Personhood and the Strongly Normative Constraint

Abstract

The strongly normative view is a concept of personhood rooted in traditional African thought. On this view, substantive norms of culture directly constrain behavior in such a way that failure to comply amounts to failure of to be a person. This article puts forward a number of conceptual and practical difficulties confronting that view of personhood, while shift ing att ention to a weakly normative concept of personhood.