Core aspects of ubuntu: A systematic review

Abstract

Ubuntu has been proposed as a useful alternative to current (Western) ethical frameworks for evaluating global bioethical issues [1-5] and contributing theoretical diversity to the clinical context. [6-8] Ubuntu, Komparic [3] and others such as Cilliers [9] contend, is an African moral system that has been influential across a wide geographical area, and over a long timespan, south of the Sahara. This philosophy has its origins in the pre-colonial era, but has risen to prominence in the philosophical literature in post-apartheid South Africa (SA). Ubuntu is principally a normative ethical system among the people of southern Africa. [10, 11] It must also be emphasised, however, that ubuntu should not necessarily be taken to be representative of all ethical thinking in Africa. [12] In addition, the question as to how widely held this theory is in practice is researchable, but outside the scope of this study. Metz, [4,13] for example, has observed that his particular philosophical construction of ubuntu is not necessarily widely believed or applied. Ubuntu nonetheless encompasses a range of salient behaviours, ways of thinking and favoured norms, which are not necessarily unique to Africa, but neither have these behaviours and ways of thinking come to it from other continents. [14-21] Recently, a flurry of writings have emerged regarding this ethical theory, which some scholars such as Matolino [22] have described as largely confusing and as containing competing interpretations of ubuntu. For this reason, it can be challenging to understand this ethical theory, or to identify specific moral rules for ethical decisionmaking that may arise from it. The goal of the present study is therefore descriptive: firstly, to contribute towards a definition of ubuntu that encompasses the common themes that appear in existing, and sometimes competing, interpretations, and secondly, to highlight specific moral rules for ethical decision-making that arise from this theory in the context of clinical care and bioethics more globally. The study is neither an attempt to reinvent ubuntu nor an attempt to rescue it from its critics. Rather, it will carefully organise existing thoughts on the nature of ubuntu in order to answer the stated research question via the methodology of a systematic review. We are not aware of any study that has directly considered the research objectives defined in this way, although some studies [23-28] have offered a narrative literature review of existing writings on ubuntu. In the next few paragraphs, we shall motivate the use of a systematic, rather than narrative, review for the descriptive aim of this study. Narrative literature reviews and systematic literature reviews are differentiated by the methodology they employ for the selection of reviewed studies. A narrative review qualitatively summarises evidence on a topic using informal or subjective methods to select studies. In a narrative review, the selection process may be arbitrary: the reasons for preferring one study to another are usually not state...

Perceptions of Retired Nurses on Factors Preventing Younger Professional Nurses from Applying the Ethos of Ubuntu in Professional Care

“…Ubuntu in nursing enables the nurses to improve and master how to care for patients. Both Ubuntu and nursing express compassion, advocate for well-being, and display altruistic behavior ( Ewuoso & Hall, 2019 ). In addition to the values displayed by ubuntu and the nursing profession, the International Council of Nursing (ICN) code of ethics includes respect, dignity, and advocacy for the patient ( ICN, 2020 ; Stievano & Tschudin, 2019 ).…”

Mutability and Relationality: Towards an African Four-Dimensionalist Pan-Psychism

“…With respect to the second question, there are three important replies. To start, note that there are several prominent philosophers in the African philosophical tradition, such as Cornelius Ewuoso, Thaddeus Metz, Bernard Matolino, Motsamai Molefe, Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, to name but a few, who endorse an analytical approach (Wiredu 2009;Gyekye 2011;Ewuoso and Hall 2019;Metz 2007;Matolino 2013;Molefe 2016). The very fact that these recognized philosophers endorse such methodologies is sufficient to suggest that the view defended here does not significantly distance itself from what the African intellectual community understands to be 'authentically' African.…”

Epistemic justice, African values and feedback of findings in African genomics research

“…These key concepts are solidarity, partiality and friendliness. Whilst we do not claim that these three concepts exhaust all key concepts in African philosophy, they nonetheless, occur frequently enough in the writings of African scholars to be considered good candidates for thinking critically about the ethical obligations around the return of individual genetic research results in ways that respond to the quest for epistemic justice (Ewuoso & Hall, 2019 ). Equally, the reader should notice how we understand African philosophy.…”

“…Equally, the reader should notice how we understand African philosophy. With that term, we describe philosophical approaches that are mostly informed by intuitions, modes of experiencing the world, and ways of being and becoming that are predominant on the African continent and have not come to the region from elsewhere (Ewuoso & Hall, 2019 ). As remarked by Thaddeus Metz (Metz, 2010a , p. 50), “it is apt to call [this] moral theory … African because the ideas that it expresses and that inform it are much more salient there than in not only the West, but also the major Islamic and Hindu traditions.” Though solidarity, partiality, and friendliness are not unique to Africa, the thinking about these concepts in the writings of African scholars matches moral intuitions that are dominant in sub-Saharan Africa and have not come to the continent from elsewhere.…”