PERSONHOOD, LAND, AND MORAL COMMUNITY: TOWARD AN AFRICAN RELATIONAL CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOCENTRIC ENVIRONMENTALISM

Abstract

Modern environmental ethics increasingly reflect anthropocentric thinking in which nature deserves ethical consideration only in relation to human interests, rationality, or utility. Although some, but not all, Western environmental theories have extended ethical consideration to non-human entities, many still rely on metaphysical frameworks which conceptualize a separation between humanity and the land and the rest of existence. This paper asserts that these frameworks cannot develop an adequate response to the current ecological crises. This paper, based on the Ubuntu relational ontology of African communitarian philosophy, develops a critique of anthropocentric environmentalism, and reconsiders the frameworks for land, personhood, and moral community. In African philosophy, land and personhood are not viewed as the possession of an individual or a resource which can be given away. Rather, land is the economic resource of the community, and personhood is defined through community and is relational. The paper argues that the ecological crises the world is faced with today are not a rupture of the community but relational destruction, and African philosophy is a valuable resource to rethink how we see our environmental responsibilities.