Motsamai Molefe
Biographic Data
| ID | 95144 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Motsamai Molefe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Motsamai |
| FAMILY NAME | Molefe |
| SIGNATURE | MOLEFE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Fort Hare |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5030-6222 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
African Traditional Religion and moral philosophy
The article provides a philosophical explication of an African religious moral philosophy. Often philosophers repudiate the view that African Traditional Religions (ATR) can embody a religious moral philosophy. Theologians, on the other hand, tend to believe that ATR can, but they often do not provide a systematic account of such an ethical system. The article demonstrates that ATR can embody an under-explored moral philosophy. ATR refers to indi…
African Ethics and Death
This book analyzes the concepts of moral status and human dignity in African philosophy and applies them to the moral problems associated with death. The book first challenges the criticism and rejection of moral status in African philosophy and then continues to consider how moral personhood is defined in African ethical theories, investigating which entities have full moral status or moral personhood and are therefore worthy of full ethical con…
Personhood and Moral Recognition in African Moral Thought
This article philosophically explicates the relationship between personhood and moral recognition in African ethics. Specifically, it reveals the two distinct forms of moral recognition associated with personhood. It conceptualises moral recognition in terms of recognition and appraisal respect. To clarify the relationship between personhood and moral recognition, it makes three interventions. Firstly, it draws a distinction between the normative…
“You Don't Mess With Black Twitter!”
The democratisation and proliferation of social media has seen the emergence of a distinct virtual community of Twitter users known as Black Twitter. This burgeoning community is characterised by discourses on cultural issues that are critical to the black community, such as race relations and identity politics in general. Black Twitter has often been criticised for its unashamed bashing of those who are perceived as displaying inauthenticity in …
The “Normative” Concept of Personhood in Wiredu’s Moral Philosophy
The article explores the place and status of the normative concept of personhood in Kwasi Wiredu’s moral philosophy. It begins by distinguishing an ethic from an ethics, where one involves cultural values and the other strict moral values. It proceeds to argue, by a careful exposition of Wiredu’s moral philosophy, that he locates personhood as an essential aspect of communalism [an ethic], and it specifies culture-specific standards of excellence…
Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy
Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy fills the lacuna in African philosophy literature on the inherent tension between requirements of partiality (favoritism) and impartiality (equality). Motsamai Molefe deploys two strategies to philosophically resolve the tension between partiality and impartiality. The first strategy involves applying the moral theories of Kwasi Wiredu, Thaddeus Metz, and Kwame Gyekye to the problem. Finding their…
Personhood and a meaningful life in African philosophy
This article proffers a personhood-based conception of a meaningful life. I look into the ethical structure of the salient idea of personhood in African philosophy to develop an account of a meaningful life. In my view, the ethics of personhood is constituted by three components, namely (1) the fact of being human, which informs (2) a view of moral status qua the capacity for moral virtue, and (3) which specifies the final good of achieving or de…
African metaphysics and religious ethics
Scholars of African moral thought reject the possibility of an African religious ethics by invoking at least three major reasons. The first objection to ‘ethical supernaturalism’1 argues that it is part of those aspects of African culture that are ‘anachronistic’ insofar as they are superstitious rather than rational; as such, they should be jettisoned. The second objection points out that ethical supernaturalism is incompatible with the utilitar…
Solving the Conundrum of African Philosophy Through Personhood
What Can Ubuntu Do? A Reflection on African Moral Theory in Light of Post-Colonial Challenges
There are competing interpretations of ubuntu as a moral theory, and these various understandings of it entail diverging moral-political responses to real problems in the world. The Marikana massacre is one such moral-political problem, and the various interpretations of ubuntu might recommend various responses to it. This article, in some sense, critiques, and, simultaneously, supplements Thad Metz's relational interpretation of ubuntu that reco…
Ubuntu and Development
This article articulates an African conception of development. I call such an account African insofar as it is based on the moral worldview of ubuntu, which is salient largely among the Bantu peoples. To articulate a conception of development, I rely on the paradigm of development ethics, which construes development as an ethical or philosophical enterprise constituted by three questions: what is a good life? what is a just society? and what duti…
Personhood and partialism in African philosophy
This article ascertains what philosophical implications can be drawn from the moral idea of personhood dominant in African philosophy. This article aims to go beyond the oft-made submission that this moral idea of personhood is definitive of African moral thought. It does so by advancing discourse with regards to personhood by exploring its relationship with another under-explored idea in African ethics, the idea of partialism. This article ultim…
Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition
It is generally accepted that the normative idea of personhood is central to African moral thought, but what has not been done in the literature is to explicate its relationship to the Western idea of rights. In this article, I investigate this relationship between rights and an African normative conception of personhood. My aim, ultimately, is to give us a cursory sense why duties engendered by rights and those by the idea of personhood will ten…
Personhood and (Rectification) Justice in African Thought
This article invokes the idea of personhood (which it takes to be at the heart of Afro-communitarian morality) to give an account of corrective/rectification justice. The idea of rectification justice by Robert Nozick is used heuristically to reveal the moral-theoretical resources availed by the idea of personhood to think about historical injustices and what would constitute a meaningful remedy for them. This notion of personhood has three facet…
The function of “it” in Ifeanyi Menkiti’s normative account of personhood
This article is a response to Bernard Matolino’s criticisms against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s elucidations on the normative notion of personhood in African philosophy. This article argues that Menkiti’s article is best understood to be ultimately focused on articulating the normative notion of personhood; so understood, Menkiti’s analysis eschews many of the objections made against it by Matolino. We show that the confusion lies in a general failure in A…
Critical comments on Afro-communitarianism
This article draws our attention to the centrality of the normative idea of personhood in elucidating a robust Afro-communitarianism. To do so, it visits the debate between the so-called moderate and radical communitarians to argue that the assertion that a community takes priority over an individual is not an implausible position. It argues that this assertion, given a nuanced moral interpretation, can offer a promising African perspective on ho…
An African perspective on the partiality and impartiality debate
In this article, I attempt to bridge the gap between partiality and impartiality in moral philosophy from an oft-neglected African perspective. I draw a solution for this moral-theoretical impasse between partialists and impartialists from Kwasi Wiredu's, one of the most influential African philosophers, distinction between an ethic and ethics. I show how an ethic accommodates partiality and ethics impartiality. Wiredu's insight is that partialis…
A critique of Thad Metz’s African theory of moral status
Thad Metz defends what he considers to be a novel theory of moral status, i.e. an account about what beings are owed direct duties in virtue of their moral significance. Metz claims that his account is African, it is plausible and that it is worth taking seriously like other competing accounts in the Western philosophical tradition. In this article, I give four reasons why we should doubt, if not reject, these claims of plausibility. Firstly, I s…
Relational Ethics and Partiality
In this article, I question the plausibility of Metz’s African moral theory from an oft neglected moral topic of partiality. Metz defends an Afro-communitarian moral theory that posits that the rightness of actions is entirely definable by relationships of identity and solidarity (or, friendship). I offer two objections to this relational moral theory. First, I argue that justifying partiality strictly by invoking relationships (of friendship) ul…
Revisiting the Menkiti-Gyekye Debate
In this article, I intervene in the debate about the nature of Afrocommunitarianism between Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye. I contend that Menkiti’s talk of ‘personhood’ entails a perfectionist moral theory to the effect that one ought to lead a morally excellent life in a context of ‘being-with-others’. Secondly, I deny that Menkiti’s political theory rejects rights per se; rather, I submit, a more charitable reading would recognise that he ta…
A Rejection of Humanism in African Moral Tradition
In this article, I motivate for the view that the best account of the foundations of morality in the African tradition should be grounded on some relevant spiritual property – a view that I call 'ethical supernaturalism'. In contrast to this position, the literature has been dominated by humanism as the best interpretation of African ethics, which typically is accompanied by a direct rejection of 'ethical supernaturalism' and a veiled rejection o…
Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition
It is generally accepted that the normative idea of personhood is central to African moral thought, but what has not been done in the literature is to explicate its relationship to the Western idea of rights. In this article, I investigate this relationship between rights and an African normative conception of personhood. My aim, ultimately, is to give us a cursory sense why duties engendered by rights and those by the idea of personhood will ten…
Personhood and a meaningful life in African philosophy
This article proffers a personhood-based conception of a meaningful life. I look into the ethical structure of the salient idea of personhood in African philosophy to develop an account of a meaningful life. In my view, the ethics of personhood is constituted by three components, namely (1) the fact of being human, which informs (2) a view of moral status qua the capacity for moral virtue, and (3) which specifies the final good of achieving or de…
Revisiting the Menkiti-Gyekye Debate
In this article, I intervene in the debate about the nature of Afrocommunitarianism between Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye. I contend that Menkiti’s talk of ‘personhood’ entails a perfectionist moral theory to the effect that one ought to lead a morally excellent life in a context of ‘being-with-others’. Secondly, I deny that Menkiti’s political theory rejects rights per se; rather, I submit, a more charitable reading would recognise that he ta…
Relational Ethics and Partiality
In this article, I question the plausibility of Metz’s African moral theory from an oft neglected moral topic of partiality. Metz defends an Afro-communitarian moral theory that posits that the rightness of actions is entirely definable by relationships of identity and solidarity (or, friendship). I offer two objections to this relational moral theory. First, I argue that justifying partiality strictly by invoking relationships (of friendship) ul…
Personhood and partialism in African philosophy
This article ascertains what philosophical implications can be drawn from the moral idea of personhood dominant in African philosophy. This article aims to go beyond the oft-made submission that this moral idea of personhood is definitive of African moral thought. It does so by advancing discourse with regards to personhood by exploring its relationship with another under-explored idea in African ethics, the idea of partialism. This article ultim…
Ubuntu and Development
This article articulates an African conception of development. I call such an account African insofar as it is based on the moral worldview of ubuntu, which is salient largely among the Bantu peoples. To articulate a conception of development, I rely on the paradigm of development ethics, which construes development as an ethical or philosophical enterprise constituted by three questions: what is a good life? what is a just society? and what duti…
A critique of Thad Metz’s African theory of moral status
Thad Metz defends what he considers to be a novel theory of moral status, i.e. an account about what beings are owed direct duties in virtue of their moral significance. Metz claims that his account is African, it is plausible and that it is worth taking seriously like other competing accounts in the Western philosophical tradition. In this article, I give four reasons why we should doubt, if not reject, these claims of plausibility. Firstly, I s…
A Rejection of Humanism in African Moral Tradition
In this article, I motivate for the view that the best account of the foundations of morality in the African tradition should be grounded on some relevant spiritual property – a view that I call 'ethical supernaturalism'. In contrast to this position, the literature has been dominated by humanism as the best interpretation of African ethics, which typically is accompanied by a direct rejection of 'ethical supernaturalism' and a veiled rejection o…
Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy
Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy fills the lacuna in African philosophy literature on the inherent tension between requirements of partiality (favoritism) and impartiality (equality). Motsamai Molefe deploys two strategies to philosophically resolve the tension between partiality and impartiality. The first strategy involves applying the moral theories of Kwasi Wiredu, Thaddeus Metz, and Kwame Gyekye to the problem. Finding their…
An African perspective on the partiality and impartiality debate
In this article, I attempt to bridge the gap between partiality and impartiality in moral philosophy from an oft-neglected African perspective. I draw a solution for this moral-theoretical impasse between partialists and impartialists from Kwasi Wiredu's, one of the most influential African philosophers, distinction between an ethic and ethics. I show how an ethic accommodates partiality and ethics impartiality. Wiredu's insight is that partialis…
A Rejection of Humanism in African Moral Tradition
In this article, I motivate for the view that the best account of the foundations of morality in the African tradition should be grounded on some relevant spiritual property – a view that I call 'ethical supernaturalism'. In contrast to this position, the literature has been dominated by humanism as the best interpretation of African ethics, which typically is accompanied by a direct rejection of 'ethical supernaturalism' and a veiled rejection o…
Revisiting the Menkiti-Gyekye Debate
In this article, I intervene in the debate about the nature of Afrocommunitarianism between Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye. I contend that Menkiti’s talk of ‘personhood’ entails a perfectionist moral theory to the effect that one ought to lead a morally excellent life in a context of ‘being-with-others’. Secondly, I deny that Menkiti’s political theory rejects rights per se; rather, I submit, a more charitable reading would recognise that he ta…
The function of “it” in Ifeanyi Menkiti’s normative account of personhood
This article is a response to Bernard Matolino’s criticisms against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s elucidations on the normative notion of personhood in African philosophy. This article argues that Menkiti’s article is best understood to be ultimately focused on articulating the normative notion of personhood; so understood, Menkiti’s analysis eschews many of the objections made against it by Matolino. We show that the confusion lies in a general failure in A…
Critical comments on Afro-communitarianism
This article draws our attention to the centrality of the normative idea of personhood in elucidating a robust Afro-communitarianism. To do so, it visits the debate between the so-called moderate and radical communitarians to argue that the assertion that a community takes priority over an individual is not an implausible position. It argues that this assertion, given a nuanced moral interpretation, can offer a promising African perspective on ho…
An African perspective on the partiality and impartiality debate
In this article, I attempt to bridge the gap between partiality and impartiality in moral philosophy from an oft-neglected African perspective. I draw a solution for this moral-theoretical impasse between partialists and impartialists from Kwasi Wiredu's, one of the most influential African philosophers, distinction between an ethic and ethics. I show how an ethic accommodates partiality and ethics impartiality. Wiredu's insight is that partialis…
A critique of Thad Metz’s African theory of moral status
Thad Metz defends what he considers to be a novel theory of moral status, i.e. an account about what beings are owed direct duties in virtue of their moral significance. Metz claims that his account is African, it is plausible and that it is worth taking seriously like other competing accounts in the Western philosophical tradition. In this article, I give four reasons why we should doubt, if not reject, these claims of plausibility. Firstly, I s…
Relational Ethics and Partiality
In this article, I question the plausibility of Metz’s African moral theory from an oft neglected moral topic of partiality. Metz defends an Afro-communitarian moral theory that posits that the rightness of actions is entirely definable by relationships of identity and solidarity (or, friendship). I offer two objections to this relational moral theory. First, I argue that justifying partiality strictly by invoking relationships (of friendship) ul…
Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition
It is generally accepted that the normative idea of personhood is central to African moral thought, but what has not been done in the literature is to explicate its relationship to the Western idea of rights. In this article, I investigate this relationship between rights and an African normative conception of personhood. My aim, ultimately, is to give us a cursory sense why duties engendered by rights and those by the idea of personhood will ten…
Personhood and (Rectification) Justice in African Thought
This article invokes the idea of personhood (which it takes to be at the heart of Afro-communitarian morality) to give an account of corrective/rectification justice. The idea of rectification justice by Robert Nozick is used heuristically to reveal the moral-theoretical resources availed by the idea of personhood to think about historical injustices and what would constitute a meaningful remedy for them. This notion of personhood has three facet…
African metaphysics and religious ethics
Scholars of African moral thought reject the possibility of an African religious ethics by invoking at least three major reasons. The first objection to ‘ethical supernaturalism’1 argues that it is part of those aspects of African culture that are ‘anachronistic’ insofar as they are superstitious rather than rational; as such, they should be jettisoned. The second objection points out that ethical supernaturalism is incompatible with the utilitar…
Solving the Conundrum of African Philosophy Through Personhood
What Can Ubuntu Do? A Reflection on African Moral Theory in Light of Post-Colonial Challenges
There are competing interpretations of ubuntu as a moral theory, and these various understandings of it entail diverging moral-political responses to real problems in the world. The Marikana massacre is one such moral-political problem, and the various interpretations of ubuntu might recommend various responses to it. This article, in some sense, critiques, and, simultaneously, supplements Thad Metz's relational interpretation of ubuntu that reco…
Ubuntu and Development
This article articulates an African conception of development. I call such an account African insofar as it is based on the moral worldview of ubuntu, which is salient largely among the Bantu peoples. To articulate a conception of development, I rely on the paradigm of development ethics, which construes development as an ethical or philosophical enterprise constituted by three questions: what is a good life? what is a just society? and what duti…
Personhood and partialism in African philosophy
This article ascertains what philosophical implications can be drawn from the moral idea of personhood dominant in African philosophy. This article aims to go beyond the oft-made submission that this moral idea of personhood is definitive of African moral thought. It does so by advancing discourse with regards to personhood by exploring its relationship with another under-explored idea in African ethics, the idea of partialism. This article ultim…
Personhood and a meaningful life in African philosophy
This article proffers a personhood-based conception of a meaningful life. I look into the ethical structure of the salient idea of personhood in African philosophy to develop an account of a meaningful life. In my view, the ethics of personhood is constituted by three components, namely (1) the fact of being human, which informs (2) a view of moral status qua the capacity for moral virtue, and (3) which specifies the final good of achieving or de…
“You Don't Mess With Black Twitter!”
The democratisation and proliferation of social media has seen the emergence of a distinct virtual community of Twitter users known as Black Twitter. This burgeoning community is characterised by discourses on cultural issues that are critical to the black community, such as race relations and identity politics in general. Black Twitter has often been criticised for its unashamed bashing of those who are perceived as displaying inauthenticity in …
The “Normative” Concept of Personhood in Wiredu’s Moral Philosophy
The article explores the place and status of the normative concept of personhood in Kwasi Wiredu’s moral philosophy. It begins by distinguishing an ethic from an ethics, where one involves cultural values and the other strict moral values. It proceeds to argue, by a careful exposition of Wiredu’s moral philosophy, that he locates personhood as an essential aspect of communalism [an ethic], and it specifies culture-specific standards of excellence…
Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy
Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy fills the lacuna in African philosophy literature on the inherent tension between requirements of partiality (favoritism) and impartiality (equality). Motsamai Molefe deploys two strategies to philosophically resolve the tension between partiality and impartiality. The first strategy involves applying the moral theories of Kwasi Wiredu, Thaddeus Metz, and Kwame Gyekye to the problem. Finding their…
Personhood and Moral Recognition in African Moral Thought
This article philosophically explicates the relationship between personhood and moral recognition in African ethics. Specifically, it reveals the two distinct forms of moral recognition associated with personhood. It conceptualises moral recognition in terms of recognition and appraisal respect. To clarify the relationship between personhood and moral recognition, it makes three interventions. Firstly, it draws a distinction between the normative…
African Traditional Religion and moral philosophy
The article provides a philosophical explication of an African religious moral philosophy. Often philosophers repudiate the view that African Traditional Religions (ATR) can embody a religious moral philosophy. Theologians, on the other hand, tend to believe that ATR can, but they often do not provide a systematic account of such an ethical system. The article demonstrates that ATR can embody an under-explored moral philosophy. ATR refers to indi…
African Ethics and Death
This book analyzes the concepts of moral status and human dignity in African philosophy and applies them to the moral problems associated with death. The book first challenges the criticism and rejection of moral status in African philosophy and then continues to consider how moral personhood is defined in African ethical theories, investigating which entities have full moral status or moral personhood and are therefore worthy of full ethical con…
African cultural and philosophical studies (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Epistemology (18 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Political science (14 works) · Environmental ethics (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Personhood (10 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works)