An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism

Abstract

The dominant conceptions of moral status in the English-speaking literature are either holist or individualist, neither of which accounts well for widespread judgments that: animals and humans both have moral status that is of the same kind but different in degree; even a severely mentally incapacitated human being has a greater moral status than an animal with identical internal properties; and a newborn infant has a greater moral status than a mid-to-late stage foetus. Holists accord no moral status to any of these beings, assigning it only to groups to which they belong, while individualists such as welfarists grant an equal moral status to humans and many animals, and Kantians accord no moral status either to animals or severely mentally incapacitated humans. I argue that an underexplored, modal-relational perspective does a better job of accounting for degrees of moral status. According to modalrelationalism, something has moral status insofar as it capable of having a certain causal or intensional connection with another being. I articulate a novel instance of modal-relationalism grounded in salient sub-Saharan moral views, roughly according to which the greater a being's capacity to be part of a communal relationship with us, the greater its moral status. I then demonstrate that this new, African-based theory entails and plausibly explains the above judgments, among others, in a unified way.

Animals and African Ethics

“…(Metz 2014;Metz 2012: 397) This is where, according to Metz, the African principles of identity and solidarity, which characterise communal relationships, become significant. Although nonhuman animals, like 'abnormal' human beings, can be objects of communal relationships, we (as subjects) identify more and show greater solidarity with autistic and severely mentally incapacitated humans, as well as with 'extreme' psychopaths and sociopathsbecause they all have a ' much greater ' capacity for being an object of communal relationship than 'other beings such as mice or dogs' (Metz 2012: 397): we 'do much more for the psychopathic and the mentally incapacitated than we do [for] animals, which is evidence of a greater capability to make them an object of a friendly relationship' (Metz 2012: 397-398). How might one respond to Metz?…”

“…American philosopher Thaddeus Metz bases his 'African theory of moral status' on ubuntu (Metz 2007a;Metz 2007b;Metz 2007c;Metz 2012), and he explicitly acknowledges that according to his interpretation some animals do have moral standing (Metz 2014). He presents his favoured account, a modal relational interpretation of ubuntu , as an alternative not only to individualism and holism but also to ordinary relationalism, on the grounds that his theory provides a better account of degrees of moral status and of our intuitions about some persistent problems -for example, 'why animals and humans might both have moral status that is of the same kind but different in degree' and 'why even a severely mentally incapacitated human being might have a greater moral status than an animal with identical mental abilities' (Metz 2012: 388).…”

Personhood and (Rectification) Justice in African Thought

“…As they are outside of the moral community; they are either transferred to the inferior animal kingdom or they are treated as moving things. Human beings reduced to this level of existence cannot be wronged, made worse off, and by treating them anyhow one is not doing something wrong, flouting some moral principle (Metz 2012b). Put simply, they are put outside of the moral community, and, as such, they are outside of the protection offered by morality.…”

Personhood and Rights in an African Tradition

“…3 In other words, put more simply, some being is worthy of respect merely for being the kind of a being it is, depending on what property is thought to be crucial, be it rationality, sentience or capacity for love (Metz 2012). The last notion of personhood is also a moral notion except that it is an agent-centered one.…”