Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2017) 20:857–872

DOI 10.1007/s10677-017-9826-x

A Duty to Explore African Ethics?

Christopher Simon Wareham 1

Accepted: 10 July 2017 / Published online: 27 July 2017

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017

Abstract It has become increasingly common to point out that African morality is under-
represented in ethical theorizing. However, it is less common to find arguments that this under-
representation is unjustified. This latter claim tends to be simply assumed. In this paper I draw
together arguments for this claim. In doing so, I make the case that the relative lack of attention
paid to African moral ideas conflicts with epistemic and ethical values. In order to correct these
shortcomings, moral theorists, broadly construed as including descriptive and normative
disciplines, have a duty to engage with and actively explore African moral ideas. I claim that
Moral Foundations Theory is well suited to a descriptive exploratory project, and could
provide a significant contribution to normative, African-derived moral theories that could be
epistemically and ethically superior to their Western counterparts.

Keywords Multiculturalism . African ethics . Morality . Global ethics . Diversity . Epistemic

injustice . Empirical ethics . Moral psychology . Moral Foundations Theory

1 Introduction

African moral ideas remain relatively neglected in mainstream Anglophone ethical theorising.
This can partly be explained by the fact that BAfrican ethics as a field that is systematically
studied by academics is new.^ (Metz 2017) A further reason may be that many of the moral
ideas contained in diverse African cultures fail to make it to the West, perhaps as a result of the
historically oral nature of cultural transmission.
In this article, I claim that, whatever the historical explanations for the under-representation
of African moral ideas, there is a duty to explore African ethical concepts. I offer four
arguments for this claim. The first is epistemic: Because anglophone philosophical ethics
neglects non-western ethical beliefs, it is largely reliant on moral theories and concepts

* Christopher Simon Wareham

christopher.wareham@wits.ac.za

1
Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South
Africa
858 Wareham C.S.

developed and forged by a small percentage of the world’s populations. Thus, when we
compare such theories, it is prima facie unlikely that we’re comparing the best ones.
The remaining three arguments point to ethical reasons for exploring diverse moralities.
First, doing so populates the marketplace of ideas that Mill argues would increase utility.
Second, it is a step towards undermining persistent epistemic injustice. Third, exploring,
understanding, systematizing, and applying African moral values to social institutions may
contribute to alleviating the alienation often experienced by people of African heritage.
The upshot of these arguments is that there are epistemic and moral reasons to engage with
African moral concepts. Indeed, I claim that these reasons ground a prima facie duty for moral
theorists of both empirical and normative stripes to do so.
This claim of this paper differs from similar calls for attention to multicultural diversity and
Africanization, in that the focus is on what might be gained from ethics and moral concepts,
rather than, say, from African fashion or botanical concepts (Farber 2010; Marschall 2001).
While broad calls for multicultural knowledge sharing are important, ethical values funda-
mentally define, explicitly or implicitly, the ends to which multiculturalism ought to aspire.
African values, as arguably the most poorly understood and under-theorised set of ultimate
goals, warrant special attention.
There is, in addition, some overlap in the aims of this paper and those of Behrens and
Tangwa (Behrens 2013; Tangwa 1996). However, the claim of this paper is in one way
stronger: while these authors also provide ethical and epistemic reasons for greater focus on
African concepts, I argue that in some cases these reasons, and others that I provide here,
ground a positive duty to elucidate and engage with these concepts.
A further difference from these authors is that, like Christian Gade, I emphasise the
importance of empirical studies in mapping the terrain of African moral beliefs (Gade
2012). Unlike Gade, however, I outline methodologies that may assist the systematic inves-
tigation and description of African moral concepts. In particular, I propose and justify a
potential role for Graham, Haidt, and colleagues’ Moral Foundations Theory in the mapping
of moral ideas (Graham et al. 2013).
While this article provides the above contributions, there are also many limitations to what I
will attempt here. In distinguishing African moral concepts from Western ones, I define African
moral concepts as those derived and derivable from African people, and Western moral concepts
as those derived and derivable from Western people. There is, however, considerable debate
about which people count as African and which count as Western. For instance, Okafor, perhaps
controversially, limits ‘African’ to denoting only the black peoples of Africa (Okafor 1997).
While questions about the correct applications of the terms Western and African are important,
these are large and substantive issues in themselves and I cannot attempt to resolve them here.1
Instead I suggest that there enough people who are uncontroversially African or Western that the
precise definitions of these terms do not impact on the arguments and conclusions that follow.
I will also not attempt to defend African theories or concepts that compete with Western
ones, although I will provide some examples I believe are convincing competitors. Similarly,
in this paper, I will not provide a conclusive set of ideas about what this investigation hopes to
find. I will refer to the output of potential descriptive projects broadly as ‘moral concepts’ and,
although I will give some examples of what such concepts might be, I will not attempt to

1
See Kwasi Wiredu, Didier Kaphagawani, and Fidelis Okafor for discussions on this wide-ranging topic (Wiredu
2004; Kaphagawani 1998; Okafor 1997).
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 859

define them in a rigorous way. Finally, I will not give a definitive account of how to go about
uncovering and evaluating moral concepts, although I will sketch approaches to doing so.
It is also worth noting a sense in which the scope of this article may be broadened. While I
am specifically concerned with African moral concepts, it might be claimed that the arguments
herein might equally be raised in favour of a duty to explore the neglected moral concepts of
other geographic regions or cultures. While this is plausible, I will not make this claim here and
many of the arguments below are specific to injustices perpetrated in an African context. To
the extent a wider duty to explore diverse ethics exists, it would need to be balanced against the
duty to engage with African ethics for which I argue below.
In part I, I present the epistemic case for greater emphasis on African moral concepts. In
part 2, I discuss the three ethical arguments. In part 3, I sketch approaches to exploring and
evaluating African moral concepts.

2 The Epistemic Case for Exploring Diverse Ethics

In this section I argue that the sample of moral concepts typically employed in moral arguments
in the West is too small, such that it hinders the epistemic goals of moral theorizing. This claim
requires three sub-claims: The first sub-claim concerns an assumption about the epistemic goals
to which moral theory aspires. The second sub-claim is that there is a limited set of moral
concepts that dominates Western ethical discourse and that there is, or may be a set of moral
concepts that is ignored. The third sub-claim is that ignoring these moral concepts is an obstacle
to the epistemic goals of normative ethics. Below I explain and defend each of these claims.

2.1 The Epistemic Goals of Normative Moral Theory

There is substantive disagreement in metaethics concerning questions such as whether or not moral
claims can be justified or true. At the level of normative ethics, though, the aims of moral
theorizing are relatively uncontentious. Theorists aim to find and present moral truths, or at least
more justified beliefs, taking it as given that such truths are possible (Kagan 1998). These moral
truths concern how one ought to live, what is of value, and how one ought to act. In this paper I will
assume that the aim of moral theorizing is to arrive at moral truths, or justified beliefs, of this kind.

2.2 The Limits of Western Ethical Discourse

The second sub-claim is that Western ethical theory is dominated by a limited set of moral
concepts and therefore lacks conceptual diversity. Before providing grounds for this claim, it is
important to clarify it. Clearly,ethicists next door to one another in the same department may
hold apparently radically different philosophical, political, and ethical viewpoints. Even theo-
rists that subscribe to the same ethical theory may disagree about particulars and substantive
implications of that theory. How then, can it be claimed that Western ethics lacks diversity?
To clarify, then, my claim that Western moral theory lacks conceptual diversity differs
entirely from the claim that Western thinking is the homogenous, monolithic mass of individ-
ualistic ideas it is often caricatured as by its detractors (Mohanty 1988). I fully acknowledge that
Western theory holds a rich, often well-developed array of concepts, many of which could play
a role in a full, robust account of morality that would arrive at true moral beliefs. However, the
claim that Western thinking lacks diversity is not the same as the claim that it contains only a
860 Wareham C.S.

few moral ideas. Instead, the claim here rests on an understanding of diversity as relative, rather
than absolute. While there is vast variability in Western ethical thinking, my claim is that this
variability is likely to be limited relative to the total space of potential ethical concepts.
This point can be brought out with an analogy with phenotypic diversity, or diversity in
what people look like. There is of course immense phenotypic variability amongst Europeans.
There are many types of beauty and ugliness and so on. If one had never encountered non-
European phenotypes, there would be no suggestion that the human species lacks phenotypic
diversity. However, European phenotypic diversity is just a small fraction of the total diversity
of the world. Similarly, my claim is that, while there is great variability within Western moral
beliefs, it may represent just a small fraction of the total diversity. This, at least, is the
hypothesis whose truth I argue to be worth exploring.
That said, is there any positive reason for believing the hypothesis that African moral views
are likely to deepen the pool of moral diversity from which moral ideas can be extracted?
There are at least two ways of replying affirmatively to this question. The first is to point out
that moral beliefs are influenced by cultural and environmental conditions, so that different and
diverse cultural and environmental conditions are likely to contribute to different and diverse
moral values. To take one example, diverse moral beliefs about circumcision are influenced by
cultural influences such as religion and power relations, as well as environmental influences
such as hygiene and disease concerns(Aggleton 2007). Since moral beliefs are strongly
influenced by culture and environment it is plausible that a great deal of moral variation
would have arisen in the very different cultural and environmental conditions of Africa.
The second, and perhaps more convincing, way of bolstering the claim there is greater
diversity than is currently offered by Western theories is to provide some concrete examples of
intriguing novel moral ideas that provide grounds for confidence in the above hypothesis. One
such example is found in the work of Barry Hallen, one of few philosophers to employ
empirical means to investigate African moral concepts. Hallen uncovers an intimate and
perhaps inextricable connection between moral value and aesthetics in Yoruba culture
(Hallen 2000). A further example concerns the emphasis on community. The role played by
communal values has been developed and defended by theorists such as Gyekye, Tangwa, and
Metz (Tangwa 2004; Metz 2007; Gyekye 2011). Metz in particular is at pains to argue that
African morality has distinct advantages over Western ethical theories. While Western ideas
have been mined and honed in ethical theorizing for thousands of years, the development and
polishing of the above ideas are, in part, the outcome of a relatively short period in which
African ideas have been presented to the Western world through Anglophone philosophy
(Hallen 2009). It is intriguing to consider the potential richness of moral ideas yet to emerge.
The point of the preceding paragraphs, then, is not that Western theories are all similar.
Instead, the claim is that the diversity of Western theorizing is limited, since there may be a
much broader domain of moral ideas that is overlooked. Tangwa notes that ‘[v]ariety is the
most remarkable attribute of the African continent’(Tangwa 2004, 389). In the next sub-
section, I argue that ignoring this variety in the domain of morality inhibits the epistemic
goals of normative ethics.

2.3 African Under-Representation Weakens The Justificatory Basis of Western

Theories

Given the likelihood that there is a large space of moral concepts ethical theorists have not
considered, why should it be thought that Western concepts are the correct ones? Below I
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 861

suggest that given at least one widely used method of arriving at moral truths – the application
of intuitive judgements – the relative absence of attention to non-Western concepts weakens
Western theories’ claims to represent moral truth. This is because Western theories may not
cohere with African intuitions and because theories derived from African moral beliefs may
better match Western and global intuitions. I will also suggest that the under-investigated
possibility of African alternatives to the method of cases and intuitions further weakens
Western theories’ claims to moral truth.
One proposed family of methods aimed at moral justification is to employ moral ‘intui-
tions.’ The term intuition is notoriously used to refer to several types of beliefs, judgements,
and ‘intellectual seemings’ (Bedke 2008). They may be general evaluative feelings or
responses concerning what is right and wrong, or acceptable or unacceptable in a given case.
Alternatively, they may be deep-seated ideas about what is morally true or false, obvious or
self-evident. Unfortunately a full discussion of the justificatory role of intuitions is not possible
here. Instead, below I will point to one important role played by intuitions in ethical
justification. I claim that the relative neglect of African moral concepts weakens the justifica-
tion of existing theories.
Despite their contested status, intuitions are the primary justificatory tool in ethics. Perhaps the
most significant way of justifying ethical beliefs and theories is to demonstrate coherence with
intuitions. This may involve comparing and modifying theories on the basis of the intuitive
plausibility of the answers they provide in response to particular cases, such as the famous ‘trolley
problems’ (Thomson 1976). Alternatively theories might be tested, developed, or built upon the
basis of deeply held intuitions, such as the belief that is wrong to kill the innocent. For instance,
many utilitarians hold that there are self-evident intuitions that function as ‘moral axioms.’ These
act as foundations upon which moral theories should be constructed (Singer 1974).
Roughly, then, theories are considered successful if they provide logical coherence with
stronger intuitions or axioms. I am not claiming that this is the only, or the most defensible root
to moral truths. However, it should be noted that most ethical theorizing involves some
reliance on intuitive judgements (Kagan 1998). To the extent that this is the case, the
arguments below demonstrate that ignoring African moral concepts is inimical to the goals
of ethical theory.
A lack of attention to African moral ideas presents four problems for Western theories
justified by their coherence with widely held intuitions: first, Western intuitions may not be
sufficiently universal, such that they cannot be used to ground or critique theories; second,
Africans may have novel intuitions that are globally attractive and require modification of
Western theories; third, African theories, or theories derived from African beliefs, may better
match widely shared intuitions; fourth, Africans may have unacknowledged methods of moral
justification that compete with Western methods. I discuss each of these problems in turn.
The first problem is that there is little evidence that Africans endorse the same intuitions that
are thought to justify or provide grounds for criticism of particular Western theories. One
common view about intuitions is that a degree of consensus about their truth is required in
order for them to provide a basis for justification. Sidgwick, for instance argues that,
[I]t is implied in the very notion of Truth that it is essentially the same for all minds, the
denial by another of a proposition that I have affirmed has a tendency to impair my
confidence in its validity (Sidgwick 1981)
If an ethical intuition one has is doubted by reasonable others, then there are grounds to doubt
that intuition. Other intuitive bases of justification similarly rely on the existence of
862 Wareham C.S.

‘overlapping consensus,’ about moral intuitions (Rawls 1999), or the existence of a ‘common
morality’ of mutually held moral beliefs (Beauchamp and Childress 2001). Since Western
theories rely to a great extent on intuitions, we should be less confident in a theory if Africans
reject the intuitions upon which a Western theory is grounded, unless satisfactory reasons can
be provided for thinking African intuitions are likely to be less truth tracking.
There is some basis for believing that many Africans would not agree with the foundational
utilitarian intuition that ‘the good of any individual is as important as any other.’ According to
sub-Saharan African theorists, communal relationships are highly prized (Metz 2007; Ramose
1999). Africans may therefore disagree with this intuition, believing that the good of those
with whom they are in communal relationships is more important (Appiah 1998). So there is
some reason to think that Africans might have intuitions that conflict with Western founda-
tional intuitions, fail to coincide with overlapping consensus about particular judgements, or
depart from moral ideas that are common in the West. In the absence of evidence of
overlapping intuitions, Western theories’ claims at universality are unjustified. More signifi-
cantly, given intuition-based methods of justification, the strong possibility of disagreement
about fundamental intuitions severely dents confidence in the truth of Western theories.
An objection to this idea is that moral axioms already accepted, by utilitarians for instance,
are sufficiently basic and unshakeable as to undermine any conflicting considered moral
judgements we may encounter. However, even within utilitarian theory, the idea that moral
axioms are inevitably compatible with one another has been challenged by Arrhenius, who
argues that one or more axioms of population ethics must be discarded (Arrhenius 2000). One
response to this objection, then, is to point to the possibility that concepts or axioms derived
from non-Western theories could assist with some of the deep logical contradictions and
incompatibilities in utilitarian theory, perhaps by providing stronger grounds for rejecting
one or more fundamental axioms, or providing an overarching principle that allows us to
prioritise between them.
A further response is to point to the possibility that African concepts will include self-
evident moral beliefs, or axioms that can complement, enrich, or conflict with other axioms.
As it stands, regarding a theory as having a complete set of reasonable axiomatic foundations
seems unjustified when the sample of beliefs is only a small percentage of the population of the
world’s moral ides. This brings me to the second epistemic problem caused by the Western
neglect of African ideas.
The second problem for the epistemic status of Western theories is that Africans may have
intuitions that are novel, or under-considered by Westerners. Upon closer consideration, these
could be found to be self-evident intuitions or otherwise attract broad consensus. African
intuitions may then justify modification or rejection of Western intuitions and the resultant
theories.2 For instance, one intuitive idea contained in African moral conceptions is that ‘a
person is a person through other persons.’ This idea of personhood as inherently relational is
explicated and defended by theorists such as Metz and Tangwa (Metz 2012; Tangwa 2000). If
either of their quite different explications of the African conception of a person is correct, then
they require adaptation of utilitarian interest-based and deontological respect-based concep-
tions that treat personhood as an individualistic, non-relational property (Buchanan 2009).
2
The analogy of blind men trying to describe the nature of an elephant may be instructive here. Individually the
blind men come to different, conflicting descriptions of the elephant. The addition of different, though also
incomplete perspectives contributes to a synthesis, which reflects a truer description of the elephant. Similarly, the
addition of African intuitions about morality may lead to a more complete synthesis of moral ideas, requiring
modification of existing theories. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this analogy.
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 863

The third problem is that well-developed African theories may better match consensus-
attracting intuitions. Metz, for instance argues that African concepts of harmony can be developed
into a moral theory that, on the face of it, better matches considered moral convictions and
intuitions, including those of Westerners (Metz 2014). Metz claims that his African-derived theory
avoids the counter-intuitive elements of Western moral accounts such as principlism, deontology,
utilitarianism, capability theory, and care theory. This version of African ethics, whilst deonto-
logical, apparently avoids the alleged Kantian problem that one may not lie to a murderer who
asks about one’s friend’s whereabouts. While I do not here rely on the truth of Metz’s theory, the
general point is significant: African theories may have the resources to improve upon Western
theories in their coherence with considered moral judgements.
The fourth problem for epistemic confidence in Western theories is that the intuition-based
justification upon which many Western theories are based may itself have African competitors
yet to be acknowledged. The general reliance on intuitions in Western theory has many internal
detractors (Bedke 2008). One may ask, for instance, why, and the extent to which we should
regard intuitions as indicators of moral truth. While basing such theories on intuitions may be
unavoidable, the fact that Westerners have not encountered a better option does not mean that a
better option does not exist. One intriguing possibility, then, is that exploration of non-Western
moral concepts may improve moral theory by providing a better way to justify moral beliefs
and distinguish moral truth from falsehood. While, again, I will not defend these ideas here,
some suggestions are that novel methods of justification might be found in African methods of
argument and decision-making, such as indaba, baraza, and story-telling. As a further example,
Ikuenobe defends the idea that beliefs are justified when they issue from a wise person or elder
(Ikuenobe 1998; Ikuenobe 2006).
There are thus serious epistemic shortfalls stemming from the neglect of African theories
and concepts in ethics: African intuitions may be in conflict with those of Westerners; Africans
may have novel intuitions and beliefs that require serious consideration and modification of
Western theories; theories derived from African moral beliefs may better match Western and
global intuitions; and African theories might contribute competitors to Western methods of
moral justification. These possibilities should at least reduce any confidence about the truth
value of Western theories. A systematic exploration of African concepts may contribute a
solution to these problems by increasing the sample for potentially justified moral concepts
and truth-seeking methodologies that can be applied by ethicists. Unless this larger sample of
moral ideas and intuitions is investigated, Western normative ethicists have good reason to
question the strength of their accounts.
Before turning to the ethical arguments below, it is worth responding to an objection.
According to this objection, Western theory is more likely to have yielded justified moral
beliefs, as well as justified means for determining moral truths. This may be because Western
theorists have been engaged in ethical reflection for longer, or because the written transfer of
knowledge allows moral truths to be preserved and passed on in a way that is unlikely to be
matched in oral traditions. Just as the methods of empirical science developed in the West and
provide grounds for rejecting African supernatural ideas, so might Western methods of ethical
reflection have reached a point at which African moral ideas are unlikely to contribute anything
of value.
At least two replies are possible here. The first is that it is false to claim that there is no
history of systematic ethical reflection in Africa. Hallen, for instance provides examples of
written ethical treatises from as early as 3000 BC to the present day (Hallen 2009). The second
response is to point out that while reflection and writing have been important in developing
864 Wareham C.S.

fruitful moral directions, they are not the only ways that moral beliefs develop.3 Cultural
history and biological contingency also play a part. For example, many ethical prohibitions on
certain types of food are likely to have a highly contingent basis. Similarly, the different
conditions in Africa are likely to have led to the development of moral ideas that are different
from those in the West, and whose value has not been adequately investigated. Thus, novel and
useful moral ideas and methods of justification may have developed on the African continent
even in the absence of written ethical reflection. As is made clear by the arguments and
examples above ignoring African ideas, both written and unwritten, should reduce our
confidence in the epistemic warrant of Western theories.

3 Ethical Arguments for Exploring Diverse Ethics

This section advances three ethical arguments for deeper engagement with African moral
ideas. First, I apply Mill’s argument for freedom of expression to the positive claim that
ethicists ought to actively seek out African moral ideas, and indeed have a duty to do so.
Second, I employ the idea of epistemic injustice and suggest that over-emphasis on Western
thinking is an instance thereof that requires redress. Third, I indicate how epistemic injustice
has contributed to alienation on the part of black scholars and students and argue that an
increased knowledge of and emphasis on non-Western values might be in keeping with the
transformative ends of social institutions.

3.1 African Ethics and Moral Progress

In this section, I argue that Mill’s claim that it is wrong to suppress ideas can be extended into a
positive argument that we should actively promote the discovery of novel ideas in ethical
theory. In defending freedom of thought and expression, Mill argues that
the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human
race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion,
still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the
opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great
a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision
with error.(Mill 1999)
This passage provides two instrumental arguments for freedom of expression. The first is that,
in the event that a suppressed moral belief is true, the human race is harmed by the loss of that
suppressed truth. The second is that, even in the event that a suppressed opinion is false, the
human race is harmed by a missed opportunity to improve its understanding of the truth.
These arguments can be extended and applied to the current context. I extend them, in the
sense that I claim that what is an argument for a negative duty not to suppress contrary
opinions should be translated to a positive prima facie duty to seek and encourage contrary
opinions. If the suppression of such ideas can harm the human race, then the human race can
equally be harmed by failing to bring such opinions to light through neglect or negligence.
Thus ethicists ought to actively seek out novel perspectives.

3
Some theorists suggest that reasoning and reflection in fact play a relatively minor role in ethical belief
formation, with the major role already hard-wired by culture and biology (Haidt and Joseph 2004).
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 865

When the strengthened claim is applied to the current context, it implies that there is a
positive moral duty to seek and encourage moral opinions that differ from dominant ethical
theories. This duty provides an ethical reason in support of investigating African moral
thought. If ethicists do not do so, they may miss on important moral truths out through
negligence. They may also surrender important opportunities to hone and clarify truths
contained in dominant theories and thereby contribute to moral progress.
It is important to emphasize that I have argued for a prima facie duty – one that is defeasible
in the sense that it can be overruled by other duties. I am not, for instance suggesting that
Western theorists should abandon existing projects and focus solely on discovering and
engaging with African moral ideas. There are many other duties one has that might override
the duty at issue. For instance, as mentioned in the introduction, there may be duties to
investigate neglected moral ideas and concepts from other cultures and geographic regions.
Moreover, a utilitarian who regards her theory as justified, for instance, has strong reasons to
stick with and continue to develop utilitarian theory. Nonetheless, the duty to engage with
African ethical theory should motivate some critical engagement with African moral ideas, if
only to assess their implications for her field. If the repurposed Millian argument above is
correct, failing to do so may negligently slow moral progress.

3.2 African Ethics and Epistemic Injustice

A distinct ethical justification for increased emphasis on African moral ideas can be based on the need
to correct epistemic injustices. Below, I outline Miranda Fricker’s explication of epistemic injustice
and claim that the under-representation of African moral concepts exemplifies two types of epistemic
injustice. Thereafter, I discuss remedial actions proposed by Fricker and suggest an additional
redistributive corrective for epistemic injustice. I claim that these remedies can be translated to the
current context and provide an additional moral basis for developing knowledge of African moralities.
Epistemic injustices involve prejudices and challenges related to knowing and expressing
truths in contexts of oppression. They are injustices against individuals or groups ‘in their
capacity as knower’ (Fricker 2007). For Fricker, epistemic injustice comes in two forms.
Testimonial injustice occurs when testimony is not accorded the credibility it deserves due to a
prejudiced audience. For example, a person’s testimony about a sporting event might be
disbelieved or downplayed because prejudices about a particular gender. The second type of
epistemic injustice, hermeneutic injustice, occurs when prejudiced linguistic or structural
arrangements make it more difficult or impossible for individuals or groups to express their
social experiences or beliefs. Fricker gives the example that, until relatively recently, experi-
ences of sexual harassment and the wrongness thereof were difficult to frame and express,
since there did not exist a socially recognised concept of harassment.
Unsurprisingly, both types of injustice are evident in the context of African moral concepts.
The ethno-philosopher Barry Hallen, who provides some of the first systematic discussions of
Yoruba moral beliefs and epistemology, provides an example that encapsulates both kinds of
epistemic injustice:

The sad fact of the matter seems to be that there was little interest in attempting to
specify the criteria governing the application of epistemological vocabulary in African
languages because of a presumption that sub-Saharan thought generally rated so low on
the scale of universal rationality – was so lamentably unsystematic – that any such study
would not be worth the effort (Hallen 2000)
866 Wareham C.S.

This is a clear example of testimonial injustice, since the credibility of the speakers’ moral ideas is
downplayed due to a prejudiced audience. A prejudicial belief that African morality was at a
primitive stage contributed to a lack of attention in understanding and translating concepts that,
Hallen argues after a more careful consideration, provide novel insights on both moral epistemology
and normative ethics. The above quote also exemplifies hermeneutic injustice: the moral concepts,
ideas, and lived social experiences of sub-Saharan people find difficulty in expression, since they are
viewed through the distorted lens of Western, English-speaking interpretations.4
The under-representation of African ideas in philosophical ethics is thus a clear instance of
epistemic injustice that requires correction. Fricker argues that the best response to this injustice is
that hearers should develop the virtue of testimonial justice, which requires maintaining an
awareness of contexts of oppression and correcting for embedded social prejudices. A person
who possesses this virtue will critically reflect on individual and social prejudices and discount
initial judgements of credibility to counteract any potential prejudices. Applied to the current
context, the virtue of testimonial justice appears to require humble engagement with African
moral beliefs, and setting aide one’s prejudices when engaging with non-Western moral concepts.
A further suggestion that warrants consideration is that epistemic injustice may justify a
redistributive solution, akin to what Louise Antony calls ‘epistemic affirmative action’
(Antony 1995). It is often thought that economic injustice justifies preferring disadvantaged
groups in distributions of wealth, resources, and labour. Similarly, it might be argued that
persistent epistemic injustice justifies a redistribution of intellectual labour geared towards fair
representation of the world’s moral concepts. Note that I do not take epistemic affirmative
action to entail giving preference to African moral concepts regardless of whether or not they
have any claims at moral truth. Instead, the aim of redistributing intellectual labour is to pay
proper attention to truths that would otherwise be neglected due to epistemic injustice, thereby
providing fair opportunity for unjustly neglected valuable moral concepts to inform the best
theories. I will not attempt to define or determine what a just distribution of intellectual labour
would entail, since this would require endorsing a substantive theory of justice. Nonetheless, if
the notion redistributive epistemic justice is accepted, it appears at least to justify far greater
attention to unjustly neglected African moral ideas.

3.3 African Ethics and Transformation

Perhaps the most significant rationale for exploring African moralities is the need for ‘trans-
formation.’ Transformation is, roughly, the idea that institutions should change in order to be
representative of the population in which they exist (Esterhuyse 2003). While the word
transformation has particular resonance in the South African context in which I am writing,
the underlying idea has significant traction globally, particularly in application to philosophy.
This is evidenced by a spate of articles decrying the lack of representative diversity in
philosophy in the United States.5 Below I claim that greater attention to African moral
concepts can assist in the project of informing transformation at the fundamental level of
ethics.

4
In this case marginalised groups may be able to develop and express moral ideas within their communities, but
the more advantaged are unable to understand them. Anderson suggests that this type of hermeneutic injustice
requires a slight modification of Fricker’s account (Anderson 2012, 170).
5
See for example J.L. Garfield and B.W. Van Norden. 2016. If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It
Really Is. The New York Times. May 11, and M.Cherry and E. Schwitzgebel. 2016. Like the Oscars
#PhilosophySoWhite. LA Times. March 4.
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 867

African moral ideas are under-represented in a variety of contexts. Even in African nations,
the languages of instruction are commonly European. Professors, lecturers and people in
positions of power tend to be of Western descent. Buildings are in European architectural
styles and are named after people, generally males, of Western descent. Even sporting
environments are perceived as shaped by Westerners (Fusco 2005). Lack of representation
in these areas is widely acknowledged. By contrast, African under-representation in the context
of fundamental ethical values is seldom acknowledged. As it stands, ethical values, such as
freedom, equality, justice, and dignity, which define the goals of transformation, have not been
shown to be the values of the under-represented groups themselves.
A similar point is famously argued in Carol Gilligan’s feminist critique of Western ethics,
which makes the case that a female ethic of care has been overlooked by impartial Western
theories (Gilligan 1982). While feminist theory has taken an increasingly prominent role
transforming ethical theory, African values remain at the margins. Even in African nations
that have a strong mandate to transform their institutions, the starting points for transformation
are unrepresentative of Africans. For instance, the South African Constitution, a founding
pillar for transformation contains no explicit reference to the sub-Saharan principle of Ubuntu,
but many references to values with a Western pedigree.6
As a result, transformation itself is defined by, and directed at, the furtherance of ends that
have been shaped by Western theorists. There appears to be little reference to, or explication of,
distinctively African moral concepts in documents, such as the South African constitution, that
define what it is for an African nation or institution to be transformed.
This is not intended to cast doubt on the place of values like dignity and justice in African
societies, nor to claim Western ownership of them. The point is not that these values are
flawed, or un-African. On the contrary, good cases have been made that these are objective
values that any society ought to accept, and indeed that they already play a significant pre-
theoretical role in African thinking (Metz 2011). However, these values do not exhaust the
range of fundamental moral concepts, and it is highly likely that, as interpreted by Westerners,
they will conflict with values and principles that have an African pedigree, in much the same
way that values like freedom and equality can conflict with one another.
Investigating African moral concepts allows for moral ideas that have typically received
attention in Western ethics to be scrutinised and reinterpreted. African concepts, in combina-
tion with reworked Western concepts, can contribute to the transformation of the ethical
underpinnings that guide transformative processes in South Africa. The possibility of trans-
formation at the fundamental level of values provides an additional ethical incentive for
bringing African moral concepts into the academic and social spotlight.
Thus far I have argued that there are strong epistemic and ethical grounds for projects
that investigate African moral concepts. Indeed, I have suggested that there is a prima
facie duty to do so, in order to avoid the ignorance of potential moral truths and
negligent slowing of moral progress. Moreover, there are reasons to think virtuous agents
and societies should embrace such a project as a corrective to epistemic injustice. Finally,
engagement with African values is morally significant in that it may undermine alien-
ation by contributing to the legitimacy of values that define institutions. Given the ethical
and epistemic reasons for investigating and developing African ethical theories, I make
some methodological suggestions for doing so.

6
Interestingly, Ubuntu was mentioned in an epilogue of the interim South African constitution (Constitution of
RSA Act 200 after 251), but not explicitly in in the Constitution itself.
868 Wareham C.S.

4 Methods for Exploring Diverse Ethics

My concern in this section is not to critique or exclude existing methodologies, nor to argue
decisively for the usefulness of a particular methodology. Instead, the aim is to briefly sketch
potential directions for exploring African moral diversity. The suggestions below have separate
emphases. The first set of suggestions is concern descriptive methods. I indicate ways to map the
domain of African moral ideas. The second set of suggestions concerns normative and analytical
methods to gauge the implications of African moralities for how we ought to act or to be.

4.1 Descriptive Suggestions

Descriptive projects aim to develop and employ empirical methods to understand and bring to
the fore African moral concepts. As mentioned earlier, I prefer to leave open and broad what is
meant by a moral concept. However, I envisage that moral concepts might include:

& Well-developed theories

& Evidence of tacit theories
& Novel ‘moral foundations’ (in a sense to be expanded upon in a moment)
& Ethical intuitions or intuitive responses to cases
& Axiomatic ethical beliefs
& Values (e.g. moral-aesthetic)
& Emphasis on, or rankings of values such as community
& Ethical principles, maxims, rules
& Ideas of the good life, or how one ought to live
& Sources of moral motivation
& Moral behaviors or customs

How is it possible to describe and map these concepts? Various methods have already been
employed. African philosophers, such Mogobe Ramose and Kwasi Wiredu attempt to de-
scribe, interpret and critique their own traditions (Ramose 1999; Wiredu 2004). Metz, similarly
describes common African ethical intuitions from African thinkers (Metz 2007). Christian
Gade, makes use of conversational methods and informal interviews to map different strands
of moral thinking about Ubuntu (Gade 2012). As a further example, Barry Hallen takes an
ethno-philosophical approach, making use of anthropological techniques to understand the
moral language used by Yoruba people (Hallen 2000). While the existing and potential
methods for mapping African moral concepts are themselves diverse, below I suggest reasons
to employ Moral Foundations Theory in such a description.
Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) attempts to explain and map human moral beliefs on the
basis of a limited number of basic elements, or foundations. Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham,
the architects of MFT, initially put forward five moral foundations: Harm, Fairness, Loyalty,
Authority, and Purity. This number has since been expanded to six with the addition of a
Liberty foundation (Graham et al. 2013). Each of these foundations corresponds to a different
type of intuition at play in moral judgements. For instance, the intuition that one ought to save
a downing child is an instance of the Harm foundation, since the justification is aimed at
preventing harm. By contrast, the intuition that we should prefer to save a drowning spouse
over a stranger is an instance of the Loyalty or Ingroup foundation, since the justification is not
only based on harm, but on a particular type of close relationship. Moral Foundations theorists
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 869

accept that additional foundations are likely to be discovered with further empirical research,
particularly in non-Western cultures.
MFT holds that human moral disagreements stem from different emphases on particular
foundations. Famously, Haidt et al. provide empirical evidence that disagreements between
liberals and conservatives are related to a conservative preference for loyalty, authority, and
purity foundations, while Liberals emphasize the Harm and Fairness foundations (Haidt 2012).
There are a number of reasons MFT should be considered an attractive method for mapping
and describing African moral ideas. An initial point is that MFT is explicitly geared towards
the discovery and mapping of moral concepts. As mentioned, there is no suggestion that the set
of foundations is complete or final. On the contrary, Moral Foundations theorists regard it as
likely that additional foundations will be discovered with more empirical work. If the
arguments of Sec 1 are correct, then the underexplored domain of African moral beliefs
provides a promising site for the discovery of novel moral foundations.
In addition to being directed at descriptive mapping of moral beliefs, MFT possesses a
pragmatic advantage in that it provides useful open source tools for researchers. Moral
Foundations theorists have made available numerous qualitative and quantitative resources
that can assist in both the discovery and testing of moral foundations (Graham et al. 2013).
A further attraction of MFT is that limited studies have been in an African context. The vast
preponderance of MFT research is in a Western context or through internet surveys. The under-
representation of African thought in MFT studies thus provides significant opportunities for
novel research.
While MFT possesses these advantages, there are also numerous limitations to MFT as an
approach to investigating African moralities. One major limitation is that MFT provides no
obvious means for reaching normative conclusions. Knowing that a disagreement comes about
because of an emphasis on a particular foundation does not, on the face of it, provide a justified
way to resolve that disagreement. It is, however, too much to ask for a descriptive theory to
provide a normative method. Some suggestions towards this latter end are discussed in the next
section.
A further limitation is that the MFT appears to be extremely coarse-grained, and will almost
certainly miss out many moral concepts, beliefs and practices that may be of value. Note,
however, that the proposal here is not that MFT should be pursued in isolation. Rather, it may
be useful as an initial map of moral concepts. As Gade points out in discussing the mapping of
beliefs about Ubuntu,

[t]he task of drawing such a map may… be compared to the task of an explorer who
wants to make a map of a geographical area that is only familiar to other travellers in
parts, and that has never been mapped out in its entirety before. The first map that is
created of such an area might lack detail, and the map is likely to be improved by others
later on. (Gade 2012, 485)

MFT might assist in drawing this coarse-grained map, which can be complemented by other
descriptive methodologies, such as ethnophilosophy, experimental philosophy, and anthropology.

4.2 From Descriptive to Normative African Ethics

The descriptive project above, comprising MFT and other methodologies, is an important step
to undermining the obstacles to epistemic and ethical goals discussed in the previous sections.
870 Wareham C.S.

In keeping with the epistemic and moral needs argued for in the previous sections, an increased
knowledge of African moral concepts improves the sample of moral viewpoints and concepts,
meaning that the set of ideas upon which moral theories are based is closer to being complete.
Nonetheless, a significant further step is required – that of honing the ideas and determining
the moral concepts that ought to be employed. This section discusses some existing and
potential methods for doing so.
One goal of moral epistemology is to provide a means for justifying moral beliefs and deciding
between moral theories. Earlier, I discussed the idea that intuitions can guide theory choice. If a theory
better coheres with plausible intuitions than other theories, that theory should be preferred. Metz, for
example, holds that his African-derived deontological principle better accounts for relatively uncon-
troversial shared intuitions. This gives his African-derived theory prima facie plausibility when it
reaches conclusions that are more peripheral or less widely shared (Metz 2007). Demonstrating
coherence with deeply held intuitions provides a basis for revisionist normative moral claims.
Similar methods include demonstrating the coherence of moral beliefs with foundational
moral axioms, or morally basic intuitions (Singer 1974). Beliefs and theories are taken to be
true only if they are in keeping with bedrock moral intuitions. The moral foundations discussed
above appear to be good candidates for such basic moral beliefs. Some utilitarians, for instance
may be seen as accepting only harm and care foundations as axiomatic, whist rejecting other
foundations. This of course raises questions about whether and how particular moral founda-
tions might be shown to be morally justified and others not. Suppose, for instance, that one
person, emphasizing the sanctity foundation, believes it is wrong to have sexual intercourse
with a dead chicken, while another believes that there is no wrongness involved, since there is
no harm caused. Which moral foundations should hold sway?
One prospective means for adjudicating questions such as this is to debunk particular
foundations or foundational intuitions. Debunking involves demonstrating that the intuition
has a cause that is likely to be distorting, or is unlikely to lead to moral truth. If, for instance, it
could be demonstrated that the emphasis on purity is caused by the propaganda of power
hungry religious leaders wishing to assert control over the sexual activities of practitioners, this
would go some way towards debunking the purity foundation. Similarly, if a moral foundation
can be shown to be explained by a prevalent cognitive error that inhibits reasoning, this casts
doubt on the normative status of the foundation.
While a map of African moral beliefs is valuable, it does not, in itself provide a means for
adjudicating disagreements or resolving conflicts between African beliefs, or between African
beliefs and Western ones. Above I have suggested some ways in which existing methods of
moral justification might assist in achieving the goal of justifying moral beliefs. It is worth
mentioning again a possibility that I have left open. This possibility is that the descriptive
project brings to light methods of moral justification that have not been adequately considered,
and which improve upon existing methods such as those described.

5 Conclusion

In Section 2, I argued that the lack of emphasis on African theory means that Western
philosophical ethics has serious shortcomings that should lead us to doubt ethicists claims to
moral truth.
In Section 3, I provided three ethical arguments for greater emphasis on African moral
ideas. First, to fail to take into account potentially true African moral perspectives is to risk
A Duty to Explore African Ethics? 871

negligently slowing moral progress. Second, such neglect perpetuates epistemic injustice and
fails to demonstrate epistemic virtue. Third, discovering and developing African moral ideas
may contribute to transformative efforts by providing means to challenge, improve, or replace
Western values upon which many institutions are based. These arguments strengthen the
rationale for investigations of African moral concepts.
In Section 4, I sketched some methodological approaches such investigations might
employ. In particular, I suggested that MFT provides an attractive basis for a coarse-grained
mapping of African morality, while also acknowledging that such methods require supple-
mentation by other descriptive empirical methodologies. Thereafter, I pointed to ways in which
theories of moral justification might be brought to bear upon novel African moral concepts.
My hope is that these and other methods contribute to the discovery and development of
novel African moral concepts, and thereby rectify some epistemic and ethical shortcomings of
Western moral theorizing.

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