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Polycarp Ikuenobe [43]Polycarp A. Ikuenobe [2]Polycarp Asekhaghegbe Ikuenobe [1]
  1.  18
    Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African Traditions.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2006 - Lexington Books.
    This book examines the idea of communalism in African cultures as a dominant philosophical theme that provides the conceptual foundation for African traditional moral thoughts, moral education, values, beliefs, conceptions of reality, practices, ways of life, and the now popular African saying, 'it takes a village to raise a child.' It defends communalism against various criticisms and argues that when properly understood and harnessed, it could provide the necessary foundation for Africa's development.
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  2.  65
    The Communal Basis for Moral Dignity: An African Perspective.Polycarp A. Ikuenobe - 2016 - Philosophical Papers 45 (3):437-469.
    I examine the standard view of dignity in Western literature and Metz’s African community view of dignity as a capacity for communal harmonious living. I argue that moral dignity is not just having a capacity for harmonious communal living, but the moral use of such capacity for the promotion of love, friendship, positive identity and active solidarity, which involves normatively prescriptive and evaluative elements. Thus, a plausible African communal conception of moral dignity, which is founded on a moral conception of (...)
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  3.  48
    The Idea of Personhood in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2006 - Philosophia Africana 9 (2):117-131.
  4. Good and Beautiful: A Moral-Aesthetic View of Personhood in African Communal Traditions.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2016 - Essays in Philosophy 17 (1):125-163.
    I articulate an African view of personhood that combines beauty and goodness–aesthetic and moral features. I discuss the idea of communalism, which provides the social and moral values and belief system that give meaning to this view of personhood. I use ideas from some African ethnic traditions, or some people’s account of these traditions, as examples to illustrate this view. The similarities in these examples from different ethnic traditions indicate that it is reasonable to characterize this view as a common (...)
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  5.  14
    Menkiti's Moral Man by Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2022 - Review of Metaphysics 76 (2):356-358.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Menkiti's Moral Man by Oritsegbubemi Anthony OyowePolycarp IkuenobeOYOWE, Oritsegbubemi Anthony. Menkiti's Moral Man. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2022. xii + 221 pp. Cloth, $100.00Oyowe critically examines the various threads in, issues raised by, and implications of Menkiti's maximal conception of personhood, against the backdrop of various criticisms, including his own. He indicates that, as "a repentant critic," he does "not deny the merits of these criticisms," but he (...)
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  6.  10
    An African Communal Approach to Punishment with Moral Dignity.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2023 - In Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Human Dignity in an African Context. Springer Verlag. pp. 43-64.
    I articulate a plausible African view of ‘moral dignity’, which is founded on the normative conception of ‘personhood’ and the idea of communalism. The status of ‘personhood’ is attained when one is recognized for internalizing communal norms, performing requisite duties, and participating in relevant functions. This engenders the appellation of ‘moral dignity’, which implies ‘being worthy of respect’ and consequent respect by others. I examine the implication of the ideas of ‘moral dignity’, ‘personhood’, and ‘communalism’ for a plausible conception and (...)
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  7.  43
    On the Theoretical Unification and Nature of Fallacies.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2004 - Argumentation 18 (2):189-211.
    I argue in a non-reductive sense for a plausible epistemic principle, which can (1) theoretically and instrumentally unify or systematize all fallacies, and (2) provide a justification for using such a principle for characterizing an erroneous argument as a fallacy. This plausible epistemic principle involves the idea of an error in the method of justification, which results in a failure to provide relevant evidence to satisfy certain standards of adequate proof. Thus, all fallacies are systematically disguised failures to provide substantive (...)
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  8. Conceptualizing Racism and Its Subtle Forms.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2011 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 41 (2):161-181.
    Many people are talking about being in a post-racial era, which implies that we have overcome race and racism. Their argument is based on the fact that manyof the virulent manifestations of racism are not prevalent today. I argue that racism is not seen as prevalent today because the commonplace views of racism fail to capture the more subtle and insidious new forms of racism. I critically examine some of these views and indicate that racism, its forms and manifestations have (...)
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  9.  36
    African communal basis for autonomy and life choices.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2017 - Developing World Bioethics 18 (3):212-221.
    I argue that the metaphysical capacity of autonomy is not intrinsically valuable; it is valuable only when used in relation to a community's values and instrumentally for making the proper choices that will promote one's own and the community's well-being. I use the example of the choice to take one's life by suicide to illuminate this view. I articulate a plausible African conception of personhood as a basis for the idea of relational autonomy. I argue that this conception is better (...)
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  10.  74
    Relational Autonomy, Personhood, and African Traditions.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1005-1029 - Philosophy East and West 65 (4):1005-1029.
    The commonplace view of autonomy involves the ability of individuals to be self-governing and self-legislating, and to make freely and reflectively deliberate choices and decisions. This idea of autonomy — that persons are metaphysically free, that is, that they have free will and may use reason to choose how they shall act — is considered to be a defining feature of a responsible person. There is a commonplace view that autonomy is intrinsically good such that overriding it cannot be justified.1 (...)
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  11.  19
    Priority of duties, substantive human rights, and African communalism.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2021 - South African Journal of Philosophy 40 (4):421-435.
    I argue for a plausible view of the African idea and practice of substantive individual rights. This view indicates that rights are a means of enhancing individual dignity in the context of a communal system of correlativity of duties and rights. This view is exemplified in Menkiti’s idea of the priority of duties. I explicate this idea and indicate how it highlights the inherent social-communal nature of humans that is implicated in African normative conception of “personhood”.
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  12.  93
    The parochial universalist conception of 'philosophy' and 'african philosophy'.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1997 - Philosophy East and West 47 (2):189-210.
    The universalists argue that there is currently no African philosophy. Compared to Western philosophy, African philosophy does not have the requisite features of a writing tradition and a rigorous and critical analytical approach to debates over universal conceptual issues, engaged in by individuals. This stance, it is argued here, involves a parochial conception of 'philosophy' that is applied to African philosophy and captures only the contemporary analytic tradition of Western philosophy--while the ancient and medieval periods indicate that other speculative, constructive, (...)
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  13.  16
    A Defense of Epistemic Authoritarianism in Traditional African Cultures.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1998 - Journal of Philosophical Research 23:417-440.
    In this paper, I take issue with Wiredu’s characterization and criticism of the general problem of epistemic authoritarianism that he identifies in some African cultures. I then defend a plausible view of epistemic authoritarianism as a method of epistemic justification in some African cultures. I argue that both his characterization and criticism implies an affirmation of epistemic individualism and autonomy, doxastic voluntarism, and a denial of epistemic dependence. I argue against epistemic autonomy and individualism, and doxastic voluntarism, because they imply (...)
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  14.  75
    Moral education and moral reasoning in traditional african cultures.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1998 - Journal of Value Inquiry 32 (1):25-42.
  15.  42
    Social ontology, practical reasonableness, and collective reasons for action.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2019 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 49 (3):264-281.
    Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, EarlyView.
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  16.  74
    The Monogamous Conception of Romantic Love and Western Critiques of Polygamy in African Traditions.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2018 - Philosophical Papers 47 (3):373-401.
    I critically examine how, from a Western cultural perspective of romantic love and Judeo-Christian tradition, certain liberal cultural values and prejudices are used presumptuously to criticize polygamy in African traditions. These criticisms assume, circularly, the superiority of Western cultural monogamous values over African cultural traditional practice of polygamy. I argue that these arguments are specious and particularly unreasonable from an intercultural philosophical perspective. A plausible liberal justification for Western legal imposition of monogamy is to prevent harm. I argue that if (...)
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  17.  29
    (1 other version)Radical versus moderate communitarianism: Gyekye’s and Matolino’s misinterpretations of Menkiti.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2018 - Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 7 (2):79-100.
    This essay provides an exposition and a plausible interpretation of Ifeanyi Menkiti’s conception of personhood vis-a-vis this community. I do this, partly, to rebut some specific criticisms by Kwame Gyekye and Bernard Matolino. They construe Menkiti’s account, primarily, as a metaphysical thesis about the community that provides the essential ontological basis for the nature of personhood. They argue that this view of communitarianism is radical or extreme because the community diminishes individuality and prioritizes community’s interests over individuals’ interests, freedom, and (...)
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  18.  27
    Culture of Racism, Self-Respect, and Blameworthiness.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2004 - Public Affairs Quarterly 18 (1):27-55.
  19.  60
    Colonialism in Africa, culturally induced moral ignorance, and the scope of responsibility.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1998 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 28 (2):109–128.
    This paper analyzes colonialism in Africa to show a plausible connection between culture and human agency and to highlight the conceptual problem of ascribing responsibility in the context of the notion of culturally induced moral ignorance. It argues for the plausibility of the inability thesis, which states that people can be rendered morally ignorant by their culture, using as a backdrop, Moody-Adams’ account of the connection between culture and agency. It shows that Moody-Adams’ account, and her criteria for ascribing responsibility, (...)
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  20.  71
    Conceptualizing and Theorizing About the Idea of a “Post‐Racial” Era.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2013 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 43 (4):446-468.
    I critically examine the eliminativist theories of race or racism, and the behavioral theory of racism, which provide the theoretical foundation, respectively, for the nominalist and substantive conceptualizations of the idea of a post-racial era. The eliminativist theories seek to eliminate the concepts of “race” or “racism” from our discourse. Such elimination indicates a nominalist sense of the idea of a post-racial era. The behavioral theory of racism argues that racism must be manifested in obviously harmful actions. And because such (...)
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  21. A Natural Law Critique Of Liberal Approaches To A Multicultural Consequence Of Globalism.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2002 - Vera Lex 3 (1/2):1-38.
     
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  22. Citizenship and Patriotism.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2010 - Public Affairs Quarterly 24 (4):297-318.
    The commonplace view of patriotism involves loving one’s own particular country of citizenship or one’s homeland exclusively. Such love is expressed or manifested by the virtue or value of unconditional loyalty, care, sacrifice, devotion, and partiality toward a country that one is a legal citizen of.1 This suggests that being a legal citizen or a country being one’s own legally is necessary but not sufficient to justify, explain, or motivate acts of patriotism. It is necessary because one cannot be considered (...)
     
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  23.  57
    Cultural Dynamics, Moral Ignorance, and a Plausible Response to Immoral Acts.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2015 - Cultura 12 (2):7-26.
    I examine the plausibility that culture may induce moral ignorance to mitigate or vitiate blameworthiness. I show how culturally induced moral ignorance may explain and provide an excuse, but not a justification for, terrorist acts, and how a recognition of their moral ignorance and the basis for it, may indicate the proper moral response to extremist Islamic terrorism. I argue that Moody-Adams' criticisms of culturally induced moral ignorance fail to consider how the brainwashing processes, false beliefs, and the closed nature (...)
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  24.  32
    Communitarianism, Liberalism, and an Epistemic View of Critical Thinking.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1998 - Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 18 (1):73-94.
  25.  38
    Cognitive Relativism without Incommensurability, Truth, and Particularism.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2001 - International Studies in Philosophy 33 (2):31-57.
  26. Descriptive Procedural Aspects of Aquinas’ Natural Law Theory.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2004 - Vera Lex 5 (1/2):65-90.
     
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  27. Internationalism and the Rationality of African Metaphysical Beliefs.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2000 - African Philosophy 13 (2):125-142.
  28. In Search of Human Universality: Context and Justification in Cultural Philosophy.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1998 - Humanitas 11 (1):58-90.
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  29.  29
    Mental Emancipation in Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Political Philosophy and the Decolonisation of African Knowledge.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2018 - Theoria 65 (155):50-71.
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  30.  18
    Moral Epistemology, Relativism, African Cultures, and the Distinction Between Custom and Morality.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2002 - Journal of Philosophical Research 27:641-669.
    This paper explores the nature of the relationship between reasonable variations in moral justifications and universal moral principles. It examines Wiredu’s distinction between custom and morality, and its implications for the issue of moral justification in African cultures. It argues that Wiredu’s distinction does not adequately articulate how universal moral principles are employed in different circumstances to justify actions and judgments. Wiredu’s distinction implies that a conceptual account of moral justification does not involve custom regarding relative facts and cultural norms. (...)
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  31.  38
    Matolino’s misunderstanding of Menkiti’s African moral view of the person and community.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2017 - South African Journal of Philosophy 36 (4):553-567.
  32. Mutual trust and the foundations of African communalism.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2023 - In Mark Alfano, David Collins & Iris Jovanovic (eds.), Perspectives on Trust in the History of Philosophy. Lanham: Lexington.
  33. Moral Thought in African Cultures?: A Metaphilosophical Question.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1999 - African Philosophy 12 (2):105-123.
     
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  34. Natural Law, Liberal Principles, and the Moral Acceptance of Rules.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2001 - Vera Lex 2.
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  35.  49
    Optimizing reasonableness, critical thinking, and cyberspace.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2003 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 35 (4):407–424.
  36.  45
    Rationality, practical reasonableness, and the social and moral foundation of a legal system.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2001 - Journal of Social Philosophy 32 (3):245–267.
  37. Tradition and modernity.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2023 - In Uchenna B. Okeja (ed.), Routledge Handbook of African Political Philosophy. New York, NY: Routledge.
     
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  38.  30
    Menkiti on Community and Becoming a Person.Polycarp A. Ikuenobe & Edwin Etieyibo (eds.) - 2020 - Lexington Books.
    This book examines issues relating to Menkiti’s “Person and Community in African Traditional Thought,” which articulates an African notion of personhood. Contributors not only show that personhood is normative but also explore the implications this notion of personhood and citizenship holds for the nation-state in Africa.
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  39.  83
    The Meta-Ethical Issue of the Nature of Lying: Implications for Moral Education.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2002 - Studies in Philosophy and Education 21 (1):37-63.
    I argue that lying has many dimensions, hence, some putativecases of lying may not match our intuitions or acceptedmeanings of lying. The moral lesson we should teach must be that lying is not a simple principle or feature, buta cluster of features or spectrum of shades, where anythingin the spectrum or cluster is considered lying. I argue thatthe view regarding lying as a single principle or featurehas problematic meta-ethical implications. I do a meta-ethicalanalysis of the meaning of lying, not only (...)
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  40.  42
    An examination of the universalist trend regarding the nature of african philosophy.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1996 - Journal of Social Philosophy 27 (2):187-203.
  41.  74
    African Tradition, Philosophy, and Modernization.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2001 - Philosophical Papers 30 (3):245-259.
    Abstract I examine Wiredu's views that (1) ethnophilosophy cannot be considered a legitimate philosophy because it has the feature of authoritarianism, and that (2) this feature of African tradition will not allow modern philosophy to flourish because it prevents individuals from rationally and critically examining beliefs. The ability to rationally acquire and examine beliefs, he insists, is critical for modernization in Africa. I argue that authoritarianism per se in Africa is not necessarily bad because its rational variant, which is justifiable, (...)
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  42.  72
    Cognitive relativism, african philosophy, and the phenomenon of witchcraft.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 1995 - Journal of Social Philosophy 26 (3):143-160.
  43.  65
    Logical Positivism, Analytic Method, and Criticisms of Ethnophilosophy.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2004 - Metaphilosophy 35 (4):479-503.
    I argue that the analytic method has been circularly used to analyze the concept of “philosophy,” and that the result of this analysis has also been used to criticize African ethnophilosophy as nonphilosophical. I critically examine the criticism that ethnophilosophy implies cognitive relativism and the criticism that it implies authoritarianism. I defend ethnophilosophy against these criticisms, arguing that they are rooted in logical positivism, the view that philosophy essentially involves the use of the methods of science and logical analysis. I (...)
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  44.  82
    Questioning as an Epistemic Process of Critical Thinking.Polycarp Ikuenobe - 2001 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 33 (3-4):325-341.