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588Neutrality, Partiality, and Meaning in LifeDe Ethica 4 (3): 7-25. 2017.Discussion of whether values and norms are neutral or not has mainly appeared in works on the nature of prudential rationality and morality. Little systematic has yet appeared in the up and coming field of the meaning of life. What are the respects in which the value of meaningfulness is neutral or, in contrast, partial, relational, or ‘biased’? In this article, I focus strictly on answering this question. First, I aim to identify the salient, and perhaps exhaustive, respects in which issues of …Read more
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Agwa Oma N’Echiche Ndi Afrikana Nkowa Nke (An Account of African Moral Thought) (edited book)Timeless Publishers. 2018.A collection of several articles on African ethics by Thaddeus Metz translated into Igbo by M. B. Mbah, and edited by Prof Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi of the University of Abuja, Nigeria.
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The Foundations of Social Contract TheoryDissertation, Cornell University. 1997.Hypothetical social contract theory is the predominant framework that political philosophers use to argue for conceptions of social justice. A hypothetical social contract theory consists of an initial situation, in which parties are imagined to make a rational agreement about the way to design their politico-economic institutions, and a conception of justice to which these parties would agree. My goals in the dissertation are to determine the most warranted initial situation and the conception …Read more
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112Meaning (Atheism)In Graham Oppy & Joseph W. Koterski (eds.), Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy, 1st Edition, Gale. pp. 507-521. 2019.A critical exploration of the position that God is necessary for meaning in life for mainly undergraduate and postgraduate readers, with some defence of the view that He is not.
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Ancillary Care Obligations in Light of an African Bioethic: From Entrustment to Communion (repr.)In Augustine Frimpong-Mansoh & Caesar Atuire (eds.), Bioethics in the Context of Traditional African Beliefs and Practices (tentative title), Vernon Press. pp. 59-78. 2018.Reprint of an article that appeared in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (2017).
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179Beyond Legislative Post-Secularism in the West: Custom and Constitution in an African ContextIn Uchenna Benedict Okeja (ed.), Postsecularism in a Global Context: New Perspectives on the Role of Religion in Postsecular Societies (tentative title), Routledge. pp. 41-63. 2020.Much of the debate about post-secularism has presumed a background of Western countries and the sort of statutory law that legislatures should make, and how they should make it, in the light of residents’ religious attitudes and practices. In this chapter I address a fresh context, namely, that of South Africa and the way that courts have interpreted, and should interpret, law in the face of African traditional religions. Specifically, I explicate the fact that, by South Africa's famously progre…Read more
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58What Science Means for Postmodernist Epistemology and the Philosophy of EducationEducational Philosophy and Theory 50 (14). 2018.In my view, postmodernism, as a cluster of bold epistemological claims, foundered on the rocks of contemporary science. Many postmodern positions about knowledge have conflicted with views of science that are extraordinarily difficult to doubt, which in this short article (composed to honour Educational Philosophy and Theory's 50th anniversary), I point out and argue holds a lesson about how to undertake the philosophy of education.
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1324African Communitarianism and DifferenceIn Elvis Imafidon (ed.), Handbook of the African Philosophy of Difference, Springer. pp. 31-51. 2020.There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan …Read more
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361Communication Strategies in the Light of Indigenous African and Chinese Values: How to HarmonizePhilosophia Africana 19 (2): 176-194. 2020.Many values originating in Africa and in China, and ones that continue to influence much of everyday communication in those societies, are aptly placed under the common heading of 'harmony'. After first spelling out what harmony involves in substantially Confucian China, and then in Africa, this article notes respects in which the Confucian and African conceptions of harmony are similar, an awareness of which could facilitate smooth communication. The article then indicates respects in which the…Read more
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442What Is the Essence of an Essence? Comparing Afro-Relational and Western-Individualist OntologiesSynthesis Philosophica 65 (1): 209-224. 2018.The dominant view amongst contemporary Western philosophers about the essence of a natu ral object is that it is constituted by its intrinsic properties. The ontological approach salient in the African philosophical tradition, in contrast, accounts for a thing’s essence by appeal to its relational properties. The Afrorelational ontology is underdeveloped, with the primary aim of this article being to help rectify that weakness. Specifically, this article’s aims are: to articulate an African a…Read more
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677Humility and the African Ethic of UbuntuIn Mark Alfano, Michael Patrick Lynch & Alessandra Tanesini (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility, Routledge. pp. 257-267. 2021.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, …Read more
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440Reconciliation as the Aim of a Criminal Trial: Ubuntu’s Implications for SentencingConstitutional Court Review 9 113-134. 2019.In this article, I seek to answer the following cluster of questions: What would a characteristically African, and specifically relational, conception of a criminal trial’s final end look like? What would the Afro-relational approach prescribe for sentencing? Would its implications for this matter forcefully rival the kinds of penalties that judges in South Africa and similar jurisdictions typically mete out? After pointing out how the southern African ethic of ubuntu is well understood as a rel…Read more
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302Advancing the Philosophy of Medicine: Towards New Topics and SourcesJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (3): 281-288. 2018.The first part of a symposium devoted to Alex Broadbent's essay titled ‘Prediction, Understanding and Medicine’, this article notes the under-development of a variety of issues in the philosophy of medicine that transcend bioethics and the long-standing debates about the nature of health/illness and of evidence-based medicine. It also indicates the importance of drawing on non-Western, and particularly African, traditions in addressing these largely metaphysical and epistemological matters.
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338Medicine without Cure?: A Cluster Analysis of the Nature of MedicineJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (3): 306-312. 2018.Part of a symposium devoted to ‘Prediction, Understanding, and Medicine’, in which Alex Broadbent argues that the nature of medicine is determined by its competences, i.e., which things it can do well. He argues that, although medicine cannot cure well, it can do a good job of enabling people not only to understand states of the human organism and of what has caused them, but also to predict future states of it. From this Broadbent concludes that medicine is (at least in part) essentially a prac…Read more
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3236Community VitalityIn Centre for Bhutan Studies (ed.), Happiness: Transforming the Development Landscape, Centre For Bhutan Studies and Gnh. pp. 347-378. 2017.An analysis of the value of community vitality as it figures into the Royal Government of Bhutan's policy of Gross National Happiness.
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2925Good GovernanceIn Centre for Bhutan Studies (ed.), Happiness: Transforming the Development Landscape, Centre For Bhutan Studies and Gnh. pp. 329-346. 2017.An analysis of the nature of good governance as it figures into the Royal Government of Bhutan's policy of Gross National Happiness.
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5955Definitions of TermsIn Centre for Bhutan Studies and G. N. H. (ed.), Happiness: Transforming the Development Landscape, Centre For Bhutan Studies and Gnh. pp. 21-38. 2017.Definitions of terms that are central to a theoretical understanding of the Royal Government of Bhutan's policy of Gross National Happiness.
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41La Philosophie au-delà de nos frontières: le cas de l'éthique africaine (Philosophy beyond the Boundaries: The Case of African Ethics) (edited book)Harmattan. forthcoming.A collection of several articles on African moral and political philosophy by Thaddeus Metz, translated into French by Emmanuel Fopa, and edited and introduced by Pius Mosima of the University of Bamenda, Cameroon.
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368Why Objective Truth Is the Ally of Social and Epistemic Justice: Reply to JencoJournal of World Philosophies 2 (2): 130-134. 2017.In “Are Certain Knowledge Frameworks More Congenial to the Aims of Cross-Cultural Philosophy? A Qualified Yes,” Leigh Jenco responds to an article in which I had argued for a similar conclusion. I had contended roughly that the positing of objective truth combined with a fallibilist epistemology best explains why a philosopher from one culture could learn something substantial from another culture. In her response, Jenco contends that this knowledge framework does not account adequately for the …Read more
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404Ubuntu, Christianity and Two Kinds of ReconciliationIn Girma Mohammed (ed.), Healing the Memories: An African Christian Response to Politically Induced Conflicts (tentative title), . pp. 137-157. 2018.I consider the implications of two globally influential love-centred value systems for how to respond to painful memories that are a consequence of large-scale social conflict. More specifically, I articulate a moral-philosophical interpretation of the sub-Saharan worldview of ubuntu, and consider what it entails for responding to such trauma. According to this ethic, one should strive to become a real person, which one can do insofar as one honours those capable of communal (or broadly loving) …Read more
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305Ends and Means of Transitional JusticeJournal of Global Ethics 14 (2): 158-169. 2018.With her new book, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice, Colleen Murphy has advanced novel, comprehensive and sophisticated philosophical accounts of both what severely conflict-ridden societies should be aiming for and how they should pursue it. Ultimately grounded on a prizing of rational agency, Murphy maintains that these societies, roughly, ought to strive for a stable and legitimate democratic polity committed to not repeating gross historical injustice and do so in ways that…Read more
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158An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism (repr.)In Munamato Chemhuru (ed.), African Environmental Ethics: A Critical Reader, Springer Verlag. pp. 9-27. 2019.Reprint of an article that initially appeared in _Ethical Theory and Moral Practice_ (2012)
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319Recent Philosophies of Social Protection: From Capability to UbuntuGlobal Social Policy 16 (2): 132-150. 2016.In the past decade or two, philosophies of social protection have shifted away from a nearly exclusive focus on the subjective and the individual (e.g., autonomous choices, utility) and towards values that are more objective and relational. The latter approaches, typified by the well established Capabilities Approach and the up and coming ethic of ubuntu, have been substantially inspired by engagements with the Global South, particularly India and Africa. In this article, part of a special issue…Read more
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456A Dilemma about the Final Ends of Higher Education -- and a ResolutionKagisano (The Higher Education Discussion Series) 9 23-41. 2013.In this article, written for the generally educated reader, I summarize my latest thinking about a dilemma that I believe current theoretical reflection faces about the proper ultimate aims of a public university. Specifically, I make the following three major points: (1) On the one hand, all dominant theories of how properly to spend public resources entail that academics should not pursue knowledge for its own sake and should rather devote their energies toward promoting some concrete public g…Read more
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1231Confucianism and ubuntu: Reflections on a dialogue between chinese and african traditionsJournal of Chinese Philosophy 38 (s1): 78-95. 2011.In this article we focus on three key precepts shared by Confucianism and the African ethic of Ubuntu: the central value of community, the desirability of ethical partiality, and the idea that we tend to become morally better as we grow older. For each of these broad similarities, there are key differences underlying them, and we discuss those as well as speculate about the reasons for them. Our aim is not to take sides, but we do suggest ways that Ubuntu and Confucianism might have something to…Read more
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59’Giving the World a More Human Face’: Human Suffering in African Thought and PhilosophyIn Jeff Malpas & Norelle Lickiss (eds.), Perspectives on Human Suffering, Springer. pp. 49-62. 2012.I present ideas about human suffering that are salient among the black peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, reconstruct them in order to make them relevant to an international audience with philosophical interests, and urge that audience to give them consideration as alternatives or correctives to some dominant Western approaches. I first recount views commonly held by sub-Saharans about the nature, causes and cures of suffering, and then draw on them to articulate an account of it qua enervation, whi…Read more
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118Respect for persons and perfectionist politicsPhilosophy and Public Affairs 30 (4). 2001.Can a state seek to promote a thick conception of the good (such as fostering a kind of meaning or excellence in people's lives) without treating its citizens disrespectfully? The predominant answer among friends of the principle of respect for persons is "no." The most powerful Kantian objection to non-liberalism or perfectionism is the claim that citizens who do not share the state's conception of the good would be wronged in that the state would treat a certain way of life as more important …Read more
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68Imperfection as sufficient for a meaningful life : How much is enough?In Yujin Nagasawa & Erik J. Wielenberg (eds.), New waves in philosophy of religion, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 192-214. 2008.Supernaturalism about meaning in life appears plausible insofar it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life can come only from a world in which there is a perfect value of some kind. Call the view that meaningfulness depends on perfection the ‘perfection thesis’. My aim in this chapter is to develop the contrasting ‘imperfection thesis’, the claim that a life that is significant on balance does not require any perfect value. I argue that principles that naturalists have offered (or suggeste…Read more
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660نیاز جاودانگی برای معنای زندگی (Persian: 'The Immortality Requirement for Life's Meaning')Falsafeh 6 (72): 81-90. 2013.Persian translation by Seyyed Mostafa Mousavi A’zam of 'The Immortality Requirement for Life's Meaning' (Ratio 2003).
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429Ubuntu Como uma Teoria Moral e os Direitos Humanos na África do SulRevista Culturas Jurídicas 3 (5): 1-33. 2016.Portuguese translation by Jean-Bosco Kakozi and Karina Macedo Fernandes of 'Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa', which first appeared in the African Human Rights Law Journal (2011).
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The Meaning of Life |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
African Philosophy |
Philosophy of Law |
Applied Ethics |
Value Theory |