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25Values in China as Compared to Africa: Two Conceptions of Harmony (Repr.)In The Collected Works at the Symposium on Chinese Studies 2017, China Social Sciences Press. pp. 620-631. 2018.English reprint of part of an article first appearing in Philosophy East and West (2017).
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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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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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24Ce que l’Afrique peut apporter au mondeIn Tayeb Chenntouf (ed.), Histoire générale de l’Afrique, Volume 9 : l’Afrique Globale, Unesco. forthcoming.French translation of 'What Africa Can Contribute to the World', a commissioned chapter for UNESCO'S General History of Africa project.
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24PunishmentIn Deen Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, Springer. pp. 915-17. 2012.A large majority of theoretical debate with regard to criminal justice at the global level has been concerned to identify which kinds of punishment of international agents are morally sound. Three key issues have been: (1) international sentencing, which concerns the rightness of international tribunals to prosecute what might be called ‘large-scale’ or ‘humanitarian’ crimes; (2) extraterritorial punishment, most topically regarding the appropriateness of a state punishing a foreign national for…Read more
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23Much more than just an anthology, this survey of humanity's search for the meaning of life includes the latest contributions to the debate, a judicious selection of key canonical essays, and insightful commentary by internationally respected philosophers.
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23Relational African Values between NationsIn Onditi Francis & Ben-Nun Gilad (eds.), Contemporary Africa in the New World Order, Indiana University Press. pp. 133-150. 2019.This chapter considers how some international ethical matters might be approached differently in the English-speaking literature if values salient in sub-Saharan Africa were taken seriously. Specifically, after pointing out how indigenous values in this part of the world tend to prescribe relating communally, this chapter articulates a moral-philosophical interpretation of communal relationship and brings out what such an ethic entails for certain aspects of globalization, political power, forei…Read more
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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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23Duties towards Animals versus Rights to Culture: An African Approach to the Conflict in Terms of CommunionIn Luis Rodrigues & Les Mitchell (eds.), Multiculturalism, Race and Animals – Contemporary Moral and Political Debates, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 269-294. 2017.Influential moral theories in the contemporary West face problems making sense of the conflict between the interests of animals and people’s interests in culture. They have trouble explaining either the existence of strong direct duties to animals or the importance of people’s right to culture (and frequently both). In this chapter I aim to advance a relational ethic, grounded on the African philosophical tradition, that offers a promising alternative. I contend that duties toward animals and ri…Read more
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22Popper’s Politics in the Light of African Values (Repr.)In Oseni Taiwo Afisi (ed.), Karl Popper and Africa: Knowledge, Politics and Development, Springer. pp. 9-29. 2021.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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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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22Communication Strategies in the Context of Indigenous African and Chinese Values: How to Harmonize (Repr.)In Paul Tembe & Vusi Gumede (eds.), Africa-China Cross-cultural Communication, Africa World Press. pp. 35-53. 2020.Reprint of an article first appearing in Philosophia Africana (2020).
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22Could God's Purpose Be the Source of Life's Meaning? (repr.)In Joshua Seachris (ed.), Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide, Wiley. pp. 200-218. 2012.Reprint of an article that initially appeared in Religious Studies (2000).
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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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21African 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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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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20Ends and Means of Transitional Justice (Repr.)In Eric Palmer & Krushil Watene (eds.), Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice, Routledge. pp. 27-36. 2020.Reprint of an article first appearing in the Journal of Global Ethics (2018).
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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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20Jus Interruptus Bellum: The Ethics of Truce-MakingJournal of Global Ethics 13 (1): 6-13. 2017.With his new book, A Theory of Truces, Nir Eisikovits has succeed in producing the most comprehensive and insightful book to exist on the nature and morality of truces during international military conflict. In it he plausibly argues that thought about such conflict should avoid binary terms such as long-lasting peace and all-out war, and instead must readily acknowledge conditions “in between” them, such as cease-fires and agreements to limit belligerence to certain times. In this critical noti…Read more
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20African Theories of Meaning in Life: A Critical Assessment (Repr.)In Aribiah D. Attoe (ed.), African Perspectives on the Question of Life’s Meaning, Routledge. pp. 21-34. 2023.Reprint of an article that first appeared in a special issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy devoted to life's meaning in the African tradition.
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19Précis of Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (repr.)European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (2): 1--4. 2016.A brief summary of the main claims advanced in Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study, largely cribbed from the Journal of Philosophy of Life (2015).
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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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19An 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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18African EthicsIn Tom Angier (ed.), Ethics: The Key Thinkers, 2nd Edition, Bloomsbury. pp. 261-281. 2022.Unlike the Chinese, Indian, and Western ethical traditions, the African one had not been text-based until as recently as the 1960s. Since a very large majority of indigenous sub-Saharan societies had oral cultures, there are no classic texts in the field of African ethics and hence also no Big Names; there's nothing comparable to, say, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or Confucius’ Analects. However, some names and texts have been more influential than others in shaping ethical reflection, particu…Read more
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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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17Defending 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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16Neither 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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15Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa (Repr.)Revista Culturas Jurídicas (Legal Cultures Journal) 3 (5): 24-53. 2016.Reprint of an article first published in the _African Human Rights Law Journal_ (2011).
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13Human Dignity, Capital Punishment, and an African Moral Theory (repr.)In Luis Arroyo, Paloma Biglino & William Schabas (eds.), Towards Universal Abolition of the Death Penalty, Tirant Lo Blanch. pp. 337-366. 2010.In this chapter, a reprint of an article initially appearing in the Journal of Human Rights (2010), I spell out a conception of dignity grounded on African moral thinking that provides a plausible philosophical foundation for human rights, focusing on the particular human right not to be executed by the state. I first demonstrate that the South African Constitutional Court’s sub-Saharan explanations of why the death penalty is degrading all counterintuitively entail that using deadly force again…Read more
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13Economic 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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The Meaning of Life |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
African Philosophy |
Philosophy of Law |
Applied Ethics |
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