Abstract
In this chapter, I seek to problematise the normative account of personhood put forward by Ifeanyi Menkiti and variously defended by those who could be described as menkitians. I argue that the normative account is grossly inadequate because it makes some weak and dangerous assumptions. I show how these assumptions deflate Menkiti’s theory, and I contend that a person can be better conceptualised as a ‘being in conversation.’ When one thinks of personhood as a ‘capacity’ in a person to engage in a reflective examination of moral norms, then it is a means to an end. But when one thinks of personhood as a practical ‘embodiment’ of the outcome of such reflection, then it is an end in itself. Thus, a conversational account recognises two types of relationships in personhood, namely; intellectual, which is the exercise of the internal capacity in engaging with norms; and embodiment, which is the behavioural manifestation of the outcome of the first. I will criticise the normative conception and put forward the conversational account using descriptive and prescriptive methods.
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Notes
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Here, I move from a bivalent to a trivalent logic. For details of how the theory of personhood can be grounded in a trivalent system like Ezumezu, see JO Chimakonam (2018b).
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This research is supported from the Research Development Programme (RDP 2020) fundng of the University of Pretoria. The views expressed in this work are entirely those of the author and do not represent the opinion of the University and its subsidiaries.
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Chimakonam, J.O. (2022). Why the Normative Conception of Personhood is Problematic: A Proposal for a Conversational Account. In: Chimakonam, J.O., Etieyibo, E., Odimegwu, I. (eds) Essays on Contemporary Issues in African Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70436-0_7
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