An African religious ethics and the Euthyphro problem

Supposing that an African metaphysics grounded on the notion and/or value of vitality is true, can it do a better job in terms of informing an African religious ethics than its Western counterparts, specifically, the Divine Command theory (DCT)? By ‘religious ethics’, in this article, I have in a m...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Motsamai Molefe
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of the Free State 2017-10-01
Series:Acta Academica
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/article/view/3248
Description
Summary:Supposing that an African metaphysics grounded on the notion and/or value of vitality is true, can it do a better job in terms of informing an African religious ethics than its Western counterparts, specifically, the Divine Command theory (DCT)? By ‘religious ethics’, in this article, I have in a mind a meta-ethical theory i.e., an account of moral properties whether they are best understood in spiritual rather than physicalterms. In this article, I articulate an under-explored African meta-ethical theory grounded on vitality, and I argue that the Euthyphro problem is not a successful objection against it like it is usually thought to be for DCT. This relative advantage of the vitalist meta-ethics does not necessarily render it plausible, but it gives us some ground to seriously consider the future of African religious ethics grounded on it.
ISSN:0587-2405
2415-0479