Abstract
This chapter argues that African Environmental ethics or African beliefs regarding the environment (which includes plants, animals and the immaterial objects) is not as anthropocentric as Kai Horsthemke (US-China Educ Rev 6(10):22–31, 2009) has argued for it to be. Instead African Environmental ethics proves itself to be biocentric in nature. In this chapter, I first argue against the views supported by anthropocentrism. My aims are to show how Tempels ‘force thesis’ allows us to see how African beliefs/views regarding the environment are not anthropocentric. Having said that, the chapter questions whether biocentric views like Father Placide Tempels force thesis are uniquely African?. I gesture towards the view that such arguments are not uniquely African. That is, we cannot talk about a unique African thinking/approach about the environment. Instead, I argue for a “Southern Environmental Ethics”. Here South refers both to the geographic South and the South within the North. The argument for “Southern Environmental Ethics” refers to individuals who are located on the marginal side of the Abyssal line as theorised by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2016).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The term subjugated knowledge is derived from Michael Foucault Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977 cited in Collins 1990: 251). Foucault defines subjugated as the “local, discontinuous, disqualified, illegitimate knowledges’ that are considered to be “beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity”. African philosophy can be regarded as subjugated knowledge because it comes out of “music, literature, daily conversations, and everyday behavior”, including proverbs (ibid.).
- 2.
The use of the term ‘African’, does not treat Africans as a monolithic group. Rather, it refers to a people of a set geographical location who hold the cultural values spoken about in this paper. Since African’s are not a homogenous group, there is the awareness that the force thesis may only apply to a few.
- 3.
The original outline appears in my master’s Dissertation (entitled “African Conceptions of Person as Gendered, Ableist and Anti-queer” (see Manzini 2017). Here I critique certain African conceptions of personhood as being gendered, anti-queer and ableist. One of those studied conceptions include Tempels force thesis.
- 4.
Own emphasis.
- 5.
See Manzini (2017), I indicate that Tempels view show’s itself to be ableist towards people living with severe cognitive disabilities.
- 6.
Gogo Ndlanzi is a spiritual healer. Referencing her is an explicit political move, one that ensures that our African healers voices are included in academic work. Partially because I think they have greater insight/lived experience about the topic at hand than any academic philosopher would. Moreover, to ensure that our healers are engaged with as subjects and not objects of academic enquiry.
- 7.
This is an acknowledgement ceremony, sometimes refereed to libation. The ceremony acknowledges the spirit that is alive in all living things.
- 8.
The rationale here is not to deny African people of their distinct methodological approaches about the environment or their knowledge systems. That is, my motives should not be regarded as an epistemicide, rather this is a genuine enquiry that is intercultural and cross cultural in its nature. The approach does not deny the difference across cultures, nor does it assume a narrowed theoretical thinking about the environmental approaches across cultures.
- 9.
Notably, Judaeo-Christianity would be one of the ecumenical environmental ethics that would not be regarded as being part of the South, for known reasons. Conceptually one could categorize a Judaeo- Christian ethic as being Western and arguably anthropocentric in so far as it does view the individual as being the center of all life or the environment (see Etieyibo 2011 for further reading).
- 10.
The conceptualization of ‘South’ in this manner gains inspiration from the works of Santos and his conception of the “epistemologies of the South” (2016). This is a term that I first engaged with at the epistemologies of the South Summer School 2017, in Portugal. Santos defines this epistemological thinking as “a crucial epistemological transformation [that attempts] to reinvent social emancipation on a global scale” (2016: 18). In Santo’s words, South is then a metaphor for “the human suffering caused by capitalism and colonialism on the global level, as well as for the resistance to overcoming or minimizing such suffering” (ibid.).
- 11.
Oruka defines ecophilosophy as “the totality of the philosophy of nature” (1994:119). In defining ecophilsophy he argues that it is different from environmental ethics, because environmental studies are limited to studying the earth and atmosphere. Equally, he argues that ecophilosophy is different from environmental ethic, since the latter has not gone extended “ethics from human beings to the non-human creatures on earth” (ibid.). I think that when Africans speaks about environmental ethics, the ethic is extended to the immaterial objects, including the understanding of the earth and the atmosphere. And so, whilst Oruka may argue for such a distinction to be made between ecophilosophy, environmental studies and environmental ethics. I take it that the term Southern environmentalism is inclusive of the three terms that Oruka takes to be distinct.
- 12.
I will not consider African cultures as the first part of this chapter has defined African environmentalism.
- 13.
For the purposes of this paper, West refers to Eurocentric positivist epistemology. Whilst most of this thinking lands itself in the geographic West, we note that some of the cultural groups referred to as ‘South’ would also fall under the ‘West’. Such as the Himalayas of Uttarakhand in India, and so when thinking about the West, here I refer to an epistemological framework that adopts a Cartesian paradigm towards nature. This is such a paradigm that I have argued is anthropocentric insofar as it views nature as “a res extensa and, as such, an unlimited resource unconditionally available to human beings” (Santos 2014: 23).
References
Bodunrin, P. 1981. The Question of African Philosophy. Philosophy 56 (216): 161–179.
Bujo, B. 1998. The Ethical Dimension of Community. Nairobi: Paulines Publications.
Bujo, B. 2009. Is There a Specific African Ethic? Towards a Discussion with Western Thought. In African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, ed. F.M. Murove, 113–128. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Caminero-Santangeo, B. 2014. Different Shades of Green: African Literature, Environmental Justice, and Political Ecology. London: University of Virginia Press.
Cesaire, A. 1972. Discourses on Colonialism. Trans. J. Pinkham. Monthly Review Press: New York.
Collins, P.H. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Unwin Hyman: Boston. (Selected Chapter: “Black feminist epistemology”, 251–270).
De George, R.T. 1994. Modern Science, Environmental Ethics and the Anthropocentric Predicament. In Philosophy, Humankind and Ecology, ed. O.H. Oruka, 15–29. Kenya: African Centre for Technology Studies Press.
Etieyibo, E. 2011. An Outline of an Ecumenical Environmental Ethic. The Trumpeter 29 (3): 48–59.
Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. France: Pantheon Books.
Green, L.J.F. 2008. Indigenous ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Science’: Reframing the Debate on Knowledge and Diversity. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 4 (1): 144–163.
Gyekye, K. 1997. Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horsthemke, K. 2009. Learning for the Natural Environment: The Case Against anthropocentrism. US-China Education Review 6 (10): 22–31.
Hountondji, P.J. 1983. African Philosophy, Myth and Reality. London: Hutchinson.
Lui, K. 2017. New Zealand’s Whanganui River Has Been Granted the Same Legal Rights as a Person Time. http://time.com/4703251/new-zealand-whanganui-river-wanganui-rights/. Accessed 19 Sept 2017.
Matolino, B. 2014. Personhood in African Philosophy. South Africa: Cluster Publications.
Manzini, N.Z. 2017. African Conceptions of Person as Gendered, Ableist and Anti-queer. Unpublished Dissertation. http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/24215/Nompumelelo%20Zinhle%20Manzini%20MA%20Research%20Revisions%20After%20Examination%20%283%29Final.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y.
Mazama, M.A. 2002. Afrocentricity and African Spirituality. Journal of Black Studies 33 (2): 218–234.
Mbeki, T. 1996. I Am An African. http://www.soweto.co.za/html/i_iamafrican.htm. Accessed: 24 Sept 2017.
Menkiti, I.A. 1984. Person and Community in African Traditional Thought. In African Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. R. Wright, 171–181. Lanham: University Press of America.
Metz, T. 2011. An African Theory of Moral Status: A Relational Alternative to Individualism and Holism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (3): 387–402.
Metz, T. 2015. How the West was One: The Western as Individualist, the African as Communitarian. Educational Philosophy and Theory 47 (11): 1175–1184.
Ndlanzi, D. 2017. Untitled Online Clip. https://www.facebook.com/getshanidineo.ndlanzi?hc_ref=ARTgsH0QvxLVlhzVeG8D8WiHZpQSs9ARG0GQRl33TCqkM75oSfnabIaPF9LK03srftY&pnref=story. Accessed 10 Aug 2017.
Ngugi, W.T. 1986. A Grain of Wheat. London: Heinemann.
Oruka, H.O. 1994. Ecophilosophy and Parental Earth Ethics (On the Complex Web of Being). In Philosophy, Humankind and Ecology, 115–129. Kenya: African Centre for Technology Studies Press.
p’Bitek, O. 1985. The Artist as Ruler. East African Educational Publishers Ltd.
Santos, B.D.S. 2007. Another Knowledge is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies. London: Verso.
Santos, B.D.S. 2014. Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. London: Paradigm Publishers.
Santos, B.D.S. 2016. Epistemologies of the South and the future. From the European South 1: 17–29.
Santos, B.D.S., M.P. Meneses, and J.A. Nunes. 2007. Opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Difference. In Another Knowledge is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies, ed. B.D.S. Santos, xvix–lxii. London: Verso.
Taylor, P.W. 1981. The Ethics of Respect for Nature. Environmental Ethics 3: 197–218.
Tempels, P. 1959. Bantu Philosophy. Paris: Presence Africaine.
Wiredu, K. 1994. Philosophy, Humankind, and the Environment. In Philosophy, Humankind and Ecology, ed. O.H. Oruka, 30–48. Kenya: African Centre for Technology Studies Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Manzini, N.Z. (2019). African Environmental Ethics as Southern Environmental Ethics. In: Chemhuru, M. (eds) African Environmental Ethics. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18807-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18807-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18806-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18807-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)