Ubuntu: An essentially contested concept

Abstract

In a previous essay, I raised two theses in response to Mogobe Ramose’s study African Philosophy through Ubuntu: (1) Intellectual ancestors of liberal political philosophy are guilty of philosophical racism, but due to the distinction between genesis and justification, this is not fatal to liberal theory; and (2) Political liberalism offers a better constitutional basis for a modern society than Ramose’s ubuntu philosophy: ubuntu is an essentially contested concept and therefore inappropriate as a justification for state coercion. In a “Reply”, Ramose has countered that both theses are incorrect. As regards thesis 1, the distinction between genesis and justification lapses because all theories are historically determined; as regards thesis 2, the concept of ubuntu is not essentially contested because Ramose’s ubu-ntu [sic] philosophy provides the only correct conception of it. In this rejoinder, I argue that both theses hold up against Ramose’s objections. (1) Historicity does not imply historical relativism; therefore, the context of justification is of a different order from the context of discovery. (2) Ramose’s conception of ubu-ntu might defeat competing conceptions in the field of descriptive ethnophilosophy, but in the field of normative political philosophy, the concept of ubuntu is an essentially contested concept par excellence. Ramose’s research project is a hybrid mixture of ethnophilosophy and political philosophy, which would gain impact if these perspectives were clearly delineated and more attention were paid to issues of justification.