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13Community in African Moral-Political PhilosophyIn Niall Bond (ed.), The Concept of Community from a Global Perspective, Brill. pp. 313-332. 2024.I critically discuss respects in which conceptions of community have featured in African moral-political philosophy over the past 40 years or so. Some of the discussion is in the vein of intellectual history, recounting key theoretical moves for those unfamiliar with the field. However, my discussion is also opinionated, noting prima facie weaknesses with certain positions and presenting others as more promising, particularly relative to prominent Western competitors. There are a variety of form…Read more
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11Contributions Toward a Naturalist Theory of Life's MeaningDialogue and Universalism 8 (11): 25-32. 1998.A brief attempt to sketch an account of what constitutes meaning in life that does not rely on God or a soul. The account focuses on connecting with final value, but posits counterexamples pertaining to certain states of awareness.
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26Values 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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178與非洲相比在中國的價值In Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), 汉学与当代中国座谈会文集(2017), China Social Sciences Press. pp. 612-619. 2000.Chinese (character) translation of part of an article that appeared in Philosophy East and West (2017).
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25Ce 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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481How Philosophy Bears on Covid-19South African Journal of Science 116 (7/8): 1. 2020.A short reflection on respects in which philosophers are particularly, if not uniquely, well positioned to address certain ethical and epistemological controversies pertaining to the coronavirus.
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657The Virtues of African Ethics (Repr.)In Luís Rodrigues (ed.), African Ethics: A Guide to Key Ideas, Bloomsbury. pp. 185-196. 2022.Mildly modified reprint of a chapter originally appearing in The Handbook of Virtue Ethics (2012).
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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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20African 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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413A Relational Theory of Mental Illness: Lacking Identity and SolidaritySynthesis Philosophica 71 (1): 65-81. 2021.In this article I aim to make progress towards the philosophical goal of ascertaining what, if anything, all mental illnesses have in common, attempting to unify a large sub-set of them that have a relational or interpersonal dimension. One major claim is that, if we want a promising theory of mental illness, we must go beyond the dominant western accounts of mental illness/health, which focus on traits intrinsic to a person such as pain/pleasure, lethargy/liveliness, fragmentation/integration, …Read more
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31Must Land Reform Benefit the Victims of Colonialism? (repr.)In Erasmus Masitera (ed.), Philosophical Approaches to Land Reform in Africa, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 145-160. 2020.Reprint of an article that first appeared in the journal Philosophia Africana (2020).
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829African Theories of Meaning in Life: A Critical AssessmentSouth African Journal of Philosophy 39 (2): 113-126. 2020.In this article, I expound and assess two theories of meaning in life informed by the indigenous sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. According to one principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes community with other human persons. According to the other principle, a life is more meaningful, the more it promotes vitality in oneself and others. I argue that, at least upon some refinement, both of these African conceptions of meaning merit global consideration from philosophe…Read more
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113Conversations about the Meaning of LifeObsidian Worlds Publishing. 2021.Interviews with David Benatar and Thaddeus Metz about some core aspects of their views about meaning in life, including debate between them. Accessible to a generally educated audience. Edited by Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff.
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418Ubuntu: The Good Life (rev. edn)In Filomena Maggino (ed.), Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, 2nd edn, Springer. 2021.Moderately updated version of this encyclopaedia entry.
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11What Science Means for Postmodernist Epistemology and the Philosophy of Education (Repr.)In Michael A. Peters, Marek Tesar, Liz Jackson & Tina Besley (eds.), What Comes after Postmodernism in Educational Theory?, Routledge. pp. 1398-1399. 1920.Reprint of an article first appearing in Educational Philosophy and Theory (2018).
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39An African Theory of Good Leadership (Repr.)International Journal of Ethical Leadership 7 41-56. 2020.Shortened version of an article first appearing in the African Journal of Business Ethics (2018).
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23Ends and Means of Transitional Justice (Repr.)In Krushil Watene & Eric Palmer (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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47人生は創造する価値がありますか?Gendai-Shiso 47 (14): 94-113. 2019.Translation of 'Are Lives Worth Creating?' into Japanese by Sho Yamaguchi. A critical discussion of Benatar's anti-natalism that originally appeared in Philosophical Papers (2011).
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216Virtue in African Ethics as Living HarmoniouslyIn Chenyang Li & Dascha Düring (eds.), The Virtue of Harmony, Oxford University Press. pp. 207-229. 2022.A large swathe of the indigenous African ethical tradition is frequently encapsulated in the maxim, “A person is a person through other persons.” This phrasing is an overly literal translation of some sayings that are prominent in the southern and central regions of Africa, but that resonate with most indigenous sub-Saharan cultures. This chapter articulates and motivates a philosophical interpretation of the maxim for an international readership interested in virtue. According to the initial fo…Read more
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405Must Land Reform Benefit the Victims of Colonialism?Philosophia Africana 19 (2): 122-137. 2020.Appealing to African values associated with ubuntu such as communion and reconciliation, elsewhere I have argued that they require compensating those who have been wronged in ways that are likely to improve their lives. In the context of land reform, I further contended that this principle probably entails not transferring unjustly acquired land en masse and immediately to dispossessed populations since doing so would foreseeably lead to such things as capital flight and food shortages, which wo…Read more
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34What Is the Essence of an Essence? Comparing Afro-Relational and Western-Individualist Ontologies (repr.)In Jonathan O. Chimakonam & Monique Whitaker (eds.), Contemporary Language, Logic, and Metaphysics: African and Western Approaches (tentative title), . 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. 1998.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, 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 & 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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370Africanising 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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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 |