African, Black, and Western Conceptions of Human Dignity

Abstract The article highlights the potential that African and Black Philosophy can contribute towards the debates on human dignity. It facilitates a three-way philosophical conversation among the Western, African, and Black conceptions of human dignity. It is motivated by the skepticism in the African and Black approaches to ethics that reject the view that some ontological capacity can ground intrinsic value, or human dignity. The article distinguishes the merit-based (the African and Black Philosophy) from the capacity-based approaches (the Western philosophy) to human dignity. In light of the comparisons among the three theories of human dignity, the article identifies three important lessons for moral-political philosophy. First, the Western conception of human dignity needs to explain and justify grounding of value on a descriptive feature. Secondly, the Black conception of dignity is a version of virtue-based account of it, which places a prime on resistance and struggle against domination. Finally, the capacity-based approach seems to have moral-theoretic advantages in dealing with issues in bioethics, environmental ethics, and political philosophy, which the African and Black conceptions of human dignity seems not to have.