Department of Philosophy and Classics
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Item Considering escaping hell(Religious Studies, 2022) Ani, E.I.Adams argues that the traditional doctrine of eternal hellish experience stretches the Problem of Evil beyond any reasonable solution, as hell is stubbornly incompatible with God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. Buckareff and Plug argue that people could leave hell. Matheson responds that if people could leave hell, people could leave heaven. But Matheson provides reasons to think that this is not possible. Luck attempts to refute Matheson’s argument. I show that Luck’s attempt contains analogies that lack features that crucially depict the asymmetrical relationship between heaven and hell. I suggest some other analogies that I think contain such features.Item Afro-communitarianism or Cosmopolitanism(The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2020) Ani, E.I.Item Two Steps Forward: An African Relational Account of Moral Standing(Philosophy & Technology, 2022) Jecker, N.S.; Atiure, C.A.; Ajei, M.O.This paper replies to a commentary by John-Stewart Gordon on our paper, “The Moral Standing of Social Robots: Untapped Insights from Africa.” In the original In this paper, we set forth an African relational view of personhood and show its implications for the moral standing of social robots. This reply clarifies our position and answers three objections. The objections concern (1) the ethical significance of intelligence, (2) the meaning of ‘pro-social,’ and (3) the justification for prioritizing humans over pro-social robots.Item African perspectives of moral status: a framework for evaluating global bioethical issues(Medical Humanities, 2022) Atuire, C.A.This paper offers an African perspective on moral status grounded on an understanding of personhood. These concepts are key to understanding the differences in emphasis and the values at play when global ethical issues are analysed within the African context. Drawing from African philosophical reflections on the descriptive and normative concepts of personhood, I propose a dual notion of subject-object moral status. I explain how object moral status, duties owed to persons, is differently grounded with respect to subject's moral status, which refers to communally directed agency. This distinction influences the African way of conceptualising and addressing ethical issues, where, without ignoring rights of persons, moral consideration about the agency of Righteousness is often factored into ethical deliberation. As a practical example, I look at the debate surrounding legal access to safe abortion on the African continent. I suggest a Gadamerian approach to diffuse the tensions that sometimes arise between universalist advocates of rights and cultural decolonizationists.Item Bioethics In Africa: A Contextually Enlightened Analysis Of Three Cases(Developing World Bioethics, 2021) Jecker, N.S.; Atuire, C.Across sub-Saharan Africa, bioethics is an emerging field of scholarly inquiry informed by contextual features distinct to the region. a cultural mix comprised of European influences, indigenous traditions, Christian faiths, and Muslim communities, a bioethics for the sub-Saharan region must be responsive to this milieu. This paper asks: What values and methods can best promote the practice of bioethics in Africa? We set forth a strategy that leans one way or another in response to the contextual features of a particular setting. Since our aim is to be responsive to context, we begin with a series of cases and develop values and methods in response to each case as we work through its ethical analysis. Section 1 introduces a case involving setting priorities for public funding of services that produce large benefits for a small group of people, using the example of dialysis in Ghana. Section 11 presents a situation involving determining the permissibility of a double standard of quality for healthcare devices in rich and poor nations, using the example of explanting peacemakers from deceased people in wealthy nations for use by people in low and middle-income nations. Section 111 describes a scenario where international groups clash with religious and spiritual healers over the chaining of people with severe mental illness at prayer camps and healing centres in Ghana. Section IV articulates a three-pronged strategy for engaging in bioethics brought to light by the case analyses and defends it against objections. Throughout the paper, we tag certain views as African and others as Western to indicate ethical beliefs commonly found in these regions and less commonly found elsewhere. We do not mean to imply that all Africans hold a certain ethical stance or that all Westerners do, nor do we mean to suggest that people outside these regions do not hold the views in question.Item Liberation Philology: Decolonizing Classics In Africa, A Native View From The South(Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 2022) Schoor, D.; Ackah, K.; Asante, M.K.O.If you were a manumitted slave, the child of a slave or descendant of enslaved or dispossessed people or, say, you were a member of your society’s lowest castes and you were given the opportunity to study, and perhaps even to take up scholarship as your life’s work, your vocation, what subject would you, should you elect to learn?Item Pursuing nation building within multi-partisan fragmentation: the case of Ghana(National Identities, 2020) Atuire, C.A.Ghana has earned many accolades for multi-partisan democracy in sub Saharan Africa. This political system has also produced many social and economic benefits for the citizenry. However, political parties are also a vehicle for the promotion of ethnic fragmentation that perils nation building. This article explores how partisan politics in Ghana is undermining nation building. I propose a three-pronged approach to working towards nation building amidst the fragmentation of adversarial multi-partysm.Item 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.Item African Ethics and Online Communities: An Argument for a Virtual Communitarianism(ilosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, 2021) Morgan, S.N.; Okyere-Manu, B.A virtual community is generally described as a group of people with shared interests, ideas, and goals in a particular digital group or virtual platform. Virtual communities have become ubiquitous in recent times, and almost everyone belongs to one or multiple virtual communities. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its associated national lockdowns, has made virtual communities more essential and a necessary part of our daily lives, whether for work and business, educational purposes or keeping in touch with friends and family. Given these facts, how do we ensure that virtual communities become a true community qua community? We address this question by proposing and arguing for a ‘virtual communitarianism’—an online community that integrates essential features of traditional African communitarianism in its outlook and practice. The paper’s position is that virtual communitarianism can make for a strong ethical virtual community where members can demonstrate a strong sense of group solidarity, care and compassion towards each other. The inclusion of these virtues can bring members who often are farapart and help create a stronger community bond. This will ensure that the evolution of virtual communities does not happen without the integration of progressive African communitarian values.Item Bioethics’ Duty to Conference in Qatar: Reply to Magnus(The American Journal of Bioethics, 2024) Jecker, N.S.; Savulescu, J.; Atuire, C.; et al.Is it unethical to host an international bioethics conference in Qatar? In an editorial in this issue, David Magnus (2024) argues that conferencing in Qatar or other places where human rights violations occur, is not ethically justified. According to Magnus, the International Association of Bioethics’ (IABs’) decision to host the 2024 World Congress of Bioethics (WCB) at a Qatari-based university was “a major mistake by the IAB board.” We hold a much different view. In the face of unjust laws and human rights violations, more than one response is ethically defensible, as some of us have argued (Jecker and Ravitsky 2023; Jecker et al. 2024a; Jecker et al. 2024b; Jecker, Verweij, et al. 2023; Ghaly, El Akoum, and Afdhal 2023). Boycotting is one way to seek to change an unjust situation, but so too is engaging with people who are willing to host, hear, and take seriously challenges and objections to their prevailing norms (Jecker, Ravitsky, et al., 2023). Qatari-based hosts have invited bioethicists from around the world to engage with them in an open exchange of ideas, and offered a conference venue where this can occur. Bioethicists should engage and should foster open and respectful dialogue. To avoid redundancy with arguments, some of us have developed elsewhere (Jecker and Ravitsky, 2023; Jecker et al. 2024a; Jecker et al. 2024b; Jecker, Verweij, et al. 2023; Ghaly, El Akoum, and Afdhal 2023), we limit our response mostly to points not considered previously.