Justification of Moral Norms in African Philosophy

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the ways African philosophers have attempted to justify moral norms. The aim is to account for these efforts at justifying moral norms by means of typologies. In the main, I consider four typologies of justification, namely, (1) appeal to tradition, (2) appeal to community, (3) appeal to religion and the gods, and (4) appeal to human well-being. Each of these typologies is taken to be a family of thought united by one central proposition. I consider the recourse to these strategies of justification in African philosophy in order to evaluate their plausibility. Essentially, I argue that there are important deficiencies to be remedied in the development of these strategies of justification. These challenges relate to the plausibility of the assumptions and the sufficiency of the perspectives offered by each of these typologies of justification of moral norms. To this end, the proposal advanced is that the four typologies of justification require further theoretical development.