South African Journal of Philosophy = Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Wysbegeerte - latest Issue

Hempel‘s paradox of the ravens, and his take on it, are meant to be understood as being restricted to situations where we have no additional background information. According to him, in the absence of any such information, observations of FGs confirm the hypothesis that all Fs are G. In this paper I argue against this principle by way of considering two other paradoxes of confirmation, Goodman’s “grue” paradox and the “tacking” (or “irrelevant conjunct”) paradox. What these paradoxes reveal, I argue, is that a presumption of causal realism is required to ground any confirmation; but once we grant causal realism, we have no reason to accept the central principles giving rise to the paradoxes.

Opponents of legalising assisted dying often make the Argument from Sufficient Palliation. On the premise that advances in palliative treatment have made it possible to free terminal patients from pain and distress, the argument concludes that assisted dying is unnecessary. I assert that this argument fails. Firstly, the premise is false because patients respond differently to analgesics and many continue to experience intractable pain even on medication. Secondly, the premise fails to acknowledge the extreme discomfort (for many patients) of the side effects of palliative treatment. Thirdly, the conclusion would only follow from the premise if the overwhelming majority of patients had access to palliative treatment, and this is patently not the case. Finally, the argument completely overlooks the enormous distress experienced by terminal patients, arising from perceived loss of dignity and concerns about being a burden to others.

Thad Metz defends what he considers to be a novel theory of moral status, i.e. an account about what beings are owed direct duties in virtue of their moral significance. Metz claims that his account is African, it is plausible and that it is worth taking seriously like other competing accounts in the Western philosophical tradition. In this article, I give four reasons why we should doubt, if not reject, these claims of plausibility. Firstly, I show how a theory that accounts for moral status by relying solely on some facet of human nature ultimately fails to grant intrinsic value to non-human components, and as such it will always prefer human interests over those of nonhuman components, and further it won’t have a moral-theoretical basis to assign intrinsic value to non-human components. Secondly, I hope to demonstrate that this theory will not be able to account for the moral status of Martians and in turn show that it does not secure the standing of animals from such beings. I also argue that his account does not give credible evidence for the intuition that severely injured human persons have greater moral status than animals with similar internal properties. Finally, I briefly indicate that this theory does not have the corpus to explain our duties to people who have died, or at least, their bodies.

In spite of some interesting recent research, Carnap’s emphasis on the bearing of the practical features on the constitution of knowledge is not duly appreciated yet. A few decades before the emerging thrill about the pragmatic encroachment in epistemology, it was Carnap who, inspired by the accomplishments of the pragmatists, had made some lasting remarks about the bearing of the essentially non-epistemic factors on the formation of knowledge. To be more precise, he not only took the practical factors into account in his theory of knowledge, but also made some efforts at bridging the gap between semantics and pragmatics in the way of dealing with some fundamental epistemological questions. Just as was the case with the shift from syntax to semantics, this underestimated pragmatic move brings about a smooth and flowing change, with both gains and losses. The influence of this pragmatic move in coming to a comprehensive theory of knowledge is to be exposed in this paper.

In Getting Causes from Powers, Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum published a novel approach to the metaphysics of dispositional properties, according to which causal powers are to be viewed as vectors. Recently (at the time of writing) they have employed a similar system to represent prowess in sport. In this paper, I discuss the Mumford/Anjum tendential theory of sporting prowess. I question their motivation for the tendencies account, concluding that (contra Mumford and Anjum) determinism would not take away from the enjoyment of spectator sports, so long as epistemic uncertainty is preserved. Nonetheless, I deem the tendencies theory of prowess a good one, so in addition, here I develop the Mumford/Anjum thesis, applying the multi-dimensional aspect they themselves apply to “complex causal situations” in their 2011 work on properties, to the philosophy of sport.

Hannah Arendt’s writings concerning individual responsibility create an important – and under-examined – context for reading J. M. Coetzee’s oeuvre, particularly his novel Waiting for the Barbarians. For Arendt, when a society fails to offer ethical codes of conduct to follow, people should determine those codes by themselves, since morality concerns people in their individuality during totalitarian times. Arendt’s ideas bear important similarities to Coetzee’s representation of the magistrate in the novel, as this character struggles to live with his conscience in a totalitarian regime. In Arendt’s world, introspection is only needed when the world around us fails to guarantee moral laws, and even then one should not focus on oneself only, but instead try to focus on the world around us. Coetzee, however, shows through the character of the magistrate how this internal dialogue easily becomes torturous in its nature. If political action is the most important aspect of Arendt’s thinking, then Coetzee shows through the character of the magistrate how modern, conscientious humans cannot just act politically; instead, their action is always marked by their personal weaknesses, including their feelings of inadequacy. Nevertheless, even if Arendt emphasises political action more than Coetzee, who shows that such action is necessarily marked by individual doubt, self-questioning and other personal inadequacies, the reliance on radical thinking, which is at odds with conformism, is a concern they share.

Supposing some legal solutions lay in exploring and understanding the substantive content of ubuntu, what then? Is there no ground for suspecting that some legal scholars and courts, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand ubuntu? That the terrible, seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to ubuntu have been unskilled and unseemly methods of solving some legal problems? Certainly, some legal problems have not rendered themselves to proper solutions through such methods.¹

Some bioethical literature reveals that there is some concern by some scholars that certain elements of the current bioethical principlism show limitations when applied in the case of communities or societies whose value systems fall outside those of the Western world. Consequently, several efforts are being made by a number of scholars, both in Africa and abroad, to find what may be considered African bioethical principles. Analysing one of the African proverbial sayings, this research proposes “human life invaluableness” as one such principle that is worth considering in the general search for African bioethical principles. In essence, the principle teaches that no resource may be spared at the expense of human life because of the ontologically special place occupied by human beings in the hierarchy of beings in the world.

In this article we offer a critical review of Matolino and Kwindingwi’s article “The end of ubuntu” in which they put forward their view, based on conditions in contemporary South Africa, that the philosophy of ubuntu is dead. In the main, we intend to uphold what we believe is the more plausible argument, as suggested by the title of Metz’s paper, “Just the beginning of ubuntu”. We argue that Matolino and Kwindingwi’s arrival at the conclusion that ubuntu is over is influenced by their point of departure, which appears to be established on the dubious pre-philosophic assumption that ubuntu, as a normative ethical theory, is a “narrative of return”. We further question their assertion that contemporary conditions in South Africa are the basis on which ubuntu moral theory should be dismantled. Matolino and Kwindingwi argue for the demise of ubuntu without supporting their position with convincing, logical reasons. We argue that ubuntu, insofar as it is a moral theory, is competitive and will ultimately prove to be a desirable ethic which could contribute positively towards developing moral character in the contemporary sociopolitical environment in parts of Africa. This article intends to explore the methodology and logic of the debate. However, in the pursuit of pure academic critique, we reject Metz’s allegation that the criticism by Matolino and Kwindingwi is ad hominem.

The idea that a person might have a duty to defer to the moral judgments of others is typically something that arouses our suspicion, in ways that other kinds of deference do not. One explanation for this is the value of autonomy. According to this explanation, people have a duty to be autonomous, and any act of deferring to another person’s moral judgement is not an autonomous action. Call this “the Autonomy Argument” against moral deference. In this article, I criticise the Autonomy Argument. I argue that, even if we accept that an act of moral deference can never be autonomous, those who believe that people have a duty to be autonomous must accept that acts of moral deference are morally necessary. This is because some people are incapable of becoming autonomous by themselves, and deferring to a moral expert is the only way they might ever become autonomous.

This article is in part a response to Matolino and Kwindingwi’s “The end of Ubuntu” and Metz’s response “Just the beginning for ubuntu: reply to Matolino and Kwindingwi”, both of which appeared in the South African Journal of Philosophy. My contribution also stands alone as an outline of the basic minimum of conceptual moves any Ubuntu theorist has to make in order for their text to avoid the twin seductions of being either a contemporary variant of an outdated ethnophilosophy, or an ahistorical analysis of Ubuntu that remains oblivious to the historicity of the concept. The obvious fact that Ubuntu has had a complicated history, first as pre-colonial praxis and then as abstract postcolonial philosophical construct, demands of the postcolonial theorist to pay attention to the epistemic shifts that have historically determined how Ubuntu interacted with various hegemonic, that is, Western-dominated, theoretical discourses.

Minka Woermann’s second book, Bridging Complexity and Post-Structuralism: Insights and Implications, is a continuation of the work started by the late Paul Cilliers and worked out in conjunction with his colleagues, including Dr Woermann. This project seeks to develop the ethical implications of philosophical complexity, and this book constitutes a valuable contribution in the form of a careful and nuanced argument for an ethical praxis that is the consequence of the dialogue between complexity and post-structuralism.

This latest book by the Belgian philosopher and theologian, Joeri Schrijvers, is a culmination of his life-long research and interest in the question about “What is to be done at the end of metaphysics?” His book, Ontotheological Turnings? The Decentering of Modern Subjectivity in Recent French Phenomenology (2011) surmised that metaphysics and its ontotheological constitution (Heidegger) are inevitable.

Radebe, S. B., and Phooko, M. R. 2017. “Ubuntu and the law in South Africa: Exploring and understanding the substantive content of ubuntu.” South African Journal of Philosophy 36(2): 239–251. (DOI: 10.1080/02580136.2016.1222807)

On page 246:

The Constitutional Court in S v Makwanyane, a decision dealing with the constitutionality of the death penalty, made it clear that ubuntu is part and parcel of the South African legal system. The Court held that 

the legacy of the past and gross human rights violations must be addressed through the Constitution and human rights culture, including on the retribution ought not to be given undue weight in the balancing process. The Constitution is premised on the assumption that ours will be a constitutional State founded on the recognition of human rights. The concluding provision on National Unity and Reconciliation contains the following statement: The adoption of this Constitution lays the secure foundation for the people of South Africa to transcend the divisions and strife of the past, which generated gross violations of human rights, the transgression of humanitarian principles in violent conflicts and a legacy of hatred, fear, guilt and revenge. These can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation (S v Makwanyane and Another 1995, §130–131, emphasis added).

should read as follows:

The Constitutional Court in S v Makwanyane, a decision dealing with the constitutionality of the death penalty, made it clear that ubuntu is part and parcel of the South African legal system. The Court held that the legacy of the past and gross human rights violations must be addressed through the Constitution and human rights culture, including that