This article is a critique of Thaddeus Metz’s modal relational approach to moral status in African ethics. According to moral relationalism, a being has moral status if it exhibits the capacity for communal relationship as either a subject or an object. While Metz defends a prima facie plausibility of MR as an African account of moral status, this article provides a fresh perspective to the debate on moral status in environmental and ethical discourse. It raises two objections against MR: the (...) capability criterion inherent in MR is not only exogenous to African thought but also undermines the viability of MR; and MR cannot account for the standing of species populations. Both objections have severe implications for biodiversity conservation efforts in Africa and beyond. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt a critical assessment of Hallen’s case for reconsidering consensual democracy in Africa and argue that it is unconvincing. In furthering the discourse, I argue against a case for consensual democracy by exposing some other salient problematic aspects of Wiredu’s model of consensual governance. Contra Wiredu and Hallen on non-party consensual governance, I make a case for enriching majoritarian democracy through a fusion of some moral-ontological aspects of indigenous political practices for good governance. This eclectic model, (...) I argue, is more appropriate for post-colonial African polity and should rather be taken more seriously in the ongoing conversations on how best to organise the African polis. (shrink)

Personhood is an extensively discussed theme in contemporary African philosophy, which has taken metaphysical, epistemological and normative dimensions. In Western philosophical traditions, discourse on personhood is transmuting to debates on transhumanism. Missing in the African philosophical literature is consideration of transhumanism and an explication of the relationship between personhood and transhumanism. In this article, I critically examine the relationship between personhood and transhumanism in an African context. Drawing on Barry Hallen’s African metaphysical account of personhood and Thaddeus Metz’s Afro-communal normative (...) conception of personhood, I argue that while some transhumanist elements are embedded in African normative and ontological conceptions of personhood, some others are not. In the final analysis, I defend an Afrofuturistic account of personhood that is compatible with some censored essentials of transhumanism in African thoughts. Keywords : Personhood, Transhumanism, Barry Hallen, Thaddeus Metz, Africa, Yoruba. (shrink)

The ongoing debate on how best to regulate international commercial surrogacy defies consensus, as the most cogent normative and jurisprudential grounds for and against non-altruistic surrogacy remain controversial. This paper contributes to the debate by focusing on social justice issues arising from transnational, moneymaking surrogacy, with a focus on the Global South. It argues that existing theoretical perspectives on balancing interests, rights, privileges, and resources in the context of cross-border surrogacy—such as cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, liberal feminism, radical feminism, and neorealism—are not (...) sufficient to treat the question of justice underpinning transnational surrogacy in the Global South. An Afro-communal theory of social justice is proposed as an alternative model for addressing the shortcomings in existing global justice theories. Building on Thaddeus Metz’s construction of Afro-communal social theory and a bioethic of communion, this article reveals the fundamental nature of injustices in the Global South surrogacy foray. This approach provides prima facie grounds for making commercial surrogacy more just in the evolving global order. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 35, Issue 7, Page 634-645, September 2021.

This paper undertakes a philosophical investigation of the implications of the traditional Yoruba understanding of education for the contemporary African quest for development. The paper argues that the Yoruba conception of education is marked bythe underlying philosophical principles of functionalism, moralism and progressivism. These principles, the paper contends, are of great relevance to the quest of contemporary African societies for education that will serve as a catalyst for development.

This chapter investigates the problem of knowledge production on economic poverty in Africa as, largely, an instance of epistemic injustice. It applies Karl Popper’s critical rationalism to the issue of knowledge production on poverty. Methodologies of researches on poverty in Africa subtly promotes intended epistemic injustices against the subjects as the poor are underrepresented in knowledge about them; the experiences of the poor are often ignored, and their epistemic capacity for unearthing the push and pull factors of poverty are greeted (...) with much inferiority, skepticism and contempt. In severing the intersection between researching and reporting poverty in Africa and epistemic injustice, this chapter argues that Popper’s critical rationalism is philosophically indispensable. Popper’s scientific and political thoughts are potent theoretical interventions in addressing the epistemic, methodological, social, moral and political problems of poverty in Africa. The elements of scientific method inquiry, rationality, piecemeal social engineering, liberalism and intellectual openness explicit in Popper’s philosophy are explored, applied and found relevant to promoting poverty research ideals and policy development in Africa and beyond. The chapter concludes on the importance of Popper’s works, which span beyond his time and space, to knowledge about Africa. (shrink)

This paper seeks to advance the horizon of Kwasi Wiredu’s philosophical defense of the compatibility of cultural universals and particulars. Wiredu reflects on language, biological identity, inter/intra cultural communication, as well as epistemic and moral fundamentals as cultural universals. In pursuing further Wiredu’s thesis on cultural universals, the present paper critically examines some of the inconsistencies implicit in Wiredu’s position. As a consequence, the paper extends the frontiers of the realm of universals by establishing the plausibility of causality as another (...) instance of a conceptual universal, transcending all cultural particularities. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to re-examine the hermeneutic in the ongoing discourse on methodology in African philosophy. The diverse understanding of hermeneutics is not only limited to Western philosophy; in the few decades of its history in African philosophy, hermeneutics has also assumed different meanings. This paper discusses not only the historical evolution and development of hermeneutists in the West, but also the African hermeneutists: Tsenay Serequeberhan, Okonda Okolo, Sophie Oluwole, Raphael Madu, and Bruce Janz. Through a comparative (...) critical inquisition on the strengths and the problems involved in the conceptions of hermeneutics by these African philosophers, this paper argues that basic to hermeneutics is dialogue and its proclivity towards intercultural understanding. Keywords : Hermeneutics, African philosophy, intercultural understanding, Oral tradition. (shrink)

The question of what constitutes personhood is controversial in Western bioethical literature especially in relation to its implications for healthcare. Godfrey Tangwa explores the traditional African perspective of a person and maintains that it is different totally from the Western perception as there is no dichotomy between a person and a human being in the African context. He defends a conception of personhood as a moral agent rather than a moral patient, which the Western view focuses on. The basic justification (...) he offers in support of his position is the eco-biocommunitarian worldview. This paper seeks to respond to Tangwa by arguing that his positions on person are not only metaphysically superfluous; they are also ethically incoherent. This paper argues that Tangwa’s theses on “the traditional African perception of a person” are inaccurate representations and misapprehension of the common notion of personhood in sub-Saharan Africa. In reconstructing an African concept of personhood, this paper explores its plausible implications for global clinical bioethics relevance. (shrink)

In this paper, I advance Odera Oruka's insights on the ethics of consumerism in order to draw relevant implications of his thoughts on rethinking the problem of obesity. I argue that Oruka's ethics of consumerism and his right to human minimum theory entail some salient ideas that might serve as a better ethical model for reducing the global obesity prevalence. Though Oruka's African moral philosophy is yet to receive universal attention it arguably deserves, the interests of the international and ‘globesity’ (...) community would be better served learning from the contributions of an African moral theory to contemporary bioethical discourse on obesity. Oruka's moral thoughts are by constitution, a deontological and cosmopolitan call for reducing hunger in globalized world, while also indirectly, addressing obesity of the poor. I show the limitations of his ethics of consumerism, and the shortcomings of such ethics in the context of obesity of the poor. Consequently, I develop a neo-Orukan virtue based ethics that is worthy of attention in efforts towards addressing the obesity tide. No such perspective currently exists in the context of obesity; yet the exigent need for one is necessitated by the defects of the libertarian and harm principle approaches in Western bioethical discourse. (shrink)

Focusing on black communities in Africa, in this paper, I attempt an African bioethico-aesthetic deconstruction of the falsehood in colorist definitions of beauty purveyed by the migration of non-surgical cosmetics to Africa. I provide a novel ethical evaluation of the act of skin bleaching using principles of the African ethic of communion. I argue that skin bleaching is morally wrong to the extent that it promotes disharmonious relations and false identity in the beauty industry in Africa. Drawing on scientific studies (...) that link toxic ingredients in many skin-bleaching products to adverse health effects, I discuss the public health impact of bleaching cosmetics and other problems occasioned by their strategic expansion into African markets. I propose that there is an urgent need for a relational ethic of polycentric governance that would harmoniously regulate the production and distribution of cosmetic products across regions in order to avoid the exploitation of consumers in black African societies, while also protecting consumers’ right to make informed choices through education. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a general absence of democratic theory in African political scholarship in terms of providing the underlying principles, meaning, canons and criteria of democracy in African culture. The paper exposes the conceptual errors implicit in the conflation of democracy as a concept and as practiced in different political systems. Consequently, it contends that an eclectic appraisal of our indigenous democratic values and practices as well as democratic ideas from other cultural traditions can provide a resonant (...) African theory of democracy. The paper concludes that eclecticism is consociational in principle, and can help solve many of the contemporary socio-political problems besetting current democratic experiences in Africa. (shrink)