Ubuntu in Elephant Communities

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21876539
AutoresBirte Wrage (0000-0002-5007-8522, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna), Dennis Papadopoulos (0000-0002-1469-4002, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna), Judith Benz-Schwarzburg (0000-0003-1523-2181, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Ano2024
Volume10
Fascículo4
Páginas814-835
Data de publicação2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the American Philosophical Association (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2053-4477 • E-ISSN: 2053-4485
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/apa.2023.24
OpenAlexW4389622224
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas75

African (Bantu) philosophy conceptualizes morality through ubuntu , which emphasizes the role of community in producing moral agents. This community is characterized by practices that respond to and value interdependence, such as care, cooperation, and respect for elders and ancestral knowledge. While there have been attributions of morality to nonhuman animals in the interdisciplinary animal morality debate, this debate has focused on Western concepts. We argue that the ubuntu conception of morality as a communal practice applies to some nonhuman animals. African elephant communities are highly cooperative and structured around elders; they alloparent, protect their communities, mourn their dead, and pass on cultural knowledge between generations. Identifying these as important moral practices, ubuntu provides a theoretical framework to expand our ethical concern for elephants to their communities. In practice, this will deepen our understanding of the wrongness of atrocities like culling for population management or trophy hunting

African philosophy · Attribution · Biology · Culling · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Morality · Political science · Sociology · African cultural and philosophical studies · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology · Ecology