Ubuntu and Moral Epistemology: The Case of the Rhodes Must Fall Movement

Abstract

One of the key ethical and political issues in South Africa today is the decolonization of education. In 2015, a movement called Rhodes Must Fall was born in South Africa precisely with the purpose of engaging in activism to promote this decolonization. The Rhodes Must Fall movement to further this purpose engaged in some violent protests. The objective of this article is to assess whether South Africans are justified to believe that these protests can or cannot be morally justified from the perspective of Ubuntu. To explore this question, I assess the morality of the actions using a consequentialist interpretation of African values. I contend that the symbolic violent protests of the Rhodes Must Fall movement were morally justified, whereas its indiscriminate violent protests were not. Hence, I do not myself mean to defend the position they are morally justified; instead, I wish to show that it is a moral implication of African values.