Defending a Communal Account of Human Dignity

In Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Human Dignity in African Thought. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 23-42 (2023)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

For more than ten years, I have advanced a conception of human dignity informed by ideas about community salient in the African philosophical tradition. According to it, an individual has a dignity if she is by her nature able to commune with others and to be communed with by them. I have argued that this conception of dignity grounded on our communal nature not only helps to make good foundational sense of many characteristically African moral prescriptions, but also constitutes a strong rival to the globally dominant Kantian account in terms of our capacity for autonomy/rationality. In this contribution, I provide a summarizing statement of my position and articulate some reasons why I believe it should be considered philosophically defensible. Of particular interest, I argue that it is able to account for certain human rights better than three other conceptions of human dignity salient in the African tradition, viz., the views that we have a dignity in virtue of our vitality, moral behaviour, or capacity to care for others.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

An African Communitarian Conception of Dignity in Mutual Recognition.Christopher Allsobrook - 2023 - In Motsamai Molefe & Christopher Allsobrook (eds.), Human Dignity in an African Context. Springer Verlag. pp. 125-154.
Dignity, Community and Albinism in Malawi.Vitumbiko Nyirenda - 2020 - Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 10 (1):6-10.
Human Dignity, Capital Punishment, and an African Moral Theory (repr.).Thaddeus Metz - 2010 - In Luis Arroyo, Paloma Biglino & William Schabas (eds.), Towards Universal Abolition of the Death Penalty. Tirant lo Blanch. pp. 337-366.
Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights in South Africa.Thaddeus Metz - 2011 - African Human Rights Law Journal 11 (2):532-559.
Dignity: personal, social, human.Suzy Killmister - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (8):2063-2082.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-05-21

Downloads
283 (#98,452)

6 months
255 (#10,444)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Thaddeus Metz
Cornell University (PhD)

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references