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641Afro-Communitarianism and the Role of Traditional African Healers in the COVID-19 PandemicPublic Health Ethics 14 (1): 59-71. 2021.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant challenges to healthcare systems worldwide, and in Africa, given the lack of resources, they are likely to be even more acute. The usefulness of Traditional African Healers in helping to mitigate the effects of pandemic has been neglected. We argue from an ethical perspective that these healers can and should have an important role in informing and guiding local communities in Africa on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Particularly, we argue no…Read more
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270Towards a Global Philosophy of ReligionEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (3): 263-284. 2022.This piece replies to a recently published article in the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion by J. L. Schellenberg and Paul Draper. They contend that the field of African philosophy of religion needs renewal, and they make several recommendations on how to achieve this. I agree with their recommendations, but I argue they have omitted a crucial problem and solution to renew the field; namely, a fundamental problem of the field is that it systemically excludes non-Western philosophies an…Read more
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74Animal Abolitionism and ‘Racism without Racists’Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 30 (6): 745-764. 2017.Abolitionism is an animal rights' philosophy and social movement which has recently begun to grow. It has been largely contested but the criticisms directed at it have usually been articulated outside academia. In this article, I wish to contend that one of the criticisms directed at abolitionism—that it contains racist implications—is correct. I do this by defending the idea that abolitionism engages in what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva classifies as ‘racism without racists’—an unintentional and subtl…Read more
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64Integrating African Philosophy into the Western Philosophy CurriculumTeaching Philosophy 41 (1): 21-43. 2018.In the last three years, there has been a worldwide increase in integrating African philosophy into the philosophy curricula. Nevertheless, given that African philosophy has been largely neglected by Western academia, many philosophers in the West who do wish to integrate it are unaware of how to do it. This article aims at addressing this issue by offering some recommendations on how to integrate African philosophy into the curricula. Particularly, it offers recommendations based on how the his…Read more
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51African Philosophy of Religion: Concepts of God, Ancestors, and the Problem of EvilPhilosophy Compass 17 (8). 2022.Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2022.
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42Animal Abolitionism Revisited: Neo-Colonialism and Morally Unjustified BurdensJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (4): 499-510. 2018.Bob Fischer has written a reply to my article ‘Animal Abolitionism and ‘Racism without Racists’’. In this article, Fischer contends that my arguments whereby animal abolitionism engages in acts of racism without racists are mistaken. I wish to reply to Fischer’s objections in this article, through four sets of contentions: Fischer’s arguments reveal some misunderstandings in terms of the concept of racism and, particularly, of ‘racism without racists’; his arguments also underestimate the burden…Read more
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39MulticulturalismInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2014.Multiculturalism Cultural diversity has been present in societies for a very long time. In Ancient Greece, there were various small regions with different costumes, traditions, dialects and identities, for example, those from Aetolia, Locris, Doris and Epirus. In the Ottoman Empire, Muslims were the majority, but there were also Christians, Jews, pagan Arabs, and other […].
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35South African Animal Legislation and Marxist Philosophy of LawCultura 16 (1): 23-38. 2019.Marxist Philosophy as an explanation of social reality has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, been largely neglected. However, some philosophers have contended that it may still be relevant to explain today’s social reality. In this article, I wish to demonstrate precisely that Marxist philosophy can be relevant to understand social reality. To carry out this task, I show that Marxist philosophy of law can offer a sound explanation of Animal law in South Africa. My argument is that South Africa…Read more
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35Ubuntu and Moral Epistemology: The Case of the Rhodes Must Fall MovementPhilosophia Africana 19 (1): 40-63. 2020.One of the key ethical and political issues in South Africa today is the decolonization of education. In 2015, a movement called Rhodes Must Fall was born in South Africa precisely with the purpose of engaging in activism to promote this decolonization. The Rhodes Must Fall movement to further this purpose engaged in some violent protests. The objective of this article is to assess whether South Africans are justified to believe that these protests can or cannot be morally justified from the per…Read more
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32Racism without racists and consequentialist life‐maximizing approaches to triagingBioethics 36 (3): 243-251. 2022.Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 243-251, March 2022.
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31Understanding the Impact of the Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act (AETA) on Animal AdvocacyEnvironmental Ethics 39 (4): 355-375. 2017.In many contemporary societies, there is an increasing number of animal welfare sympathizers and activists. In the United States, particularly, there are various individuals who have engaged in activist activities focused on animals. However, since 2006, and under the Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act, some of these activities have been classified as terrorist crimes. Independent of whether such activities are morally justified or not, the AETA law exaggerates these activist actions and can take t…Read more
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30Igwebuike: an African concept for an inclusive medical ethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 50 (3): 219-220. 2024._Igwebuike_ is a traditional knowledge system undergirded by the metaphysical assumption that the world is a totality of interconnected and interrelated entities. 1–4 African scholars in West Africa often invoke _igwebuike_ to make sense of African ethical, social and political perspectives that are grounded in the theory of Afro-communitarianism. Afro-communitarianism is primarily a socioethical theory that is concerned with the articulation of the moral relationship between the individual and …Read more
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29Are future generations that belong to language minorities entitled to group rights?South African Journal of Philosophy 35 (1): 1-8. 2016.In this article, I investigate to what extent future generations that belong to language minorities are entitled to group rights that protect their linguistic identity. In particular, I assess whether these future generations are entitled to assistance rights, symbolic claims, self-government rights and exemptions from the law. To address this I outline three arguments supporting group rights for current generations and raise the question of whether these arguments, which are true for current ge…Read more
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28African Philosophy of Religion from a Global PerspectiveFilosofia Theoretica 11 (1): 1-7. 2022.In this essay, we explore what the African Philosophy of Religion would look like from both a mono-disciplinary and comparative perspectives. To do this, a few concepts such as Gods, ancestorhood, relationality, and the problem of evil that appear in the essays in this special issue will be highlighted. Our aim here is not to provide a lengthy and rigorous analysis of the field of African Philosophy of Religion or even some of its main concepts, but to offer a platform for continuing discussion …Read more
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28African higher education and decolonizing the teaching of philosophyEducational Philosophy and Theory 54 (11): 1854-1867. 2022.In recent years, different places in the world have witnessed demands for the decolonization of education. Nevertheless, it is not completely clear how this ought to be carried out. There are various factors that influence what such decolonization may entail, including the geographical place for decolonization and the discipline being decolonized. This requires a specific analysis of each context. In this article, I wish to make a proposal for how to carry out the decolonization of philosophy te…Read more
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27Looking Back and Forward: Relational African Bioethics and Why Personhood is Not DeadAmerican Journal of Bioethics 24 (1): 62-64. 2024.In her new article in the American Journal of Bioethics, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby (2024) provides at least three reasons that support her argument that the concept of personhood must be abandoned...
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26A Relational Approach to Rationing in a Time of PandemicJournal of Value Inquiry 56 (3): 409-429. 2022.
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26African Views of Just War in Mandela and CabralJournal of Speculative Philosophy 32 (4): 657-673. 2018.ABSTRACT In this article, I will carry out an epistemic and interpretative project, drawing out the implications of African values for the morality of war. More precisely, I wish to interpret the African value system and tease out some conclusions as to what this value system entails in terms of the following: the morality of when to enter war, how to act in war, and what to do after war. I carry out this inquiry by articulating the African value of Ubuntu in light of the actions and speeches of…Read more
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26Pharmaceutical Patents and Vaccination JusticeSocial Theory and Practice 50 (2): 207-228. 2024.The production of vaccines for COVID-19 has been far from ideal in terms of meeting world demand, thereby mitigating the infections and deaths caused by the pandemic. Part of the reason production has been inefficient is that those pharmaceutical companies that own the vaccine do not have sufficient productive capacity to meet demand. Resultantly, many have advocated for waiving patent rights to the vaccine so it can be massively produced worldwide. Pharmaceutical companies and their advocates h…Read more
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25Connecting racial and species justice: Towards an Afrocentric animal advocacyPhilosophy and Social Criticism 48 (8): 1075-1098. 2022.Some philosophers and activists have been sceptical about the relevance of pursuing animal justice to progress racial justice. Routinely, these sceptics have argued that allying animal and racial justice struggles is politically unfeasible, counterproductive, distractive and disruptive for the achievement of racial justice. The conclusion of these sceptics is that animal justice is either a barrier or irrelevant to racial justice and, as such, activists should not ally both struggles. In this ar…Read more
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25Teaching and Learning Guide for: African perspectives on just warPhilosophy Compass 17 (3). 2021.Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 3, March 2022.
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24African perspectives on just warPhilosophy Compass 17 (3). 2021.Most Anglophone just war theory has been written from the point of view of Western philosophy. Nevertheless, other philosophical traditions outside the West have also produced sophisticated and innovative ideas about the morality of war, although they have been largely neglected. In this article, I overview for the first time the literature regarding jus ad bellum in contemporary African thought and contend that there are four kinds of arguments regarding the justification to initiate a war. Nam…Read more
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23Toward a decolonized healthcare ethics: Colonial legacies and the Siamese crocodileDeveloping World Bioethics 20 (3): 118-119. 2020.Developing World Bioethics, EarlyView.
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23A Sino‐African perspective and the morality of procreationDeveloping World Bioethics. forthcoming.Current studies of anti/‐natalism have been carried out mainly in the context of western philosophy. In this article, we offer a pro‐natalist view based on Confucian and Afro‐communitarian philosophy (Sino‐African ethics). Grounded in this Sino‐African perspective, we uphold that there is, at least, one reason to believe that not only is it morally permissible to procreate, but also that on some occasions, procreating is what morality prescribes. Specifically, we contend that, from a Sino‐Africa…Read more
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22The morality of vengeance: Confucianism and Tutuism in dialoguePhilosophical Forum 53 (1): 11-29. 2022.This paper analyzes two main pro-vengeance Confucian arguments in light of Desmond Tutu's thinking. In the absence of just authority, Confucianism argues that carrying out blood vengeance is fulfillment of filial piety and fulfillment of moral duty for deterring crime and reforming the wrongdoer's character. Confucianism does not propose a systematic theory of blood vengeance after laws have been installed to prohibit act of revenge. As Confucian ethics focuses on virtue cultivation and advocate…Read more
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22The Logical Problem of Evil and African War EthicsJournal of Military Ethics 21 (3): 272-285. 2022.The morality of war has been debated from a variety of perspectives. However, it has rarely been intertwined with the topic of the existence of God. Sometimes anti-theists argue that the existence of a Western Judeo-Christian God who is omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect is inconsistent with the existence of evils such as war. We will argue that there is no such logical inconsistency between the God of the African traditional religions and the evil of war. First, we contend that such a l…Read more
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22An African moral approach against the perverted faculty argument: Ukama, partiality and homophobia in AfricaDeveloping World Bioethics. forthcoming.In Africa, homosexuality is routinely understood as a form of immoral behaviour. This has great implications for the physical and psychological well‐being of homosexuals in Africa. One of the reasons why homosexuals are sometimes understood to be behaving immorally is because it is believed that same‐sex relations are unnatural. I think that this conception of unnatural is grounded on the perverted faculty argument, although this is not often expressed in such terms. In this article, I will deve…Read more
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22Christianity in the Kingdom of Kongo and Western Theism: A Comparative Study of the Problem of EvilPhilosophia Africana 21 (1): 13-27. 2022.Philosophers have been intrigued by the problem of evil for centuries: How can God and evil coexist? This article tries to answer this question by using Kongolese religious thought from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I contend that the Kongolese view gleaned from historical sources and complemented by contemporary African philosophical scholarship contains sufficient resources to reply to this problem coherently. Particularly, I argue that, from the Kongolese viewpoint, evil in the wor…Read more
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22Injustice for the sake of public health: Freeing prisoners in Portugal during the COVID‐19 pandemicBioethics 35 (4): 385-387. 2021.This case study analysis looks at Portuguese policy during the COVID‐19 pandemic whereby convicts were freed for the sake of public health. I defend this policy negatively by refuting the argument that suggested it involved various forms of injustice.
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22Teaching and Learning Guide for African Philosophy of Religion: Concepts of God, Ancestors, and the Problem of EvilPhilosophy Compass 18 (3). 2023.
Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues
Hunan University
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Hunan UniversityProfessor