Molefe Personhood

An African Philosophy
of Personhood,
Morality, and Politics
Motsamai Molefe
An African Philosophy of Personhood,
Motsamai Molefe
An African Philosophy
of Personhood,
Motsamai Molefe
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa
ISBN 978-3-030-15560-5 ISBN 978-3-030-15561-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15561-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935513
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Getty Images
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To the memory of my mother [Modiehi Molefe]
and
brother [Ketsho Isaac Molefe]
Acknowledgements
The success of this work was possible because of a number of people to

whom I am eternally grateful. Space will not permit to express my grati-
tude to everyone.
First and foremost, I am exceedingly grateful to God for all that he is
and has done for and through me.
I cannot fail to express gratitude to Thaddeus Metz for all the sup-
port, mentoring and conversations about my career as an African phi-
losopher. Thanks for believing in me! I am truly grateful to have met an
individual who is exuding with personhood in the way that you do.
I wish to express special gratitude to Asithandile Zibaya for all the
support and love she has given me during the process of writing this
book.
I wish to thank Sizwe Koom, Sthembiso Khumalo, Tumi Mohotlane,
Xolani Msimango, Sihle Khanyile, Dumisani Mbanyele, Otto Matsapula,
Kgomotso Moshugi, Sanele Shabalala, Promise Aphana, Akhona Mafani,
Siyabonga Makwetu, Sabata Shongwe, Ps. Gcumeni, Sakhile Nkosi for
their unwavering friendship.
I wish also to appreciate the academic brothers that have supported
me in this journey. Professor Matolino, Mutshidzi and my brother
Dr. Mpofu. The idea of this book was birthed in Matolino’s office.
This book would not be possible without the generous financial sup-
port provided by the American Council for Learned Societies. I am
proud to be an African Humanities Programme fellow.
vii
viii Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my current employer, Wits University, and my col-

leagues in the department of philosophy for all the support and
encouragement.
I thank you all!
Contents
1 Introduction 1
The Concepts of Personhood in African Philosophy 2
Developments in the Literature on Personhood 5
Themes and Structure of the Book 10
References 13
2 A Conceptual Mapping of Personhood 17

Introduction 17
Menkiti’s Analysis of Personhood 18
Gyekye on Personhood 25
Matolino, Kaphagawani, and Ikuenobe on Personhood 29
Conclusion 32
References 34
3 An Exposition of Personhood as Moral Theory 37

Introduction 37
Being Human and Being a Person 38
Personhood Embodies a Character-Based Ethics 44
Means and Ends in Personhood 54
Humanism and the Instrumentality of Relationships 56
Rejection of Social Relationships as the Moral End 58
The Role of Relationships in Personhood 61
Conclusion 63
References 66
ix
x Contents
4 Personhood: Partiality or Impartiality? 71

Introduction 71
Contextualising the Debate on Partiality and Impartiality
in Moral Philosophy 74
Personhood: Partiality or Impartiality? 78
Conclusion 88
References 90
5 Personhood and Options in African Moral Thought 93

Introduction 93
Wiredu’s Approach to Moral Philosophy 98
Tshivhase’s Criticism of Personhood 103
Conclusion 113
References 114
6 Personhood and Dignity in African Philosophy 117

Introduction 117
Ikuenobe’s Conception of Dignity 120
Personhood and Dignity 123
Personhood, Partiality and Dignity 124
The Young and the Marginal Cases, and Dignity 129
Conclusion 136
References 140
7 Personhood as a Political Theory of Duties 145

Introduction 145
The Idea of Rights 150
Menkiti and Two Conceptions of Personhood 152
The Minimalist Conception of Personhood and Rights 153
The Maximalist Conception of Personhood and Duties 158
Conclusion 167
References 169
Index 173
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
This book is part of the overall project of contributing to the

development of the discipline of African philosophy. Specifically, its con-
tribution will be in the branches of moral and political philosophy. To
achieve this goal, I build on those philosophical contributions in African
philosophy that focus on the normative idea of personhood. I single out
the normative concept of personhood as the foundational moral category
to theorise about African moral and political thought. I do so for two
reasons: firstly, the idea of personhood is arguably the most salient moral
notion in the tradition of African philosophy. This view implies that the
idea of personhood is one of the most important indigenous axiological
resources; it requires our earnest philosophical consideration if we are to
articulate a robust monistic moral and political theory. Secondly, I am
attracted to this idea because there are facets of it—specifically in the
moral and political branches of philosophy—that remain under-explored
in the literature (details of which, I will provide below). I believe that the
philosophical development and elucidation of these facets will contribute
to the aim of articulating the robust monistic theory I seek.
This book, therefore, focuses on the under-explored and under-
developed moral and political facets of the idea of personhood. My
ultimate aim is to have the idea of personhood inform a fully fledged
moral-political theory.1 I am partially motivated to do so by one of
the leading scholars of African philosophy, Kwasi Wiredu’s (2009: 16)
observation that:
© The Author(s) 2019 1

M. Molefe, An African Philosophy of Personhood, Morality,
and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15561-2_1
2 M. MOLEFE
The philosophical implications of the normative conception of a person are

legion, and we will not pursue them here.
In this book, then, I intend to pursue some of the ‘legion’ moral and
political implications of the idea of personhood. To give the reader a
bird’s-eye perspective of the philosophical issues that constitute the focus
of this book, I structure this introductory chapter as follows: since my
central focus is the idea of personhood, I begin by providing concep-
tual clarity regarding the view of personhood relevant to the discussion.
I do so because the idea of personhood is ambiguous (see Wiredu 1992;
Ikuenobe 2006a). To eschew this ambiguity, I distinguish four distinct
concepts of personhood in the literature, which many scholars of African
moral thought do not handle with the dexterity characteristic of philoso-
phy. I then proceed to identify some of the interesting and recent devel-
opments in the literature on personhood that I deem relevant. I do this
literature review for the sake of identifying (some of the) gaps that con-
stitute the focus of this book. Next, I proceed to specify the moral and
political issues that constitute the focus of my discussion. I conclude this
chapter by outlining the structure of the entire book.
The Concepts of Personhood in African Philosophy

I identify at least four concepts of personhood in African philosophy. Two
of these concepts are metaphysical and the other two normative. The first
metaphysical notion of personhood pertains to facts that constitute a thing
called a human being; it is a specification of the biological classification of
human beings as a species—Homo sapiens. For example, imagine that one
is hunting, and when about to shoot is notified: ‘Don’t shoot, that is a
person!’2 It is this notion of a person that Kwame Gyekye (1992: 108)
seems to have in mind when he makes the following comment:
What a person [human being] acquires are status, habits, and personality
or character traits: he, qua person acquires and thus becomes the subject
of acquisition, and being thus prior to acquisition process, he cannot be
defined by what he acquires. One is a person because of what he is, not
because of what he acquires.
Here, Gyekye refers to the notion of personhood in which one is a

person (human being) prior to any process of socialisation or acquisition
1 INTRODUCTION 3
of habits/character. Since a person (human being), in this sense, cannot

be defined by what he acquires, this implies that there are certain onto-
logical facts that constitute a person qua human nature that have noth-
ing to do with any social or cultural factors. Scholars of African thought
refer to the philosophical inquiry that speaks to what defines a person
qua human nature in terms of the “ontological” or “descriptive” notion
of personhood (Wiredu 1996: 159; Ikuenobe 2016: 144; Oyowe 2014a:
46). The ontological notion of personhood is concerned with specifying
the descriptive features that constitute human nature. Commenting on
this concept of personhood, Ikuenobe (2016: 118) states that:
A descriptive conception of personhood seeks to analyse the features and

ontological make-up of an isolated [human] individual.
Just as philosophers are apt to give metaphysical accounts of the mind,

of time, place, God and so on, with regard to this notion of personhood,
the task is to specify the ontological properties that constitute human
nature. Scholars will differ in terms of whether they take human nature
to be a function, entirely, of physical stuff or a combination of physical
and spiritual properties (Kaphagawani 2004). For an instructive example
of the philosophical debate regarding the metaphysical/ontological con-
ception of personhood in African philosophy, the reader may consider
the debate between Kwasi Wiredu (1995) and Kwame Gyekye (1995),
where they offer competing conceptions of human nature in the Akan
culture.
The second metaphysical notion of personhood involves issues
pertaining to the nature of personal identity. The debates in African
philosophy regarding the idea of personhood qua personal identity draw
their influence from debates between liberals and communitarians in the
Western philosophical tradition. There, the debate pertains to the role, if
any, the community plays in accounting for the socialisation and devel-
opment of personal identity (Neal and Paris 1990). On the one hand,
liberals tend to conceive of personhood in terms that de-emphasise the
role of social relationships; while, communitarians, on the other hand,
tend to accentuate the role of social relationships in accounting for
personal identity.
This debate regarding personal identity in the African tradition tends
to diverge between (1) those that account for it entirely in terms of social
relationships and (2) those that account for it by invoking a combination
4 M. MOLEFE
of individual and social features. Scholars like John Mbiti (1969) and
Ifeanyi Menkiti (1984) tend to construe personal identity entirely in
terms of social relationships. For example, Menkiti (1984: 171, emphasis
mine) commenting on personal identity notes:
… the African view of man denies that persons can be defined by

focusing on this or that physical or psychological characteristic of the lone
individual. Rather, man is defined by reference to the environing community.
It strikes me as obvious that Menkiti’s reference to the idea of ‘man’ is

not referring to the ontological notion of personhood qua human nature.
This is the case precisely because the ‘environing community’ is not one
of the properties of human nature that one can single out like the body
and so on. The ‘environing community’ is a property that is external
to human nature. In this light, it is safe to conclude that Menkiti (with
Mbiti) is pursuing the notion of personal identity that one acquires by
being embedded in a community. Gyekye (1992), on the other hand, in
his defence of moderate communitarianism (among other things) offers a
conception of personal identity that balances the individual and communal
facets—I will say more on this specific discussion in the next chapter.
Both of these accounts of personhood are metaphysical insofar as they
specify some descriptive properties (facts) as the basis to account for the
respective concepts of personhood under consideration. On the one hand,
personhood qua human nature is a function of the body, the spiritual
component and any other property that is taken to be constitutive of
human nature; and, on the other, personhood qua personal identity
specifies internal or external features that are crucial for accounting for
socialisation or humanisation (Molefe 2018).
Furthermore, the literature tends to distinguish between two nor-
mative notions of personhood in African philosophy. The first claims
that one can assign moral value to some entity in virtue of possessing
certain ontological properties that render it morally significant. This
idea features significantly in bioethical contexts and also in politi-
cal discussions of dignity/rights (Behrens 2013; Toscano 2011). To
be called a ‘person’, in this sense, is to be specified as a moral patient,
i.e. a being towards which we owe direct duties of respect (DeGrazia
2008). Another term used to capture this idea of personhood is that of
moral status, which specifies things towards which we have direct duties
of respect (Molefe 2017a). What is crucial to note with regard to this
1 INTRODUCTION 5
notion of personhood is that it invites respect to the entity in question

merely because it possesses the relevant ontological properties—be they
rationality, consciousness, or sentience—without regard to how one uses
them (Singer 2009; Metz 2013a).
The second notion treats talk of personhood as appropriate when
praising the agent for being a moral exemplar. Personhood, in this sense,
concerns the moral evaluation of the conduct/performance of the agent
in the light of some norms/values of a society (Presbey 2002). If the
individual performs well, then she counts as a person and if she does
poorly, then she is assigned the status of a non-person. In some crucial
sense, the ontological status of the humanity of the individual, on this
view, is not under scrutiny at all. What is under scrutiny, in this discourse
of personhood, is how the agent uses her ontological abilities, to either
perfect or defect her humanity. To be called a person is to acknowledge
that she has added dimensions of moral virtue to her humanity. And, to
be called a non-person is to acknowledge that she has lived below the
abilities of her humanity, without denying her humanity and the basic
respect due to her merely as a human being (Wiredu 2009).
Environmental ethics expert, Kevin Behrens (2013), aptly distin-
guishes the two normative notions discussed above. He distinguishes
between them in terms of one being patient-centred and the other
agent-centred. The patient-centred notion grounds respect on the basis
of certain ontological properties; and the agent-centred notion identi-
fies beings that have lived up to the standards of excellence prescribed
in their societies. It is the agent-centred notion of personhood that is
“dominant” or “germane” or “the pinnacle of an African difference
in philosophical theory” (Masolo 2010: 135; Ikuenobe 2006a: 117;
Wiredu 2009: 13). So, the central focus of this book is on the agent-
centred notion of personhood. It is this notion that is salient in the
tradition of African philosophy.
Developments in the Literature on Personhood

What are some of the interesting developments regarding the notion of
personhood in the literature? I divide this literature review regarding per-
sonhood into three areas of focus: firstly, I consider the classical debates
regarding the notion of personhood; secondly, I look into some of the
recent (and salient) contributions in the discourse of personhood; and
finally, I consider criticisms against the idea of personhood.
6 M. MOLEFE
The classical debate regarding personhood pivots around two influen-

tial African philosophers, Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye (Matolino
2013). The debate in the literature has been between those that defend
the radical version of communitarianism and those that defend the mod-
erate one.3 Many scholars take Menkiti as the father of radical commu-
nitarianism. The defining feature of radical communitarianism is its
(supposed) denial of rights (Menkiti 1984: 181).4 The defining feature
of moderate communitarianism is its recognition of the primary status
of rights in the plausible characterisation of Afro-communitarianism
(Gyekye 1992, 1995). There are some thinkers (myself included) that
defend the view that Menkiti is no radical communitarian. In fact, these
thinkers tend to think that Menkiti, correctly construed, promises a
robust moral-political philosophy—an alternative moral-political vision
(Molefe 2016, 2017a; Ikuenobe 2017).5
Opposed to this characterisation, there are those scholars who tend
to think that there is no substantive difference between radical and mod-
erate communitarianism insofar as they both ultimately jettison rights
(Matolino 2009; Famanikwa 2010). What is not entirely obvious to
me—at least from where I am standing—is whether there is any relation-
ship between the normative idea of personhood advocated by Menkiti
and the idea of (natural) rights prevalent in the Western moral-political
tradition. If Menkiti, in the final analysis, is pursuing an analysis of the
normative notion of personhood, then one can rightly ask the follow-
ing question: How did the idea of rights become a central consideration
in this philosophical debate about the correct characterisation of Afro-
communitarianism? One of the ideas that I will be defending in this book
is the view that the idea of personhood embodies a moral-political theory
that takes duties to achieve the common good to be primary. Rights, if
they feature at all, will only do so incidentally. In other words, the argu-
ment will be that rights are foreign to the axiological system character-
istic of personhood (Donnelly 1982). The idea of personhood imagines
a good society on its own terms rather than by invoking the idea and
discourse of rights.6
It is important to take note of some of the positive developments
in the literature regarding the idea of personhood. Bernard Matolino
(2014), in his monograph titled ‘Personhood in African philosophy’,
intervenes in the debate between radical and moderate communitarian-
ism. Dissatisfied with both positions, Matolino proceeds to defend what
he calls limited communitarianism. Limited communitarianism endorses
1 INTRODUCTION 7
the foundational status of rights by following the trail of the naturalist

interpretation of rights similar to the one defended by Gyekye (see also
Matolino 2018a, b; Chemhuru 2018). Matolino, in his contribution to
the idea of personhood and communitarianism, does not quite tell us
why we should take the idea of rights seriously (Matolino 2009, 2013).
He simply assumes the ontological veracity and moral-political universal-
ity of the idea of rights.
Another interesting development regarding personhood is by
Polycarp Ikuenobe, one of the leading contemporary scholars of the
idea (2006a, 2016, 2017). Ikuenobe invokes the idea of personhood
to respond to the accusation that the idea of dignity is useless or vague
(Macklin 2003). He argues that the idea of personhood offers a plau-
sible conception of dignity. Typically, in both the Western and African
tradition of philosophy, dignity is construed in terms of some ontolog-
ical property (Gyekye 1992; Ilesanmi 2001; Deng 2004). The mere
possession of some ontological property, be it rationality on the part
of Immanuel Kant or capacity for harmonious relationships on the part
of Thaddeus Metz, accounts for dignity (Metz 2010, 2011, 2012).
Ikuenobe insists that dignity is a function of how the agent uses their
ontological properties, i.e. dignity is a function of developing person-
hood. He proposes an interesting approach to the discourse of dignity
given that the idea of personhood will be used in political contexts to
identify beings towards which we owe basic respect. I will develop the
idea in this work that the idea of personhood is not suitable to ground
the modern idea of dignity since these ideas play two contrasting moral-
political roles.
Another interesting development with regard to the idea of person-
hood is in the discourse on development (Klaasen 2017). The move here
is to ground the idea of development on the moral resources prevalent in
the African cultural context, specifically, the idea of personhood. This, in
many ways, is a novel and promising project, but it does not quite spell
out how the idea of personhood could ground a plausible conception of
development. One useful way to do this is by comparing it to approaches
endemic in the discourse of like development ethics or even the capabil-
ities approach (Goulet 1997; Nussbaum 2011). In this book, I will not
consider the idea of development in relation to personhood. Given the
space, I would have argued that developed societies are characteristically
those that provide the socio-economic and political conditions that make
the pursuit of personhood possible.7
8 M. MOLEFE
In my opinion, Jason Van Niekerk makes a crucial contribution to

the discourse on the idea of personhood. Van Niekerk’s (2007) engage-
ment with the idea of personhood begins as a response to Metz’s (Metz
2007a) contribution to the debate regarding a plausible interpretation
of African ethics (of ‘ubuntu’).8 Metz (2007a, b) identifies six possible
interpretations of African ethics, and he ultimately defends a relational
interpretation. Van Niekerk (2007), responds to Metz (2007a: 331)
by defending a view that Metz describes in these terms: “This is prob-
ably the dominant interpretation of African ethics in the literature”.
This dominant interpretation is based on the idea of personhood. Metz
(ibid., emphasis mine) points out that “[m]any thinkers take the maxim
‘a person is a person through other persons’ to be a call for an agent to
develop her personhood”. Van Niekerk (2007) defends the view that the
idea of a person—which he construes as an autocentric approach—is no
worse than the relational one defended by Metz. In his doctoral thesis,
dedicated to African ethics, he jettisons the autocentric interpretation of
the idea of personhood for the perfectionist interpretation of this idea
(Van Niekerk 2013). In turn, I will take the perfectionist interpretation
as a point of departure.9 I will also elucidate the components of this
interpretation that do not feature in Van Niekerk’s analysis, such as the
humanism and individualism that characterise it.
Recently, a special issue dedicated to the Menkiti-Gyekye debate
was published in the journal of Filosofia Theoretica.10 The special issue
largely focused on the “individual-community question in African
philosophy”, and we are further informed that this issue “is closely tied
to the question of personhood” (Agada 2018: 46). Some of the major
themes that emerged in the special issue deal with (1) the place and rel-
evance of (personal) autonomy (Chimakonam 2018)11; (2) The use of
the Menkiti–Gyekye debate to rethink African political philosophy, par-
ticularly in the light of decolonisation (African political) philosophy to
rethink some “our ethical outlooks and our social and political theories
to accommodate insights … from African philosophy” (Eze 2018: 1);
(3) The question of the place, relevance and justification of rights also
emerged in the special issue12 (Eze 2018; Chimakonam 2018; Matolino
2018a, b); (4) Crucial issues regarding the problematic methodology—
parasitic on Western assumptions—employed by both Menkiti and
Gyekye also feature (Amato 2018; Chimakonam 2018); The question
regarding animals ethics in the light of personhood also receive critical
attention (Horsthemke 2018).13
1 INTRODUCTION 9
The reader should bear in mind that the burden of this book is inter-
pretative rather than argumentative. The aim is not to argue that the idea
of personhood, in and of itself, embodies the most plausible way to think
about morality and politics. This comparative task is beyond the scope of
this book. At this stage, the aim is to offer an interpretation of person-
hood and pursue some of its under-explored philosophical themes. To
offer only an interpretative book may not satisfy some readers, but this
does not mean that we should give up on the project. This project seeks
merely to lay a foundation for further comparative and argumentative
projects that others can venture into in the future.
We can now turn to some of the criticisms that have been levelled
against the idea of personhood in the literature. Three such criticisms
stick out for me. Firstly, there is the complaint that the idea of person-
hood is ‘gendered’ or male-centred, i.e. the idea of personhood is sex-
ist or patriarchal. The idea of personhood is denounced for reducing
women to a secondary status (Oyowe 2013, 2014a; Manzini 2018; Eze
2018). I am not entirely moved by this criticism. It is not clear to me
whether the criticism is focused on the nature of the concept itself, as an
embodiment of moral ideals, or on the sociology of the term—on how
the term tends to be used in African societies. It occurs to me that the
problem is not intrinsic to the term itself, it is the problem of cultures
and academics that are prejudiced by their male-centred societies. My
hunch is that the problem is with the practitioners, be it philosophers
or cultures of praxis, and not so much with the normative concept of
personhood. I believe this idea is open to interpretations that are “gen-
der-neutral” (Oyowe 2014a: 53). Or, at least, I will be using this con-
cept in a gender-neutral way insofar as it embodies moral insights that
are true for all genders.
Another crucial criticism against the idea of personhood comes from
Mpho Tshivhase (2013). Tshivhase’s major criticism is that the idea of
personhood is overly other-regarding. The excessive emphasis on oth-
er-regarding features in the discourse of personhood renders it unable
to accommodate crucial individualistic features necessary for a robust
human life. Specifically, it neglects autonomy and authenticity, which
are important concepts in appreciating the uniqueness of individu-
als. The individual, on the moral system imagined by this overly other-
regarding concept of personhood, is so absorbed in social relation-
ships that her personal life is neglected. It does so in a way analogous
to the way, according to Susan Wolf, that Western consequentialist and
10 M. MOLEFE
deontological accounts produce ‘saints’ that are slaves of morality, with

no regard for non-moral interests. The essence of her objection is that
this idea of personhood does not and cannot accommodate options—that
morality has limits and that we have interests that have nothing to do
with morality (McNaughton and Rawling 2006). In Chapter 4, I will
defend the view that the idea of personhood, at least as interpreted, can
accommodate options.
The third criticism is of a political nature. It argues that the idea of
personhood is essentially inegalitarian. As such, the political discourse
generated or implied by the idea of personhood will fail to capture the
plausible egalitarian features that capture modern political thought
(Oyowe 2018). The idea here is that those that have achieved person-
hood will be treated better in terms of distribution of resources/oppor-
tunities than those that have not. In Chapter 7, I will offer what I take to
be a plausible construal of the politics embodied by the idea of person-
hood, which will address Oyowe’s concerns.
Themes and Structure of the Book

I divide this book into two sections: one focusing on moral issues and
the other on political ones. The first section of the book will deal with
the following moral issues: (1) personhood as a moral theory; (2) the
meta-ethical debate between partiality and impartiality; and (3) the idea
of options in the light of personhood. I will also focus on three political
themes in relation to personhood, namely: (1) dignity; (2) rights; and
(3) historical injustices.
I structure this book as follows. The second chapter conceptually
maps the idea of personhood in African philosophy. In it, I revisit some
of the influential texts and debates on personhood in African philoso-
phy. This mapping is necessary because many of the discussions of the
idea of personhood have been characterised by conceptual ambiguity
and confusion. If this book is to be a success, it must revisit important
texts with regard to the notion of personhood to dispel all conceptual
confusion. This chapter is important insofar as it will help the reader to
get a sense of how I read extant influential accounts of the idea of per-
sonhood. The third chapter concerns itself with spelling out the idea of
personhood as a moral theory. Ultimately, I advocate the humanistic and
perfectionist egoistic view of personhood as a moral theory. The fourth
chapter focuses on the meta-ethical question of whether personhood is
1 INTRODUCTION 11
best construed in terms of partiality or impartiality. I observe there that

the idea of personhood embodies partiality. The fifth chapter offers gen-
eral reasons in support of the supererogatory view that the idea of per-
sonhood can accommodate options. The sixth chapter deals with the
question of whether the idea of personhood can ground a plausible con-
ception of the idea of dignity. I will note there that personhood cannot
ground a plausible conception of dignity. The seventh chapter exam-
ines whether personhood is suitable to ground a plausible conception of
rights. Here, I will defend a duty-based moral-political view. The eighth
and final chapter concerns itself with the question of historical injus-
tices. There, I specify the bare minimum criteria that should characterise
efforts towards restorative justice.
Notes
1. In pursuing this project, I am indebted to the philosophical foundation
laid by Ifeanyi Menkiti on the idea of personhood. In this book, I join
the efforts by Kwasi Wiredu (1992, 1996, 2005, 2008, 2009), Polycarp
Ikuenobe (2006a, b, 2016, 2017), Bernard Matolino (2009, 2014),
Jason Van Niekerk (2007, 2013), and Anthony Oyowe (2014a, b, 2018),
among others, who are contributing to the development of moral and
political discourse on personhood. My contribution pursues those facets
that these scholars have not yet considered.
2. I adopt this particular example from Gyekye (2010).
3. In my opinion (see Molefe 2016), which echoes the position of other
scholars like Wiredu (1992, 2004), Metz (2013a), and Ikuenobe (2017),
there has been no debate between Menkiti and Gyekye. In fact, the posi-
tion that is emerging among these scholars is that Menkiti advocated no
radical communitarianism; he has just been misunderstood.
4. An accurate representation of Menkiti’s view does not necessarily
repudiate rights; instead, he relegates them to a secondary status in rela-
tion to our duties to others. To reduce rights to a secondary status, for
most scholars of the natural approaches to rights, would be tantamount
to their tacit rejection. It is for this reason that Gyekye has understood
Menkiti to be rejecting rights.
5. I articulate this alternative moral-political vision in Chapter 7.
6. One of the things that have struck me is that Menkiti (1984: 180) at
the end of his discussion of the idea of personhood mentions that rights
occupy a secondary status in African philosophy. Menkiti does not elabo-
rate or defend this position, but the response (in the literature) has been
to argue for the centrality of rights by his detractors. The literature does
12 M. MOLEFE
so in ways that are very concerning. On the one hand, the idea of rights
is never defined; it is almost (always) taken to be self-evident. Those that
attempt to give an account of rights rely on Western conceptions of it.
Gyekye takes Kant’s conception of dignity and rights as a point of depar-
ture in his defence of moderate communitarianism. No justification, be it
historical or philosophical, of this move is offered.
7. In a forthcoming article, I defend an African conception of develop-
ment that I believe gives insights regarding how the idea of personhood
accounts for development (Molefe 2019).
8. In this book, I will take the talk of ubuntu to be the same as a talk of per-
sonhood. I say so because at the heart of the idea of ubuntu is the idea
of personhood. The idea of ubuntu is captured in terms of the maxim—a
person is a person through other persons. The italicised word—person—
refers to the normative idea of person salient in African philosophy. At
the heart of ubuntu is the idea of a human being achieving personhood
(see Metz 2007a, 2010, 2013b; Molefe 2017b; Oyowe 2018). As such,
the reader should not be shocked at instances where I use these words
interchangeably. To say one has ubuntu is the same thing as to say they
have achieved personhood, and vice versa.
9. I prefer the perfectionist approach over the autocentric view of person-
hood for two reasons. Firstly, I agree with all the arguments raised against
autocentrism by Van Niekerk. Secondly, the language and analogies
employed by scholars of African thought tend to capture personhood as a
perfectionist orientation.
10. I am grateful to the reviewer for bringing this literature to my attention,
which was not published when I initially submitted my manuscript for
review.
11. I do think that one useful way to deal with the question of autonomy
in African philosophy is to be mindful of the distinction between the
individualistic and relational versions of it. I give some attention to
this distinction regarding the concept of autonomy in Chapter 5. I am
aware that Ikuenobe (2015) argues that relational autonomy is an intrin-
sic feature of personhood. I also believe that the discourse of person-
hood can learn a lot regarding the idea of autonomy in the discourse of
care/feminist ethics.
12. The reader should note that I deal with the question of rights in the light
of personhood in Chapter 7 of this book.
13. In this book, I do not quite talk to the issue of the environment and ani-
mals in the light of the idea of personhood. I am aware, however, that
this is one of the criticisms against the idea of personhood. This should
not come as a surprise given that I explain in Chapter 2 that the idea of
personhood is humanistic, which means it accounts for morality entirely
1 INTRODUCTION 13
in terms of some facet(s) of human nature to the exclusion of animals.

To make this observation, however, is not tantamount that the idea of
personhood has no resources at all to resolve the question of animals
(though indirect like in the fashion of Kant). It is not within the scope of
this book to reflect on the questions of animals and environment in the
light of personhood.
References
Agada, A. (2018). Language, Thought, and Interpersonal Communication:
A Cross-Cultural Conversation on the Question of Individuality and
Community. Filosofia Theoretica, 7, 141–162.
Amato, P. (2018). The Menkiti-Gyekye Conversation: Framing Persons. Filosofia
Theoretica, 7, 34–47.
Behrens, K. (2013). Two ‘Normative’ Conceptions of Personhood. Quest, 25,
103–119.
Chemhuru, M. (2018). African Communitarianism and Human Rights: Towards
a Compatibilist View. Theoria, 65, 37–56.
Chimokonam, J. (2018). Can Individual Autonomy and Rights Be Defended in
Afro-Communitarianism? Filosofia Theoretica, 7, 122–141.
DeGrazia, D. (2008). Moral Status as a Matter of Degree? Southern Journal
Philosophy, 46, 181–198.
Deng, F. (2004). Human Rights in the African Context. In K. Wiredu (Ed.),
Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 499–508). Oxford: Blackwell.
Donnelly, J. (1982). Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique
of Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights. The American Political
Science Review, 76, 303–316.
Eze, O. M. (2018). Menkiti, Gyekye, and Beyond: Towards a Decolonisation of
African Political Philosophy. Filosofia Theoretica, 7, 1–17.
Famanikwa, J. (2010). How Moderate Is Kwame Gyekye’s Moderate
Communitarianism? Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical
Association of Kenya, 2, 65–77.
Goulet, D. (1997). Development Ethics: A New Discipline. International
Journal of Social Economics, 24, 1160–1171.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. In Person and
Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, 1 (pp. 101–122). Washington,
DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Gyekye, K. (1995). An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan
Conceptual Scheme. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gyekye, K. (2010). African Ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/fall2011/entries/african-ethics. Last accessed 16 January 2013.
14 M. MOLEFE
Horsthemke, K. (2018). African Communalism, Persons, and Animals. Filosofia

Ikuenobe, P. (2006a). Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in
African Traditions. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Ikuenobe, P. (2006b). The Idea of Personhood in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart. Philosophia Africana, 9, 117–131.
Ikuenobe, P. (2015). Relational Autonomy, Personhood, and African Traditions.
Philosophy East and West, 65, 1005–1029.
Ikuenobe, P. (2016). Good and Beautiful: A Moral-Aesthetic View of
Personhood in African Communal Traditions. Essays in Philosophy, 17,
124–163.
Ikuenobe, P. (2017). The Communal Basis for Moral Dignity: An African
Perspective. Philosophical Papers, 45, 437–469.
Ilesanmi, O. (2001). Human Rights Discourse in Modern Africa: A Comparative
Religious Perspective. Journal of Religious Ethics, 23, 293–320.
Kaphagawani, D. (2004). African Conceptions of a Person: A Critical Survey. In
Klaasen, J. (2017). The Role of Personhood in Development. Missionalia, 45,
29–44.
Macklin, R. (2003). Dignity Is a Useless Concept. British Medical Journal, 327,
1419–1420.
Manzini, N. (2018). Menkiti’s Normative Communitarian Conception of
Personhood as Gendered, Ableist and Anti-Queer. South African Journal of
Masolo, D. (2010). Self and Community in a Changing World. Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press.
Matolino, B. (2009). Radicals Versus Moderates: A Critique of Gyekye’s
Moderate Communitarianism. South African Journal of Philosophy, 28,
160–170.
Matolino, B. (2013). Exorcising the Communitarian Ghost: D.A. Masolo’s
Contribution. Quest, 25, 163–184.
Matolino, B. (2014). Personhood in African Philosophy. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster
Publications.
Matolino, B. (2018a). Restating Rights in Afro-Communitarianism. Theoria, 65,
57–77.
Matolino, B. (2018b). The Politics of Limited Communitarianism. Filosofia
Mbiti, J. (1969). African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Doubleday and
Company.
McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (2006). Deontology. In D. Copp (Ed.), Oxford
Handbook of Ethical Theory (pp. 425–458). Oxford: Oxford Press.
1 INTRODUCTION 15
Menkiti, I. (1984). Person and Community in African Traditional Thought.

In R. A. Wright (Ed.), African Philosophy: An Introduction (pp. 171–181).
Lanham: University Press of America.
Metz, T. (2007a). Toward an African Moral Theory. The Journal of Political
Metz, T. (2007b). Ubuntu as a Moral Theory: Reply to Four Critics. South
African Journal of Philosophy, 24, 369–387.
Metz, T. (2010). Human Dignity, Capital Punishment and an African Moral
Theory: Toward a New Philosophy of Human Rights. Journal of Human
Rights, 9, 81–99.
Metz, T. (2011). Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa.
African Human Rights Law Journal, 11, 532–559.
Metz, T. (2012). Developing African Political Philosophy: Moral-Theoretic
Strategies. Philosophia Africana, 14, 61–83.
Metz, T. (2013a). The Western Ethic of Care or an Afro-Communitarian Ethic?
Specifying the Right Relational Morality. Journal of Global Ethics, 9, 77–92.
Metz, T. (2013b). Two Conceptions of African Ethics in the Work of D. A.
Masolo. Quest, 25, 7–15.
Molefe, M. (2016). Revisiting the Debate Between Gyekye-Menkiti: Who Is a
Radical Communitarian? Theoria, 63, 37–54.
Molefe, M. (2017a). Critical Comments on Afro-Communitarianism: The
Community Versus Individual. Filosofia Theoretica, 6, 1–22.
Molefe, M. (2017b). An African Perspective on the Partiality and Impartiality
Debate: Insights from Kwasi Wiredu’s Moral Philosophy. South African
Journal of Philosophy, 36, 470–482.
Molefe, M. (2018). Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition. Politikon,
45, 217–231.
Molefe, M. (2019). Ubuntu and Development: An African Conception of
Development. Africa Today.
Neal, P., & Paris, D. (1990). Liberalism and the Communitarian Critique: A
Guide for the Perplexed. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 23, 419–439.
Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating Capabilities: The Human Development
Approach. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Oyowe, A. (2013). Personhood and Social Power in African Thought.
Alternation, 20, 203–228.
Oyowe, A. (2014a). Fiction, Culture and the Concept of a Person. Research in
African Literatures, 45, 42–62.
Oyowe, A. (2014b). An African Conception of Human Rights? Comments on
the Challenges of Relativism. Human Rights Review, 15, 329–347.
Oyowe, T. (2018). Personhood and Strong Normative Constraints. Philosophy
East and West, 68, 783–801.
Presbey, G. (2002). Maasai Concepts of Personhood: The Roles of Recognition,
Community, and Individuality. International Studies in Philosophy, 34, 57–82.
16 M. MOLEFE
Singer, P. (2009). Speciesism and Moral Status. Metaphilosophy, 40, 567–581.

Toscano, M. (2011). Human Dignity as High Moral Status. The Ethics Forum, 6,
4–25.
Tshivhase, M. (2013). Personhood: Social Approval or a Unique Identity? Quest:
An African Journal of Philosophy, 25, 119–140.
Van Niekerk, J. (2007). In Defence of an Autocentric Account of Ubuntu. South
Van Niekerk, J. (2013). Ubuntu and Moral Theory. Johannesburg: University of
the Witwatersrand.
Wiredu, K. (1992). Moral Foundations of an African Culture. In K. Wiredu &
K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies,
1 (pp. 192–206). Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy.
Wiredu, K. (1995). The Concept of Mind with Particular Reference to the
Language and Thought of the Akans’. In S. Kwame (Ed.), Readings in
African Philosophy: An Akan Collection (pp. 303–312). Lanham: University
Press of America.
Wiredu, K. (1996). Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective.
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Wiredu, K. (2004). Introduction: African Philosophy in our Time. Companion to
African Philosophy, 1–27. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Wiredu, K. (2005). On the Idea of a Global Ethic. Journal of Global Ethics, 1,
45–51.
Wiredu, K. (2008). Social Philosophy in Postcolonial Africa: Some Preliminaries
Concerning Communalism and Communitarianism. South African Journal of
Wiredu, K. (2009). An Oral Philosophy of Personhood: Comments on
Philosophy and Orality. Research in African Literatures, 40, 8–18.
CHAPTER 2
A Conceptual Mapping of Personhood
Introduction
In this chapter, I conceptually map the concept(s) of personhood in
African philosophy. That is, I revisit some of the texts that I deem to
have played a decisive role in shaping the discourse on personhood in
African philosophy. This conceptual mapping is neither exhaustive nor
chronological. As a result, I may leave out some texts that some may
deem crucial in their own estimation. In this analysis, I focus on the fol-
lowing scholars/texts: I begin by elucidating Menkiti’s analysis of the
notion of personhood. I then proceed to consider Gyekye’s criticism of
Menkiti’s notion of personhood. I conclude by considering Matolino’s
treatment of the concept of personhood in the light of the philosophical
disquisitions of it by Dedier Kaphagawani and Ikuenobe.
I am doing this conceptual analysis on personhood to demonstrate
two facts. Firstly, I aim to show the reader that the idea of personhood
has not been handled with the philosophical dexterity that one would
usually expect to characterise the practice of philosophy. Secondly, I do
so for the sake of being precise regarding the concept of personhood
crucial to this book. Additionally, I do this conceptual exercise to give
the reader a sense of how I understand the idea of personhood.
I turn now to consider Menkiti’s treatment of the concept of
personhood.

18 M. MOLEFE
Menkiti’s Analysis of Personhood

Menkiti has penned two essays dedicated to the idea of personhood in
African philosophy. The first essay by Menkiti (1984) is titled ‘Person
and Community in Traditional African Thought’ and the second (2004)
‘The Normative Concept of Personhood’. I will focus on the first essay
because it is the one that has been at the centre of major debates in the
literature and most scholars—in their disquisition on personhood—tend
to focus on it (Asante 2018; Amato 2018). Furthermore, the second
one is a restatement and clarification of some of the issues that Menkiti
thought necessary to correct, but the substance is more or less the same.
It is crucial to note that the titles of both essays promise to focus on one
specific concept of personhood. The title of the first essay is not specific
about which notion of personhood will be under consideration (remem-
ber I distinguished four notions of personhood). The second essay
does, however, specify that Menkiti is pursuing the normative notion of
personhood.
In the first essay, Menkiti (1984: 170) is very clear that he aims “to
articulate a certain conception of the person found in African tradi-
tional thought”. The strategy he employs to explicate the philosoph-
ically under-explored African notion of a person involves contrasting
it against the salient view of personhood in the West. He draws two
contrasts between the African and Western term. In the first place, he
indicates that the Western notion of personhood defines it in terms of
some “lone” property of the individual (ibid.). Typically, the Western
view invokes some psychological property like consciousness, rational-
ity, memory and so on as the basis for defining personhood. In contrast,
the African view defines it by appeal to the “environing community”
(ibid.). What is clear from this contrast is that personhood in the Western
tradition is defined in terms of some property internal to the human
individual (be it physical or psychological) and the African tradition
defines it (almost entirely) in terms of properties that are external to the
individual.
In other words, on the one account, you look inside the individual to
assign personhood; and, on the other, you look outside of the individ-
ual to account for personhood. Another useful way to capture this way
of thinking about these distinct approaches to personhood is in terms
of Descartes’ and Mbiti’s formulations of personhood. Descartes for-
mulates personhood in these terms: ‘I think therefore I am’; and Mbiti
2 A CONCEPTUAL MAPPING OF PERSONHOOD 19
as follows: ‘I am because we are, since we are, therefore I am’. So,

Descartes reduces personhood to the possession of rational capacity.
Mbiti reduces it to the significance of social relationships. It occurs to
me that this discussion of personhood, contrasting Western and African
views, is strikingly a metaphysical one. Under consideration appears to be
the question of personal identity. In other words, Menkiti may be rea-
sonably construed to be adumbrating the factors that may be considered
crucial to account for the socialisation of individuals (Molefe 2016a). In
the West, emphasis is placed on individual properties and less emphasis
is placed on social relationships. In Africa, more emphasis is placed on
social relationships and less on individual properties.
This interpretation of Menkiti (as elaborating on the metaphysical
theme of personal identity) is supported by Menkiti’s (1984: 171) sum-
mary of these contrasting approaches:
A crucial distinction thus exists between the African view of man and the
view of man found in Western thought: in the African view it is the com-
munity which defines the person as person, not some isolated static quality
of rationality, will, or memory.
It is obvious that on this view the community does not define ‘man’ qua
human nature or ‘person’ qua ‘human being’, which is a biological/
ontological fact. However we may define a ‘person’, it does not take
away the ontological fact that they are characterised by certain isolated
static qualities of body, rationality, will, or memory. They have these
properties independent of the community. As Gyekye (1992: 108)
rightly observes, the community discovers these properties—all it does
is to nurture them. In other words, these properties are part of what it
means to be human qua human nature. What is it then that the commu-
nity defines? Menkiti provides an answer to this question. In the light of
the Mbiti formulation, Menkiti (1984: 172) says:
…as far as Africans are concerned, the reality of the communal world
takes precedence over the reality of individual life histories, whatever these
may be.
I think reference to ‘the reality of the communal world’ is the same thing
as talk of the ‘environing community’. This talk of ‘the reality of the
communal world’ points to the idea that the cultural context serves as a
20 M. MOLEFE
social incubator within which individuals have to commence and nego-

tiate their own lived experience (see Amato 2018: 38). The point is to
emphasise the priority and the inescapability of the social reality that the
individual needs in order to be humanised or socialised (Gyekye 1992).
In other words, without this social incubator, human experience and
possibilities will elude the individual. She will be a lost cause insofar as
humanity and all that it promises is concerned. Menkiti (ibid.) continues
to comment that:
… the individual comes to see himself as man, and it is by first knowing

this community as a stubborn perduring fact of the psychophysical world
that the individual also comes to know himself as a durable, more or less
permanent, fact of this world.
It is becoming clear that Menkiti is giving an account of the socialisation

of the individual. The idea proposed by Menkiti is that the ‘environing
community’ provides the socio-cultural context, with its multiplicity of
institutions and social relationships that helps individuals to see them-
selves as part of the social world. It is these socio-cultural structures that
facilitate the development of the human consciousness and make it possi-
ble for individuals to see themselves as part of the furniture of the human
world. Menkiti is very clear that the “collective facts” play a decisive role
in the individual’s acquisition of “language”, which is crucial for cog-
nitive development (what Menkiti (ibid.) refers to as the “constitution
of mental dispositions and attitudes”). The acquisition of language and
cognitive development are crucial for individuals to understand them-
selves as members of this or that family or even “specific human group”
(ibid.).
Finally, Menkiti (ibid., emphasis mine) notes: “What is more, the
sense of self-identity which the individual comes to possess cannot
be made sense of except by reference to these collective facts”. What
emerges quite vividly from Menkiti’s assertions is that his reference to
personhood, at least in this instance, is tantamount to talk of human
socialisation. According to Menkiti, personal development that leads to
personal identity (personhood) is best accounted for by appeal to what
he refers to as the ‘environing community’, or ‘the reality of the com-
munal world’ or ‘collective facts’. This talk of ‘collective facts’ is virtually
the same as the position that construes personal identity entirely in terms
of social relationships. This talk is an entirely metaphysical one insofar as

it identifies external socio-cultural properties as the basis for personhood
qua personal identity.
We have noted that the first contrast concerns the metaphysical ques-
tion of socialisation/personal identity. The second contrast strikes me as
concerned with moral/normative issues. Menkiti (1984: 172) begins by
noting that personhood is not possible without “incorporation” into the
community. Incorporation into the community in this context means a
process through which one must embody norms or standards prescribed
by the community. It is for this reason that Menkiti (ibid.) proceeds to
note that “personhood is something which has to be achieved, and is
not given simply because one is born of human seed”. Personal iden-
tity, in a crucial sense, is not something that we can think of in terms of
achievement. Things like cognitive development, acquisition and use of
language, belonging to a particular family/tribe, and being characterised
by certain personality traits (like being an introvert or extrovert), are not
things that we achieve in the morally relevant sense. It is unfortunate for
an individual to ‘fail’ to develop language and other important functional
human properties, but it is not a moral failure.
The notion of personhood, for Menkiti in the second contrast,
moves beyond issues of personal identity to deal with moral ones. This
is suggested, firstly, by Menkiti’s drawing from Tempels the distinction
between “a man of middling importance” and “a powerful man, a man
with a great deal of force” (ibid.). This distinction speaks to the rank-
ing of human beings in terms of some status of socio-moral significance.
Secondly, the normative nature of the idea of personhood is captured by
Menkiti’s assertion that personhood “includes the idea of excellence”
(ibid.). Personhood, in this sense, imagines a human being engaged in
the moral journey of developing a sound character, which Menkiti speaks
of in terms of adding moral excellence to one’s humanity (Menkiti 1984:
173). That the idea of ‘excellence’ under consideration is of an ethical
nature is supported by this submission by Menkiti:
… it is the carrying out of these obligations that transforms one from the
it-status of early childhood, marked by an absence of moral function, into
the person-status of later years, marked by a widened maturity of ethical
sense--an ethical maturity without which personhood is conceived as elud-
ing one.
22 M. MOLEFE
The individual has to progress from a non-moral status, which Menkiti

refers to as an ‘it-status’, to a person-status. The person-status is char-
acterised or even constituted by ‘widened maturity of ethical sense’.
Personhood, Menkiti proceeds to inform us, as a matter of necessity
requires this ethical maturity. So, talk of personhood refers to an adult
whose deportment is characterised by moral excellence. Let me quickly
revert to the contrast.
The contrast here is between what Menkiti (1984: 172) calls the
minimalist and maximalist conception of personhood. The minimalist
conception assigns personhood on the basis of possession of some iso-
lated static ontological property like rationality. The maximalist view
assigns personhood relative to how the agent uses these static qualities to
carve out a morally excellent humanity, characterised by widened ethical
sense or moral virtue.
It is important to note that the minimalist sense of personhood is
ambiguous between the two concepts of personhood discussed in the
introduction. On the one hand, it could be a discourse of personal
identity as is typical in the so-called “atomistic” conception of personal
identity, wherein some entity is accorded personhood merely because
it possesses the relevant ontological properties like memory, conscious-
ness; and, on the other, it could to refer a talk of moral status where
some entity is granted personhood (being of value) merely because it
possesses the morally relevant ontological property of rationality or
sentience (Darwall 1977; Toscano 2011).1 Metz (2013: 7) notices the
ambiguity surrounding the minimalist concept of personhood on the
part of Menkiti. I also believe that Behrens article, ‘The Two Normative
Concepts of Personhood’ is, in part, a response to this minimalist and
maximalist distinction by Menkiti. Behrens’ argument is that these are
two distinct moral categories that play different roles in moral-political
discourse.2
Thus far, I have indicated that Menkiti could be interpreted to have
used at least three distinct notions of personhood, namely: personhood
as (1) personal identity; (2) moral perfection (maximalist); and (3)
moral status (minimalist). It is also crucial to note that Menkiti fails to
distinguish between the two distinct normative notions of personhood
as indicated by Behrens. Menkiti fails again to appreciate the difference
between the two normative concepts in relation to John Rawls’ thoughts
on personhood. Menkiti wrongly invokes Rawls’ idea of personhood to

support his maximalist idea of personhood. Menkiti (176) begins by not-
ing that:
John Rawls, of the Western-born philosophers, comes closest to the recog-

nition of this importance of ethical sense in the definition of personhood.
It is clear by now that Menkiti is interested in elaborating the normative

concept of personhood. Menkiti believes that Rawls is his ally, or at least
is close enough, in recognising the ethical sense of personhood. Menkiti
notes that Rawls in his book ‘A Theory of Justice’ is concerned with the
idea of ‘respect for persons’. Menkiti (ibid.) notes that respect is due to
“those who are capable of a sense of justice … with this capability con-
strued in its sense of a potentiality which may or may not have been real-
ised”. It is crucial to recognise that the respect for persons imagined here
depends on the individual having some (ontological) capacity regardless
of whether they realise it or not. The mere potential is enough to war-
rant respect. In other words, the respect imagined here has nothing to
do with realising or achieving the potential of the relevant capacity, it
is entirely a function of merely possessing it. This is not a performance-
based kind of respect, but a capacity-tracking kind.
This interpretation of matters is evidenced by Menkiti’s (ibid., empha-
sis mine) citation of Rawls’ adumbration of his own idea of personhood
and the kind of respect it imagines:
Equal justice is owed to those who have the capacity to take part in and to
act in accordance with the public understanding of the initial situation.
It is important to note the phrases ‘equal justice’ and ‘the capacity to

take part in … the (initial) position’. The idea of ‘equal justice’ ima-
gines respect in egalitarian terms. This is, the respect due equally to
every human individual merely because they possess the morally rel-
evant ontological capacity to take part in the original position. The
respect imagined here tracks the relevant ontological capacity to enter
into a contract. It imagines rational capacity as the basis for respect. So,
Menkiti is right that the idea of personhood in Rawls’ discourse is an
ethical/normative one, but he is wrong to note that it comes closest
24 M. MOLEFE
to his own notion. Menkiti’s notion of personhood imagines respect

that tracks performance: it is an achievement-oriented kind of respect.
Rawls’ notion, on the other hand, is capacity based: it assigns respect
merely because one possesses the relevant ontological capacity. Thus,
Rawls’ discourse captures the idea of moral status/dignity, which is cru-
cial to the idea of equal justice.
I analysed Menkiti’s philosophical treatment of personhood to reveal
that he set himself the task to discussing a notion of personhood, but he
ends up discussing three distinct concepts of personhood: (1) personal
identity; (2) moral perfection; and (3) moral status. This lack of concep-
tual clarity on the part of Menkiti regarding the concept of personhood,
I suspect, lies at the heart of the conceptual morass that has characterised
the discourse on personhood in African philosophy.
That said, there is no doubt that Menkiti’s intention was to pursue
the normative notion of personhood qua moral achievement. This posi-
tion is corroborated by his restatement of his own position in a later
publication as indicated above. It is also supported by Wiredu’s obser-
vations, among others. Menkiti (2004: 326) notes: “For married to
the notion of personhood is the notion of moral arrival”. The language
of ‘moral arrival’ imagines the pursuit of personhood as a journey that
essentially involves “the in-gathering of the excellences”, which translates
to the (human) individual being “a moral being or bearer of norms”
(Menkiti 2004: 325 and 326). Recently, in a retrospective statement on
his conception of personhood, Menkiti (2018: 162) endorses the view
that “within the African world moral function is an essential core of the
definition of the human person”. Commenting on this notion of person-
hood as employed by Menkiti, Wiredu (2004: 17) notes:
In Contemporary African philosophy the locus classicus of the normative

conception of a person is Ifeanyi Menkiti’s ‘Person and Community
African Traditional Thought’… My own views are in substantial agreement
with Menkiti’s … Personhood … is something of an achievement.
So, in the light of Menkiti’s restatement of his own position and

Wiredu’s observation, it is abundantly clear that Menkiti is ultimately
after the normative notion of personhood qua moral achievement.
I proceed now to consider Gyekye’s intervention on the discourse on
personhood.
Gyekye on Personhood
The intervention by Gyekye (1992: 102) in the discourse on person-
hood in African philosophy takes Menkiti’s analysis (of personhood) as
its “point of departure”. It is crucial to notice that Gyekye distinguishes
between the metaphysical and normative questions raised by the idea
of personhood (1992: 101). He is quite specific that his analysis will
“focus … mainly on the normative aspects of personhood …” (ibid.).
The reader should keep in mind that talk of the normative aspects of per-
sonhood is ambiguous between the minimalist and maximalist interpre-
tations of it. It is crucial to note that in his analysis, Gyekye begins by
considering metaphysical issues. In this light, he notes (1992: 103):
… I should perhaps point out, that the metaphysical construal of person-

hood in African thought such as Menkiti’s, which gives community prior-
ity over the individual person, has a parallel in the conceptions of the social
status of the person held by some scholars, both African and non-African.
The metaphysical view under consideration is the one I have identified

as an account of personal identity. To support this view, Gyekye notes
(101):
The metaphysical question is whether a person, even though he lives in

a human society, is a self-sufficient atomic individual … or whether he is
by nature a communal … being, having natural and essential relationships
with others.
Gyekye, unlike Menkiti, is very clear that this is a metaphysical question

pertaining to the question of how to account for personal identity, be it
in atomistic or communal terms. One wonders why Gyekye is criticising
Menkiti on a metaphysical concept of personhood when we have discov-
ered that, read charitably, Menkiti intended a normative notion of it (see
Menkiti 2018). Furthermore, Gyekye has promised us that he will focus
on the normative facets of personhood.
By now, we know that even to talk of ‘the normative aspects of per-
sonhood’ is ambiguous, given that we have the patient-centred (mini-
malist) and the agent-centred (maximalist) notions of personhood. We
have also identified that Menkiti is concerned with the agent-centred
notion of personhood (maximalist). It is important to note that Gyekye
26 M. MOLEFE
identifies Menkiti as a radical communitarian on the basis of the meta-

physical notion of personhood. In this light, he notes that:
(Radical) communitarianism immediately sees the human person as inher-

ently … a communal being, embedded in a context of social relationships
and interdependence, never as an isolated, atomic individual. (1992: 104)
The above view of personal identity understands it entirely in terms of

social relations. To counter what he takes to be an excessive view of
personhood (personal identity), Gyekye observes that “besides being a
communitarian being by nature, the human person is, also by nature,
other things as well” (1992: 111). Thus (metaphysical) personhood
must accommodate both the communal and individual facets of human
nature. By individual facets, Gyekye has “in mind such essential attrib-
utes of the person as rationality” (ibid.). Personhood, according to
Gyekye (1997: 41), is a function of both the individual and social fac-
ets; and, a robust conception of morality must treat these two facets as
weighing equally.
I hope the reader is following that the present discussion is entirely
concerned with metaphysical issues pertaining to questions of how to
account for personal identity. The view of personal identity articulated by
Menkiti is said to be radical insofar as it is (thought to be) similar or con-
tinuous with those advocated by the “political leaders in the early days
of political independence” (Gyekye 1992: 103). The (ideological) view
of personhood held by these leaders and defended philosophically by
Menkiti is criticised for the “socio-political consequences (it has) for the
individual person”; this view is accused of denying individuals the “room
for the exercise of individual rights” (1992: 104). Hence, it is considered
to be radical.
It is very interesting to note how Gyekye supposes that to advocate
“African socialism”—which supposedly holds a particular conception of
‘personhood’—amounts to a rejection of rights. We know that Gyekye
repudiates African socialism as a flawed moral-political doctrine (see
Gyekye 1995; Wiredu 2008). With regard to personhood, Gyekye offers
what he takes to be a correct interpretation of personhood that also cor-
rects Menkiti’s view insofar as it balances the individual and communal
facets. This view of personhood, since it balances the individual and com-
munal facets, is characterised by Gyekye as “moderate communitarian-
ism”. At this stage of Gyekye’s elucidation of personhood, it is no longer
clear that we have a view of personhood qua personal identity or person-

hood qua moral status. Gyekye makes a theoretical shift from a strictly
metaphysical concept of personal identity to a moral one (involving
moral status) without due caution to the reader.3
I say so because Gyekye’s moderate view hinges on a particular con-
ception of personhood, which balances individual and communal facets.
The individual facets qua autonomy/rationality ground dignity; and the
communal facets ground our obligations/duties to promote the com-
mon good. The individual facets entail a theory of moral status/dignity,
which in turn serves as the basis for human rights.
What is coming out quite poignantly is that whereas Menkiti is com-
mitted to the normative idea of personhood qua the agent-centred
notion, we see Gyekye’s critique developing a metaphysical notion of
personhood qua personal identity. However, Gyekye’s notion ends up as
a normative idea of personhood which is patient-centred (and focused
on moral status). Gyekye’s ambiguity between the two distinct notions
of personhood—personal identity and moral status—is captured thus by
Matolino (2014: XII):
Perhaps the most curious case is that of Gyekye who speaks of personhood
in two ways that are mutually exclusive and appears to make no effort to
reconcile this disparity in his own body of work as a coherent product of a
single philosopher.
We noted the same conceptual problems above regarding Menkiti’s

exposition of the idea of personhood. The results of this ambiguity
regarding the idea of personhood, on the part of Gyekye, is that in the
final analysis, we do not see a critique of Menkiti’s notion of personhood
per se, but a parallel discussion obfuscated by a confusion of the differ-
ing notions of personhood, be they metaphysical or normative. This may
not entirely be Gyekye’s fault as I have already indicated above that the
minimalist conception can be ambiguous between personal identity and
moral status. However, we do expect Gyekye to be able to draw these
crucial distinctions in his philosophical analysis.
This interpretation of Gyekye’s response to Menkiti as a misfire
involved in a conceptual morass is also observed by Metz. In this light,
Metz (2013: 13) notes: “I submit that the Menkiti-Gyekye debate on per-
sonhood should be revisited while keeping an eye on these three distinct
senses of ‘person’” (see also Molefe 2016a, b, 2017a, b).4 One cannot
28 M. MOLEFE
entirely blame Gyekye for this conceptual confusion given Menkiti’s own
lack of conceptual clarity and precision with regard to this idea of per-
sonhood. As such, the criticism that Gyekye launches against Menkiti
is not an effective one because it misses the point that Menkiti is after
a specific normative notion of personhood, which, in and of itself, may
not have any intrinsic relationship to the idea of rights. In this light, the
comment by Wiredu, as quoted in (Eze and Metz 2016: 74, emphasis
mine), is instructive (the article takes a conversational form):
Eze: Thank you, professor, for this wonderful opportunity. I begin by ask-
ing if you could state more clearly for us your position on the issues of
community and individualism, that is, the debate on the primacy of either
the community or individual in the African thought system. Of course I
presume you do not agree with Menkiti’s radical communitarianism…
Wiredu: (cuts in) Which scholar is that? No, it is Gyekye who does not
agree with Menkiti. I do not believe that Menkiti said anything extremely
radical. Menkiti’s position is that to be a person in Africa, you need to not
just be born of human heritage, you need also to have achieved certain
socio-ethical standards. You need ethical maturity, you need to achieve a cer-
tain standard morally. That ethical maturity defined in terms of the mores
and ethics of the society. Gyekye objects to this because Menkiti seems
to be saying that the individual does not have any standing and this leads
to extreme communitarianism. But this is absolutely not the case; Menkiti
didn’t say that the individual is not appraised and is not given any room.
The point I glean from the above is that Gyekye was hasty to invoke
rights where they were not the central focus at all in the discourse of per-
sonhood. If Menkiti is correctly construed and understood to be inter-
ested in giving an account of personhood qua the achievement of moral
excellence, then there is no room to associate him with anything radical.
He merely advocates a particular ethical position associated with what is
expected of the individual to achieve in African cultures (Molefe 2016,
2017a). In all fairness to Gyekye, it is crucial to note that in his restate-
ment of his position of moderate communitarianism, he abandons his
trenchant criticisms of Menkiti position on personhood. I suppose this
change of tone and approach was informed by his realisation that much
of his criticism of Menkiti was misplaced. In fact, in the latter clarification
of moderate communitarianism, he comes to appreciate that Menkiti is
interested in the normative notion and he also notes that this notion is
crucial in Afro-communitarianism. Gyekye (1997: 64; see also Wiredu

2008: 334) notes that:
With all this said, however, this aspect of this [Menkiti’s] account adum-
brates a moral conception of personhood and is, on that score, interesting
and relevant to the notion of personhood important for the communitar-
ian framework.
In the final analysis, it appears that Gyekye comes to endorse Menkiti’s

interpretation of the normative notion of personhood. He further notes
that this notion is interesting and relevant in Afro-communitarian moral-
political thought. It is important to note that when he proceeds to
defend his conception of rights, he does so by appeal to a different con-
cept of personhood, specifically the one typical in the naturalist tradition
of rights (see Donnelly 1982a, b; Oyowe 2014b; Molefe 2017a).
Matolino, Kaphagawani, and Ikuenobe on Personhood

Bernard Matolino (2009, 2014), one of the contemporary scholars of
personhood, locates his discussion of personhood in the works of both
Kaphagawani (2004) and Ikuenobe (2006a, b). In his book, Matolino,
in order to arrive at his proposed alternative conception of communitari-
anism (i.e. limited communitarianism) begins by clarifying “the nature of
personhood” (2014: 1 and 2). To explicate “the nature of personhood”,
Matolino (2014: 2) begins by “consider(ing) the two proposals that have
been forwarded as the best representatives of the concept” of person-
hood in African philosophy. Matolino generally rejects Kaphagawani’s
characterisation of personhood and endorses Ikuenobe’s one albeit with
minor adjustments.5 Kaphagawani suggests that “there are [four] ways
of conceiving personhood in African philosophy: The Akan/Yoruba con-
ception of it, force thesis, shadow thesis and the communalist thesis”
(Matolino 2014: 2). If my initial submission that one can distinguish
four concepts of personhood is true, it then becomes crucial that we
ask ourselves what concept of personhood is at work in Kaphagawani’s
analysis, and whether it is useful for Matolino to concern himself with
Kaphagawani’s analysis of personhood.
For example, Kaphagawani (2004: 332) talks of the “concept of
personhood that has drawn the attention of a great many scholars in
African philosophy”. He tells us that he is interested in presenting
30 M. MOLEFE
how “a person is conceived in … Africa” (ibid.). At the end of his

essay, Kaphagawani (341) informs us that he “attempted to survey and
expound on various conceptions of a person”. All of these references and
their repeated mention of the word person do not quite tell us what con-
cept(s) of it is under consideration, however. We may find the answer by
analysing the four theses he discusses. When considering the Akan and
Yoruba cultures with regard to personhood, Kaphagawani (2004: 332,
emphasis mine) indicates the notion of a ‘person’ under consideration
… on the Akan concept of person … a person is composed of three funda-

mental elements: …[body] …[life-giving entity], and … [that which gives
a person’s personality].
With regard to the Yoruba, he notes that the word used to capture per-
sonhood (enyin) is ambiguous between the “normative” and “literal
meaning”. The normative notion of a person is what I have described
as the agent-centred notion of personhood. In this regard, Gbadegesin
reports that greater emphasis is placed on the normative over the ‘literal’
meaning of the concept. Kaphagawani finds this claim regarding the nor-
mative notion to be contestable and controversial. Instead, he continues
to observe that “what seems incontestable about eniyan is that it consists
of four elements: ara, okan, emi, and ori” (Kaphagawani 2004: 333).
If the above is all the evidence we have at our disposal regarding the
notion of personhood under consideration in this essay, then it is clear
that Kaphagawani is after the metaphysical notion qua what physical or
spiritual properties constitute human nature. This interpretation is fur-
ther borne out by him setting aside the (contestable) normative notion
to focus on the (incontestable) metaphysical one.
It is not entirely clear when Kaphagawani proceeds to the ‘Force
thesis’ and ‘Communalism thesis’ that he is still pursuing the metaphys-
ical concept of a person comparable to those found among the Akan
and Yoruba cultures. The force thesis itself strikes one as metaphys-
ical claim, but when the force is discussed as a spiritual property pos-
sessed by a human being, it can lead to confusion. On the one hand,
by mere possession of force (or, life force) a being is considered to be
a person qua moral status/dignity (Bikopo and van Bogaert 2009: 44).
On the other, when the individual grows their life force by relating
positively with other human beings, such an individual attains person-
hood qua agent-centred personhood (Tempels 1959: 30, 32 and 59;
Menkiti 1984: 172). This distinction appears to escape both

Kaphagawani and Matolino in their analyses. Beyond that, it is not
entirely clear what notion of a person, really, Kaphagawani is pursuing at
this stage. It is no longer obvious that we are still considering the meta-
physical notion of personhood qua human nature.
The same conceptual confusion characterises the ‘communal-
ism thesis’, which is associated with Mbiti (and Menkiti). What Mbiti
(1969: 171) calls “a cardinal point in the understanding of man on the
African view of man” is but a metaphysical account qua humanisation/
socialisation (what I have been calling an account of personal identity).
The claim by Mbiti (1969: 108) that the community “makes, creates or
produces the individual” speaks to the crucial role, similar to that noted
by both Menkiti and Gyekye that the community plays in serving as a
social context for individuals to function as human beings. The ‘mak-
ing’ of a human being imagined here cannot be a banal one of procre-
ation since this is a universal (biological) practice of all cultures. What
is distinctive about this view is its emphasis on social relationships as
the basis for the negotiation of personal identity. Again, it appears that
Kaphagawani is discussing the concept of a ‘person’, but fails to be clear
about which notion specifically is under consideration—what is clear is
that it is not the same as the Akan/Yoruba notion he started off with.
Matolino’s criticisms of Kaphagawani do not intervene at the level
of conceptual clarification. Matolino’s intervention takes it for granted
that it is obvious what notion of personhood is under consideration in
Kaphagawani’s analysis. If the above analysis is true (that Kaphagawani
is not clear and consistent about what concept of personhood is crucial
in his elucidation of personhood in African philosophy), then Matolino
is right to reject it, but he does not do so for the correct reasons of con-
ceptual accuracy and characterisation.
Matolino (2014: 28) agrees with Ikuenobe’s observation that there
are two distinct notions of personhood in African philosophy: the met-
aphysical/descriptive and the normative (see also Ikuenobe 2006a, b,
2016, 2017). He disputes Ikuenobe’s suggestion that the metaphysi-
cal and descriptive terminologies are equivalent ways of talking about
personhood. Matolino argues that the idea of metaphysics and of
description are distinct and the former is more important philosophi-
cally than the latter. I am not sure why this quibble appears to be cru-
cial to Matolino. The essence of metaphysics as a philosophical task
involves giving descriptive accounts of things. The metaphysical question
32 M. MOLEFE
“what is time?” is answered by providing a descriptive account of the

thing called time. So, I do not take this to be a serious objection.
Furthermore, Matolino disputes the characterisation of the second
position as the “normative” notion of a person. He prefers to style it as
the “communitarian” view because it recognises the community as the
‘agent’ that defines or confers personhood. I disagree with this concep-
tual move. I do not care about how we style terms as long as we use
them correctly. Beyond that, I think it is philosophically important to use
the characterisation of the normative concept for two reasons. Matolino
suggests the first reason when he informs us that Ikuenobe borrows this
characterisation of the normative notion of personhood from Wiredu.
It is not just Wiredu that uses this convention though—it is standard
parlance used by almost all African philosophers including people like
Menkiti (2004), Gyekye (1997), Metz (2010), Van Niekerk (2007),
Behrens (2013), Molefe (2016a, b), and Oyowe (2014a, b, 2018), and
many others. Characterising this term as the normative notion of person-
hood is therefore done as part of a tradition. If one, however, insists of
talking about the communitarian notion of personhood, one can certainly
do so. But one should be careful to distinguish between the metaphysical
and the normative concepts of it as indicated in our discussion above.
The second reason why I prefer to use the normative concept of per-
sonhood instead of the communitarian one involves avoiding confusing
the concept of a person itself with the conditions or means required for
achieving personhood. Matolino argues that this notion of a concept
must be described as communitarian because it emphasises the com-
munity as the basis or the means for achieving personhood. I, however,
insist that we should separate the concept of personhood itself from the
means/conditions required for its achievement. It is philosophically pos-
sible—or even plausible, for the sake of being analytically accurate—to be
able to distinguish the conditions and means for achieving personhood
from the concept itself. I find it philosophically problematic to identify a
concept by its means and not in its own terms, namely as a normative/
moral concept.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I revisited important texts and debates in African phi-
losophy, which I deem to have played a significant role in rendering
the concept of personhood salient in the field. I considered these texts
for the sake of going beyond the conceptual morass that has tended to
characterise the discussion of the concept of personhood in African phi-

losophy. Scholars have not always been too conceptually keen to distin-
guish the various and varying concepts of personhood, and this has led
to debates being of a lower quality than expected of a philosophical dis-
course. The success of this book will largely depend on a clear under-
standing of the ethical category of personhood under consideration,
namely: the normative concept of personhood qua the agent-centred
notion of personhood.
In the next chapter, I explicate the idea of personhood as a moral
theory.
Notes
1. The point here is that the reader should note the ambiguity of the mini-
malist conception of personhood. The one sense of it is strictly metaphys-
ical and other sense of it, in some sense, is moral. Both these senses of
personhood are based on recognition of some ontological property, but the
recognitions involved play two different roles. The one recognition involv-
ing personal identity merely specifies features that are believed to be crucial
for accounting for the socialisation of the individuals. The other recogni-
tion involves identifying the ontological property that makes the entity in
question an object of direct moral concern and regard. It is in virtue of
possessing the relevant ontological features the entity possesses that she
is a member of the moral community, and thus deserving moral respect.
This distinction between these two minimalist conceptions of personhood
appears to escape Menkiti’s analysis.
2. It is crucial to note, if one relies on the first contrast, it would appear that
the minimalist conception pertains strictly to personal identity. But if one
relies on the second contrast, then it appears that the minimalist con-
ception is moral. The reader should note that Menkiti does not help the
reader with this possible confusion created by these two contrasts, the first
one reads as entirely metaphysical and the second is loaded with moral
overtones.
3. This confusion could be natural to the minimalist concept of personhood
because it is ambiguous between the idea of personal identity and moral
status.
4. Metz here is calling our attention to the following three concepts of per-
sonhood: (1) personhood qua human nature; (2) personhood qua moral
status; and (3) personhood qua moral excellence.
5. It is crucial to note that Matolino (2011; see also Molefe 2017c) in his
criticism of Menkiti’s conception of personhood was sympathetic to
Kaphagawani’s interpretation of it.
34 M. MOLEFE
References
Amanto, P. (2018). The Menkiti-Gyekye Conversation: Framing Persons.
Filosofia Theoretica, 7, 34–47.
Asante, K. M. (2018). The African Struggle to Abandon Westernity: African
Philosophy at Eshuen Crossroads. Filosofia Theoretica, 7, 19–34.
103–119.
Bikopo, B., & van Bogaert, L. (2009). Reflection on Euthanasia: Western and
African Ntomba Perspectives on the Death of a Chief. Developing World
Bioethics, 10, 42–48.
Darwall, S. (1977). Two Kinds of Respect. Ethics, 80, 36–49.
Donnelly, J. (1982a). Human Rights as Natural Rights. Human Rights
Quarterly, 4, 391–405.
Donnelly, J. (1982b). Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique
Eze, M., & Metz, T. (2016). Emergent Issues African Philosophy: A Dialogue
with Kwasi Wiredu. Philosophia Africana, 17, 73–86.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. In Person and
Gyekye, K. (1997). Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the
African Experience. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ikuenobe, P. (2016). Good and Beautiful: A Moral-Aesthetic View of Personhood
in African Communal Traditions. Essays in Philosophy, 17, 124–163.
Matolino, B. (2009). Radicals Versus Moderates: A Critique of Gyekye’s
Moderate Communitarianism. South African Journal of Philosophy, 28,
160–170.
Matolino, B. (2011). The (Mal) Function of “it” in Ifeanyi Menkiti’s Normative
Account of Person. African Studies Quarterly, 12, 23–37.
Publications.
Mbiti, J. (1969). African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Double Day and
Company.
Menkiti, I. (2004). On the Normative Conception of a Person. In K. Wiredu
(Ed.), Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 324–331). Oxford: Blackwell.
Menkiti, I. (2018). Person and Community—A Retrospective Statement.
Rights, 9, 81–99.
Metz, T. (2013). The Western Ethic of Care or an Afro-Communitarian Ethic?
Molefe, M. (2016a). Revisiting the Debate Between Gyekye-Menkiti: Who Is a
Molefe, M. (2016b). African Ethics and Partiality. Phronimon, 17, 104–122.
Molefe, M. (2017a). Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition. Politikon,
45(2), 217–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2017.1339176.
Molefe, M. (2017b). An African Perspective on the Partiality and Impartiality
Molefe, M. (2017c). The Function of “It” in Menkiti’s Account of Personhood:
A Response to Bernard Matolino. Filosofia Theoretica, 6, 90–109.
Oyowe, A. (2014a). Fiction, Culture and the Concept of a Person. Research in
African Literatures, 45, 42–62.
Oyowe, A. (2014b). An African Conception of Human Rights? Comments on
the Challenges of Relativism. Human Rights Review, 15, 329–347.
Tempels, P. (1959). Bantu Philosophy (C. King, Trans.). Paris: Présence Africaine.
4–25.
Wiredu, K. (2004). Introduction: African Philosophy in Our Time. In
CHAPTER 3
An Exposition of Personhood
as Moral Theory
Introduction
This chapter is central to the whole book insofar as it lays the founda-
tion for subsequent chapters. Remember that the aim of the subsequent
chapters is to explore and elucidate the moral and political implications
of personhood as a theory of value. I do so because by now, we know
that the idea of personhood has “significant [implications] … ethically
and politically” (Amato 2018: 35). Most of these moral and political
implications are yet to be explicated in the literature. For me to be able
to achieve this goal of expounding on the moral and political implica-
tions of personhood, I will need to first give a thoroughgoing account of
personhood as a theory of the good. The aim of this chapter, therefore,
is to proffer a philosophical exposition of personhood as a moral theory.
To give the reader what I take to be the nature of personhood as a moral
discourse in African philosophy, I explicate the following components
that constitute it as a system of value.
In the first part of the chapter, I draw a distinction between being
human and being a person for the sake of exploring the relationship
between the two concepts. One of the insights to emerge from elucidat-
ing this distinction is the clarification of the self-realisation/perfectionist
moral approach entailed by this ethical concept. In the second part, I
proceed to elaborate the character-based ethical worldview entailed by
the idea of personhood. The important insights to be gleaned from the
emphasis of the character-perfection goal inherent in the discourse of

38 M. MOLEFE
personhood are the ideas of humanism and individualism. The third part
of this chapter will consider the distinction between means and ends in
the light of the idea of personhood. I will there first clarify the concepts
of means and ends in moral philosophy. I will then proceed to elucidate
the role that is played by social relationships in the discourse of person-
hood. Finally, with regard to social relationships, I will be investigating
the question of whether social relationships serve as means or ends.
In the final analysis, the reader will appreciate the following regard-
ing personhood as a moral theory: firstly, personhood imagines an
agent-centred moral theory, which makes personal perfection the goal
of morality. Secondly, the reader will appreciate that the idea of person-
hood entails a secular approach to morality, usually captured in terms of
humanism. And—related to humanism—the reader will notice that per-
sonhood is a patently individualistic moral category. Finally, the reader
will notice that social relationships play a causal or instrumental role in
the discourse of personhood.
Before I elucidate on personhood as a moral theory, the following
clarification is important. The aim of this chapter is to expound on per-
sonhood as a moral theory, and no more. Specifically, I intend to give
the reader an overall sense of the moral theory entailed by the idea of
personhood. Pursuing this kind of aim, however, is not the same thing
as espousing the view that such a moral theory is plausible, or that it is
better than extant moral theories both in African philosophy and other
philosophical traditions. It is not within the ambit or focus of this book
to defend the plausibility of personhood. The chapter takes an expository
and an interpretative posture for the sake of pursuing under-explored
moral and political views of personhood in African philosophy. I intend,
however, to present what I take to be the most promising (if not neces-
sarily plausible) interpretation of personhood as a moral theory.
I begin my discussion below by considering the distinction between
being human and being a person.
Being Human and Being a Person

Scholars of African moral thought draw a distinction between merely
being human and being a person. Being human refers to a fact in the
world that there are such things as me, and as you, the reader of this
book. The idea of a person, on the other hand, is a moral concept assign-
ing “high praise” to the conduct of the human individual (Tutu 1999:
3 AN EXPOSITION OF PERSONHOOD AS MORAL THEORY 39
35). The high praise arises as a moral response to the quality of the per-
formance of the agent in the light of the norms prescribed by society
(Presbey 2002).1 To be called a person is to be morally judged to have
lived a morally upright life. To be called a non-person is to be morally
judged to have lived below what is befitting a truly human life. The dis-
tinction between being human and being a person tends to be captured
in the following fashion in African philosophy. Wiredu (1996: 159):
In one sense the Akan word onipa translates into the English word person
in the sense of human being, the possessor of okra, mogya, and sunsum.
In this sense everyone is a born a person, an onipa. This is the descriptive
sense of the word. But there is a further sense of the word onipa in which
to call an individual a person is to commend him; it implies a recognition
that s/he has attained a certain status in the community.
Ikuenobe (2016: 144) also captures this distinction thus:
There are two plausible conceptions of personhood. One is the descrip-

tive, physical-metaphysical and the other is the normative, moral-social. In
many African traditions, the idea of a person has both descriptive (physical
and metaphysical) and normative (social, moral and aesthetic) dimensions.
This distinction is crucial because it strongly indicates that personhood

(in the moral sense) is possible only for those things that are human
beings, i.e. those with a particular kind of ontological make-up.2 As such,
there is a direct and strict relationship between the ontological idea of
personhood (being human) and the normative one (being morally excel-
lent). To my mind, there are at least three ways to conceptualise the rela-
tionship between being human and being a person.
Firstly, the ontological status of being human is necessary but not
sufficient for one to count as a person. In other words, when we judge
someone to be a person, it is obvious and usually taken for granted that
she is a human being (Ikuenobe 2017). In this regard, Ramose’s (2003:
413, emphasis mine) comment is informative:
… the concept of a person in African thought takes the fact of being a human
being for granted. It is assumed that one cannot discuss the concept of per-
sonhood without in the first place admitting the “human existence” of the
human being upon whom personhood is to be conferred.
40 M. MOLEFE
Often when African scholars discuss the (moral) concept of a per-

son, they will not explicitly mention the ontological concept on which
it is predicated. This is usually the case because the ontological notion
of personhood is taken for granted. The crucial point to note here
from Ramose is that the idea of personhood (a moral property that we
acquire) depends on the fact of there being a human being underlying
the person in the first place. In other words, immediately we invoke the
idea of personhood, the idea of a human being is operational whether
explicitly mentioned or not. As such, personhood is possible only to
human beings.3 Ikuenobe (2016: 128) is quite specific about the nature
of the relationship that holds between these two categories: he avers that
being a person “supervenes” on being a human being. In other words,
certain facts about being human are crucial for the very possibility of
attaining personhood. The crucial question to be considered then is:
What are the facts of human nature that are decisive for the possibility of
personhood?
This question leads us to our second point concerning the relation-
ship between being human and being a person, which involves analys-
ing the metaphysical conception of human nature that informs the
discourse of personhood. Various considerations come to light regarding
an African conception of human nature, particularly in relation to moral-
ity. For example, in the African tradition, human nature is believed to be
morally neutral, at least at the beginning of life (Gyekye 1992). Moral
status, in terms of moral culpability, guilt, or shame, is a function only
attributable to human agency. There is no talk in this moral view of the
so-called original sin that we inherit from our ‘parents’ (Gyekye 2010).
At birth, we are neither saints nor sinners.
To appreciate the positive view of human nature characteristic of the
African metaphysical approach, one can compare it with the conception
of human nature central to Thomas Hobbes’ discourses on classical con-
tractualism. The metaphysical view of a ‘self’ informing classical contrac-
tualism, specifically, psychological egoism, conceives of human nature as
inherently and entirely driven by self-interest (Dzobo 1992; Wolf 1999;
Rachels and Rachels 2015). It is for this reason that Hobbes postulates
the mighty sword wielder to protect each individual against each other.
The same conclusion can be drawn in relation to John Rawls’ talk of
the hypothetical veil of ignorance. Individuals are imagined as standing
behind the veil of ignorance to manage the inherent self-interest of each
agent to foster a just society.
In contrast, the positive (African) view of human nature is captured in

terms of two related routes of enquiry. (This leads us back to the second
consideration regarding the African metaphysical view of human nature.)
The first is to ask: What is essential to human nature? The African met-
aphysical view is that a human being is believed to be essentially com-
munal by nature. In other words, on this view, social relationships are
not optional or escapable. To be human just is to be involved in social
relationships. This view is captured by Tutu (1999: 35) when he notes
that “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours”. This
is not just a view about the attitude that we may hold about others. This
is a deeply metaphysical claim about human nature, which conceives of
it as intrinsically relational. Gyekye notes (1992: 104, emphasis mine):
“The fundamentally relational character of the person and the interde-
pendence of human individuals arising out of their natural sociality are
thus clear”. Dzobo (1992: 132) emphatically captures this point by not-
ing that “community belongs to the very being of man” and he proceeds
to inform us that “an individual who is cut off from the commun(ity)
is nothing”. The point here is that human nature is understood to be
essentially social or relational. In other words, human beings by nature
are wired for relationships or are equipped to enter and continue rela-
tionships. Without, and outside of relationships the human project is not
possible at all or will be severely handicapped.4
This metaphysical view of the relational nature of the self should not
be surprising at all given the tendency by African scholars to be involved
in the debate regarding the nature of the relationship between the indi-
vidual and community (Mbiti 1969; Menkiti 1984; Gyekye 1992; Eze
2008). The discussions of personhood in African philosophy usually
emerge in the context of reflecting on the relation between the two. The
crucial debate here is whether the community is entirely or partially con-
stitutive of personhood.5 Scholars like Mbiti (1969) and Menkiti (1984)
hold the view that the community is indeed entirely constitutive of per-
sonhood; and, scholars like Gyekye (1992) and Eze (2008) tend to take
the relationship to be partial or a dialogical one. These scholars may
diverge on many matters regarding how best to capture the relationship
between the individual and community, but there is an overwhelming
consensus on the basic idea that human nature in African metaphysical
thought is best understood to be essentially social.
The second route of inquiry related to the metaphysical view of
human nature is directly related to the moral idea of personhood. Moral
42 M. MOLEFE
theories differ in many ways, among others in terms of what they take to
be the distinctive feature of human nature that makes humans into moral
agents. Kantian ethics singles out rationality/autonomy as such a distinc-
tive feature of human nature. If right actions are a function of develop-
ing maxims that can be universalised, it becomes obvious why rationality
is crucial. Or, if morality is a function of treating persons as ends, it is
obvious why autonomy is crucial. In the same light, scholars of African
thought hold the metaphysical view that human nature is wired with cer-
tain essential attributes/capacities that are crucial for morality (qua per-
sonhood) to be possible in the first place. The ontological make-up of
human nature is such that it is equipped for personhood to be possible
(but not guaranteed).
Adumbrations by Gyekye are instructive and enlightening regarding
the essential capacities of human nature necessary for personhood. It
is crucial to note that Gyekye’s comments occur in the context of the
debate with Menkiti over the idea of personhood. He begins by noting
that “much is expected of a person (human being) in terms of the dis-
play of moral virtue (achieving personhood)” in African moral cultures
(1992: 109). Gyekye justifies this expectation by pointing to the (meta-
physical) belief that “the practice of moral virtue is intrinsic to the con-
ception of person” (ibid., emphasis mine). I understand the idea that the
practice of moral virtue is intrinsic to human nature not to imply that
it is automatic for human beings to practise moral virtue (personhood).
Such a view would be blatantly false given the abundant empirical evi-
dence that suggests otherwise. Rather, the point is to capture the insight
that human beings come into the world with in-built ontological equip-
ment/capacity that makes it possible for them to practise moral virtue, if
they will. Gyekye interprets talk of intrinsic capacity to mean that “the
human person is considered to possess an innate capacity for virtue, for
performing morally right actions and therefore should be treated as a
morally responsible agent” (ibid., emphasis mine). The idea here is that
human beings are born with the innate capacity to develop and practise
moral virtue. It is precisely because human beings have these capacities
to attain personhood that we can expect them to achieve it.
In the light of the above, we can deduce that human beings in the
African tradition are ultimately responsible for their moral destiny. Their
nature does not disadvantage them insofar as they do not inherit the sins
of their fathers/mothers. We also noted that social relationships are seen
in a positive light, as being an essential feature of a robust human life,

which suggests that they will play a decisive role in the discourse of per-
sonhood. Finally, we noted that by nature a human being is wired to be
social and that she also has the innate capacity for moral virtue. In pos-
session of this understanding of human nature—central in the discourse
of personhood—we can proceed to elaborate the third relationship
between being human and being a person. Let us consider next how one
could succeed or fail at acquiring personhood.
This facet of the distinction between being human and being a
person captures the moral view characteristic of the idea of person-
hood. Typically, African scholars talk of personhood as something that
is acquired or as something the individual could fail at (Menkiti 1984:
173; Ramose 2003: 438). What does it mean to talk of personhood as
something that is acquired? I think the best way to think of it is in these
terms: personhood is something the agent needs to nurture, develop or
realise. In other words, since a human being, by nature, is relational and
has the innate capacity for virtue, it is expected of her to develop these
capacities. She is expected to transform her mere potential for virtue into
a moral reality.
To talk of personhood as something that one acquires imagines the
(long) process the agent requires in order to transition from merely
being human to being a person. Sebidi (1988: 84) makes the following
comment about human nature and morality in African moral thought:
For Africans, human nature is capable of increasing or decreasing almost to

a point of total extinction. There are actions … that are conducive to the
enhancement or growth of a person’s nature, just as there are those which
are destructive of a person’s nature.
I want to emphasise the metaphysical belief behind the view of morality

entailed by personhood: the idea that human nature or distinctive capac-
ities of human nature relevant to morality can either grow or diminish.
The growth we have in mind is a moral one in the light of the capacities
for virtue intrinsic in human nature. This talk of the moral growth of
our human nature—of our humanity—can also be imagined in terms of
a transition from the natural (mere possession of raw innate capacities) to
the morally exemplary (the cultivation of developed moral capacities).6
Menkiti (1984: 172) captures this idea of moral growth thus:
44 M. MOLEFE
We must also conceive of this [human] organism as going through a long

process of social and ritual transformation until it attains the full comple-
ment of excellencies seen as truly definitive of man.
Menkiti (1984: 176) construes personhood as a journey or a process of

transformation from merely being human (it-status) to acquiring per-
son-status. The goal of this “special journey” involves converting what
was biologically given—merely being human with its raw moral capaci-
ties—by adding to it moral dimensions, which Menkiti captures in vari-
ous places in the following terms: in one place, he talks of it as “widened
maturity of ethical sense” or “ethical maturity” or, as he styles it else-
where, “ingathering of the excellencies” (2004: 325, 2018: 165) pos-
sessed by “a moral being or a bearer of norms” (ibid.: 326).
Therefore, from the above, we note that the possession of personhood
is tantamount to the display/practice of “moral virtue” by a human
being (Gyekye 1992: 109). Or, stated in other terms, Wiredu (2009:
16) notes that the idea of personhood speaks to “a morally sound adult
who has demonstrated in practice a sense of responsibility to household
and society at large”. Why must this person be an adult? The reason for
this is not far to seek. As Menkiti (2004: 325) would note, there are no
short cuts in the process of developing moral virtue. Wiredu informs us
that it requires time to “develop (human) capabilities” to achieve the sta-
tus of a moral exemplar (2009: 16). So, in the final analysis, we note
that the idea of personhood imagines “a being-in-process” of developing
the capacities for virtue intrinsic to the human individual to the point
where she can habitually display moral virtue (Eze 2018: 2). The impor-
tant conclusion that can be drawn about this approach to African ethi-
cal thought qua personhood is that the call for the individual to aspire
to attain personhood is an invitation to develop those morally relevant
facets of her nature, or, more specifically, to develop a morally virtuous
character.
Personhood Embodies a Character-Based Ethics

To speak of the idea of personhood as embodying a moral vision that
requires agents to practise virtue is tantamount to saying that it is
a character-based moral view. To construe personhood in terms of
moral perfection (character development) has the following impor-
tant moral implications: firstly, it calls to mind the distinction between
action-centred and agent-centred approaches to morality (Annas 1992:

126). Much of the (modern) Western moral theorisation is concerned
with stipulating norms that account for what all im/permissible actions
have in common—think here of the distinction between ethical egoism,
utilitarianism, contractualism, and Kantian ethics, on the one hand; and,
on the other, virtue ethics (see, for example, Metz 2007: 321). Morality
in the Western discourse is dominated by identifying the relevant norms,
be it utility or rationality, so that we can distinguish right from wrong
actions.
Another way to think about morality is not to make actions the pri-
mary focus of morality, but to allow the agent herself to take centre
stage. The agent-centred approaches to morality tend to focus on things
like happiness, eudaimonia, and character. These foci essentially refer
to some valuable state of the individual or one that the agent ought to
achieve. This distinction surely is superficial, but it is useful to draw our
attention to the fact that the idea of personhood is concerned more with
the agent than what she does to/with her humanity in the moral sphere
(actions). In this way of thinking, roughly, morality is not a function of
actions per se (though actions are important), but actions are a function
of the quality of the character of the agent. Surely, it is a difficult task
to precisely capture the relationship between character and actions in
moral theorisation. It suffices, however, to note that the primary focus
of personhood is the character of the agent, and actions dynamically and
reflexively draw from and contribute to the development of a virtuous
character.
That the idea of personhood is agent-centred is best demonstrated by
the language employed by Menkiti to capture personhood. Remember,
Menkiti informed us that personhood is a function of the human agent
acquiring “all the inbuilt excellencies” necessary for it (1984: 173). To
talk of personhood is to observe that the humanity of the moral agent
has internalised norms/praxis of moral excellence (Gyekye 1992: 113;
Ikuenobe 2016: 114). Hence, Menkiti (1984: 171, 2018: 164) notes
that the term personhood is directly associated with moral “excellence”
or “accretion of excellences”. The point that is sharply emerging is that
the idea of personhood imagines a morality focused on what the agent
herself becomes as an individual; it imagines her making her humanity a
bearer of high standards of moral virtue.
Not only is the view of morality defended by Menkiti agent-centred,
this view of personhood, in a crucial sense, is also egoistic. The egoism
46 M. MOLEFE
of this view is best captured by two facts. Firstly, the goal of person-
hood is for the agent to perfect her own humanity. The goal of morality
points back to the agent, specifically, to her own, unperfected human-
ity. Secondly, it is the responsibility of the agent herself to perfect her
humanity. The idea of personhood embodies the moral responsibility
the agent has towards her own humanity (Wingo 2006).7 The following
assertions by Menkiti decidedly point towards an egoistic interpretation
of personhood. To begin, Menkiti (2018: 165) notes—“My answer here
is that God may have created us, but we have to make ourselves into the
persons that God wanted us to be”. He also avers that though the sug-
gestion is not to replace “God as the author of our being, but rather that
our being as persons in the world is substantially of our making” (ibid.:
166). Agada (2018: 149) endorses the egoistic view of personhood by
construing it as one that requires the moral agent to pursue the project
of “self-transcendence, self-actualisation, and self-creation”. The respon-
sibility to pursue moral perfection is ultimately one that belongs to the
agent herself.
Given the egoism that characterises personhood, it is not surprising
therefore to find the following comments on personhood in the litera-
ture. Wiredu (2009: 15) comments thus on this notion: “… to be called
a person is to be commended. Inversely, to be called a non-person is,
in general, to be downgraded”. Wiredu understands the use of the term
‘person’ to be one that attaches moral praise to the agent in virtue of the
quality of her conduct. To call one a non-person is to downgrade her,
not in terms of the fact that she is no longer human and therefore loses
out on her basic and ineliminable respect, but to specify that she is liv-
ing below what is expected of a human being, morally speaking. Wiredu
(ibid.) proceeds to suggest that the idea of personhood presupposes an
ethical system in this way:
But such evaluation [that one is a person or a non-person] presupposes

a system of values. Since the context of such evaluations is nothing short
of the entire sphere of human relations, the system of values presupposed
cannot be anything short of an ethic …. (see also Gyekye 2010)
The insight to be gleaned from Wiredu is that the idea of personhood

or the assigning of personhood to individuals implies a system of values
or an ethical system. To be called a person is tantamount to the recogni-
tion that one is leading a life that is consonant with certain values; and,
Wiredu is quite specific about the scope of the relationship under con-
sideration in this system of values—the entire sphere of human relations.
Put simply, to judge someone to be leading a good human life implies
that one has some moral standards against which she can appraise the
conduct of the agent and arrive at such a conclusion. In other words,
lurking behind the idea of personhood is a particular system of values.
Wiredu does not proceed, however, to elaborate the nature of the system
of values entailed by the moral concept of personhood. The reader is left
hanging regarding whether the system in question is consequentialist,
deontological or something else.
We get our answer regarding the nature of the moral system inher-
ent in the discourse of personhood from Behrens’ analysis of the idea of
personhood. Behrens, in an article dedicated to analysing the idea of per-
sonhood dominant in African philosophy makes the following comment
(2013: 111, emphasis mine):
Menkiti’s association of the term ‘excellencies’ with personhood also

implies that becoming a person is essentially related to developing virtue.
Thus, the African conception of personhood could be thought to propose a the-
ory of ethics that brings to mind what Western philosophy calls ‘perfection-
ism’: Persons should seek to develop a good or virtuous nature in order to
become true or fully moral persons.
We should notice that Behrens, like Menkiti above, directly connects the
idea of personhood to the practice or display of moral virtue. To attrib-
ute personhood to the agent is tantamount to making a judgement about
the quality of her character insofar as her character displays moral excel-
lence. Behrens goes further to indicate that this talk of personhood ima-
gines a system of values that in the Western ethical discourse is termed
the perfectionist approach to moral value. We are informed that the term
(moral) ‘perfectionism’ “is associated with ethical theories that character-
ise the human good in terms of the development of human nature” (Wall
2012).8 Scholars of perfectionist approaches distinguish between two ver-
sions: (1) those that make the well-being of agents the moral end and (2)
those that make excellence the goal of morality (Wall 2012). The perfec-
tionism that characterises the discourse of personhood we have been dis-
cussing is of the latter type—connecting personhood directly to human
excellence. The ultimate goal of morality is the perfection of character,
and well-being will be a secondary moral consideration. Should these
48 M. MOLEFE
two values clash, excellence will prevail over well-being. All things being
equal, however, well-being will be a part of a morally excellent life.
Metz (2007: 331) proposes another way to conceptualise personhood
as a system of value in terms of it embodying a self-realisation approach.
Remember, we have already noted that according to Metz personhood in
African philosophy embodies the most dominant way to interpret African
ethics. I think this talk of self-realisation amounts to the same view as the
perfectionist approach, particularly the egoistic version of it. This read-
ing of matters is sustained by Metz’s comment that the self-realisation
approach construes the moral good entirely in terms of the agent’s duty
“to realise one’s distinctively human and valuable nature …” (ibid.). The
language of realisation used by Metz indicates that the agent has a duty
to develop those morally relevant facets of her nature. What the idea of
self-realisation makes clear, however, is that the perfectionist approach
imagined here is the egoistic one; hence, it is styled the self-realisation.
In other words, the agent has a duty to herself to perfect her own nature.
Several objections have been raised against the perfectionist egoistic
interpretation of personhood. Specifically, Metz raises two objections
against it. The first objection points out that this theory will not be able
to accommodate heroic acts like those of self-sacrifice or martyrdom in
the fashion of Jesus or Bantu Stephen Biko since such acts kill the agent;
and, for the agent to be able to perfect herself, at the very least, being
alive is required (Metz 2007: 330). I find Van Niekerk’s (2007; see also
2013) response to this objection to be sufficient and plausible. As such, I
will not repeat it here. The second objection is the more concerning one.
It is expressed thus by Metz (2007: 330):
Suppose that you need a new kidney to survive and that no one will give
one to you. Then, to maximise your self-realisation, you would need to
kill another innocent person so as to acquire his organs. Of course, in kill-
ing you would not be realising yourself, for the theory says that to realise
yourself you must do so by positively supporting other persons in some
way. However, since you can positively support other persons in the long-
term only by remaining alive, which in this case requires killing another
person, the theory counter-intuitively seems to permit murder for one’s
own benefit.
Several responses are possible to this objection. Firstly, one can invoke
social relationships in the way Metz does. In fact, Van Niekerk (2007)
invokes social relationships but insists that genuine relationships will not
be the kinds that sacrifice others in the way Metz suggests. One can also
build constraints into the theory, by including rights that will constrain
the actions of the agent and prevent her from killing others. Van Niekerk
(and I) do not find the discourse of rights to be at home in the idea of
personhood (see Van Niekerk 2007; and Chapter 7 of this book). For his
part, Van Niekerk (2007, 2013) concedes to the force of this objection
by Metz towards the egoistic interpretation of personhood.
I think one useful way to overcome this objection is to tweak the
egoistic interpretation of personhood somewhat. Note, Metz interprets
the egoistic interpretation of personhood in consequentialist terms;
hence, according to him the agent is required to maximise her self-
realisation. A more promising interpretation of personhood and one that
is consistent with the literature is a deontological one. The goal of the
consequentialist interpretation is for the agent to pursue as much per-
fection as is possible, which might involve sacrificing others to achieve
this goal (McNaughton and Rawling 1992; Wall 2012). The deontolog-
ical interpretation requires the agent to merely respect the capacity for
virtue, which serves simultaneously as a constraint against killing others.
The deontological approach is at home in African philosophy. This is the
case because scholars of personhood are equally committed to the idea
of dignity, which serves as a restriction that imposes limits over means
we may use to maximise the good or perfection (Gyekye 1992; Ramose
2009; Metz 2011). This commentary by Wiredu (2009: 16) on the idea
of personhood is informative:
Take, for instance, the Akan word for a person, which is Onipa. A little
understanding of Akan will reveal that the word is ambiguous. In contexts
of normative comment, the word means a human individual of a certain
moral and social standing, as we have explained. On the other hand, in
narrative contexts it means simply a human being. Thus, in the normative
sense a ten seconds old baby is not yet an onipa. But anybody who takes
her life in vain has, from an Akan traditional standpoint, trifled with the
life of an onipa, an embodiment of a speck of the divine substance, and is
deserving of the severest sanctions.
This commentary by Wiredu endorses the distinction between being

human and being a person. The status of being human secures the dig-
nity of a human being and thus serves as a restriction. According to
50 M. MOLEFE
Wiredu, dignity is a function of possessing okra (a religious interpre-

tation of dignity); on our part, we take the capacity for virtue as the
ground for dignity (a secular interpretation of dignity). The point, how-
ever, stands that the status of merely being human is sufficient to secure
the dignity of a human being. As such, the pursuit of personhood as the
moral goal is constrained by the dignity of a human being. In this way,
the deontological interpretation of the perfectionist egoistic view of per-
sonhood is a successful response to Metz’s objection.
In the light of the above, we note the following crucial facts associ-
ated with the idea of personhood as a moral theory. The idea of per-
sonhood imagines a (deontological) egoistic perfectionist moral theory
that requires agents to perfect or realise their capacity for virtue as far as
is possible without violating the dignity of human beings. One conclu-
sion is inescapable from this analysis: the idea of personhood imagines
a personal moral perfection as the goal of morality within the confines
of respecting human dignity. As such, the idea of personhood as inter-
preted here, does not necessarily require the agent to maximise it; it can
be understood as embodying the satisficing moral logic (Slote and Pettit
1984). In other words, the duty of the agent is to pursue (enough) per-
sonal perfection within the constraints of maintaining and contributing
to healthy social relationships with others.
The personal-character-perfection goal of morality characterising the
idea of personhood should come as no surprise given the evidence that
African ethical thought in general tends to accentuate character as the
focus of morality. For example, Gyekye investigates the moral terms used
by various African languages to talk about ethics/morality. The conclu-
sion of his analysis endorses the idea that the moral language employed
in various African countries tends to be character-centred (Gyekye
2010). This comment regarding African ethics by Gyekye should also
come as no surprise—“Good character is the essence of the African moral
system, the linchpin of the moral wheel” (Gyekye 2010).
Furthermore, the character-focused nature of personhood is suggested
by the tendency of scholars to use the language of virtue in the discourse
of personhood (Van Niekerk 2013). Below, I give the reader a grab-
bag list of virtues usually associated with personhood. One observation
should not escape the notice of the reader: the fact of the almost exclusive
emphasis and focus on relational virtues. For example, Tutu’s (1999: 35)
reflections on the individual that has attained personhood (ubuntu) are
instructive:
When we want to give high praise to someone we say, “Yu, u nobuntu”;

“Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu.” Then you are generous, you are hospitable,
you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have.
Former Justice Mokgoro (1998: 3), talking on personhood (ubuntu), states:
Group solidarity, conformity, compassion, respect, human dignity, human-

istic orientation and collective unity have, among others been defined as
key social values …
The point that is emerging from the above is that the idea of person-
hood heavily leans on the side of other-regarding virtues as the defining
feature of a morally sound character. As such, it should not escape the
reader that the moral achievement of character perfection, while being
an achievement of the individual, manifests through the exhibition of
other-regarding duties or virtues.
We are now in a position to consider the two crucial implications
that we can draw from the fact that the idea of personhood is character-
centred. The first has to do with the meta-ethical view of humanism and
the second involves the idea of moral individualism. I begin by discussing
the idea of humanism in relation to personhood.
‘Humanism’ is a meta-ethical position that reduces all moral value to
some facet of human nature (see Molefe 2015a, b).9 The dominant posi-
tion in the literature in African philosophy is that humanism is the most
plausible position in the debate against ethical-supernaturalism or, even,
non-naturalism (Wiredu 1980; Gyekye 1995; Metz 2007; Okeja 2013).
For example, Wiredu captures humanism in this fashion—“it is a human
being that has value”. Elsewhere, he observes that “the first axiom of
all Akan axiological thinking is that man or woman is the measure of
[moral] value” (1996: 65). Biko (45 and 46) commenting on some fac-
ets of African cultures makes the following observation:
One of the most fundamental aspects of our culture is the importance we

attach to Man. Ours has always been a Man-centred society … We believe
in the inherent goodness of man. We enjoy man for himself … Hence in all
we do we always place man first.
Biko reveals that Afro-communitarianism is a human-centred and

human-focused moral culture. It is a culture that attaches intrinsic value
52 M. MOLEFE
to human life, as such. It is a culture that organises itself around the high
prize associated with the values inherent in human beings. It is interest-
ing to note that Biko’s assertion echoes the words of Leopold Senghor
(1964: 65): “Man remains our first consideration: He constitutes
our measure”. The same view can be adduced from Kaunda’s human-
ism, which makes some facet of human nature the basis for its political
arrangement of Zambia’s socio-economic transformation.
The point I am making is that insofar as morality in terms of per-
sonhood is explained entirely as a function of some capacity intrinsic to
human nature, it follows that this term is humanistic. In other words,
like much of African ethical thought, to be committed to personhood
is tantamount to being committed to the position that morality is not
based on any spiritual consideration, but on some facet of human nature
(Wiredu 1980).10 As such, we can note that the idea of personhood
embodies a humanist perfectionist moral vision, which enjoins agents to
perfect their humanity.
Secondly, the character-based approach to morality of personhood
also suggests that this term is best characterised in terms of (moral)
individualism.11 The idea of individualism can be ambiguous in African
philosophy. One may use this term in a disparaging manner to refer to
individuals or cultures that promote self-interest or even selfishness.
I think Metz (2007: 326) refers to individualism in this negative sense
when he notes that:
… one continues to find contemporary African thinkers railing against

Western … “unbridled individualism,” and “morally blind, purely eco-
nomic logic,” instead tending to favor certain kinds of cooperatives.
Another sense of individualism dominant in the debates in African phi-

losophy pertains to the question of personal identity. This debate also
dominated the discussion between liberals and communitarians in the
Western philosophical tradition (Neal and Paris 1990). In terms of this
debate, a view is individualistic insofar as it accounts for socialisation or
personal identity largely by appeal to features intrinsic to a person (like
memory, consciousness or even the possession of a soul). Talk of indi-
vidualism as an account of personal identity is a metaphysical discourse
(Gyekye 1992).
However, I use the idea of individualism in the sense dominant in
environmental ethics, where one can distinguish between individualism,
holism and relationalism (Behrens 2011; Metz 2012; Molefe 2017a). To

say a moral theory is individualistic, it is to make a claim about where
it ultimately locates moral value, specifically in some feature/s intrinsic
to the individual (Mueller 1989). The defining essence of individual-
ism as a moral approach is that it takes “particular characteristics” of the
individual, not membership, as the basis for morality (May 2014). That
is, particular (individual) internal properties like the capacity for pleas-
ure, the soul, autonomy, vitality and so on, are the basis for morality.
Put simply, some intrinsic facet of the individual serves as the basis for
morality. In this regard, the idea of personhood makes some ontological
features—the capacity for virtue which needs to be developed—the basis
for morality.
Thus, we can conclude that insofar as the moral idea of personhood
makes the perfection of the character of the individual the essential focus
of morality, it is overtly individualistic. The individual has a duty to per-
fect her own humanity—to make it morally appreciable. It is impor-
tant to note that to refer to some moral theory as individualistic, in this
sense, is not the same thing as to criticise it. It is merely to describe the
approach it takes to account for morality. As such, theories such as utili-
tarianism, Kant’s deontological ethics, and the like, are individualistic in
this sense. Utilitarianism, for example, grounds morality in the capacity
for welfare, be it construed in terms of pleasure or preference satisfaction
(Kymlicka 1990). Insofar as welfare, understood in terms of quality of
life, is a property of the individual, then utilitarianism as a moral theory is
individualistic.
Thus, in the light of the above two implication drawn from the char-
acter-focused nature of personhood, we discern humanism and indi-
vidualism. From the above, we can affirm the view that the idea of
personhood embodies a perfectionism that is both humanistic and ego-
istic. The source of value is the human capacity for virtue that requires
perfection and the aim of morality is for the agent to pursue her own
perfection.
If my analysis above is correct in stating that the idea of person-
hood is individualistic (egoistic), then why do some scholars refer to
it also as communitarian? I think a more robust way to make sense
of the idea of personhood is to appreciate both its individualistic and
communitarian facets, while underscoring the importance of its indi-
vidualism. This emphasis tends not to feature in the literature (Molefe
2017a). To elucidate the two facets of this notion—individualism and
54 M. MOLEFE
relationalism (communitarianism)—it will be helpful to invoke the dis-

tinction between means and ends in the moral discourse of personhood
(Tshivhase 2013).
Means and Ends in Personhood

Below, I begin by elaborating on the distinction between means and
ends in moral philosophy. Christine Korsgaard (1983) draws a distinc-
tion between two kinds of values. On the one hand, there are things that
are valuable in themselves; and, on the other, there are those whose value
depends on their usefulness. Those things that are valuable in themselves
are intrinsically valuable—denoting the fact that their value inheres in
them. Intrinsically valuable things are to be valued for their own sakes
or as final ends. The value of things, however, that are valued for their
usefulness is captured in extrinsic terms insofar as their value depends on
factors external to them. These kinds of things are valuable instrumen-
tally insofar as their value is contributory to some goal while they are not
part of that goal.
Take the value of pleasure, for example, supposing it is intrinsically
valuable like hedonists and Epicureans take it to be. One would pursue
it because it is good in itself. The sole reason for pursuing pleasure is
the mere fact that it is good. So, the pursuer of pleasure pursues it for its
own sake, and no other. Unlike a hammer, for example, which is valuable
merely instrumentally. A hammer has value insofar as it is useful to fix
doors, tables and so on. In and of itself, it does not occasion moral value.
As such, talk of moral ends is tantamount to talk of things that are intrin-
sically valuable, which are also understood as final ends—they capture the
goal of morality. And, talk of means refers to those things that are valued
insofar as they are useful for achieving some end (though they are not
part of it). Roughly, this is how the distinction between means and ends
features in moral philosophy. Below, I proceed to apply this distinction
to the discourse of personhood. The aim of this section is to explore the
role that social relationships play in the discourse of personhood.
There is no dispute in the literature that social relationships play some
role or even a decisive one in the discourse of personhood. This point
is lucidly captured by Menkiti (2004: 324) when he notes that African
“morality demands a point of view best described as one of being-
ness-with-others”. This assertion by Menkiti should be understood as
underscoring the importance of social relationships in morality, but it is
not yet clear what specific role is played by social relationships in the dis-
course of personhood. Metz (2013a: 145, emphasis mine) captures this
complaint regarding the distinction between means and ends as follows:
I first point out that too often the language in his [Masolo’s] text blurs the
distinction between the means by which one can obtain personhood and
the nature of personhood itself. He, with a large thrust of the field, clearly
believes there is a close relationship between being part of a certain kind of
society and being a person, but the nature of the relationship too often is not
characterised precisely.
The discussion in context is the analysis of the idea of personhood as it

features in Masolo’s works. The complaint is that African scholars do not
pay sufficient analytic attention to the distinction between means and
ends, which tends to obstruct their intentions to explicate the nature of
personhood as a moral theory. Two points strike me with regard to the
above complaint. The first is that we should be able to discuss the nature
of personhood without confusing it with the means required to achieve
it. Secondly, there is an underappreciated theoretical responsibility
involving the need to be precise regarding whether we take social rela-
tionships to play a causal or a constitutive role in the discourse of person-
hood. Put in more precise terms, we need to decide whether: (1) social
relationships help to achieve personhood or (2) personhood just is being
engaged in certain kinds of social relationships. The first position reduces
the role of social relationships to one of means—they are instrumentally
good. The second position reduces personhood itself to engagement in
social relationships—social relationships are taken to be the end, or what
personhood is all about.
It cannot be the case that both positions are true—it is either the case
that relationships are causal or constitutive of personhood. Getting to a
plausible position regarding whether relationships play a causal or con-
stitutive role is crucial because doing so will cast light on the question of
why the discourse on personhood tends to be described in terms of com-
munitarianism or relationalism in African philosophy.
I defend the view that social relationships, at best, in the discourse
of personhood, ought to be understood to play an instrumental role.
I employ two strategies to defend this position: the first evidence that
social relationships play an instrumental role is secured by the analysis of
the ideas of humanism/egoism associated with personhood, as I noted
56 M. MOLEFE
above. The second strategy is to demonstrate the implausibility of one

influential approach that argues that personhood is constituted by certain
kinds of social relationships, defended by Metz (2013b).
Humanism and the Instrumentality of Relationships

In my analysis of the idea of personhood, above, I noted that the idea
of personhood entails the ideas of humanism and individualism. These
two moral concepts concern issues pertaining to: (1) the nature of moral
properties and (2) the goal of morality. We noted regarding (1) that
moral properties are a function of the human capacities that require per-
fection and regarding and (2) we noted that the goal of morality is essen-
tially connected with the moral agent pursuing such perfection. Evidence
for humanism is provided by Menkiti in this fashion (1984: 177):
The foregoing interpretation would incidentally rule out, I believe, some

dangerous tendencies currently fashionable in some philosophical circles of
ascribing rights to animals. The danger as I see it is that such an exten-
sion of moral language to the domain of animals is bound to undermine,
sooner or later, the clearness of our conception of what it means to be a
person …
Menkiti’s conviction that it is wrong to ascribe rights to animals is pred-

icated on his conception of personhood. The domain of morality under
the rubric of personhood, according to him, clearly excludes animals.
He considers it a (moral) danger to include animals in our discourse of
morality or justice. The reason why, for Menkiti (ibid., emphasis mine),
animals cannot be covered under the blanket of justice is precisely the
fact that they do not have “the constitutive elements … of human per-
sonhood” that are the basis for “rights ascription”. Menkiti (ibid.) is
very clear that “the basis of such rights ascription has now been made
dependent on a possession of a capacity for moral sense”, that is, the
ability/capacity for rational deliberation and execution of our duties to
others. Therefore, since animals lack these human capacities, they are
outside of the domain of morality and justice.
The crucial point that I am making is that this moral concept reduces
all morality to some facet of human nature. In other words, in the final
analysis morality, in some sense, is concerned about what happens inside
the individual, with regard to her perfecting her human capacities.
Above, I also indicated that humanistic approaches are individualis-

tic insofar as they locate morality in some facet of human nature. The
crucial conclusion then to be drawn from the humanism and individual-
ism of personhood is that it locates the single and most important goal
of morality in the perfection of human capacities. The egoism associ-
ated with personhood further makes it the agent’s chief goal to perfect
her own humanity. In other words, if I am correct that individualism
is a feature of personhood then it follows that the good is a function
of developing some features internal to the individual. By implication,
relationships, no matter how good they may be, cannot be an end in
themselves, because the moral end in this system is captured in terms of
individual properties that need to be developed in order for the agent to
attain personhood. There should be no dispute, therefore, in the litera-
ture that the moral end of personhood should be understood in terms of
moral individualism, which is further accentuated by the moral egoism
that accompanies it.
The egoism of this moral view is captured thus by Shutte (2001:
30)—“(T)he moral life is seen as a process of personal growth … Our
deepest moral obligation is to become more fully human”. Metz (2010:
83) also notes that:
The ultimate goal of a person, self, or human in the biological sense should
be to become a full person, a real self, or a genuine human being, i.e., to
exhibit virtue in a way that not everyone ends up doing.
The goal of morality in the discourse of personhood, the moral end,

is to value some capacity in the individual—her achieving the ideal
character. Shutte talks of the ideal of personhood in terms of full
humanity, which I understand in terms of the individual exhibiting
moral virtue. Metz corroborates this interpretation of personhood
which he construes as positing the display of moral virtue as the goal
of morality (qua personhood). Thus, it is safe to note that if the goal
of morality is for the individual to exhibit virtue, it cannot be the case
that relationships are moral ends insofar as they are constitutive of it.
The moral end is constituted by individuals achieving sound moral
characters.
The rebuttal that the objector could make is to point out that the
moral perfection of the individual is constituted by engaging in these
social relationships. Below, I proceed to reject this kind of interpretation.
58 M. MOLEFE
Rejection of Social Relationships as the Moral End

One might object to the view defended above by noting that scholars
like Metz (2013a, b) defend the view that personhood is constituted by
social relationships, and I cannot simply ignore their view. It is crucial to
begin by noting that Metz draws a distinction between theories that are
individualistic and those that are relational, and holds these to represent
two competing conceptions of moral ends. Metz (2007: 331) captures
this distinction thus:
A different understanding of the morality of ubuntu [African ethics]

includes the idea that moral value fundamentally lies not in the individual,
but rather in a relationship between individuals.12
The suggestion by Metz here is that there are two ways to think about
(intrinsic) moral value. On the one hand, one can place fundamental
value in the individual herself; and, on the other, one can locate it in
the interpersonal relationship between individuals. Metz (ibid., emphasis
mine) continues to observe that:
Similarly, one might morally value something about people as they are in
themselves or as being part of certain relationships. The idea that interper-
sonal relationships of some kinds have basic moral status is not often found
in Anglo-American or Continental normative theory.
Metz continues to insist on the distinction between individualistic the-

ories of value, which ultimately value something about the individual
herself, and those theories that value some interpersonal relationship
between individuals. It is crucial to note that in the context of this dis-
tinction, Metz notes that much of African ethical theories tend to be indi-
vidualistic. It is important to note that with regard to personhood, Metz
(ibid.) informs us that the idea of personhood entails a system of values
that “ground morality in something internal to the individual … self-
realisation”. If this is all we had to go by, it would seem that Metz is
endorsing the view that personhood bases morality, in terms of moral ends,
not in relationships per se, but in the individual realising her true humanity.
Furthermore, Metz proceeds to criticise this self-realisation theory of
ethics on the very ground of it postulating self-development as the ulti-
mate reason for moral actions. In this light, Metz (2007: 332) opines:
I now question the theory’s ability to provide an attractive explanation of

them. If I ask why I should help others, for example, this theory says that
the basic justificatory reason to do so … is that it will help me by making
me more of a … person. However, a better fundamental explanation of
why I ought to help others appeals not to the fact that it would be good
for me, or at least not merely to this fact, but to the fact that it would
(likely) be good for them, an explanation that a self-realisation ethic by
definition cannot invoke.
Metz here continues to explicate the features of the idea of personhood,

by pointing out that it is a self-realisation approach. In other words, the
ultimate goal of this theory is for the agent to focus on herself by way of
realising her true distinctive capacities. This reading reinforces the idea
that personhood is individualistic (egoistic). Another crucial point to
note from the above is the fact that this moral theory makes the agent
herself the basis and focus of morality In the criticism offered by Metz,
personhood accounts for altruism, by also invoking the agent as part of
the explanation for assisting the other. The very part that Metz singles
out (egoism) to point to the implausibility of this ethical theory strongly
suggests that the ultimate focus and goal of personhood is the agent nur-
turing and developing her capacities for virtue—again suggesting that
the moral end is individualistic.
The problem begins when Metz (2013b: 148) seeks to defend what
he calls “the communal perspective of personhood”. On this view, “per-
sonhood is constituted by, and not merely caused by, certain relationships
with other human beings” (ibid., emphasis mine). He also captures this
position in these terms—“one lives a genuinely human way of life (has
personhood) just insofar as one enters into or prizes community with
others”. On this view, personhood—or a genuine human life—just is
being caught up in certain kinds of social relationships. What kinds of
relationships constitute personhood or a genuine human life? Metz is
quite specific about the relationships that do the moral job.
According to Metz’s view, personhood is constituted by combin-
ing two social relationships: those of social identity and solidarity (Metz
2007, 2010, 2013b). ‘Social identity’ refers “to sharing a way of life”
with others (1) where one thinks of herself and those with whom she is
bounded in relationships in terms of “we”; (2) where those in the group
share goals, aims and aspirations; and (3) where they collaborate to pur-
sue their shared goals (Metz 2007, 2010, 2013a, 2014). By ‘solidarity’,
60 M. MOLEFE
he has in mind caring and supportive relationships, where the welfare

of others is pursued for their own sakes (Metz 2007, 2010, 2013a,
2014).
To be called a person in Metz’s interpretation is to be living a genu-
inely human life insofar as one will be sharing a way of life with others
and will be advancing the welfare of those whom she is in relationships
with via care and support. I find this communal or relational approach
to personhood to be objectionable on one crucial ground—it betrays the
moral logic of drawing the distinction between individualism and rela-
tionalism that Metz introduced in the discourse of African ethics.
The focus of the communal view of personhood is other-centred and
the focus of the perfectionist view is agent-centred. The problem with
the communal view is that it offers a wrong understanding of social rela-
tionships. Consider this example: suppose one can either pay for their
own educational fees or they can use money to advance themselves edu-
cationally (this example must be imagined in the context of a trade-off).
On the perfectionist egoistic view, the agent does well by investing the
money in her own education for the sake of developing herself. On the
communal view, things are not as simple as that because the most impor-
tant consideration is the interpersonal relationship itself, which consti-
tutes personhood. The focus of the communal view is not on the agent
herself, in the first place, but the communal relationships that constitute
personhood. If both the agent and the other require education, it is dif-
ficult to see how the agent should resolve this tension on the commu-
nal view. The problem specifically with the relationships Metz invokes to
account for personhood is that, in a way, they sacrifice the individual at
the altar of social relationships.
The relationship of identity requires the agent to always think of her-
self in terms of beingness-with-others to the point where it is not clear
what and where the place of ‘I’ is in morality—the self-realisation facet is
fundamentally threatened. The agent is required, if she is to prize prop-
erly the relationship of identity, to think of her own personal identity
always in terms of being related to others. I think the communal view
gives an exaggerated understanding of social relationships by posit-
ing them as what constitutes personhood (Molefe 2017b). Or, to press
the objection in another way, if the goal of the agent is to realise her
true humanity, what should the agent do should the good of the social
relationship clash with the good of the individual (for example, in the
context where there is a scarcity of resources to pursue the collective

goals of ‘we’ or to pursue that goal as an individual)? The point, again, is
to recognise that the communal view exaggerates the role of social rela-
tionships. And, secondly, it misses the basic point that the focus of per-
sonhood is ultimately personal development.
Even if my objection against the communal view of personhood is
correct, it does not take away the objection (suggested by Metz above)
that this theory fails to offer an attractive explanation for altruism that
is other-centred. The answer to this objection is suggested in a correct
understanding of the role of social relationships in personhood.
The Role of Relationships in Personhood

In keeping with Metz’s suggestion, we need to distinguish between the
nature of personhood as a theory that ultimately values some facets of
human nature for their own sake and one that values relationships for
their own sakes. If truly personhood is individualistic, it cannot also be a
theory that ultimately values relationships for their own sakes—we can-
not have two ends (this is the case particularly in contexts where ethical
monism has not been demonstrated to be implausible). So, the goal of
personhood is for the individual to achieve a sound character; and the
social relationships serve as incubators where individuals carve out their
personhood.
The causal role played by social relationships is captured in this way by
Bénézet Bujo (2001: 88, emphasis mine), one of the scholars of African
moral thought, when he observes that:
… acting in solidarity for the construction of the community allows him-

self to be brought to completion by this same community, so that he can
become a person truly.
On Bujo’s account, some positive engagement with the community is

efficacious for the individual to achieve moral completion or to become
a person truly. Shutte (2001: 24) notes that “I only become fully human
to the extent that I am included in relationships with others”. The pos-
sibility for personhood requires the agent to be continuously embed-
ded in positive relationships with others. It is in this light that Menkiti’s
(1984: 172) comment about the “incorporation” of the individual into
62 M. MOLEFE
the community is crucial, as it captures the community as the context in

which moral perfection is possible. Eze’s (2018: 2) comment is relevant
when he points out that the idea of community refers to the embodi-
ment of “communal goods [that] we call virtues [that] are internal to
the practices of a community practices through which a person [a human
being] achieves full humanity [personhood]”. Menkiti (2018: 166)
refers to these communal goods or virtues internal to the practices of a
community practices as “the collective resources at hand for the task [of]
person-becoming”.
To further clarify the instrumental role played by social relationships
in the discourse of personhood, Menkiti (1984: 1720, emphasis mine;
see also Agada 2018: 149 and 151) also notes that “during this long
process of attainment [of personhood], the community plays a vital role
as catalyst and as prescriber of norms”. A catalyst (a term borrowed from
chemistry) serves as a means in the chemical process and never as an
end. The idea that the community also serves as the prescriber of norms
implies that social relationships and institutions serve as moral guides; it
is ultimately the responsibility of the individual to internalise and actual-
ise these values in the individual’s moral praxis. A road sign assists indi-
viduals with directions, it is the individual that is to follow the direction.
Or, for a more powerful example, the drugs prescribed by a doctor do
not constitute health but serve as a means for the agent to recover and
regain her health. As such, the perfectionist egoistic moral theory locates
the good in what the agent achieves (moral perfection) and it posits rela-
tionships as the single most important instrument to achieve such an
end.
One outstanding feature of these social relationships is that they cause
personhood through their abundance of other-regarding duties. One
way of entering into relationships with others is by exercising other-
regarding duties that voluntarily arise in robust social relationships.
It is for this reason that Wiredu (1992: 200) notes that personhood is
accorded to those, among other things, that advance the welfare of soci-
ety at large. The same point is captured by Gyekye (1992: 192) when
he notes that people characterised by personhood exude other-regard-
ing virtues like generosity, kindness, sympathy, and so on (see also Tutu
1999: 35). The more one enters into these social relationships with oth-
ers and positively contributes to them, the more she becomes a person
insofar as she develops a virtuous character. This point is well captured
by David Lutz (2009: 314, emphasis mine) when he opines that:
In a true community, the individual does not pursue the common good
instead of his or her own good, but rather pursues his or her own good
through pursuing the common good. The ethics of a true community does
not ask persons to sacrifice their own good in order to promote the good
of others, but instead invites them to recognise that they can attain their
own true good only by promoting the good of others.
The point being that the moral goal of personhood, which is personal
perfection, is only achievable by promoting the good of others (in the
community). I can only perfect myself as an individual by contributing to
the well-being of others, in terms of exercising my other-regarding duties
towards them. Essentially, it is in this exercise of other-regarding duties
that I realise my true humanity and assist others to do the same. One
point needs to be emphasised: it is ultimately the individual that achieves
personhood. In the light of the provisions made available by the com-
munity, the individual is expected to try, to exert herself, to fight temp-
tations, to deal with limitations in her society, to make something out of
herself, morally speaking (Gyekye 1997).
Therefore, the following theoretical results can be appreciated if we
take seriously the idea of personhood. The idea of personhood commits
us to moral individualism. The idea of personhood commits us to human-
ism. The idea of personhood posits the moral end of personal perfection
of character, and social relationships play an instrumental role in this.
Conclusion
To conclude, we began by analysing the relationship between being
human and being a person with the aim of revealing the perfectionist
nature of this moral theory. We continued to develop an appreciation for
the idea that personhood embodies a character-based morality. We also
noted that the moral end of personhood is the individual perfecting her
own human nature (perfectionist egoism); and, that the means of doing
so is through social relationships. We noted above that a human being
characterised by personhood will tend to exude other-regarding virtues.
To give concreteness to this ethical theory of personhood, Metz (2007:
331) reduces it to this principle of right action:
An action is right just insofar as it positively relates to others and thereby

realises oneself; an act is wrong to the extent that it does not perfect one’s
valuable nature as a social being.
64 M. MOLEFE
Morality is captured primarily in terms of character development, but

character development requires the development of a moral disposi-
tion of habits. Such a disposition of habits results from consistent moral
actions. This principle is crucial since it informs us what actions count
as right en route to the development of a good character. The above
principle gives us a robust sense of what actions can do the moral job
of character development. Right actions tend to strengthen our social
relationships, which in turn help the agent realise her true nature and
develop a virtuous character.
Another crucial insight to be noted with regard to this normative the-
ory is that it offers an interesting way to conceptualise the relationship
between self-regarding (egoism) and other-regarding duties (relational-
ism). The best way to pursue self-regarding duties of self-perfection is by
investing in social relationships with others via other-regarding duties. In
other words, the best way to realise one’s true human nature is by being
embedded in social relationships with others. All things being equal, on
this view, self-regarding duties are not diametrically opposed to other-
regarding duties. It is by relating positively with others that I realise my
true self.
In the next chapter, I consider the meta-ethical debate between parti-
ality and impartiality in the light of the idea of personhood.
Notes
1. The question that might arise, which I do not address in this book, per-
tains to whether the norms grounding personhood are particular (contin-
gent) or universal (objective). Scholars of African thought have tended to
eschew directly reflecting on this question. For the purpose of this book,
I will assume that the (bulk of the) values that are operational are univer-
sal/objective. If this were not the case, then I would not be dealing with
a moral and political theory in the strict sense.
2. I think Menkiti (2018: 162) in his recent retrospective statement on the
idea of personhood has this distinction in mind when he states—“…this
is so because morality defines the person in the same way it more recog-
nizably defines the human”. I understand this statement to be the rec-
ognition that there is a relationship between being human and being a
person, and the relationship imagines a progression from the metaphysi-
cal to the moral. To be a person (moral achievement) depends on the fact
of being human (metaphysical status), and morality is possible because of
certain moral possibilities that attend human nature.
3. One might raise the question pertaining to aliens that have most of the
ontological capacities that make the attainment of personhood possi-
ble except that they are not human—should the fact (that they are not
human) matter at all? This is an important question and even an objec-
tion against the idea of personhood. In this book, I will not concern
myself with questions relating to aliens and animals. I am the first one
to concede that these cases, specifically, those of aliens with a capacity for
personhood, and animals, will pose a serious objection against the idea
of personhood. I believe that these cases deserve a separate treatment as
we continue to develop this idea of personhood in African philosophy. I
hope other scholars will take on these questions.
4. I think the feral cases give some evidence for this view.
5. Talk of personhood, in this specific instance, is tantamount to an account
of personal identity (see Molefe 2016). To make this observation, how-
ever, is not the same thing to suggest that this phrase may not be given a
moral interpretation (see Molefe 2017c).
6. This talk of personhood as imagining a moral transition from merely
being human to being a person should not be confused with Menkiti’s
(1984: 173) talk of the so-called “ontological progression”, which,
according to him involves “changes at the very core of one’s being”.
Unlike Menkiti, I do not subscribe to the view that the moral progress
in question entails any ontological changes to human nature or human
beings. The change implied by the idea of transition (as used to explain
the idea of personhood) is of a moral kind. An adult, ontologically speak-
ing, is no different from a child—they are both equally human.
7. The language employed by African scholars does not suggest a non-egois-
tic interpretation of personhood.
8. It is crucial to distinguish moral from political perfectionism. It is moral
perfectionism that is crucial in the discourse of personhood.
9. It is interesting to note that much of African ethical thought tends to
take humanism as a point of departure. Note that influential scholars
of African moral thought tend to base African ethics on “human inter-
ests” (Wiredu 1992: 193–194); some base it on the “master-value [of]
well-being” (Gyekye 2004: 41); some base it on the capacity to enter into
some communal relationships (Metz 2012).
10. I am aware of the spiritual interpretations of personhood—those that
make the growing of vitality continuous or equivalent with the acquisi-
tion of personhood. This is not a dominant interpretation of personhood
in the literature. I find attempts to base a moral system on a controversial
metaphysical system to be unattractive.
11. The reader will do well to distinguish between moral from cultural indi-
vidualism. It is moral individualism that I associate with the idea of per-
sonhood, but not cultural individualism.
66 M. MOLEFE
12. I take discussions of ubuntu (African ethics) to be tantamount to discus-

sions of the idea of personhood. The reason for this is not difficult to
find. The idea of ubuntu salient in ethical discourses largely among the
Bantu-speaking people, among the Nguni’s is captured in terms of the
maxim—a person is a person through other persons. The first instance
of a person is the same as that I referred to in the analysis above as the
ontological notion of person (being a person). The second instance is
tantamount to the normative notion of personhood under consideration
in this analysis. Therefore, talk of ubuntu just is another way of talking of
personhood, particularly among Bantu-speaking peoples of Africa.
References
Agada, A. (2018). Language, Thought, and Interpersonal Communication:
A Cross-Cultural Conversation on the Question of Individuality and
Community. Filosofia Theoretica, 7, 141–161.
Amato, P. (2018). The Menkiti-Gyekye Conversation: Framing Persons. Filosofia
Annas, J. (1992). Ancient Ethics and Modern Morality. Philosophical Perspectives,
6, 119–136.
Behrens, K. (2011). African Philosophy, Thought and Practice and Their
Contribution to Environmental Ethics. Johannesburg: University of
Johannesburg.
103–119.
Bujo, B. (2001). Foundations of an African Ethic: Beyond the Universal Claims of
Western Morality. New York: Crossroad Publishing.
Dzobo, K. (1992). Values in a Changing Society: Man, Ancestors and God.
In K. Gyekye & K. Wiredu (Eds.), Person and Community: Ghanaian
Philosophical Studies, 1 (pp. 223–242). Washington, DC: Council for Research
in Values and Philosophy.
Eze, M. (2008). What is African Communitarianism? Against Consensus as a
Regulative Ideal. South African Journal of Philosophy, 27, 386–399.
Eze, M. O. (2018). Menkiti, Gyekye and Beyond: Towards a Decolonisation of
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. In K. Wiredu
& K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies,
1 (pp. 101–122). Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy.

Gyekye, K. (2004). Beyond Cultures: Perceiving a Common Humanity, Ghanaian
Philosophical Studies, III. Accra: The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
124–163.
Korsgaard, C. (1983). Two Distinctions in Goodness. The Philosophical Review,
2, 169–195.
Kymlicka, W. (1990). Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lutz, D. (2009). African Ubuntu Philosophy and Global Management. Journal
of Business Ethics, 84, 313–328.
May, T. (2014). Moral Individualism, Moral Relationalism and Obligations to
Non-human Animals. Journal of Applied Ethics, 31, 155–168.
Mbiti, J. (1969). African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Doubleday and
Company.
McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (1992). Honoring and Promoting Values.
Ethics, 102, 835–843.
Menkiti, I. (2004). On the Normative Conception of a Person. In K.
Wiredu (Ed.), Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 324–331). Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Menkiti, I. (2018). Person and Community—A Retrospective Statement.
Metz, T. (2007). Toward an African Moral Theory. The Journal of Political
Rights, 9, 81–99.
Metz, T. (2012). An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative
to Individualism and Holism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice: An
International Forum, 14, 387–402.
68 M. MOLEFE

Metz, T. (2013b). Two Conceptions of African Ethics in the Work of D.A.
Masolo. Quest, 25, 7–15.
Metz, T. (2014). Harmonizing Global Ethics in the Future: A Proposal to Add
South and East to West. Journal of Global Ethics, 10, 46–155.
Mokgoro, Y. (1998). Ubuntu and the Law in South Africa. Potchefstroom
Electronic Law Journal, 1, 1–11.
Molefe, M. (2015a). A Rejection of Humanism in the African Moral Tradition.
Theoria, 143, 59–77.
Molefe, M. (2015b). Explorations in African Meta-Ethics: Can a Case Be
Made for a Supernaturalist Position? (Doctoral dissertation). Johannesburg:
University of Johannesburg.
Molefe, M. (2017a). Individualism in African Moral Cultures. Cultura, 14,
49–68.
Molefe, M. (2017b). Relational Ethics and Partiality: A Critique of Thad Metz’s
Towards an African Moral Theory. Theoria, 64, 43–61.
Molefe, M. (2017c). Critical Comments on Afro-Communitarianism: The
Mueller, C. (1989). Individualism, Contractarianism and Morality. Social Justice
Research, 3, 1–19.
Okeja, U. (2013). Normative Justification of a Global Ethic: A Perspective from
African Philosophy. New York: Lexington Books.
Presbey, G. (2002). Maasai Concepts of Personhood: The Roles of Recognition,
Community, and Individuality. International Studies in Philosophy, 34, 57–82.
Rachels, J., & Rachels, S. (2015). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Boston:
McGraw Hill.
Ramose, M. (2003). The Ethics of Ubuntu. In P. Coetzee & A. Roux (Eds.),
The African Philosophy Reader (pp. 324–331). New York: Routledge.
Ramose, M. (2009). Towards Emancipative Politics in Africa. In F. Murove
(Ed.), African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics.
Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.
Sebidi, J. (1988). Towards the Definition of Ubuntu as African Humanism
(Paper). Private Collection.
Senghor, L. (1964). On African Socialism. London: Pall Mall Press.
Shutte, A. (2001). Ubuntu: An Ethic for a New South Africa. Pietermaritzburg:
Cluster Publication.
Slote, M., & Pettit, P. (1984). Satisficing Consequentialism. Proceedings of the

Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 58, 139–175.
Tutu, D. (1999). No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Random House.
Van Niekerk, J. (2013). Ubuntu and Moral Theory. Johannesburg: University of
the Witwatersrand.
Wall, S. (2012). Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy. In E. N. Zalta
(Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/perfectionism-moral/.
Wingo, A. (2006). Akan Philosophy of the Person. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/sum2017/entries/akan-person/.
Wiredu, K. (1980). Philosophy and African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Philosophy.
Wolf, S. (1999). Morality and the View from Here. The Journal of Ethics, 3,
203–223.
CHAPTER 4
Personhood: Partiality or Impartiality?
Introduction
One of the central issues in moral philosophy pertains to the question
whether morality is best construed in terms of partiality or impartiality.
‘Partiality’, roughly, is the idea that defines morality in terms of favour-
itism to our special relationships. ‘Impartiality’ is the idea that insists on
defining morality strictly in egalitarian terms. The meta-ethical question
whether African moral thought is best construed in terms of partiality or
impartiality is largely ignored in the literature in African Philosophy. I am
not aware of an extensive analysis of it in this context. Although it has
been largely ignored as a focal point, there is existing discussion about
the issue of partiality in the literature.
The reader will, however, realise that there are scholars on both side
of the fence: some advocating partiality and others impartiality. I italicise
the word advocating to emphasise the point that none of these schol-
ars have engaged in a thoroughgoing philosophical exercise of defend-
ing their respective positions. The tendency in the literature is for one
scholar to merely state their philosophical position without justifying it
with an argument, and, more, there is not even an attempt to go a step
further to refute competing positions.
Note, for example, that Wiredu defends a moral theory that is explic-
itly committed to impartiality as a moral point of departure. He dubs
his moral theory ‘sympathetic impartiality’ (1992, 1996, 2008). The
essence of Wiredu’s moral theory is that the well-being of all moral

72 M. MOLEFE
patients matters, and it ought to matter equally (Wiredu 2005: 48).

Gyekye, one of the leading African philosophers, also insists that morality
is necessarily impartial as it should be equally concerned with the inter-
ests of all moral patients. Gyekye (2004: 107, emphasis original) com-
ments thus:
The view that morality permits partiality to particular persons or groups

palpably flies in the face of the fundamental principle of the categorical
imperative … a principle that rather mandates impartiality and, thus uni-
versality, in our moral conduct. This principle (impartiality), rooted in the
golden rule, is conceivably common to all human societies … it is inappro-
priate to urge partiality as a principle of moral conduct.
It is interesting to note that both Wiredu and Gyekye take impartiality as

the defining feature of morality. They are both convinced that morality is
best understood in terms of the categorical imperative (see Wiredu 2008:
335). At the heart of the categorical imperative is the value of equality
or some kind of commitment to fairness—the idea that the good of all
counts and ought to count equally. As such, commitment to the cate-
gorical imperative is tantamount to endorsing impartiality. It is worth
noting that these scholars do not go further to consider how special rela-
tionships like friendships and romantic relationships might pose a serious
problem for their defence of impartiality (Wolf 1992). This point is cru-
cial in African philosophy, given the high prize that tends to be associ-
ated with the family and other special relationships (Appiah 1998; Shutte
2001). This emphasis is so prominent that morality tends to be captured
by appeal to moral analogies of family and friendship (Behrens 2010).
On the other hand, we have scholars who are committed to partiality
as a meta-ethical point of departure in African ethical thought. Kwame
Appiah (1998), in an encyclopaedic article dedicated to African ethics,
points out that it is characterised by partialism. Gaie and Metz (2010)
have also offered an interpretation of African ethics (ubuntu) that is par-
tialist in its orientation. For example (Bell and Metz 2011: 88, emphasis
mine) comment thus on African ethics:
We focus in this article on three key precepts shared by Confucianism and

Ubuntu [African ethics]: the central value of community, the desirability of
ethical partiality, and the idea that we tend to become morally better as we
grow older.
4 PERSONHOOD: PARTIALITY OR IMPARTIALITY? 73
It is also worth noting that these scholars do not give us reasons why
we should not take impartiality seriously. In other words, these schol-
ars do not imagine how moral egalitarianism—“the idea that all people
have equal value”—might pose a serious objection to their commitment
to partiality (Betzler 2014: 683).
Notwithstanding the contrasting views of partialism and impartialism
in African philosophy, logic dictates that only one of these views is plau-
sible. It ought to be the case that African ethical thought is best con-
strued either in terms of partiality or impartiality. This leaves us with the
philosophical responsibility to determine which of the two positions best
captures moral intuitions salient in African philosophy. To proffer a phil-
osophical exposition and solution to this meta-ethical problem, I rely on
the normative concept of personhood. I do so for one major reason—
the mere fact that scholars on either side of the debate are committed to
this idea as one of the central defining features of African ethical thought
(see Menkiti 1984; Gyekye 1997: 63; Wiredu 2008: 336; Metz 2009:
89). It is also important to underscore the fact that this concept of per-
sonhood is taken seriously by many scholars of African thought as has
been demonstrated in the previous chapters already. I will argue that a
plausible interpretation of the normative idea of personhood entails the
view that African moral thought is best understood in terms of partiality,
rather than impartiality.
The following considerations are crucial to keep in mind in defending
the thesis that the idea of personhood entails partiality. To defend this
thesis is not one and the same as to suggest that partiality qua partiality
is a plausible position to defend. To argue for the plausibility of parti-
ality as a meta-ethical stance in its own right is an interesting project
that lies beyond the scope of this chapter. This chapter offers one way
to resolve the impasse between partiality and impartiality in African phi-
losophy, by indicating that a correct interpretation of this moral resource
(of personhood) shared by scholars of African moral thought will point
to the direction of partiality. The best that this resource can do is inform
us which meta-ethical position (partiality or impartiality) is entailed by
it, which is not the same thing as claiming that partiality itself is a plau-
sible position. Stated differently, the task of this chapter is to investigate
what the meta-ethical implications entailed by taking the ethical idea of
personhood as a foundational moral term regarding partiality and impar-
tiality in African philosophy are.
74 M. MOLEFE
For the purpose of demonstrating the claim that personhood entails

partiality, I structure this chapter as follows: I first give the reader a sense
of the debate between partiality and impartiality in the Western tradi-
tion, where this debate has been discussed for some time now. I do so
for the sake of familiarising readers with some of the crucial issues in this
meta-ethical debate. Secondly, I proceed to offer a philosophical disqui-
sition of the concept of personhood, which I believe will demonstrate
that the idea of personhood entails partiality as a feature of African eth-
ical thought. I will also distinguish between two types of partialism:
agent-centred and other-centred partiality. I will conclude the chapter by
considering some objections against construing personhood as entailing
partiality.
Contextualising the Debate on Partiality

and Impartiality in Moral Philosophy
What is the point of contention regarding the nature of morality

between those that advocate for partiality and the proponents of
impartiality? Before answering this question, I begin by defining these
terms and I subsequently turn to the actual dispute between these two
meta-ethical positions in moral philosophy. Some scholars insist on the
view that morality by its very nature is definable only in terms of impar-
tiality (Singer 1979). By impartiality, they do not mean, at least on the
face of it, something that is entirely counter-intuitive. They refer to the
idea that the interests of all should count and that they should count
equally, at least where morality is concerned. In other words, these moral
scholars take the idea of fairness or equality to be the defining features
of morality. They submit that should morality be construed in terms of
partiality, then it cannot be properly called “moral” since it will be char-
acterised by the feature of favouritism, which departs from the egalitarian
spirit that is thought to be the essence of morality. This conception of
morality is captured thus by Rachels and Rachels (2015) in their book on
moral philosophy. They describe their understanding of morality in terms
of the ‘minimum conception of morality’ (2015: 10):
As a start, we note two main points: first, moral judgements must be

backed by good reasons; and, second, morality requires the impartial con-
sideration of each individual’s interests.
This definition of morality has two components, the first: morality is

construed as a rational enterprise; and, the second: morality is best char-
acterised in terms impartiality. Regarding rationality the idea is that
moral views should be resolved relative to the weight of evidence (rea-
sons) supporting them (Pojman 2002). For example, the claim that
abortion is permissible ought to be accepted relative to the strength of
reasons for it, failing which such a view should be rejected. Regarding
impartiality it appears that Rachels and Rachels are arguing that there is
no rational basis to discriminate among persons, given that they are all
equally human and as such our treatment should manifest equal regard
for their interests and welfare (Wolf 1992: 243).
Another interesting way to make sense of impartiality, according to
Peter Singer, one influential proponent of this view, is in terms of what
he calls the “Impartialist thesis”—the claim that “ethics requires us to
go beyond the ‘I’ and ‘you’ to the universal law, the universalisable
judgement, the standpoint of the impartial spectator or ideal observer”
(Singer 1979: 11). I will leave out the problematic aspects of this quo-
tation; it suffices to observe that Singer equates ethics with what he calls
“the standpoint of an impartial spectator”, that is, “the special point of
view that has to be taken when considering moral issues” (Musschenga
2005: 2). The idea that follows from here is that morality requires one to
abstract, as it were, from a personal point of view or self-interest (which
is taken to be non-moral or pre-ethical) and to occupy a moral stand-
point which is essentially characterised by impartiality, wherein the inter-
ests of all are taken as equal (Wolf 1999: 204–206). It is clear from the
above that a sharp contrast is drawn between the personal and the moral
point of view.
This kind of approach to ethics calls to mind Richard Godwin’s
(1973) (in)famous case of the bishop and the chambermaid. Godwin
insists that if the two are caught up in a burning building, and we can
only save one, then our task is to impartially consider the one whose sav-
ing will maximise the welfare of society. Facts about who they are in and
of themselves and what they may possibly mean (in terms of special rela-
tionships) to us may be interesting in other (non-moral) regards, but are
irrelevant in the moral domain—welfare maximisation is the only rele-
vant moral consideration to inform who is to be saved from the burn-
ing building. Famously, Godwin goes on to ask the rhetorical question
about what magic there is in the fact that one is my mother or wife or
76 M. MOLEFE
even daughter (Godwin 1973: 41–42). What emerges saliently from this
approach to ethics is that a self, her projects and special relationships,
are rendered irrelevant in the moral arena. Morality, correctly under-
stood, requires the agent to be neutral and impartial in her pursuit of the
greater good of society (Jollimore 2014).
I take the view that necessarily considers self-interest to be non-moral
or even a moral defect to be problematic. It is not clear to me that to
act from self-interest is obviously wrong or morally irrelevant, unless
one acts under an influence of some theory about a “self” (Cottingham
1983). For example, if one takes a view similar to that of Hobbes who
considers a self to be essentially characterised by self-absorbing self-
interest that could lead to one man turning against another, then a view
similar to that of Singer makes sense (see Wolf 1999). Read in this light,
the problem is the metaphysical load embedded in the Hobbesian con-
cept of a self rather than anything intrinsic to the general concept of a
‘self’. This point is crucial to bear in mind, particularly in the context
of African philosophy, where the tendency is to hold a positive view of
human nature or the self as discussed in the previous chapter.
One argument in favour of impartiality proceeds by way of problem-
atising the tendency by human beings to generally manifest concern and
sympathy for their own families and friends. This concern is expressed
thus (Warnock 1971: 26):
… the ‘general object’ of morality, appreciation of which may enable us to

understand the basis of moral evaluation, is to contribute to betterment –
or non-deterioration – of the human predicament, primarily and essentially
by seeking to countervail ‘limited sympathies’ and their potentially most
damaging effects…[the aim of morality is]…to expand our sympathies, or,
better, to reduce the liability inherent in their natural tendency to be nar-
rowly restricted.
The argument begins by pointing us to some limitations with regard

to our human nature, specifically the tendency on our part to mani-
fest partiality to our own families and friends. The aim of morality, we
are informed, is to expand the scope of our sympathies to reach out to
humanity as a whole so far as is humanly possible, and the reason for
this is that all of us are human and are equal in that status. The argu-
ment seems to be: since there is no non-arbitrary basis to discriminate
among human beings, it should follow that a manifestation of ‘limited
sympathies’ is an instance of a moral defect, which might have ‘damaging

effects’ on our commitment to the betterment of humanity as a whole.
Therefore morality must be both universal and impartial.
As such, one of the theoretical virtues of impartiality is its commit-
ment to the equality of all human beings qua human. All things being
equal, no human being should be treated better than another; the wel-
fare of all human beings should matter equally. The idea of universalism
in relation to morality is a crucial one in clarifying the idea of impar-
tiality. I understand ‘universalism’ to refer to those truths that are true
for all cultures or that are trans-cultural (Wiredu 1996). In other words,
in relation to universalism, one can base morality on properties that are
true of all human beings like rationality or base it on some property that
is parochial like special relationships. Impartial moral theories tend to
insist on basing moral theories on universally shared properties of human
nature (see Wiredu 1996; Molefe 2017a, b).
On the other hand, partialists defend the intuition that special rela-
tionships like those involving family and friends problematise attempts
to define morality strictly in terms of universality and impartiality. Wolf
(1992: 243) defends a view of morality that can accommodate partiality:
… many have called attention to the fact that relationships of friendship

and love seem to call for the very opposite of an impartial perspective.
Since such relationships unquestionably rank among the greatest goods of
life, a conception of morality that is in tension with their maintenance and
promotion is unacceptable.
Wolf calls our attention to the fact that special relationships of friendship
and romance, which rank highly in almost all cultures, seem to betray the
perspective of impartiality. These relationships are called special precisely
because of their exclusiveness in terms of the attention and resources we
tend to plough into them, which we do not ordinarily invest in strangers
(Cottingham 1983: 89). Typically, we take ourselves to be propelled
by some moral burden to do more for our special relationships than
for strangers. What argument has been offered to justify this partialist
stance?
One famous line of defence for partiality is that the special relations we
have with our own projects, friends, families and colleagues are an essen-
tial part of our identity, a distinctive self, of who we are (Liew 2008).
If morality, by definition, demands that we distance ourselves from all
78 M. MOLEFE
of these, it is not only that it is too demanding, but it also seems to be

demanding the psychologically impossible (Williams 1974: 198). This
objection generally goes by the name of ‘alienation’: the idea that impar-
tiality is asking individuals to sacrifice not only the people and things
we highly value in our lives, but, more, requiring us to sacrifice who we
are at the altar of being ‘moral’ (Williams 1974: 198). The force of this
objection is that even if it were psychologically possible to do so, doing
so seems to be morally defective. The same concern about morality qua
impartiality is best expressed by Wolf when she says that: “[t]he problem
is not that impartiality is too closely or centrally identified with morality,
but that morality as a whole is being expected to do too much” (Wolf
1992: 243). If morality is defined in terms of impartiality, morality will
consume all of one’s life—one will have no life that one can call one’s
own in an interesting way; rather, one will be a slave to morality.
In summary, the dispute between partiality and impartiality is whether
morality should always be construed in terms of equality or whether it
should be defined in terms that accommodate favouritism. Elsewhere,
I have suggested one way in which there is no tension between partiality
and impartiality in African philosophy (Molefe 2017b). In this chapter,
I simply defend the view that a plausible interpretation of personhood
amounts to the view that African morality is best captured in terms of
partiality, particularly when the idea of personhood is taken to be defini-
tive of African moral thought.1
Personhood: Partiality or Impartiality?2

Below, I seek to answer the question whether the idea of personhood
imagines morality in terms of partiality or impartiality. Questions of
im/partiality are meta-ethical ones, pertaining to whether morality is
strictly based on equal consideration of interests (impartiality) or allows
for some favouritism among moral patients (partiality). Partiality, which
is best represented in relationships like friendship and familial ties,
endorses prizing/favouring our own special relationships (Wolf 1992).
To talk of partiality just is to accord more weight to our special relation-
ships than we usually do for strangers. It is to imagine a circle of special
relationships, wherein those in the circle are owed immediate, stronger
and special duties than those outside of it. This idea of partiality imagines
a hierarchy in terms of the duties we owe to others, where we owe more
to those with whom we share special relationships than to strangers.
We can also distinguish between two kinds of partialisms, the

agent-centred and other-centred (see Cottingham 1983, 1991; Molefe
2018). The ‘agent-centred partiality’ refers to the favouritism or extra
consideration the agent tends to accord to her own projects, commit-
ments and goals. She favours herself in this fashion precisely because
these projects are necessary for the kind of life she leads. The ‘other-
centred partiality’ refers to the favouritism we display towards our special
relationships (friendship/love). Below, I aim to demonstrate that both
kinds of partialisms are embodied in the idea of personhood.
To begin, I start by reminding the reader that the idea of personhood
embodies an agent-centred approach to morality. As an agent-centred
theory of value, it posits self-perfection/realisation as the chief moral
goal of the agent. In other words, the central focus of the agent, in
the moral arena, is her own humanity; that is, the agent has the duty
to morally develop her own humanity. This means, or, could reason-
ably be construed to mean, that the individual has a duty to her own
humanity that she may not be expected to have to the humanity of oth-
ers (Wall 2012). It is ultimately the responsibility of each individual to
make something of her own humanity. It is the high prize of her own
humanity that this theory imposes on the agent that accounts for the
agent-centred partiality characteristic of this moral view.
The idea of the agent-related partiality is captured, I believe, by what
this theory posits as the chief goal of morality. This account intrinsically
connects the agent and moral value. The highest value to be pursued and
achieved by the individual is, in a crucial sense, a function of her own
humanity. In other words, if there is anything the individual is to highly
prize and pursue it is the perfection of her own humanity. The highest
good posited by this theory just is to perfect oneself.
We tend to think that the greatest good is the sort of thing that
requires prioritisation. This comment by Van Niekerk on the nature of
morality understood through the notion of personhood is illuminating.
He avers that when talking of personhood “moral values arise from and
(and in some sense at least) necessarily favour the agent” (2007: 364,
emphasis mine). Value is said to arise necessarily from the agent favour-
ing herself precisely because she is the site where moral value is to be
produced. That is, it is her humanity/character that is the object of
morality (to be perfected), and ultimately it is the agent herself that is
to produce this kind of perfection. In a fundamental way, the idea of
personhood as the moral ideal to be achieved, is intransigently directing
80 M. MOLEFE
the individual to highly value herself by way of prioritising the project of

perfecting her own humanity. Part of what is involved in this activity of
highly valuing oneself just is favouring oneself in the quest to produce
personal moral perfection.
Another useful way to appreciate the agent-centred partiality inherent
in personhood is in terms of what in moral philosophy are called rea-
sons or aims for acting (see McNaughton and Rawling 2006, 1992). The
tendency in moral philosophy is to distinguish between agent-neutral
and agent-relative reasons for acting (Nagel 1986: 152–153). The r eason
for acting is ‘agent-neutral’ when it does not track its source from any
particular agent. In some sense, it tracks its source from general consid-
erations of value. Whereas, the agent-relative reasons for acting track the
reasons for acting from the specific agent whose actions are under con-
sideration. Take for example the case of two people in a burning build-
ing. Suppose I can only save one of the two individuals, but not both.
Agent-neutral reasons for acting may be based on the general moral
consideration of whose safety would most benefit society. In this case,
if I choose one individual over the other, I am not choosing her for any
intrinsic properties she possesses except her relation to the general good
of society. Even if one of the victims happens to be my mother, if she
does not have the relevant relationship to the moral consideration of
promoting societal welfare, I would still choose the stranger. Contrasted
to this, if I consider agent-relative reasons (and all things being equal),
I may forgo the fact of general societal welfare and save my mother. The
reason for doing this would be the mere fact that she is my mother.
Scholars of partiality suggest that there is a direct relationship
between agent-relative reasons and partiality. For example, Simon Keller
(2013: 16), the author of an influential book titled Partiality, informs
us that “our special relationships … generate norms that are ‘agent-
relative’ rather than ‘agent-neutral’”. The implication here is that there
is a connection between special relationships or special obligations, and
partiality. The nature of this connection is that agent-relative reasons
characterise the special duties that we tend to feel we owe in our spe-
cial relationships. Agent-relative reasons are “essentially characterised by
a back-reference to the agent” (Loschke 2014: 676). It is this feature
of partiality—agent-relative reasons—that is also characteristic of the
discourse of personhood.
I advise the reader to consider the reasons for acting offered to the
agent by the idea of personhood. It strikes me that the reasons the agent
has for pursuing moral perfection cannot be just that to do so is good

for the community (although this will also be one of the reasons why
she acts the way that she does). More precisely, and true to the idea
of personhood, the reasons that the agent has for acting are essentially
agent-relative—the fact that it is also good for her to achieve moral per-
fection. In other words, the agent pursues personhood because it is also
good for her. The pursuit and achievement of personhood is good for
the individual, it is in her interest and also that of the community. The
agent-relative facet of this theory is captured thus by Van Niekerk (2007:
367, emphasis mine):
The agent aspires to genuinely caring relationships with others, valuing

them for their own sake (and fails morally if she does not realise this
aspiration), and the pursuit of this aspiration is rational for the agent

because it ultimately benefits her.
The point being made here is that the ultimate reason why the agent
pursues personhood just is the fact that she will ultimately benefit from
this moral pursuit. In other words, she gets into genuine relationships
with others in the community and she contributes however much it is
possible and required. Inasmuch as these actions are other-regarding,
they also benefits the agent in terms of personal perfection. Put differ-
ently, the greatest goal of the agent is to perfect herself, and everything
she does to and for others ultimately also contributes to the quality of
her own humanity. If all of this is true, it strikingly points to the fact that
the morality imagined by the idea of personhood is stubbornly partialist.
It is, specifically, agent-centred partiality, where the agent highly values
and pursues her own perfection, which requires that she prioritise it.
Another way to capture the agent-centred partiality of the notion
of personhood is to consider the debate on personhood between Metz
(2007), Van Niekerk (2007), and Lutz (2009). Metz (2007) launches a
scathing criticism against the idea of African ethics entailed by the con-
cept of personhood. My aim in considering this debate is not so much
to take sides, but merely to extricate the insight that if African ethics is
best construed in terms of personhood (that is, if it is true that morality
requires the agent to perfect her own humanity), then this moral theory
is partialist.
In his analysis of this perfectionist moral theory, Metz offers three
criticisms of it, some of which I have considered in the previous chapter.
82 M. MOLEFE
Only one of the criticisms is relevant to demonstrate my point about

partiality with regard to the idea of personhood, however. Metz (2007:
332) criticises this self-realisation moral theory for its failure to offer a
plausible explanation for instances of altruism. Metz’s complaint piv-
ots on the fact that the self-realisation approach explains our reasons
for helping others by insisting that it essentially invokes “the fact that
it would be good for me” (ibid.). This is the case because the back-
reference to the agent is intrinsic to the self-realisation ethic (ibid.).
The criticism of personhood qua the self-realisation interpretation by
Metz makes sense if partiality is already accepted as an embodiment of
the moral idea of personhood. Metz’s criticism questions the reasons the
moral agent influenced by the self-realisation account of morality offers
for helping another person (the agent-relative reasons). He suggests that
the reasons offered by the agent for why she helps another are questiona-
ble because they have the wrong focus (Lord 2016; Molefe 2017b). The
focus is wrong because the reasons it offers for helping another person,
in the context of altruism, should largely be about the moral patient and
not so much the agent (who is wrongly posited as the primary focus on
the self-realisation account). One should help another person for reasons
that have to do largely with the benefit the help entails for the benefi-
ciary of such an action.
So, Metz’s criticism rightly identifies the intransigent self-focus (parti-
ality) that lies at the heart of the self-realisation approach to moral value.
That is, even when it must provide a rationale for helping another it
essentially invokes the agent or agent-relative reasons for doing so; I help
another because it is also for my own good. In other words, in helping
another my personal (moral) project is also at stake. Metz thinks this is
not an attractive explanation for why we should help others because an
attractive answer should, at least to a reasonable degree, dwell on the fact
that it is good for them.
The criticism raised by Metz singles out the essential (back)/
self-reference facet of personhood as problematic. Metz thinks this
(agent-centred) partialist reading of African ethics renders it generally
unattractive. For my part it is enough to merely demonstrate that this
interpretation of African ethics (as criticised by Metz) tends in the direc-
tion of agent-related partialism, and the reasons it invokes also affirm the
agent as part of the focus for acting morally.
One can object to the presentation of African ethics as embodying an
egoistic moral vision. The objection could be that this view of morality
presents the individual as absorbed by her own personal perfection,

which is contrary to the relational or communitarian character of African
ethical thought—‘I am because we are’.
It is true that the idea of personhood takes an egoistic posture. The
reader should, however, keep in mind the entire moral story associated
with the kind of egoism characterising personhood. Firstly, the ego-
ism associated with personhood is one that aims at moral perfection.
Remember, I defended the view that personhood amounts to perfection-
ist egoism. The very ideal or goal of moral perfection/character devel-
opment is incompatible with the kind of egoism characterised by an
uninhibited kind of self-interest, which is associated with selfishness. This
moral theory opens space for the agent to become the focus of morality,
where she must attach extra weight to projects associated with her own
perfection since this is the goal of morality.
Secondly, the reader will remember that we noted that the egoism
associated with personhood does not require the agent to maximise per-
fection, it simply requires the agent to ‘satisfice’ it. That is, the agent has
to pursue enough moral perfection within the limits imposed by the dig-
nity of others. The deontological stance associated with personhood also
constrains the egoism associated with personhood. That is, I may not kill
others for the sake of my own perfection.
Finally, the egoism characterising personhood imagines the agent
as embedded within social relationships. The agent is not imagined
as an island, she is imagined as negotiating her personal perfection in
the context of being-with-others. It is for this reason that this moral
view tends to place emphasis on other-regarding duties/virtues like
generosity, kindness, friendliness and so on. In other words, the goal
is the pursuit of personal perfection, but this goal is only possible in
robust relationships with others. Hence, Shutte (2001: 14) appositely
informs us that “although the goal is personal fulfilment, selfishness
is excluded”. As such, the egoism characteristic of personhood is a
plausible one.
To augment the plausible nature of the egoism that is characteristic of
personhood, it is crucial to glean some insights from David Lutz. In this
regard, he notes (2009: 315, emphasis mine):
Modern European moral philosophy assumes what Henry Sidgwick calls

“the dualism of practical reason” and C. S. Lewis calls “the philosophy of
hell”: the idea that one person’s good is separate from another’s.
84 M. MOLEFE
The charge of egoism would be devastating if the moral attitude intrin-

sic to the discourse of personhood were one that perceived the good of
agents in opposition to one another. The dominant theme in African
moral cultures is the emphasis on the common good. The view that is
intrinsic in the discourse of personhood is that “we attain self-realisation
through interpersonal relationships” (ibid.). As such, emphasis is on
the community—on robust social relationships—as offering the instru-
mental content and context for the individual to realise herself. These
social relationships are so essential that they are not taken to be contin-
gent or optional, they represent the constellation of resources—be they
emotional, material or spiritual—that the agent requires to realise her
humanity (personhood).
One crucial point to be re-emphasised is that the agent achieves her
personal perfection by entering into relationships with others. We must
not forget that the kind of partiality imagined is agent-centred or what I
have called above agent-related partiality. The individual enters into rela-
tionships for the sake of achieving her own perfection. This, however, is
not the only kind of partiality imagined by this idea of personhood. The
idea of personhood also accommodates other-centred partiality. Ramose
(2003: 386, emphasis mine) captures other-centred partiality in this
fashion:
… it is unethical to withhold or to deny botho/ubuntu towards a member

of the family, in the first place, and the community at large. In other words,
charity begins at home.
The idea here being that personhood (ubuntu) requires, as a m atter of

principle, that we prioritise our special relationships. The idea of pri-
oritising some subset of individuals over others is indicated by the
phrase ‘in the first place’, which denotes the idea of partiality. The idea
of prioritising some subset of people over others implies a hierarchy of
duties between those we are in special relationships with and strangers.
I construe Appiah (1998) and Metz (2010), when they advocate parti-
ality, to be defending other-centred partiality. For example, Metz (2007:
335; 2009: 52) defends an African ethical theory grounded on the value
of friendship. The partiality involved requires that I prioritise those
with whom I am in a special relationship, captured by the idea of iden-
tity (2007: 333–337; Molefe 2017b). In other words, in our dispens-
ing of our other-regarding duties, we should draw a distinction between
our special relationships and those with strangers; and count the for-
mer as more important than the latter. Our other-regarding duties are
more immediate and stronger to our special relations than they are to
strangers.
Wiredu lucidly expresses these ideas. In the passage to be quoted
below, Wiredu captures the partiality intrinsic to the idea of person-
hood and he further endorses other-centred partiality. He (1992: 200)
comments:
What, then, in its social bearings, is the Akan ideal of personhood? It is

the conception of an individual who through mature reflection and steady
motivation is able to carve out a reasonably ample livelihood for self,
family, and a potentially wide group of kin dependents, besides making
substantial contributions to the well-being of society at large. The com-
munalistic orientation of the society in question means that an individ-
ual’s image will depend rather crucially upon the extent to which his or
her actions benefit others than him/herself, not, of course, by accident
or coincidence but by design. The implied counsel, though, is not one
of unrelieved self-denial, for the Akans are well aware that charity further
afield must start at home.
Wiredu endorses the idea that personhood speaks to the quality of the
character of the moral agent. He characterises personhood (or an indi-
vidual who has achieved it) in terms of moral maturity (wisdom). Wiredu
also informs us that the individual (with personhood) is caught up in oth-
er-regarding duties. It is crucial to see the order of these other-regarding
relations and the duties they entail. Wiredu starts by mentioning the fam-
ily, followed by a wider group of kin dependents and then society. Wiredu
emphasises that personhood depends, in an important way, on how the
agent exercises her other-regarding duties. He establishes the other-
regarding duties characteristic of personhood and is quick to point out the
hierarchy that informs their distribution. The partiality characteristic of the
distribution of other-regarding duties is captured by the moral principle/
intuition that ‘charity further afield must start at home’.
Two things are clear from the above: firstly, it was not a mistake on
the part of Wiredu to state that our other-regarding duties flow from the
self to family to a wider group of kin dependents and onwards to general
society. He imposes this order on our relationships to signal the partiality
related to the idea of personhood in our dispensing of other-regarding
duties. Secondly, the partiality that is to characterise our other-regarding
86 M. MOLEFE
duties is not optional but is necessary in the ethical discourse of person-

hood. The necessity of partiality is indicated by the use of the impera-
tive verb, must. In other words, a person, all things being equal, ought to
start the dispensing of their moral duties with their special relations. The
essence of the view espoused by Wiredu is to demonstrate the partial-
ism inherent in personhood. And here, Wiredu places the emphasis on
other-centred partiality.
From the above, we can conclude that the idea of personhood
embodies partiality. We also noted that it embodies two related sorts
of partialisms. On the one hand, the idea of personhood imagines an
agent-centred partiality, where the agent ought to prioritise the perfec-
tion of her own humanity; and, on the other hand, the agent in dispens-
ing other-regarding duties must prioritise her special relationships.
One can object to the view that the idea of personhood entails partial-
ity by citing the esteem that African cultures tend to place on the institu-
tion of hospitality. The institution of hospitality is one that is concerned
with strangers. African societies are well-known for their kindness and
goodness to wayfaring strangers. The high respect that is usually meted
out to strangers is captured by Munyaka and Motlhabi (2009: 77) when
they note that:
In essence, ubuntu made all people one another’s keepers. Great value
was placed on hospitality in African society… Hospitality was … ‘a public
duty toward strangers where the honor of the community was at stake
and reciprocity was more likely to be communal rather than individual …;
hospitality … was a sacred duty…
The challenge may then be: If the idea of personhood is characterised

by both agent-related and other-centred partiality, what then of the
value placed on hospitality? The point of the objection seems to be that
if strangers are as highly prized as is suggested by this emphasis on the
value of hospitality, then the idea of personhood interpreted as amount-
ing to partiality might not be the best way to capture African ethics.
Alternatively, the challenge could be to consider whether the idea of per-
sonhood can accommodate the institution of hospitality.
I think that we do not have to venture far to find the answer to this
challenge. For example, Ramose when invoking the idea of partiality
with regard to African ethics uses the phrase ‘in the first place’ and
Wiredu talks about ‘starts’. By implication, the idea of partiality merely
puts a priority in favour of special relationships, without implying that

such special relationships exhaust the scope of our duties. In other
words, our duties go beyond our special relationships, but they start
with them; an individual who would abandon his children to show hos-
pitality to strangers would be considered morally deficient. However, the
point of associating personhood and partiality is not meant to be to limit
morality to our special relationships. Rather, it is to capture the fact that
our special relationships, all things being equal, ought to be prioritised.
Another way to show that the partiality imagined by the idea of per-
sonhood can accommodate hospitality is best captured by Ramose
when he talks about special relationships and strangers. Ramose (2003:
330) clarifies the idea of partiality dominant in African ethics by using
the concept of permeable boundaries (since he is opposed to what he
calls “bounded reason”). He states that the maxim ‘a person is a person
through other persons’ prescribes “permeable boundaries” (ibid.). It is
interesting to note that whatever else this comment might amount to,
it begins by validating boundaries between special relationships and
strangers, thus endorsing partiality. Insightfully, Ramose proceeds to
point out that the boundaries between our special relationships and
strangers are permeable, which means that we still have other-regarding
duties to those we would ordinarily consider to be ‘outsiders’. In other
words, the partiality imagined here urges us to avoid moral myopia and
parochiality by limiting the scope of our duties in terms of bounded rea-
son. It is in imagining our special relationships and the boundaries encir-
cling them as permeable that we can accommodate the institution of
hospitality in the discourse of personhood.
Put simply, our duties are stronger and more immediate to our special
relations, but our special relationships do not exhaust them. Someone
who would ignore strangers at all costs, even when she had resources
to help, would be considered morally bereft in African ethical thought.
It is for this reason that Wiredu (2009: 16) refers to one with person-
hood as a “morally sound adult who has demonstrated in practice a sense
of responsibility to household, lineage and society at large”. He main-
tains the order of priority by starting with family and lineage, but he still
extends the scope of our duties to involve “society at large”. Insofar as
strangers are part of the society at large, they are also beneficiaries of
other-regarding duties. It is important to emphasise that the idea of par-
tiality does not limit our duties only to our special relations; it simply
imposes a hierarchy between our special relations and strangers. In this
88 M. MOLEFE
hierarchy, some duties are prior to and more important than others, but,
no matter how weak they are, we still have duties towards strangers.
It is crucial to also take notice of the fact that it is the dignity of
strangers that serves as the source of the duties that we owe to them. As
such, as much as dignity imposes restrictions on our maximisation of the
good, it also generates positive duties—in this instance, a duty of taking
care of strangers.
Conclusion
Above, I have argued that the agent-centred approach to morality intrin-
sic to the idea of personhood, meta-ethically interpreted, amounts to
partialism rather than impartialism. This is not a surprising result given
the individualism (egoism) characteristic of this moral term—an individ-
ualism where fundamental moral value is located in the humanity of the
agent, and where the agent is required to perfect her own humanity. In
this light, we noted the agent-centred partiality of this way of thinking
about value. We also noted, with regard to our other-regarding duties,
the idea of other-centred partiality, where our first and primary duty is to
our special relations. We also considered objections against this interpre-
tation of personhood qua partiality: I anticipated and responded to the
egoism charge; and, then dealt with an objection from the institution of
hospitality.
Below, I close this chapter by making two observations regarding
future research related to the meta-ethical interpretation of person-
hood in African philosophy. Firstly, I make cursory comments regard-
ing how the idea of personhood might justify the puzzle of partiality.
Partiality, in the literature, is usually justified by appeal to three consid-
erations, namely: projects, relationships and individual considerations
(Cottingham 1986; Keller 2013; Loschke 2014; Lord 2016). On the
projects view, agents must prioritise those activities and commitments of
their lives that give them identity. These projects are crucial because they
also provide meaning, purpose and fulfilment for the agent (Williams
1981; Liew 2008). On the relationships view, relationships are taken to
be so fundamental that they generate reasons for partiality; or, relation-
ships can be considered intrinsically valuable, as such, generating reasons
for partiality (Metz 2007; Jeske 2008; Scheffler 2001). And, regarding
individual considerations, partiality might be accounted for by appeal
to some facts of the individual, where “the reasons for partiality are
grounded on the value of the particular person with whom one shares
the special relationship” (Betzler 2014: 684).
On the face of it, the idea of personhood appears to account for
partiality in terms of both the ‘projects’ and ‘relationships’ views. The
idea of personhood posits the goal of morality to be the development
of the character of the agent. This project of moral perfection consti-
tutes the decisive commitment that characterises the life and mission
of the agent. Wiredu (1992: 199–200) even suggests that the achieve-
ment of personhood is one of the outstanding missions of life in African
moral cultures. It is because such a project is so decisive that it is taken
to generate reasons for the agent to favour their own moral perfection.
Hence, I demonstrated the agent-centred partiality characterising the
idea of personhood. Without this kind of partiality towards the project
of personal perfection, the idea of personhood, in a crucial sense, will be
misunderstood.
On the other hand, it appears that relationships, though they are not
taken to be intrinsically valuable, are taken to be so fundamental that
they generate reasons for partiality to our special ties. In other words, the
very possibility for personhood requires one to be embedded in robust
relationships where one will practise and perform virtues associated with
personhood. It is because these relationships are so fundamental that
they generate reasons for partiality. We suggested above that these special
relationships, among others, are crucial because they serve as incubators
where individuals learn and exercise virtues. It is in their connectedness
with others that agents can realise their true humanity.
In future work, I hope to be able to develop a robust account regard-
ing how the idea of personhood can solve the puzzle of partiality by
elucidating the above suggestions of the ‘project’ and ‘relationship’ view
inherent in the discourse of personhood.
Secondly, in future research, I hope to come back to an objection that
I did not consider in this project. One can object to interpretations of
personhood that associate it with partiality by invoking the idea of moral
cosmopolitanism. This is a serious objection given that there is moral
interpretation of African moral thought (ubuntu/personhood) that con-
strues it in terms of strict cosmopolitanism (Etieyibo 2017). It will be
interesting to engage in this debate between personhood qua partiality
and strict cosmopolitanism qua impartiality, to evaluate which position is
more defensible in African ethical thought.
90 M. MOLEFE
I will not consider this debate between personhood and cosmopoli-

tanism in this book. The aim of this chapter was merely to offer what
I take to be a plausible interpretation of personhood regarding the
meta-ethical question of partiality and impartiality. In the next chapter, I
proceed to consider the question of whether personhood can accommo-
date the moral idea of options.
Notes
1. One objection that might be raised here is that I am imposing what is a
problem in Western philosophical thought to the African context. I am
doing no such thing. Right in the introduction to this chapter, I began
by showing that there is a dichotomy of thought in African philosophy
regarding partiality and/or impartiality. I did not invent this dichotomy; it
exists in the literature in African philosophy. For heuristic purposes, I drew
from the Western literature on a similar topic to familiarise my audience
with this debate. It is not a sign of commitment to African philosophy to
blindly refuse to learn from other cultures, particularly if they have dealt
with the problem that is somewhat under-explored in one’s own intellec-
tual culture. It is also crucial to note that to resolve this problem I draw
from a resource that is intrinsic to African moral cultures—the idea of
personhood.
2. In another place, I do suggest the view that the idea of personhood entails
partiality (Molefe 2016). In this chapter, I deploy two arguments to
defend this view that are absent in the previous publication. In this par-
ticular, I posit the idea of (1) egoism and (2) agent-relative reasons charac-
teristic of personhood as necessarily entailing partiality.
References
Appiah, A. (1998). Ethical Systems, African. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.rep.routledge.com.
ujlink.uj.ac.za:80/article/Z008SECT5.
Behrens, K. (2010). Exploring African Holism with Respect to the Environment.
Environmental Values, 19, 465–484.
Bell, D., & Metz, T. (2011). Confucianism and Ubuntu: Reflections on a
Dialogue Between Chinese and African Traditions. Journal of Chinese
Betzler, M. (2014). Personal Projects and Reasons for Partiality. Social Theory
and Practice, 4, 683–692.
Cottingham, J. (1983). Ethics and Impartiality. Philosophical Studies: An
International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 43, 83–99.
Cottingham, J. (1986). Partiality, Favouritism and Morality. Philosophical

Quarterly, 36(144), 357–373.
Cottingham, J. (1991). The Ethics of Self-Concern. Ethics, 101, 798–817.
Etieyibo, E. (2017). Ubuntu, Cosmopolitanism and Distribution of Natural
Resources. Philosophical Papers, 46, 139–162.
Gaie, J., & Metz, T. (2010). The African Ethic of Ubuntu/Botho: Implications
for Research on Moralit. Journal of Moral Education, 39, 273–290.
Godwin, W. (1973). Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on
General Virtue and Happiness. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Jeske, D. (2008). Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Generates
Reasons. London and New York: Routledge.
Jollimore, T. (2014). Impartiality. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford
archives/sum2011/entries/impartiality/.
Keller, S. (2013). Partiality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Liew, T. (2008). The Moral Limits of Impartiality. Kemanusiaan, 15, 41–48.
Lord, E. (2016). Justifying Partiality. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice: An
Loschke, J. (2014). Partiality, Agent-Relative Reasons, and the Individuals View.
Social Theory and Practice, 40, 673–692.
McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (1992). Honoring and Promoting Values.
Ethics, 102, 835–843.
Metz, T. (2009). African and Western Moral Theories in Bioethical Context.
Developing World Bioethics, 10, 49–58.
Molefe, M. (2016). African Ethics and Partiality. Phronimon, 17, 104–122.
Molefe, M. (2017a). An African Perspective on the Partiality and Impartiality
92 M. MOLEFE
Molefe, M. (2018). Personhood and Partialism in African Philosophy. African

Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2018.1519337.
Munyaka, M., & Motlhabi, M. (2009). Ubuntu and Its Socio-Moral
Significance. In F. M. Murove (Ed.), African Ethics: An Anthology of
Comparative and Applied Ethics (pp. 324–331). Pietermaritzburg: University
of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.
Musschenga, A. (2005). The Debate on Impartiality: An Introduction. Ethical
Theory and Moral Practice, 8, 1–10.
Nagel, T. (1986). The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pojman, L. (2002). What is Ethics? In L. Pojman (Ed.), Ethical Theory: Classic
and Contemporary Readings (pp. 1–7). London: Wadsworth.
McGraw Hill.
Scheffler, S. (2001). Boundaries and Allegiances. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Singer, P. (1979). Practical Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wall, S. (2012). Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy. In E. N. Zalta
(Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/perfectionism-moral/.
Warnock, G. (1971). The Object of Morality. London: Methuen.
Williams, B. (1974). Persons, Character, and Morality. In A. Rorty (Ed.),
Identities of Person (pp. 197–217). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Williams, B. (1981). Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
K. Gyekye (Eds.), Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, 1
(pp. 192–206). Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy.
45–51.
Wolf, S. (1992). Morality and Impartiality. Philosophical Perspectives, 6, 243–259.
Wolf, S. (1999). Morality and the View from Here. The Journal of Ethics, 3,
203–223.
CHAPTER 5
Personhood and Options in African

Moral Thought
Introduction
One of the under-explored topics in African moral philosophy relates to
the question of options. Typically, deontological accounts, in contrast
to consequentialist ones, are characterised by three features, namely:
constraints/restrictions, special duties and options (McNaughton and
Rawling 2006). The idea of ‘options’ in moral philosophy refers to
a moral boundary determining the scope of our obligations, beyond
which lies (moral) actions that are considered ‘beyond the call of duty’
or merely permissible (McNamara 1996: 417).1 The stance is called
supererogation (Urmson 1958; Kagan 1989). Those views of morality
that take it not to be limited in the sense suggested above (i.e. that claim
that there is no line that specifies the limit of our obligations) are anti-
supererogatory (Gyekye 2010).
Put simply, to believe that there is such a boundary is to endorse the
view that morality has limits, or, more precisely, that life has other cru-
cial non-moral spheres that warrant human attention (Wolf 1992). To
believe that there is such a moral line is tantamount to believing that
morality occupies a crucial sphere in our lives and within that sphere
its demands are peremptory, but that there are other spheres of human
existence that are non-moral. To endorse this view prompts two sorts of
considerations. On the one hand, it allows us to appreciate that there are
many other activities that are non-moral that are crucial for non-moral
excellences (Wolf 1992). As such, morality should not be so demanding

94 M. MOLEFE
as to exclude these non-moral activities. On the other, endorsing such

a line allows for actions that we can classify as ‘beyond the call of duty’.
In other words, these actions are not required but are praiseworthy. As
such, agents require space to pursue the non-moral activities which form
part of a robust life and they also require the freedom to choose to pur-
sue heroic/saintly actions. The burden of this chapter, when I speak of
options, is to insist that the idea of personhood ought to be interpreted
in such a way as to allow space for agents to be able to pursue activ-
ities that may have nothing to do with personal perfection—the non-
moral, supererogatory features I have just mentioned. As such, I will not
directly concern myself with the question of heroic or saintly actions—
actions ‘beyond the call of duty’.
I consider the idea of options because moral theories that can accom-
modate options are believed to be morally attractive. They are believed
to be attractive insofar as they are consistent with common-sense moral-
ity, which tends to accommodate space for agents to pursue non-moral
issues. In other words, common-sense morality tends to understand
morality to be limited in this fashion. To capture the moral intuition
behind the plausibility of accommodating options, Hurley (1995: 163)
employs the following example:
Thus ordinary morality typically does not require me to step on the path
of a bullet headed for someone else, nor does it require me to push you in
the path of a bullet headed for someone else, even in some cases in which
performing clearly will bring about the better results. But ordinary moral-
ity typically permits me to step in the path of such a bullet, while it prohib-
its me from pushing you in the bullet’s path.
Firstly, we should notice that this example relies on the authority of what
it calls ordinary morality, or what we might call common-sense morality.
I understand this talk of ordinary morality to refer to moral intuitions/
practices that we take be attractive and that should be a part of a robust
moral theory. Secondly, I hope the reader can also note that the exam-
ple that is used above is focused on actions that are beyond the call of
duty and not on non-moral activities. This should not be a major setback
because the concern central to the discourse of options is also captured
by this example. Thirdly, we notice that discussions of options emanate
in contexts of seeking relief from the demanding nature of utilitarianism
(McNamara 1996). It is for this reason that the discussion is imagined in
5 PERSONHOOD AND OPTIONS IN AFRICAN MORAL THOUGHT 95
the context of actions available to the agent that are beyond the demands
of better results. In the same article, Hurley (1995: 163, 164, and 165)
talks of “best results”, “best outcome” and “best consequences”, which
captures the maximisation moral motif definitive of consequential-
ist moral approaches (Pettit 1989). The last consideration captures the
essence of the moral idea of options, the fact that common sense moral-
ity does not require me to jump in the path of the bullet no matter how
great the results of such a heroic act would be. The heroic act of jumping
in front of a bullet headed to somebody else is praiseworthy, but it is
not obligatory; it falls within the province of the discretion of the agent;
morality does not demand it nor forbid it. I have a choice to do or not to
do such an act.
As such, I hope the reader notices that central to the idea of options
is the idea of voluntarily choosing to jump or not to jump. The emphasis
is on the voluntary nature of such actions—such acts reside completely
within the discretion of the subject. Not to do them is not a moral fail-
ure and to do them is a great success, at least, in the context of those
actions beyond the call of duty. I am more interested in everyday activ-
ities—those small acts taken in a broader moral context—such as being
able to buy ice-cream even in the face of the many poor people around
me; or being able to go jogging instead of going to a hospice to assist
individuals infected by HIV. It is these non-moral features of that I am
interested in, to suggest how the idea of personhood can accommodate
them.
In this chapter, I seek to investigate whether the notion of person-
hood is understood to embody obligations that entirely absorb the moral
agent, leaving her no place to pursue non-moral issues. I will pursue the
argument that there are generally good reasons that suggest that the idea
of personhood can and should accommodate the idea of options. I say
the reasons are of a general kind precisely because they are not meant
to be exhaustive, but they are enough to suggest some broad pointers
regarding the approach to moral philosophy prevalent in African philos-
ophy that leans on the side of options. As such, this chapter does not aim
to be exhaustive or conclusive in its defence of options, rather it aims to
serve as a useful starting point to stimulate research about one promising
way to include the idea of options in African ethics in the light of the
idea of personhood.
The kind of suggestive argument being pursued here defends options
in African ethical thought. But it is a bold argument given the tendency
96 M. MOLEFE
in the literature to suppose that options have no place. The idea that
African ethics has no place for options is ably advocated and (somewhat)
defended by Kwame Gyekye (2004, 2010). In this light, Gyekye (2010)
comments that:
African ethics—an ethics that is weighted on duty, not on rights—would,

in principle, not consider moral duty of any kind as extraordinary, optional,
or supererogatory. The African humanitarian ethic makes all people objects
of moral concern, implying that our moral sensitivities should be extended
to all people, irrespective of their cultures or societies.
Gyekye insists that a duty-based morality takes our duties to others to be

weighty and unlimited in scope. Gyekye is explicit regarding his belief
that there are no duties that are optional. In other words, Gyekye repudi-
ates the “deontic logical trichotomy” where some actions are categorised
in terms of them being obligatory, permissible and forbidden common
among salient non-consequentialist to approaches to morality (see, Heyd,
2015: 44).2 For Gyekye, it does not make moral sense to say that an
act is good or conducive to human well-being and at the same time to
regard it as merely optional or permissible. He bases his argument on the
moral connection between goodness and normative force. Gyekye (2010)
believes that “a morally good act ought to be performed: if an act is mor-
ally good, then it ought to be performed” (Gyekye 2010).3 If an action
produces the right kind of consequences, then it is obligatory; if it pro-
duces the wrong kind of results, then it is wrong.
Gyekye’s argument makes sense when one understands it within the
framework of contrasting consequentialist and deontological approaches
to morality. The distinction between these two approaches to moral-
ity is captured in terms of either promoting some value or honouring it
(McNaughton and Rawling 1992). Promoting a value involves mak-
ing sure that there is as much of it in the world as is possible, even if
doing so requires violating that value. For example, if the goal is to pro-
mote the value of honesty, I am obliged to cheat on my partner if it will
maximise the value in question. On the other hand, to honour a value
involves being honest to my partner even if that honesty will lead to my
partner being unfaithful. On the consequentialist approach, the goal is
merely to maximise the good and, as such, there is no room for such
things as actions that are merely permissible (options), and there are no
constraints (McNaughton and Rawling 2006).
Though Gyekye advocates a moral theory that requires the promotion

of the well-being of all, he is not oblivious to the fact that there may be
practical obstacles of various kinds to the pursuit of the goal of maxim-
ising the good. His argument, however, charitably construed, should be
understood to amount to the claim that (all things being equal) we have
duties to promote the good of all without limitations, since it is our duty
to do so. On Gyekye’s view, I have no space to buy an ice-cream given
the plight of poor people around.
It is important to note that Gyekye’s rejection of options in African
ethics is not in the context of the idea of personhood. It is safe, however,
to suppose that insofar as Gyekye is committed to moral consequential-
ism, to the idea of personhood and to the rejection of options gener-
ally, he will endorse those interpretations of personhood that repudiate
options (Gyekye 2010). In other words, one may suppose that Gyekye
will take the idea of personhood to be anti-supererogatory. This way of
interpreting Gyekye may find support from the mere fact that the idea of
personhood is represented by scholars of African moral thought (includ-
ing Gyekye) as promoting other-regarding duties. It is also crucial to
appreciate the fact that I agree with Gyekye (and many other scholars in
the field) that the idea of personhood prizes other-regarding duties. As
such, the idea of personhood envisages a duty-based ethics.
In spite of the fact that the idea of personhood tends to be associated
with other-regarding duties, I will pursue the argument that the idea of
personhood does accommodate the idea of options or should be inter-
preted in ways that can accommodate them. Though there is an undeni-
able emphasis on other-regarding duties in African ethical thought, there
are good reasons to suggest that other-regarding moral duties should
not be the only focus of the agent’s life. No matter how important the
exercise and pursuit of other-regarding duties, which are crucial for the
attainment of personhood, there are other spheres of human existence
that are crucial for a rounded human life beyond morality. The aim then
is to specify how these other spheres of life can be continuous and com-
patible with the idea of personhood.
To make my case for options in the light of the idea of personhood,
I will break this chapter into two major sections. The first section will
offer a general way to think about moral philosophy in the light of
Wiredu’s approach to ‘moral’ issues. The aim of discussing Wiredu’s
approach to moral philosophy is to argue that morality is just one facet
of human existence. The implication of this argument will be to indicate
98 M. MOLEFE
that though morality is peremptory in relation to personal-and-social

existence, it does not exhaust the content of a robust human life. The
importance of this discussion is to point out that African moral philos-
ophy does accommodate other facets of human life that may have lit-
tle or nothing to do with morality, and it takes these other domains to
be important in human existence. I will suggest that personhood should
be understood within the approach to moral philosophy suggested by
Wiredu.
In the second section, I will make the case for options in the dis-
course of personhood by way of responding to Mpho Tshivhase’s crit-
icisms against the idea of personhood. The essence of Tshivhase’s
criticism could be reduced to the claim that the idea of personhood has
no place for options. I will suggest that she misses the essence of ethics
as imagined by the idea of personhood. I will point out that she fails to
appreciate the idea of personhood in its own right and within its own
moral assumptions and logic—she criticises the idea of personhood in the
light of the liberal conception of a self that is foreign to the conception
salient in the discourse of personhood.
Wiredu’s Approach to Moral Philosophy

I appeal to Wiredu’s approach to moral philosophy because, in part, I
believe it offers a promising way to conceptualise it. I use Wiredu’s
approach merely as a foil or template to think about moral philosophy in
general. His approach is non-controversial and consistent with how other
experts of moral philosophy tend to construe it and is thus useful (see
Pojman 2002; Rachel and Rachel 2015). And, I appeal to it because it
is heuristically useful in suggesting the importance of options in a robust
system of values.4
I am also appealing to Wiredu’s approach because in his discussion
of moral philosophy he always finds a place for the discourse of person-
hood (Wiredu 1992, 2008, 2009). As such, it can be concluded that his
conclusions regarding the nature of moral philosophy in general should
have direct implications for the idea of personhood as a moral concept,
which I believe may give us some insights regarding options in moral
philosophy.
Wiredu’s approach to moral philosophy draws a distinction between
strict and broad moral issues (Wiredu 1992, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2008).
The reader will be advised that Wiredu makes this distinction also in
terms of ethics and an ethic. He is quick to caution us that “Because

ethics and an ethic are grammatically cognate and are concerned with
behaviour, it is easy to conflate the two” (Wiredu 2005: 45, emphasis
mine). As such, to avert conceptual conflation Wiredu informs us that
these two concepts represent “Two different kinds of rules … needed in
the regulation of human conduct” (Wiredu 2005: 45). Before, I examine
this distinction, I begin by addressing why it is important for moral phi-
losophy according to Wiredu.
The first reason involves the very fact of the nature of moral
philosophy or ethics. Being able to grasp and appreciate this distinction
is important for one to be able to properly understand the nature of
morality, or what Wiredu refers to as the “province of pure morality”
(Wiredu 2008: 334). Secondly, failure to appreciate the province of
pure morality lies at the heart of the colonisation that was imposed by
Christian missionaries on the Africans people (Wiredu 1996, 2004,
2005). Even if it did turn out to be the case that there was a ‘saviour’
that died for all of our sins, this fact alone would not require that
Africans should necessarily adopt the cultural (gospel-inspired) tenden-
cies of the missionaries in terms of questions relating to the proper way
to eat one’s food, dress, or raise children. Finally, this distinction is cru-
cial for distinguishing between moral cultures, in terms, for example, of
a moral culture being individualistic or communitarian (Wiredu 2008:
334). To sketch reasons that explain the importance of this distinction
for Wiredu’s moral philosophy is not the same thing as conceptually
spelling it out, which I now turn to below.
Moral philosophy, according to Wiredu, ought to distinguish between
two distinct rules necessary for regulating human conduct. The major
difference between these two rules is that the strict moral rules are objec-
tive and immutable, whereas the broad moral rules are contingent and
mutable (Wiredu 2005, 2008). In the light of Wiredu’s discourse on cul-
tural particulars and universals, Wiredu (1996) conceives of strict moral
rules (‘ethics’) as cultural universals and of broad moral issues (compris-
ing an ‘ethic’) as cultural particulars. In other words, strict moral rules
embody moral truths that are true for all cultures (trans-cultural moral
truths) and broad moral rules embody norms that are context-specific.
Strict moral rules, in the language of Louis Pojman (2002: 5), “con-
cern … the essence of social existence”. Ethics embody rules that are
“binding on all” or that are “the same everywhere” (Wiredu 2005: 45
and 46). Wiredu is also abundantly clear that “an ethic can be optional;
100 M. MOLEFE
ethics cannot” (2005: 47). As such, rules that forbid the unnecessary
killing of innocent people and rules that forbid the telling of lies (all
things being equal), are strict moral rules. These are strict moral rules
because their reversal as a social policy would threaten the well-being of
society as whole (Wiredu 1996). Rules, however, arising relative to the
specific ways of regulating human behaviour, like rules regarding the rais-
ing of children, monogamy/polygamy, ways of greeting, dress and so on,
pertain “to a particular culture” (2005: 46). To talk of an ethic is to talk
of rules invented for regulating behaviour within a particular social con-
text. They amount to what we call cultural values—these cultural values
include customs, taboos, rituals and so on (Wiredu 1996).
This distinction between proper moral issues and issues of culture
is also recognised by Pojman. He makes the following comment with
regard to moral philosophy (ethics) and other non-moral domains
(Pojman 2002: 4):
…morality distinguishes itself from law and etiquette by going deeper into
the essence of our social existence.
In other words, social existence will be in jeopardy without firm objec-

tive moral rules for regulating human existence, which is distinct from
other kinds of rules like those surrounding manners and law. Wiredu
(2008: 334) affirms this view by pointing out that:
This last reflection should help us to grasp the difference between morality,
as defined by the Golden Rule, and Communitarianism or individualism
as an ethic. Morality in this strict sense is absolutely essential for the contin-
uation of human society. But it is not sufficient for the regulation of all
aspects of human interaction. How shall we train our children, for exam-
ple? How shall we arrange the relationships between men and women that
eventually lead to procreation? How shall we help to bring comfort to the
bereaved in times of the loss of loved ones? Here are questions that can-
not be answered by appeal to the Golden Rule. Communalism, or, for that
matter, individualism, embodies specific answers to questions of this sort.
Several insights can be gleaned from the above passage. Firstly, Wiredu
begins by accentuating the distinction between ethics and an ethic. He
takes the Golden Rule to be an instance of ethics and communitarianism
to embody an ethic. Secondly, he informs us that ethics embodies val-
ues that are absolutely necessary for social existence and its continuance.
The removal of such rules is tantamount to a regression to the Hobbesian

state of nature, where social existence is impossible and intolerable. The
third consideration emphatically points to the view that human exist-
ence requires more than morality for it to be robust. As such, Wiredu
appreciates the necessity of strict moral rules, but he is equally alive to
the fact of their insufficiency to regulate all issues occasioned by human
existence. From this last point we can safely conclude that Wiredu is of
the view that morality is one essential facet of human existence, but by
no means the only one. The fourth consideration pertains to those other
spheres of human existence—marriage and procreation, work, leisure and
recreation—that require their own rules of regulation.
As such, according to Wiredu a life that is characterised by ethics is
insufficient and will lack the robustness that is meant to be present in
human life. A robust life will be a function of some marriage of eth-
ics and an ethic. Wiredu (1996: 9) sustains the view that a robust life
requires some combination of the two in this fashion:
Human beings cannot live by particulars or universals alone, but by some

combination.
As such, we notice that according to Wiredu, the two spheres of human

existence, the ethical and cultural, cannot be separated if we are aiming
for a robust human life. A human being, in other words, is also a cultural
and moral being; and, in both spheres of existence she requires some
rules.
If the above analysis regarding the distinction between ethics and
an ethic is correct, then one crucial conclusion is inescapable. The view
that morality must be married somehow to cultural values implies that
morality is of a limited kind. In other words, morality is just one facet
of human existence, and its demands are not so extensive as to rule out
non-moral activities. Or, put more precisely, morality is such that it
allows space for individuals to be able to engage in cultural (non-moral)
activities like courting, getting married, procreation, raising of children,
work, leisure/recreation and so forth. To grasp the force of this conclu-
sion, one simply has to appreciate the high prize usually associated with
marriage and procreation in the African tradition.
The cultural expectation for the agent to wed and procreate is predi-
cated on an implicit commitment to options. The agent is urged to seek
a partner and make children despite the presence of the pressing and
102 M. MOLEFE
competing moral needs of others in society. The point is not that the
agent is encouraged to overlook the needs of others, but that the duties
that morality imposes on the agent are such that they allow space for
such pursuit. It is the appreciation of things like marriage, rituals, music
and so on in African cultures that points to the implicit acceptance of
options in most of them. The reason why options ought to be a feature
of a human life is precisely to allow for the exploration, development and
enjoyment of the cultural (non-moral) facets of human existence.
One objection to this view could be that options can only be accom-
modated after exhausting one’s obligations to others. The idea of
exhausting one’s obligations is ambiguous. It could be endorsing the
view that morality is limited or that there is a line beyond which one
can do as one will. Or, it could mean that one must, as much as possi-
ble, contribute to the well-being of others. This view of exhausting one’s
duties is unattractive as it presents a vision of morality that is particu-
larly demanding. With so many moral challenges and opportunities, it is
inconceivable that one can talk of exhausting one’s moral duties. In all
villages, townships and major cities in Africa, there will never be a lack of
human issues that require intervention, such as poverty, disease, lack of
facilities, or lack of resources. If one is expected to exhaust one’s moral
duties, then one is thrown into a ceaseless life of morality. Even when
the agent rests, it will not be for the sake of resting but to get ready
to continue with their moral duties. If exhausting one’s obligations is a
prerequisite for options, then it is not clear that there will come a time
when one can say that they have fulfilled all their obligations, particularly
when the emphasis is on positive duties of helping others. This objection
would be less interesting if it had negative duties in mind—these tend to
be easy to fulfil. The agent needs simply to mind her own business, i.e.
not unnecessarily interfere with other people’s business.
Secondly, it displays a misunderstanding of the idea of options if the
agent only pursues their extra-moral choices when they have exhausted
their obligations (positive duties). The idea of options imposes a line
beyond which one can positively ignore those ‘duties’ because they are
merely permissible. It is true that there are many duties that will trump
our choices (those that are before the line; largely negative duties like not
killing others), but there are many individual choices that will trump
duties (those positive duties beyond the line).
Another objection could be pressed suggesting that morality, prop-
erly construed, is peremptory in that it ought to take priority over these
other spheres of human existence. In other words, these other spheres of

human existence are secondary and dependent on morality. This objec-
tion misses the crucial role implied by the distinction between ethics and
the other spheres of human existence (comprising an ethic). The point
is that morality is not sufficient to provide rules and solutions to all the
needs occasioned by human existence. As such, a human life requires
these other spheres of human existence as much as it does morality. All
of them are equally crucial since they are complementary to each other
for the sake of a robust human life. In concrete terms, when I have
not stolen or lied, and I have given alms to the poor, I would not have
exhausted what human life is about. I should think about my destiny in
the temporal and eternal spheres, that is, I should think about my des-
tiny in terms also of career, work, starting a family, being engaged in
aesthetics like sports, recreation and entertainment. In the light of these
other non-moral human activities like marriage, sports and so on, the
peremptory nature of morality is important, but not directly relevant.
Anyone who insists on the idea of morality always taking priority
always the other spheres of life has to justify how people can play sports,
do art, play music, perform rituals and so on, given the demanding
nature of morality where there are no options. The conclusion that
can be drawn from the above is that the rich, diverse and dynamic cul-
tures (rituals, mores, and taboos) characteristic of African societies is
best explained by admitting the distinction between an ethic and ethics.
The practice of culture—or non-moral values—requires morality to be
of a limited kind: a kind that accommodates options. In the next sec-
tion, I consider Tshivhase’s criticisms that the idea of personhood cannot
accommodate options.
Tshivhase’s Criticism of Personhood

To demonstrate that the idea of personhood can accommodate options,
I will make my case by way of responding to Tshivhase’s criticism against
personhood. The essence of her criticism is that the idea of personhood
is usually captured in terms that elevate other-regarding duties in a way
that makes it problematic. The moral problem she notices and associates
with the elevation of other-regarding duties is that it threatens essential
individual moral and non-moral features that ought to characterise a
robust human life. She expresses her concern regarding personhood in
this fashion (Tshivhase 2013: 126):
104 M. MOLEFE
What I have an issue with is the idea that, to be real persons, we must
place the concern for the well-being of others at all times before our own.
Masolo’s idea of morality is exclusively focused on the other, and so it pre-
sents a tension between personal and communal interests. Morality, here,
is dominated by the concern for the interests of others and, in so doing, it
neglects the personal self—as I will argue below.
She raises her concerns regarding the idea of personhood as it is captured

by Masolo (and possibly Wiredu). Firstly, she questions the view that for
one to pursue/achieve personhood, one must put the needs/interests of
others before their own at all times. At the heart of her concern is the
idea that morality is presented in ways that prioritise the needs/interests
of others; she believes it is a weakness for a moral theory to be exclusively
other-regarding. Finally, she points out that the moral focus on others,
in some sense, overcrowds personal interests, and morality understood
in this way renders personal interests/goals otiose. As a result, the self
is neglected or sacrificed at the altar of morality, which requires the pri-
oritisation of others and their interests/needs. To bolster her criticisms
against personhood, she invokes a criticism by Susan Wolf against influ-
ential moral theories in the Western moral tradition like utilitarianism
and Kant’s ethics. In this light, she notes (Tshivhase 2013: 126):
I, like Susan Wolf … think there is something undesirable about the pur-
suit of moral excellence when it dominates a person in a manner that
requires a lack of or denial of the existence of an identifiable personal self.
I think the point of this objection is that the idea of personhood is patently
anti-supererogationist—it denies a place for options. The thrust of the
objection is that the dominant ways to construe morality render it in a fash-
ion that forces the individual to neglect her personal interests—interests
which may have nothing to do with morality and other-regarding duties.
As such, morality as imagined by personhood is so demanding that it ren-
ders the personal life and those facets of it that are self-regarding irrele-
vant. Tshivhase (2013: 127) proceeds to note that “My point is we should,
sometimes, aim for personal excellence regardless of whether it improves
other people’s welfare or not”. So, this criticism amounts to the view that
the idea of personhood should be generally understood to be unattractive
as it does not have a place for options—those personal choices/interests/
passions that have nothing to do with other-regarding duties. She captures
the essence of her objection (that personhood cannot accommodate

options) in terms of the values of autonomy and authenticity. Her argu-
ment is summarised in this fashion by Metz (2013: 13):
At bottom, Tshivhase doubts that human excellence is entirely a function

of other-regard or relationality. She argues that at least some of what con-
stitutes a genuinely human way of life is individualistic, involving ideals of
autonomy and authenticity that communal considerations fail to capture.
I think her objections against the idea of personhood are defeasible. I

will advance three responses to reveal the robustness of the ethical idea
of personhood.
To begin, the criticism offered by Tshivhase assumes that the values
of autonomy and authenticity, as they feature and are interpreted in the
Western tradition, are plausible, and that they can be invoked to criti-
cise African moral thinking with no scruples at all. This kind of criticism
against the idea of personhood is not helpful since it has not yet inde-
pendently given us reasons to accept the plausibility of the moral catego-
ries of autonomy and authenticity in their own right. The mere fact that
the idea of personhood does not accommodate autonomy and authentic-
ity, in and of itself, does not render it implausible. This is not to say that
the criticism is true that personhood does not accommodate these values.
The point is: if it does not accommodate them, we still need to be shown
that it should accommodate these values for it to be plausible. Or, put
differently, we need to be shown what it is that matters in morality that
a theory without autonomy and authenticity will be lacking, and which
would warrant the repudiation of personhood.
The second response points out that Tshivhase misses the actual moral
dispute occasioned by the idea of personhood in moral philosophy from
an African perspective. The fundamental dispute is not that the idea of
personhood cannot accommodate the ideas of autonomy and authentic-
ity, as Tshivhase wrongly supposes. The real issue, I submit, is how these
categories are construed in the Afro-communitarian tradition and other
related traditions like Western communitarianism and care ethics (see
Miller 2010). ‘Autonomy’, in the sense advocated by Tshivhase, renders
the individual as the ultimate maker of choice, and this approach tends to
value independence. In this way, autonomy is an activity entirely of the
individual. The same can be said about authenticity—the idea that the
source of the individual’s choices/actions ultimately and entirely flows
106 M. MOLEFE
from her. The idea of personhood, contrary to this entirely individualis-

tic reading of matters, places emphasis on relationships as the incubator
for human passions/choices/actions.5 In other words, in the discourse
of personhood, the tendency is to approach autonomy and authenticity
in relational terms rather than in individualistic terms. This relational
approach to the issue of autonomy is expressed this fashion (Christman
2004: 143, emphasis mine):
[It] is the label that has been given to an alternative conception of what
it means to be a free, self-governing agent who is also socially constituted
and who possibly defines her basic value commitments in terms of interper-
sonal relations and mutual dependencies.
Or, note the following commentary regarding the individualistic and

relational conceptions of autonomy (Walter and Ross 2014: 16):
The confusion results, in part, from which conception of autonomy is used

to guide ethical practice. Reliance on an individualistic conception such as
the “in-control agent” model prioritises self-sufficiency in decision-making
and highlights a decision maker’s capacity to have reason transcend one’s
emotional experience. An alternative model of autonomy, relational auton-
omy, highlights the social context within which all individuals exist and
acknowledges the emotional and embodied aspects of decision-makers.
These two conceptions of autonomy lead to different interpretations of
several aspects of ethical decision-making.
The point being made here is that there are two differing and competing
conceptions of autonomy in moral philosophy. The one model focuses
almost exclusively on the agent as an independent and self- sufficient
decision maker. Hence, it is called the “in-control agent” model of
autonomy. The relational alternative of conceiving autonomy, on the
other hand, locates the individual in interpersonal relationships and
emphasises the fact that these play a crucial role in the kinds of projects
the agents will choose. The relational approach to autonomy with regard
to personhood is endorsed by Ikuenobe in this way (2015: 1005):
I argue that the idea of personhood in African traditions implies a relational

and positive sense of autonomy, which involves the community helping or
guiding one to use one’s ability and knowledge of one’s social relations and
circumstance to choose freely the requisite goods for achieving one’s life plan.
One way to make sense of the dispute between these contrasting

approaches to the idea of autonomy and authenticity is to appreciate the
differing roles played by social relationships in the shaping of individuals’
lives (personal identity). We can distinguish between contingently and essen-
tially shared social relations in the conceptualisation of human lives. The
kind of view that Tshivhase advocates does accommodate social relations,
but it appears to accommodate contingently shared relations in line with
her commitment to the “in-control agent” model. Contingently shared
relations are defined as those that hold (Neal and Paris 1990: 425):
… between two or more antecedently defined separate selves which, how-

ever much it may affect their attitudes and behaviour, does not penetrate
the identity of the separate selves to the point that the identity of each
becomes partially or wholly constituted by the relation.
On this conception of social relations, the identity, the autonomy and

so on, of the individual, in some sense remains unaffected by relation-
ships. In other words, the self remains in a crucial sense independent of
social relationships. This is not so much to say that social relations are
not important, but to clarify that their importance is not so significant as
to partially or wholly constitute the individual. We are further informed
that in contingently shared relations “there exists a sense in which two or
more separate selves remain apart from the relation itself” (ibid.). On the
other hand, the ‘essentially shared’ relation “penetrates this deeply; when
two selves essentially share a relation, the identity of each self is partially
or wholly constituted by the relation” (ibid.).
The point of the debate is that on Tshivhase’s view of the self, though
the individual may be caught up in relationships and these relationships
may affect her, the affect does not have the effect on the self that binds
her up with others, partially or entirely. That is why, for Tshivhase, rela-
tionships cannot be so important and dominating; on the other hand,
in terms of personhood, social relationships are so crucial that they con-
stitute the individual, either partially or entirely. As such, before we can
take her criticism seriously, we need to settle the question of how to con-
ceive of autonomy, social relationships or personal identity, i.e. we need
to philosophically determine which view of the self, metaphysically speak-
ing, is plausible—is it the one that takes contingently—or essentially—
shared relations? The essence of my objection to her invoking autonomy
and authenticity to criticise the idea of personhood is that her objection,
108 M. MOLEFE
in some sense, begs the question. It is to beg the question to criticise a

communitarian view of personal identity/personhood by appeal to a lib-
eral conception of social relations without first demonstrating the plausi-
bility of the liberal approach to these concepts on independent grounds.
There is no dispute in the literature that advocates of personhood
emphasise essentially shared relationships; this emphasis demonstrates a
relational conception of personal identity/projects/freedom (Menkiti
1984; Gyekye 1992; Bujo 2005). The development of autonomy or even
of authenticity is negotiated in these social relationships and is insepara-
ble from them. As such, the objection launched by Tshivhase is defec-
tive insofar as it has not proven to us that her metaphysical assumptions
regarding the self are true. As such, her criticism still lacks an important
theoretical backing regarding the metaphysical debate on how to under-
stand a self, autonomy, and the role of social relationships.
Considering the above, it begins to make sense why relationships
are so important in Afro-communitarian thought. They matter because
personhood is impossible without them. Metz (2009: 340) notes that
“the only way to develop moral personhood, to become a virtuous agent
or lead a genuinely human life, is to interact with others in a certain
way”. The self that goes into relationships will be so affected that part of
what she will become, metaphysically (in terms of her personal identity)
and morally (in terms of her personhood), depends on these relation-
ships. Fundamentally, this view does not deny individuals their individu-
ality, rather it offers a communitarian conception of individuality (Masolo
2004). Individuality is possible in the context of relationships with
others—‘I am because we are’. It is by being caught up in continuing
relationships with others that one can realise herself, both metaphysically
and morally. This way of understanding the self is consistent with what I
have said in Chapter 3 regarding (moral) individualism that characterises
this idea of personhood. To achieve personal desires/fulfilment/passions
one must embed oneself in relationships with others. The contribution
made by the idea of personhood is that relationships are the single most
important incubator of personal-moral fulfilment. Relationships are not
optional for morality in African moral thought (Gyekye 1992).
The third response is crucial because it calls our attention to the moral
individualism (egoism) that characterises the idea of personhood, which
Tshivhase appears to be missing in her criticism of personhood. It is
important to note that a correct construal of personhood, if we take the
idea of moral individualism (egoism) seriously, can never be faulted for
its exclusive focus on others. Two reasons inform this view: the first rea-
son involves the fact the idea of personhood proposes social relationships
with others as the single most important means to self-focus and self-
realisation. Consider the example offered by Tshivhase: that of an indi-
vidual who decides to pursue a doctoral degree in linguistics. She notes
that this course of action does not benefit nor harm anyone; it pertains
to the individual’s personal excellence. This is not necessarily true.
The very choice of pursuing a doctoral qualification throws our
individual into formal and informal social relations with others. She takes
up a relationship with some university, a department of linguistics, she
is allocated a supervisor/promoter, she interacts with fellow graduate
students and she is now a part of the community of intellectuals in the
discipline of linguistics. The process of pursuing this qualification tends
to have a penetrating effect on her personality that turns her into an
expert in this area. It is not true that the pursuit of this degree won’t
benefit anyone. The community of researchers, at the very least, in
linguistics will be benefited by her research. If she decides to join the
faculty, she will benefit her students and the intellectual community
through her research efforts. The more research she does by studying the
research of others and engaging with her supervisor/promoter the more
she develops personally as an intellectual. These are other-oriented activi-
ties. Her development depends on these passive and active relationships.
This is the insight captured by the idea of communitarianism and person-
hood with regard to relational autonomy. In other words, social relation-
ships provide both moral and non-moral opportunities for a human life
to be possible and meaningful.
The second reason not to fault a construal of personhood for its focus
on others is as follows: Tshivhase is right that the idea of personhood
prizes other-regarding duties. She just misses the crucial fact regarding
their function in the discourse of personhood—that they serve as means
for self-realisation. Tshivhase is incorrect to note that the idea of person-
hood is exclusively other-regarding. The fact of the matter is that by tak-
ing into consideration the distinction between means and ends, one will
realise that other-regarding duties are the best means for achieving self-
regarding duties of moral excellence (personhood). Moral excellence,
in the discourse of personhood, is possible only in the context of other-
regarding duties. As such, in the place where the agent appears to be exclu-
sively focusing on others’ needs, her needs are also catered for. Tshivhase
misses these crucial facets of the idea of personhood because she appears
110 M. MOLEFE
to be operating with an assumption that is foreign to the discourse of per-

sonhood. The assumption that the idea that the individual’s moral good is
separate or even in conflict from another’s (Lutz 2009: 316).
But this is a wrong assumption, at least when it comes to African
ethical thought. It is wrong to suppose that one person’s moral good is
separate from that of another; or, to imagine it within the conflict model
characteristic of moral contractualism, where people’s goods are separate
or competing (Dzobo 1992). The assumption in the discourse of per-
sonhood is that ‘I am because we are’ or ‘a person is a person through
other persons’. Or, in the lucid words of Lutz (2009: 314):
In a true community, the individual does not pursue the common good
instead of his or her own good, but rather pursues his or her own good
through pursuing the common good. The ethics of a true community does
not ask persons to sacrifice their own good in order to promote the good
of others, but instead invites them to recognise that they can attain their
own true good only by promoting the good of others.
As such, the idea of personhood assumes that by pursuing the needs

and interests of others, we are not alienating our own interests. In fact,
it assumes that by so doing we are pursuing our own good. As such,
Tshivhase operates with a liberal interpretation of the ideas of autonomy
and authenticity; she does not appreciate how the idea of personhood
construes the relationship between self-regarding and other-regarding
duties. The balance is imagined in terms of best pursuing my interests
by pursuing the good of others. As such, social relationships are decisive
in the moral discourse of personhood. They are crucial as they provide
cultural and moral platforms for individuals to pursue personhood and
other non-moral goods necessary for a human life.
Until now, I have not said much about the idea of options. To suc-
cessfully argue that the idea of personhood entails the denial of options
requires one crucial premise that I have already repudiated. One must
argue that all social relationships that the individual enters into must
always have a moral function. To moralise all human relationships would
amount to holding a narrow view of human beings, human cultures and
human relationships. Human beings naturally have pursuits other than
morality as already indicated in the exposition of Wiredu’s moral philos-
ophy (the distinction between ethics and an ethic). It would be strange
for African scholars to hold a moral view that limits human beings so
significantly. It is possible for some of them to hold such a view, but

such a position must be demonstrated to be true rather than imposed on
them particularly in relation to the idea of personhood.6
Human cultures are rich and complex insofar as they have issues that
are strictly moral and those that are non-moral (Wiredu 2005; Molefe
2017a). Questions relating to racism, sexism and xenophobia are moral
ones, and every culture must redress them (Jones 2001). There are also
other questions relating to dress, recreation, dance, child rearing and so
on, that are non-moral, and which are a feature of every culture (Wiredu
2008). It would amount to holding a shallow conception of culture to
interpret the idea of personhood outside of these considerations, crucial
for a robust human life. Every human society is characterised by such
features. Human relationships are expansive, accommodative and com-
plex; and, as such, they incorporate a variety of social possibilities and
functions beyond morality.
A robust conception of personhood must be understood within this
sophisticated way of understanding: (1) what it means to be human;
(2) human cultures within which human beings function; and (3) the
expansive nature of human relationships that are engendered by human
beings. As such, to talk of personhood is not necessarily to imagine a
moral category that is opposed to these adumbrations about human
beings, their cultures and relationships. It is to speak of one crucial facet
of human lives—morality. This reading of matters is suggested by influ-
ential African philosophers that are committed to the idea of personhood
but are equally committed to other facets of a robust human life.
Take, for example, Gyekye, famous for his discussion of personhood
and the defence of moderate communitarianism. He believes that indi-
viduals have the moral duty to perfect their humanity, but he does not
believe that this one facet of their lives should absorb all else. In fact,
Gyekye (1997: 47) is unequivocal in saying that as much as he is com-
mitted to personhood, he understands human life to involve much
more than it. In other words, Gyekye is open to the fact that life has
other spheres that are non-moral, and they should be a part of a
robust human life. It is for this reason also that he advocates moderate
communitarianism.
Moderate communitarianism imagines individuals embedded in essen-
tial relationships, but these individuals can be reformers of their cultures
insofar as they can challenge immoral practices and injustices within
them. Individuals can be creative and imagine novel ways of living a
112 M. MOLEFE
human life and individuals can pursue new forms of life like homosex-
uality, abandoning certain important rituals like circumcision, and so
on. The point is that the communitarianism that Gyekye espouses—as
much as it is committed to the ideals of personhood—does not preclude
options; it does not preclude the idea that individuals may also pursue
non-moral ends. All these non-moral ends are a function of the cultural
incubator in which the individual’s life is possible and practised.
As a response to Tshivhase, I noted that the social relationships in
which the agent is caught up, some of them moral and some non-moral,
provide the individual with the possibilities both to pursue personhood
(moral perfection) and to pursue personal interests/goals/passions
that are non-moral. But all these possibilities, in one way or another,
imagined within the complexity of human relationships (institutions),
make human life possible in totality. Thus, we can note that this account
is not exclusively other-regarding; instead, it offers an alternative way to
self-focus and self-realise. It does not deny individuals opportunities to
pursue non-moral interests since it throws them into both kinds of rela-
tionships, moral and non-moral. Moreover, Tshivhase’s argument begs
the question insofar as it assumes a liberal interpretation of autonomy
and authenticity, without considering alternative interpretations from
feminist and Afro-communitarian approaches to autonomy.
The deontological perfectionist egoistic interpretation of person-
hood can accommodate the pursuit of non-moral ends. This is the case
for one major reason. The consequentialist requirement to maximise the
good tends to consume the life of agents through imposing unending
moral obligations. We noted that a deontological rendition of person-
hood merely requires the agent to respect the capacity for virtue, which,
at best, can be associated with a satisficing moral logic. The space that is
left open between satisficing and maximising allows the individual room
to pursue non-moral ends. In other words, in the pursuit of enough
moral perfection the individual also has space to pursue other non-moral
activities.
The point is not that it is obvious what it means to pursue and achieve
enough moral perfection, however. The point, instead, relates to the atti-
tude of the agent towards the goal of perfection. Perfection is an impor-
tant moral consideration, but it is imagined with the pragmatic eye
open to all other facets of human existence. The space for the pursuit
of non-moral virtues and trivial activities is opened by the fact that the
individual is invested in expansive, diverse, dynamic, and accommodative
relationships. In these relationships, she encounters herself as a Yoruba/

Sotho invested with that cultural heritage with its own expectations; she
is a mother/wife with children to raise; she is a career woman; and she
is affiliated with several professional and non-professional organisations.
All of these avenues open spaces for her to pursue moral perfections like
kindness, empathy, courage, generosity, and so on, but they also open
avenues for things like being inventive, devout, creative, knowledgeable,
and playful. These non-moral activities and virtues are a fabric of her life
and perfection must be pursued within the totality of her life position,
opportunities and challenges.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I offered a moral exposition of the idea of personhood
with the intention of offering general reasons that suggest the com-
patibility of personhood with the idea of options. I argued in two dif-
ferent ways to secure this position. In the first instance, I argued that
Wiredu’s distinction between an ethic and ethics offers a useful way to
accommodate options. If all we are required to do is to pursue moral-
ity (personhood), then our cultures would be less than what they are
today—there would be no diversity of music, art, culinary skills and so
on. It is because morality is limited that we have spaces to pursue such
kinds of non-moral activities. Secondly, I suggested the place for options
by responding to Tshivhase’s criticism that the idea of personhood does
not accommodate options. I argued that the social relationships crucial
in African philosophy provide avenues for moral and non-moral facets
of human life. It is in the non-moral facets that a place for options is
opened. This chapter does not exhaustively discuss the idea of options;
it does, however, offer one useful way to think about the relationship
between personhood and options.
In next the chapter, I proceed to consider political questions in the
light of personhood by considering the relationship between it and dignity.
Notes
1. There is an intuitive agreement about such a boundary, but where exactly
to draw the line remains an abstruse philosophical task. I also function on
the basis of the assumption of the existence of such a boundary.
2. For Gyekye, there is no category of actions that are merely permissible.
114 M. MOLEFE
3. The reader will do well to remember that Gyekye defends a consequential-

ist approach to morality, which requires agents to maximise the good, that
is, to make sure that there is as much of that value in the world as is possi-
ble (Pettit 1989).
4. I believe in the robustness of this approach to moral philosophy by Wiredu
because I have used it, in another place, to solve one of the standing prob-
lems in moral philosophy regarding the dichotomy between partiality and
impartiality (Molefe 2017a, b).
5. It is, crucially, individualism that is under consideration in this context.
6. We will note that Gyekye does recognise spheres of human existence other
than the moral one. He insists on the rejection of options for a different
reason—his commitment to moral consequentialism.
References
Bujo, B. (2005). Differentiations in African Ethics. In W. Schweiker (Ed.), The
Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (pp. 419–434). Oxford: Blackwell.
Christman, J. (2004). Relational Autonomy, Liberal Individualism, and the
Social Constitution of Selves. Philosophical Studies, 117, 143–164.
Dzobo, K. (1992). Values in a Changing Society: Man, Ancestors and God.
In K. Gyekye & K. Wiredu (Eds.), Person and Community: Ghanaian
Philosophical Studies, 1 (pp. 223–242). Washington, DC: Council for Research
in Values and Philosophy.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. Person and
Heyd, D. (2015). Can Virtue Ethics Account for Supererogation. Royal Institute
of Philosophy Supplement, 77, 25–47.
Hurley, P. (1995). Getting Our Options Clear: A Closer Look at Agent-
Centered Options. Philosophical Studies, 78, 163–188.
Jones, W. (2001). Belonging to the Ultra-Faithful: A Response to Eze.
Philosophical Papers, 30, 215–222.
Kagan, S. (1989). The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

McNaughton, D., & Rawling, P. (1992). Honouring and Promoting Values.
Ethics, 102, 835–843.
Masolo, D. (2004). Western and African Communitarianism: A Comparison. In
K. Wiredu (Ed.), A Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 483–498). Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
McNamara, P. (1996). Making Room for Going Beyond the Call of Duty. Mind,
105, 415–450.
Metz, T. (2009). African Moral Theory and Public Governance. In F. Murove
(Ed.), African Ethics: An Anthology for Comparative and Applied Ethics
(pp. 335–356). Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Metz, T. (2013). The Western Ethic of Care or an Afro-Communitarian Ethic?
Miller, S. (2010). Cosmopolitan Care. Ethics and Social Welfare, 4, 145–157.
Pettit, P. (1989). Consequentialism and Respect for Persons. Ethics, 100,
116–126.
Pojman, L. (2002). What Is Ethics? In L. Pojman (Ed.), Ethical Theory: Classic
and Contemporary Readings (pp. 1–7). London: Wadsworth.
MacGraw Hill.
Urmson, J. (1958). Saints and Heroe. In A. Melden (Ed.), Essays in Moral
Philosophy. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Walter, J., & Ross, L. (2014). Relational Autonomy: Moving Beyond the Limits
of Isolated Individualism. Pediatrics, 133, 16–23.
116 M. MOLEFE
Philosophy.
Wiredu, K. (2004). Introduction: African Philosophy in our Time (pp. 1–27).
Companion to African Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
45–51.
CHAPTER 6
Personhood and Dignity in African

Philosophy
Introduction
In this chapter, I explore the kind of political work the idea of
personhood does. The concept of dignity is prominent in modern moral-
political philosophy, particularly in the context of the rights discourse.
‘Dignity’ is used usually to refer to a quality of beings of superlative
value, those towards whom we take ourselves to have maximum duties
of respect. In this chapter, I explore the relationship between person-
hood and dignity in African philosophy. Specifically, I aim to answer the
following question: Can personhood ground a plausible conception of
dignity? To philosophically reflect on this question, I evaluate Ikuenobe’s
(2017) article “The Communal Basis for Moral Dignity: An African
Perspective”.1
I select to focus on Ikuenobe’s philosophical interpretation of dig-
nity in terms of personhood for two reasons. Firstly, Ikuenobe is one
of leading contemporary scholars of personhood in African philosophy.
His contribution is amongst the most outstanding in the literature on
personhood (see Ikuenobe 2006a, b, 2015, 2016). Therefore, one can
reasonably expect to gain relevant insights through his attempt to extend
this notion to capture a robust conception of dignity. Secondly, I select
this article by Ikuenobe because it proffers an interpretation of dignity in
the light of personhood which serves as a useful platform to consider the
political work the idea of personhood can contribute to moral-political
philosophy. I am not aware of any other philosophical interpretation

118 M. MOLEFE
in African philosophy that construes dignity in terms of the idea of

personhood. As such, this novel interpretation of dignity should provide
an interesting evaluation of and contribution to our enquiry.
In his novel interpretation, Ikuenobe veers from the standard
philosophical understanding of dignity.2 Typically, both in the African
and Western traditions, dignity is accounted for strictly in ontological
terms. That is, some entity, merely because it possesses certain ontolog-
ical capacities, has dignity. Consequently, it is owed high moral regard.
For example, Wiredu (1996) attributes dignity to human beings merely
because they possess the divine speck—okra. The same position is held
by Gyekye (1992), where he assigns dignity on the basis of the auton-
omous nature of our humanity. Metz (2011), who is specifically criti-
cised by Ikuenobe in the article under consideration, construes dignity
in terms of the human capacity to participate in love/friendship rela-
tionships. Other African thinkers like Ramose (2009), Munyaka and
Motlhabi (2009), Ilesanmi (2001), Bujo (2001), and Matolino (2013,
2014), among others, take dignity to be a function of merely possessing
the relevant ontological property, although they tend not to be specific
regarding what property does the job of grounding it.
The same interpretation of dignity is also prevalent in the Western
moral-political tradition. Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential
scholars of the modern notion of dignity, accounts for it in terms of
rationality/autonomy. This is best captured in his ‘formula of h umanity’
(1996; see also Donnelly 1982). This dominant approach to the
discourse on dignity is criticised by Ikuenobe since it reduces it to a mere
ontological property, which he argues fails to capture the moral essence
of dignity.
Ikuenobe argues, on the contrary, that a plausible conception of
dignity must accommodate both the “capacity and agency” facets of it;
dignity is not simply a function of the (ontological) capacity “to live by
one’s standards and principles”. Instead, a plausible conception of dignity
ought to essentially involve how the agent positively uses these (ontolog-
ical) capacities to live, informed by principles that enrich the community
(2017: 437 and 440). Central to Ikuenobe’s conception of dignity is that
it involves both: “the capacity for, and manifestation of, self-respect and
respect for, and responsibility to, others” (2017: 438). To secure this the-
ory of dignity, Ikuenobe invokes the more dominant or germane notion
of personhood in African philosophy (Ikuenobe 2006b: 117; Wiredu
2009: 13). To be a person or to have personhood just is to be morally
6 PERSONHOOD AND DIGNITY IN AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY 119
virtuous. Ikuenobe is attracted to this moral idea of personhood because

it introduces the ‘agency’ facet to what he considers to be a plausible
conception of dignity, which is missing in extant accounts of it.3
In this chapter, I mount two objections against Ikuenobe’s account of
dignity qua personhood. The core of my objections will be to demon-
strate that the idea of personhood fails to offer us a politically robust
conception of dignity. Firstly, I indicate the unsuitability of the idea of
personhood to ground dignity. On the one hand, typically, dignity is
not thought of as a kind of moral achievement or something the agent
acquires. Dignity is not the kind of property that varies among agents
relative to the conduct of agents. Dignity is a function merely of being
human, and all human beings have it in equal measure, which informs
the egalitarianism usually associated with this moral term (Darwall
1977). On the other hand, personhood is a sort of status that the
agent acquires relative to the quality of her conduct. The status of per-
sonhood admits of degrees and, as such, varies amongst agents, where
some agents will have more of it than others. The differential standing in
terms of one’s personhood status justifies differential treatment between
agents; the more personhood the agent has, the more respect will be
granted (Wingo 2006).
As such, the idea of dignity is characteristically egalitarian insofar as
it operates on the meta-ethical logic of impartiality, where respect tracks
ontology. But the idea of personhood is patently inegalitarian insofar
as it operates on the meta-ethical logic of partiality, where respect var-
ies amongst agents relative to the quality of their performance (Molefe
2016a, b).4 So, these two moral concepts are incompatible, which will
imply that it is mistaken to account for one in terms of the other.5
Secondly, I will argue that Ikuenobe’s repudiation of the ontological
approach to dignity only opens his view to the criticism that it excludes
from the moral community beings that we tend to think should be
included in it. This objection arises and is effective because Ikuenobe
argues that ontological properties are, at best, instrumentally valuable;
it is the quality of their performance that secures the dignity of enti-
ties. If this view is correct, then it implies that beings that cannot exer-
cise their capacities do not have dignity. Here, I have in mind beings
like the young, and marginal cases. Basing dignity on personhood then
exposes the young and the marginal cases to harm, as they will not have
the moral protection (the so-called agent-centred restrictions) offered by
dignity when it is construed strictly in ontological terms (Hurley 1995).
120 M. MOLEFE
There are two important considerations I urge the reader to bear

in mind. Firstly, this chapter will not concern itself with every facet of
Ikuenobe’s discussion of dignity. It will simply limit itself to the major
claim that personhood, or some use of human capacities to achieve per-
sonhood, offers a plausible interpretation of dignity in (African) philos-
ophy. Secondly, this chapter will not defend the view that human beings
have dignity merely because they possess some (ontological) capac-
ity. Instead, I will suggest the political usefulness and advantage of not
giving up this central piece of modern moral-political theory. The aim
of this chapter is ultimately to recognise the role that the idea of per-
sonhood ought to play in moral and political philosophy. I argue that
whatever its role is, it is not to ground the idea of dignity. In the final
analysis, it will emerge that this chapter is a negative one insofar as it will
be revealing the kind of political work the idea of personhood cannot do.
This chapter is structured as follows: I begin by discussing Ikuenobe’s
theory of dignity. Secondly, I proceed to investigate the relationship
between personhood and dignity. The goal of this investigation is to
demonstrate that the partialism usually associated with personhood ren-
ders it unsuitable to ground dignity. Next, Ikuenobe’s conception of dig-
nity will be critically assessed with a keen eye for its consequences for the
widespread intuition that we have some direct duties to the young, and
to marginal cases. This evaluation will assess whether this theory does
a better job at securing the duties we view ourselves to have towards
such cases. Ultimately, the stance that will emerge from this analysis is
that Ikuenobe’s conception of dignity qua personhood is not satisfac-
tory, because: (1) personhood does not seem to be the morally relevant
resource to ground dignity; and (2) his account fails to offer an attractive
explanation for our duties to the young and marginal cases.
Ikuenobe’s Conception of Dignity

Ikuenobe proffers what he considers to be a plausible African conception
of dignity. He considers extant conceptions of dignity in the African tra-
dition, specifically one by Metz, to be inadequate. One reason stands out
for why he repudiates Metz’s interpretation of dignity: Metz’s account
fails to be plausible because it explains dignity strictly in terms of some
ontological capacity.6 The problem with such an account of dignity qua
capacity, according to Ikuenobe, is that it does not tell us in virtue of
what this ontological capacity is to be considered intrinsically valuable.
This capacity, be it for rationality (on the part of Kant), or friendliness

(on Metz’s account), or some other capacity, is an ontological property;
and, it therefore becomes difficult to see how one can ascribe intrinsic
moral value to it.7 Ikuenobe’s view is that this capacity is a descriptive
facet of dignity and at best it (the relevant capacity) can only be instru-
mentally good, relative to how one uses it (2017: 461).
For Ikuenobe, a plausible conception of dignity must necessarily marry
the facets of capacity (ontology) and agency (performance), which he
attempts by invoking the idea of personhood. Dignity is construed by
Ikuenobe in terms of how agents use their natural capacities to lead mor-
ally virtuous lives in the community (2017: 438 and 443). He (2017: 437)
is unequivocal that his conception of dignity is grounded on “a moral
conception of personhood”. Ikuenobe informs us that the idea of ‘per-
sonhood’ in African philosophy can be understood both ontologically and
normatively. Ontological accounts of personhood are accounts of human
nature, which specify elements that constitute it. Normative accounts spec-
ify agents that have acquired morally virtuous characters (Menkiti 1984;
Wiredu 1992; Ikuenobe 2006a, b, 2016). Ikuenobe proposes a concep-
tion of dignity that is constituted by both the ontological property of
human nature (capacity) and the positive use of this capacity to achieve
moral excellence (agency). Therefore, dignity on this view is ultimately a
function of how the agent uses these capacities to attain personhood.
Interestingly, whereas the tendency in the literature is to ground dig-
nity entirely on (some) ontological properties of human nature (Gyekye
1992; Ilesanmi 2001; Deng 2004; Ramose 2009)8; Ikuenobe grounds it
on a combination of both the ontological and normative facets of ‘per-
sonhood’. Insofar as dignity in a “factual sense” is concerned with fac-
ets of human nature, it is grounded on ontological considerations (some
capacity of human nature); and, insofar as dignity in a “moral sense” is
concerned with how agents behave or manifest virtue in their conduct, it
is grounded on normative considerations of human performance (458).
It is therefore unsurprising that Ikuenobe informs us that (438):
My view indicates that dignity is grounded in the idea of moral person-

hood as one who uses one’s capacity properly to promote harmonious
communal living.
It is crucial to note that Ikuenobe does not deny the ontological facet
of dignity; he is simply suspicious of theories that account for it entirely
122 M. MOLEFE
in ontological terms. Moreover, he notes that such (what one might call
ontology-exclusive) theories of human dignity seem to be more suit-
able for individualistic cultures that are focused on individual rights.9
Ikuenobe considers such views of dignity qua capacity to be problem-
atic because they do not accommodate the duty-based nature of African
communitarian ethics. For Ikuenobe, a duty-based ethics captures the
important moral issues related to ideas of responsibility and accountabil-
ity, which a capacity-exclusive view does not quite capture. Ikuenobe’s
conception of dignity is distinct because it includes the normative idea
of personhood as the central component of it. He believes that the lim-
itation of extant accounts of dignity is their omitting to emphasise the
importance of agents achieving moral excellence/personhood. Put
simply, what the agent does with her humanity ought to be central in
accounting for dignity.
This means that to judge some moral agent in terms of person-
hood, i.e. to ask whether she is, or is not, morally virtuous rests on
ontological facts; it rests on whether the agent possesses capacities
requisite for acquiring virtue. In other words, the question of person-
hood is simply the question of whether or not an agent has used those
capacities in a way consistent with the requirements of the common
good. Thus, to say that some human being is a person, in a moral
sense, is tantamount to saying that they have dignity. One is here
making a moral judgement regarding how the agent used her human-
ity to secure her own moral good, dignity, while promoting the good
of others. It is for this reason that Ikuenobe holds that dignity is a
thick concept insofar as it has both descriptive and evaluative facets
(2017: 441).
On the basis of these dual features of dignity—descriptive and
evaluative properties—Ikuenobe (2017: 457) offers this account of
dignity:
x: (1) x has dignity (as a fact or a natural inherent feature), (2) x ought to
be treated with dignity, (3a) x acted or behaved with dignity, and (3b) x or
x’s character manifests or exemplifies dignity.
For Ikuenobe, a plausible conception of dignity must capture these

facets or use-senses of dignity. Below, I discuss the relationship between
the idea of personhood and dignity. My focus will be a narrow one: the
agency facet of dignity.
Personhood and Dignity
There is no doubt that personhood is one of the most important
concepts in African communitarian thought. To refresh the mind of the
reader, I will briefly spell out features that define the idea of personhood
in what follows. Personhood refers to the moral recognition acquired by
the moral agent relative to how well she conducts herself in the light of
communal standards. Her community, at least in Afro-communitarian
thinking, is the arbiter of whether her behaviour is attended by moral
excellence or not (Menkiti 1984; Gyekye 1992). In African thought, talk
of personhood is usually captured in terms of the following ideas.
Firstly, personhood, in some sense, is not an intrinsic property of
humanity. It is one thing to be human and quite another to be a p erson.
To be human is an ontological fact (one is a certain kind of thing), but
to be a person just is to be morally excellent/virtuous (Kaphagawani
2004; Gyekye 1992). Secondly, talk of personhood is fraught with pos-
sibilities of either success or failure (Menkiti 1984). According to Ifeanyi
Menkiti (1984: 173), “personhood is something at which individuals
could fail, at which they could be competent or ineffective, better or
worse”. Depending on how one responds to moral exhortation, one may
gain or lose moral excellence. Those who achieve personhood deserve
“high praise” or respect; and those that do not may be condemned or
may receive sympathy (Wiredu 2009: 14).
The above analysis implies that personhood has to do with the respect
that accrues to some, and not all, individuals, due to their moral excel-
lence, since not all individuals end up achieving it (Metz 2010: 83).
Personhood refers to the kind of respect that is performance tracking,
which will tend to be differentially distributed among agents relative to
their performance. This means that the respect imagined by personhood
is acquired and earned by the agent. Those who fail to use their capacity
to develop personhood will not earn respect and those that do, will. It is
this relative and gradational feature inherent in the concept of person-
hood that I argue renders it ill-suited to ground the concept of dignity,
precisely because the virtue of the modern idea of dignity is that it is
not earned and is equally possessed by all human beings—it refers to an
unconditional and ineliminable respect due to every human being merely
because they are human.
Dignity in modern moral discourses like bioethics is used to refer to
that human property in virtue of which (all) human beings deserve utmost
124 M. MOLEFE
respect (Toscano 2011). The egalitarian character of the modern moral-

political theory is explained by dignity basing respect on the mere posses-
sion of some feature (Darwall 1977; Donnelly 2009). Dignity accounts for
the equality and high value of (almost all) human beings in virtue of pos-
sessing some ontological property (Metz 2010; Toscano 2011). Brennan
and Lo (2007: 47, emphasis mine) capture this point thus:
The modern notion of dignity drops the hierarchical elements implicit in

the meaning of dignitas, and uses the term so that all human beings must
have equal dignity, regardless of their virtues, merits, social and political
status, or any other contingent features.
The ancient notion of dignity (dignitas) was patently inegalitarian, where

dignity was a function of occupying a particular position in society (be
it in political or religious contexts). As such, the ancient notion of dig-
nity was hierarchical and inegalitarian in its distribution of respect owed
to individuals. In the modern sense, to assert that some being has dig-
nity just is to acknowledge that she possesses the ontological feature
that renders her a being that deserves utmost respect (Toscano 2011).
Therefore, to talk of dignity refers to a moral property “that none of
us has by merit, that none of us can receive from others, and that no
one can take from us” (Pannenberg 1991: 177). It is the incompatibility
between personhood (which is inegalitarian) and dignity (which is egali-
tarian) that I want to elucidate below.
Personhood, Partiality and Dignity

‘Partiality’ is the idea that recognises special relationships in morality.
That is, from a partiality perspective, morality is not entirely defined by
relations we have with every human being qua human; instead, it rec-
ognises our special duties to some subset of humanity to be prior and
weightier than to others (Jollimore 2014). So, partiality imposes a hierar-
chy of duties on our special relationships and strangers, where our duties
to the former are immediate (stronger) and take priority over those to
the latter. John Cottingham (1986: 153–154), one of the leading schol-
ars of partiality, defines it as the …
thesis that it is (not merely psychologically understandable but) morally

correct to favour’s one own. By ‘one’s own’ is meant those to whom the
agent has some special relationship or personal ties…
Partiality involves attaching greater value to some subset of persons, not

on the basis of some intrinsic feature of these persons, but on the basis of
the special relationship one has with them.
Some of these special relationships may be involuntary (such as a
mother–daughter tie) and some voluntary (such as a husband–wife tie).
The prevailing moral intuition with regard to these relationships is that
they “rank among the greatest goods of life” (Wolf 1992: 244). If parti-
ality is true, as I have argued (it being a defining feature of African e thics,
or, more specifically, of personhood), then it appears to point us to a
conception of morality that is inegalitarian. Below, I remind the reader of
the partialism associated with the concept of personhood.
I noted that African scholars tend to converge on the idea that
African ethics is best construed in terms of partiality (see Chapter 4).
I also revealed the following facets of personhood with regard to par-
tiality: I said that personhood is attended by two kinds of partialisms,
the agent-centred and other-centred partialisms. Insofar as the agent has
a duty to realise her own true nature, she has a duty to prioritise this
personal perfection project. I also noted that if the agent must choose
between the stranger and the close tie, their first duty is to their special
relations (see Ramose 2003; Metz 2010; Molefe 2018). These two facets
of the idea of personhood render it, meta-ethically, partial.
To further accentuate the partialism characteristic of the idea of
personhood, I invoked the idea of reasons for acting. Here, we distin-
guished between the agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons for act-
ing. I noted that the idea of personhood, in its pursuit of the moral goal
of personal moral perfection, is characterised by agent-relative reasons,
i.e. reasons that have an ineliminable back-reference to the agent. In
other words, I pursue personhood because it is good for me. The per-
sonal element (me, my, mine) is basic to and ineliminable from the moral
discourse of personhood.
This analysis of the partiality associated with personhood puts us in a
better position to notice the way that it distributes respect to individu-
als. In the first instance, in terms of other-regarding duties, it imposes a
hierarchy among the ‘others’ to whom we owe duties, by insisting that
we prioritise our special relationships in the discharge of our duties.10
In other words, all things being equal, the agent always has to prioritise
her special relationships in the distribution of respect and other (politi-
cal) goods. Secondly, the idea of personhood connects respect directly to
the quality of the moral performance of the agent. The better the agent
does, the more respect she deserves. As such, the partiality intrinsic to
126 M. MOLEFE
the idea of personhood renders this term to be intransigently inegalitar-

ian in the two senses adumbrated above.
Another crucial point to notice regarding personhood and the idea of
dignity pertains to the source of moral respect. Respect, in some sense,
under this idea of personhood, has nothing to do with intrinsic features
of a person. In the first instance, the patient is respected merely because
she is related to the agent in a particular way (other-centred partiality).
In the second instance, the patient is respected because she exudes moral
excellence (the quality of moral performance). This is where the problem
emerges precisely with grounding dignity on a term that offers a differ-
ential respect that depends on special relationships and performance.
The idea of dignity is revolutionary in modern moral-political dis-
courses because it tends to equalise the respect that we owe to all human
beings, merely because they are human. The equality among human
beings is accounted for by appeal to some facet of human nature and by
merely possessing it: one has dignity and deserves equal moral consider-
ation. It is for this reason that this notion of dignity is used as a basis for
human rights—it aims to secure goods due to each human being merely
because they are human. Thus, since the modern idea of dignity grounds
it on some facet of human nature, it is egalitarian; as such, grounding
equal respect to all human beings. Moral egalitarianism is tantamount to
impartiality (see Betzler 2014).
To ground dignity, however, on personhood implies that we have
less duties to those with whom we do not have special relationships.
Furthermore, it means that those who are moral exemplars like Mother
Teresa should be respected more than the likes of Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe. On the face of it, this kind of implication appears to be
innocuous, but that is all there is to it: the appearance of innocuousness.
The moment we respect human beings relative to their conduct as the
basis of distributing basic goods (rights) is the moment that the human-
ity of others will be threatened.
Take, for example, that a rapist in the modern legal infrastructure is
guaranteed basic rights because he has dignity irrespective of his moral
performance. We have duties to subject him to a due legal process to test
accusations against him, and in that process, though he may lose some
rights (like being arrested and detained by the police), all this is done on
the bedrock of the ineliminable basic respect due to him merely because
he is human. But, should we ground dignity on how people use their
capacities to achieve personhood, it means the rapist has no dignity at
all since it is a function of his conduct—this opens him up to perpet-

ual abuse. If dignity is a function of how people conduct themselves,
then it should follow that moral exemplars must have more voting rights
than morally deficient humans since dignity is a function of moral per-
formance. The practical problem of grounding dignity on performance,
and not the mere recognition of the patient’s humanity, is that it fails to
secure the value of equality. It implies a politics that distributes respect
and goods relative to performance: the better one performs, the greater
the respect (Oyowe 2018).
So, the feature of partialism that characterises the notion of person-
hood renders it unsuitable to capture the egalitarian character of dig-
nity. The egalitarian/impartial feature of the concept of dignity is crucial
for modern politics, grounded as it is on equality in the criminal justice
system, the provision of basic goods like welfare, equal voting rights,
equal opportunities and so on. All of this is granted merely because one
is a human being. The virtue of dignity qua capacity is that it imagines
political goods (like rights) due to one merely because one is human and
separates these from those goods that are dependent on merit (Donnelly
2009). In a world characterised by racism, pauperism, inequality, sexism,
human trafficking, the idea of dignity is revolutionary since it demands
basic respect for the vulnerable/marginalised merely because they are
human. Should we, however, ground dignity on personhood then we
will be building a political scheme that is overtly inegalitarian where
respect, goods and opportunities will depend on performance. It is this
inegalitarian feature of grounding dignity on personhood that character-
ises Ikuenobe’s account and makes it unattractive.11
Furthermore, even if we turn out to be wrong about the partialism
of personhood, the notions of dignity and personhood occupy distinct
roles in moral-political discourse. That is, these notions involve different
kinds of moral judgements in moral philosophy. Personhood involves a
judgement that is essentially concerned with the respect that tracks the
performance of the agent, which Kevin Behrens (2013) refers to as the
agent-centred notion of personhood. Contrary to this, the notion of dig-
nity is essentially concerned with the respect that is due to all human
beings in virtue merely of being human, which is captured in terms of
patient-centred personhood (ibid.). It is to misunderstand these two dis-
tinct types of respect to use one to account for another.12
The respect imagined by personhood varies with the quality of
the agent’s performance or lack thereof. In other words, the respect
128 M. MOLEFE
embodied by the notion of personhood varies from agent to agent

depending on their conduct, which makes it unsuitable to capture the
value of equality (egalitarianism) that is a hallmark of modern politi-
cal institutions. The respect imagined by dignity is invariable insofar as
it values a human being merely for possessing the relevant ontological
property. If this conceptual analysis of the disjuncture between person-
hood and dignity is true, it also points to the unsuitability to ground a
universal and egalitarian notion like that of dignity on a concept that is
essentially variable in its allocation of respect. There is no dispute in the
literature that personhood imagines differential respect among agents
relative to their performance (Menkiti 1984; Wiredu 1992; Gyekye
1997; Metz 2010; Molefe 2017a).
As such, we observe that whatever virtues this idea of dignity qua
personhood touted by Ikuenobe might have, we will gain them at a
greater loss to our modern moral and political culture of egalitarian-
ism (which is best represented by the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights). Dignity as a moral and political concept is important because
it situates equality as a crucial foundation of a just society (Kymlicka
1990). To build morality and politics—understood as founded on
the idea of dignity—on personhood is to betray this moral discourse
of equality for a moral concept that is inegalitarian and differential in
its socio-political outlook. The conclusion of this is that personhood is
not suitable to ground a robust egalitarian politics. Dignity, however,
as we see in the discourse of human rights, is suitable (Kymlicka 1990;
Oyowe 2018).13
One might note that Ikuenobe might be confusing two related but
distinct notions of dignity. We can draw a distinction between dignity
as a patient-centred value, which one possesses merely because one is
human, and the agent-centred notion dignity, as some kind of achieve-
ment that we tend to speak of in terms of a dignified life. On this view,
one has dignity because of the kind of a thing one is (because one
possesses certain ontological properties). Basic political goods must be
distributed on egalitarian terms because all individuals are equal and
require them to live a life of dignity. Those that live a dignified life will
do so based on how they leverage and take advantage of these basic
goods (like equal access to education, economic opportunities and so
on). These basic goods are necessary for the possibility of a decent or
a dignified life. The problem with Ikuenobe’s interpretation is that he
conflates a dignified life (personhood) with dignity itself.
Above, I pointed out that the salient notion of dignity respects a

human being merely because she possesses the relevant ontological prop-
erty. It captures the equality of all human beings and as such it captures
the egalitarian character of modern moral and political institutions. But
we observed that the notion of personhood is partialist, thus embodying
an inegalitarian outlook to morality and politics. It is this partialism that
renders it unsuitable to ground the concept of dignity. I point Ikuenobe
to the egalitarian feature of grounding dignity on some capacity because
I think that it is a virtue worth preserving. If one seeks to articulate a
novel account of dignity, it must not be at the cost of losing this crucially
equalising feature of it.
The Young and the Marginal Cases, and Dignity

It remains open to Ikuenobe to object that the argument advanced
thus far begs the question since it assumes the very idea he is rejecting:
that dignity can be explained entirely by appeal to some human capac-
ity. This is a fair point by Ikuenobe.14 The essence of this chapter is to
show why dignity understood in egalitarian terms is so influential in mod-
ern moral-political discourse and why Ikuenobe might be remiss in sim-
ply dismissing this viewpoint outright. Below, I explain the advantages of
construing dignity purely in terms of some capacity. To demonstrate the
intuitive appeal of accounting for dignity in terms of some capacity, this
chapter will make use of cases relating to the young and marginal cases.
One challenge that a view similar to Ikuenobe’s faces is that it will not
be able to secure the respect usually accorded to the young and marginal
cases. Keep in mind that on Ikuenobe’s (2017: 460, emphasis mine) view:
… respect by others is not something that one who is capable, ‘has inher-
ently’, but it is something earned and deserved based on the active and pos-
itive use of one’s capacities for moral excellence or superior achievements.
The point is clear. Dignity is not a function of some inherent human

capacity or even having the potential to exercise it. Ikuenobe insists
that dignity must be understood as something that the agent earns and
comes to deserve depending on the positive use of her capacities. The
idea of dignity defended here is a performance-based one—dignity is
a function of how the agent uses her capacities to attain moral excel-
lence. The putative virtue of a conception of dignity grounded on some
130 M. MOLEFE
inherent capacity of human nature is that it equally distributes respect to

all merely because they possess the relevant ontological capacities. Glenn
Hughes (2011: 3, emphasis mine), commenting on the drafters’ of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights treatment of the idea of dignity,
captures this insight thus:
The drafters solved this problem by indicating that human beings have
rights because of their intrinsic dignity—because human beings, due to
qualities they possess, have a special value or distinctive worth that in each
case and without exception should be respected and nourished.
On the standard and salient view of dignity, the agent has it merely
because she possesses the relevant ontological features. The agent,
in virtue of possessing these features, is entitled to basic respect. On
Ikuenobe’s view, however, respect depends on and varies relative to one’s
positive use of these capacities. The relevant capacity is necessary but not
sufficient for dignity. The deal breaker in terms of accounting for dig-
nity is the actual positive use of these intrinsic capacities. If dignity is a
function of the actual exercise of human capacities, it is not clear how
Ikuenobe’s account will address questions relating to the young, for
example, who simply have the potential in the future to use such capac-
ities but cannot do so now. The ‘young’ refers to infants and children
that cannot be properly considered to be moral agents—those who are
not yet in a position to use their capacities. The same sort of question is
raised by ‘marginal cases’, such as the senile or severely mentally disabled
human beings (Singer 2009).15
If dignity is a function of how the agent uses her capacity, and not
the mere possession of such capacities, then the question of how to mor-
ally treat these kinds of human beings presents a problem for Ikuenobe’s
account of dignity. On the face of it, we seem pressed to consider this
question—do we owe the young and marginal cases (some) direct
duties/respect? If dignity is something that we earn relative to moral
performance then, it appears, these humans do not have dignity; we have
no direct basis from which to show them respect. Most people would
probably find this conclusion intolerable.
The concern that arises with regard to Ikuenobe’s suggestion that
we potentially have no duties of respect to the young or marginal cases
becomes even more serious in the context of Ikuenobe’s (2017: 461,
emphasis mine) declaration that
…it is my view that human capacities are only an instrumental good; they
are only means for good life …
The implication of this view is that the mere possession of o ntological

properties does not occasion moral value. In other words, the fact of
having certain capacities is strictly not a moral issue, but an o ntological
one.16 As such, the mere possession of some capacity does not n ecessarily
warrant respect. Respect emerges consequent to how the agent uses
these capacities in the first place: one who uses them correctly earns
respect and one who does not, loses it.
To illuminate this view, let’s take the example of a hammer. A hammer
is instrumentally good insofar as its goodness derives from its usefulness
to fix doors or tables. The hammer has no intrinsic goodness. In like
fashion, human capacities (one might even add, potential), as ontologi-
cal properties, have no inherent value at all: their value arises only in the
contexts of their positive use. If this understanding of Ikuenobe’s the-
ory of dignity is correct, then it follows that we have no direct duties of
respect to the young or marginal cases precisely because they have not
used (mainly because cannot use) their capacities in a way that attracts
the relevant kind of moral respect. Without the proper use of capacities,
there is no basis upon which to accord respect in these cases. This is so
because capacities, in and of themselves, have no value. If this reading
of Ikuenobe is correct, then some unpalatable implications follow quite
naturally—we can treat the young and marginal cases in any manner
without violating any moral code since they are beyond the scope of
moral purview.
It is interesting to note that Ikuenobe is aware of these cases; but it
does not appear to me that he appreciates the serious problem they pose
for his account of dignity. In another place, Ikuenobe (2017: 459) com-
ments thus: “Capacity may imply moral respect in situations where one is
not able to use one’s capacity”. This is a puzzling assertion: on the one
hand, the respect of dignity arises as a matter of how the agent uses their
capacities; and, on the other, when it comes to marginal cases, capacity
just as it is, unused, may imply moral respect.
One might charitably construe Ikuenobe to be holding the view
that while the community owes no direct duty of respect to the young
or marginal cases (since they have not used their capacities positively),
treating them with respect is, or may be, in the community’s interest.
Ikuenobe’s view (until now) has been that dignity is not just a question
132 M. MOLEFE
of having some capacity, but that of using it in pursuit of the communi-

ty’s interests. If taking care of the young and marginal cases is viewed to
be in the community’s interest, it follows that for individuals to achieve
moral excellence they need to treat them well. As such, though the
young and marginal cases will not be treated well on account of some
duty of respect due to them on account of their having achieved moral
excellence, they will be treated so nonetheless on the basis of indirect
considerations. Ikuenobe’s use of the phrase “may imply” when he states
that “capacity may imply moral respect in situations where one is not
able to use one’s capacity” seems to suggest that he means respect in this
kind of indirect way.17
Whereas one may concede that, in this round-about way the young
and marginal cases would be respected, the concern is that there is a per-
sistent potential that people in society would abuse them. No direct duty
to respect them in their own right as human beings exists; and they are
quite obviously vulnerable. This potential is even greater in cases where
abusing them does not appear to undermine the community’s interests
or even one’s personhood. Imagine a case where the agent decides to
secretly kill her mentally disabled child without the risk of anyone ever
finding out, to relieve the child from suffering. It appears that doing
so would not significantly affect the dignity and amount of respect the
agent is accorded in the community, given that she has no direct duties
in these cases. It is not even clear how in this particular case one can say
something wrong has happened, since the wrong is determined entirely
based on the community’s interests. The ascription of respect on which
personhood depends, demands the community’s awareness that a certain
ill has been done for it to constitute a wrong. We cannot deny someone
respect for ills we are unaware of.
The word wrong is italicised above because in this situation, if
Ikuenobe’s instrumental account of dignity is correct, where marginal
cases are owed only an indirect duty, one cannot properly say the subject
on the ‘margins’ wronged (in the sense that she, as a human being, was
harmed or made worse off by being killed). This is the case because her
status as a human being does not directly occasion respect. The kind of
respect that Ikuenobe imagines is a weak kind that hinges on communi-
ty’s interests and not so much on the marginal case herself. Thus, to the
extent that she does not warrant respect in her own right she remains
perpetually open to abuse depending on how some people may work
around the broad constraint of community interests.
The approach of invoking the community’s interests to protect

the marginal cases and the young is interesting as an indirect ground,
particularly in the case of the young. Surely, the community will require
the young to grow up in a way which allows them to play their role in its
development and progress. What happens in instances where the popu-
lation grows at a rate that seriously threatens the collective well-being of
the community? Without the idea of dignity as an inherent good based
on some capacity, it is not entirely clear why we may not intentionally
kill some children for the sake of ensuring the well-being of the commu-
nity (like the past practice of Eskimos killing female infants) (Rachels and
Rachels 2015). In such cases, we would keep enough children to ensure
the collective well-being and dispose of others who threaten it.
This is not a trivial possibility. It arises precisely because these c hildren
have no inherent worth and we do not owe them duties for their own
sakes. The duties we owe them must be congruent with the good of
the community. This mere possibility of sacrificing some of the young
to stabilise society reveals another putative moral-theoretical advantage
of dignity qua capacity: the idea of dignity serves as a constraint or
agent-centred restriction (Hurley 1995; Toscano 2011). That is, d ignity
imposes limits or restrictions on our quest to maximise the good.
In other words, it serves as a restriction on securing the community’s
interests since otherwise the community may violate human beings qua
human (McNaughton and Rawling 2006; Toscano 2011). To ground
respect, however, on this kind of indirect consideration loses one of the
crucial deontic constraints that makes the modern notion of dignity
attractive and potent in regulating human interactions.
A capacity-exclusive account of dignity, on the other hand, is perfectly
able to ground a duty of respect to the young and marginal cases on the
mere fact of their possession of some capacity. It is due to the absence
of this deontic constraining function of dignity that a view like that of
Ikuenobe’s appears to lack robustness or even plausibility. Ikuenobe
might further argue as is captured in this passage (2017: 464):
My view implies that we have unconditional responsibility to respect, love

and care for those (children, those with mental or physical disability) who
lack the ability to use their capacity to earn respect. If one feels a dimin-
ished sense of dignity and self-respect, in terms of lack of autonomy, loss
of physical or mental capacities and self-control, based on factors beyond
one’s control, such as illness or natural mishap, then one still deserves a
134 M. MOLEFE
high degree or duty of respect from others. The idea of respecting uncon-
ditionally those who are not capable of acting to earn respect is supported
by the moral principle of ‘ought implies can’, which indicates that you
cannot hold people responsible for what is impossible for them. Dignity
involves respect for one’s God-given capacity for communal living, but for
those who are able to use such capacity freely, there is an added element of
accountability, which is that respect depends on meeting one’s responsibil-
ity to use one’s capacity to promote loving and caring communal living.
In this passage, Ikuenobe is more daring than he was in the previous

quotation when he pointed out that the possession of some capacity may
imply moral respect, and possibly secure respect for the young and mar-
ginal cases. In this instance, he talks of the unconditional respect we owe
to the young and marginal cases. He explains this unconditional respect
or high degree of respect in terms of the principle of ‘ought implies can’.
Thus, Ikuenobe holds the view that we owe unconditional duties of
respect to such cases because we cannot hold them responsible for what
they cannot do because of limitations beyond their control.
This is surely a problematic way to ground respect for the young and
marginal cases—the idea that we should grant high respect to these cases
merely because they cannot use their capacities. Remember that the
essence of Ikuenobe’s theory of dignity places emphasis on the actual use
of capacities, what he calls ‘God-given capacities’, and not mere posses-
sion of these capacities. He has already informed us that the capacity in
and of itself has no intrinsic value, but only instrumental value.18 In the
light of his theory, Ikuenobe does not offer us sufficient reasons for this
exception to his rule. It is almost as though Ikuenobe ascribes instru-
mental worth to all capacities, except to those of the young and marginal
cases. It is not clear what allows him to grant an exception to these cases,
without granting the same exception, to say, the morally decrepit, who
have, in a sense, lost their capacity for goodness.
If an agent cannot use her God-given capacities, for one reason
or another, then we cannot grant her dignity. Why? To be true to
Ikuenobe’s account (1) dignity is a function of how one uses one’s
capacities; and (2) capacity has no intrinsic value. What about those who
cannot use their capacities? They are in an unfortunate position because
on Ikuenobe’s view dignity depends on the active and positive use of
capacity, and capacity, in and of itself, does not warrant respect.
It is bizarre that Ikuenobe should insist that we ought to respect the

young/marginal cases because of the situation that has made it impossi-
ble for them to use their capacities. Surely, it is moral bad luck that they
cannot use their capacities.19 We undoubtedly should feel great pity for
their inability to use their capacities. But to show them pity is not the
same thing as respecting them. If we have to grant them high respect
from whence does it arise? What follows from this view is that we may
not consider them morally responsible or expect anything from them
morally speaking; but it does not follow that because of these unfortu-
nate circumstances we owe them respect, let alone unconditional or high
respect. Respect, we are clear by now, is a function not of any ontological
property, but of how one uses one’s agency to promote well-being and
harmonious living.20
This objection from the young and marginal cases reveals the
powerful intuition behind grounding dignity purely on some capacity.
The idea that there is something special about human nature grounds
the equality of human beings and the equal respect we ought to accord
to them. George and Lee (2008: 411) capture this idea thus:
All human beings have this capacity, so all human beings are persons. Each
human being therefore deserves to be treated by all other human beings
with respect and consideration. It is precisely this truth that is at stake in
the debates about killing human embryos, foetuses, and severely retarded,
demented, or debilitated human beings, and in many other debates in
bioethics.
This idea of according all human beings respect merely because of some
capacity is considered the central article of faith of modern bio-ethical
and political discourses. Its attractions lie in its egalitarian feature and
in the fact that no circumstance can justifiably undermine one’s dig-
nity. Dignity refers to an inherent worth that does not vary with cir-
cumstances or performance. The moment dignity is grounded on moral
performance, or other circumstances, this egalitarian infrastructure crum-
bles. This is because the idea of dignity imposes constraints/restrictions
on how some persons may or may not be treated. The day, however, that
dignity is taken to be a function of how the agent behaves is the day that
it is no longer clear what will protect some human person from possible
abuse, particularly if that person is young or on the margins of society.
136 M. MOLEFE
Conclusion
The aim of this chapter was to analyse the kinds of political work the idea
of personhood can offer. From the above analysis of Ikuenobe’s concep-
tion of dignity qua personhood, I argued that the idea of personhood
is not suitable to ground the kinds of moral-political relations imagined
by the idea of dignity. I argued that the notion of dignity imagines an
egalitarian moral-political culture, where respect is a function of the mere
possession of the relevant ontological property. The idea of personhood
is antithetical to this egalitarian ethos insofar as it imagines respect that
varies relative to the quality of moral conduct. The more of a person one
is the more respect is due to her. Secondly, the idea of dignity has the
powerful role of protecting vulnerable individuals (like children or the
marginal cases) simply on the basis that they possess the relevant onto-
logical property. If dignity were to turn out to require the actual use of
these properties, then it is not clear how we would protect these vulner-
able groups.
The reader by now should be asking if dignity is incompatible with
the idea of personhood, at least in the way construed by Ikuenobe.
Does the idea of dignity feature or matter at all in connection with the
idea of personhood? I think above I demonstrated that we have a lot to
lose by abandoning their idea that dignity is a function of possessing
a particular capacity. On the idea of personhood, dignity is a function
of the human capacity for virtue or to develop a virtuous character. In
other words, I am valuable as a human being—have dignity—merely
because I possess the capacity to perfect my humanity to be an embod-
iment of a noble humanity (see Gyekye 1992). This conception is
also consistent with the egalitarian nature of the modern concept of
dignity.
I proceed now to consider a conception of the good society entailed
by the idea of personhood. The aim of this discussion is to pursue a con-
ception of the good society by evaluating whether the idea of rights is at
home in the discourse of personhood.
Acknowledgement I am truly grateful to Johnbosco Nwogbo for insights we

exchanged in the development of this chapter. This chapter is in a much better
shape because of his incisive analysis and fruitful contribution. I, however, take all
the responsibility for the limitations of this chapter.
Notes
1. When doing revisions on the manuscript, I discovered that Ikuenobe
(2018) published an article that defends the same view of dignity, in this
instance, with the special focus on human rights. The objection enlisted
against the initial articulation of this view of dignity, as discussed in this
chapter, equally apply to this recent article.
2. Mattias Makinjwa (2019) in a doctoral dissertation—particularly chap-
ters one to three—offers a useful discussion of the standard individualis-
tic interpretation of dignity, which it grounds on some feature of human
nature. The major limitation of this robust doctoral study is that it does
not attempt to proffer a plausible conception of dignity, rather it sets
itself the goal to “to determine how African communitarian thought pro-
motes human dignity” without appeal to rights (Makwinja 2019: 85).
The major focus of this chapter is to grapple with the question whether
Ikuenobe can derive and defend a plausible conception of dignity with-
out focusing on the question of how to protect and promote it, be it by
appeal to rights or any other set of values. I take up the question of how
to protect and promote human dignity in the Afro-communitarian con-
text, in the next chapter.
3. The agency facet is crucial for Ikuenobe because it associates dignity with
the moral notion of responsibility and accountability, which is lacking on
the standard patient-centred interpretations of dignity.
4. There is a historical/classical and the contemporary understanding of the
concept of dignity. Historically, the concept of dignity was understood in
hierarchical terms, where it distinguished some as deserving more respect
than others. In other words, dignity was a reserve of the political elite,
among others (Toscano 2011: 9). The more contemporary understand-
ing of dignity construes it in universal and egalitarian terms. Toscano
(ibid.) captures it, thus: “it is a type of value that belongs to everyone
as a human being, regardless of his or her social status and institutional
position. Moreover, this value is seen as something given, an endow-
ment, not something acquired or conquered; therefore, it cannot be lost
or removed… so that every human being has the same equal worth”.
Stephen Darwall’s (1977) analysis of two kinds of respects is important
for clarifying the contemporary use of the idea of dignity. He understands
this equal respect (qua dignity) to be the central moral plank of modern
moral and political theories. For him, dignity refers “to the respect which
is due all persons” merely on the basis of recognition of the kind of a
thing a human being is (36, emphasis mine).
138 M. MOLEFE
5. I am aware that there is something question begging about this first
response since it already assumes the truth of dignity as accounted for in
terms of some capacity; a position that Ikuenobe rejects. But the aim here
is merely to explain why African thinkers tend to separate talk of dignity
and personhood. The second criticism will sketch some account that jus-
tifies the first objection; here, I will simply provide prima facie reasons for
why dignity qua capacity is worth taking seriously.
6. It is true that Metz accounts for dignity strictly by appeal to some descrip-
tive property or some human capacity. One has dignity, according to
Metz, merely because one has the capacity or ability to form friendly rela-
tions (Metz 2012a, b). Metz (2010: 81) states that “I draw on one major
strand of Afro-communitarian thought to develop a novel conception of
dignity as the view that what is special and inviolable about human nature
is our capacity for harmonious relationships”. It is crucial to note that
what accounts for dignity (our high value as human beings), for Metz,
is some facet of human nature, some ontological property, specifically,
the capacity for harmonious relationship. It is also crucial to note that
for Metz, dignity is a function of merely possessing this capacity for har-
monious relationships (friendliness), irrespective of how one uses it. Metz
(2010: 93) states: “Of course, some people with this capacity do not
actualize it and instead misuse it, but, by the present view, they retain a
dignity”. This is the view that has come to dominate Metz’s understand-
ing of dignity: (1) dignity is a function of human nature; (2) we do not
earn and acquire it; and (3) as long as we have human nature then we
have dignity (see 2010, 2011, 2012a, b). It is such a view of dignity that
Ikuenobe is challenging by insisting that performance qua personhood is
a crucial part of it.
7. This, in some sense, calls to mind the is/ought fallacy (the naturalistic fal-
lacy). It is one thing to identify rationality as an ontological feature that
characterises humanity; but it is quite another to say such a feature is
intrinsically valuable merely because one possesses it. It appears that a jus-
tifying premise is required to make this leap from facts to claims of value.
8. Here, I emphasise the fact that dignity in the literature, both in the
African and Western traditions, tends to be accounted for in terms of
some ontological property. Dignity is usually understood as respect that
is assigned to the individual merely for possessing the relevant moral
property. Ramose (2009: 309), for example, when talking about dig-
nity, grounds it on recognising some “quality” intrinsic to human nature.
Gyekye (1992) and Wiredu (2009) also ground dignity on merely pos-
sessing some divine property or speck, or, autonomy on the part of
Gyekye. The same can be said about Western scholars (see Donnelly
2009). The dispute is about which property best accounts for dignity.
9. It appears that Ikuenobe was thinking mainly of private negative accounts
of rights such as Dworkin’s (1977) theory of rights-as-trumps. Dworkin
thinks of rights primarily as entailing entitlements which individuals have
to not be interfered with in the performance of actions they legitimately
have a right to perform. Collective rights, defined as rights that, properly
speaking, belong to groups rather than individuals, appear prima facie
exempt from his suggestion.
10. The other-regarding facet of this idea of personhood is not in dispute
or at least I think not. In several of my publications, I defend this view
(Molefe 2016a, b, 2017a, b, c). Mpho Tshivhase’s (2013) article on
personhood best reveals this other-regarding feature of personhood.
Even other interpretations of African ethics that do not take personhood
(self-realisation) as the basic norm, but take features like welfare, life/
vitality and so on as basic tend to emphasise the other-regarding facet of
morality (see Magesa 1997; Bujo 2001; Gyekye 2010).
11. This is not to reject personhood per se, but to emphasise that it has its
own role in moral philosophy that does not involve capturing dignity.
12. I point the reader to Stephen Darwall’s (1977) article, where he distin-
guishes between these two distinct types of respect. One kind of respect
tracks ontology and the other performance. It is this crucial distinction
that escapes Ikuenobe’s attention.
13. Ikuenobe might respond to say that equality does not imply that there is
no space for differential treatment. The value of equal opportunities does
accommodate differential treatments among applicants for a job. I cau-
tion against this kind of a response. It is a misunderstanding, in the first
place, to assume that being equal implies sameness of treatment. To treat
people equally is to treat them as they individually deserve. Both of us
might be equal as human beings, but present different merits or abilities,
to award the job without regard to these individual facts would amount
to unequal treatment. But it is crucial to note what is under scrutiny is
no longer the equality of opportunities (that fact is secured by our equal
humanity) what is under scrutiny now is facts that allow for differential
treatments like merit. But we consider these (individual) facts of merit
precisely because we want to treat people fairly (or, equally).
14. The reader should remember that we do not seek to defend the concep-
tion of dignity qua capacity per se.
15. To sharpen this objection, consideration of marginal cases is extended
to those that have never used their capacities—they were born in that
condition.
16. This does imply that even the potential to develop capacities has no intrin-
sic value, particularly given that even capacities of normal adults do not
have it.
140 M. MOLEFE
17. I say so because a correct reading of Ikuenobe’s conception of dignity

suggests that we must respect the agent that uses her capacities to perfect
her own humanity and to contribute to the collective well-being of soci-
ety. When it comes to the young and marginal cases, however, he uses the
word may to capture the respect we owe them. The sense of compulsion
attends the meaning of the word ‘must’, and the sense of mere possibility
attends the word ‘may’.
18. There is no basis to read much into Ikuenobe’s specific mention that these
are God-given capacities. Even if we were to do so, all capacities, for those
who are committed to the idea of God, of the young, marginal cases and
adults come from God. So, if the (God-given) capacities have intrinsic
value, dignity, then it means merely possessing a God-given capacity con-
fers dignity, a view that Ikuenobe is rejecting—saying instead that it is a
function of positive use, and not mere possession. It is for this reason that
the young and marginal cases are a problem because they have not used
these capacities.
19. Take the case of an athlete that has the capacity (or, even potential) to win
the 100-meter finals in the Olympics. Due to some situation or another—
say they become crippled for life—she can no longer use her (God-given)
capacity to compete. Does the mere fact that she could not run due to
factors beyond her control attract unconditional or high respect for her as
an athlete? I am not convinced.
20. The possible response that we ought to respect these cases because by so
doing we will be manifesting personhood begs the question. It already
implies that it is wrong to treat them amiss. This is not obvious because
these have no moral value that is their own in the first place.
References
103–119.
Betzler, M. (2014). Personal Projects and Reasons for Partiality. Social Theory
and Practice, 4, 683–692.
Brennan, A., & Lo, Y. (2007). Two Conceptions of Human Dignity: Honour
and Self-Determination. In J. Malpas & N. Lickiss (Eds.), Perspectives on
Human Dignity: A Conversation. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Bujo, B. (2001). Foundations of an African Ethic: Beyond the Universal Claims of
Western Morality. New York: Crossroad Publishing.
Cottingham, J. (1986). Partiality, Favouritism and Morality. Philosophical
Quarterly, 36 (144), 357–373.
Darwall, S. (1977). Two Kinds of Respect. Ethics, 80, 36–49.

Donnelly, J. (1982). Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique
Donnelly, J. (2009). Human Dignity and Human Rights. Denver: Josef Korbel
School of International Studies.
Dworkin, R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
George, R., & Lee, P. (2008). The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity. In A.
Sculman (Ed.), Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the
President’s Council. Washington, DC: President’s Council on Bioethics.
Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. Person
and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies (Vol. 1, pp. 101–122).
Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Hughes, G. (2011). The Concept of Dignity in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Journal of Religious Ethics, 39, 1–24.
Hurley, P. (1995). Getting Our Options Clear: A Closer Look at Agent-
Centered Options. Philosophical Studies, 78, 163–188.
124–163.
Ikuenobe, P. (2018). Human Rights, Personhood, Dignity, and African
Communalism. Journal of Human Rights, 17, 589–604.
Ilesanmi, O. (2001). Human Rights Discourse in Modern Africa: A Comparative
Religious Perspective. Journal of Religious Ethics, 23, 293–320.
Jollimore, T. (2014). Impartiality. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford
archives/sum2011/entries/impartiality/.
142 M. MOLEFE
Kant, E. (1996). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (M. Gregor, Trans.)

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
W. Wiredu (Ed.), Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 332–442). Oxford:
Blackwell.
Kymlicka, W. (1990). Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Magesa, L. (1997). African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life.
New York: Orbis Books.
Makwinja, M. (2019). Human Dignity in Afro-Communitarianism (Doctoral
Dissertation). University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
Publications.
Handbook of Ethical Theory (pp. 425–458). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rights, 9, 81–99.
Metz, T. (2012a). Developing African Political Philosophy: Moral-Theoretic
Strategies. Philosophia Africana, 14, 61–83.
Metz, T. (2012b). An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative
to Individualism and Holism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice: An
Molefe, M. (2016a). Revisiting the Debate Between Gyekye-Menkiti: Who Is a
Molefe, M. (2016b). African Ethics and Partiality. Phronimon, 17, 104–122.
Molefe, M. (2017c). Individualism in African Moral Cultures. Cultura:
International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology, 14, 49–68.
Molefe, M. (2018). Personhood and Partialism in African Philosophy. African
Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2018.1519337.

Pannenberg, W. (1991). Systematic Theology (Vol. 2). Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans.
McGraw Hill.
Ramose, M. (2009). Towards Emancipative Politics in Africa. In F. Murove
(Ed.), African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics.
Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.
Singer, P. (2009). Speciesism and Moral Status. Metaphilosophy, 40, 567–581.
4–25.
Wingo, A. (2006). Akan Philosophy of the Person. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.),The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/sum2017/entries/akan-person/.
Philosophy.
CHAPTER 7
Personhood as a Political

Theory of Duties
Introduction
Is there a relationship between the normative idea of personhood in
African moral-political thought and the idea of rights? I ask this ques-
tion given the universal appeal and political currency of rights, on the
one hand; and, the salience of the idea of personhood in African moral-
political thought, on the other. We have already noted that the norma-
tive idea of personhood embodies a perfectionist, or a self-realisation,
moral theory. To be called a person is to be recognised to be living a
genuinely human life or to have a morally virtuous disposition—a
term that signifies the status of moral achievement on the part of the
agent. I also consider the question of the relationship between the idea
This chapter is partly indebted to two of my previously published articles

(Molefe 2017, 2018). In this chapter, however, I give a more robust and
systematic exposition of personhood as an embodiment of a political theory
of duties. I provide a broader context in the literature and a more compelling
motivation for why we ought to move in the direction of duties rather than
rights. I give a working definition of the concept of rights and why they are
important in the Western political theory, something I did not do in the previous
publications. I also offer a clear and extensive discussion and distinction between
political systems embodied by Menkiti’s distinction between minimalist and
maximalist conceptions of personhood. This chapter elaborates and completes
the argument I started in these articles.

146 M. MOLEFE
of personhood and rights because of Menkiti’s (1984: 180) assertion

that rights in the African axiological system occupy a secondary status,
primacy being reserved for our duties to the collective well-being of soci-
ety. This assertion by Menkiti initiated philosophical reflections and the
debate about the nature of Afro-communitarianism in African philosophy
regarding the place and relevance of rights in this moral-political system.
The contention—or, what Eze (2018: 1) refers to as a “burning
issue”—regarding Menkiti’s assertion pivots on proffering a p lausible
characterisation of Afro-communitarian political theory. The central
question is whether rights should feature as an essential component
of a good society or only incidentally. It is important to notice that
Menkiti has merely asserted the thesis that duties are primary and rights
secondary, without continuing to proffer a philosophical clarification and
justification of this position. The political theory proposed by Menkiti
essentially takes duties to be primary in responding to problems occa-
sioned by human existence in society. The core concept that embodies
this political theory of duties is the idea of personhood, which is central
in Menkiti’s moral-political philosophy and in African philosophy (see
Molefe 2019).
I note, however, that Menkiti’s relegation of rights to a second-
ary status has attracted objections from the literature. Scholars scathe
Menkiti’s proposal for its political consequences that are said to be
“excessive”, “unrestricted” and/or “radical” since it does not properly
recognise the relevance and primacy of individual rights (Gyekye 1992:
103–104, 108). As such, Menkiti’s thesis has been dubbed radical
communitarianism (Matolino 2009; Oyowe 2014; Famanikwa 2010).
The defining feature of radical communitarianism is its insistence on the
primacy of duties and the secondary status it assigns to rights.
Many other scholars of African thought have repudiated Menkiti’s
thesis, and they have tended to assume that rights quite naturally ought
to be a fundamental feature of a robust African political theory—and of
any society, for that matter (see Wiredu 1996; Deng 2004; Metz 2011;
Matolino 2013; Oyowe 2014; Molefe and Allsobrook 2018). Gyekye
(1997), in one instance, defends what he calls “moderate communitari-
anism”, which takes rights and the common good to be equally founda-
tional in political theory. Metz (2011) defends a view of rights that is a
function of respecting human nature’s capacity for relationships of ‘love’.
Matolino (2014, 2018a, b) defends what he calls “limited communitar-
ianism”, which grounds rights on some conception of human nature as
7 PERSONHOOD AS A POLITICAL THEORY OF DUTIES 147
is common in the naturalist tradition (without specifying the feature of

human nature that does the job of securing rights). Recently, Ikuenobe
(2018) defends a view of rights that emphasises responsibilities towards
others as a robust approach to imagining a good society. Almost all of
these approaches to rights tend take the naturalist approach, which is
dominant in Western systems of conceptualising rights.1
In this chapter, I aim to give moral-theoretical content to Menkiti’s
philosophical thesis that propounds a political theory of duties in
addressing questions occasioned by human dignity. I will be offering a
defence of Menkiti’s proposition of a political theory of duties. To do
so, I invoke the idea of personhood since it is at the heart of the Afro-
communitarian debate about the place of rights in African philosophy.
For example, Menkiti’s assertion that duties take priority over rights
occurs in the context of his defence of the idea of personhood salient in
African philosophy. The same is true of Gyekye’s defence of the political
theory of moderate communitarianism, which takes the notion of per-
sonhood to be central to this debate.
The idea of personhood, I hope to demonstrate, envisages an other-
regarding morality of duties. It is these (other-regarding) duties, I submit,
that take priority even over rights. In other words, the idea of personhood
is grounded on a different ethical sensibility than that which informs the
discourse on rights (Molefe 2017). Tasioulas (2012: 4) avers that the dis-
course on rights is based on a “distinctive ethical sensibility” informed by
the idea that “each and every individual human being, (is) an ultimate
focus of moral concern”. The assumption informing this kind of moral
sensibility assumes isolated and independent individuals as the proper
focus and goal of morality. The social goal characteristic of the political
theory of duties embodied by personhood espouses, I submit, the ethical
sensibility that the good of all human beings is the moral responsibility of
all, what we may call collective well-being. Rights take a secondary status
because they will tend to clash with the fundamental moral-political goal
posited by the moral-political theory of duties to secure the well-being of
all human beings entailed by the idea of personhood.
What makes this chapter worth taking seriously is its attempt to give
philosophical content to a position that has been thought to be obvi-
ously implausible in the literature—the idea that duties take priority over
rights (Gyekye 1992, 1997; Matolino 2009; Famanikwa 2010). Jack
Donnelly (1982a: 306) suggests the view defended here, when he offers
an analysis of non-Western societies like Africa:
148 M. MOLEFE
… let us look briefly at the ways in which several traditional cultures …

non-Western cultures have approached the issues we consider in terms of
human rights, i.e. the social and political ideals by which these cultures
aspire to realize human dignity. In each case I will show that the substan-
tive issues discussed today in terms of human rights, such as life, speech,
religion, work, health, and education, are handled almost entirely in terms
of duties that are neither derivative nor correlative to rights, at least human
rights.
Though he indicates that the moral-political system characteristic of

these non-Western societies is predicated on duties and never on rights,
he does not go further to elucidate the moral content of these political
systems. In another place, he does elaborate on the Indian and Chinese
political systems of duties, but he never quite elaborates on the African
political theory of duties (Donnelly 2009). This chapter will elucidate
the African political theory of duties drawing on the idea of personhood.
It thus challenges the dominant view in African philosophy that rights
ought to occupy a central place in the pursuit and fulfilment of human
dignity in African political thought.2 The salient idea in the literature in
African philosophy is that rights are universal and all that African scholars
have to do is to domesticate them (Cobbah 1987; Donnelly 1982b; Ake
1987; Deng 2004).3
The discussion regarding rights and their place in Afro-communitarianism
is influenced by my positionality as an African scholar. I was born and
I live in an Africa that still bears vestiges of colonisation. The decolo-
nial attitude at the very least requires that I approach the discourse on
rights with intellectual suspicion for several reasons. Firstly, there are
scholars who inform us that rights are foreign to African moral-political
cultures. In this light, Claude Ake (1987: 5; see also Donnelly 1982a:
303) commenting on rights informs us that: “The values implicit in all
this are clearly alien to those of our traditional societies”.4 The second
reason involves the fact that most communitarian scholars in the Western
and Oriental traditions tend to distance themselves from the idea of
human rights (Sandel 1982: 33). This scepticism towards rights can take
either of two forms. On the one hand, one can pragmatically endorse
rights while denying that they can be explained or captured philosoph
ically. This view is entertained by Tasioulas (2012: 4) when he com-
ments that: “… one reason why the idea of human rights belongs neither
to lawyers nor philosophers is that it does not ultimately consist in a
system of principles …”. Though Tasioulas is committed to rights, he

appears to be taking a meta-ethical orientation that leans towards anti-
foundationalism. He goes on to inform us that philosophers will fail
to capture the moral-theoretical idea of rights because they rely “on
(a model of) rational inquiry” that “mimics” the “inaccurate interpreta-
tion of a defunct scientific paradigm, that of Newtonian physics” (ibid.).
The anti-foundationalist approach to rights reduces them to a
status of mere “contingency, construction, and relativity”, which, in
a crucial sense, robs them of their intrinsic obligatoriness, their univer-
sal status and their peremptory force (Freeman 1995: 511). The anti-
foundationalist approach to rights, in the final analysis, renders them
merely optional. On the other hand, we have the more extreme version
of scepticism towards rights defended by scholars like Alisdare MacIntyre
(2007: 69), who notes that “There are no such [natural or human]
rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in uni-
corns”. McIntyre’s point is that there is not and cannot be a successful
defence of rights because this is a discourse whose content is concerned
with the myths that are mere inventions or constructions of modernity.
Both kinds of scepticism about rights place them on shaky philosophical
ground.5
Finally, the intellectual suspicion informing this chapter is reinforced
by the moral-political goals of decolonisation. Positively, this intellectual
suspicion gravitates in the direction of the political objective of draw-
ing from African axiological strategies to imagine and secure the human
good without appeal to rights, particularly given that we are aware that
rights are just ‘one way’ to secure a life of dignity. It will be hasty, on our
part, if we rush to accept foreign values, like rights, before we satisfacto-
rily exhaust the local political solutions.
The kind of approach espoused in this chapter to African political the-
ory is urged by Frantz Fanon, one of the leading post-colonial political
thinkers, when he notes that “We today can do everything on condition
that we do not ape or mimic … Europe” (1974: 230). In the same vein,
he notes (1974: 245) that:
The Third World ought not to be content to define itself in relation to

values that precede … it. The underdeveloped countries, on the contrary,
have to exert themselves to bring to the light of day their own proper
values, methods, and a style specific to themselves.
150 M. MOLEFE
As I understand this call, it is for Africans to search deep within their

moral cultures to find values appropriate to imagine the future of Africa
in its own terms and for it to be in a position to contribute to the world.
Wiredu (2008: 334) endorses this political view by noting that the mor-
al-political project of reconstructing the future of Africa “is cultural
practice of the highest kind”. The idea is that (some) values inherent in
African cultures could inform our political theory in the quest to give an
account of a good society more appropriate to our situation.
Considering the above scepticism towards rights and the project of
decolonisation, I set myself the goal to give philosophical content to
Menkiti’s proposition that envisages a political theory of duties, where
rights, if they emerge at all, will be merely derivative and instrumental. To
make a case for the primacy of duties in African moral-political thought,
I structure this chapter as follows: I begin by defining the idea of rights
and giving the reader a sense of why they tend to be taken to be deci-
sive in the Western ethical and political systems. Next, I proceed to ana-
lyse Menkiti’s conception of personhood. Here, I will remind the reader
of Menkiti’s distinction between the minimalist and maximalist concep-
tions of personhood. Keeping this distinction in mind (1) I proceed to
explore the relationship between the minimalist conception of person-
hood and rights. The point I will be making is to indicate that rights tend
to be associated with the minimalist conception, which Menkiti notes
is not central to African moral-political cultures; (2) I proceed to con-
sider the relationship between the maximalist conception of personhood
and rights. The aim here is to unfold the system of values characteristic
of Afro-communitarianism, which will explain why duties are pivotal for
Menkiti’s political theory. The idea of personhood embodies a different
moral-political approach to thinking about solving problems occasioned
by human existence both for the individual and society at large.
The Idea of Rights

One useful way to approach the discourse on rights is by using the
Hohfeldian analytical system. The Hohfeldian system distinguishes four
categories of rights, namely: (1) claim-rights; (2) rights as privileges/
liberties; (3) rights as powers; and (4) rights as immunities (see Wenar
2015). My focus in this chapter will be on claim-rights. For the purpose
of this chapter, I will stipulate that talk of rights as entitlements is contin-
uous or even synonymous with talk of rights as claims.
Donnelly (2009: 8) defines a right, using the language of entitle-

ments, in this fashion:
To have a right x is to be entitled to x. It is owed to you, belongs to you

in particular. And if x is threatened or denied, right holders are authorized
to make special claims that ordinarily trump utility, social policy, and other
moral or political grounds for action.
To have a right to x is to be duly entitled to it or is to be in a position

where one can legitimately claim x. It is crucial to notice that the right
belongs to the right-holder and it is owed to her by the duty-holder. The
right grants the right-holder authority or power over the duty-holder.
This power relates to the claims or demands the right-holder can make
against the duty-holder. The idea here is that rights are the kinds of thing
that create duties at least to one duty-holder. It is important to recog-
nise that the language of rights as things owed to the right-holder implies
that rights are not favours or privileges. Two crucial considerations are
important to notice about the idea of rights.
Firstly, the idea of rights imagined here is a thick one. The thin idea
of rights regards them as correlative to duties. That is, to have a right
just is to have duties and vice versa. This view generally is not interest-
ing or is not the one scholars of rights have in mind. It is the thick idea
of rights that is dominant in the literature, where rights are taken to be
prior to and to create duties for duty-holders (Feinberg 1970). The idea
of rights implies a power-laden relationship between the right-holder and
the duty-holder. The power lies entirely with right-holder and the rela-
tionship empowers her to make claims demanding what is due to her.
The second consideration involves the function of rights in moral-
political discourse. It crucial to notice that Donnelly speaks of rights
as authorising the right-holder to make special claims that ordinar-
ily trump utility, social policy and other political grounds. The idea of
rights as trumps captures the peremptory role of rights in moral-political
discourse. The idea is that, all things being equal, rights supersede all
other competing grounds be they cultural, moral or political. Though
the trumping function of rights is not absolute, it is stringent enough
to make all the moral-political difference to the lives of right-holders
(Donnelly 1982b). Feinberg (1970: 252) eloquently captures the func-
tion of rights thus: “Having rights enables us to ‘stand up like men’, to
look others in the eyes, and to feel in some fundamental way as the equal
152 M. MOLEFE
of anyone”. Rights are crucial because they enable the right-holder, in

some significant moral sense, to be human, to be imbued with a sense of
being equal to every other human being.
It is for this reason that Feinberg (ibid.) proceeds to note that
rights are “to be claimed, demanded, affirmed and insisted upon”. The
demand, affirmation and insistence on rights is crucial because it allows
us to be human. Or, put differently, Donnelly (2009: 13) notes that
“rights are both a roadmap and a set of practices for constructing a life
of dignity in the conditions of the contemporary world”. As such, rights
are things that the right-holder can demand, affirm and insist upon
because “they are a necessary condition for the good life” (Ake 1987: 5).
Without rights, therefore, “the quality of life is seriously compromised”
or a human life is seriously “handicapped” (ibid.; Feinberg 1970: 252).
Thus, rights refer to a normative package of goods that are necessary
for a decent human life. It is for this reason that rights tend to be taken
seriously in the contemporary world. It is also for this reason that they
ought to be conceived as (human) entitlements because without them
life will be seriously compromised. I proceed in the next section to con-
sider Menkiti’s understanding of personhood, with the aim of ascertain-
ing why it does not take rights seriously.
Menkiti and Two Conceptions of Personhood

I have indicated in the second chapter that a close reading of Menkiti’s
seminal essay on personhood presents three different notions of per-
sonhood. It occurs to me that Menkiti only intended to contrast two
approaches to personhood, one salient in African and another in Western
cultures. He refers to the one dominant in Western cultures as the min-
imalist conception of personhood (Menkiti 1984: 172). The defining
feature of the minimalist approach is that it defines personhood entirely
by appeal to some abstract facet of human nature, be it physical or psy-
chological. The tendency, in the style of Descartes and Kant, is to con-
strue ‘personhood’ in terms of rationality. We should note, however, that
Descartes’ and Kant’s invocation of rationality are meant to play two dis-
tinct roles in philosophy. Descartes invokes the idea of rationality to give
a metaphysical account of the kind of thing that a subject characterised by
doubt is. As such, he construes the human subject in terms of rationality—
‘I think therefore I am’. Kant, however, in the humanity formula of the
categorical imperative, invokes the idea of rationality/autonomy as play-
ing a moral role. Rationality serves as a moral standard that defines how
beings that possess it ought to be treated with absolute respect. According

to Kant, rationality imposes moral parameters or constraints on how such
beings may be treated.
It is not entirely clear in Menkiti’s analysis how he understands the
minimalist conception of personhood, whether he takes it to be a strictly
metaphysical or a moral notion. If we take our cue from the fact that the
maximalist notion is an ethical term, we may take the minimalist idea of
personhood to be a moral one. This is because it is reasonable to sup-
pose that Menkiti compares a moral term against another moral term. If
we take the minimalist conception of a person to be a moral one, then
it is continuous, as already pointed out in previous chapters, with the
patient-centred notion of personhood. Understood in this moral sense,
the minimalist idea of personhood amounts to a theory of moral status
or dignity. On this way of thinking about the theory of value (moral sta-
tus), we identify distinctive features of human nature in virtue of which
the individual counts as a bearer of superlative value (dignity).
A casual reading of Menkiti immediately reveals that he is opposed to
the minimalist idea of personhood. Menkiti believes that the maximal-
ist idea of personhood is characteristic of African moral-political systems
of value. I will say more on the maximalist approach to personhood in
the last section. For now, it is crucial for the reader to be cognisant that
the concept of personhood central to Menkiti’s analysis offers a way to
think about questions of value that is distinct from the one dominant
in the rights-based system. The distinction between the minimalist and
maximalist approaches to personhood is adequate to suggest that these
embody two differing systems of value. As such, it is a mistake to think
of the system of dignity/rights embodied by the minimalist approach
as accounting for the system embodied by the maximalist approach. To
best illustrate why this distinction matters, I now turn to demonstrating
the relationship between the minimalist approach and rights, in both the
African and Western tradition.
The Minimalist Conception

of Personhood and Rights
I point the reader to the fact that the minimalist approach to person-
hood is central to the naturalist approach to rights. John Locke is the
father of the naturalist approach to rights in the Western tradition
(Freeman 1995). Typically, the naturalist approach to rights grounds
154 M. MOLEFE
it on some distinctive feature(s) of human nature. These distinctive

features of human nature serve as the basis for a conception of moral
status/dignity, which in turn ground rights (Toscano 2011). The natu-
ralist approach to rights is also known as the foundationalist approach to
rights, and it tends to posit human nature as the foundation for human
rights (Tasioulas 2012). Donnelly (1982b: 391, emphasis mine) clarifies
the naturalist approach to rights in this fashion:
It is a common assumption that a natural rights theory of human rights

underlies contemporary human rights doctrines. The term human rights
is generally taken to mean what Locke and his successors meant by natural
rights: namely, rights (entitlements) held simply by virtue of being a per-
son (human being). Such rights are natural in the sense that their source is
human nature.
Donnelly informs us that the natural theory of rights grounds the dom-
inant approach to rights in our contemporary political theory. This
approach to rights is called ‘natural’ because rights are understood to
be a function of some facets of human nature, specifically those facets
of it that make human life worth living (Griffin 2008). For example, the
bipedality of human nature means that human beings should have space
to exercise their capacity to move—they are entitled to the freedom of
movement. The crucial point to note is the fact that the source of these
rights is human nature. Different theories of rights will differ in terms of
what facets of human nature they consider to be distinctive and most rel-
evant for a decent or dignified human life.
It is therefore of interest to note that scholars like Gyekye (1992),
Wiredu (1996), Metz (2011), and Matolino (2018a) take a natural-
ist approach to rights. In other words, they also believe that rights are
a function of human nature. They differ only in terms of the details of
the specific ontological property that does the job. For example, Wiredu
(1996: 153) thinks of rights as “claims that people are entitled to make
simply by virtue of their status as human beings”. He is also very specific
about what facet of human nature entitles human beings to rights. In
this light, he comments that:
By possessing an okra, a divine element, all persons have an intrinsic value,

the same in each, which they do not owe to any earthly circumstance.
Associated with this value is a concept of dignity, which implies that every
human being is entitled in equal measure to a certain basic respect.
Wiredu (ibid.) continues to note that by merely possessing the okra the
individual “is situated in a network … that generates a system of rights
…” ‘Okra’ refers to a metaphysical property of human nature, which
is understood as a divine or spiritual property that inheres in human
beings. The idea that human beings have superlative value because they
have okra is tantamount to the minimalist conception of personhood. It
is crucial to note that by merely possessing okra, human beings count
as beings of dignity and, as such, are entitled to equal measures of cer-
tain basic respect. This talk of basic respect is tantamount to what Wiredu
refers to as a system of rights. Under such a system of rights, beings of
dignity (possessors of okra) are able to live a dignified life.
The same moral logic informs Gyekye’s moderate communitarian-
ism. Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism is one of the most influential
attempts to introduce and defend rights in the African tradition, or so I
think. Gyekye (1997: 35) makes entry into his discussion of rights disil-
lusioned by the commitment of post-independence leaders to a socialist
agenda that has no place for individual rights. On a philosophical basis,
he rejects Menkiti’s assertion that rights are secondary and duties primary
(Gyekye 1992, 1997). Gyekye (1992: 103) is of the view that Menkiti
(informed by John Mbiti) errs in working with the wrong conception of
personhood: the idea that it is entirely constituted by communal relations.
He believes that Menkiti’s view of personhood informs an implausible
version of Afro-communitarianism, which fails to accommodate crucial
individualistic features like autonomy, which are vital for a decent life.
As a corrective, Gyekye offers what he considers to be “a more appro-
priate and an adequate account of the self” (Gyekye 1992: 112). An
appropriate and adequate conception of personhood, according Gyekye,
is constituted by two crucial elements, namely: the social and individu-
alistic. On the social side, Gyekye considers human beings by their very
nature to be relational beings necessarily caught up in social relationships
with others. Concerning individualism, he believes human beings by
nature have attributes that belong to them as individuals qua individual
outside of the fact of their relationality. Gyekye (1997: 41) goes on to
submit that moderate communitarianism “requires recognising the
claims of both communality and individuality and integrating individual
desires and social ideals and demands”. He proceeds to note: “I think
that the most satisfactory way to recognize the claims of both commu-
nality and individuality is to ascribe to them the status of an equal moral
standing” (ibid.).
156 M. MOLEFE
It is safe, therefore, to note that central to moderate communitarian-

ism is the equalisation of the communal and individual features of human
nature as the basis for a robust political theory. The ‘communal features’
of a human person inform what Gyekye calls the “common good”, while
the ‘individual features’ inform autonomy, and autonomy secures rights
(Gyekye 1997: 65). The political theory of moderate communitarianism
is a pluralistic moral-political theory grounded on the twin values of the
common good and dignity (see Molefe 2017).
Above, I have given the reader a sense of Gyekye’s moderate
communitarianism. Several things are worth noting about Gyekye’s

political theory of rights. Firstly, it emerges as a critique of Menkiti’s
conception of personhood that he believes has extreme political con-
sequences for individuals—the loss of their rights. The problem, how-
ever, is that it is not clear how the maximalist conception of personhood
has such extreme political consequences (this relationship has not been
established in the literature). The problem, I advise the reader, is that
Gyekye has confusedly equated Menkiti’s talk of the community taking
priority over the individual with the maximalist conception of person-
hood; one is a strictly metaphysical view of personal identity and the
other embodies a theory of value.
In the introductory chapter, I distinguished four concepts of person-
hood. I indicated that talk of the community taking priority over the
individual amounts to a communitarian conception of personal identity.
It is interesting to note that Gyekye (1992: 102) takes this talk of the
community taking priority over the individual as a metaphysical one. In
another place, I also argue at length that the assertion (that the com-
munity takes priority over the individual) by Menkiti is best understood
as adumbrating a conception of personal identity (Molefe 2016). More
importantly, Menkiti’s view of personhood will not suffer anything by dis-
carding this talk of the community taking priority over the individual par-
ticularly when discussing political theory. I say so because in Chapter 3,
I indicated that the idea of personhood, in terms of moral ends, is prop-
erly construed in terms of moral individualism; the community, at best,
plays an instrumental role.
Secondly, it is important to notice that the idea of personhood that
Gyekye employs as a response or corrective to Menkiti’s supposedly
problematic notion of personhood is different from the maximalist con-
ception of personhood pivotal in Menkiti’s analysis. The idea of per-
sonhood invoked by Gyekye is one that identifies some natural features
of human nature—specifically the fact that human beings are by nature

both autonomous and relational beings—to construct a moral-political
theory. Some facts about the self are crucial to account for Afro-
communitarianism. This approach to the discourse of personhood, which
directly connects to rights, is what we referred to above as the natural
theory of rights. It is abundantly clear that the idea of personhood cen-
tral to Menkiti’s exposition is different from this naturalist approach
to questions of value. As such, it is not to misread and misrepresent
Gyekye to note that his criticism of Menkiti misrepresents and misun-
derstands the discourse on personhood crucial in African moral cultures
(Metz 2013a; Molefe 2016). This is not yet a criticism of moderate
communitarianism as a theory of value; rather, I am pointing out how it
employs a different notion of a person in criticising Menkiti’s notion of
personhood.
Below, I give the reader one example of the minimalist approach
to questions of value from the Western moral-political tradition. I
will consider Griffin’s (2008) approach to rights since it is one of the
most widely read and discussed in the literature. Griffin’s approach can
be described as the ‘personhood account’ of (human) rights. It can
be so-called because it takes a minimalist approach to the discourse of
rights. Griffin’s (2008: 13) aim is to render the idea of rights more pre-
cise and as determinate as possible. He makes two central ideas associ-
ated with the general discourse on human rights his point of departure.
Firstly, he operates on the metaphysical assumption that rights are a
function of human nature (Griffin 2008: 13). In other words, he inter-
prets the idea of rights within the minimalist approach to questions of
value, or the naturalist interpretation of rights. As such, it becomes critical
that he specifies the facets of human nature that render humans as beings
of superlative value. Secondly, he believes that rights are crucial for the
sake of securing a decent or dignified human life (2008: 15). Tasioulas
(2012: 5) is correct to observe that Griffin “appeals to a trinity of fun-
damental human rights from which others derive”, namely: autonomy,
liberty, and welfare (Griffin 2008: 33). The distinctive feature of human
nature that grounds their status as bearers of dignity is normative agency.
By ‘normative agency’ Griffin refers to “the distinctive human capac-
ity to form and pursue a conception of a worthwhile life” (Barry and
Southwood 2011: 4). Human rights, therefore, function to protect
our normative agency, which requires autonomy (the ability to choose
one’s own ends), liberty (freedom from coercion and manipulation),
158 M. MOLEFE
and welfare (provision of basic needs to be able to lead a human life like
education). This approach to human rights is called the ‘personhood
account’ in the minimalist sense as it takes some distinctive property of
human nature (normative agency) to be the basis for rights. As such, the
system of rights it generates aims to assist human beings to lead a truly
human life or a life of dignity by providing rights that enable our norma-
tive agency.
Above, I discussed the minimalist approach to personhood. I consid-
ered moral-political theories both in the African and Western traditions,
to capture the point that they embody a particular system of demonstrat-
ing concern for the individual good—the rights-based approach. I note
that Menkiti takes the maximalist approach to be his point of departure
and takes this approach to be endemic and characteristic of the political
sensibility salient in African cultures. Below, I proceed to elaborate on
the maximalist approach to personhood.
The Maximalist Conception of Personhood and Duties

Below, I proceed to defend the view that the maximalist conception of
personhood envisages a duty-based political system of value. To do so,
I elucidate four characteristic features of this moral-political system of
value: (1) philosophical anthropology; (2) other-regarding duties; (3) the
ethical sensibility of the common good; and (4) the clash of duties and
rights. The essence of the argument that will unfold is that the maxi-
malist conception of personhood proffers an alternative approach to
questions of securing a decent human life. I begin with the conception
of human nature (philosophical anthropology) and explain how being
human informs the discourse on personhood as a political theory.
The moral-political system informing the minimalist conception of
personhood is informed by a particular conception of human nature. As
noted above, on the rights-based system, the focus is on some individ-
ual attribute taken to be distinctive of the project of being human, and
rights function to enable the realisation of these attributes for the sake of
a decent life (Tasioulas 2012). The maximalist system is riveted on a dif-
ferent conception of human nature, which embodies a particular way to
relate to human beings. The African view of human nature characteristic
of the maximalist view of personhood tends to construe it in terms that
are different to the above and that entail a different approach to value
theory.
In Chapter 3, I explored the relationship between being human

(philosophical anthropology) and being a person (theory of value).
I noted three relationships that hold between the ontological and
normative notions of personhood.
Firstly, I began with a claim pertaining to philosophical anthropology—
a conception of human nature understood strictly in relational terms.
Secondly, I noted that human nature is believed to be naturally equipped
with the capacity for virtue. I also pointed out that respecting the capacity
for virtue leads to a theory of dignity. The last aspect I did not mention
pertains to the fact that a human being is understood to be essentially
self-insufficient by her very nature, what is called in the feminist ethics
literature vulnerability. The implication of this vulnerability is that a
human being is the kind of a thing that naturally requires the commun-
ion and the help of others. This point is captured thus by African scholars
(Wiredu 1998: 293, emphasis mine):
Self-reliance is of course understood and recommended by the Akans,

but its possibility is predicated upon this ineliminable residue of human
dependency. Human beings, therefore, at all times … need the help of their
kind.
Human nature in African ethical thought is construed in terms that rec-

ognise its perpetual dependency on others. This perpetual dependency is
predicated on the fact that human nature or human beings never reach
a state where they are completely self-sufficient and, therefore, can and
should never be independent of others and the help they can provide.
Wiredu, to capture the fact of the impossibility of perfect self-sufficiency,
talks of the ineliminable residue of human dependency. The dependency
functions as a result of the recognition that we will always need the help
of others, in one way or another. We need the help of others from the
cradle to the grave because mutual dependency is essential to human life.
To be human is to be embedded in relationships that supply this inelimi-
nable residue of human dependency.
Another facet related to this metaphysical conception of our insuffi-
ciency and vulnerability is the idea of our shared humanity. The tendency
is to understand human nature as something that we share with all other
human beings in common. Whereas the tendency in liberal moral and
political discourses is to accentuate differences among individuals and
their negative liberty (Berlin 1958), in the African context, humanity is
160 M. MOLEFE
understood in terms of commonalities among human beings that bind

them together (Lutz 2009).
With these facets of human nature in mind, I note the following. A
human being is social by nature. In this understanding of human nature,
to be human just is to be caught up in continuing relationships with oth-
ers. Without constant engagement in robust human relationships with
others, the very possibility of being human is fundamentally brought to
jeopardy or threatened (Wiredu 1996). This means that relationships of
co-dependency and inter-dependency with others are crucial for a robust
human life and experience. These relationships function at both the met-
aphysical and moral level. The metaphysical level refers to the need to
be socialised or humanised in the context of a community, where one
will develop cognitively, acquire a language, and develop a personal iden-
tity (Menkiti 1984; Molefe 2016). The moral level captures the fact that
social relationships play an essential role in assisting the individual to pur-
sue and attain personhood. The help the individual needs because of her
natural insufficiency, at the metaphysical and moral level, is secured by
the instrumental role played by social relationships.
The idea that a human being is essentially insufficient and thus
requires social relationships to be able to function as a human being
informs the primacy of other-regarding duties in the maximalist concep-
tion of personhood. Gyekye (1992: 109) informs us that “norms, ideals
and moral virtues” characteristic of the maximalist conception of person-
hood “include generosity, kindness, compassion, benevolence, respect
and concern for others; in fine, any action or behaviour that conduces
the promotion of the welfare of others”. It is crucial to note that the vir-
tues or ideals he associates with personhood are entirely other-regarding
with the aim of promoting the well-being of others. The well-being
of others is not the moral telos, rather it makes available the basic pro-
visions each individual requires to be able to pursue the moral goal of
personhood.
As such, these other-regarding duties throw the individual into rela-
tionships with others. That is, one can’t be kind, generous, compassion-
ate and so on all by oneself—these are relational virtues. The crucial
conclusion we can therefore draw from the ideals and virtues of the max-
imalist conception of personhood is that it imagines a social/relational
ethics. Gyekye proceeds to make the following claims about this posi-
tion: firstly, he notes that it makes the needs of human nature the basis
for morality (Gyekye 1992, 2004; Wiredu 2008; Munyaka and Motlhabi
2009). The fact that human beings need robust relationships becomes
a crucial grounding for this moral theory. In this light, he comments
(2004: 103) that:
There is therefore much room for the exercise of other-regarding moral

virtues. Human sympathies are capacious and spontaneous, often they are
manifest prior to the enactment of a law.
He also observes that the social ethics embodied by the other-regarding

facet of the maximalist conception (ibid.):
…mandates rather a kind of a moral outlook animated by the awareness

of the needs and interests of others and the demonstration of sensitivity to
those needs.
The other-regarding facet of the maximalist conception of person-

hood embodies an ethics motivated by the needs and interests of
others. It is crucial to notice that Gyekye is very emphatic that the
other-regarding attitude and virtues are a response premised on
a particular kind of ethical sensibility. The ethical sensibility at play
is captured in terms of sympathy and/or sensitivity to the needs of
others. The basis of these other-regarding virtues is the spontane-
ous human capacity to recognise human needs. The logic seems to
be: since we are all human, we are better placed to understand the
basic needs of others. This idea is not surprising given that Wiredu
(1992: 67) informs us that sympathy or empathy “is the root of all
virtue”. In other words, to think of personhood in maximalist terms
is to recognise that human beings have the capacity to grow this vir-
tue of sympathy/empathy so that they are better able to be aware
and to respond to the needs of others. Thus, growth in personhood
is continuous with the kind of psychological development and ethical
maturity that enhances our ability to identify with others and to be
committed to advancing their well-being.
One might object that this talk of needs is tantamount to the idea of
rights. I think we have good reasons to think that this is not the case,
however. The basic reason is the fact that this response to the needs of
others is riveted on a particular understanding of human nature. Gyekye
(2004: 104), in his later philosophical works, avers that:
162 M. MOLEFE
A shared humanity should prescribe a morality that grounds the decision

to perform duties to fellow human beings, not on their rights, but on the
raw and spontaneous desire to help fulfil their needs and well-being.
In this analysis, Gyekye insists that the exercise of positive duties to others
flows from raw and spontaneous desire to help others. This way of thinking
about morality is different because it is based on the view that the worst
moral evil is selfishness and blindness to the needs of others. Since we are
social beings that share the same human nature, we are most able to sym-
pathise and respond spontaneously to the needs of others. The recogni-
tion of their needs is taken to be relatively easy because we are human like
them; and, moral development of personhood grows this kind of ethical
sensitivity and sensibility. The needs and interests of others are not alien to
us, since we are caught up in the struggle of life together. The maximalist
approach to issues of value is best illustrated in terms of its similarity to the
moral logic and consequences inherent in care ethics. Carol Gilligan speaks
in this way concerning the care perspective (Gilligan 2002: 685):
From a care perspective, the relationship becomes the figure defining self
and others. Within the context of relationships, the self as a moral agent
perceives and responds to the perception of need. The shift in moral per-
spective is manifest by a change in the moral question from ‘What is just?’
to ‘How to respond?’
The concretisation of the essential moral question of ‘how to respond?’

finds the best instantiation in the mother–child relationship. The mother’s
response and responsibility to the child is the best illustration of the raw
and spontaneous human capacity to respond, motivated by both the recog-
nition of the vulnerability and the needs of the child. It would be bizarre to
think of this natural/moral relationship in terms of rights. The same logic
exists between familial relationships that tend to be a characteristic feature
of African moral thought (Shutte 2001; Metz 2007; Behrens 2010). These
are not relationships whose primary functionary is based on rights, but on
empathy, love, care, generosity, and so on. The relationship itself challenges
us to be human by responding positively to other human beings.
Notice the blatant denial here of the idea of rights forming the basis
for this kind of natural response to the needs of others. Refining this
theme, Gyekye (2010) proceeds to submit the following about this other-
regarding morality:
A morality of duty is one that requires each individual to demonstrate

concern for the interests of others. The ethical values of compassion,

solidarity, reciprocity, cooperation, interdependence, and social well-being,
which are counted among the principles of the communitarian morality,
primarily impose duties on the individual with respect to the community
and its members. All these considerations elevate the notion of duties to
a status similar to that given to the notion of rights in Western ethics.
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
fulfil—and ought to fulfill—duties to others not because of the rights of
these others, but because of their needs and welfare.
Several things are worth noting from the above passage. Firstly, the max-
imalist conception of personhood embodies an other-regarding moral-
ity premised on values like compassion, solidarity etc. Secondly, it is the
centrality of social relationships and the high prize associated with other-
regarding duties/virtues that qualify this approach as a communitarian
morality. In this communitarian morality, Gyekye is not claiming that
duties are equal to rights; rather, he is saying that just as rights enjoy a
high rank in the Western tradition, in the African tradition that position
is enjoyed by other-regarding duties. Related to the primacy of duties
is the view that the trumping function is assigned to them and not to
rights. Finally, people’s performance of duties is not induced by rights
but by other people’s needs and welfare. So, again, we may ask: if duties
rank higher than rights; if rights can be trumped; and if people perform
duties not motivated by rights, then what is the use and relevance of
rights in the African tradition?
In the light of the above, a crucial conclusion can be noted with
regard to an African conception of a good society. A good society is
one that creates conditions for human beings to be able to pursue and
achieve personhood. This talk of personhood is tantamount to talk of
a decent or dignified life—that is, a life truly befitting a human being.
To be able to live such a human life, a human being requires that some
basic needs, interests and welfare be available. These basic needs are
made available by the other-regarding virtues of individuals and pub-
lic institutions. It is the duty of both individuals and public institutions
to provide these basic goods. The provision of these basic goods is the
164 M. MOLEFE
role and responsibility of all. Masolo (2004: 494) speaks of the duty to
provide the basic goods of all in terms of the “economy of affection”.
He proceeds to note that in the African system “It is expected that
everyone should carry their share of responsibilities for creating humane
conditions of life for everyone” (ibid.).
Thus, the maximalist conception of personhood imagines a social eth-
ics that elevates duties or responsibilities above rights. It is an ethics of
social responsibilities and not of rights (Gyekye 2004; Molefe 2017).
These social responsibilities are not goods that the agent can claim
against others. Rather, they are goods that spring up naturally in social
relationships with others. It is crucial to note that the goal of these social
responsibilities is to create humane conditions for all human beings.
Why do we need to create humane conditions for all? The reason is
doing so makes possible the pursuit and attainment of personhood for
all human beings. As such, we have a different moral-political theory of
a good society. It is for this reason that Gyekye (1997: 61) avers that
“the communitarian morality considers responsibility as an important
principle of morality”.
This talk of responsibility as an important principle of morality leads
me to the idea of the common good. The idea of the common good,
in African philosophy, flows from this ethics of duties. The idea of the
common good is usually understood in terms of the Siamese crocodile
with two heads and one stomach. Commenting on this allegory, Gyekye
(2010) says that:
The part of the motif relevant to moral thought is the single stomach…
The common stomach…indicates that at least the basic interests of all the
members of the community are identical. It can therefore be interpreted to
be symbolizing…the good of all the individuals within a society.
The idea of the single stomach captures the axiomatic moral assump-
tion that informs Afro-communitarian morality: the idea that the moral
interests of all are the same. This axiomatic assumption does not aim to
homogenise human experiences and offer us a simplistic conceptions
of human beings. Rather, it proposes a moral platform from which we
operate on the basis that there is basket of basic goods each human

being requires to be able to lead a human life. The ethical sensibil-
ity born out of this moral axiomatic assumption is that the good of all
individuals matters and it is the responsibility of all. The basic good of
each individual, in terms of the basic requirements she needs to be able

to lead a human life, is not the sole responsibility of the individual. It is
crucial to note that Gyekye speaks of the single stomach in terms of the
good of all. This is an important point to notice as it emphatically makes
morality’s point of departure, not so much the individual qua individual,
but the collective well-being of society.
In other words, the goal imagined by the moral system inherent in
the maximalist approach is for the individual to achieve personhood. To
be a moral agent decorated with moral excellence. But this social-ethical
expectation that communitarian societies impose on the individual
requires a particular kind of a society—a society that creates conditions
that enable human beings to be able to transition from mere biology
(human nature and its capacity for virtues) to morality (the development
of a virtuous character). The provision of these basic conditions is made
possible by a responsive and caring society—through shared responsibili-
ties. The kind of just society required and envisaged by the maximalism is
captured thus by Gyekye (1997: 66):
In terms of the communitarian morality, then, love or friendship or con-

cern (compassion) for others may be considered the first of social institu-
tions, rather than justice, which is fundamentally about, or crucially allied
to, rights.
This imagines a society that takes the other-regarding morality to be

pivotal. Talk of love, friendship, and sympathy imagines a caring society.
It is in the warmth and nurturing atmosphere of these virtues that
personhood is possible and can be developed. On the logic of commu-
nitarian care—I cannot be satisfied and remain indifferent when others
around me are deprived of their basic needs. This leads me to consider
the question of why rights will tend to take a secondary status.
The moral logic inherent in the discourse of rights is foreign to
the morality inherent in maximalist political culture. The psychology
of rights is one of entitlement and claiming against others. To have a
right is to be empowered or authorised as an individual to make moral
demands that must be satisfied by the duty-holder. The attitude pervad-
ing the culture of personhood, however, is one of friendship, love, and
concern—morality is about “beingness-with-others” (Menkiti 2004;
Louw 2004). The virtues that pervade the maximalist approach are not
the kinds of things that one can claim or demand against others but are
166 M. MOLEFE
instead things that one spontaneously (reciprocally) shares with others.

There is no against in the discourse of friendship, but there is coopera-
tion, sharing, and interdependence. It is these fundamental differences in
moral attitudes between the minimalist and maximalist approaches that
explains why Gyekye (1997: 65) in the final analysis, in his elucidation
on moderate communitarianism, has to prioritise duties over rights, even
after insisting on the fundamental character of rights.
The danger inherent in rights is that some individuals can obsess over
them, which might threaten the well-being of others, or even overlook
it. This danger is suggested thus by Feinberg (1970: 254):
The point to emphasize here is that (with some rare exceptions mentioned
below) right-holders are not always obliged to exercise their rights. To
have a right typically is to have the discretion or “liberty” to exercise it
or not as one chooses. This freedom is another feature of right-ownership
that helps to explain why rights are so valuable.
Here, Feinberg is making a positive point regarding the power of the

right-holder to waive her rights for whatever reason. His point is that
an individual that always insists on her rights in all circumstances may be
morally defective, in some crucial sense, but is well within the parame-
ters of her rights to do so since that power is only regulated by her dis-
cretion or liberty. It is this danger—of possibly obsessing over individual
rights—associated with the trumping force of rights that tends to make
African scholars distance themselves from them. This is the case because
the individual that insists on and obsesses over her rights is doing noth-
ing wrong in simply claiming what she is entitled to. The rights of the
individual rights, however, may clash with securing the common good.
African scholars like Menkiti and Gyekye relegate rights to a secondary
status to denude them of their power to undermine even the social goal
of providing the basic goods for all.6
It is crucial, however, to note that these scholars do not go as far as to
jettison rights: they simply relegate them to a secondary status. The rea-
son for this is the awareness that human beings are not always as sympa-
thetic, friendly, and compassionate as we would like them to be (Hume
2002). In those contexts of limited and scarce sympathies, rights may
be invoked as a remedial measure to secure the human good (Gyekye
1997: 63). Thus, it is crucial to recognise that Menkiti was correct to
note that the system anticipated by personhood is communitarian insofar
as it locates the possibility for attaining perfection in social relationships.

We have gone further in our discussion and noted that the idea of oth-
er-regarding virtues central to the maximalist conception of personhood
imagines a social ethics that elevates our responsibilities towards others.
In the final analysis, it is crucial to note that other-regarding virtues are
prioritised over other possible moral instruments like rights.
One objection can be raised against the moral-political system
advocated here. The essence of the objection is that the kind of moral-
political theory imagined here is more possible or appropriate in small-scale
communitarian societies and less appropriate in large-scale modern democ-
racies that are characterised by multiculturalism, eclecticism, and heteroge-
neity. Donnelly (1982a) and Matolino and Kwindingwi (2013) make such
kinds of objections against non-Western societies’ duty-based political sys-
tems. They insist that rights are more appropriate for modern societies.
Two responses will suffice at this level. On the one hand, it is worth
reminding the reader that the aim of this chapter was merely philosoph-
ical, to elucidate Menkiti’s moral-political theory of duty grounded on
the idea of personhood. The aim was to indicate that the idea of per-
sonhood envisages an alternative approach to normative political theo-
risation. It offers its own way of conceiving of a good society in terms
of other-regarding duties. Secondly, I remain unconvinced that the eth-
ics of duties (flowing from love, friendship, and concern for others) will
only be applicable to small-scale societies. It is not enough for the objec-
tor to merely make such a bold claim. What is required is an argument
to the effect that such an ethics is not adequate for modern societies.
From where I am standing, it is not difficult to imagine a society that is
premised precisely on our duties to others. This possibility becomes even
greater when we make personhood the goal of social institutions.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I contrasted the minimalist and maximalist approaches to
the questions of value. The minimalist approach to personhood imagines
a moral-political system of rights. On this system, the best way to secure
human dignity is in terms of rights. On Menkiti’s maximalist approach,
human dignity (capacity for virtue) is best secured by reciprocal other-
regarding duties that provide the basic needs the agent requires to pur-
sue personhood. The other-regarding virtues are grounded by both the
natural vulnerability (insufficiency) of all human beings and the relational
168 M. MOLEFE
nature of humanity, rather than rights. Rights tend not to feature for the
very reason that they interfere with the social goal of providing the basic
goods of all—a goal essential to the possibility of personhood. In the
final analysis, we recognise that Menkiti’s maximalist conception of per-
sonhood envisages a political theory. The defining feature of this political
theory is that it construes the good society as one that provides the basic
goods necessary for individuals to attain personhood, by prizing friend-
ship, love, and responsibility as key virtues. Rights, if they feature at all
in this system, feature when human sympathies/love/care are scarce. As
such, rights, at most, play a remedial role.
Notes
1. Ikuenobe does not quite take the naturalist approach to the question of
rights. Ikuenobe (2018: 589, emphasis mine) makes the following com-
ment regarding his approach to rights: it promises a “plausible conception
of substantive human rights that is grounded in an African communal con-
ception of dignity and personhood that emphasizes individual responsibility.
I accept Menkiti’ s account of personhood, and use it as a foundation for
a plausible African conception of dignity and human rights”. In the previ-
ous chapter, we repudiated Ikuenobe’s communal conception of dignity or
his attempt to account for dignity in the light of the agent-centred notion
of personhood. In this chapter, I will differ with Ikuenobe’s view that
Menkiti’s view of personhood can amount to a robust theory of rights.
2. Recently, Makwinja (2019) defends the view of protecting and promoting
human dignity without appeal to rights. This chapter is different from his
approach in that it does not posit personhood as the single and most fun-
damental value on which to base a political theory of duties inspired by
Menkiti’s adumbrations on personhood.
3. I use the idea of rights being universal to capture that they embody moral
values that are objectively true, that is, values that are true for all cultures.
4. This should not be read to suggest that African moral-political systems
may not borrow from other cultures. But we will never know what we
need to borrow until we explore what we have in the first place.
5. The anti-foundationalism stance is shaky because it fails to deliver on the
moral universality and applicability of rights. The force and relevance of
rights has always been the supposed fact that they are God-given (super-
natural) or that they are a part of what it means to be human natural. You
reject this foundation; then they (rights), in some sense, crumble.
6. It is crucial to notice that Gyekye (1992, 1997, 2004) has consistently
believed that rights are important, but has also always insisted that they
should be secondary to (other-regarding) duties particularly when they

clash with the common good. Gyekye has been very clear that the moral
psychology inherent in Afro-communitarian thought would not accommo-
date the idea of the rights of the individual upsetting the communitarian
morality of duties. He captures this view in this fashion—“With all this
said, however, it must be granted that moderate communitarianism cannot
be expected to be obsessed with rights. The reason, which is not far to seek,
derives from the logic of the communitarian theory itself: it assumes a great
concern for values, for the good of the wider society as such” (Gyekye 1997:
65, emphasis mine).
References
Ake, C. (1987). The African Context of Human Rights. Africa Today, 34, 5–12.
Barry, C., & Southwood, N. (2011). What Is Special About Human Rights?
Ethics and International Affairs, 25, 1–15.
Behrens, K. (2010). Exploring African Holism with Respect to the Environment.
Environmental Values, 19, 465–484.
Berlin, I. (1958). Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cobbah, J. A. M. (1987). African Values and the Human Rights: An African
Perspective. Human Rights Quarterly, 9, 309–331.
Donnelly, J. (1982a). Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique
Donnelly, J. (1982b). Human Rights as Natural Rights. Human Rights
Quarterly, 4, 391–405.
Donnelly, J. (2009). Human Dignity and Human Rights. Denver: Josef Korbel
School of International Studies.
Eze, M. O. (2018). Menkiti, Gyekye and Beyond: Towards a Decolonisation of
Famanikwa, J. (2010). How Moderate Is Kwame Gyekye’s Moderate
Communitarianism? Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical
Association of Kenya, 2, 65–77.
Fanon, F. (1974). Les Damnés de la Terre. Paris: Francois Maspero.
Feinberg, J. (1970). The Nature and Value of Rights. The Journal of Value
Inquiry, 4, 243–257.
Freeman, M. (1995). The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights. Human
Rights Quarterly, 16, 491–514.
Gilligan, C. (2002). In a Different Voice. In L. Pojman (Ed.), Ethical Theory:
Classic & Contemporary Readings (pp. 682–688). London: Wadsworth
Thomson Learning.
170 M. MOLEFE
Griffin, J. (2008). On Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gyekye, K. (1992). Person and Community in African Thought. Person
and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies (Vol. 1, pp. 101–122).
Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Gyekye, K. (2004). Beyond Cultures: Perceiving a Common Humanity,Ghanaian
Philosophical Studies III. Accra: The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Gyekye, K. (2010). African Ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford
Hume, D. (2002). Justice as Convention. In P. Pojman (Ed.), Political Philosophy:
Classic and Contemporary Readings (pp. 252–256). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Ikuenobe, P. (2018). Human Rights, Personhood, Dignity, and African
Communalism. Journal of Human Rights, 17, 589–604.
Louw, D. (2004). Ubuntu and the Challenges of Multiculturalism in Post-
Apartheid South Africa. Utrecht: Centre for Southern Africa.
MacIntyre, A. (2007). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press.
Makwinja, M. (2019). Human Dignity in Afro-Communitarianism (Doctoral
Dissertation). University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
Masolo, D. (2004). Western and African Communitarianism: A Comparison. In
K. Wiredu (Ed.), A Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 483–498). Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Matolino, B. (2009). Radicals versus Moderates: A Critique of Gyekye’s Moderate
Communitarianism. South African Journal of Philosophy, 28, 160–170.
Publications.
Matolino, B. (2018a). Restating Rights in Afro-Communitarianism. Theoria, 65,
57–77.
Matolino, B. (2018b). The Politics of Limited Communitarianism. Filosofia
Matolino, B., & Kwindingwi, W. (2013). The End of Ubuntu. South African
Menkiti, I. (2004). On the Normative Conception of a Person. In K. Wiredu
(Ed.), Companion to African Philosophy (pp. 324–331). Oxford: Blackwell.

Molefe, M. (2017). Critical Comments on Afro-Communitarianism: The
Molefe, M. (2018). Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition. Politikon,
45, 217–231.
Molefe, M. (2019). Solving the Conundrum of African Philosophy Through
Personhood: The Individual or Community? Journal of Value Inquiry.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-019-09683-8.
Molefe, M., & Allsobrook, C. (2018). Editorial: African Philosophy and Rights.
Theoria, 65, v–vii.
Molefe, M. (Forthcoming). Solving the Conundrum of African Philosophy
Through Personhood. Journal of Value Inquiry.
Oyowe, A. (2014). An African Conception of Human Rights? Comments on the
Challenges of Relativism. Human Rights Review, 15, 329–347.
Sandel, M. (1982). Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Tasioulas, J. (2012). Towards a Philosophy of Human Rights. Current Legal
Problems, 65, 1–30.
4–25.
Wenar, L. (2015). Rights. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (E. N. Zalta,
Ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/rights/.
Philosophy.
172 M. MOLEFE
Wiredu, K. (1998). Moral Foundations of an African Culture. In P. H. Coetzee

& A. Roux (Eds.), The African Philosophy Reader (pp. 324–331). New York:
Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.
Index
A Agent-relative reasons, 80, 82, 90, 125

Achievement-orient kind of respect, 24 Akan, 3, 29–31, 39, 49, 51, 85, 159
Action-centred, 45 Ake, C., 148
African axiological system, 146 Amato, P., 8, 18, 20, 37
African ethics, 8, 48, 50, 58, 60, 65, Ambiguity, 2, 10, 22, 27, 33
66, 72, 81, 82, 86, 87, 95–97, Animals, 8, 12, 13, 56, 65
125, 163 Anti-supererogatory, 93, 97
African philosophy, 1–6, 8, 10–12, 17, Appiah, K.A., 72, 84
18, 24, 25, 29, 31–33, 37–39, Atomistic, 22, 25
41, 47–49, 51, 52, 55, 65, Authenticity, 9, 105–108
71–73, 76, 78, 88, 90, 95, 113, Autocentric approach, 8
117, 118, 121, 146–148, 164 Autocentric interpretation, 8
Afro-communitarianism, 6, 29, 51, Autonomy, 8, 9, 12, 27, 42, 53,
146, 148, 150, 155, 157 105–108, 112, 133, 138,
Agada, A., 8, 46, 62 155–157
Agent-centred
moral theory, 38, 45, 88
partialism, 74, 79–82, 84, 86, 88, B
89, 125 Basic respect, 5, 7, 126, 127, 130,
personhood, 5, 25, 27, 30, 33, 45, 154, 155
60, 79, 81, 86, 89, 127, 168 Behrens, K., 4, 5, 22, 32, 47, 53, 72,
restrictions, 119, 133 127, 162
Agent-neutral reasons, 80 Being human and being a person,
Agent-related partiality, 79, 84 37–40, 43, 49, 63, 64
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), 173

under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15561-2
174 Index
Berlin, 159 Constraints, 49, 50, 93, 96, 133, 135,

Betzler, M., 73, 89, 126 153
Bioethics, 123, 135 Contingently shared relations, 107
Bounded reason, 87 Cultural incubator, 112
Culture, 3, 9, 28, 30, 31, 42, 51, 52,
77, 84, 86, 89, 90, 96, 99, 100,
C 102, 103, 110, 111, 113, 136,
Capabilities approaches, 7 148, 150, 152, 157, 165, 168
Capacity, 19, 23, 24, 43, 49, 50, 53,
56, 57, 65, 112, 118, 120–123,
129–136, 138–140, 146, 154, D
157, 159, 161, 162, 165, 167 Deng, F., 7, 121, 146, 148
Capacity-exclusive, 122, 133 Deontological egoistic perfectionist
Capacity for harmonious relationships, moral theory, 50
7, 138 Deontology, 10, 47, 49, 50, 53, 83,
Care perspective, 162 93, 96, 112
Categorical imperative, 72, 152 Descartes, 18, 152
Character, 2, 41 Descriptive notion of personhood, 3
Character-based ethical view, 37 Development, 1–3, 5–7, 11, 12, 20,
Character development, 44, 64, 83 21, 45, 47, 58, 61, 64, 89, 102,
Chemhuru, M., 7 108, 109, 133, 162, 165
Chimakonam, 8 Dignity, 4, 7, 10–12, 24, 27, 30,
Clash of duties and rights, 158 49–51, 83, 88, 113, 117–124,
Cobbah, J.A.M., 148 126–140, 147, 148, 152–156,
Colonisation, 99, 148 158, 167, 168
Common good, 6, 27, 63, 84, 110, Direct duties, 4, 120, 130–132
122, 146, 156, 158, 166, 169 Discretion, 95, 166
Siamese crocodile, 164 Distinctive feature of human nature,
Communal conception of dignity, 168 42, 157
Communal conception of peronhood, Donnelly, J., 6, 29, 118, 124, 127,
26, 27, 29, 32, 155, 156 138, 147, 148, 151, 152, 154,
Communitarian(ism), 3, 6, 7, 11, 167
26, 28, 29, 32, 52–55, 83, 99, Duties, 6, 11, 27, 56, 78, 80, 84–88,
100, 105, 108, 109, 112, 122, 93, 96, 97, 102, 109, 120,
123, 137, 138, 146–148, 156, 124–126, 130, 133, 145–148,
163–167, 169 151, 155, 163, 164, 166, 169
Community, 3, 8, 18, 19, 21, 24, 28, negative, 102
31, 32, 39, 41, 59, 61–63, 81, positive, 88, 102, 162
84, 86, 106, 109, 110, 118, 121, supererogatory, 96
123, 131–133, 156, 163 Duty-based ethics, 97, 122
Consensus, 41 Dzobo, K., 40, 41, 110
Consequentialist moral approach, 95
Index 175
E Golden rule, 72, 100

Egalitarianism, 73, 119, 126, 128 Good society, 6, 136, 146, 147, 150,
Egoism, 45, 46, 55, 57, 59, 63, 64, 163, 167, 168
83, 88, 90, 108 Griffin, J., 154, 157
Empathy, 113, 161, 162 Gyekye, K., 2–4, 6–8, 17, 19, 20,
Ends, 24, 27, 38, 42, 54, 55, 109, 24–29, 31, 32, 40–42, 44–46,
112, 157 49–52, 62, 63, 72, 73, 93,
Environing community, 4, 18–20 96, 97, 108, 111, 112, 118,
Environmental ethics, 5, 52 121, 123, 128, 136, 146, 147,
Equality, 72, 74, 77, 78, 124, 154–157, 160–166
126–128, 135, 139
Essentially shared relations, 108
Essential relationships, 25, 111 H
Ethical maturity, 21, 22, 28, 44, 161 Harmonious relationships, 7, 138
Ethical sensibility, 147, 158, 161, 164 Heroic actions, 94
Ethics, 7, 8, 12, 28, 42, 45–47, 50, Heuristic, 90, 98
53, 58, 59, 63, 72, 75, 81, 82, Historical injustices, 10, 11
96, 98–101, 103, 104, 110, 113, Hohfeldian analytical system, 150
122, 139, 160–164 Holism, 53
Ethics of duties, 164, 167 Honouring (a value), 96
Excellence, 5, 21, 22, 28, 33, 45, 47, Horsthemke, 8
93, 104, 109, 121, 123, 129, Hospitality, 86–88
132, 165 Human excellence, 47, 105
External to the individual, 18 Humanism, 8, 38, 51–53, 55–57, 63,
Eze, M., 28 65
Eze, O.M., 8, 9, 41, 44, 62, 146 Human nature, 3, 4, 13, 19, 26, 31,
40–43, 51, 52, 56, 61, 64, 65,
76, 121, 126, 135, 137, 138,
F 146, 147, 152–162, 165
Factual sense, 121 Hurley, P., 94, 95, 119, 133
Fanon, Frantz, 149
Feinberg, J., 151, 152, 166
Feminism, 12, 112, 159 I
Foundational status of rights, 7 Ideal, 9, 57, 75, 79, 83, 85, 105, 112,
Four concepts of personhood, 2, 29, 148, 155, 160
156 Identity, 21, 59, 60, 77, 88, 107
Freeman, M., 149, 153 Ikuenobe, P., 2, 3, 5–7, 11, 12, 17,
29, 31, 32, 39, 40, 45, 106,
117–122, 127–140, 147, 168
G Impartiality, 10, 11, 64, 71–75, 77,
Gendered, 9 78, 89, 90, 114, 119
Gender-neutral, 9
176 Index
In-built ontological equipment/capac- Liew, T., 77, 88

ity, 42 Limited communitarianism, 6, 29, 146
In-control agent model, 106, 107 Locke, John, 153, 154
Incorporation, 21, 61 Lone property, 18
Individualism, 8, 28, 38, 51–53, 56, Lutz, D., 62, 81, 83, 110, 160
57, 60, 65, 88, 100, 108, 114,
155, 156
Individualistic cultures, 122 M
In gathering of the excellencies, 44 MacIntyre, Alisdare, 149
Instrumental, 38, 54, 55, 62, 63, 84, Makwinja, M., 137, 168
119, 121, 131, 132, 134, 150, Male-centred, 9
156, 160 Manzini, N., 9
Internal properties, 53 Marginal cases, 119, 120, 129–136
Internal to the individual, 57, 58 Masolo, D., 5, 55, 104, 108, 164
Intrinsic, 9, 12, 28, 42–44, 51–53, 58, Matolino, B., 6–8, 11, 17, 27, 29,
76, 80, 82, 84, 85, 90, 121, 123, 31–33, 118, 146, 147, 154, 167
125, 130, 131, 134, 138–140, Maximalist conception of personhood,
149, 154 22, 150, 156, 158, 160, 161,
Intrinsically relational, 41 163, 164, 167, 168
Maximisation moral motif, 95
McNamara, P., 93, 94
J Means, 12, 19, 21, 32, 38, 49, 54–56,
Jollimore, T., 76, 124 62, 63, 79, 85, 87, 101, 106,
Justice, 11, 23, 24, 51, 56, 127, 165 109, 111, 112, 122, 123, 126,
131, 132, 140, 154, 160, 168
Menkiti, I., 4, 6, 8, 11, 17–29, 31–33,
K 41–47, 54, 56, 61, 62, 64, 65,
Kagan, S., 93 73, 108, 121, 123, 128, 145–
Kant, Immanuel, 7, 12, 13, 53, 104, 147, 150, 152, 153, 155–157,
118, 121, 152, 153 160, 166–168
Kaphagawani, D., 3, 17, 29–31, 33, Menkiti-Gyekye debate, 8, 27
123 Menkiti’s political theory, 150
Klaasen, J., 7 Meta-ethical logic, 119
Korsgaard, Christine, 54 Meta-ethical question, 10, 71, 90
Kymlicka, W., 53, 128 Meta-ethics, 10, 51, 64, 72–74, 78,
88, 149
Metz, T., 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 22, 28, 33,
L 45, 48–50, 52, 55–61, 63, 65,
Language of entitlements, 151 72, 81, 82, 84, 105, 120, 123,
Liberal interpretation of autonomy 125, 138, 146, 154, 157, 162
and authenticity, 110, 112 Minimalist conception of personhood,
Liberty, 157, 159, 166 33, 150, 152, 153, 155, 158
Index 177
Minimum conception of morality, 74 O

Moderate communitarianism, 4, 6, 12, Okra, 39, 50, 118, 154, 155
26, 28, 111, 146, 147, 155–157, Ontological approach to dignity, 119
166, 169 Ontological personhood, 3, 4
Modernity, 149 Ontological property, 7, 22, 33, 118,
Molefe, M., 4, 6, 11, 12, 19, 27–29, 121, 124, 128, 129, 135, 136,
32, 33, 51, 53, 60, 65, 77–79, 138, 154
82, 84, 90, 111, 114, 119, 125, Ontological status, 5, 39
128, 138, 139, 145–147, 156, Options, 10, 11, 93–95, 97, 98,
157, 160, 164 102–105, 110, 113, 114
Monistic, 1 Original sin, 40
Monistic theory, 1 Other-oriented activities, 109
Moral Other-regarding duties, 51, 62–64,
community, 33, 119 83–88, 97, 103, 104, 109, 110,
contractualism, 110 125, 158, 160, 163, 167
ends, 54, 57, 58, 112, 156 Other-regarding morality, 147, 162,
exemplar, 5, 43, 44, 126, 127 163, 165
perfection, 22, 44, 46, 50, 57, 62, Oyowe, A., 3, 9–11, 29, 146
81, 83, 89, 112, 113, 125 Oyowe, T., 12, 127, 128
point of view, 75
saints, 10
sense, 56, 96, 121, 122, 152, 153 P
status, 4, 22, 24, 27, 33, 40, 58, Partiality, 10, 11, 64, 71–74, 76–78,
145, 153, 154 80–82, 84–90, 114, 124, 125
theory, 10, 37, 38, 53, 55, 59, 62, Patient-centred personhood, 127
63, 71, 81, 83, 94, 97, 104, Patriarchy, 9
145, 161 Perfection, 37, 38, 47, 49, 50, 53, 56,
Musschenga, 75 57, 63, 64, 79, 83, 84, 86, 112,
113, 125, 167
Perfectionist
N approaches, 47
Natural rights, 154 egoistic view, 10, 50, 60
Natural theory of rights, 154, 157 interpretation, 8
Needs, 20, 43, 53, 63, 102–104, 109, orientation, 12
160–163, 165 Permeable boundaries, 87
basic, 158, 161, 163, 165, 167 Personal identity, 3, 4, 19–22, 24–27,
Negative duties, 102 31, 33, 52, 60, 65, 107, 108,
Non-moral goods, 110 156, 160
Normative agency, 157, 158 Personal point of view, 75
Normative personhood, 1, 6, 18, 22, A person is a person through other
28, 29, 32, 33, 66, 73, 145, 159 persons, 8, 12, 66, 87, 110
Nussbaum, Martha, 7 Pettit, Phillip, 50, 95, 114
178 Index
Pluralistic moral-political theory, 156 S

Political theory, 1, 6, 64, 120, 124, Sandel, M., 148
145–147, 149, 150, 154, 156, Satisficing, 112
158, 168 Satisficing moral logic, 50, 112
Political theory of duties, 145–148, Secondary status, 9, 11, 146, 147,
150, 168 165, 166
Politics, 9, 10, 127–129 Self-realisation, 37, 48, 58–60, 82, 84,
Positive duties, 88, 102, 162 109, 139, 145
Positive view of human nature, 40, 76 Self-regarding duties of moral excel-
Promoting (a value), 63, 80, 96, 97, lence, 109
110, 122, 160, 168 Sensitivity, 161, 162
Psychological development, 161 Sentience, 5, 22
Psychological egoism, 40 Sexist, 9
Singer, P., 5, 74–76, 130
Socialisation, 2–4, 19–21, 31, 33, 52
R Social relationships, 3, 4, 9, 19–21,
Radical communitarianism, 6, 146 26, 31, 38, 41, 48, 50, 54, 55,
Ramose, Mogobe, 39, 40, 43, 49, 84, 58, 60–64, 83, 84, 107–110,
86, 87, 118, 121, 125, 138 113, 160, 164, 167
Rationality, 5, 7, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, Sociology, 9
42, 45, 75, 77, 121, 138, 152, Sociology of the term, 9
153 Solidarity, 51, 59, 61, 163
Relational autonomy, 12, 42, 109, Special relationships, 71, 72, 75–80,
118, 152 84, 85, 87, 89, 124–126
Relational(ism), 8, 12, 41, 43, 53–55, Strict moral rules, 99, 100
58, 60, 64, 83, 106, 108, 155, Supererogation, 93
157, 159, 160, 167 Supervene, 40
Relational virtues, 50, 160 Sympathetic impartiality, 71
Respect, 4, 23, 24, 86, 118, 119, Sympathy, 62, 76, 123, 161, 165
123–140, 160, 163
Responsibility, 44, 46, 55, 62, 73, 79,
87, 118, 122, 133, 134, 137, T
147, 162, 164, 165, 168 Tasioulas, J., 147–149, 154, 157, 158
Restrictions, 88, 93, 133, 135 Telos, 160
Rights Toscano, M., 4, 22, 124, 133, 137,
as claims, 150 154
as entitlements, 150 Trumping function, 163
as immunities, 150 Trump rights, 163
as liberties, 150 Tshivhase, Mpho, 9, 54, 98, 103–105,
thick idea of, 151 107–110, 112, 113, 139
thin idea of, 151 Tutu, Desmond, 38, 41, 50, 62
trumping function of, 151 Two conceptions of autonomy, 106
Index 179
U Well-being, 47, 48, 63, 65, 85,

Ubuntu, 8, 12, 50, 51, 58, 66, 72, 97, 102, 133, 140, 146, 147,
84, 89 160–163, 165, 166
Urmson, J., 93 Wenar, L., 150
Widened maturality of ethical sense,
21, 22, 44
V Williams, B., 78, 88
Value(s), 4, 5, 22, 37, 46–48, 51, Wingo, A., 46, 119
53, 54, 57, 58, 61, 64, 65, 72, Wiredu, K., 1–3, 5, 11, 24, 26, 28,
73, 79–81, 84, 86, 88, 89, 96, 29, 32, 39, 44, 46, 47, 49, 51,
98, 100, 101, 103, 105, 114, 52, 62, 65, 71–73, 77, 85–87,
117, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130, 89, 97–101, 104, 110, 111, 113,
131, 134, 137–140, 148–150, 114, 118, 121, 123, 128, 138,
153–158, 162, 163, 167–169 146, 150, 154, 155, 159–161
Van Niekerk, J., 8, 11, 12, 32, 48–50, Wolf, S., 9, 40, 72, 75–78, 93, 104,
79, 81 125
W Y
Warnock, G., 76 The young, 119, 120, 129–135, 140
Welfare, 53, 60, 75, 80, 104, 127,
139, 158, 163

Molefe Personhood

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Molefe Personhood

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

An African Philosophy

ISBN 978-3-030-15560-5 ISBN 978-3-030-15561-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935513

Cover credit: Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Getty Images

The success of this work was possible because of a number of people to

I am grateful to my current employer, Wits University, and my col-

2 A Conceptual Mapping of Personhood 17

3 An Exposition of Personhood as Moral Theory 37

4 Personhood: Partiality or Impartiality? 71

5 Personhood and Options in African Moral Thought 93

6 Personhood and Dignity in African Philosophy 117

7 Personhood as a Political Theory of Duties 145

This book is part of the overall project of contributing to the

© The Author(s) 2019 1

The philosophical implications of the normative conception of a person are

The Concepts of Personhood in African Philosophy

Here, Gyekye refers to the notion of personhood in which one is a

of habits/character. Since a person (human being), in this sense, cannot

A descriptive conception of personhood seeks to analyse the features and

Just as philosophers are apt to give metaphysical accounts of the mind,

… the African view of man denies that persons can be defined by

It strikes me as obvious that Menkiti’s reference to the idea of ‘man’ is

notion of personhood is that it invites respect to the entity in question

Developments in the Literature on Personhood

The classical debate regarding personhood pivots around two influen-

the foundational status of rights by following the trail of the naturalist

In my opinion, Jason Van Niekerk makes a crucial contribution to

deontological accounts produce ‘saints’ that are slaves of morality, with

Themes and Structure of the Book

best construed in terms of partiality or impartiality. I observe there that

in terms of some facet(s) of human nature to the exclusion of animals.

Horsthemke, K. (2018). African Communalism, Persons, and Animals. Filosofia

Menkiti, I. (1984). Person and Community in African Traditional Thought.

Singer, P. (2009). Speciesism and Moral Status. Metaphilosophy, 40, 567–581.

A Conceptual Mapping of Personhood

© The Author(s) 2019 17

Menkiti’s Analysis of Personhood

as follows: ‘I am because we are, since we are, therefore I am’. So,

social incubator within which individuals have to commence and nego-

… the individual comes to see himself as man, and it is by first knowing

It is becoming clear that Menkiti is giving an account of the socialisation

of social relationships. This talk is an entirely metaphysical one insofar as

The individual has to progress from a non-moral status, which Menkiti

on personhood. Menkiti wrongly invokes Rawls’ idea of personhood to

John Rawls, of the Western-born philosophers, comes closest to the recog-

It is clear by now that Menkiti is interested in elaborating the normative

It is important to note the phrases ‘equal justice’ and ‘the capacity to

to his own notion. Menkiti’s notion of personhood imagines respect

In Contemporary African philosophy the locus classicus of the ­normative

So, in the light of Menkiti’s restatement of his own position and

… I should perhaps point out, that the metaphysical construal of person-

The metaphysical view under consideration is the one I have identified

The metaphysical question is whether a person, even though he lives in

Gyekye, unlike Menkiti, is very clear that this is a metaphysical question

identifies Menkiti as a radical communitarian on the basis of the meta-

(Radical) communitarianism immediately sees the human person as inher-

The above view of personal identity understands it entirely in terms of

clear that we have a view of personhood qua personal identity or person-

We noted the same conceptual problems above regarding Menkiti’s

crucial in Afro-communitarianism. Gyekye (1997: 64; see also Wiredu

In the final analysis, it appears that Gyekye comes to endorse Menkiti’s

Matolino, Kaphagawani, and Ikuenobe on Personhood

how “a person is conceived in … Africa” (ibid.). At the end of his

The Concepts of Personhood in African Philosophy

Developments in the Literature on Personhood

Themes and Structure of the Book

A Conceptual Mapping of Personhood

Menkiti’s Analysis of Personhood

In Contemporary African philosophy the locus classicus of the normative

Matolino, Kaphagawani, and Ikuenobe on Personhood

Being Human and Being a Person

Means and Ends in Personhood

Humanism and the Instrumentality of Relationships

Rejection of Social Relationships as the Moral End

The Role of Relationships in Personhood

12. I take discussions of ubuntu (African ethics) to be tantamount to discus-

Contextualising the Debate on Partiality

What is the point of contention regarding the nature of morality