Communal Relationship

Abstract

The previous two chapters addressed African moral theories according to which relationality has a merely instrumental status, viz., is good solely as a means to the advancement of either the common good or vital force. Chapter 6 begins to make the case for taking harmonious or communal relationship to be what should be pursued as an end for the African tradition. Drawing particularly on ideas from Desmond Tutu, it provides a detailed reconstruction of sub-Saharan understandings of harmony or communality, and points out that, as the combination of sharing a way of life with others and caring for their quality of life, it is similar to what English-speakers label ‘friendliness’. It also provides reason to reject extant, consequentialist principles according to which such a relationship is a final good (or goal) that is to be promoted, roughly because they cannot ground human rights.