of life's meaning in 20th century philosophical literature, the remainder of the paper systematically seeks a satisfactory analysis the concept of a meaningful life that t…Read more
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68Further Explorations of Supernaturalism about Meaning in Life: Reply to Cottingham, Goetz, Goldschmidt, Jech and WielenbergEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (2): 59-83. 2016.A reply to five critical discussions of _Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study_ (2013).
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19The Politics of Doing Philosophy in Africa: A Conversation (repr.)In Mogobe B. Ramose (ed.), Contrasts and Contests About Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 148-160. 2016.Reprint of an article first appearing in the South African Journal of Philosophy (2015).
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21Climate Change in Africa and the Middle East in Light of Health and Salient Regional ValuesIn Cheryl Macpherson (ed.), Climate Change and Health: Bioethical Insights into Values and Policy, Springer. pp. 115-125. 2016.A discussion of respects in which climate change is likely to affect health in Africa and the Middle East with some reference to moral values, such as ubuntu and Islam, salient in the respective regions.
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5809Ethics in Aristotle and in Africa: Some Points of ContrastPhronimon 13 (2): 99-117. 2012.In this article I compare and, especially, contrast Aristotle’s conception of virtue with one typical of sub-Saharan philosophers. I point out that the latter is strictly other-regarding, and specifically communitarian, and contend that the former, while including such elements, also includes some self-regarding or individualist virtues, such as temperance and knowledge. I also argue that Aristotle’s conception of human excellence is more attractive than the sub-Saharan view as a complete accoun…Read more
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44The Desirability of a Property Clause: Michelman's Defence of LiberalismStellenbosch Law Review 24 (2): 312-28. 2013.I address Frank Michelman’s recent attempts to dispel the notion that there are deep tensions between a liberal approach to constitution making and a resolute commitment to fighting poverty, i.e., to holding what he calls ‘social liberalism’. He focuses on the prima facie tension between anti-poverty struggle on the part of government and the existence of a property clause in a constitution, a tension that several commentators in South Africa have contended requires removing that clause from its…Read more
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1066Relational EthicsIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. pp. 1-10. 2013.An overview of relational approaches to ethics, which contrast with individualist and holist ones, particularly as they feature in the Confucian, African, and feminist/care traditions.
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675Replacing Development: An Afro-communal Approach to Global JusticePhilosophical Papers 46 (1): 111-137. 2017.In this article, I consider whether there are values intrinsic to development theory and practice that are dubious in light of a characteristically African ethic. In particular, I focus on what a certain philosophical interpretation of the sub-Saharan value of communion entails for appraising development, drawing two major conclusions. One is that a majority of the criticisms that have been made of development by those sympathetic to African values are weak; I argue that, given the value of comm…Read more
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57Animal Rights and the Interpretation of the South African ConstitutionSouthern African Public Law 25 (2): 301-311. 2010.I argue that, even supposing substantive principles of distributive justice entail that animals warrant constitutional protection, there are other, potentially weightier forms of injustice that would probably be done by interpreting a Bill of Rights as implicitly applying to animals, namely, formal injustice and compensatory injustice. Formal injustice would result from such a reading of the Constitution in that the state would fail to speak with one voice upon newly according legal rights to an…Read more
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383Could God's purpose be the source of life's meaning?Religious Studies 36 (3): 293-313. 2000.In this paper, I explore the traditional religious account of what can make a life meaningful, namely, the view that one's life acquires significance insofar as one fulfils a purpose God has assigned. Call this view ‘purpose theory’. In the literature, there are objections purporting to show that purpose theory entails the logical absurdities that God is not moral, omnipotent, or eternal. I show that there are versions of purpose theory which are not vulnerable to these reductio arguments. Howev…Read more
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12Kant's Contractualism and Enlightenment PoliticsIn Volker Gerhardt (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Kant Congress, Volume 4, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 204-11. 2001.
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321Meaning in Life as the Aim of Psychotherapy: A HypothesisIn Joshua Hicks & Clay Routledge (eds.), The Experience of Meaning in Life: Classical Perspectives, Emerging Themes, and Controversies, Springer. pp. 405-17. 2013.The point of psychotherapy has occasionally been associated with talk of ‘life’s meaning’. However, the literature on meaning in life written by contemporary philosophers has yet to be systematically applied to literature on the point of psychotherapy. My broad aim in this chapter is to indicate some plausible ways to merge these two tracks of material that have run in parallel up to now. More specifically, my hunch is that the connection between meaning as philosophers understand it and therapy…Read more
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358Toward an African Moral Theory (revised edition)In Isaac E. Ukpokolo (ed.), Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 97-119. 2017.A mildly revised version of an article first published in the Journal of Political Philosophy (2007).
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7114Contemporary Anti-Natalism, Featuring Benatar's Better Never to Have BeenSouth African Journal of Philosophy 31 (1): 1-9. 2012.A critical overview of the latest discussion of anti-natalism, with particular reference to David Benatar's work and three additional rationales for anti-natalism that differ from Benatar's.
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51IntroductionPhilosophical Papers 34 (3): 311-329. 2005.This article introduces a special issue of Philosophical Papers devoted to the topic of meaning in life. In the paper, I engage with articles by Robert Audi, David Velleman, John Martin Fischer, Laurence Thomas, Berit Brogaard, Barry Smith and Larry James, laying out their central views, criticizing them, and suggesting ways they could be developed.
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415An African Theory of Social JusticeIn Camilla Boisen & Matthew Murray (eds.), Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought: Perspectives on Finding a Fair Share, Routledge. pp. 171-190. 2016.A comprehensive account of justice grounded on salient Afro-communitarian values, the article attempts to unify views about the distribution of economic resources, the protection of human rights and the provision of social recognition as ultimately being about proper ways to value loving relationships.
APA Central Division
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 |