Towards an African biblical virtue ethics? Reflections on the letter to TITUS1 through a progressive-negotiated-ethics

Abstract

African conceptions of virtue, in comparison with the virtue-ethical perspectives of the letter to Titus, have foundational and narrative tensions, yet they are in tandem in some important respects. Consequently, appropriating a virtue ethic that is relevant to African contexts and simultaneously accountable to the virtue-ethical perspectives of Titus requires the application of a synthetic methodology. Hence, this article newly develops and describes such a methodology as “progressive-negotiated-ethics”. In applying this methodology, the article negotiates, imagines and emerges a virtue-ethical horizon that is simultaneously African and biblical, described as “African biblical virtue ethics”. Such a third virtue-ethical space, negotiated from the two distinct virtue concepts of African ethics and biblical ethics, takes both the intricacies of biblical ethics and the complexities of African ethics seriously.