Abstract

Supposing that an African metaphysics grounded on the notion and/or value of vitality is true, can it do a better job in terms of informing an African religious ethics than its Western counterparts, specifically, the Divine Command theory (DCT)? By ‘religious ethics’, in this article, I have in a mind a meta-ethical theory i.e., an account of moral properties whether they are best understood in spiritual rather than physicalterms. In this article, I articulate an under-explored African meta-ethical theory grounded on vitality, and I argue that the Euthyphro problem is not a successful objection against it like it is usually thought to be for DCT. This relative advantage of the vitalist meta-ethics does not necessarily render it plausible, but it gives us some ground to seriously consider the future of African religious ethics grounded on it.

Highlights

  • Is there a necessary relation between morality and religion1? One influential theory in the Western tradition, the Divine Command Theory (DCT), responds to this question affirmatively

  • Presuming that the Euthyphro problem is a successful objection against DCT, I argue that an under-explored African religious-ethics qua vitality offers an interpretation of a religious ethics that avoids this Socratic dilemma

  • Whereas DCT implies that God may depend on some norm to command morality, in African ethics vitality is a property of God; and on the other hand, whereas DCT implies that morality is arbitrary, vitality grounds morality on some concrete consideration of whether an action conduces or reduces life

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Summary

Introduction

Is there a necessary relation between morality and religion1? One influential theory in the Western tradition, the Divine Command Theory (DCT), responds to this question affirmatively. Many African scholars have articulated a moral theory that is grounded in the value of vitality (Tempels 1959; Magesa 1997; Shutte 2001; Bujo 2001) These have not made it their sole project to consider their account as a meta-ethical theory in comparison to other world influential religious meta-ethical theories like the divine command or natural law theories. With regards to the authors cited above, these have not thought of comparing their own ethical accounts against others so as to assess whether any of them is more plausible than the other This lack of internal philosophical dialogue and critical discourse has limited the growth of religious ethics in the African tradition, and has tended to make their project less philosophical and more anthropological. I proceed to show how a vitality-based ethics avoids the Euthyphro problem

The divine command theory
Euthyphro problem
An African ontology and vitality
African religious ethics
Conclusion
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