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Medicine and Meaning in LifeIn Alex Broadbent (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.Insofar as value theory is relevant to the philosophy of medicine, two goods have dominated reflection: well-being and morality. This essay casts doubt on whether those values are sufficient to resolve an array of important debates about medical practice, maintaining that the value of what makes a life meaningful should play a much larger role. After first indicating how meaningfulness differs from happiness and rightness, the essay argues that meaningfulness cannot reasonably be ignored when th…Read more
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Title TBA: Reply to CriticsEthical Theory and Moral Practice. forthcoming.Reply to six critical discussions of _A Relational Moral Theory_ as part of a special issue of _Ethical Theory and Moral Practice_. Theoretical issues include the individualism/relationalism distinction, including as it bears on Confucian theory in comparison to African thought. Applied topics include the implications of a communal principle of right action for issues pertaining to business, biotechnological enhancements, environmentalism, and corrective justice.
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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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An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism (repr.)In Kenneth Abudu, Kevin Behrens & Elvis Imafidon (eds.), African Philosophy and Deep Ecology, Routledge. forthcoming.An abridged and slightly modified version of an article first published in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2012).
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Duties to Oneself in the Light of African Values: Two New Theoretical ApproachesThe Monist. forthcoming.I draw on ideas salient in contemporary literate African philosophy to construct two new theoretical ways of capturing the essence of duties to oneself. According to one theory, a person has a foundational duty to “relate” to herself in ways similar to how the African field has often thought that a person should relate with others, viz., harmoniously. According to the second, one has a foundational duty to produce liveliness in oneself. In addition to articulating these novel attempts to capture…Read more
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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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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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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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Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa (repr.)In David Bilchitz, Thaddeus Metz & Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe (eds.), Jurisprudence in an African Context, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press. pp. 361-363. 2024.An abridged version of an article published in 2011 focusing on its discussion of the ubuntu ethics of land reform.
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A Dilemma Regarding Academic Freedom and Public Accountability in Higher Education (repr.)In Yamikani Ndasauka (ed.), The Quest for Academic Freedom in Africa, Routledge. forthcoming.Reprint of an article published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education (2010) about the tension between a right to academic freedom and a responsibility to promote public goods, discussed largely in the African context.
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Ancillary care obligations in the light of an African bioethicIn Yaw A. Frimpong-Mansoh & Caesar A. Atuire (eds.), Bioethics in Africa: theories and praxis, Vernon Press. 2019.
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According to a normative-theoretic interpretation of the African moral-political tradition that I have advanced, an agent is at bottom obligated to respect individuals in virtue of their ability to be party to communal (or harmonious) relationships. In practice that means that a moral agent is typically obligated to relate communally with innocents, that is, to share a way of life with them and to care for their quality of life. I have argued that this relational principle of right action provid…Read more
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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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"一种关系化的道德理论——从本土走向世界的非洲伦理学"The Commercial Press/商务印书馆. forthcoming.Chinese (simplified character) translation of _A Relational Moral Theory_ by Nan Zhang.
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How Global Philosophers Could Learn from Intercultural Exchanges with AfricaIn Hamza R'boul (ed.), African Perspectives on Interculturality: Decolonialities, Epistemologies and Human Relations, Routledge. forthcoming.What can African sources teach philosophers and related thinkers around the world? In some real ways, both Western philosophers and non-Western advocates of decolonization have failed to appreciate that there is probably a lot to learn from Africa. In my contribution, I explain why neither camp has given African intellectual sources their due and sketch what that would plausibly involve.
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Replacing Development: An Afro-Communal Approach to Global Justice (repr.)In Mahmoud Masaeli & Rico Sneller (eds.), The Return of Ethics and Spirituality in Global Development, Gompel & Svacina. pp. 187-210. 2020.Reprint of an article that initially appeared in Philosophical Papers (2017).
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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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African Moral Theory and Public Governance: Nepotism, Preferential Hiring and Other Partiality (repr.)In Paul Omoyefa & Alex Antonites (eds.), Basic Applied Ethics: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Vdm Verlag Dr Müller. 2010.Reprint of a chapter that initially appeared in _African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics_ (2009).
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Recent Work in African Political TheoryJournal of International Political Theory. forthcoming.In this article I expound and evaluate key ideas from monographs devoted to African political philosophy and published since 2020. The featured titles are __Ubuntu for Warriors__, Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination, Capitalism and Freedom in African Political Philosophy, African Politics and Ethics, Ludic Ubuntu Ethics: Decolonizing Justice, Deliberative Agency: A Study in Modern African Political Philosophy, and Ubuntu Beyond Identities. Major topics from these works that I tak…Read more
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Relational Theories of Moral Status (tentative title)Journal of Medical Ethics. forthcoming.Critical notice of Nancy Jecker and Caesar Atuire's _What Is a Person?_, with some focus on their relational account of moral status as compared to my own.
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Arabic translation by Ahmed Al-Ansari of 'Happiness and Meaningfulness' (a chapter first published in 2009).
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 |