Jurisprudence in an African Context, Second Edition, is devoted to the philosophy of law in a way that engages earnestly with African thought and the African context. The textbook features primary texts by leading African intellectuals, putting these in critical dialogue with works by Western theorists. It addresses core jurisprudential topics, such as the nature and functions of law, the manner in which judges do and should interpret the law, theories of distributive justice, and accounts of civil and criminal justice. These abstract philosophical issues are considered in the light of both African and Western principles as applied to salient controversies on the African continent.

This revised and updated second edition offers a deepened examination of the philosophical theories, the African context and African customary law. It includes new chapters that address critical race theory and feminism, and provides expanded analysis of primary texts. Further reading lists are also n ow available in each chapter, and links to online media are integrated throughout the work.

Jurisprudence in an African Context, Second Edition, is suited as core material for courses in African jurisprudence, legal philosophy or political theory, and may be of interest to scholars who wish to engage with African thought about the making, interpretation and enforcement of law.

Can human life be meaningful? What does talk about life’s meaning even mean? What is God’s role, if any, in a meaningful life? These three questions frame this one-of-a-kind debate between two philosophers who have spent most of their professional lives thinking and writing about the topic of life’s meaning. In this wide-ranging scholarly conversation, Professors Thaddeus Metz and Joshua Seachris develop and defend their own unique answers to these questions, while responding to each other’s objections in a lively dialogue format. Seachris argues that the concept of life’s meaning largely revolves around three interconnected ideas—mattering, purpose, and sense-making—that a meaningful human life involves sufficiently manifesting all three, and that God would importantly enhance the meaningfulness of life on each of these three fronts. Metz instead holds that talk of life’s meaning is about a variety of properties such as meriting pride, transcending one’s animal self, making a contribution, and authoring a life-story. For him, many lives are meaningful insofar as they exercise intelligence in positive, robust, and developmental ways. Finally, Metz argues that God is unnecessary for an objective meaning that suits human nature. Metz and Seachris develop and defend their own unique answers to these three questions, while responding to each other’s objections in a lively dialogue format that is accessible to students though—given their new contributions—will be of great interest to scholars as well. Key Features Offers an up-to-date scholarly conversation on life’s meaning by two researchers at the forefront of research on the topic. Provides a wide-ranging, yet orderly discussion of the most important issues. Accessible for the student investigating the topic for the first time yet valuable as well to the scholar working on life’s meaning. Includes helpful pedagogical features, like: - Chapter outlines and introductions - Annotated Reading Lists for both students and research-level readers - A glossary - Clear examples, thought experiments, narratives, and cultural references, which enhance the book’s role in thinking about life’s meaning and related topics.

Given the pain, discomfort, anxiety, heartbreak, and boredom that most humans experience in their lives, is it morally permissible to create them? Some philosophers lately have answered 'No', contending that it is wrong to create a new human life when one could avoid doing so, because it would be bad for the one created. This view is known as 'anti-natalism'. Some contributors to this volume argue that anti-natalism is true because: agents have a prima facie duty to prevent suffering; it is immoral to violate another's right not to be harmed without having consented to it; and it is a serious wrong to exploit the weakness of a poorly off being to become a biological parent. Others here argue against anti-natalism on the ground, for instance, that many of our lives are not so bad and in fact are quite good and that the logic of anti-natalism absurdly entails pro-mortalism, the view that we should kill off as many people as possible. This book explores these and related issues concerning the evaluative question of how to judge the worthwhileness of lives and the normative question of what basic duties entail for the creation of new lives. Excepting one, all the chapters in this book were originally published in the South African Journal of Philosophy.

Can human life be meaningful? What does talk about life’s meaning even mean? What is God’s role, if any, in a meaningful life? These three questions frame this one-of-a-kind debate between two philosophers who have spent most of their professional lives thinking and writing about the topic of life’s meaning.

In this wide-ranging scholarly conversation, Professors Thaddeus Metz and Joshua W. Seachris develop and defend their own unique answers to these questions, while responding to each other’s objections in a lively dialog format. Seachris argues that the concept of life’s meaning largely revolves around three interconnected ideas—mattering, purpose, and sense-making; that a meaningful human life involves sufficiently manifesting all three; and that God would importantly enhance the meaningfulness of life on each of these three fronts. Metz instead holds that talk of life’s meaning is about a variety of properties such as meriting pride, transcending one’s animal self, making a contribution, and authoring a life-story. For him, many lives are meaningful insofar as they exercise intelligence in positive, robust, and developmental ways. Finally, Metz argues that God is unnecessary for an objective meaning that suits human nature.

Metz and Seachris develop and defend their own unique answers to these three questions, while responding to each other’s objections in a dialog format that is accessible to students though—given their new contributions—will be of great interest to scholars as well.

Key Features

Offers an up-to-date scholarly conversation on life’s meaning by two researchers at the forefront of research on the topic.

Provides a wide-ranging, yet orderly discussion of the most important issues.

Accessible for the student investigating the topic for the first time yet also valuable to the scholar working on life’s meaning.

Includes helpful pedagogical features, like:

- Chapter outlines and introductions;

- Annotated reading lists for both students and research-level readers;

- A glossary; and

- Clear examples, thought experiments, narratives, and cultural references, which enhance the book’s role in thinking about life’s meaning and related topics.

Table of Contents

Foreword

John Martin Fischer

Opening Statements

1. Triadic Meaning and the Benefits of God

Joshua W. Seachris

2. Making Life Meaningful Without God or a Soul

Thaddeus Metz

First Round of Replies

3. "Some" Meaning Without God or a Soul: Reply to Metz

Joshua W. Seachris

4. Considering the Benefits of God: Reply to Seachris

Thaddeus Metz

Second Round of Replies

5. God Is Still Better News for Meaning: Response to Metz's Reply

Joshua W. Seachris

6. Types of Meaning and the Natural as Their Source: Response to Seachris' Reply

Thaddeus Metz

Ifeanyi Menkiti's articulation of an African conception of personhood-especially in "Person and Community in African Traditional Thought" -has become very influential in African philosophy. Menkiti on Community and Becoming a Person contributes to the debate in African philosophy on personhood by engaging with various aspects of Menkiti's account of person and community. The contributors examine this account in relation to themes such as individualism, communalism, rights, individual liberty, moral agency, communal ethics, education, state and nation building, elderhood and ancestorhood. Through these themes, this book, edited by Edwin Etieyibo and Polycarp Ikuenobe, shows that Menkiti's account of personhood in the context of community is both fundamental and foundational to epistemological, metaphysical, logical, ethical, legal, social and political issues in African thought systems.

What makes a person's life meaningful? Thaddeus Metz offers a new answer to an ancient question which has recently returned to the philosophical agenda. He proceeds by examining what, if anything, all the conditions that make a life meaningful have in common. The outcome of this process is a philosophical theory of meaning in life. He starts by evaluating existing theories in terms of the classic triad of the good, the true, and the beautiful. He considers whether meaning in life might be about such principles as fulfilling God's purpose, obtaining reward in an afterlife for having been virtuous, being attracted to what merits attraction, leaving the world a better place, connecting to organic unity, or transcending oneself by connecting to what is extensive. He argues that no extant principle satisfactorily accounts for the three-fold significance of morality, enquiry, and creativity, and that the most promising theory is a fresh one according to which meaning in life is a matter of intelligence contoured toward fundamental conditions of human existence.

A Relational Moral Theory draws on neglected resources from the Global South and especially the African philosophical tradition to provide a new answer to a perennial philosophical question: what do all morally right actions have in common as distinct from wrong ones? Metz points out that the principles of utility and of respect for autonomy, the two rivals that have dominated western moral theory for the last two centuries, share an individualist premise. Once that common assumption is replaced by a relational perspective given prominence in African ethical thought, a different comprehensive principle, one focused on harmony or friendliness, emerges. Metz argues that this principle corrects the blind spots of the western moral principles, and has implications for a wide array of controversies in applied ethics that an international audience of moral philosophers, professional ethicists, and similar thinkers will find compelling.

What makes a person's life meaningful? Thaddeus Metz offers a new answer to an ancient question which has recently returned to the philosophical agenda. He proceeds by examining what, if anything, all the conditions that make a life meaningful have in common. The outcome of this process is a philosophical theory of meaning in life. He starts by evaluating existing theories in terms of the classic triad of the good, the true, and the beautiful. He considers whether meaning in life might be about such principles as fulfilling God's purpose, obtaining reward in an afterlife for having been virtuous, being attracted to what merits attraction, leaving the world a better place, connecting to organic unity, or transcending oneself by connecting to what is extensive. He argues that no extant principle satisfactorily accounts for the three-fold significance of morality, enquiry, and creativity, and that the most promising theory is a fresh one according to which meaning in life is a matter of intelligence contoured toward fundamental conditions of human existence.

This Element critically explores the potential relevance of God or a soul for life's meaning as discussed in recent Anglo-American philosophical literature. There have been four broad views: God or a soul is necessary for meaning in our lives; neither is necessary for it; one or both would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives; one or both would substantially detract from it. This Element familiarizes readers with all four positions, paying particular attention to the latter two, and also presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development.

Running like a red thread through this book are the manifestations of Sino-African relations dating back many centuries. In this way, The Rise and Decline and Rise of China: Searching for an Organising Philosophy takes forward the work MISTRA conducted on the Mapungubwe society, one of the advanced states that existed in southern Africa some 800 years ago, and which enjoyed trade relations with China and other centres in the East. Mapungubwe rose and fell, long before European colonial incursions. Other states emerged in the vicinity, but they also suffered the same fate. When do southern Africa and Africa at large rise again? Are there lessons that the continent can draw from the experience of the Chinese people? If - beyond material considerations - religion, culture and ideology do play a role in the rise, decline and resurgence of a civilization, what are the similarities and contrasts between these regions? Of course, such research cannot ignore the fundamental questions: whence does the current system of social, economic and political relations in China draw its resilience, how adaptable is it, and is it sustainable? As the outcome contained in this book demonstrates, a research exercise of this kind can only be exploratory. It serves merely as a genesis to work that should find new legs. What makes this research report unique, though, is that the treatment of these issues has been undertaken primarily from an African perspective.

Africa has seen many political crises ranging from violent political ideologies, to meticulous articulated racist governance system, to ethnic clashes resulting in genocide and religious conflicts that have planted the seed of mutual suspicion.The masses impacted by such crises live with the past that has not passed. The Healing of Memories: African Christian Responses to Politically Induced Trauma examines Christian responses to the damaging impact of conflict on the collective memory. Troubled memory is a recipe for another cycle of conflict. While most academic works tend to stress forgiving and forgetting, they did not offer much as to how to deal with the unforgettable past. This book aims to fill this gap by charting an interdisciplinary approach to healing the corrosive memories of painful pasts. Taking a cue from the empirical expositions of post-apartheid South Africa, post-genocide Rwanda, the Congo Wars, and post-Red Terror Ethiopia, this volume brings together coherent healing approaches to deal with traumatic memory.

Equality is a widely championed social ideal. But what is equality? And what action is required if present-day societies are to root out their inequalities? The Equal Society collects fourteen philosophical essays, each with a fresh perspective on these questions. The authors explore the demands of egalitarian justice, addressing issues of distribution and rectification, but equally investigating what it means for people to be equals as producers and communicators of knowledge or as members of subcultures, and considering what it would take for a society to achieve gender and racial equality. The essays collected here address not just the theory but also the practice of equality, arguing for concrete changes in institutions such as higher education, the business corporation and national constitutions, to bring about a more equal society. The Equal Society offers original approaches to themes prominent in current social and political philosophy, including relational equality, epistemic injustice, the capabilities approach, African ethics, gender equality and the philosophy of race. It includes new work by respected social and political philosophers such as Ann E. Cudd, Miranda Fricker, Charles W. Mills, and Jonathan Wolff.