Department of Philosophy and Classics

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Subject: search.filters.subject.African philosophy

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    The Moral Standing of Social Robots, Untapped Insights from Africa
    (Philosophy & Technology, 2022) Jecker, N.S.; Atiure, C.A.; Ajei, M.O.
    This paper presents an African relational view of social robots’ moral standing which draws on the philosophy of ubuntu (humanness). The introduction (Section 1) places the question of moral standing in historical and cultural contexts. Section 2 demonstrates an ubuntu framework by applying it to the fictional case of a social robot named Klara, taken from Ishiguro’s novel, Klara and the Sun. We argue that an ubuntu ethic assigns moral standing to Klara based on her relational qualities and pro-social virtues. Section 3 introduces a second fictional case, taken from McKeown’s novel, Machines Like Me, in which a social robot named Adam displays intrinsic qualities, such as sentience, rationality, and deductive moral reasoning, yet lacks close social ties to particular people. We argue that Adam is not a person in the African sense; however, he qualifies as a person according to many standard Western views, such as Kantian and utilitarian ethics. Section 4 further elaborates the African relational view by comparing the moral standing of social robots and humans in a forced-choice scenario. Section 5 replies to objections. We conclude that an African relational approach captures important insights about the moral standing of social robots that many Western accounts miss and should be better incorporated into global frameworks for designing and deploying social robots.
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    Rethinking solidarity towards equity in global health: African views
    (International Journal for Equity in Health, 2023) Atuire, C.A.; Hassoun, N.
    When the COVID-19 pandemic first took the world by storm, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a Solidarity Call to Action to realize equitable global access to COVID-19 health technologies through pooling of knowledge, intellectual property and data. At the dawn of 2022, 70% of rich countries’ populations were vaccinated but only 4.6% of poor countries (Our World In Data, Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations, 2022). Vaccine nationalism and rampant self-interest grew and our ineffective global response led to new variants of concern - like Omicron - emerging. Rather than abandon the idea of solidarity in global health, we believe that the international community must embrace it. Solidarity, with its emphasis on relationality and recognition of similarities, could offer fertile ground for building an ethical framework for an interconnected and interdependent world. Such a framework would be better than a framework that focuses principally on individual entitlements. To defend this view, we draw on African relational views of personhood and morality. When humans are conceived of as essentially relational beings, solidarity occupies a central role in moral behaviour. We argue that part of the reason appeals to solidarity have failed may be traced to an inadequate conceptualization of solidarity. For as long as solidarity remains a beautiful notion, practiced voluntarily by generous and kindhearted persons, in a transient manner to respond to specific challenges, it will never be able to offer an adequate framework for addressing inequities in global health in a systematic and permanent way. Drawing on this understanding of solidarity, we propose pathways to respond creatively to the risks we face to ensure equitable access to essential health for all.
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    From “Man is the Measure of all things” to Money is the Measure of all things: A dialogue between Protagoras and African Philosophy
    (Journal of the South African Society for Greek Philosophy. 9(1): 22–40, 2008) Ajei, M.O.; Ramose, M. D.
    Protagoras declaration that “man is the measure of all things” is conventionally discussed in the context of epistemology. There was, however, a communal or social dimension to this which, in the process of time, assumed greater intensity and expanded systematically into all aspects of human relations. The centrality of money in these relations speaks to the transition from “man is the measure of all things” to money is the measure of all things. The article proposes to defend this thesis in the context of conceptual orientation of NEPAD and the global economic order.