Abstract
In this chapter, Molefe articulates a personhood-based account of African ethics. He elaborates on the two facets of personhood as a moral theory—the agent-centred and patient-centred theories of value. In the first part of the chapter, he discusses the agent-centred theory of value. He accounts for it in terms of moral perfection, where the chief moral goal of the agent is to perfect her own humanity. He further unfolds the moral egoism, moral individualism and importance of social relationships associated with this moral system. The second part of the chapter focuses on the patient-centred facet of value—moral status or dignity. He begins by repudiating Polycarp Ikuenobe’s personhood-based view of dignity. Molefe proceeds to derive and construct a personhood-based account of dignity in the works of Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye. Ultimately, he accounts for dignity in terms of the capacity for sympathy.
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Notes
- 1.
In fact, the suggestion in this chapter is that the patient-centred idea of personhood informs the agent-centred notion of personhood.
- 2.
I am aware that the reader might wonder why I do not separate these two facets of the ethics of personhood (the agent- and patient-centred) into different chapters. Initially, I thought I would do so. Upon careful consideration, however, I decided to capture these two facets of personhood in a single chapter. My decision is informed by two reasons. The first is philosophical in nature. The tendency in the literature in African philosophy is to discuss these two facets of the ethics of personhood separately, without imagining how they are related and what ethical consequences might ensue from their integration (see Behrens 2013; Oyowe 2018). For example, Behrens argues that the agent-centred notion is prevalent in the African tradition of philosophy and the patient-centred notion in the West. The unintended consequence of strictly associating them with these two philosophical might be to think that the one notion is African and the other notion is Western. The same logic manifests in Oyowe’s (2018) discussion of the strongly and weakly normative notions of personhood. Oyowe endorses the weakly normative notion of personhood, which is the same as the patient-centred notion of personhood (dignity), and he repudiates the agent-centred notion of personhood as implausible. I agree with both Behrens and Oyowe that these are two distinct normative notions, but I hold the view that these two facets of morality joined offer a fuller and more robust conception of the ethics of personhood. As such, to redress the tendency to discuss and imagine these two facets of the ethics of personhood separately, as if to suggest that they belong together in a single system of value, I discuss them in a single chapter to evince their interdependence and unity. I use the phrase the ethics of personhood to signal the fact that these two facets hang together in a single system of value. The second reason revolves around the fact that in other places, I have discussed these facets separately (see Molefe 2016, 2018a, 2019a). To keep the chapter’s length reasonable, I will not be exhaustive in my discussion of the agent-centred theory since I have elaborated on it in many other parts of my research (see Molefe 2018a, b, 2019a, b). The emphasis will be on the patient-centred facet since it is under-explored and is relevant to our philosophical quest to reflect on the themes of abortion and euthanasia.
- 3.
- 4.
I am aware that an egoistic interpretation might lend to the objection that one may kill an innocent individual for the sake of saving their own life, so that one is be able to pursue one’s personal perfection (see Metz 2007). The kind of egoism I associate with the idea of personhood is of a satisficing sort, which requires satisfactory perfection, and not that the agent must go all the way. The justification for this reading is derived from how scholars of personhood are committed to the dignity of every individual in the society, we ought to consider in the pursuit of moral perfection (see Wiredu 1996). Another justification of the satisficing-egoism is suggested by the commitment to social relationships, which implies that one cannot pursue moral perfection in ways that undermines social relationships. For a full discussion of the satisficing logic associated with personhood, see Molefe (2019a: 50).
- 5.
Elsewhere, I offer a more extensive discussion of Ikuenobe’s novel view of dignity and its criticisms (see Molefe 2019b: ch. 6; 2020: ch. 3). In this chapter, I offer the reader a rough discussion of Ikuenobe’s view and its criticism. The major focus should be on the under-explored view of dignity grounded on the idea of personhood, which I associate with Menkiti and Gyekye.
- 6.
One way to object to this way of reading Menkiti’s interpretation of dignity in terms of the capacity for moral sense is by pointing to those passages in his work that seem to be anti-essentialist regarding the definition of personhood. Remember, Menkiti (1984: 172) rejects what he refers to as the minimalist conception of personhood that defines personhood by reference to particular capacities or ontological features. I suspect this might be another reason why Ikuenobe eschews the essentialist definition of dignity, and instead defines it in terms of moral conduct. I think two responses will suffice to demonstrate that an essentialist interpretation of dignity is possible and inherent in Menkiti’s moral philosophy. Firstly, I cited instances in Menkiti’s own work where he proposes an essential view of moral status or dignity, which he uses to exclude animals from the moral community. For another reference that suggests an essentialist reading of dignity, consider this comment by Menkiti (2018: 18, emphasis mine)—“The individual counts and is ultimately the bearer of intrinsic value. Theorists need to be reminded of this fact, I concur, so that the structures they set up do not wind up sacrificing the individual in the pursuit of abstractions.” The claim that the individual is a bearer of intrinsic value is usually interpreted to mean that there is a capacity, possessed by the individual, in virtue of which it is inherently valuable. The point is that the value of the individual depends on the fact of her own existence as an individual. Social structures do not create this value; they only discover it and they ought to respect it. I advise the reader to note that it is at this very point that Gyekye (1992: 111) insists that essentialism is inescapable if Menkiti is true to how he characterises personhood. Gyekye says—“at this stage they are capable of exercising their moral sense and thus of making moral judgments. Menkiti, in fact, accepts the characterization or definition of personhood in terms of moral capacities. … This passage surely commits Menkiti to saying that a person is defined in terms of ‘some isolated static quality’—the quality of moral sense or capacity in the African case—which he thought was a characteristic of Western conceptions of personhood.” Finally, I believe that the passage where Menkiti is rejecting essentialism is ambiguous between whether he is referring to personal identity or moral status. If one reads Menkiti to be rejecting accounting for personal identity in essentialist terms, then it should mean he rejects essentialism en toto. When it comes to personal identity, he rejects essentialism, but when it comes to moral status, he espouses it.
- 7.
It is crucial to notice that the phrase moral sense occurs at least six times in Gyekye’s adumbration of the idea of moral status that I believe is inherent in the agent-centred notion of personhood.
- 8.
I am grateful to the reviewer for pointing me to the quotation where Menkiti cites pity [sympathy] as a central component of social justice.
- 9.
In future research, the idea of sympathy in African moral thought still requires further philosophical elaboration and refinement to produce a precise theory of value, meta-ethically and normatively. One important suggestion emerging in this chapter is that the direction of our analysis should be towards an African sentimentalist view of ethics, rather than eudaimonism, as some scholars have suggested (Metz 2012a; Shutte 2001).
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Molefe, M. (2020). Personhood, Morality and Dignity in African Philosophy. In: An African Ethics of Personhood and Bioethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46519-3_2
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