Conclusion
This chapter has expounded one major strain of African thought about normative ethics, which is relational, and brought out what it means for humility in both normative ethical and moral epistemological matters.
Broadly speaking, supposing that a good person, i.e., one with ubuntu, is one whose attitudes and actions express respect for people's dignified ability to relate harmoniously, one must not be discriminatory, arrogant, or selfish when it comes to the way one treats others, and one must consult routinely with elders about how to sustain, deepen, and otherwise honor relationships. Failing to live harmoniously would often consist of failing to manifest humility, as would believing that one can routinely ascertain how to exemplify ubuntu without the input of older and wiser people.There are other accounts ofAfrican morality that contemporary philosophers have expounded that this chapter has not addressed. Instead of taking relational features to be foundational, most of the other views instead deem either vitality (e.g., Dzobo 1992; Magesa 1997) or the common good (Gyekye 1997, 2010) to be what ultimately matters for ethics (but see Wiredu 1992 for a somewhat different view). However, even by these approaches, harmonious relationships are nearly always deemed to be particularly reliable, if not essential, means by which to promote life or well-being.That is, sharing a way of life and caring for others' quality of life, even if not deemed to be relationships to pursue as ends, are thought quite likely to make other people more lively or to improve their welfare. Insofar as that is the case, the considerations about how humility figures into a relational ethic will, mutatis mutandis, apply with comparable force to these other African ethics. One may therefore conclude that humility is central to African moral philosophy, not merely the ubuntu variant on which this chapter has focused.
Notes
1 Is there an aesthetic humility that would complement the ethic and epistemic? Although the literature does not speak of one, it would be worth pursuing the idea that there is a humility possible in the realm of the beautiful, and not just in the good and the true. One thought is that, while aesthetic judgments might have an objective dimension, humility counsels against typically deeming them to be universally valid (for such a view, see Miller 1998).
2 But not only them—there are many from the rest of the continent who also place notions of harmony, cohesion, community, and the like at the heart of self-realization, just two examples of which include Paris (1995); and Ejizu (n.d.).
3 For this ‘self-attribution problem', see Driver (1989); Kellenberger (2010: 328—331); and Whitcomb et al. (2017). The point is similar to the familiar idea that a person is wise (partly) insofar as she is disinclined to think of herself as wise (or at least to proclaim herself wise to others).
4 But perhaps not so much when Gandhi had earlier said,‘I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps' (1926/1999: 195).
5 The rest of this paragraph borrows from Metz (2017b: 804).
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