The establishment of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a pioneering international event. Never had any country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy both by exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors. At the center of this unprecedented attempt at healing a nation has been Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom President Nelson Mandela named as Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With the final report of the Commission just published, Archbishop (...) Tutu offers his reflections on the profound wisdom he has gained by helping usher South Africa through this painful experience. In No Future Without Forgiveness, Tutu argues that true reconciliation cannot be achieved by denying the past. But nor is it easy to reconcile when a nation "looks the beast in the eye." Rather than repeat platitudes about forgiveness, he presents a bold spirituality that recognizes the horrors people can inflict upon one another, and yet retains a sense of idealism about reconciliation. With a clarity of pitch born out of decades of experience, Tutu shows readers how to move forward with honesty and compassion to build a newer and more humane world. (shrink)

From the perspective of an African ethic, analytically interpreted as a philosophical principle of right action, what are the proper final ends of a publicly funded university and how should they be ranked? To answer this question, I first provide a brief but inclusive review of the literature on Africanising higher education from the past 50 years, and contend that the prominent final ends suggested in it can be reduced to five major categories. Then, I spell out an intuitively attractive (...) African moral theory and apply it to these five final ends, arguing that three of them are appropriate but that two of them are not. After that, I maintain that the African moral theory prescribes two additional final ends for a public university that are not salient in the literature. Next, I argue that employing the African moral theory as I do enables one to rebut several criticisms of Africanising higher education that have recently been made from a liberal perspective. I conclude by posing questions suitable for future research. (shrink)

In this article I articulate and defend an African moral theory, i.e., a basic and general principle grounding all particular duties that is informed by sub-Saharan values commonly associated with talk of "ubuntu" and cognate terms that signify personhood or humanness. The favoured interpretation of ubuntu (as of 2007) is the principle that an action is right insofar as it respects harmonious relationships, ones in which people identify with, and exhibit solidarity toward, one another. I maintain that this is the (...) most defensible moral theory with an African pedigree at the time, and that it should be developed further with an eye to rivalling dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism. (NB: a mildly revised version, avoiding some typos and phrases that invite misinterpretation, appeared as a chapter in Isaac Ukpokolo, ed., _Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy_ London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 97-119.). (shrink)

The traditional theory of the just war comprises two sets of principles, one governing the resort to war ( jus ad bellum) and the other governing the conduct of war ( jus in bello). The two sets of principles are regarded, in Michael Walzer’s words, as “logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules.”1 Let us say that those who fight (...) in a just war are “just combatants,” while those who fight in a war that is unjust because it lacks a just cause are “unjust combatants.” (A just cause is an aim that can contribute to the justification for war and that may permissibly be pursued by means of war.)2 The most important implication of the idea that jus in bello is independent of jus ad bellum is that.. (shrink)

The paper notes that whereas the issue of capital punishment is very old and not alien to any human society, and whereas there is an abundance of literature on Western philosophy of punishment, very little philosophical work on punishment from the African perspective can be cited. By way of filling a part of the lacuna in the literature, the paper examines the Yorùbá culture for its perspectives on the death penalty.The paper finds in the Ifá Literary Corpus, though implicit, a (...) strong philosophical argument against capital punishment. The argument, explicated and analyzed, turns out to be an introduction of a skeptical epistemological consideration into the debate over capital punishment in a unique way that raises some other jurisprudential issues relating to judicial administration.The paper concludes that although there may, as would be expected, be other positions on the issue of death penalty in Yorùbá culture, the particular argument examined validly makes its point for the abolition of capital punishment, especially when situated in the context of Yorùbá social ethic, which is essentially communal and humanistic. The enabling cultural context of the Ifá argument against capital punishment was extended beyond its immediate Yorùbá sociocultural context to the pan-African humanistic social ethic conceptualized in Bantu languages of Southern Africa as ‘Ubuntu’, thereby giving the argument a contemporary universal relevance and applicability. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Cross‐Cultural Perspectives on Human Rights Democratic Participation in the Cultural Context Development as a Process of Self‐Enhancement from Within Conclusion.

The eminent Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu confronts the paradox that while Western cultures recoil from claims of universality, previously colonized peoples, seeking to redefine their identities, insist on cultural particularities.

In spite of decolonisation, the philosophical character of European standpoint on colonisation together with its corresponding practices remains unchanged in its relations with the erstwhile colonies. It is precisely this condition which calls for the need for the authentic liberation of Africa. This speaks of a two-fold exigency. One is that the colonised people's conceptions of reality, knowledge and truth should be released from slavery and dominance under the European epistemological paradigm. Without this essential first step there cannot evolve a (...) common authentic and liberating universe of discourse. The second exigency is that the evolving common universe of discourse must take into account the rational demands of justice to the colonised arising from the unjust wars of conquest that resulted in colonial disseizing of territory as well as the enslavement of the colonised. These rational demands of justice are specifically the restoration of territory to its indigenous rightful owners and reparations to them. This two fold exigency is the indisplensable neccessity for the authentic liberation of Africa, and indeed, all the colonised people of the world. (shrink)

Africa is a religiously plural society with interaction between people of different religions and diverse value systems. The author, Professor of Comparative Religion in Uganda, describes and compares the position of traditional African religion, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i Faith on selected moral issues relevant to Africa today. His central argument is that in order to maintain their identity, African people must rediscover their ethical and moral heritage. He also argues that the new African ethical and moral systems must take into (...) account the ethics of Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith without embracing the cultures of the societies where those religions originated. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Suppose a person lives in a sub-Saharan country that has won its independence from colonial powers in the last 50 years or so. Suppose also that that person has become a high-ranking government official who makes decisions on how to allocate goods, such as civil service jobs and contracts with private firms. Should such a person refrain from considering any particulars about potential recipients or might it be appropriate to consider, for example, family membership, party affiliation, race or revolutionary stature (...) as reasons to benefit certain individuals at some cost to the general public? Which of these factors should be considered unjust, or even corrupt, as a basis on which to allocate state goods and which should not? This chapter outlines an attractive moral theory with African content that forbids both impartialism and a strong form of partialism that would permit government officials to favour members of their families or political parties. Between these two extremes, a moderate partialism is prescribed. This permits government agents to occasionally favour veterans and victims of state injustices at some cost to the general public. This chapter seeks to provide a new, unified explanation of why sub-Saharan values permit some forms of partiality, such as the preferential hiring of those who struggled against colonialism, but prohibit other nepotistic forms of partiality. (shrink)

Thaddeus Metz defends the retributive theory of punishment against challenges mounted by some of the contributors to this collection. People, he thinks, ought to be censured in a way that is proportional to what they have done and for which they are responsible. Understanding does not conflict with judging. On the contrary, according to him, the more we understand, the better we are able to censure appropriately. Metz’s argument is Kantian insofar as he argues that ‘respect for persons [victims, responsible (...) wrongdoers and the community at large] requires condemning people proportionately to their responsible wrongdoing and hence that understanding a person merely indicates what would be proportionate, not that proportionality is unjustified’. His reason for thinking that Kantian respect requires retribution is that, as in non-retributive cases such as economic justice, compensatory justice, and justice in healthcare rationing, it requires imposing burdens on persons consequent to an awareness of their responsible choices. To use his slogan, ‘judging is apt because of understanding’. (shrink)