Reason and Community in African Traditional

ThoughtBy: Dale Bridges and Jarod Humphrey

What Makes a Society• “We could say that not only the biological set through which the individual is

capable of identification by reference to a communal gene pool, but also the language which he speaks and which is no small factor in the constitution of his mental dispositions and attitudes, belong to this or that specific human group…..the sense of self-identity which the individual comes to possess cannot be made sense of except by reference to these collective facts.”

• Do People make a Society or does Society make the People?

• Can we be a person without a community?

African Society• “The full personhood is not perceived as simply given at the very beginning of

one’s life, but is attained after one is well along in society, indicates straight away that the older an individual gets the more of a person he becomes.”

• Is age seen in the same way in Western culture?

• Are those who are older more of a person then those who are younger?

• What makes us as a Person in our society?

Western Society• “For personhood is something which has to be achieved, and is not given simply

because one is born of human seed.”

• In Western society how are we allowed entry into the Community?

• Can we lose our station in society?

• What things allow us to stay in a society?

Morality as Acceptance

• Does morality give us a way into a Community?

• Where then are those who do not possess the sense of Morality?– Children

– People in Vegetable states

– Murderers, rapists, etc who do not view their actions are morally wrong

• Are the above accepted simply because they are of the Human “kind”?

Working Together

• Does the West pair the Individual and the Community well?

• Or would a society shaped only around the Community be better?

Conclusion of Menkiti

• Do you agree with the African Traditional Community theory?

• Does the Western philosophy work better?

• Has Western Society fallen away from the Community?

Bill of Rights

• Is it good for an individual to have rights?

• Is it right for the rights of an individual to go against the safety of a Community?

• Should our natural rights outweigh the rights of the Community?