Philosophy Ethics

1. Africa
Ethics(conti
nued)
SAREL

2. Now, the judgment that a human being is “not a person”, made in the
wake of that individual's persistent unethical behavior, implies that the
practice of moral virtue is considered intrinsic to the conception of a
person held in Akan or Yoruba moral thought. The position here is this:
for any p, if p is person, then p ought to display in his behavior the
moral norms and ideals of personhood. When the behavior of a human
being fails to conform to the acceptable moral principles or standards,
or when a human being fails to display the expected moral virtues in his
conduct, he is considered to be “not a person.”
- SEP

3. Tomorrow
Footnotes

4. TO BE A PERSON
Used normatively, the judgment, “he is a person,” means ‘he has a good character’, ‘he is generous’, ‘he is
peaceful’, ‘he is humble,’ ‘he has respect for others.’A profound appreciation of the high standards of the
morality of an individual's behavior would elicit the judgment, “he is truly a person,” (oye onipa paa!).
While children are actual human beings and are members of the human community, they are not actual
persons yet; they are persons only potentially and will attain the status of personhood in the fullness of time
when they are able to exercise their moral capacity and make moral judgments.
Personhood is not innate, but earned.
Every individual is capable of becoming a person inasmuch as he has capacity for virtue—for performing
morally right actions—and should be treated (at least potentially) as a morally responsible agent.

5. A ‘good’ person
The human being is endowed with moral sense and, so, has the capacity for both virtue and vice; his
judgment on some moral issue could go either direction: direction of the good or direction of the evil.
Thus, the notion of moral neutrality is preserved.
The human being can then be held as a moral agent: not that his virtuous character is a settled matter,
but that he is capable of virtue, and hence, of moral achievement, and can, thus, achieve personhood.

6. Tiboa
Akan notion of tiboa: conscience, moral sense—a sense of right or wrong. This is a conception of an
inner urge relevant to moral practice. Tiboa is held, among other things, as creating a sense of guilt in
the individual, convicting him or her of wrong deeds. Since response to a moral rule is ultimately an
individual or private affair, the notion of tiboa (conscience) is of great importance to our moral life. It
is by virtue of tiboa that the notion of self-sanctioning in moral conduct becomes intelligible. Because
of its power to induce a sense of guilt, tiboa is held to influence the individual's moral choice, decision,
response, and attitude.

7. The Humanistic Foundations of
African Morality
Some scholars: Religion so deeply permeates all spheres of African life. It cannot be distinguished from nonreligious
aspects of life. In the African traditional life there are no atheists. The African cultural heritage is intensely and
pervasively religious.
The connection between African ethics and religion has been taken by most scholars to mean that African moral values
and principles derive from religion, implying that African morality is, thus, a religious morality.
However, there are other scholars: deny the religious basis of the moral systems of the societies they studied.
Kwasi Wiredu observed that “the Akan moral outlook is thus logically independent of religion” (Kwasi Wiredu in H.
Odera Oruka and D. A. Masolo, 1983: 13).
Godfrey Wilson wrote that “Among the Nyakyusa the ideas of social behaviour are not connected with religion,
nonetheless they exist” and, after mentioning the moral virtues of the Nyakyusa, he added that “But the positive, ideal
statement of these virtues is not made in religious terms”.

8. The Humanistic Foundations of
African Morality
Unlike Islam or Christianity, the traditional, that is, indigenous, African religion is not a revealed
religion whereby divine truth is revealed to a single individual who becomes the founder.
It is true that African religious experience certainly features mystical or highly spiritual encounters
between human beings (that is, priests, priestesses, diviners, etc.) and spiritual beings. Such encounters
occur in divinations, spirit mediums, communication with the dead, and other forms of the mystical
experience.
But, it may be noted, such mystical or spiritual encounters or contacts take place in an atmosphere that
was already religious; they are some of the manifestations of African religion, of African spirituality.

9. The Humanistic Foundations of
African Morality
Spirituality - a heightened form of religiosity reached by certain individuals in the community who
have, or claim to have, mystical contacts with the supernatural, the divine.
Even though ‘spiritual messages’ may be received by the practitioners of traditional African religion,
such messages appear to be too few and far between to constitute an adequate basis for a coherent
ethical system.
Moreover, the moral character of such ‘messages’ would, in a non-revealed religious context, have to
be judged by the people themselves on the basis of their own moral insights. This is a telling point that
implies the independence (autonomy) of the moral attitudes of the people with regard to the conduct of
the spiritual beings.

10. The Humanistic Foundations of
African Morality
The behavior of a supernatural being is thus subject to human censure.
…it is possible for a deity to issue commands that can be considered unethical by the practitioners of
traditional religion.
Rather than regarding African ethics as religious (or, religious-based), it would be more correct to
regard African religion as ethical.

11. Good/Evil, Right/Wrong in
African Ethics
When put to traditional sages (thinkers) of some Akan communities in Ghana the question, how do we
come to know that ‘this action’ is good and ‘that action’ is evil? no one responded that an action is
good or evil because God (Onyame) had said so or that Onyame had told us so.
Reveals an undoubted conviction of a humanistic—a non-supernatural—origin of moral values and
principles.
Banyarwanda - “That is good (or evil) which tradition has defined as good (or evil)”.
What is good is constituted by the deeds, habits, and behavior patterns considered by the society as
worthwhile because of their consequences for human welfare.

12. Good/Evil, Right/Wrong in
African Ethics
The ‘goods’ would include such things as generosity, honesty, faithfulness, truthfulness, compassion,
hospitality, happiness, that which brings peace, justice, respect, and so on. Each of these actions or
patterns of behavior is supposed or known to bring about social well-being.
Good or moral value is determined in terms of its consequences for humankind and human society. All
this can be interpreted to mean that African morality originates from considerations of human welfare
and interests, not from divine pronouncements.
Actions that promote human welfare or interest are good, while those that detract from human welfare
are bad.
It is, thus, pretty clear that African ethics is a humanistic ethics, a moral system that is preoccupied
with human welfare.

13. Some quotes
Therefore, it is important to inquire concerning the African standard of judgment, what makes some things good and
others bad. [Edwin] Smith replies that the norm of right and wrong is custom; that is, the good is that which receives
the community's approval; the bad is that which is disapproved. The right builds up society; the wrong tears it down.
One is social; the other anti-social (Malcolm J. McVeigh, 1974: 84).
Right conduct is relative always to the human situation and morality is oriented not from any absolute standards of
honesty or truth but from the social good in each situation. Conduct that promotes smooth relationships, that upholds
the social structure, is good; conduct that runs counter to smooth social relationships is bad (J. D. and E. J. Krige in
Forde, 1954: 78).
The greatest happiness and good of the tribe was the end and aim of each member of the tribe. Now, utility forms part
of the basis of perhaps all moral codes. With the Bantu, it formed the basis of morality…it was utilitarian. This was the
standard of goodness, and in harmony with, and conformity to, this end must the moral conduct be moulded. The
effect of this, of course, was altruism (S. M. Molema, 1920: 116).

14. 10 Minute Break

15. Humanity and Brotherhood
These two concepts, humanity and brotherhood, feature prominently in African social and moral
thought and practice. They are among the moral or human values that constitute the basic—perhaps the
ultimate—criteria that not only motivate but also justify human actions that affect other human beings.
‘Brotherhood’ has come to refer to an association of men and/or women with common aims and
interests.
African ethical conceptions: if we are human, we are (must be) brothers, in a capacious,
comprehensive sense of the word ‘brother’ (to be discussed shortly).
The Akan maxim: ‘In human flesh there is no edge of cultivation—no boundary’.

16. Humanity and Brotherhood
The maxim invites us to realize, is not so in the cultivation of the friendship and fellowship of human
beings; the boundaries of that form of cultivation are limitless. For, humanity is of one kind; all
humankind is one species, with shared basic values, feelings, hopes, and desires.
Even though the African people traditionally live in small communities and are divided into different
ethnic or cultural groups and into clans and lineages with complex networks of relationships,
nevertheless, they perceive humanity to embrace all other peoples beyond their narrow geographic or
spatial confines, to constitute all human beings into one universal family of humankind.
The common membership of one universal human family constitutes (should constitute) a legitimate
basis for the idea of universal human brotherhood (or unity)

17. Humanity and Brotherhood
A human being can be related only to another human being, not to a beast. Implicit in the African
perception of humanity is the recognition of all persons, irrespective of their racial or ethnic
backgrounds, as brothers.
A practical translation of the idea of brotherhood leads to such social and moral virtues as hospitality,
generosity, concern for others, and communal feeling.
‘The human being is more beautiful than gold.’
(onipa ye fe sen sika)
What the maxim is saying, therefore, is that a human being is to be enjoyed for his or her own sake. To
enjoy a human being for his/her own sake means you should appreciate his value as a human being and
demonstrate that appreciation by showing compassion, generosity, and hospitality.

18. Humanity and Brotherhood
To enjoy a human being also means you should recognize the other person as a fellow individual
whose worth as a human being is equal to yours and with whom you undoubtedly share basic values,
ideals, and sentiments.
the main intent of the maxim is to point out the worth of a human being and the respect that ought to be
given to her by virtue of her humanity. Recognition of the worth of a human being is, according to the
maxim, more important than caring for wealth.

19. The Notion of the Common Good
The common good is not a surrogate for the sum of the various individual goods. It does not consist of,
or derive from, the goods and preferences of particular individuals.
It is that which is essentially good for human beings as such, embracing the needs that are basic to the
enjoyment and fulfillment of the life of each individual. If the common good were the aggregate of
individual goods, it would only be contingently, not essentially, common and, on that score, it would
not be achieved in a way that will benefit all the individuals in a society.
There should be no conceptual tension or opposition between the common good and the good of the
individual member of the community, for the common good embraces the goods—the basic goods—of
all the members of the community.

20. The Notion of the Common Good
There is no human being who does not desire peace, security, freedom, dignity, respect, justice,
equality, and satisfaction. It is such a moral, not a weird, notion embracive of fundamental goods—
goods that are intrinsic to human fulfillment and to which all individuals desire to have access—that is
referred to as the common good.
Institutions of various kinds—legal, political, economic, moral and others—are set up in pursuit of
certain commonly shared values and goals, that is, a common good which a human society desires to
achieve for all of its members.

21. Social, Not Individualistic, Ethics
A humanistic morality, whose central focus is the concern for the welfare and interest of each member
of community, would expectably be a social morality which is enjoined by social life itself.
A traditional Akan thinker asserted in a previously quoted proverb that says that ‘When a human being
descends from the heavens, he [or she] descends into a human town [or, a human society].’ The point
of the maxim is that the human being is social by nature.
Being a member of the human community by nature, the individual is naturally related or oriented
toward other persons and must have relationships with them. The natural sociality or relationality of
human beings would—and should—prescribe a social ethic, rather than the ethic of individualism.
Individualistic ethics that focuses on the welfare and interests of the individual is hardly regarded in
African moral thought.

22. The well-being of man depends on his fellow man.
(onipa yieye firi onipa)
There are occasions when the demonstration by another person (or other persons) of goodwill,
sympathy, compassion, and the willingness to help can be a great boost to a person's attempts to
achieve his goals, to fulfill his life.

23. Man is not a palm-tree that he should be complete
(or, self sufficient).
(onipa nye abe na ne ho ahyia ne ho)
The proverb points up the inadequacies of the human being that make it impossible for him to fulfill
his life, socially, economically, emotionally, psychologically, and so on.
It is only through cooperation with other human beings that the needs and goals of the individual can
be fulfilled.
With his self-sufficiency whittled away by man's natural condition, the individual requires the succor
and relationships of others in order to satisfy his basic needs.
A social ethic that recognizes the importance of the values of mutual help, goodwill, and reciprocity is
the kind of ethic that will counter the lack of human self-sufficiency in respect of talents and capacities
and in many ways help realize his basic needs

24. The Ethics of Duty, Not of Rights
African ethics, is a humanitarian ethics, the kind of ethics that places a great deal of emphasis on
human welfare.
The natural sociality or relationality of the human being that would prescribe social ethic (see
preceding section) would also prescribe the ethic of duty (or, responsibility).
Social or community life itself, a robust feature of the African communitarian society, mandates a
morality that clearly is weighted on duty to others and to the community; it constitutes the foundation
for moral responsibilities and obligations.
A morality of duty is one that requires each individual to demonstrate concern for the interests of
others.

25. The Ethics of Duty, Not of Rights
African ethics does not give short-shrift to rights as such; nevertheless, it does not give obsessional or
blinkered emphasis on rights. In this morality duties trump rights, not the other way around, as it is in the
moral systems of Western societies. The attitude to, or performance of, duties is induced by a consciousness
of needs rather than of rights.
In other words, people fulfill—and ought to fulfill—duties to others not because of the rights of these others,
but because of their needs and welfare
African morality, which is humanitarian, social, and duty-oriented rather than rights-oriented morality, does
not make a distinction between a moral duty and a supererogatory duty—one that is beyond the call of duty
and so does not have to be performed.
In the light of our common humanity, it would not be appropriate—in fact it would demean our humanity—
to place limits to our moral duties or responsibilities.

26. Fin
‘tis Friday