“ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN AFRICAN TRADITIONS OF THOUGHT” (2018)

Here are some interesting points I picked up from Workineh Kelbessa’s “Environmental Philosophy in African Traditions of Thought,” published in Environmental Ethics, vol. 40, in January 2018, pp. 309-323.

• There is no single African worldview regarding African environmental philosophy, hence, Kelbessa takes examples from different parts of Africa and identifies the common features of African worldviews in relation to the natural environment and its component parts. (309)

• In the U.S. there has been a rift between the Anglo-American (analytic) and continental (phenomenological) philosophy throughout the twentieth century and extending into the twenty-first century. The former includes English speaking countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia) while the latter refers to some european countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Nevertheless, both traditions have been flourishing in different parts of the world. (310)

• Analytic or Anglo-American tradition regards science as the paradigm of knowledge. It focuses on conceptual clarity, logical rigor, empirical soundness, and scientific validity of arguements. Continental philosophy considers philosophy as the expression of culture. It criticizes claims of scientific rigor, and explores “larger philosophica themes such as the nature of being, existence, and consciousness.” (310)

• Anglo-American philosophers began environmental ethics as a project in the 1970s. They relied on earlier ethical approaches, such as utilitariansm, deontology, natural rights and hte like as the framework for discussing the environment. (310)

• Continental philosophers include Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger laid the foundation of a new environmental philosophy. (311)

• Ecophenomenology: According to Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvince, ecophenomenology resulted from the intersection of ecological thinking with phenomenology. They stress that the methods and insights of phenomenology are necessary to hae an adequate account of our ecological situation, and that “pehnomenology, led by its own momentum, becomes a philosophical ecology, that is, a study of the interrelationship between organism and world in its metaphysical and exiological dimensions.” (311)

• Ecophenomenology criticizes “Platonism, Christianity, capitalism, Cartesian dualism, patriarchy, and the like, for contributing to our cultural detachment from our natural roots.” (311)

• Michael Zimmerman also praises some continental philosophers, such as Gilles Deleuze, Felix Gauttari, Max Horkheimer, Theodore Adorno, and Hebert Marcuse for criticizing industrial modernity that caused undue destruction of the natural world.

• Horkheimer and Adorno examined the “dark” side of modernity: the costs and dangers of advanced, technological, industrial society and its dominant modes of thought and behaviors. they were of the opinion that the domination of “outer nature” (i.e. the natural environment) presupposes the supression of “human nature.” (311)

• Environmental ethics is a branch of philosophical ethics that studies the ethical relationship between human beings and the natural environment. Environmetal philosphy accommodates metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetic, and other related issues. It argues for a much wider, more comprehensive view of the relation of environmentalism to philosphy, culture, life, and thought than environmental ethics. (312)

• Environmental philosophy studies metaphysical issues including the relationship between human beings and nature; animal ethics and animal studies; the natural environment and its component parts; aesthetic value associated with nature; ecojustice; social justice; global justice; climate justice; water justice; technology ad the natural environment; the relationship between environmental ethics and environmental economies; political participation and its impact on the environment; the impact of green policies on politics and constitutions; planetary mechanisms; tourism and travel, etc. (313)

• The first generation of African environmental philosophers includes Henry Odera Oruka, Johan Petrus Hattingh, Kwasi Wiredu, Segun Ogungbemi, Munyaradze Felix Murove, and the author of this article. (314)

• African and non-African philosophers labelled the environmental thinking found in African traditions in different ways: African biocommunitarianism, ethics of nature-relatedness, indifenous environmental ethics, indigenous environmental philosophy, eco-bio-communitarianism, African enviromental ethics, African relational environmentalism, African modal relationalism, humanitatis-eco (ecohumanism), etc. (315)

• Kelbessa studied the Oromo worldviews in Ethiopia since the early 1990s. In the Oromo worldview, the concepts “Waaqa” (God), “Ayyaana” (spirit), “uuma” (the physical world), and “safuu” (an ethical principle) “provide the metaphysical underpinning of an environmental ethic. They underlie environmental attitudes to nature and society.” “Ayyaana is a refraction of Waaqa. Uuma is the physical thing. Saffuu mediates between the ayyaana, which is the ideal, and uuma, which is the physical that needs to be regulated. the three should be understood together.” (315-6)

• The Oromo see themselves as within nature, not as subjects detached from it. This is also the view of many indigenous Native American cultures. For the Oromo, nature is essential for survival, production, and protection. Thus, the Oromo worldview promotes responsible resource management. (316)

• Munyaradze Felix Murove, Munamoto Chemhuru and Dennis Masaka, and Ephraim taurai Gwaravanda have studied different aspects of Shona environmental ethics in Zimbabwe. Murove argues that the concept ukama can be the basis of an African environmental ethics, as it is the basis of an ethic of the interdependence of individuals and different generations.

• Ukama is a Shona word that means “relatedness.” Fainos Mangena, a Zimbabwean philosopher, argues that although human beings are important stakeholders they cannot exist without “association with nonhuman animals through totemism and spiritualism.” He suggests that the moral status in Africa is determined by totemism and spiritualism. For him moral status can be accorded to nonhuman animals on the basis of totemism, spiritualism, and ukama. (317)

• Godfrey Tangwa studied the worldview of the Nso people in Cameroon. The Nso people adopted “respectful co-existence, conciliation, and containment” toward nature. There is no unbridgeable boundary between “plants, animals, and inanimate things; between the sacred and the profane, matter and spirit, the communal and the individual.” (317)

• Chigbo Joseph Ekwealo studied the Igbo environmental ethics in Nigeria. For the Igbo, “[a]nimals are believed to have souls and spirits like human beings and are therefore respected. there is an agreement that they possess certain psychic qualities that are an explication of the spirit in them.” “Plants are also believed to have spirits. In fact, this is what makes them potent.” the Igbo regard the Iroko and cotton trees as sacred, as they are believed to be “the home of spirits.” (317)

• Ademola Kazeem Fayemi studied the Yoruba worldview of Nigeria and Benin.

…[t]he traditional Yoruba used rituals in correcting violations of nature’s integrity. The adherents of the traditional religion are still seen as being involved in reforestation, conservation, and preservation schemes thanks to their religious inclination. It is thus arguable that the people’s respect for nature is religiously inclined.

Ritual is the principal tool used to approach that world of felt but unseen forces in a way that will rearrange the structure of the physical world and bring about ecological equilibruim. The rationale here is that there is a metaphysics of force permeating everything in the environment, and this explains the connectivity and interdependence of all things, humans, plants, and animals, along with inanimate entities. (318)

• Most of the African environmental philosophers stress that Africans believe in the interdependence of human beings, animals, plants, and the natural world. African worldviews do not regard the Earth as a commodity but as the source of survival. In African worldviews, well-being is relational, as the well-being of humanity cannot be achieved without the well-being of the Earth. They are related. They are part of the same whole. (321)

• African worldviews promote intergenerational justice. for many African cultural groups, the community comprises of three domains. The domain of the living, the domain of the living dead, and the domain of the yet to be born. the living dead are not only dead but also alive, beacause in Africans’ daily way of doing things those who died are alive. It is believed that the living dead whisper to the current generation what is good. Benezet Bujo recognizes that the living, the living dead, and the yet to be born, are the members of the “ethical community.” (321-2)