African Communitarianism and Difference
In Elvis Imafidon (ed.), Handbook of the African Philosophy of Difference. Springer. pp. 31-51 (2020)
Abstract
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 value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
The Need for Others in Public Policy: An African Approach.Thaddeus Metz - 2021 - In Motsamai Molefe & Chris Allsobrook (eds.), Towards an African Political Philosophy of Needs. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 21-37.
Afro-communitarianism or Cosmopolitanism.Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani - 2022 - Journal of Value Inquiry 56 (3):335-353.
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