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Added by: Erich Hatala Matthes
Summary: Harding's article offer an in-depth look at the theoretical justification for the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990, paying special attention to the category of "cultural patrimony" under which non-funerary artworks will often fall if they are subject to NAGPRA. The paper focuses on three different approaches to justifying repatriation: in terms of compensation for historical injustices, the value of an object to a community, and challenging the very possibility of ownership of cultural patrimony. Harding ultimately favors this final approach, suggesting a stewardship model on which we all have obligations with respect to the protection of cultural property.Hoffmann, Nimi. Involuntary experiments in former colonies: The case for a moratorium2020, World Development 127, 104805-104808-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Anonymous
Abstract: There is a rich literature on the use of medical trials as a model for designing and evaluating the outcomes of social policy interventions in former colonies. Yet social experimentalists have not engaged in a correspondingly vibrant discussion of medical ethics. A systematic review of social experiments shows that few studies explicitly discuss informed consent, or the serious constraints on securing informed consent from impoverished or child participants, particularly in the context of cluster randomization. The silence on informed consent, and in some cases active denial thereof, suggests that it is often considered less important than other elements of experimental design. This matters since involuntary experimentation on vulnerable people violates their personhood, increases the risk of unintended harm, and establishes continuities with colonial experimentation. There is a need to develop more effective mechanisms for regulating social experiments in former colonies. In the interim, scholars in the South have a responsibility to call for a moratorium on experiments.
Comment: Are useful counterweight to the literature on the randomise control trial is in development economics, shows that they are much more ethically controversial than they're willing to admit, also good for bringing out of the colonial aspect of even contemporary economics.
Imafidon, Elvis. Africa and the Unfolding of Difference: An Introduction2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 1-11-
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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Björn Freter
Abstract: This chapter provides introductory comments or preliminary remarks to the Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. It begins by defending the claim that difference stands under as the foundation of the unfolding of African philosophy as an academic discipline and the unfolding of many lived experiences in African spaces both in Africa and in the Diaspora. Hence, African philosophy of difference is a critical reflection on the place of difference in the African experience. The chapters in this handbook thus explore various and specific aspects of such lived experiences and the roles difference or alterity play in their unfolding. The handbook is thus divided into five sections with each section exploring key aspects of the importance of difference in the understanding of the African experience. The first section provides conceptualizations of difference in African thought. The second section explores various aspects and provides critical comments on the question of racism, particularly the institutionalized racial discrimination by whites against blacks due to racial differences. The third section examines some key issues emerging from the role difference plays in the unfolding of African experiences such as epistemological issues, the language issue, the role of art in the institutionalization of difference, and moral issues. The fourth section explores the important roles that difference plays in questions of disability, gender, and the non-human other. The last section examines how difference plays key roles in the unfolding of lived experiences in specific African places such as the experience of xenophobia in South Africa, the Skolombos in Calabar, Nigeria, and the land distribution question in Zimbabwe. The chapter concludes that this handbook is an important contribution to alterity discourse in African philosophy not because it exhausts the issues involved, but because it provided a robust discussion that would provoke further reflections and discussions.Comment:
Imafidon, Elvis. Alterity, African Modernity, and the Critique of Change2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 171-189-
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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Björn Freter
Abstract: A large chunk of the existing literature on African modernity understood here as African experience largely defined and influenced by her contact with the West or foreign cultures has mainly described the modern experience in African spaces as a predicament, an unfortunate distortion of the pre-modern status quo or systems in Africa. In this chapter I intend to explore a perspective for understanding and appreciating the description of the African experience of the West as a predicament, one founded on alterity and difference. I argue that the primary basis for understanding the claim that African modernity is a predicament is to understand the ways in which the one mode of thought or cultural orientation (African) was radically alien from, and different from, the other mode of thought or cultural orientation (Western). Specific cases of alterity between both cultures include moral values, system of education, religion, ontologies, and knowledge production and cognition systems. The African experience of the West could easily become a predicament because the former’s experience of the latter was under compulsion and the latter refused to accept and respect the otherness of the former, but rather painted it as nothing of worth. To explore this line of thought, I begin by examining important texts in the description of the African experience of the West as a predicament. I then proceed to show that these texts can best be understood as emanating from the difficulties that were associated in coping with the difference and changes that came with African contact with the West. I conclude that difference can be a positive force and easy to accept if it is willfully understood and assimilated, but it can become a negative force and a source of frustration if it is imposed on the other by the self or vice versa.Comment:
Imafidon, Elvis. Exploring African Philosophy of Difference2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 15-30-
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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Björn Freter
Abstract: It is the tradition of philosophy as a rational and critical human activity across borders to isolate specific human ideas both as syntax and as real and lived human experiences, bring them to the foreground, and make them occupy a crucial and specialized place in philosophical discourse. This is apparent in the many delimited branches of philosophy such as metaphysics – an inquiry into the fundamental principles underlying reality; epistemology – an inquiry concerning the nature, scope, and theories of human knowledge; axiology – an inquiry into the theories of human values; and philosophy of science – a critical examination of the nature, methods, and assumptions of science. African philosophy has thrived and flourished in the last six decades beginning as a reactionary scholarship to prior denial of the possibility of its existence, to becoming an established academic discipline. However, African philosophy although succeeding in establishing its general nature, themes, and problems, is still at the elementary stage of discussing specifics and delimiting its areas of inquiry into specialized fragments. Thus, beyond the general commentaries on African philosophy in existing literature, it is only recently that we find a few scholars writing and laying the groundwork on specialized themes in African philosophy such as African ethics, African epistemology, and African ontology. My goal in this chapter is to bring one essential human experience to the foreground in African philosophy as a specialized area of inquiry. The human experience that interests me here is the ubiquitous concept of difference and the peculiarities of its experience by Africans in Africa and beyond. My intention is to attempt a preliminary sketch of the meaning, nature, scope, and primary tasks of African philosophy of difference. I show, for instance, how African philosophy of difference can shift the discourse of difference from empirical manifestations of difference to an exploration of the theories that stands under such manifestations. I conclude that African philosophy of difference is crucial in understanding and dealing with the complex issues of identity, difference, and the other experienced in Africa in areas such as albinism, xenophobia, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, and politics. The possibility of such an inquiry also indicates the prospect of delimiting African philosophy to more specialized spheres of discourse.Comment:
Imafidon, Elvis. Intrinsic Versus Earned Worth in African Conception of Personhood2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 239-254-
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Added by: Björn Freter
Abstract: Every human being ought to have some form of intrinsic value that she has in herself as well as earned or extrinsic value that she earns for herself. Although not free from contention, the possibility of a human being having certain intrinsic values is essential for the very idea of personhood. It is the reason why it would be wrong not to take a baby as a person simply because she is at that moment unable to earn some value for herself. In this chapter, I interrogate how the idea of personhood dominant in African cultures separates one category of persons from another category. In the first category of human beings, persons are intrinsically valued as persons due to their possession of certain ontological and normative qualities. In the second category, a few other persons are not intrinsically valued as persons due to their lack of certain required ontological and normative qualities needed to belong to the first category of human beings. But in this second category, such persons have the opportunity to earn the value of personhood given to those in the first category. Put differently, the other has the potential of becoming the one if he works tirelessly toward it through individual and group efforts. I explore three specific examples of the second category of persons who have worked to earn some form of worth that the African society in which they live presents as extrinsic to them: persons with albinism, black people, and black women. In this case, a consistent individual lifestyle of rising above expectations and group rights advocacy are essential. I conclude that the African conception of personhood is flawed in its failure to recognize the intrinsic worth and value of all human beings regardless of their ontological and normative status and because it also fails in appreciating the importance of difference in the unfolding of reality.Comment:
Izibili, Matthew A. . African Arts and Difference2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 205-215-
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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Björn Freter
Abstract: In this chapter, I examine the role African art play in the institutionalization of difference in African traditions. I am particularly interested in how aesthetic signs and symbols or other forms of art are employed by persons of an African culture to differentiate themselves or set themselves apart from other persons within the same culture or other cultures. Such forms of art of interest here include modes of dressing, tribal marks, hairstyles, and nonverbal signs of communication. I assert in this chapter that these aesthetic forms of difference are in some way institutionalized into the fabric of culture that they are taken by members of the society as objective givens and often not subject to questioning. Hence the othering is sustained and maintained through time. I also argue that these forms of differences sustained through art often promote inequality and preferential treatment of the self over and above the other. A case in mind is the preferential treatment of female folks from the royal family as against those who are not from the royal family, a difference clearly made visible through art.Comment:
James, Susan. Feminism in philosophy of mind: The question of personal identity2022, in McWeeny, J. and Maitra, K. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 156-172-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
In this essay, James challenges current psychological theories on personal identity - theories arguing that psychological continuity is a criterion for personal identity. James offers a feminist examination of popular thought experiments aimed at showing that one's person's character and memories could be transplanted into someone's else body, thus, preserving a person's survival. According to James, those thought experiments don't take into account the role of the body in constructing one's identity and character, as well as influencing one's memories.Comment (from this Blueprint): In this article, James argues for a deeply embodied account of personal identity. James claims that current psychological theories on personal identity, tend to overlook the role of the body in maintaining psychological continuity. Mainstream thought experiments used by those theories, for instance, examples of body swap, undermine the extent to which psychological traits of a person depend on a body. James claims that the body is constitutive for developing one's identity and character. Additionally, she offers an analysis of the role of gender on personal identity by examining how patriarchal structures promote the idea that the mind can be independent of the body.
Jeffers, Chike. The Ethics and Politics of Cultural Preservation2015, Journal of Value Inquiry 49(1-2): 205-220.-
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Added by: Erich Hatala Matthes
Summary: Jeffers offers an account of the moral permissibility, and moreover, praiseworthiness of cultural preservation for the sake of the continued existence of cultural groups. He defends this argument against challenges about inauthenticity and incoherence leveled by Jeremy Waldron and Sam Scheffler. In a political context, Jeffers argues that cultural preservation can be obligatory as a component of resistance against colonialism and racism.Comment: This text is readily applicable to a variety of cultural practices that constitute part of a cultural heritage or practice. It offers thoughtful considerations for discussion concerning the reasons one might have to engage (or not) in a particular cultural artistic practice.
Jenkins, David, Kimberley Brownlee. What a Home Does2022, Law and Philosophy 41 (4):441-468-
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
Analytic philosophy has largely neglected the topic of homelessness.
The few notable exceptions, including work by Jeremy Waldron and Christopher
Essert, focus on our interests in shelter, housing, and property rights, but ignore the
key social functions that a home performs as a place in which we are welcomed,
accepted, and respected. This paper identifies a ladder of home-related concepts
which begins with the minimal notion of temporary shelter, then moves to persistent
shelter and housing, and finally to the rich notion of a home which focuses on meeting
our social needs including, specifically, our needs to belong and to have meaningful
control over our social environment. This concept-ladder enables us to distinguish
the shelterless from the sheltered; the unhoused from the housed; and the unhomed
from the homed. It also enables us to decouple the concept of a home from property
rights, which reveals potential complications in people’s living arrangements. For
instance, a person could be sheltered but unhoused, housed but homeless, or, indeed,
unhoused but homed. We show that we should reserve the concept of home to
capture the rich idea of a place of belonging in which our core social needs are met.Comment: This paper provides an in-depth exploration of existing analytic literature on the concept of home and the topic of homelessness, and provides a novel account of both. As such, it would be a useful addition to any syllabus interested in social ethics, social rights, and social needs. It could be used as a specialised reading for courses interested in questions of justice regarding access to a home or exploring the sorts of needs which constitute social needs. It is also written in a clear, straightforward style, and is therefore accessible to a wide range of experience levels, so it would be possible to use in a more introductory or general context as well. For an intro-level social or political philosohpy, for example, it could be used to introduce or supplement discussions on social welfare or duties of the state.
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Harding, Sarah. Justifying Repatriation of Native American Cultural Property
1997, Indiana Law Journal 72(3): 723-74.
Comment: This is a long law review article, and so is best for more advanced classes. It is a useful text for instructors who are interested in exploring cultural property issues in a legal but philosophically informed context. One can also assign only certain sections focusing on particular issues. For a shorter article that also promotes a stewardship model, the Warren paper is a good substitute, though not likewise embedded in the legal issues (and written before the passage of NAGPRA).